{"id":518,"date":"2012-02-05T22:48:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T02:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=518"},"modified":"2012-02-13T17:50:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T21:50:36","slug":"new-york-minutes-154","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2012\/02\/new-york-minutes-154\/","title":{"rendered":"New York minutes\/End of January 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

The very close to perfect: Momofuku Ssam<\/a>, where I met a friend for lunch on my birthday and where everything from attitude to kittybag was done right. The rotisserie duck was easily the best nonsmoked duck I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of duck in my many years — you\u2019d almost think it was sous vide from the tenderness and concentrated flavor, but my consort and I watched one roast on the spit on our last visit, so that can\u2019t be true. I didn\u2019t even get into the rice and watercress the slices came with, but I did like wrapping them up in the pancake with all the accoutrements. The $20 weekday set comes with a side, and the spiced fingerlings were pretty amazing. Fried duck dumplings with pickled red cabbage were exquisite yet again, too. Wines by the glass are a better deal in the front room, BTW. WIGB? Any day now. The best part was hearing my friend recall how scary that very corner was back in the Eighties, when another good friend was mugged right outside where we were indulging. 207 Second Avenue at 13th Street. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The superb: Aldea, where Bob and I headed for my birthday the night he got in from 10 days in Costa Rica and where seats at the chef\u2019s counter made the perfect perches as neutral territory for reentry. His sardines were a little mushy, the skin chips in my duck rice a little fatigued, but otherwise the whole experience was sensational. I was pretty taken with the sea urchin laid over cauliflower puree on a toast as a starter, and my entree had almost too much duck breast and chorizo. Bob had to order the suckling pig after seeing it plated: a slab of almost terrine-like deconstructed\/reconstructed pork seared and teamed with both kohlrabi and \u201ccrispy potato\u201d that was like the world\u2019s longest strip\/chip. (Best part of sitting at the counter: You can ask how they do everything, and this was by mandoline.) We should have listened to the sommelier on the Basque white; as he hinted, it was pretty acidic and watery, but our shared glass of sherry overcompensated, especially with the excellent mignardises. WIGB? Absolutely. Great value, great experience. 31 West 17th Street, 212 675 7723. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The good, and good deal: Mermaid Inn in the West Village, where I led us after the dazzling \u201cPina\u201d at IFC and where the waitress\u2019s tout for Blackboard Eats made me remember the Twitter secret and where 20 percent off made a great experience even better. We split a $35 bottle of decent verdicchio with the trout over kale and the outstanding crab cake appetizer ($15 but enough to kittybag). It was before 8, so the noise level was tolerable in the old-folks back room, too. The server and hosts could not have been more hospitable. But someone needs to sit the busboy down to a free dinner and show him how it feels to have someone invade your space with a git-\u2019er-done roughness. He\u2019s super-efficient, but he\u2019s working too fast and definitely too hard. Still, WIGB? Of course. 79 Macdougal Street, 212 260 0100. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The surprisingly not bad: Plein Sud in Tribeca, where we wound up after the outstanding opening of the revitalized South Street Seaport Museum<\/a> and after finding our destination across the street — Nam — was in the midst of morphing into some new destination. I\u2019ll admit I trudged to the table with dread dragging me down, because I\u2019d read in the WSJ that the chef was mostly known for being one of those lower-end Tin Chefs, and had worked in other not-great restaurants. The place was packed, but we got a good table, and the food\/service\/wine all delivered. Bob ordered a not-promising $11 tarte flambee as soon as we sat down, and I would have called it quits at that, but he insisted I order something else, and the $12 beet \u201ctartare\u201d with Fourme d\u2019Ambert, pine nuts and chives almost changed my mind about the sugar veg. His $21 skate with capers turned out to be even more satisfying. WIGB? Surprisingly, yes. Everyone was so nice when we were so old by comparison with the rest of the room. 85 West Broadway at Reade Street, 212 504 5555. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The very close to perfect: Momofuku Ssam, where I met a friend for lunch on my birthday and where everything from attitude to kittybag was done right. The rotisserie duck was easily the best nonsmoked duck I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of duck in my many years — you\u2019d almost… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,40,50,43,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asian","category-east-village","category-french","category-seafood","category-tribeca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":522,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}