September hiatus

I’ve been too bummed out this September to write.

A couple of things have changed. My job ended. I have a new one that’s not as good. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. My family visited the city when I was a kid. The one thing I remember is the amazing taste and texture of those famous Cafe Du Monde beignets. I had some beignets recently at a seemingly Goth coffeeshop in the East Village called the Bourgeois Pig. The beignets were indeed fried dough with powdered sugar, but they lacked the fluffiness that I remember from Du Monde. The Pig’s coffee was pretty good though, served it in a tall ruby red cut glass.

My sadness is also compounded by the fact that two of my favorite places have closed down.

Havana Pies was a great spot on 23rd St. that served affordable (nothing over $5)
empanadas. You could get your choice of baked or fried and they were all yummy. I won’t describe them because well, what’s the point? Granted, Papa’s Empanadas (www.papasempanadas.com) in Queens is the best because they are delicious and dirt cheap, but they are too far away. Empanada Mamma (763 9th Ave. 212.698.9008) is very similar to Papa’s except that everything costs $1.25 more, but they’ve got to pay their Midtown Manhattan rent. Ruben’s is ok, but not my favorite. Nope, Havana Pies was the best in my opinion, and they’re gone.

And now my favorite Chinese noodle shop. Now where can I go after a bike ride on the East River for an amazing bowl of hand-drawn noodle soup? I can’t go to Golden Wok Noodle House, that’s for sure. Now that it’s chilly, I’ve been craving noodle soup, but I don’t always want to pay 10 bucks for it at Momofuko, Minca, Rai Rai Ken or that place near HairMates on St. Marks . So I head down to Chinatown.

At the corner of Catherine and Henry in the part of Chinatown that I never go to unless on my bike, a young Chinese couple served the best noodle soup. The wiry armed husband pulled a blob of soft dough into thousands of supple noodles which he handed off to his wife who boiled them. She plopped them into a delicious bowl of broth and your choice of meat or veg. He then sprinkled the bowl with cilantro and delivered it to your spot. Take my word for it – that noodle soup was out of this world. Especially at those prices, again nothing was over five bucks.

It’s really upsetting but all too common to see a really hardworking couple (they were open from 10-10 everyday!!) with a fabulous product have to close their doors. I hope they did it because they won the lottery and not because they couldn’t afford the rent.

What's behind door 86?

There’s just too much to say about hamburgers in NYC. There are some entertaining documentaries Hamburger America,blogs about them, and tons of people in clubs who love them. Nothing I write is going to tread any new ground, but who cares? Of the newish places, I dig the Burger Joint in Le Parker Meridian, the sliders at the Burger Joint on 19th St., and Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. The Better Burgers, Lucky Burger, Blue 9 are just ok in my opinion.

But when you’re lost in the West Village, Corner Bistro, White Horse Tavern, and Chumley’s are classics. I like the CB and WH for their meaty burger and classic bar atmosphere. But it’s taken me a while to go to Chumley’s. Hidden on the corner of Bleeker and Barrow, Chumley’s was an old speakeasy where writers galore used to hang out. Book covers and photos line the walls.

The best time to go is before 8 pm. The first time I went, at 8:30 p.m., it was pretty loud and full of yuppies. In fact my friend David and I were seated by this kid whose parents did nothing about his high pitched shrieking. That sucked, but the burger was worth the resulting deafness. The meat itself tasted good and had perfect grill marks, but the tomato slice struck me the most. It was a big thick round of red juicy Jersey tomato.

A couple days later on Saturday afternoon, I tried the burger again and the same yummy tomato was on the plate. I’ll be sad come winter when the pink tomatoes are back on the scene. Until then, I’m going back to Chumley’s for their atmosphere and burger with tomato. Their fries were the run of the mill shoestring and I’m not crazy about the sour pickle. I’ve read that the rest of the food ain’t so great and if it’s anything like the French onion soup I tried, then I’d stick with the burger.

Oh yeah, I saw the movie "The Baxter" a couple of days ago and Chumley’s was one of the locations!

nuclearzuke

nuclearzuke
Originally uploaded by i_eat_ny.

It's zucchini season! My boss grows these huge zukes. This one has been in my fridge for 2 weeks. I have to do something with it. Any ideas?

Blah

Today was a very frustrating day, foodwise and otherwise. I went down to DUMBO for the Shanghai chili crab festival, but when I got there I realized it was happening tomorrow. Since I was in Brooklyn, I thought I should go to BAM to see some of the Shaw Brothers film series. When I got there, I learned there were no matinee times. There are some great restaurants on Fulton St.(Pequino Mexican and the new Habana Outpost) but I was craving Korean.Specifically, nang myun (cold noodles) so I headed back to the city.

