Have you hugged your favorite food cart vendor today? In The Food Cart Song, comedy duo Rhett and Link visit food carts around New York City and hug the carts' vendors after telling us the stories behind the hot dogs, pretzels, roasted nuts, and more. Kind of. Whether or not Abul is selling nuts to help pay for his daughter's $800 cell phone bill we'll never know, but it rhymes in the song. Watch the video after the jump.
Rameniac, one of the premier noodle blogs, has revealed its 2009 King of the Bowl ramen ratings, with lists for Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York City.
In Los Angeles, the noodle scene was largely static, "save for the opening of one or two sub-par shops." Seattle was all about tonkotsu (a specific type of ramen). "Had Kurt Cobain slurped down a few Samurai Armor Plates (from Seattle's Samurai Noodle) during his lifetime, grunge might have never happened." Vegas is more famous for "99¢ buffets and Lance Burton at the Monte Carlo," but there are three ramen spots worth noting.
And then there's New York. Fresh off the Japanese airlines, the heaviest hitters go straight to this exciting Stateside ramen scene.
In every decent-sized city there are essential eating experiences, bites every serious eater should avail themselves of should he or she find themselves there. Here at Serious Eats we thought it would be fun to post guides to essential eating experiences in cities all over the world.
We're going to start with, what else, New York (hey, we live here) and move across the country and then the world. Over time our fellow bloggers, critics, food writers, cookbook authors, and serious eaters of all stripes are going to give us their take on the cities they have spent the most time in. We hope the Serious Eats community will also weigh in on the food of the cities they know and love. Before too long we'll have Serious Eats Guides to Deliciousness for every major food city in the world. Without further adieu, here's our guide to New York. Which of your favorites have we left out? Serious eaters want to know.
Half artichoke, half plain pizza from Di Fara. Photograph from Adam "Slice" Kuban on Flickr
That's a tricky one. For purists, the Neapolitan style at Una Pizza Napolatana are hard to beat. Anthony Mangieri's individual pies are the lightest of airy pizza clouds, with a crispy exterior that represents pizza perfection. For elevated, classic New York slices, Di Fara in Brooklyn. Domenico DeMarco is the only person that's ever made pizza in his undistinguished storefront since it opened 44 years ago. For New Yawk coal fire brick oven pizza, Totonno's in Coney Island cannot be improved upon.
Fried chicken from Amy Ruth's in Harlem.
The New York Times notes that many traditional soul food restaurants have closed in Harlem as victims of the neighborhood's changing tastes. Having been a big fan of a number of the now shuttered restaurants, including Pan Pan, Wimp's, Singleton's, Copeland's, and Wilson's, I am saddened by this trend. Especially for those of us who love fried chicken, this is a real loss, and these restaurants may not be replaced. (Note: The Times story said that M&G Diner, another fried chicken stalwart, was still open. Were that the case. I believe it closed a couple of months ago, and the phone there was disconnected when I called.)
The story made me wonder if this trend is going on in other non-Southern cities with well-established African-American neighborhoods. Are Chicago soul food restaurants also on the endangered (fried chicken) species list? What about Los Angeles soul food spots? Serious eaters want to know.
The disturbingly huge wings in this ad are probably due to someone getting too carried away with Photoshop rather than New York being a vendor for gigantic mutant chickens. But $6.99 for 10 giant chicken wings—each piece large enough to feed two people—would've been such an awesome deal. [via Photoshop Disasters and Boing Boing]
If you went to yesterday's Cinco de Mayo street fair in New York City's Harlem like Olia, you may have been face-to-face with this massive rotating tower of al pastor, or marinated rotisserie pork. Aside from feasting on tacos al pastor, Olia ate many other delicious Mexican foodstuffs that make me feel like a failure for having spent my whole Sunday doing laundry and catching up on work.
Related
Photo of the Day: Just A Humongous Bucket Of Eggs And Meat
Photo of the Day: Meaaat Whoaa
Photo of the Day: Lechon
I love the way that Danny's pudgy soup dumpling from Joe's Shanghai in New York City looks like it's trying to escape its spoon. I'm sure it was devoured not long after this photo was taken. In the battle between dumplings and humans, humans always win.
