Dish Spotting: Fish and Chips at The Elm
Paul Liebrandt may be British, but you’d hardly associate the exacting, Michelin-starred chef with Bangers and Mash, Yorkshire Pudding and Steak and Kidney Pie. In fact, he’s best known for coupling contemporary French fare with a uniquely modern, graphic presentation while at Corton in Tribeca, and Liebrandt has remained true to his signature style at The Elm, a sleek new eatery housed in the King & Grove Hotel in Williamsburg…
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Festive Foods for Thanksgivukkah
For passionate foodies such as ourselves, it really doesn’t get much better than Thanksgiving. Because what other federal holiday can you think of that’s so entirely focused around eating? And this years meal promises to be the best one yet, as the once in a lifetime overlap of Thanksgiving with the first night of Hanukkah (literally, it only happens once every 70,000 years), has led to a super celebration known as Thanksgivukkah… a delicious convergence of Turkey and Gravy with deep-fried Potato Pancakes.
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Dish Spotting: Dominique Ansel’s Gingerbread Pinecone
Some restaurants are all about the scene, while others have great food and no scene at all. We respect a good crowd, but if we had to choose between them, we’d opt for excellent food. But once in awhile, a restaurant comes along that’s just the right combination of scene and cuisine.This fall, it’s Catch, a new, three-story seafood spot in the Meatpacking District. When you consider the owners also run Abe & Arthur’s and Tenjune, it’s no surprise that they can draw a crowd. What’s more surprising is that the food is as good as it is thanks to Top Chef’s Hung Huynh, who’s overseeing the menu. And if you sit on the second floor, you can watch the chefs in act through the open kitchen as they turn out sushi rolls, raw bar offerings and more creative...
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Dish Spotting: The French Onion Soup Burger at Little Prince
Chef at the family-owned Le Rivage, which has wooed Hells Kitchen with garlicky Escargots and buttery Sole Meuniere since 1982, Paul Denamiel is essentially French food royalty. So it only made sense that the scion should open his own charming bistro called Little Prince… even if it’s just named after the SoHo street, and not actually a tongue-in-cheek reference to his culinary lineage.
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Dish Spotting: Alder’s Rye & Pastrami Pasta
If you know anything about Wylie Dufresne and his original Lower East Side restaurant, wd-50, it’s hard not to enter his newest spot, Alder, with certain pre-conceived notions. But in reality, the two-month-old Alder represents a more sedate side of the chef, without being too buttoned up or self-serious. It starts with the restaurant’s back-to-nature name (Alder is a type of birch tree), which is also reflected in the rustic, rough-hewn décor… think ceilings made of reclaimed wood slates from a farmhouse in upstate New York. And while, like at wd-50, innocuously named dishes can yield unexpected surprises, none of the dishes at Alder are overwrought, overthought, or off-puttingly jokey or tricky.
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Dish Spotting: Pork Slope’s Shrimp Po’ Boy
With a name like Pork Slope, it may seem a transgression to order anything off of the menu that didn’t formerly have a snout. In chef Dale Talde’s hands, however, a seriously substantial Shrimp Po’Boy is anything but a cop-out; a mere half-hearted gimme to the other-white-meat adverse. In fact, like most of his re-worked working class creations, it’s not only insanely delicious, but a gold standard of its kind. Instead of the expected French bread (a sturdier, more reliable conveyance for the overstuffed innards of the average New Orleans sub), Talde substitutes two infinitely tastier slabs of his addictive black pepper butter toast.
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Dish Spotting: Pop’s of Brooklyn’s Texas Sr. Burger
Normally, wandering around NYC in search of a great meal with no concrete plan doesn’t end well. If you manage to come across a place with a decent menu that will seat you without a reservation, chances are it won’t be long before you realize why the joint wasn’t exactly packed. But, once in a while you might come across a gem that not only accommodates your poor planning, but also becomes one of your new favorites. And that’s exactly what happened when we stumbled into Pop’s of Brooklyn this past weekend in search of a quick burger and beer.
