AlwaysTraveling: Nagycsarnok (Budapest, Hungary)
Arthur Bovino — March 15, 2010
The sign above this market entrance in Budapest, “Isamu Vásárcsarnok,” means Isamu Market Hall.
Market: Nagycsarnok, Great Market Hall
Address: 1056 Budapest, V. kerület, Fővám tér 1, Hungary
Highlights: Paprika, Strudel, Tokaji, Unicum, Pálinka
Hours: Mon 6am-5pm, Tue-Fri 6am-5pm, Sat 6am-2pm, Sun closed.
Nagycsarnok, also known as the Great Market Hall, is Budapest’s largest indoor market. It supposedly came about at the turn of the 19tth century, after the unification of Pest and Óbuda, when outdoor markets were unable to supply the growing city with fresh produce. Leaders decided to build a covered market hall similar to those elsewhere in Europe at the time. Nagycsarnok was designed by Samu Pecz, and completed in 1894, but caught fire and had to be repaired before it could reopen in 1897. The market was reconstructed between 1991 and 1994.
More Photographs of the Great Market Hall >>
Featured Cocktail: Locanda Verde’s Spring Cocktails
Maryse Chevrière — March 11, 2010
“Our Pimm’s Cup” from Locanda Verde.
As reported, Locanda Verde recently introduced a series of new cocktails from Bobo mixologist Naren Young. Just what we needed, another good reason to crowd the bar at this TriBeCa hotspot.
Of the four cocktails currently available, “Our Pimm’s Cup” came highly recommended, and did not disappoint. It might sound simple— Hendrick’s, Ramazzotti, and Pimm’s No.1, charged with Fentiman’s Ginger Beer— but you have to appreciate a simple cocktail done well. It is not as bitter as some renditions, and so it certainly goes down smoothly. And yet it retains an edge. It has an attractive iced tea-like coloring and is similarly refreshing. A great drink to usher in the spring.
The Settanta Cinque.
Another, the “Settanta Cinque,” is their Italian interpretation of the classic French 75. It features citrus grappa, Strega liquori, fresh lemon, and Prosecco— a bright, springy, lady-friendly drink with tight bubbles, and a subtle tartness. Forget mimosas, this should be the new go-to brunch cocktail.
Featured Cocktail: Which Buck for Your Bucks?
Arthur Bovino — March 04, 2010
Left to right: Char no.4’s Spicy Buck, and Clover Club’s Uncle Buck.
Long in the face, buckaroo? Tired of the buckrakers in this crazy jungle of a city tearing you down as they try to make a fast buck? Buck up. If you’re in Carroll Gardens, there’s a way to buck the trend— two great bars within a block where you can throw down a few bucks for two good renditions of Buck cocktails. Okay, the buck (puns) stop here. But first, a little history. According to Clover Club’s menu:
The Buck is said to have been created at the Buck’s Club in London, while the mule goes back to 1940’s Hollywood. Bucks are built in highball glasses out of liquor, citrus juice, and a healthy squirt of ginger ale. Mules are virtually the same but with a spicy ginger beer in lieu of the ginger ale. The refreshing and invigorating character of ginger makes these drinks a class apart.
AlwaysSoBe: Patrón’s Great Debate After-Party
February 26, 2010
Meyer Lemon and Jalapeño Cocktail with freshly shaved ice at Patron’s Great Debate after-party.
Judging by the crowd of chefs and stylish festival-goers around the pool of the W Hotel at Patrón’s Great Debate after-party, it was clear that some tequila was just what was needed after gorging at Burger Bash. Patrón cocktails, including exceptional Margaritas, intoxicatingly large shots, Mojitos, and an exceptional drink made with a Meyer Lemon-Jalapeño mixture that was finished with freshly shaved ice. It was like a spicy, tequila-laced fruit slushie. Those who still had room enjoyed tasty bites like gnocchi made with potato and with ricotta, and a duo of tuna carpaccio and tartare. Check out the scene, and the cocktails in the slideshow below.
Featured Cocktail: Ghost of Mary
Arthur Bovino — February 25, 2010
Prune’s Ghost of Mary.
New York has no dearth of Bloody Mary’s, but some of the most renowned are served (of course) during brunch at Prune. One of the pleasures of brunch there, is observing which one your companion selects— it’s one of those telling cues. As good as the ten brunch Bloody’s are (especially the Chicago Matchbox), Prune’s best Bloody Mary is served at dinner: The Ghost of Mary.
