Food: May 2009 Archives

Despite its well established, over-fished status and repeated toxicological demonstrations of dangerously high mercury levels, slices of bluefin tuna are still very much highly prized on menus all over town. Last night, organization Greenpeace staged an action at Nobu in TriBeCa, where activists "dressed in blazers and billowy dresses like any other weekend-night patrons," according to the Times. Keeping with the near-extinction vibe, activists "carried make-believe menus with endangered-species dishes, like 'Rack of Mountain Gorilla Seasoned with Powdered Rhino Horn' ($32.00)." When Nobu's management figured out what was going on, the protesters simply left the restaurant; some apparently "even tipped the wait staff". One activist also claimed to the Times that others had stayed on at the restaurant for an hour more, affixing fake menus to bathroom stall doors.

A "food fight" has erupted between rival organizers of two Brooklyn-based competitive eating events! "This year's contest is going to be intense," says Joe Loccisano of Rocco's Pizzeria, referring to his slice eating competition which takes place Sunday in Bay Ridge. Loccisano suggested his contest has more credibility because pizza is more authentically Brooklyn than hot dogs, prompting a Nathan's rep to actually say "Brooklyn is the crucible by which the hot dog was transformed into the most American of foods." Loccisano, strengthening his argument against the famous, ESPN-broadcast July 4th Nathan's contest, said, "And let's be honest, dipping hot dog buns into water and rolling them into balls while ramming those precooked artificial meat sticks down your throat is just disgusting."

The nutritional counselor Jared Koch has a few ideas about what makes for a good, nutritious restaurant meal, but the last thing he wants to do is get preachy about it. He wants you to enjoy your food. Together with food writer Alex Van Buren, he’s written a guidebook called Clean Plates NYC, which eschews numerical grading systems, star systems, and riffs on restaurant design in order to just focus on supper. Rather than cast a myopic eye toward the antioxidizing properties of plums, or romancing the red cabbage, Clean Plates aims to identify some of the more nutritious, decent meals to be had in the city for the vegan, locavore, and meat-eater alike. We spoke with Clean Plates NYC founder Jared Koch yesterday; the book is available in stores now.

Brooklyn Star: Former Momofuku partner Joaquin Baca has gone solo in Williamsburg, with this handsome little restaurant a few blocks from the L train. The Southern comfort menu includes options such as corn bread ($4), Dr. Pepper Ribs ($16), Fried Pig Tails ($11), BBQ Catfish with grits and fried cucumbers ($13), and Smothered Porkchop with scalloped tomatoes and string beans. Inside the open kitchen, a 100-plus-year-old oven, a relic from when the place used to be a pizzeria, imbues the food with the appropriate degree of smokiness. NY Mag finds out how much money Baca spent to make his dream a reality, and here's the menu from Brooklyn Star's website. No liquor license yet, but they do have plenty of cool, refreshing ice tea and root beer! 33 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn; (718) 599-9899

That under-construction restaurant on Bergen Street in Brooklyn rumored earlier this week to be the long-awaited Shake Shack Brooklyn location will in fact open as a restaurant called Bark Hot Dogs sometime next month. At the heart of the project is a sustainable approach to fast food, featuring (you guessed it) hot dogs and condiments made in small batches from local, seasonal produce, like hot pepper relish and sweet and sour onions.

Today Frank Bruni at the Times gets around to reviewing Ippudo, the first American outpost of a popular Japanese ramen chain that opened in the East Village last year. After frequent ramen consumption at Momofuku Noodle Bar and Minca, he decides that "Ippudo’s ramen dishes—most of them, anyway—were my favorites. I appreciated Ippudo’s slender, springy house-made noodles, which manage the trick of having presence and delicacy at the same time... As the ramen slowly reveals itself, you submit completely to its spell." Bruni also compares the concessions available to the masses at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, declaring the Mets champions of his mouth.

While aggravated Brooklyn residents near McCarren Park have launched an organized campaign against the insipid jingles incessantly blaring from parked ice cream trucks, parents in other parts of the borough are taking aim at Mister Softee not for how he sounds but for what he sells to their children. Well, two parents anyway; a Bensonhurst mom tells the Daily News she takes her 7-year-old daugher to Seth Low Park for exercise, but an ice cream truck parked there is tearing her family apart: "I’ve had fights with my daughter in the past about it. You kind of feel like it’s pushed on you. It’s one thing if they’re just in the neighborhood, but to be here by contract [with the city], they might as well be selling drugs." (They've been known to do that too!)

