An Effing Foodie

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.

Boiled Critters, and Keeping the Faith: Crab Boil @ Back Forty, East Village, NYC

Food peeps are notoriously predictable in their calendar of coverage--Summer means lots of writing on barbecue, grilling and burgers.  Not JUST burgers...retro burgers!  Nuevo burgers! Retro-nuevo burgers, so that we may justify another year of reinventing burgers!  GAHHH! 

I like drippy burgers and BBQ.  I can chase banh mi and prose-like cocktails with the best of them.  But with blogs and pubs piping out fall trends (what shall we pickle and braise now???) it's hard to work up excitement over food and food coverage of late, and that includes my own.

And then it became obvious...who gives a sh*t??  Procrastination makes fools of us all (okay, ME) and I'm not going to let 'lil things like seasonal propriety keep me from telling you what you should've ate this summer...and can still eat, if you're not too busy trying to chase the newest stupid foodie craze.

Case in point: The Back Forty Crab Boil.  Logic dictates that piles of steaming blue crabs on newspaper go the way of flipflops and white linen past Labor Day...but why?

The Decapod Destroyer (dear friend, employer, and all-round seafood enthusiast) and I had caught wind of the boiled crab bonanza last year, but sadly missed the cutoff date.  This year, we were 2 crazed otters on a mission...which yielded 3 weeks of "sorry, seats are sold out" auto replies.  Cruel, cruel summer. 

Thanks to coverage from NYMag and buzz from last year's crab boil series, it was more challenging to get 2 seats at a communal table of crab slurpers than it was to get a table at FN Babbo or Per Se.

But all was not lost!  Back Forty (run by Peter Hoffman of Savoy) showed rare and admirable traits in the restaurant industry: Compassion, AND response to customer loyalty and demand.

Because I had played the online reservation lottery a few times, the restaurant had my email address; they took it upon themselves to contact me, announcing that in order to accommodate the overwhelming popularity of the crab dinners, they were setting aside 5 days of nothing but all crabs, all the time, with people who had been rejected as the key audience.

How AWESOME is that??? 

This restored my faith in humanity, in hospitality, and that's no overstatement.  After years of building up a thick dining skin in NY, tolerating sub-par entitled service, price gouging, and impossible booking practices, Hoffman reversed the tide with something simple, distinct, and priceless: You want crab.  We want to serve you crab.  So come and let us serve you crab.

And serve crab they will, every Tuesday until the end of the month, September 29th.  To book a table, please visit Back Forty's site for the rundown on the crab rezzy procedure. 

Bring Me...The Plate: Daddy-O, West Village, NYC

Tripping on a good bar is one of the things I love best about NYC.  Granted, I was guided here by a roving group of revelers almost a year ago, but every time I've found myself in the neighborhood, this little place was just packed.

Daddy-O is a happy conglomeration of 3 things you almost NEVER see together in a Manhattan Bar anymore:

1. A long list of cocktails that are well-made and balanced, but not priced to the point where you'd have to call the barkeep a "mixologist".  Cheers!
2. A short menu packed with reasonably priced barfood that's tasty, filling, and skirts the line between gritty and precious.  It's a cheeky kinda greasy that's easy to love, and the kitchen is wide open until 4 AM.
3. A lit wall PACKED with brown liquor: If you're a whiskey whisperer, this little corner bar has got your back.  Aforementioned cocktails include commendable quaffables that embrace bourbon, scotch, and dark rum.

Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and I wandered in around dinnertime on a Friday evening, during a rare, blessed lull, so our experience with the service is probably not what you're going to typically encounter.  Go early, or on an off-day, and you can expect a steady stream of libations and eats from laid-back-yet-attentive servers.

I've only heard about the legendary Garbage Plate of Rochester, but being that it shares the same basic dish-DNA as a plate lunch, it's a reference I've carried near my heart, and is on the list of roadfood goals (along with the original buffalo wings from Anchor Bar).

So when I glanced on an item called "The Plate" on Daddy-O's short menu, my Spidey-senses tingled.  We were in the presence of a homage to the Garbage Plate!  Granted, SSFL and I were supposed to be on our way elsewhere for dinner...

