Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'restaurants'
American Italian vs. Italian Italian (Carmine's & Sfoglia)
My dad and I often have a debate about food. It usually begins when my dad says, "This restaurant sucks." You see, my dad likes food that is familiar and when it comes to food that's familiar he loves Italian food. But a very specific kind of Italian food: he loves American Italian food....
Brunch at Irving Mill
I love brunch but I'm always a bit perplexed when I arrive at a celebrated brunch spot--Prune, for example--and see crowds of people huddled outside, waiting desperately for eggs and pancakes and coffee, foods they can easily and much more cheaply prepare at home. Don't get me wrong: a place like Prune can dazzle you with its brunch food, but at the end of the day, it's brunch food and no brunch food--however spectacular--should require a one hour wait. Which is why I'm delighted to tell you about the brunch I had a few weeks ago with my friend Lauren at Irving Mill, one block east of Union Square. The place is enormous, like a farmy banquet hall, and on Sunday at 12 noon it was almost totally empty, which should've been a cause for alarm. Instead, though it was a cause for celebration: Irving Mill serves a pretty killer bunch and the best part is, you don't have to wait....
Cacciucco at The Union Square Cafe
Some people are haunted by ghosts, others are haunted by a sense of meaninglessness in a vast, expanding universe; but me? I'm haunted by food. Restaurant dishes, dishes I make I home: it doesn't matter. I crave them, I want them. Lately, I've been haunted by a dish I ate two weeks ago with my friend Lauren who kindly agreed to cat-sit for me when I was in Seattle. As a reward for her cat-sitting, I took her to The Union Square Cafe for lunch and it was there that I encountered the dish that'd haunt me for weeks to come: the cacciucco you see in the picture above....
My Top 10 Restaurant Dishes of 2008
There are 15 days to go in 2008, so there's definitely a chance I'm being too hasty with this list of my favorite restaurant dishes of 2008. But reading through my archives, these were the dishes that popped out immediately, that triggered specific synapses in my brain to fire darts into my salivary glands, making me hungry to repeat the experience of eating these dishes all over again. Are you ready for the reveal? Let's start with the best. #1: Pulled Pork Sandwich, Gramercy Tavern It's highly controversial to declare the greatest pulled pork sandwich of my life to be a sandwich crafted and created in New York City, but I'm a controversial kind of guy: this sandwich, brought to life by Gramercy Tavern chef Michael Anthony, is pure bliss on every level. The meat comes from Ossabaw pigs, the bread comes from Balthazar, and somehow the balance of all the components--including the coleslaw and pickled onions on the side--make this my favorite restaurant dish of 2008. #2: Banana Cake, Momofuku Milk Bar Dessert is my weakness, my constant indulgence, my chosen vice. I eat lots of dessert, make lots of dessert, and it's very rare for me to encounter a dessert that feels entirely new; but such was the case with the banana cake at Momofuku Milk Bar which I ate, for the first time, only a few weeks ago. It's a beguiling cake: layered in a way you've never seen a cake layered. Sure, there's the cake layer--and the cake itself has an extraordinary texture, almost like a meringue--and then there's a fudge layer (yes, a whole layer of fudge) and THEN there's the banana layer, which glows a phosphorescent yellow. It's a memorable cake, a dangerous cake; if you live in the East Village, beware--one bite, you'll be back so many times, you'll need a personal trainer....
The Ultimate Reservation
For the past four years, every since I knew about it, really, I've been e-mailing El Bulli--frequently cited as the best restaurant in the world--for a reservation. And almost like clockwork, I get an e-mail back a few months later stating that because of intense demand (800,000 people applying for 8,000 possible reservations, according to Wikipedia) my request couldn't be honored. That is until yesterday......
Perbacco, Scarpetta, & Dirt Candy
Somehow, in the past two weeks, I've eaten at three new and relevant New York restaurants. Instead of typing up three separate restaurant posts, I decided to make a video summarizing all three meals. The only thing I think I got wrong is the price of the spaghetti and tomato sauce at Scarpetta; it's $24, not $26. Related Links: Perbacco Scarpetta Interview with Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy...
Madhouse in a Boathouse
It's a nice thought: eating Sunday brunch in Central Park's boathouse, overlooking a peaceful lake, watching the yellow and red leaves fall from the soon-to-be-naked branches. Certainly, it's not an original idea; certainly, lots of tourists will be there. But can't it still be enjoyable? How crazy can it get?...