Related
Photo of the Day: Croissant Innards
Photo of the Day: Giant Soup Dumpling
Make Your Own Soup Dumplings
When it comes to living an environmentally friendly lifestyle, the consumption of spirits & cocktails is a definite bump in the road. But as Jonathan Miles wrote in last Sunday’s New York Times, there are a few bars and bartenders who are trying to step lightly when wielding the cocktail shaker.
Miles covered Bar 44 in Manhattan, which is trying to reduce its environmental impact by using regional ingredients for some drinks, including a micro-distilled gin made from organic ingredients in Philadelphia. But Bar 44 isn’t alone; in San Francisco there’s Elixir, certified green by the city and serving drinks made with organic spirits and mixers in energy-efficient surroundings. And like Bar 44 and Elixir, many establishments, especially on the West Coast, are sourcing fruits and herbs for their cocktails from local farms.
Two weeks ago I ate dinner at Mario Batali's Babbo with Tina Wong (aka The Wandering Eater) and two of our friends for a indulgent night resulting in food comas all around. If you've thought about going but have yet to make the month-in-advance reservation, read Tina's food porn-laden review and you'll probably change your mind.
I have yet to write my review, but we're already making plans to go back, if that's any indication. My perfectly valid reason is that since we didn't have enough time to eat dessert, our meal wasn't complete. Also, I really want another bite of one of their pig’s foot “Milanese”, one of the most heavenly slabs of fat I've ever eaten.
Previously
The Wandering Eater at Momofuku Ko
Photo of the Day: WD-50
Photo of the Day: Cheddar and Bacon Chive Scone
Heavenly Panna Cotta by Gina DePalma, Babbo's pastry chef
Once seen a novelty, wine bars are now "proliferating like latter-day Starbucks" in New York, becoming less of a fancy ordeal where patrons got an earful of wine knowledge and more of a relaxing atmosphere to wind down with a glass of red or white. The New York Times takes a look at the changing faces of wine bars as they try to differentiate themselves from among the crowd, with many offering inspired nibbles going beyond the usual cheese platter, and others merging "genres" of tapas and wine bar together.
Tina Wong (aka The Wandering Eater) documents her meal at Momofuku Ko, chef David Chang's newest restaurant in New York City, with a liberal helping of food porn and mouthwatering descriptions. Her final verdict: "YOU MUST TRY IT!" Just grab one of those notoriously difficult online reservations and you're in!
Previously
Ed Levine's first impressions of Momofuku Ko
Photo of the Day: Cheddar and Bacon Chive Scone
Photo of the Day: WD-50
Unique Desserts at the Dessert Studio in New York City
When you walk into Tisserie you're immediately confronted by long, shiny cases of baked goods, sandwiches, and pizzas, an array of stuff we see in many places all over New York. The two classically trained Venezuelan brothers who own Tisserie, Ronald and Morris Harrar, obviously subscribe to the "give the people what they want" school of food retailing.
But I'm going to save you the time and the money involved in trying everything in these cases. You can skip most of the fruity, creamy, or flaky things you see, and you can certainly skip the pizzas, which include one made of smoked turkey and pineapple. Smoked turkey and pineapple! What were they thinking?
So what is worth the money and the calories at Tisserie?
Don't flush just yet! The project drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee taking place at Eyebeam in New York City from March 13 to April 19 aims to raise awareness about the role your body (or more specifically, its waste) plays in the water system. To illustrate the potential for using properly treated urine—a sterile liquid—as a fertilizer for plants, Urine to Fertilizer DIY Kits will be available at the installation. How does the kit work?
Users will test their urine before the reaction. Then, they will add an enzyme, wait for their urine to hydrolyze, and then add Magnesium Chloride. A sediment will build up at the bottom of the jar. Using a filter, they will pour off and flush the liquid, leaving the fertilizer in the jar. They can add water and the seeds included in the kit to grow their own watercress hydroponically in the glass container used for the reaction.
For more information about treating urine to extract its nutrients, read this press release from EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology). [via Cool Hunting]
Eater is reporting a dessert truck showdown tonight outside New York's Whitney Museum for the opening of the Whitney Biennial, where both the Treats Truck and DessertTruck will be on site from 6 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
So who will emerge victorious? The Treats Truck might have the upper hand in terms of recognition thanks to its ever-changing location all throughout New York City, whereas the Dessert Truck remains at 8th Street and University Place near NYU, but it does offer up some stiff competition with its wallet-friendly gourmet desserts like molten chocolate cake or its bombolonis. And let's not forget that both trucks are vying for Best Mobile Food in Time Out NY's Eat Out 2008 Awards.
