IDEAS IN FOOD

New Years Recap

You may recall that we cooked a private dinner for New Years eve.  An in depth recount and pictorial of the evening can be found at Opinionated About Dining.  Cooking dinners like these is truly a pleasure.  Getting honest feedback on the evening is even more important for it allows us tweak, adjust and fine tune to specific wants, needs and desires.  It allows us to be able to come closer to our vision of bespoke dining.  Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve, though along the way great discoveries and improvements may be made.

The Experience?

For those who are wondering how the food actually tastes, John wrote up last weekend's experience from a diner's perspective over on eGullet. He's a very honest and engaging writer and we appreciate both the feedback and the perspective. Now that we are better acquainted with his palate, the next dinner, whenever it may be, will be even better. Part of the fun is building relationships with your diners. Knowing who you're cooking for makes everything that much better.

An Invitation

to join us for a small dinner party on Friday, September 21. As a thank you to the readers of our blog we'd like to invite three of you to bring a guest to dinner at our home in Queens that evening. Unfortunately this limits us to people who will actually be in the New York area and be able to attend on that date. We'll be serving a five course menu of our latest creations and we'd love the opportunity to meet some of you in person. In order to be eligible for this dinner, please send us an email with the subject line "dinner party" or leave a comment below with a link to or description of your favorite under the radar food website, restaurant or cookbook. The contest will close  at midnight EST on Thursday, September 13, 2007. Three people will be chosen randomly from the entrants received and will be invited to join us for an evening of food, wine and ideas in food.

The winners will be contacted on Friday, September 14, 2007.

This contest is now closed. Our invitees are Sokie Lee, Arun Gupta, and Christopher Scott. Thank you so much to everyone that entered the drawing! The response was wonderful and we really appreciate all of the warm notes that we received. Thanks to your generosity we discovered many new websites and hidden gems from your responses. We'll you know how the party turns out & we'll definitely do this again one day.

Pictures of Food

Here is a link to Chuck's new website chuckeats.com .  Chuck managed to make the trek out to Keyah Grande twice during our last months there.  He has also traveled to a few other restaurants and shared his opinion on his new website.  Anyway, if you want to see our last long menu cooked or see the food of a number of other chefs, check it out.

Wine by the Glass

There are a lot of restaurants in New York that treat all wine purchases in the same manner.  Whether you buy it by the bottle or by the glass, you are presented with the bottle, offered a taste and then poured a glass. It's a wonderful thing to know that you are being served what you asked for and to be able to check the quality of your libation before making a commitment. I am rarely presented a bottle that is less than half-full. It's something that struck me as we struggled with the wine service in Colorado. The reason for our struggle is that it's illegal to marry bottles of liquor in that state. What that means is that you cannot pour from one open bottle into another open bottle regardless of whether or not the contents are the same. So either you present a miserly looking bottle and run the risk of occasionally running out of wine before the glass is full, or you must find a use for all of that perfectly good wine that is left in the bottles that are not full enough to take to the tables. Apparently this is not in the case in New York. In a very high end restaurant in the city, bottles were married in the service station in plain view of the diners, if they chose to look. Oddly the same funnel was used for all bottles with no pretense of rinsing it between different wines. Now this may seem like a small omission, how much contamination would actually occur? But if you consider the fact that they go to the trouble of presenting each bottle of wine, how much more difficult would it be to rinse the funnel between wines or even have separate funnels for each varietal?  It's always interesting to see where people draw their lines in the sand and what constitutes an acceptable practice in any given restaurant.

What Does it Taste Like?

The question we often get is what does it taste like.  Here is a discussion of the extended menu we served this past Saturday.  It is in the discussion forums of Opinionated About Dining.  Here is the link to the discussion with pictures of Keyah Grande, the food and those darn Versace plates. (note, a registration to the forums is necessary to enter.)

Chuck called ahead and requested a tasting menu.  We knew he was coming and knew he enjoyed food.  What you see is what we cooked.

Quicksand

Well, I continue to struggle with the issue of steak.  Here we prepared the steak poached in butter and then grilled served with bagna cauda artichokes, (artichokes braised in a roasted chicken broth flavored with garlic and anchovies) roasted morel mushrooms and young broccoli rabe.  The dish is absolutely delicious and our guests said it was the most flavorful piece of meat they have had in they could not remember when.  (Hello, slow cooked in butter then charred on a grill)  So, the guests were happy, the dish was tasty and I am just not able to get a grip.  Hmm.  We shall see what comes and how we are, no I, am able to get out of this bit of culinary quicksand.  Perhaps I should just relax a bit and see what is underneath.

dinner at wd-50: April 14, 2006

After writing about the experience of wd-50 in "three services" I wanted to share the menu Wylie and his team put together for us. 

habanero infused cider, smoked maple syrup, rum
sparkling wine, vodka, cherry puree

