Longtime SE reader Jeff S. alerts us to an "awful seafood display" he snapped a picture of at the Whole Foods on Houston Street in New York City—the one where they filmed parts of Top Chef this season.
Jeff calls it awful; I call it brilliant. After all, it's a dog(fish) eat dog(fish)* world out there. You have to wonder if the fishmonger was crafting a subtle tableaux that illustrates evolution in action or if he or she was just having fun.
Jeff was kind enough to bury photo as link-text in his blog post about it, but we're more brazen and show just part of it here. Click through to see the entire thing. Hope you've eaten already!
*Yes, I know it's a monkfish, not a dogfish. Poetic license invoked.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 30, 2008 at 9:00 AM
If you could play Jenga with cans, and make something cool with it that didn't topple, that would describe the Canstruction 2008 exhibit at the World Financial Center. Since the artists were from top architectural and engineering firms across North America, though, the results actually were pretty cool. To magnify the coolness, all food will be donated to City Harvest after the exhibit closes on December 2.
The one above is called "DunCAN Donut," and was made from 3,241 cans, including sardines and tuna. Mmm, a sardine donut!
As a New York kid, I regarded Staten Island only as a strange place where one visited elderly Italian relatives a few times a year. A place where dimly-lit, doily-strewn rooms had their own color themes and frilly glass dishes of ancient hard candies sat on coffee tables. Eating out on the Island was exotic, in its way—this is where I learned that spaghetti could be a side dish.
Now I'm all grown up and the old ladies have moved on to boroughs in the sky, but I'm still compelled to travel to Staten Island to eat, on occasion—much to my own surprise. The fare is more likely to be enjoyed standing up, though, and without a giant spoon for twirling noodles. Victory Boulevard, in Tomkinsville, a short stroll from where the ferry spits you out in Saint George, is home to a handful of Mexican delis and taquerias well worth the boat ride.
408 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Lafayette and Centre; map); 212-219-5060; despananyc.com Service: Friendly but slow Setting: A ridiculously pleasant, well-curated Spanish specialty food store Compare It To: Nothing. It's unique Must-Haves: Picante, Gallego, Iberico Ham (if you want to splurge), and/or the Bonito sandwich Cost: $12 for a sandwich and a drink (the samples are free) Grade: A-
When you walk up a few steps and enter Despaña you leave New York and arrive in Spain, where you will find yourself in a gorgeously minimalist Spanish specialty food store. A leg of Jamon Iberico will be on your right, and past that gorgeous porcine ham you will find other cured meats, followed by a small but well-curated collection of Spanish cheeses. Dishes of samples beckon serious eaters like some Flamenco siren call.
On your left are samples of vinegar, olive oil, jams and relishes, and way in the back on the left are high-end Spanish sweets, including an oddly appealing soft honey almond torrone that has a halvah-like texture.
Tear yourself away from the samples. (It's unseemly to avail yourself of too many. I know. I've been there.) Take a look at the gorgeous display case of prepared Spanish foods. There are croquettas, little savory tarts, wedges of tortilla, mini-sandwiches, glistening roasted red peppers, and of course boquerones (superb anchovies).
Buy yourself a nibble or two to start your meal and then peruse the big sign announcing the sandwich possibilities. The sandwiches, my friends (I hope I'm not channeling John McCain here), are a must buy here, as they are models of sandwich construction.
Posted by Allison Hemler, September 26, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Now that you have gotten perspectives on two very different classes from last weekend's New York Culinary Experience, I've got a look at one more: Italian comfort food.
On Sunday afternoon I got a chance to learn Italian American cuisine interpretation from one of Ed Levine's favorite chefs: Tom Valenti. He's owner and executive chef at Ouest and the soon-to-be-opened West Branch on the Upper West Side. Like many other Italian-Americans, I wanted to expand beyond the marinara sauce, meatballs, and sausage and peppers of my mother's repetoire. Luckily the menu was Arancini (Rice Balls) and Linguine with Tuna and Pepperoncini, two dishes most of us didn't have too much of growing up.
These were not childhood dishes for us, because none of us are Tom Valenti. He grew up on "the kinds of food that snowstorms were made for", all cooked by his Italian grandmother (who makes her way into every dish he makes).
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.
Wildwood BBQ
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.
After much anticipation from millions of gamers, Grand Theft Auto 4debuted 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.
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)
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
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.
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.
Posted by Ed Levine, February 25, 2008 at 11:30 AM
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.
Royale
157 Avenue C, New York NY (at 10th Street)
212-254-6600
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:
MarieBelle
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 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.
E.A.T.
Address: 1064 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10128 (b/n 80th and 81st streets) Phone: 212-772-0022
I hadn't been toLombardi'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.
A Voce: Lunch, a great opportunity to sample Andrew Carmellini's gutsy, Italian-influenced food
Anthos: Lunch and dinner, for the lamb burger alone, this is a great choice
Chinatown Brasserie: lunch and dinner, hope the attitude doesn't come with the bargain
Bolo: Lunch and dinner, because it is underrated and about to close
Craft: Lunch, see what Colicchio is up to now that Craft is back serving lunch
Del Posto: Lunch, this is a quiet oasis for lunch and will probably still be during restaurant week
L'Impero: Lunch, see what chef Michael White has done for the kitchen
Morimoto: Lunch, hope they are serving more than noodles and rice
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.
Ceci Cela Patisserie
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
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
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.
Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grill
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?
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.
El Quinto Pino
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.
Alidoro
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.
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.)
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.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 30, 2007 at 9:15 AM
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?
Posted by Ed Levine, September 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM
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).
Posted by Ed Levine, September 27, 2007 at 9:00 AM
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.
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.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 6, 2007 at 12:30 PM
David Sax is a young food writer in Toronto who has dedicated himself to saving the Jewish deli.
He's very passionate and zealous on this subject, so I wasn't surprised that yesterday he sent me a splendid link to his post about a story I somehow missed.
The New York Daily Newsreported that the New York City Department of Health temporarily shut downBen's Best, one of the best remaining Jewish delis in the city, for health-related crimes related to hanging salamis and combination sandwiches. You really should click through to David's post, but in case you don't, here's Mr. Sax in mid-season missionary form.