How can you resist a croissant whose "innards are like labyrinths, each encapsulating pockets of deliciousness"? Danny of Food in Mouth enthusiastically praises the butter-loaded croissant from the New York-based café, Petrossian. I can almost smell the butter wafting out of the croissant's golden crust from here.
You don't have to go to the outer boroughs to get those hard-to-find ingredients. The New York Times rounds up ethnic food markets in Manhattan, to get everything from Brazilian coffee to British sausages.
Surprisingly, I actually like Valentine’s Day. Maybe it's not that big a surprise since I have someone I love, and against all odds, she actually loves me back (food obsessions and all). I know you can do nice things for people you care about “anytime you want,” but there’s something about Valentine’s Day that I like. Maybe it’s that you have an excuse to do something on a weeknight that you may not do otherwise. Last year my wife and I had the best Valentine’s Day—it involved a movie, some wine, and, of course, a pair of serious sandwiches. Fancy dinners and expensive flowers are nice, but I think hidden food snuck into a movie (with alcohol pairing of course) is the best option. And what better food is there than a sandwich? Perfectly portable, and easy to eat in a theater—silverware not necessary.
Lucky for us, there a place right between my office in Midtown Manhattan and our local movie theater on the Upper West Side of New York City that has a few serious sandwiches: the Bouchon Bakery take-out window, courtesy of Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Per Se). No matter where we eat, my wife and I usually order two different things and share (to cover more ground), but when it comes to the Bouchon Bakery vegetable jardiniere, neither of us are willing to give up a half…so two of the same thing it was.
Photograph from La Mariposa on Flickr
Brighten up your living room with a...banana wall? View the fruit-bearing wall and more installations at Stefan Sagmeister's exhibition Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, now showing at Deitch Gallery in New York City.
New York City's previously closet-sized sandwicherie Crosby Connection has just reopened today into its new location in Nolita.
Live in New York City and don't know where to fulfill a candy craving? Check out Gridskipper's roundup of candy shops in the Big Apple; you'll get a sugar rush just reading about them.
Dave Cook of Eating In Translation was tired of drinking the standard coffee, tea, and hot chocolate over and over again, so he searched the New York City area for other hot drinks to get him through the winter. His list of 18 wintertime drinks hailing from a wide variety of cuisines should keep your taste buds toasty without tiring them out.
Last Friday while eating at Grand Sichuan I came across a section of the menu, "PRODIGAL DAUGHTER'S DISHES OF CHINESE EMPEROR," that initially sounded like poorly translated Chinese names, but upon a closer look read more like poetry. That, or potential titles for Múm songs.
Are the dishes as exciting as the name? Eh, I would expect more from "WE WOULD BE TWO LOVE-BIRDS FLYING WING TO WING ON HIGH" than "sautéed spicy baby chicken pieces with fresh ginger," but I'll admit that Grand Sichuan makes some awesome chicken dishes.
Many comfort foods, like burgers, mac and cheese, and barbecue, have found their way onto the menus of some of New York City's fanciest eateries, elevating their classic down-home status along with their price tags. Gridskipper has picked up on the high-class doughnut trend and tracks down the city's fanciest frying.
Craving a cup of of Indonesian Vanilla Ice Cream & American Sturgeon caviar? How about “Chantilly” of milk chocolate with Earl Grey sorbet and grapefruit segments? These were some of the desserts Tina Wong ate at the Dessert Studio in New York City, the chocolate shop and dessert bar featuring creations by innovative pastry chef Will Goldfarb.
Per Se may be the top choice for a special splurge-worthy New York City dining experience, but for a better sense of food in the city you should go on a private eating tour with Famous Fat Dave. Check out Deb's description of her customized vegetarian-friendly tour, which included cheese, bialys, pickles, pie, pizza, bagels, and fries.
Inside Pierre Hermé's two stores in Paris.
There are many places where you can find macarons. As for where to find the best macarons, that's an easy question to answer: Paris.
Even though I haven't eaten all the macarons in the world (not that I'd mind trying, if anyone out there would like to sponsor me to go on such an adventure), I can't imagine finding macaron better than the ones safely tucked away in Pierre Hermé's chic patisserie. His haven of sugary enlightenment more resembles a high-end jewelry shop than a place to buy your morning croissant (which was one of the best croissants I've ever eaten).
Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that the best macarons are found at Pierre Hermé, not necessarily in Paris, for he has four locations in Tokyo. Not just four locations in Japan, but four locations in one city. This fact alone would make Tokyo the city I'd most want to live in, right after Paris. It also makes Tokyo the city most likely to make me very poor and fat, right after Paris.
This weekend abounds with serious eatin' opportunities for local New Yorkers. Saturday's double header line-up starts with the Brooklyn Pig Fest from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Tobacco Warehouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The all-you-can-eat menu will include 3 whole hogs, BBQ ribs and chicken, sausage, slaw, beans, rolls, and of course, beer.
Still hungry? Chase your pig with some crawfish at Crawfish in the Cove, a full on crawfish boil with all the fixins, beer and hurricanes. Proceeds go to the Common Ground Relief Collective dedicated to aiding and rebuilding New Orleans.
After you've celebrated Mother's Day with Sunday brunch, stroll through a street fair with Buddha Drinks Fanta's visual field guide to New York City street fair fare.
Oy. I'm full just thinking about it.
All the details after the jump.
New York City vs. San Francisco: Whose cuisine reigns supreme? Apples and oranges—I love them both. But maybe you feel differently. If you do and can explain in 100 words or less which city offers the greatest culinary experience, you could win a round-trip flight to the winning city, three nights’ hotel stay, and two meals at a restaurant featured in the 86 Recipes collection. The contest is sponsored by 86 Recipes, creators of city-specific recipe boxes.
With all the negative chatter about Morandi, I wasn't sure what I was going to find when I met a friend there for lunch today. The only thing I knew going in was that Morandi chef Jody Williams is a very good Italian cook.
So it wasn't a total surprise that for the most part I had a very good meal. The gorgonzola and pear focaccia would make a fine light lunch all by itself. Add the fried artichokes, and you've got a great lunch for two.
Of course we had to keep ordering. Williams's meatballs, studded with raisins and pine nuts, remain cloudlike and deeply satisfying. The hangar steak was fairly ordinary, but the polenta that it was precariously perched atop was intensely flavorful.
Dessert was a trio of nifty mini-cannoli, fine housemade gelati, and terrific ricotta fritters that tasted like great Italian doughnuts. There was a minimum of attitude at the front desk, and, at least at this point, lunch is an utterly pleasant, relaxed experience. I'm sure dinner is another story entirely, with the scene-makers descending like a plague of locusts.
Morandi
Address: 211 Waverly Place, New York NY 10014
Phone: 212-627-7575
A piece in Saveur has a hilarious take on the origins of currywurst, the griddled pork sausage topped by a bizarre mix of ketchup and curry powder.
Lena Brucker, a street stall owner in postwar Hamburg, "tripped on a flight of stairs while carrying a carton of ketchup and a can of curry powder obtained on Hamburg's black market. Absentmindedly licking her fingers after cleaning up the mess, she discovered the two ingredients' delightful compatibility."
It sounds like the origins of fusion food in general. Where can Serious Eaters find the best currywurst in this country? I noticed that New Yorkers can get their currywurst fix at the Hallo Berlin cart and at the Hallo Berlin restaurant.
Hallo Berlin Cart
Address: 54th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10022
Hallo Berlin Restaurant
Address: 626 Tenth Avenue (44th/45th sts.), New York NY 10036
Phone: 212-977-1944
Recently Jason Kottke had a terrific post on Kottke.org about Ssam Bar. He loved the place, as has just about every person I know who's gone there, but what was interesting was his take on why he liked it so much: "And ok, a word or two about the food. Is it even Asian? It's more like food that tastes fantastic and you can eat with chopsticks. I would describe it as truly international food, drawing upon many influences without being obvious about it. And who cares anyway...Chang could put Swedish food on the menu and make it work. I have no real evidence or experience to back this up, but the approach to food at Ssäm seems like a new one to me, a new type of cuisine, an approach that values the tastiness and the end result over regional influence and style. We'll see how that prediction works out."
Okay, Chang, Kottke's throwing down the Swedish food gauntlet. He wants to see lutefisk on the menu the next time he eats at Ssam Bar. In fact, I'm eating there tonight. I'll report back tomorrow.
