Follow Me Caffe

Occasion: Dinner with Kathy and Atticus
Location: Follow Me Caffe on 62nd between 3rd and Lex
Edibles: smoked salmon, goat cheese and cucumber sandwich; Kathy had the salad with cumin scallops; Atticus had the spinach-and-cheese crêpe; we all shared the hot fudge brownie with vanilla gelato for dessert

Musings: A cute, tiny place tucked away on a quiet street. By tiny, I mean that the restaurant is literally about 10 feet across and 30 feet deep. But so cute! Perfect for brunch.

My sandwich was a nice, light summer dinner. Atticus' crêpe looked workmanlike. It was Kathy's scallops, though, that had me drooling surreptitiously. I am definitely getting that salad next time. Thanks to Kathy and Atticus for introducing me to this UES gem.

Top Chef Masters Ep. 8

Original Air Date: August 5, 2009

1) Rick Bayless isn't fazed by anything! Offal, vegans, bring it on. Very impressed by his consistency.
2) Anita, on the other hand, woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something. What an ill-conceived Quickfire dish. And she was swearing while she was making it! Also, I don't buy her statement about liking eggplant really oily. (I disagree with James Oseland that grilling eggplant "isn't rocket science" - it's a tricky vegetable to cook. When you start, it seems to be just begging for more oil. Then when it's almost done, it crosses a line and starts to extrude all the oil it sucked up before. It likewise consumes all the seasoning you throw at it, but then ends up tasting like a spice rack because it doesn't have any native flavors for the seasoning to interact with. Quite tricky indeed.)
3) Two nice saves by Michael. I thought his "hamburgese enorme" (sounds dirty, doesn't it?) would be a disaster but he pulled it off. Ditto, that unpredictable quinoa pasta.
4) Art's dish was a mess - like a strawberry ice-cream murder scene. His and Hubert's styles of cooking were probably the most negatively impacted by the restrictions, but still...
5) I love how Gael Greene (and some of the chefs) kept saying "vegans" with the kind of tone usually reserved for "Martians" or "convicts" or maybe some unholy combination of the two. "God knows what they get to eat," Gael exclaimed. HA!! Poor Zooey Deschanel, gnawing on raw vegetables. That right there, my friends, is a life half-lived.

Blue Fin

Occasion: Lunch with Nellie
Location: Blue Fin on B'way at 47th (brguestrestaurants.com/restaurants/blue_fin/index.php)
Edibles: tomato and fresh mozzarella salad; soft-shell crab BLT with sweet potato fries; almond cake with stewed plums; Nellie had watermelon gazpacho, the BLT and a white chocolate cremeux with fresh berries

Musings: The Restaurant Week 3-course prix fixe offers great value at $24. You just have to resist all the add-ons they push, the bottled water, wine and cocktails, coffee, etc. I was very pleasantly surprised by how refined and delicious the food was, given the neighborhood.

The salad starter was good. A little stingy with the mozzarella, perhaps, but the basil aioli dressing was fantastic. I tasted Nellie's gazpacho as well, and found it cleverly seasoned - it was distinctly a savory dish but didn't taste salty.

We both agreed that the open-faced BLT was a home run! The battered and deep-fried soft-shell was crispy, but still meaty and succulent. Three strips of perfect bacon, a fat slice of tomato, a few leaves of butter lettuce and sweet garlic sauce. And don't even get me started on the sweet potato fries on the side. Perfection. (I couldn't bear to leave any on my plate even though I was full, so I smuggled the leftover fries into my purse and ate them later that afternoon. Even cold, they were yummy.)

The desserts were beautifully made and presented. The fruits provided a nice acidity to balance the sweetness of the main component. A graceful finish to a wonderful meal.

Carl's Steaks

Occasion: Al fresco dinner with Yining on my building's roof deck

Location: (take-out from) Carl's Steaks on 3rd Ave between 34th and 35th (carlsteaks.com)
Edibles: cheesesteak with grilled onions, mushrooms and provolone; fries

Musings: Greasy, messy.... spectacular. Really took me back to my college days.

[Note: My new office number is an easy mis-dial for Carl's. Hilariously, I get calls at work from people wanting cheesesteak deliveries almost every day...]

Terroir

Occasion: Pre-movie (Funny People) dinner with Elizabeth
Location: Terroir on E 12th at 1st Ave (wineisterroir.com)
Edibles: Serrano ham; boerenkaase (cow's milk) cheese; black cabbage and pork sausage bruschetta; pork schnitzel with German potato salad; beets with orange and ground hazelnuts; olive oil cake with Riesling peaches

Musings: Amazing food!! I'm glad Elizabeth and I finally managed to get in here! We've tried at least two other times - it's always packed.

