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Report from the hinterlands of cuisine ...
Boulder Creek, which is somewhat culinarily challenged, had a new restaurant open recently. The Blue Sun has new owners, and has expanded service to include dinner ... and meat! I was all a-twitter.
All I'm gonna say about that is they don't even know how to procure and cook broccoli. Lord, I hope they kept the pancake recipie from the old management.
My mother’s visit was the occasion for several out-of-the-ordinary dining experiences for me:
We went to the new cafeteria at the Modern along with my sister and her two children. It looked like a long line and too much hassle, but they seem to have the crowd-moving down to a science. You look at the menu posted on the wall while you wait on the line, which moves faster than you’d think. They allow entry only as others leave; then you order at a counter and get a number; then they bring the order to wherever you find to sit. Typical museum fare, but fresh and of good quality and not quite as over-priced as you might expect. Generally efficient for such a tourist-filled madhouse.
The same group also did well at Gino’s in Bay Ridge, a popular pizza parlor that also knows how to move ‘em in and out. The pizza is great and the other standard Italian dishes not bad either.
Trying to come up with a Sunday evening strategy I called the Boathouse in Central Park but was told they were completely booked. Mom & I then tried walking from the hotel over to the nearby Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle to see if we could get in to any of the fancy new places there. They have a “dining concierge” who informed us that the only restaurant open was the V Steakhouse, the latest Jean-Georges Vongerichten venue. It turned out there was no problem getting in. Apparently Sunday is not hot at this tourist spot; at least the place was open, but virtually empty at 7:00 pm. I guess that’s early for NYC, but the large room was still less than half full when we left. It was an attractive room, with a nice view and beautiful, almost Tolkienesque tree-shaped columns, but otherwise rather traditional with lots of dark wood and red velvet in classic steakhouse form. The food was fine but pretty straightforward; tourists don’t want weird steaks. It seemed more like a business move than a real inspiration for JGV.
Later in the week we did manage to get into the Boathouse, a place that owes its cache to its picturesque location on the Lake in Central Park. We happened to get there right at 5:30 when they were opening for dinner and seating walk-ins; the place filled up quickly. The food was better than I might have expected: good corn chowder with shrimp; crab cakes; flounder; decent wine list; good bread and attentive service. Again, for a tourist-trap it was efficient and of high quality, if not cheap.
We had good Malaysian delivery from Banana Leaf upstairs with Mike & Linda, and a typically fine meal at Alias, though the food may have been overpowered by the company, as mom got to meet various DMTree-ers in a swirl of conversation and wine. For a lady who will turn 84 next month she held up well, but she may have had enough fine dining to last for a while. At Annapoli, a local Bay Ridge diner where we had breakfast (and I wouldn’t normally go for any other meal) she fixated on the place-card advertising their buffalo burger, and we had to go back to have it for dinner. It was no more than acceptable but it was the cheapest meal we had the whole time, and provided a genuine working-class Brooklyn eating experience, including a $2.95 side salad that could have fed the German army, assuming they want a lot of lettuce and a few weak tomatoes. Good thing I didn’t order the “large” version.
A slightly different stratum of the neighborhood was in evidence at brunch on mom’s last day here, when we went to the French bistro Saint Germain. I’ve had mixed experiences there. It used to be a well-reviewed bistro, but despite genuine French ownership it’s been dumbed-down, with a pathetic wine list, cloying sauces and a reliance on prix-fix deals. I once had a great cassoulet there, but generally find steak frite and breakfast to be the only reliables. For brunch it made a good send-off for mom and the crowd was a bit more cultured than you’d find in most of the local spots, which are peopled by the folks Bill refers to as the “dems and does” (as in “them and those” not democrats or deer.) An dats all.
eater
i hope they arent enjoying bringing me the news that the old puffys i knew and loved is gone, gone, gone.
from the e-newsletter by Michael Hebberoy of ripe, clarklewis and gotham building tavern in Portland, OR:
"wd-50 · ate here two years ago, two weeks after it opened. if you care about american food, and those half crazed geniuses that are pushing its boundaries… then you need to eat at wd-50. this trip I only had time for an afternoon gin sipping session with partner dewey dufresne, easily the most charming man in the biz."
banana leaf, one of our favorite locals, in $25 and under this week.
cupcakes!
"Our first winner came in and said it was a fortune cookie," said Rebecca Paul, chief executive of the Tennessee Lottery. "The second winner came in and said it was a fortune cookie. The third winner came in and said it was a fortune cookie."