Every year since the summer of 2004, a certain segment of burger-loving New Yorkers has engaged in ritualistic madness—waiting in an hour-plus line on opening day of the Shake Shack. Today was the unofficial opening, which might have explained the short line at 1:05 p.m., when the Serious Eats crew went to check things out. (Officially, the Shack opens on the first day of spring—March 21 this year).
Also each year, a certain segment of grousing New Yorkers, weary of the hype, has engaged in "Shacklash." The burgers are good there, folks like us say, but are they worth the long, long wait? I tend to avoid the joint at peak hours, but Serious Eats overlord Ed Levine checked the live Shack Cam and convinced Alaina and me to go. And, as editor of A Hamburger Today, I felt duty-bound to make the run.
Photo credit: iStockphoto.com
If you chopped my arm off with an axe, you might be surprised to see that the stump that remained had a giant hole in it. That’s because my body is made of bagels. I am 70 percent water, 30 percent bagels. No week passes in my life without the consumption of at least one or more bagels. If I go for more than a week without a bagel, my hair falls out, my eyes turn black, and I start chanting strange Kabbalic verses that’d make Madonna’s head spin. Luckily, I live in New York City, so unless someone kidnaps me and ties me to a chair and feeds me a constant stream of ham and mayonnaise to un-Jew me, I will never be without a bagel. And thank God, because bagels are my favorite day food. (As opposed to my favorite night food, which is pasta. But that’s another subject.)
Photograph by Adam Kuban, Serious Eats
Chinese New Year and the year of the pig according to the Chinese zodiac, begins this Sunday, February 18. Because Chinese New Year is tied to the lunar calendar, it falls on a different date every year, usually between January 19 and February 23. It begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice and ends 15 days later with the Lantern Festival. According to tradition, the celebration gets under way on New Year's Eve with a family dinner hosted at the eldest family member's home; it is considered the most important annual family tradition. Family members travel from near and far to attend. A family's given menu will vary by region, but here are some of the more popular dishes and their symbolism:
I first noticed them at the JollyMart, a block away from my office. There they were, stacked neatly to the right of the register, next to the Japanese gum, the chocolate wafer cookies, the Mozart candies—a pile of what looked like large, plastic-wrapped Fig Newtons.
"What are those?" I asked the counterman as I paid for my yogurt.
"Date bars," he replied.
"Are they good?"
"Never had them; some people like them, though."
Where Should I Eat on Valentine’s Day—Alone? Grub Street has some solid suggestions on where to eat by yourself in New York City on Single's Awareness Day if you don't want to stay home pity-eating Haagen-Dazs.
Solo diners know not all places are created equal, regardless of the occasion, so if you know of great places to dine alone in any city, leave a comment or drop us an email and maybe we can put a guide together.
From the New York Times this morning: In the long run, like bagels, “you’re going to have arepas in every store,” predicted [Manuel A.] Miranda, whose innovations include a “toaster-friendly” version (square instead of round), and an experimental Web site that offers online sales nationwide.
Mass-produced toaster arepas? Somewhere, Chowhound founder and arepa aficionado Jim Leff is blowing a gasket.
New York magazine's five favorite hot chocolates should be a good read even if you don't live in the city—surely your food-loving heart can't helped but be instantly warmed by listings like those of Otto's gianduja calda, "a medium-thick, mouth-coatingly rich blend of milk and hazelnut chocolates, melted with hazelnut-steeped milk". I can almost feel it swirling around my tongue.
Several years ago, before I had even heard the word izakaya, I was fond of going to seasonal sake tasting parties at New York City's Sakagura. They were a great way to learn about sake. An izakaya is a Japanese pub or casual eating and drinking establishment. It translates roughly to "place where sake is"—basically a spot for serious eating and drinking. In Japan, izakaya are popular with salarymen looking to unwind and enjoy a drink and a bite after work. The drinks of choice are beer, sake and shochu, a vodka-type spirit distilled from various kinds of grains. The fare is mostly small plates, which are ordered as the mood strikes at any point during the evening. Typical items, which are then shared among those at the table, are skewers of grilled meat, sashimi, grilled fish, pickles, fried chicken, savory snacks like fried lotus root chips and bits of dried fish. These days in New York, there are more than half a dozen izakaya in the Saint Marks vicinity, several farther uptown, and now one in Brooklyn's Williamsburg.