When I used to walk to my last job, I'd pass Li Hua (171 Grand St., at Baxter 212.343.0090) and wonder who would go to a Korean restaurant on the cusp of Chinatown and Little Italy. I still don't know. It was around 3 o'clock and there were only 2 other groups in the restaurant: a mother and her daughter snacking on the kimchi pajeun (pancake), and a group of four that ordered the Korean usuals: bibimbap (good stuff on rice w. a runny egg), the kimchi pancake, fried rice and tofu jigae (stew). The place itself was well designed and decorated. There's a bench that divides the room into different spaces and the simple flower watercolor is a nice decorative motif. On the other side of the bench, the staff was eating a family meal out of a big pot of tofu jigae and a couple of plates of japchae (noodles with good stuff). It looked great and the smell of the hot stone bibimbap was divine.

Unfortunately, my nang myun was just okay. I prefer the cold noodles at Momofuko, Woorijip or even Men Kui Tei (their cold noodles are more Japanese than Korean). Taste-wise, Momofuko is the best. Moneywise, Woorijip wins. Their noodles are usually about 6 bux. LiHua charged 13 for the dish. I believe Momofuko has noodles in broth for 13 and no broth for 12, but don't quote me on those prices.

There's no way around it: the broth at Li Hua was weak. The liquid consisted of a little bit of meat juice, soy sauce and a lot of water. I doused it with mustard and vinegar but it didn't help. The beauty of Korean food is the strong flavors, and this dish had none of that. The pork seemed like an anonymous meat, the noodles were noodles, and the half-egg and the cucumber were nothing special. I have to say, though, that the pickled sweet asian pear was great. The banchan were okay (I think the flavors were toned down for white folks) the kimchi wasn't ripe, the cucumber salad was okay (vinegar, sugar, salt) but what I thought was a white onion was actually a stringy piece of crabstick. I don't mind fake crab, but this piece was tough and dry. Bleh.

There was another nice, red pepper-based salad of cabbage and zuccini that was good, but come on, the star of the show should be the main dish, right? To be fair, I've only eaten there once. Robert Siestama from the Village Voice eats at a place 3 times before he writes a review. And he goes with a bunch of people. I would say that you should go to Li Hua if you are craving bibimbap and want to be in a sleek restaurant setting. Or if your gringo friends want to try Korean food, but you don't feel like going up to Koreatown. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Here's the link to the recent NY Times article that ran about so called Kimchi chic. urg.

lil brunch

lilfrankie
Originally uploaded by i_eat_ny.

When is a meal blogworthy? When it’s fabulous and you want to share the knowledge and experience? When it’s horrible and you want to warn others? How about when it’s just pretty good?

I think that Lil Frankie’s (19 1st. Ave. bw 1&2nd St.) is a pretty good place to go when you want a pizza and a salad. Their pizzas don’t disappoint and the lil’ Frankie’s salad is awesome—greens, beets, haricot vert. I order it every time. Although the service can vary from mediocre to good, it’s also a good place for groups. The dining room is spacious and they recently added another room on the side. But you probably know all of this. The brunch is pretty good, but stops short of spectacular or reliable.

I went there with Ted one Sunday before he had to catch the Amtrak. There were only a few other folks in the back alley garden room. I can’t remember what was playing, but whatever it was, it was up a hair too loud for a Sunday morning. The coffee kind of bugged me, too. It was that Dasani-type coffee that is just like bitter brown water. Note to self, only order their espresso drinks.

Now I’ve always been a fan of food that makes use of leftovers: old bread becomes lovely French toast, leftover rice becomes fried rice, that kind of thing. Ted’s omelet made use of old spaghetti. I imagined it would be more of a pancake type creation where the noodles and eggs were mixed and then put into a fry pan so the bottom of the pan toasted the noodles to add texture and flavor. Instead, the omelet was just that, eggs and spaghetti, and the side of potato cake was browned and dry.

I had the baked eggs with mini meatballs and sauce. The word for mini meatballs, polpettine, looks like mini poops and they resembled Chef Boy Ardee meatballs but with real meat and no filler. I asked for my eggs to be a little runny because I like to sop up the yolk, and the marinara from the meatballs made a nice gravy for their good bread. It was a yummy but gross looking concoction. I feel like I should make some allusion to birth, but I’ve already referred to poop in this description and it wasn’t a bad meal by any means. In fact, it was pretty good. But blogworthy? I’m still not sure. Maybe you should try it yourself.