JG Melon: it is what it is, which is great

Took our son last Friday for a late lunch. We ordered 2 rare burgers and cottage fries. The burgers came out in 3 minutes flat! And they were fantastic. Many times rare burgers fall apart as you eat them, not this one. It stayed intact from first to last bite. Delicious. The cottage fries had zero salt and tasted a little flat.

In and out pretty quickly; still a top burger to eat if you're on the Upper East Side.

Loring Place

[2 visits]

• Grandma pizza is fantastic
• Burger is delicious.
• But as to be expected via Dan Kluger, the vegetable dishes are the best part of each meal. I had this broccoli salad that I'll be attempting to create and recreate at home.
• Hummus and radishes are lovely. Actually the radishes were the highlight.

Loring Place is comfortable restaurant for anyone loving creative vegetable dishes OR taking a group of risk-averse eaters out for dinner.

Mu Ramen

[I no longer try to make time for proper reviews. Just bullets now.]

• Unnecessarily loud
• Bright with voluminous incandescent light bulbs that heat up the restaurant
• Spicy Miso Ramen - Everything about the dish was excellent. Addition of corn was great.

Bottom line: Mu Ramen is nice ramen if you happen to be at PS 1. This is not worth traveling for.

2019 Restaurant Wish List

A little space to notate the new restaurants I hope to visit this year and a few that I feel deserve a second look.

New to me in 2019? Hopefully:

1. Adda - seems everyone's raving/gushing about the lamb and food's fieriness.
2. Bamonte - One of my favorite 2018 experiences was taking the kids to Queen. Such honest food and such a welcoming environment. I'm hoping/expecting the same here.
3. Berber Street Food - both read reviews reminded me that I'm ignorant about so much of northwestern Africa. Beyond bistella and djoloff rice, there's a lot more for me to learn.
4. Casa Enrique - More new-to-me Mexican dishes please. 
5. Frenchette - Does anyone not like this place? And the wine list is only natural?
6. Le Coq Rico - A $140 baeckoffe? Sign me up!
7. Loring Place - I'm a sucker for a grandma pie and two decades ago I worked for the chef here.
8. Lowerline - I get too little of the gumbo, jambalaya, red beans dishes. 
9. M. Wells Steakhouse - So many years, every year I'm going to go and well, I don't go! I need a 9pm flight from LGA to incent me to eat here at 6:30!
10. Mu Ramen - my ramen intake has waned as I make more and more ramen at home. 
11. Okonomi - Also so many years of saying I'll go and not going. They even serve weekday breakfast!
12. Randazzo's - see #2
13. Tama - Filipino food gets too little of a place in our home rotation. I need to experience more to make sure
14. Zyara - Sandwiches of all sorts can be great but something vegan and Arabic? Sign me up!

Places to visit again

1. Chez Ma Tante - we had a lovely meal here in the summer of 2018 that included two wines I wish I recalled; because they were delicious.
2. Faun - a random 2019 partial family outing led us here where we experienced really delayed service and incomprehensibly good pork
3. J.G. Melon - it's been 20 years!
4. LIC Market - after two 2018 visits, this may be my favorite new restaurant in New York. I've even started replicating their dishes at home.
5. Ugly Baby - the food was delicious on a record-cold December 2017 night when I went with a self-purported foodie who then turned a nose up at offal and non-primal cuts. The cold and company made concentrating on the food difficult.

Dirt Candy

So I didn't have to go it alone. My favorite client was in town and able to set aside the time for an 8-course meal there. No need to go into detail aside from everything is vegetable and everything is innovative and thought-provoking. Nearly everything is delicious. My favorites may have been the desserts which included a Japanese eggplant foster! Some things were a little too cute; like the mini robata grill with peppers grilling over binchotan. Clever yet with little impact on the peppers (which were delicious on their own). Long live Dirt Candy.

