Featured Brunch: 6th Street Kitchen
Maryse Chevrière — August 06, 2010
“Bacon and Eggs” at 6th Street Kitchen in the East Village. Pork Belly, Radicchio, Coddled Egg.
Among restaurants in the East Village, brunch competition is stiff. There’s the fried chicken with pancake-soft waffles at Back Forty. A spicy, hangover-perfect mix of scrambled eggs, chorizo, and French fries at Hecho en Dumbo. Bagels galore. How do you choose? More importantly, how does a newcomer to the neighborhood vie for your attention?
Pork belly with coddled eggs are a good way to start. At relative neighborhood newbie, 6th Street Kitchen, the “Bacon and Eggs” are near impossible to overlook. The dish arrives appearing as if ready to meet expectations— it’s very pretty. At the base are slabs of pork belly, perfectly uniform little rectangles, well-peppered and salty with a seared-on crunch. They’re buried underneath a confetti of tangy radicchio, on top of which is a coddled egg that offers a little yolk for sauce.
Featured Restaurant: Traif
Arthur Bovino — June 07, 2010
Pork Belly Confit, Lentils, Artichokes, Tomato Marmalade, and Moroccan Whiskey Cocktail at Traif in Williamsburg.
Just when you thought this let’s-hang-yarn-from-a-window-and-take-photos-of-it-from-the-sidewalk neighborhood couldn’t give you yet another storyline there it is. Unkosher food nonpareil on the edge of Satmar territory from a Jewish chef with experience at Eleven Madison Park and Le Bernardin. The south labeled streets’ most recent newcomer, Traif, makes good on its name— and man, is it good.
AlwaysPartying: National Pig Day
Maryse Chevrière — March 01, 2010
Whole Roast Pig from the Second Annual Pig Roast and Dance Party.
What better way to kickoff a month than to celebrate the almighty pig? Today, March 1st is National Pig Day, and in its honor we have compiled pictures of some of our favorite dishes celebrating this glorious animal in all of its delicious forms. Feast your eyes of the Pig-apalooza.
Featured Dish: August’s Lamb Belly
Maryse Chevrière — January 21, 2010
Kleftiko of Lamb Belly: Grilled Lamb Belly, Tzatziki, and Black Sesame from August.
Pork belly has had its time—we’re ready for a new belly. Call it a hunch, but we think the next belly to make a flop is going to be lamb belly.
The surge has yet to begin, but if you want a sneak preview of a trend in the making, head over to August, where they are already celebrating this great ingredient. The restaurant’s Kleftiko of Lamb Belly is a most welcome alternative for those suffering from pork belly exhaustion.
The tender, fall-off-the-bone meat is at turns creamy and shredded like pulled pork. A crust of black sesame seeds (warning: potential date dish nightmare) adds powerful toasted notes and texture. A cool tzatziki acts as a loose sauce for the bed of vegetable spaghetti that props up the piece of belly. The flavor of the meat strikes a Goldie Locks-like balance of being pronounced without being overwhelming.
AlwaysInformed: Blue Smoke’s Peanut Butter & Belly
The Gluttoness — November 05, 2009
Peanut Butter & Belly: Berkshire Pork Belly on Raisin Toast w/Poblano Jelly and Peanut Sauce, ($11.95).
One of Blue Smoke’s (view) latest lunch additions, Peanut Butter & Belly, may employ a cute play on words and dainty tea sandwich proportions, but it’s actually nothing to scoff at. It features a complex combination of textures, flavors and temperatures: slices of crisped pork belly portioned to the size of small raisin bread rectangles. The toast is warm, the pork is soft and the golden raisins add surprising bursts of chewy sweetness.
The accoutrements are where you’ll find the classic combination of peanut butter and jelly. There’s a sticky peanut glaze and a salty crunch from a pile of chopped nuts. Poblano jelly acts more like a decorative hot sauce, delivering subtle heat. The sweet and spicy accents are the perfect finishing touches.
Peanut Butter & Belly is an inventive new appetizer— a tasty bite with which to begin a barbeque binge at Blue Smoke. After all, no meal there is complete without running the gluttonous gamut from wings, ribs, and burgers, to pulled pork, fried chicken, and of course, one of Manhattan’s best renditions of macaroni and cheese.
AlwaysNYCWFF: Thrillist’s Bacon & The Blues
Arthur Bovino — October 09, 2009
Bacon-Wrapped Quail Dog with Smoked Mustard Sauce by Braeburn. Tyler Florence. The Crooners.