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Dish Spotting: Manzanilla’s Croquettes
New Yorkers embrace food from all over the world. We can’t get enough Korean, Thai, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese… you get the picture. But (and that’s a big but) we don’t typically take kindly to foreigners, at least not in the food department. Think about how many foreign restaurants have planted flags on our soil only to be sent back to their country defeated. Let’s be honest, many of them had it coming. But from the sea of full tables in the dining room on a recent Saturday night, that’s not the case for Manzanilla, a brand new Spanish spot in Gramercy.
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The NoMad’s Killer Fruits De Mer
Some restaurants just ride the buzz of their openings, becoming the hot restaurant by nature of being brand new. The mediocre and less than mediocre spots quickly peter out and fall off people’s radars while others settle into their groove. But few stay as hot as when they first opened. The NoMad is one of those delicious exceptions that’s managed to be as relevant and hard to get into now as it was when it opened just less than a year ago.
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Dish Spotting: Willow Road’s Mussels A la Plancha
Being “new” is the best thing a restaurant has going for it nowadays. Everyone loves to try new things afterall. It’s just human nature. We all like seeing a new movie, staying at a hip, new hotel, or trying a chef’s latest creation. I mean, who wants to eat the same thing at the same haunts week after week?
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Amali’s Dreamy Vegetables
I have to admit that I get pretty excited when a good restaurant opens anywhere north of 30th street. Sure, we have a few great ones uptown (Dovetail, Boulud Sud, and Marea), but we could always use a few more. I always a had a thing for Periyali, so I was happy to learn that the same owners had opened another civilized and sophisticated (code for pricey) Greek joint on the Upper East Side last year. It was called Persephone and it didn’t last long. The cooking and the space just didn’t have the same warmth or soulful appeal that Periyali does. I forgot all about the space until I read Adam Platt’s review of Amali in New York Magazine the other day. Amali is the owners’ second attempt, a do over of sorts, this time with a Mediterranean menu and an...
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Doughboy’s Killer PB & J Pound Cake
Some restaurants are all about the scene, while others have great food and no scene at all. We respect a good crowd, but if we had to choose between them, we’d opt for excellent food. But once in awhile, a restaurant comes along that’s just the right combination of scene and cuisine.This fall, it’s Catch, a new, three-story seafood spot in the Meatpacking District. When you consider the owners also run Abe & Arthur’s and Tenjune, it’s no surprise that they can draw a crowd. What’s more surprising is that the food is as good as it is thanks to Top Chef’s Hung Huynh, who’s overseeing the menu. And if you sit on the second floor, you can watch the chefs in act through the open kitchen as they turn out sushi rolls, raw bar offerings and more creative...
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Dishspotting – Crave’s Razor Clams
What took so long? That’s what I asked when I stepped foot into the revival of Crave Fishbar. If you’ll recall (or maybe it was so long ago you’ve forgotten already), Crave opened in midtown east in the summer of 2008.
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Dish Spotting: Little Muenster’s Oaxaca Grilled Cheese
Many food forecasters have said the grilled cheese is the “It” sandwich for 2012, and some even say it will overtake the burger. We’re not sure it could ever trump the burger trend, but we have noticed grilled cheese trucks, grilled cheese shops and food carts popping around New York. Chefs are dreaming up innovative and artisanal renditions with everything from 12-hour braised pulled pork to tuna on all sorts of bread, including biscuits. I don’t know about you, but grilled cheese is one of those dishes that we often find difficult to fork over 1o to 15 dollars for. After all, how hard is it to grill cheese between two slices of bread? But one bite of the Oaxaca Grilled Cheese at Little Muenster had us singing a different tune. While it’s still essentially cheese melted on bread,...
