On Monday night, Matt, two friends of his and myself went to Fette Sau - the new BBQ joint in Williamsburg. The owners also own the expensive, yet awesome craft beer bar Spuyten Duyvil, which is conveniently located across the street.

I really really liked the interior and usually I don’t give a crap about that kind of stuff.

To order, you wait on line and order deli style - there’s a chalk board of their offerings. They also have a deli counter so you can see the meats. The workers dress in butcher whites and wrap up your to-go orders in parchment paper. Unfortunately, they often run out of things and don’t make note of it on the board. So I waited on line for ten minutes only to find out that they didn’t have any pig tails ($2.50 each) that day.

The four of us shared 1/2 lb of each bacon belly and brisket and 1/2 a rack of ribs. Large potato salad (simple, just skinless potatoes, oil, butter, salt and pepper), large broccoli salad (a little overcooked), half order of pickles and four potato rolls (these were obviously not made on premises). Cuts of meat are priced by the pound, ranging from about $10-$17 per pound.

The bacon and the brisket were awesome - beautiful color, beautiful char. They were both extremely tender, with the perfect amount of fattiness. A telltale sign of quality is that excess fat wasn’t greasy - it melted in your mouth. This is what meat is supposed to be. The ribs were really dry, but it was almost forgivable because they tasted smokier than I thought food was able to taste. The fact that they had Guss’ New Pickles won me over ($2.50 for three whole pickles). The photo above was taken when we were halfway done. I got so wrapped up in the deliciousness, I forgot to photograph our food before we dug in.

For drinks, you have to go to the bar. They carry dozens of bourbons and ten kinds of microbrews available in 1/2 pint, pint, quart, 1/2 gallon and gallon. Yes, you can get a gallon of beer. Bonus points for serving beer in olde tyme drinkin’ jars. Also, can you somewhat see in the photo below that all the pulls on the taps are of BBQ implements (meat slicers, a cleaver, a tenderizer).

It was quite busy for a Monday night and it seemed to be mostly young locals. I’m assuming they get slammed on the weekends by Manhattanites because Fette Sau’s opening has been announced in all the Manhattan mags and blogs. And I like this place better than the famous Manhattan BBQ joint, RUB.

Outdoor seating in the front.

$45 fed the four us well, without obtaining a case of the itis. My pint of cider was $4.

Not suitable for vegetarians.

ChewFood Rating: Nine thumbs up. Or an A. That means that if you asked me if I wanted to go there tonight, I’d be all like, “Um. Fuck, yeah!”

Delicious TV: The host, Toni Fiore, is good on camera. Unfortunately, it’s shot on janky camcorder. I got distracted because her nails were all done up and it seems like she’s scared to get them ruined. She doesn’t have proper knife skills, so it’s a little aggravating for food dorks like me. Delicious TV can be found on NYCTV 25.
ChewFood rating: C+

Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way: Oooh, boy. How can you not love Jacques Pépin? He’s an adorable old Frenchman who you can tell just absolutely loves what he does. He’s a very rare television personality: He’s comfortable in front of the camera without trying. He doesn’t need to stand around and tell you how great his recipes are and how delicious his food is, he just gets into the cooking. Plus he has an Ugly Doll in his kitchen! (I mean, I have an aversion to cyclopses, but he still gets points for that.) I am gonna try to get Chef Pépin to adopt me. In the mornings, I’d come down to the kitchen all bleary eyed and he’d have coffee all ready and say, “Shooey, what would you like for zee breakfast? Baked eggs weez herbs et pork belly? Euh, Belgian waffles weez macerated seasonal fruit? Breakfast crepes?” And I’d reply, “Why don’t we cook them all, Papa Jacques? Why don’t we cook them all?” And he’d go, “Ah, but of course!” On WLIW 21 in New York (PBS).
ChewFood rating: A+

Daisy Cooks! With Daisy Marinez: I’m usually a fan of programs with any punctuation in the title, especially exclamation points, but this disappoints. Daisy, who does Spanish food, is boring as hell - which is shame because it’s obvious she really loves cooking for people and knows what she is talking about. She just sucks on camera. I couldn’t even finish a whole episode.
ChewFood rating: D+ (The plus is for her moxie.)

Master Class at Johnson & Wales: This show is low budget and it’s supposed to be like you are just observing a class at the prestigious Johnson & Wales (alumni include Tyler Florence and Emeril). Not bad. It’s informative without any pretense of a host or narrator. It’s not food porn and doesn’t give me a food boner or anything, but I’ll continue to watch it. On WLIW 21 in New York (PBS).
ChewFood rating: B

