Annie's New York Eats

Three New Reviews, or We'll Just Pick

We almost never see this yet to fail: whilst walking along a street in Manhattan, between one appointment and the next, we get hungry. And, if it's between 2 and 6 PM, there is no place to eat.

Luncheonettes and places called "Burger Aroma" or the like still exist, of course, as do McD's and BKs and DDs. (We would like to see the person who offers us one of those egg white flatbreads and expects us to eat it). Anyway, we've really outgrown both fast-food burgers and tuna fish lunches.

The fact is that when we are in New York City we expect all our dining options to be just a little more exciting. And, in terms of exciting food, 2-6 has long been a great wasteland.

But...having just made this point...we will overthrow it by saying that in the past month we have found three different places which are open all day and offer interesting, well-prepared, good-tasting food at reasonable prices. And we find that this fits in with our schedule, since we frequently have a big breakfast at 11, schedule our dinner for 8 PM and find ourself stranded when hunger bites. 

"Afternoon Eats", if you want to call it that, offer a tremendous opportunity for creative munching. You want something small--maybe several somethings small. You want freedom to start on one small plate and then, if you feel like it, move on to another. Who would dare to order twice at Per Se or even Tocqueville? The waiters would feel honor-driven to sneer at you. But, in one of the restos named below, afternoon is a drowsy and quiet time. The waitress would as soon talk to you about the pedigree of the cheese as anything else. And okay, you started out drinking homemade quince soda (available at Northern Spy, below) but you just decided you'd rather have a beer? Why not? Jean-Georges isn't here to be outraged. Go ahead!

Chicken Thigh with a Poached Egg. Courtesy Northern Spy Food Company.    

Northern Spy Food Company  has just open on 12th Street near Avenue A, and it looks like becoming not just a hipster fave but a mom-and-kids, teens-after-school, visiting-families and just-about-everyone-else hot spot. The menu is (mostly) locavore and hearty eating, but you can make yourself a nice snack of potato-rosemary flat bread and pickled eggs (perhaps with that homemade quince soda, or the one made from Concord Grapes) for not much money and a lot of flavor and tummy-filling. There are larger plates and sweeter ones too; the very complete web site tells you all, including what's being offered right now on the "market" shelves in the rear. Whatever else you do or don't do, pick up some lovely candies by Liddabit before you leave. Everyone makes caramels these days, and almost never this good.

Cheese Straws and Pickled Vegetables. Courtesy Tipsy Parson. 

The Tipsy Parson, on 9th Avenue near West 20th Street, has a website which doesn't tell you much, so we will refer you to here to get information and menu. We had a bite here yesterday when a too-fast cab left us at the right address 45 minutes before our appointment time. But this cute little tearoom/bar sat with an open door and we just walked right in. There were deviled eggs on the menu...we always have room for a deviled egg. And guess what? The cute little plate held five half-eggs, each piped full of delicious yolky goodness, as light as a mousse and with, of all this, a lemony flavor to compliment the caper/onion/buttery goodness of the yolk. Best of all, the whites were in perfect proportion to the yolk filling (meaning that they were rather smaller) and were tender and fresh as well (no matter how great your filling, a deviled egg can be ruined by a too-large, rubbery white).

Bread and Salumeria at Taralucci e Vino. Courtesy Tarlucci e Vino. 

And finally, we were walking along one day, minding our own business, when we felt hungry--this happens a lot. Detecting a bare, bright, sunny room with a bar in front, we swerved off course and found ourself at the Flatiron location of Taralucci e Vino (15 East 18th Street). Although we couldn't be served with a full entree, we were able to pick and choose...a little meat,a little cheese, a little salad...and it was exactly the meal we wanted, tasty and fresh and light as well.

Do you have any favorite spots for tasty, light bites? Tell us about it in comments, below. This is the kind of place of we we can't have enough.

