A Full Belly

NYC: Review Roundup

This week's Review Roundup includes: Ida Mae Kitchen-n-Lounge, Green Table at Chelsea Market, Zerza, Nice Matin, Five Front, Dominic Restaurant/Social Club, Home, K.R Space Untitled, Suenos, Sichuan Dynasty

NYTimes Restaurants, William Grimes reviews Ida Mae Kitchen-n-Lounge: As Tabla is to Indian cuisine, Ida Mae is to Southern cuisine? Sounds intriguing to this fried chicken, collard greens, buttermilk biscuit lover.

Sweet potatoes, whipped into a silky purée, make an ideal filling for skillfully made ravioli, very thin yet firm to the bite. A chive-butter sauce adds a voluptuous sheen, while cutting back, just a touch, on the sugar in the potatoes. Skewered shrimp, lightly breaded and deep-fried, come out as crunchy and light as tempura. The dipping sauce, a thick peach compote fired up with chilies, is a simple but clever Asian-Southern combination. Even a highfalutin ingredient like foie gras can do the two-step, if you put it together with an apple fritter and a little salad of black-eyed peas. Mr. Collins makes a tactical error with his crab cakes, however. He serves them in a pool of sweet, pungent saffron consommé, which might work brilliantly as a dipping sauce on the side but does damage on the plate. The fat little crab cakes get soaked by the sauce, and slow eaters might find themselves eating crab soup after about five minutes.

NYTimes $25 and Under, Eric Asimov reviews Green Table at Chelsea Market:

You can stop at Green Table for a snack or a full meal, but I'd be tempted just to go for dessert. House-made ginger doughnuts ($6), served warm, are great dipped in applesauce, while cherry cobbler ($6) is sweet and tart. I know that lemon-lavender sounds more summery than chocolate, but I'd be willing to sacrifice this seasonality for the rich, dense chocolate pot de crème ($6).

You can't franchise a place like Green Table. It exists as part of its milieu, and by itself is a good enough reason to visit Chelsea Market.

I am embarassed to admit that I have yet to visit the Chelsea Market, but I have a good excuse. . . I didn't know about the ginger donuts!

The New Yorker's Tables for Two reviews Zerza:

The atmosphere in this two-story night-life complex, despite its rich red walls and heavy incense smell, is less opium den than East Village genteel. Upstairs in Zerza’s airy, minimalist dining quarter, with its wooden tables and banquette, nose-ringed Oberlin grads talking about Dean’s chances in 2004 sit across from black-haired Eurasian beauties in halter dresses and their rich older husbands with tans and gold watches. Downstairs, the addictive dance music of Cheb Khaled and other Arabic artists plays over a scattering of wicker sofas, tile tables, and leather hassocks that seem designed to make you feel incredibly short unless they’re piled on top of one another.

NYMetro reviews Nice Matin and Five Front: . . .

Five Front serves dishes like these: a solidly packed, sweet-and-spiky crab cake; mussels in a thin velvet of curry; sweet-pea ravioli as sparkling as captured fireflies; a green salad that absolutely startles with lightness and balance; a striped bass with beets; a superbly spicy San Vito Lo Capo seafood stew; delectably shredded short ribs; and a burger that doesn’t need foie gras or anything else to be just right. Plus great banana-bread pudding and fruit buckle, in a no-frills room or garden where a T-shirt seems right at home, and the staff makes you feel that way, too.

NYMetro Restaurant Openings & Buzz covers Dominic Restaurant/Social Club, Home, and K.R Space Untitled:

Just as Space Untitled, the artsy, high-ceilinged café and coffee bar, fits seamlessly into its Soho environs, its new Koreatown spinoff, K.R Space Untitled, blends into the kimchi district. Perhaps too well: Its 32-item cafeteria-style buffet menu, with everything from spicy squid to boiled pork belly, bears a striking resemblance to Woorijip’s up the street (but costs slightly less, at $5.25 per pound). There’s also a noodle bar, Korean-style sushi, and a few intriguing examples of East-West fusion like the bulgogi sandwich with Swiss cheese.

Digital City reviews Suenos:

If you can't sweat the four-course, $50 chili tasting menu, go for the regular fare, which features tacos, empanadas, tostados and more of the like. Of course, they come with such delectable accompaniments as drunken goat cheese or ancho vinaigrette. The house sommelier, Steven Olsen, keeps this 'casa de suenos' stocked with New World wines and expensive tequilas.