Restaurateur Danny Meyer sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about the future of the restaurant industry. A number of Meyer’s competitors have gone out of business this year because of the recession, and while the USHG boss has been asked about cost-cutting maneuvers before, here Meyer specifically addresses the future of high-end dining in New York:

“I don’t think there’s going to be sustainable demand for restaurants that force you to spend hours there. Long tasting menus will continue to be elected by some but cannot be legislated by the restaurant. We’re going to have more bistros and trattorias. People will have luxury items—caviar, foie gras, truffles—less frequently, having done without them for a year and a half, but they will come to appreciate them more because it won’t be at every bar and grill in the city.”

So far, the reviews have all mentioned that you cook out of a small kitchen here, but I really think you have one of the smallest kitchens in the city back there. It’s just rough. It’s just me and my cook during service. We don’t have room for a kitchen staff, really. I receive deliveries, prep the food, sometimes wash dishes during service. I also cook the food.

Mix Shake Stir, Danny Meyer's recently released book of cocktail recipes, contains a bunch of quasi-unattributed but helpful quotes from bartenders at Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants like Blue Smoke, The Modern, Eleven Madison Park, and Tabla. For example: "'Like a good cook, an experienced bartender tastes everything before serving it to guests. A cache of straws comes in handy!' — Union Square Bartender."

When Daniel Boulud and Jim Leiken started putting the new restaurant DBGB together, they decided one hamburger would be topped with pulled pork. Rather than to start recipe testing, the chefs decided to use Daisy May's pork and serve the whole thing on a cornbread-cheddar bun. It's like the restaurant world's version of a co-operative: Chefs and restaurants are outsourcing a lot of ingredients from other restaurants these days. Take Kyle Bailey's Lower East Sliders on the bar menu at Allen & Delancey, for example: the pickle is Guss's, the salami is Katz's, and the Grafton Cheddar is from nearby Saxelby Cheesemongers.

As the weather warms and plenty of New Yorkers are driven to the brink of insanity by the incessant, nursery school-worthy jingles blaring from slow-going ice cream trucks, take solace in the news that several new ice cream carts—all w/o loudspeakers—will debut this weekend. These quiet heroes are our greatest hope for winning the jingle wars, and when all is scooped and done, the weasel will be popped once and for all and the turkey in the straw will stay that way— FOREVER.

       

The word "marea"— which happens to be the name of the new restaurant just opened by business partners Chris Cannon and chef Michael White, in the fabled, former San Domenico space—means tide. But White and Cannon’s spot has become the object of such intense speculation in the months leading up to its opening to the point that Crucible might have been a more fitting name. How come? Because of its prime Central Park South location, for starters: the restaurant’s rent is somewhere in the $750,000 per year ballpark. On top of that there was the massive renovation undertaken by Cannon and White. "How do you define 'brazen' in the dining world?" the Wall Street Journal asked earlier this month. “By opening an opulent, multimillion-dollar Italian eatery on Central Park South as many other restaurants struggle to fill seats.”

The best meatball of all five boroughs has been tasted, declared, digested, honored. After battling it out at Dish du Jour magazine's meatball melee last night, Manhattan's Bello Giardino took home the top honor with a traditional Italian meatball.

If you follow along with this sort of thing, you'll know how earth shattering it is that outgoing Times dining critic Frank Bruni has bestowed three out of four precious stars on Keith McNally's casual-yet-elitist reboot of Minetta Tavern. That's a lot of stars for a place like this, especially considering Bruni's past ambivalence to the restaurateur, who famously accused Bruni of sexism after the critic gave his restaurant Morandi (which had a female chef) a tough review. Anyway, Bruni hearts McNally's Minetta, which he declares "the best steakhouse in the city." Meanwhile, the Post's Steve Cuozzo has some thoughts on Bruni's depature. (The take away's basically, Who cares, the Times is now a paper tiger.)

reBar: This spacious bar/restaurant isn't new, but the chef and the menu are, so it's worth a mention for those making dinner plans in somewhat dining-deprived DUMBO. Self-described hippie owner Jason Stevens, who quit his job trading mortgage-backed securities at Merrill Lynch just before the crash, opened reBar in December 2006 in an old tea warehouse dating back the later 19th century. With an elegantly weathered, post-industrial design by the same guy who did the Zipper Factory Theater (RIP), the place has become a favorite watering hole for the locals. ($2 pints from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.!)

