April 2008
Posted by Ed Levine, April 30, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Julia Moskin weighs in (pun intended) on the "Next Best Things in Sliced Bread in New York City." I of course weighed in on this weighty issue a couple of years ago in the New York Times. Some of Moskin's discoveries I can't wait to try, like the merguez sandwich at Little Morocco or the pork butt al pastor cemita at Kiosko in Port Chester. Others I already knew. And some left me cold, like the chili mackerel mantou at Province.
A couple of favorites from my own Times article: The pork chop hero at Sandy's Lechoneria, 116th Street and Second Avenue, and the crisp skin-on roast chicken hero at Milanes, 25th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Posted by Gordon Mark, April 30, 2008 at 6:00 PM
For previous real-life GTA IV locations: Food and Restaurant Screenshots in GTA IV
'Johnson's,' aka Nathan's Famous
In the "Borough of Broker," in the "Hove Beach" neighborhood, stands "Johnson's," the "Home of the Wiener":
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 29, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Or, 'Where to Eat in Liberty City'
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.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 29, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Or, 'Would You Like to Touch My Monkey?'
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.
Grayz
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)
Posted by Ed Levine, April 29, 2008 at 11:45 AM
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.
Gray's Papaya
Address: 2090 Broadway, New York NY 10023 (at 72nd Street)
Notes: Breakfast sandwich available daily until noon
Grandaisy Bakery
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
Posted by Raphael, April 29, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Spotted at a street fair on University Place in Manhattan on Saturday, April 26. After the jump, more delicious evidence of fried chicken, done wrong.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 28, 2008 at 10:48 AM
"Robert was a total mensch, a smiling, gentle presence in a store that often resembles a food shopper's battlefield."
I was checking out of the express line at Fairway when I saw a a poster with a big photo of Robert Graham, one of the managers at Fairway and the general manager I could always count on in times of need or desperation. I read the copy on the poster in disbelief. It was an in-store eulogy. Robert had passed away suddenly last week. I started to tear up. Robert was a total mensch, a smiling, gentle presence in a store that often resembles a food shopper's battlefield.
I started looking for someone who could explain what happened. I spotted Mitchel London standing outside the store. "What happened to Robert?" I practically screamed. Mitchel explained that Robert had died a week ago Saturday. He had been attending a birthday party for his father with his wife and daughter when he suffered an asthma attack. Usually Robert brought his inhaler everywhere, but somehow, tragically, he had forgotten to bring it to the party.
Anyone who has ever shopped at Fairway will miss his calming presence and the ever-present twinkle in his eye. You will be sorely missed, Robert, but never forgotten.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 25, 2008 at 2:57 PM
I have extolled the virtues of Szechuan Gourmet before, but after having another extraordinary meal there yesterday, I must implore you all over again to eat there this weekend. You do not have to go to Flushing to eat great Szechuan food and you can do better than the quite good food served at the various Grand Sichuan branches around Manhattan. Yesterday a friend and I shared three dishes, each one better than the last:
Szechuan Pork Dumpling with Roasted Chili Soy
Photograph taken by Kathryn Yu
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 24, 2008 at 8:30 AM
"I have not been to one other restaurant anywhere in the world where I feel the same energy that I do at Babbo."
Like most serious eaters, I've been searching for deliciousness my whole life, but sometimes, in more reflective moments, even I acknowledge there's often more to eating out than great food. Obviously for me the food is paramount, but there are other factors that go into judging great restaurants. How welcome do I feel? Do I feel well taken care of? Am I having a good time? Does the restaurant make my dining companions and me feel special? Can I easily hear what the people I am with are saying? Is the service personal without being intrusive? Does the energy in a restaurant match or even elevate my own? How does the restaurant's look and feel affect how its customers look and feel?
Most of all, I want the restaurant experience to be about the food, the people I'm eating with, and me—not about the chef or the server or the sommelier.
So taking all these factors into account, what are my favorite restaurant-going experiences in New York? If going to a great restaurant is, as the restaurant designer David Rockwell once told me, like taking a vacation from my life, what restaurants in New York are my five favorite respites from a busy life?
