Impending Trader Joe's (or: Mush-Room-Turn-O-Vers!)
The New York Times confirms the long-rumored arrival of Trader Joe's to Union Square. Right now, my girlfriend is doing the Running Man in our living room and chanting "Mush-Room-Turn-O-Vers! Fro-Zen Quiche And Coo-Kies!"
When I heard the rumor last year, my first, sudden, only, thought was, "in the Palladium?"
clubs-ish , food-ish , grocery-ish , mushroomturnovers-ish by tangentialist at 07:22 PM on 17 Jan 06 | Perm-a-link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Taco Chulo: Guess What's Missing
Tonight's dinner mission was Taco Chulo, the anxiously-awaited new Mexican joint in my neighborhood, on Grand Street's Happening Restaurant Row. On a visit during the renovation we were told the owner(s) is/are from Berkeley, which would suggest a mastery of the burrito form, but tonight's burritos (carnitas and vegetarian, respectively) were missing one key ingredient; mystifyingly, there was no spanish rice inside the burrito. Instead, you get potatoes. Don't bother asking to substitute rice, because there is not a grain in the establishment (except weekend brunches, apparently, when it sneaks into the "Guacamole Breakfast"). Yes, there are refried beans, and an excellent salsa, and the carnitas were "succulent" as advertised. There is simply no rice, and it's only now that I realize how much less satisfying burritos are when it's missing. Also, there was no guacamole, but I've never been a fan anyhow. I'm inclined to think the tacos will be less disappointing, since they don't depend so much on the One True Starch, so I'll hit that next time, along with the intriguing "warm chocolate-coconut
tamales served with chocolate-chile sauce" for dessert. You can't mess up a chocolate-coconut tamale served with chocolate-chile sauce, can you?
brooklyn-ish , food-ish , williamsburg-ish by tangentialist at 11:20 PM on 10 Aug 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Chinatown Ice Cream Dragon: There Can Be Only One
The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (OCICF), my favorite source for almond cookie and red bean ice creams, is easy to find in the fog of Manhattan's Chinatown. First, because it's the only storefront in Chinatown with a line out the door; and second, because of that unflappable fat dragon on the smudged yellow awning. He's gorging himself on some exotic confection: taro, almond cookie, mango. And now, that happy little fire-eater is in the middle of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory's first full-fledged beef. Of late, the following sign has been posted outside the shop:
It reads:
Dear Valued Customers,We are and continue to be the one and only ORIGINAL CHINATOWN ICE CREAM FACTORY. Due to our popular success in our close to 30 years in business, there have been some other companies that are currently using our trademark without our permission.
We are still dedicated to providing the excellent service and product that we have been serving at this one and only location. Do not be deceived by these other imitation brands.
Sorry for the inconvenience and we will hopefully soon settle this matter.
-The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
According to the guy at the counter who served me my cup of durian ice cream (I thought it tasted the way it smelled, like an old sock wrapped around a rancid banana, but your mileage may vary), the trademark dispute centers on a new storefront in Nolita named, predictably, Nolita Ice Cream Factory. I asked him if it was run by some renegade ex-OCICF faction, and he replied, cryptically, "Dunno."
You can find the Nolita Ice Cream Factory on Kenmare Street, just off Lafayette. It sees perhaps one percent the foot traffic of Bayard Street on an average day, and it has a comfortable bench outside. And indeed, that insatiable dragon and his sundae; he's everywhere. Nestled behind the fire escape ladder, with the same jaunty flip to his tail; on the cake display; on the door, under an innocent halo of Chinese characters, identical, except for a missing fifth character, to those on OCICF's awning:
When I asked Nolita's own guy-at-the-counter whether the owners were the same people as OCICF's, his response was quick and certain:
"Yeah."
Chowhounder "Andrew" digs deeper and discovers that the Nolita shop is supposedly run by one of the five Chinese brothers that owned OCICF, though the only authority figure I saw at the Kenmare creamery was a large white guy rocking an AC/DC shirt.
The ice cream appears to be the same product, with a similar consistency and variety of flavors. Both shops have that distracted-wholesome-college-student service that is a hallmark of the Chinatown location (they rock the official OCICF hats!). Besides the sunny decor in the Nolita space and its lack of traffic (customers were outnumbered by dragon logos when I was there), there's barely a hint of a difference between the two businesses.
