...more recent posts
Test run of brunch went very well last week. AKA will be open to the public for brunch this week (and forever on...) on Sundays (probably do Saturday's too shortly) from 11:30. Omlettes, egg in the hole, french toast, hanger slider... Mmmmm.
out to eat w/ marianne nowottny
Last night at Felidia confirms they are one of my fav's spots...
"I used to ridicule the Riedel fetishists. Then I became one. Riedel, for those not in the know, is the world's trendiest brand of wineglass—the Manolo Blahniks of stemware. Wine geeks tote their Riedels to restaurants, dinner parties, and pretty much any place else where quality bottles might be uncorked."
This week, to accompany the Food Issue of The New Yorker, here is a selection of New Yorker food writing from the past. In this Talk of the Town piece from 1945, Lillian Ross writes about what was at the time a novelty: frozen dinners.
The Minnow in Park Slope has turned into a great neiborhood spot, fresh tasty seafood!!
as wierd as this sounds, we had a fab veggie meal out of Taipei on China Airlines, a multi bean salad followed by tofu and veggies in a dark sauce w/ sticky rice, dessert fresh fruit, we were not hungry and we both ate every bite, and i licked my plates!!
Day 12/ Hoi An: Market for am meal and it was one of the best, Cao Lau a fab pork and noodle dish (linda got a veggie version with pickled banana flowers) sticky rice w/ peanuts, a thin pancake w/ seafood and veggies wraped in an rice paper, boiled pork in banana leaf--AWESOME. Dinner at Tam Tam, great place for views and great drinks but besides for the homemade pasta (yummy) the food was bad.
Day 13/ Saigon: Last supper at Temple Club (29 Ton Trat Thiep St) was better than our first night here, we ate the same two favorites plus a few more dishes, a bottle of champagne and one of rose, than retired to thier beautiful lounge room for desserts and dessert wines, wonderful end to the trip and the restaurant of the tour (outside markets).
You know it's slow when Page Six leads with food news. See comments for the scoop on the Times' critic and here for his side project.
Day 10/ Hoi An: Getting the stomach back in order with coke's, orangina's, water, omlette, chicken sandwich and finally MEDICINE.....need to get it ready for more market food:>), wonderful visit to an ancient Hindu spot...
Day 11/ Hoi An: By night I was back, so we went to the beautiful upmarket Brothers Cafe, food was good, views amazing, sadly they overcooked the tuna (the tuna in the market is so beautiful, we hoped to see it on a menu, it was yummy but we could only imagine if it was cooked right!!). We have realized that besides for the market and a few restaurants the only real was to eat would be befriending a local family and go to the market and shop with them and cook it up....if you read Saveur (a must) you can see they go to some regions and eat w/ family's....#2 would be get hold of a kitchen myself:>)
wylie is a cut-up.
Day 8/ My Khe Beach & Hoi An: Lunch at Loi Restaurant (all seafood and its in tanks) was great, grilled clams w/ spicy tomatoe, stir fried shrimp w/ tomatoe onion, 3 small lobsters, and I am sure we were overcharged at $20 w/ 4 beers but I cant bargin....Dinner in Hoi An (a famous port city from 1400's to late 1800's) at Ly 22 Cafe was purr-fecto, shrimp dumplings, green papaya salad, fried wontons, all were clean and clear.
Day 9/ Hoi An: 6:30 am to the market, one of the best I have been to, boats moar up and fish is unloaded, greens of every shape and scent are cleaned and sold, we eat a donut like cake w/ a bean paste in side 100 points, right by the river in a down and dirty stall I go for a local dish, rich fatty pork over rice + egg cake, with a side of a green's I have never seen or can name but it was like spanish taraggon. All afternoon I felt microbe's eating my insides, not an amebic(sp?) reality luckly but a bugger for sure, Linda's just thinks I am getting lazy, so we head to the pool and than a long nap.
Dinner at Cafe des Amis, open now 10 years, set menu's at less than 4$ either seafood or veggie, we do one of each, all the history of the local food is in these dish's, one is verry Chinese, one is made with curry, others are local specialty's (Haoi An's sister city's in history are Malaka and Macau), we thought very good and the view's of the river and its activity from the balcony was priceless. After dinner Ho Chi's revenge sets in......
Day 6 Hue: Com Hen (Clam Rice), one of the greatest dishes so far, beach for lunch steamed crab & grilled fish, dinner at Paradise Garden Restaurant, very nice riverside setting, nice food best is grilled chicken lemon leaves...