My Worst Restaurant Experience Ever
It's not every day that you have your worst restaurant experience ever. Mine happened a few weeks ago, upon my return from Seattle and Cape Cod. Literally: it was my first meal back and the food gods rightly punished me for making a waste of it. Park Slope has two sushi joints I frequent: one is Taro which, as I've said in the past, serves the best sushi in town. The other, ____, is far inferior; the salad a soupy mess, the sushi poorly executed and rarely ever fresh. Why, on my first day back, did I go to ____ over Taro for lunch? Because, I am embarrassed to admit, I was lazy. I was nearer to ____ at lunchtime than I was to Taro; so I went to _____. And, rightly, I was punished: but did the punishment fit the crime?...
Applewood
Here's some unsolicited advice, reader: if you want to enjoy a nice dinner out, don't plan it. I think the unhappiest experiences people have eating out are cases where it's overplanned--the expectations are so high that something's bound to disappoint. But when you wander out of your apartment, as Craig and I did last week to enjoy the nice weather, and you stumble upon the well-regarded Park Slope restaurant Applewood on 7th Ave. and 11th Street, you'd do well to embrace this as an opportunity for a positive dining experience....
Recent Meals at Adour & Prune
Brillat Savarin famously said, "Tell me what you eat, I'll tell you who you are." As much as I'd like to believe that most people go through their lives believing this, my hunch is that most people don't think it's a character-defining moment when they sprinkle Splenda into their coffee. Instead, I think many people subscribe to a different notion. Their adage might go something like this: "Tell me WHERE you eat, I'll tell you who you are."...
Bone Marrow at Blue Ribbon
When people ask me, "How do you come up with stuff for your blog all the time?" I have a ready-made answer: "Camera." "Camera?" "Yes," I say. "I try to carry a camera everywhere I go" (sometimes at my own peril) "and then if I eat something notable or I stumble into somewhere notable I can take pictures and write about it later." Such was the case last night when I went with Diana to Blue Ribbon in the West Village. I'd been there before, I wrote about it way back when and it seemed like this would be an unbloggable experience. But then I recalled the passage in Phoebe Damrosch's "Service Included" where she and her Per Se co-workers seek out the best bone marrow in New York and find it at Blue Ribbon. "Diana!" I yelled, after sitting at our table. "We have to get the bone marrow." "Bone marrow?" "Yes," I continued. "It'll make a great post and plus I hear it's fantastic." "Ok," she said. "As long as you're paying."...
Recent Meals (Al Di La & Market Table)
[Click to enlarge.]...
Valentine's Day Dinner at Insieme
Fancy dinners are funny things: you think you have to plan for them, make reservations, get dressed up, when in fact the idea of a "fancy dinner" is just a construct; the truth is, a talented chef with a nice restaurant wants nothing more than for you to pop in at the spur of the moment and that's precisely what Craig and I did last night after seeing a fascinating new musical called Passing Strange at the Belasco. I remembered that Marco Canora, the chef at Hearth whom I met at the Taste of New York event earlier this year, opened a new place across from Mamma Mia called Insieme and after the show I said: "Heck, it's Valentine's Day, let's have a nice dinner." So we popped into Insieme and Craig was intimidated at first because people were dressy in suits and such and we were wearing jeans and he was unshaven, but we quickly got over that, especially later when Marco came out to say hi. He's a wonderful guy--not pretentious, but super knowledgeable and his food reflects that. We loved the little bites they sent out first--a radish with anchovy-flavored olive oil, baccala on a potato--but the best, by far, was the pasta course. Craig, who's not keen on hyperbole, declared this dish one of the best things he's ever eaten in his life: The picture doesn't do it justice, but that's a pear risotto with blue cheese and hazelnuts. Marco told us it had pear cider in it, as well as actual pears, but what made it great, according to Craig, was the contrast of the sweet pear and the savory blue cheese. I took a bite and I had to concur, it was fantastic, though I was pretty in love with my chestnut fettuchini with venison ragu and pomegranate. So, in conclusion, if you have some spare change in your pocket and you're near a nice restaurant but you're scared to go because you're not dressy enough or you think you need to make a reservation, just pop in. The food business is a rough business, and chefs--like all artists--need your patronage. Plus, if it's Valentine's Day, you're supposed to go to a nice meal anyway. I'm glad we had ours at Insieme....