Dept. of A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

 We hate to break such difficult news to you so early in the morning, but sometimes, a blogger's job requires iron resolve. So it is with great sadness that we pass along the news that ... Jon Hamm's beard shuffled off this mortal coil. We have yet to hear an official statement as to the cause of death from either Hamm, NBC, or AMC, but we have our suspicions that the tragic demise of what was quickly becoming an iconic beard may have been thanks to America's general uncomfortableness with facial hair. While stubble may, indeed, be "in" (we have no idea, you'd have to ask our fashion-forward sisters over at The Cut), there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that beards are only worn by the slovenly and oafish. We were hoping that the unlikely success of The Hangover and Zach Galifianakis last summer would help America get past its personal prejudices, but we were wrong. We'll miss you, Jon Hamm's beard, but we'll always have the 2010 Golden Globes.

via nymag.com

Thus Jon Hamm, who has shaved off this wonderful beard in preparation for his second hosting job on Saturday Night Live this Saturday, January 30.

Not many men could raise a beard as good as that one. But then, not many men are John Hamm.

We hope to goodness he leaves his socks around or watches the game when his girlfriend wants to talk. Because perfection cannot last forever, and we want Mr. Hamm to stick around for a long, long time. Goodlooking men get better with age (see Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Cary Grant...and then take a glass of ice water and sit down for a while.)

Wither Food Network? And Do We Have HGTV in the Hoose?

Strangely, not many people come up to us and say, "Annie, old hat, what's your opinion of the Food Network?"

 It's a shame, because we have many opinions on this subject, just stirred up by the recent cease-fire between the Scripps network (which produces the Food Network and House and Garden Television, or HGTV) and Cablevision, the provider to millions upon billions of households.

Our opinion is: we like the Food Network because we also like forensics show and medical dramas and hey, even lawyer shows nowadays can suddenly feature some cat in a white coat drawing a dead person's brain out through their nose, or trace the path of a bedbug's bite through seven layers of epidermis. 

Have we mentioned that we like to eat in front of the TV? Well, we do. And there's nothing like having to watch one of the aforementioned scenes to really make you lose your appetite.

So we watch the Food Network while eating, just to avoid watching "Bones" or "CSI" or "Grey's Anatomy" or "Law & Order SVU" or "House". 

If you've ever watched any of these fine shows, you know that, at any time, the gorgeous leading lady can say to the gorgeous leading gent, "Oh! So you mean that the allen wrench penetrated his liver, thereby causing an effusion of blood to the surrounding tissue and..." We don't like the words that much, but we really hate that allen-wrench-eye-view video of the liver, the effusion, and the surrounding tissue. After a thing like that, we almost don't even care whodunnit.

Now, say we turn on a relaxing Food Network show. Of course we have our favorites here too--we much prefer our spiritual older sister, Ina Garten, and her upper-crusty offerings in her lovely old renovated home, to Guy Fieri, whose definition of the word "food" simply doesn't jive with our own. We like Paula Deen, mostly because she's a good looking old broad and we like the way she dresses. And we like Alton Brown, because his recipes come out fabulous even in our hands. 

We don't watch Chopped, which is a dreadful competition in which food professionals, all of them muttering because they aren't on Top Chef, have to buid a meal out of mystery ingredients. And that might sound like Iron Chef to you, but the fact is that the secret ingredient on that show might be, oh, I don't know, "Salmon" or "haricots vert" and, while it will be somewhat amusing to see the chefs make a dessert out of that, it is nothing like the basket of whey, Ring Dings, and Pathmark Vanilla Ice Milk with which the boys and girls have to deal on Chopped.

Also, the judges on Chopped are not happy people, because each chef can only go so far with the ingredients and how often can you say "Well, Patrizio, you really brought out the probiotic 'tang' of the whey but I think you failed to thoroughly explore the Ice Milk's unique flavors"? Very little fun here, folks. Ted Allen, the long-suffering host of the show, barely breaks a smile and, as to Aaron Sanchez, the great New York chef who almost made it to Net Iron Chef fame, he looks like he's just been told of a worlwide shortage of huitelacoche.

So we do like some of the Food Netwrk's offerings, but we must tell you that we actually watch HGTV programs a little more. We'll stop if they ever show a nail gun attack on a human thigh, but for right now we're really into seeing the nice young couple who just want a little more room for the baby (and a brand-new granite countertopped kitchen, a master bath with heated floors and a separate steam shower and soaking tub, and a two-acre yard for the dogs.) 

