Studio Square

Occasion: Beer garden revelry with Yining's friends
Location: Studio Square on 36th St near 36th Ave in Astoria (studiosquarenyc.com)
Edibles: a few pilfered fries [and two donuts (glazed and old-fashioned) from Dunkin' Donuts, conveniently across the street]

Musings: Sept. 19 - not done yet! This day just might be one for the history books. A meander-and-graze through Flushing, followed by an al fresco lobster feast at sunset, followed by donuts and beer? Doesn't get much better than that.

The beer garden area of Studio Square is huge, and bar is pretty slick and modern compared to the others I've been to. The crowd looked pretty innocuous when we got there but seemed to get a lot younger on average as the night wore on - the number of meathead guys and hoochie women increased exponentially after about 11:00.

Pitchers are $18 and there's a selection of about 20, foreigns and domestics. We drank a lot of the seasonal Oktoberfest offerings (by Sam Adams, Spaten, Hofbräu) and some Blue Moon. They appeared to serve a decent sausage but I was too full to try to bum a taste. For some strange reason, sushi was also on the menu. One of Yining's more reckless friends ordered some and deemed it so-so but edible.

Oh, and one more thing. The bathrooms are all self-contained stalls. While there's nominally one side for ladies and one for men, the attendant will call ladies over to the men's side when their line gets long. Equality in waiting for bathrooms - I like it!

Mmmm... lobster boil

Occasion: Spontaneous lobster feast with my brother, Yining and Anne

Location: my place

Edibles: whole lobsters with my lemon butter sauce for dipping (recipe below)

Musings: Stuffed on the bounty of Flushing's food courts, we headed to a grocery store to stock up on cheap fruit before heading back to the city. I stopped in my tracks and forgot all about the fruit when I saw that they were selling live lobsters for $4.49 a pound. That's right - $4.49! $4.49!!!!! That's practically free, I marveled.

Now, I had read that lobster prices had tanked with the economy - it's a celebratory food and nobody's celebrating very much these days. In New England, I read, lobster was now cheaper per pound than hot dogs. But that was several states away, near the fishermen. Or so I thought...

You can imagine my delight to discover otherwise. I immediately asked for three, which were unceremoniously stuffed into a brown paper grocery bag and handed, dripping, to me. It didn't take much peer pressure ("Do it. Dooooo it!") to convince Yining to get some, too.

A few hours and five murders later, we made our way to my building's roof deck with two platters of lobster, the butter sauce, a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc and a stack of The Onion to help contain the carnage. We immediately dove in with our bare hands. Shells flew. There may have been some unladylike slurping. In the fading light, we sat back, replete. And yet.... Next time, two lobsters apiece, we greedily agreed. Some corn on the cob would be nice, too.

Kathy, you shoulda been there!

Friends, cooking lobster well is not hard at all. As with all top flight ingredients, you're just trying to enhance (or at least, not ruin). My method:

Boiled/Steamed Lobster

Pour water into a large pot until it's about an inch deep. Bring water to a vigorous boil. Place live lobster inside. Cover, reduce to medium-ish heat (just enough to maintain the boil) and cook 12-15 min for a 1½ lb lobster. That's all, folks.

Some tips:
1) I find 1½ lb lobsters to provide the best value. 1¼'s have proportionately more shell and at 2 lbs, the price jumps. I don't think the 2's are as sweet, either.

2) If you don't want the rubber bands to cook with the lobster, you can remove them just before cooking. I usually don't bother. Be very careful if you do, because a lobster's claw is strong enough to do some serious damage. They don't call the bigger one the "crusher" for nothing.

3) To maximize the tastiness of the claws, clip the tips with a strong pair of kitchen shears or a cleaver so water won't collect in there and make the meat soggy. (Obviously, do this before removing the rubber bands.) This is optional; the claw meat will never be as good as the tail meat, no matter how you cook it.

4) You can cook two lobsters at the same time in a large pot but don't overcrowd. If one is completely on top of another, the bottom one will cook faster than the top one and you risk it coming out tough and rubbery.

Lemon Butter Sauce
(for dipping)

Melt about 2 tbsp of butter per lobster you're serving. Give it a squeeze or two of lemon and grate in some lemon zest (the zest makes a BIG difference). Season with salt and pepper. It looks prettier if you clarify the butter (i.e. skim off the milk solids that separate from the fat) but it tastes just fine if you skip that step.

