salmaland.com » NYC: Where to Eat

East Village/Noho/Union Square: Momofuku

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:35:51 +0000

Photo courtesy of Noodle Bar

At this point, there is no dining in New York City without coming to grips with the utter domination of David Chang and his Momofuku empire. He knows it, everyone knows it—and whether or not you agree with or even tolerate the situation, chances are that you have, at least once this month, craved a pork bun. A Chang-ian pork bun to be precise. Because Chang’s deceptively simple reworking of the Chinatown staple (which he makes with oozingly juicy slabs of pork belly topped with cucumber strips on a doughy bun, to be drizzled with Sriracha) is now a New York staple. The place to address this need most directly is at the East Village’s Momofuku Milk Bar (mostly a cookies, cakes, and ice cream shop, with a couple of savory items), and at Momofuku Noodle Bar (mostly ramen and other noodle concoctions), or Ssam Bar (eclectic Korean/American/French mashup in a raucous space with communal tables). Chang also runs the exquisite, prix-fixe-only, nearly impossible to get into Ko (also in the East Village), and the new midtown Momofuku branch, Ma Peche at the Chambers Hotel (which also has a Milk Bar branch)—but you won’t find pork buns at those two spots.

Every Momofuku menu is different, but the hallmarks of the empire are Changian specialties involving wickedly conceived pork, lamb, beef, and seafood dishes with unexpected flavor jolts: say, sweet and spicy pig ears with wild sorrel and poppy (Sssam), or pork-belly ramen with a poached egg (Noodle Bar), or striped bass with sweet potato and coconut galangal (Ma Peche).

Noodle Bar: 171 First Ave. between 10th and 11th Sts. (212) 777-7773

Ssam Bar: 207 Second Ave. at 13th St. (212) 254-3500

Milk Bar: 207 Second Ave. at 13th St. (212) 254-3500; 15 W. 56th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. 212-757-5878

Ko: 163 First Ave. between 10th and 11th Sts. Reservations required: Online reservations only.

Ma Peche: 15 W. 56th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. (212) 974-5656

Prices/Features:

Ssam Bar and Ma Peche: MOD, DRNK, GRP

Noodle Bar and Milk Bar: CHP, GRP

Ko: UPSC

(See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

Chinatown: Xian Fine Foods

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:11:46 +0000

Stop by Xian Fine Foods for the hand-pulled lamb noodles. Stay for the “spicy and tingly” lamb-face salad, the stewed pork “burger”, the liang pi “cold skin” noodles with sesame sauce and chili oil. Amazing what this tiny little storefront noodle stand can do, from pulling its own thick, stretchy, lusciously sopping noodles right at the counter, to frying up small English-muffin-like sandwiches piled high with stewed pork and cuminy lamb, and juggling a near-constant line. If it were just the novelty factor (lamb-face salad? Dude!), the crowds would have thinned out by now. But the noodles and all the slow-cooked lamb and pork permutations (spicy or cumin-tinged; hot or cold; in soups or salads or sitting on mountains of the handmade noodles) are spectacularly tasty. Just note: There’s no place to sit, unless you luck into one of the two cramped counter stools facing the window—and you don’t mind random passersby stopping and staring through the glass at you as you eat, which seems to be the way things roll at Xian. For more seating, hit the original Flushing location or the soon-to-open branch on St. Marks Place.

West Village: Joseph Leonard

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:31:15 +0000

Photo via Eater.com

Platonic ideal of the West Village restaurant, circa 2010: Small and cluttered with vintage-looking furniture; a menu of cheffed-up peasant food; charcuterie and oysters; strong drinks; non-bludgeoning prices. This is more or less what you’ll find at Joseph Leonard, via owner Gabriel Stulman (of Market Table and The Little Owl). All-around pleasant place to hang out in, eat in, linger in (unless you’re sitting near the door and being hovered over by impatient thumb-twiddlers). If you tend to make restaurant decisions last-minute like I do, show up before 7pm for your best shot at bar stools or a table. On the menu: braised pork hock, moules frites, duck rillettes, shrimp and grits with andouille.

