Last minute dinner at a classic

Gramercy Tavern

The Thursday before the long Memorial Day weekend, I met with a friend for a last minute meal, no reservations. We decided to try our luck at Gramercy Tavern. I’ve had drinks at this restaurant (and FYI the bartenders make great drinks) but had yet to try this long standing NY establishment.

Luck would have it, we were seated within 10 minutes of our arrival. The restaurant is classically dressed, pretty, looks almost like the interior of a barn converted into a restaurant. In one section of the more casual Tavern section of the restaurant was a pile of flowers that grabbed my attention adding to the “I’m eating in the country” type of ambiance.

We shared two appetizers. First, the octopus salad with carrots, daikon and toasted pine nuts dressed in lemon preserve vinaigrette.

The octopus was sliced into thin strands and cooked beautifully tender. The daikon and carrots not only added a mild sweetness to the dish but it added the textural crunch to compliment the soft octopus. Octopus that is overcooked becomes chewy and tough. This was not the case at all. Creamy lemon dressing brought the ingredients together while adding a citrus brightness. The appetizer was a great starter as it was light and got your palate going.

Since ramps are in season for only 2 months and about to expire, we had to have the egg crepe appetizer with grilled ramps and sweet crab. If you have never had ramps, make sure to try them next year when they are back — ramps look like scallions but have a mild chive and onion flavor with a very distinct sweetness to them.

The ramps were exactly as I’ve just described them and there was plenty of chunk crab meat accompanying them. However, the most surprising aspect of this dish was the egg crepe. Think traditional crepe in terms of its texture and consistency but imagine it made entirely of egg. That was what this egg crepe was like. I expected something more like an omelet but if you closed your eyes, you would think it was the flour crepe. This appetizer comes highly recommended. It was very light and burst with fresh flavors of the earth (ramps and egg) and sea (crab).

For main course, my dining companion had Gramercy Tavern’s famous roast chicken.

Our server told us the chicken is brined and then roasted delivering a moist, tender chicken. Crispy browned skin, tender moist meat and crunchy roasted carrots and asparagus.

I opted for the gruyere (I am guessing this cheese based on taste) stuffed meatballs with pureed parsnips, onions and red wine.

Meatballs tasted of the classic mixture of veal, beef and pork meat. The meatballs are about the size of a tennis ball and presented in halves. If you are in the mood for comfort food this is what you need to get. This meatball packs a lot of flavor and is a bit rich considering that they have cheese centers and then topped with another healthy grating of parmesan but very tasty.

Full and a bit tipsy from the two glasses of sauvignon I had with dinner, we bypassed dessert and both headed home to pack for our respective out of town trips.

I now see why Gramercy Tavern has withstood the test of time in a fickle city where restaurants die and are born almost every day. Danny Meyer, also of Eleven Madison Park and Shake Shack fame, really knows what he is doing. Another success in my book.

Gramercy Tavern, 42 East 20th Street, New York, NY

Everyone likes a good sandwich

I love a good sandwich — turkey, italian, meatball….I also love the vietnamese sandwich known as banh mi. According to Wikipedia, a banh mi sandwich consists mainly of thinly sliced pickled carrots and daikon, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeño peppers and meat or tofu. Here is my review of two popular Banh mi sandwiches found in NYC.

An Choi

This place is getting great reviews for their banh mi sandwiches with two complaints: the price (it’s double what you find in Chinatown with a price tag of $8 a sammy) and the fact that there isn’t enough meat. I got the Chinese crispy roasted pig banh mi.

A very delicious, crusty baguette is topped with tender pieces of pork meat and crispy pork skin then layered with daikon, sliced carrots, fresh jalapeños and a spicy aioli. No pate in this version which made me sad as I do love my banh mi with pate. (Ssam made a mean banh mi with pate — no idea why Chang took it off the menu) This sandwich also comes with two oversized fried crab chips.

The sandwich was tasty as the ingredients are fresh, the flavors are very clean and the pork is good (albeit slightly chewy and scarce). I have to say despite the negatives I just mentioned, I found the sandwich very good/tasty and would get it again. Sometimes the bread is what makes the sandwich and the bread was delicious. I also liked the fresh jalapeños and spicy aioli — it was different in a good way.

Boi Sandwich

This sandwich shop is located in Midtown East and one of the only places you can get a decent banh mi in this part of Manhattan. I strayed from the traditional and got the curry chicken meatball banh mi as it got great reviews.

