Posted by Ed Levine, March 21, 2008 at 1:30 PM
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?
Continue reading »
Posted by Gina DePalma, January 29, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Editor's note: We're excited to introduce the following author to you today—though you may already be familiar with her work. Gina DePalma is the pastry chef at Mario Batali restaurant Babbo and the author of Dolce Italiano
. She's now in Rome, doing research for a new cookbook, and will be posting weekly here on Serious Eats as her journey there unfolds.
Outside of Forno Marco Roscioli.
I engage in a specific eating ritual immediately upon my arrival in Rome; it is a personal affirmation to my heart and stomach that I am really, truly here. Other Roma regulars may want to run to the nearest bar for a perfectly pulled espresso, sit down to a steaming plate of spaghetti alla carbonara, or indulge in crispy carciofi alla giudea. But for me, it is a visit to Forno Marco Roscioli, on Via dei Chiavari near the Campo de’Fiori, which sends me headfirst into Roman mode with a sensory jolt.
Continue reading »
Posted by Zach Brooks, December 19, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Photograph from c(h)ristine on Flickr
With the New Year approaching, there is the possibility of the chance that maybe I would perhaps consider having an inkling to make a resolution to eat better. With that (50/50 at best) chance of "improving" my diet looming, it's time to stuff my face with not so healthy things, just in case I decide to abstain after January 1st.
In my book of guilty pleasures, the number one at the top of the list, has got to be fried chicken—and what better way to enjoy it then in sandwich form, served out of a bakery in Oakland, by a former cook from the birthplace of California cuisine.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 23, 2007 at 4:00 PM
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.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, October 11, 2007 at 6:53 AM
I think about bakeries and baked goods all the time. Do you? My earliest food memory? The sights, sounds, and, above all, the smells of the Cedarhurst Bake Shop, the small-town Long Island bakery where my family would send me for babka and rugelach every Saturday. But that was the early '60s, when there were local bakeries everywhere, at least in the northeast.
Then, almost without warning, local bakeries disappeared. What happened? They disappeared into a haze of supermarket chains. People bought their cakes, pies, and cookies at the local A&P, Kroger's, or Piggly Wiggly. Now, more than 40 years later, bakeries have made a huge comeback, at least in New York and Los Angeles. Serious eaters want to know why.
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, June 26, 2007 at 12:30 PM
I hate sweet breakfasts, yet when I visit the Wildwoods in New Jersey, I feel compelled to eat an apple fritter from Britton's Gourmet Bakery each morning for that all-important first meal of the day.
The apple fritter here is pretty near perfect, with a crisp exterior and a moist but not gooey interior studded with bits of tender apple. And they have just the right amount of icing—enough for added sweetness but not so much that your fingers stick together.
Be sure to get there early, though. Not even three generations of family on duty at any given time can keep the fritters in stock much past noon.
Don't take my word for it? Ronald Reagan himself wrote a letter praising the treats.
Britton's Gourmet Bakery
Address: 5600 Pacific Avenue, Wildwood Crest NJ 08620
Phone: 609-522-5600
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 19, 2007 at 1:28 PM
Recently in Travel + Leisure Magazine, Linda Dannenberg lists eight of the best boulangeries in Paris according to a specialty: croissants, sourdough loaves, miche, baguettes, pain au raisins, pain au chocolat, croissants aux amandes and fougasse.
[via roboppy del.icio.us]
Posted by Ed Levine, July 18, 2006 at 4:58 PM
In this month's Food & Wine Anya Von Bremzen interviewed Francois Simon, Le Figaro's Grand Reporter, who according to Vom Bremzen is a "provocateur who uses his whimsically poisonous prose to shake up the ossified world of French haute cuisine, and the ferocious expense and acrid snobbery that goes with it." My friend Steingarten knows and respects Simon very much, so I tend to trust his judgment as well.
