Monthly Archives: December 2010

Norma’s at Le Parker Meridien, New York

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Consistently in the “best breakfast places in New York” lists, Norma’s in Le Parker Meridien promised to be a lot of fun based on the reservation confirmation I received. This was even after the fact I had already fallen in love with the interesting and hilarious menu

The reservation read like this:

“Done. You’ve booked and you’re ready to go, almost… In preparation for your meal at NORMA’S, this is what the doctor, oops Chef, prescribes:
• 24 hrs to go – print out the menu
• 24-12 hrs to go – show off the menu and seek advice on what to order (yeah, they’re all jealous!)
• 18 hrs to go – aerobic exercise and strength training (preferably the Quickie)
• Lunch the day before – remember, you’re in training, so have a protein shake
• Dinner the day before – no eating after 7pm – only bread and water allowed
• Night before – dream sweet dreams of beautiful food floating through your subconscious
• Morning of – do a full yoga session with Swami Ramdev Ji
• Arrive on time and tell me that the “Swami sent you”
• You’ve made it, now time to eat!
See you soon, Sandra Berger, Guardian of the Tables”

Ha!

Service started off flyingly with coffee coming quickly and with us even receiving an amuse bouche of a shot of strawberry/mixed fruit juice. Unexpected so very pleasant. Sadly, the service kind of dropped off after that point – but I have to totally blame our disinterested waitress since we saw other tables seemed to have much better wait-staff, who didn’t make them ask for water several times, and who didn’t make them wait nearly 15 minutes for the bill.

On to the food! The menu really is something that’s just a fun read with heading such as “Mom Can’t Make This”, “Eggs Cellent”, “The One That Didn’t Get Away” and even one of my favourite phrases “Etc., Etc….”!

The Irresistible Banana-Macadamia Nut Flap Jacks with Whipped Banana Brown Sugar Butter proved too irresistible to Pat, along with a side of bacon. For me, tempting as the dish that Norma’s dares you to expense the $1,000 The Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata with a super size 10oz Sevruga Caviar (the regular 1oz Sevruga Caviar size will set you back $100) was, Norma’s Eggs Benedict served on Buttermilk Pancake layered with Canadian Bacon and Grilled Asparagus seemed a little more the appropriate breakfast dish!

I’ve never had my Eggs Benedict served with potato but it was a good addition to bulk up the dish (at $22 you’d also hope you get more than just two eggs, bacon and pancake.) It wasn’t the best Eggs Benedict that I’ve had to be honest but at least they were quite generous with the béarnaise sauce which could have come with just a little bit more seasoning.

Dining at Norma’s was certainly an experience … though I must say I think I had more fun reading the reservation email and the menu! I’m very tempted to comeback one day and try the delicious sounding Chunks of Lobster Swimming in Cheesy Macaroni. Yum! I just hope I get a better waiter/waitress! But, I’ve got to save up my pennies cause Norma’s is not cheap …

Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Milk Bar, New York

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Penny nicely offered to treat us to a meal at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, one of the hottest venues in the restaurant scenes in New York. With only a small amount of covers it can prove difficult at the best of times to get a seat immediately, especially as the restaurant won’t seat your table until the entire party is present and it operates a no reservation policy … unless you are a party of 6 or more and are interested in the bo ssäm ($200!), a whole slow cooked pork shoulder with a dozen oysters, white rice, bibb lettuce, ssäm sauce, kimchi and ginger scallion sauce. Let’s just say that you’ve got to like your meat cause it’s apparently a whole lot of pork-ola! Anyway, I guess I could understand the no reservation’s policy in such a small venue (about 5-6 tables and seats at the bar.)

We hadn’t made a reservation as we hadn’t thought there would be 6 of us but Audrey’s boyfriend Andres joined us to make a party of 6 anyway. In the end we probably waited about 20-30 minutes to be seated, which wasn’t too bad I guess in the scheme of things. We waited next door in the Momofuku Milk Bar – a really smart idea as it serves as a holding pen for those waiting to have a sit down meal at the Ssäm Bar, or as a dessert venue for the post Ssäm Bar meal (Ssäm Bar itself doesn’t actually do desserts) or even just as a stopping by point for those who simply can’t wait to sit down for a meal at Ssäm Bar and simply want to indulge in pie, cake or, more likely, Ssäm Bar’s famous pork buns.