Condrieu, Philippe Faurey 2002

tuna, powdered coconut, green mango, peppers

café con leche, liquid milk, coffee jelly, crumbs

false egg, coconut white, carrot-smoked maple yolk

octopus, duck skin, orange soil, chamomile yogurt
roasted foie gras, watermelon, gingered basil seeds, lovage

poached oysters, caramel foam, peanuts, kaffir lime

rabbit confit, pickled rack, english peas, preserved lemon granola

huevos rancheros, slow cooked yolk, egg white skin, salsa paper

Rioja, Campillo Gran Reserva 1994

miso soup, shiitake mushrooms, instant sesame-tofu noodles

ocean trout, cucumber noodles, pita puree, falafel spices

chicken, chopped liver parcels, sake soubise, green apple and olive

sirloin, smoked pepper tart, water spinach, whipped horseradish

Riesling, “Ultima” Elk Cove Vineyards, 2002

carrot cake, coconut-cream cheese ice cream, carrot foam and cake crumbs

tonka bean crème brulee, marcona almonds, dried cherries and puree

cocoa-banana ravioli, coffee soil, mustard ice cream and greens

Cru

I was reminded of something very important while dining at Cru.  When you give the chef freedom to fly you will visit many places you never expected, some good, some great and some not worth visiting again.  In our own kitchen we change the menu daily though our freedom is influenced or corralled--depends whom you talk to--by the guests who visit with us.  We are definitely exploring food though it still must remain grounded.  I have difficulty with that at times, though Aki is able to help filter and edit my adventurous side.

The menu at Cru reads well with the ingredients coming from near and far though with distinct leanings toward Japan in the selections and seasonings of the crudo, and more firmly towards Italy with the homemade pastas.  Though there is more to offer than what you see on the menu.  Ask for the kitchen to cook for you.  Be willing and open to taste and see what the chef, Shea Gallante, and his team has to offer.  We arrived at dinner with a couple of tastes for the kitchen as well.  Last year we ran into Shea in Aspen and gave him some vanilla salt.  We felt it only fitting to bring some chocolate salt this time around.  We also brought a bottle of tequila vinegar, with his affinity for raw fish we felt the vinegar would be a fun ingredient to work with.

After we were seated and had perused the menu we were given the opportunity to have the kitchen cook for us.  Just say yes.  If the opportunity arises just nod, explain any allergies or food dislikes and perhaps a culinary spark from the menu at hand and let the kitchen cook.  We did and that was key to a wonderful evening.  Oh, and they also offered to pair wines with appropriate courses.  That meant we had absolutely nothing to do but eat, drink and enjoy an evening with Reiko.

The first course, in this case bite, came after an array of canapés.  I do not have a written menu in hand and even if I did, not much that we were served came from the printed menu.  I am thus recreating the meal from memory so there may be a few slips, though as can be shown from my recall that the menu was memorable.

Canapés:
Carrot cone with goat cheese and tarragon
Miniature Cuban sandwich
Arancini with cocoa nibs and butternut squash
Whipped Robiola tartlet with pine nut and olive oil

Chilled oyster with pearls of tequila vinegar, soy and chocolate salt (The re-gift: Shea was the first to use what we brought as a present in the meal for us.)

Miniature Bocconcini with tomato concentrate and jelly

Crudo:  Kampachi with radish, needlefish with red and yellow peppers, langoustine with grated black truffle

Dungeness crabmeat with whipped green apple and sesame oil powder

Black sesame seed crusted blue marlin belly with ginger and tamarind

Warm terrine of sweet Maine shrimp with horseradish, sea urchin and micro shiso

Hamachi tartare with wasabi ice cream

Truffle crusted Turbot with cauliflower puree and caramelized cauliflower crust

Fideos of Farro spaghetti with chestnuts and calamari and Papardelle with fennel and duck sausage

Squab breast with curry bubbles, tahini and black trumpet mushrooms

Lamb loin with wild rice and mole

Short Ribs with potato puree, young beets and parsnip batons

Yogurt sorbet with yuzu grapefruit consommé

Amaretto ice cream with pineapple and cake

Chocolate ice cream, pudding pop and cake with aerated caramel

Mignardises

The dishes were fun and exciting.  The only real mis-steps came during dessert.  They just did not mesh with the rest of the menu.  Something is out of sync and that is unfortunate for if the desserts could become part of the whole Cru would be truly spectacular.  Sure there were a few other small stumbles in the menu, in spite of these we can honestly say that as an overall experience Cru was well worth the journey.  We can add Cru to the list of places that we'd return to and that list is not a long one this year.

Oysters and Fries

We finished the last of our events here in New York last evening and we decided to go out for a bit of culinary relaxation for lunch today.  We ended up at Aqua Grill.  The menu was simple, really I was there for the oysters.  As we looked at the menu we ordered some french fries to take the edge off.  OK, finding parking took longer than anticipated and we were ravenous.  The fries came and went and somewhere amidst our eating we ordered a dozen oysters and a bottle of wine.  Midway through the fries our waiter returned saying the wine we had chosen was not in stock, did we have another choice.  We chose a Marcel Deiss 2003 Beblenheim Riesling.  Before I put the menu down I noticed an oyster sampler on the menu.  Try one of each oyster for a base price.  In actuality I think they just added the price of the individual oysters, but so what.  The opportunity to taste 25 oysters at once is rare and the fact that the oysters are arranged so that the diner can put a name to a taste and an oyster is truly remarkable.  As we waited for the oysters the wine arrived and we decompressed reminiscing on the past weeks events and sipping the refreshing wine.

