Red Hook ball field vendors got the thumbs-up yesterday to start normal operations again on Saturday, July 19. Talk about relief! Despite the major delay and temporary "satellite" home at the Brooklyn Flea, New Yorkers will soon be rewarded for their patience.
Who else is jumping on the Ikea water taxi for huaraches and cheese-dusted corn next weekend? [Via Porkchop Express]
Editor's note: Every afternoon we like to post a short Sugar Rush to end your day. Think of it as the dessert to your daily blog reading. —Zach
Melissa of Sweet Melissa Patisserie isn't from Philly, but she's scooping the city's fifth-generation ice cream tradition from her Carroll Gardens shop. Bassetts, a super rich and butterfatty brand available inside Reading Terminal and many Pennsylvania parlors, is an institution right up there with cheesesteaks, but not commonly spotted in New York. Other than a few high-end markets, the Little Pie Company in Manhattan, and formerly FAO Schwarz, it's a road trip away.
Trust Melissa, a woman known for pies and cakes, she would have churned her own ice cream if she had the space, and given recent remodeling at 276 Court Street, this should be a reality by next year. But after taste-testing ten brands from all over, Bassetts finally read her mind. "You can't always match what you taste in your head, and this one did."
She's regularly stocking six flavors (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pistachio, coffee and a raspberry sorbet) and a rotating seventh (like cookies and cream, black cherry, or peaches and cream), but the focus here is on Melissa's original toppings.
Planning ahead is important at Toby's Public House. While the brick-oven pizzas are tasty, don't you dare fill up prematurely. And don't go alone. Sweet tooths should plan around the $13 calzone dessert, stuffed with Nutella and fresh ricotta. Adam purposely left this monster out of his Toby's review on Slice today, sending me on special assignment.
Dusted with powdered sugar, the smile-shaped pocket "serves two," but that's two stomachs deliberately saving room. So massive, the calzone needs a metallic pizza round instead of a normal plate, and doesn't even merit the normal fork-and-knife routine; it's a hands-only food. Stumped, our own Ed Levine didn't even recognize the curious combo, but instantly wanted one.
What other cheese is soft enough to handle the brick oven heat without melting? And calm enough to let the Nutella do its rich, hazlenutty thing?
A chef at Toby's Public House birthed the combo, but according to a Frank Bruni review, a similar one exists at Gemma. Toby's waitstaff recommends washing it down with Frangelico, the Northern Italian hazlenut liqueur. Serious Eats New York editor Zach Brooks said it best: "this is a gross abomination in the best possible way." Another seductive photo after the jump.
At the New Amsterdam Market: pistachio rhubarb bread from Bouchon Bakery, sweet basil ice cream from The Bent Spoon, and a blueberry and yogurt popsicle from The People's Popsicle.
If you didn't substitute lunch in New York yesterday with bites of artisan breads and broken hunks of 80% cocoa dark chocolate, you missed out. Here are some of the tasty things we sampled at New Amsterdam Market on the South Street Seaport and the much more cramped Unfancy Food Show in Williamsburg. (A few things, we did pay for however, and they were totally worth it.)
Besides the gourmet flavors at these temporarily rained-on events, each had a grassroots community spirit. At the New Amsterdam Market, long pieces of butcher paper, or the market's "petition," filled up with signatures in an effort to persuade the city that these stalls should be permanently moved into the empty Fulton Fish Market behind them. Across the river at the second-annual Unfancy Food Show, organizer Tom Mylan of Diner and Marlow & Sons said yesterday's attendance doubled last year's, and he expects the third annual to easily double that. Peruse photos after the jump.
284 Grand Street, Brooklyn NY 11211 (near Roebling; map); 718-782-8222
Must-Haves: Lardo pizza; cavatelli with broccoli rabe and sausage; skirt steak with salsa verde; fried calamari and zucchini
What You'll Spend: $30 for two courses, a glass of wine, tax, and tip
Grade: B+
Remember back in the day, when going out to eat an Italian meal in New York was not an extravagance or much of a financial commitment? Those were the days of red sauce; chicken, veal, and eggplant parm; lasagna and baked ziti; baked clams and fried zucchini; of an Italian meal that cost less than $25 a head.
Then real authentic fancy-pants northern Italian food appeared in New York when Lidia and Felix Bastianich opened Felidia in 1981. Ten years ago Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich opened Babbo, and now the city is awash with first-rate expensive Italian restaurants. Don't get me wrong. I love the food at Del Posto, Scarpetta, Alto, Fiamma, and the like, but, oh how I long for the first-rate, authentically Italian, seriously delicious Italian repast that doesn't dent the wallet quite so heavily.
Enter Giancarlo Quadalti. Quadalti, the chef-partner at the fine, unheralded Teodora on East 57th Street, is a well-seasoned, incredibly talented Italian chef (from Emilia Romagna) who wants all of us serious eaters to eat terrific Italian food and not pay through the nose for it. He has done that at Celeste on the Upper West Side, Bianca in the East Village, and now he has even raised his game with Fiore in Williamsburg, which he opened with the equally talented chef-partner Roberto Aita (Roc) in a building that Quadalti lives in, above the restaurant. Fiore might be the best Italian food bargain in town.