Day 7 Hue: Com hen at another location (Quan Thanh Xuan/4 Truong Dinh, yesterday was 2 Truong Dinh but today they not serving), this dish is amazing, clams, rice, clam broth, some slivered browned corbicula, couple sauce's, on top peanuts, sliced starfruit, and crispy pork rind, than you add hot peppers to taste plus some stinky gray (fish) sauce.....
Dinner at Truong Tien 1 under the bridge in a drop dead location on the river, a local joint, fab beef wraped in a leave like the other day but this time steamed in banana leaf so tender and more juicy, located at Cong Vien Thuong Bac.
Day 4/ Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City: Awesome breakfast at the market (one of the best eating spots for sure), lunch of coffee (here coffee is STRONG and served over condensed milk-YUMMY), dinner @ Indochine--ROCKED--crab x 4:>): spring rolls, Asian Stone claws tamarind, fried soft shell, medium sized steamed in ginger, we also had clams lemongrass, grilled crawfish, and I needed some pork chops like no other!!--GRAND CRU.
Day 5/Hue: Lunch at Houng Sen, a 16 sided wood building in a water lily patch, we were not so hungry so we passed on the house special of blood curd and crab, had a tasty ground cow with herb/sesame fried in an aromatic leaf.
Dinner at Tinh Gia Vien was sadly not at all what we expected, we loved the villa and Madame Ha, the presentations were Imperial for sure but not special in flavor, we had hoped to eat here all 3 nights. BUT A MUST FOR ONE NIGHT!!
Day 3: We drive to Mekong Delta and eat at Lan Que.
First course is spring rolls fried but the rice shell is a mesh, dont know how they made it but they were awesome, followed with an eel dish spicy with mushrooms, very tender. Next are a small bird, not sure what kind, strong taste and texture comes alive (saved:>) with a dipping sauce of
crushed pepper and lime, following that we have a fish that lookes like it came from the bottom of the river (the Mekong feels a bit like the Amazon, the town is a cool backwater place, the people so friendly, just 30 years ago the US was spraying napalm here), it was sweet but strong textured.
Than comes the snake, sauted with a bitter green, shallots, peanuts, this dish is eaten with a thin flat bread, like an Indian bread, cooked with spices in it, you dip it in the mixture and eat, its supposed to be good for your body, last dish is snake bone broth soup with cilantro and shallots.
Could not do the turtle which is another special of the restaurant. Interesting meal. Dinner we needed some pro-flow veggie food, so we went to a local tourist hot-spot called Lemongrass. It was more Thai/Chinese but the food was clean
and what we needed.
Day 1/ Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City: Dinner at Temple Club was a great start, fab mixed drinks that went wonderful with the food, the two highlights were Linda's choise's, mustard green spring rolls followed by fried fish (covered in peanuts and sauted scallion) with lettuce, basil, cilantro, mint and noodles, which you rolled up in the lettuce with fish sauce....
Day 2/ Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City: Market (a great explosion of color and aroma, small but very cool) for breakfast after dragon fruit at the hotel, beef noodle soup, and it was all it was supposed to be. Lunch: Angkor Encore, the city's only Cambodian restaurant, two dishes shined, fish soup in a light coconut curry, w/ noodles, basil, bean sprouts, not heavy. Fish baked in banana leaf covered in a curry like paste on a bed of a bitter-ish green. Dinner: we were thinking Vietnamese House but I had a bad vibe so we went to the bar and had a drink and watched the food, didnt look special, so we went back to the Temple Club for more fab drinks, what a beautiful room, we went upstairs for BBQ but it was now to late, some basic Japanese food on the way home filled the hole.
There was a lot of good eating and some serious cooking in Montana, but the top local dishes were the simplest ones: elk burgers supplied by Charles (red meat, duh), and fresh morel mushrooms collected by Jeff. We heard that it was a good year for morels, especially where there had been fires. You don't even have to shoot the 'shrooms, but it's serious hunting nonetheless. This week's New Yorker has a piece on the phenomenon.
In the 80's my friend Donald Alberti and I were know to eat two dinners, one at his art studio where i helped him move big paintings, then after at Manhattan Bistro right before they closed.....both Donald and I are overweight today......last night I went to Barbetta at 6:00 to drink old Barolo and eat a slightly tired meal and when this bizz meeting was done I went home to load up on wine to take to a 10:00 dinner with one of my best customers at Great NY Noodle Town (a very famous and tasty joint but not as good as GSI when they rock, I fear GSI exspecially the 24St location are streaching thin, they just opened a 3rd spot)......
I miss those days with Donald but I do have a lot to show for it!!!!!
i often had designs (without any design) on a few choice corners on spring st in what is now considered nolita. recently, cafe lebowitz opened on one such corner, which owing to its name, i was sure would be a failure. guess i was no less clueless than usual.
meanwhile, aka and alias get another plug from new york mag.