Results tagged “eightyone”

This week the Times's Frank Bruni piles on Shang, a restaurant in the Thompson LES Hotel helmed by the acclaimed, formerly Toronto-based chef Susur Lee, whose first mistake is making Bruni exercise: "The staircase was the first befuddlement and miscalculation I encountered — and a clue that the evening and restaurant might not be all I’d hope for. It’s a long, drab, foreboding rise of steps from the sidewalk to the host station, an entrance less inviting than aerobic. I’ve gone on runs that didn’t leave me as winded." As for the menu, some dishes are "intensely pleasurable," but overall it's "inconsistent and uneventful. The magic that Mr. Lee reputedly made in Toronto hasn’t followed him here."

      

Last night at the Hiro Ballroom was Cochon 555, a sort-of sisterhood of the traveling pork event that supplies five chefs in each visited city with a 70 to 80 pound heritage breed pig; chefs are told to do whatever they’d like, and the results are judged. Wine, beer, cheese, and pig themed (or flavored, really) candy are also served. Last night’s Cochon 555 pitted the following pitmasters against each other: Mark Ladner of Del Posto, Corwin Kaye of Fatty Crab, Juan Jose Cuevas of EightyOne, Bobby Hellen of Resto, and Michael Clampffer of Mosefund Farm. Lardo and headcheese were in abundance, followed by terrine like things and boudin blanc. The air smelled like bacon.

Also for the Times, Peter Meehan highlights two of his favorite East Village haunts: Punjab and Polish G. I. Delicatessen. Punjab’s the beloved little hole in the wall on First Street near Avenue A that dishes out some the best cheap vegetarian food around; Meehan correctly asserts that the 24-hour institution is “as good at breakfast as it is after stumbling out of a show at the Mercury Lounge across the street.”

The Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema stops by Soba Totta (pictured), the fourth addition to the Yakitori Totto mini-chain. He loves some charcoal shish kebabs and says “the sight of three yakitori chefs skewering morsels of chicken with military precision behind a hanging sheet of glass intended to forestall spatters is one of the great sights of midtown dining.”

Olana: The internets are doomed to failure unless someone invents a way to click on a photo at the end of a wet, snowy day and be immediately teleported to the desired location – like those plush chairs clustered around the bar, where one of Olana’s specialty cocktails would be presented at once.