Let's Play Pretend

We all like to pretend, don’t we?  All right, maybe not all of us, but sometimes I do.  And when I saw this today, thoughts of Paris entered my mind…

And then whaddya know, even a sidewalk café…

But imagine my surprise when I took a closer look at the name on that cafe and saw that it was named Yvonne Yvonne.  Could it be the same Yvonne who had that wonderful food truck up on York Ave. (way before food trucks became all the freakin’ rage) that I used to frequent when Significant Eater and I lived on the upper east side?  The one serving things like Jamaican goat stew and curried chicken, rice and peas and candied yams?  The one I wrote about on eGullet back in 2004…maybe I was confused?

This sign didn’t help me that much…

Until I stepped inside and…

Oh yeah, Yvonne Yvonne and Yvonne’s Jamaican Food Truck are one and the same.  So I had the gentleman prepare me a nice little dish (as the sign says, "Served by them") and for $5.50 I wasn’t in Paris anymore, but I was eating some of my favorite NYC street vendor food, which I hadn’t had in years...

Honey chicken, oxtails, rice and peas and a helping of collard greens, because, well, I’m just trying to be healthy. Or...pretending to.

 It wasn’t Paris, but really, what is?  Anyway, New York is just fine by me...

Yvonne Yvonne is located at 135th St. and Frederick Douglas Blvd.


Yvonne's truck is still at York Avenue and 71st St.  And still good.

Whole Foods Enters the (NYC) Burger Wars and...

My Whole Foods (because as New Yorkers, we think we own things like stores and doctors and parking spaces) is a place I enjoy shopping at, which I frequently do.  This huge WF outpost anchors the new-ish Avalon Chrystie Place, a not-half-bad looking apartment building on the south side of Houston Street, which runs from Chrystie St. to the Bowery, and is clean, inviting, well-stocked with stuff I need and use (good enough for Top Chef, good enough for me), and is a mere 15 minute walk from our apartment and a even shorter subway hop home.  Also, whenever I catch them overcharging me for some obscure produce that I've thrown in my basket, they're very nice and fix the problem right away.

So imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I popped in for a quick bagful of groceries and I spied this...

Yes, my Whole Foods was entering the burger wars. And when I took a look at the menu, I was even more excited...

I don't know how well you can see that, but it's basically $4 for a burger - of local, grass-fed beef (which I'm assuming is also ground in-house), the same $4 if you'd like a cheeseburger and only $1 more if you want to add some porcine goodness to the above.  Pretty fair prices and the fries only add another $2 to the deal.

But that day two weeks ago I wasn't hungry for lunch, and I'd forgotten about the burger until today, when I knew I was gonna go WF shopping and figured I'd make it a lunchtime thing in order to try one of their grass-fed offerings.

It's a little clumsy if you want to eat your burger at the store, because the seating area is upstairs and you have to place the order, go to the cashier to pay and come back with the receipt before you can bring your food up to the cafe.  So order and pay I did. And when I came, I saw my burger on the griddle - underneath this lid that looks like it was missing its wok...

Burger-cooker also seemed to enjoy smashing the shit out of my burger with his oar-sized spatula.  At one point he even squirted some liquid onto the griddle in the direction of my by-now forlorn looking patty; I'm assuming it was water - I'm wondering why it was needed - was the griddle too hot?

Okay, after the 4th smash-down of my now really fucking thin grass fed burger, in my least sarcastic tone, I asked burger-man what he was doing? He assured me that he wanted to make sure my burger wasn't raw, to which I replied - "it wasn't raw 10 minutes ago - take it off the freakin' griddle!" He put the lid back on.

Allright, I've now gotten my burger and an order of fries and bring them upstairs, set them up all nice so I can take an artsy picture for you (btw, I'm starving by now, because the stuff smells really good)...

Then I took my first bite.  Expecting what, exactly? I mean, it was grass-fed beef, cooked to the doneness that I'd cook a pot roast. Done, baby, done...no worries about raw beef here.  Sad, as a matter of fact, because somewhere in the background there was a taste reminiscent of decent meat.  And it wasn't even ground right - too fine a grind, making it tough. Bun - way too big for this bad boy.  Oh, the pickles and griddled onions were fine.

And the French fries? Greasy, undercooked, soggy, sad French fries. Like the beef for the burger, I think at one time it was good product, but maybe they shouldn't be cooking such sacred things as burgers and fries in a grocery store.

Many people complain about the prices at WF.  I don't, because for many things it's not any more expensive than most other grocers here in the city. Some of their stuff is practically a bargain, even. But save your $6 for the burger and fries - it's much better spent on an organic apple, an organic orange, and a bunch of organic arugula.  Think how virtuous you'll feel!  Either that, or head down the block; I'm sure there's a burger place close by.