The Seven Stages of Dining at Per Se (Craig's Birthday Lunch)
The First Stage: Shock The original plan was to take Craig to see the play "Speech & Debate," which he's been eager to see, and then to dinner at Soto--a Japanese place in the West Village, praised as the second best new restaurant of the year by Frank Bruni in The New York Times. And then Mika happened. Mika, as you may or may not know, is the poppy, campy not-out-of-the-closet-but-clearly-gay singer/songwriter whose catchy tunes--including "Grace Kelly," "Lollipop," and "Love Today"--are taking Europe, and slowly America, by storm. I casually mentioned to Craig that I'd considered getting Mika tickets for his birthday but that I didn't think he'd want to go (this after making reservations at Soto, but before buying tickets to "Speech and Debate") and he said, "Awww--that'd be so much fun!" So I quickly shifted gears and was able to snatch last minute Mika tickets, rendering the Soto dinner plans a no-go and leaving a big gaping hole for the day part of Craig's birthday. Clearly, though, there needed to be a meal. Craig had initially responded "a nice meal" when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Where could we go for lunch on a Saturday that'd constitute "a nice meal" before I surprised him with Mika? The first thing that occurred to me was Le Bernardin: it's one of the best-kept lunch secrets in New York (see this post) and so I quickly called there to see if they had anything for Saturday and the hostess politely told me that they don't serve lunch on weekends, only on weekdays. Le Bernardin is a four-star restaurant and since I was in a four-star frame of mind, I Googled my other options. It was then that I realized Per Se has a lunch it serves on weekends. I was well aware that a reservation at Per Se is astonishingly difficult to attain--this is, for those who don't know, the sister restaurant to our nation's most prized, celebrated restaurant, The French Laundry--and even if I did attain it, it'd be far outside my price range. I dialed the number, put the phone on speaker phone, and listened to the Per Se recorded message for about 10 minutes before someone picked up. "Hello, this is Per Se, how can I help you?" "Hi," I said, "I know this is crazy to ask, but I thought I'd take a chance: do you have anything for lunch this Saturday?" My finger was poised over the phone's "off" button, prepared for her to cackle and say, "SATURDAY? ARE YOU MAD? WE BOOK UP THREE MONTHS IN ADVANCE!" But instead: "You're very lucky sir. We just had a cancellation for this Saturday at noon." I almost leapt out of my chair. "Oh wow," I said. "Ummmm... hmmm... how much is lunch anyway?" She told me and even though that number was FAR outside anything I ever dreamed of paying, my inner demon said, "What the hell?" and my outer demon said, "Ok, I'll take it." "Excellent," she said. "I'll just need your credit card number to hold the reservation." "My credit card number?" "Yes," she said. "You have until tomorrow to cancel and after that if you fail to make the reservation, we'll have to charge you for two lunches." I got out the card, read her the number, and, once my shock subsided, entered the second stage of Dining at Per Se......
Single Occupancy Restaurant Bathroom Pet Peeves #1 & #2
#1: You are in a single-occupancy bathroom and you lock the door. You begin to do your business and someone comes along and jiggles the handle. This someone--we'll use the name Hank--doesn't stop there. Even though Hank can tell that the door is locked, he must persist. He jiggles harder, he shakes the door, he knocks. This leads us to a very clear conclusion: Hank is an asshole. Hank, if the door is locked someone is in there. It's that simple. There's no conspiracy to deprive you of a toilet and a sink; if you wait just a few more seconds it'll all be yours. But no, you've gotta jiggle, you've gotta shake, you've gotta knock. I hate you, Hank! You've disrupted what should've been a very calming experience. Now I'm stressed out, I have to call out: "There's someone in here!" When I leave, I give you a dirty look but you don't care, Hank. Life marches on for you but for me, I'll never pee calmly again. #2: Ladies, this one you won't relate to. Men: we go into the single occupancy bathroom to pee and the toilet seat is down. (Cue 80s comic: "Ladies, why can't our men learn to keep the toilet seat down!") Well it's down because of you, ladies. So we use our foot to lift it up and it immediately slams back down. We try to lift it again and the same thing happens. Now we have a choice: attempt to pee with the seat down, risking a splattered seat or--worse--hold the seat up with our finger while we pee. This happened to me tonight. I opted for option 2, which totally grossed me out: I used the tip of my left-hand pointer finger, so if you shake my hand soon make sure to shake the right. But note to restaurant managers: if you have a single occupancy bathroom with a toilet seat that doesn't stay up, please fix it. Nothing is less appetizing than trying to eat your food with a hand that just touched a toilet seat. Thank you. I feel better now. P.S. It occurs to me now I could've used a piece of toilet paper to hold the seat up. That makes me stupid: you can call me Stupid McDirtyhands. P.P.S. After reading your comments, I'm shocked that you think I didn't wash my hands aftrwards. Of course I washed my hands. What do you think I am, a Stupid McDirtyhands?...
