Wow, it has been a while since I last wrote! Time to remedy that...
Last night, before a show at the Mercury Lounge, a friend and I went to Hecho en Dumbo, on the Bowery between 4th and Great Jones. The name, if you haven't heard of the place before, is a reference to the fact that the restaurant was originally located in DUMBO, but relocated across the river about a year ago.
As far as the atmosphere goes, the noise level was buzzy (it was pretty crowded the whole time we were there, on a Thursday evening) but not really what I'd call loud. It was very warm inside, even on a cold winter night, so you might want to be prepared for that; also, there's only one bathroom (which is huge, and I don't know why they don't subdivide it). We waited a little while for our table, as you might expect at a crowded restaurant, but once we were seated everything came out fairly quickly. Service was friendly, although perhaps not the most attentive.
Everything we ate was very tasty. The portions weren't huge, though also not as small as some of the Yelp reviews would lead you to believe. I guess the thing is, if you go into your meal expecting it to be like Chipotle, where you get a huge burrito for $8 and that's your meal, or like a traditional taqueria where you get a couple of $2 tacos and you're done, you're not going to be happy with your price/volume-of-food ratio. If you think of it as going to a Manhattan restaurant that happens to be serving Mexican food rather than Italian or Japanese or whatever else, you'll be fine with it. My friend and I were stuffed for $48 each (including tax, tip, and one drink each), and we're both hearty eaters.
We started with an order of guacamole, prepared fresh and a bit creamier in texture than I generally expect. Queso Fundido Huitlacoche (with mushrooms) was delicious, though I'm not sure how much credit I can give since melted cheese is, by rule, always awesome. Next we had an order of mixed seafood tacos (called "tacos el alcalde", though I'm not sure what the mayor has to do with them), which were an interesting blend of smoked sable, shrimp and braised octopus. If I were I more pretentious writer, I'd say that the smoked fish pays tribute to the Lower East Side's Jewish heritage, but I'm not. At about the same time we also received our burritas (basically just a burrito cut into three pieces), with wine-braised steak, black beans and caramelized onions. The meat was very tender and I would definitely order these again. (Actually, everything I've mentioned I would order again.) Last, we had Carnitas Campechanas, a variety of cuts of pork (shoulder, belly, cheek, ear), served with small tortillas and a spicy green (tomatillo and avocado, according to the website) sauce. One of the more expensive things on the menu, but also a nicely sized pile of delicious pork. (I'm not a good Jew.) It was reminiscent of Cuban roast pork I sometimes get for lunch at Sophie's, except way better.
As a final note on price, the tacos were $11 for three fairly small tacos, which seems a bit steep, even for seafood. On the other hand, the burritas, for $9, could probably be a meal on their own for daintier eaters, since if you put the three pieces together you'd basically have a medium-sized (not Chipotle-sized, but reasonable) burrito. The guacamole ($7) and queso fundido ($9) were right in line with what you'd expect to pay for a sharing-oriented appetizer anywhere else in Manhattan. The carnitas, as I mentioned, were one of the most expensive things on the menu ($21), but they were also a big pile of pork that defeated me and my friend.
One last thing: I'm coming to the conclusion that I just don't like micheladas, so I don't think the fact that I didn't like theirs is significant. Should've had a regular beer or a drink with tequila instead.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Definitely Soup
So I decided that the stock, or maybe soup, or maybe stock, or maybe soup, that I was working on should be soup after all. Figured that after going out and buying stew beef, I may as well turn this directly into something I could eat. Grabbed another couple of carrots and another couple of sticks of celery out of the fridge, cut them up and added them to the pot. Went to the grocery store and picked up a couple of small potatoes and a shallot; peeled them, cut them up, threw them in with the rest, left it all to simmer for another couple of hours. Voila: soup!
And let me tell you... it was great! Here's what it looked like in the pot, after I'd eaten about half of it:
And in a bowl, ready to go:
I don't know that there's another expensive steak dinner in my near future, so I won't have steak bones to start with again, but I think I may try the same thing with just stew beef sometime. Maybe I'll buy some marrow bones too, because mmmmm marrow.
And let me tell you... it was great! Here's what it looked like in the pot, after I'd eaten about half of it:
And in a bowl, ready to go:
I don't know that there's another expensive steak dinner in my near future, so I won't have steak bones to start with again, but I think I may try the same thing with just stew beef sometime. Maybe I'll buy some marrow bones too, because mmmmm marrow.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Adventures In... Stock? Soup? TBD...