Very small servings on the ham ($6) and cheese ($4.50). Other items provided better value. Of those, the schnitzel and dessert were particularly noteworthy. The pork was fried to perfection and the German potato salad (with scallions, chopped pickles and bacon!) was a wonderful side. And that cake! It was sort of corn muffin-esque; I think it was made with semolina, giving it that rougher texture, but it was still very light and fluffy. I hate sickly-sweet cakes, but this one was very subtle and the peaches provided some pizzazz. Two thumbs up. I will definitely be back.

The House

Occasion: Post-movie (500 Days of Summer) drinks and nibbles with Mamie
Location: The House on E 17th at Irving (thehousenyc.com)
Edibles: Moroccan lamb mini burgers with harissa mint yogurt sauce and a salad of cucumber and heirloom tomatoes

Musings: Great décor and ambiance! I want to say it's like something out of Gatsby, except I don't know that that's the right decade. But hopefully you get the idea.

The sliders were exotic and spicy, and the salad was the perfect summer side, vinegary and refreshing. My only quibble is that this place is a bit pricey. Their smallest unit of wine is the quartino (8 0z) and most of those offerings are just shy of $20. Food ranged from $15-20 for apps and $20-30 for mains. Still, it's a lovely place to visit and I hope I will be back.

Mmmm... illicit cafeteria food, part II

Another great $5 lunch. Orzo with tomato and feta, fried cauliflower, roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted red and yellow peppers... and the best discovery of all - real bacon baco-bits!

Sundaes and Cones

Location: E 10th between 3rd and 4th Ave (sundaescones.com)

A scoop of hazelnut ice-cream was the perfect end to dinner with Abby. I tasted the corn flavor but found it a little odd. I also tasted Abby's pink grapefruit sorbet and it was excellent. Fun ice-cream shop.

Momofuku Ssäm Bar

Occasion: Casual dinner with Abby
Location: Momofuku Ssäm Bar on 2nd Ave at 13th (momofuku.com)
Edibles: steamed buns with pork belly, cucumber, hoisin sauce; fried chicken with corn pudding and pickled chanterelles; Abby had the spicy pork and rice cake dish with Chinese broccoli and crispy shallots

Musings: It was great to get seated right away! (It's not unusual to pass this restaurant and see twenty people crammed in the bar area and another twenty waiting outside.) Be forewarned that you have to deal with close quarters when seated at the communal table - the other diners are sitting right at your elbows. Also, I noted that the music got progressively louder during the course of our meal and we were yelling just to be heard by the end.

Momofuku's pork buns are among the best I've ever had. The bread is pillowy-soft and the pork is super tender. (Today's was on the fatty side, but then again I think pork fat is one of the most magnificent substances on earth.)

When I cut into it, the chicken had a bit of blush to it. I ate it, and didn't have a problem with it, but it's the kind of thing I think the waiter should mention. Something along the lines of, "We source our chicken very carefully and chef therefore feels comfortable cooking it to medium doneness. Is this okay, or would you prefer it be cooked longer?" Or perhaps I'm being generous in assuming it was intentional.

Abby's rice cake stir-fry dish was good, too. Aggressively seasoned, but still complicated and layered. It was a good meal, all in all. If you happen to be passing by and there's no wait, you might consider trying it out.

Top Chef Masters Ep. 7

Original Air Date: July 29, 2009

1) A well-deserved win by Anita Lo. Just one star short of a perfect score! I thought she had the hardest dish to begin with - lobster cappuccino, Hubert, really? - but she totally took charge and made it her own. Delicious, from the sounds of it. Corn chawanmushi, champagne gelée and a biscuit with lobster knuckle - a high-end soup and sandwich.

2) Rick Bayless has some whipping arm! He motored through that egg white task.

3) Suzanne's interview made her sound a little snotty, like she didn't respect Art's cooking very much. Also not sure why her dish went cold when she plated it only a minute and a half before time, and three other chefs served after her.

4) Ludo! What a nutter. He was disappointingly tame this episode.

Mmmm... illicit cafeteria food

My new firm has a cafeteria. It's pretty good... but not as good as the cafeteria of the I-bank we share our building with. We're really not supposed to go in there, but my new co-workers showed me a secret route using the maintenance corridors in the basement. A small benefit to being a bottom-dweller.

