A Full Belly

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Azalea, La Palapa Rockola, La Marmite, Chestnut, Asiate

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes gives Azalea one star (224 West 51st Street; (212) 262-0105):

. . .The kitchen really hits its stride with pastas, which are convincing across the board. Wild boar braised in Barolo wine may be the richest, most deeply flavored meat sauce I've come across at an Italian restaurant. It's served with broad, flat pappardelle, and cherry tomatoes have been deployed strategically to give off intense bursts of fruity acidity. Stubby rigatoni stuffed with seasoned ground veal, topped with crushed roasted walnuts and covered with an oozy white-truffle cream are downright dangerous. Each sublime bite gives rise to uneasy thoughts about the entree to follow. Most appetites will stop dead in their tracks with this one. A somewhat lighter alternative, equally appealing, is ravioli stuffed with veal and red cabbage in a concentrated veal sauce, but even the fish pastas tend to be rich, especially the ravioli stuffed with lobster and buffalo ricotta in a Prosecco and lobster broth.

The pastas can make the main courses seem anticlimactic, satisfying for the most part but not nearly as impassioned, or as complex. Jumbo shrimp sautéed with fresh herbs is what it says it is, and no more. A sizable tuna fillet, rolled in sesame seeds, is plain, served in a light tomato sauce with cannellini beans and fried onions. It was ordered medium-rare and came out on the far side of medium, but under no circumstances was it ever going to be an exciting dish. Pork fillet sautéed with apple purée sounds dull but isn't, thanks in part to tender, flavorful pork, and a nice-sized potato cake on the side. Baby lamb chops get the royal treatment. They're cooked in a potent reduction sauce of Amarone wine, then served with a heap of spinach sprinkled with pine nuts and raisins.

. . . The waiters are a colorful bunch. They seem to be working from a playbook not yet available in English-speaking countries, in which diners are regarded as hopeful applicants rather than customers with the power of the dollar behind them.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Duck sausage with barlotti beans; fennel and shrimp in Parmesan crust; pappardelle with boar; veal-stuffed rigatoni; lamb chops with Amarone sauce; veal in white wine and truffle cream; chocolate-banana cake; fruit tart.

Links To Go

NYTimes' play-by-play of the shooting at Rao's.

NY Daily News review of the year in restaurants -- "Italian all over," no velvet rope openings, the Atkins Diet Affect, and little plates.

A few of the NYC restaurants open on Christmas day.

According to many, the world's best dumplings can be found at Taipei's Din Tai Fung. Renee documents her visit to Din Tai Fung's Singapore location, complete with photos. . . Maybe it's time to make a trip to L.A.

It's tuna season! All about the different maguro cuts.

How to make your own (flavored) marshmallows.

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Public, Kasadela, Django, Shore, Pearson's Texas Barbecue

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes gives Public one star (210 Elizabeth St., between Prince and Spring; (212) 343-7011):

. . . The muted aesthetic makes the food seem even wilder than it is, no easy feat. Consider a recent special, grilled foie gras. It's daubed with ginger-lemon cream, then placed on a cookie-shaped "scone" flavored with cardamom and coffee. There are things to like about this dish — its daring, for one. The scone, spicy and aromatic, is wonderful, and the lemon-ginger cream has a thrilling zing to it. Put it all together, and it makes a mess. The scone is too sweet to let the ginger-lemon combination do its main job, which is to cut the fatty richness of the foie gras. This may be the world's first meat dessert.

. . . Seared striped bass, surrounded by a seemingly random assortment of foods, like boiled edamame, roast parsnips and curried lentils, sports an odd topknot of labne, or semidried yogurt, rolled into a ball with shredded coconut. There are many ways to decorate a fish, but this one breaks new ground. It's a little like finding a small holiday cheese ball in the last place you'd expect it.

. . . Public is a high-risk, high-reward dining proposition. I have a feeling that the owners want it that way. They did not come thousands of miles to bore New York. Understatement is not in the plan. Sometimes you have to slap people in the face to get their attention.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Grilled ox tongue with eggplant relish; grilled kangaroo on coriander falafel; roast lamb chump with goat-cheese polenta; pecan-maple cake with roasted pear.

Mandler's: The Orginial Sausage Co.

After a morning of shopping, we stopped at Mandler's: The Orginial Sausage Co. for lunch on Saturday. The menu is surprisingly large, including 12 different varieties of sausages. All sausages are served with either sauerkraut or sauteed onions and mushrooms, your choice of sauce and bread. We tried the Andoville ("Hot Spice Smoked Beef & Pork") and Kosher Beef ("Traditional NY Low Carb Sausage"). The Andoville served with Mandler's spicy sauce was pleasantly spicy -- not too tame and not so spicy as to cause discomfort. The sauteed onions and mushrooms were too well done for my taste, perhaps sauerkraut would have been a better bet.

