Earlier this year, I wrote about my only visit to Sushi Yasuda, widely regarded as one of the best sushi restaurants in NYC. I was still in my twenty-four-year phase of not liking fish then and had really gone out on a limb there by ordering a tuna roll.
Since then, my boyfriend has mentioned going back approximately four hundred times. Usually I’d have no problem accompanying him and ordering the very safest items on the menu, but the problem was that he wanted to try the chef’s omakase, where you have no say in what you’re served. Which, from the reviews I’d read, involved everything from scallop roe to giant clam to eel. My boyfriend promised he’d eat anything I couldn’t, though, knowing I’d try my best not to be squeamish, and we made a reservation to sit at the counter in front of the chef preparing our sushi. You know, so I’d be really embarrassed if I couldn’t eat something he gave to me.
The chef would place one or two pieces of nigiri sushi for each of us on a wooden tray with a small pile of ginger to act as a palate cleanser. No soy sauce nor wasabi was offered, as the restaurant is known for adding exactly the right amount to its rice as each piece is formed. We used our fingers to pick them up, which was pretty exciting to a couple of Westerners who have been specifically taught not to eat with our hands, and aside from one minor (okay, humongous) slip up on my part, it was an easy, not-at-all scary first omakase experience.
Smoky, fresh, and vinegary.
I was going to say that I’d love to know how an uncooked sea creature become crispy, but I probably don’t actually want to know. It was definitely a shock and a bit of a delight to bite into something that looked soft and pliable and to find that it had a crunch.
This is where the major slip-up occurred, but I’ll have to write about it in a separate post to save your appetite.
Ironically, the eel had been one of the items I was most hesitant about before dining at Yasuda, and it’s the thing I walked away craving the most. Partly because it felt like a novelty next to all of the uncooked fish and partly because it’s just a really meaty, sweet bite. The charred flavor contrasted the sugary sauce so nicely in a contest between richness and brightness.
We weren’t quite satisfied yet and requested another round of eel; our chef informed us he had five different kinds!
Compared to other restaurants as a whole, Yasuda could never be 5-donut material for me. Inherently, the dishes are less interesting than those at a new American or French restaurant, and the flavors are so mild that it was hard for me to talk about them much beyond their differing textures. I really loved the simplicity of the meal but desperately needed that eel to break up the monotony of raw fish after raw fish. Because each dish was so similar, the meal just flew by, and it’s hard for me to believe I had 20-odd pieces of sushi.
But in terms of sushi-eating, Sushi Yasuda was an unmatched experience for me: the freshest fish, prepared perfectly, and eaten the moment it left the “kitchen”. The decor was simple and elegant and the service quietly excellent, with our tea being replaced at regular intervals to ensure it was always warm. I loved having access to the chef, and even with all of my fish-related wimpiness, I enjoyed everything he chose for us. I think the omakase was a novelty for me, but with Yasuda’s extensive menu and non-inhibitive cost, I can imagine many more nights there in our future.
Dr. Boyfriend and I had been watching too much “Bizarre Foods” and desperately wanted some pho from Xi’an Famous Foods, but we were too lazy to take the bus two miles downtown, so I hopped onto our favourite delivery site, Seamlessweb, to find someone who’d bring it to us.
And that day changed our lives forever. Since then, we’ve tried as much of Obao‘s menu as possible, but the problem is that everything is so good that we hate to give up our favourites to order the dishes we haven’t tried. So here’s what we’ve managed to eat thus far:
My friend Chubby Chinese Girl thought this was too dry and hard, and I can see where she’s coming from, but for me, the caramel glaze framing each piece more than makes up for any juicy pork expectations you might have. Plus, I actually enjoyed tearing the pork apart with my teeth like a wild person. I didn’t care much for the too-vinegary pickled papaya on the side, but the fresh mint was perfect.
I was skeptical about these. Dr. Boyfriend had them one weekend while I was away and assured me I would be impressed, but I . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. The spare rib is so deliciously grilled, and when you chew on the sugarcane as you sweep the meat off, the sweet juices leak out. Plus, the hoisin-peanut dipping sauce is just so rich you want to use the sugarcane to sponge it all up at the end.
The fact that these are called “lettuce wraps” and are served with big pieces of nice-looking lettuce would make one assume that you’re supposed to wrap the spring roll in the lettuce and eat them together. But we have yet to do that. The spring rolls are perfect just as they are–fried and crispy on the outside but never overdone on the inside–and slapping some boring lettuce around all of that just seems like a good way to detract from the flavors of pork, shrimp, taro, and mushroom. But I’m open to debate.