Is downtown New York ready for another Plump Dumpling-style logo war? Can the audacious newcomer survive in the wasteland that is Kenmare Street? Where is the Nolita Ice Cream Factory getting its ice cream? There is only one sure thing in this convoluted confectionary tale: durian ice cream is disgusting, and I should have known better.
chinatown-ish , food-ish , investigation-ish by tangentialist at 08:23 AM on 26 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | Comments (2) | TrackBack (6)
Williamsburg Franchise Watch: Subway, 1; Starbucks, 0
For those of you not intimately familiar with the struggles over development and gentrification in Williamsburg, let me assure you, the battle is fraught. In short:
- Hipsters hate Yuppies
- Artists hate Hipsters
- Artists and Hipsters hate Tall Buildings
- Old People hate Everybody
- Franchises want Storefronts
Well, today the franchises made a healthy noteworthy gain, with the very first national chain entry being a Subway sandwich shop on the corner of Bedford and North 5th (two doors down from the Northside car service). According to the nervous guys inside, it will open in "about three weeks". This should just beat the second franchise that is apparently moving into the Northside: a UPS Store on North 7th Street.
Rumors here always swirled around the imminent arrival of a Starbucks (that's how it went down in Park Slope), but this is a new century, in which multi-grain rolls, reheated meatballs, and low-carb wraps take precedence over the cult of caffeine. I predict this will be one of the busiest storefronts on Bedford within a year, no matter what the rolled eyes say. Anytime had better step up their game.
Postscript: A reader points out that I am forgetting two things--first, Williamsburg includes streets other than Bedford Avenue, which means McDonald's on Broadway and White Castle on Metro both beat Subway to the punch; and second, I neglected to note the presence of a Tasti D-Lite one block away on Bedford, which appears recently to have become a franchise opportunity. I stand corrected, but still shudder at the thought of Subway's bready, franchised aroma.
brooklyn-ish , food-ish , gentrification-ish , williamsburg-ish by tangentialist at 03:36 PM on 22 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Shake Shack, Beyond The Call Of Duty
When it came time to pick a restaurant for my birthday dinner this year, the decision was clear: Shake Shack. Inexpensive, flexible enough for large parties (the entirety of Madison Square Park is your table), and comfort food that puts everybody at ease. It's my favorite restaurant in the city right now and, best of all, they keep late summer hours (new for this season), which sealed the deal. I called them last Tuesday to confirm that they closed at 11 PM, and got the thumbs-up. Evites were sent, and we were on for Friday night at nine. I should have paid attention to the little voice telling me to have a backup plan, but I was so excited about my burgers-and-frozen-custard birthday that I forged on, zealous. I really should have called a second time.
When I arrived at nine o'clock, last Friday, the workers were already gathering and folding chairs from the seating area. I felt a sudden hollow sensation in my chest (I call it my "birthday feeling"). Walking over to one of the chair-folders, I asked what time the restaurant closed:
"Nueve".
Twelve hungry people were on their way by train to Madison Square Park for the failed promise of a cheeseburger dinner. I started to panic as I strode over to the order window, where the manager was turning away disappointed customers; as I approached, he waved both hands out at me--the international symbol for "we have no more burgers".
Me: "I thought you closed at eleven."
Manager: "Who told you that?"
Me: "I called on Tuesday, and the guy said eleven."
Manager: "Maybe he meant we open at eleven. Our hours are eleven to nine."
Me: "No, I specifically asked. I mean, I got a whole birthday party coming. Like ten or twelve people. Your website says eleven [they've corrected this], all your press says eleven, your guy said eleven..."
Manager: "Oh, wow... You're looking for burgers and fries, right? That's gonna be tough. How about ice cream, maybe?"
Me: "I don't know; people are coming for dinner."
Manager: "Okay, I definitely can't do burgers, but... Here, take my card [hands me his business card, "Mitch Cynamon, Eleven Madison Park"], my name is Mitch. I manage here and at Eleven Madison Park. Let me see what I can do."
What Mitch did, without further disappointment, was have the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park prepare an assortment of chicken and sausage sandwiches and salads, serve them to us--personally--in the park, and wish me a happy birthday. He was unbelievably helpful and made a great dinner out of a potentially awkward moment. Everybody was stunned but Mitch, who seemed to think it was just the right thing to do in the situation.
This is the wonderful thing about Shake Shack, besides the quality of the food: the grace under pressure exhibited by the staff. Andrea Strong, in her behind-the-scenes tell-all, clearly sees this as the defining quality of the people there; they run the highest-intensity cook-to-order lunch kitchen in New York ("The whole city is the dining room. They come, we feed them," says its owner, Danny Meyer) and yet they demonstrate a zen-like capacity for stress and uncertainty. Even with lines that exit the park, Shake Shack's crew manages to keep everybody happy. I am no exception, and after last Friday's experience, I am considerably happier. If you've been sleeping on the Shack, you're missing out on one of the great dining establishments in New York; it more than lives up to its hype. I don't know how they do it.
