When my friend Kim saw a four-person dinner at DBGB pop up on GiltCity for $150, the first thing she thought was, “SUNDAE!!” And the second thing she thought was, “Can I eat four sundaes by myself?” And the third thing she thought was, “Guess I have to invite Katie.”
I’d had a very so-so experience the first time around at DBGB, but my subsequent tasting menu at Chef Boulud’s flagship restaurant, Daniel, was so outstanding it changed the way I rate all other restaurants; naturally, I was interested in a second try at DBGB. So Dr. Boyfriend and I met Kim and her friend Kelly on Friday night to share what we’d read wouldn’t be enough food but turned out to be so much we couldn’t finish it all. Nor did we want to, in the case of the final course, but more on that later.
Shrimp, mussels, clams, oysters, snails, tuna tartare and a whole crab claw. All things I was completely terrified by a mere couple of years ago. And it’s not that I exactly salivate over any of them now, like my boyfriend does, but I was perfectly willing to try everything on this platter. Luckily, the fact that there were only two of some of the items meant that I only had to try a few.
The mussels were perfectly cleaned, which is a major issue for me, because eww, please don’t try to feed me sand and stomach leftovers if I’m already going out on a limb by eating seafood at all. The fact that they were covered in a cool, creamy sauce with herbs didn’t hurt anything, either. The tuna tartare was well-appointed with fresh herbs, and the crab claw looked so fresh I didn’t even bother dressing it with lemon. Wait, no, that was because the server took the lemon away before I could dress the crab. Anyway.
I tried one of the larger and one of the smaller oysters, but Dr. Boyfriend and Kim handled the apparently veeeery-oceany-tasting clams and the giant snails, a process which began with excited faces,
quickly switched to determined faces when the snails refused to let go of their shells,
and ended with whatever you call this face once they actually tasted the things:
I’m still not entirely swearing off trying snails drenched in butter sometime in my life, but I’m a little less sure after this.
Very classic, and an excellent palate-cleanser. The iceberg wedge is one of the only salads I actually enjoy, because:
a) it has bacon, b) it has cheese, and c) iceberg lettuce is basically water.
I like to think of it as a vehicle for moving fatty things to my mouth.
I think we all agreed that though this was a rich, hearty sausage, the lentils were really the star. Which is good, since we ordered lentils, glazed carrots (undercooked for my taste and not nearly sugary enough), and ham and crayfish gumbo (flavorful but too thin) as our sides without anyone telling us we were already getting lentils.
This one was too sweet for me. When I see beer-braised, I want the lingering stench of Guinness on my breath for days; I think this might have been soaked in O’Doul’s.
This was the most complete of the sausage plates in that there was a lot going on but that the theme was so evident. I loved the homogenous texture of the sausage, more like bologna than ground meat, and the crunchy pickle that was such a divergence from the cooked-until-mushy accompaniments on the other plates.
Easily my favourite, just because it had the most flavor. I was in need of some spice, and I might have liked the peppers more than the sausage itself because of that.
I’ve always been scared of but interested in blood sausage, and after having tried it, I can’t believe I ever even considered it exotic. The texture was crumbly and dry, the taste earthy and rich. It was like eating fake meat, or textured vegetable protein, which I did for four years as a vegetarian. I wouldn’t say I liked or disliked it; it was boring enough that I was just sort of neutral about it. And that’s the last thing I ever thought I’d say about sausage made of blood.
We were there for the sundaes, and once again, they were so good they’d make me come back to DBGB again despite the otherwise just-okay food. I went for the blueberry-mint after my first wonderful mint-chocolate experience and again found the mint flavor so fresh and herbaceous. Dr. Boyfriend and Kim said it was like eating ice cream salad, but I loved the savoriness of the mint coupled with the olive oil cake. The candied brioche added crunch and sugar to the very natural-tasting berries.
I would’ve been equally happy with either of the other sundaes, though. Kim and my boyfriend both got the caramel-pear, which had the most flavorful marshmallows and pears that tasted like they’d just come out of a pie, while I almost got drunk on Kelly’s beer-soaked cherries. These were adult sundaes.