Pickles, Pork Buns (two varieties), a Short Rib Sandwich and Veal Sweetbreads formed our starters. The pork buns lived up to their reputation and more. Incredibly juicy, incredibly tasty, incredibly more-ish, incredibly tender, they were gone all too soon sadly! We shared two serves of steamed buns – pork belly, hoisin, cucumbers, scallions – and one serve of bar bun – crispy pork belly, avocado, basil, smoked mayo – between us, but I think I could have quite easily had all the buns on the table to myself they were that delicious and worth going into a food coma for. The Short Rib Sandwich wasn’t too bad though the bread it was served in was curiously super tough. Veal Sweetbreads were interesting but not exactly what you come to the Ssäm Bar for …

For our main we had the Grilled dry aged ribeye (niman ranch) – shallot confit, served with some parcels of ravioli. In hindsight, though this dish was good, it may have been a better option to try a few more dishes on the menu – but that is purely to sample the menu as much as possible for us out of towners 😉 The beef was cooked perfectly but was missing any true standout wow in your mouth flavours.

Portions at the Ssäm Bar are not the American portions that I’m used to, especially for the price you pay but the food is certainly up there in taste. It reached #26 in this year’s Top 50 S.Pellegrino Best Restaurant in the World – looking at the restaurants surrounding it (e.g. it’s higher than restaurants such as French Laundry and Tetsuya in Australia) I’m not sure its so good that it justifies such a high entry but then again, I’m just an ordinary punter who doesn’t really know better.

After our meal we had enough space to head back next door for dessert at the Milk Bar. You can have soft serve (flavours include cereal milk, the flavour of milk after you’ve finished your cereal, old fashion donut, red velvet cake and horchata), milk, or mix the two up in a milkshake. Plus you can have interesting cookies including the compost cookie – so-named for its unusual ingredients pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, chocolate chips (surprisingly works with the sweet and salty balancing each other) and chocolate-chocolate cookie, or pies including crack pie (toasted oat crust, gooey butter filling) or the grasshopper pie (graham crust, mint cheesecake & brownie filling), or cake (including a very cute looking “birthday” cake.) I had both a milkshake and the grasshopper pie … and am now in a sugar coma. 😉 Good but very rich and very sweet.

Hill Country Barbecue Market

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And just because we didn’t have enough food at Gramercy Tavern at lunch, we decided to have some take away from Hill Country Barbecue, arguably the best in all of New York. I’ll do more of a write-up on how it works later because we are actually going to meet Julian and Sandra there for a sit-down dinner in just under a week’s time!

The barbecue was joined by some of my Uncle’s delcious curried onion rings. Yumm!!

Gramercy Tavern, New York

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I’m slowly but surely making my way through the New York food scene and today’s victim was Gramercy Tavern as we took our cousins out for a nice meal. Gramercy Tavern is a very popular “American tavern” as it describes itself and comprises the casual Tavern and the formal Dining Room.

The Tavern’s menu, today at least, did look a little bit more interesting but it was looking pretty busy (its where they get most of their walk-up customers) and our booking was for the formal Dining Room. The Dining room was a little quieter and though less laid-back than the Tavern still had a quite quaint cosy comfortable feel.

Okay, so be prepared for a few pictures of our food here with four meals to consider! In clock-wise order from the top left are Kathleen’s, Penny’s, Pat’s and my dishes:

  • Calamari & Carrot Salad, Toasted Pine Nuts and Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette
  • Red King Crab, Sunchokes and Apple
  • Red Kuri Squash Soup, Brussels Sprouts and Apples
  • Cauliflower, Red Quinoa, Prunes and Peanuts

I can’t speak for the other dishes, but the Cauliflower dish was amazing. You wouldn’t think cauliflower could feature as the main and primary ingredient in a dish but it can – and I think its definitely a vegetable that I’ve seen feature more and more often.