I’m under the impression that sambal is usually a spicy chili sauce, so the fact that the flavor is worked right into the calamari batter seems pretty neat to me, and Dr. Boyfriend appreciated the cooling cucumber relish on the side. Naturally I didn’t try this, because I still don’t entirely trust delivery seafood. Stop judging me.
A salad that doesn’t actually include any lettuce and is full of flank steak? Yes, please. These slices of tender steak and sweet fruit are marinating in cucumber and lime juices when they arrive, but don’t be fooled: this dish is spicy! So spicy that we sometimes can’t even finish it because we’re too busy crying and wiping our noses on each other. You think, “Pineapple! That should counteract the peppers.” But no. The only way to quench the fires is to cut out your tongue. And this salad is worth it.
For those of you who don’t like to weep in your dinner, this salad with shaved cabbage, rau ram herbs (the cilantro of Vietnam, apparently), lime dressing, and crushed peanuts is bright and summery. I liked it so much I was inspired to make my own cabbage salad the next weekend, which, if you know anything about me, is a major feat.
This is a terrible picture of a much more interesting dish. With thinly slices of beef and rice noodles in a broth that punches with bold ginger and anise flavors, it’s messy and belly-filling. Dr. Boyfriend gets his with these beef balls that are kind of slick and slimy on the outside, but he swears they’re delicious.
I often say that I don’t find Asian food comforting. I find it exciting and interesting, but if I’m looking for feel-good food, it probably doesn’t involve sesame, and it sure doesn’t involve lettuce. But I crave this dish. I think about it when it’s not near. I doodle its name on my memo pads at work.
It’s broad flat noodles with egg, sesame oil, scallions, and lettuce. I usually get mine with chicken, but I once accidentally ordered it vegetarian and still thought it was the best. I love the texture of egg mixed into dishes like this (soboro don is another favourite), and the sesame provides this deep, rich flavor that makes it seems like the chicken was cooked in it for hours. And the noodles. The noodles are pan-fried in such a way that their edges get crispy. I’m salivating here.
This is the very essence of comforting. Even with that lettuce.
I’m no Asian foods expert, so I won’t bother trying to speak of authenticity of the flavors and preparation at Obao, but in terms of sheer visceral experience, I look forward to ordering from Obao like other people look forward to Christmas. While I do think the appetizers and salads are each a few dollars overpriced, my Kua Gai is worth its weight in gold. For the well-developed flavors of absolutely everything we’ve ordered, 4.5 donuts.
Lately, all of my friends (and by “all” of them, I mean “two”) have been going on and on about how great Bareburger is. And even before I tasted the burger, I was pleased by the people making it and their commitment to all-natural ingredients like grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, and organic produce. As much as I love my home state of Ohio, my friends there have to hunt for grass-fed beef, while I have easy access to restaurants like this that serve nothing but tasty, tasty, vitamin-rich cowmeat.
Now, the astute reader will recognize that I have a bit of a carb problem, so on the days that I’m being a good girl, I do things like eat burgers without buns and order side salads instead of French fries. Obviously this makes for terribly boring blogging, but luckily for me, Bareburger makes it so it doesn’t have to be terribly boring eating.
No one should ever order a lettuce wrap if they don’t have to. There, I said it. I really appreciated how this one came contained in a paper wrapper that really did make it easier to keep everything cohesive, but the problem is that the paper held in steam and juices that made the lettuce soggy, unpalatable, and really not helpful at all as a burger vehicle. I really don’t know how to make a lettuce wrap better, though. Maybe just use two really sturdy pieces of cabbage?
Anyway, the burger itself was delicious sans lettuce. Juicy, cheesy, just-blackened on the outside, with crispy bacon and crunchy RAW red onion, which is the only way onion should ever be. Unless it’s in an onion ring. Which is just what was on my boyfriend’s version.
Truth be told, my boyfriend was napping when I ordered these for us, so he had absolutely no say in what he got, and I basically just got him the worst thing on the menu. “Worst” meaning “worst for you” and therefore actually “best”. This was colby jack, onion rings, applewood smoked bacon, lettuce, chopped French fries and Bareburger special sauce on a multi-grain roll. See what I did there with the multi-grain roll? Makes the burger totally healthy.