Bonus points if you can find a way to rig a tealight under the sauce bowl to keep it hot.

Xi'an Famous Foods

Occasion: Stop #2 on our Flushing food march

Location: just across the aisle from Lanzhou, in the basement food court in the Golden Mall, 41-28 Main St at 41st Rd in Flushing [Note: there's another one - they've gone corporate! - in the Flushing Mall, which is distinctly newer and cleaner]

Edibles: cumin lamb burgers

Musings: This is the burger made famous by Tony Bourdain in his recent "Outer Boroughs" episode of No Reservations. (The shop has proudly laminated a blurry photocopy of a picture of the historic event.) Of course, we had to try it.

This burger didn't taste Chinese at all to me. All the ingredients - the lamb, cumin, peppers and onions - seemed more Middle-Eastern. Still, it was yummy and a steal at $2.50. It's a good reason to share the Lanzhou noodles and save some room. Speaking of noodles, the ones on the Xi'an menu looked pretty stellar too. Maybe next month. Stay tuned.

Lanzhou Handmade Noodles

Occasion: A second Flushing excursion with Yining, Kathy and Kathy's mom
Location: basement food court in the Golden Mall, 41-28 Main St at 41st Rd in Flushing
Edibles: beef broth noodles (one with the thick noodles, one with the hand-pulled thin noodles)

Musings: By "food court," I don't mean like the ones in your average mall, with a Burger King, Panda Express, Sbarro, etc. By "food court," I mean a collection of little dingy family-owned stalls like you'd find in populous Asian cities. Even I felt the compulsion to slather hand sanitizer on every surface. So don't say I didn't warn you. It's worth a trip, though, and it's loads cheaper than airfare to Taipei.

The noodles have so much texture and character.... al dente doesn't begin to describe it. They have a resilience and a fresh doughiness that dried, frozen or even refrigerated pastas can't hope to match. It's fun to order a couple different kinds of noodles and broths to share, even though the noodles themselves are REALLY long and hard to portion out. (You may need to use both hands to clamp the chopsticks tightly enough to break the noodles. And watch out for the recoil.)

There's a little plastic container of suan cai (Chinese sauerkraut) on the table. I mixed two heaping spoonfuls into my noodles - it's my favorite part of this dish - but you probably want to start with a light scattering.

The broth could use some work. Unlike the care they take with the broth in Japanese-style noodle shops, I got the feeling this one involved a handful of bouillon cubes thrown into a pot of boiling water. But for $4.50, they're forgiven.

The Mott

Occasion: Dinner with PA, Abby, Elizabeth and Marie
Location: The Mott on Mott (natch) at Broome
Edibles: Moroccan lamb app; Abby and I shared the duck and scallop mains; other people had other things including the pork belly app and the gnocchi - I didn't taste any of the other dishes for reasons discussed further below; chocolate cake for the table for dessert

Musings: The consensus was that the food was great - there just wasn't enough of it. The coriander-crusted lamb was incredible: perfectly medium rare, spicy but not heavy-handed. For $14, though, I would have liked more than three modest slices of lamb over some cucumber salad. The $24 scallop main came with three scallops. The $23 duck main came with five slices of duck. I think our table went through three full baskets of bread and I still wasn't full at the end of the meal.

Price-wise, it's not too bad at the moment since they don't have their liquor license yet and are BYOB. Once they get it, The Mott will likely tip over into my $$$$ category and it just doesn't stack up at that price. Good potential, but I'd only go back if they re-think their financial model. (Oh, and take down the atrocious artwork on their walls.)

Riposo 46

Occasion: Pre-theatre (Bye Bye Birdie) drinks and snacks with Amy and Brigid
Location: Riposo 46 on 9th Ave at 46th
Edibles: spinach pizza and mushroom bruschetta to share

Musings: A nice pit stop before a show. (My stomach starts yowling like a wounded mountain lion if I don't get something to eat beforehand.) The $9 bruschetta plate came with a huge mound of delicious sautéed mushrooms and would have been a light meal on its own. Definitely good to share. The pizza was trendy-gourmet-rustic. They poured me a generous glass of chenin blanc. No complaints here.