Today in the New York Times, $25 and Under columnist Peter Meehan hits the Bronx for Mo Gridder's BBQ, a smoke joint housed in the confines of an automotive garage. Serious Eats had a chance to sample Mo Gridder's earlier this month (ribs and a pulled pork sandwich), and Mr. Meehan's assessment is accurate: "The meat is sweetly and amply imbued with smoky flavor by the time it’s in your hands. The meat on the ribs — and the ribs are meaty — has a yielding tenderness, but none of the falling-off-the-bone toothlessness of lesser barbecue."
The pulled pork sandwich, in my opinion, was nothing to write home about, particularly if your home is North Carolina, where pulled pork is an art. It had almost no smoky flavor and was much too salty. Above is a photo of a Mo Gridder's rib, and here's a photo of the Mo Gridder's pulled pork sandwich.
Here is the second episode of what we've taken to calling "Edibles" around Serious Eats world headquarters. In this video, I talk to Adam Kuban, Serious Eats managing editor—and founder of SliceNY.com—about the lines at Di Fara Pizza. My friend Robb Walsh visited Di Fara while in town recently and confirms tales of two-hour waits there. Two hours!
Critical Condition takes a look at the week's restaurant reviews from the various newspapers and magazines around the United States. Think of it as a snapshot of what's hot—and, sometimes, what's not.
GARDEN AT THE CELLAR | Boston Globe
Style: American
Rating: 2.5 stars (of 4)
Boston's new hot spot, where Will Gilson cooks back-to-basics fare (hangar steak, flatbreads, cod cakes, roasted chicken and tater tots) among pots of herbs. In-the-know Bostonians have made this comfortable restaurant a destination.
PORCHETTA | New York Times
Style: Italian
Rating: 1 star (of 4)
Bruni weighs in on Porchetta (241 Smith Street, 718-237-9100), run by 71 Clinton refugee and exposed self-promoter Jason Neroni (he wrote an e-mail imploring his friends to get him nominated for the Beard Rising Star Chef award).
Yum: Roasted and braised short ribs over puréed mustard greens, red pepper, and touches of cream and gorgonzola.
Yuck: The candied lemon zest in the Gnocchi preparation: "The way it interacted with other ingredients made the dish taste as if someone in the kitchen had inadvertently sprayed it with a bit of Pledge furniture polish."
Conclusion: I’d go, but I’d certainly follow Frank’s lead in ordering.
KYOTOFU | New York Times
Style: Tofu dessert
Rating: N/A
When the "Under $25" columnist for the New York Times stopped by Serious Eats HQ the other day, he told us he loved Kyotofu, the new Japanese tofu dessert restaurant (705 Ninth Avenue, at 48th Street; 212-974-6012). His review today proves it.
Yum: “...The insanely rich scoop of maple-spiked mascarpone atop the toasted-walnut vanilla parfait.
Great lines: "The place couldn’t be a tougher sell. Dessert restaurants are hard enough, but rallying your friends with the late-night cry of 'Who wants to go to Hell’s Kitchen for some tofu?' really pushes it."
Conclusion: Meehan makes us want to go eat tofu for dessert at Kyotofu.
PERA | New York Post
Style: Turkish
Rating: N/A
New Yorkers expect Turkish food to be cheap, which limits the quality of the raw materials and results in lackluster fare. Not at Pera, says Steve Cuozzo, where "spices permeate mezes from heaven; sensational breads, like puffy lavash served with tangy, feta-like tulum cheese; and marinated, hand-ground lamb adana butchered on site."
BLT BURGER | The New Yorker
Style: Burger joint
Rating: N/A
Finally, a critic who sort of likes BLT Burger (470 Sixth Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets; 212-243-8226). Personally, I was thrilled when the aforementioned Mr. Meehan laid into BLT Burger, Laurent Tourondel’s misguided attempt to cash in on the cheffy burger craze. But the New Yorker’s Nick Paumgarten shows he’s not afraid to swim against the critical tide by calling BLT's burgers well-proportioned and served on blessedly soft, plain, and white buns. Actually a careful reread of his review indicates that he doesn’t really like the place. Maybe Mr. Paumgarten could have been a little clearer in his overall assessment.
Conclusion: You can have a better burger at a Greek coffee shop.
