An Effing Foodie

I Spy: Tongue and Cheek Terrine @ Franny's, Brooklyn

I'm a sucker for a good terrine, because in my heart of hearts, I know I'll never be the kind of gal who will take the time to press meaty off-bits into a sliceable miracle of natural gelatins and tender shreds.

So this item was a Quadruple Threat for me as I skimmed the menu at Franny's on a fine spring day: Pork Cheek? Beef Tongue? Terrine? AND a pun?

Yes, please!

And, dear readers, I had the same thought that you did upon spying this for the first time. This looks like...Spam. Fancypants Spam. Spam with spats and a pedigree.

Which is exactly what it tasted like. Being from the Spamtacular State of Hawaii, this is by no means a negative association. It was a luscious mosaic of faces, meaty and savory, the lean muscle of the beef tongue gelled together by the richness of the pork cheek.

[In a perfect world: Tongue and Cheek and Egg breakfast sandwiches. 'Twould be a heady glut of calories and sexy metaphors to face in the morning.]

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franny's
295 Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11217
718 230 0221

Calçotada, ChachaCHA: Springtime @ Savoy, SoHo, NYC

I'd heard fables of calçotada via Anthony Bourdain and similar globe-hopping eaters; much as foodies stateside go apesh*t over ramps, Catalans eagerly anticipate the arrival of calçots:

[C]alçotada, a party centered around eating piles of messy calçots, or green onions, that are blackened over open fires and served with a garlicky romesco sauce of toasted almonds, toasted bread, and smoky ñora peppers.

Calçots are a Catalonian specialty grown in a unique way: harvested in early summer, they're replanted and then repeatedly covered with dirt so that the white part of the root elongates, producing a sweet and tender vegetable. (Calçots take their name from the Catalan calçar, which means to put shoes on, a reference to the process of covering the roots.     [Saveur]

It was on the castle-in-the-sky To Do List, as I've no earthly idea what spring I'd be able to trot around Spain.

And then, I caught wind that Savoy and Back Forty were holding calçotada respectively.

Bless Peter Hoffman for cheerily provoking New Yorkers to eat with their hands and cavort with strangers!

The elder of the 2 Effing BroBros joined me for this soiree of charred carousing; we knew we were in for a treat as we saw clouds of onion-and-lamb affected smoke wafting down Prince St.

Dinner included dangerously drinkable bottomless rosé, both in-glass and arced directly into mouths by a porron-wielding Peter Hoffman himself.

"It's all in the arms!"  Hoffman happily demonstrated, the blush-colored wine catching light as it streamed neatly into his open mouth.

Family Effing threw down, but not nearly to as impressive effect.  (My lips touched glass as I tapered off--FAIL!) Cheers to our table, where every single diner gave the porron a go.

Like snarfing new herring or dismembering decapods, haphazard method and humbling communal messiness seems half the point of eating piping hot calçots:

After sliding off the onions' scorched outer layers, all present, from children to grandmothers, dunk the calçots in romesco (see Grilled Green Onions with Romesco), tip back their heads, and lower the long, white stalks into their mouths, leaving behind sooty fingers and a mound of carbonized leaves. [Saveur]

Our green onions were not as hefty or sooty as the Catalonian ones described, so no stripping was necessary; the helpful grill-master's mate showed us how to coil the onions and scoop up romesco from the large shared bowl.  Big, greasy smiles and blackened fingers followed.

The romesco was rich, coarse and thick, like a red-hued pesto, chunky with mortared almonds.  The brazen garlicky-fattiness of it mingled beautifully with the sweet-n-bitter grilled green onions, flame-cripsed at the ends and tender within.

EF and Effing BroBro: HUMuhgwd. Eesh go good.

I wish I'd thought to scoop out a big blob of it to eat with my lamb, greens, sausage and beans...but I was too busy eating lamb, greens, sausage and beans. 

Everything was that stripped-down stripe of satisfaction.  The grilled lamb was a lovely medium-rare, with a good sprinkle of flaky sea salt; the kale with maybe a little lemon and olive oil; the botifarra sausages were plump, generous, and totally unadorned; and the beans tasted...like beans, not sugar or pork, tooth-tender and creamy. 