About a week and a half ago, my cousin Mike and I went to Wolfgang's in Tribeca and had some steaks. (Well, had a steak, since Wolfgang's does "steak for N" in the same style as Peter Luger.) When we got done eating, there was this lovely t-bone with a fair amount of meat still on it, and it seemed like it would be a shame to just let it get thrown away, so I took it home planning to make beef stock out of it. (I had done the same thing a couple of years ago with a couple of Peter Luger steak bones, and figured maybe I could manage the same thing now.)
So I started the bone boiling in water, added a couple of carrots and a couple of stalks of celery and an onion, figuring that those were about the basic ingredients of beef stock. And salt and pepper, because everything needs salt and pepper. After about four hours of simmering the first night, I realized that the taste was very watery, and that I had to add more beef. So I went to Trader Joe's and bought a pound of stew meat, browned that in a hot pan and then put it into the pot with the rest. At this point it occurred to me that maybe instead of stock I could make beef vegetable soup, so... now I'm trying to decide whether to do that. I guess we'll see what I decide! Stay tuned...
So I started the bone boiling in water, added a couple of carrots and a couple of stalks of celery and an onion, figuring that those were about the basic ingredients of beef stock. And salt and pepper, because everything needs salt and pepper. After about four hours of simmering the first night, I realized that the taste was very watery, and that I had to add more beef. So I went to Trader Joe's and bought a pound of stew meat, browned that in a hot pan and then put it into the pot with the rest. At this point it occurred to me that maybe instead of stock I could make beef vegetable soup, so... now I'm trying to decide whether to do that. I guess we'll see what I decide! Stay tuned...
Josh's New York
I think maybe I was the only one who watched the TV show Keen Eddie, which aired briefly on Fox in the summer of 2003. Keen Eddie was a fish-out-of-water cop show about titular New York policeman Eddie Arlette (played by Mark Valley, currently starring in the TV comic book adaptation Human Target), who has been assigned to work for a police precinct in London. The show also starred Julian Rhind-Tutt (perhaps best known as Angelina Jolie's sidekick in the first Tomb Raider movie) as Eddie's uptight English partner, Colin Salmon (of, among other things, three of the Pierce Brosnan-era Bond movies) as their no-nonsense superintendent, and Sienna Miller as Eddie's will-they-or-won't-they landlady.
One of the show's plot devices was this: In the pilot, which told the story of how Eddie bungled a case and was sent to London to clean up his mess, we see a few scenes in Eddie's apartment. On his wall, we see a map of New York (referred to, and maybe also labeled, "Eddie's New York"), with matchbooks from various establishments tacked up at (presumably) their locations in the city. During the pilot, there's a fire in the apartment, and the matchbooks and lots of other things burn to ashes, perhaps symbolizing the destruction of Eddie's career in New York. Once he's posted to London, he starts a new map, adding a new matchbook each episode corresponding to an establishment that was related to the episode's plot. (This was a plot device, at least, for the five or six episodes that aired before Fox pulled the plug. I haven't yet bought the DVDs to see whether they kept it up for the whole season, but I assume so.)
Well, I thought, that looked really cool, and I decided to emulate it. I picked up a wall-sized map of Manhattan (where I lived at the time, since supplemented by a Brooklyn map), tacked it up on my wall, and started taking matchbooks at restaurants and adding them to the map. (Over the past few years, due to the much-appreciated smoking ban, some restaurants have offered cards rather than matchbooks, but those work just as well, although they're sometimes larger.) Here's what the map looks like this evening, November 2, 2010, as I'm writing this:
Writing out a full list would be a tedious process and would just result in boring you, so I'll just include some of the highlights:
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, from the Harlem location of the Upstate NY institution:
Vintage New York Wine Bar (which sadly closed a couple of years ago), a wine bar/restaurant focusing on New York State-produced wines; they stood out by offering, instead of matchbooks or cards, a cork imprinted with their business information:
Delhi Brasserie, an Indian restaurant in Southwest London that I visited during my first trip over there back in the summer of 2006, shown at the eastern edge of Long Island because if I were to locate it precisely to scale it'd probably have to be two buildings over:
Florent, a Meatpacking District institution since the mid-'80s that closed a couple of years ago after being priced out by the blandification of the neighborhood:
I'll add new entries here for new matchbooks as I add them to the map, and perhaps also add pictures for some older ones if I'm stuck for things to write about here.