Living Fresh: Sarah Snow thinks she cuter than she is. Sandra Lee’s zealousness and vanity + Martha Stewart’s arrogance - sticks in their asses - 20 years in age = Sarah. I watched an episode about organic vegetables and one about natural honey. It was pretty informative. Like did you know organic vegetables contain 10-50% more antioxidants than conventional vegetables? Or that one egg yolk from an organic egg contains more omega-3 than eight conventional egg yolks? About the cooking: There’s actually very little cooking. She does most of her prep work off camera and so she gets right into the cooking - which is fast, healthy, easy and big on organical things. The cooking part of the show is only about eight minutes and includes only one dish. Then for most of the show she travels to a farm and learns about crap - these segments are really long and boring. Then she sits down with a guest and does some artsy-craftsy thing like make bird feeders or arrange flowers. So this show was one part cooking, two parts boring educational / propaganda / commercial segment and one part crap. I think they try to cram too much into her show. On the Discovery Home channel.
ChewFood rating: C+/B-

Dinner: Impossible: I really like this show - it’s just plain fun, like Iron Chef. Chef Robert Irvine is British and jacked. I keep waiting for him to roundhouse kick culinary students like he’s “The Transporter”. Basically they take this Robert and throw him into a new challenge in different locations every episode. One time he had recreate an authentic 18th century meal using 18th century equipment. The last episode I caught he had to make dinner for the crew building an ice hotel in Quebec inside the actual ice hotel without melting the place. On the Food Network.
ChewFood rating: A-

Tomorrow night at 10pm EST, Discovery Health is showing Nathan Lyon in Lyon in the Kitchen (did you get the joke there?!). You may remember Nathan in The Next Food Network Star 2: He was the bald trained chef that was really good on camera but for some reason didn’t win. Instead they gave it to some fat dude with gaudy jewelery, embarrassing hair and hackneyed quips. I was rooting for the morbidly obese gay black guy.

I’m beginning to think that one day my blog is going to become solely a tool to report food events in New York City. There are so many free and cheap food-related things to do in this city. And I don’t know of a resource to find out about them. Do you?

Today I found out that the OG Macy’s (er, Macy*s), in Herald Square, has free cooking demonstrations by top chefs. I think most of the attendants are old ladies who still shop at Macy’s and have nothing better to do in the middle of the day and like free shit. May 3rd, Ming Tsai and Marcus Samuelsson are going to be there, but it costs $50. Call 1-800-292-2450 by April 23 for that. More info can be found here.

The French Culinary Institute is also The International Culinary Center. Go to their website and sign up for their newsletter. They occasionally hold free special events, like lectures about techniques. I went to their open house last month and found out about this (and got to sample it).

June 17th, Taste of Health is going on at Lincoln Center. Free admission. Free samples. From their website: “Taste of Health presents the best in local, healthy cuisine - healthy for you and for the planet - together with the information you need to transition to a healthier lifestyle.” I can’t comment on how hippy-dippy it may be.

On the Upper East Side, Park Avenue Cafe offers a three-course prix fixe “pay your age” everyday after 8:30pm (minimum being $25 and the maximum being $65). The New York Times gives the Park Avenue Cafe two stars and says that the normal a la cart menu is “expensive”. I haven’t been, but ChewFood contributor Vincent says the pay your age deal is pretty damn awesome. What a great way to get younger people into appreciating fine dining and gourmet food.

The Natural Gourmet Cooking School, in Chelsea, offers a Friday night four-course prix fixe menu for $34 (includes tax and is BYOB). Details here.

There’s an underground wandering supper club based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn called Peerless Platters. Sign up for their mailing list to be in the know or to be a chef, to host a diner or to volunteer at their events. 14-20 people per seating, one seating per night. Customized music. Seasonal, fresh and sometimes rare ingredients are used. Sometimes it’s cocktail pairing, sometimes it’s BYOB.

This last one is for shits and giggles: Ahoy! Ye and ye maties should climb aboard the SS Jive Turkey Culinary Cruise. Arrrgh. To the Caribbean she sails! Deep fry land lubbering fowl on a boat! Tis safe! From a Craigslist ad: “You will experience two one-hourhands-on cooking experience on preparing your own deep-fried turkey with Jive Turkey’s chefs on Holland America ms Noordam on November 10, 2007 for an 11-day Southern Caribbean journey roundtrip from New York with port of calls at Tortola, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Maarten, and Barbados. In addition to the two one-hour demostration, you will get a 45-minute premium wine-tasting event with a cellarmaster and a group 8″ by 10″ per cabin.” I don’t know what that last part about those measurements mean, but it sounds like it could end in sexy results. Weigh anchor!
Cost: $919 to $1969 per person, based on double occupancy. Plus taxes.
Contact: kchow@cruiseplanners.com or 718-360-1988.
This is for serious. I did not make this up.

Twice a year, Chinatown in NYC holds “Taste of Chinatown”: Roughly fifty participating restaurants set up outdoor tables directly infront of their respective locations and sell mini-portions of various foods for $1 or $2.

I’ve only attended once before and I can tell the food offered is becoming homogenized. It reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Marge and Homer go to the South Street Squid Port and order food from seperate kiosks, but the slabs of steak come from one big, shared vat in the basement.

