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Counter Culture
Surfing Bay Ridge at Asmak Taama with Gibby Haynes
Matching fish with rock stars in Bay Ridge
By Robert Sietsema
Tuesday, January 13th 2009 at 3:32pm
Cook like an Egyptian
Asmak Taama
413 Bay Ridge Avenue, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 718-921-3200
My guests, on a last visit to Asmak Taama, included Butthole Surfers frontman Gibson "Gibby" Haynes and legendary Rolling Stones scribe Reverend Charles M. Young. Six of us found ourselves wedged into Scooter's compact hybrid—Gibby's wife, Missy, sprawled across his lap—bombing down Third Avenue in the night shadow of the Gowanus Expressway. Anticipating seafood, I was flashing over the Surfers' "Pepper" video, in which a woman with a bouffant hairdo scales a fish with a ferocious cleaver, all the while smiling into the camera. You keep expecting a finger to fly in your direction.
Our destination was one of the new Egyptian fish-market cafés in Bay Ridge, where you can view the raw catch glistening in the window, then step inside and devour it. With difficulty, we extracted ourselves from the blue Honda and burst into the pink interior of the restaurant. On the monitor overhead, 100 violinists dressed in white tuxedos accompanied a gentleman tinkling on a white piano—hey, I want Egyptian TV in my apartment! In fact, the proprietors of Asmak Taama ("Tasty Fish" in Arabic) hail from Alexandria, a port on the Mediterranean famous for its seafood cafés.
After we'd settled down at one of the long tables, I rendezvoused with our proprietress at the fish display and mulled over the selection. Arranged cheek-by-jowl, the fresh fish ranked in the front window were beguiling: big striped bass, their bulging sides crazed with a delicate black herringbone; slender pink snappers; sardines larger and milder than you've ever encountered before; gleaming silver barbounia, sometimes called mullets; bulbous foreshortened porgies, their eyes gleaming; and plainspoken tilapia, a fish often farmed in a sustainable fashion. I selected a porgy, two barbounia, and a giant striped bass, then watched as the specimens were whisked away to the kitchen at the rear of the restaurant. Wisely, we left the method of preparation up to our hostess.
As the apps began to arrive, Gibby regaled us with rock-tour tales, including one about trying to cook a fish in a rented RV somewhere in Indiana as it jounced down the interstate. First to hit the table was the fried eggplant appetizer ($3.50), which swam in a dark tomato sauce with lots of hot green chilies. "Shit, this is good," intoned Gibby in his nasal north-Texas accent, as he contemplated a piece of eggplant planted on a pita. We could only nod our assent, as our mouths were stuffed. Also among the early arrivers was a basket of golden French fries sprinkled with ground cumin ($2.50); a rudimentary salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and parsley slicked with olive oil; and a plate of dirty rice strewn with toasted pine nuts. The starters were so good that we were emboldened to order more—though we were disappointed to discover that "potato salad" is the name bestowed on plain roasted new potatoes.
But whatever the apps, salads, and sides, the fish arrive with a drumroll at Asmak Taama. In the Egyptian fashion, our hulking striped bass ($15) had been coated with whole-wheat flour and spices, dampened with seawater, and flame-grilled to coal-mine blackness. The intention is that the skin be stripped off and discarded, revealing the acres of smoky pink flesh. But Scooter dissented: "This skin is even more delish than the fish," he exclaimed delightedly.
The porgy ($13) and barbounia ($7 each) appeared next. They'd been deep-fried with a crunchy coating. While the porgy was large-boned and coarse-fleshed, making it easy to extract the bland, snowy meat, the tastier mullets had fine bones and took more work to eat. In addition, we were frankly freaked out by the fierce faces of the barbounia, which had two rows of teeth like white sixpenny nails. After a discussion of rock sainthood, in which I mentioned seeing Kurt Cobain T-shirts for sale outside the Assisi Cathedral in Italy, Gibby sheepishly noted he'd been in rehab with Cobain right before his self-offing.
After pushing back from the table, we washed everything down with steaming cups of sage tea and an assortment of pastries that the hostess had excused herself to go down the street to get. But the biggest surprise was yet to come. After comparing nightmarish stories about going to high school in Texas, where both he and I remembered being beset by Bible-thumping Christians, the venerable rock surrealist mentioned he'd graduated from Dallas's Lake Highlands High School. "Holy crap!" I exclaimed. "I went to the same penal institution! You must be its most famous grad."