The nation's first food blogger-turned-restaurant critic, Danyelle Freeman, comes out swinging in her debut column in the New York Daily News. Freeman, who wants to be our "restaurant concierge," clearly wants to be taken seriously as an arbiter of taste. Her review of the hipster Italian hotspot Gemma is certainly not laudatory. In fact, it's more than a little critical. However, her penchant for overblown prose managed to survive the best efforts of the editors at the paper: "Equally, a sheath of black-truffle pâté and lemon arouses amply fresh sea scallops."
My friend and neighbor Brian Koppelman is just about as passionate about food as he is about movies, which is saying something, considering he and his writing partner, David Levien, have written screenplays like Ocean's 13 and Rounders. He has strong opinions about everything from pizza to sushi, so I've invited him to the Serious Eats table for periodic communiques that Brian will post in the form of "Dear Ed" letters. Here's his first one. —Ed Levine
Dear Ed,
I'm of the belief that sushi doesn't travel. That's why I never order it in. And that must be why I've waited six months to try Sasabune in New York City. See, the L.A. Sasabune is one of my all-time favorite restaurants, and I guess I figured that if the toro doesn't taste as fresh when the delivery guy has to take it three blocks, Sasabune wasn't going to be the same 3,000 miles away.
I was wrong. The restaurant is stunning. Chef Kenji Takahashi learned at the sword of Nobi Kusuhara at the original Sasabune and, in the tradition of his master, is so dedicated to perfection that he himself hits the fish market first thing every morning before personally making every single piece of sushi and sashimi that his establishment serves from noon until midnight. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. It's top shelf.
Best,
Brian
Sushi Sasabune
New York City: 401 East 73rd Street, New York NY 10021; 212-249-8583 Los Angeles: 12400 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 150; Los Angeles CA 90025; 310-820-3596
Daniel Boulud, one of New York’s most celebrated chefs, agreed yesterday to settle a federal lawsuit that accused him of discriminating against nonwhite employees, charges that have led to two years of demonstrations at his restaurant Daniel on the Upper East Side.
Conspicuously absent from Peter Meehan's perceptive, thoughtful review of the Kabab Cafe was any mention of one of the original chowhounds, Jim Leff, who championed the restaurant's cause to anyone who would listen even before Chowhound existed.
Many years ago, when I was reviewing restaurants for the New York Daily News and Leff was writing for Newsday, I got a call from Jim, who implored me to review Kabab Cafe ASAP because he was worried about its survival. So he and I ended up eating a decent, not great, meal there while he explained to me in great detail why each dish succeeded or failed.
I did end up reviewing the restaurant. Alas, I can't find the clip of my review, and I don't think you can find it online. Reading Meehan's review, all I could think about was this: Does Jim Leff think it's gone downhill? Because it sounds to me that the Kabab Cafe is the same bastion of inconsistency and idiosyncracy it's always been. And in spite of all that, after reading some, not all, of the 400-plus messages on Chowhound about the Kabab Cafe, I have to conclude the restaurant remains a Chowhound favorite to this day.
I know it's kind of fashionable to trash Shake Shack these days, but last Wednesday I had an incredibly delicious cup of peach frozen custard. I waited less than 30 seconds in the "B-Line" and took my cup of perfect custard to the southeast corner of Madison Square Park, where British soul singer James Hunter was giving a free concert.
Peach custard, no waiting, free James Hunter concert: Life was good. Peach is the Wednesday flavor of the day at the Shake Shack, at least for July, so consider hitting the B-Line tomorrow. I may hit the Shack next Monday for the salted caramel frozen custard. Doesn't that sound just perfect?
Of course, when I obsess about frozen custard, I start thinking about doing a frozen custard taste test. I'm thinking about ordering some Kopp's online from Milwaukee and then taking it over to Shake Shack for a direct comparison.
What's your favorite frozen custard anywhere? No soft ice creams like Carvel need apply.
I finally made it to Thai Market, and I was mightily impressed. First of all, I loved the look of the place. There were blown-up photos of markets in Thailand, umbrellas on the ceiling, and Thai cups cleverly placed in and on gold-leaf walls. Its owners have managed to make the place look great without spending a lot of money, much like Land Thai Kitchen did 25 blocks south.
Steamed Thai dumplings with delicate wrappers were filled with minced chicken, preserved radish, and peanuts. Grilled sliced skirt steak was accompanied by al dente string beans and delicious preserved chili purée. A minced pork salad was enlivened by ginger, bird’s-eye chili, and crunchy Napa cabbage. A dish called Amber Shrimp mixed Chinese celery, onion, egg, and chili and was sautéed with yellow curry.
I had lunch at Pepolino the other day, and after a very good, very Italian meal I immediately asked myself why I don't eat there more often. Pepolino is the brain child of Patrizio Siddu and Enzo Perrone, two alumni of the famed Florence trattoria Cibreo. The main dining room is a sun-washed, simply decorated room, painted that golden yellow ubiquitous in Italian restaurants in America. Upstairs there is a 50 seat dining room that is good to know about for relatively inexpensive private parties.
Even though it was a gorgeous May day I had the hearty tomato and bread soup and a spinach sformato (savory flan) as starters. The feather-light veal and ricotta meatballs (polpettine) were served with slices of roast potato. Friends had the spaghettini with braised leeks and parmesan cheese and the pappardelle with fresh thyme and tomato. Both were sauced appropriately lightly.
For dessert, the city's best ricotta cheesecake: airy, lemony and just creamy enough. I called it out in my best cheesecake in the city story in the Times a few years ago, and it remains one of Gotham's great taste treats.
When you eat at Pepolino you get fresh, authentically Italian food, made with good ingredients and cooked with care. In short, Pepolino is just what you want in a casual but serious neighborhood Italian restaurant. I wish it was in my neighborhood.
Pepolino
Address: 281 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Lispenard and Canal; map) Phone: 212-966-9983 Website:pepolino.com
I like a lot of the food served at the restaurants at the Time Warner Center, but sometimes the collective pretentions of the restaurants there, Per Se, Masa, Bouchon Bakery, Porter House, get to me. How down to earth can any restaurant be when it's part of something described as "The Restaurant Collection"? Enter Landmarc, the uptown branch of the beloved family-friendly bastion of Frenchy comfort food in Tribeca. A casual, unpretentious, no reservations (for parties smaller than six) restaurant serving well-executed familiar food at reasonable prices would bring a welcome bit of fresh air to the "Collection," and based on one meal I had with my brother this week, that's just what Landmarc is delivering.