Annicka

What a funny story! We were set to see Diane Krall at the Capitol Theater in Portchester on a cold, drizzly February evening. I inquired about dinner with two frients (clients that turned to friends) residing in some proximity to the theater. One paused significantly and then recommended a place 15 miles west and out of the way. The other scoffed at the idea we would leave Brooklyn to eat in Westchester. He recommended finding something delicious in Queens en route. Well, that concept got me thinking about places I desire visiting near the BQE. Selecting dinner options via highway proximity feels foreign and returns to days' of great old journals like The Michelin Guide and The Green Book. So we selected Annicka and it was delightful.

From the setting to the service to the food, all facets were nearly perfect. The image shows our dishes. I won’t detail all of them, just the charred cauliflower. It was such a revelation. The florets were charred just shy of burnt and then sprinkled with a seasoning that was salty and lemony. Those florets then sat in a lovely beet and cauliflower stem sauce. This sauce was closer to pesto texture than a puree. Annicka is worth going to, no matter your current location. As delightful a meal as we’ve had in some time. Maybe not quite as impressive as Semilla yet in that direction. Long live Annicka!

Atla

Consistency in concept. As a few weeks pass since my lunchtime visit, that phrase best describes Atla. It feels like a casual offshoot of Cosmé. And I actively disliked it as much as I dislike Cosmé. Now, nothing is wrong with the food. I didn’t get sick. The service is fine. Nobody insulted me. The space is airy and clean. It all feels like a television set. Like at any moment a series of Haddad trucks could double-park on Lafayette and break down Atla in 2 hours. Future passerbys would ask did it really even happen? Did I even eat at Atla? And if you did, the food quality would not be the reason you’d remember it. On my visit I had the ranchero eggs with avocado. It was fine except not aligned with the service. I asked the waitress to help me select a dish (something spicy and not messy; note: I was in a suit). She struggled so mightily that I selected the ranchero to put her out of the misery I induced. What a messy dish. Large pieces of torn of tortilla covered in a nice sauce held two poached eggs. Stale tortillas don’t cut easily. The eggs will make the sauce messier. I asked myself how am I going to eat this mess? I tried and succeeded in staying clean though after 50% I stopped trying. It wasn’t worth the potential risk. I ordered an agua fresca to accompany my lunch. The drink is served in lovely glassware with a dozen small ice cubes (perfect cubes). Each time I lifted the drink to my mouth, the ice cubes came tumbling towards me. And this agua fresca was purple! What a potential mess. I asked for a straw and the check, finished my beverage, paid the bill and wondered: did that really happen?

2018 Restaurant Wish List

Each year, I aspire to visit 12-15 New York City restaurants and somehow only manage to enjoy 8 or so. So 2018's list has some carryover from 2017 (sadly, even from 2016).

1. Annicka - Farm-to-restaurant? Can't wait to see how the beverage service works.
2. Atla - I have some apprehension here. That stems from my (incorrect) correlation of all-day restaurants with mediocre everything. People love Atla though.
3. Bamonte's - In 2017, I took the kids to Queen. We had so much fun even if the food was adequate. The old man was in his element: lovely suit, seating customers and checking in on his regulars. So let's continue visiting the legendary places (I'm still mad at myself for missing Gage and Tollner).
4. Chez Ma Tante - Reviews abound and all say: fantastic. Sounds like a place where I could learn a bit of technique.
5. Chumley's - I remember loving it in the late 90s for a drink so now that the reboot's newness recedes, hopefully I can enjoy a meal and drinks.
6. Dirt Candy - Nobody wants to come with me to Dirt Candy. I agree with their slogan: anyone can cook a hamburger, leave the vegetables to professionals. So I'm going alone in 2018!
7. Freek's Mill - My favorite wine shop proclaims a favorable wine list that matches the food beautifully. Why do I expect to see a lot of freekeh on the menu?
8. Hanoi House - My pho game is pathetic. I aspire-expect to have great pho here and ask a lot of questions.
9. Lilia - A 2018 home cooking goal: to master classic pastas. So I hope to go on an evening when the dishes are simple and I can observe the art of saucing effectively.
10. Mike's - All these years and still never a trip to Arthur Avenue. That ends this year!
11. Metta - I know this block pretty well and so have an impression of a highly inviting and comforting place to share small plates. 
12. Mu Ramen - I haven't had a beef-based ramen broth. Ever. So that and a chance to learn more about LIC; please!
13. Okonomi - How I swoon for a donburi or Japanese set lunch! What exactly is ichiju-sansai? I don't know and will not learn ahead of time. Surprise me, please.
14. Roll-N-Roaster - Ok, late night PAC12 football games come with some strange commercials. I eat so little roast beef but can sing this damn jingle.
15. Superiority Burger - Can the sandwich be as good as people proclaim? And anybody can cook a beef hamburger, what about a meatless option.
16. Tokyo Record Bar - This concept is genuinely foreign to me but sounds so fun.

