Rubenesque New York City Entry #55

Some restaurants demand that diners deny themselves. They are islands of restraint. For the past forty years chefs have retreated from a cuisine of excess. Classic haute cuisine was based on the assumption that if you asked about the calories, you can't afford them.

If Fatty Crab is any indication, fat is back, and with a vengence. Regulars will inexorably be transformed from stark Giacometti fantasies to Rubenesque dreams. Super-duper models. Given that the night we ate at Fatty Crab most of our fellow diners were svelte-twenty-somethings - culikids - it seemed that they considered calories the way previous generations thought about tobacco. There will be years enough to quit. If this is hip, it is a heavy shank, indeed.

A comparison of Fatty Crab and Momofuku across town seems inevitable (walk due east from the former and you reach the latter). Both restaurants target the same audience (if they're under thirty, can you trust ‘em?), neither accepts reservations, both sit snugly on a knife's edge of asphyxiation, both present dishes according to the kitchen's whim, avoiding the quaint notion of courses. Add to this that both offer Crafty renditions of Asian street food, outposts of youngish celebrity chefs (FC's chef Zak Pelaccio also runs the neighboring, elegant 5 Ninth), and that a smart $50 buys a night of inventive cuisine.

For two restaurants that are so similar, they could hardly be more different. If restaurants can be divided into those that are ideational (Charlie Trotter, Alain Ducasse) and those that are sensate (Frontera Grill, Babbo), Momofuku is the former and Fatty Crab the latter. The former force diners to think about the food, the latter push them to dive in and indulge. Even the ambiance distinguishes the two. The deep red walls and wild decorations (standing fans on the ceiling) - and music - at FC contrasts with the stark oak walls and tables at Momofuku - just as the restrained noodles contrast with the rich cuts at Fatty Crab. Fatty Crab is intense energy - in decor and in cuisine. Even the staff hail from different corners of Our Youth: the scrubbed earnestness of our East Village servers contrasted with charming scrubbly and dyed staff in the Meatpacking District. Nothing was more symptomatic at Fatty Crab than the absence of knifes (forks and chopsticks were available); these were dishes where Sumo diners wrestled with cuts of meat (a knife is available on request).

We began with Green Mango with Chili Sugar Salt, a dish that would have been most welcome as a palate cleanser in the midst of the dinner. Slices of sour mango were paired with a bowl of Asian Pixy Stick Powder. The sweet heat of the powder took the edge off the puckery sour mango. If it was not ideal as a starter, it would have provided a heartfelt break from the main courses.

Soon after arrived fat salad: Watermelon Pickle and Crispy Pork. The chunks of Crispy Pork might better be characterized as crispy belly held together by the merest floss of meat. Was it ever luxurious. The cool and sexy watermelon pickles kept the plate from pure decadence but it was as close as might be found outside Crobar. This was a dish for the Book of Days.

Short Rib Rendang, braised with kaffir lime, coconut and chili matched the salad in indulgence. The muscle was swaddled in a fluffly blanket of fat. The flavors of Malaysia cried out that the dish was exotic, but it really was the fat that captured and fixed these flavors, as fat always does. Although the dish had considerable heat, it was cooled by the solidity of the rib.

By the time that Fatty Crab's Fatty Duck was brought to the table, we were beginning to get the point. Served alone, this vastly hedonist dish would have been (almost) as satisfying as the rib (although the wild gaminess of the duck was lost as brined and fried). I could appreciate how this dish could have been a fine entree when served with the green mango as a side, but in a temple of fat there were other Gods to worship.

Black Grouper Masak Lemak with a sauce of chilies and potatoes, poached in coconut broth with bok choy and jalapeno was libertine as well. Even fish can have zaftig heft. I admired the mix of coconut broth and fish, glad that the fat did not smother the fish, even if by no magic could it pass weight watchers muster.

Our final dish, the least successful, was a Sous Vide Chicken Breast (the technique of preparing meat by boiling in a vacuum bag) with rice, sweet soy, and chili-ginger sauce. By this time in the evening we appreciated just how much flavor fat can capture, and a lean dish seemed out of place. The dish was inoffensive, and the accompaniments attempted to jazz this austere poultry, but it seemed like cosmetic surgery: the least Crabby moment of the evening.