Mike and I arrived at 7:30 on Tuesday night, and we were immediately seated at a smallish table at what is actually a large restaurant seating 200 (plus a bunch of private dining rooms). Mike ordered the hangar steak medium rare, which came with fries, a salad, and a choice of sauce on the side (Mike chose the chimichurri). Knowing I was going to have to answer to Serious Eats Managing Editor and A Hamburger Today creator, Adam Kuban, I ordered a cheddar burger medium-rare, which also came with a salad and fries. Mike's hangar steak was beefy, beautifully charred, and arrived cooked as ordered. My burger had a great crust, but was medium at best. It came on a good toasted brioche bun that was just soft enough to easily absorb the meat juices. Of course a medium burger doesn't have much juice. Some housemade bread and butter pickles completed what would have been a great burger if it were a couple of ounces smaller and came to the table medium-rare.
The fries, obviously made from fresh potatoes, were good enough to eat but not to rave about. For dessert we shared some icy, too cold tangerine and apple sorbets from Il Laboratorio. They ended up coming to the table perched precariously on mini-sugar cones, a Landmarc practice that had migrated uptown. The mini-cones made the sorbets difficult to eat.
Landmarc adds a necessary, grounded, and welcome bit of "realness" to the "Restaurant Collection" at Time Warner. In fact, maybe it shouldn't be considered part of a collection at all. Let's just call it a restaurant, and a pretty good one at that.
Landmarc (Tribeca)
179 West Broadway
New York, NY 10013
212-343-3883
Landmarc (Time-Warner Center)
10 Columbus Circle 3rd fl.
New York, NY 10019
212-823-6123
Some people count sheep when they can't sleep. I count pasta dishes. There's something about a plate of pasta that's incredibly soothing and satisfying at the same time, and soothing and satisfying thoughts are surefire paths to sleep. The other night I couldn't sleep, and I tried to come up with a list of my most satisfying pastas of the last year. I had a good time putting my little list together, so I thought other people would, too. I asked Adam Platt, restaurant critic at New York magazine, Serious Eats community member Sandro, and Johanne Killeen, co-owner of Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island, and the coauthor (along with her husband and business partner, George Gerrmon) of the new book, On Top of Spaghetti. Johanne was kind enough to let us post one of the pasta recipes from the book. After the jump, the responses (and the recipe).
Whether you’re a New York expatriate who’s been exiled to a software development job in Silicon Valley or just someone who discovered the delights of quintessential New York food on a trip to Gotham, we all love New York food. I don’t think it’s chauvinistic to say that there are some things that are better in New York.
That’s true for other parts of the country as well. Barbecue is better eaten in North Carolina or Texas or Kansas City. Frozen custard should be licked in Wisconsin or Saint Louis. Chili should be eaten in Cincinnati. But for things like pastrami, bagels, bialys, and cheesecake, you've got to go to the source. Or have someone from the source ship it to you, bring the mountain to Muhammad, so to speak. So without further ado, here’s the Serious Eats Guide to Quintessential New York Mail-Order Foods.
A couple of weeks ago an ELE reader reported on the donuts at the Bouchon Bakery (Time-Warner Center, Broadway bet. 59th and 60th Sts., 3rd Fl., 212-823-9366). The reader posted that the BB donuts were really good, but they were only available on the weekends after noon.
Two weeks ago, I went to Bouchon Bakery around 1 p.m.hoping to score some doughnuts. The counter person said that no donuts were going to be forthcoming from the kitchen that day. Try back next weekend, she said. I was bitterly disappointed, and I drowned my sorrows in a bag of phenomenal homemade crackerjacks. The caramel corn was made with just sweet enough caramel, and the candied nuts were sensational. It didn't come with a prize, and I believe it was $4.50 for a small bag, but let's face it, a box of crackerjacks would cost you that much at a ballgame, and the prizes are usually worthless to an adult.
The following weekend I once again tried to score some donuts. Success! I scored two filled doughnuts. One was chocolate-covered and filled with custard, and the other was a jelly doughnut.
Both doughnuts blew me away. Both were extraordinarily light, moist, and had the correct filling to dough ratio. The chocolate was serious chocolate, as was the jam. These doughnuts were so good I might never be able to eat commercial quality filled doughnuts again. Which I guess is a good thing. These doughnuts are $3.50, but worth every penny.
I did have one Bouchon Bakery item a month ago that was not sensational. An $8.50 caramel apple was utterly ordinary, overpriced, and ill-conceived (it had chocolate squiggles on it). But two (crackerjacks and donuts) out of three ain't bad.
The election is over, and we have gotten rid of quite a few turkeys. We have a new governor, Eliot Spitzer, and though he is a New Yorker he doesn't seem like he's the type of guy who cares about food. In fact I'd be willing to bet money (if Spitzer wouldn't throw me in jail for illegal gambling) that he's an "eat to live" kind of guy.
So I thought I'd give him a hand by offering him a list of five places to eat that might inject a little pleasure and fun into his life. The man looks like he could use all the help he can get in the fun department...
Thanks to the tireless eating efforts of Serious Eats readers I have discovered a couple of other apple turnovers worth eating.
At Balthazar (80 Spring Street (bet. Broadway and Crosby Sts.), 212-965-1785, the apple turnover is light but still substantial and incredibly buttery. The apple filling is soft but not mushy. The Balthazar apple turnover moves up to No. 2 behind Duane Park Patisserie's in the ELE Turnover Survey.
Down the street at Ceci Cela (179 Duane St. (between Hudson and Greenwich Sts.) 212-274-8447, the apple turnover needs a little more apple filling, though the pastry is mighty fine.
And speaking of Balthazar the bakers there make a mean chocolate cake doughnut made in the same machine the late, great Dreesen's Market.
A good apple turnover, like a good man, is hard to find. We're talking seriously good here: flaky, moist, buttery pastry, just firm enough, not too sweet, apples that have been cooked and carmelized before fill the pastry, and-this is key-the right ratio of pastry to apples.
Bad apple turnovers are ubiquitous in New York and elsewhere. You know the ones I'm talking about: hard, unyielding pastry, gelatinous apple filling that belongs in a Hostess Apple pie, and that disgusting white frosting that should be used as mortar.
The unquestioned apple turnover queen in New York is Madeleine Lanciani of Duane Park Patisserie, 179 Duane Street (between Hudson and Greenwich Sts.) 212-274-8447. Her apple turnovers are flakier than Robin Williams, and so buttery they would be banned from every cardiologist's waiting room I can think of. WARNING: In order to secure one of these turnovers you must get to the shop before ten a.m. I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed when I waltz in there ship around noon.
