Double seafood is fucking awesome. If you don’t dig it, you’re a Communist. USA! USA! USA!
(Both of these were taken with my camera phone.)
This is a nasty looking photo. It’s a stripped bass (head severed) with three mussels in it’s gullet!
Cleaning squid is by far my favorite task. I found this little guy inside a squid!
So it’s a humid 95 degrees in New York on a Saturday. Every part of your body is sweaty and sticky and maybe even chaffing. It’s so disgustingly hot out that you are cranky and just want to puke or punch someone in the face. But you decide to go out to a nice restaurant. What do you think most people would choose to eat?
Nothing says Summertime like hot, heavy dishes!
According to Waiter from Waiter Rant, today is National Waiters Day. He urges you to tip 30% day if you go out to eat.
In other news, restaurant cooks still bitter about shitty hourly wages and resentful towards waitrons.
John-Phillipe is worth the 20+%.
PS: The waitrons at The Restaurant celebrated National Waiters Day (which should really be the gender neutral “waitron”, you sexist c-suckers) by going to a midnight showing of the new India Jones movie at the local indie theatre. I celebrated by cutting my finger and watching Top Chef. Go FOH!
Maybe you’ve seen the Pizza Hut commercials proclaiming that they now serve pasta. This got me thinking: What is the advantage of ordering pasta delivered from them?
Let’s say it takes them thirty minutes to get to your place. In thirty minutes, you could pull a Rachael Ray and do the easiest “cooking” possible: Boil water (gas and water being virtually free), throw in some Ronzoni ($2 a box), toss with jar of shitty Ragu ($3) and maybe sprinkle some of that Kraft parmesan “cheese” from that green shaker. Or if you want to get fancy, you can sprinkly some 4C bread crumbs on top and stick it under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Estimated cost: $5 for a shitload (”shitload” meaning four to six servings).
Cooking in this bachelor-chow type manner is a half-step harder than heating up a Hungryman dinner (which probably is available in pasta flavor). You can argue that it requires the same amount of effort to mute the television, call Pizza Hut, order, put on pants, answer the door and do the math to get your change back. Pizza Hut’s pasta feeds four (not sure if the portion is for four fat asses as an entree or four USDA recommended portions) and costs $12 plus tip (unless you are cheap bastard)*.
Now, I haven’t tried Pizza Hut’s pasta, but I’ll bet twenty bones that it tastes the same as the recipe above or even a Lean Cuisine or something. And I bet you are more likely to get the shits from The Hut, too.
Check out the ingredients and nutritional contents.
(*If you are a severe recluse with social anxiety disorder, you can order online or through text messaging – without pants on.)
Lady, if you can afford that manicure, you can afford more delicious, nutritious food.
You probably already know of my dislike of the concept of brunch. I don’t believe in it and I think it’s evil: It ruins a big Sunday night dinner. I’m all like, “Hey, you wanna come over for Sunday roast?” and you’re all like, “I’d love to, but I had a really big brunch.” and I’m all like, “You cock.” Also, I don’t like breakfast foods: When I wake up, the last thing I want is a shitload of carbs with sugar on it.
There’s some other food thing people obsess over that I’m not into: Pizza. It’s not that I don’t enjoy pizza. The thing is that that I don’t crave pizza. Everyone I know has a major hankerin’ for pizza every so often. But not me. I am abnormal and crave things like salad. Even at Pizza Express (which I go to everytime I go to The U.K.), I order the pizza with the salad on it (the SoHo pizza–which has raw “rocket” aka roquette aka arugula). Should I be ashamed to be a New Yorker? I know what good pizza is and I know where to find it. I just don’t want it as much as other people do.
A Jedi craves not these things.
Ferran Adria wrote: “The difference today between home cooking and restaurant cooking is wider than it ever has been. In the old days, even as recently as when I began to cook, the amateur was nearly at the level of the professional. That’s all changed massively. Now the difference in difficulty between cooking done at home and haute cuisine is on a scale of one to a hundred.”
I love home cooking. I greatly appreciate Cathy’s food blog Not Eating Out in New York: She does some amazing, creative home cooking and on a limited budget. On the other hand, my greatest pleasure is eating out in New York. There are amazing restaurants doing things the home cook can’t (because of resources or scale or cost or time). Plus I love sitting back, enjoying company, trying new things, being waited upon and having someone else cook amazing food. And because it’s a once-in-awhile luxury (plus the fact that I know how much hard work goes into it to make it perfect and seamless), I can appreciate it even more.