Again you have the daikon and shredded carrots but the bread was definitely not as crusty nor as tasty as An Choi’s.  A good baguette has a delicious bready flavor with a crispy crust and a dense interior that is almost chewy. Boi’s lacked the crustiness on the outside to compensate for the breadiness inside. The meatballs were a little sweeter than I would like but at least the meatballs were plentiful, very moist and definitely tasted of curry. This sandwich was definitely flavorful and so I would get this sandwich again as it adds variety to my ho hum office life if the craving strikes me mid-day. Beggars can’t be choosers right?

An Choi, 85 Orchard Street, New York, NY

Boi Sandwich, 708 3rd Avenue, New York, NY

Back to Chang’s

Ssam has a seasonally changing menu so there’s always bound to be a new dish to try. Saturday night, Scarf and I went to try our hand at scoring a seat on a Saturday night, 8pm. We expected a two hour wait and my heart fell when I saw 20 people waiting outside the restaurant. To our surprise, the wait for two was only 15 minutes.

We sat at the bar and each had a glass of their unfiltered sake. Unfiltered sake is cloudy (think watered down milk) but has a relatively sweet taste to it. It’s quite good and you should definitely try it if you’ve never had it.

I of course had an order of the pork buns. Pillows of pork heaven.

For main course, I decided to NOT get another pork/meat based dish and tried my hand at Chang’s version of chicken: fried chicken.

The chicken is off the bone and I believed pressed into a terrine, sliced into long cubes, breaded and deep fried. The batter is deliciously flavored and crispy. Because of the way it is presented, the chicken is very easy to eat..with fork and knife. It’s served on a bed of ramps and a sauce of egg yolk and morels. The morels were delicious! Earthy, deeply flavored mushrooms and I could have had so many more. The dish was delicious and I have to say the most surprising element was the presentation. I suppose I expected a more southern version of fried chicken — not that I’m complaining at all.

My friend had the cripsy pig’s head torchon. Notice that the presentation of the pig was done in the exact way my chicken was done. Pressed, sliced, breaded and deep fried.

The pig was so tender but a bit too fried for Scarf and my tastes. The sauce appeared to taste like miso curry? The frisee was barely existent so maybe one should order a side of vegetables to cut the heaviness of this dish. It is a great dish however.

I love Chang’s inventiveness and his ability to recreate typical dishes in a new and surprising manner. I look forward to my next trip.

Momofuku Ssam, 207 2nd Avenue, New York, NY

Housewife’s dream

You know those nights you order take out for the family (or your friends) because you don’t want to cook or do the dishes? How clever is this: pizza box that breaks down into plates.

Video and more info on this creative invention here.

Genius!

More bacon madness

Bacon Lip balm

Buy it here.

Bacon flavored vodka. (seriously? Grosssss)

More on this product here along with some bacon inspired cocktail recipes.

Too bad for you bacon fanatics, unless you live in Washington, Idaho, Montana or Oregon, you can’t have it as it’s currently only sold in those states.

Cute deliciousness

Too cute for words: smallest cheeseburger combo

See the assembly of the smallest delicious meal ever here.

Fish

My friend Sarrita and I had brunch plans today and craved lobster rolls.

Mary’s Fish Camp: closed on Sunday

Pearl Oyster Bar: closed on Sunday

Mermaid Inn: doesn’t open till 5pm on Sunday

So there you have it — don’t go looking for lobster rolls there. Fish was open however and does serve lobster rolls among other delicious seafood fare so that’s where we headed and were seated right away at the window table.

We started with the 6 oysters or 6 clams and a drink for $8 deal. What a great deal! This deal happens 7 days a week so if you are a raw bar fanatic, here’s one way to indulge your cravings without breaking the bank.

As fate would have it, the waitress comes over and tells us that they ran out of lobster! :c

SO, I had the fish and chips.

The chips are really good but the fish was even better. Deliciously light batter coats this meaty flavorful fish. It definitely was not cod (a mild flaky fish typically used in fish n chip dishes). It was juicy and had a great bite to it. And unlike most fish and chip plates, I didn’t feel overly oily or heavy after eating the entire thing.

My friend had the mussels steamed in a garlic white wine broth with a side of fries.

Mussels were really plump and sweet and the broth was “pick up the bowl and drink it like soup” tasty. I would get this the next time I visit Fish.

The menu is not all fried, although there are fried clams and fried oysters. They offer fare like surf n turf and a wide variety of broiled fishes. I’m very happy to have found a delicious seafood restaurant with fresh seafood and excellent friendly service on a Sunday.

