gingersweetiepie's Profile
Friend of a Farmer Review
ACK I'm so shocked that people line up for a meal here. The last time I ate here, three years ago, my sandwich was served on quickbread -- something like an unsweetened, sliced loaf cake. After a manager boasted that they just picked up a new line of desserts from SYSCO, I never returned.
BYO in West Village?
AOC Bedford (aocbedford.com). It's more rustic-y and romantic than "fun" but it's an option.
Best bread and butter basket?
Olives at the W serves hunks of warm onion focaccia with two scoops of tapenade - one green and one black - in a pool of olive oil. We've had to ask our server NOT to send it to the table because it's too good and we end up devouring the whole basket.
August - Anyone been recently?
apples and oranges - price points, atmosphere and food are all wildly different. august is honest food prepared and presented simply in a warm setting, fleur de sel screams nouvelle cuisine in a dark sterile room.
for me, august all the way.
What to order at Public?
if you want to share with a group, miniscule might apply. on a date, they can easily be shared.
i only recommend the starters because it's the way i prefer to eat in restaurants. lots of different tastes of big flavors in small portions. an entree is too much of a commitment.
it's nice to see someone so excited about this place - it's hardly lacking business but i feel it's underrated among foodies.
What to order at Public?
too late now, but i hope you got the foie. the white anchovies on the quinoa croquette is creative and tasty but you have to like the briny flavor of the fish. the sweetbreads are good too but the dukka is too strong for my palate.
i'd sooner get a bunch of starters in place of an entree.
also, best cocktails. ever.
Small Tasting Review of Borough Food & Drink
(RGR, ask and you shall receive)
Dinner for two at Borough Food and Drink on Friday was a horror.
Shall I start with the decor? Old wood, pool table, couches. Comfy and fun at first sight but contrived at the core. Using a big budget to make a place look worn-in already pisses me off from the get. It's the equivalent of Williamsburg scum who spend three hours to look like they've just rolled out of bed. Phony, calculated cool. The place was swarming with mosquitoes, too, which I can't fault the restaurant for but made my night entirely uncomfortable.
Our server dropped menus and a complimentary mason jar of over-salted pickles (are we not done with the pickle craze yet?), then ignored us for 15 minutes. My date tried to flag her down but she turned away and began to dance on the floor! When I took a glance at the server station, at least five servers and bussers stood in a huddle doing nothing.
She finally came to take our drink order and I asked her about a glass of red wine on the menu. "I don't know anything about wine but everyone orders it," she said. WELL YEAH, IT'S THE ONLY GLASS OF RED AVAILABLE.
Without boring you with details, our starters were under-seasoned and our mains were over-seasoned. Something as simple as fries were limp and sad.
Service went back and forth between nonexistent and hovering. My water glass was offered to be filled at least five times during the meal. A busser took my date's half full glass of wine and offered to sell him another one right away! After agreeing, our server came back with two glasses. When I told her we only wanted one, she apologized and sent it to the server station, where it waited and oxidized on a countertop. I suppose she assumed I'd order a second glass eventually.
I totally "get" the idea of BFD but they just don't have it together in the kitchen or in the FOH. If the place is an homage to the classic dishes of NY, the food either needs to be heightened to another level or done the right way: sloppy and down-home. Instead, it's just a sad version of what I'd eat at the local (bad) diner at a slightly higher price point.
BFD feels like the result of some focus group sponsored by China Grill. "Results show that young people have money to burn on food but they want it in a cool setting and done by a cool chef. Quick, someone call Pelaccio!"
That said, I can easily see this place being sustained by yuppies who work in the Flatiron but have never set foot in Brooklyn in their life. BFD allows them to buy coolness and foodie cred in the safety of their own environs. East Corner wontons without actually going to Chinatown... why not?*
*denotes sarcasm, duh.
Chelsea lunch for foodie and child?
Thanks for the suggestions. As it turns out, we got out of Chelsea and walked to Koreatown for lunch and went to Borough Food and Drink for dinner.
Slightly off topic, but RUB is one of my least favorite places to eat in the neighborhood. (I appreciate the suggestion though, I do!) Ditto for brgr.
I'll spare my rant on Borough for another topic.
Chelsea lunch for foodie and child?
UUGGGHHHH I am at a total loss. Supposed to take a chef pal and his boisterous 1 year old child for lunch today in in the 20's (preferably west). Wanted to head over to Shake Shack but it's half-drizzling.
Suggestions? Anyone?
Where can I find chilled Korean noodle dishes?