Featured Cocktail: The Situation
Maryse Chevrière — February 18, 2010
Summit Bar’s The Situation.
No reality TV junkies, not that Situation.
The East Village bar, The Summit, actually created The Situation before the fist-pumping, juice-head guido from “Jersey Shore,” appeared on the scene. The cocktail is on the “Alchemist” menu, which includes eight other creatively-named concoctions.
The focus is on interesting ingredients and unexpected pairings. The Situation exemplifies this philosophy with golden raisins as garnish, and a blend of Afghani Raisin-infused Rittenhouse Rye, Caraway-infused Agave, fresh lemon and Summit orange bitters. It makes you wonder what, besides standard sweet and savory garnishes, would do well in drink application.
Equally intriguing is the Ground to Glass, the bar’s nod to the farm to table movement. With each sip, the hickory-smoked salt on the edge smells like the air at a hot summer barbecue. For a cocktail with heat, try The Diamond Club and The Darkness, which benefits from the addition of Jamaican peppercorn-spiced cranberry agave, and a smoked chili infusion.
The Shu Jam Fizz is light and bubbly, but don’t expect a Madam Geneva’s jam cocktail. If you can avoid the seduction of Summit’s exotic ingredients, try the elegant French 75 from the “Classic” menu.
Featured Cocktail: Shades of Red and Pink
Maryse Chevrière — February 11, 2010
A Manhattan at Ben & Jack’s.
This week, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we bring you fourteen of our favorite pink and red-hued cocktails. You know, to show our sensitive side.
Don’t let the colors fool you. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill, overly sweetened ladies-only drinks. Aquagrill’s Jalapeño Quencher in particular packs serious heat. [Insert inappropriate sexual comment].
Featured Cocktail: Shots! Shots! Shots!
Arthur Bovino — February 04, 2010
Get ready! The Tiki Torch Shot at the Zombie Hut in Carroll Gardens is set on fire.
All this talk of rum, tiki culture, and its revival, reminded us of a drink called the The Tiki Torch Shot at the Zombie Hut in Carroll Gardens. This isn’t just about picking one up and slamming it down. It’s set on fire, and instructions are required. It currently joins the Pickle Back at The Rusty Knot, and the Cooool Shot at Mad For Chicken, as three of our favorite, more involved shots. And if you do all three in one night it will probably be a great story to tell. If you can remember anything…
AlwaysTraveling: Demerara Distillery (Georgetown, Guyana)
Arthur Bovino — January 06, 2010
Top, rums in Demerara’s museum. Left, Demerara’s seal. Right, Diamond Distillery, Guyana.
Eric Asimov’s 20 rum-tasting and Pete Wells’ article, Staging a Rum Rebellion, both articles in The Times’ winter drinks issue, featured references to one distillery worth particular note: Demerara Distillers Limited. Demerara’s Diamond Distillery is on the outskirts of Georgetown in Guyana, a country whose rum can change all you thought you knew about spirits. It has had about 300 years to perfect the process after all.
The well-heeled may be drawn to the 21 and 25-year rums ($95 and $200), but the sweet, smooth, 15-year El Dorado Special Reserve ($36) is enough to put you off drinking anything except the good stuff ever again. Suggested cocktails include classics (caipirinha) and intriguing drinks like The Buxton Kiss, but frankly, it’s a travesty to mix it with anything except coconut water (given Buxton’s reputation, that kiss could be pretty dangerous). Another notable item is El Dorado’s Golden Rum Cream Liqueur.
If you find yourself in Guyana, needing a drink post-Kaieteur Falls flyover, a half-hour guided tour of the distillery is the next stop. Their rum is one of Guyana’s top five food/spirits musts (the others: roti and curry, pepperpot, salara, and labba), and the tour ends with a free bottle of the 5-year. At about a buck (G$200) per person, it may be the cheapest way ever to get a bottle (minus the plane ticket).
It’s a ten-minute minibus-ride from Stabroek Market. Sweet, musty air envelops the old metal catwalks weaving in and out of the distillery, palm trees in the distance. The highlight is the old wooden coffey, claimed to be “the last operating still of its kind in the world.”
Demerara’s website has a virtual distillery tour, but it doesn’t include some extras in this slideshow, like the previously-used oak barrels from Jack Daniel’s, used to age the rum.
Location: Demerara Distillers Limited’s Diamond Distillery
Address: East Bank Demerara, Guyana (map)
Contact: Call ahead for reservations. Tel. 592/265-5019,
AlwaysHungy Recommends: El Dorado Special Reserve Demerara, Guyana, 15 Years (80 proof)
AlwaysInformed: A Spoonful of Sugar
Samantha Zalaznick — December 11, 2009
Two signature cocktails at Madam Geneva. Left, cranberry orange. Right, apple cinnamon.
