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June 30, 2004
Hot Dog roundup
Hot Dog roundup: Dog Days
NYC: Review Roundup
Today's review roundup includes: Wolfgang's Steakhouse, Del Valle, Seoul Soondae, 10 Pell Chinese Restaurant.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Wolfgang's Steakhouse two stars (4 Park Avenue; 212-889-3369):
Wolfgang's does not refer to Wolfgang Puck but to Wolfgang Zwiener, who for many decades was the head waiter at Luger, the most celebrated steakhouse in New York City.
His long service there gave him some access to the Luger secrets for making beef taste so great. He and his co-owners, including one of his sons and two former Luger waiters, endeavor to replicate this process at Wolfgang's, where steaks hang in a dry-aging box in the basement for weeks, then are cooked under a high-temperature broiler that produces a deeply charred exterior.
As at Luger, the porterhouses at Wolfgang's are sized as Steak for Two, Three or Four and served on a tilted dish that lets blood and butter form a healthful dipping pool at one end. But Wolfgang's also tries to correct Luger's perceived inconveniences and limitations. It is simultaneously Luger-minus and Luger-plus, its sire's influence obvious in each deviation from, or genuflection before, the original.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Shrimp cocktail; Canadian bacon; steak for two, three or four; rib-eye steak; sirloin steak; grilled tuna; German potatoes; onion rings; creamed spinach; cheesecake.
June 29, 2004
June 28, 2004
June 26, 2004
June 25, 2004
June 24, 2004
June 23, 2004
Eating Machine
Kobayashi shooting for 51.5 hot dogs at this year's Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest (July 4th, Coney Island)
micro-sundae
Just right: The micro-sundae
NYC: Review Roundup
Today's review roundup includes: Bouley, Chibitini, Per Se, V Steakhouse.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Bouley three stars (120 West Broadway; 212-964-2525):
The kitchen excels at tender flesh, especially fish. I had lobster that flirted, to just the right extent, with being undercooked. I had black sea bass that had been slow-roasted to moist perfection and served in a bouillabaisse that was seasoned, surprisingly and deliciously, with vanilla.
None of the entrees or appetizers were an out-and-out failure, but most fell short of fantastic, and a few puzzled me. Kobe beef has so much to offer on its own; why muddle that by choosing the funky, idiosyncratic flavor of Asian celery for a purée beneath it? The Parmesan dressing that accompanied a nicely cooked piece of skate overwhelmed it.
About the desserts at Bouley, there can be little complaint, especially not from chocolate lovers. One of the best concoctions by Mr. Bouley and the pastry chef, Alex Grunert, is a chocolate brioche pudding, although it gets fierce competition from the "chocolate frivolous" and the "sweet pleasures," both of which invite hazelnuts to multitiered or multifaceted chocolate extravaganzas. They weave a decadent spell.
But Bouley as a whole does not create or sustain the kind of rapture that the very best restaurants do. It wobbles, as absent-minded and careless at times as the man who toppled the lamp. It feels like an echo, or like embers: pleasant, warm and inviting, but without a crucial flame.
Are sandwiches the next small plate?
NYTimes: Carve opens near Times Square. Are sandwiches the next small plate?
June 22, 2004
Airplane Food
Is it possible that airplane food is getting worse? Unfortunately, I usually am too busy with all the last minute travel details to remember to prepare, buy, or eat some real food before dashing off to the airport. By the time I am confronted with a sad looking tray of airplane food I am famished; I have no choice but to eat what is in front of me, the only available caloric resource.
In this case, I did not bother eating the salad figuring it contained fewer calories than would be required for digestion. I did eat the marbled chocolate cake, which was surprisingly moist for airplane cake.
Michelin Guide Rouge
Praise for Michelin Guide Rouge
June 18, 2004
Fresh Direct is cheaper
Price Check: Fresh Direct is cheaper
Quick review: Westville East
Westville East is as good as the original, except without the crazy wait. I like "The Market" offerings; they change daily and consist of the best of what's fresh at the Green Market. Order one for $4 or a plate of four for $10. Recently I've enjoyed a refreshing melon soup, expertly seasoned collard greens, mushrooms with leeks and herbs, the city's tastiest turkey burger, and carrot cake just the way I like it -- moist cake and not too sweet icing. Yum!
Westville East
328 E 14th St (near 1st Ave)
212-598-9998
NYTimes Diner's Journal: V Steakhouse
NYTimes Diner's Journal: V Steakhouse
June 17, 2004
June 16, 2004
NYC: Review Roundup
Today's review roundup includes: Megu, Franny's, The Neptune Room, Ici, Khushie.
NYTimes Frank Bruni gives Megu two stars (62 Thomas Street; 212-964-7777):
In too many ways, Megu is oblivious to the not-so-fine lines between welcome extravagance and unwelcome excess, bewitching theatricality and befuddling foolishness.