Note: Two restaurants on my list, Per Se and Masa, are very expensive, and some serious eaters may decide they are in fact too expensive. A more moderately priced, just-as-special dining experience can be had at lunch at Jean-Georges, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's flagship restaurant. $14 a course to eat in a most cheerful, light-filled space is the greatest serious food bargain in the world.
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Posted by Gordon Mark, April 23, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Manhattan's Chinatown is a huge neighborhood that seems to be getting bigger every day. Although it's a good thing that the neighborhood offers a nearly endless number of eateries, you may be overwhelmed by all the choices. Where do you go on an empty stomach? What do you order? Sometimes, when you're faced with such a wealth of options, it's best to narrow your focus a bit. This, then, is a guide to Chinatown bakeries. (For our purposes, we went to both the main part of Chinatown—between the Canal Street and Grand Street subway stations—and to the less-touristy East Broadway section.) With at least a bakery per block (and sometimes more), you should never be too far from one.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Here's an email from a restaurant publicist I can totally get behind (I've deleted the hypey stuff).
Earth Day is coming up and to honor its commitment to Environmental Awareness, Il Buco will be offering a $30 lunch prix fixe, including its famous porchetta panino, for five days starting today (Tuesday).
One hundred percent of every $30 prix fixe menu will go to Al Gore's We Campaign, a Project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, whose aim is to halt global warming.
This is extremely cool for two reasons.
First, the folks at Il Buco really know how to cook pig. The porchetta panino is so good I put it in my September 2006 story in Details magazine—"22 Sandwiches That Will Change Your Life." (The article's not available online, but here's a list of the sandwiches).
Second, Il Buco is giving 100 percent of the proceeds to charity. Usually when restaurants do fund-raisers, they give away only a portion of the proceeds.
IL BUCO
Address: 47 Bond Street, New York NY 10012
Phone: 212-533-1932
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 21, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Is Wafels & Dinges, the Belgian waffle outfit that opened late last year, using frozen waffles in its operation? A tipster at Eater emailed that website a photo of what appears to be evidence of such. The photo was captured at Brooklyn Flea, where Wafels & Dinges has a seasonal outpost.
Related: The Best Belgian Wafel (Waffle) Maker in NYC: When They're Made to Order!
Posted by Ed Levine, April 20, 2008 at 7:21 PM
I've already been to two seders and this evening I'll be hitting my third. There have been a number of outstanding take-out dishes:
Dark chocolate-covered matzo with sea salt from City Bakery: This just knocked me out. I'm sure it's not kosher for passover, but it sure was delicious.
Gefilte Fish from Citarella: I'm still not a gefilte fish convert, but Citarella's gefilte fish actually tastes like fish and not jellied seafood matter. My sister-in-law served it with real balsamic vinegar, which kind of worked.
Matzo ball soup from Yura: Phenomenal matzo soup featuring light and fluffy matzo balls and flavorful, well-seasoned broth that tasted like a chicken had actually been used in making the soup.
This is probably not useful information for this year unless you hold a seder on the third night of Passover, but there's always next year in New York or Jerusalem.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 16, 2008 at 12:50 PM
I haven't yet been to the new Ducasse restaurant Adour, but I still found Frank Bruni's review today in the New York Times to be insightful in the following way: he says that the best dishes at Adour are about a single ingredient both amplified and stripped down to its essence. "It (a raspberry dessert called a "composition")encapsulates what I remember most fondly about most of my favorite dishes here: the way one flavor, one ingredient or just a few rang clear and true. Take that velouté, which has a creamy texture but tastes entirely of cauliflower, cut with some lemon, the acidity of which insures against any, well, dullness.Or take a sweetbreads appetizer. There’s an amusingly sculptured egg — it’s a dead ringer for a head of garlic — with the organ meat, and there are wild mushrooms and a veal jus afoot. But what anchors and exalts the dish are the sweetbreads themselves, intense and succulent, with that wonderful faint undertone of funk."
Having eaten at other Ducasse restaurants I think that's a brilliant insight.
