{"id":523,"date":"2012-02-13T18:06:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T22:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=523"},"modified":"2012-02-20T15:04:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T19:04:29","slug":"new-york-minutes-155","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2012\/02\/new-york-minutes-155\/","title":{"rendered":"New York minutes\/Early February 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

The seriously good again: Momofuku Ssam<\/a> in the East Village, where my consort and I met another food-obsessed couple via the Twitter for a Sunday lunch that was even more invigorating than my two previous weekday indulgences. We were there before the door opened at 11:30 so of course got a nice table (and, I learned later, a waiter who Tweets, too). The four of us shared everything, which meant I tasted excellent sweetbreads I normally would spurn (prep them once or twice and you will, too) and the spicy sausage and rice-cake dish, as well as lively pickled vegetables and a pear sorbet brilliantly accessorized with pumpkin, cornflakes and blue cheese. All the duck — rotisserie, dumplings, pulled sandwich — was of course perfect. The only letdown was apple kimchi with bacon and maple labne, which amounted to ingredients talking past each other. WIGB? Can\u2019t wait. 207 Second Avenue at 13th Street, 212 212 254 3500.<\/strong> (BTW: We all went down the avenue afterward to Vandaag<\/a> for the exceptional coffee in that rigorously designed room; the cappuccino was one of the best I\u2019ve ever had on this continent.)<\/p>\n

The transporting: Il Buco Alimentari<\/a> in Nebulousnabe, where we fortified ourselves with\u00a0 Saturday lunch before a time trip through the amazing Merchant\u2019s House Museum<\/a> nearby and where the history was nearly as palpable (wood from the way-back machine). Seeing a whole porchetta on the rotisserie in the theatrical open kitchen made the panino irresistible, and it was a juicy\/crunchy\/tender marvel on just the right bun; pickled vegetables on the side only made it seem more of a deal at $16 (Porchetta<\/a>\u2019s is of course sublime and much cheaper but without the creature comforts). We shared the $14 insalata di cicoria despite my resistance to Scalia anchovies for their name alone, and it turned out to be one of the rare enjoyable bitter salads, with almost sweet Treviso radicchio tossed in and crunchy fine bread crumbs over the top. And $14 grilled sausage over Umbrian lentils had real nuance; fried sage leaves and sweet onions were grace notes. As the server warned, the coffee needs work; even with way more than a cloud on the macchiato it was bitter. (We stopped by Colombe later just to compare and now suspect, though, that taste is not what\u2019s cutting into business; it\u2019s probably more the scene.) The market in the front is quite nice, too, although we managed to get out without buying anything. WIGB? Absolutely, at least for serene lunch. I\u2019d guess it might get loud at dinner, with all those hard surfaces. 53 Great Jones Street, 212 212 837 2622. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The satisfying, again: La Mangeoire<\/a> in Midtown East, where we landed after being warned of a 45-minute wait at the Smith after an opening of New York in Color with a friend\u2019s work at the Howard Greenberg Gallery on 57th Street. The $38 white from the Languedoc matched well with both Bob\u2019s intense coq au vin with mushroom-bacon sauce and my pork roast (first time I’ve ever ordered that, and my reward was super-tender thanks to the server actually asking what temperature I wanted). And the anchoiade, olives and oil with the bread basket were just gravy. I\u2019ll admit it was a little sad to see Christian Delouvrier and think back on Ruth\u2019s bedazzled\u00a0 review in his $30 soup days, but his cooking has lost only the flash and price tag, not the style and substance. WIGB? We may never make it to the Smith. Add in no din and the option of downsized main courses and it\u2019s definitely worth the journey. 1008 Second Avenue near 53d Street, 212 759 7086.