Bacon. Man, Thrillist doesn’t mess around. Their Bacon & The Blues event in The High Line Room at The Standard for the New York City Wine & Food Festival (site) featured bacon with oysters, bacon with potatoes, candied bacon, hazelnut crusted bacon, bacon donuts and wait for it, wait for it, chocolate-dipped bacon.
Tyler Florence’s brief introduction let everyone get down to the matter at hand, drinking Canadian Club Whiskey with soda, listening to The Crooners play their rendition of “Johnny B. Goode,” and eating lots and lots of bacon and bacon-laced dishes provided by chefs from six restaurants.
With all the different textures and takes on such an epic ingredient, it was hard to play favorites. We particularly enjoyed Chef Brian Murphy’s use of bacon with oysters because he fried them instead of going with what might have first come to mind, bacon-wrapped oysters. The maple-glazed sour cream donuts also deserved our love. But it’s hard not to give B.R. Guest’s executive pastry chef, Elizabeth Katz the most props for her skewered, baked, brown sugar-sprinkled, chocolate-dipped bacon. Not only did they taste great, but they were portable, easy to eat and embodied an over-the-top expression of all that we love about bacon.
Other great dishes by Christopher Lee, Brian Bistrong, Jacqueline Lombard and Jeremy Strubel follow.
Seasonal Spotlight: Figs
The Gluttoness — September 29, 2009
Figs are in season, and they’re inspiring chefs throughout the city to feature them prominently on their menus. They have, in turn inspired us to compose the following fig-themed meal.
APPETIZER: A Voce’s Pancetta — Pork Belly with Figs, Balsamic & Pistachio ($12).
A Voce’s (restaurant page) pork belly is marinated overnight with coriander seed, fennel seed, onion, garlic and orange zest, then slow-cooked for six hours and crisped to order. The thick-cut slab of pancetta is topped beautifully with sliced figs. Fragrant from the penetrating marinade, the warm silky fat melts on the tongue while meatier bits are tender and succulent. The sweetness of the figs accentuates the scents of orange and licorice, their gritty seeds collaborating with the crushed pistachio for intriguing flecks of contrasting texture. A simple dressing of reduced balsamic mimics the natural caramelization of the pan-fried pork belly.
AlwaysQuestioning: Flying Pigs Farm
Michelle Kiefer — August 13, 2009
Boston Butt Roast from Flying Pigs Farm.
You may have come across the pork from Flying Pigs Farm (view site) at the Union Square or Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets, or on the menus of restaurants like Gramercy Tavern or Savoy. The exceptional flavor of their pork belly, bacon, and sausage results from their use of rare, heritage-breed pigs. It’s easy to see why this small family farm in Shushan, NY has developed a market for its products.
Our interest in Flying Pigs Farm was piqued by their liverwurst (right), a taste experience our senior editor best described as “like meeting an old friend,” and leaf lard, which adds flakiness to pie crust. Following is an interview with the farm’s owner, Mike Yezzi.
AHNY: How long have you been doing this? Did you farm before Flying Pigs?
MY: About 5½ years. No, I have a law degree and a Masters in Public Health, and I was working for a not-for-profit. My wife and I were both in grad school when we bought the farm to keep it from being developed. We needed to do something so that the land would help pay for itself. We started out with three pigs that we got from neighbors. Eventually we had 130 pigs that we would take care of before and after work. We would have 19 or 20- hour days. We realized someone’s got to do this full time.
AHNY: How did you get into raising heritage breed pigs?
MY: As I read and did research my interest in the subject kept developing. Mary Cleever (Cleever Co., Green Table) and Peter Hoffman (Savoy, Back Forty) were some of our first customers. When they tasted the pork from the heritage breeds they were blown away by the flavor. After the first year we had 57 pigs, all rare breeds.
Click here for more Q&A with Mike Yezzi >>
36 Dishes in Boston, MA
Arthur Bovino — August 10, 2009
In The New York Times weekly column, 36 Hours, a weekend-long itinerary is given for different cities. AlwaysHungryNY.com, is taking a more culinary-focused, food-challenge approach to weekend travel with a new, occasional feature, 36 Dishes. The goal? To eat and drink a combination of 36 memorable dishes and beverages from significant places in a city during one weekend.
Left, Boston from Top of the Hub bar in the Prudential Building. Right, the Tall Ships in Boston Harbor
Today’s feature is a recap of 36 Dishes eaten in Boston over the weekend of July 10-12, when AlwaysHungryNY.com ate everywhere from the South End to Harvard Square. Our weekend of eating began on Friday night at 10:50pm, ten minutes before the Radius kitchen closes.