The Village Voice's Robert Sietsema reviews Sichuan Dynasty (Queens):

In spite of a love affair with the cuisine that goes back decades, New York has probably never had a true Sichuan restaurant. Those that first materialized in Chinatown 30 years ago were geared to Western tastes, stanching the burn by deploying only a modest quantity of chiles and eschewing peppercorns entirely. Though the Wu Liang Ye and Grand Sichuan chains have recently repopularized Sichuan food in Manhattan, the spicing is still restrained, and the menu's larded with all sorts of dishes that don't belong. And most of the Sichuan places in Flushing—including the now defunct and much lamented Spicy and Tasty—alter the cooking for Taiwanese tastes.

With its shifting use of multiple chiles, hurricane of garlic, intemperate admiration of fat, deployment of oddball ingredients, and emphasis on variety meats and animals more likely to be caught in a trap than purchased at the supermarket, Sichuan Dynasty is our most authentic yet.

Review Roundup is updated every Wednesday and Friday

NYC: Review Roundup

This week's Review Roundup includes: Rocco, Rocco, and more Rocco!, Dumonet at the Carlyle, Assenzio, Trattoria Anna Maria, Snack Taverna, Joe's Ginger Restaurant, Hue, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, and 100 Under $25.

NYMetro reviews Rocco's, as in reality tv's The Restaurant:

In the tradition of “home-style” Italian restaurants, the menu—printed daily on pink sheets of paper, complete with news from the DiSpirito clan—is as busy as a phone book. I counted 67 items, not including side dishes and desserts, and even though I made three visits, my fellow diners and I barely made a dent in it. The first wave of food came from the “fritti” section, and contained pleasingly crinkly fried baby artichokes, nondescript strips of calamari, and a pair of fat, tasty zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and herbs. Next were the “al forno” items, which included a plate of dried-out clams oreganata, a stuffed artichoke drowned in water, and Uncle Joe DiSpirito’s sausage and peppers, which seemed to have been left in the oven for about an hour too long. On the other hand, Mama DiSpirito’s meatballs were tasty, as always (you’ll find the same version at Tuscan), and so were the plates of broiled quail drizzled in red-wine sauce, and the crisply baked shrimps flavored with lemon.

And NYTimes' William Grimes on Rocco's:

It's all very straightforward, two-fisted and uncomplicated. So why on earth did they have all that trouble on opening night?

And if you still want more, there's Gideon's blog, and a very long thread at egullet.com.

NYTimes Restaurant, Grimes on Dumonet at the Carlyle:

The feeling is different now, more relaxed and spontaneous, and less a caricature of high-class service circa 1955. It has transformed the dining room. I began looking forward to my meals at the Carlyle as a kind of escape into the high life, as though I had been asked to dinner by a rich, eccentric uncle. Luxury with an antic touch — that's the new tone at the Carlyle, and it suits the place right down to the ground.

NYTimes $25 and Under, Eric Asimov reviews Assenzio:

Pastas win points for avoiding the obvious. Assenzio offers unusual winners like gnocchetti in a piquant tomato and wild boar ragù ($12.95). The gnocchetti are slender pasta shaped almost like drill bits. Potato gnocchi ($11.95) are soft and pillowy, but the creamy sauce is a little too thick. For a lighter meal, thin trenette pasta ($12.95), faintly imbued with lemon, is tossed with fresh sardines and orange slices, an effect as refreshing as an ocean breeze.

NYMetro's Openings & Buzz: Trattoria Anna Maria, Snack Taverna, Joe's Ginger Restaurant, Hue, Vosges Haut-Chocolat.

Snack Taverna:

New chef John Fraser puts his own sophisticated spin on Snack’s signature rusticity, topping stuffed grape leaves with pulverized almonds and saffron, embellishing pastourma (air-dried beef) with dried-fig vinaigrette, and pairing zesty grilled sausage with pear spoon sweets.

Joe's Ginger Restaurant:

To alleviate the mayhem at the Pell Street address of Joe’s Shanghai—an hour’s wait for a table is not uncommon—the owners have opened Joe’s Ginger Restaurant a mere soup dumpling’s toss away. For now, at least, most dishes on the nearly identical menu are a couple of bucks cheaper at the new spinoff. A bamboo basket of the slurpy crab-and-pork-stuffed steamed buns that made Joe’s famous, alas, goes for the full $6.25.

NYMetro Cheap Eats: 100 meals under $25 -- "Cheap" and "Under $25" are loosely and generously defined here. I think The Village Voice's Siestema does a better job of this with his "100 Best and Cheapest" Lists. Here's his Latin restaurants list, Asian restaurants list, and the "Inexpensive" restaurants list.

