Friday, January 27, 2012

It's (Almost) Winter - Time For Pizza

I’ve had it with this “winter”…alleged winter, that is. You see, every year I wait with baited breath for winter to come around – and the reason for that is because when winter finally comes around, I feel like I can at last crank up my oven without fear of becoming a victim of heat stroke in my own kitchen.

As much as I like to bake, it doesn’t happen much during the warmer months (which around here used to mean from June to October, but now appears to run from March to the following January), for the above reason. 

Now this whole philosophy of not baking when it’s too warm to turn on my oven applies especially to pizza.  Because when baking pizza, your oven needs to be heated as hot as it can go, and preheating for at least an hour before any baking is a necessity too…that way, the pizza stone (you have one of those, right?) in the bottom of your oven can get properly hot.  In this case, properly hot (for a home oven) means around 550°F.  Most home ovens only go up to 500°F or 525°F, but I’ve played around a bit with the electronics in my oven, and can push it to 550°F.  Yesterday, after an hour's worth of preheating took place, I turned on the broiler for an extra jolt, so that by the time I slid the pizza into the oven, the stone read 604°F, per my trusty laser thermometer.  Not ideal for pizza, but pretty hot nonetheless.

The dough was made using Jim Lahey’s no-knead pizza dough recipe. Fermented in the fridge for 48 hours, topped with San Marzano DOP tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and a few curds from Saxelby’s, and a sprinkle of Italian oregano. First, the upskirt…

From the top…
It's not as good as Totonno's and it's certainly not Keste. But who the hell wants to go out for those; after all, it's winter.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Lunch Special

Every week after spending a 3-day weekend in NY, Significant Eater heads back down to DC, mostly via the Bolt Bus or some other similar service (i.e. not a Chinatown bus).  Usually, it’s quite an easy trip, as she leaves at a time of day when traffic is fairly light; it’s also affordable at around $25, which compared to Amtrak, is a relative bargain.  Yes, the Chinatown buses are cheaper, but after 1 or 2 trips sitting next to someone eating fish maw soup for lunch, Bolt became the de facto choice (not that there’s anything wrong with fish maw soup, mind you).

Anyway, being the wonderful husband that I am, I try to make sure she has something special to take along to remind her of just that fact. Easy enough, because in SE’s case, that’s food.

So, about an hour before she’s ready to leave, I make her a nice lunch and pack it up…
Today’s lunch: Roast pork sandwich on Pain d’Avignon bakery ciabatta, carrot and celery sticks, goldfish (!) and a Milano mint cookie.  I mean, how much better does it get?

Oh yeah, it’s packed in a clean, Chinese restaurant take-out carton.  Don’t worry though – I never order the fish maw soup. 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Acme - The Once and Future

What happens when a restaurant opens in New York City, and it’s serving a cuisine about which I know practically nothing? Actually, I confess – I do know a little bit about the cuisine.  After all, these cookbooks are part my collection…


There’s the Time-Life book, The Cooking of Scandanavia, one of the books from the classic series of Time-Life Foods of the World books. Alongside is a book by those well know authors, Asta Bang and Edith Rode, called Open Sandwiches and Cold Lunches – An Introduction to Danish Culinary Art.  Yes, I also have the newer book by the famous guy, but like I said, I still know next to nothing.

Enter Acme, or Acme Bar and Grill, on Great Jones Street. Acme was, for many years, a club slash bar that served up some “Southern food” as well as some mighty fine rock and roll shows down in the basement.  The r & r was the extent of my familiarity with the joint, since I’d never eaten there, but shows by the likes of Alex Chilton and Roy Loney are probably why my hearing is not as good as it used to be. 

Back to the new Acme.  The executive chef is Mads Refslund, a Dane who was one of the founding partner/chefs (along with RenĂ© Redzepi) of what many consider to be one of the world’s top restaurants: Noma, located in Copenhagen. (That’s the other book I have, by the way). Be that as it may, now he’s ours, at least for the time being. And that, from my experience so far, is a good thing.

Two meals over a couple of days allowed me to try a nice chunk of the menu (as well as a few of the cocktails), which is divided, as so many menus are these days, into an ever-expanding number of categories. They are:

Raw;  Cooked;  Soil;  Sides;  Sea/Land;  Desserts.

Mads, from everything I’ve read, is a promoter of the New Nordic Cuisine, and if I told you I was unfamiliar with that, it’s because I’ve yet to travel to the places where New Nordic Cuisine is being cooked and being served.  And, according to Mads, he’s not really cooking New Nordic Cuisine at Acme; what he’s cooking is in the style of and based on the philosophy of New Nordic Cuisine, which in this case means using as many local and seasonal ingredients as is possible, without mucking them up too much.

So for instance, a raw starter of “Sweet shrimp and bison” might not have been foraged in Central Park, but the interplay of sweet/bitter and soft/crunchy just knocked us out. It looked handsome too…


"House-cured salmon" was another winner from the raw section of the menu, and three of us fought over the last bites, even going so far as to mop up, with some excellent Sullivan Street Bakery bread, the last trace of buttermilk horseradish dressing. “Duck in a jar” was not quite confit and not quite rillettes. Hunks of tender duck were tucked under a pile of pickled vegetables, tender enough to be spread on the accompanying toast…


While the “Country toast” was merely good, “Pearl barley and clams” was a big hit.  Maybe my favorite dish of everything I’ve tried so far, the earthy barley and briny clams were drenched in a roasted sunflower broth with hunks of artichoke heart and baby scallops along for the ride.  The worst part – I had to share. Barley – who’d have thunk it, though it did kind of sneakily remind me of a Sardinian specialty, fregola with clams.

