May 16, 2012
Posted by Max Falkowitz, May 16, 2012 at 3:30 PM
[Photograph: Robyn Lee]
So the real name of this dish on the Vietnamese restaurant Xe Lua is Banh Hoi Salad Voi Chao Tom Nuong ($12). If that doesn't quite roll off the tongue, how about this: finely ground spiced shrimp wrapped around sugar cane and cooked on the grill. It's served with little nests of rice noodles, herbs and pickled vegetables, rice paper sheets which you soften in a bowl of hot water, and lettuce. It's a slightly ridiculous table-hogging assortment of food, but it's also one of the best renditions of Vietnamese sugar cane-skewered meat I've had in New York.
Eat it as follows: remove the shrimp sausage from the cane. Chew on the cane (don't swallow!) to release all the sweet barbecue juices. As you do so, soften a rice paper sheet in the water for thirty seconds or so until it's pliant, then fill with rice noodles, shrimp, herbs, and pickled vegetables. Roll it up, then wrap that in a lettuce leaf, and dip in the nuoc cham dipping sauce.
This is somewhat cumbersome eating, but it's great fun all the same. The sweet, well-spiced shrimp is juicy, tender, and nicely grilled. With six or so different contrasting flavors and textures (crisp! meaty! sweet! salty! tangy! crunchy!), there's a lot to love about this dish. Just don't forget to munch on the sugar cane in between bites.
Xe Lua
86 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10013 (map)
212-577-8887
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Posted by Andrew Coe, May 16, 2012 at 2:15 PM
[Photograph: Andrew Coe]
We're soup dumpling-mad. When we go to a Shanghai-style Chinese restaurant, all too often we order soup dumplings, perhaps before we even sit down. But sometimes it pays to slow down and pay attention to the rest of the dumpling menu. On a recent visit to the excellent Shanghai Café Deluxe, our eyes lit on something called rice ball with pork in soup ($3.95). What a novel idea—dumplings in soup, rather than dumplings with soup inside them.
What arrived at the table was a large bowl of clear broth in which floated four shimmering, teardrop-shaped dumplings, each roughly the size of a golf ball. One fit exactly inside a Chinese soupspoon. A bite revealed a pillow-soft glutinous rice flour skin containing a mild but unctuous ground pork filling. The delicate broth, melting dumpling skin, and porky interior combined to make some serious comfort food. According to the Chinese food expert Michael Gray, the Chinese characters for the dish read xian rou tang yuan, or "tasty dumplings with meat in soup." One order will cure whatever ails you. They may just be the new soup dumpling.
Shanghai Café Deluxe
100 Mott Street, New York NY 10013 (map)
212-966-3988
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From A Hamburger Today
Posted by The Serious Eats Team, May 16, 2012 at 1:30 PM
Sliders from Mark Burger. [Photograph: Nick Solares]
Burger Conquest and Thrillist have joined forces to bring you this Saturday's East Village Beer & Burger Crawl, an afternoon of gourmet "sliders," craft beers, and 2-for-1 beers at the following restaurants: Bareburger, Little Town, 13th Step, Destination Bar & Grille, St. Marks Burger, Poco, sideBAR, Stand4, That Burger at Idle Hands, and Village Pourhouse. Vouchers are available for $20 (10 burgers), $30 (five burgers and five beers), or $40 (10 burgers and 10 beers) and are valid between 1 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, the 19th.
Thanks to Thrillist we have three pairs of $30 vouchers to give away. To enter, just tell us in the comments: What's your dream drunk food burger?
Contest will end and comments will close at 11 a.m. ET, Friday, May 18, 2012. One entry per community member. Three winners will be chosen at random. Winners are limited to anyone who can attend the Burger Crawl on Saturday, May 19, between 1 to 7 p.m. Standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
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Posted by Carey Jones, May 16, 2012 at 1:00 PM
In this great city of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around New York. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.
[Photograph: Robyn Lee]
"I cannot believe this costs two dollars" was my first thought as we unwrapped the pancake with pork ($2) from Henan Flavor (full review here). The maybe 5-inch wheat pancake is griddled for crisp edges and a slightly spongy crumb. It's then cut open and filled with a heavily seasoned pork filling. There's definitely hoisin and cilantro in there, plus star anise and, we're guessing, a host of other elusive spices. The filling's processed pretty fine—"Is this pork baby food?" one intern asked—but it's super-savory and juicy enough to soak into the pancake a bit, so if you can get past its pastelike character, you're in for quite a treat. For two dollars. (Two dollars!) See, still can't believe it.
Henan Flavor
68b Forsyth Street, New York NY 10002 (map)
212-625-8299
About the author: Carey Jones is the Senior Managing Editor of Serious Eats. Follow her on Twitter (@careyjones).
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From Slice
Posted by Michael Berman, May 16, 2012 at 12:30 PM
Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.
[Photographs: Michael Berman]
It's been years since I've stopped anywhere along McGuiness Boulevard. When I lived in Willamsburg in late '90s, the Key Food near Greenpoint Avenue was my "big shop" grocery destination. And I did spend a handful of evenings playing pool at La Cue, near Calyer Street. There were house phones along the walls provided to expedite beverage orders.
But lunch on McGuiness? Never. It's a road for trucks and cars traveling between the BQE and Long Island City. Of course, McGuiness (and much of Brooklyn) has changed since the late '90s. Now, along its still rather un-scenic expanse, one will see pedestrians—and, I learned the other day, a good new option for pizza.
