September 2006
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
« Aug   Oct »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  

Month September 2006

Entries 5 Total

Bar Bossa

Sep 24, ’06 11:30 AM

232 Elizabeth Street between Houston and Prince
212/625.2345
$57 for one, with four drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

Both times I’ve eaten at Bar Bossa, I sat in the back room with a group of friends where bathroom visitors always say, Oh, I didn’t know there was a table back here. Sitting in the back is like sitting in someone’s cozy and well-lit home where the whiff of the good food about to come out from the kitchen floats around. You can reserve the back ahead of time, but in one of our visits, we walked in and were accommodated without any problems. (Check out the soap in the bathroom as I’m sure it will be a topic of conversation at your table.) I’ve also dined at the bar alone–yes, I was very proud of myself, too–and I enjoy their fish entree with braised tomatoes.

The owners are English and Brazilian but the Latinos in the kitchen run the show, churning out specials like pork chops with chayote, pineapple and potato peppered with crispy sausage and breaded beef steak with rice and watercress. Their offerings play on all kinds of cuisine: baked crab meat in a clam shell, beef carpaccio on a bed of mixed greens and even Italian paninis. Several cocktails and a bottle of wine later, even the assorted desserts taste good: bananas baked in coconut, Guiness chocolate cake, passion fruit-flavored sponge cake with whipped cream. The bar is proud of their caipirinhas which come in different flavors. With the amount of liquor they put in them, they have no reason not to be.

Comments (0)

Otto Pizzeria e Enoteca

Sep 24, ’06 11:10 AM

One Fifth Avenue on 8th Street
212/995.9559
$90 for three, with several drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

When a group of my friends and I just want a laid-back night with good food but can’t afford the other Batali establishments, we end up at Otto where we can eat thin-crust pizzas cooked on a flat-iron griddle. My favorite is the funghi and taleggio pizza with earthy mushrooms and fragrant taleggio cheese. The fennel with bottarga, or Italian caviar, showered with mozarella and pecorino pizza is also delicious. For those who want something more familiar, the classic marinara and pepperoni pizzas are also available as well as smaller pasta dishes like penne, spaghetti and linguine. We spend most of our money in antipasti like prosciutto, octopus, tomato and mozarella salad and the anchovies.

The service is brisk especially when the place is hopping on weekends. If you prefer to skip the dining room, there are tables at the bar where you can just stand and hover over your food and Italian wine. During one visit, our waiter bumped into our table and spilled water all over my brother’s lap. They apologized by bringing him a complimentary beer and dessert afterwards. It’s not Babbo, but your wallet will gladly thank you for it.

Related post/s:
Babbo

Comments (1)

Chestnut and Chickpea Hotpot

Sep 21, ’06 10:10 AM

I bought The Food of Spain and Portugal to skim through during my flight back from Barcelona and made marks to the recipes I’d like to test at home. Not wanting to let go of our Catalan experience just yet, I picked Extramadura’s puchero de castañas con garbanzos, or chestnut and chickpea hotpot to get that comforting feeling we had when we ate chickpeas at almost every tapas bar in Barcelona.

This recipe needs a little bit of planning ahead to soak the chickpeas and chestnuts overnight.
I used the Goya chickpeas from the grocery store. As for the chestnuts, there’s plenty in Chinatown that’s packaged dry, but I wanted the ones soaked in water because I didn’t get the chance to soak them with the chickpeas. (Note that chestnuts in water is different from water chestnuts!) At Dean and Deluca, I bought a $9.50 can of Clement Faugier whole chestnuts in water, a French brand–a little steep but that’s why I said you should plan ahead. There are plenty of smoked ham hocks in my grocery store for less than $2 and because I only used them to flavor the broth, I didn’t feel too bad about throwing them out after cooking. The dried pimento peppers I found at Despaña for $1.50 in a small box. They were chewy after cooking so I just discarded them, too.