Our favorite show is Income Property, with the flashing-grinned Scott McGilvray as host. Every show, Scott goes to the a particular hoose in which there is some kind of a problem; many times it's a moose in the wainscoting or even a loose which much be doosed with some kind of repellant. Then Sott has to tell the homeowner how much this will cost, which generally rooses him to a fury...oh, sorry. We forgot to mention that the show is taped in Canada. But you might've already figured that out. 

Personally to Mr. Tom Collichio

via newyork.seriouseats.com

Our Dear Tom,

We do applaud you as a food-thinker, a celebrity, and a bona fide intelligent and well-informed foodie. Also a bald guy from New Jersey who has the balls to stand next to Padma every week, she being tall enough to powder her nose in the top of your head, and still glare at the world as if its glace de viand will never be roundly-flavored enough for you. Avaunt!

Notice we did not say we applaud you as a chef. We can't. Having only eaten at Craftsteak three times in our life, we were served so little that we scarcely know what your food tastes like.

Yes, Tom Boy, this is the problem. See that photo above? It is a photo of "Capon Pot-au-Feu", one of the most important menu items at your new resto, Collichio and Sons, which opened last night in the space that used to hold Craftsteak.

Maybe the kitchen is incredibly small, and you have to employ very tiny cooks working on one-quarter size ranges with dollhouse pots and pans. Maybe it is all part of your scheme to create a “more creative, composed-plate style of cooking”.

Thomas, that there composed plate costs $34 pre-tax and tip, a fact which leaves us not at all composed.

We don't care if you caponized that poor rooster yourself, staring it down as if it was the owner of a small California-style catering company who had just set a plate of watery gnocchi in front of you. Neither do we care if the quarter-rib of cabbage was so Heirloom as to practically be raised by the Tiffany Company, or Dan Barber.

We don't even care if the parsley sprig was plucked from the wreath of aromatics with which the city fathers bedeck Michael Ruhlman's shiny hair whenever he comes back to Cleveland! We don't care, we tell you!

Because the fact that that little sprig of parsley (we raise parsley ourself and we know it couldn't cost most than .000023 cents, no matter what) takes the place of a quarter-head of cabbage in an average serving of pot-au-feu tells us that a) this thing is impossibly overpriced and b) since you're probably not paying your staff that much, it's not fair.

Or c) you're being raked by your sources. And that just doesn't seem right, Tommy. Not for a smart character from Jersey. Do you need Tony Bourdain to go over there and get rough with the boys? Because we think he lives for that kind of thing.

The fact is, as much fun as it is to deconstruct a classic menu items, Pot au Feu is usually a big ol' chicken stew for a family of 12 or more. The dish up there looks like--well, it looks like a serving of chicken soup that Grandma used to give us when she wasn't really fond of us. We're sure it tastes much better, but why not call it "Pot-au-feu for Un" or "Le Potage de la Grandmere Berul"? Just so people don't think that, for $34 smacks, they're getting something they can take for lunch for the next four days.

Best,

ANNIE

(PS Just noticed you had a cheese menu. Oh, God, a cheese menu. We ADORE cheese menus. Forget we said anything.

Drama Days

The Ace Hotel is dramatic, warm, retro-school chic.

via travel.nytimes.com

This from a reader review of the Ace, which is the hotel surmounting The Breslin restaurant that we were talking about the other day.

We just quoted this quote to say that the first time we read it we thought it said "Drama-school chic". 

This would have involved everyone wearing leotards and the room being very large, barren, and cold, with a rickety piano in the corner and some lovely Miss Torso hippety-hopping around in toe shoes on the stage. 

Add a cloud of cigarette smoke hiding two directors and a Costume Mistress, and we're back in the happy squalor of our Dramatic teenage years. 

But oh, was it cold!

The Breslin, or, Piggy is as Piggy Does

The restaurant at which we had dinner last night is The Breslin, which joint is jumpin' like it was handing out discount cocaine, free vodka, or extremely cheap wheatgrass juice--which would, we feel, cover just about every population in town. 