Moim
Last we spoke about restaurant reviews, I'd sworn them off (see here) with the caveat: "If I go out to eat and have a spectacular meal, of course I'll tell you about it." Well a week ago that happened right here in Park Slope at a place called Moim....
My Critical Condition
In the introduction to John Lahr's 1996 book "Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre" he writes, "Criticism, of course, is a kind of performance, but with this difference: the artist puts his life on the line, the critic only his words. This is not to minimize the significance of the activity, but to place criticism in its proper context. Criticism is a life without risk; and, therefore, it behooves the critic to honor the craft." This quote, which I recently discovered, comes at the perfect moment for me. I'd been trying to think and re-think my position about reviewing restaurants on my blog, and Lahr's quote fully articulates my conflict. There's no question that restaurant reviews are a big part of what makes my blog popular: you can see a huge archive of them in the menu bar above you. But now that I've written a book, I'm suddenly in the position of having my own work out there in the public eye. And, as Lahr says, my whole life feels like it's on the line: if a critic were to trash my book in a big public forum, calling me a first class idiot, I'd be ruined. On the other hand, if Michiko Kukutani calls me a genius in the Sunday Book section, my career will be made. It's all so unnerving....
Perry Street
If you leave a restaurant happy, does it matter if the meal itself was anything but perfect? Yesterday I had this very experience at Perry Street, Jean-George's oft-ignored Greenwich Village outpost where savvy diners can enjoy a three-course lunch for $24. I'd been meaning to try Perry Street for a long time--ever since it opened--but an opportunity never arose. Then, yesterday, after a morning meeting, I was in the Village looking for lunch and soon I was face to face with Perry Street. The glass exterior was a bit daunting: what would it be like inside? Would I be dressed appropriately (in jeans and flip-flops)? Would it be crowded, empty, filled with nudist monks having an orgy? I took a deep breath and decided to try my luck. I'm glad I did....
Soupy Sushi Salads and Ice That Costs $1
Comrades! The restaurant revolution is here. I, your fearless leader, Amateuriov Gourmetovich beg of you to consider the following two cases, both which threaten our peace and prosperity as well-meaning restaurant goers. The first is the case of the soupy sushi salad: Recent visits to two of my local sushi joints have produced salads like the one you see above. These salads were not unlike salads I've had at sushi joints all across the country: one part salad to two parts sticky, gloppy dressing. Let's ignore the iceberg lettuce for this discussion and concentrate on the matter at hand: why are sushi restaurants drowning us in dressing? Hypothesis 1: Sushi became popular in the last decade because Americans are more health-conscious than they were previously; as a corollary, Americans appreciate a salad along with their "healthy" sushi lunch; Americans like sweet, gloppy food (see: ice cream sodas, banana splits, Marie's creamy Italian); sushi restaurant managers, in an effort to appease American health-consciousness while simultaneously stimulating the American palate, concoct a sweet carrot dressing that they dump over a pre-sliced, pre-washed mix of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. Goal: minimal cost, maximum impact. Result: Americans drink sushi salads with a straw. Hypothesis 2: This is an authentic pre-sushi salad, much like the pre-sushi salads you see in Japan. The excess dressing symbolizes American imperialism; the iceberg lettuce symbolizes karaoke. Don't ask about the cucumber. And now for the second case. Please study this bill from brunch at The Stone Park Cafe: Some might be alarmed by the $12 grits, but those grits had shrimp and cheese and were pretty excellent. No, we're here to discuss the first and second items on the bill: the price discrepancy between the iced coffee and the coffee. As you can see, coffee costs $1.50 and iced coffee costs $2.50. Why is that? Diana, who ordered the iced coffee, said it was just coffee on ice. Perhaps they'd brewed coffee earlier and refrigerated it? Was that coffee more special than the hot coffee poured into my mug? We decided to ask our waiter. "Dear waiter," I said. "Why is it that my hot coffee costs $1.50 and my companion's iced coffee costs $2.50?" The waiter, Robert V, shrugged and said, "I honestly don't know." Then he walked away. Comrades, these are troubling times in the world of dining. We must rise up and save our salads from sloshing, we must demand fair prices for iced coffee beverages. Who's with me? Who'll challenge the status quo? No one? Ya, that's what I figured....
Hungry in the Hamptons at The Stone Creek Inn
This is a quick post about a dinner I ate this weekend in the Hamptons. My parents were there with my brother and his girlfriend, Tali, for a party, and I came the day before to spend time with everyone. We had a really forgettable lunch in Westhampton at 75 Main--country club food, indifferent service--and I was expecting the same for dinner. But where we ended up, The Stone Creek Inn (located in East Quogue), offered up a memorable dinner, even if it wasn't quite a success story....