"No," he replied modestly. "That would be Morgan Fairchild."
wylie's going to be a contestant on top chef masters. yay wylie. sadly the host is not quite padma...
slate food "issue"
goode on you
wonder if its any good here??
a friend said i must try this japanese spot
and here , both sound yummy exp this dish here
Kakuni Puff slow cooked pork tonsoku served in a baked puff pastry $8
Sound like a vitamin-P person we know?
LiverFlush#3/09
DMT10 Prep
1/2 way through, deep dreams on this tour every nite, in the right foot bones its like a gout attack but its the reverse (toxins leaving not toxin overload), lots of beet on this tour for the cleansing they do + many raw asian greens chewed to pulp for maximum green power....
4 weeks 1 strong
Secession Shutters; Bouley Won’t Abandon Tribeca (will be come a Japanese spot).....this was from NYMag.....glad I am not one of his investors if he has any
dont know how I missed this guy before but now he's closer
Gelato maestro moves onto the savory stuff
BY BEN MUESSIG
The Brooklyn Paper
Self-described “gelato maestro” Gino Cammarata has closed his Bensonhurst ice cream shop Oro Verde Gelati — which was located within a tanning salon, oddly enough — to open a small plates restaurant and “vino bar” boasting a full menu of classical Mediterranean dishes on Fourth Avenue at 99th Street.
The new eatery, Piattini, will offer classic Sicilian entrees alongside less-known Italian dishes prepared by Cammarata, who is famous for masterfully making traditional gelato flavors like fig, ricotta cream, and pistachio, and serving them boldly — like his acclaimed brioche gelato sandwich.
“It’s a light menu with a very fresh ingredients,” said Cammarata.
“The food quality is going to be high.”
Thankfully, Cammarata won’t abandon his bread and butter — gelato.
“There will be a gelato machine,” the chef promised. “That’s my signature.”
Piattini [9824 Fourth Avenue at 99th Street in Bay Ridge, (718) 759-0009)], will have a soft opening this week.
trip to flushing??
Marea
I went and it was super dupper.
It made me think, you know money would not be bad to have lots of cause I would eat here whenever I wanted and take my friends, its not that it was more money than any top spot nor was it not worth every penny, its just that at $200 PP with nice wine it add's up quick if I went once a month, exp since I have lots of friends:>)
$21 mixed crudo, some oysters $12, grand cru pasta's inc a first for me tuna belly ravioli (in a tomate caper etc sauce) $20+ and for me one pasta aint enough so figure $80 for food
I saw a $36 wine I could guzzle, had a Spanish rose w/ oysters that was a brilliant match, and there are plenty of $40-60 wines worthy of creating happyness. So add $70 wine at 1.25 bottles PP + $80 = $150 = $200PP
Great great great meal, hope to afford to go back soon, but most of all I am happy I have lots of friends first and that they like Grand Sichuan BYOB too.....
NYTimes looks behind the scenes at the work to open Daniel Boulud's new DBGB.
pesto forever
thx adman
should also be very good!!
LOCANDA VERDE What was briefly Ago will open on May 19 with Andrew Carmellini, formerly of A Voce, in the kitchen and Josh Pickard, late of Lever House, managing the dining room. Karen DeMasco is the pastry chef. Mr. Carmellini, a partner with Mr. Pickard and Ken Friedman (Spotted Pig, John Dory), has said he wants a neighborhood Italian restaurant. Robert De Niro is one of the neighbors, and an owner of the Greenwich Hotel, which houses the restaurant and is one of its owners. 379 Greenwich Street (North Moore Street), (212) 925-3797.
A New Chapter for Sam Mason's Tailor: Chapter 11:<(((( bummer
finally open and i am
HUNGRY
one of my close pals sent me this
Had dinner last night at Da Silvano - because Bar Pitti was packed - and ordered an appetizer that I was really looking forward to, fried zucchini flowers. They were not good. Mostly batter with something unidentifiable inside, no flavor, and only four of them for $14.50. Of course they were so disappointing that you wouldn't have wanted more on the plate. It was kind of shocking. I thought that when the waiter came back and asked how everything was I would tell him that the dish was really bad, but he never came to the table and asked. A different server came and took the plates away. I make zucchini flowers at home and believe me, mine would blow away Da Silvanos's sorry, doughy disasters.