Mandler's: The Original Sausage Co.
26 East 17th St. (off of Union Square)
Open 10:30AM - Late
(212) 255-8999

Previously: Mandler's photo shoot
See also: Gothamist's visit to Mandler's

Knit New York

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Knit New York is genius -- a coffee shop and knitting store all in one. Only open three days, and it already looks like a hit. We ducked in this afternoon for drinks, and the place was buzzing with knitters and folks eager to welcome Knit to the neighborhood. Knit offers a full selection of coffee/espresso and tea beverages, baked goods, skeins of beautiful yarns and knitting supplies. Knitting classes start this month.

Knit New York
307 E. 14th St.
(212) 387-0707

Links to Go

NPR segment on the 40th anniversary of the Easy-Bake Oven.

For $19.99, you can revisit your childhood with the latest Easy-Bake Oven that looks more like a microwave than oven.

Take your Easy-Bake Oven to the next level with The Easy-Bake Oven Gourmet by David Hoffman.

Also on NPR, a chat with Jeffrey Steingarten.

Sliceny.com is a weblog about New York-style pizza. I love this post on Grimaldi's appearance on Law & Order. Here's their review of recently opened Pinch: Pizza by the Inch.

According to the December issue of Business 2.0 magazine, the best lunch cart in NYC is Hallo Berlin (registration required).
"The self-proclaimed "wurst pushcart in New York" serves up juicy knockwurst ($3), bratwurst ($3.50), and weisswurst ($3.50). Regulars choose what proprietor Rolf Babiel calls his Dictator Special ($5 to $6): two sausages (of Babiel's choice) smothered in steak sauce, fried potatoes, onions, and red cabbage. Babiel got a letter from Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's office inviting him to relocate, but the East German transplant refused to leave Manhattan. "I am used to da love und da hate," he says. At 54th Street and Fifth Avenue."

Hollyeats.com's recent visit to Hallo Berlin.

No more Choice

Looking for the perfect location to open your new restaurant? A prime location is now available -- great space with dramatic mezzanine, prime Gramery Park/Park Ave address, and high end kitchen. All this is available thanks to the closing of Choice.

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Matsuri, Schiller's Liquor Bar, Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop, Alta.

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes gives Matsuri two stars (369 West 16th St., in Maritime Hotel; (212) 243-6400):

. . . Youthful and exuberant, and stylish as all get-out, it pulls off the neat trick of presenting both traditional and modernized Japanese food in a warehouse-size basement that feels as much like a club as it does a restaurant.

. . . Into this operatic setting steps Tadashi Ono, no stranger to the idea of cuisine as theater. Formerly the chef at La Caravelle, he created a serene temple of avant-garde Japanese cuisine at Sono, where he made not only the food but the plates and bowls as well. The mission at the high-energy Matsuri is different. Most of the menu is dedicated to perfectly traditional sushi and sashimi, with fairly standard hand rolls added on. Matsuri offers nearly 30 species of fish, with a couple of less commonly encountered selections, shad and pink snapper. On a Manhattan scale of sushi excellence, I would put Matsuri in the upper third for quality and freshness, with a special commendation for the sweet egg custard sushi.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Lotus root braised in soy sake; sea-eel tempura; sake black cod; deep-fried sea bass with ponzu sauce; lobster red miso soup; coconut-milk tofu with strawberry water; Japanese pumpkin pie.

Casa Mono and Bar Jamón

Walking down Irving Place earlier today, I took a few photos of Casa Mono and Bar Jamón, the soon to be opened and newly opened ventures of Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich. Not surprisingly, preliminary reviews have been very positive.

Casa Mono, 52 Irving Place
Bar Jamón, 125 E 17th St., (212) 253-2773

NYTimes on Casa Mono and Bar Jamón:

With BAR JAMÓN, 125 East 17th Street, MARIO BATALI and JOSEPH BASTIANICH have turned their attention to Spain. Diners at tall counter-style tables can choose from a menu of about two dozen tapas, like tender calamari on a toasted baguette, two kinds of Spanish ham (jamón) and anchovies on a bed of chorizo-flavored bread crumbs. Mr. Batali and Mr. Bastianich, both of Babbo and Otto fame, have the chef ANDY NUSSER preparing the dishes next door at CASA MONO, another new spot of theirs that is opening in a week or so at 52 Irving Place. Casa Mono will have a more elaborate menu of small plates, and seats at 20 tables and 2 bars. Unlike Bar Jamón, it will eventually accept reservations.

(A very large and legible version of the menu is here.)

NYMetro on Casa Mono and Bar Jamón.

Gotham Gal had a few bites of things to come at Casa Mono.

Sustenance declares Bar Jamón "tiny but fantastic."

Chowhound reviews of Bar Jamón: (1) and (2)

TaHo

Thanks to the weekend's snow storm, my mom was stuck in the city for a night due to a missed connection and canceled flight. We made the best of it and headed to Chinatown for one of her favorite treats, hot "TaHo." Taho is a warm and creamy tofu custard served with a sweet syrup, popular in Taiwan and the Phillipines, where it's often served with tapioca balls. It's typical street food -- cheap ($0.75 for a small and $1.75 for a large) and tasty.

The "TaHo" stall we visit is on Mott Street, just south of Bayard Street. In addition to taho, he also serves fried radish cakes ($1.25 for three pieces) -- a popular dim sum dish made of radish, rice powder, dried shrimp, and Chinese sausage.