Tuttobene's, located across the street from La Cue, serves brick oven pies in three sizes. They do not offer slices, but the personal size (10-inch) works as lunch for one. At $6 for a plain (made with fresh mozzarella), it's a good value.
There were two people working behind the counter when I visited last week: Sal (the owner's son) and Maria (Sal's cousin). Maria told me that the oven could handle wood, but the pizzeria prefers gas because it enables pies to "cook more evenly and get crisper."
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Posted by Chris Crowley, May 16, 2012 at 11:30 AM
[Photographs: Chris Crowley]
Immigrants from Ghana dominate the Bronx's West African diaspora, which is reflected in the overwhelming bent towards the country's cuisine among African restaurants in the borough. But as often as not, transplants from neighboring nations can be found working at these largely Ashanti-owned dinners, welcomed into the fold with a sense of transnational community. A few stars representing the region's other traditions have joined ranks of the Bronx's fufu slingers.
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Posted by Allegra Ben-Amotz, May 16, 2012 at 10:00 AM
View Jesse Schenker's Hells Kitchen in a larger map
Jesse Schenker is a classically-trained French chef with a mean air guitar and an armful of heavy metal tattoos. That dichotomy characterizes the 29-year old Gordon Ramsay protégé, who has made a name for himself by taking high end risks like opening a private dining club in Harlem and making it public in 2010, moving Recette to the West Village. Today, Jesse has moved on from Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen and into his own, bringing his brand of cool to a neighborhood that has long deserved a second chance.
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From A Hamburger Today
Posted by The Serious Eats Team, May 16, 2012 at 9:30 AM
Inside the Pat LaFrieda facility. [Photograph: Nick Solares]
To celebrate National Burger Month, we're teaming up with famed New York City meat purveyor (and current stars of Food Network's Meat Men) Pat LaFrieda to give away a case of "AHT blend" burger patties (24 per case) each week for four weeks. Patties will be shipped fresh anywhere in the U.S. (sorry, international readers!), perfect for throwing a giant burger party or for cooking burger-centric meals at home. To enter this week's contest, just tell us in the comments section below: What's your best burger memory? (That doesn't necessarily have to involve the best burger you've ever eaten, but it could.)
Contest will end and comments will close at 12 p.m. ET, Monday, May 21, 2012. One entry per community member. Winners are limited to U.S. residents. Standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
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Posted by Carey Jones, May 15, 2012 at 10:00 PM
[Photographs: Christine Tsai]
Laut
15 East 17th Street, New York NY 10003 (b/n 5th and Broadway; map); 212-206-8989; lautnyc.com
Service: Cheery and swift
Setting: Smartly decorated
Compare It To: Nyonya
Must-Haves: Char kuey teow (with shrimp and Chinese sausage), beef rendang, mee goreng
Cost: Can easily eat for $25/person
Grade: B+ (for the Malaysian dishes)
For the last few years I've felt sorry for Laut, a mostly-Malaysian restaurant just off Union Square, when the Michelin stars for New York restaurants are announced. Because they've held onto their single star for a few years now.
I mean, I'm happy for them—earning a Michelin star is a big deal. Owner Salil Mehta, who's operated the restaurant for a few years now, must surely be pleased. But the Internet chatter inevitably takes them down a few notches. "Laut?! Laut earned a Michelin star? While [Restaurant X] still doesn't have a Michelin star? Ridiculous!" It's tough being the unlikely member of a club that includes Del Posto and Gramercy Tavern. It seems like an afterthought, a "unique cuisine" tossed on by a critic who didn't really venture far beyond Manhattan.
So I'd long been curious about Laut; and tasting their food at events around the city had only made me more curious. But after a few visits, and after plenty of less impressive meals around Chinatown, I'm convinced it's my favorite Malaysian restaurant in Manhattan.
From formal critics to eager Yelpers, the food-obsessed often have a tendency to over-promote "hole in the wall" restaurants of various national origins, with the implication that only a crowded, minimally decorated storefront with a non-English menu can possibly deliver the "real" flavors of a given cuisine. Restaurants like Laut, a little more stylish and outside a neighborhood of its cuisine's ethnic concentration, are considered imposters.
The food, however, speaks for itself. At Laut, the cuisine's signature flavors, a balance of spicy and tart and powerfully savory, shine through; the funky fermented shrimp paste belachan, the richness of good coconut milk, the fragrance of lemongrass and turmeric and galangal: they're all there in full force.
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Posted by Kathy YL Chan, May 15, 2012 at 4:30 PM
[Photograph: Kathy YL Chan]
Though these might not be the single best flavor from Ladurée (that award goes to pistachio or vanilla), the new Strawberry Guimauve macarons stands in a category of its own. It's part of Ladurée's "Incroyable" collection featuring summer pink macaron shells sprinkled with a bit of sugar for shine. Bite in and wait: that's not buttercream or even ganache. It's marshmallow! The smooth, borderline silky marshmallow is scented with strawberry, a carefree, unorthodox macaron that demands a cool glass of rosé.
Ladurée
864 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021 (map)
646-558-3157
laduree.fr
About the author: Originally from Honolulu, Kathy YL Chan blogs at Kathy YL Chan, where she chronicles her eats and travel adventures between Hawai'i, New York and beyond. She firmly believes that there is always room for dessert.
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