New York's best unsung apple turnover can be had at Patisserie Margot (2109 Broadway (on 74th Street just west of Broadway) 212-721-0076. Nacole Jacam's turnovers are rectangularly shaped rather than triangular. But the pastry is light and crunchy and delicious, and the filling is cinammony and almost tart. I only wish the pastry to filling ratio was a little lower.
Claude,the impossibly French owner of Patisserie Claude (187 West 4th St. (bet. sixth and seventh avenues.) 212-255-5911, is so grouchy I always hesitate before recommending anyone going into his patisserie. I relent every time because his apple turnovers and croissants are so damn fine. Claude did smile at me last time I was in there, maybe it was because I bought one of everything he had out, or maybe he's just mellowing out as he gets older.
I can't think of another apple turnover in this berg worth calling out. Did I miss any?
Here's an interesting question for you. Is there such a thing as a four star bargain? We all know about the terrific informal eating bargains around the city and the entire country for that matter:
the Gray's Papaya Special; two slices of pizza made with mozzarella di bufala at DiFara's; the hot dogs topped with good french fries at Jim and Jude's in Chicago; the pork shoulder sandwich at Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur, Alabama; the all you can eat buffet (including his incomparable fried chicken) at Charles Southern Kitchen; the wonton soup at New Chao Chow, Chris Bianco's incomparable mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich at Pane Bianco in Phoenix, AZ. Oh, you get the idea. These are all dirt cheap eating experiences that come without any luxurious accoutrements: no friendly sommelier, no lavish flower arrangements, no plush chairs.
But is there such a thing as a four star bargain meal? One that comes with caring service, comfortable lux environs, and world-class food?
Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about doughnuts, both in NYC and elsewhere.
And my conclusion is not pretty, especially when it comes to doughnuts in Gotham. Basically, I've concluded that New York is a lousy doughnut town. You heard me.
It wasn't always this way. For years Georgie and James Bryant made unforgettably good glazed and raised jelly doughnuts in their shoebox-sized bakery on 125th Street in Harlem. These were light, practically weightless doughnuts that floated across the counter when you ordered a dozen.
Then, about ten years ago, Georgie and James retired and closed their eponymous bake shop. And that, my friends, was a NYC doughnut disaster. Because that left us with no great glazed doughnuts to call our own.
If you haven't already checked out the piece on the world's foremost baguettologist in New York Magazine, you must. This is all you need to know about Steven L. Kaplan: When he speaks of baguettes he says things like "a global sense of the moment of penetration" in describing mouthfeel; or that baguettes have "had intercourse" when they're packed too tightly in the oven; or, finally, "It's as if the female crumb has completely reduced the male crust to helpless impotence" when he describes a soggy bread.
The problem with the story is that we never learn the exact criteria he uses in judging baguettes. We learn he has a 21-point grading stystem, but we never find out how he applies it.
But the story did start me thinking about baguettes in New York and around the country, and in the last three days I have bought ten baguettes to sample. What have I learned? One is that a baguette from the same bakery can vary greatly from day to day. The baguette from Pain D'Avignon was great one day, and pretty awful the next. This makes sense in a certain way. Bread baking is affected by outside temperature and humidity and changes in both from day to day. It's like pizza. Also, mass-baking baguettes is the ultimate challenge for any bread baker. Any one of six bakers in New York can make ten great baguettes a day. The real question is whether they can make thousands of very good baguettes in a day. Also, a baguette is an extremely perishable food item. It varies in taste and texture according to how many hours it's been out of the oven. A baguette that's one hour old tastes very different from a six hour-old baguette.
This is a long-winded way of asking all of you to vote for your favorite baguette, either in New York or out.
Here are the candidates I know about:
New York:
Eli's
Pain d'Avignon
Sullivan Street Bakery
Balthazar
Tomcat
Le Pain Quotidien
Outside New York:
La Brea Bakery: (originally LA, now nationwide)
Acme Bread: Bay Area
Bread Line (D.C.)
So cast your vote and tell me what you like about your favorite baguette. We're talking about regular baguettes here, not sourdough.
In Frank Bruni's entertaining and informative piece on the food of Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna in today's Times he mentions gnocco fritto, the addictive little pockets of fried dough served with salami, mortadella, sopressata, prosciutto, or stracchino cheese (or with lardo or culatello in Italy). Have you ever had gnocco fritto?
They're astonishingly good. Gnocco Fritto are one of those Italian dishes that I wish were available everywhere, but the fact of the matter is that gnocco fritto are hard to find in New York.
My favorite gnocco fritto in New York are served at Bianca,5 Bleecker Street (bet.Bowery and Elizabeth Sts.) 212-260-4666. Chef-owner Giancarlo Quaddalti's little fried pillows of dough are crisp, greaseless, and cloud-light. The man knows from gnocco fritto. He is from Emilia-Romagna.
At lunch you can get a mean gnocco fritto sandwich at Via Emilia, 47 E. 21st St. (bet. Park Ave. So. and Broadway), 212-505-3072 . Two slabs of fried dough surround pieces of prosciutto and mozzarella. The gnocco fritto here are not as light and artfully done as the ones at Bianca, but they're mightly tasty, nonetheless.
We need more gnocco fritto served in this country. Now.
I'm not a tuna salad freak, but I know what I like. I like the tuna salad sandwiches on rye or white toast at Eisenberg's, though I haven't been there since the latest owners took over. Nothing fancy there, just canned Bumble Bee Tuna and Hellman's mayo, mashed together with a big spoon. I like a classic salad nicoise, made with canned tuna (the way Julia Child liked it), but I've never had a tuna salad I craved until I had Giancarlo Quaddalti's tuna, red onion, and bread
salad at Teodora, the best Italian restaurant in New York that no one knows about.
I was reminded of this last night, when I had another quietly perfect meal at Teodora (141 E.57th St. (just west of Lex on the north side of the street). I don't know what it is about the tuna salad that makes it so great. Quaddalti uses Italian tuna, shaved red onion, toasted bread cubes, red wine vinegar, capers, and I don't know what else. I have asked Quaddalti, and he won't give up the recipe. Maybe I'll try again.
It's not a particularly pretty plate of food, with its various shades of dark brown, red, and tan. But it tastes like heaven. It is the tuna salad of my dreams, and maybe of yours as well.
But perhaps there are other great tuna salads out there in the world. I don't know.