Jack's Wife Freda

Wow - it's been almost a month since my last blog post. Lots of stuff going on in that time, including a volunteer stint at the IACP’s 2012 New York conference and a whole bunch of Bruce shows. More on that later, but for now...

I want to start off this post by mentioning that there's no way I can be totally objective about the food at the place I'm writing about simply because I'm acquainted with one of the owners, due to the fact that he ran the front of the house at a favorite local restaurant of ours for many years – Schiller’s Liquor Bar. Believe me when I say that running the door and managing the throngs that descended upon Schiller's in its hey-day (which isn't necessarily over, btw) was/is no easy task - and this guy is one of the best I've ever seen at it.So now Dean Jankelowitz and his wife Maya have opened their own little place, called Jack’s Wife Freda, only a stone's throw from where they evidently first met (Balthazar) . When we arrived we were greeted like old friends, which is always nice. And it's even nicer on a warm March night, when the front of the restaurant is thrown open to what remains a pretty classic NYC street corner, Lafayette and Spring. Right across from a beautifully renovated pocket park, I imagine the two even qvelled a little when they first saw the location...

I don't think people will be making any special trips from out of town for the menu at JWF. As a matter of fact, I doubt that that's what the owners envision; instead, they've opened what they hope becomes a place where neighborhood regulars can come by a couple of times a week, maybe for breakfast, perhaps a quick lunch or even a more leisurely dinner - though that's when you're likely to see the crowds build - and Dean working the front once again. After all, most neighborhood restaurants rely on regulars and their repeat business; that'll keep them around longer than the hot flash places, and it's an old McNally touch. Might as well learn from the best, right?

One of the first things we noticed when we looked at our menus: no pork. You read that right - no pork. Now we're not talking kosher or vegetarian here, just a decision to not prepare swine in their kitchen and a little different than, say, every other restaurant in town with the obligatory pork belly. I've seen the food here being described as South African Israeli Jewish grandmother cuisine...okay, whatever you say. I'll just start by saying you can't go wrong if you start your dinner with the fish balls. Not your mama's fish balls (if your mama is Chinese, that is), these 5 hot little orbs have the smoky flavor of, yes, smoked whitefish, which is combined with hake, egg whites and a bit of carrot before being coated with panko and double fried to make them extra crispy on the outside and nice and moist on the inside. I've eaten my fair share of "fish balls;" after all, we practically live in Chinatown...these are so much better, and the horseradish aioli makes 'em pop (I could go even hotter)...

Another unique appetizer that immediately caught our attention was the peri-peri giblets. The tender giblets are marinated in a mix of peri peri peppers, garlic, onion, citrus and an assortment of herbs and spices, before being cooked into submission. Nice that they're served with a couple of slices of toasted baguette, to mop up every last drop of the sauce...

Matzo Ball soup was one of those dishes that had us wondering how much we liked it...or did we? The soup itself was tasty, but you know how it is with matzo balls. Maybe they were good, maybe they weren't; we all have our standards when it comes to matzo balls, as the age-old Seder arguments attest. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if I like my own matzo balls.

 Significant Eater veered slightly from her "I gotta have a burger" order to the Prego Roll, which is a skirt steak sandwich served on a garlic buttered roll. It's a little harder to chew, but the beefiness of the perfectly cooked skirt made up for the extra effort. Served with a mountain of fries - all fluff on the inside and crispy outside. Once again, if you worked at Balthazar or Schiller's you know what good fries are; these are cut slightly different, (a little thicker) but the cooking is right. And in a perfect world, I'd love a squeeze bottle of mustard to go with my fries...

I order the whole grilled fish for my main course. This literally bigger than my plate dorade was simple and cooked right, nosing out the bit of couscous served with it. At $23, there's plenty to share. On a return visit, I had to have a burger; it was good, and the fries that came with it that night were maybe the best fries I've had in New York City. Dean later told me it was their 3rd different potato try, and he felt they'd gotten them just right.

The by the glass and carafe wine list: short and to the point...5 wines from 5 countries. There are 7 or 8 beers to choose from, the draughts offered by the pint and by the half - thank you; and why don't more places offer the half pint? The coffee is Stumptown - same as I serve in my own kitchen. What's not to like about that?

Tasty food and warm friendly service; what could be better? Well - one thing. I only wish JWF had opened in our neighborhood. But I guess the walk west will do us good when we return to explore more of that menu - and indulge in a great order of fries.

Jack's Wife Freda - 224 Lafayette St., NYC