To dine at Fatty Crab is to indulge in an intense, sweaty, and ardent cuisine. For those frolicking in middle age, Fatty Crab is like passion, not to be missed, but not every night if you please.

Fatty Crab
643 Hudson Street (at Gansevoort Street)
Manhattan (Meatpacking District)
212-352-3590

Celebrity Infusion New York City Entry #54

Those passionate about cuisine sometimes must be reminded that restaurants serve many purposes. A fine evening can be had at an establishment where the food is not the purpose of dining.

I was reminded of this truth at a meal I shared with some friends at Russian Samovar, the Theater District restaurant at which (I'm told) the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and the late poet Joseph Brodsky have been investors. With the demise of the legendary Russian Tearoom, Russian Samovar (and FireBird) are what is left of Russian high cuisine in Manhattan. (Brooklyn is a very different, and more complex, story). Russian Samovar is a restaurant favored by Russian expatriates and well as American celebrities (Laurie Anderson, Cindy Lauper, Susan Sontag, Anna Kournikova, and Liza Minnelli - I wish I were at THAT party!).

My party included two Russian expatriates, both long-time American residents, and, even if the food was not glorious, the conversation was. And thanks to my hosts, the service was attentive. Russian Samovar is a room of Russian excess. The restaurants on Curry Row have nothing on the Samovar. The hanging lamps, red fabric with black fringe, provided a certain Russian je ne sais quoi. The restaurant is done in shades of red, white, gold, and black: Russian to the core. The walls are filled with sundry photographs and artwork that together prove to be a weirdly inspired marriage of Russian life and celebrity culture. Add to this the entertainment - the stylings of Russian pianist, Alexander Izbitzer, and one finds a temple of consumption, but one light years from Le Bernardin around the corner.

Russian Samovar fashions their own vodka. Perhaps they don't rely on a bathtub in the basement, but the infusions are home-made. Among the choices are Tarragon, Garlic, Coriander, and Cranberry Vodka (the most popular). At the suggestion of a companion I ordered Horseradish Vodka, a peasant favorite. This libation was the high point of the evening, pungent while retaining the smooth fire of this fine liquor.

As an appetizer spread, we ordered the Royal Baltic Fish Platter with Blini. The tray included salmon caviar, a small-egg sturgeon caviar, two types of marinated herring, smoked sturgeon and salmon. The herring was particularly enjoyable, the smoked salmon too thickly cut, but the blini, sturgeon and caviar perfectly presentable and satisfying (the vodka helped). The eggplant caviar that we ordered was smoky and pungent, even if this concoction is some distance from Caspian roe.

My beef stroganoff was disappointing. Great stroganoff depends on tender filet; my beef was dry and overcooked - a tough cut for a tender dish. The noodles, sour cream, and mushrooms were as proffered, but with a second-class filet, it didn't merit much thought. More time to talk.

For dessert we shared Natasha's apple cream cheese pie (apples and cinnamon over cream cheese, topped with almonds with a drizzled raspberry sauce). I was intrigued to learn that for many Russian men the name Natasha conjures images of a prostitute, but perhaps we shouldn't be too Freudian about pastries. Oh ho. As it was, the pie was sweet and tart; lush, if not carnal.

Had I been dining alone, my list of complaints might have been heavy and sad. However, this evening deserves no rough critique. Should the stars (Ms. Lauper and Ms. Minnelli?) align, I might return to quaff garlic vodka with a twinkling starlet.

Russian Samovar
256 W. 52nd Street (at 8th Avenue)
Manhattan (Theater District)
212-757-0168

Border Crossings New York City Entry #53

This past week found me in three Asian restaurants that together reflect the glory of global New York. Perhaps none of the three deserve a lengthy tribute, but in combination reflect the joys of metropolitan life. We are blessed by the repeal of the harsh Coolidge-era Immigration Act of 1924, an outgrowth of the Palmer Raids and the fears of anarchy. Raise a toast to the 1965 Immigration Act: Lyndon Johnson's gift to gourmets (his responsibility for the waves of Vietnamese and Dominican refugees might be noted, but with more painful ambivalence). World cities are world kitchens. Immigrants first begin ethnic diners for their fellow nationals. In time these efforts merge seamlessly into cuisine of An American Place.

