Food in Mouth

Lamb burger at The Breslin

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:49:23 -0500

Tits and ass is the killer combo that many males love. Another combo that guys (and gals) love is burgers and fries. And yes I just started this post this way just to put T&A into the beginning of this post. Few weeks ago, Grub Street did a french fries post with Alain Ducasse and he listed The Breslin as having the top fries. I went to check out the burger this week because sometimes the only way to feel alive is make sure you're full and content after being satiated by the wonderful combo of tits and ass burgers and fries.

First thing's first... the burger and fries combo at The Breslin is $17 dollars. After tax and tip it's definitely not very affordable to be eaten on a consistent basis. The meat in the burger is lamb, and maybe they cook it to temperature but the server didn't ask. I ate at the bar area so maybe he wasn't accustomed to asking for burger temperature... either way, it came out medium. It's served on some sort of bun that's like a country bread with nice hole structure. Really I'm not sure what kinda bun it was...

What I do know is they didn't toast it. The hefty bread is probably to soak up the juices of the lamb burger. The burger was moist, but not juicy in a way that turns the bottom bun into a beef juice bread pudding. I'm not even sure if that's good or bad. The burger is topped with some un-melted cheese and a thin slice of red onion. Overall it's a very filling and expensive burger. April Bloomfield serves a good burger at The Spotted Pig supposedly but I haven't tried that. I'm inclined to believe the version at The Spotted Pig is better than the version at The Breslin... just speculation though. It'll be interesting to see if people come out really crazy for this burger.

The fries on the other hand... oh the fries. Much like the vaunted combo of T&A, the combo of burgers and fries sometimes can be so nice that it's worthy of praise by itself. Normally I'm a McDonald's fries kind of person. Give 'em to me thin with lots of crunch. Usually thick cut fries lack the kind of crispness that I prefer in fries. Some people really love to taste the potato, but most of the time I really could give a flying fuck. The Breslin somehow combines the best of both worlds. On the menu, these are listed as "thrice cooked chips" and it's easy to believe they've been fried three times.

The crunch that you get from a bite of the fries is just phenomenol. Although I haven't eaten every single fry in New York, these have to be some of the best fries I've ever had. The fries are thick cut and golden on the outside. When you bite down for the first time it's just amazing the dichotomy between the outer shell of the fry and the soft innards. Really, when's the last time someone told you a french fry exhibited a 'shell'? That's how serious the crunch was. When you get the burger and fries, it comes with this cumin mayo. Dipping the fries into the cumin mayo and taking a bite... man, my mouth waters exactly the same way when I think about T&A.

I'm not sure how many people want to spend over $20 (after tax and tip) for lunch. It definitely gave me pause. Honestly, the only reason I ate it was because it seemed like a good blog post. This place will definitely do great business and I'm sure if you stop by at night in the coming weeks, it'll be rocking. Another weird thing is that usually when I eat Chinese food, it feels alright to tip 15 to 20% because the food is not that expensive. Even on the occasions when I spend like $20 on a family style Chinese meal, it feels like lots of food that's a good value. When it's a burger for $20, such as the case at The Breslin, my tip didn't even hit 15%. I tipped 13.5%. And you know? I don't feel bad. I feel like at places like The Breslin, people like me come in once just to see it, and never go back. If I became a regular and tipped at 13.5%, that would be kinda shitty. But since the burger was expensive, I just didn't want to tip that much.

Will The Breslin do great? Yes. Will it be hard to get a seat for dinner? Probably. Do you like $20 dollar burgers and other more expensive dishes? Well, that's for you to decide. Maybe you're a baller. Since the restaurant is nested inside of The Ace Hotel, I think they'll always be in touch with some clientele that can afford the food. Maybe that's the crowd that's into the unbeatable combo of T&A, and they don't blink at prices. Maybe you're part of that crowd.

Xoco

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:51:21 -0500

Guest post from Jonathan today! He's back with us today with a writeup about Rick Bayless's most recent restaurant, Xoco. It's in Chicago so it's a bit of a tease for most of us, but living vicariously is nice sometimes.Xoco(SHOH-koh), Rick Bayless’s ode to Mexican street food, is only a few blocks from my apartment and I (like apparently the entire known world) had been aching to try it. And so every few days since it had opened I’d walked by to see if it was a good time only to find that the line was firmly out the door; so I would keep walking. But no, this day I decided to stay. I was taking a stand, and I was going to try Xoco.

I arrived a little before 6 pm and the line was already peaking out the door. It seems that ever since that Top Chef Masters win, people are rediscovering Rick Bayless. The group of exasperatingly energetic college students in front of me noted that their friends who had arrived earlier were at the front of the line and had taken about 40 minutes to get there. With a sigh, I pulled out my Blackberry and began to beat down a few levels of Brickbreaker.