When the oysters arrived--two giant platters--a second plate of fries showed up, I guess I ordered them, and we began a truly special tasting, working our way along the nautilus like arrangement of oysters.  Each bite brought us flavors, textures, tastes and ideas from all over North America.  If you truly enjoy oysters I recommend taking the journey we traveled today.

The Oysters
(From the oyster to the right of the lemon, working inwards)

Blue Point-Connecticut
Pearl Point-Washington State
Skookum-Washington State
Sisters Point-Washington State
Dungeness- Washington State
Falmouth- Massachusetts
Malsapina-British Columbia
Narragansett-Rhode Island
Piper's Point-Prince Edward Island
Imperial Eagle-British Columbia
Whaletown-British Columbia
Buzzards Bay-Massachusetts
Duxbury-Massachusetts
La St. Simon-New Brunswick
Martha's Vineyard-Massachusetts
Moonstone-Rhode Island
Watch Hill-Rhode Island
Willapa Bay-Oregon
Eastham-Massachusetts
Pacific Blue Point-Washington State
Kumomoto-Oregon
Kumomoto-Washington State
Wellfleet-Massachusetts
Royal Miyagi-British Columbia
Simpson Bay-Alaska

A Few Quick Bites

As we get busier, writing about our dining experiences in New York seems to fall by the wayside.  Not because there isn't anything to write about but because there isn't time to do it justice.  So, here are a few quick bites. memorable moments from the first half of this journey.

The Corner Bistro was the perfect spot for a quick lunch last week.  I have been meaning to bring Alex here for years as it is a place that is entwined with my past.  I began visiting the corner bistro in high school and have returned periodically over the years.  The place never seems to change and the burgers are always greasy and delicious.

After the Herve This lecture we stopped by Five Points on the way back to the car.  It was early and we were starving so were happy to discover that between 5-6pm they have $2 oysters and $5 martinis.  We stayed for dinner and I have to say that our experience that evening would lead one to believe that appetizers and pastas are definitely the things to order.   Alex has been on a quest for the perfect short ribs and we'll just say that he's still searching and leave it at that.  The special that night was a Fritto Misto with shrimp, calamari, sea bass and skate.  It was a beautiful dish, we could have just eaten oysters and the Misto and been perfectly happy.  Knowing when to stop is a gift we don't always posses.

Steak Tartare at the bar at Artisanal while waiting for the packages to wrapped next door was a winner.  They have a really nice rendition of that classic bistro dish.

Another bar, this time at Balthazar , was the scene of a great plateau de mer.  We got the Balthazar to share between us and although the crab claws were Jonah and tasteless and there were more periwinkles than six of us could have eaten, we had a ball because everything else was utterly pristine.  The oysters were fresh and briny, the shrimp fat and succulent, marinated Taylor bay scallops, seviches, huge mussels, lobster and a variety of condiments.  We shared the remainder with the two charming ladies beside us and finished up with onion soup (me) and a so-so financier (him).

Couldn't resist visiting David Burke at Bloomingdales after all the talk about the sliders.  Not a great experience, the space is cramped, the butter was dirty (as in dropped on the floor and put back on the plate dirty) and the food was simply not good.  The sliders were edible and nicely pink inside, they were just too tall and with too many things going on for such a small package.  The fries were incredibly salty, the meatloaf was tender and tasteless and the lobster mashed potatoes were cold, grainy and vegetarian.  The short ribs were just a mess, tough as shoe leather and accompanied by a jumble of overcooked and under seasoned pasta.  It was disappointing.

Another disappointing experience would be lunch at the Bar Room  at the Modern.  The food itself wasn't bad but the service was horrendous.  It's as though the Bar and the Dining Room are different worlds within the same restaurant.  Almost two hours for three courses and when we were finally able to make our escape, a back waiter who we hadn't seen all afternoon suddenly materialized, brushing by us, glaring at our coats and stepping over our chairs in his haste to clear away the dishes as we began to vacate the table.  It was kind of amazing, after slowly dehydrating through the course of the meal because we could never find anyone to pour us some water, he couldn't wait ten seconds for us to actually step away from the table before clearing away all evidence of us.  But the museum was fabulous, we went in for the Munch exhibit and stayed to absorb everything else.  There is a lot of inspiration to be found within those walls.

So let's wrap this up on a positive note.  Thankfully our old standby the 5 Burro Cafe in Forest Hills still makes good nachos, quesadillas, tacos al pastor and one of my favorite Cadillac margaritas.  It's not fancy but the food is tasty and the same staff has worked there for years, which is a wonderful thing in this ever-changing business of ours.

Per Se

M&G Diner: a fried chicken fix

Fried chicken is almost as controversial as politics and petanque, both of which I avoid at most costs.  Anyway, we were in need of a fried chicken fix.  If you do not know what a fried chicken fix is, do not keep reading and definitely avoid the M&G diner.

