A Full Belly

NYC Just Kidding: A Benefit for Just Food

NYC Just Kidding: A Comedy and Music Benefit for Just Food is this Wednesday, May 3th. 

Just Food is a non-profit organization in NYC that helps increase access to fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables. They work with community gardeners, regional farmers, and people in the community through 4 programs: City Farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in NYC, Community Food Education, and Food Justice.

Tickets start at just $40, and can be purchased online at www.brownpapertickets.com. For more information, call Just Food at 212-645-9880, ext. 221.

katrina relief events

These are but two well-organized nation-wide food-related events to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, if you know of any more please feel free to leave a comment or drop us an email!

Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour!
Monday, September 12
5:00 - 7:00 pm

"Bar and restaurant owners shake up New Orleans' classic cocktails to directly benefit New Orleans food and beverage industry workers who are out of work and sorely in need of funds for rebuilding their lives. During this special event New Orleans classics will be offered at participating bars for $10 per drink. Receipts from the Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour will be donated to a special tax-deductible relief fund established by the Museum of the American Cocktail."

There are a fair number of New York establishments participating, like Upper West Side stalwart Jacques-Imo's, which is throwing its own fundraiser on September 14. Good food, open bar, live entertainment and an auction, 100% of proceeds go towards hurricane relief. Advance tickets are $30 or $40 at the door.

(San Francisco's only got one place participating? What's up with that?)

Restaurants for Relief
Tuesday, September 27

OpenTable.com is organizing restaurants to donate a portion of their dinner sales from the night to Share our Strength's Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. List of participating restaurants will be up on September 12. Work at or own a restaurant that might like to join, please sign up!

big apple bbq block party review is coming

I'm still recovering from the wonderful meaty madness that was this past weekend's Big Apple BBQ Block Party so you'll have to wait a little bit longer for my review, but I was there both days (plus Friday's pit set up and VIP party) and shot a lot of photos, here are five to tide you over in the meantime:

Garry Roark of Ubon's "Champion's Choice". (Friday)

Beef brisket and sausage, Michael Rodriguez' of The Salt Lick. (Saturday)

Ed Mitchell of Mitchell's BBQ and some pork waiting to be pulled. (Saturday)

Baby back ribs, Mike Mills of 17th St Bar & Grill. (Sunday)

Pitmasters, hanging out. (Sunday)

If there's anything you particularly want to see photos of or hear about in my review, or you have something to share about your BABBP experience, please feel free to leave a comment!

nyt on restaurant week

The Times discusses NYC's upcoming Restaurant Week: For 20 Bucks, Is It Worth It?

David Waltuck, the chef and an owner of Chanterelle, said he uses ingredients that are "maybe a little less expensive" like chicken or salmon during the Restaurant Week lunch rush. "I wouldn't do calves' liver or tripe or a strong fish," he said.

But Akhtar Nawab, the chef at CraftBar, might. "We kind of try to show off that week," he said, offering dishes plucked from the regular menu, like orzo in rendered bone marrow and sea urchin tagliatelle. Portions, he said, are slightly smaller.

Other chefs do not change the portion size but may skimp on costly ingredients. "It may be the amount of fresh morels," said Kerry Heffernan, chef at Eleven Madison Park, referring to his signature English pea flan, one of five appetizer options.

Devi, the new Indian restaurant in Chelsea, may be too young to know any better, but dinner customers can pick any three dishes from its lengthy menu, including Jamison Farms' tandoor lamb chops, which usually cost $29.

Some chefs say it is worth the financial blow if participating customers return, and research compiled by NYC & Company says two-thirds of them do.

 

Two-thirds! Wow. I wonder if the return rate is different at places that offer cheaper, off-menu items as compared to those that treat Restaurant Week as a loss leader (like I talked about in my Taste of Chinatown review), not to mention the satisfaction rate for the second visit.