Review Roundup is updated every Wednesday and Friday

NYC: Review Roundup

This week's Review Roundup includes: Lunchbox Food Co., Pampano, Snackbar, Mooncake Foods, Penelope, Cripplebush Road, Bread Tribeca, Gotham Bar & Grill, and Nar

NYMetro reviews Lunchbox Food Co.:

. . . Lunchbox offers enough enticements to merit year-round patronage. Like any self-respecting diner, this one serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it’s a rare diner that bakes its own doughnuts and idiosyncratically flavored bagels (the Parmesan harmonizes surprisingly well with the house-cured salmon at brunch). At night, bowls of Lunchbox’s house-made potato chips line the candle-strewn counter. And the restaurant sells its own line of chocolate candies, brownies, and sumptuous dessert toppings from a retail counter up front.

NYMetro Openings & Buzz - Penelope, Cripplebush Road, Bread Tribeca, Gotham Bar & Grill, and Nar:

Part bar, part café, part bakery, Penelope draws from all the places co-owner Jenny Potenza has worked since she was 17. It’s also a very welcome addition to café-starved Curry Hill, where it’s easier to come by masala dosa than Nutella French toast and a decent egg-salad sandwich.

NYTimes Restaurant, William Grimes reviews Pampano:

Against this clean backdrop, Mr. Sandoval and his chef de cuisine, Josefina Santacruz, deliver inventive, sharply executed seafood dishes that keep the taste buds busy. Bright squiggles, specks and blobs put a lot of drama on the plate, and the cast of characters tends to be extensive. Every dish seems to have at least eight or nine ingredients.

Somehow all the actors find their places, and the chilies, in particular, perform brilliantly. Mr. Sandoval uses all of them, from anchos, anaheims and chipotles to the fiery habaneros and jalapeños. They italicize flavors, infiltrate them, sway them this way and that, without ever making the primary impression.

A smoky chipotle and lobster sauce, for example, brings out the sweetness of sautéed shrimp in a rich, mouth-filling tamale stuffed with steamed cornmeal, mushrooms and zucchini blossoms. Chiles de árbol apply mild heat to an understated salsa that blends effortlessly with black-bean purée and buttery slices of avocado in what may be Pampano's signature dish, an appetizer of three miniature lobster tacos on soft tortillas.

Big anaheim chilies, mild and slightly sweet, make the ideal wrapper for sharp goat cheese and a welcome accompaniment to huge grilled shrimp in a spicy bell pepper and tomato sauce. Fruity ancho chilies, with their overtones of licorice, make a complex, beguiling glaze for baby octopus, served with roasted corn and crunchy chayote dice.

NYTimes $25 and Under, Eric Asimov reviews Snackbar:

. . . . Taking cues from more expensive restaurants, like Craft and Amuse, the menu is stripped down and à la carte. You construct your own main course, selecting a centerpiece ingredient, adding a sauce and sides. The menu also offers the option of putting together a meal of smaller bites.

The quality of the ingredients is superb, and seafood makes up a significant part of the menu. Thin fillets of neatly sautéed rouget ($14.50) are so seductive, especially with a chunky olive gremolata, that I wondered why so few restaurants in this country serve this Mediterranean gem. Scallops ($15.50), which I ordered with a citrus-soy marinade, actually taste deeply like scallops, a rare thing nowadays. Mahi-mahi ($15) with rosemary cream is moist and delicate, while big-eye tuna ($17.50) has so much flavor it doesn't need one of the sauces.

Village Voice's Robert Sietsema reviews Mooncake Foods:

For all the recent attempts to reinvent the American diner, none has more appeal than Mooncake Foods. Obscurely located near the Holland Tunnel on Watts Street, the snug space is outfitted with a reasonable facsimile of diner furniture. Stools swivel along a counter, stick chairs flank rudimentary tables, and a pew stands in for the usual Naugahyde banquette. More important, the food's plainness evokes the kind of Greek-owned diner that has become a dwindling feature of the city's landscape.

In line with contemporary tastes, however, the menu is light and vegetable-driven instead of greasy and starch-heavy. Instead of looking to European meat and potatoes for inspiration, Mooncake's menu is grounded in Asian cuisines. Standing in for chef's salad is a collection of meal-size Thai yums ($7-$8). The immense bowls brim with an idiosyncratic collection of greens and miniature plum tomatoes topped with a choice of grilled beef (good), seared tuna one step away from sashimi (better), hefty lemongrass shrimp (too sweet), grilled chicken breast (yawn), or broiled salmon (see below). Dry, these assemblages would be less than thrilling. But the piquant dressings, different for each salad, put the combinations across. Writhing and gyrating behind the counter, the cooks at Mooncake demonstrate no fear of fish sauce, chile paste, and other serious Asian flourishes eschewed by the nominally Thai places materializing in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Review Roundup is updated every Wednesday and Friday