Like everyone else in NY I look forward to the new Zagat Guide coming out every year. This year's appeared this week, and it was mostly the same old same old. But there was one thing I noticed that stuck out like a sore thumb. The Best Newcomer was Telepan. Guess what? Telepan, a restaurant I really like by the way, is less than a five minute walk from the Zagat's house. So I find it very hard to believe that Tim and Nina Zagat eating there quite often didn't affect the Best Newcomer ratings and outcome. I have interviewed Tim many times, and we are always cordial and friendly when we see each other at events, but at some point he should fess up that his personal preferences and opinions matter more than other individual Zagat surveyors.
Other Zagat tweaks came from Steve Cuozzo at the Post, who noted the discrepancies between what the Zagat Guide says is the average cost of the meal, and what the meal actually cost. He cited both Gramercy Tavern and Chanterelle as places where the check will most certainly be higher than what the Zagat survey reported.
That said, let's face it, we all love the Zagat Guide for its easy to find addresses and phone numbers, its indices, and its handy shape for throwing it in your jacket pocket. I don't love it for the ratings, which I find woefully out of whack, or the blurbs, which are way too cute and don't really convey much useful information.
Many years ago, when my hair was still red, I wrote a piece for Gourmet about eating at the bar at high-end restaurants. I said then that eating at the bar was a great way to beat the system. That is, you never had to hit speed dial in a vain effort to get through, you never had to deal with the officious types answering the phone saying, "I'm sorry, sir, we're fully committed," and you never ever again received what I call the 5;30 or 10 o clock fandango we are all too familiar with. Plus, you don't feel pressure to order three courses and spend a lot of money. You eat what you feel like eating. What a concept!
You can eat at the bar at many of the city's best restaurants, including Daniel, Babbo, Jean-Georges, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Gotham Bar & Grill, Del Posto (the bar area there is called the Enotecca), and at the newest spot to beat the system, Terrance Brennan's revamped and reworked Picholine.
I sat with a friend at the bar there on very comfortable stools with comfortable leather backs. We could have sat at a row of tables right in back of the bar, but the bar stools were just as inviting. OUr bartender/server was solicitous and extremely knowledgeable about Brennan's brand new menu.
We ordered three of the selections from the tasting flight for $18. The paella spring rolls sounded a bit weird, but were in actuality crispy and delicious, and just saffrony enough. The seared beef in a pimenton vinaigrette was perfectly cooked and intensely beefy. The warm buffalo carpaccio in a chocolate peppercorn vinaigrette was the only clear loser in the bunch. More and more chefs are using unsweetened chocolate in savory dishes, but I haven't found a non-Mexican restaurant or chef that has figured out how to pull it off.
Sheep's nilk ricotta gnocchi with chanterelles and serrano ham were cloud-light and wonderfully earthy. The organic egg en cocotte was a soft-boiled egg topped with white truffle shavings that we were instructed to spoon onto black truffle-smeared toasts. Delicious!
The sea urchin panna cotta, a riff on Alain Ducasse's famous dish, was topped with caviar and served with sea weed crisps. The sea urchin panna cotta tasted like what could only be described as sea cream. You could practically hear the ocean roar with every bite.
The one must-have dessert is the warm caramel apple brioche, served with salted caramel ice cream on disk of apple salad. This is the caramel apple of our dreams. A pear belle helene, served in a chocolate soup along with milk sorbet, was not as successful. We planned to have some of Max McCalman's wonderful cheeses, but we were too stuffed.
Though Brennan was intent on making Picholine less stuffy, it still doesn't feel like a casual restaurant. But I felt totally comfortable wearing an oxford shirt and slacks. Just don'w wear a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, and you'll fit right in. The bar awaits you at the new Picholine. Now you just have to find the place, which isn't easy right now because there is no sign. There is someone stationed outside the door who asks if you are looking for Picholine. A sign would be bettter. Picholine is at 35 W. 64th Street (between Columbus Ave. and CPW). 212-724-8585
In honor of Columbus Day I started thinking about meatball heroes. A great meatball hero is hard to find. Most meatballs are leaden and way too dense. They're weighed down with too many breadcrumbs. Most hero rolls are cottony disasters, with no chew to the crust. When you find a good meatball hero it's cause for celebration. But when I tried to come up with a top five meatball heroes list I came up short: I could think of three that I truly loved. They are:
Frankie's Spuntino
Address: 457 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map); 17 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002 (map) Phone: 718-403-0033, 212-403-0033 Website:frankiesspuntino.com
The gold standard of meat ball parm heroes. The meatballs are light, the mozzarella is fresh, and the bread is Sullivan Street bakery pizza.
Caputo's
Address: 460 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map) Phone: 718-855-8852
A family-run Italian grocery store with very high standards, Caputo's features Mrs. Caputo's surprisingly light meatballs, made with beef, pork, and veal.
Leo's Latticini
Address: 46-02 104th Street, Corona, NY 11368 (map) Phone: 718-898-6069
Also known as Mama's, Leo's Latticini only has meatballs on certain days of the week. So call first.
Crosby Connection
Address: 290 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012 (map) Phone: 212-677-8444 Website:crosbyconnectionnyc.com
The crosby special is a meatball hero with ricotta and mozzarella. It's a little messy and I wish the bread were a little better, but overall the Crosby Connection makes a fine meatball hero. The price is right, as well: $6.
In theory, based on their track record, the following places should be prime territory for meatball heroes:
Esposito's
Address: 357 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map) Phone: 718-875-6863
The quintessential Brooklyn pork store, Esposito's makes meatballs, fresh mozzarella, has decent bread, and they have pretty high standards.
DiFara
Address: 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY 11230 (map) Phone: 718-258-1367
I've never had a meatball parm hero at Dom's, but let's face it, the man knows how to cook and he takes great pride in everything he makes. Anybody had a meatball hero at DiFara?
Meatball Hero Emeritus
Corona Heights Pork Store: The Corona Heights Pork Store is closed (I haven't been able to get in touch with the Cappezzas to find out why), but Mary Lou made a meatball parm hero that was as good as an old school hero could be. Her meatballs were clouds, her sauce was loaded with meaty pork flavor, and she used excellent hero rolls from Rose and Joe's Bakery in Astoria.