...but the power of The Plate could not be denied.

The Dealie-O: Two-Handed Burgers and Pint Specials @ Irving Mill, Clinton St. Bakery and The Smith, NYC

EF, why haven't you written about recession specials?

Well, it's because it's a moot point, as I've always been broke!  Only real difference is, I've more company nowadays. 

Suckitup!  It won't be forever.  How 'bout a burger and beer?

• The Legendary SkeenBurger is being offered at Irving Mill on Monday Nights with a pint of Sixpoint's Brownstone for $15!  (Burger and pint at regular price: $23.)
• The folks that make you fine flapjacks at Clinton St. Bakery make a solid burger too, and on Monday through Saturday from 6 to 8 PM, it can be yours with a bottled beer (Brooklyn Lager, Red Stripe, or Stella) for $12!  (Burger and bottle at regular price: $21.)
• And, on Sunday Nights, burgers with a pint at The Smith come to $14--the rest of the menu is gently priced, too, and they're open until the wee early hours, for those who've gotten carried away with happy hour specials in the area.  (Burger and pint at regular price: $20.)

That's a burger deal for every night of the week, and GOOD burgers at that!  So don't be sad, fellow beleaguered NYers.  Cheers, and keep pumping out those resumes!

The Skinny: $10 Soup & Sherry at Restaurant Hearth, East Village, NYC

One of the few traces left of my Chineseness (don't gasp, my mom would be the first to call me a Twinkie) is the ever-present craving for soup.  Chowder or pho, bouillabaisse or caldo verde, laksa, ramen, borscht, hot-n-sour, even FN Cup-of-Soup--if it's hot, simmered and salty, BRING it, and if it's winter, just KEEP bringing it.

So I got a little bug-eyed when I read about Winter Soup Specials at Hearth.  $5 for a bowl of soup?  $10 for a soup and sherry pairing???  YES, please!  Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and I peeled layers at Hearth's low-lit, limited bar area, keenly anticipating slurpage.

Why at the bar?  Such is the zoning for the Soup Special, but we settled into the window seat and weighed our options.

Turns out, we didn't really need to.  We could have ordered all 5 soups and still kept eating.

I'll preface this by saying that the soup was lovely and craftily made.  We liked the sherry pairings, which were patiently explained to us by our server.  SSFL and I moderately-to-enthusiastically enjoyed the 4 that we tried:

Ribollita with Black Cabbage, White Beans and Parmesan (paired with Oloroso, Asuncion, Alvear, Montilla-Moriles): The fave of the four, flavorful and rustic, reeking pleasantly of thyme and tomatoes, decked with crisped bread bits. (Pictured just above.)

Cabrito's Aptly Pegged Happy Hour!

Over La Weekend, I heard some wonderful news from a lovely bird!

Remember Cabrito?  The little corner of Mexican contentment on Carmine?

Well, now's the time to go, folks! More specifically, Monday through Friday, between 4 PM and 7 PM, whence they are offering:

A PBR with any taco at $8:

 

Top, Chorizo Taco, Beer-Battered Fish Taco; Bottom, Lengua (Tongue) Taco

Famous Frijoles Puercos (That's beans larded with housemade chorizo, people! YOU NEED IT!), $4:

Additional incentives:

• Jalapeño Rellenos (stuffed with red snapper, raisins, peptitas (pumpkin seeds) & capers), $2
• PBR & Well Shot, $7
• Hornitos Plata Margaritas, Single $7, Pitchers $40

So the next time you're wandering Bleeker, tilt westward for a happy, boozy surprise...you've earned it!  There's no reason it can't be warmer weather in your gullet.

Monday MONDAY Monday: Goulash Mondays at Cafe Steinhof

 

One particularly unmotivated Monday, my man and I were craving little more than a comforting space and sustenance with a certain fortifying gravity.  (Yep, it was stupid cold out.)

So we poked our heads into Cafe Steinhof, and were greeted with a "Hi! Two for goulash?"

We were little taken aback, but who can refuse an offer like that?