Crispy-topped crema catalana capped off the bloat:

Catalans claim that their custard is primordial creme brulee, but when you've got a trap full of heavy cream and burnt brittled sugar, you're unlikely to quibble over chicken-or-the-egg.

Spoons plonked to pause down our long table of good-humored, rosé-glowy company, live flamenco tumbling the whole restaurant along.  'Twas a mighty fine way to spend a spring night.

I Spy: Beet Carpaccio mit Smoked Ricotta @ Back Forty, East Village, NYC

...more precisely, Roasted Red Beets with House-Smoked Ricotta, Blood Orange Supremes, Shaved Fennel and Sunchoke Chips.

<crunch, crunch>
SSFL: Sunchoke chips taste like taro chips.
EF: My mom loves those! 
SSFL: I do, too!  I pick 'em out of the bag of mixed Terra Chips.
EF: (crying laughing) It's the first thing my mom does.

I'm a late-blooming beet-eater, but this salad/app provided sorely-needed sunshine to the eyeballs and winter-weary taste buds; sweet, fork-tender ruby roots with spikes of citrus, anise, crispy-salty-earth kicks from the chips and wisps of smoke from that creamy ricotta.

Beets, beets! DotDEEdootdeeDOO, sheeboom-sheeboomboom.

Biscuit Like a Snow Hill: egg restaurant, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Brunch is one of those great love-hate relationships in New York.  On the one hand, what's not to love about eggs and booze? 

On the other hand, what's to love about long waits, no space to sneeze or seize, and dead-inside, hungover servers who drew the short straw?

Tricky, tricky.  But this last Sunday, Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and myself were wandering about Williamsburg (destination: Artists & Fleas), and we did a lap around egg (diminutive case theirs), debating if we wanted to deal with the coiling line of people waiting to be nourished.

Well...why not?  When in Rome...wait as the Romans wait.  We put our name on the list and tuckered into the garage-ish waiting alcove.

The round of people we were waiting with were a well-coiffed bunch of quitters, so in 30 minutes, SSFL and I found ourselves seated on an aisle cafe table, sipping Mimosas ($7, the grapefruit one's a great change of pace) and eagerly awaiting eggs.

egg's Country Ham Biscuit ($8) has been on my to-do list of eating for years now, but never, ever finding myself in 'billysburg, it had become something like a bruncher's White Whale.  I may have danced a little dance when said whale hit the table:

Well, hullooooo.

That's a two-handed, feather-light work of fall-apart biscuit magic, layered with deeply savory (read: salty, but not too salty) Kentucky country ham, sharply creamy Grafton Cheddar and housemade fig preserves.

Feisty Lady and I were hard-pressed to choose a second candidate for a plate-swap, but we ran with the Eggs Rothko ($8.50), AKA Eggs-in-a-Frame of Amy's flaky brioche, blanketed with more Grafton Cheddar and paired with broiled tomatoes and candied bacon ($3.50):

Yep, you heard me right.  Bacon candy, baby.  It's less baroque than it sounds; a couple of the softer strips were not unlike mapled pancake neighbors, but there were one or two bronzed crispy critters that hit the candied mark.

I usually don't see what the big deal is with brioche, but this slice ate like a croissant, an ideal candidate for egg-and-cheese impregnation (made only better by spicy green sauce).  We liked the cheesy grits, but felt like they would have been better with the addition of a side of sauteed kale, broiled tomatoes, or a soft-cooked egg.

Funny, the difference a minute makes; like most bloggers, I tend to take pics as soon as the server walks away, without a flash and as quickly as possible, so the food doesn't get cold.  No sooner did I plop the camera back in my purse and raise knife and fork, a minor disaster struck.

Death by a Thousand Savory Sips: Minca Ramen, East Village, NYC

There is a time and temperature in which bodies will dictate needs.  And grossly precipitating February dictates that right-thinking peeps should drink deeply of salt and spicy pork.

The Effing BroBros answer the Ramen Siren song far more often than I do; I haven't their cravings or patience for Ippudo.

(Tangent: HOW strange is that place, that you have to endure being crammed into a slaughterhouse pen of a bar for an hour +, to finally be set loose in a ginormous circus tent of a ramen house?  My theory: The food is just okay, and it's just starvation-amplified gratitude for space that makes everything taste AMAZING!)

