A Full Belly

Timeout Cheap Eats

Timeout New York's Cheap Eats issue is out (not available online without an online subscription). Their picks are organized into food groups, including "The 24-hour Snacker," "The Daring Diner," "The Compulsive Carnivore," "The Carbo Loader," "The Liquid Dieter," "The Kosher Keeper," "The Food Snob," "The Tofu Fighters," "The Galloping Gourmet," and. "the Total Cheapass".

The "Food Snob" category includes 5 "epicureans" and their favorite cheap eats. Jeffery Steingarten likes the "succulent, prize-winning" hamburger at Peter Luger for lunch ($6), an order of xiao long bao at Joe's Ginger ($4.25), and Otakfuku's okonomoyaki (savory pancakes) ($7).

My favorite cheap eats would have to include an order of dumplings at Fried Dumpling ($1), $1 Sushi at Mori, and brunch at 7A.

What are your favorite cheap eats?

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Mix, 50 Carmine, Hacienda de Argentina, Pop's Pierogi, Sumile, Blue Sky Bakery

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes reviews Mix and gives it two stars (68 West 58th Street):

Mr. Ducasse, the chef with the galaxy's worth of Michelin stars, and Mr. Chodorow, the club-minded restaurateur responsible for China Grill, Hudson Cafeteria and Rocco's on 22nd, have a bottomless bag of tricks that they are dying to show you at their fun house. For starters, a waiter presents a marble toast rack with neat triangles of toasted country bread and three little ceramic pots containing peanut butter, Concord grape jelly and salted butter. Then comes the recitation, explaining the restaurant's philosophy. Listen hard, because it is confusing. Mix, one is told, aims to build a bridge between the Atlantic coasts of the United States and France, with homey dishes from both countries, although many of the dishes seem to have nothing to do with the Atlantic.

With a flourish, the waiter then presents the day's appetizers, or the First of Mix. There are five, lined up on a narrow shelf supported, like a hospital stretcher, by an X-shape steel frame on wheels. They are encased in clear glass vessels with lids, making them look a little like leftovers from the refrigerator. Or perhaps they are meant to suggest an in-flight meal, although airplanes do not travel trans-Atlantic bridges.

At any rate, there is not a lot of time to think about it, because the waiter must now explain the menu formula. Listen hard, because it is confusing. Believe me, there really is a difference between Mix of Mix and Mix Prix Fixe, two menu options, and diners who pay close attention will be sure to figure it out.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Bouillabaisse; duck ham with corn and chorizo; glazed shrimp with eggplant; elbow macaroni with ham and truffle jus; veal blanquette; bison pot-au-feu; pork with barbecue sauce; chocolate pizza.

Now that I have read nearly a dozen reviews of Mix, I think I can safely summarize the critics' verdict: "A pricey mixed bag." But in case you need to read more, here's another review.

Links To Go

5 great writers, 5 great restaurants

7-Eleven Unveils New Hot Beverage Station: "At 7-Eleven's new "hot beverage stations," customers will have a choice of more than 1,300 combinations. A minimum of five varieties of coffee, four flavored syrups, seven different tea bags, five toppings, creamers, sweeteners and all types of milk will be available at each station. 7-Eleven's customers will make the drinks themselves, guided by store suggestions, thus avoiding waiting in line to order. The drinks will cost about $1 per cup instead of the typical coffeehouse prices hovering between $3 and $4."

How to chop onions without the tears.

Events at Suba

"In New York, it is not unusual to eat below street level. But Suba is something else. The descent to the dining room is a plunge into the netherworld, a series of twists and turns along a staircase made from industrial grating that delivers you, eventually, to a weirdly lighted windowless brick room. The platformlike dining area is surrounded by a moat of rushing water, illuminated to give off a fitful, flickering light."

Suba is hosting two series of events, suitable to its unique dining environment. First, The Diner in the Dark Chef Series to benefit the City Harvest charity. Waiters wearing night-vision goggles lead diners into the blackened dining room at Suba. Without being able to see their food, diners must rely on their other senses. A different guest chef will prepare a five-course dinner each week for four consecutive weeks. For reservations, call 212-982-5714, ext. 3. Schedule as follows:

October 27 - Alex Urena (Marseille)
November 3 - Chris Santos (Mojo)
November 10 - Alex Garcia (Calle Ocho)
November 17 - Anita Lo (Annisa)

Ed. Note: This particular event would be a great way to experience the Suba environs without the risk of submitting yourself to Chef Stephane Buchholzer's bizarre food pairings.

The Grocery

According to the 2004 Zagat Survey published today, the seven best restaurants in New York City are Le Bernardin, Daniel, Peter Luger, Nobu, Bouley, Jean Georges and the Grocery.

The Grocery? You may be forgiven for asking. The restaurant is a modest 30-seat, one-room storefront on Smith Street between Union and Sackett Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and does not even serve liquor.

Perhaps no one was more surprised by the news than the owners of the Grocery themselves.

"I don't think we're doing earth-shattering food," said Charles Kiely, who owns the restaurant with his partner, Sharon Pachter, when he was told of the Grocery's position. "We're just a really good neighborhood restaurant."

In light of this news, William Grimes revisits The Grocery which he originally awarded one star shortly after its opening in 2000. Le Bernadin, Daniel, Jean Georges and Bouley are all four star restaurants.