Most places will offer lo mein, egg rolls and other western ideas of Chinese food. Even the Vietnamese places offered lo mein. I don’t know if this is because a lot of white people show up and they think that’s what white people want. Or if it’s a cost thing and producing those items still yields them good profit. Or if it’s just easier for them to offer those things because they get slammed at the tables. Or it could just be that the restaurants are tired of doing this and don’t want to put the effort in anymore. (I’m always thinking about people’s motivations.)

That’s not to say that it’s not worth going to. And not all of the food is shitty. You can find some really good eats down there. We found roast pork on rice, tea eggs, mochi, shrimp summer rolls, soup dumplings, these stuffed sticky rice deals wrapped in banana leaves, peking duck, bahn mi, beef balls, full pint servings of soup, bubble tea, green papaya salad, curried empanada-type things, seitan on a stick, and more. I’d recommend Taste of Chinatown to everyone except vegetarians.

ChewFood grade: B+
Pros: Cheap, MSG, deep fried, tasting portions, gluttony, rice gluten, Chinese fried chicken wings.
Cons: Crowds, tourists, hard to find good items, hard to find places to pee.

I should have reported this earlier. If you haven’t left your house yet to enjoy this beautiful day, check out Taste of Chinatown. I’m leaving for it now.

I forgot to tell yous. When I went to Fairway last weekend, a woman in the produce department was on the phone. Whoever she was talking to wanted her to pick-up some “calorie-free chocolate”. The future is now, people!

The FDA said it can’t guarantee that all the contaminated dog and cat food have been removed from store shelves. I’ve been feeding Pokey Pedigree for the last few years (luckily not on the Menu Foods recall list). Regardless, this toxic dog food business has got me thinking of what the hell I’m forcing my dog to eat.

When Matt and I were apartment hunting, we drove by a Merrick truck. I had never heard of Merrick before. I saw there was a picture on the side of the truck of a tin can labeled “turducken” and I flipped out. Matt and I could’t figure out what it was. I was hoping it would be delicious stock or broth. Matt thought it might be gravy. It took us a few minutes to figure out it was dog food. I was kinda jealous.

It just so happens that the New York Magazine’s best pet store in Brooklyn*, Love Thy Pet, is a block away from our new place. So I took Pokey there and they gave him treats and a free can of dog food - Wingalings, made by Merrick ($1.79-$2.38 for a large 13.2 oz can).

This stuff looks good. Like REALLY good. Like if I was drunk enough, I’d probably try it. Hey, don’t judge - it’s free of artificial flavors, colors and preservatives. There are even whole chicken wings inside the can! The label says the bones have been softened and are perfectly safe for your dog to eat. Unlike those tainted Menu Foods dog foods, Merrick uses minimal processing. I figured since I started eating better in last few months, Pokey should too. Especially since he’s become a lazy, fat bastard. I am pretty sure that a can of Merrick dog food is healthier for you to consume than a Hungry Man Dinner - in case you are poor, hungry and/or drunk.

Merrick dog food, cat food and treats are available at better pet stores, some health food stores and online.

Soft food (what you probably call “wet food”) flavors come in: Thanksgiving Day Dinner, Turducken, Venison Holiday Stew, Wild Buffalo Grill, Wingaling, Wilderness Blend, Working Dog Stew, Rocky Mountain Rainbow, Senior Medley, Smothered Comfort, Puppy Plate, Mediterranean Banquet, New Zealand Summer, Cowboy Cookout, French Country Paté, Grammy’s Pot Pie, Harvest Moon, Brauts-n-Tots and a tasting menu called Gourmet Lunch Box which contains eight different flavors ($13.50-23). Hard food (what you probably call “dry food”) also available.

Merrick’s website (You can find cheaper places online to buy it then directly through them - like in bulk on Amazon!)

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*By “Brooklyn” I mean Boerum Hill / Cobble Hill / Carroll Gardens - The only parts of Brooklyn (aside from Park Slope) that that magazine deems worthy of recognition. Unless they are picking on hipsters in Williamburg, which is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Here is a tale of a veritable food orgy. Which is actually my second food orgy this month. The first being The Miracle Fruit Party at Franz’s, which he will recount for you because he’s a much more hilarious writer than I am. Plus his camera has the photos I took of the event. But he’s lazy, so it’ll take him awhile. And he’s also my boss, so I can’t yell at him.

Last night, I got to tag along one of Matt’s company outings - a feast at Congee Village (the Bowery location). I was planning on making The Barefoot Contessa’s Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic recipe, but I couldn’t pass up a free meal. Especially a free Asian meal. Especially a free Asian meal that involved weird shit.

Continue reading…

It’s been awhile since I posted something about libations.

Here’s an article about how to best score buybacks from a bar.

How to Get a Buyback 

I don’t understand salad spinners.

You buy something to dry your lettuce? Shaking, air drying, paper towels nor rags work? Is having a little water in your salad really bad? Even Alton Brown, who is a product minimalist, has one.

I don’t get it. I’m not being facetious here: I am really ignorant on this.

Please, someone, enlighten me.