THE LONDON BAR and GORDON RAMSAY AT THE LONDON | New York
Style: French
Rating: 3 (of 10)
Adam Platt wanders into Hell’s Kitchen and doesn’t get fired (up). Platt shows he is unafraid of the blustery television star (and Michelin 3-starred) chef Gordon Ramsay with a paltry 3 stars (of 10) for Ramsey’s two restaurants in the Hotel London (151 West 54th Street, 212-468-8888). I dined with him on his initial foray into the London Bar, and I thought much of the food was quite good. Platt’s meals there must have taken a precipitous turn for the worse on succeeding visits.
Yum: Pork belly baked with honey and apples.
Best Line: "Ramsey even offers his diners a nice version of that aged haute cuisine warhorse, apple tarte Tatin. Is this the best tarte Tartin in New York City? Probably not. But I doubt you’ll find a better one in Shanghai or Dubai."
Conclusion: "You’ve seen this all before."
BABOUCHE | New York Sun
Style: Moroccan
Rating: N/A
The food is satisfying and authentic at this Prince Street Moroccan, but the seating's a drag—too-low tables with uneven surfaces. Adams finds Babouche's pastilla "remarkably accomplished, a tender, spiced mince of chicken in a custardy sauce, all enshrouded in phyllo and dusted liberally with cinnamon and powdered sugar."
SMOKE JOINT | Village Voice
Style: Barbecue
Rating: N/A
In general, New York barbecue blows, but Smoke Joint gets it right, Robert Sietsema says. The classically trained chefs here smoke a mean brisket but don't do it often (it takes 14 hours). But when they do, it's "amazing brisket—fatty, smoky, and just plain delicious."
Best line: "Maple is Brooklyn's mesquite."
THE RUSSIAN TEA ROOM | New York
In New York magazine this week Adam Platt gives the new Russian Tea Room (150 West 57th Street, New York City; 212-581-7100) the gentle spanking it deserves. Best line: “…And I had to agree with the lady next to me when she declared that the buckwheat pilaf, which accompanied her decent portion of glazed duck, tasted like “my grandmother’s socks.” My question: Were those socks clean or dirty?
Rating: One star.
Conclusion: It’s a skip unless you feel like overspending to bathe in gilded nostalgia.
On a foray into Red Hook, Brooklyn, on Saturday with Mike, my serious grapehead brother, I dropped into wine and spirits shop LeNell’s (416 Van Brunt Street, 877-NO-SNOBS). Mike knows a lot about wine, and he’s spent more than 25 years unsuccessfully trying to get me interested in the stuff. So when I told him that LeNell’s was a really cool place, he was skeptical. After all, he knows how little I know about wine. Then Mike spotted half-bottles of Barolos (Roagna's La Rocca e La Pira) at $27, which he said was an excellent price. One conversation with LeNell, the gracious, unpretentious owner, and he is now a serious devotee of the shop. Here is serious eater and brother Mike’s take on LeNell’s. —Ed Levine
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.
Pssst: Wanna great lunch for two for around $14 total (before tip) at Blue Smoke? Ask them to split their usual nine-ounce burger into two burgers.
Blue Smoke general manager Mark Maynard-Parisi said the restaurant is happy to make two 4.5-ounce burgers for the same price as the single nine-ounce sandwich on its menu ($11.50, comes with fries; cheese and bacon each $1 extra).
What's the best piece of pie you've ever eaten?
Karen Barker, pastry chef and co-owner of the Magnolia Grill, 1002 Ninth Street, 919-286-3609, Durham, NC), makes the best pies I've ever eaten. Karen made all the pies for a pie breakfast at a Barbecue Conference I went to a few years ago In Oxford, Mississippi, and I'm afraid I singlehandedly decimated her supply of pies. She wrote a terrific cookbook a few years ago, and tomorrow or the next day I will put her pie recipe up on Ed Levine Eats.
In New York, as I mentioned yesterday, my two favorite pie bakers are Two Little Red Hens (1112 8th Ave. (11th St.), Park Slope, 718-499-8108, 1652 2nd Ave. (85th St.) 212-452-0476, and Yura & Company, 1650 Third Ave. (92nd St.),212-860-8060. If you haven't ordered your pies for Thanksgiving this year, and you live in New York, get your pies from one of these places.
Having just come from a thoroughly disappointing meat at NY's latest attempt at a clam shack, Ditch Plains, I began to ruminate on how much I love fried clams.
With Memorial Day, the official start of the fried clam eating season, just around the corner, here is my absolutely incomplete guide to eating fried clams in the NYC area, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, with a southern Maine spot thrown in for good measure.