Herring are about to stage their own version of Spring Awakening. Schools of tiny fish (seen here) congregate this time every year in the slowly warming Nordic and Dutch waters, chill, and essentially OD on plankton. According to Edible Manhattan, it’s at this point herring undergo a major change akin to the freshman fifteen, with “their little oily bodies becoming up to 16 percent fat.” It’s also at this moment the fishing industries of several dozen countries go into maximum overdrive and start netting the hell out of the fish. In Holland, Flag Day is called Vlaggetjesdag; the holiday is celebrated by a lot of raw herring eating in the streets.

Acting on last year's study showing that many lower-income neighborhoods desperately need decent grocery stores, today Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson have announced a new program to encourage "the establishment and retention of neighborhood grocery stores in underserved communities in Northern Manhattan, the South Bronx, Central Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens." It's called the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) Food Stores program, and the mayor's office predicts it will "help create an estimated 15 new grocery stores and upgrade 10 existing stores, creating 1,100 new jobs and retaining 400 others over 10 years."

The chef Daniel Boulud unveiled his newest space, called DBGB Kitchen and Bar, to the media this past weekend. Located on the Bowery, the 194-seat “sausage and beer” restaurant (including a 14-seat private dining room and 40 more in the more casual bar area) has a projected opening date of the first week in June and is still very much under construction: On Saturday, chairs were wrapped up in paper and buckets of Spackle were stacked behind the bar. The chef nonetheless took the unusual move of laying his plywood bare and sharing some bites from the restaurant’s opening menu.

       

When popular Greenpoint restaurant Queen's Hideaway closed last October, chef/owner Liza Queen told us she was pulling the plug because her "prick of a landlord" had "astronomically" raised her rent, adding, "I think we're the last of those kind of vaguely scruffy places [in the neighborhood]." Now a new restaurateur is having a go at the location, and true to Queen's prediction, her famously hostile hideaway has been transformed into the comparatively un-scruffy Anella, which embodies the elegantly decaying, urban rustic ambiance that's so ubiquitous these days. That the bar top is made of recovered piano wood from the Steinway factory in Astoria pretty much tells you all you need to know about the design.

       

Here's a look at Entwine, a new wine bar and small plates lounge over on the far side of West 12th Street. Perhaps you're thinking, "Finally! Another wine bar in the Village." But Entwine has some attributes that make it worth a trip west (or east, if you want respite after roaming Hudson River park). There's the tranquil back yard garden, for one thing, as well as the creative cocktail menu, which includes bartender Duane Fernandez's delicious twist on the Rusty Nail; dubbed the Scotland Yard, it sports Dewars, Drambuie, fresh ginger, lemon juice and basil.

While the West Coast based In-N-Out Burger isn’t likely to be coming to the city anytime soon, another out of state burger chain has set its sights on Manhattan. The 4-year-old, Northern Virginia-based Elevation Burger has signed a “multi-unit franchising deal” with local business partners Fabian Rosario and John Harris. The franchise is frequently compared to Five Guys, so it might be speculated that the business will grow just as fast here: two years ago—almost to the day—there was only one Five Guys in New York; there are currently eight in the five boroughs and about a gazillion more scattered in the suburbs like chargrilled fallout.

       

Of course it's not literally the mother, for several obvious reasons—for one thing, there's the well-established predecessor Bohemian Hall, to the north in Astoria. But at least in terms of size, Studio Square in Long Island City is now king of New York, boasting a colossal 18,000 square feet beer garden that officially opens today at 4 p.m. The full beer and food menu is below.

Remember that $25,000 sundae that Serendipity 3 was selling back before the stock market parked itself in the garage with the engine running? Needless to say, they haven't been selling too many of those lately, and even their down-market $1,000 sundae hasn't had any takers since last November.

       

It's been two years in the making, and now chef-owner George Mendes has finally opened Aldea, a kind of Mediterranean-modern restaurant near Union Square. Specifically, Mendes created Aldea's menu in tribute to his Portuguese heritage, and its menu features presunto, for example, a cured ham akin to Jamón Serrano. Another appetizer is a plate of sardines with raisins macerated in Madeira and served with bitter almond milk. Appetizers (see the full menu after the jump) are all priced at $9 and under, and no entrée costs more than $27, with most in the $19-$22 range.

An article in the Times today confirms that the most exciting thing to happen to food—like, ever—are the numerous cook-offs and takedowns oozing these days from the creative wellspring of Brooklyn. These events usually focus on a single ingredient or theme such as bacon, casserole, guacamole, quiche, risotto, curry, hot dogs, pork, chili, apple pie, tofu, cupcakes, ramen, or no-knead bread, for example, and hearken back to State Fair Blue Ribbon contests, where winning the peach pie contest meant you were allowed to keep the family farm. Now, as it was then, the events are a recession/depression thing, often minus some of the food-craft. Welcome to the liberal arts dustbowl.

