New Year's Resolution Dishes

We love holiday food, but we’re not too crazy about the consequences.  Oops.  But we can make up for our December food indiscretions with smarter choices in the New Year.  We usually have to lock ourselves at home for a few weeks to eat ho-hum healthy dishes.  (There goes our social life.)  Not this year.  Chefs at some of the city’s new restaurants are serving some deliciously healthy dishes that don’t sacrifice flavor.  If you’re in need of lean protein, you could head to Fish Tag on the Upper West Side for grilled sea bass and fig sorbet, or Marcus Samuelsson’s new Red Rooster in Harlem for grilled red snapper.  Okay, so plain old flour pizza’s not the best idea, but Jean-Georges’ whole wheat pizza at ABC Kitchen works or you could sample the modern Korean cooking at Danji in Hell’s Kitchen, where there’s a delicate, poached sablefish with spicy daikon at Danji or the dorade at the Graffit, the new UWS tapas joint.

DANJI – Poached Sablefish with Spicy Daikon
Address: 346 West 52nd
St., btwn. Eighth & Ninth avenues
Phone: (212) 586-2880
This
quaint, new eatery in Hell’s Kitchen is far from your average Korean
joint.  The chef, Hooni Kim, cooked at Masa and Daniel before
opening his first restaurant and the result is exciting.  So don’t
expect traditional large dishes, meant for sharing, or anything
traditional.   Instead, the menu features revisionist and refined Korean
small plates, like bulgogi beef sliders.  If you’re watching your
weight, skip the sliders and get the equally as delicious, poached
sablefish (pictured right) flavored with spicy daikon or the spicy yellowtail sashimi.
And instead of sake, get a glass (or two) soju, which is significantly
lower in calories.

SPASSO – Scallops Crudo
Address: 551 Hudson St., at Perry Street
Phone: (212) 858-3838
Not only can you try a new restaurant, but you can also eat guilt-free at Spasso (assuming you don’t skip the pasta section).  This new Italian spot in Greenwich Village offers plenty of healthy dishes, including scallops crudo with blood orange and pistachios, charred octopus with yogurt and mint, or broiled rouget with preserved lemon and olives.  The chef, Craig Wallen, has cooked at Lupa and Convivio, so you can expect some fine cooking and lots of healthy fish options, like salt-roasted Arctic Char for two.

BALABOOSTA – Grilled Branzino
Address: 214 Mulberry
St. #1
Phone: (212) 966-7366
NoLita’s best Middle Eastern spot
has a lot more to offer than your garden variety falafel and hummus.
For starters, there’s hummus is homemade and so is their pita. There’s a
great and healthy quinoa salad with cranberries and chickpeas on the
menu and moist, perfectly charred calamari with beluga lentils alongside
a preserved lemon yogurt.  Perhaps the most compelling draw is the selection
of fresh fish, especially the whole grilled branzino, topped with a
vibrant lemon-dill sauce.  It’s meaty, yet light and outright addictive
anointed in this herbaceous sauce. Balaboosta also features a
daily ceviche and moist, well-charred calamari with beluga lentils and
preserved lemon yogurt.

FISH TAG – Grilled Striped Bass and Fig Sorbet
Address: 222
W. 79th St., btwn. Amsterdam Avenue & West Broadway
Phone: (212)
362-7470
Michael Psilakis knows it’s best not to tamper too much
with fresh fish. That’s why his new venture with chef Ryan Skeen, hawks
simply prepared, but creative fish dishes, like roasted salmon over a
Greek salad or grilled sardines with fennel, radish and capers.
Customers can choose from more than ten different types of fish, simply
grilled with nothing more than olive oil, lemon and fresh herbs, or
order the grilled striped bass with crisp broccoli rabe off the menu.
One of favorite dishes is the chopped chicory salad (pictured right)
with arugula, bulghur, dates, green olives, radishes and a melange of
other flavorful ingredients.  For dessert, try the black mission fig
sorbet.