I'm also thinking that Faicco's on Bleecker St. and Brooklyn must make a really fine meatball hero, but I've never had one there. Any reports? And what about Royal Crown in Brooklyn?
have lamented that there's no place to eat around in their neighborhood. So when I sat down to list my favorite places on the UWS to grab a reasonably priced meal (main courses less than $20) without a reservation and advance planning, I was surprised at how many good places there are. Before I embark on this series of neighborhood guides I need to spell out our rating system:
Is there anything better on this earth than the Chinese-style spare ribs that many of us grew up on? I don't think so. The good ones are tender, porky, and just sweet enough. The late Jerry Nachtman once wrote something to the effect that "I used to think that I could never get enough spare ribs." I'm that guy. I never think that I'll get enough spare ribs, especially now that a small order usually is less than six ribs.
Anyway, here's my top five list for Chinese-style spare ribs in NYC, in no particular order:
Chinatown Brasserie: 380 Lafayette St. (Great Jones), 212-533-7000. They hired away the long-time barbecue guy at one of the Shun Lees. The ribs and duck here are amazing.
Big Wong: 67 Mott Street (bet. Bayard and Canal), 212-964-0540: Big Wong ribs make a great Chinatown walking lunch, though you will need an entire roll of paper towels. The ribs are small, sticky, sweet four bite jobbies, served the traditional Chinese way, at room temperature.
Pig Heaven: 1540 Second Ave. (80th and 81st Sts). 212-744-4333: Love the name, and they back it up with great ribs and even better suckling pig. The ribs here are long, lean, and incredibly meaty.
Greater NY Noodletown: 28 1/2 Bowery (Bayard), 212-349-0923: Yeah, they're rude, but the barbecue, soups, and a few other dishes are outrageously good.
Tang Tang: 1328 Third Avenue (76th St. 212-279-2102, 243 Third Ave. (20th St.) 212-477-0460: The crisper, crunchier ribs
There are holes on this list. Brooklyn or Queens Chinese ribs joints, anyone?
Although I have always vowed not to give ELE a bite by bite description of everything I eat, this past weekend I had so much good food I feel compelled to tell all of you about every incredibly delicious bite I took:
Friday 6 p.m.: A fantastic white pie at the Totonno's at 26th St. and Second Ave. Anyone who thinks the only way to get a great Totonno's pie is to go to Coney Island is just plain wrong.
Saturday 1 p.m.: I went with a couple of friends to the Red Hook Soccer Fields, where we proceeded to eat at every stall. The Red Hook Soccer Fields are one of those life-changing NY food experiences: great home cooks from many Latin American countries cooking for the rest of us. Real food, honest food, in an incomparable setting. I will have lots more to say this week on this not-to-be-missed experience, and I would urge all of you to go this weekend to the corner of Bay and Clinton Streets in Red Hook.
Sunday 1 p.m.: I bought my mother-in-law lunch from Bouchon Bakery. The sandwiches (a roast beef and a turkey) were disappointing (rolls didn't seem fresh, turkey too peppery, flavorless roast beef), but the sweets I brought made my mother-in-law amd me very happy: two chocolate bouchons, one incredible nutter butter cookie (or whatever it is they call their incredible peanut butter cookie), and a coffee eclair that was good but not worth the $3.75 price tag.
Sunday 7 p.m.: I bought a first-rate Eli's apple pie to bring to Calvin Trillin's house for dinner. As I exited Eli's I bought a cup of terrific vanilla ice cream and a cup of equally good grapefruit sorbet from Eli's sidewalk gelateria.
At Trillin's we had some amazing pimientos de Padron, small, vaguely smokey and only occasionally hot peppers, flash-fried and salted. Then Trillin brought out the big guns: boiled pork and chive dumplings from Super Taste on Eldridge Street. Best dumplings I've ever had in my life; remarkably delicate wrappers, porky filling with a slightly roughhewn texture, and something that gave the dumpling a vaguely sweet taste.
Trillin knows more about where to find great food in Chinatown than anyone else I know. He is also one of our greatest writers, whether he's writing about food or politics or anything else. "Bud" Trillin is, as I've said before, a national treasure. If you don't already own The Tummy Trilogy and Feeding a Yen (which contains his story on the above-mentioned peppers) them log on to Amazon and buy them immediately.
For dessert, the apple pie, a friend's very fine flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream, and melon sorbet and hazelnut gelato from Cones on Bleecker Street. More about Trillin's Chinatown favorites will be coming in a separate post.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 29, 2006 at 8:02 AM
I'm glad that so many of you share my concern for the state of the pizza slice in Manhattan, but as a number of you pointed out, there are still a few spots serving slices worth eating:
Patsy's:(East Harlem) The only coal-fired slice I know of in NYC.
Sal and Carmine's:(Upper West Side) Solid slice, canned mushrooms, no delivery.
Mimi's: (Upper East Side) Too much cheese, but that's true all over (pun intended)
Maffei:(Chelsea) Best grandma slice in Manhattan
Joe's:(West Village) As a reader pointed out, it seems unfair that the original Joe's location is now an Abitino's, one of those less than mediocre mini-chains spreading like pizza cheese.
Bleecker St. Pizza:(West Village) Crisp-crusted Long Island-style slice transplanted to Manhattan
Vinny Vincenz:(East Village) Unheralded but noteworthy thin-crusted Sicilian haven
Famous Ben's:(Soho) I particularly like the Palermo Pizza, made with seasoned breadcrumbs and a sweet onion sauce.
Pizza Suprema:(Midtown West) Fine sliceria that's good to know about when you're going to the Garden.
DeMarco's is okay, but it pales in comparison to DiFara.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 27, 2006 at 7:06 AM
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a pizza slice crisis in NYC that threatens to undermine sixty years of tradition, a crisis that calls out for mayoral or government intervention.
The NYC slice, once a justifiable source of culinary pride in this town, is going to hell in a hand basket filled with pizza cheese and canned pizza sauce. Think about it. The streets of Manhattan are filled with slice joints, each one worse than the next. You know the slices I'm talking about. The crust is thick and gummy. Every bite brings a mouthful of unbaked dough. The sauce is canned pizza sauce. It tastes like Franco American on a bad day. The cheese is that abomination called pizza cheese, and there's so much of it on every piece that slice weights are approaching one pound.
I call this the Ray's syndrome. Ever since some variation of a Ray's (Original Ray's, Ray Bari, Imitation Ray's, ) started appearing on every corner the state of the NYC slice has never been worse. Other mini-chains have also descended on our city like some kind of slice plague, and the situation has reached epic proportions. Our quality slice culture is fast disappearing.
