New York Archives

The (New) 2nd Ave. Deli

Oh, The 2nd Ave. Deli. Remember how much I loved it? I blogged about the original here, here, and here. It was my favorite New York Deli; more inviting than Katz’s, less touristy than Carnegie. And then it disappeared and became a Chase Manhattan Bank.

When the new one opened up on 3rd Ave. and 33rd Street I was dubious. To state the obvious: who wants to visit The 2nd Ave. Deli on 3rd Ave? Second of all, how can you transfer the magic of a New York institution to a completely different venue? That just doesn’t happen; you can’t relocate The Museum of Natural History, you can’t relocate The 2nd Ave. Deli. I stayed away.

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Dinner and a…. [K-Town Chicken + Karaoke; Bar Boulud & “Dr. Atomic”]

One subject everyone can relate to, regardless of where you live in the country, is the decision-making process one goes through when one plans a night on the town. Of course, there’s dinner but what to do after dinner? And how important is the after dinner activity when choosing where to eat dinner? If you eat dinner in an obscure part of town with nothing else to do, is the night ruined? Inversely, if you choose an awesome after dinner activity (let’s go rollerskating!) are your plans foiled when the only place to eat nearby is a 3rd rate pizza joint?

Happily, living in New York provides many opportunities for a fantastic dinner AND a fantastic after dinner activity. Allow me to share two such examples, after the jump.

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12 Hours in New York (A Meme)

It all started with this bagel.

At Murray’s Bagels on 13th Street and 6th Ave., I consumed a bagel so good–an everything bagel with plain cream cheese, Scottish Salmon, tomato, onion and capers–I thought to myself: “If I were told I had only 12 hours left to spend in New York after which I would be exiled forever, I would definitely have to stop here for my favorite New York bagel.”

Then I wondered: where else would I go? What else would I do? With 12 final hours in New York, how would I spent my time?

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A Matzoh Moment

Certain experiences belong in that well-worn jar on the mantle: “Only In New York.” Take the experience I had the other night before joining Craig for our second anniversary dinner at wd-50 (post to follow). I was in the Lower East Side, walking on Clinton Street (or was it Rivington?) and I noticed a humming noise and a light from a window on my left. I leaned in and saw what you see in the picture above: Asian men in hats making matzoh. Now I’ve been eating matzoh my whole life–mostly on Passover–and I’d always assumed matzoh was made in mysterious Jewish factories with men dressed like Moses singing songs from “Fiddler On The Roof” and shoving stacks and stacks of the dry, unleavened cracker-like rectangles into boxes. But here, right before my eyes, matzoh was being made. I snapped that picture and a few seconds later a man came outside and said: “Would you like to try some?”

“Sure,” I said and he went inside and came back out with a giant fistful of matzoh. Seeing as I was about to eat an enormous dinner, I had to politely refuse all that matzoh and, instead, I took one still-hot-from-the oven piece and bit in.

“Mmmm,” I said.

“Come back for Passover,” said the man. “We’re called _____” and here my brain totally forgets the name. But I bet someone will guess it in the comments because, seriously, how many places are making matzoh late at night near wd-50?

But the matzoh, as far as matzoh goes, was very good matzoh. I ate half of the rectangle and then hid the other half for someone to find–either an over-eager Jewish child or Shlomo the Rat. As I made my way to dinner, I paused and reflected on my experience. “That,” I concluded, after reflecting, “was a serious matzoh moment.”

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.”

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Whitefish Salad

Bagels are my madeline; one bite and a lifetime’s worth of poppy seeds and bad breath spill forth. I’ve written much about bagels on the web–this tribute to Bagelworks in Boca Raton, a bagel love letter for Serious Eats–but I’ve written very little about a bagel topping that’s been a constant in my life and in the lives of many Jews who I hold near and dear: whitefish salad. What’s whitefish salad? Let me tell you all about it.

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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…

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