Our mains

  • Sea Bass, Squash, Pumpkin Seeds and Currants
  • Pork Croquette, Red Cabbage, Aji Dulce Peppers and Spiced Port Sauce
  • Braised Lamb Shoulder, Heirloom Beans, Wild Mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts
  • Roasted Hanger Steak, Fingerling Potatoes, Red Russian Kale and Bourbon Sauce

The dishes all looked super lovely and I would have been happy with eating any of them. I was happy, however, that my hangar steak made a nice contrast to my vegetable starter. Steak was cooked pretty much to perfection though perhaps the bourbon sauce could have had slightly more of a bite.

And then of course we finished with dessert.

  • Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding. Cacao Nib Ice Cream
  • Sticky Toffee Fig Cake, Coffee Ice Cream
  • Peanut Butter Semifreddo, Chocolate Macaroon
  • Dried Cherry Cheesecake, Black Pepper Butter Cookie and Cherry Lemon Sorbet

Brilliant creations by Pastry Chef Nancy Olson. I went for my dessert mainly because of the black pepper butter cookie (there wasn’t as much pepper as I was expecting) but really loved the cheesecake. Rich without being overly heavy. I think Pat’s peanut butter Sandwich was certainly the most interesting dessert but, like the mains, I would have been happy with any of the other desserts too. I’m so greedy 😉

Petit fours were extremely cute an included a peanut butter truffle, orange and dark choc square and a mini macaroon.

Service overall at Gramercy Tavern was friendly if not particularly excellent (on this occasion at least.) Negatives included the fact they were stingy with the bread for our table (only one bread roll brought at the beginning and we saw another customer basically grab the waiter so he could ask for another), sometimes slow on filling up water, no explanation of food being given and really slow to bring out menus (especially between the end of our mains and delivery of desserts). The attention from waiters started to drop off as we slowly got to the end of our meal, which is always a frustrating thing. Positives included replacement/additional drink – upon making a mistake with one of our drinks (which we didn’t realise they’d even made) they were quick to bring an additional quick replacement, staff being good at directing you to the toilets and they didn’t mind photos being taken.

Overall I would recommend Gramercy Tavern on the strength of its food, even if the service was slightly hit and miss.

Hill Country Chicken, New York

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From East to West … we thought we’d give the western fried chicken a go to see how it stacked up against its Eastern competitor Hill Country Chicken has a pretty simple menu: Fried Chicken, Fresh-Cut Fries and Homemade Pies. It was clearly very popular if the queues and crowds inside were any indication.

Your fried chicken choices are between Hill Country Classic or Mama Els’ Recipe (basically skinless and batterless – where’s the fun in that! – but with special seasonings) and then you can get the breast, thigh, drum or wing plus a variety of sides including the fresh-cut fries and cheesy mash etc. Sadly I could see that the chicken was not fried made to order …

We decided to do a thigh and drum in one each of the Classic and Mama Els’ Recipe. The chicken for sure was juicy (even if not freshly fried up) however I wasn’t too excited about the flavour in either of the two options – neither really came out and grabbed me and I had to make quite copious use of the Honey Mustard dipping sauce we’d ordered to go with it. Perhaps there wasn’t enough seasoning or perhaps I’d been spoiled by the Korean fried chicken experience …

The staff at Hill Country Chicken are super friendly and I quite liked the atmosphere of the venue. I liked how it was bright and cheery and you definitely can’t hate a place that offers homemade pies which include flavour such as Salted Margarita, Coconut Cream, and Cowboy (with an option to make it a shake too!) 😉

Still, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again but if I’m in the area I wouldn’t say no.