The gentleman exiting the building is not Ed Levine. (Photographs: Robyn Lee)
With barbecue joints seemingly sprouting up on every corner these days in New York, it's easy to forget what a barbecue wilderness Gotham was for so many years.
When I arrived in New York in 1973, there was precious little real barbecue, slow-smoked meat cooked with indirect heat. Even by the late '80s our barbecue options here were limited to Smokey's on Ninth Avenue (for North Carolina barbecue), Stick to Your Ribs in Queens, and Tennessee Mountain Home in SoHo.
225 Park Avenue South, New York NY 10003 (at 18th Street; map)
212-533-2500
Website
Must-Haves: Brisket, short ribs, beans, cornbread, salt and vinegar potato chips
What You'll Spend: $30 and up (not including alcohol) for dinner
Grade: B
The barbecue game-changers in our town were Virgil's in Times Square and Blue Smoke in the Flatiron District, both opened by respected restaurateurs (the late Artie Cutler, and Danny Meyer, respectively). Following those in short order were Daisy May's, the first chef-driven barbecue joint in New York (Daniel and Le Cirque veteran Adam Perry Lang), R.U.B. (Paul Kirk), with its Kansas City–influenced style; and Hill Country, which harkened to Smokey's with its dedication to a single regional barbecue style (in its case, central Texas's German butcher–derived 'cue). Hill Country (Robbie Richter and Big Lou Elrose) and Daisy May's were also the first barbecue joints manned by competition pit masters who honed their barbecue skills on the national 'cue competition circuit.
Now comes Wildwood BBQ, which brings together the talents of an interesting trio: megasuccessful, commercially oriented restaurateur Steve Hanson, the aforementioned pit master Elrose, and uber restaurant designer David Rockwell. Hanson has made it clear that he hopes to roll out Wildwood nationally in the next year, bringing his pan-regional, urbane-but-not-fancy-pants barbecue concept to a city near you. But barbecue is tricky business, serious eaters, and does not easily translate to multiple locations, so I was curious as to what I would find at Wildwood.
Oft overlooked is the humble ice cube. But when presented just so in a rocks glass, with a pour of good bourbon or a well-balanced cocktail, a carefully crafted hunka frozen H20 can be a work of art, as this, ahem, cool feature by Grub Streets shows. And, oh, pretty slide show of the prettiest ice from bars around New York City.
In the "Borough of Broker," in the "Hove Beach" neighborhood, stands "Johnson's," the "Home of the Wiener":
After much anticipation from millions of gamers, Grand Theft Auto 4 debuted worldwide today. This being Serious Eats, we did some digging around on the game's website for any food- or restaurant-related material inside the game, which takes place in "Liberty City," a metropolis loosely modeled on New York City. Here's what we found.
From Eater's "Gatekeepers" series, in which the blog talks to front-of-the-house staff about their domains, comes this bizarre incident related by George Atterbury, general manager of Grayz:
What's the most outrageous request from a customer that you couldn't accommodate?
A customer wanted to dine with their pet monkey in the restaurant. Literally we had a guest walk into the restaurant hand in hand with a monkey and asked to be seated at the best possible table. I have been witness to a lot of different requests since coming from The Modern but that definitely has topped any request. The monkey was even wearing a little Burberry jacket.
Address: 13-15 West 54th Street, New York NY (Midtown; map)
Phone: 212-262-4600
Website: grayz.net
Grub Street has an annotated still life with baked goods that illustrates the goodies on offer at Batch, Pichet Ong's new bakery Batch, including foie gras dog biscuits. Batch: 150B West 10th Street, New York NY 10014 (Greenwich Village; map)
From left: Sausage, egg, and cheese on a burger bun, from Gray's Papaya; grilled asparagus, frittata, and asiago cheese on a ciabatta roll, from Grandaisy Bakery. Both next door to each other, near the corner of West 72nd and Broadway.
Is there anything better than a breakfast sandwich in the morning? Combine smoked or cured pork (in the form of bacon, ham, or sausage) with eggs and cheese, and place it all on bread of some sort. I defy anyone to resist. While most serious eaters know that Gray's Papaya is the home of very fine hot dogs, many don't know that Gray's also makes a worthy breakfast sandwich: a sausage patty or a thick slice of ham, a scrambled egg made to order on the grill, and a slice of American cheese on a heated hamburger bun. All for a hard-to-beat $1.75.
Next door to Gray's is a recently opened branch of the Grandaisy Bakery. It serves a wonderful, more upscale breakfast sandwich of a completely different stripe: grilled asparagus, frittata, and asiago cheese on a ciabatta roll. It's totally delicious in its own right, though at $5, this sandwich requires a more substantial financial commitment.
Which is the superior breakfast sandwich? I can't decide. It depends on my mood. I urge all of you to try both and make up your own minds. You'll be participating in the highest form of food democracy.