If it reined itself in, it might be one of the most thrilling dining experiences in the city.
. . . Those "Crown Gems," for example, are three tartarelike treatments of a subspecies of blackfin tuna with ruby-colored flesh so bright that it really does glitter, so meltingly tender that it seems to evaporate on your tongue. My favorite of the three dishes inserts cubes of the tuna between thick, silky slices of avocado that uncannily echo the fish's texture and richness.
The Kobe beef, which comes from Texas, is so deeply flavorful that it almost makes you swoon, and if the $180 price tag on a seven-ounce fillet makes you stagger, you can order, instead, paper-thin ribbons of rib meat, which are $30. You cook the ribbons yourself, on a hot rock that a server brings to you. Then you dip them in a sesame sauce, a soy sauce or sea salt (the best choice), each of which fills a separate chamber of a series of gorgeous condiment plates.
Megu contrives a nonstop carnival of sensations, but it also makes you pay dearly for the adventure, showing as little inhibition with prices as it does with everything — except portions. You can easily spend $100 a person on food alone and find yourself hungry again three hours later.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Yuzu-honey green salad; grilled cubes of Kobe beef with four flavors; toro tartare with caviar; toro with avocado; Kobe beef fillet with ginger and black sesame; sautéed shrimp in kanzuri cream sauce; Kobe grilled on a stone; foie gras with sea eel, black truffles and egg custard; Japanese ice cream.
June 14, 2004
Big Apple Barbecue Block Party
There was really only one reason for me to go to the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, and that was to eat some of Mitchell's chopped pork barbecue without having to make the trip home to North Carolina.
In my opinion, it was also the only barbecue at the party worth waiting for in those ridiculously long lines. But you don't have to take my word for it -- this woman was also in line for Mitchell's and something tells me she knows and loves her barbecue more than the rest of us:
If you missed the weekend's festivities, you don't want to miss BBQ NYC 2004 featuring Big Island Bar-B-Cue and Travis the Cuemaster on Saturday, July 24th.
UPDATE: Be sure to check out the "Live" from the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party '04" thread at eGullet, if only to read the first post by Steven A. Shaw a.k.a "Fat Guy" on Mitchell's Barbecue, including his visit to Wilson, NC.
June 13, 2004
June 10, 2004
June 09, 2004
NYC: Review Roundup
Today's review roundup includes: Babbo, Loreley, Vento Trattoria, Extra Virgin, Monkey Town, Sumile.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Babbo three stars (110 Waverly Place; 212-777-0303):
Among the restaurants that make my stomach do a special jig, Babbo ranks near the top, and that's one reason a fresh review appears today, six years after Babbo opened and received a three-star rating in The New York Times from Ruth Reichl.
But there are other reasons, including this: Babbo provides a clear example of what separates an absolutely terrific restaurant, which it is, from a wholly transcendent dining experience, which it is not. It traces one of the dividing lines between three and four stars, a stratum that makes demands well beyond the perimeter of the plate.
At present, five restaurants in New York City have four stars from The Times. All are French in pedigree or predilection, and that rightly prompts notice as well as debate, at least around the tables where restaurant lovers huddle and feast.
Can the list be complete without Japanese restaurants, so wildly in vogue? Will it ever accommodate Italian restaurants, so many and beloved? Why not Babbo?
. . . This slightly ragtag quality is Babbo's limitation, not because it bucks classic formality, which matters less than ever, but because it undercuts the kind of coddling that restaurants can also provide.
They can muster a style of theater and degree of pampering that make more universally appealing sense than the sounds and scrum of Babbo. They can be easier on the ears and elbows.
They cannot be much better to the belly. Mr. Batali makes sure of that.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Lamb's tongue in a black truffle vinaigrette; mint "love letters" of pasta with spicy lamb sausage; goose liver ravioli; beef cheek ravioli; spicy calamari; grilled lamb chops; pine nut crostata; pistachio and chocolate semifreddo.
June 08, 2004
New Indian Cooking
eGullet's Fat Guy on New Indian Cooking In America, at Tabla and beyond
Hands-On Mozzarella
Adriana and I recently had the pleasure of attending the Artisanal Cheese Center's Hands-on Mozzarella with Daphne Zephos. The course description reads:
Back by popular demand, this is your last chance to catch it before next year! With shucked corn and watermelon slices, or with basil and fresh tomatoes- summer would not be the same with out fresh mozzarella. Daphne Zepos invites you to a unique hands-on class in which students learn how to make mozzarella and take home the fruit (or rather, ball) of their labor, but not before indulging in a one-of-a-kind tasting of several types of fresh mozzarella from the US and Italy. Just in time for the peak season of picnics and patio parties..What follows is a summary of the evening based on my notes.