Today, I had a healthy and colorful lunch of couscous with dried fruit, poached chicken, Greek salad and roasted beets for $5. The fact that it was illicit only made it more delicious...

Julie & Julia

Man, they are advertising this movie up the wazoo! Since it's topical, I thought I'd paste in my Goodreads book review from last year:

Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
by Julie Powell

My review: 3/5 stars

Not enough about the food - Powell really only describes making about 25 of the 500+ recipes she refers to in the title. Granted, she didn't start out as a very good cook but she seemed to have a lot of difficulty with the simplest of tasks. As I recall, not one person in my culinary school class had problems making mayonnaise by hand, even the first time around. Powell doesn't master mayonnaise until almost the very end, but somehow managed to de-bone a duck easily on her first try. I'm not sure how that works.

Powell notes that she wrote a blog during the year of cooking (the book came after) and it really shows. Lots of minutiae about her everyday life, her marriage, her crappy New York apartment, etc. She comes across as a Bridget Jones-type, by turns adorably inept and inexplicably insane.

My two favorite passages are below:

"If I had thought the beef marrow might be a hell of a lot of work for not much difference, I needn’t have worried. The taste of the marrow is rich, meaty, intense in a nearly-too-much way. In my increasingly depraved state, I could think of nothing at first but that it tasted like really good sex. But there was something more than that, even. What it really tastes like is life, well lived. Of course the cow I got marrow from had a fairly crappy life – lots of crowds and overmedication and bland food that might or might not have been a relative. But deep in his or her bones, there was a capacity for feral joy. I could taste it."

"I baked David Strathairn absurdly complicated pecan-cornmeal cookies… I can’t imagine anyone - a few of the more repressive Islamic societies aside - who would consider baking an act of adultery. Still, for Eric, knowing what he knew of my proclivities, watching me roll out thin layers of cornmeal dough, sprinkle them with chopped pecans, cinnamon, and melted butter, then lay another layer of dough on top, and repeat over and over with infinite patience, must have been a little bit like noticing I’d gotten a bikini wax and a tight red dress the day before leaving for some business convention in Dallas. He didn’t do anything but roll his eyes and grumble with careful good humor, but he knew what I was doing."

Top Chef Masters Ep. 6

Original Air Date: July 22, 2009

1) "Honey bear." Enough said.
2) Why are some chefs so lost in supermarkets? Do they just "shop" in their restaurants' walk-ins? Never cook at home?
3) When Waxman was introduced, I was so not impressed. I've been to Barbuto and was underwhelmed. I also think his protégé Bobby Flay is a hack. He won me over with his dish, though. Sloppy, hearty and honest, it was the kind of plate I'd love to sit down to anytime.
4) Roy Yamaguchi and Michael Cimarusti created these beautiful restrained, ascetic dishes. In any other company, I think they'd have done better. But compared to Smith and Waxman's generous and unaffected plates, they felt stingy.
5) I want to give Gael Greene a makeover! She's always so matchy-matchy. Mix it up a little!

Top Chef Masters Ep. 5

Original Air Date: July 15, 2009

1) Wow, Rick Moonen is totally hyper. Imagine being stuck in a car with him for 4 hours... His Elimination food was the stuff I most wanted to eat. The opakapaka and barramundi ceviche, scallop and shrimp brandade and lemon panna cotta all looked and sounded yummy.
2) Nils' food was gorgeous! His dishes reminded me of Roy Lichtenstein's artwork.
3) Michael is the master of the schmooze.
4) Strange that Lachlan kept talking about his food being northern Italian, but his short rib dish reminded me most of Korean bbq. Also, I don't know what he did to those strawberries to make them taste "meat-like" to James Oseland, but that's just creepy.

New Beer Distributors

Location: Chrystie St between Delancey and Rivington (new-beer.com)

Yining and I set out with the intention of buying great quantities of beer. We planned to take our souvenir steins for a spin, you see, and it was clear that pouring bottle after bottle to fill a 1L receptacle just wasn't going to cut it.

In addition to a vast selection of snobby beers by the bottle, New Beer also has six beers on tap that you can get in 32 oz. (approx. 1L) and 64 oz. (approx. 2L) sizes. Of the six, five were various domestic brews and one was a Belgian import, at twice the price of the domestics. The empty 64 oz. glass jug (a "growler") will cost you $4, but it's yours to keep for the next time. They will also fill the growlers from Whole Foods and, presumably, any other conforming jugs you may have.