AlwaysPartying: Grill-off at Water Taxi Beach (Long Island City)
Josh Kaplan — July 23, 2009
Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, Queens
Tuesday night, the brave, food-serious masses paid $35 to eat grilled food while huddling under tents as it rained in Long Island City at Water Taxi Beach (view site) for the Local Grill-off, the signature event of the first annual NYC Good Beer Month sponsored by the Good Beer Seal. The event benefited the Slow Food NYC Harvest Time and Snail Buck programs, which encourage New Yorkers to buy local food from regional Greenmarket farmers.
Amateur contestants battled for the title of “Good Beer Month Grill-off Champion” by preparing grilled food that was supposed to be produced from sustainably and humanely-raised animals and produce grown on farms within 150 miles. Challengers ranged in experience— some were semi-professional, competitive cooks while others were nine-to-fivers seeking culinary adventure. Their ingredients were grown, purchased, foraged, donated and hand-picked from farmers’ markets and local farms.
Ribs Within took top honors with their Smoked Pork Belly with Bok Choi Shooter. The best of the rest succeeded by aiming low and letting local, seasonal ingredients speak for themselves.
Clockwise from top left: BBQ Chicken Wings (Fatty Cue), Motz Burger (Water Taxi Beach), Pulled Pork & Pork Belly (Fette Sau)
There was other food on hand. Water Taxi Beach offered their Motz Burger and Fette Sau provided their pulled pork and ethereal pork belly. Jimmy Carbone of Jimmy’s No. 43 hosted and provided Flying Pig Farm’s Sausages with mustard. But Zak Pelaccio’s Fatty Cue owned the day with a preview of his brined, smoked, grilled, curried BBQ chicken wings served by Fatty Crab chef Corwin Kave. It was paired with a “wing condiment” (rye, sherry and lemon orgeat), a riff on the Mai Tai designed to be paired with the West Indian dry rub spices on the wings.
Following are the contestants, their entries, the farms from which they acquired their ingredients and the contestants’ favorite summer ingredients.
AlwaysInvestigating: Tasting Salumeria Rosi’s Porchetta
The Gluttoness — June 18, 2009
I immediately knew Cesare Casella’s Porchetta was special when I tasted it at last week’s Street & Savory event. As if his array of branded, Italian charcuterie didn’t make it obvious enough that he’s passionate about his pork you might get the idea from the 500-pound Stonewall crossbreed hog that he developed in partnership with The Center for Discovery, a charitable organization with a farm in upstate New York. Turns out Cesare has more than one porchetta up his sleeve. His salami-centric restaurant, Salumeria Rosi, actually serves three variations of roasted pork.
Continue reading AlwaysHungryNY.com's tasting of Salumeria Rosi's three versions of Porchetta >>
AlwaysInvestigating: Kurve’s Wagyu Burger
The Hungry Goat — April 30, 2009
One thing’s for certain, you would never accuse Kurve of being predictable. From the beginning, chef/owner Andy Yang had us all on our toes with his restaurant’s peekaboo open-shutter-reopen debut. Since its “official” September launch, the perennially plagued establishment has become just as notorious for being chronically empty as for its difficult-to-categorize, Asian fare—the eclectic, disjointed menu even left the great Bruni scratching his head. A recent discovery had us feeling the same way. What could be more unpredictable than a seriously great burger made by a “contemporary” Thai restaurant with a Eurotrash dance-club aesthetic?
AlwaysInvestigating: Ippudo’s Buns
The Hungry Goat — April 17, 2009
Whoever said that steamed buns are the new banh mi was definitely on to something. Now that the wildly popular Vietnamese sandwich has had its glamorous New York Times Dining cover story, the New York City gastrosphere is hungry for its next Asian snack obsession.
Of course, David Chang’s Momofuku team deserves credit for getting the ball rolling on this Asian open-faced bun craze, with Fatty Crab later adding fuel to the fire. And now, it seems that imitations of this signature open style are popping up on menus all over town. As we reported earlier this week, Rickshaw Dumpling Bar has hopped on the bandwagon with their new Braised Pork Belly and Bulgogi Beef Buns, and Macao Trading Co. started featuring a version on their Late Night Menu last week.
Ippudo’s buns are another example of this trend. Buns are sold two per order ($8), either pork belly (above left) or chicken (above right). Both are served on thick, doughy steamed buns (larger than Rickshaw or Momofuku), and are dressed with fresh lettuce and a squirt of mayo. While not as interesting as Momofuku’s crunchy pickled cucumbers, the crisp iceberg lettuce provides a welcome textural contrast, particularly to the pork. The pork belly, while tender, could benefit from a thicker slice, but the nutty, savory sauce adds depth and a generous dose of heat.