(I've reservations with friends at Blue Smoke and Artisanal for Restaurant Week, but now I'm thinking I should be checking Devi out for those tandoor lamb chops and Butter just because I like the chef's attitude about making a good first impression.)

nyc restaurant week

NYC New York Restaurant Week. $20.12 for lunch and $35 for dinner off of three course prix fixe menus at some of the best restaurants in the city. Most of the places I want to try are only participating at lunch, boo!

egg rolls & egg creams

NYC This Sunday, June 5 from 12 to 4 p.m. check out the free Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Block Party being thrown by the Eldridge Street Synagogue: "Celebrate the two cultures, Chinese-American and East European Jewish, that make our Lower East Side block so dynamic. Experience the traditions of the Synagogue's founders, as well as the customs and crafts of the Chinese immigrants who are our neighbors. This family-friendly event features storytelling, craft demonstrations, hands-on art activities, great music and, of course, kosher egg rolls and egg creams!" It's events like this that really make you appreciate living in such a melting pot of a city.

jim leff, chowhound

NYC We Pledge Allegiance. Jim Leff of Chowhound showed up at Coliseum Books to promote the new book, Chowhound's Guide to the Tri-State Area, in a dog mask to protect his identity. And how much do I love the pledge he asked the audience to take?

taste of chinatown 2005

NYC Some of you may remember me posting about last month's Taste of Chinatown 2005, in which over 50 restaurants, bakeries, tea houses and specialty shops in Chinatown offered tasting plates for just $1 each. Despite the rain I went down to Chinatown and met up with some friends to see what the various places had to offer, my pocket full of singles and my belly uncharacteristically empty.

I missed last year's event so I have nothing to compare this year's to but I thought it was a real mixed bag. A dollar per serving is a wonderful price point and I hadn't been to any of the places participating before, so Taste of Chinatown could've introduced me to many new great tastes, but that's not quite what happened. Each restaurant should've taken the event as an opportunity to put their best foot forward, to offer small portions of some of their best dishes up even if they lost a little bit of money on the day itself as a temporary loss leader, to make new customers out of people who might never otherwise step through their doors. From what I saw though most places decided not to go this route and offered basic items you can get from every other restaurant in the neighborhood (not to mention the greasy takeout places all over the city), like noodles and fried rice; smacked of cheapness and was to me a bad marketing decision.

Now that I've got my little diatribe out of the way: I went around trying lots of different things, taking heed of which items the people who were clearly regulars were purchasing. I ended up doing most of my eating on Mott! Here are some of my notes, with links to photos:

Mandarin Court
61 Mott
212-608-3838

They had lots of dimsum out but by far my favorites were the fried dumplings, both pork and shrimp. I went back for a second helping, making sure that my friends tried their wares too, and I will return to try a full meal.

House of Vegetarian
68 Mott
212-226-6572

I'm a dedicated carnivore but I really enjoyed the two desserts from HoV, the surprisingly delicate fried banana and the very light, very refreshing mango pudding. (Their hot & sour soup is supposed to be very good, for those of you who are strict vegetarians and had given up on ever having some again!)

Mr Tang's
50 Mott
212-233-8898

Rude service plus both things I tried, fried dumpling & fried tofu, were nasty. Two thumbs way down.

Ping's Seafood
22 Mott
212-602-9988

Everything I sampled from Ping's Seafood was just fantastic. I usually avoid chicken at Chinese restaurants but the spicy chicken on my plate was great, extremely hot but you could still taste all the underlying flavors. The real revelation though was the chow fun, none of my companions had ever had chow fun that looked anything like their chow fun and we couldn't get enough of it, we still talk about it a month later! I'm returning to Ping's later this week and will be sure to order it, and also to follow Gastronome-In-Training's recommendation to always sit upstairs, where the carts are more active.

Peking Duck House
28 Mott
212-227-1810

Talk about your temporary loss leader, Peking Duck House's tasting plate was actually Peking Duck! And they didn't exactly scrimp on the servings either. So as you can imagine the line was extremely long, at least 30 minutes or so. I was tempted to approach someone near the front of it and offer to pay for their serving if they would get one for me too but chickened out and ended up not having any, but you can bet I have plans to dine there sometime soon.

Hsin Wong
72 Bayard
212-925-6526

This place is right beside A Full Belly all-time favorite New Green Bo so I've walked by it many times and never even so much as glanced at the menu, but it was getting cold out and congee seemed like a good way to warm up so my friend Miranda and I decided to split a tub of what turned out to be lovely hot congee with century eggs and super salty pork. I'm happy to have an alternative for those days when I fiend for congee but getting to Congee Village on the LES feels like too much of a chore.