History
Daphne started the evening by introducing herself as a "Cheese Maturer", with the Artisanal Cheese Center (she is Director of Affinage) and then gave us a brief history of Italian mozzarella. According to Daphne, mozzarella has been produced in the Puglia region of Italy ("the heel of the boot of Italy") for at least 300 years, in part because the it's a hospitable region for Indian water buffalo -- extremely large, difficult, and tempermental beasts that like to wallow in slightly salty marshes. During World War II, the Germans slaughtered all of the buffalo in Italy, to resulting in complete eradication. The population was partially restored by importing water buffalo from India.
In Italy, mozzarella is eaten very fresh. It is made in the morning, and is considered past its prime if not eaten the same day. This is in part because they use cultures that develop very quickly. In the U.S., slower developing cultures are used to extend the "freshness" of mozzarella. Today in the U.S., production of dry, industrial mozzarella -- the kind you find shredded at the grocery store -- is greater than the production of all other cheeses combined.
100 Best Italian Restaurants
Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema has compiled his list of 100 Best Italian Restaurants in New York City. An impressive feat considering there are an estimated 2,500 Italian restaurants citywide. Sietsema writes:
From humble hero shops up to restaurants of the trattoria level, this list represents my ranking of New York's greatest Italian dining establishments. Culled from an estimated 2,500 Italian eateries citywide, every place on my list possesses excellence in one form or another. In creating it, I paid particular attention to the unsung heroes of the local food chain, the pizza parlors. One afternoon, huffing and puffing on my bike, I visited 17 in upper Manhattan, hoping to find a place as unpretentiously good as DiFara's (#13). I think I almost did: George's (#64). How can a lowly neighborhood pizzeria be better than a destination bistro that gooses its linguine with porcini and truffles? Try a lasagna slice at San Cono (#5) or the tripe and peas at Lodomini's (#9) and find out!Here is his Top Twenty:
- Lupa, 170 Thompson Street, Manhattan
- Roberto's, 632 East 186th Street, Bronx
- La Villa, 261 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
- Max, 51 Avenue B, Manhattan
- San. Cono, 303 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn
- 'ino, 21 Bedford Street, Manhattan
- al di la, 248 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
- Grimaldi's, 19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn
- Lodomini's Taste of Italy, 871 Third Avenue, Brooklyn
- Via Emilia, 240 Park Avenue South, Manhattan
- Otto, 1 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
- Maffei Pizza, 688 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
- DiFara's, 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn
- Giorgione, 307 Spring Street, Manhattan
- Malatesta, 649 Washington Street, Manhattan
- Gino's Focacceria, 7118 18th Avenue, Brooklyn
- Trattoria L'Incontro, 21-76 31st Street, Astoria, Queens
- Fratelli's Pizza Cafi, 404 Hunts Point Avenue, Bronx
- Joe's Restaurant, 66-53 Forest Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
- Totonno's, 1524 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn
June 07, 2004
Summer Restaurant Weeks
Summer Restaurant Weeks announced, June 21-25 & June 28-July 2. Three-course lunches for $20.12
and three-course dinners for $30.12.
June 04, 2004
Shake Shack
NYMag reports that Danny Meyer's Shake Shack, the Madison Square Park kiosk, will make its unofficial debut next weekend during the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, and officially July 1. The shack will serve burgers, crinkle-cut fries, the Chicago-style hot dogs that had people waiting in very long lines last summer, PLUS frozen custard! Ted Drewes of St. Louis, famous for their frozen custard -- "a rich, smooth frozen custard with cream and egg yolks. It's a wonderful product not to be confused with soft-serve ice cream, which contains chemicals," is the inspiration and "benchmark" for the Shake Shack's version. Go ahead and prepare yourself for some insanely long lines.
June 03, 2004
National Hunger Awareness Day
Today is National Hunger Awareness Day, focusing attention on the persistent problem of domestic hunger. America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, has created several different opportunities to make it easy and fun to contribute to this worthy cause. "Award winning cookbook writer Molly O'Neill is scouring the country for the recipes that explain what it means to be an American. . . America is One Big Table. By sharing your favorite recipe - the one from your grandmother, the one you invented, that one everyone asks for - you help make sure that EVERYBODY gets enough to eat. And you may end up being part of the best American cookbook ever." Share your favorite recipe with America's Second Harvest - One Big Table Cookbook, or host a benefit "Potluck To End Hunger".
June 02, 2004
Who's crazier, New Yorkers or Tokyoites?
The NYTimes reports that the LES' own Doughnut Plant has opened two stores in Tokyo, with lines that rival the Upper West Side's Japanese import, Beard Papa.
The lines stretching from Beard Papa, the Japanese cream puff store on the Upper West Side, are nothing compared with those at the two new Doughnut Plant stores in Tokyo, where customers are given numbers and allowed to buy only three doughnuts at a time. The shops, branches of Mark Isreal's factory and store on the Lower East Side, sell doughnuts made with traditional glazes like vanilla and also in Japanese flavors: lemony yuzu, herbaceous green shiso and earthy black sesame.