The temperature dropped down to 65 on my way home and it was a little bit chilly. Coming home to make this hotpot with a couple of glasses of Shinn Estate’s Red was what I just needed to wind down. It is great with country bread from Balthazar.

Ingredients:
half a 1-pound package of chickpeas, soaked overnight in water, drained
1 can of chestnuts in water, drained
1 smoked ham hock
1 packaged of bacon, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 ribs of celery, chopped
3 dried pimento peppers, seeded and torn
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp crushed peppercorns
2 hardboiled eggs
a handful of shiitake mushrooms, wiped off clean and chopped
parsley, finely chopped
thyme
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. In a large casserole, combine all the ingredients except the egg, mushrooms, parsley and seasonings. Add enough water to cover everything and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat a little and let simmer for 1 to 2 hours or until chickpeas are soft while ocassionally stirring. Add some more water if needed; the dish should be more soupy than dry.
2. Stir in the olive oil so that the broth will emulsify and become creamier and let it boil again. Discard the bay leaf and the pimento peels. Season with some salt.
3. In the meantime, fry the mushrooms in a pan with hot olive oil and season with thyme, salt and pepper. Add to the pot, stir a bit and turn off the heat. Stir in the parsley and serve with the eggs.

Related post/s:
The Food of Spain and Portugal at Amazon.com
Where to get chestnuts and pimento peppers

Comments (0)

Hunts Point Fish Market

Sep 7, ’06 4:31 PM

After a nice dinner at Peter Luger and a few drinks in the lower east side, we went back to Harlem, drank some coffee and drove to da Bronx. It took a lot of effort to stay past 3am.

We visited the Fulton Fish Market a couple of years ago, and when they decided to move the facility to Hunts Point, people didn’t know if it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing. Seeing how much bigger the space was, I doubt any of the dealers complain now. The 400,000-square feet space along Food Center Drive cost about $86 million to create, but it’s so vast, clean, well-lit and seemed like a much better space than what they had at Fulton Street. Plus, they’re a few blocks away from the cooperative market which sells meat and other produce, so one can make a trip and buy everything he needs.

It was like walking into a large freezer. The place was buzzing with the beeps from the forklifts and the hustle of the fishmongers and dealers. Most of them only sell wholesale, but one guy let us buy two yellow tail snappers for $11, which is definitely cheaper–and fresher–than anything I can buy in Chinatown for the same price. Besides, I rarely see whole yellow tail snappers in stores.

Related post/s:
Hunts Point Fish Market photos on Flickr

Comments (0)

Storm King Art Center

Sep 5, ’06 10:36 AM

The clouds finally lifted after seven days of rain and mist. We all woke up to the sun shining through our windows. Just in time, too, because this is our last hurrah for the summer. It took a while for us to get ready because of last night’s festivities in a few Fort Greene bars and a copious dinner at Blue Ribbon, but we were out the door by 1pm.

The drive to Storm King was beautiful. It was as if the trees were greener than they usually were; as if they were celebrating the end of the torrential rains. It was cool enough to keep the car windows open and have Arctic Monkeys and Jurassic 5 blasting through the car radio.

At Storm King, we parked our car and had a quick picnic with our Cuban sandwiches courtesy of El Partido in Washington Heights. We moved the car to the second parking lot afterwards and started our walk through the museum. The 500-acre open space in itself was a lot to take in. The oats, alfalfa and buckwheat plants are starting to take over the fields–part of the museum’s efforts to reintroduce grasses and wildflowers after the land became susceptible to invasive plants.

The sculptures made us feel insignificant. When you walk around them, you feel like there is nothing else to think about except for how tiny you are compare to everything else that concerns the rest of the world. It was tiny bit of a humility lesson, really.

The Dr. had been there before. He showed me his favorites which became mine, too, especially the Richard Serra “forks” jutting out of the small hills. My brother and I had the urge to climb the sculptures, but alas, we didn’t let our Filipino-ness embarrass him.

Comments (0)