Top Chef Las Vegas Ep. 5

Original Air Date: September 16, 2009

1) Do you want to go camping with the Voltaggio brothers? I do! (There was a moment when Mike V. was standing in front of his tent and started a sentence like, "My brother and I are really competitive but we still..." and I finished it "...like to snuggle!")

2) Another super-specific Quickfire! And one that led to bizarro results where Mike V. was one of the worst while Laurine was one of the best?!

3) Ron was ostensibly in the bottom for his mojito. I think he would have been in the bottom anyway for his too-sweet ceviche, had Mattin not made three worse ones.

4) Oh, Mattin - you did yourself in. It's NEVER the right answer to say that you were satisfied with how your dish turned out when you're in the bottom group. Robin's drunken shrimp sounded pretty atrocious, but she saved herself by admitting the dish's shortcomings.

5) By the way, Robin, TASTE YOUR FOOD! You should never serve something you haven't tasted at least once.

Omai

Occasion: Dinner with my girls - PA (in town from Kampala!), Abby, Elizabeth, and even Catherine escaped the Death Star in time for dessert

Location: Omai on 9th Ave between 19th and 20th (omainyc.com)

Edibles: crispy spring rolls; seared monkfish app; grilled rib app; coconut curry shrimp; red snapper in chili lime sauce; satay beef with string beans and yam; sticky rice; banana bread with vanilla ice-cream for dessert

Musings: Omai is one of those restaurants where you just can't go wrong; everything on the menu is completely scrumptious. If you have the chance to go with a slightly larger party (6-8 people), they can do a chef's tasting for something like $35 per person that includes almost everything on the menu. You'll see what I mean.

The monkfish in particular is not to be missed. I'm also addicted to their sticky rice. (On the rare occasions that they run out, I'm devastated.)

The restaurant is tiny, candle-lit and charming. Try to talk the waitress into seating you in one of the cozy window booths - it's the perfect place to catch up with old friends, over superlative food.

Mermaid Inn

Occasion: Early-bird dinner with Yining
Location: Mermaid Inn on 2nd Ave between 5th and 6th (themermaidnyc.com)
Edibles: Half-price oysters at the bar, followed by the lobster roll special (the roll, a beer and a chocolate pudding for $20 if you order before 7:00)

Musings: Although we went for the lobster roll, the oysters ended up stealing the show. I tried three: the Skookum (WA), Mermaid Straight (PEI) and Pemaquid (ME). The Skookum were unbelievably good - plump, succulent and delicately briny. I had a dozen total (eight Skookum), in three rounds. Absolutely irresistible. I will definitely be back for the oysters.

The lobster roll, not so much. The lobster inside was clearly B-grade, claw meat and other scraps. The sauce was thin and insipid; the bread was a bit spongy. Yummy spiced fries, though.

Even with the great price of the special, I think your time is better spent at Pearl or Mary's. The lobster rolls are spectacular at either place and Mary's also has excellent desserts.

Hop Devil Grill

Occasion: Joining Kathy and Ron for the last leg of their NY Craft Beer Week bar-a-thon
Location: Hop Devil Grill on St Marks at Ave A (hopdevil.com)
Edibles: Beer and burgers all around

Musings: Cheap! With my friends' beer passports (I know, what a concept), beers were $2 a pint. Burgers are half off on Sundays, so my bacon cheeseburger was $4.50 - and not half bad, either. Total for the table came out to a very sweet $22.

The other bar we went to, Back Forty on B at 12th, had a great vibe and was also pretty cheap - my pint was $5. I'd love to go back for dinner sometime.

Who knew Alphabet City had such a great bar scene?

Mmmm... oatmeal

A big bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins. Just what a soul needs on this rainy, melancholy morning.

Stay warm, and remember.

Top Chef Las Vegas Ep. 4

Original Air Date: September 9, 2009

1) Bacon jam! Bacon jam! Oh, did I mention the bacon jam? I want some NOW.
2) That was one very specific Quickfire. I can see how one could be a legitimate chef, yet never cooked this particular protein. What are escargot like to cook? Clams and mussels? Calamari?
3) I'm sure the winning trout was delicious and all but that plate looked so empty and sad to me. I'm not a fan of that modernist, one-bite-of-food business.
4) Wow, that table of guests was a pantheon of French culinary gods. (Short just Eric Ripert.) I went to Joël Robuchon's restaurant in Paris and it was one of the top three meals of my life. Be still my heart... The cheftesants were rightly terrified to be cooking for them.