Emmy Squared

A few Saturdays ago the family found itself without any activities and nowhere to be. So, in that case, what do we do but ... eat!

I'd wanted to visit Emmy Squared as we're semi-regular at Emily's. So answer to the obvious: I prefer the pizza at Emily's to Emmy Squared. I appreciate the Detroit-style but prefer a thin-crust made with a live-fire.

With that said, the pizza is delicious and the service, like at Emily's is poor. We ordered 5 pizzas for 5 people that they squeezed into a 4-top. We don't mind the seating. But we did mind that all pizzas arrived at once. I don't believe the wait staff needs a "bring them in sequence" to understand that if you drop five pizzas at once, the fifth pie will be cold by the time people even get to a single slice. It's a pretty straightforward service aspect and one that they missed here. Aggravating. With that in mind, I enjoyed the Colony-squared most (it was my second pizza slice so still pretty hot) as the kitchen puts just enough honey to balance the chilies and pepperoni in a trio of sweet, sour and spicy.

The Progress

In early June, I ate a decidedly delicious and relatively straightforward meal at The Progress. The conceit is beautiful: choose 4 items and pay a single per-person price. Unlike a fixed menu, you have choice and the dining experience is communal.

All the dishes were top-drawer so nothing to really critique. The kitchen did enough to provide contrasting flavors via sauces yet let each dish's ingredients shine through. And the service was knowledgeable and fully capable.

Izakaya Rintaro

Last month, I ate dinner an early dinner at Rintaro. I scheduled a 6pm dinner for 1 and asked to sit adjacent to the pass so I could watch the chef de cuisine (CDC) and kitchen staff (it's an open kitchen). Both the food and experience were fantastic.

Food: I ordered the fresh tofu (yosedofu), chicken katsu (chiizu tori katsu), and a few yakitori. I appreciated Rintaro's focus on fresh, high-quality ingredients with very little seasoning and flavor enhancers. For instance, katsu can often include significant salt, togarashi, and other things in the coating. This was the opposite; a very clean crisp coating surrounding very flavorful chicken with a strange and wonderful cheese additional within the chicken. The heart and chicken oyster were especially delicious yakitoris.

Experience: This was a lot of fun for me because I could sit and what the CDC work with the staff and observe how she plated different dishes. And as a bonus, by 6:30 the GM and CDC were having a very real argument about pacing for two or three larger parties seating in the lovely front patio.

The Pines

I was fortunate to get out for a meal and drinks at The Pines late last month with a highly knowledgeable technician of the capital markets. Besides picking his brain for 3 hours on how markets really work and what will occur in the upcoming years, we enjoyed a very creative meal with attentive service in an oddly casual (if uncomfortable) setting.

We started with thoughtful cocktails. I had a "Legends of the Fall" which combines rye with Prosecco and apple cider to give the whole drink a bourbon barrel-aged sour beer taste. I don't think that beer style exists (yet) so ... congrats! The technician had a few of "The Pines" which is a resiny Manhattan. 

For food, we enjoyed the ricotta, bread and chive oil immensely. It's a really simple idea and one I could easily lay out at home. And I will starting this weekend! Even if I don't bake the bread and serve a Bien Cuit (and upgrade from Runner and Stone in my eyes), this will be devoured by the monsters. The chive oil was perfectly piquant and a nice foil to the ricotta.