Dae Dong specializes in naeng myun, it's one of the best places in K-town to get it.
very sad about fatty crab
Fatty Crab, like Momofuku, definitely uses MSG in their cooking. Whether or not they deny it like Momofuku is another story. Either way, I shamelessly patronize both establishments. The prices never please me but when you're drunk late at night, the salt and grease just work.
Core 191
it may have been a server error for not being clear, but cake cutting fees are indeed per plate. That adds up to a ridiculous price, yes, but its common.
meyer lemons in manhattan?
Aha, I thought so! It doesn't matter if I'm at the Chelsea or Union Sq location, I normally want to pull my hair out when I'm shopping at WF because I have to jump over screaming kids, get mowed down by obnoxious people and get stuck behind the slow movers just to find freaking lemons. Anyway, thanks for saving me a trip to the UES.
meyer lemons in manhattan?
Merci, folks.
I'm off to brave the cold weather to find them... wish me luck.
meyer lemons in manhattan?
I'm not having easy time finding meyer lemons. Is it a result of the freeze or am I looking in the wrong places? Any help would be appreciated.
what foods do you miss most when you leave NY?
I once carried a box of City Bakery pretzel croissants with me on a plane to a Caribbean island, my love for them was so wild. I spread the love with the islanders and felt such regret when they disappeared immediately.
There's plenty of stuff LA and SF is missing- good pizza, bagels and takeout delivered immediately to your door being just a few. That said, seize your new local treasures. I'd kill for good fruit all the way into late fall. The cheap Thai food, too - you'll never find that here!
San Francisco's Incanto Iron Chef in March ?
Shouldn't matter if it's offal or not, he's obviously going to be working low cuts into his repertoire. I'm extremely excited for this challenge. Cosentino deserves more than local acclaim so it's nice to see him get more press. IMHO Incanto is the only restaurant in SF doing anything truly interesting right now.
Top Chef Backlash [Spoilers in Post]
Call me crazy but didn't Ripert actually say that he would never have it served in a fine dining restaurant?
I mentioned this elsewhere but Alice Medrich does a beautiful pan sauteed chicken liver dish with cacao nibs and sherry sauce in her book Bittersweet. My guess is that this was a terrible attempt at recreating something of the sort (right down to the sherry sauce).
'Top Chef' Ilan @ Craft?
Jeez, Robert, you're quite the skeptic and seem to challenge a lot of boring simple things I say. Why would I make something like that up? For God's sake, the audition tapes, in their entirety, were all posted on the Bravo site for some time. If they removed the one where Ilan says he worked at Craft, there's a reason why.
Regardless, plenty of people knew that Ilan worked at Craft before the season even began. All it takes is a freakin' line cook in the know.
ETA: here's the link: http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef_2/videos/index.php?id=51606
'Top Chef' Ilan @ Craft?
Colicchio found out that Ilan worked for Craft during filming, not after. But between running an empire of restaurants, doing events and press, it's entirely believable that he had never seen Ilan in the kitchen. For God's sake, I've worked for chefs who don't know the name of their longtime dishwashers. (Despicable, but that's beside the point...)
NY Times takes a look @ NYC food bloggers
I feel this way about Restaurant Girl. Not that she had much credibility in my book to begin with, but if anything, at least her reviews were of completely random restaurants. I read her site for fun, knowing full well that it had a very "man [or Jersey girl] on the street" point-of-view. Now she fancies herself a food snob and I for one am certainly not buying it.
'Top Chef' Ilan @ Craft?
In fairness, one week followed by getting canned hardly counts as working for a place. I've worked for places for over half a year and opted not to include it in my CV. It's just funny how it can go both ways, exactly as withnail points out.
Help me find cheese bread
No info on provolone bread but can I suggest pao de queijo? Brazilian/Portugese cheese puffs similar to gougeres but made with cassava flour. AMAZING when made fresh and proper. My mother and I had a business concept years ago to open a pao shop but Puff and Pao beat us to it. (They're on Christopher if you ever want to give it a try)
Back to the topic at hand, my guess is that you can find the bread in question in Little Italy.
'Top Chef' Ilan @ Craft?
Ilan worked at Craft for one week briefly before starting at Casa Mono. He was fired for his bad attitude. What's funny is that in an interview he says that since then, the chef de cuisine "has apologized." For what, I wonder? Line cooks with the bad attitude should be making the apologies, no?
Anyway, it is indeed a conflict of interest. In fairness to Colicchio, he says he didn't know Ilan worked for one of his restaurants. However, the craft website promoted Ilan asking viewers to tune in and watch one of their former cooks. That's just tasteless.
Casa Mono deep-fried herb - tried it?
it's been on the menu since opening day, which was well over a year before ilan worked there.