Thank you, Mitch, and thanks to the staff at both Shake Shack and Eleven Madison. You guys totally made my birthday.
Postscript: On my last ritual visit to The Shack, I noted that their hours have been extended to 11am - 11pm, for excellent late night burger (and birthday party) prospects.
[Supporting evidence on Shake Shack's awesomeness: A Hamburger Today, Cheesedip, and New York Mag's Best Burger, 2005]
birthday-ish , food-ish , people-ish by tangentialist at 07:10 PM on 14 Jun 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (5)
Union Picnic: Thanksgiving Sandwiches For The Ungrateful Hipster
As southern food goes, at least in Williamsburg, Union Picnic is surprisingly good. With the shiver-inducing exceptions of Jabz' Joint and Lazy Catfish (Jabz has since closed, thank god--see my review--and Catfish is nothing more than a SYSCO front), Williamsburg hasn't always had a standby comfort food haven, leaving adherents of chicken-fried steak and meatloaf no option but to trek into the city for Duke's or Chat 'n' Chew.
Union Picnic is inconveniently located on Union Avenue, across the street from Royal Oak, another popular and far-flung destination. This short voyage away from the predictable strip of Thai restaurants on Bedford does not appear to deter the crowds, which is a good sign, and the trip does indeed pay off. I haven't had their fried chicken, of which they appear quite proud, but I have had the aforementioned chicken-fried steak; it's definitely not the top of the heap, but it's a good approximation of a Texan hunk of tough, breaded beef--and that's good enough for Wednesday night, delivered. My favorite test of a comfort food counter, though, is the Thanksgiving sandwich, and Union Picnic gets this right. My brothers will quibble with me on this, but the canonical recipe for a Thanksgiving On A Bun is:
- Turkey, sliced thick and reheated
- Cranberry sauce, preferably canned, still in its natural "ridged disc" form, placed directly on the turkey
- Bread stuffing, also reheated
- Turkey gravy, definitely reheated (cooking the turkey in the gravy is a reasonable expectation on the day after Thanksgiving, but this step can be omitted for convenience)
- Hamburger bun, toasted
Union Picnic tries to out-junk me in the bread department by using untoasted Wonder bread, which I'll grant is pretty authentically last-Friday-in-November, but the sponginess of the white slice is a pale substitute (no pun intended) for a crisp potato roll. Still, when you're not keen on roasting a bird, this is about the best interpretation of a Thanksgiving On A Bun that you're likely to find anywhere in the city; I have looked, and most pale in comparison to Union Picnic's simple example.
I will probably go back for a shot at their fried chicken, and I will probably be disappointed, but this whole Thanksgiving sandwich thing is an example of my new dining theory: let restaurants play to their strengths (i.e. the pork buns at Momofuku), and rather than curse the gods of Williamsburg cuisine for lack of a culinary powerhouse, enjoy the fact that you can live in Brooklyn and get a solid Thanksgiving sandwich delivered, until 11 PM, every night of the week.
food-ish , williamsburg-ish by tangentialist at 08:51 PM on 16 May 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Writing About Food Writing
Anybody who has ever seen me eat lunch at a desk knows that I love food writing. Nothing improves a quick plate of macaroni and cheese more than reading about some cream-poached pheasant or oxtail marmalade. I was raised on cooking shows and cookbooks, and while their influence on my technique was not always apparent (Hamburger Helper was about all I cooked for the first year I lived in New York), I have always held in high esteem those who eat to write.
I appreciate good recipes, but I am particularly drawn to restaurant reviews; the tense air of the opening paragraphs and the rhapsodic highs (or devastated lows -- though I'm not a huge fan of the new British Schadenfreude review method) of the first course are like a well-crafted mystery to me. I love reviews because the authors are, first and foremost, not chefs but writers. If I want a chef's idea of good food, I'll eat it. When I'm reading, I turn to Sietsema and Bruni, whose strength as artists is convincing me to drool. For those of you who are as obsessed with food writing as I am, here are two things to check out:
First, Adam Gopnik has a great review of food writing in last week's New Yorker. He covers Rudolph Chelminski's book about Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide in 2003 after having lost his third Michelin star; Ruth Reichl's memoir of experiences as the New York Times chief food reviewer (a nice bit of meta-writing, reviewing reviewers reviewing their reviews); and two quasi-academic volumes on the art and science of eating. In two pages, he sold me four books.