Address: 2090 Broadway, New York NY 10023 (at 72nd Street)
Notes: Breakfast sandwich available daily until noon
Address: 176 West 72nd Street (bet. Broadway and Columbus), New York, NY 10023
Phone: 646-274-1607
Notes: Breakfast sandwich available Friday–Sunday, some weekdays
Have you ever ambled around your town thinking, "My god, I could really go for a fresh crème brûlée right now; if only there were a conveniently located truck selling high-end desserts for reasonable prices. If only."
Whether or not this thought has crossed your mind, you willdevelop a craving for crème brûlée when you come across the welcoming window of the Dessert Truck at 8th Street and University Place in New York's Greenwich Village. Not in the mood for crème brûlée? How about chocolate bread pudding or molten chocolate cake, just two of the six options on the truck's dessert menu? Thanks to the truck's founders, pastry chef Jerome Chang (formerly the pastry sous chef at Le Cirque) and Columbia business school student Chris Chen, your blood sugar will be less at risk for dipping to a suboptimal level.
Yesterday I stopped at the Union Square Greenmarket and couldn't help buying a cranberry walnut square from the Breezy Hill Orchards stand. Elizabeth Ryan, Breezy Hills' owner, is one of the best baker-farmers I know, and this buttery, not-very-sweet square is further proof of that. The cranberries, of course, provide some much-needed tartness, and the walnuts added some nutty crunch. Breezy Hill Orchards is at the Union Square Greenmarket Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
I was already running late this morning, and the Root Hill Cafe is, technically, out of my way as I make my morning beeline to the subway station. But I had a feeling. A thought slowly started to nag at me—What if they have a Clover machine?
Over the last few months, I've been watching this space on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Carroll Street in Brooklyn transform from a spottily run car service to a hip little coffee house with lots of thoughtful architectural details. And given that it opened just last week—at just the right time to have possibly snagged one of the last non-Starbucks Clover brewers—I didn't mind adding a few minutes to my commute by crossing the street to find out and put that nagging thought to rest.
If you're a New York pizza freak (and aren't we all?), you're going to be hearing a lot about Artichoke, the tiny new East Village pizzeria that's just opened on East 14th Street. Slicers (readers and contributors) have already weighed in on Artichoke, and in the coming days I'm sure every pizza-loving food writer is going to be writing about it as well. I reported on my first Artichoke experience over on Slice, and I think the place has great potential, but at this point it's too early to anoint it the new Di Fara. Let's give the promising young pizzaiolo at Artichoke some time before we drown them in cheesy hype.
Hunts Point Market, at 60 acres and 700,000 square feet of refrigerated storage, is the largest food distribution center in the world.
The Village Voice introduces us to the restaurants that feed the thousands of workers at the huge Hunts Point Cooperative wholesale food market in the Bronx. I am looking forward to trying: the broccoli rabe sandwich at Fratelli's Pizza Cafe the camarones (shrimp) on Fridays only at the Dominican La Misma Nelly Coffee Shop, the pernil (roast pork) at Randall Restaurant, Frank's Filthy sandwich, which features barbecued chicken and mac and cheese, at Market Kitchen.
I've had Mo Gridder's barbecue (good ribs, substandard pulled pork), but I have to admit I have never been to any of the other places the Voice mentions. The story is also a revealing glimpse about life at the Hunts Point Market, which is open 24 hours a day Monday through Friday. I don't know about all of the restaurants, but at least one, Fratelli's, is open the entire time.
As I was passing a neighbor yesterday morning on my way to work, she shouted out, "Happy Purim, Ed." And so I say to all of you, Happy Purim. I have no idea what Purim is all about, except that I think that someone named Esther triumphed over a dude named Haman. All I really know about Purim is that you get to eat hamantaschen, sweet triangular cookielike pastries filled in their exposed center with poppyseeds or prune or raspberry jam.
I associate hamantaschen with an anvil-like heaviness and a desert-like dryness. You could break a toe or two with the hamantaschen I grew up with, and those six-ounce heavyweights are what you are most likely to find anywhere hamantaschen are sold. They look like the one above, bought at Fairway Market today. They're tasty enough, but you feel like you get its dense essence two bites in.
Fairway also sells prepackaged Reisman's hamantaschen from a bakery deep in the heart of Brooklyn. These smaller specimens are pretty awful, really. The filling is too sweet and cheap-tasting; the less said about it the better.
Which leaves us with the one store-bought hamantashen that Esther, were she alive today, would be kvelling about, made by Emily Isaac at Trois Pommes Patisserie (doesn't sound very Jewish, does it?).
Sometimes, just when you thought there was nothing left to write about a subject, someone comes along and writes such a good piece you can only shake your head and wish you had written it yourself. That's how I feel after reading Larissa McFarquhar's profile of David Chang in this week's New Yorker. Chang seems to have allowed McFarquhar almost total access as he and his staff prepare to open Momofuku Ko.