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Dish Spotting: Tsushima’s Omakase
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but there are a few, precious restaurants you don’t want to share in fear you’ll never get a table again after you do. But I’ll risk it because good sushi spots in New York are hard to find and I’ve discovered a sleeper sushi counter right in midtown. Tsushima isn’t a new restaurant per se, but it’s new to me, though I’m not quite sure how I missed it considering my Japanophile, sushi-obsessed ways. Tsushima is located on East 47th street just off Lexington, a mini-Japanese restaurant row, populated with several Japanese joints, including a tempura and udon house named Onya, a rice bowl joint called Donburi-ya. Tsushimia’s not much to look at from the street, but step inside and you find yourself in a stylish eatery, outfitted...
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Perla’s Potato Chips All’Amatriciana
First, there was Joseph Leonard, then Jeffrey’s Grocery followed by Fedora. In just three years, Gabriel Stulman has built himself a tremendously popular restaurant empire in the West Village. But his latest venture, Perla, which debuted two months ago, just might be his finest effort to date. The chef is Michael Toscano, who first got his start at Babbo, then moved on to man the kitchen at Manzo’s, the meat-centric restaurant inside Eataly. Perla is Michael Toscano’s coming out party and he manages to make quite an impression at this casual Italian with seriously good and often innovative cooking. There’s an outstanding riff on vitello tonnato, a beautiful saba-glazed duck with spring peas and pancetta, and a guinea hen with mushrooms, asparagus and sauce made from foie gras dust. But one of the best dishes on the menu happens to be a bar bite, which is...
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Dishspotting – The Darby's Seared Rack of Lamb
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It’s not easy to find a restaurant that can pull off great food and a great scene. There are excellent exceptions, like Minetta Tavern and The John Dory, but most of the time, it’s nearly impossible. But once in awhile a restaurant comes along and nails it, like The Darby did. In fact, The Darby is easily one of the most exciting and entertaining restaurants in Manhattan. How many other restaurants can boast a six-piece house band and DJ that play nightly? This modern day supper club located in the West Village (in the former Nell’s space) is the work of Scott Sartiano and Richie Akiva (of Butter fame), both well versed in the art of the scene and drawing a celebrity crowd. But the real hook here is what’s coming from the kitchen....
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Dishspotting:Le Bernardin Lounge's Geoduck
In case you haven’t heard, Le Bernardin just got a new look, and more importantly, a new lounge with a lot more seating and a menu all its own. For those of us who don’t like to make reservations or wear a jacket & tie (at least not all the time), that’s very good news. Instead of a white tablecloth in the main dining, you can sit at the bar, or at one of the low, lounge tables, and have the same, phenomenal food without the fuss of formal dining or service. You might wager that you’d have to wait for a table on a Friday night, but in fact, I walked in and got a table right away. And I wore jeans. (Mind you, they were black jeans, but it was casual.) The lounge is newly refurbished with...
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Dishpotting: Zoe's Grilled Octopus
It’s strange how some restaurants manage to remain under the radar these days. You’d think what with twitter, facebook, food magazines, newspapers, and a billion food blogs that it would be next to impossible. You can find a quick blurb about the opening of Zoe on Grub Street as well as a restaurant listing on Metromix, but there should be much more buzz around this newcomer. Zoe opened on the Lower East Side in August in the former Satsko space. The room is newly and minimally outfitted in modern Danish trimmings with unique accents, like a church pew (shipped from North Carolina) along the back wall of the dining room. Though the restaurant only opened recently, it seems like the kind of neighborhood spot that’s been around for years. That is, except for the food, which is...
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Catch's Dungeness Crab Tagliatelli
Some restaurants are all about the scene, while others have great food and no scene at all. We respect a good crowd, but if we had to choose between them, we’d opt for excellent food. But once in awhile, a restaurant comes along that’s just the right combination of scene and cuisine.This fall, it’s Catch, a new, three-story seafood spot in the Meatpacking District. When you consider the owners also run Abe & Arthur’s and Tenjune, it’s no surprise that they can draw a crowd. What’s more surprising is that the food is as good as it is thanks to Top Chef’s Hung Huynh, who’s overseeing the menu. And if you sit on the second floor, you can watch the chefs in act through the open kitchen as they turn out sushi rolls, raw bar offerings and more creative...
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