Also, via A Full Belly (which I read daily), I discovered Saute Wednesday's list of Nominees for the 2005 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. All scandals set aside, their selections of the best food writing in the country are pleasantly mouthwatering -- spend half a minute with Dara Moskowitz's review of Levain and you'll be hydrated for the rest of the day. If I could write about food half as well as these people, I'd be well-fed and happy.
I'm going to start writing more reviews of what I eat, if only to remind myself that an economical culinary life does not have to mean the laptop, a bowl of mac and cheese, and panhandling in front of the Time Warner Center for a dinner at Masa.
food-ish , meta-ish , writing-ish by tangentialist at 05:43 PM on 07 Apr 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Word To The Wise: Shake Shack Doesn't Open Today
I was just about to taunt you all with tales of today's impending Shake Shack burger luncheon. Thank god I actually had to look up their site first before I went about posting this and running off like a famished dog to Madison Square Park for my first Double Shack in seven months, because it seems they postponed today's long awaited reopening.
Shake Shack is open on Monday, April 4th, God willing.
I guess I'll go for a jog now. Maybe grab a hot dog. But on Monday, expect taunting.
food-ish by tangentialist at 10:08 AM on 01 Apr 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
18 Arhans, Never Enough
Okay, let's start with the Buddhist Nun today.
For years, I had passed this little storefront on Centre Street -- vegetarian food, a few people inside, rumored to be a shrine of some sort. I wrote it off as Hare Krishna and headed down to Excellent Dumpling House for my lunches. A few years back, though, I accompanied a couple of friends to 18 Arhans and was Totally Blown Away. No dish cost more than five dollars, the food was great, and the small Buddhist nun who ran the place sold this great bottled honey green tea that I could never find anyplace else. What's more, after I went back twice more, she had remembered my name.
Now that I go there about twice or three times a week, I've begun to notice that she remembers everybody's name, though a lot has changed about 18 Arhans since I first ate there. She and her partner had to raise prices to about $6.50 a dish, which is still way cheap, as far as I'm concerned. There's more seating, and a wider selection of beverages (I think I actually saw cases of Pepsi there the other day), though she now makes her own green tea drinks and stopped carrying the delicious bottled stuff that I still can't find. Business has soared lately, and I'm not sure whether it's due to the subtle changes in the decor or just the gradual exponential growth from word-of-mouth advertising. Still, the nun takes everybody's order and continues to make little jokes about the total ("Eight... Hundred... Dollars") as she shuffles back to her seat in the back of the room, across from the giant iron axe at the shrine to the warrior bodhisattva Guan Gong. I don't really ever see anybody at the shrine, but I always look over at Guan when I'm done eating my mock kung pao, if that counts for anything.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I am in love with 18 Arhans. It's one of those places you wish would branch out to other locations but that never will, if only because it's too hard to replicate a bunch of little nuns who know your name.
chinatown-ish , food-ish by tangentialist at 06:41 PM on 24 Jan 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Resolved: Teany To-Go Seems Awfully Redundant
Moby's music is like a lot of memories I have of early rave culture, in that I remember it feeling really good, but that the buzz wore off quickly, and now I wonder why I ever consumed it at all. That having been said, he is by all accounts a nice guy, and he bears the unquestionable mark of the Old School Producer. I'm just a little sad that he's one of just a few producers from that time to achieve a lasting commercial success, if you accept "threatened by Eminem" as commercial success. (Not long after the debacle I passed Moby talking to an admirer who had expressed his concern; Moby responded, "I just don't understand why he was so angry".)
Fortunately, Moby also moonlights as a Wise Investor Of Record Loot. His Lower East Side teany storefront has done remarkably well for itself in its two and a half years of business. It's a pleasant, low-ceilinged sort of place, with very-good-if-overpriced tea and an assortment of cakes and scones, and is a good cafe in its own right. What makes teany remarkable, though, is the Moby Effect; this tea house, located off the well-beaten path of LES foot traffic, has outperformed and outlasted most other coffeeshops in the neighborhood, and not because of the slow service (Moby is a very attentive server, I should point out, when he works there). His name is nowhere on the storefront, or the menu, but seemingly by mere association, the place has raked it in.
All this is really just to explain my astonishment that partners Moby and Kelly have rented out the storefront next door as a teany to go, which will be devoted to the radical notion of tea in paper cups. It opens this Friday, a mere two blocks from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, who also sell a very fine cup of tea, if somewhat less mysterious, and not brewed by Eminem's erstwhile mortal enemy.