Grimes' original review of The Grocery: Service is glacial at this cramped storefront with a lovely garden in back, but the food is worth the wait. The market-driven lineup of beguilingly simple but impressive dishes includes manila clams in a garlic-herb broth and cumin-dusted tuna with cumin-yogurt sauce. The steamed puddings are epic.

And Grimes' conclusion after his recent visit:

Consumed

For a different take on "you are what you eat" you might want to check out tonight's opening of David Shapiro's Consumed!

"For two years, acclaimed filmmaker, artist and native son of the early Williamsburg scene, David Shapiro has been saving every package, bag, bottle or jar that once contained his food or drink. He fills the space at Jack the Pelican Presents gallery to the brim with this bodega-sized collection of garbage."

Exhibition: David Shapiro: Consumed!
Opening: Friday, October 17, 7-9pm
Location: 487 Driggs Ave. between N. 9 and N. 10
Bedford stop on the L train, Williamsburg
Dates: October 18–November 10, 2003
Gallery hours: Friday–Monday, 12-6pm

Openings

NYMetro restaurant openings for the week of October 27th:

Sui (54 Spring Street): "At Sui, opening this week in Soho, sushi rolls come wrapped in prosciutto, slathered with Thai peanut sauce, and drizzled with salsa. The eclectic menu doesn’t stop there: Beyond the waterfall and the fish tanks, the kitchen, led by co-owner and executive chef Adam Roth, turns out buffalo carpaccio with foie gras and a teapot for two of seafood-miso soup."

Les Enfants Terribles (37 Canal Street): ". . . globetrotting partners Fabrice Vautrin (of Le Père Pinard) and Stéfan Jonot, a documentary filmmaker, plumbed their collective travels for culinary and decorative inspiration, to which they applied an atmospheric French Colonial veneer. Add a chef from the Ivory Coast to the multi-culti mix, and you’ve got a menu that features steak tartare and escargots alongside bacon-wrapped scallops with fried plantains and Senegalese rice. Soon serving breakfast, too."

Belleville (330 Fifth Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn): ". . . But what makes it a boon for the ever-burgeoning Fifth Avenue restaurant row is a not quite predictable menu that combines standards like duck confit and steak-frites with offbeat digressions like fazzoletti pasta with braised beef cheek, and calf’s liver with polenta and fig vinaigrette. Small plates of preserved tuna with lemon and capers and watermelon-goat-cheese salad offset the heartier fare. You may feel transported to Paris, but the kids’ menu (ham-and-cheese sandwich, angel hair with tomato sauce) is pure Park Slope."

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: New Chao Chow Restaurant, Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, The Biltmore Room, Divane, Lever House

Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews New Chao Chow Restaurant (111 Mott Street):

At nearly every table someone is slurping "broth noodles" ($3.25), a Chiu Chow specialty known on the menu as "combination rice stick (soup on the side)." Filling the deep bowl, the thick rice noodles are heaped with ground pork, sliced pork, delicious homemade fish cake, and freshly cooked shrimp. Indeed, pork-seafood combos are a Chiu Chow passion. A green wad of cilantro sits on top, while bits of sour cabbage hide among the noodles. On the side there's a small bowl of tasty broth. The dish might be mistaken for a disassembled version of Vietnamese pho, except that the broth is so clearly Cantonese.

The duck (one-quarter, $4) is another of the restaurant's signatures, nothing like the crisp-skinned mahogany creature seen elsewhere in Chinatown. The orange bird has been braised in a rich soy sauce, and arrives moist and flavorful and garnished with sweet pickled radish. It comes with a fish-sauce vinaigrette, a cousin of Vietnamese nuoc cham, in which float flecks of garlic, ginger, and green onion. The same sauce accompanies the inglorious-sounding boiled chicken, an utterly white bird that carries the boiler's art to a new high. The resulting succulent flesh—not dry nor stringy in the least—would have astonished my Irish grandmother, who boiled a chicken every Saturday.

Links To Go

• 107-pound woman wins World Champion Barbecue Eating Contest: "Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, of Alexandria, swallowed 23 barbecue sandwiches in 12 minutes to claim the title, $2,000 and the honor of wearing the champion's belt for a year." Sonya is my hero.
• Chowhound thread on "real wasabi"
• The perfect cheese sandwich: The perfect sandwich requires a perfectly sliced cheese. The best flavor requires that different cheeses be sliced to different thicknesses. "Dr Fisher, of the University of Bristol, revealed that to ensure optimum 'cheesiness', Cheddar should be 2.8 millimetres thick, while Caerphilly should measure 4.5 millimetres, and Blue Stilton three millimetres." (via Food Blog)
• Related: the grilled mac & cheese sandwich
• Lia meets and eats the McGriddle: "The McGriddle is tinier than the McMuffin and seems expensive at $2.69 until I realize how much bagels cost -- this sucker has sausage, egg and cheese and a griddle cake. And it tastes good, very weird but good. Where the McMuffin is salty and firm, the McGriddle is sweet and soft, with tiny pockets of syrup baked in. This was the thing that got me most interested in the McGriddle when I saw the ads, what made me wonder for months if I would like the McGriddle or not, and it totally worked."

Dragon Fruit

While we were wandering around La Boqueria in Barcelona, we spied this strange looking fruit. Bright pink with large scales on the outside, cut in half to reveal white flesh flecked with what look like tiny black seeds. Wena kindly informed me that these are Dragon Fruit, or Pitaya. It's part of the cactus family, grows in tropical regions, and apparently is very tasty. More information and photos of Pitaya.