20 minutes later, I was at least standing inside of the restaurant. The line would only move in small spurts because only people with numbers could order and you would only get a number if the hostess had a seat for you.

After 45 minutes, I was indeed at the front of the line. The problem with waiting so long in line to order is that once you get to the front of the line you feel like ordering a ton to justify the wait. So that’s what I did. I ordered 2 tortas (Cochinita Pibil & Head Cheese), a caldo (Seafood), 3 churros and an Almendrado chocolate.

I was especially excited about the caldos, which are only served after 3 pm. The menu had a few promising soups, like the pork belly vermicelli or the wood-roasted chicken pozole, but I ended up choosing the seafood. The caldo was full of potatoes, shrimp, mussels and catfish. The broth was spicy with just a hint of tartness. The seafood itself was spot-on. The shellfish were spot-on, and the catfish simply luscious.

The tortas (sandwiches) were delicious; but how good can a sandwich be? Apparently pretty good. The cochinita pibil was filled with wood-roasted suckling pig with achiote, black beans and pickled onions. A spicy habanero sauce was placed on the side. The head cheese and smoked tongue sandwich, which is a sort of special sandwich but offered daily, was a smooth delight. The tart goat cheese adds a nice milky flavor and smoothes out the sandwich.

The Almendrado is a chocolate shot with almond milk. I was not immediately aware of the almond, but it got progressively present as I continued to drink. The hot chocolate overall was rich, earthy, and not overly sweet. Perhaps there is something to the restaurant’s grinding cacao beans on the premises. The churros were a perfect finish. The curled sticks were crisp and chewy at once.

There are certainly more things I want to try at Xoco and am willing to go back. I like having a nice neighborhood restaurant that can serve a nice bowl of soup to keep warm in these Chicago winters.

Grand Bo Ky

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:41:12 -0500

"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There's nothing you can't do, Now you're in New York!" These are the words of Alicia Keys from Jay-Z's recent hit, Empire State of Mind. As it applies to the restaurant world in New York City, the one thing that you can't do in the past was expand to your hearts content. In the past, rent was a prohibitive factor that limited the ambitions of restaurateurs. A couple of weeks ago, NYTimes did a feature on Michael Bao Huynh and his quest for a dining empire due to the lesser rent in these tough times. Well, you don't have to be a big shot to expand these days, even places in Chinatown are expanding. Bo Ky has been a steady presence on Bayard street for years. A couple of weeks ago, they opened a second location on Grand street. My best guess is that the current economy helped them make the expansion.

The interior of Grand Bo Ky is simple, bright, and completely without any charm whatsoever. It's just a straight up noodle shop, and if it wasn't so big, it would just be considered a hole-in-the-wall. I ordered a number one, which was some sort of combination noodle. The broth was good, but the great thing about this bowl of noodles was that I was completely clueless about every single topping they provided. There was one shrimp... but aside from the easily identifiable shrimp, everything else was a mystery to me. Tasteless and mysterious. To some, that might be a bad thing, but that's why there's condiments on the table. Often you find Asian cuisine to be big on texture, and that's what all the mystery meat was about. Texture and dipping sauce. If you need slices of humanely raised pork or something on your noodles, this might not be for you.

Halfway through my meal, some older fellow walked into the restaurant and asked whether the restaurant served wine to drink. It was really amusing to me because I've never seen a simple noodle shop serve wine. Hell, most Chinese restaurants in New York don't dabble in wine. It's probably a shame, since restaurants make great margins on alcohol, although I'm not sure if the usual clientele care much for the vino.

This raises the interesting question of why wine isn't associated with Chinese food the way it is with other more expensive cuisines. It's interesting to see that in this country, there's acceptance of wine with high class. Maybe wine isn't supposed to be paired with beef and broccoli, but there doesn't appear to be a lot of people talking about the grapes that go well with crispy cumin lamb or what accentuates the basil and ginger notes in three cup chicken. Maybe one day Chinese cuisine in America will get there.

One last thing, I want to point some eyeballs to a non-profit organization called Hot Bread Kitchen. They're an organization that teaches immigrant women how to bake. Their inaugural fund raiser is on November 16, and worth taking a look at if you have a chance.

Four dollar tacos at Madison Square Market

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:07:56 -0400

When I see a roast pig, it just makes me really happy that a there will be deliciousness ahead. Since the pig was being roasted right next to Madison Square Park, it made it an even cooler sight. Although it's bit of a tease if the pig being roasted in front of you is 4 hours from being done and you can't just stand there and wait for the result. Good thing was that they had other food available that didn't require a 4 hour wait.

They had a couple of tacos and sliders for sale, with each being either $4 or $5 dollars. Since the prices definitely was on the high side, I decided on the taco al carbon and the Fatty slider, each sold for $4.