One of the first notable Indian restaurants serving the South Asian outpost in northern Queens was the Jackson Diner, beloved as a quirky diner. The restaurant has moved down the street, expanded, and now is elegant, contemporary (designed in shades of avocado, maize, and brick), if still modest, in the exuberant beating heart of Jackson Heights.

Before selecting some ingredients at Patel Brothers Supermarket, I stopped by. The luncheon buffet was spacious and generous. A dozen entrees were displayed by the front window. With their lively luncheon business, nothing sat around long, the curse of buffet culture. The Jackson buffet doesn't deserve a standing ovation, but at $9.95, it does what it needs to do. I particularly enjoyed the juicy Tandoori Chicken and the sweet, creamy Kheer (Indian rice pudding with raisins). Also available were Goat Curry, Shrimp and Egg in Curry, Palak Paneer (Creamed Spinach), Rice Basmati, Chicken Makhani, Lamb Korma, and Naan. For a quick, well-priced taste of India in a pleasant and airy room, the Jackson diner remains a part of New York lore. Perhaps in time we will speak of the Jackson Diner in terms reserved for Peter Luger: old New York, run by old New Yorkers.

What cuisine better matches a Broadway puppetry musical (Avenue Q) than Indonesian, a culture with its own distinguished tradition of shadow puppetry. There, in the heart of Hell's Kitchen - once the home of corned beef, boiled potatoes, and beer - sits Bali Nusa Indah, one of several Indonesian restaurants that bring a taste of Java to Midtown. I ordered Nasi Rames ($13.95), a mini-Rijsttafel (or at least a tasting). The dishes include jasmine rice, spicy hot shrimps and string beans, beef in coconut and chili sauce, chicken curry, beef satay with peanut sauce, mixed salad with peanuts, and dried anchovies with peanuts (very nice, if an acquired taste). In years past, I have shared some glorious Rijsttafels and this was not that, but it was a very satisfying post-theater treat. It is good to know that Bali Nusa Indah thrives, ready for the bereft crowds once McHale's - the go-to H-K bar for hamburgers of excess and tap beer - closes and the choice becomes Big Mac or Nasi Goreng.

Despite sharing a considerable border Burmese and Thai food are not similar. The spice-wary diner whose friends insist on South Asian food should opt for Cafe Mingala, one of a few Burmese restaurants in town (they don't refer to themselves as providing Myanmar cuisine, and who am I to argue). We ordered Basil Duck with Vegetables, Rangoon Night Market Noodles (Egg Noodles with Boiled Duck in a too-sweet Garlic Sauce), and the highlight Keema, which is rather like a Sloppy Joe in Mille-Feuille Pastry: Anglo-Rangoon on the Seine. Although the ground beef and potato mix was curried, it was a curry that any Brit could love. I fantasize that Thai gourmets whisper that their neighbors are wimps, but the dish was a pleasant surprise: a Boeuf Wellington for everyman. I suspect that recipes were surgically nipped and tucked for their Upper East Side clientele, but better an enhanced Burmese cuisine than no Burmese cuisine at all.

Traveling the corners of New York City, smelling the aromas, tasting the flavors, a culinaire can not but be roused by the politics of cuisine. Living in New York is to know in one's gut that closing our borders too tight and too fast is to cut off our tongue to spite that global gut.

Bali Nusa Indah
651 Ninth Avenue (at 45th Street)
Manhattan (Hell's Kitchen)
212-974-1875

Cafe Mingala
1393B Second Avenue (at 73rd Street)
Manhattan (Upper East Side)
212-744-8008

Jackson Diner
37-47 74th Street (at 37th Avenue)
Queens (Jackson Heights)
718-672-1232

Restaurant 101 New York City Entry #52

In Adam Platt's list of the 101 Best New York Restaurants 2005 in New York magazine, Momofuku concludes the list. Chef David Chang may well have breathed a sigh of relief that a line cook didn't put a little too much salt in Mr. Platt's ramen. Being #102 counts for nothing (being #97 might be almost as bad).