Just as Bareburger put some thought into buying and serving all sorts of sustainable meats in interesting combinations, they also put some thought into their side salad. Can you imagine? Our Caesar salads were fresh and crunchy, with huge slivers of Parmesan all over the place. (And tomatoes and croutons, but of course I didn’t eat those.) Definitely a win, as far as salads go.
One star for quality ingredients. One star for awesome combinations of ingredients. One star for caring about carb addicts and the gluten-allergic (tapioca buns!). And one star for just plain yummy food.
I’ve been sick for a week now. Thanks to all the cold medicine I’ve been hitting or the immense amounts of godknowswhat up my nose, I haven’t been able to taste anything since last Wednesday. But my little cousin was in town from Ohio, and I couldn’t not take the poor kid somewhere cool.
So we went to “Top Chef” contestant and should-have-been-the-winner Angelo Sosa’s new casual burger joint, Social Eatz. If you can get past the fact that a Z has been added to every item on the menu–BURGER’Z! TACO’Z! SIDE’Z and SWEET’Z!–it’s actually a really cute, neighborhoody kind of place with what I understand is pretty tasty food.
I, of course, couldn’t verify the tastiness for myself thanks to my cold, but here are some photos to get your mouth to watering:
None of us could resist ordering this burger after seeing the giant banner proclaiming that it won Eater.com’s Greatest Burger in America competition, and while I think the New Yorkers in the bunch still walked away with our Shake Shack and Blue 9 bias still intact, the Ohio kids really thought it was the best they’d tasted, and nobody argued that it was one fine burger.
For me, it was a little too small when compared to the half-pounders you get at places like Cozy and Jackson Hole. For my boyfriend, it was a little too juicy, which is totally a not-real complaint when it comes to burgers. And for my cousin and his friends, the fact that they won’t add cheese to the burger was a major blow.
But why would you need cheese when the soft egg bursts all over the burger and then solidifies into this?
Hot dogs in this town always let me down. I know I’m the only one left, but I’ve never been to Crif Dogs in the East Village or Bark Hot Dogs in Prospect Heights. Yet I somehow expect that the hot dogs elsewhere will compare to my expectations of those places. I want a hot dog PILED with crap. I shouldn’t be able to pick it up unless I want to lick it off my shirt later. The diner in my hometown in Ohio serves hot dogs with chili, cheese, and onions for $1. ONE DOLLAR.
This was a sausage lounging on a thin bed of relish for $8. I won’t judge it, having not been able to taste it, but the look of it did not bowl me over.
Even with all of my sickness, I got a hint of citrus when I bit into one of these guys. That, I think, is a very good sign.
I’d be a terrible food blogger if I rated the place on presentation alone, but certainly everything looked good enough to entice me to try again when my cold subsides. And I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting in again: the place was nearly empty at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. Maybe it’s the out-of-the-way location or the way it seems caught between wanting to be a sports bar and wanting to be a trendy Asian joint along the lines of Sea in Williamsburg or Spice Market in the Meatpacking District. I never mind not having to wait in line for a seat, though, and just hope the eatz are better than the socializing.
My boyfriend noticed that the latest Eater.com Heatmap included newcomer Tenpenny, which has been getting rave reviews for its pretzel bread, lobster gnocchi, and giant rack of pork.
The only problem is that all of the reviews we saw were filled with terrible dark, grainy photos where the bread could’ve been barf and the pork could’ve been poo, so we were a little unsure about what we were getting into. At $68 for six courses and $115 for seven courses with wine, though, we were willing to give it a shot.
So greasy! So yummy!
We were so amused when the first course turned out to be an appetizer sampler, because these were exactly the three we were most interested in and had considered ordering additionally just to make sure we got to try them. Talk about exceeding expectations.
The chips were extremely crispy, puffed little slices of potato. The very spicy chipotle one was my favourite, and although I did like all three of the flavors, I think the other two appetizers were more delicious and complex, and I’d be more apt to order them again.
Not that you can do anything wrong with artichokes, but frying them is particularly great because all of the layers get crispy. I’m used to smaller, firmer types of roe that aren’t so juicy, so the way these little trout babies popped so easily between my teeth and leaked out all their fishy goodness was a little surprising. Not unpleasant, but surprising. This was certainly the most challenging of the appetizers, ifyouknowwhatImean.
My grandmother makes a ham loaf that’s celebrated among my family members on every holiday. Up until recently, I didn’t get it. Why would you grind up ham and form it into a little sauce-covered turd when an unadulterated slice of ham is as good as it gets on its own? Well, I got over the mindblock a few holidays ago, and now I look forward to the ham loaf as much as the next gal. I was going to miss Easter back home in Ohio this year, but wouldn’t you know it, Tenpenny is serving my grandma’s famous ham loaf.