I had another soufflé this bad once. The server asked us how we were enjoying it, and I said we weren’t, and he brought us another dessert. This time, the server was basically absent for all of our meal, so we just left it sitting.
I was the first to poke my spoon into it to make a hole for the creme anglaise, and I described the bite as “exactly on the edge of egginess”. Well, of course, the farther we got down into the soufflé, the eggier it became, so once everyone had a bite, the rest was inedible. It was the very opposite of the Grand Marnier soufflé we had at The Mark by Jean-Georges. Egg when you want cake is disconcerting.
As with my last visit, this was a mixed bag. The sausages–which are of course supposed to be the focus of the restaurant–are good, but none of them had me mmming in disbelief like so many of the dishes at Daniel did, and for $13 to $15 per sausage, I should’ve been. The place is borderline hip (what we could hear of the soundtrack was all indie rock), but the noise level is obtrusive, and the service suffers because the servers can’t interact with diners. Not that they’d want to, apparently: our server seemed like the classic NYC wannabe-actor who’s annoyed by customers, and the waiter at the door who looked like a greeter was actually just waiting for us to move so he could leave. Luckily, the sundaes were incredible at $9, and I can see myself popping in just for dessert some night if I’m in the Bowery.
As a fairly new food blogger originally from three states away, I sometimes feel out of the food-blogging loop. And as a pig farmer’s daughter, I really love me a good pork roast. So it was a delight to be invited to eat a whole suckling pig at The Breslin Bar & Dining Room with one of my favourite food bloggers, Chubby Chinese Girl, and her pals Henry from Ramblings and Gamblings, Tia from Bionic Bites, Addie from Gypsy-Addie’s Food Diary, and other friends who actually eat things without blogging about them.
The first thing you notice about The Breslin is just how gastropubby it is. It’s a bar, but it’s the kind of bar where the bartender’s serving more burgers than beers. Every inch of wall space is covered in something farm-related–mostly ceramic animals in all shapes and sizes–and all of the fixtures are old-timey. The place is dark but for the bright light coming from the sparkling white open kitchen in the back. And we especially loved the use of what appears to be the original ceiling, which was cracked and peeling and beautiful.
I’m really not an appreciator of salad. I get that some people like light, fresh foods, but I’m going to chase my oysters with a big buttered steak every time. Our first course was a salad even I could’ve eaten as a meal, though. The Caesar dressing was just so flavorful, the dried herbs so crunchy. The anchovies weren’t fishy at all, really, but just added some salty depth. I would order this again in a second.
And then the pig arrived as the entire restaurant spontaneously broke into applause.
Its little piggy face was right in front of me, its eyeless sockets staring at me and its puffed ears floating alongside its head, begging to be popped like balloons at a county fair dart game. It was much smaller than I’d expected, but I guess we were feeding a table of nine and not a whole neighborhood of smalltown Ohio hillbillies.
Our pig-carver deftly removed the legs from each side and then tonged shoulder, belly, loin, and butt onto our plates.
My plate of crispy skin and shoulder was heavenly. The forkfuls alternated between completely falling apart and so crunchy I couldn’t cut them. It was all of the best things about pork with the benefit that I could sample all of the cuts in one dish.
My boyfriend’s experience wasn’t quite as good as mine, because the skin he got was floppy rather than crispy. I had to give him a piece of my skin before he understood why everyone was salivating over it. I guess that’s one of the side effects of EATING A WHOLE PIG.
It was served with sides of potatoes roasted in duck fat, roasted fennel, broccoli rabe, green sauce, and red sauce. The potatoes were the star with their extra crispy/extra fatty exteriors and soft insides, but really, all of the accoutrements held their own. The garlicky broccoli rabe and tender fennel were both spicy to accent the sweetness of the pork, while the chunky red sauce of peppers and tomatoes only added to its sweetness by tasting wildly of apple pie.
The apple that had been roasted in the pig’s mouth, on the other hand, was funky. My first bite was just nice, mushy apple, but my second bite was freaky, pig-saliva-flavored mushy apple. Lesson learned.
We spent an hour or so really ravaging that carcass, peeling back the cheeks and breaking off the ears, making excessive mentions of the butt meat and trying the doubly-flavoured neck meat.