Taking one ingredient and preparing it in a certain way to bring out its maximum flavor and texture potential is exactly what Ducasse does better than anyone. I can think back to a sea urchin custard I once had at Alain Ducasse in the Essex House. It was creamy, crazy delicious sea urchin to the nth power. So touche, Mr. Bruni.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 15, 2008 at 8:35 AM
"Do not pile the ham on. Unless you are very wealthy, this will not be a realistic temptation."
New York's (and maybe the world's) best sandwich is a pretty simple affair. I made it for the first time on Sunday, and I can tell you it requires no kitchen skills other than cutting bread.
Go to one of the local gourmet stores (I go to Fairway) selling jamón ibérico de bellota, Spain's crazy-good black-footed ham (pata negra). Swallow hard as you plunk down $25 (plus tax) for a quarter pound of the stuff.
Go to either Grandaisy Bakery or Sullivan Street Bakery (the result of a culinary divorce, they make many of the same products) and buy two pieces of pizza bianco, the miraculously puffy, crisp, just-olive-oily-enough bread inspired by Sullivan Street Bakery owner Jim Lahey's time spent working in a Roman bakery on the Campo de Fiore that is famous for its pizza bianco.
Take your miracle ham and your miracle bread home. Slice the two breads lengthwise, and layer the slices of ham. Because the ham is so good, just covering every inch of the bread with it will do the trick. Do not pile the ham on. Unless you are very wealthy, this will not be a realistic temptation.
There's a little bit of sea salt and fresh rosemary in the bread, and they complete this wonderfully simple and absolutely perfect sandwich.
Until there is good pizza bianco in other American cities, you can only assemble this sandwich in New York. Try it and let me know what you think.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 12, 2008 at 1:06 PM
I hadn't eaten dinner at Balthazar in years, but after the meal we had last night I plan to return much sooner. I had something I've never had before, chicken Reisling, which turned out to be a pan-roasted half chicken with mushrooms, pearl onions, and homemade spaetzl. It was the best kind of soul-satisfying grandma food, if your grandmother happened to be a great Alsatian home cook. My friends had the steak frites, always delicious at Balthazar, and the duck shepherd's pie, another dish I hadn't tried before and would certainly order when returning. For dessert, the pot de creme, the pavlova, meringue with a creamy center surrounded by stewed fruit, the berry tart, and of course the profiteroles made for an appropriate ending to a pitch-perfect meal.
Balthazar is always crowded, always noisy, but somehow manages to make you feel like a million bucks when you eat there. I'm convinced it's the golden glow that makes us all feel that way, a glow that you may not even find in Paris any more. Lee Hansen and Riad Nasr, co-chefs and partners at Balthazar, may serve a thousand people a day sometimes, and yet the food they turn out is surprisingly personal and shockingly consistent given the volume of covers they're doing at the restaurant.
80 Spring Street (between Broadway and Crosby Sts.
New York, NY 10012
Ph: 212-965-1414
Posted by Ed Levine, April 11, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Today for lunch I checked out Totally Baked, New York's first gourmet baked potato bar, according to its take-out menu. Serious Eater Lucy Baker piqued my interest with her post on "one trick pony" restaurants. What did I find?
Extremely cheerful staff serving up baked potatoes with fourteen different toppings, ranging from the classic (chive, sour cream, applewood smoked bacon and cheddar) to obligatory obscenely expensive ($55) Truffle (truffle compound butter, truffle oil, truffle salt and fresh truffle shavings). I thought about telling the person at the register that it is not white truffle season, but decided against it.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 10, 2008 at 1:06 PM
My friend Eric Asimov's story on the proliferation of wine bars in New York offers terrific historical perspective and lots of insight about the business considerations involved in opening one, but I waited in vain to hear how the food is at the places he mentions. Before he drank wine for a living, Eric ate for his supper for a very long time as the $25 and under reviewer for the Times. Surely he ate and drink copious amounts of food and wine in researching and writing the story. This week in fact I walked by Terroir and Gottino and the menus sounded positively beguiling, not surprising given the fact that Marco Canora (Hearth and Insieme) is responsible for the food at Terroir and Jody Williams (Morandi) does the same at Gottino. So why was there nary a word about the food at either place in the story? Serious eaters, we're just going to have to pick up the slack. I have had a couple of delicious morsels at Blue Ribbon Bar, and I plan to return in the very near future.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 9, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Alain Ducasse: Soon to open a branch of famed French restaurant Benoit in the U.S.
