Annie's New York Eats

The (Food) Porn is Here, and It's Mellow

I didn't know if you were feeling a bit bored between Monday "Next Food Network Star" postings, but, in case you were, here is a pictorial account of 24 hours in the life of an NYC/Hudson Valley Foodie.

This is my friend JC, who doesn't read this blog. He's a busy man. But he did join me for a sushi dinner last night at a joint in his neighborhood, the tony Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was called "Wasabi Lobby" but don't hold that against it.

We both love sushi. He has a problem with creamy and possibly tangy things. I have a problem with absolutely nothing. We usually order from the All You Can Eat menu at Yuka, another sushi joint pretty much across the street, but decided to switch to somplace classier because we are, though few appreciate it, extremely classy people.

These are some of the things we ate.

What ho, C!

In the back are fried sweet potato rolls. The middle left rolls are JC's, a vegetable roll topped, as they do nowadays, with spicy tuna. It's delicious but so messy to eat! 

Right middle is spicy tuna, not too creamy, not too chili-ey--perfect to my taste. In the forefront is a "Spicy Hamachi" handroll. This was quite delicate; the spice didn't overpower the buttery fish. Just in back of that is spicy samon. What can I tell you; I really like spicy things.

This is chirashi-zushi, which, as JC astutely commented, is pretty much just sashimi on a bowl of rice. Very true, but who could sell it with that name? 

Usually I extract all garnish from a chirashi-zushi, pour soy sauce over and then get my head down and eat, loudly, for about an hour. Last night's conversation was so interesting (and I found I was so used to sharing with JC) that I kept putting bits of fish on JC's plate, and he kept gobbling them down. 

We probably could have gotten a funny photo out of me flipping the fish into his open mouth, like a woman feeding a seal in a Thurber cartoon, but, alas, I feel JC may be too dignified for this.

These are the gardens surrounding Roth Hall, the administrative building at the Culinary Institute of America.

Next day I went down to Poughkeepsie to visit Rhonda and Regina for lunch. These poor, starved women are of the yogurt-and-carrot sticks school, so I cleverly told them I had a stomach virus and couldn't eat anything. Then I went home to Kingston by way of The Culinary Institute of America, the nation's foremost cooking school and one of the loveliest campuses in the Northeast.

Some people call it CIA, some people call it The Cullinary, and the difference usually goes like:

"What joy! We've finally enrolled young Brentwood in the CIA!"

or

"My uncle worked as a porter at The Cullinary. He broke his hip slipping in a puddle of duck fat and they completely screwed him on his Worker's Comp."

I'm not taking an official stance here. It's just something I think about whenever I come up to the campus.

Which, no kidding, is seriously gorgeous:

These are the stepped gardens near the Colavita Building, sloping down to the Conrad Hilton Library. I'm actually not making those names up.

As always, I stopped in at the bookstore, which is the best foodie bookstore in New York; concentrating on books by and about CIA grads, there's some very important talent represented here. I finally committed to Alton Brown's first book, I'm Just Here for the Food. (AB did not attend the CIA, but they've got respect for talented outsiders too).

Then I went to the Apple Pie Cafe, the most affordable of the dining choices and the one which is most often open when I'm in the neighborhood. Like all of the campus restaurants, the Cafe is staffed, stocked and managed by students, with the result that the clean, hyper-managed look of the homey little cafe will prepare you for food which is decent and slightly corporate. You'll actually get something a lot more interesting.

This was a classic vichysoisse, topped with frizzled leek. (The tasty tendrils were actually all through the soup, making a nice crunchy contrast to the soup's creamy texture; an admirable execution--although there was a certain over-smoothness which I associate with cornstarch. Or too much potato? or too little cream?) It was pretty much a B- production. But you could tell some thought had gone into it.

My main course was a lot better--a simple and classic French ham sandwich, made this time with a wonderful baguette, smooth sweet butter, and prosciutto so good I practically rushed the counter to ask where it came from. (I had an  idea that The Cullinary was actually keeping a stock of small, well-scrubbed pigs upon whom to experiment in Butchery and Charcuterie class.Well? Hudson Valley farmers have kept swine for hundreds of years!)

All fantasy was extinguished by the commercial-quality pickle, sad and limp enough to get tossed out of any Bridal Suite in the land.

Wot's all this, Annie? Well, it's three tiny desserts for sale at the CIA, and we brought them home carefully shielded from the sun and with the air conditioner blasting ultra-chill in the car. Then we got them into our fridge--and then, only then, did we feel secure about futzing around with them and getting the right camera angles and so on.

The dessert on the rigth is called a Strawberry Shortcake. As our teenage roommate said, "It really is a Short Cake!" and yes, in the horizontally-challenged sense, it is. Strawberry on the bottom, tiny pink macaron cookie on the top.