In truth, finding additional customers is not Momofuku's problem, indeed a few more customers might bring the entire enterprise to its knees. I had called to inquire when the restaurant begins to fill up, knowing that reservations were not accepted. I was told (correctly) that we should arrive by 6:30. By 7:00 the doorway was filled, by 7:30 there were clumps of diners milling outside. And this was a weeknight in January.

In the law of supply and demand, a certain equilibrium should develop. At some point these extra customers should decide that the restaurant - as worthy as the food is - is not worth the hassle, and in time, economists suggest - the number of diners should equal the number of seats, unless some queuing system is launched (read: reservations).

A nouveau noodle bar, Momofuku is translated Lucky Peach, although that the name hints at another expression more widely heard on East Village streets. If some restaurants cater to blue-hairs, this is a restaurant that caters to purple and pink-hairs. We were the most seasoned customers by a generation.

As we ate - and we wanted to eat deliberately to appreciate Chang's serious cuisine - I was awash in guilt, noticing the starving, if trendoid, young masses hungrily eying my seat. Granted Momofuku has been designed as a neighborhood noodle bar, but Chang is too large for his current space.

Momofuku may currently be the best value of any restaurant in New York in its ratio of culinary creativity to cost. If the setting lacks the Orientalist fantasy of Spice Market, the cooking at Momofuku transcends their crosstown rival. Despite the conceit of serving original street-food, Chef Chang is ready for a larger canvas. If Chef Chang is still toiling at Momofuku in five years, we will all be the losers. Perhaps his moment is not here yet, but he should be preparing for his culinary bar mitzvah. He should have no reservations about a restaurant with reservations.

Still, one takes restaurants as one gets them - in the case of Momofuku as a cramped space that makes airline seating seem positively spacious. This is a restaurant that could never hire an overweight server and barely could contain an overweight diner. The setting is striking with white oak walls and tables covered; one feels one is dining in a cross between a submarine and a casket.

We began with sauteed baby tat-choi, a bok-choy relative. It was presented in a miso broth perfumed with garlic, onions, and dried chili pepper. As a vegetarian soup it was exquisite. Sheer, but with a sharp punch of chili. Seemingly modest, it was highly satisfying.

We followed this with Momofuku's signature steamed buns with Berkshire pork. As an artistic creation these pork buns outshown any rival in Chinatown; as a matter of taste, they equal the best that Chinatown could offer. My only complaint was an overgenerous smear of its hoisin-like sauce. However, so satisfying was the construction that a chain of bun vendors wandering city streets would surely increase the sum total of the culinary happiness of New Yorkers.

Through the vagaries of ordering, our three main courses turned out to be more similar than expected - each heavy on salt pork and each built on a poached egg. Had we selected better, the saltiness would have been less noticeable, but it is clear that Chef Chang is having a "fling" with smoked meats. Of the three, the most stellar was Yellow Grits and Ruby Red Shrimp with Bacon, Poached Egg, and Scallions. Chef Chang serves grits that are rather watery by Atlanta standards, something of a breakfast stew - but a dish that can be served throughout the day; it is timeless. Neither Southern nor Asian, these grits are a lucky peach of a dish.

The Aged Country Ham and Masa Cakes with Red-Eye Gravy, Poached Egg, and Scallions, also works within - and against - a Southern breakfast grammar. We were tempted to label this South Korean Cuisine. Country ham with red-eye gravy (coffee with bacon grease) is not to everyone's taste. I love it in small doses, but it worked less well after tasting the bacon and grits, even if the masa cakes (a slightly heavier blini) and scallion supplies a quite inscrutable quality.

We selected the Momofuku ramen - noodles, Berkshire pork belly and shoulder, poached egg, and scallions. I admired the broth, although this seemed the least creative of the three dishes. Ramen are such subtle threads that they can be hard to compare. I found these well-made, but not transfomative, and by this time the pork and egg combo was becoming same old, same old. As comfort food, the Momofuku ramen would cure East Village reveling, but I didn't feel that it amounted to destination dining.