Florence Fabricant's piece about the premature obituary written for French food in New York doesn't emphasize enough the reason French food went into eclipse here and everywhere else in the country. It wasn't the food. People never stopped loving roast chicken, steak frites, and duck a l'orange. They just couldn't stand the pretentious settings for the food and the often haughty, condescending attitudes that came with it. Long live delicious, deeply satisfying French food. Death to the side order of attitude.
Memo to Alain Ducasse: We all welcome the idea of a branch of Benoit in the States. Just don't bring the attitude here. One more thing, Mr. Ducasse. You're right about Keith McNally's genius in combining French tradition with the understanding of who his customers are. But you would do well to make everyone feel welcome and special at Benoit, something Mr. McNally doesn't always do at his restaurants. Look to Danny Meyer for that kind of inspiration.
Posted by Robyn Lee, April 9, 2008 at 8:30 AM
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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 8, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Ippudo's Karaka-men, from Cocktailian on Flickr
For some serious eaters both here and especially in Japan, ramen noodles are a religion. They worship at the altar of firm noodles made in-house, intensely flavorful broth, and the porkiest of pork slices. I, on the other hand, am a ramen noodle agnostic. At least until now. Until this weekend, my favorite ramen noodles in New York have been the mighty tasty made-in-Chinatown noodles served with tender, delicious pork and wonderful broth at Momofuku. Ramen purists have scoffed at Momofuku's noodle preparations because the restaurant's chef-owner, David Chang, did not train as a legitimate ramen chef (though he did work briefly in a ramen shop in Tokyo).
Because I know it's not politically or culinarily correct to anoint ramen noodles not made in the restaurant they're served in, I decided to go ramen-hunting this weekend. What I found was surprising and delightful. I finally found ramen noodles made in-house served with killer broth and fantastically porky pork. In other words, I found ramen noodles worthy of worship and worth waiting for.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 6, 2008 at 2:26 PM
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.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 4, 2008 at 7:06 AM
Frank Bruni is having a devil of a time snagging a reservation at Momofuku Ko, and it sounds like he's not alone.
One of his designated reservation deputies had this most unsatisfying e-mail exchange with a Ko worker.
Commenters on Bruni's blog post suggested to Bruni that he and his designated reservation deputies try on Saturday and Sunday morning. Apparently starving hipster restaurant goers don't get up that early.
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 3, 2008 at 1:00 PM
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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 2, 2008 at 8:54 AM
I've been meaning to write about Mia Dona for weeks now, and now that Frank Bruni has weighed in with a carefully considered review of Mike Psilakis' and Donatella Arpeia's newest restaurant, I feel remiss in not commenting before this. Having eaten Psilakis' food in his Long Island restaurant Ecco long before he opened any of his Manhattan restaurants, I can tell you that he has always been a cook with a restless culinary intellect and remarkable focus. But with Mia Dona, we are seeing and tasting food that shows that Psilakis has now reached a point where he is incredibly comfortable in his own culinary skin. His flights of fancy have been tempered by his experience and his passion for long, deep-flavored food. Go to Mia Dona and have the crispy rabbit and chips in a soothing remoulade sauce, the sheep's milk ricotta gnudi with crispy speck in black truffle butter, the killer meatloaf, and the bigoli, hollow spaghetti, with pork sausage, broccoli rabe, lentils, and peperoncini. It's deeply felt (bighearted is what Bruni called Mia Dona), incredibly delicious food cooked by a chef who's in full command of his heart and his intellect.
Mia Dona
206 East 58th Street (just east of Third Avenue)
New York, NY 10022
Ph: 212-750-8170
Posted by Ed Levine, April 1, 2008 at 8:00 AM
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.