Here are a few of his picks:
- Gaya: 44 rue du Bac, 7th Arr.: 011-33-1-45-44-73-73: Three star chef's inventive, casual new fish restaurant.
- Le Bistrot Paul Bert: 18 Rue Paul Bert, 11th Arr.: 011-33-1-43-72-24-01. Great insider's bistro.
- Bakery: Boulangerie Julien (75 Rue St. Honore, 1st Arr., 011-33-1-42-36-24-83. Baguettes and croissants.
For the rest go to Food & Wine
Posted by Ed Levine, March 24, 2006 at 12:44 PM
Today was not a good food day. I went to visit Roadfood pioneers and great writers Jane and Michael Stern at their house in Connecticut. I brought them a box of schnecken (pecan sticky buns) and a black and white cookie from Greenberg's, a classic New York Jewish bakery that is simply not very good anymore except for the schnecken and the black and white cookies. We had a blast hanging out and swapping writer war stories.
When I left, Michael told me I had to go to their latest discovery, Wave Hill, a bakery that made great rustic bread. Michael said it was on the way to my final lunch destination, the new Fairfield location of the seminal New Haven pizzeria Pepe's. It was all downhill from there. First, Wave Hill was closed by the time I got there. The sign on the door said they close at noon, and I got there by 12:10 or so. I was going crazy when I got there because I could see a few loaves of bread that could have been mine if I could just get in the door. I could also smell the bread, which smelled absolutely amazing. I also called the number on the door, and, yup, I got a recording.
Then I made it to the Fairfield Pepe's by 1 p.m. or so, and there was a big line out front and it was moving very slowly (maybe not at all). I tried to open the front door to the place and it wouldn't open. It turns out it only opens from the inside because they don't want people waiting inside. Talk about a warm welcome! I managed to slip in the door when someone was leaving and I asked the man at the counter how long it would take to get a pizza to go.
He said with a completely straight face, "My next to-go opening is at 2:40 p.m."
You see the kind of preferential treatment I get because I wrote a book about pizza. I've got such clout in the pizza community that I can't even get a pizza to go for an hour and forty minutes when I arrive unannounced at Pepe's in Fairfield, CT.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 19, 2006 at 12:48 PM
All right, I've said what I had to say about looking at the Katrina carnage in New Orleans. Now I'll move on to the food.
I made three new discoveries this year. Stanley! (1031 Decatur, 504-)s is a fabulous new breakfast and lunch spot on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. Great banana walnut pancakes topped by a scoop of decent vanilla ice cream and some optional Louisiana cane syrup, and an even better eggs benedict-like concoction with killer fried oyters on top. The fried oysters were so good I think I will do as my friend John T. Edge does when he goes to Stanley's, have a plate of fried oysters for breakfast.
I had a disappointing, tasteless roast beef with debris (the shards of meat left in the roasting pan after you take the roast beef out) po'boy at Mother's, but then I more than made up for that lousy sandwich with a transcendent roast beef po' boy from the Parkway Grill and Tavern (538 Hagan Avenue(at Toulouse), 504-482-3047. Plenty of gravy, the best hero roll I've had in NO, just enough tender shards of roast beef, and a squiggle of mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato made up this paradigmatic sandwich.
Finally, the sweet potato turnovers, the biscuits, and the sticky bun at L'Espiga Bakery were outstanding. The city will be back, and so will I. My advice to all of you: You should go see and eat New Orleans now. In my next post I'll talk about the more formal upscale meals I had in New Orleans. Two quick postscripts: For those people who want to take a food guidebook to the Crescent City (or just eat vicariously without leaving their house) I think Pableaux Johnson's Eating New Orleans: From French Quarter Creole Dining to the Perfect Poboy
is a beautifully written treasure trove of information and opinions. And a thank you to the reader who sent me an e-mail telling me that Gerald Ford was President from August 9, 1974 to January 20, 1977, not the early eighties, which is what I wrote in my first New Orleans post.