If you're interested in food and chefs and people in general striving to do something meaningful in their lives, you must read this piece. Chang reveals himself to be a genuinely tortured (and conflicted) if well-meaning soul with generously spirited impulses, prodigious talent, and impossibly high Thomas Keller–and–Daniel Boulud-like standards. And as I have written many times over the years, the man can flat out cook, even if he won't admit it to himself. At Ko, as I reported last week, Chang and his merry gang of renegade cooks have taken their craft to deliciously inventive new heights.
After the jump, some quotes from the story highlighted in the press release the New Yorker sent out. Alas, our backward friends at the magazine have not yet put the story online. The profile is so revealing and insightful that the issue is worth buying.
Choice Eats was a fun event. It was reasonably well-organized, lines for food were not ridiculously long, and it was terrific fun to see all these international foods being served to people who would probably never venture to these restaurants on their own.
I didn't try everything, but Fatty Crab's tender-as-all-get-out beef ribs on rice were a highlight, as was Fette Sau's pastrami, though half of the brisket they used to make it was barely smoked. I also liked Mercadito's impossibly cute two-bite shrimp tacos. I truly regret not trying Kampuchea's ribs, which by all accounts were crazy good.
Chuck Schumer can rest easy. His Saturday afternoon stop for goat tacos, the collection of Red Hook soccer field food vendors, will continue to be a haven for food lovers for the next six years. The forces of real, honest food won this time.
I hope the good senator tries the huaraches next time he's there. For more info and a great photo taken by my friend Peter Cunningham, click here.
I know it's winter, so you're probably not thinking about ice cream, gelato, or any other frozen dessert, but listen up. Gino Cammarata, as I wrote in the New York Times in 2002, might be New York City's best artisanal gelato maker, and he is back this week after a prolonged absence from Gotham's food scene.
He's making his transcendent gelati in the front of a popular tanning salon in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
You heard me right. In a tanning salon.
Imagine a a new kind of Greek coffee shop, one opened by a really talented chef who uses good ingredients and does his thing in an environmentally friendly way.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds like a concept that any New Yorker would welcome in their neighborhood. Well, Columbia and Morningside Heights have the first one: Community Food & Juice.
New York magazine food critic Adam Platt all but called Bar Boulud strikingly ordinary. Time Out New York's Randall Lane and the New York Daily News' Restaurant Girl concurred. They all seemed to come to the same conclusion: The food at Bar Boulud, other than the charcuterie, isn't special enough. Is all this criticism justified? Is it fair? Where's the beef? Let me try to answer all of the above questions.
What is it with New York burger joints that don't open until darkness looms? Are they trying to imply that burgers are not to be eaten until late in the day? I'm in a burger-foraging mood today, and I would love to try the burger at either Royale, which A Hamburger Today's Lauren Krueger made sound so good, or the Stoned Crow, but neither opens until at least 4 p.m. Have certain New York burgers attained such a level of hipness that they cannot be consumed until the sun goes down? C'mon, people. This is ridiculous.
157 Avenue C, New York NY (at 10th Street)
212-254-6600
85 Washington Place, New York NY
212-677-4022
Downtown chocolate places for Valentine's Day worth a nibble and a few extra calories:
Last time I walked into Chocolate Bar they had a pretty good selection of other chocolatier's chocolates, but they were all rather pricey, perhaps because everything they buy almost everything they sell and mark it up accordingly.
Address: 48 Eighth Ave. (bet. Horatio and Jane Sts.)
Phone: 212-366-1541
Midtown and Upper East Side chocolate places for Valentine's Day worth a nibble and a few extra calories:
Maribel Lieberman has gone uptown on us, but her hot chocolate and chocolates are still as good as ever. Don't worry—her Soho location is still open. 762 Madison Avenue, between 65th and 66th Streets; 212-249-4585; mariebelle.com
According to the New York Post and the New York Daily News, here's what is on the line in the annual mayors' Super Bowl Bet:
If the Giants win, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will receive 100 cups of Legal Seafoods New England clam chowder, 42 pounds of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, 12 Boston cream pies, 12 dozen Parker House rolls, 100 hot dogs, 20 pizzas, five cases of ice cream and yogurt bars, and 100 servings of organic yogurt.
If the Giants lose, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will receive 42 Carnegie Deli pastrami and corned beef sandwiches; some Big Blue Cheese Eli Mann-Eater burgers from Gallagher's Steak House, a case of beef and chicken patties from Golden Krust Bakery, pizza from Goodfella's on Staten Island, rugelach from Junior's in Brooklyn, ices from the Lemon Ice King of Corona, and 20 pounds of "Super Steak" from Peter Luger, along with six bottles of its steak sauce.
Is it me, or is this the most one-sided food bet in history? Menino will make out like a bandit if the Patriots win. And doesn't it also strengthen my case for New York's food superiority?
I couldn't resist. Boston Globe food editor Sheryl Julian asked me to write a piece for her paper explaining why New York food is so good and what I love about it. She had seen my post explaining New York's obvious food superiority over Boston and took good-natured umbrage at it. So in today's Boston Globe Julian and I go at it point counterpoint-style about the food in our respective cities.
Let me summarize the arguments for you:
I was passing E.A.T. yesterday, and the siren call of Eli Zabar's overpriced but usually delicious food got the best of me.