"There are 40 different stores selling my doughnuts in New York," Mr. Isreal said, but they sell barely as many as the two in Tokyo. Through next Wednesday, doughnuts with the Japanese glazes will be sold at his New York bakery and retail shop, 379 Grand Street (Norfolk Street), for $2 each.Time to eat some doughnuts. . .
Jewel Bako Makimono
Blue Goose is now Jewel Bako Makimono, a spinoff of Jewel Bako, opening Friday.
$2 pizza
Pizza now $2 a slice, which makes sense because everyone knows that the price of a slice runs parallel with subway fares.
Super Suppers
Super Suppers - Sunday supper deals around town
NYC: Review Roundup
Today's review roundup includes: Masa, Le Quinze, Anna's Corner, Wolfgang's Steakhouse, Taboon, Franny's, Casa La Femme North.
NYTimes Restaurants Amanda Hesser writes her last review as interim critic, giving Masa "four stars when dining at the sushi bar and three stars at the tables" (The Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle; 212-823-9800):
While you settle in, Mr. Takayama sets his Aritsugu knives, with water-buffalo-horn handles, on his chopping block and begins assembling bowls and urns. His wife, Saemi Takayama, who acts as maître d'hôtel, waiter and sommelier, pours sparkling water into narrow-rimmed tumblers. There is no menu, so the courses just begin appearing, starting with a tiny salad of fiddlehead ferns bathed in white miso and scented with kinome, an herb that tastes of lemon and mint with a peppery kick. Next might come a tiny coupe glass, filled with a dollop of toro, a heap of osetra caviar and a squeeze of sudachi (a variety of lime, tiny as a kumquat). You are given a red lacquer spoon to spread it onto crisp toasts cut into perfect dominoes.
A few courses later comes tempura. On one visit, it was fried wild watercress, sent by Mr. Takayama's mother in Japan, and shiroki, a tree bud encased in a feather-light shell of batter. On the side was a dish of salt and sancho pepper for sprinkling.
This is just the warm-up. Mr. Takayama serves a lot of food, often more than 12 courses. Even if you do not eat for 10 days before you go, it is still too much, and at a certain point it takes away from the magnificence of the food.
. . . Mr. Takayama is entertaining but he is not a showman, and he never loses pace with your meal, even though he is serving everyone in the room. After the parade of salads and cooked foods, the sushi begins to arrive. Sometimes it is a wisp of halibut, a fish distinguished by its crunch, brushed with nikiri sauce. Or calamari, sprinkled with sea salt, and yuzu. On various visits, I have had shiitake; grilled scallop; sweet shrimp; mackerel; and ume, shredded shiso and sesame seed rolled into a slender and crisp sheet of toasted nori. All of it has been pristine, vibrant and utterly delicious.Hesser also explains her take on the often debated question, "What is the difference between a three-star and a four-star restaurant?" She writes,
No matter how exquisite its food, a three-star restaurant does not have this power to transport you. What elevates a restaurant to four stars is the intangible delight occasioned by a chef's meticulously fashioned vision. At El Bulli in Spain, one of the top restaurants in the world, the room is casual, but the sense that you are on Ferran Adrià's planet, eating Ferran Adrià's creations never escapes you."
June 01, 2004
Google's Chicken a la The King
One of the benefits Google employees enjoy is free food ("Employees enjoy free lunch 5 days per week. Plus breakfast food and all the snacks you can eat!"). According to an article in Food Managment, Google's executive chef, Charlie Ayers, "has complete autonomy in making up the menu and procuring the ingredients to prepare it. That gives him the luxury to indulge his preferences for organic and natural products, and to exercise his culinary imagination while experimenting with exotic ingredients in a way even many high-end commercial restaurateurs might envy."
Charlie's daily menus were blogged at the aptly-named yet sadly now defunct Google Daily Menus blog. Thankfully, The Official Google Blog gives us a welcome glimpse into Charlie's kitchen with his recent post about Chicken a la The King, a fried chicken recipe he learned while working in the kitchen of the Waldorf Astoria with one Robert Brown. Beware of the Google-sized portions ("3 cases organic free range chicken (roughly 30 chickens, divided into 1.5- to 2-lb. sections)"), and/or reference a recipe adjuster.
Cooking Science
Wired Magazine on Alton Brown: The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking, plus Kitchen Fiction vs. Science Fact
Preview: Hands-on Mozzarella
Last week, Adriana and I attended the Artisanal Cheese Center's Hands-on Mozzarella with Daphne Zephos. Highlights included stretching our own ovolinis, and tasting seven different mozzarellas from the US and Italy. Look for a full write-up of the event later this week.