WD-50

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We were all set to head out to Daniel for dinner tonight. Daniel is chef Daniel Boulud’s first and flagship restaurant, recipient of 3-Michelin stars, currently New York’s number 1 restaurant according to the 2010 S.Pellegrino Best Restaurant in the World awards, etc. etc. (I could go on forever.) But then, the snows came. What started with small flurries yesterday afternoon:

ended up being a pretty serious snow dump and by the time we got up this morning (we had been planning on heading into to town to do a tour of Brooklyn) we weren’t even sure we’d be able to leave the house to get into the Big City at all.

Constantly checking the metro and the roads outside (we had to rely on houses clearing their front paths) we knew we’d be stuck indoors for the day but still held out hope for making our dinner plans. Dinner plans which changed slightly … Daniel, though open, had not been able to receive their latest food delivery and therefore were operating a very limited menu. So we decided instead to head to Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50. Manhattan streets had at least been kind of cleared of some snow but it was still pretty hard work getting around:

WD-50, a slightly different kettle of fish to Daniel’s contemporary French, it’s no slouch in the awards department either with a Michelin-star and currently number #45 on the S.Pellegrino Best Restaurant in the World list. WD-50 serves “New American” food and I was looking forward to see how much of owner Wylie Dufresne’s molecular gastronomy was present in the menu.

The restaurant has a very cool feel to it with cool lights, disco balls, wood mixed in with funky art, Japanese kind of style tatami mat place sets, dark but moving colours on the walls and this kind of sets the mood for the very forward-thinking and innovative menu.

There were so many things I wanted to try that I convinced Pat we should indulge in the 9-course tasting menu. Our amuse-bouche was a Striped bass, gingerbread, plum, and pickled ramp (a kind of wild leek). The freshness of the bass was well offset by the gingerbread (interesting!) and plum. I was liking the colours of our dishes already.

Next up was a very unusual bagel – yes it sounds fairly traditional: “Everything bagel, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese” but the unusual twist comes in the fact that the bagel part was basically like an ice cream. Different!

Foie gras, passionfruit, chinese celery looked again fairly simple, fairly standard but then you cut open the foie gras and find the passionfruit liquid oozing out from inside. Gorgeous. The passionfruit was a fantastic way to cut through the richness of the foie gras.

Our Scrambled eggs ravioli, charred avocado, kindai kampachi was a really nice an interesting idea but I felt that perhaps the ravioli was slightly under seasoned so it didn’t really convince me.

Some dishes are best served cold but I would have preferred the next one wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, even with being served cold, the Cold fried chicken, buttermilk-ricotta, tabasco, caviar was actually quite divine but there is just something about eating cold fried chicken that kind of creeps me out. Incredible flavour in this dish though.

Bone marrow has a very strong flavour and having it shaved over our next dish of Bay scallops, parsnip, and black sesame surprisingly worked for the dish. Okay it wasn’t the prettiest dish we had this evening but it was nom nom.

In a total twist on Beef and béarnaise this is what we were served next:

Where is the beef you ask? Where is the béarnaise? The beef was represented by the intense broth and the béarnaise were in the dumpling!

Then our final savoury dish of the night – squab breast, cheese pumpkin, corn bread, pickled cranberries.

For a girl that doesn’t really like beer I really liked our first dessert which was a White beer ice cream, quince, caramel, and caraway mix. It was very refreshing after the richness of the savoury part of our meal.

This was followed by two very pretty dessert plates: Grapefruit curd, camparai, and hisbicus-sorrel

And soft chocolate, beets, long pepper, ricotta ice cream. Really interesting how this last dish used what are traditionally savoury ingredients.

Petit fours to finish our meal – Cocoa packets and a Chocolate shortbread filled with milk ice cream.

Our evening in WD-50 was an experience. I very much enjoyed the restaurant’s take on more traditional dishes. Plating, except for the messy bone marrow dish, was very pretty and delicate. It was clear that great attention and thought had been given to and into each of the dishes. Service was very friendly and attentive, which I would expect in a restaurant in America, and our servers were very knowledgeable about the food. I’m not sure if some of the time we were actually being served by chefs from the kitchen?

I definitely would recommend WD-50 for something a little different (look out too for their Dessert Tasting menu!)