Your reward for reading this far shall be a picture I once took of Moby and DB that was published in the National Enquirer:
Lower East Side-ish , electronic music-ish , food-ish , moby-ish by tangentialist at 08:11 PM on 11 Jan 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Masa: Four Stars, A Thousand Bucks
Masa chef/owner Masayoshi Takayama nearly slays Frank Bruni, scoring a four star review in the New York Times. In doing so, Masa becomes the first Japanese restaurant since 1983 (Hatsuhana, crowned by Mimi Sheraton) to receive that honor. As Amanda Hesser's last review as interim critic, back in June, she gave Masa a glowing but cagey 4-question-mark (????) rating, leaving the final call to Bruni -- a fantastic food writer, by the way -- who opens the review by describing his friend's appreciation of Masa's sublime toro:
His eyes grew instantly bigger as his lips twitched into a coyly restrained grin. Then the full taste of the toro, which is the buttery belly of a bluefin tuna, took visible hold. Forget restraint: he was suddenly smiling as widely as a person with a mouthful of food and a modicum of manners can. His eyes even rolled slightly backward.
A prix fixe session at Masa (you don't get to call the shots) will put you back $350 per person before tax, tip, and sake; so basically, four figures for the best sushi two people are likely ever to eat. If I read the review correctly, a meal at Masa is both inexcusably expensive and obscenely luxurious, and if Masa has done little else, it has made me wish I were the Times' head restaurant critic, so that I might be able to have this kind of sushi for lunch at least once in my life.
With Per Se just down the hall at the Time Warner Center, this puts two four-star restaurants within feet of each other. Bruni's cleaning up over there! What's next, Jamba Juice?
food-ish , new york times-ish , review-ish by tangentialist at 05:17 AM on 29 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (1)
There Are Cupcakes In The LES
Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.
If you work, live, or frolic in the Lower East Side, you must immediately make your way to Sugar Sweet Sunshine, on Rivington between Essex and Norfolk. They're churning out a good eight varieties of tiny, overfrosted cakes, and it's rocking my world.
Oddly, for such a cheery dessert, cupcakes seem to have engendered no small amount of bitterness in the incestuous little bakery community spawned by the House of Magnolia. The Sugar Sweet people apparently split from Buttercup, Magnolia's own vindictive offspring, to form this happy little cupcake cooperative. How many more generations of cupcake one-upmanship can this city handle? I'll stay blissfully ignorant of the drama so long as Sugar Sweet Sunshine continues to ply me with their unholy chocolate almond frosting. These little pistachio numbers in the picture are no joke, either.
I, for one, don't see any reason to stand in a slow-moving line outside Magnolia when I can trot over the bridge and grab an intimidating bundle of cupcakes from their culinary grandchildren. Plus, there are fewer toddlers pawing at the red velvet cakes.
Lower East Side-ish , cupcakes-ish , food-ish by tangentialist at 02:10 AM on 24 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (1)
Ancho-Rubbed Rabbit Near Maya Angelou
Ken Is Blocking My View Of Maya Angelou
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.
It's good to have two foodie brothers living in New York, because there's three times as much pressure to eat at a "nice" restaurant when the parents come to town, as they have for Christmas this year. Instead of a pleasant dinner in Chinatown, Ken pushed for Mesa Grill, which I've always avoided, because Bobby Flay is my second-least-favorite person on the Food Network (just above Emeril).
I used to like Flay, but I got to feeling like he was a one-note tune with all the peppers. Plus, he started sporting those weird close-fitting shirts that everybody in TriBeca wears on Saturdays, and I began to wonder if this guy wasn't just NYC's own Jamie Oliver, a decent cook with just way too much coke at his disposal.
So Ken's picked Mesa Grill for tonight's dinner, and I'm thinking "chipotle, ancho, jalapeno, whatever". Okay, so I'm wrong. Flay is right about the peppers. The Cascabel sauce for the Pan Roasted Venison had a totally different timing and spike than the Ancho-and-cumin-rubbed rabbit, which was like a chile time bomb. Contrary to what I had feared, the seasoning didn't in any way obscure the flavor of the meat. Every dish on the table was well worth the expense -- not that I spent any money on the dinner, but that's what Christmas is for.
I'm still not sure about Bobby Flay, The Man, but I'll now give him the benefit of the doubt when I meet him. He's got a good thing going on.
Two other things: Dessert was great, and easily as enjoyable and well-executed as the dinner itself; and Maya Angelou is totally sitting behind Ken's right shoulder in this picture.
food-ish by tangentialist at 01:30 AM on 24 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)