Good, you are still with me.  This place is a shrine to fried chicken.  Yes they serve breakfast, waffles and fried chicken, but we go for the chicken.  Actually, the whole meal is worth it.  You get a fried chicken leg and thigh, two sides, in our case baked macaroni and cheese and braised collard greens--though when we went this most recent time they had cabbage which was amazingly tender and flavorful-- as well as two split and griddled corn muffins.  Ask for a cola and your day is now complete.  The skin on the chicken is crispy but not over spiced and complicated.  It is after all fried chicken.  The macaroni and cheese is custard like in tenderness, with bits of caramelized goodness here and there.

With regards to the rest of the menu I have no concrete evidence on quality, though people order the other stuff as well.  We go for the fried chicken fix.

Five Points

Well, we are somewhat behind on writing up our restaurant experiences here in NYC.  We're waiting on a menu from Per Se , detailing our particular tasting.   They promised to mail it to us a week ago and we're still waiting.  WD-50  where we unwittingly witnessed the chaos of the night before Valentine's Day will (hopefully) be posted soon, along with several other places where we have nibbled along the way. 

Last Saturday we had lunch at Five Points .  We arrived early, as seems to be our weekend habit and after a slight scuffle over a parking space, Alex got caught trying to lift up the back of a vintage VW Bug and move it forward a few inches so he could fit into the space behind, we walked into the bustling restaurant.  Although they understandably couldn't seat us until closer to our reservation time we were lucky enough to find three stools at the bar.  While my aunt and I sipped variations on the  classic Bellini made with ginger and orange rind, and passion fruit respectively, Alex had a surprisingly small but good cappuccino.  I say surprisingly simply because the cozy feel of the place at brunch makes you think of big, steaming bowls of coffee as opposed to a regular cup.

When we arrived at the table we were offered a round of drinks on the house.  Auntie opted for a Virgin Mary while Alex and I decided to try their version of Planter's Punch.  We are both quite picky about our punch and this one was excellent.  We took the opportunity to order some churros and hot chocolate while we perused the menu.  The churros were gorgeous, long and crispy, incredibly light and almost creamy in the center, freshly fried and dusted with sugar crystals.  We played with them like children, dipping them into the hot chocolate and pulling them apart with our fingers.  They were fun and delicious and no one should go to brunch there without ordering them.

For her first course my aunt had cauliflower soup.  Cauliflower is one of her new favorites as a puree and she was very happy to see the soup listed as a special.  It was very flavorful, creamy and redolent of cauliflower without being heavy or cloying.  I had the market salad with warm goat cheese which was exactly as it should have been.  Alex began with a grilled hangar steak salad with buttermilk blue cheese dressing. His steak was perfectly cooked and the salad was simple and tasty.

For our entrees, my Aunt had a fritatta made with wild mushrooms and cheese.  The fritatta itself was surprisingly thin as we are used to seeing the thicker, Italian style and Auntie enjoyed it very much.  Alex had the baked eggs with brioche, spinach and smoked salmon.  His feeling was that the casserole was too large, allowing the eggs to spread out and overcook.  The brioche, which was also resting in the casserole dish was soggy and to his mind a smaller casserole dish would allow the eggs to set perfectly with the (still crispy) toast served on the side.  Aside from these minor observations, he enjoyed the dish.  The saltiness of the salmon was a nice contrast to the buttery spinach and eggs.  I had the turkey pot pie, down home comfort food for the day before a storm.  The crust was controversial at our table.  It was a thin layer of what I think was lemon pepper biscuit dough.  It was flavorful and a bit sandy in texture.  I thought it worked, but I would have preferred something with less seasoning and a lighter texture to let the filling shine through more.  Alex didn't think it worked at all.  The filling was scrumptious, chunks of turkey and vegetables in a lightly thickened gravy.  There appeared to be a touch of cream in the filling but it was definitely not a cream sauce.  Unfortunately, by the time entrees arrived I was getting full so I wasn't able to do it justice.

We skipped dessert, as no one had any room left.  The room was still crowded when we left but it was a well handled busyness.  The staff was very gracious and accommodating and the atmosphere in the restaurant was definitely a positive one.  The food was toothsome, well presented and very reasonably price.  There's a reason why this place is a New York staple and I'm sure that we will be back there again.

*If you want to attempt the churros at home, Marc Meyer, the chef at Five Points has a cookbook, Brunch, 100 Recipes from Five Points Restaurant.  It's a fun book and there are some interesting recipes in it, especially if you like a leisurely breakfast.

Service with a Smile

Yesterday  we had lunch at  Five Ninth with Alex's sister and her boyfriend.  It was the first time that we were meeting him and so we picked a place that was casual and funky, where we thought we could get a good bite to eat.  As it turns out, the food was pretty good but the service was some of the most entertaining ever.  Thankfully, as a group we were all pretty mellow and so we spent most of the meal laughing, although I can see how with the wrong group it could easily have gone the other way.

