From Alfanoose to Zabar's: Barry Campbell's New York City Rolodex: Hotels, Restaurants and Cultcha

Posted via web from enrevanche on posterous

Victuals I have known

Personal top ten lifetime restaurant meals (so far).

Tie for first place:

-- 2004 Summer tasting menu at Babbo -- New York City

-- Barbecue sandwich with slaw + sweet iced tea at Allen and Sons -- Chapel Hill, NC

THE REST...

(3) Roast chicken with fall vegetables, Chez Panisse -- Berkeley, California

(4) Blue Hill at Stone Barns Offal Supper with guest chef Fergus Henderson (he cooks with parts most people throw away - VERY successfully) -- Pocantico Hills, NY

(5) The clam-and-bacon pie at Sally's Pizzeria -- New Haven, CT

(6) Salt-and-pepper crab at the R&G Lounge -- San Francisco, CA

(7) Roast chicken with cold green bean salad -- La Rotisserie d'en Face, Paris

(8) Cambodian/Vietnamese soups and noshes at Phnom Penh -- Vancouver, British Columbia

(9) The pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli -- New York City

(10) The corned beef at the old Second Avenue Deli -- New York City (haven't tried them in their new location)

You may have noticed that two of my all-time favorite meals were roast chicken. Yes, I noticed too. I like simple stuff done well in addition to complex stuff done fussily and often in preference to it. :-)

Things I'll miss about New York City

It's the end of a long week, my last week as a full-time New Yorker.

And though I'll be back often, I know there are things I will miss.

Like this -

Carrie had been packing stuff all day, and I'd been on the job since 7 AM and had just capped off a twelve-hour day.

We didn't feel like cooking.

In about twenty minutes, a deliveryman from the neighborhood diner is going to show up with french onion soup, a pastrami Reuben sporting extra kraut, a tuna melt and an order of well-done fries with ketchup on the side, from which Carrie and I will assemble a tasting menu.

It's all going to be really good, and it's no more expensive (delivered, tip included) than two people eating comparable fare at Applebee's in suburbia.

I have had epic meals at fine restaurants in New York City. I will remember the 2004 summer tasting menu at Babbo when I am sucking my gums in front of the fireplace (I hope!)...

...but what I'll really miss are the neighborhood places.

Thought for the day

Parisian food critic François Regis Gaudry, writing in L’Express: “Americans in a bistro are like ladybugs in a garden, a sign of its rude good health.”

(cited in Alexander Lobrano's fantastic recent series of NYT blog posts on dining out in New York and Paris)

The recession and fine dining in NYC

Doc has asked for a "must-see" list for a short visit to New York City, and we hope to accommodate him soon.

To use Doc's terminology, the most perishable resource in NYC right now might be the fine-dining restaurant.

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni:

Battered hard already by the recession and petrified of what’s to come, restaurants are talking sweet and reaching out in ways they didn’t six or even three months ago. They’re cutting special deals, adding little perks, relaxing demands and making an extra effort to be accessible.

They’ve seldom wanted you so bad, so they’ve rarely treated you so good. If you can still afford to dine out, you’re likely finding yourself enfolded in what the restaurateur Stephen Hanson— who recently closed two Manhattan restaurants, including Fiamma — describes as a big, tight embrace.

Predicting that “the consumer will just shut down” and that 2009 would be “a very, very tough year,” Mr. Hanson told peers at a conference in Manhattan last month, “You need to hug the customer.”

Trust me: the hugging had already begun.

I was feeling it regularly in restaurants where I was certain I hadn’t been recognized as a critic and where the “hello” from the host station sounded more like a “thank God.” I was feeling it on the telephone, as reservationists who couldn’t accommodate me one night veritably pleaded that I book another, or beseeched me for a callback number just in case a table suddenly opened.

And I wasn’t the only one.

Restaurants Stop Playing Hard To Get (Critic's Notebook, New York Times, 3 Feb 2009)

A good restaurant

You Guys Are Like the Gay Abbott and Costello

[Heading towards the restaurant "Good".]
Gay guy #1: Where are we going again?
Gay guy #2: It's "Good".
Gay guy #1: What's good?
Gay guy #2: The name of the restaurant we're going to.
Gay guy #1: I asked you what it was.
Gay guy #3: Oh, we are so not doing this...

--The Village

via Overheard in New York, May 10, 2008

(Good is a neighborhood place around the corner from us... and it really is. Good, I mean.)

Note to self: leave the monkey at home

What's the most outrageous request from a customer that you couldn't accommodate?

A customer wanted to dine with their pet monkey in the restaurant. Literally we had a guest walk into the restaurant hand in hand with a monkey and asked to be seated at the best possible table. I have been witness to a lot of different requests since coming form the Modern but that definitely has topped any request. The monkey was even wearing a little Burberry jacket.

George Atterbury, General Manager of Grayz restaurant, interviewed in Eater's "The Gatekeepers" series

Ribbing

The ribs were so good, that I was using Wildwood's ribs to teach my daughter how competition barbecue is judged. A RESTAURANT RIB. If you've never judged a barbecue contest, you don't understand how rare it is to get ribs of this quality in restaurants. The meat came off the bone only where bitten. The rib sweated lightly where the meat was removed. You could taste the meat and the seasonings and they actually complimented each other!

-- The proprietor of White Trash BBQ waxes ecstatic about Wildwood, the latest restaurant entry in New York City's barbecue joint explosion.

Bourdain's take on trendy menu items

This one is hard to recognize as parody until you get to this item:

Cayenne Pepper-Infused, Freeze-Dried Chocolate Nuggets
Bathed in Marshmallow Star Anise Foam

And even then, it could happen.

Radar Online: Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Menu (via Eater)