Even my boyfriend, the salad-lover, found himself ravenous.
In the end, only this
and this remained.
And that’s when they brought the chocolate tarts
and ice cream.
The tart was very good, especially the parts with course salt sprinkled on top, but the ice cream was the really delicious part. I don’t want to pretend like I have any idea what to compare the flavor to, but the ice cream was extra sweet and just had a really wonderful smooth texture. I wondered if there was Marshmallow Fluff or something mixed in.
This was a difficult rating for me. On one hand, I really appreciate the novelty of being able to eat an entire pig in a fairly small NYC restaurant. I appreciate the work and care that had to go into preparing it. The side dishes were all better than expected and were flavorful enough not to become just afterthoughts next to the pig. I’m still thinking about that ice cream. But at the end of the day, if I’m going to spend $85 for a plate of food, I’d rather have it be an uncommon preparation made with ingredients I have to Google before I leave for the restaurant. Had this been anything but a whole pig, it would have been much less expensive, and there wouldn’t have been any floppy skin to deal with.
But my boyfriend said, “I mean, I just ask myself how much better they could have done with that, and it seems like, for what it was, that’s about as good as you could expect,” and I think that’s reasonable. It was a really neat experience, and I’m very glad I got to be a part of it. I found out that for me, eating an animal that still looks like itself isn’t weird at all! And I met some great people in the process.
My friend Meredith and I decided to go to Lodge in our Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg one night last week to celebrate a cool restaurant not being on the cool-saturated Bedford Ave. She’d been there once a year ago for brunch and wasn’t impressed, but she left deciding that she wanted to come back and try more of the dishes, so I’d say it was a success.
• I’m so into the fact that deviled eggs are a popular thing right now. These were probably the best I’ve had lately thanks to their extreme chiviness. The added texture was a welcome treat, too.
• This was less like pulled pork and more like pulled pork soup. I’m the kind of girl who likes a little Kansas City in her barbeque, so I wasn’t totally averse to the extra sauce, but this would’ve overwhelmed someone who prefers their sauce as a mop or a side. The meat was just the right amount of fatty, and there was still plenty of burnt-end flavor, but I’d probably tell them to make it not-so-sloppy next time.
• Why are there mushrooms in my Brussels sprouts?! And why are they not mentioned on the menu?! Neither Meredith nor I were very pleased with this, especially since little burned Brussels sprouts bits look like mushrooms, and I accidentally ate one. Not that it tasted bad or anything, because mushrooms are actually kind of delicious, but I don’t eat them because of their ugliness.
• Just look at that flaky topping. This more-mac-than-cheese tasted slightly bacony to me, but there was no bacon to be found in it, so maybe they used a smoked gouda that deceived me. This was meant to be a side dish but more than served as Meredith’s main, so A+ for value.
It’s a very neighborhoody kind of place, with a family at one table and a group of twentysomethings celebrating a birthday at another. It’s on a quiet but not uninhabited corner, and the people-watching–guessing whether a girl actually liked the rumbly 50s-era car her date was driving, a Satmar Jew looking completely lost for five minutes but unwilling to stop anyone for help–from walls of solid glass was top-notch. The service was totally unpretentious and even verging on friendly, my giant bottle of pear cider was only $10, and they were playing Spoon on the overhead speakers. Sold.
Serendipity 3 is probably the tourist destination in NYC when it comes to dining, and you would think the sometimes three-hour waits would keep people who actually live here away, but . . .
Okay, actually, I don’t think anyone who lives here does go there. BUT! I love it. Its two floors are filled with the oddest vintage lamps, clocks, mirrors, paintings, and bric-a-brac, none of which matches and all of which is tacky. In December, they have a neon pink Christmas tree and lighted snowflakes as big as you are covering the walls. It’d be offensive if it wasn’t so charming.