I ordered four items, all sweets; a quarter-pound of the fruit coffee cake ($3), a mini chocolate cupcake ($2), a black and white cookie, and a cup of Eboni and Ivory Pudding (chocolate and vanilla) ($4).
The coffee cake was reasonably moist and had thick veins of dried fruit, but it had too much orange rind in it for my taste. The mini chocolate cupcake was very chocolatey if a little dry. The black and white cookie tasted less than fresh.
The clear winner of the quartet was the pudding combo. It was almost obscenely rich and creamy with loads of real vanilla and high quality milk chocolate flavor. It might be the best pudding to be had anywhere in New York outside the butterscotch pudding at Sweet Melissa's in Brooklyn.
Note to all Ed Levine Diet Helpers: I adhered to my one-bite rule for all four items mentioned above, except for the pudding. I had two spoonfuls. It was just too good.
Address: 1064 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10128 (b/n 80th and 81st streets)
Phone: 212-772-0022
I hadn't been to Lombardi's in a year or so, so when two pizza-crazed colleagues from Minneapolis came to New York this week, I decided they should experience eating at the oldest pizzeria in America. We ordered three pies: a small sausage; a small half-pepperoni, half-pancetta; and a small half-plain white, half–sautéed spinach. All the pies were at least very good, and the white pie was awesome.
Eat three-course prix-fixe meals at some of New York City's best restaurants without breaking the bank during Restaurant Week Winter 2008. During the weeks of January 21 to 25 and January 28 to February 1, participating restaurants will serve lunches for $24.07 and dinners for $35.
Although the dates are still weeks away, we thought it would be worthwhile to give you our picks now so that you could make the necessary reservations immediately. If you can, call first to find out what they're serving for restaurant week. Some restaurants try to cheap out. Happy Hunting.
Our lady in Paris (at least half the time), Dorie Greenspan, posted on Serious Eats yesterday about the French seasonal cake galette de rois. Magically (well, not quite magically, in fact I ordered one) a galette des rois (pictured above) appeared on the Serious Eats doorstep yesterday from the SoHo French pastry shop Ceci Cela. I don't know if Ceci Cela's version is as good as one made from Dorie's recipe, but I can tell you that this is one delicious cake.
Dorie's description is right on: "The galette is really very simple—it’s an almond and pastry-cream filling sandwiched by two rounds of (all-butter) puff pastry dough—but so, so good."
I thought the almond part of the filling would make it taste marzipany, but in fact it was simply ground almonds.
Ed Levine diet watchers should note that I took two bites. Email the Serious Eaters for corroboration.
55 Spring Street, New York NY 10012 (b/n Mulberry and Lafayette); 212-274-9179
166 Chambers Street, New York NY 10017 (b/n West Broadway and Greenwich); 212-566-8933
Website: ceci-celapatisserie.com
Some of New York City's restaurants save their best dishes for serving at certain times. Time Out New York rounds 'em up.
The best new restaurant lists have started to come out in magazines and newspapers across the country, and we're going to try to track them for you at Serious Eats. But let's come up with our own Serious Eaters' List in the meantime.
I've been to eight of the ten restaurants on Frank Bruni's list of the Ten Best New Restaurants in New York:
1. Momofuku Ssam Bar (though including MSB as a new restaurant because of the date they officially started dinner service seems like a stretch to me.
2. Soto
3. (Tie) Anthos
4. Insieme
5. Park Avenue (Insert Season Here)
6. Resto
9. Pamplona
10. Mai House
Four years ago Alex Witchel took a stab at explaining the phenomenon of Jews in New York eating Chinese food on Christmas Day.
Somewhere, Christmas will look like this: cheerful children opening presents that don't break by noon; a glazed ham taking pride of place on the heirloom cherrywood sideboard as the heady aroma of gingerbread wafts through the house, which is itself set upon snow-covered hills where the leafy pine boughs are filigreed in ice.
I didn't expect to be so moved when I walked into the Second Avenue Deli for a preview "friends and family" meal last night, but I have to admit my eyes welled up with tears when I saw Jack Lebewohl, brother of Second Avenue Deli founder, the late Abe Lebewohl, standing by the door. I guess I didn't realize how much Abe and his deli had meant to me.
When I was a teenager going to the Fillmore East as often as I could, the Second Avenue Deli was my stop for comfort food before the show. When I first came to New York to live after college, the Second Avenue Deli became one of my go-to spots for shelter from the city's storm. Full disclosure: Before I ever wrote about food, when I wrote about music and promoted jazz concerts, I made a little money writing copy for the Second Avenue Deli mail-order catalog (I'm responsible for coining the phrase "give the gift of noshing").
It's Saturday night at 6:43. You're meeting friends for dinner, but you don't have a reservation. Just for fun I called around to some good restaurants I thought you might have a chance to get into. The following worthwhile restaurants can take you at 8:00 or 8:15:
Teodora -- very good Italian restaurant with terrific lasagna and vitello tonnato.
