Fat and Happy Food Slut

1. Baohaus’s Birdhaus Bao (137 Rivington): Pork belly, butt and buns have all enjoyed recent star turns on the culinary catwalk, as did beef cheeks before them.  Now fried chicken is the dish no restaurant seems to be able to forego.  Breasts, thighs and assorted other parts are turning up downtown and uptown and everywhere in Brooklyn.  When Park Avenue Summer offers a fried chicken and waffle sandwich, you know you’re looking at a megatrend.

Fortunately, chicken is about the most universal of proteins, so there’s room left for innovation.  When the Escoffier files give out, there’s a world of international takes to pick up the slack.   Right now the tastiest chicken product out there is the Taiwan inspired Birdhaus Bao.  A soft steam bun holds fresh fried chicken dusted with a wicked spice mix, a sprig or two of cilantro and a secret sauce that seems something like tartar, but way better.  Low rent, small space, limited menu and easy prices.   This is what the LES does best.

2. Peter Luger Bread basket (178 Broadway, Williamsburg): Peter Luger’s Porterhouse is far too well covered to mention here, but the rest of the experience gets short shrift.  Specifically, the famous flesh palace also offers one of the best bread baskets in the city.  Start with the fluffy onion rolls.  If your fingers are fleet and your sense of propriety is limited, drop a few in a pocket or purse.  They’re great for breakfast.  If not, slather on some butter, down a few, then trade up to the City’s best salt sticks.  And take your time.  The waiters will press for an order, but there’s no upsell pressure to order a bunch of apps–”we usually suggest two sides per person” is a phrase you’ll never hear.  So make the bread basket into a starter, then decide whether you need the bacon, spinach and hash browns.  N.B. You do.

3. Hearth’s Fava Beans and Pecorino Salad (12th/1st Ave): Marco Canora’s green period has already outlasted Picasso’s blue.  Nearly every dish at Hearth has a green touch to it, and perhaps none more so than his fava bean salad.  Canora lines up the technicolored beans on a small rectangular plate, coats them in herbed olive oil (green, naturally) and sets them off with a fine dice of pecorino cubes.  Spring onions add one more green touch to the plate.   You might think Canora would run out of ideas, but  in a photosynthetic world, the flavor and color palette/palate of green is arguably the richest.

4. Raviolo mini-trend at Hearth/Tabla (25th/Madison): I’m not sure who struck first, but both Hearth and Tabla have an exceptional main dish sized raviolo on their menus.  These single singular pasta pillows are called “raviolo” for the simple reason that you get just one: It’s enough.  Tabla’s was filled with spicy lamb last month, Hearth’s is currently stuffed with zucchini and ricotta.  I’d give the edge to Tabla for flavor–Floyd Cardoz is the city’s best veg chef and among its most adept users of spice, but here he wins by going carnal.   That said, Canora’s is easier to eat and prettier to look at. His cooking and presentation generally feel rustic, but someone in his kitchen is a showoff with the knife skills, from matchsticks of zucchini to superfine perfectly shaped dices of cheese.

5.  Raspberry-Mint Paleta at People’s Pops (Chelsea Market): This popsicle is all fruit and flavor.  Sure you end up with a few seeds in your teeth, but that’s the price of perfection.  I’m not about to give up everything bagels just because I end up spending the morning spelunking my molar crevices for stray poppy seeds.  N.B. The sour cherry hand shaved snow cone is also worth a try.

Café Sabarsky has long been the best reason to visit the Neue Galerie on 86th and 5th with more than semiannual regularity.  Now Sandwiched makes a similar case for the Whitney at 75th and Madison.  Below are a few impressions of a first visit.