Investigators visited dozens of Chinese restaurants, takeouts and buffets. Then they called fortune cookie distributors and learned that many different brands of fortune cookies come from the same Long Island City factory, which is owned by Wonton Food and churns out four million a day.
thirsty traveler
time to vote
mondovino the website
Babu:
The third surprise was that the menu came without prices. Instead, guests were invited to eat, enjoy, and then, at the end of the meal, pay what they thought it was worth. “I’d rather work out the kinks in the kitchen first,” Payal Saha, the restaurant’s owner, explained the other day, sitting at a corner table of Babu, which was about a quarter full of couples quietly eating and mentally calculating the value of their experience.Now if only I could pay what I wanted at Babbo...
skinny / linda took the 14 month old puppy to his first dim sum, he loved it, and we think its the best weve ever had, rumor is people drive all over the city to chow here
daily news: Ocean Port Seafood Restaurant; 6202 18th Ave., Bensonhurst; (718) 236-8118. On weekends, dim sum lovers line up outside this Brooklyn Chinese restaurant to sample chef Joe Ng's Hong Kong-style dumplings, possibly the best and definitely the most innovative in the city
ny times: $25 AND UNDER; Where Sunday Tea Is a Dim Sum Parade By KIM SEVERSON Published: December 22, 2004, Wednesday
LUCKILY the nice Chinese family from Queens adopted us. They didn't have much choice. At Ocean Port Seafood Restaurant, a jumping dim sum house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, diners get squeezed in whenever a seat or two opens up.
Set in a neighborhood where the Carvel ice cream signs are lettered in Hebrew and the CD shop sells Italian music, Ocean Port is fast becoming a destination dim sum parlor. The attraction is more than 100 seasonally adjusted dumplings and small plates assembled by Joe Ng, who said he has cooked in 10 states, often in Hilton hotels.
On my first visit, the place was packed. So an accommodating waiter made room for me and a guest at a crowded table, using a few pink napkins to cover up the dim sum stains of diners who had gone before.
We plopped down next to a large family several pots of tea into their Sunday yum cha. Yum cha means ''drink tea'' in Cantonese, and tea is vital to the perfect dim sum experience. Pouring a few cups with strangers is also a great way to make friends.
It was our great luck to share a table with people who really knew their way around a dim sum cart. Without them we might not have learned two of Ocean Port's secrets: the suckling pig ($10.95), so crisp-skinned and tender that it was one reason the family drove in from Queens, and the chiu chow gow ($2.95), a translucent-skinned steamed dumpling usually reserved for celebrations.
The soft, wet skin of the round dumplings held a pleasantly dry filling of evenly chopped peanuts, pork, celery, water chestnuts and shiitake mushrooms. Their flavor and the attention to detail that went into their creation were indicative of the quality of most of the little dishes that come flying from the kitchen on stainless steel carts. Most are between $1.95 and $2.95 per plate of three or four pieces, with a few dishes inching above that. On another visit, the bill for a party of five enthusiastic eaters barely topped $100. But bring cash; Ocean Port does not accept credit cards.
On the weekends, especially Sundays, the two dozen big tables are always full. You'll be bumped and jostled and have the occasional dish of braised pork spilled on your sleeve.
It was hard to find a miss in the dozens of dumplings we ate our way through. Among the favorites: an open wrapper with a nugget of shrimp inside a wad of spinach sprinkled with scallion and parsley; a Shanghai-style pork meatball in a thin skin and shiny har-gow with shrimp that had a little snap to them.
Beyond the dumplings, a plate of bean curd skins wrapped around shredded pork and tree fungus was perfect. We ordered extra plates of fried, thin-skinned peppers stuffed with shrimp paste and sucked tender morsels of meat from an order of braised fish jowls. For dessert, don't miss the fried green balls filled with sweet black sesame.
The only dishes we did not like were mushy turnip cakes and a glass bowl filled with dry sticky rice studded with sweet Chinese sausage and mushrooms. Fish balls seasoned with ginger that were light and luscious when steamed became leaden in the deep-fat fryer.
and here
$25 AND UNDER; East Village Noodles, All the Way From Japan
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: July 14, 2004, Wednesday
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FOR many Japanese, ramen is not so much a noodle dish as an obsession. Americans know ramen as the savior of college students, who, equipped with only hot plate, dried noodles and powdered broth, whip up late-night snacks. This packaged meal has little to do with the Japanese conception of ramen, which is more akin to Mom's chicken soup, painstakingly and lovingly prepared and consumed with a sense of comfort and well-being.
Not that Japanese mothers are all slaving over the pot. In Japan, most ramen is consumed at shops and stands that dot the cities. And, just as my parents, when traveling overseas, told me they craved the sort of Jewish foods that they rarely ate at home in New York, many Japanese travelers and expatriates who experience ramen lust may simply be longing for the comforts of home.
