March 2008
Posted by Ed Levine, March 31, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Friend of Serious Eats, journalist, and blogger Harris Salat will be moderating a special event at EN Japanese Brasserie this Sunday, April 6. We have 2 seats (the winner and a guest) to give away to the event.
To enter to win, leave a comment below describing your favorite Japanese dish. You have until 5 p.m. ET Friday (April 4) to enter. One winner will be chosen at random from among eligible commenters. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply. Event details follow the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 30, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Pork torta at Los Dados: Imagine a sandwich of the tenderest shards of roast pork, lettuce, avocado, queso blanco, mayo, refried beans, pickled onion, and a serrano pepper, all on a soft roll with just a tiny bit of chew. That's what's in the pork torta here. Between the pork torta and the lamb barbacoa burrito, there are now two excellent reasons to pay a visit to Los Dados. Skip the greasy tortilla chips, but take the two delicious salsas that come with them. You'll find something delicious to dip in them.
LOS DADOS
Address: 73 Gansevoort Street, New York NY 10014
Phone: 646-810-7290
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 28, 2008 at 3:45 PM
I'm a sucker for road food stories in general, so it was really fun to read Betsy Andrews' story on New Jersey Turnpike (I-95) food in today's New York Times.
Some of the places we are well-acquainted with in the Serious Eats family. White Manna is no stranger to A Hamburger Today's Adam Kuban.
Likewise Tommy's Italian Sausage and Hot Dogs (in Elizabeth), which I chronicled in a New York Times story on hot dogs a couple of years ago. It is interesting that no other New Jersey hot dog emporia are mentioned. Perhaps Rutt's Hut is simply too far from I-95.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 26, 2008 at 12:45 PM
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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 25, 2008 at 12:47 PM
Burritos in New York are usually a sorry lot, especially with Kitchen Market gone, but if you are interested in sampling a burrito in the big apple that will get you excited about burritos again, run, do not walk, to Sue Torres' meatpacking district taqueria Los Dados for a lamb barbacoa burrito. The braised lamb is tender and just lamby enough, the tortilla is soft and delicate, and unlike a lot of burritos in this burg this one doesn't confuse quantity with quality. There's plenty of lamb, jack cheese, well-seasoned black beans, fluffy rice, and pico de gallo in this lamb barbacoa burrito, but not so much that you'll feel bloated after eating one.
I have lots more to say about what Torres is doing at Los Dados, so stay tuned.
Los Dados
73 Gansevoort Street (between Greenwich and Washington Sts.)
New York, NY 10014
Ph: 646-8107290
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Posted by Robyn Lee, March 24, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Umami is an upcoming food and art festival taking place from April 8-18 at Roulette in New York City. What exactly does food and art entail? Events and performances include turning non-food objects into sausages, music performed with kitchen utensils, and teaching children how to make art with their food. Think of it as being allowed to play with your food!
The festival chair, Yael Raviv, was my former "Food and Performance" professor during my senior year of college and passionate about the field; I'm sure the festival will be great. If you'd like to help out during the festival and receive free tickets in the process, contact Yael.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 23, 2008 at 2:06 PM
Seth Kugel in today's New York Times highlights some of the newer spots in New York to have tea. Curiously, no mention of the expensive but potentially delicious ($60-$100) tea service at the newly restored and renovated Plaza Hotel (Didier Virot, the Plaza's newly installed executive chef, is a good cook).
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 22, 2008 at 10:30 AM
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?).
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 21, 2008 at 2:20 PM
I have tried many items among the seemingly endless array of baked goods, sandwiches, and pizzas at Tisserie, but it wasn't until I happened upon its 53% Cacao Venezuelan Brownie that I had anything truly delicious and inspired there. It is Venezuelan chocolate to the third power, and it is a truly powerful chocolate dessert.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 20, 2008 at 2:46 PM
The Village Voice's new food blogger (replacing the terrific Nina Lalli) Sarah DiGregorio held a chopped liver taste test. The winners: Russ & Daughters and Katz's tied for first place.