When the fancy does strike me, I prefer a nook or cranny that's a little steamy, laid-back, where the service is endearingly perfunctory.  And when I find myself shoved in the Alphabet reaches of the East Village, primed with hunger and a couple of cocktails, Minca's foggy windows winnow to the top of my sodium-consciousness.

I did invite the Effing BroBros to accompany me, but their answers were the same: Ooooh, that sounds good!  But I don't think my stomach can take it.

My reply to both: What?  It's just RAMEN!  Since when can you not handle ramen?

So 'twas with this brassy hubris that I perched on one of Minca's tall stools with Chocolate Bear, inches away from simmering stock and boiling baskets of stretchy-fresh ramen.

We shared an order of crisp-bottomed gyoza ($4.85):

Juicy, thin-skinned, loosely packed with veggies and pork (no lead-meatball dumplings here, thank you!) there is no more natural companion for Sapporo ($4.75)-- Greasy-savory/swallow, bitter-bubbly/swallow, repeat until depleted.

They held us over nicely until the main event--Chocolate Bear went for the Big Daddy pork broth item on the menu, the Toroniku Ramen ($14):

It may seem odd to some that there's raw vegetal matter sitting on top, but that cabbage = life raft in a sea of pork distillate.  The soup is viscous, just short of a thin gravy that veils the katame (al dente), wavy noodles and hunks of sweet-tender braised pork.  I'm fairly certain that if one were to set this bowl out on the cold sidewalk, it would turn into a bowl of piggy jello within minutes.

Being a sharper creature than myself, Chocolate Bear enjoyed his ramen, but didn't attempt to drain all of this mythical soup.  I, like a gluttonous moron, lapped up every bit of mine:

She was a thing of salty beauty, the Spicy Basic Ramen ($11); let's break it down, shall we?  Clockwise, starting at the pork at 6 o'clock, we've got:

• charsiu (shoyu-braised sliced pork)
• half a shoyu-braised egg
• shredded kombu (reconstituted cured kelp)
• nori (dried, pressed seaweed)
• menma (shoyu-braised bamboo shoots)
• chopped scallions

In a breath, it's land-animal-as-salt (embryonic and fully developed), sea-plants-as-salt (2 kinds), mountain-plant-as-salt.  And scallions.  Oh, and noodles, to soak up this devastating primordial RAINBOW of umami, winking red chili oil, and pork broth that was not quite so collagen-heavy as the Chocolate Bear's Toroniku, but still heavy enough where drinking the whole bowl is inadvisable.

...yet inevitable.  I couldn't stop myself, even though I could feel my insides being embalmed with serious savor and spice, fermented soy and pork fat.  Phuck pearl cream--the Japanese secret to dewy youth is that they're positively lined with salt on an atomic level. 

Pancakes for Dinner! (Pancake Month @ Clinton St. Bakery)

I'm not certain if it's the long hours or the stupid, biting cold, but brinner has been sounding mighty fine of late. 

Clinton St. Bakery knows how to bait people into venturing out, for February is Pancake Month! Every day they will be offering gussied-up gorgeous hotcakes, the likes of chocolate and blood orange pancakes with a candied orange glaze, classic chocolate chunk (pictured above, tender-fluffy-flawless), and pancakes topped with poached pears, vanilla bean whipped cream and warm maple butter, just to name a few.

Clicky-click for your featured pancake specials and schedule!

The pancake specials aren't offered on la weekend, when it's a madhouse; if memory serves, they're even pretty busy for lunch/brekky on the weekdays, so do yourself a favor and fulfill your flapjack satisfaction in the twilight.

And if you miss Pancake Month, don't fret--their Wild Maine Blueberry signature pancakes are a mainstay on their regular menus, day or night, and are even available for delivery to the lucky bastards within proximity.

All Hail Chairman Bao! (Baohaus, LES, NYC)

I've been reluctant to get on the fancypants pork bun wagon.  As a gal from Honolulu, it's hard to think of cheap, tasty pork buns as anything but a God-given right.

I stand corrected.  I came across Baohaus on Serious Eats, but what really rushed me there was the cheeky Engrish menu.  FOBtastic.