We shared four different vegetable dishes. The highlight was a brilliantly executed romesco to accompany the ubiquitous shishito peppers. Our waitress was taken aback with our reluctance to order the peppers. She persisted and I'm happy she did so. The other veg were nice if not transformational.

 What was? Well the venison! It may have been the single-most complicated dish I've had in 2017 as I chatted with the sole cook (chef?) before leaving. It was marinated, cooked sous vide, grilled, marinated again and something else. I'll remind myself to order the meat dishes next time I go.

Onto comfort. This was a Tuesday night and noise wasn't an issue. The tables, chairs and placement were. These were folding chairs surrounding a table that did not seem up to the task of holding our food and Croatian wine.

[18 months ago, this is what Pete Wells had to write.]

Hao Noodles and Tea by Madam Zhu

First thing to know; do not visit their Web site (link though it'll load for minutes). But do visit this restaurant. The restaurant is airy, delicately decorated and though new, feels nicely worn in. The menu is fun to read (tip of the hat to "Make Winter Great Again") and all dishes are delicious.

One Saturday late last month, our family went for lunch. Every dish was recognizable to us. And each dish was better than we've had elsewhere. The lion's head meatballs were more delicate and flavorful than I've had before. The soup dumplings had incredibly thin skins, the most lightly flavorful broth, with high-quality pork. Spicy chic pea noodle soup (豌杂面) was unlike anything I've tasted. It had that ma la Sichuan flavor with a sort of Tuscan homeliness. Even the fried rice was excellent; each component separately fried to 90% completion before all being combined quickly My favorite dish was the spicy marinated pork trotters. When you order this dish in a Chinatown restaurant, the pork comes on in a gelatinous mess with non-uniform pieces and no real taste of the dry-fried chilies. This is a wholly different experience. SoS felt assaulted by the minuscule portion. I thought it was not filling but still a great value for that quality.

That's not to say Hao Noodles and Tea doesn't have it's problems. Or rather singular problem: service. The five of us were seated like the path a knight takes on a chessboard. It was the most awkward seating we've ever had. Our amicable server didn't know much about the food and even less about the teas. Tea is in the restaurant's name and the two wait staff I inquired with just re-read the descriptions.

If you're in a group of six with an interest in really exceptional Chinese food, family-style, I'd highly recommend Hao Noodles and Tea. Just like Pete Wells.

Wildair

Friday night brought me to Wildair with one of my favorite people in the world: Mister Editor. Wildair is a lot of fun. Mr. Editor and I drink similarly and so this was bound to be a great evening. The highlight of Wildair is the wine and trusting Jorge to bring out great wines. We had three wines (a bottle and then two glasses) that were all really interesting, very different from each other and wholly unique from anything I can recall (and we drink well thanks to Greg at Vanderbilt Wine Merchants).

We ate:

1. Bread (with olive oil) - bread was fine but the olive oil was pretty ethereal.
2. Half dozen oysters - fine
3. Half dozen clams with XO sauce and some sort of chive - intensely great: salinity, spice, sour.
4. Persimmon, stracciatella, and greens - excellent combination for a salad
5. Boneless skate wing with arugula - not very interesting, yet flawless execution
6. Beef tartare - excellent, perfectly chopped and seasoned.

Anyone interested in great wine would enjoy coming to Wildair.

Paowalla

Last week, Chef and I got out for a mid-week meal at Paowalla. (You may remember Chef from here.) Paowalla is the latest and hopefully long-term committed place for Chef Floyd Cardoz (disclosure: I cooked for Chef Cardoz for 5 months in 2002 as an unpaid externship.). First, Paowalla is not Tabla. The experience here is much more akin to Delaware and Hudson than the big Danny Meyer establishments of yesteryear. Paowalla has the tightly fitted tables in a low-ceiling dining room full of windows looking out onto Sullivan Street. Chef and I struggled to recall the restaurant that occupied this space prior. We settled on it being a semi-generic Italian restaurant from a generation or two ago.