The 2nd Avenue Deli didn't fare so well. Neither did Zabar's. Personally, I'm not enough of a chopped liver fan to ever embark on a taste test, so chopped liver freaks should be grateful to DiGregorio and company for doing so.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 17, 2008 at 8:30 AM
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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 15, 2008 at 1:07 PM
Tortellini is one of those pastas that always satisfies but rarely inspires. Yesterday I had the tortellini Fabio Trabocchi is serving at Fiamma these days, and I have to tell you that these tortellini went way beyond satisfying into the realm of supremely, crazily delicious.
The pasta wrappers were light and delicate, but it was the filling that took these suckers to another level. They're filled with Modena cotechino made in-house,a little bit of roast pork, and they come in this lovely Treviso radicchio sauce spiced with lemon zest. Then just to add another level of porkiness, each tortellini is topped with a thin slice of delicious guanciale (hog jowl). These perfect bites of filled pasta are so goddamn earthy and full of flavor they're irresesistable. Fabio says serious eaters can eat at Fiamma and just order the tortellini, without ordering anything else, and that is an offer no serious eater should refuse. Just sit in the lounge, order the tortellini and a glass of wine, and you will be in gustatory heaven.
If you don't have dinner plans this evening you have your marching (or should I say your eating) orders.
Fiamma
206 Spring Street (bet. 6th Ave. and Sullivan Street)
New York, NY
Ph: 212-653-0100
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 14, 2008 at 4:05 PM
Frank Bruni reports that chef-restaurateur Mike Psilakis has found a new home for Kefi, his terrific, moderately priced Upper West Side Greek restaurant. Kefi can currently be found at 222 W. 79th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam), but the plan is come late July (the old location will close in late May or early June), he will be moving to 505 Columbus Avenue (84th Street). The new Kefi will be a bi-level space seating 200 people. Unlike the old Kefi the new spot will also take credit cards and reservations. This is good news for me in particular, because as good as the food is at Kefi, the current space is a little claustrophobic and noisy for my wife, so I don't get to go as often as I would like. Psilakis says the new space should be quieter in spots. And Psilakis and company are not letting the old Kefi space go. He is in the process of formulating a new concept for it built around grilling.
By the way, if you haven't been the food at Kefi is terrific. Have the meatballs, the ugly-looking but delicious hangar steak, and/or the rabbit pasta.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 12, 2008 at 6:15 PM
In the New York Times today restaurant critic Frank Bruni rightfully calls out Fiamma for precipitously raising its prices after Bruni's 3-star review. In commenting on Bruni's post, our friends at Eater suggest that this kind of review-driven price-gouging is standard operating procedure for New York restaurants.
I have to say I'm mystified by Eater's assertion. I can't think of another restaurant in recent memory that excessively and instantly raised its prices after being reviewed favorably, other than Country, the other example Bruni himself cited. I emailed Eater for a comment, and I've yet to hear back from them.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 12, 2008 at 12:45 PM
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.
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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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Most eat-around events in New York feature exclusively white tablecloth, fancy-pants restaurants. Those affairs are fine and dandy, but they don't really bring serious eaters much in the way of different or delicious ethnic fare, which is a shame given how much terrific ethnic food there is in Gotham.
That's why Choice Eats, curated by Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema, is such a cool idea. Sietsema has brought together 30 restaurants, (most of which I have never heard of, much less been to), which will be serving tasting-size portions of their specialties at the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, this Tuesday March 11, from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 6, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Traveling makes me anxious, so I usually end up unconsciously eating a lot when we go away.
In San Francisco or Paris or Chicago this can cause me to go on binges. I make up lists of foods and places I want to try and then do my best to check off every place on the list. I convince myself that, since there's no guarantee I will return to a city, I must try everything. No matter if it takes eating half a dozen meals a day.