At $9 for 2 Haus Bao, Baohaus is cheap only by NYC standards.  But here's the value: As my crew of eagerly anticipatory bun testers trooped into the small space, we were immediately and warmly greeted by two fresh-faced proprietors, Eddie and Evan. 

They're as cool as all get-out.  They're the bee's knees.  Whatever oldsy-timesy way of saying that these fellas are worth every penny should be inserted here.  They're genuine, engaging, and completely immersed in their product and business.  None of that all-too-common snotty sustainawhore holier-than-random-customer bullshit here.

Which is swell and all, but how's the food?

It's so good, I won't even be ashamed to tell my own FOB Momma how much I spent on bao, and more bao. 

Between the Haus Bao (AKA, red-braised skirt steak in a steamed bun with crushed peanuts, sesame, Taiwanese red sugar, cilantro, and Haus Relish, 2 for $9):

..and the Chairman Bao (similarly red-braised and dressed Niman Ranch Pork Belly, at 2 for $8):

...our group was hard-pressed to choose a favorite.  The buns/bao themselves were soft and sweet, and cradled the well-seasoned protein perfectly.  The steak (a Baohaus innovation, as the Taiwanese tend toward red-cooking only pork) was tender but still had an appealing chew; the pork belly was a melting mouthful of no regrets, not to be undertaken by those who fear fat.

We had a happily fed vegetarian in our crew; she and I were pleased by the Uncle Jesse Bao, crammed with lightly fried soft tofu and a squirt of hot-and-sour bean sauce (2 for $7):

Gun to my head, I'd go with the pork.  But why segregate?  Get one of each kind of bun in the Straight Frush (any 3 buns with a drink and a cup of boiled peanuts, $15.50), or try everything they have on the menu with the Royal Frush (any 4 buns with boiled peanuts, Sweet Bao Fries, and 2 drinks, $25).

Happiest of Happy Hours: Sweet Maine Shrimp at Savoy, SoHo, NYC

Last Sunday was pretty wretched for wandering--The Man and I could only be grateful that it was rain and not snow whipping around us as we navigated to Prince and Crosby.

Savoy has always held a special place in my bosom; the true-blue fireplace, the warm lighting and blond wood glow, the U-shaped bar with its slate slab of Saxelby cheeses and terrifying bar stools that invite you to lean back and crack your head open. 

Snug and low-key, Peter Hoffman's Savoy was far, far ahead of Greenmarket and localvore fetishism, and she (yep, I made the restaurant a she) carries herself as lady always-in-the-know should--with understated elegance, confidence, and natural charm.

On this sodden Sunday, Savoy never looked more inviting.  The Man and I found ourselves just in time for Happy Hour, wherein certain cocktails are $8, special wines $6, and an array of bar snacks are $4-10, like deviled eggs with sumac and chili-lime chicharrónes.

Our favorite tipples were the Pimm's Pear ($8, spiced pear infusion, lemon, Pimm's #1, poire william) and the Jack Rose ($12, pomegranate, applejack, lemon); fruity without being cloying, bracing and sunny.  If you're feeling strong, they have a mighty, mighty Harvest Manhattan ($12), a classic whiskey warmer scented with pumpkin liqueur and maple.

I'd remembered an item in the NYT mentioning that this year's Maine shrimp harvest was particularly bountiful, and barely smothered a squeal when I saw said shrimp on the Bar Snacks menu.

These critters are not the cocktail super-size-me variety; they're wee, super-seasonal, sweet, and pink even before cooking.  I've had them mounded nigiri-style in sushi bars before, but never cooked.

I may or may not have made touchdown arms when the shrimp arrived ($8, with a creamy-not-pushy heirloom citrus tartar):

HEADS ON!  YEAAAAH!  It's goooood! 

(Click the piccie for enlarged, full-power stare-back shrimp effect.)

Deep-fried with shells and noggins intact may be strange to newbies, but it's hands-down my favorite kind of fried shrimp (think salt-pepper shrimp in Cantonese restaurants).  The shells become the oceanic equivalent of potato chips, sealing in the briny brilliance of the sweet shrimp.