Alex and I made incredible time driving into the city and parking magically appeared around the corner from the restaurant.  It was about a half an hour before our reservation so we considered a coffee at Pastis but it was a madhouse inside and outside it was bitter cold, so we decided to have our coffee at Five Ninth. We were pleased to discover that the restaurant actually has a sign outside now--you practically used to have to be psychic to find the place.  The hostess at the door was incredibly gracious, an attribute that has been lacking here in NYC.  We offered to have our coffee at the bar, but after checking to make sure that it was set up, she led us upstairs to a table for four.  She left us with menus and advised us that our server would be with us shortly.  That's where the adventure began.

Since it was so cold, I decided to have some tea while we waited.  There were two oolongs on the list and when our slightly disheveled server arrived, let's call him Bill (I never did catch his actual name), I asked him what the difference was.

"Well, one, the --- is a bit more floral and the other is slightly more bitter.  Or is it --- that's more floral?   Anyway, um, I think we only have one of them, hang on and I'll go check."  He disappears for a a few seconds.  "Actually, we don't have either of them.  What we do have is one which is really tannic and kind of bitter, a mint and a chammomile."

After briefly considereing my options of bitter and tannic or no caffeine, I responded "Okay, in that case I'll have a latte."  Alex quickly ordered one as well.

Bill gave us a theatrical shrug.  "Well, actually, it'll be at least twenty minutes for that.  The cappucino machine wasn't working this morning so we had to bring in another one."  Quick smile.  "So, it'll take a while for this one to warm up."  Okay then, we'll just have some coffee.

As he brought the coffee, Bill shook his head.  "How do you people get up so early?" he asked wonderingly.

"Um, I think we probably went to bed way earlier than you did."

He nodded.  "Probably, I woke up an hour after I was supposed to be here today.  I called them to tell them I was in the car and on my way." Sigh, "But they still weren't very happy with me."  Go figure.

As he went to take care of another table, we scanned the wine list and chatted.  We were both starving and decided to order some doughnut holes while we waited.  As Bill had disappeared, we ordered them from the back waiter.  When Bill returned to the floor (literally, Five ninth is in a townhouse and we were on the second floor) he asked us if we needed anything.  Alex explained that we had ordered doughnut holes from the lady who had been on the floor.

"No you didn't.", with a big smile.

"Well, yes we did,  It was about five minutes ago."

"No, you didn't."  Very firmly and with a shake of his head.  "She doesn't speak a word of English.  You may think so, but you didn't order a thing.  I'll go put them in now."

Meredith and Brian arrived promptly and after a flurry of hellos, we settled down and the doughnut holes arrived.  They were four cakey balls, rolled in coarse sugar and served with a bowl of hot chocolate.  They were good, but nothing close to the churros with hot chocolate at Five Points.   As Bill came by to take our order, his parting words were "Okay guys, I'm kind of out of it today,  so if I seem a bit spacey and you need something," flashing smile, "just throw a fork at me." 

I had the trout salad to start, which I enjoyed.  Small bites of deep fried smoked trout tossed with baby mustard greens, trout roe, radishes, caramelized onions and a cold, slow cooked egg.  The egg would have been much better served warm as the whites were barely set and disappeared into the salad and cold, runny egg yolks are not my favorite thing, but all in all the salad worked well.  Meredith enjoyed her congee, Brian really enjoyed his egg with panzanella and prosciutto and Alex's cubano disappeared so fast that I didn't even get a bite.

Bill came by as we were eating.  "Are we all happy campers here?"  We were.

For the second course I ordered the shanghai noodles.  It was supposed to be fat noodles swimming in broth with chinese broccoli, berkshire pork and a slow cooked egg.  As the bowl was set before me, it smelled delicious.  I slid my chopsticks through the broth and saw everything I needed, everything except...noodles.  I searched the bowl again.  Alex who was waching the process flagged down Bill.

"There are no noodles in her bowl."

"Really?"  He peered over my shoulder, scrutinizing the bowl.  "You're right, there ARE no noodles in there."  A food runner tugged at his shirt and Bill turned, "HERE they are.  The kitchen just sent them up."  The noodles were naked in a small ceramic bowl.  "Do you want to be formal about this or can I just dump them in there?"  I indicated that he could, so he did, conscientously turning the bowl away from me so it would splash toward the table as opposed to my lap.  "Tableside noodle service."  He chirped merrily, "I used to do this kind of thing all the time when I worked at Jean Georges.   Practically everything is done tableside there.  But I only lasted for like six months.  They take everything so seriously there.  A manager caught me humping a busboy in the coffee station because I  wanted to get my cappucinos and flipped out.  Like, it's only food people."

As we were eating, a woman in a chef's coat came up and quietly conferred with Bill in the corner.  The next time he came to the table he let us know that she had been the chef.  "She was really upset about the noodles.  But I told her it was okay.  Tableside noodle service!  We should do this all the time."