Address: 141 East 57th St, New York NY 10022
Phone: 212-826-7101
Mai House -- One of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the city that for some reason is not as popular as it should be.
Address: 186 Franklin St, New York NY 10013
Phone: 212-431-0606
Momoya Chelsea -- Solid Japanese restaurant with moderate prices and fresh food. It doesn't take reservations, but the woman answering the phone thought there would be tables available at 8 or 8:30 this evening. I have always been able to walk right in here.
Address: 187 7th Ave. (at 21st St.), New York NY 10011
Phone: 212-989-4466
Every Chinese food lover I know in New York has been decrying the decline of Chinese restaurants in Manhattan. You have to go to Flushing or Sunset Park to get a good Chinese meal, they all say.
Well, stop the fortune cookie presses. A couple of weeks ago I got a tip from a friend touting a great Sichuan restaurant in a most unlikely location, West 39th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. I went with a chef buddy last week the day before Thanksgiving, and, boy, were we blown away.
Szechuan Gourmet, a Manhattan branch of a Flushing restaurant of the same name (I don't even know if the Queens branch is still open), serves some mighty fine Sichuan food. Everything we had was at least a solid B-plus and most dishes were much better than that. The Dan Dan Noodles With Chile-Minced Pork were merely very good, but the Chef's Ma Paul Tofu was sensational, cloud light and fiery hot. Double Cooked Sliced Pork Belly With Chile Leeks was divinely porky and meaty, and the Stir Fried Chicken With Roasted Chile had me wanting to return the next day.
Szechuan Gourmet joins a short list of fine Sichuan restaurants in Manhattan:
Oh, yes, it's that time of year, when we get to live and eat vicariously by giving food, books, gadgets, and all the other things we think our fellow food lovers would crave and covet. So over the next 28 days we're going to tell you about lots of stuff we would be thrilled to give or get. Every item we tell you about we've eaten, read, or tried, so you can be confident that if you do order something from our guide you'll be giving or getting something delicious or crazy good.
Today I'm going to focus on New York foods. Let's face it, it's not just New York expats who appreciate quintessential New York foods. We know lots of people who have never lived in Gotham who have come to appreciate the pleasures New York foods afford serious eaters everywhere.
The Sullivan Street Bakery situation has been difficult to follow, even for someone like me who's known all the parties involved for years.
Jim Lahey and Monica Von Thun Calderon were the original partners of the Sullivan Street Bakery on Sullivan Street. Last year Jim and Monica dissolved their partnership. Monica kept the original location and renamed it the Grandaisy Bakery, where she continues to use Jim's recipes. Jim kept the West 47th Street location.
So far, so good, right? Monica has now opened another branch of Grandaisy on West 72nd Street, right next to Gray's Papaya. Jim is shortly going to open a pizzeria-cafe on Ninth Avenue and 24th Street. Just to further complicate things for Upper West Siders in need of Sullivan Street Bakery bread, Fairway stopped selling Sullivan Street bread within the last year and replaced it with a Bronx bakery started by a former Sullivan Street employee. These breads look like Jim Lahey's breads, but they're not quite as good.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, how are the goods at the new Grandaisy?
To use a Larry David expression, pretty, pretty good.
I often donate food tours to nonprofit groups so that they can auction them at benefits. Yesterday I took the winner of a silent auction for the Classic Stage Company and four of his friends on a food tour of Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens with two stops in adjoining Red Hook for dessert. We had a blast. It was a particularly interesting and felicitous bunch. Included in the group was Jill Donenfeld who runs a private chef company called The Dish's Dish. She also announced early on that she was running in the New York City Marathon without training for it. She had in fact run in the Marine Marathon in Washington, D.C., last year without training and finished in less than four and a half hours. Once she told me of her plans, I decided to load her up with my kind of carbs. This is where we went.
My brother and I supped at the Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grill, the latest Blue Ribbon outpost, tucked into Six Columbus, a boutique hotel on West 58th Street. I expected a scene-driven, noisy restaurant that would make the two Levine brothers feel old. I turned out to be dead wrong. This is a restaurant for grown-ups, with a terrific menu that could be described as Blue Ribbon's Greatest Hits. The sushi was first-rate, not surprising given the fact that the restaurant's delayed opening allowed Blue Ribbon Sushi chef-partner Toshi Ueki to train fifteen sushi chefs over the course of six months. From the grill I had the hanger steak served with roasted mushrooms and a stack of what the menu described as Tokyo-fried scallions. My bro had the fried chicken and he generously gave me the drumstick. Blue Ribbon owners Bruce and Eric Bromberg are among a handful of great fried chicken makers in the city, and the version they serve here comes with a wasabi-honey dipping sauce that though quite good is not really necessary. This is fried chicken that is perfectly seasoned, with a greaseless, crunchy exterior, and a meaty, moist interior. The smoked trout salad had little pieces of house-smoked trout that were too dry and salty.
As an Upper West Side resident I'm thrilled to have my very own Blue Ribbon outpost so close by, especially one that so easily allows conversation.
