Tag Archives: food news
The Joy of Cheese at d.b.a. Brooklyn
Wine isn’t the only thing that pairs well with cheese: Beer is a great match too, especially if there’s plenty of it, as there was at the Joy of Cheese tasting at d.b.a. Brooklyn on a recent night. Cheese expert Martin Johnson and d.b.a. owner Ray Deter joined forces to present seven rounds of beer and cheese, with a special focus on holiday brews.
Standouts among the cheeses were two English selections, a Spenwood and a clothbound Montgomery cheddar, and the Gubbeen washed rind cheese from Ireland. (more…)
Red Hook Beef Jerky
Intensely smoky with a spicy finish, this Red Hook Beef Jerky was off the market for a while but is now for sale again at Sample in Boerum Hill. Made by a Red Hook couple who slice brisket, marinate it in soy sauce and spices and dry it in a regular oven until it reaches just the right chewy-soft texture, this jerky should be a stocking stuffer for all the meat eaters on your list – if you can resist eating it all yourself.
Sample
152 Smith Street between Bergen and Wyckoff Streets
Brooklyn, NY
718-643-6622
Patois’ Fireplace Room Remains Unoccupied
While it’s true that La Petite Provence has opened in the old Patois space, as reported by Flo Fab in yesterday’s Off the Menu, it only occupies half the space held by Patois in Boerum Hill before they up and moved to Nolita (and seemingly went crazy). We walked by this past weekend, and the old Patois space has been divided in two. La Petite Provence is “petite” indeed, located the narrow southernmost room without a fireplace.
Patois’ fireplace, days before the restaurant closed in Boerum Hill last winter
Meanwhile, Patois’ wonderful fireplace room still stands empty as winter approaches, with windows papered and no sign of activity inside. Are the building’s owners trying to milk it for all it’s worth? One of the reasons Patois vacated the space, according to a staff member there at the time, was because the building owner kept raising the rent. (What recession?) But we think they owe it to the neighborhood – dammit, to all of New York! – to get a new cozy restaurant in there as soon as possible. It’s getting cold out here.
Basque Apple Cider
Most American hard ciders are too sweet to pair with food, so we were thrilled to discover this tart, dry Bereziartua cider at Vinegar Hill House. Not only is this sparkly drink a great palate cleanser, it goes well with meat, cheese and everything autumnal in between.
It’s available at Astor Wines for $9.99. Astor Wines, 399 Lafayette Street at East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003, 212-674-7500.
Michael Pollan: Humans Are a Lot Like Bees
If you’ve ever owned plants, then you know it takes a good amount of effort just to make sure they survive, let alone thrive and prosper. Take mums. They look so low maintenance at the Greenmarket, but bring them home and they need lots of water – more than I anticipated, so I accidentally killed one of mine. Then I brought back more mums from a party, carting them hundreds of miles in a rental car. At a certain point, you have to wonder: Why? Why did I take on the responsibility of these plants?
Mums. The one on the right had a near-death experience.
Michael Pollan explained it on the Brian Lehrer show the other day while talking about tulips, potatoes, marijuana, and apples. His first book about food, The Botany of Desire, has been made into a PBS documentary airing October 28th at 8pm. (more…)
Why Michael Sullivan Left Anella
We were so pleased when chef Michael Sullivan won entry to Meatball Madness through Eater’s meatball contest and even more pleased to see him there. But this was right on the heels of the news that he had left suddenly left Greenpoint favorite Anella, so we asked him: What happened?!
Michael Sullivan’s Irish grandmother’s pork meatball. The scoop, after the jump. (more…)
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Tagged Anella, Brooklyn, food news, NYC Wine & Food Festival
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NYC Wine & Food Festival: Meatball Madness!
Dozens of NYC’s top chefs gathered on Sunday to turn out their best meatballs for the Meatball Madness event. A $5,000 prize was at stake, with proceeds from the event benefitting the Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength.
Here’s one sample of the deliciousness: Joey Campanaro’s meatball sliders for Little Owl. More meatballs and a video of the winner, after the jump. (more…)
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Tagged Andrew Carmellini, beef, culture, food news, Michael White, NYC Wine & Food Festival
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NYC Wine & Food Festival: Grand Tasting
Perhaps the most controversial part of the NYC Wine & Food Festival is the reason it exists at all: The Grand Tasting mixes mass-market sponsors like ShopRite, Barilla and Skyy Spirits with upmarket chefs like Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy and Jason Neroni of 10 Downing. (Sponsors – can’t cook with ’em, can’t eat without ’em.) Fortunately, any umbrage guests might have taken at the commercial nature of this festival was offset by tons of tasty food and wines by Joseph Carr, Antinori, Chalk Hill and more.
photo via Marie Fromage
Marie Fromage headed into the fray this past Saturday to sample ocean trout tartar from 10 Downing, house-smoked meat stew from Inside Park at St. Bart’s, and coffee glazed pork belly from Yerba Buena Perry – all while scoring a free nail file courtesy of… Aruba?
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Tagged culture, food news, NYC Wine & Food Festival
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NYC Wine & Food Festival: Serious Eats Slice: The Pieman’s Craft
Two legendary pizzaiolos, one 700-degree oven, dozens of pizzas, and 35 lucky diners: imagine the pizza feast that followed. Serious Eats founder and Pizza: A Slice of Heaven author Ed Levine and Slice founder Adam Kuban got these two major talents in the same kitchen (once Una Pizza Napoletana, now Motorino) to talk about the craft of pizza and then dish it out.