92nd st y food talks

The 92nd St Y has a trio of great food talks this May you might want to think about attending:

Fergus Henderson, Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich: Adventurous Eating
Gael Greene, moderator
Wed, May 4, 8:00 pm, $25

"Join this group of intrepid tasters and find out more about the world’s most unusual meals. Fergus Henderson is the chef of the UK’s acclaimed restaurant St. John and author of The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. Mario Batali is star of TV’s Molto Mario and chef-owner of the New York restaurants Babbo, Lupa, Esca and Otto Enoteca Pizzeria. His new book is called Molto Italiano. Lidia Bastianich is chef-owner of Felidia, host of the popular Public Television series Lidia’s Family Table and author of a new book, Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen. Food writer and critic Gael Greene moderates. Her memoir, Insatiable, will be published in spring 2006."

Ruth Reichl in Conversation with Liz Smith: Food and Dishing
Wed, May 18, 8:00 pm, $25

"Ruth Reichl is the editor-in-chief of Gourmet and the author of the bestsellers Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me With Apples. Her most recent memoir is Garlic & Sapphires. She has been the restaurant critic at The New York Times and the food editor and restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times."

This next one has already sold out (New Yorkers are cheese-crazed, after all) but I thought you should know about it anyway. If you really really really want to go, perhaps you can beg or pay for someone's spare ticket on Craigslist or outside the 92nd St Y right before the event; also the Y sometimes releases a bunch of tickets an hour before events at the box office, so give them a call!

Steven Jenkins: The Master Cheesemonger’s Favorite Cheeses
Sat, May 14, 7:30 pm, $45

"If you love cheese and wine, this program is for you. Learn all about cheeses (and the wines that love them) from Steven Jenkins, Fairway Market’s king of queso, and Joshua Wesson, Best Cellars’ guru of grapes. Jenkins will present nine cheeses in a comfortable and relaxed setting and Wesson will pour a quartet of quaffs to accompany them. Come hungry and ready to discover a new world of great tastes. Jenkins, author of Cheese Primer, was the first American to be inducted into France’s ancient and elite Guilde du St.Uguzon in 1976. His show, The Jenkins Chronicles, can be heard on NPR’s The Splendid Table."

NYC: November Food and Wine Events at the 92nd Street Y

The 92nd Street Y's Fall Calendar is full of food and wine events worth checking out this month, including how to roll your own sushi, a culinary walking tour of Hell's Kitchen, and several wine tastings. Unless otherwise noted, all programs take place at the 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue (between 91st and 92nd Streets). Registration/Tickets: www.92Y.org or 212-415-5500.

Panel - In Memory’s Kitchen
Sunday, November 7, 7:30 pm, $25
Join us for an unforgettable evening featuring Cara De Silva, editor, and Bianca Steiner Brown, translator of one of the most unusual cookbooks ever published, In Memory’s Kitchen, written by the women of the Terezin concentration camp. De Silva will recount the genesis of this important work and the remarkable survival of the manuscript on which it is based. Ms. Steiner Brown will speak about the book’s contents from the very personal perspective of someone interned in the camp for three years. Culinary historian and author Alexandra Leaf moderates.

Tasting - Wines of the New World
Tuesday, November 9, 7-9 pm, 2 sessions, $120 (includes materials)
Bold Cabernet from Chile, spicy Malbec from Argentina, silky Shiraz from Australia, crisp Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand—these are just a few of the exciting wines coming from the developing wine regions of the New World. Taste a wide sampling of wines from the Southern Hemisphere as you explore their variety and value under the guidance of wine expert Meg O’Connell. Eight wines per session.

Talk - Culinary Memories
Wed, Nov 10, 12-1 pm, $15
Michelle Greenwald, a food aficionado and author of the celebrated cookbook "The Magical Melting Pot," cooks up a sampling from the childhood memories and cultural influences of some of the country’s great chefs. Come hear about the culinary memories that inspired Zarela Martinez (Zarela’s in NYC), Chava Volman, longtime chef to the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N., and Ella Brennan (Commanders Palace restaurant in New Orleans), among others. This program takes place at MAKOR, the 92nd Street Y’s West Side location, at 35 West 67th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.

Workshop - Roll-Your-Own Sushi
Begins Thu, Nov 11, 7-8:30 pm, 2 sessions, $70
For the price of dinner out, chef Simon Feil will teach you to prepare sushi – that healthful haute cuisine – in your own kitchen. Entertain friends, impress a date or enjoy a quiet evening at home with your newfound skills.