Joseph Leonard. 107 Waverly Pl. at Grove St.; 626-429-8383

Prices/Features. MOD, VGT, DRK (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

West Village: The Standard Grill

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:18:49 +0000

Once you figure out which door to walk into—the Standard Hotel and its various lobbies and lounges seem to have about 17 entry points—you’re in for a meal that, however close it comes to sating your food desires, should at least temporarily calm your “Is New York still the center of the universe?” worries. The Standard Grill pulses with a certain be-here-nowness, though the service (and sometimes the food) can waver. Yes, the restaurant is in the Meatpacking District, but the blocks immediately surrounding it still cling to pre-recession glam (relive it for a sec) and the Highline is a few steps away. On ex-Lever House chef Dan Silverman’s menu: Basque lobster stew, a Pat LaFrieda ribeye for two (it’s all about the label, dahling), and the requisite oysters and patés.

The Standard Grill. 848 Washington St. at W. 13th St.; (212) 645-4100.

Prices/Features: MOD, VEG, GRP, DRK (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

East Village/Noho/Union Square: DBGB

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:58:11 +0000

It took me a while to warm up to DBGB’s room: It can feel a bit cavernous and cold. But once you start in on chef Daniel Boulud’s reengineered burgers and sausages and assorted versions of bistro/American greatest hits—and get absorbed in all the celebrity-chef-donated copper cookware lining the walls—suddenly all is warm and luscious and A-ok in this world. (If $40-$50 a head buys a legal, relatively safe pleasure injection for a couple of hours, I’m in.) Favorites here: the Piggy burger (beef topped with Daisy May’s pulled pork and slathered in jalapeno mayo) and the Vermont dog (a smoked-pork and cheddar sausage with red-onion crème fraiche and hash browns). The fries rock too; sit at the bar and have them with one of the gazillion international beers on tap, and you’re in excellent shape. Brunch here is a nice surprise, departing as it does from most NYC-brunch clichés without the punishing waits of nearby tiny brunch-champ (and all-around champ) Prune.

DBGB Kitchen & Bar. 299 Bowery between Houston and First St.; 212-933-5300.

Prices/Features: MOD, DRK, GRP (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

East Village/Noho/Union Square: Caracas Arepa Bar

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:56:34 +0000

Sometimes the only thing that will do is a griddled Venezuelan corn cake smeared with salty white cheese, or with sweet plantains and avocado, or with grilled chorizo and jalapenos. These aren’t those flabby street-fest arepas. At Caracas Arepa Bar, they’re expertly handmade (or, to use that insipid word, “handcrafted”) by Venezuelan owners Maribel Araujo, Aristides Barrios, and chef Ilse Parra. Two words: magically delicious. Stop at the take-out shop for instant gratification, or wait in line for a table in the boisterous, narrow dining room at prime meal times.

Caracas. 93 1/2 E 7th St. between First Ave. and Ave. A; (212) 529-2314. Also in Williamsburg: 291 Grand St. between Havemeyer and Roebling Sts., 718-218-6050.

Prices/Features: CHP, VGT (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

East Village/Noho/Union Square: Lil’ Frankie’s

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:18:29 +0000

A pizza and a glass of wine at Lil’ Frankie’s bar is the definition of low-maintenance East Village dining, if “dining” is the right word for this kind of easy, visceral wish fulfillment. The pizzas here aren’t making grand claims to Neapolitan authenticity or oldest-coal-oven-in-New-York or whatever, but they’re satisfyingly bubbling, charred pies with substance and style and solid, straight-shooting ingredients: from the mushrooms and fresh mozzarella on the pizza funghi, to the cherry tomatoes and arugula on the Angelina, to the spicy salami or homemade sausage or basil-mozzarella-tomato on the eternally craveable margherita. As with so, so many NYC restaurants worth a damn, the best time to arrive and not be shell-shocked by the wait time (they don’t take reservations) is to show up by 7 or even earlier if you can swing it. Or very late.