Interstingly, this fast deteriorating situation seems to be limited to Manhattan. Brooklyn's quality slice culture remains intact, or certainly more intact than Manhattan's. Certain neighborhood in Queens have upheld slice standards well. And Staten Island, the home of Nunzio's and Joe and Pat's, is a veritable beacon of pizza slice quality.
I wrote about the state of the slice in the Times a few years ago.
The situation has only gotten worse. C'mon, people, this is an important quality of life issue. Or I should say a quality of slice issue.
What can we do about it? There's no sense in lobbying Blomberg or anyone else in his administration. They're all lame ducks, and they've had one whole term to tackle this issue. And they have done nothing.
I believe the answer lies in lobbying our city councilmen and women.
Tell them that was once a source of city pride has become some kind of cruel joke perpetrated by slice purveyors who are taking down our reputation.
Reply to this post, and I will present it as a petition. Join me in saving the NYC slice. It's not too late.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 26, 2006 at 10:40 AM
I've had two terrific, fairly priced Italian meals in the last two weeks at a restaurant owned by a celebrity chef. Excellent pastas, solicitous service, superb if slightly oversalted skirt steak, extraordinarily delicious pork tenderloin, and killer sorbets and gelato for dessert. Oh yeah, the foccaccia rocks, too.
Now if they would only do something about the piano player. He can play, but he seems like he should be playing at Doubles, or some other bar on the upper east side. But the restaurant is blessedly quiet. You can converse easily with your dining companions.
Pastas are $12-15, main courses are all less than $23. The tasting menu is $41.
I'm not going to tell you the name of the celebrity chef or even the name of the restaurant. This restaurant only takes reservations starting at ten in the morning for the same day, and it hasn't been full either time I've been there.
Call this number, 212-672-0390, listen to the silly music that plays while you wait for someone to answer, eat there, and tell me what you think.
Not only was the pig sensational (served four ways), but the event itself was an incredibly laid back and thoroughly enjoyable experience.
As a friend of mine said, "It feels like we're not even in NYC any more." In fact, it felt like we were upstate on a weekend, a nice feeling to have in the middle of a work day in Gotham.
As good as the pig was, the sheep's milk ricotta and apple fritters were even better. Cloud-like, perfectly fried fritters with a hint of tart (the apples) and tang (the ricotta) drizzled with pomegranate molasses. Delicious!
The four pig dishes served yesterday aren't on the regular menu at Il Buco, but there is a porchetta sandwich that is out of this world that I wrote about in Details Magazine in the September issue.
I asked Il Buco owner Donna Lennard if the celestial fritters were on the restaurant's dessert menu, and she said they had just taken them off.
This comes pretty close to my definition of a dessert tragedy. Please call or e-mail the restaurant (ilbuco@ilbuco.com or 212-533-1932) and ask them nicely to put the fritters back on the menu.
BRING BACK THE IL BUCO RICOTTA AND APPLE FRITTERS!
Posted by Ed Levine, September 21, 2006 at 11:20 AM
Soup dumplings from Goodies
I have to say that I've been disappointed by my last few forays to Chinatown, both for dim sum and regular meals. That said, when I started to think about where I would send friends in Chinatown, I came up with a surprisingly long list:
New Chow Chao
Address: 111 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Canal and Hester; map) Phone: 212-226-2590
Best wonton soup I've ever tasted and one of the great bargains of NY eating: $3.00 for a quart, a meal for two.
Chanoodle
Address: 79 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Bayard and Canal; map) Phone: 212-349-1495
Lots of really fine cheap dishes, including great fried rice, fried fish and chicken, and a pork and clams dish that is scary good.
Big Wong
Address: 67 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Bayard and Canal; map) Phone: 212-964-0540
Moist, meaty spare ribs that end up on my shirt as I wander around Chinatown.
Goodies
Address: 1 East Broadway, New York, NY 10038 (near Chatham Square; map) Phone: 212-577-2922
Extraordinary soup dumplings, might be better than Joe's.
Great NY Noodletown
Address: 28 1/2 Bowery, New York, NY 10013 (near Bayard; map) Phone: 212-349-0923
Salt-baked fish, wonton soup, and Chinese barbecue worth the wait (if it's not too long).
Posted by Ed Levine, September 19, 2006 at 6:08 AM
There are obviously way more good neighborhood Italian restaurants than I knew about.
Tim turned me on to Fragole on Court Street in Carroll Gardens.
Benson posted about Locanda Vini e Olii in Clinton Hill, in Brooklyn.
Binky really likes Perrabacco in the East Village.
Moth 23 mentioned Le Zie and Sette in Chelsea and Supper in the East Village.
Keep 'em coming. Write something about the feel of the place and the food when you do. And give us the address and phone number if you have the time. This list will be invaluable to ELE readers.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 18, 2006 at 7:27 AM
A number of ELE users commented, and rightly so, that all the places on my Best Italian restaurant list were all pretty damned pricey. So I thought I should take a stab at a list of potential top five neighborhood Italian restaurants. How do I define a neighborhood Italian restaurant?
A restaurant where you can eat two courses and a glass of wine and spend $25. Neighborhood restaurants that don't require as much of a financial commitment and advance planning. You might wait on line because in many cases these restaurants don't take reservations.
The trouble with most neighborhood Italian restaurants is that most often they serve food that is well-meaning but mediocre at best. That said, there are a number of wonderful neighborhood Italian restaurants sprinkled all over NY. The over-all experience at these neighborhood spots will not likely be as satisfying (service and space can often be lacking), but the food can be delicious.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 15, 2006 at 7:02 AM
After a couple of days of not so quiet contemplation, as well as some serious Italian restaurant eating, I have decided that Babbo
is my favorite Italian restaurant in NYC. Why? Because of how I feel when I eat there. Babbo has the greatest vibe and the best energy of any restaurant I know, Italian or not. I feel great as soon as I walk in the door, even when I'm confronted by a crush of people at the bar and on occasion a less than warm and gracious welcome. I feel I'm smack dab in the middle of something both energizing and transportive. I have eaten at Babbo dozens of times, and the food is full of gusto and energy and panache as well. The pastas, the sweetbreads, the skirt steak (is it still on the menu?), the lamb chops, and even the desserts (not normally the strongest suit of an Italian restaurant) are almost always satisfying, earthy, a little bit showy, and extremely delicious. I don't even mind the music, though it can get way too loud late at night, because Mario generally has very good taste in jazz and rock. Though it's never quiet in Babbo, you can almost always carry on a conversation with your tablemates without raising your voice. I have heard people complain about their meal at Babbo (the food and the overall experience), but for my money it defines what contemporary Italian dining is in NYC right now. 110 Waverly Pl. (just east of sixth avenue) 212-777-0303.