Address: 6 Columbus Circle, New York NY 10019 (at West 58th Street; map)
Phone: 212-397-0404
I love onion rings. Don't you? I'm talking about real individual, separate-and-more-than -equal rings of fresh onion battered and fried. Crisp, golden brown, slightly puffy, greaseless onion rings.
I'm not talking about bloomin' onions or onion loaves or wispy onion strands. Those have their place. Just not here. So to honor those chefs and cooks who know how to fry real onion rings up right, I'm going to put together a list of killer onion rings in New York. Please help me, as I'm sure I haven't eaten every great onion ring in Gotham.
Here it is, New York's Greatest Hits, onion ring–wise (I'm warning you now. My list isn't very long. I have very high standards when it comes to onion rings).
Writing about the late, great Abe Lebewohl, a man's stomach turns its attention to delis—Jewish-style delis of course. Some of my earliest food memories are of eating at Wilshire's Deli on Central Avenue in Lawrence, New York. I remember my typical lunch there being a pastrami sandwich and two hot dogs, but I couldn't have eaten that much, could I?
One of the first dates I went on with my wife was at the dear departed Gitlitz's on Manhattan's Upper West Side. But when it comes to delis in New York, I don't need to wax nostalgic. Though there are far fewer delis here than there once were, there are still enough excellent examples in Gotham that we maintain our status as America's preeminent Jewish-deli city. Some Los Angelenos insist that L.A. is a better deli city, but I believe they have simply spent too much time in the sun.
How do you judge a deli? To me there are clearly established yardsticks, pastrami or corned beef, soup (matzo ball or mushroom barley), and french fries. The quality of the cole slaw and the pickles matter as well.
Using those yardsticks, here is a list of my favorite delis in New York. Are there great Jewish delis outside New York? I love Langer's pastrami in Los Angeles, I've enjoyed many smoked-meat sandwich and french fry lunches at Schwartz's in Montreal, and my Baltimore friends swear by Attman's, but, Serious Eaters, I long to know of others around the country. Do tell.
What's the most eagerly anticipated new restaurant opening of the year in New York? A deli. Who would have thunk it? Perhaps the most beloved New York Jewish-style deli of all time, the Second Avenue Deli, is set to reopen in the coming weeks. But when it does, which Second Avenue Deli will it be: the deli that served the best all-around deli food, which is what it was when the late, beloved Abe Lebewohl was around, or the very good but not great deli it became after Abe was senselessly gunned down while making a bank deposit and his lawyer brother, Jack, took over?
I am rooting for the Second Avenue Deli to come back better than ever, or at least as good as it was when Abe was alive. Alex Witchel in yesterday's New York Times Magazine shows that she is rooting for that as well. In heart-wrenching fashion, she describes how the deli's closing a year and a half ago reopened so many old wounds caused by Abe's death:
The one thing Jack can’t bring himself to talk about is the emotional fallout from Abe’s murder. No matter how many times I asked him, he could not answer. He spoke instead about religion or business or the New York City Police Department, whose efforts he still defends wholeheartedly. And he cried. When I asked Jeremy, who was 13 when his uncle was murdered, about the effect the deli’s closing had on his family, he told me, “It was almost like a person, a close family member, dying.” In the days I spent with both father and son, it became clear that reopening the deli is about much more than business. It’s about Abe.
For me, it's all about the return of a beloved New York food institution that at one point set impossibly high standards for deli food.
At El Quinto Pino chef-owner Alex Raij is making a room-temperature tomato soup that goes way beyond gazpacho. It's called salmorejo, hails from the city of Cordoba, and is as simple as simple can be: farm-stand tomatoes, salt, olive oil, and bread. She then puts a dollop of hardboiled egg and a little Serrano ham in the center of the bowl.
To make sure we get every last drop of the soup, she serves some toast points on the side to dip. Once you taste this soup you might never be able to go back to gazpacho again. Get to El Quinto Pino soon, because once the tomatoes stop coming to the Greenmarket in Union Square, there will be no salmorejo until next year.
Address: 401 West 24th Street, New York NY 10011 (at Ninth Ave.)
Phone: 212-206-6900
Alidoro's namesake sandwich is so delicious I often find myself gravitating there even when I have no other reason to be in Soho.
What's in it? Smoked chicken breast from Nodine's, arugula, and Alidoro (formerly Melampo) dressing.
When Alessandro Gualandi owned this picture-perfect sandwich shop, he would never tell me what was in his dressing, and I'm afraid new owner Walter Momente has been sworn to secrecy. I think it's a caper vinaigrette, but all you really need to know is that it's a delicious complement to the smoked chicken breast and the peppery arugula.
If you're looking for one of those over-stuffed cold Italian heroes the Alidoro is not it.
But if you're after a perfectly balanced sandwich with the right ratio of filling to bread the Alidoro is your kind of sandwich.
Address: 105 Sullivan Street, New York NY 10012 (b/n Spring and Prince)
Phone: 212-334-5179
This summer I was wandering around Harlem in search of superior pie and barbecue (I failed in both quests) when I happened upon a table filled with focaccia, baguettes, and tortillas at the Grassroots Market (145th and Edgecombe Avenue).