Lil’ Frankies. 19 First Ave. at 2nd St.; 212-420-4900.

Prices/Features: CHP, VGT (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

Soho/Nolita: Travertine

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:51:25 +0000

The marbly travertine walls facing the street look bizarrely out of place on Kenmare—somehow the former Little Charlie’s Clam Bar seemed to blend right in—but walk into Travertine and you’re instantly in a softly lit, glam little nook. Banquettes are filled with everyone from Nolita types to blingy guys with their coiffed dates. But it’s easy to be automatically lulled into a sense of beauty and pleasure and ease—hell, you’re paying for it, and it doesn’t come easy these days—and to be transported by ex-Babbo and Top Chef fixture Manuel Trevino’s handmade pastas and elegant Italian-Med dishes: from mezzaluna filled with butternut squash and parmigiano reggiano and showered with crushed amaretti cookies, to buttery sauteed skate with parsnip puree, even to gorgeous appetizers like burrata with oranges and toasted hazelnuts, or a must-have salad of escarole hearts, black currants, cheddar, and marcona almond vinaigrette.

Travertine. 19 Kenmare St. at Elizabeth St.; (212) 966-1810.

Prices/Features: UPSC, VEG (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

Soho: Despaña

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:51:08 +0000

A fantasy shop for Spanish-food fetishists, Despaña now has some tables in back where you can gorge privately on the Basque tapas laid out marvelously on the counter. Some of my favorites here are the Flautas Castañas,small sandwiches of salchicon sausage, goat cheese, and pickled piquillo peppers on a mini-baguette, sweetened with a dab of chestnut cream. Mind-blowing deliciousness. At $5.50, they’re a bit pricey as snacks go, but one can hold you over in a happy stupor for a couple of hours. One weekend, after having just listened to a Spanish-Colombian couple rhapsodize about Despaña’s morcilla at a party the night before, I couldn’t resist going in for the Pintxo Asturiana—a tapas-size ($3.50) wedge of crusty bread topped with luxuriously tender morcilla (blood sausage) and pickled piquillo peppers. It’s not for everyone, morcilla. But once you’re a convert there’s no going back. Afterwards, walk a few blocks east on Broome to Papabubble, for swirly lollipops made by hand behind the counter, and candies in flavors like spicy mango.

Despaña. 408 Broome St. between Lafayette and Cleveland Sts.; 212-219-5050

Prices/Features: MOD (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)

West Village: Dell’Anima/Spotted Pig

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:32:49 +0000

Pic courtesy of Dell'Anima

If you haven’t figured out where to eat tonight but are circling around the idea of a cozy/Italian/inexpensive/crowd-pleaser/West Village sort of place, head to the triangle formed roughly by Greenwich Ave., Eighth Ave., and West 11th. Where exactly? You could start with Dell’Anima, where you’ll find all of the above elements plus a hit-the-spot Italian menu of pastas (tagliatelle bolognese, a great carbonara) and meaty dishes like their semi-famous chicken diavolo with broccoli rabe, chilies, and garlic. Haven’t booked ahead? You might strike out on a weekend, since the space is tiny—but it’s worth a shot. And you can always leave your name at the door then try your luck at the Spotted Pig a little further west, for a guaranteed wait but not-bad odds of getting seated before long, thanks to the multi-level brownstone dining room.

Rewards await at the Pig, including chef April Bloomfield’s heavenly burger with Roquefort cheese and shoestring fries, or grilled skirt steak with chilies and mint, or Italian-inspired specialties like sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi with brown butter and sage; that one’s been on the menu forever and probably will be forever, and for good reason.

Dell’Anima. 50 Carmine St. between Bedford and Bleecker Sts.; (212) 929-5050. Spotted Pig. 314 W. 11th St. at Greenwich St.; (212) 620-0393.

Prices/Features: MOD, DRK, VGT (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)