Incidentally, we went to Whole Foods to comparison-shop and, while the prices were comparable, New Beer had two advantages. First, they let you taste the beer - a distinct benefit when you are committing to litres of it at a time. Second, their caps are sturdier and higher quality. (Whole Foods will likewise fill New Beer containers, if you need a few extra selections.)

We went home with 2L of German-style Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner ($8) and 2L of Ommegang Witte Ale ($10), a Belgian-style white. An awesome afternoon/evening was had by all.

Mark your calendars - Oktoberfest party at my place!

Móle

Occasion: Lunch with Yining, to muse over which beers to buy by the litre
Location: Móle on Allen between Houston and Stanton (molenyc.com)
Edibles: carnitas (pork confit) tacos with guacamole, rice and beans

Musings: Good Mexican is hard to find in the city. If there's one thing transplanted Californians gripe about, it's the lack of cheap and delicious Mexican. (That, and the lack of In-N-Out - which is highly overrated, in my opinion.) While it's not exactly the cheapest, I now have a decent recommendation.

I first tasted Móle's delicious soft tacos at Dan and Lilly's. My friends are lucky enough to live within the delivery radius of Móle - and in the same building as a Whole Foods! I split an order of the pork tacos and a quesadilla with Emily. (I often do this with unknown restaurants, on the theory that you're spreading out your risk.) The quesadilla was fine but the tacos were spectacular. I immediately made a mental note to revisit.

The restaurant itself is very small, seating about fifteen people inside and four outside. We had no trouble getting seated, as NY locals had all fled to the Hamptons or wherever for the weekend. I ordered the pork tacos, this time greedily keeping the entire plate for myself.

It's described in the menu as two tacos but it's really four: two generous heaps of pork, onion and cilantro served on double layers of tortillas - easily separated into four tacos satisfying enough for even this enthusiastic carnivore. The chunks of pork are flavorful and juicy and the tortillas are fresh, soft and redolent of corn. The $14 plate also came with rice and beans, which I could have done without (and barely touched) but did not have the option to exclude. A side of guac was an extra $3. So, not cheap. But, to compare, the excellent soft tacos I had at Lotería in Los Angeles were $3.50 each.

Yining had the adobo pork sandwich, which was huge and came with a mountain of fries. It was good, she reported, but I could see that she was jealous of my tacos.

[Note: If you work anywhere nearby, the weekday lunch menu has a $7 taco place, which I would guess to be a smaller serving.]

Serafina

Occasion: Getting-to-know-you lunch with Boss, Boss' Boss and two GC underlings
Location: Serafina at The Time on 49th between B'way and 8th
Edibles: prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella; porcini mushroom ravioli

Musings: A whole new neighborhood for lunching! Unfortunately, that neighborhood is Times Square. My new office is just a hop and a skip away from the Times Square Olive Garden, a restaurant I regularly cite as the nadir of cuisine in the city.

At Serafina, all four of my colleagues ordered sparkling water as their beverage and were miffed that the restaurant didn't have large bottles. In case that didn't give us away as a big bunch of yuppies, we then spent about 45 min. talking about golf, a sport I don't play but can chitchat about. Thankfully, the food arrived quickly. My lunch was the best of times and the worst of times.

My appetizer was wonderful. Really good buffalo mozzarella - and this was the good stuff - tastes clean, fresh and faintly milky. To me, it tastes like innocence. Prosciutto, a close cousin of bacon, rarely fails to delight.

My main course was miserable. I knew I was in for it when the plate arrived with more sauce on it than pasta. Gloppy cream sauce. I scraped the sauce off as best I could, but it only revealed the shortcomings in the ravioli, the filling of which didn't taste like it had any mushrooms in it at all and looked greasy from a cross-section. Yuck.

(To be fair, based on the appearance of everyone else's food, I think I just happened upon a weak dish on the menu. The tomato-based sauces on the penne arrabbiata and rigatoni alla Bolognese both looked good.)

Yakitori Totto

Occasion: Dinner with globe-trotter Kent, who finally made it back into the city
Location: Yakitori Totto on 55th between B'way and 8th

Edibles: tori dango steamed chicken meatballs with a layer of rice pressed into the surface; zaru tofu, served in a basket with condiments (ginger, toasted sesame seeds, chives, bonito, flavored salt); skewers galore - seseri chicken neck; hatsu chicken heart; shishitou tsukune tsume chicken stuffed in Japanese peppers; aspara maki chicken breast wrapped around asparagus; negima chicken thigh with scallion; tsukune umejiso chicken meatball with shiso; kuro buta negi pon pork with ponzu and scallion; harami skirt steak with onion; shiitake mushrooms with ponzu and bonito; yaki nasu miso dengaku eggplant with miso; deep-fried tofu with miso...
... still not done: three rounds of shochu with fresh-squeezed citrus (one each of grapefruit, orange and lemon) and vanilla and green tea mochi ice-cream for dessert
Musings: After all the food listed above, you'd think we left stuffed to the gills. I guess I can only speak for myself, but I was just moderately full. We shared the majority of the skewers, which equals about a bite and a half each person. This dinner also happened over the course of three hours. Which we needed, to catch up on all the happenings in each other's lives! It's been a busy year.