The middle dessert is called "Mocha Panna Cotta". On top are "bubbles" made of dark chocolate mousse; the three stripes on the bottom are not a design on the tiny glass serving jar, but three layers of biscuit with, we're guessing, chocolate (or perhaps espresso?) ganache in between.

The dessert on the left is a vanilla panna cotta with a square of, I think, passion-fruit pate on top, plus little sugar balls. The clear plastic thing is called a pipette and, according to the sales literature, it contains a "shot of ponzu". I would like to be able to explain this further, but you can't always get what you want.

Then I started taking pictures of the cat. Then I had some ripe brie with a handful of roasted-but-unsalted pistachios. Now I'm going to et at least one of those little desserts and read more Alton.

To all a good night!

Offally Sorry

The fact is, there are hundreds of memorable meals served every week in New York City.

Some of them are memorable because of the guests and some because of the food. Some are memorable mostly because of the amount of food ingested by the guests--I'm thinking of the "No-holds-barred eating contest which comes off in the summer of 1936" as described by Damon Runyon in his short story, "A Piece of Pie".

Some are memorable because one or another of the guests become "dead meat" in the course of the meal. Chicago and parts of North Jersey do that kind of thing better than we do, but there always are stories about Umberto's Clam Bar, and other locations downtown.

One downtown location held a memorable dinner last week. Here's the story.

The location was The Astor Center. This used to be a liquor store until someone got the hot idea that, since the store was acting as a de facto clearing house of foodie information and lore, not to mention wine tasting and discussions of all things oenophiliac, they might as well rebuild the place as a combination of dining rooms, lecture kitchens, small spaces and library, to host events of interest to the food and wine community. (Read more about it here)

They also hired Lesley Townsend, an experienced and charming impresario, to act as Director of the center.

One of Ms. Townsend's first big spectaculars was held last week. It was a dinner cooked by Chris Cosantino, the San Francisco chef who was such a great competitor in The Next Iron Chef, entirely from offal. (For the Chef's Offal-centric blog, click here)

"Offal" is taken to mean the parts of the animal which are not usually served to paying customers, the idea being that most people will happily trot home with rib, steaks, and even the rump of an animal, but will make squeaky (and possibly gagging) noises when confronted with the liver, the lights, the brains, glands or trotters.

Granted, it's a little more difficult to cook with those ingredients, but even a fine beef steak--sometimes, especially a fine beef steak--profits by a little more preparation than just introducing it to the fire and hoping for the best. Also, offal is offally low in price, if you can get hold of it.

Then there's another point, which Chef Cosantino and Michael Ruhlman (who was at the Astor Center as a sort of master of ceremonies, quizzing the Chef and introducing the various animal parts) have been writing about for most of the last year.

It is this: that, since killing an animal for food is, if not completely reprehensible, at least an act of violence against nature, it is even worse to commit this act and only take about a third of what the animal offers. Still worse, in fact, because this would seem to indicate that at least three times as many animals would have to be killed to feed the same amount of people.

Consentino feels passionately that the full use of a pig, sheep or steer (or any other edible beast) is the best way of honoring its life. He's all in favor of humane farming and slaughtering techniques, too.

I tend to agree with all of this because I am a helpless omnivore and I know I'm going to go on eating all different parts of all different animals for as long as my teeth still work, and this is the only way I'll get out of it if God happens to be a sheep. And hey. YOU don't know.

Gothamist found the dinner interesting, as did Ruhlman, naturally. As for ourselves, we are not in the ranks of people who can spend $250 on dinner and so we did not attend.

But we're going to get matey with a packet of sweetbreads just as soon as Adam's Fairacre Farm get arrange to get it to us. Because God might or might not be a sheep, but we like to play it on the safe side.

Yuka Japanese Restaurant

Don't tell me I haven't given you the rundown on this place, which is a sentimental favorite of mine and has been for many years. I told you, don't!

When I was a newbie in town...I had worked there for five or six years, but lived in Astoria, which was practically out-of-state at that time...I met an balding young man and became his girlfriend. He had a one-bedroom apartment with a (purposely) dropped living room on East 80th Street, and a sushi restaurant around the corner.

That restaurant was Yuka, from which I ordered dinner at least two times a week, every week after I moved in there. My usual order was heavy on the trinity: tuna, yellowtail, salmon. I also liked quail egg on tobiko, but learned to stop ordering it when my boyfriend kept making gagging noises whenever he saw it.

We ate in the resturant a good deal, too, and it was there that that balding young man first proposed to me, and many months later I said yes and pretty goddam near ruined my life. But none of this was Yuka's fault.

Many years later, free of this guy and finding a new friendship with my old friend JC, we were looking for a place to lunch on the Upper East side. The big fellow pointed to Yuka and said, "Ever have the All-You-Can-Eat special here?" I had not, and so a tradition began.