Today Frank Bruni at the Times bestows two out of four stars on the Upper West Side Fatty Crab (photos/menu), an impressive rating for a casual restaurant. But Bruni just can't get enough of "the Fatty spirit, the culinary equivalent of a stoner’s foggy contentment...Are its flavors in fact too big, too unrelenting? What qualifies as a bold deployment of chilies and aiolis, and what’s just indiscriminate overkill? Many a meal at Fatty Crab raises those questions and walks a fine line, but pretty much every time I began to doubt the kitchen’s care and skill, something came along to restore my belief."

Opia: With eight years under their belts, the owners of this popular French restaurant recently gave the place a major facelift, reopening last week with three expanded terraces, two private rooftop decks, and a private banquet room. But it's not just about a new look; they've also brought on new Executive Chef Ted Pryor (formerly of La Goulue, Orsay and Les Halles) to streamline the menu. While keeping popular offerings like the “Sushi Corner” and “Le Coin Japonais,” Pryor has brought in signature dishes like his Crab Cake made with buttery brioche and served with celery remoulade. There's also a three-way Battle Royale between L’American Sliders with American cheese, onions and pickles on a potato roll; Le French Sliders with Béarnaise and Comté cheese on a Brioche roll; and Le Lobster Sliders with fresh lobster meat, chives and chervil. Opia's open for breakfast through dinner Monday through Friday, with brunch and dinner on the weekends. 130 East 57th Street, (212) 688-3939

The 49-year-old chef Cesare Casella is known for his food, sure, but he’s also known for the almost comical rosemary boutonnière he seemingly wears 24-7. He is so enamored of the herb that it sprouts in the window boxes outside his 35-seat restaurant and specialty grocery Salumeria Rosi and overflows from the diamond-shaped sapling planters in the sidewalk below. The tiny restaurant portion of the space specializes in small, rustic Italian plates. Its menu of sliced-to-order meats and cheeses is all very affordable: almost everything, like Casella’s signature salad of soft scrambled egg, pancetta and market greens costs $7 or less. We asked the chef a few questions about the restaurant (which opened last year), the banned Parma ham culatello (“the heart of prosciutto”), and how in his own heart Casella identifies with the buttero, or Italian cowboys of Italy.

Home bartenders have been busy riding out the recession with crafty survival tactics like tapping the full flavor potential of plastic jug vodka with essence of Skittles, for example, and it seems fitting that a new wave of cocktail books is now being unleashed on the public. The good news is that Food & Wine has just published Cocktails ’09, a soft-cover easy read that combines bar listings (NY is represented by spots like Apothéke, Employees Only, and newcomer Dutch Kills) with lots of make-at-home recipes including some compiled by the talented Jim Meehan of PDT. The bad news, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, is that there aren’t a lot of vodka-based drinks in the volume (down 50 some recipes from the ’05 edition).

Well, we had a good run. Today KFC has made the unsurprising decision to suspend its Oprah-backed grilled chicken giveaway. The overwhelming nationwide demand for free food had depleted KFC's chicken supply to such a degree that the company was actually going to run out of chicken before Mother's Day, which is said to be the chain's most lucrative business day. In this awkwardly upbeat video, KFC president Roger Eaton—who has the weirdest Kentucky accident we've ever heard—explains the crisis, now entering day three:

If the demand for the free grilled chicken combo meal continues at its current pace, KFC could run out of chicken by Saturday. An anonymous source explains why to Business Insider: "The stores cannot cook the product fast enough, sales were up 25-35% BEFORE this. A franchisee today told me KFC is projected to strip their entire supply chain of bird by Saturday. I am not making that up. They are scrambling to source more chicken before Sunday. By Sunday, because it's Mothers Day, one of their busiest days of the year. It's possible they could be out of chicken on Mothers Day."

       

The food at Table 8, a new restaurant located in the Cooper Square Hotel, is meant for people who like their seasonal vegetables but also those who might want a nice steak every now and again. Chef Govind Armstrong doesn’t favor a lot of day-long stock reducing, jellifying, foaming, or nitro freezing anything in the kitchen. Instead, he'll roast some mushrooms to pair with the halibut and sorrel, or add some tiny yellow popcorn shoots to the just warmed through sweet pea leaves with prawns and pistachio vinaigrette. No tricks.