TAMARIND TRIBECA – Mustard Greens with Broccoli Rabe
Address:
99 Hudson St., near Leonard Street
Phone: (212) 775-9000
If
you’re abiding by Meatless Mondays, you’d be wise to head to your
nearest Indian restaurant.  They have a way of packing so much flavor
into vegetables that you don’t even miss the meat.  Our favorite Indian
joint is Tamarind in the Flatiron District and their new Tribeca
outpost.   Their 175-seat, Tribeca restaurant offers more than a dozen
meat-free dishes, including roasted butternut squash soup with
lemongrass and green chilies, garbanzo beans with pomegranate powder,
garlic, ginger and tomatoes, or sauteed okra with mango, onion seeds,
sesame seeds and coriander.  But the most exciting (and most
figure-friendly) may be the mustard greens with broccoli rabe, which
gets a potent kick from cumin, garlic, ginger and spiced potatoes.
Green is good.

ABC KITCHEN – Whole Wheat Spinach & Goat Cheese Pizza
Address: 35 East 18th St., btwn. Broadway & Park Avenue
Phone: (212) 475-5829
Whole grains are a great source of fiber, but they’re not always a great source of flavor.  Thankfully, flavor has never been a problem for Jean-Georges Vongerichten, so we’re not surprised that his whole wheat pizzas at ABC Kitchen are just as exciting as any white flour pies. The Neapolitan-style dough is charred and crispy, but the vegetable toppings are what really take these pies to another level. We like the spinach, goat cheese and herb-topped pizza, but our favorite is definitely the clams pie with parsley and fresh chilies. For dessert, skip the sundaes and try the strawberry red wine or lemon sorbet.

ROUGE TOMATE  – Chicken Waldorf Salad
Address: 10 E. 60th St., btwn. Madison & Fifth avenues
Phone: (646) 237-8977
Many dieters think they can’t eat out, but you can leave your guilty conscience at home when you dine at Rouge Tomate.  Rouge Tomate has an in-house nutritionist that clocks calories as well as an S.P.E. charter devoted to Health Through Food.  Even it’s five-course tasting menu is only 900 calories!  If you’re ordering a la carte, we suggest the fluke ceviche with jalapeno, kaffir lime and mint and the diver scallop carpaccio with caviar and poppy seeds.  Our favorite go-lunch is definitely the Chicken Waldorf salad — a delightfully light and crunchy mix of apples, cherries, celery, and moist white meat.  But the clencher is the dressing, a curry vinaigrette with a nudge of heat to keep things interesting.

DOVETAIL – Turnip Ceviche With Quinoa & Lime
Address: 103 W 77th St., nr. Columbus Ave.
Phone: (212) 362-3800
With Dovetail, chef John Fraser helped turn the Upper West Side into a food destination.  Lately, he’s turned his attention to vegetables, even hosting Meatless Mondays with a vegetarian menu and a vegetable focused menu, including turnip ceviche with quinoa and lime, braised cucumber with artichokes and wild salmon roe.  As for the rest of the week, there’s plenty of delicious and healthful options, too, like seared scallops with parsnip, grapefruit, and almonds or a dungeness crab salad with daikon, shiso and yogurt.

RED ROOSTER – Grilled snapper
Address: 310 Lenox Ave, nr. 126th Street
Phone: (212) 792-9001
Marcus Samuelsson is a culinary superstar who first made a name for himself cooking refined Swedish fare at Aquavit in midtown.   Now he’s applying his talents to soul food at Red Rooster in Harlem.  While soul food isn’t exactly synonymous with health or a good diet, there are a few lean dishes worth stopping in for.  There’s pickled beets with hazelnuts and arugula, oysters with a zesty ginger mignonette.  One of our favorites is the grilled red snapper, a Caribbean favorite with kaffir lime and a sour tomato broth.

GRAFFIT – Dorade
Address: 141 W. 69th St., nr. Broadway
Phone: (646) 692-8762
Chef Jesus Nunez has already proved himself with a string of successful restaurants in Spain, but Graffit is his New York debut.  Known for his avant-garde cooking, Nunez has created a quirky and creative menu that features tortilla espanola served in a martini glass and meatballs with a purple potato confit. While most of the menu isn’t “diet friendly”, there is an excellent dorade, a rich and tender whitefish in an intensely flavorful tomato and squid compote as well as a tasty cuttefish stew.