It is the place to be seen--or rather, the place to nonchalantly announce that one dined there last night and you know what, it's pretty good!.

 At which point one's very best friends laugh a tinkling laugh, the one that's meant to give you earache, and then smile indulgently and asks you if that old place is still around. 

This dialogue ends with a) quietly acidic smiles or b) a fist fight, depending on how seriously you take your love of Fergus Henderson. Well, he IS all about the bone and the sinew and the meat, is he not?

Now usually when things like this happen--and they happen constantly, this being New York--you can find us at the nearest sushi joint, pressing salmon roe against the roof of our mouth, or maybe down at Russ and Daughters ordering a Magnificent Heeb with Holland Herring to follow.

"But it's simply the utmost utmost!" people pant at us, to which we reply, "Like we care!" with a toss of our head.

 A long time ago, when we were young and simple, we cared about being in the hip place at the hip time. This was in the 1970's and "right" referred to the people around us and maybe to the drugs they were doing. It didn't refer to the music (as it would have in th 60's) and it didn't refer to the clothes (as it would have in the 80's). It was only about the people and the drugs and, whether it was Studio 54, The Bottom Line or the Rainbow Room, we were always disappointed, because we were there for the food. (Our favorite joint was the old Brasserie on 53rd Street, where they made a wonderful Steak Tartare and packed picnic boxes and were open 24/7. Completely unfashionable.)

(We have always loved Steak Tartare and were once thrown out of Maxwell's Plum when we ordered same and were asked, by two waiters and a Captain, sequentially, if we understood that it was made out of raw beef. After which we got very offended and Made a Scene. The Customer, in that particular restaurant, was not Always Right).

Anyway, it was a cold night and we felt in the need of cheering up, and there was The Breslin, just at the other end of this very familiar block (29th between 5th and 6th--we never meant to hide it from you). The room was crowded, but we made our way to the Maitresse D' and she was kind and pleasant and seated us at a really swell, centrally located two-top. 

We ought to mention that it was not our suave looks or well-known name that did this for us. We got seated very easily, where grown people are developing calluses on their clicking fingers and smears on their iPhones trying to get in--because it was 6PM and it is well-known among the fashionable that dinner at 6 rather than 8 or Later causes parasitic infection. 

It's not just the scene at the Breslin which makes people rush on the place like it was the last train from Gdansk. Also, the restaurant is supposed to have great food.

So we ordered the onion soup with beef marrow and found...something elegant, complex. vegetally sweet and very, very rich. But it was so rich that we had trouble finishing it.

 And then we looked around the table for bread or a salad or something to signal the change between the appetizer and the second course, and there was really nothing. 

And then we received our entree, Pork Belly for One, and it was, how shall we say this, it was a few pieces of lovely tender pork and then it was FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT. 

If all the fat little kids in this large fat world had stood around staring at us like that adorably globular little Russell in UP, we could not have felt more surrounded by FAT FAT FAT FAT. 

It was so FATTY FAT FAT that we threw ourself upon the mashed potatoes, cheesed to a notable stiffness, and we ate it as if it were the only thing standing between us and a fatal aspication in FAT FAT FAT and when we finished the fifth spoonful there was no more and we were left with a plate of...you know.

And all the desserts seemed to have Treacle in them.

So we won't be going back again. Unless they come up with a really swinging Steak Tartare.

PS And this too: We were sitting next to a party of four who drove us nuts, not because they were loud or unruly or anything but because we couldn't figure out their story. The ladies were fashionably and modestly dressed, the gents likewise, and all were in their thirties. They ate heartily but did not discuss how lucky they were to get a table, which marked them, to me, as people of taste and distinction. But: they weren't two couples. Each talked about "my wife" or "my husband" and were not referring to anyone else at the table. And they weren't close friends. Each referred to "my daughter" or "my son" like the others wouldn't have known the kids by name. And also: they didn't work at the same company. Or even in the same industry. SO WHAT THE FRACK were these people doing together? We're beginning to think the answer is "Communist Cell," "'The Work' Self-Actualizing Group", or maybe, just maybe, "Citizens for Obama '12". Because, sadly there were only four of them.