My other top four:
Esca fantastic raw seafood creations (called crudo), exemplary pastas (I'm partial to the one with sea urchin and crabmeat), and deceptively simple, fresher than fresh, grilled, sauteed and baked fish main courses. 402 W. 43rd St. (just west of ninth avenue) 212-562-7272.
Teodora: Chef Giancarlo Quaddalti is from Bologna, so when you go to Teodora have the lasagna. It's the real thing. Teodora really feels Italian, from the cooking to the vibe to the Italian being spoken at many tables. 141 E.57th St. (just east of Lexington Ave.) 212-826-7101
Del Posto Inoteca The casual side of Del Posto, the Inoteca's cooking is a little more soulful and significantly cheaper than its big brother. They even have chicken cacciatoria on the menu. Great nibbles, pastas, salads, meat dishes like a pork loin with fig salad, juicy skirt steak, just food you want to eat. They only take reservations there the same day, and when I went the other night, there were a number of empty tables, In other words, you can get in without speed-dialing. 85 Tenth Ave. (between 15th and 16th streets, 212-497-8090)
L'Impero Scott Conant's cabrito (goat) is reason enough to go to L'Impero, and he has a fantastic way with pastas and starters as well. 45 Tudor City Pl., 212-599-5045.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 14, 2006 at 1:56 PM
Adam Roberts, AKA the Amateur Gourmet, had the temerity, the nerve, to expect a warm reception when he took his parents to the new Le Cirque. Needless to say, he was treated rather shabbily by Sirio
himself. Not a big surprise, obviously, but his account is pitch perfect. My favorite moment: When Adam spots Sirio, he says to his parents, "See that guy over there. He's the one who will determine our worth."
What's especially fascinating is son Mauro Maccioni's response to Adam's blog post. His bristling defensiveness knows no bounds. What's interesting is that Mauro never directly responds to Adam's description of the indignities the Roberts family suffered at the hands of the restaurant's staff, including Sirio himself. I should say that the Maccionis know who I am, so I am often treated well when I go to their restaurants, but I have certainly been treated shabbily on occasion and had bad food at various incarnations of Le Cirque.
Mauro's churlish response reminded me of the time when Times reviewer Biff Grimes gave one of the Maccioni restaurants a less than stellar review, and Sirio responded by making a gratuitously insulting remark about Grime's wife.
What does this tell us? Are the Maccionis only gracious on cue?
Posted by Ed Levine, September 13, 2006 at 9:10 AM
For more than a century New York has been awash in Italian restaurants, from Barbetta in the theatre district, to Gargiulo's in Coney Island, to Mario's on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to Parkside in Corona Heights, Queens. And for almost that long New Yorkers have been arguing about which Italian restaurant is the best. Of course chef/restaurateurs like Mario Batali have in the last ten years redefined the New York Italian restaurant (both the food and the experience). In fact people like Batali and his partner Joe Bastianich, Lydia Bastianich (Felidia) and Tony May (San Domenico) have raised the Italian food bar considerably higher.
So I've been thinking a great deal lately about what are the city's top five Italian restaurants, and I've decided that these are the contenders, in alphabetical order:
Al Di La
Babbo
Del Posto
Esca (full disclosure: I've written a cookbook with Esca chef/partner Dave Pasternack)
Felidia
Il Mulino (I've never even had a good meal there, but other people seem to really like it)
L'Impero
Lupa
San Domenico
Scalini Fedeli (also never been, but I've received some good reports)
Teodora
A couple of things I immediately notice when I look at this list. None of the old-fashioned southern Italian-American red sauce joints outside Manhattan even made the list of contenders. That doesn't mean you cannot get a good meal at places like Tommaso's in Brooklyn and Don Peppe in South Ozone Park, Queens, or even Rao's in East Harlem. It's just that the food at those places really doesn't measure up to the places on the list.
Next week I will post about moderately priced Italian restaurants.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 12, 2006 at 6:54 AM
Yes, Absolute Bagels (2788 Broadway, New York NY 10025; 212-932-2052) is my choice for New York's best bagel. A Thai family–run bakery, Absolute's bagels are chewy, crunchy, and, blessedly, not too sweet. They also do not suffer from bagel elephantiasis, which has made many New York bagels into dirigibles with holes.
Absolute's mini bagels are my snack of choice—they're even crunchier than the regular-size versions.
H & H's bagels are too sweet, too big, and have no crunch or chew whatsoever.
I think the reasons everyone loves them is that they're most often warm when you buy them and the shop's proximity to Zabar's (which actually carries a superior bagel, from Columbia Hot Bagels).
Are there really any other contenders in New York or anywhere else?
My bagel silver medalist is The Bagelry, 429 Third Avenue, New York NY 10016; 212-679-9845.
My bronze goes to Bagel Oasis, 183-12 Horace Harding Expressway, Fresh Meadows NY 11365; 888-BAGELOASIS.
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 
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. 
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 
I hadn't been to
I didn't expect to be so moved when I walked into the 
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").
The 
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.
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 
, and the subject of Thai restaurants in New York City came up.
Is there anything better on this earth than the Chinese-style spare ribs that many of us grew up on? I don't think so. The good ones are tender, porky, and just sweet enough. The late Jerry Nachtman once wrote something to the effect that "I used to think that I could never get enough spare ribs." I'm that guy. I never think that I'll get enough spare ribs, especially now that a small order usually is less than six ribs. 
Adam Roberts, 
What's especially fascinating is son Mauro Maccioni's response to Adam's blog post. His bristling defensiveness knows no bounds. What's interesting is that Mauro never directly responds to Adam's description of the indignities the Roberts family suffered at the hands of the restaurant's staff, including Sirio himself. I should say that the Maccionis know who I am, so I am often treated well when I go to their restaurants, but I have certainly been treated shabbily on occasion and had bad food at various incarnations of Le Cirque.
Yes, Absolute Bagels (2788 Broadway, New York NY 10025; 212-932-2052) is my choice for New York's best bagel. A Thai family–run bakery, Absolute's bagels are chewy, crunchy, and, blessedly, not too sweet. They also do not suffer from bagel elephantiasis, which has made many New York bagels into dirigibles with holes.