To begin with, Sandwiched reminds me of early stage  ‘wichcraft.  More specifically, it reminds me of ‘wichcraft when Craft, Craftbar and ‘wichcraft formed a contiguous restaurant sandwich of their own.  In the early aughts, well before boredom, Bravo and massive replication stole what little soul ‘wichcraft once had, Tom Colicchio seemed poised to do for the sandwich what he had done for  fungi and pork belly at Gramercy Tavern.  Now his energy is turned towards upscale restaurant redemption in the Meatpacking district, so someone else must take up the sandwich mantle. Enter Danny Meyer, the new Earl of Sandwich.

So how does the Sandwiched popup stack up to its big chain competitor?  Here the price point is marginally higher than at ‘wichcraft, but the ingredient quality and combinative creativity is measurably better.  We know what Tom has done, now we get an answer to the eternal Foodie question: “What would Danny do?”

To find out, I went with the diner standby of an egg sandwich when my turn to order came up.  Give Danny an egg challenge and he gives you the best bite on this stretch in quite a while, a Knoll Crest egg (fried) with bacon (yes, they were somehow tastily blended together), bibb lettuce, cheddar curds and crushed tomatoes.  It  was exactly as good and pedestrian as it sounds.  In other words, it is a fresh and tasty egg sandwich on superior Pain de Mie roll, and for 8 bucks it is the best of its kind in an unkind neighborhood, a game changer in a neighborhood with no game.

More promisingly, it’s the dullest option on a menu that will reward repeat visits.  Floyd Cardoz, Kenny Callaghan and Carmen Quagliata had far more interesting inventions on offer, but they didn’t fit into my brunch hour egg plan. Also, I have to admit I balked at what was likely the best choice, a Daniel Humm chicken schnitzel with truffle-celery slaw, in part because it cost 15 dollars.  Now 15 dollars in Danny-landia is a well-leveraged chunk of change, especially across the street from the kleptocrats at Sant Ambroeus and down the street from Eli Zabar’s 15 dollar egg salad sandwich, but I’ll need to wait ’til payday to put the chicken after the egg.  In the interim, I’ll chew on my chocolate mint Nancy Olson brownie and think about how much better this neighborhood has now become for food fans.

1. Tony Bourdain:  A proprietary combination of hash oil and yak butter makes for one of the lushest heads of salt and pepper in the industry.

2. Eric Ripert: A coif with the otherworldly glow of an alien life form.  Like Spider Man’s sentient black web suit.  Saw Ripert effulging one day at dusk as he walked up Park Ave.  This man could put Vidal out of business.

3. Jean Georges: Hannibal Lecter with a dye job. Take some tips from 1 and 2.

4. Mario Batali: Midlife hair resurgence, like penis growth after puberty, is either a medical miracle or the result of unnatural tampering, so kudos to MB for letting the reverse tree ring of hairline recession mark a well-lived half century.

5. Keith McNally: A retreating flip job bang crest makes McNally look like Jamie Oliver’s long lost older uncle.  Somehow, it works.

Like a heather flecked three season Harris tweed, Daniel Boulud’s Bowery menu makes fatty meat look good nearly all year round, a rare feat for the beer and sausage trade, which is at best usually a one season affair.  Below are a few highlights of recent visits.

1. Boudin blanc: As elegant as intestine wrapped innards can possibly be. Artful swirls of potato purée and and pair of braised apples turned a single link into a singular dish. Some well traveled microgreens added the obligatory color complement.

2. Foie gras in the boudin blanc: Foie gras taste and texture are distinct and complementary to the rest of the sausage. In some ways a better combination than the db Bistro Moderne foie and short rib burger. Fat flavor spectrum never goes greasy or gross.

3. Niçoise salad: Light tasting and beautifully glistening little sardines. A lively olive oil and good poached tuna. Throw in a scattering of olives and a few grape tomatoes, and it’s easy to forget the season or the street on which you’re eating this little number.

4. Good bread and great butter: Hearty bread perfect for sopping and a sea salt sprinkled butter that would fit in at Eleven Madison Park. A great high low combo. Freebies this good are a clear trickle down benefit of eating on the outposts of an empire.