Fish, 280 Bleecker Street, New York, NY

Morandi brunch

Last Saturday it was absolutely beautiful out and Strawberry, SFAM and I wanted to have brunch somewhere outside. We chose Morandi because not only is the restaurant visually appealing (think rustic Italian eatery), but they have a pretty great sidewalk view for people watching.

Here is an example of a restaurant where the decor and energy is what makes it so popular, not so much the food.

I started with the minestrone soup with pasta and pesto.

I don’t know what kind of minestrone soup you’ve had, but typically my minestrone has a tomato based broth, deeply flavored with vegetables and various herbs…this was not what I expected. The vegetables tasted like they came from the supermarket freezer, thawed, thrown into some chicken soup base and liberally doused with pesto. In fact, the pesto was SO present, the soup was incredibly oily and overpowered anything else in the soup. I couldn’t finish it.

Next I had the pasta bolognese which is what I’ll typically order at an Italian restaurant if it’s on the menu.

Ground beef flavors a tomato based sauce. The dish was ok, nothing special. The pasta is definitely not freshly made and the sauce was average. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled with Dell’Anima’s version of pasta bolognese and it’s ruined me for all future bolognese sauces I’ll ever taste.

Sitting outside on such a beautiful day made the brunch special overall. It’s a nice way to pass a Saturday, watching NYC bustle around you but the food is nothing special at Morandi. Would I go back to Morandi? Yes, for the scene and the outdoor seating, not for the food. Oh they did make a great cappuccino though…

Morandi, 211 Waverly Place, New York, NY

Meal of appetizers

Do you ever go to a restaurant and find that you like the appetizers more than the actual main courses served? I find I feel that often. For some reason those tiny plates served prior to the main attraction speak to my taste buds — I suppose that is why I love tapas….you get a little taste of everything.

The other day I had happy hour with my friend Chicken at Thor in the Rivington Hotel and I was so surprised at how delicious the happy hour appetizers were.

The sliders

The mini burgers were so juicy and moist! The pickles added the right amount of acidity and the bacon added a nice smokey flavor. I LOVED these!!!

I also had the tuna tartare.

Chopped tuna was mixed with tomato and topped with a creamy gaucamole and served with a side of crispy salty delicious chips. I love those chips. They make the dish. In an effort to cut costs I suppose, I found that the restaurant had cleverly cut the tomatoes in a way that you couldn’t visibly tell which was the tuna, which was the tomato. But when you take a bite, you definitely could tell that there was more tomato in the “tuna tartare”. The dish was still delicious even though.

Thor, Rivington Hotel, 107 Rivington Street, New York, NY

Pasta done the Japanese way

Basta Pasta

Do you remember the old Iron Chef. I’m talking about the one that started in Japan with the hilarious voice overs that used to play on Food Network before it was replace with the American version. It was dramatic and a totally new type of cooking show. This restaurant was first established in Japan and modeled after the Iron Chef show with a completely open kitchen and the NYC sister has an open kitchen as well.

The restaurant itself is simple and clean but it is the food that I had been dying to try. It’s Japanese Italian. It’s Italian done Japanese style. It’s interesting.

I started with the hamachi (yellowtail) special appetizer served with thinly sliced radishes and a simple vinaigrette dressing. The fish was very fresh and so light and delicious. The radishes added a textural crunch as well as a mild spiciness. I really liked this appetizer.

For main, I had the dish most associated with this place, the spaghetti pasta in an uni cream sauce. I LOVE uni. It’s like the foie gras of the sea in that it’s creamy and embodies the definition of the word decadent. Sadly this dish didn’t do it for me.

It was a bit bland and uninteresting to me. I couldn’t taste the uni and it was almost too creamy for me. I preferred my friend’s dish of parpadelle pasta with mushrooms and ricotta.

The pasta had a deliciously tender bite to it and the mushrooms were hearty and earthy. This dish had flavor. My friend Heath probably had the worst dish in my opinion. He had the chilean sea bass.

Chilean sea bass is already a pretty fatty fish but the fish was so greasy. It had been cooked in what tasted like too much oil. I have no idea what the foam was but it imparted no additional anything and the side of edamame, although well seasoned, was overcooked.

I had been looking forward to trying this place for so long so I’m disappointed I didn’t enjoy the tastes more. I probably won’t be back.

Basta Pasta, 37 West 17th Street, New York, NY