Top Chef Las Vegas Ep. 3

Original Air Date: September 2, 2009

1) It happened here first - a contestant is part of the winning group, then ALSO part of the losing group. It happened again on Project Runway the very next day. Both Mike I. and Mitchell were rightly called out for their nonexistent contributions to the winning dish and dresses, respectively. It takes a special sort of talent, guys.

2) New England-style clam chowder is the last thing I'd want to eat on a hot day in the desert. Completely inappropriate in terms of seasonality. Also, I don't know why Jesse was so strident about the one pot Mattin was using. If you're in a hurry to reduce something, doesn't the larger surface area of a wok actually work better?

3) Man, that pasta salad was pathetic. Grocery store deli counter amateur hour. At the very least, they could have made a pesto sauce or something. Preeti, you lost me with the clueless clam shucking and never showed me anything to prove my first impressions wrong. See ya.

4) Kudos to Jennifer for a heroic performance in a completely invisible role.

Minca Ramen Factory

Occasion: Dinner with my bro
Location: Minca Ramen Factory on E 5th between Ave A and B, closer to B - it's reeeeaaaally far east, folks! (note: 5th St looks like it ends on 1st, but you can cut through the apartment complex's park and continue east)
Edibles: one each of the pork and shrimp gyoza; miso ramen (#9) for me; shoyu ramen (#4) for Edward

Musings: This place isn't quite as perfectly delicious as I remembered from before. Then again, I broke up with someone the last time I was here, so maybe it's the taste of sweet, sweet freedom I'm remembering. ;)

The pork gyoza were wonderful. The skin was silky-thin, the filling was yummy and there's a lovely crunch from the caramelized bottom. The shrimp ones were not as good. I liked the idea - a whole shrimp wrapped in a dumpling with the tail sticking out - but the shrimp were overcooked and tough and the gyoza tasted overwhelmingly of ginger.


My ramen's broth was very rich and complex. It got a bit salty towards the end, but I still drank most of it. The noodles were perfectly al dente and the various toppings (seaweed, half a stewed egg, bamboo, bean sprouts, sliced pork, corn, etc.) were high quality across the board. The shoyu broth is clear where the ramen broth is enigmatically cloudy, but it's also very flavorful and robust.


I think the ramen at Minca stands head-and-shoulders with Momofuku Noodle Bar and Ippudo, and I believe (I couldn't verify for Momofuku) it's cheaper than both. I'm looking forward to a lot more visits in the cold months to come.

[Postscript: Happy birthday, Allie!]

US Open concessions stand

Occasion: US Open with Nellie and Jim - fourth round action, Caroline Wozniacki v. Svetlana Kuznetsova and Novak Djokovic v. Radek Stepanek

Location: Arthur Ashe stadium, promenade concessions stand

Edibles: Coney Island foot-long hot dog

Musings: I had preemptively stuffed myself at Chipotle beforehand but, around 11:00, the munchies struck and I needed a snack. The hot dog was overpriced, but whatever. It's a sports event. It is what it is. (Incidentally, I think they'd sell twice as much if they lowered their prices by a third.)

What really made me cranky was that they refused to give me an empty cup so that I could get some water from the fountain. I think my $6 hot dog entitles me to a damn paper cup, dudes. (Bottles of water were an exorbitant $4 each and I refused to buy one on principle. Well.... that, and I'm a cheap bastard about these kinds of things. Don't judge.)

PJ Clarke's Lincoln Square

Occasion: Pre-movie (Psycho) dinner with Kathy and Atticus

Location: PJ Clarke's Lincoln Square on 63rd at B'way (pjclarkes.com)

Edibles: lobster BLT for me; burger for Atticus; salad for Kathy (I won't bust Kathy's chops for ordering salad because she has to fit into a wedding gown in a month.)

Musings: Like Luna Piena, this place has some heavy-duty Death Star associations. (Not this particular location, but still.) It's convenient to Lincoln Square, though, so I sucked it up and tried to ignore the reflexive twitch of my hand to check the BB.

Their burgers are solid. (I didn't taste Atticus', but I know this from the Death Star days.) I thought my lobster BLT was a bit overpriced at $19, considering the stingy amount of lobster inside. You can get a full-on lobster roll for about $5 more. On the bright side, the cilantro mayonnaise was wonderful and they were more than generous with the bacon. Mmmmm..... bacon.