5. Alevras in the House: When top chefs like Colin Alevras run a restaurant’s beverage program, good things happen. Places like Blind Tiger Ale House do a nice job of matching food to beer, but DBGB does a better job matching beer to food. I’d rather drink like a chef than eat like a bartender. In any case, DBGB’s wonderful beer list is affordable, never upsold and always worth exploring. They nail the little details of bar service as well: Lovely but not overdelicate glassware, nice crushed ice in the water glasses, and a deft hand with the refills.

6. Madcap mint sundae: A delicious dessert with a willfully unnatural looking gross out green color scheme. This ice cream confection makes sweet mockery of the loco locavore seasonality at all costs crowd. On the other hand, it is also far more natural than it appears. Hershey’s Kiss shaped meringue bites are Dayglo bright but made of local egg whites; whipped cream was Redi-Whip shaped but made from some hefty and tasty high fat high test cowjuice.

7. Impeccable Service: All the runners, floor managers and wine folks were fast and friendly. Better than any individual server was the coordination of the team. No Steve Hanson style scripted robotics and no Eric Ripert staffing overload.  In sum, warm well orchestrated front of house takes the chill off DBGB’s neo-Brutalist concrete jungle interior.

1. Drip coffee: Potent as espresso with none of the bite on the backwash.  Worth the wait.  Pulled coffee is superb, but I prefer the less violent touch of the slow filtered brew.

2. Sweet side: Olive oil is more of a mystery ingredient here than an overwhelming front note.  This type of cake is now ubiquitous in the city, but this is still the best I’ve encountered.  Compares favorably to the greasy number at Café Pedlar.  NB: Orange blossom pound cake is also a worthy option.

3. Service: Jamie is a one man cult of personality backed up by hard skill competence.  He’s also one of the least condescending and most hospitable people in the coffee business.  Easy for just about anyone to feel welcome here.

4. Music: Brazilian tunes hummed and sung along to in NoCal inflected Portuguese.  It’s hard to argue with the double mellow whammy of Samba and San Fran.

5. Savory: Sandwiches and soups are always a surprise and nearly always delicious.  Like the baked goods, they also hold up well throughout the course of the day.  A nice contrast to the typical day old by midafternoon sandwiches you find in many coffee shops.

Conclusion: The combination of stellar baker, savory chef and barista gives Rush a run for their money in the power trio business.  I hope and fear this place will open more branches beyond its 7th st./btw 1st and 2nd Aves original.

1. Coffee Milk: A nice nod to the Rhode Island tradition that somehow surpasses the original in intensity without losing balance of flavor.  Captures the smell of coffee in taste form.  A rare feat that  Chef Tosi somehow pulls off.  This is everything a Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee–with its beady, come hither photos–promises and fails to deliver.

2. Tuesday Focaccia: Selections vary from week to week. Best of all was a candied kale number soaked in bacon fat and drizzled with honey.  Sriracha cuts through the sweet and brings out the savory. Sounded like overkill, turned out to be a neo-Baroque delight.  But six dollars for a slice of focaccia?  Even the Vinegar Factory and Jim Lahey’s bakery offer better prices for their versions.

3. Day old cookies: Blueberry cream and chocolate chocolate chip hold up well on day two and ring in at half price.  Under a buck makes them worth it.   Tosi hasn’t entered the straight chocolate chip cookie wars yet, and for good reason.  These are fun little numbers, but they’re nowhere near Levain Bakery’s or Jacques Torres’ league.

4. Le Cirque prices: The ingredients all come with stories, but provenance doesn’t explain the customer hating prices, especially when combined with tattooed hipper than thou service.  In Chang’s world, enlightened hospitality meets its evil counterpart, unenlightened hostility.

5. Soft serve: Flavors are best enjoyed in sample sizes.  Cucumber and horchata are two bite pleasures, so no need to order more.  Cereal milk is the one glorious exception to the “more interesting than delicious” rule.  Taken in milkshake form, it’s one for the ages. NB: Avoid stuffing ice cream at all costs.  Utterly repulsive.