Brian and Meredith belatedly decided to order a second course.  They shared a ham, egg and cheese sandwich on a baguette and Alex suggested the lardo on toast as a side.  He gave them a description of lardo, the part of the pig, the process, the flavor.  Bill chimed in with his agreement.  "Everyone knows that meat gets it's flavor from fat.  In this case there is no meat, only fat, so imagine how much flavor there is in the lardo.  It's all flavor.  You should definitely try it "

As they were finishing, he came over solicitously.  "How was your lardo experience?"  Alex cracked up again, uproariously recapping some of Bill's one liners.  Bill smiled and shrugged "I know, sometimes I hear these things coming out of my mouth and I think, that wasn't the most professional thing that I've ever said.  But oh well, it's already out there.  I think it's because I'm in the restaurant business.  Strange things happen to people in this business.  I think it's because we're open to different things and we see the world differently.  There was this one time when my friend and I were walking down the street and this guy asked for directions.  So I gave them to him and when I finished he reached out and honked my nose."  He gave us and incredulous look and demonstrated the twist and honk, setting us off into gales of laughter.  "I looked at my friend and said was that me?  Did I do anything to invite that?  Strange things always happen to me." 

Finally we asked for the check.  "Are you in a hurry?"  Well, no, we're just heading over to Chelsea market to do some shopping.  "Well, the kitchen is sending you some desserts.  Can you wait for them?"  As it was presented as a fait accompli, it seemed rude not to.  We waited for quite some time and finally we saw Bill approaching the table, sheepishly brandishing a plate of "Doughnuts Holes!"  He placed them on the table with a flourish and shrugged, "Well, you can never have enough doughnuts right?"

The restaurant was not very busy, a stark contast the meal we had there last year.  I wonder if it was because it was a Saturday or because Fatty Crab has landed so close by.  We both thought that food was better than last year, with some hits and misses, but overall the meal was pretty good and we had a lot of fun.  So thank you Bill, whoever you are in real life, although we might never hire you, we certainly enjoyed your company yesterday.

Urena and Room 4 Dessert

So, in the Cafe Gray post I mentioned that we had eaten at three different places on that particular day. I had originally intended to write about all three of them at that time but the description of Cafe Gray got a bit long and I decided to separate the lunch and dinner experiences.  Besides, my writing had hit a wall.  That wall was Urena.

Let me give you a bit of background on our evening.  We had met up with a fellow Chef who we had corresponded with but never met.  This was a new and very positive experience for us.  The plan was to have dinner at Urena and dessert at Room 4 Dessert.  Both restaurants were in their infancy, open for less than a month and generating lots of buzz.  Basically, visiting the two places on the same evening was like viewing the opposite ends of a spectrum.  The places and experiences could not have been more different.

I have to believe that we just hit Urena on a bad night.  Frankly there isn't any way to describe our evening without making it sound like a farce.  It was comedy of errors from beginning to end and the whole experience made me kind of sad.  I'm not going to write a blow by blow account of what happened to us that particular evening, I'm just going to say that every aspect of our visit was disappointing from the decor to the service to the food.  I could have forgiven the first two if the food had been fabulous but it wasn't even close.   You may be able to chalk it up to growing pains but we will not be going back to find out. 

Thankfully Room 4 Dessert was a totally different experience.  The room is extremely long and narrow, evoking the feel of a new age soda fountain.  Instead of egg creams and milkshakes there are funky and delicious cocktails, dessert wines and teas  Instead of ice cream sundaes there are beautiful and thought provoking dessert presentations.  The staff is extremely warm and friendly and there is a small library of cookbooks in the back.  Guests can choose a book and peruse the artistry of other chefs while slowly savoring one of Will's creations.  He and his wife are on hand at the bar to answer your questions and make you feel welcome.  The place isn't fancy or exotic but it has a great vibe and a positive atmosphere.  Although not everything on the menu was to our personal tastes, some of the standouts that we both agreed upon included a coconut pudding with a silky texture that was offset by freeze dried coconut powder, the apple sorbet and the cocoa pate bomb which managed to be ethereal and structured at the same time.  (As we were eating Alex mentioned that he would have enjoyed some salt to pique the various elements in the dishes.  Will was happy to offer an array of salts of which smoked was choosen to highlight various flavors from the coconut pudding to the caramel ice cream.)

Oh, and the cocktails are smashing.  Alex had the mango planters punch while I sipped a concoction of gin, lychee and rosewater.  I hesitated to order it because rosewater is an ingredient which can be heavy and overpowering, but I was rewarded but a drink that was delicate, frothy and refreshing.

Herrell's

We've been sorely lacking in photos lately and for that we apologize.  So here are a couple of pictures of Herrell's in Northampton.  For those who don't know it, Steve Herrell was the original founder of Steve's Ice Cream in Somerville, MA.  Steve is reputed to have pioneered the renaissance of old school, rich, flavorful gourmet ice cream.  Their pamphlet claims that Steve was the first to grind up Heath Bars and other brand name confections and use them to create "mixins".  Herrell's features all of the original Steve recipes in an old fashioned ice cream parlor.

