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.
NYTimes $25 and Under reviews Del Valle (665 10th Avenue; 212-262-5510):
The amenities of Del Valle, which transformed itself from a glorified deli into a modest restaurant in April, are few but appealing, especially in the impersonal wilds of Clinton. Irma Verdejo, who owns the place with her husband, Jesus, (he does the cooking), will beam at you if you order a house specialty like chicharrón, pork skin, braised in that great salsa verde. (She might beam at you anyway.) The place now has 12 scrubbed formica tables, and still sells both Mexican snacks and New York newspapers.
And it has a huge menu of simple, classic Mexican lunch-counter food, with a few real gems: the tacos, tortas (sandwiches) and the hard-to-find cemita, a sesame-seed roll stuffed with mild cheese, whole chipotle peppers, roast meat, avocado and papalo, an herb that tastes like the love child of cilantro and arugula.
Details bring flavors into focus at Del Valle. Pickled jalapeños and thin-sliced sweet onions on the tortas balance the richness of fillings like cecina, dried beef. Cinnamon, cumin, garlic and clove make carne enchilada, spiced pork, sing; the plain pork al pastor seems even plainer by contrast. The beef tongue in the tacos is braised until plush, perfect with a shower of crunchy raw onion and cilantro.
BEST DISHES Huevos revueltos; tacos; tortas; cemitas; carne enchilada; barbacoa; cecina; salsa verde.
Village Voice Robert Seitsema reviews Seoul Soondae (158-15 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, Queens; 718-321-3231):
A little over a year ago I reported that a place called Lee Park Sa had carried Korean beef barbecue to its upper limits by specializing in Kobe-style beef, perfuming the air with the odor of smoking tallow. Now that joint has been replaced by Seoul Soondae, a chain with branches in Virginia and Maryland that offers another obscure Korean specialty. The front door is emblazoned with a smiling cartoon pig wearing a red muffler and a jaunty cap. Inside find a choice of seating—big semi-private booths, and, for yoga enthusiasts, even larger tables low to the floor that force diners to sit cross-legged on a platform that runs around the periphery.
Though the general theme of the menu is pig, this boils down—sometimes quite literally—to a pair of specialties first brought to Seoul by northern refugees during the Korean War, regarded by sophisticated residents of the South Korean capital as rough-hewn hillbilly food. One of these is soondae, a boiled sausage of pig blood and potato vermicelli ($10.95), encouragingly touted by the menu as "nourishing Korean sausage in small plate." I can't attest to the nourishing part, but "small" is a complete lie—the plate contains 30 thick pieces of sausage in infantry formation, sided with additional rows of pig ear, tongue, and heart, easily enough offal for four. Rich and bland simultaneously, the soondae is delicious, and even people who hate British blood pudding or French boudin noir are likely to take a shine to it, especially when it's swished in the accompanying condiment of toasted sesame oil, black pepper, and rock salt. Still, this sausage stirs controversy among young Koreans. One disdainful blogger was moved to complain that soondae "smells like a week-old corpse in a hot room."
NYPress reviews 10 Pell Chinese Restaurant (10 Pell Street; 212-766-2132):
My Chinatown-bred friend dismisses Joe's as oversweet and overpriced. He told me to go to 10 Pell, ignore the menu and ask for Three Cups Chicken, which isn't on it. The waitress, who runs the place with her husband (the chef), seemed surprised, but not unpleasantly so. "Oh," she said, "you like Three Cups Chicken?"
Indeed I do. It's a sort of chicken soup, served in the same black bowl it's cooked in. The broth was deep brown, made from a base of soy sauce and Chinese wine. The meat was cut into bite-size pieces, though on the bone, and there's a lot of them. I think it's half a chicken, because I only got one foot. The other pieces weren't visibly recognizable as pieces of breast or drumstick or wing. They all had the same disguise: a savory, deep-brown glaze, and the only way to find out whether a golden nugget was mostly meat or mostly bone was to put it in my mouth.
That's a drawback, and I can't claim to have been especially pleased to discover a chicken foot in my soup, but Three Cups Chicken is beautifully balanced, undeniably delicious.
10 Pell is a neighborhood, family place. That means there are factors those of us not from a neighborhood family have to weigh against its excellent, reasonably priced Chinese food. To me there's no contest, but be warned: The place feels a bit dingy, with its grease-stained vinyl tablecloths, though it's far from unsanitary. One friend whom I took there was irritated by a faint smell of cleaning product still hanging in the air at dinnertime.
Even better than the Three Cups Chicken is the other dish my friend told me to try second: Beef with Orange Flavor. This one is on the menu, under "Hunan and Szechuan Specialties." I concur wholeheartedly with my guide: Nothing served across the street at Joe's Shanghai is on a level with 10 Pell's Orange Beef.