One of the show's plot devices was this: In the pilot, which told the story of how Eddie bungled a case and was sent to London to clean up his mess, we see a few scenes in Eddie's apartment. On his wall, we see a map of New York (referred to, and maybe also labeled, "Eddie's New York"), with matchbooks from various establishments tacked up at (presumably) their locations in the city. During the pilot, there's a fire in the apartment, and the matchbooks and lots of other things burn to ashes, perhaps symbolizing the destruction of Eddie's career in New York. Once he's posted to London, he starts a new map, adding a new matchbook each episode corresponding to an establishment that was related to the episode's plot. (This was a plot device, at least, for the five or six episodes that aired before Fox pulled the plug. I haven't yet bought the DVDs to see whether they kept it up for the whole season, but I assume so.)
Well, I thought, that looked really cool, and I decided to emulate it. I picked up a wall-sized map of Manhattan (where I lived at the time, since supplemented by a Brooklyn map), tacked it up on my wall, and started taking matchbooks at restaurants and adding them to the map. (Over the past few years, due to the much-appreciated smoking ban, some restaurants have offered cards rather than matchbooks, but those work just as well, although they're sometimes larger.) Here's what the map looks like this evening, November 2, 2010, as I'm writing this:
Writing out a full list would be a tedious process and would just result in boring you, so I'll just include some of the highlights:
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, from the Harlem location of the Upstate NY institution:
Vintage New York Wine Bar (which sadly closed a couple of years ago), a wine bar/restaurant focusing on New York State-produced wines; they stood out by offering, instead of matchbooks or cards, a cork imprinted with their business information:
Delhi Brasserie, an Indian restaurant in Southwest London that I visited during my first trip over there back in the summer of 2006, shown at the eastern edge of Long Island because if I were to locate it precisely to scale it'd probably have to be two buildings over:
Florent, a Meatpacking District institution since the mid-'80s that closed a couple of years ago after being priced out by the blandification of the neighborhood:
I'll add new entries here for new matchbooks as I add them to the map, and perhaps also add pictures for some older ones if I'm stuck for things to write about here.
Dish Soaking Fail
I'm not sure how this happened, but... this happened:
And not through any action of my own, to be clear, but somehow a soup spoon and my vegetable peeler... attempted to mate? While they were soaking in a bowl in my sink? I don't really know. What I do know is that my attempts to separate them resulted in this:
And now I need to buy a new vegetable peeler.
And not through any action of my own, to be clear, but somehow a soup spoon and my vegetable peeler... attempted to mate? While they were soaking in a bowl in my sink? I don't really know. What I do know is that my attempts to separate them resulted in this:
And now I need to buy a new vegetable peeler.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
I Wrote A Thing About Soccer
and if you are interested in that sort of thing, you should go read it. It's posted over at Craven Cottage Newsround, which is an excellent blog for fans of Fulham Football Club.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wait... What?
So when I finally got around to firing up the Philly cheesesteak episode of Food Wars that aired a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that it pitted Pat's against... Tony Luke's? How on earth do you do an episode about cheesesteak and not have it be Pat's vs. Geno's? I mean, those are pretty clearly the two most famous places (if you Google "philly cheesesteak" you get the Wikipedia article, Pat's, and Geno's, in that order, as your top three hits), not to mention the fact that they're right across the street from each other would make for good TV. I almost didn't want to watch the episode because this seems so wrong, but I had to see whether Geno's even got mentioned - they didn't, and the shots of Pat's were framed so as not to show it either. I can only assume there must've been a contract dispute or something.
By the way, they changed the format (no longer a blind taste test, the owners of the two places come out and talk to the judges while they're eating; the host is now one of the judges and they structured it so that she cast the deciding vote, rather than a local, which was also odd), and the winner was Pat's, but that almost seems secondary to the strange choice of contestants.
(I should add that this has also been discussed on the show's official discussion forum, where multiple astute viewers also noted that Joey Vento of Geno's was in the show's introduction prior to the changes mentioned above.)
By the way, they changed the format (no longer a blind taste test, the owners of the two places come out and talk to the judges while they're eating; the host is now one of the judges and they structured it so that she cast the deciding vote, rather than a local, which was also odd), and the winner was Pat's, but that almost seems secondary to the strange choice of contestants.
(I should add that this has also been discussed on the show's official discussion forum, where multiple astute viewers also noted that Joey Vento of Geno's was in the show's introduction prior to the changes mentioned above.)
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