The lettuce/mayo favor combination is reminiscent of the flavor of a McDonald’s McChicken sandwich in the best way possible. As expected, the pork bun is far superior to the chicken. This pork bun is without a doubt a Top 5 contender, and a fine accompaniment to a bowl of the city’s best ramen. As a side note, though the chicken bun is lackluster, if you are in the mood for chicken, the peppery sesame seed-coated crispy Chicken Wings (shown right) are absolutely outstanding.
AlwaysInvestigating: Rickshaw’s Buns
Arthur Bovino — April 14, 2009
Having recently heard about Rickshaw Dumpling Bar’s foray into steamed Asian Buns we headed over to check them out. There are two buns on the offer: the Braised Pork Slider (left) with braised pork belly, Chinese barbecue sauce and Asian cabbage slaw, and a Bulgogi Beef Bun (right) with sautéed ground beef patty, onion, sesame, Korean chili sauce and pickled vegetables. Buns go two per order for $6.
The buns were fine—lovingly prepared if ever so slightly stale. The Pork Belly Bun was moist and dressed with a sweet, apple-scented sauce mildly reminiscent of maple syrup. It was the obvious winner. Not bad for fast food—not bad at all. You could eat two orders of these and leave happy. The pickled julienned carrots, sprouts and scallions were pleasantly fresh and the sauce on the Bulgogi Beef Bun was an enjoyable ratio of salty to sweet with about a half-second of spicy heat. The meat itself? To paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen, “Rickshaw, we’ve served Bulgogi. We know Bulgogi. Bulgogi is a friend of ours. Rickshaw, that ain’t no Bulgogi.”
Imagine an Asian McDonald’s McRib sandwich patty—that’s the bulgogi beef patty. Stick with the pork belly. Unless, you love the McRib of course, in which case, you will love the Bulgogi Beef Bun.
The only reason to even mention David Chang’s pork buns in the same breath as these buns, is to cite their responsibility in the recent proliferation of this open, folded-over preparation style.
AlwaysHungryNY: Num Pang In The Ass
The Gluttoness — April 06, 2009
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A while back, the Council of Eaters convened over a dinner at Kampuchea Noodle Bar. We loved our starters, namely the Pork Belly, Ribs and Pickles, but we were underwhelmed by the sandwiches. Having recently tasted our first Baoguette, the bar was set mighty high at the time, and “The Kampuchea” frankly couldn’t compete. While the Stewed Oxtail was a standout, the experience made us skeptical of the forthcoming Num Pang, the restaurant’s Cambodian “Banh Mi“ offshoot.
Upon closer investigation, the fact of the matter is that Num Pang’s sandwiches are actually delicious, and a significant improvement to their predecessors at Kampuchea. The soft yet sturdy Parisi Bakery rolls, are slathered in a spicy chili mayo, and pair beautifully with the bouquet of fresh ingredients—cucumber, pickled carrots and cilantro. As usual, some hit the spot more than others, here’s the rundown:
Our favorite was the Pulled Duroc Pork with Spiced Honey. The substantial roll soaked up the flowing pork juice. The spiced honey and vinegar-soaked veggies combined for an awesome sweet-and-sour profile that worked famously in collaboration with the salty swine. Runner-up went to the Peppercorn Catfish. Large fillets mingled with sweet soy sauce, that enhanced and that did not overwhelm. The perfectly cooked Skirt Steak, seasoned with crushed coriander and peppercorn, was challenging to keep together, but the excellent cooking temperature, and the essence of charcoal grill, made for some robust and enjoyable bites.
Coconut Tiger Shrimp was as enjoyable as Kampuchea’s, where we liked it. Hoisin Veal Meatball had no sign of hoisin, but rather, the tomato and basil accompaniments made it resemble and taste like an Italian meatball sub topped with traditional banh mi trimmings. The odd yet intriguing combination would have received more attention had they not skimped so much on the meatballs. As can be expected, the Vegetarian Num Pang was the least exciting.
Like our dinner at Kampuchea, Num Pang left us with a good impression—the former earned itself a solid B, and the sandwiches warranted an even more favorable B+/A- rating. While our experience at Kampuchea ended with a very friendly chat with Chef Ratha Chau, my encounter with Ratha at Num Pang was quite the contrary.
Click Here to Read About Our Encounter... >>
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