We always have the AYCE and we always eat enough to qualify us as local eating champions, should any frat boys like to come uptown and challenge us. JC orders for both of us, which makes me feel grown-up, like I'm dining with a famous gourmet and man-about-town in Paris; we also like almost all the same things, which is chummy.

No one could love eel more than JC does, so that's his. He doesn't care for mayonnaise or creamy things in general, so those dishes are mine. But we're pretty much harmonious on everything else.

Yummers

At lunch, I would recommend Yuka to anyone who likes an old-fashioned, quiet atmosphere, good sushi, a good price, and not too many fireworks or new-style interpretations. Yuka is a great place for a lunch with an old friend of whom you don't see enough, or a quiet hour with the Times crossword puzzle. The fish is fresh, but the ideas are a little limited. Never mind. You also wouldn't go broke.

At dinner, however, you will have a most obnoxious time if you don't arrive at 6 or before and head for the four-tops, as opposed to the two-two-tops-pushed-together. Because if you sit there, the management will seat another couple next to you, and you will be claustrophobic and unhappy. Not to mention that if you order AYCE, you are simply inviting these other people to either share your food or make comments about how much you have ordered.

So make it Yuka. Make it lunch. Make it AYCE. And you might want to call JC and me and ask us if we want to come along.

Sakae Sushi

Oh Boy! Finally, my big chance to visit the brand-new conveyor belt sushi restaurant in New York. Scion of a famous Singaporean chain, this Sakae is located in the lobby of the Chrysler Building (405 Lexington Ave.) and, as such, pitifully easy for me to find after clambering out of the Grand Central Station.

Okay, it wasn't that easy, because the entrance is actually on the 43rd St. side of the building. But then I saw this window, and all became clear.

Those slippers are mine

The frog is the international symbol of Sakae Sushi, which is extremely popular in its home country and abroad. Unfortunately, the pretty, modern restaurant and its attendant gadgets might be the best news about the place--for the time being, at least.

What's wrong? Well, the food itself seems a little timid, and in a funny way. The whole point of a sushi conveyor belt, which runs past the dining tables (actually, each one is a booth) and invites the customers to grab whatever they like, is a great idea, because it encourages people to take things which they might not otherwise try. Also, the portions are smaller (two pieces of futomaki, for example, instead of six), and the price is supposed to be low, so people are encouraged to experiment.

At Sakae Sushi, unfortunately, the dishes on the conveyor belt are so un-adventurous as to be bland. Sure, I got my fill of cucumber maki (I happen to like cucumber maki) and, at $1.90 per roll, it certainly was reasonable. But then I couldn't find so much as a plain tuna roll (mercury fears?) or a salmon hand-roll. Or one of those nice yellow oshinko (pickle) maki. When I did grab a maki with a yellow interior, it turned out to be egg. An unpleasant surprise, and New Yorkers, perhaps unlike other sushi-eating peoples of the world, will not put a plate back on the conveyor belt after they've taken the top off and examined it.

I was not a happy girl

But the 30-page menu...which comes across as a kind of bedtime food porn for people who keep a sushi chef in their kitchen all night...had plenty of great ideas, and they weren't pricey, especially if you go for combo platter or, better, "donburi" and "chirarashi-zushi" dishes which involve a lot of rice along with the protein quotient. And you order these dishes at a table side computer, which is fun.

Best of all, Sakae Sushi is open Monday through Saturday from 11 AM to 12:00 AM, which makes it just about the only dinner choice in Midtown, especially on a weekend. (On Sunday it's open from 11 AM until 10 PM). And it's comfortable inside, and the staff are pleasant and friendly. So I'm willing to go back a few more times and see if I can grow to love this place.

Shop Where You Eat!

This is one of the things we love about New York, the city, and New York, the magazine. Undergound Gourmets Rob & Rob have written an article about NYC restaurants which also have markets. You can buy prepared food in some places, and in others you can purchase the ingredients to cook this type of food at home. Genius--but please note that it doesn't come cheap.

We want this, and we want it bad

Food and Survival in NYC

A few thoughts were inspired by an article in today's New York Times about cultural conflicts in the East Village, a neighborhood which has been incredibly poor for a hundred years or more, and which is now, you guessed it, being gentrified.

The Times didn't talk about the food available there, but I will.

I like cheap eats as well as the next graduate student, and the East Village has completely bailed me out on a few occasions with wonderful food sources, like JASmart, Pomme Frite, B&H, and, yes, Momofuku. Momo' is not going anywhere anytime soon, but in a few years the cheapie student-and-immigrant faves will be gone from this neighborhood, and I honestly don't know where cheap food will next be available on Manhattan Island.

Here's the article.