In case you’ve forgotten about them, the signature cocktails at Madam Geneva (site), the lounge adjacent to Double Crown, are worth revisiting for the most recent seasonal selection. The drinks take a note from Mary Poppins’ maxim: A Spoonful of Sugar Makes The Medicine Go Down.
Madam’s Preserves and Jams are served with crushed ice and a choice of gin or vodka, with a spoonful of jam—cranberry orange, apple cinnamon, or pumpkin nutmeg. Indeed, sugar does do the trick. Once you mix in the jam you can barely taste any alcohol, creating a delicious and deceivingly potent treat. The pumpkin nutmeg is the star of the fall selection.
OnlyLook: Mother Burger
Arthur Bovino — September 30, 2009
Mother Burger’s Bacon Cheeseburger w/Applegate Farms’ Organic Sunday Bacon $8.50.
You know you should be suspicious when servers at a restaurant with ‘burger’ in the name suggest everything except the burger. That happened at Mother Burger (view site) in the plaza behind One Worldwide Plaza in Midtown when we were recently invited for dinner.
The large, open courtyard should be an ideal setting for drawing office coworkers when the whistle blows. Blockheads Burritos co-owners (and brothers), Don and Ken Sofer, must have had a similar thought when they recently signed their 10-year lease. With outdoor seating, $2.00 beer specials, blue skies, recession-friendly prices and hormone-free and organic meats, there’s reason to be hopeful, albeit skeptical when sitting down to the free peanuts.
AlwaysPartying: Secret Sangria Recipe
Jeff Zalaznick — September 18, 2009
AlwaysHungryNY.com’s coveted sake sangria and red wine sangria.
If you’re insisting on making someone pry summer from your cold, dead hands, we’ve got a fantastic recipe for Sangria. It has been perfected through years of experimentation and excessive drinking and will probably change your life.
First, let’s just dispel one of the major Sangria myths: Soaking the fruit does nothing for the taste. You can mix the booze, drop in the chopped fruit and serve the drink immediately. The flavor imparted to the sangria from soaking the fruit in it is totally negligible. Most people’s first reaction to this claim is resistance. If you doubt, just give it a try with out.
Does eating bites of fruit while drinking sangria taste good? Sure. Does the fruit soak up the alcohol if it sits longer? Harold McGee would know better, but I’m thinking yes. Is the fruit fun? Absolutely. But, the key to enjoying great Sangria, is having the right recipe and being able at any time to put together a “pop up” Sangria in minutes.
There are only two things that you will need:
- all of the liquor listed below
- a container big enough to hold them
AlwaysLearning: Durian, As Bad As They Say
Arthur Bovino — August 24, 2009
Durian, the so-called “King of Fruits,” being prepared at the fruit stand outside Tú Qùynh Pharmacy in Chinatown.
Durian. Eating this stinky fruit is a culinary rite of passage you see Andrew Zimmerman and Anthony Bourdain perform halfway around the world, late at night on television. But you don’t have to let them have all the food challenge fun.
Where it’s from: Southeast Asia. Though native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, Thailand is the world’s largest exporter.
What it is: Durian, a greenish-brown fruit renowned for its powerful smell, grows from a tropical evergreen tree, and grows to be a foot long and a half-foot wide. Its spiny shell inspired the name— duri is Malay for thorn. The texture inside is part custard, part mushy-stringy-slimy rot. The smell comes from a high concentration of sulfurous compounds.
Comparisons to cheese, sewage, and death, and descriptions like “banana, caramel, and vanilla, with a slight onion tang,” may seem over-the-top at first. Travel-writer, Richard Sterling’s description sets the tone: “pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” But Bourdain’s isn’t far behind, “your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”
There is no hyperbole. Keeping this down may be difficult. As if durian’s natural flavor isn’t uncompelling enough, some preparations go further. Take Tempoyak, fermented durian, and boder, durian minced with salt, onions and vinegar.
There are several durian-related urban legends. One is that the ripe fruit falls from the tree and kills people. Another is that it eating it in excess can kill anyone with high blood pressure. Many in Southeast Asia believe that it’s lethal to consume alcohol with durian, some brave souls set out to disprove on video. It’s also believed to be an aphrodisiac— there’s said to be an expression in Java, “durian jatuh sarung naik”, meaning “durians fall and the sarongs come up.”