Overall, I really enjoyed the food at Paowalla. I look for restaurants to inspire me to make better food at home and prepare dishes I won't attempt myself (e.g., mole poblano, vindaloo, Beijing duck). What did we have:

Chutneys

• Tomato Kalonji
• Spiciy Chili
• Mint Cilantro

The tomato kalonji easily stood out as the most interesting and enjoyable. I think the tomatoes were late summer heirloom tomatoes that the kitchen broiled and then made into a chutney, finally canning it for use throughout the year. Bright. Flavorful. Summer.

Breads

• Sourdough Naan
• Garlic Naan
• Tingmo

The two naan were fine. Better than a takeout shop, maybe similar to the ones I make at home (via Meera Sodha's recipe). The tingmo was a revelation. I had never had or even heard of tingmo prior. This was fantastic. It was similar to a Chinese man-tao but wrapped up with a flavor paste layered throughout. I felt sad when we finished the tingmo.

Small Plates

• Shishito Pakoras
• Burrata
• Boodie's chicken liver

The burrata was outstanding and completely unexpected. You have a dish like this and remember the transportive qualities of inventive food with flawless execution. There were moments eating this dish (with the tingmo) that I must have been nodding as Chef spoke, but I wasn't listening at all. I thought the pakoras were disappointing because they felt room temperature or cool by the time we ate them. Pakoras - to be great - sort of need to be their own course.

Large Plates

Baby pig vindaloo was complex and interesting. For me, it was a little too cheffy. The pig was a perfectly braised massive cube of pork belly that had the skin crisped to order and came in the vindaloo. Anyhow that ever orders out for vindaloo needs to come to Paowalla and try it. You get the vinegar, heat, caramel notes from stewed tomatoes. There are a lot of flavors going on.

Desserts

(Note: I did NOT want dessert but Chef did and that made all the difference) Saffron Yogurt Srikand. I grew up with srikand served at parties and weddings. Universally it was terrible. This was something wholly different. The yogurt was strained thoroughly. And it was good yogurt! I feel like the pastry team may have added gelatin or a potato starch slurry to give it just enough panna cotta giggle to make these amazing fried sweet noodles stand up.

We had a delicious inspiring meal in a lovely setting with satisfactory service. 

2017 Restaurants on My List

So I'll try a different tactic this year and list 20-ish restaurants with hopes to try 50%. Any 50%.

1. Dirt Candy
2. Eastwind Snack Shop
3. Emmy Squared
4. Freek's Mill
5. Le Coq Rico
6. Le Cou Cou
7. Lilia
8. Loring Place
9. Madam Zhu's Kitchen
10. MaLa Project
11. M. Wells Steakhouse
12. Okonomi
13. Paowalla
14. The Pines
15. SriPraPhai
16. Sushi Katsuei
17. Superiority Burger
18. Take Root
19. Wildair

So that's 11 in Brooklyn, 7 in Manhattan, and 2 in Queens.

Semilla

We were able to visit Semilla last month for a rare long dinner out. There's a fun duality to Semilla. The food is simultaneously simple and complex. The wine list is short and thorough. The service is not obtrusive but extremely knowledgeable. And though there's no menu, by the next morning you receive a lovely e-mail with the list of dishes we enjoyed. And we enjoyed all of them; some more than others no doubt. Each dish brought either a surprise ingredient, technique or both. For instance, the Carolina rice (a homestead favorite) was cooked in dashi and served in an earthenware bowl reminiscent of Japan. But the rice was 100% South Carolina! The bread recalled my best-ever attempts at Jim Lahey's no-knead bread. We ate multiple servings. The roasted leeks had the most pleasant aroma of tobacco (even for a non-smoker) and a perfect dice of scallops. It was the dish that won me over and something I'll try to replicate at home (without the tobacco leaf).