Yakitori Totto, like all of my very favorite restaurants, is rock solid when it comes to consistency. The ingredients are high-quality and many of the components to their dishes are made from scratch, including their outstanding miso and their tofu. The meatballs are mixed, then shaped by hand. The skewers are cooked over a small trench of charcoal and timed to split-second precision. I've introduced more than twenty friends here over the years and only one failed to be blown away. Easily makes my NYC Hall of Fame.

Travis, you shoulda been there!

Knife + Fork

Occasion: Farewell dinner for Alexandra, with Yining and Kathy
Location: Knife + Fork Restaurant & Wine Bar on E 4th between 1st and 2nd Ave (knife-fork-nyc.com)
Edibles: six-course chef's tasting (described in detail below)

Musings: As it was the send-off for Alex before she moved to LA, I was racking my brain to find a restaurant that 1) was delicious, 2) was not too expensive, 3) took reservations and 4) was a true New York gastronomic experience. No pressure or anything...

I'd been to Knife + Fork twice, but more than a year ago. While it was a good sign that it was still open, I was a bit nervous when I made the reservation. (I had another panicky moment when I arrived at 7pm to find the restaurant completely empty.) I crossed my fingers and hoped it was still as good as I remembered.

It was! Whew!

First course: Sliced chicken on squash purée, with a salad of microgreens, bacon and watermelon. I pretty much love any dish with bacon in it, so this meal had me at "hello."

Second course: Foie gras with eel, lobster vinaigrette; sliced cucumber, matchstick radishes and cucumber sorbet. This course was my least favorite. I generally find foie gras to be too rich, and this particular preparation had a lot of other intense ingredients to boot. I was puzzled by the pairing with the cucumber; the foie, sauce, etc. were very wintery while the cucumber and sorbet were very summery. I thought the cucumber sorbet was brilliant - just not with this dish.

Third course: White grape gazpacho with tuna tartare and microgreens. Loved it! The serving size - just a few mouthfuls - was perfect and the tuna provided a great savory counterpoint to the sweetness of the soup. (Photos - once it occurred to us to take some - courtesy of Kathy and her BB.)

Fourth course: Sea bass in saffron broth with carrots, green beans and microgreens. The fish was well-cooked - crisp skin, juicy flesh. However, everyone at the table agreed that it needed more salt. Luckily, the bread came with a little mound of sea salt so we each took a pinch for our fish.

Fifth course: Lamb loin with escargot and a goat cheese cream sauce; sundried tomato quenelle; rosemary potato gratin. The lamb and potatoes were DIVINE. I really enjoyed everything about this dish except the sundried tomato which, like the cucumber from the second course, was a discordant note.

Sixth course: Rosemary and orange crème brûlée; goat cheese and mint panna cotta. I was pleasantly surprised by the subtlety of the panna cotta given its flavorings. Tip-top technique on the crème brûlée as well.

As you can see, it was decidedly a feast! Aside from a few ideas that went astray - and some overenthusiastic use of microgreens - the chef showed us a real good time. Especially considering that we each spent $70 dollars total (that's six courses, a glass of wine each, tax and 20% tip).

Yale Club

Occasion: Dinner with Abby and Amy
Location: Yale Club on Vanderbilt at E 44th
Edibles: turkey burger with Swiss; fries and coleslaw

Musings: I love hanging out at the Yale Club with Amy, soaking in the hoity-toityness of it all. The main room is decorated with things like wingback chairs and oil paintings of Clinton and George W. Both there and in the dining room, no money changes hands - Amy writes her membership number on a slip of paper and it's billed to her monthly.

Amy has been a member since she graduated from college. The wait staff in the dining room know her by name and one very nice guy even knows her regular drink and dinner order, down to the sides and the extra mustard. Sadly, that server - who gave us free dessert the last time we were there - was not working tonight.

As for the things I usually comment on, the service was a little slow but the burger was pretty good. They're not really the reasons you would go to the Yale Club.