I didn’t, though, have to share my “Pork chop,” just cooked enough for my liking (though if you don’t like pork rare, ask for it medium or more).  Pork chops are on every menu in town, but most of them aren’t as good as this, accompanied as it was by parsnips, pears, cranberries and maybe even a pomegranate aril or two…


My buddy’s “Arctic char” was another simple dish – just cooked and seasoned perfectly, all crisp skin and rare flesh punched up with capers and sherry vinegar, two of my favorite puckery things…


I can’t not mention the “Hay roasted sunchokes,” earthy from both gruyere and black winter truffles, and the “Black cod,” a fish I happen to love because in another guise, it’s called smoked sable, and is one of my favorite things to put on a bagel.  Here once again, the fish was perfectly cooked, just past the point of rare, which with a fish like cod makes all the difference in the world. Not cooked enough – it sucks. Cooked too much – it sucks.  

The one dessert we had was a knockout.  Called simply “Chocolate crisps,” brittle tuile-like dark chocolate is served on a bed of intense ganache alongside coffee ice cream. This touched all my buttons, because I love chocolate and I love coffee. It was great.

You know, dining out can sometimes be a learning experience, and two meals at Acme have taught me quite a bit. Certainly a little bit about the philosophy of the New Nordic Cuisine, and how the use of bitter and sour components is as important as the use of sweet and salty. They open the palate. Raw, crunchy things on a plate are good and can serve to heighten the flavor and texture of the other components. Excellent ingredients are important, but hey, that’s a given…I mean, we even try that here.  But respecting the ingredients and treating them properly should be a given too, though often that’s not the case; here at Acme, it mostly is.

I can't keep up with all latest news from the Acme front. The other day, the downstairs, that great old room that saw a lot of loud music, was rumored to be becoming a bit of a dance club with a DJ. Open till 4 AM. Today, management swears no way. Just a nice cocktail lounge, a bar with drinks, where you can have a party if you want to.

What that means for the upstairs, for a restaurant that a mere one week into its existence is turning out some fine food, is altogether another. Go soon – who knows how long Mads will be at the stove?

Acme, 9 Great Jones Street, New York City

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Going Dutch

My first “real” restaurant meal of the New Year (unless you count ordering in from the Chinese noodle place as a real restaurant meal) was a return to the once white-hot Soho spot, The Dutch.

The Dutch opened last April, and for a while it was deemed so hot that we didn’t even bother trying to go. Then one night we managed to snag a table, and it was good, but certainly not mind-blowing, though I think the friends we were with really liked it. Me – well, I have higher standards – at least that’s what I’m told - either that or I’m told just how annoying I am because of my, ummm, higher standards.

Fast forward to a few nights ago, and as far as I could tell, The Dutch is still a fairly hot spot. As a matter of fact, walking west on Prince St., practically every place I poked my head into was packed…but after all it was Wednesday, which I think is the new Thursday, which was the new…well, you get the picture. 

Anyway, I liked it just fine this time. No, nothing blew our foursome away, but some of the food was very good.  For starters, this “Steak Tartare” was one of the group’s faves, a 6 oz. burger-size of nicely-seasoned, hand minced beef. It was topped with a Caesar dressing and romaine leaves, flavors which go perfectly nicely, it turns out, with a mound of raw meat…


The beet, apple and horseradish salad was better than the usual beet salad, available, oh everywhere - probably because of the addition of a tasty smoked egg…


I was confused by the name of a dish called "Fried Chicken Chicken Wings;" I thought it was a typo, but it was simply chicken wings prepared in the style of fried chicken, which used to be on the menu, but isn’t any more. All that is fascinating, but I wish the wings had some more flavor, because they were sure crispy enough. They photograph well, though, so…


Unfortunately, the pasta dish that we ordered didn’t really hit the spot, bordering as it was on the too salty side of the question: “Is this pasta too salty?”

But my “Beef Rib Pot Roast,” which was braised in stout and served over a rutabaga puree, might’ve been the hit of the night.  A big hunk of moist and tender meat, it had picked up the flavor of the stout nicely and was made even more interesting by the hit of caraway in the gravy...


Desserts were a gift from the kitchen, and they were good…the “Devil’s Food Cake” was paired with White Russian Ice Cream…


And the “Holiday Sundae,” which was loaded with cranberry-pomegranate sorbet and cinnamon ice cream, was topped with a maple caramel sauce and cubes of toasty brioche…


So while The Dutch has taken lots of slams for not being everything it could be and though it’s opening buzz was perhaps a bit much (go ahead, search Eater and the rest of the boards to see what I mean), I thought that our meal was pretty tasty and the service just fine. And I'd say it's still worth a shot - if anything, you can say you finally went to The Dutch.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012's First Breakfast Sandwich

Do this to a pair of eggs…
We'll call it the broken yolk fried egg. Top with some meltable cheese.
Also do this to some delicious Fra’ Mani smoked ham…
Place on a buttered bialy thusly…
Watch all the religions get along in 2012.
Don’t forget the weird fruit combo (so far keeping my resolution to eat healthy in the new year)…
Think about what to have for lunch. Noodles bring good luck so Great NY Noodletown or Sobaya, here we come.