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The over-the-top: RedFarm<\/a> in the West Village, where we left my name and of course got a perfect little table and no end of comped food from gregarious Eddie Schoenfeld; we only had to wait as long as it took to pick out three new salts at the Meadow<\/a> down the street. Thank allah we kept a receipt, because it really was more dishes than any cranial sieve could retain (he at least did the smart thing and said: \u201cTake a taste and take it home\u201d). We chose good shu mai shooters (two for $7.50), huge and slightly overwrought crab and duck dumplings (four for $12), exquisite vegetable and chive steamed dumplings (four for $8), noodles with both Dungeness and rock crab ($27) and sublime okra and eggplant yellow curry ($17 and enough to keep me from succumbing to mediocre Thai again for a long, long time — this had at least six kinds of vegetables in addition to the excellent stars, and the sauce was all nuanced flavor). Forced upon us were killer soup dumplings with truffles; strange but irresistible eggplant \u201cbruschetta\u201d topped with smoked salmon and caviar; mushroom spring rolls; amazing barbecued Berkshire pork belly; the $39 like-buttah Creekstone prime rib steak with the best baby bok choy I\u2019ve ever stuck an implement into, and two desserts: chocolate pudding and a \u201cfruit plate.\u201d The kittybag was damned heavy on the way back to the C train, and we ate from it for three days. We also shared a $32 bottle and two $16 glasses of an ideal wine for Joe Ng\u2019s style of cooking, S.A. Prum \u201cBlue\u201d Mosel riesling (Joshua Wesson did the list). WIGB? Can\u2019t wait, although I may sneak in with a bag over my head. But that might mean missing out on Eddie\u2019s entertaining tales. 529 Hudson Street, 212 792 9700. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cgood luck to them\u201d: Left Bank<\/a> in the far West Village, where we met one of our favorite people, in from Veneto, for a great long, long Sunday dinner. We reserved at 6:30 to try out the \u201chappy hour,\u201d which sounded so much more respectable than \u201cearly bird,\u201d but were only able to take advantage of the half-price, half-assed Aperol spritz ($6) because Diego didn\u2019t get there by 7 for the three courses for $20. Dinner was still a steal: I had outstanding potato gnocchi with pumpkin, black pepper and pecorino, almost like spaetzle, for $17; the guys both had the superb juicy-crisp roast half-chicken with capers, cornichons and dill for $21. (Usual sneakiness: Sides are sold separately.) We also shared a pretty great rendition of brandade with warm toast and olives for $10 and a lively bottle of grillo from Diego\u2019s second home of Sicily for $36. Service and the room were both fine, too. (Even though we got the worst table in the house, right under the speaker with nothing but #RIPWhitney — by the end of the night I was starting to realize why she needed drugs.) WIGB? No question, if it lasts. I know we\u2019ve eaten there before . . . 117 Perry Street at Greenwich, 212 727 1170. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The dispiriting despite the design: Cafe Centro in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, where we ducked in just for cheap sustenance at a sunlit table on our way to the must-see Loving and Weegee shows at ICP<\/a>. Warm, salty chips and decent salsa were too easy to fill up on, which was lucky because the rice and beans with my lukewarm cheese enchiladas merited no more than one bite each. Bob ordered tacos with carnitas cooked in Coke and we were both glad he had resisted the mahi ones; these were overfilled and hyper-sweet, but things coulda been worse. WIGB? Why do restaurants get better on Ninth as you head south?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seriously good again: Momofuku Ssam in the East Village, where my consort and I met another food-obsessed couple via the Twitter for a Sunday lunch that was even more invigorating than my two previous weekday indulgences. We were there before the door opened at 11:30 so of course got a nice table (and, I… 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":[97,61,30,103,82,92,27,111,40,23,50,96,65,112,39,14,73,38,6,56,94,31,58,4,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american","category-asian","category-bistro","category-cocktails","category-coffee","category-deals","category-dumplings","category-east-side","category-east-village","category-eating-in-new-york","category-french","category-greenwich-village","category-hells-kitchen","category-inventive","category-italianesque","category-languedoc","category-markets","category-mexican","category-midtown","category-museums","category-sandwiches","category-theater-district","category-top-of-the-food-chain","category-west-village","category-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","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=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}