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The Ten Most Recent Posts By Brian Halweil
From Ed Levine Eats
Posted by Brian Halweil, May 14, 2008 at 1:45 PM
"... The beans whirred through pneumatic tubes overhead, sorted by the Selectifier (yes, Willy Wonka references are common)"
Strange brew. (Photographs from roastingplant.com)
The Roasting Plant, at 81 Orchard Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, is an essential destination for any one who cares about good coffee. Or anyone who wants a glimpse of how we will drink coffee in the future. It was recently Slashdotted for "using new thinking and methodologies to something that was previously regarded as a black art." Gizmag.com called it the world's first "walk-in coffee machine." And a cover story in Design News praised the "real-time distributed control system" for democratizing and streamlining the coffee-making process so that the trip from green bean to creamy cup takes less than 30 seconds and never yields bitterness.
Remember, we're still talking about coffee. And despite the Terry Gilliam–like devices, the Roasting Plant is about the next iteration in American coffee culture, stripping away confections and condiments to reveal a very good cup of Joe. The Ethiopian Harrar Longberry cappuccino that I enjoyed there recently was as beautiful for its cupping qualities—with pleasant blueberry notes—as for the space-age process by which the beans whirred through pneumatic tubes overhead, sorted by the Selectifier (yes, Willy Wonka references are common), and dropped into an Egro brewing machine, guided by selections on a touch screen and the wizardry of the custom-designed Javabot (international patent number PLT/US03/02069). You've got to see it to believe it.
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From Eating Out
Posted by Brian Halweil, April 16, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End checks in with the word from Sag Harbor, New York.
Forgive the hordes of patrons making their way to Sen Spice if they look bewildered. The new 48-seat Indian restaurant on Main Street in Sag Harbor, New York, is manna in an East End ethnic eats desert, where the closest route to Subcontinental delights is the Long Island Expressway to Hicksville or the Hampton Jitney to Jackson Heights in Queens.
But there wouldn’t be a packed room in this former lounge, which still retains its hazy, club feel, if not for the impressive and unorthodox Indian food being turned out by chef Chani Singh (right).
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From Required Eating
Posted by Brian Halweil, March 30, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End checks in with word on the last apples of the season.
It's like the fateful proclamation of a cynical high school guidance counselor: You are one type of person or you are another. At least when it comes to apples.
According to Amy Halsey of the Milk Pail Farm and Orchard on Highway 27 in Water Mill, New York, customers either want their apples crisp and don't care whether they are sweet or tart—or they are willing to forgo texture in favor of their favorite flavor.
I think I'm the crisp apple eater, since when I look back on all my happy apple memories, they have less to do with the particular flavor (although that's part of the fondness) than with the clean break of skin and flesh with the first bite. In this sense, it's no wonder that Fujis—one of the best keepers the Halseys grow—happen to be my household's regular apple from November to March, and I pick up a five-pound bag every week or so.
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From Required Eating
Posted by Brian Halweil, March 14, 2008 at 10:15 AM
It was a coming out party of sorts at The Modern on Monday night. Food and wine writers, restaurateurs and sommeliers, and wine dealers from Amagansett, New York, to Manhattan all gathered to see and taste the ambitious blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot that has been in the making—with great secrecy and drama—for the last three years at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue on Long Island’s North Fork.
Emblazoned with a Chuck Close daguerreotype of a cluster of grapes, Musée aspires to hold rank with grand crus from Europe, South America, and other internationally recognized wine regions&mdas;and not just because of its superstar label, a recurring symbiosis for Michael Lynne, Bedell’s owner, a modern art collector, and a film producer credited with such titles as The Lord of the Rings, whose aesthetic ranges from Freddy Kreuger to Barbara Kruger, and who has seamlessly melded art and wine. Musée hopes to inspire, particularly the laggards of the wine world who haven’t seriously considered Long Island yet. Beaming like a proud parent while swirling a glass of the silky and slightly spicy drink evoking black plum and currant and pomegranate, Lynne declared, “Musée is only the beginning. This is the message.”
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From Required Eating
Posted by Brian Halweil, March 6, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Last week, I was lucky enough to get a press pass to a benefit at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan honoring Gotham Bar and Grill chef and owner Alfred Portale for his contributions to the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), a charity that helps New York high school students with the drive—but maybe not the money—to learn how to cook.