But in Lisbon, it turns out that it's hard to compile a list of places and foods I absolutely must try. In fact, it turns out that in Lisbon it's hard to find much of anything delicious. The city is beautiful and the people are incredibly friendly, but even armed with advice from many serious eaters and from three thick guidebooks, we haven't had one meal here that I can unequivocally say I would come back for. Now I know it's difficult to condemn the food of any large city after being there three days, but consider the evidence.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 5, 2008 at 6:43 PM
I love best of lists, but I'm always frustrated at the random incompleteness of the New York Magazine Best of Food Lists. I know I'm late in commenting on this, but I was away all last week. I think the issue suffered from editor burnout, in that the editors are tired of having the writers write about pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, hot chocolate, and all the other obvious things New Yorkers love and live for that they left out. I think Rob and Robin do an absolutely terrific job of food reporting, (they are as good as anyone doing the same thing in NY) but I think what they decide to include on their list defies logic. Also, wouldn't it be useful to know which other places Rob and Robin considered for best fried chicken before anointing Blue Ribbon Sushi and Grill, which does have excellent fried chicken? Best hot dog is from the Smoke Joint? I've had the Hadfield hot dogs they serve there and was never blown away. Seems like Hatfield hot dogs make for good, fresh, newsworthy copy but are not necessarily the right choice. I like the unbeef burger from Anthos, but there are actually a lot of interesting non-beef-only burgers around that the magazine fails to mention. Some items on the list are spot-on to my way of thinking, like the lasagna at Insieme. But in general the randomness of the categories they list and the too-cute-by-half approach to something I and others take seriously in a fun way leaves a great deal to be desired.
That said, here are the choices I found to be spot-on, along with a few questions I'd like Rob and Robin to answer:
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 5, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Photographs of bone marrow, chestnuts, tonburi, pickled honshemeji and soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream courtesy of Tina Wong
Frank Bruni's 3-star review of Wylie Dufresne's molecular gastronomy temple WD-50 may in fact reflect Dufresne and the movement coming of age. In essence Bruni says that Dufresne has moved from chemistry-set user to chef of the delicious. He calls Dufresne's handiwork "amusing, important, and rewarding" and says Dufresne "pushes hard against the envelope of possibility and the bounds of conformity to produce food that’s not only playful but also joyful and even exhilarating, at least when the mad science pays off."
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 5, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Photograph courtesy of Kathryn Yu
I was shocked to see Ruth Reichl's love letter to Momofuku Ko, the new restaurant of New York's reluctant superstar chef David Chang. Not because Chang's latest effort doesn't deserve such effusive praise. It does, but when I ate there last Saturday night, Chang and his running partner Cory asked me not to blog about what I had eaten. Trying to be a responsible journalist, I agreed, assuming other journalists would be asked and agree to the same thing. This past Monday I saw some course-by-course Flickr photos linked to by Eater.
I thought to myself that's OK, because it was just a series of photos.
Then I read Reichl's rapturous blow-by-blow desciption of her meal at Ko. Enough is enough, I thought to myself. I emailed Mr. Chang.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 3, 2008 at 8:00 AM
New York Magazine's Best-of issue hits the stands tomorrow and it's filled with lots of interesting best-of choices. Some I agree with, some I don't, and that's the fun of these kinds of issues. Here's a few of the good, the bad, and the ugly choices.
Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grill Fried Chicken: It is excellent fried chicken, but what about Blue Smoke's Gus' World Famous-inspired fried chicken or even Rack & Soul or Charles Southern-style chicken, or even the rendition at the regular Blue Ribbon in Soho.
Hot Dogs: Hatfield's at the Smoke Joint? Please! Nobody wants to acknowlege that it is hard to beat the by now ubiquitous Gray's Papaya or Papaya King beauties, made by Sabrett's parent company Marathon.
Grilled Cheese: NYM chooses Resto, but what about Bouchon Bakery or Artisanal's, which includes apples, really good cheddar, and Nueske's bacon.
I'll have more to say in the coming days.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 2, 2008 at 8:01 AM
A Saturday trip to Bouchon Bakery after squash was deliciously difficult from a weight control perspective. Here's what I found:
Chocolate Cherry Bread: I've had many good chocolate cherry breads in the past, from La Brea Bakery and Zingerman's, among others, but BB's chocolate cherry bread might be the best I've encountered. Lots of cherries and chocolate in moist, just crusty enough bread. Definite Hall of Fame French toast material.
Glazed Doughnut: I have enjoyed the filled doughnuts at Bouchon Bakery immensely and now the bakers there have branched out into glazed doughnuts. Very vanilla-ey, moist, but surprisingly dense and not feather-light by any means.
Passion-Fruit-Cream Filled Doughnut: Need I say more? Tart and sweet and delectable, but so rich and heavy each one could feed three or four.
Doughnut Holes: These are called some fancy-pants French name, but doughnut holes are what they are. And good ones at that, though I wish they were more moist.
There are Bouchon Bakeries in New York, Las Vegas, and Yountville, CA.
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