A pizza shop in a central Jersey strip mall doesn’t seem like a natural starting point for a celebrated chef, but that’s one leg of Anthony Mangieri’s unusual path to pizza stardom. Before Mathieu Palombino owned his own pizza place in Williamsburg, the French-trained chef rose up through the ranks in Laurent Tourondel’s restaurants. After the talk, both chefs got to work in the kitchen, dishing out dozens of pies until everyone was stuffed. A transcript of the talk and some delicious photos, after the jump. (more…)
NYC Wine & Food Festival: Tour de Beef
You can taste the difference between an aged cut of beef and a supermarket steak, but what exactly goes into the aging process? DeBragga and Spitler, one of the few remaining butchers in the Meatpacking District with a facility that ages millions of dollars of beef, let a few of the curious in to witness the process, and Marie Fromage was one of them.
photo via Marie Fromage
Turns out that aging beef is a lot like aging cheese, with elements like temperature, humidity, and bacteria working over a specific period of time to yield the desired results. As you might have guessed, the main difference between wet aged beef, the sort you find in supermarkets, and dry aged beef, the sort you find in a steakhouse, is the expense: Up to 50 percent of the dry aged beef product can be lost due to water loss and trimming of the less attractive aged bits. Mary Connolly a.k.a. Marie Fromage gives some details on the aging process, after the jump. (more…)
NYC Wine & Food Festival: Bruni Unveiled
This weekend’s NYC Wine & Food Festival reflected the current state of the food industry: corporate sponsors mixed with independent chefs, TV cameras were everywhere, and the competition was fierce. One of the kickoff events was a particularly good interview of Frank Bruni by Eater cofounder Ben Leventhal, who, after some initial palling around, leveled some tough questions at the former Times restaurant critic. Let’s hope the interview cleared up some questions about whether or not a “blogger” can be a “journalist.”
Bruni recounted some memorable times he was recognized at restaurants, discussed the evolving NYT star system, bristled at some feedback by restauranteurs, and chose what he would eat if stranded on a desert island. Some key excerpts from the evening, after the jump.
Le Fooding
Marie Fromage and I headed out to Long Island City last night for Le Fooding, billed as a celebration of food and drink featuring six great chefs each night (three French, three American) and benefiting Action Against Hunger. Started in Paris in 2000, Le Fooding landed in NYC for the first time this year and still has some kinks to work out.
The long line at the door was the first bad sign and made us draw comparisons to the well-organized City Harvest benefit we attended last year, where a team of event workers always kept the crowd flowing. Inside P.S. 1 for Le Fooding, between the fabulous displays of food, like this one above, there were lines, lines, and more lines, curling into spirals so long that when one guest was asked what food item he was waiting for, he joked, “I don’t know. My friends just texted me and told me to meet them in line.” (more…)
Rudest Service Ever
Given the difficulty of getting people into restaurants these days, you’d think that once you got there, they’d be happy to see you. But a certain breed of establishment, the type that cares more about getting Page Six dish than dishing out good food and service, is still upholding the standard of rudeness that gave New York a bad rap in boom times. Pete Wells’ experience when reviewing Hotel Griffou, started by veterans of the Waverly Inn, Freemans, and La Esquina, sounded familiar:
I checked in on time for an 8 p.m. reservation. “Three people?” asked the man at the desk. No, four, I said. He replied, with evident sorrow, that he had me down for three.
“I called a couple of hours ago to change it to four,” I said.
“Our reservations line closes at 5,” he said, as if he’d caught me. Why did it matter? At every restaurant I’ve seen, a three top is a four top missing a chair.
Not at Hotel Griffou, where we were sent to the bar while someone hunted down our table. The restaurant has four dining rooms, and we had an excellent view of one, a bright space with long beer-hall tables that sat empty. We imagined that they were being held for a group. Naturally, this is where we were seated, 50 minutes after we had arrived.
I am still getting over the rudest restaurant service I’ve ever had. It was at a downtown no-reservations restaurant in 2005, during the height of that restaurant’s popularity. Two of us arrived at 7:30 to put our names in for a table of three – our friend was meeting us there at 8pm. At 8pm, we were informed that a table might be available any minute now.
“Where is your friend?” the host said. “We can’t seat you unless the entire party is here.”
Our friend was nearby but lost, circling the block in a cab, since the restaurant was in a very hard-to-find location. We offered to start ordering right away but still were denied the table until all of us were there. Meanwhile, the location of the table was a mystery – all we could see open was a two top by the door. The host checked in another time, and by the third time at 8:10, he was having a conniption. (more…)
Google Maps of the Stars
There’s something new and cool on Google Maps: a “featured map” by various famous personalities about town. Though there is a corporate sponsor lurking behind the effort (nycgo.com), it’s still a fascinating way to see how the other half lives.
From bigwigs like Mayor Bloomberg and Diane von Furstenberg to industry players like Fern Mallis of IMG, a few key New Yorkers let you in on their favorite places in the city. While some are lame—can anyone imagine Bloomberg saying “The lights! The crowds! The bustle!” when recommending Times Square?—many of the suggestions sound like they’ve been written by the personalities themselves. Moby says of Billy’s Antiques on Houston: “you can find sex toys from the 1920’s and shrunken heads and fetal pigs in jars and cocktail shakers and world war 2 binoculars and books on taxidermy and etc. when billy’s closes i leave the lower east side.” (more…)
Louboutin X Ladurée Macaroons
The gorgeous and delicious pastries were some of the most fabulous things about Paris.
Now Chic Report tells us that famous patisserie Ladurée is teaming up with equally-delectable Louboutin to create an even more irresistible package: Louboutin macaroons. (more…)
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Tagged fashion news, food news
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