Mad For New York? Mad For Chicken!

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Once you visit a place so much that it practically becomes your third home, you start to exhibit the same behaviours that you would at home like: trying out restaurants, mooching around the house, visiting the fam, and just general chillin’ etc. and so we come to our annual visit to New York. Crazily enough the number of eating places which we have planned into our itinerary has actually outnumbered the amount of sight-seeing we have planned!

For our first meal out in New York we decided to keep it local and stay close to home and family, it is Christmas (kind of) after all!

Korean fried chicken (or the other KFC) is an absolute institution in New York, if not in the United States. Sure I’ve seen and sampled attempts at it in Korean restaurants in London before but I have to say no one does it like they do in New York. Well … maybe in Korea they do it better and hopefully one day I’ll find out! Sadly Bonchon Chicken (the leading KFC franchise) that we’d visited fondly a couple of years ago had closed its Flushing branch but we still had quite a few options to choose from including Mad For Chicken. As are most things asian Mad For Chicken has the cutest little logo .. but you can’t eat a logo so I guess I better get on with it!

We were, as usual, just a wee bit greedy when we were ordering. Who thought it would be a good idea to get Calamari and French fries combo (both topped with parmesan cheese and chef’s seasonings), Seafood Pancake AND our chicken!

The side acts (the calamari, fries and seafood pancake) were nice without being distracting to the main attraction of the gorgeous chicken. I would always advise with the chicken that you go for a half and half – one half being sweet (Soy Garlic Sauce) and one half being blow-your-mind-spicy (Hot & Spicy) unless you really really like your food spicy. Its nice to switch between the two when the heat gets too intense.

I wouldn’t say that the chicken was quite as tasty as I remember the Bonchon chicken being however it still tasted pretty darn good going down. The sweet chicken being just a the right side of sweet and the spicy, oh boy! I sure made good use of the radish they supply with the chicken to cool your mouth! True to the style of decent Korean fried chicken we weren’t left with any of that oily residue after effects that you get from most other fried chicken. What’s the secret I wonder? Mad For Chicken says its because the chicken is twice fried, on another site I read it was something about removing the fat from under the skin so what you get is this delicate thin crispy outer. However its derived I absolutely approve and some form of KFC will definitely be on my to eat list when I return to New York.

NuocMam

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Vietnamese and Japanese fusion. Hmmm .. .an interesting concept. I can’t quite remember how the restaurant caught my eye, oh that’s right it was on offer on top table to have 50% off their a la carte food. The restaurant is one of those modern funky interior design restaurants which you hope don’t look better than the food tastes. Just a note that lights are very practical and hang very low over your table … anyway, thanks to the lighting all the photos look much pinker than in reality (though not by much!)

Due to the 50% off I think Sandra and I got slightly carried away with our ordering. For starters we ordered Yuzu Squid (Spicy crispy squid served with yuzu sauce), Chicken yaki tori, and Prawn Tempura. Starters were good without being too memorable.

We also had a Dynamite Roll (sushi roll with Soft shell crab, cucumber, spicy pickled cabbage.) The roll didn’t seem as fresh as it could have been and lacked any real conviction.

We were starting to get real full by this stage but we still had our main courses to go! Char-Grilled duck (Duck breast with in a mysterious creamy sauce) and Grilled Teriyaki Beef. Both were reasonably tasty but served a little on the lukewarm side.

Service was fairly friendly with the manager being particular on the ball. I suspect that it was because they were trying to encourage repeat customers …

On the balance NuocMam was an okay venue. I wouldn’t say anything really came out and grabbed me but I like that they’re trying to offer something a little different. Even though we were very very full from our greedy ordering portions weren’t all that huge so it could be a touch on the expensive side – even with our discount and drinks of tap water, our meal still came to over £50.

More snow falls

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Even though it puts my flight to New York at risk I could still appreciate the beauty of the snow. Inspired me to take a walk at lunch (as cold as it was!)

And I love this sentiment. ha ha!