Only their sauce hardens on the outside of the croquette, making it sweet and crunchy. It’s just the perfect little bite of ham, and I could’ve easily eaten a plateful of these on my own.
I like vegetables, but usually only when they’re served alongside an intimidating slab of meat. I have friends who don’t eat green things. I have friends who literally don’t eat vegetables period. But this was a plate of vegetables that I truly believe could win anyone over. They were heavily dusted with dehydrated ranch flavoring and tasted like junk food. It was like eating a bag of chips, except that every once in a while, you’d run into a fresh radish.
The mix of raw and fried, sweet and spicy was brilliant. We loved the contrast between the soft carrots with their tops still on and the crunchy sunchoke “soil” underneath, which were like bitter bacon bits. I would definitely, definitely order this again, and I wouldn’t even care if there wasn’t a hunk of meat in my future.
The puree garnishing this dish was far more vegetabley than anything on the last plate, funnily enough. We loved the texture play of the granola-like crispy chicken skin, the slick scallop, and the chewy chanterelles. Like most kids, I grew up avoiding black licorice, but I’ve come to appreciate anise as an adult, and it was used especially well here.
I could not wait to taste this. I truly love gnocchi, and I was so excited to see how the soft little dumplings would interact with that special segmented rubbery thing that lobster has going on. The gnocchi were the lightest little pillows of hash-brown-y flavor, and I loved the added texture the sear on them provided. Plus, that earthy, rich truffle in the sauce? Come on.
Now, you know I’m no sucker for fish, but you drop a dehydrated lemon with all of its condensed tart flavor on top of a piece of perfectly-seared halibut, and I’m sold. This was one of the better fish dishes I’ve had with those soft onions and artichokes underneath. I’m still pretty anti-olive, though, and the bitterness of the paste on the side of the plate was too much for me, especially since it looked like sweet, sweet chocolate.
I’m not sure if my picture of this didn’t turn out well because I was trashed or if it’s because it’s just a hard dish to capture with its plate-spanning girth and ceiling-reaching height. Either way, what you see doesn’t in any way compare to what I tasted, which were tender, well-crusted slices of pork complimented by a what amounted to an apple pot pie.
When we saw “savory apple pie”, we thought, Yeah, right, but it really, truly was not sweet! I think a lot of its non-dessert-ness came from the caramelized onions inside. It was just such a great play on pork chops and applesauce that we were sad when the pie ran out.
Dessert was a little tray of two salty walnut financiers, melt-in-your-mouth hazelnut truffles, and gummy strawberry pate de fruits. Now, even as a dessertphile, I didn’t mind that this was the only sweet course. Most tasting menus, no matter how many courses they claim to be, include a little plate of petit fours much like these after the actual dessert course, but having not seen the dessert menu, I thought maybe they just didn’t do sweets. My boyfriend was disappointed, but I said, “Hey, if you’re not good at them, I’d rather you not try to fake it.” But I later looked at the dessert menu online and saw that they have a lime tart and a chamomile panna cotta, which both sound like totally real desserts!
How could you do that to me, Tenpenny?
Another thing Tenpenny did was mess. us. up. They did a great job with drink pairings, but it was almost too good. They started with a cocktail–a Negroni–gave us a white wine, and then slipped in a few reds, all of which were nicely paired. Then the pork rolled around, and we got both a beer and a shot of bourbon. Then the dessert tray came with two liqueurs! All in all, it was nine drinks, and the best part was that Managing Partner Jeffrey Tascarella told us, “We start out with small pours, but if we see that you’re enjoying something, we’ll bring you more.” HA!
We went from this a couple of courses in:
to this at the end of the night:
And that’s after they had taken away many, many glasses. “It’s criminal!” we said on the walk back to my boyfriend’s apartment. “They should be arrested for that!” But we sure did enjoy it.
Tenpenny is casual and cool, with exposed brick on the walls and Wilco and Radiohead on the speakers. Chef Chris Cipollone‘s dishes were all so outstanding that we had a hard time choosing our favourites. Was it the homey pork with the unexpected savory pie? Was it the vegetables that were so good they should be considered junk food? Was it the lobster with the gnocchi? I don’t know, and I want them all again. I’m hoping that Tenpenny’s unassuming location, the Gotham Hotel, will keep all the other eaters away, but this is a restaurant deserving of its hype.
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