As dessert we ordered Kaffir Angel Food Cupcakes, served with nigori and dried cherry jam (the only dessert offered). The angel food was not as ethereal as some specimens, but the combination was good enough in a restaurant where desserts are an afterthought.

The bill for these dishes (with barley tea, nigori sake, and tip) was $37/person, less than the cost of many lesser Manhattan entrees. What's not to like? Chef Chang is master of his domain. But he deserves a change to fly or fall in a restaurant that tests his mettle to produce dishes that will amaze and transfix - a restaurant with aisles. His deft touch with tat-choy, grits, and pork pork pork suggests a chef whose time may be near.

Like the inspired novelist writing successful genre fiction, Chef Chang must decide his next move. Will we look back on these heady Momofuku days as the crucible of a master or a hint of what might have been? In the culinary countdown is Chef Chang satisfied at 101 - Adam Platt's worst best chef - or does he dream of an electric life among the single digits?

Momofuku Noodle Bar
163 First Avenue (at 10th Street)
Manhattan (East Village)
212-475-7899

Twee New York City Entry #51

Some restaurants can be captured in a single word. Such is Alice's Tea Cup (with two locations in Manhattan and a bakery on City Island in the Bronx). With its bright maroon and cream walls with yellow accents (at least in its East Side outpost, "Chapter Two"), mismatched chairs and flowered teacups, and wonderland images, ATC does dainty to a tea.

ATC appears poised to attract tween girls, winding down from a shopping spree at Dylan's Candy Bar. This is the only restaurant of which I am aware that has a menu section for "after school snacks." (Milk and cookies is $6.00; grilled American cheese will set nymphets back a cool $7.00, but this is the Upper East Side). Yes, you can get anything you want.

Perhaps a name-change to "Lo-Lee-Tea Cup" might not pass muster with restaurant consultants, though it surely would find a clientele, including, possibly, Charles Dodgson himself. And Nabokovian butterflies would fit the decor. At a Sunday brunch it captured more twenty-somethings than kids, but the couples, no matter age or gender, were fitting representatives of tweedom, as was the chirpy and accommodating staff. Twidledee.

The restaurant specializes in teas, often candied. I ordered Rooibos Phoenix, enhanced with honey, caramel and vanilla. Sweet. The dinner menu seemed too sophisticated for a nymph niche: lapsang souchong chicken breast on mixed greens with sliced tea-infused eggs, granny smith apples, crispy carrots, and a sweet ginger dressing might be much for an eleven year old, but of course we're not in Kansas anymore.

At brunch, young diners can order cornmeal pancakes, steel-cut oatmeal, and crepes (choose your filling). We selected Alice's Curious French Toast (oh, what a title that): "French toast bites with apple-cinnamon tea, baked bread pudding style, attacked with fruit coulis, vanilla cream anglais and syrupy sweet stuff." I can not possibly capture the essence of this establishment with more precision than does the title of this dish. This description is from the webpage, the menu claims that it contains "apple-brandy tea," an image that provoked a few moments of wry amusement before I came to wonder about the fruit coulis attacking defenseless French toast. That bites. As served, the dish was a glorious, if discordant, symphony of the candied and the sticky.

Our second choice was poached eggs and sliced smoked salmon atop a savory scone with rosemary hollandaise sauce and a side of roasted asparagus and pears. Cafeteria grub at the Alfred Portole Middle School. While I prefer a Holland Rusk under my Eggs Benedict, finding a scone too cakey for its assignment, the eggs were properly runny, and the other ingredient combined for a satisfying brunch.

Forgive my funning. If Alice's is not quite the restaurant on which chattering hordes of tweens will likely descend, mothers and grandmothers might select this cutie-pie restaurant as the perfect place for a late morning repast with their cherished Paris, Lindsay, Britney, or even Dolores.

Alice's Tea Cup, Chapter Two
156 East 64th Street (at Lexington Avenue)
Manhattan (Upper East Side)
212-486-9200