One such expat is Shigeto Kamada, a musician, who says he despaired of finding good ramen in New York. So he taught himself to make it by reading books and watching videos. Now he is satisfying similar appetites at Minca, a little ramen shop he opened about a month ago in the East Village.
Mr. Kamada calls Minca a ramen factory, but there is little about the place that suggests an assembly line. It is just a storefront with four or five tables and eight or so seats at a counter. Tiny halogen spotlights hang from the ceiling, and unusual selections from Mr. Kamada's art collection adorn the brick walls.
Many people assume that ramen means noodles, but noodles are only one component of the complete ramen dish. The noodles themselves are of the type called chukasoba, or Chinese-style soba noodles. Unlike soba noodles, which are made of buckwheat, curly chukasoba noodles are wheat and have a springy elasticity that lets them remain squiggly even when cooked.
Mr. Kamada uses dried, portioned noodles delivered from Japan. Though crucial to ramen, the noodles are the easy part. Far more difficult is the soup. Mr. Kamada uses 80 percent pork bones and 20 percent chicken bones to prepare his broth, which he boils for hours until it achieves a light, velvety texture, a milky color and an intense porkiness.
If you take a seat at the bar and order the basic ramen ($8.50), you can watch Mr. Kamada assemble it before you. First, he puts a portion of the noodles in a pot of boiling water. Then, he opens a white vessel on his work counter, revealing dozens of hard-cooked eggs steeping in a soy sauce. With chopsticks he plucks one out and slices it lengthwise.
From another pot he pours the fragrant broth into a blue earthenware bowl. He adds the egg, a selection of ''mountain vegetables,'' which look like curly mushrooms, and salt and pepper. He tosses in the noodles and uncovers a long pan filled with cooked pork, sliced ultrathin. Eying the pork carefully, he selects a few slices and floats them on top of the broth. Finally, he adds a small sheet of nori seaweed.
On a summer day, the ramen experience can be a bit like taking a steam bath. With soup spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the other, you alternate bites of savory pork; slurps of noodles; sips of the rich, peppery broth; and occasional tastes of egg, scallion and mountain vegetable. I like to add a jolt of spicy red hot sauce. Before long you can feel your face begin to flush, and beads of sweat break out on your forehead. Each bite feels like feeding the furnace, yet the ramen is so good that you do not want to stop.
Variations on the ramen theme include soy ramen ($8.50), with an extra dose of soy sauce in the broth, and chicken ramen ($8.50), which uses a lighter chicken-and-fish broth. You can have it tsukemen-style ($8.50), in which the noodles are served in a separate bowl. You dip the noodles in the soup before eating them. For a little more, you can have charshu ramen ($11.50), which is topped with six or seven slices of pork. Or you can try my favorite, toriniku ramen ($11.50), which is topped with meltingly soft chunks of pork belly and buttery tender leaves of green cabbage.
Preliminaries might include exceptionally delicate gyoza dumplings ($4.50), stuffed with pork and pungent cabbage, or a refreshing salad of julienned daikon ($4), dressed with a spicy sesame sauce. That's it. No dessert, no beer or wine (you can bring your own), just ramen.
For that, the predominantly Japanese clientele seems especially grateful.
Minca
536 East Fifth Street (Avenue B), East Village; (212) 505-8001.
((skinny))
need to eat here
Using His Noodle
Before he opened Momofuku Noodle Bar, David Chang spent months cooking and eating in Japan, where he learned that ramen is as diverse as American barbecue, and that variations are just as passionately debated among connoisseurs. So rather than attempt the impossible—making “real ramen” far from its authentic Japanese context—he’s come up with his own style, using ingredients like miso compound butter, eggs slowly poached in their shells, Greenmarket corn, and Berkshire pork. The result is a gently priced menu rooted in tradition but not enslaved by it, with a Pan-Asian twist in the form of additions like cold Korean buckwheat noodles and Chinese pork buns.
163 First Avenue
212-475-7899
((skinny))
Using His Noodle
Before he opened Momofuku Noodle Bar, David Chang spent months cooking and eating in Japan, where he learned that ramen is as diverse as American barbecue, and that variations are just as passionately debated among connoisseurs. So rather than attempt the impossible—making “real ramen” far from its authentic Japanese context—he’s come up with his own style, using ingredients like miso compound butter, eggs slowly poached in their shells, Greenmarket corn, and Berkshire pork. The result is a gently priced menu rooted in tradition but not enslaved by it, with a Pan-Asian twist in the form of additions like cold Korean buckwheat noodles and Chinese pork buns.
163 First Avenue
212-475-7899
hebrew, the chosen beer