There’s a secret in NYC dining that shouldn’t be a secret. It doesn’t get written up for some reason. It’s Del Posto’s Enoteca. For $45 you get five amazing courses in the same dining room where they serve $120 monk fish to rich business men and ladies who lunch. Tonight, we had things like octopus with al dente white beans and house-made orchiette with rabbit ragu and pork saltimbocca.
The dining room is amazing–reminiscent of olde timey New York. Really, this is one of those places that make you really appreciate being able to afford to eat out. If you are looking for an upscale place (three stars from NY Times!) to take your visiting parents without spending all of your rent money, then I urge you to please please please go there to eat some of the best Italian food you can get in this country. No reservations required.
Del Posto
85 10th Ave (between 15th and 16th Streets)
New York, NY 10011
212-497-8090
$45!
I first heard about Reds Produce from a FOH trailer at The Restaurant. He mentioned it was right around the corner from where I live. I looked it up on Gothamist (which was the only site that had any real information about the place) and walked by it last night after Matt and I got burgers from Hope & Anchor and picking up a large supply of Twinning’s English Breakfast Tea from Fairway ($10 for a hundred pack!).
Tonight Matt and I went for dinner. It’s a super tiny tapas bar (28-seats and a max of 44 people) right by Moonshine. Working the bar was Red himself (who was born in northern Spain and used to be in the hardcore band YDL) along with Pamela–both extremely welcoming and friendly. They’ve only been open three weeks and are awaiting their liquor liscense–they will have draught beers and Spanish wine ($5 house wine!). Soon they will be selling produce and dried goods–most of it is imported from Spain. So I guess locavores aren’t supposed to be down with it, but dude, it’s got less “carbon footprints” then actually flying to Spain. In your self-righteous face!
Meat and cheese plate: Featuring drunken goat cheese (the rind is washed in wine), serrano ham, membrillo, dried fig and almond cake, some really extreme gnarly blue cheese (cabrales) that looks like it’s fifty years old, manchego and some other cheese.
Small tres colores salad: Carrot with tarragon, beet root and celery root.
Warm chorizo that was super intense. I’m talking caliente, papi!
They want to have live music as well as screen films from local artists. At first they were open ass early for breakfast, but as of now they are open every evening until ten (they are going to change their hours to stay open later).
Reds Produce is located at 289 Columbia Street between Summit and Woodhull (in that area some people call Carroll Gardens, others call Red Hook and a few call Columbia Street Waterfront), Brooklyn (718) 506-5432
Jamie Oliver’s new cooking show is awesome.
It’s odd they named it “at home” considering all his other shows were filmed at his main home in London. This show takes place at his fancy country home where the fucker grows copious amounts of his own amazing, beautiful produce. Also, this home has like three or four kitchens. One of them being outside. With a wood burning oven. Fucker.
Every episode is seasonal, so you won’t see him making anything with, say, tomatoes right now. Using only seasonal produce also means that the shit he uses is not only readily available, but dirt cheap. Things like raddichio, carrots, beets, fennel and squashes. The only expensive thing you will have to purchase is super good quality extra virgin olive oil, as he drizzles it over everything.
Jamie At Home is on the Food Network. Only on Saturdays at 9:30am. Get a DVR as I think this is one of the very few cooking shows worth watching.
The US version of the accompanying cookbook won’t be available until October ($25), but already out in the UK, which you can order it through UK Amazon ($36 with shipping). Some of the dishes on the show I’ve found in his Cook with Jamie book.
I hope in his next series he raises, slaughters and butchers all sorts of livestock.
Oh, these? Yeah, I grow my own potatoes. What, you don’t?
So Schnäck is finally going to die. I used to love this place, but ever since I moved into the neighborhood they’ve lost their liquor license (they used to make awesome beer shakes with Dogfish Head’s Chicory Stout), given me a serious case of loose poops and raised their prices.
Schnäck is like a lame dog with the shits and heart worms who smells bad and sleeps all day.
I’m all frowny face that Kitchen 22 (also it’s sister restaurant Kitchen 82) closed. Located in the Flat Iron District of Manhattan, Kitchen 22 was Chef Charlie Palmer’s cheap, yet hip, prix-fixe restaurant. For $25 you got three courses. It was an awesome concept for young people who want high-end, fresh dining, but who can’t afford most high-end restaurants.
According to a press release: “The seating capacity and the limited menu concept no longer fit the direction of growth and development of the company.”
I’m not quite sure what that means because I’m not proficient in politically correct, non-committal PR speak. But when a chef becomes a company, that makes me feel all icky inside. Like I need an adult.
Click link for obligitory photo (NSFW) …
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