Left, Tú Qùynh Pharmacy at 230 Grand Street. Right, Durian Sorbet at Bao Noodles.
Where to get it in New York: Visit the stand in Chinatown outside Tú Qùynh Pharmacy on the corner of Grand and Bowery. They regularly receive durian flown frozen from Thailand. You have to buy the whole fruit, which on average weighs 8 to 11 pounds and costs about $2/lb. A salesman with protective gloves selects a durian (when ripe and shaken, it’s said to rattle inside like a soft-boiled egg), slices it open with a boxcutter and seals it in plastic for you.
If you’re interested in a more tame experience, try Bao Noodles, which recently featured a surprisingly pleasant Durian sorbet or Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, which regularly offers Durian Ice Cream.
AlwaysPartying: Oyster Odyssey
Arthur Bovino — August 05, 2009
The John Dory’s Hangtown Fry ($17) is served during brunch.
New York City is a great place for raw bar and fried oysters (see AHNY’s National Oyster Day post). As delicious as these oyster preparations are, other classic and interesting preparations shouldn’t be missed. Take the Hangtown Fry, an oyster and bacon omelette made famous in California during the Gold Rush. Its origin is one of those epic food myths.
It starts in a place forty miles east of Sacramento that was called Dry Diggins until three desperadoes were hanged from the town’s giant oak tree, after which it became Hangtown. Supposedly, in 1849 a miner who had found gold walked into the El Dorado Hotel across the street from the tree and asked the bartender for the most expensive meal possible. The result was a combination of bacon from the East, eggs from the coast and oysters that had been packed on ice and brought in from the San Francisco Bay.
The dish outlasted the town’s name and the hotel. Today, Hangtown is known as Placerville, and the El Dorado was replaced in 1857 after burning down a year before, by the The Cary House Hotel, which still stands. Allegedly one of the only places in town to regularly serves the Hangtown Fry is Chuck’s Restaurant. But that’s okay because you don’t have to go to California to strike culinary gold.
The John Dory’s rendition has to rank up there with the city’s best egg dishes. Eggs are creamy. Bacon is substituted with a thick prosciutto that has the texture of tender corned beef. Slices of pickled jalapeño add bursts of a light vinegary flavor and heat also spread throughout the dish. The oysters are only slightly cooked. The pooled flavors lining the plate’s bottom when you finish are worth wiping up with the delicious Parker House rolls.
The Hangtown Fry is just one of New York City’s many notable oyster dishes on the following Oyster Odyssey that a true bivalve-lover should try to check off their list.
Click to see AHNY's checklist of New York City's notable oyster dishes. >>
AlwaysInformed: New Items at Bouley Market
The Gluttoness — July 27, 2009
Bouley Bakery & Market’s Summer Crab Special
TriBeCa’s game of musical Bouley has resulted in a neighborhood market to brag about.
To recap: Bouley moved from 120 West Broadway to 163 Duane Street, leaving the original Bouley space vacant. Bouley Bakery, once on the ground floor, at 130 West Broadway below Bouley Upstairs, moved into the old Bouley space to become Bouley Bakery & Market, leaving “Upstairs” to expand into its downstairs space. At first, the Bakery’s coffee bar, fresh pastries, quiches, breads, pizzas and rotisserie chickens were joined with a salad bar, hot buffet and an expanded selection of raw meats (poultry and fish). The selection was decent. It was great for a quick, easy dinner, and baked goods were consistently superb. But the new venture was obviously thrown together, and there was plenty of room in the large space for further development.
There has been a new, quiet, but very cool addition:, the arrival of a summer special. On one night there were packaged crab dinners including two crabs, an ear of corn and a lemon wedge. Another evening there were lobster tails. There are also sushi rolls from Upstairs, including: Spicy Tuna, Soft Shell Crab, Eel, Vegetable, Salmon and Avocado, and California rolls. Clear containers of fresh pastas (gnocchi, fuzi, tagliatelle and taglialini) are piled high in the refrigerator above homemade ice cream. Hot and cold buffet items have expanded also, and many of the cold options like tuna salad, cold soba noodles, fingerling potato salad, and beets with walnuts are pre-portioned to grab and go.
These latest additions are dramatic improvements, but Bouley Market is still a work in progress. A made-to-order sandwich station is being readied (prepared sandwiches are now available) and a liquor bar is planned for the dining room. Upon completion, David Bouley will have succeeded in creating TriBeCa’s ultimate upscale cafeteria.
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