The menu is extensive, covering everything from pastas to crepes to hot dogs to the most inventive sandwiches. When I started visiting in 2005, I would always get the Summer Bries, which is smoked turkey, sliced apples, melted brie, and alfalfa sprouts, served on raisin pumpernickel with Russian dressing. Then I started trying different things on the menu: the Chicken Pot Pie (delicious, with giant hunks of white-meat chicken), The Alamo (a spicy black bean burger that was good but looked and tasted exactly like the Morningstar Farms version you can buy in your freezer section), the Chicken Salad Sandwich (great ingredients but not NEARLY enough mayonnaise).
For the past couple of years, though, there’s only one thing I’ll order: the Young Chicken Sandwich, an open-face concoction of chicken chunks crisply sautéed in butter with almonds, served on toasted Irish Soda Bread with greens. The butter practically drips off the chicken and soaks the soda bread, which is so delicious I’d eat it as a meal on its own. The crunchiness of the chicken and almonds contrasts so well with the soft bread, and although it comes with this vinegar-based curry sauce, I always request Russian dressing instead. And you should, too.
The whole reason for going to Serendipity, though, is the desserts. Now, the restaurant is famous for its Frozen Hot Chocolate, but let me tell you a secret: it’s not that good. It’s cold and chocolately as a frozen hot chocolate should be, but it’s extremely thin, like chocolate powder added to cold water. I want to be able to eat my desserts with a spoon, and this can be sipped from a straw and finished in ten seconds.
(You know what’s a lot better? The Frozen Hot Chocolate from Dairy Queen. No joke. It’s mixed with thick vanilla soft serve, and the chocolate sauce they add to it clings to the side of the cup for you to scrape off at the end. Plus, it’s about $6 cheaper than the Serendipity version. Unfortunately, it only seems to be available in the Midwest, which is why I make trips home to see my family in Ohio 6 to 8 times a year.)
Instead, I enjoy Serendipity’s sundaes, which are a meal in themselves at $15 but are weeeeeeeeeeeeell worth it and can be split amongst five people. The Can’t Say No Sundae with peanut butter pie, vanilla ice cream, bananas, hot fudge, and whipped cream is my favourite, but really, the Three Scoops of Ice Cream of your choice with one topping is just as impressive:
No matter what you order, half of it will fall off out of the sundae glass and onto the dish below. Do not be inhibited. Dig in.
My office ordered two king cakes last week under the guise of needing them for a co-worker’s going-away party but actually because I’ve always wanted to try them. The first king cakes were introduced to the southern U.S. by French and Spanish settlers and were originally associated with Christmas but are now traditional in Mardi Gras celebrations. Which makes sense, considering how indulgent they are.
A southern co-worker recommended Paul’s Pastry Shop as the source for an authentic king cake, and the going-away girl choose a lemon over cream cheese and a chocolate Bavarian. I spent the week before they arrived telling everyone we were going to have cake made of baby, because a tiny plastic doll is stuck into the cake post-baking and is said to provide good luck to whoever finds it in their slice.
When we opened up the cake box, we thought it was a lump of unbaked dough, but it turns out that an undecorated king cake is just sort of ugly. Luckily, bags of icing and sprinkles were provided, along with Mardi Gras beads to use as payment for boob-baring. Or, since my office is full of men, manboob-baring.
Ash goes for decorative swirls, but we figure out later that Jeff’s way of just slopping it on in a straight line makes for better coverage and easier hand-spreading.
Nik, it turns out, has no future in cake-decorating.
The finished product!
Dripping with icing and caked in layers of sprinkles, it was a diabetic’s worst nightmare. The cake itself was mostly a thick, sweet bread with the tiniest layer of lemon preserves or chocolate spread and a layer of cream cheese baked into it, and it was good, but it wasn’t the sort of super-moist cake we usually go for in the U.S.
The best part was the way the icing collected in pools around the edges of the pan and began to harden. Some people acted grossed out when I spooned the extra icing onto slices of the cake, and those people are no longer my friends.
It was clear to Jack in slicing the first cake which piece the baby was in, so of course he took that piece for himself.
After licking the baby clean, Jack threw his away, but
Steve, who found the baby in the second cake, proved to be a doting caregiver.
Happy Fat Tuesday!
5 donuts: transcendent experiences
4 donuts: extremely awesome meals
3 donuts: good-ass eats
2 donuts: food I could have made
1 donuts: dinners not fit for the dogs