The descriptions of the clams themselves will be minimal. As I discovered a couple of years ago when I went on a ten clamshack eating adventure with Dave Pastnernack, the chef of Esca, fried clams are either really good (sweet, nutty, crisp and greaselessly fried with no breading other than flour) or they're not. And even the best clam shacks don't put enough salt into the frying mixture. One more important note: I've found that if you ask that the clams be put on a plate instead of one of those impossibly cute cardboard clam boxes, the result is clams that stay crisp and crunchy. Those "cute" boxes are actually a dastardly form of fried clamicide, because the fried clams end up steamed and soggy when they're piled on top of each other. And no fried clam meal is complete without an ice cream or frozen custard for dessert. Even bad ice cream tastes great after eating fried clams.
NYC and vicinity:
Connecticut:
I have also had good fried clams in Connecticut at the Clam Castle, {1324 Boston Post Rd., Madison, CT}, 203-245-4911 and at Johnny Ad's, {910 Boston Post Rd., Old Saybrook, CT}. 860-388-4032.
Massachusetts:
Maine:
The New York Times recommended four clam shacks recently, and I must admit I haven't been to one of them. I'm going to try and hit The Clam Shack in Falmouth, Harbor, this weekend.
I recently received a copy of New England's Favorite Seafood Shacks, by Elizabeth Bougerol. The book is a lot of fun, and it's filled with tons of information (it has every place mentioned here except Christies, but it does suffer a tad from the "everything is great" school of romantic, funky food writing. Sometimes we food lovers need a discouraging word in books like this so that we believe the author is discerning. That same affliction inhabited a similar book by Brooke Dojny that came out a couple of years ago.
I'm sure I missed a bunch of places. Please, ELE readers, fill in the gaps in this woefully incomplete list.
I'm exhausted. The night of the Beard Awards I end up hanging out at various after-parties until three in the morning. A couple of things I wanted to mention:
The Beard Awards were much more emotionally resonant this year because we dedicated them to New Orleans. The live music was great (for the first time), the recorded music they used to accompany the winners' stroll to the podium was all amazing old New Orleans r and b (think Louis Jordan's Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens), and the food (all from New Orleans chefs) at the reception was real, honest and soulful. I had way too much of Willie Mae Seaton's transcendent fried chicken, and I would have had seconds and probably thirds of Leah Chase's gumbo if I had the chance.
The Beard Awards are interesting for another reason. Unlike the Oscars and the Grammys, where admission is restricted to members, anyone willing plunk down the money can go to the Beard Awards. What you find if do spend the money is a pretty boring three hour ceremony punctuated by moments of real emotion, and a crowded reception in which you stand on-line for tasting plates of foods from a dozen or so chefs. But the fact that anyone can go means that real people get to hobknob with the greatest chefs in the country and the world. You can clink glasses with Thomas Keller or Tom Colichhio or Todd English.
Fairly often my wife gets fed up with our eating regimen (lots of grilled cheese sandwiches (made with great cheese or sometimes Kraft Deluxe American slices), salads, hot dogs and burgers) and demands that I make her a home-cooked meal. So yesterday I bought a container of roasted vegetables at Fairway, one of my local gourmet stores, to use as a sidedish with the boneless pork roast I was going to make. After liberally salting the meat with kosher salt I browned the outside of the pork roast in a saute pan on top of the stove in some olive oil and a little butter. Put the butter in after the olive oil has heated up or else the butter will burn. I then put the pork roast into a 350 degree preheated oven. I cooked the small (a pound and a half) pork roast until an internal meat thermometer reads 155 degrees. Then I put the roasted vegetables in the saute pan I had browned the pork in. I then put in the pan three or four tablespoons of Saba, cooked grape juice made from Trebbiano grapes, the same ones they use to make balsamic vinegar. My friend and co-author Dave Pasternack (chef-partner of Esca) calls Saba Italian maple syrup. It has a fruity, sweet, surprisingly complex flavor, and Saba makes just about anything taste better, especially pork and roasted vegetables. Cook the saba down until it's just about the consistency of maple syrup. Slice the pork roast, dip the slices in the saute pan to soak up the pan juices and saba, and then plate the vegetables. You're ready to eat. My wife loved the meal. I did, too, and now I get to order pizza tomorrow. Out of the frying pan into the pizza oven, so to speak. Saba is available at many gourmet grocery stores. It's also available online from the Zingerman's catalogue.
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