OK for some pre- or post-activity nibbles, but I definitely wouldn't go out of my way.

Tampopo

Written and directed by Juzo Itami

Starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Koji Yakusho and Ken Watanabe

My review: 4/5 stars

Unlike Julie & Julia, this movie is populated with characters who really care about food. I mean, they REALLY care about it. To the point of literal life and death sometimes.

The main story follows Goro, a lone cowboy-type, as he leads our heroine Tampopo in the quest to make the perfect bowl of ramen. (The noodle theme is a play on the idea of a spaghetti western.) It's quite a journey, involving calisthenics with stock pots, espionage, bribery, a makeover and renovation, and countless rounds of practice and taste-testing. They call in various experts to consult; my favorite was the leader of a band of foodie hobos.

The story often meanders away from the main plot to a series of unrelated episodes, many involving a gangster in a white suit and his mistress, all centered around food. Every moment is novel and unexpected. The underling in the French restaurant was great, the etiquette class was hilarious, and oh my god - that little old lady in the grocery store. Fantastic.

The film felt very foreign and weird to me but I certainly wasn't bored.

Julie & Julia

Directed by Nora Ephron

Starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams

My review: 2½ / 5 stars

I wasn't crazy about the book, but thought the leading ladies were worth going to see. I went into this movie with extremely low expectations; consequently, it was better than I expected. Meryl Streep's Julia Child is pretty convincing. On the flip side, the Julie character is sort of a hateful wench and even Amy Adams' natural charm couldn't overcome it.

If you like food porn, this movie will disappoint you. (Eat Drink Man Woman - now there's a movie that will make you drool.) As with the book, there's just not enough about the food.

Which leads me to what I think is the movie's biggest problem (ditto the book): Julie doesn't see herself as a cook, she sees herself as a writer. She doesn't care nearly as much about the food as she does about her blog. Here, the interests of the creator and the audience diverge. Seeing someone cook onscreen can be interesting; seeing someone write onscreen is decidedly not.

Joe's Pub

Occasion: Dinner with Yining before the Happy Ending Music and Reading event

Location: Joe's Pub on Lafayette between E 4th and Astor Place (joespub.com)

Edibles: orecchiette with meatballs for me; frittata panini for Yining

Musings: Fun space, fun event. BUT.

Even though we arrived early and the place was more than half empty, the hostess led us to a table waaay in the back, away from the stage. When we asked if we could get a closer table, she tersely informed us that people reserve specific tables. I certainly hadn't been told about table availability when I made the reservation. Great. We also learned that the artists usually reserve the front tables. For their friends who get discounted tickets? Really? And do their friends need to be up front and center, as opposed to people who are being exposed to the artists for the first time, possible future fans-to-be? Seems backwards to me.

Yining and I both thought Joe's Pub should seriously rethink their policy of ticket price + $12 minimum food order for a table. Popular opinion is that the food sucks and is incredibly overpriced. So why not make the ticket $5 more, have a one drink minimum and forego the kitchen altogether? Joe's Pub is in the heart of NYU territory - i.e. cheap, fast, (and because it's New York) delicious casual food. In this context, it was especially galling to have to pay $17 for sub-standard pasta (the meatballs were gristly and gamey). Yining's frittata panini was better but still overpriced at $14. We could have eaten like kings at Mahmoun's for $10, had a glass of wine at Joe's, and been perfectly happy.

Think about it, Joe's Pub.

Top Chef Las Vegas Ep. 2

Original Air Date: August 26, 2009

1) I've spent some time mulling it over, but still have no idea how a sweet-and-sour macaroon filled with guacamole would taste good. Also not sure about that tofu ceviche.

2) Jesse needs to brush up on her basic skills. What kind of chef can't properly braise a chicken or sear a scallop? Eve is also a mess - bad palate, bad technique. Popcorn belongs in a movie theatre, not in ceviche.

3) Speaking of ceviche, if Jennifer is going to keep making it, will someone please teach her how to say it right?

4) I don't think it's ever been so clear so early on who's going to make it to the finals. Unless something catastrophic happens, it's gotta be Jennifer, Kevin and a Voltaggio brother. Duh.