We know what you're thinking: Who orders broccoli at Friday's? Gross! But while dining with his girlfriend at a T.G.I. Friday's near Schenectady on Sunday night, art director Jack Pendleton thought he'd make the healthy choice by substituting a side of vegetables for the fries that usually come with the Jack Daniels Chicken Sandwich. Well, Shesha the thousand-headed snake god works in mysterious ways! In an email obtained by Consumerist, Pendleton writes:

Who could have predicted that handing out free meals during the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression would be so messy? KFC locations across America were hammered yesterday by an overwhelming demand for free fowl, after Oprah Winfrey promoted a giveaway for two pieces of KFC's new grilled chicken, two sides, and a biscuit. New York City was particularly hard hit; tipsters tell Midtown Lunch that there were about 50 people "crammed into a very tiny space" during lunch hour at the 50th & 7th Avenue KFC.

[UPDATE BELOW] Yesterday Oprah Winfrey thought she'd be nice and arrange for free KFC grilled chicken for everybody. Big mistake. The demand for free fowl has been so overwhelming that many people are having a dickens of a time getting their chickens because the website can't handle all the coupon downloads. This morning Grub Street compiled some of the more "heart wrenching" comments from thwarted KFC consumers on Oprah's site, such as "I'M MELTING CAN'T GET THE COUPONS PLEASE IS THERE ANOTHER WAY OF GETTING THEM ???? HUNGRY FOR THE CHIICKEN" and "Nice gesture since I am unemployed and a free dinner would have been nice. I could not download the coupon."

This week Frank Bruni at the Times bestows one star upon David Burke's Fishtail on the Upper East Side. He finds it both "exasperating" and "amusing...While several lines of type on the restaurant’s elaborately segmented, deeply fatiguing menu trumpet its commitment to sustainable seafood, there’s at least as high a premium on silliness, and exuberance is everything. With Mr. Burke, the trailblazing inventor of the cheesecake lollipop, that’s often the case... He’s as much showman as chef, though he’s a particular kind of showman, happy to act the clown, eager to play the prankster. You get the sense that if, at some pivotal juncture in his past, he had been handed a microphone instead of a spatula, he’d be doing stand-up now."

Hudson Terrace: After operating as a private event space last year, this gorgeous bi-level aerie with the commanding Hudson River views opens to the public for the first time tonight with a Cinco de Mayo bash. Tented on rainy nights and featuring a heated floor to ward off any early-season chills, Hudson Terrace will now be doing happy hour parties on Tuesdays through Fridays, as well as Sunday brunch (from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.) with a menu from Vintage Irving's executive chef Jason Bunin. The happy hour deal is good for 2-for-1 specialty cocktails, and an extensive nightly appetizer menu includes duck confit quesadillas, crab and artichoke croquettes, and smoked salmon nachos. A rooftop BBQ grill will also round out the edible options (tempura chicken skewers, anyone?), while beverages run the gamut from wine and sangrias to margaritas, mojitos, and caipirinhas. Or just get two Jim Beams and Coke for the price of one and savor the sunset. 621 West 46th Street, (212) 315-9400

Consider the unusual conditions underscoring the opening of the new Red Hook bar/restaurant Fort Defiance and it becomes clear that something unusual is going on: Owner (and writer) St. John Frizell’s general contractor is the Argentine artist Rafael Bueno and the place is essentially being put together by Frizell’s friends from the neighborhood, notably including Barry O'Meara from Bait and Tackle—another, potentially rival bar located just down the street.

In the immortal words of Ween, Cinco de Mayo's on Tuesday. Which is tomorrow. It will be raining, but did a little rain stop some 4,000 Mexican soldiers from defeating almost twice as many French invaders back on May 5th, 1862? No, they vanquished their oppressors, just as we shall vanquish the temptation to stay inside watching Biggest Loser: Couples tomorrow night. Here is where you'll find us raising a glass to General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, who we've been big fans of since we looked all this up on Wikipedia five seconds ago.

Plated delivers the origin story of a dish as told by a restaurant’s chefs and/or owners. Today’s plate is a decidedly non-vegetarian Rabbit, Foie Gras, and Bacon Terrine off the Chef’s Tasting Menu at Le Cirque. The menu honors the famed restaurant’s 1974 grand opening (perhaps you’ve seen the recent documentary); Craig Hopson joined Le Cirque as executive chef last November. This dish is one of six that Hopson cooked for the Maccioni family, and one that ultimately got him the job.