The taco al carbon had these little cubes of steak that was cooked perfectly and the thing was a simple work of joy. Unfussy, the taco stood out without too many toppings. It's refreshing to taste the meat in a taco. The price is still a bit crazy though so while I enjoyed this taco, it wasn't an unabashed love affair. Just more of a mild case of a middle school crush.

The fatty slider was exceptional. It was a great surprise to get an Asian flavored slider. My experiences with sliders is limited to White Castle but I know from the internets most aren't like the xo fatty slider. I definitely wanted seconds of this.

The funny thing is that I bet at a restaurant you could put three of these things on a plate and sell it for $13 and people would just eat it up. I would. But as a slider from a street stand that cost $4 dollars, the experience can be a bit jarring. How do I marriage the idea of restaurant quality food at inadequate quantity for street food standards? Shit that sentence made no fucking sense. The point is, sometimes the food is really good, but since it's high quality, they don't serve you as much. Now, at a normal street vendor, this would be crazy, but since it's a pop-up street vendor that's really a restaurant doing promo, many people are cool with this. The only thing is, my friend Ming just came back from two weeks in Singapore and told me that he could fill up for $3 dollars. It's just not the same here.

It'll work out better for me when I either win the lottery and $4 dollar tacos feel like pennies, or I just accept that $4 dollars should be three bites. Honestly, the chances of me dying in a plane crash is better than me winning the lottery or believing $4 street food should only be three bites. I can't help but to be envious of people who can walk up to the Fatty Crab/Cabrito to just drop $30 on a full meal. Then again, I'm not chasing death via plane crashes. So as delicious as it may be, no thanks.

Hunger sauce and the Federal Trade Commission

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:53:51 -0400

Even after blogging for a while, I still haven't learned the golden rule. The golden rule is that you never go to a new restaurant until they're done settling in, because the service or food can be choppy. There's nothing worse than expecting something smooth and delicious and just not getting it. And if you go right when they open? Well, that's not their fault, unless they end up sucking it real hard. A few weeks ago I went to a new sandwich shop on its first day. Midtown Lunch had mentioned it and I wanted to go up there and possibly get some of the early pictures. See, maybe I deserve the sub par experience because I tried to get in there too early.

If you order take-out and it takes them 28 minutes to get you the food, it kinda throws ya off. I was upset at myself because when I ordered, there were a bunch of people waiting. Common sense should have told me that they were slow, that's why all these people were waiting. The second thing a 28 minute wait does is that it makes everything taste better. The saying goes, "hunger is the best sauce." So how do I know how delicious that sandwich is at a normal hunger level? I don't. Since it would be really unfair for me to judge the place, I'm not even going to tell you where it is. It doesn't matter! Sometimes I wish you get this mulligan when you order take-out food. The perfect system would be to only pay when my food starts cooking. See, somewhere in that 28 minute wait, my food hadn't started yet. Let's say it started 23 minutes into my wait. I shouldn't have to pay until they're ready to start cooking my food, this way I'm allowed to cancel my order. Unfortunately restaurants don't work like that. Sad. As much as the hunger sauce made this sandwich tasty, I felt like buyers remorse overwhelmed the entire experience.

Before leaving you all for the weekend, I want to talk about a new rule that the Federal Trade Commission is putting into place on December 1, 2009. The NY Times reports, "The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently.". This is big news sorta. It's big news because of why the F.T.C. would want to add such a rule. They recognize that acquiring a product for free may alter your experience with the product. I haven't heard any big blogs like Eater, Grub St, or Serious Eats talk about stuff like this. In the food blogging world, a rule like this would affect them the most. Or maybe bloggers who do product reviews. Obviously enforcement of such a rule will probably only be done for huge companies and celebrity endorsers who get paid to guerrilla market a product. I think most bloggers disclose when they get products for free, but sometimes it's done in a very subtle way. Like "This great chocolate company sent me a box of these truffles and they're delicious!" Anyone with half a brain would know the box was free, but if this rule is to be followed to the letter, bloggers would then have to say, "Oh yes these were free." And if you think you've seen a million ways to say 'free', then you don't know half of it yet! Wait til product reviews are filled with words or sentences like 'complementary product' or 'at the compliments of company x' or 'blah blah blah at no cost'.

I think where this really will come into is when a blogger is chummy with the chef. Like if Josh Ozersky gushes about a new burger or something, it's not like the FTC will come ring his door bell to see if Mister Cutlets paid for the burger or if he's pals with the guy who owns it, and voila. Free extras. And is it a freebie if you pay for the burger and then you get free fries because the chef likes you? Or if they send out extra desserts to you? At the end of the day, I really doubt anything will change after Dec. 1, and doubt that food blogs are big enough for the Federal Trade Commission to chase. It's just fun to note that yes, the government thinks that when you want to gush about something, your experience probably was affected by whether you paid for all, some, or none of the food you just ate.