Steve's is a must stop whenever we get to Northampton (which isn't very often).  The chocolate pudding ice cream is amazing, a million times better than Jello pudding pops any day.  The hot fudge is chewy and decadent.  I hate when people serve thin, runny "hot fudge" and the sundae's at Herrell's never disappoint.  They also have hot penuche, a sumptous butterscotch sauce made with brown sugar and cream. They even have chocolate whipped cream and a quadruple chocolate sundae.  That sounded like a bit too much chocolate for me, but with flavors like burnt sugar'n'butter, malted vanilla and cookie dough peanut butter swirl to go alongside the chocolate pudding, creating an original sundae is easy and hard all at the same time.

Casa Mono

Today has been interesting.  I was reminded of the fact that just enough is more.  We had a quick bite at Casa Mono for lunch.  We started off with shaved jambon and crispy, salty, bacalao croquetas with orange aioli.  Our next round of plates had fried calamari with lemon and griddled dorada with dates and celery.  To conclude the meal we ordered the duck egg with mojama which was served with golden brown fingerling potatoes and a shaving of black truffles, griddled artichokes with mint, and "kentucky fried" sweetbreads with fennel cooked a la plancha.  The dishes progressed in texture and flavors.  I enjoyed the progression of tastes, so much so that I needed to order two more dishes.  Mind you we were enjoying a bottle of 2002 Pesquera and I felt a few more bites of food would help finish the bottle.  I brazenly waved my hand in the air, ignoring Aki's raised eyebrows across the table, and ordered the guinea hen with cranberry mustard fruit and the skirt steak with onion mermelada.  Our server suggested the pork chop with quince and granada instead of the guinea hen and I accepted his recommendation.

I should have counted my meal complete and just savored the wine and the company.  Instead, two dishes came forth, unfortunately overcooked, the pork dry and sweet while the steak was just fatty and leathery.  And yet, the pepper like relish which came with the skirt steak was awesome.  I could eat it on a shoe, which is good because I practically did.  Anyway, after a few bites I paired it with the pork and it was tasty.

In hopes of atoning for my sins of ordering too many savory courses, I ordered a single dessert as well.  We had the crema catalan with bay leaf fritters.  Again, I can be pretty stupid.  I should have listened to my own words of wisdom and known that just enough is more.  The fritter batter was tough and chewy while the crema was rich and decadent; too rich for Aki's taste, a two-biter in my world of tastes.

All things considered we had a tasty lunch.  Somehow, in my hope to extend the dining experience we ended up falling a bit shorter than expected.  Oh well, someone needs to pay for those orange clogs.

A Quick Bite at Cafe Gray

We had three very different dining experiences yesterday that really made me sit back and meditate on the idea of a restaurant as a total experience which should be much more than the sum of it's parts. 

In the hospitality business we all do a lot of talking about guest perceptions, customer service, memorable experiences, and creating a buzz.  New York is a wonderful stage for a restaurant.  It has a huge dining population with a relatively large disposable income with a tendency to be more open-minded than diners in other parts of the country.  There are restaurateurs seemingly willing to move heaven and hell and spend millions of dollars to create the epitome of their version of the perfect restaurant.  There are countless reviewers and endless blogs devoted to reporting on the dining scene.  There is access to some of the best equipment, purveyors and ingredients in the world.  There is an enormous employment pool of aspiring cooks and chefs, and an equally large pool of professional servers and managers, who all want to build their careers on a strong foundation of New York experience.  Yet, with all of these advantages, many restaurants in this city feel lackluster and halfhearted.  It's a tough year in New York City.  I know these things are cyclical, last year was a much stronger and more positive one in this business.  There were openings with a lot of buzz and the feeling that there were great restaurants to be explored on the landscape.  This year when we ask friends in the business where to eat, we get shrugs.  People shake their heads and demur.  No one has any passionate recommendations of where to go and that is disappointing.  Of course we push on anyway, alighting at whatever establishment has taken our fancy on a particular day, but for the most part our experiences have been wan and watery.  Very few places have made us feel passionate and of those most have inflamed with negativity rather than ecstasy.  Thankfully old favorites still remain and good meals can be found in unexpected places.

We zipped into Cafe Gray yesterday for a quick lunch.  We had a meeting on the upper west side and we were starving when we hit the streets.  The Time Warner building loomed in the distance and we followed its invitation.  We were greeted halfway to the host stand by a coat check woman and quickly led into the half empty dining room.  We were seated in the only crowded area of the room at a deuce located alongside the kitchen and the windows.  Strangely, whenever we eat in the Time Warner building it seems to be an overcast afternoon but that doesn't detract from the pleasure of the view.  As always I was slightly taken aback by the prices at Cafe Gray.  Even in a city of exorbitant menu prices, lunch at Cafe gray gives me pause.  We quickly moved past it, once you have committed to a restaurant there is no point in crying over the spent money. 

I began with the artichoke veloute served with a large artichoke heart, a few scattered herbs and three small, plump langoustines. The soup was poured from a teapot tableside and the teapot then rested on the other side of the long rectangular plate. The server just poured a small amount into the bowl, so as not to overwhelm the garnishes and the teapot did a nice job of keeping the rest of the brew warm until I added it to my bowl.  It was presented for a right-handed eater, which I am not, so after turning the plate around I tasted the soup.  It was incredibly rich and velvety, with a strong flavor of artichokes.  The first sip was warm and luscious but the flavors quickly became a bit heavy and cloying.  I enjoyed the soup and in general there were hefty portions to balance out the prices, unfortunately something this rich can only be eaten in small mouthfuls and too much is often too much. 