The only two dishes we didn't enjoy tremendously were the butternut squash and the fig leaf custard. The first was like something from the Moosewood cookbook. Nice. Well-made. But a little healthy-tasting. The custard was dull-flavored and texture-wise a bit of a tweener; not quite creme brulee, but not the texture of zabaglione.

Semilla is a special occasion restaurant. Plain and simple (see footnote). And if the occasion is enjoying many well-conceived dishes that spur your mind, then it's perhaps the top spot in New York.

I want to highlight the setting. The design is a u-shaped bar where any of the staff can walk up to any of the dining patrons. The lighting is subtle and bright enough to enjoy the visual appeal of each dish. If I ever opened a restaurant, this feels like a blueprint I'd look to.

Footnote: You can't simply walk in for a bite. You can't walk in for a meal. We saw a few people walk in from the street only to be turned away since they hadn't reserved. 

Olmsted

Two Fridays ago, wifey & I had an early dinner at Olmsted. I expected to dislike Olmsted. Restaurants with this amount of buzz, that required 22-days advance notice to get a reservation usually feel like a letdown (Cosme - I'm looking at you.) And yet there at the end, we were finished and completely blown away by the quality and conceit of each and every dish. Olmsted – in our one experience – is a winner.

We sat in front of the tiny kitchen quickly befriending the cooks (Jenny and Kyle) as we watched them work on dish after dish. There’s no need for me to go into long detail (mostly because this blog is primarily for myself) as each dish was excellent and it looks like the menu turns over frequently enough that the same dish won’t be found a month or two later. Out of all the dishes we ate, we both thought the ballotine component of the duck entrée to be most delicious. I have memories of ballotines from the 90s being really lackluster chicken thigh meat filled with a unappealing goo (nee Pate). The whole thing just a vacuous attempt at fancy food. This was something wholly different; more like a perfectly executed duck forcemeat, sliced like pancetta.

We enjoyed a bottle of Slovenian white with our meal and left having spent just shy of $200. For what’s prepared, I would not call that expensive, but it’s definitely not a monthly indulgence.

Le Garage

On the eve of a new school year and willing to try out our children’s patience for a semi-formal meal, I took the family to Le Garage in Bushwick. Le Garage is a glorious place in late summer. It’s a former garage that’s been designed to be open, airy, and carefree. We didn’t feel crowded or confined on a bustling Friday evening. And in true bistro fashion, the owner, Rachel, came and sat with us for some time. Her ethereal movements and sincere interest pair perfectly with the place. 

We ordered like hungry soldiers (all meats) and each entrée was very good. Our biggest issue was the service. Nobody was rude. No real scandals; it was simply a meal that they paced poorly. Our entrees took a long time to arrive, with our chicken clearly completed before our lamb and steak (the chicken was warm; the others screaming hot). My kids are pretty patient and willing to talk about the paint color (yellow), the sidewalk seating (5 tables or so), and the cutlery (sharp steak knife) for a long time. But they needed some pencils and paper to help with the wait. Two other tables (both two-tops) sat and ordered after us, but received entrees before us. Our waitress (seemingly the only one) appeared uninterested and overwhelmed.

Overall, Le Garage is a nice restaurant if you’re in the neighborhood. Unlike, BK Jani, it’s not worth travelling for.

BK Jani

The entire family went for a drive through the confusing streets of Bushwick and returned well-fed and enlivened by tremendously high-quality food. This is unmatched meat grilling in New York City. Everything is marinated in yogurt redolent of ginger, garlic and classic Mughal spices.

The no nonsense space (picnic tables) makes for a casual wait. And wait you will. Unlike Babu ji, everything goes from raw to cooked after ordering. The afternoon we went, there were 5 menu items. We ordered four (lamb two ways, beef two ways) dishes and all were fantastic. No clear favorite; all were great. The seekh kebab was the spiciest while the burger was the least.

If any detractor exists, it’s the limeade. At $6, this is a waste of money that you could put towards more meat. Anyone with three limes and the capability to make simple syrup could replicate the limeade. But the meats, copying BK Jani’s quality would be highly unlikely .