Some may be inclined to peel these babies, discard the heads, or suck said heads and consider the job done.  Not me (or The Man, for that matter); we gobbled them down from tip to tail, and enjoyed every tomalley-rich, crispy sea-candy bit.

Like all good things, Maine shrimp are fleeting, so cross your fingers and go on down to Savoy for a welcome reminder that winter isn't all turnips and pigs feet.

Roundup 2009: Soto, West Village, NYC

When Momma Foodie came in last Christmas, I focused in on our Big Production Japanese Splurge, Morimoto. 

But when I asked what her favorite eating experience was, she didn't go with the big dog; she said she liked Soto best, and could we please go back?

Done and done.  Ma Foodie's flight narrowly missed the blizzard; six hours out of coach from Hong Kong, the Family EF were tiptoeing through the quickly accumulating white into the also-white unmarked entrance of Sotohiro Kosugi's namesake, Soto.

It's no secret to regular readers--I tend to favor little restaurants to big, little plates to big, etc.  Even on a blizzard day, the small, spartan spaced slowly filled with smiling eaters who sipped sake and cooed over the beautiful little plates rolling out of the kitchen.

I didn't want to interrupt the mojo of the first fam dinner we'd had in a year with picture-taking, but here are a few stunners that were just too pretty to go undocumented:

Thin-sliced greenling (a bitty, sweet white-fleshed fish) with ponzu.

One-Minute Tai: Barely steamed red snapper with shoyu, ginger oil and scallion.  Like a pitch-perfect bite of steamed Chinese fish.

Super-fatty Scottish Salmon (Sake) Sashimi.

Chutoro (Fatty Tuna) Tartare with Avocado Mousse, American Caviar and Chives: Unctuous melty fish fat with fatty avocado fat and fatty fish roe.  Fattyfattyfat ace in the hole.

Mirugai (Geoduck) Sashimi: Crunchy, sweet and saline, and cut into exploding chrysanthemum clam poofs, to maximize the surface area and texture.  Family EF has eaten lots of giant clam tongue, and we've never came across this approach--a fun one to spring on the sushi-jaded.

Uni (Sea Urchin) over Black Yuba in Dashi: AKA, funky sea cheese a la tofu skin in bonito broth.  Creamy, briny, light and pungent, an unami wonderland.

And many, many other things that I wasn't diligent enough to clicky-click with my point-and-shoot.  We were busy passing, chuckling, teasing, and draining sake, none too eager to tromp back outside.  When there was no more room in our gullets for additional inventive seafood bits, we bundled a sleepy, happy Momma back into her rarely-used poofy coat.

She shook our gracious waiter's hand, and said she'd see him next year.

NYC Wintertime Treats: Shake Shack, the redhead, 2nd Ave Deli (and Random Acts of Hot Toddy)

I'm a crybaby wuss when it comes to the cold, so it tickles me when NY tosses out treats and winter work-arounds for those willing to brave the bluster (and those who've been felled by it).

--> To help ease the bitter, Bolshevikian line for Sports Dogs and 'Shroom Burgers, Shake Shack is meeting its Madison-Square-adjacent burger junkies halfway by offering a winter call-in service: Place your order in advance and they'll give you an exact time to go and pick it up.  Danke, Daddy Meyer!

--> Chances are if you've eaten a homey, rib-sticking Southern meal at the redhead (small caps theirs), you haven't saved room for this little beauty: The Hot Chocolate Car Bomb.  Thick hot chocolate, Guinness and Jameson's topped with a homemade Bailey's marshmallow, this absurdly sexy caloric KO is reason enough to hunker down at the bar before (or after!) the packed dinner rush.

--> Besides bequeathing us with the uber-handy mecha-list of soups, NYMag lets flu-bitten Midtowners in on a handy little tip: The reborn 2nd Ave Deli delivers half-gallon jars of their Chicken in the Pot.  For $24.45 (including the deposit on the jar), you get half a kosher chicken with feather-light matzo balls gently adrift in golden Jewish Penicillin, 6 half-sour pickles, coleslaw, and 4 slices of rye.

--> If chicken soup alone can't clear your head and warm your toes, a hot toddy will probably get you the rest of the way: Saveur and the NYT share some insights, history, and recipes for toasty toddies and their fancier cousins, Tom & Jerrys.