Alex began with a winter special, lobster thermidor.  It was half of a broiled lobster; the carapace was stuffed with lobster pieces, creamed spinach, tarragon and celery root.  The dish was served with a boozy and intense lobster reduction on the plate.  It was a very tasty, over the top, bread sopping plate.  As with all of the dishes we experienced at Café Gray, it could have used some acid to balance out the butter and cream because a few bites were enough to satiate and overwhelm the taste buds.

I followed with the mushroom and herb risotto.  It was served alongside a silver copper pot filled with mushroom ragout.  The server spooned a portion of the ragout onto my risotto leaving the rest to stay warm and snug in it’s little pot until it was called for.  Again, the plating was designed for a right handed person, I note this not because I expect the servers to read minds and know that I am left handed for the first course but because I don’t think that anything should be difficult to eat.  The size of the silver pot and aforementioned teapot made it impossible to eat comfortably without turning the plate and with the number of staff present in the dining room and the formality of the service, I did think that for the second course they could have turned the plate the other way when the second awkward course was served.  Anyway, the risotto was very pretty, steaming slightly with the requisite texture of a thick rice pudding.  Several moments before, Alex, who sat facing the pass, delighted in giving me a play by play of the period while my risotto sat waiting (an inverted plate over the dish) while another cook eventually finished his guinea hen.  Thankfully the only evidence of its delay was the fact that the butter was just starting to break out its emulsion.  That could have been simply because there was so much of it in the rice.  It had a nice layering of flavors, faint hints of garlic, shallots and parsley mixed in with the nicely chewy but not crunchy grains of rice.  The mushrooms were rich and soupy, slightly crunchy and pleasingly gelatinous.  They teetered threateningly on the edge of being entirely too salty to eat but were thankfully buffered by the starch and the fat that surrounded them.  Many of the dishes at lunch were balanced right on the knife’s edge where salt was concerned and I believe it was the very heaviness of the dishes which saved them.

Alex finished with the guinea hen special.  The breast had a beautiful crispy skin and was juicy and perfectly cooked, topped with a nicely seared piece of foie gras.  The confit of dark meat was distressingly crunchy with gristle and bones accompanied by melted leeks, which had a floral spiciness, which highlighted up the meaty flavors of the dish.  All in all this was a nice winter meat dish.  Strangely for a chef who is celebrated for his use of herbs and spices, this was the only dish where any of these components had even a slightly assertive presence.

Desserts looked delicious but with dinner looming only four hours away and prices ranging from $14-$16, we regretfully declined.  It was a fun experience, being able to watch the view inside the kitchen and outside the restaurant was an edifying experience.  The dining room was not very busy and we were not the last people to be seated for lunch that day.  Our appetizers came out incredibly quickly and then there was a long delay before the second courses appeared.  The flax seed bread, which I forgot to mention was delicious with a nice crust.  Interestingly there was a lot of leaning on counters and chatting amongst the runners and the cooks.  I note this only because in my experience cooks without a sense of urgency are rarely doing their best work.  The last two meals I’ve eaten at Café Gray were both good, solid food although they made me wish that I’d been able to taste Chef Kunz’s food at Lespinasse when he was still young and hungry and building his reputation.

Lunch at the Modern

Lunch today was a relaxing affair.  Alex and I like to go our for long lunches when we have the time.  Restaurants are much more mellow in the afternoons with sunlight streaming through the windowpanes.  The food is usually almost as good if not better at lunch, service is more leisurely because restaurants are not trying to turn the table and we are not facing bedtime with a stomach full of food and wine when the meal is over.

So, for our first lunch in NYC this trip we decided to visit  the Modern.  We had eaten at the Bar Room at the Modern last year and had a lot of fun doing so.  Gabriel Kreuther's menus read as much more exotic than they actually are but the food is solid with a balance of textures and flavors to please the palate.  The bar menu is much more whimsical and based upon old classics.  The Modern is a bit more formal, seasonal, with an approachable eclectic menu based upon commonly accepted ingredients with a bit of esoteric flare.  It reads as though it were a bit edgy but in reality it is a very safe menu with tried and true flavor pairings that seeem to come together into balanced, elegant dishes.

The amuse was fun and a great expression of shrimp.  It was served on a long plate with a delicate poached shrimp with wisps of herbs and a few tiny, pickled honshimeji mushrooms.  At the other end of the plate was a demitasse cup with a bit of sunchoke foam.  The servers poured a bit of shrimp bisque over the foam to create an intense, slightly rich shrimpy brew to pair with the miniature chilled salad.  At lunch, the prix fix is basically a bargain.  Four courses for $52.00.  I chose this option and began with shrimp which were paired with chickweed, black olive-cornichon (tartar) sauce and rye toast soldiers griddled in butter.  Alex began with the foie gras, a slice of