The tortillas were killer and the focaccia was pretty good, but I was most intrigued by the conversation I had with the woman selling the bread. Jessamyn Waldman had started the Hot Bread Kitchen as a "not for profit bakery and workforce development program for immigrant women." It is one of the "kitchen incubator" businesses described in a recent New York Times piece.
I've been so crazed for the last few months I haven't had a chance to tell you about Hot Bread Kitchen. Jessamyn and her crew are doing delicious, important work, and should be supported by serious eaters everywhere. Why? Read on.
I wanted to love Luzzo's pizza. I really did. Atlanta pizza maniac Jeff Varsano raves about it, and I trust his pizza palate. I had heard many stories that it is frequented by Italian expats who come to kick back, have a glass of wine, eat some pizza, and watch Italian soccer games at the small dining room in the back of the restaurant facing the wood-and-charcoal-burning oven.
I hadn't been to Luzzo's since it first opened serving more traditional New York Italian-American pies, so I was very excited to finally be going back.
What I found was not what I expected.
Before I set foot in the BBQ Chicken that just opened near Serious Eats world headquarters, I was as confused as anyone. A Korean company called BBQ Chicken with 3,500 locations in 37 countries was opening a fried chicken joint in New York?
Well, it turns out that BBQ stands for "Best of the Best Quality Chicken." Now you know, and after you finish reading this post, you will know something else: Based on my initial foray, BBQ Chicken serves some mighty fine fried chicken. All those millions of folks in 37 countries eating at BBQ's 3,500 locations, like Elvis fans, can't be wrong. They have been eating better quick service restaurant (QSR) fried chicken than we have.
And, if the company realizes its goal of opening 50,000 locations worldwide by 2020, I'd imagine that BBQ Chicken will be available nationwide here in the U.S. and that even more Serious Eaters will be able to try it and see if they agree with me. (McDonald's, by comparison, has a little more than 30,000 locations worldwide.)
Adam Platt weighs in on two restaurants I have been to recently, Centro Vinoteca and Accademia di Vino.
My second meal at Centro Vinoteca was not up to the level of my first (rubbery truffled deviled eggs), though it was still pretty good (the place is deafeningly loud, on both levels). Accademia di Vino's menu was much too big, though the grilled pizza was tasty (though I think I saw a stack of pre-made pizza crusts in the kitchen), the Parmesan-prosciutto fritters rocked, and the pork porterhouse was delicious.
But after reading Platt's reviews, I feel like he missed a couple of things about Centro Vinoteca, though his description of the loungy scene and feel there is spot on.
I judged the Vendy Awards last night, and I'm still full. It was a beautiful early fall evening, and there was a great vibe in New York's Tompkins Square Park. All five finalists clearly put a lot of heart and soul into their food, and for the most part it showed. The Super Taco Truck from 96th Street and Broadway didn't bring its "A" game or even its best dishes, but I have had great food at that truck on several occasions. The Dosa Man from Washington Square Park won the judges' vote, and I liked his food a lot, though I gave higher scores to Kwik Meal (45th Street and Sixth Avenue), which won the people's choice voting. The other finalists, Veronica's Kitchen, which serves West Indian food in the Financial District and King Falafel and Schwarma from Astoria also served food I would happily eat on a regular basis if I lived or worked near either of them.
Next year the Vendys should go national. Anyone want to nominate anybody?
Forget about the Oscars, the Tonys, and the Golden Globes. You'll eat better at New York's street food awards, the Vendys, which take place tomorrow from 3 to 8 p.m. at Tompkins Square Park. I'm psyched because I get to play Simon Cowell (I'm one of the judges).
I found this great video on YouTube featuring all five finalists.
Free at last! Free at last! My New York Times pieces are finally free at last for me and everyone else in search of the delicious. Today I'm going to update my cheesecake story.
Although I remain resolute in my belief that New York is the best cheesecake town in the country, I am open to hearing about other cities and their cheesecakes. So, Serious Eaters, if you know of any commercially available cheesecake worth shouting about, we want to hear about it. Note: Junior's is not on my best cheesecake list. Don't get me wrong. I like Junior's cheesecake just fine, but there are others I like more.
Adam Platt disses Wakiya big-time in New York magazine this week. He asks: "So when, exactly, did the glamour and mystery of Chinese cuisine disappear from New York?"
A valid question, but I feel compelled to report that Platt gave a less-than-stellar review to Chinatown Brasserie, a credible and would-be Chinese food glamour spot, when it opened. Its dumpling chef, Joe Ng, is certainly the greatest dim sum chef in New York. The stir-fry dishes have been hit and miss at Chinatown Brasserie, but I must admit that I actually haven't been there since management put Ng in charge of all aspects of the kitchen. BTW, the Chinese barbecue has been excellent as well. I'm going to eat there next week, so I'll keep you posted.
But I digress.
Two people whose taste buds I have profound respect for especially when it comes to Chinese food told me last week that the food at Wakiya was awful. Three strikes and you might be out, Wakiya.