Tickets started at $450 and went up to $1000, and the room was packed with 600 generous guests, corporate sponsors like Charmer Sunbelt Group and Nestle, and staff from 37 of New York’s top restaurants, offering samples like crudo of ahi tuna topped with Glidden Point oysters, lemon and parsley (Fabio Trabocchi of Fiamma), quince cheesecake with pistachio phyllo (Nancy Olsen of Gramercy Tavern), and squash torelloni with sage, wild mushrooms, and pinenuts (Bill Telepan of Telepan) and pappa al pomodoro (Odette Fada of San Domenico).
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From Required Eating
Posted by Brian Halweil, February 29, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End checks in with braising ideas from East Hampton, New York.
"Of all the various culinary operations, braisings are the most expensive and the most difficult," Escoffier wrote in his tome on French cuisine, Le Guide Culinaire. "Long and assiduous practice alone can teach many difficulties that this mode of procedure entails, for it is one which demands extraordinary care and the most constant attention." The authority devotes ten dense pages to the technique's many variants and nuances.
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From Eating Out
Posted by Brian Halweil, February 15, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End checks in with great meal ideas in East Hampton, New York.
You know it’s February when Nick & Toni’s on North Main Street in East Hampton is serving $5 pizzas. But that’s not all. This forerunner of haute barnyard on the East End, with its big veggie garden in the back and its stable of celebrity clients in the front that challenges even the most connected to get a table in summer, has rolled out a number of customer-generating innovations this slow season.
A friend recently returned from pizza night with his two sons covered in dust and proudly toting one slice of each of their pizzas that they had saved for mom to sample. The kids, not always excited by food and cooking, were energized. My friend was also energized, having been allowed to throw back a beer with his own age-appropriate playmates while the chef entertained his kids in the kitchen. Could Nick & Toni’s be breaking new ground in gastro-child care?
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From Eating Out
Posted by Brian Halweil, February 8, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End with Valentine's presents that are all the more sweet for being local to the East End of New York's Long Island.
Just as the New York Times style mavens tell us that organic and fair-trade nosegays are becoming as popular as similarly conscientious comestibles, here’s a short list of locally raised, baked, and brewed Valentine’s gifts to arouse your lover’s passion while reducing her carbon footprint.
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From Eating Out
Posted by Brian Halweil, January 28, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Undaunted by the recent New York Times discovery that tuna served in Manhattan sushi houses often contains dangerous levels of mercury, my wife Sarah and I took our 9-week-old daughter to our favorite East End sushi restaurant, Yama Q on Main Street in Bridgehampton. Sarah is still sensitive to government warnings that pregnant and breast-feeding women should avoid tuna, swordfish and other big, long-lived fish that are likely to contain high levels of mercury. Although she didn’t crave sushi during her pregnancy, she seems to think about it constantly while she nurses. And she’s well aware of the extensive medical evidence that fish oils nurture baby brains.
Yama Q serves some of the freshest seafood on the East End, owing partly to its talented sushi chef and its owner’s extensive connections with local fishers. (The non-sushi part of the menu has also built ranks of fans; it’s an ever-changing and eclectic combination of veggie-rich, eco-healthy, fusion dishes that recently included monk fish fritters, Caribbean style cod, and a tea kettle of bay scallops in their own broth.)
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From Eating Out
Posted by Brian Halweil, January 19, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Brian Halweil of Edible Communities and editor of Edible East End checks with a laundry list of prix fixe deals on the East End of New York's Long Island.
It’s an incontrovertible fact. Dining out in the Hamptons is expensive. Friends in the restaurant business tell me it’s got something to do with the seasonal market, the challenge of finding and housing year-round staff, exorbitant real estate prices, and excessive permitting requirements. You’d think the proximity to impeccable produce and seafood would help counteract this, but it doesn’t. The summer folks don’t balk at paying the prices, but the locals sometimes wonder if they deserve a deal. We’re not all realtors collecting commissions on South of the Highway McMansion flips.
Luckily, winter is the time when reservations and deals come easier at popular East End restaurants. From the $21.95, three-course prix fixe at Almond in Bridgehampton to the $25, two-course Cannonball Prix Fixe at Fresno in East Hampton to the three-course $30 meal at Jedediah’s in Jamesport, local businesses craving winter patrons are willing to meet us halfway.
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The Ten Most Recent Comments By Brian Halweil
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Website: http://www.edibleeastend.com
Location: Sag Harbor, NY
About: Editor of Edible East End. Publisher of Edible Brooklyn.
Favorite foods: Clams, dumplings, coffee cake.
Last bite on earth: Clam pie.