New York Restaurant Reviews – Page 43 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Province

305 Church Street corner of Walker
212/925.1205
$25 for two, with two drinks, without tip
â™¥ â™¥

Update, 2008: Province has closed

Oh, mantou, where have you been all these years? Mantou, the steamed bun mainstay of northern Chinese street food stalls is finally in TriBeCa. And I hope it stays because the neighborhood could use a practical place to eat where good food is served without the frills and the bill. A mantou sandwich is $3.75 and you can choose between bulgogi with kimchi, spicy pork, grilled chicken or braised pork shoulder with pickled radish. Each mantou is freshly-baked and grilled so the sesame seeds on top get toasted for a nice smoky taste. They’re dense but spongy; doughy but not heavy. If two mantous are not enough for you, the bowl of cold sesame noodles with tofu, eggs, carrots and cucumber in soy-ginger sauce is substantial for less than $7. It’s a refreshing summer lunch.

Province calls itself the Chinese Canteen and frankly, I like that name better. I would even call it the Asian Canteen because you can practically sandwich anything with mantou. Its simple unfinished decor reminds me of Momofuku Noodle Bar, only less pretentious and less crowded.

The North Fork Table & Inn

57225 Main Road, Southold, North Fork, Long Island
631/765.0177
about $250 for two, with four drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

From Chef Gerry Hayden, of Manhattanâ€™s Aureole and Amuse, and Gramercy Tavernâ€™s pastry chef Claudia Fleming, comes a huge effort. The menu concentrates on the island’s freshest produce including seafood from Peconic Bay and the Long Island Sound. We walked in a few minutes before our 9pm reservation to a hushed dining room. Even though the decor is bare, the lighting was perfect enough to bring out the coziness of what was the old Coeur des Vigne. At the bar, they didn’t have fresh mint leaves, but it was too early to be disappointed so we ordered the tomato water martini and raspberry bourbon instead. Both were too strong to be enjoyed, so we basically nursed our drinks until our main courses came.

It was because we had our drinks on the table that our waiter never asked us if we were interested in wine with our dinner. But what do you expect when most of the wait staff look like they’re under twenty-five years old? The restaurant is quite new and the service needs a little sharpening–a little finesse, just like what Thomas Keller would say.

But what The North Fork Table & Inn lacks in service is made up by the seasonal and local items on the menu. The roasted beets with goat cheese from Catapano Dairy Farm were evenly roasted. Salted pistachios gave them a crunch and the sherry vinegar a nice kick. I had the yellowfin tuna tartare with ponzu sauce topped with mizuna greens: fresh and light.

We never usually order fish from the menu, but the sautÃ©ed wild striped bass came with warm fennel, radish and celery salad, so it was hard to say no. The meat was so tender, just perfectly cooked. The olive vinaigrette gave it the right amount of salty taste. And who says no to lamb chops? For forty dollars, they were the most expensive dish in the menu, but the chops came with a nice cut of shoulder, too, encrusted with smoked pepper. I could have been happy even without the mashed potatoes on the side, but I suppose most diners expect something mushy with their manly dinner.

Have I already mentioned that Claudia Fleming was awarded by the James Beard Foundation as its best pastry chef of 2000? How else can I describe the upside-down peach and blueberry cobbler with sour ice cream? Try divine.

North Fork is about two hours away from Manhattan but the Table & Inn makes the trip worth it.

In Tent

231 Mott Street off Prince
212/966.6310
about $80 for two, with two drinks, without tip

In Tent is such a hokey name for a restaurant but the main dining room indeed has a removable tent made of rust-colored silk fabric because zoning regulations do not allow a permanent roof to cover a garden (vacated by Bot Restaurant).

A beautiful setup in the dining room with Moroccan lamps under a tent

Chef Francois Payard brings his experience as pastry chef from La Tour dâ€™Argent and Le Bernadin and partners with several other chefs to bring In Tent’s Moroccan-inspired menu. The lamb burger with zucchini fries was excellent. The meat was so juicy and the bread crispy that I regret sharing it with my dining partner.

Lamb burger with zucchini fries

The grilled octopus with cannellini bean salad was tender; just how I like my tentacles. I liked the idea of the bacalao carpaccio but without the black olive emulsion, it would have been bland. In Portugal, fresh codfish is rarely eaten. Dried salted codfish, or what we know as the more expensive clipfish, is the way to go for South Americans.

Octopus with white beans

Black olive emulsion on bacalao

Our young server was attentive and even though In Tent was busy at 9pm on a Wednesday night, we were promptly accommodated without reservations after a drink at the bar. I’ll come back for more of that lamb.

Oh! Taisho

9 St. Marks Place between 2nd and 3rd Avenues
212/228.5086
about $50 for two, with two drinks, with tip

Yakitori Taisho is one of those Japanese places on St. Marks that you end up going to after drinking all night because they’re open until after midnight. Oh! Taisho is that new space they’ve needed because the original is always packed.

Too much bacon can kill you

Yakitori is traditionally grilled chicken but nowadays, the term is used to refer to anything barbequed. The secret is the sauce that comes with every skewer made up of rice wine vinegar, sweet sake, soy sauce and sugar. My favorite is getting one of each of the yakitoris with bacon for about $2 each: with quail egg, asparagus, okra and scallops. I also love the beef stomach and the tongue.

Two other good dishes I find hard to skip are the kimchi yakiudon and the pork spareribs. The pork falls off the bone and is perfectly tender. The kimchi yakiudon is spicy enough to make you pause in between bites. I usually order it when I’m not in the mood for a bowl of rice.

Good barbeque

Kimchi Yakiudon

Salary men in Japan are known to eat yakitori after a long day at work with their favorite sake. Here in New York City though, I stick with my Asahi Dry.

Searching For a Good Taco: Upper West Side

For my first search for a good taco, I decided to stay on Amsterdam Avenue and the upper west side, specifically from 100th to 145th Streets. I started on 100th mainly because I wanted to hit a favorite spot on 108th but also because I wanted to end up at Jesus’ Tacos near my apartment, a small store that shares space with Twin Donut. Every time I pass by, I chuckle at the name and I knew that someday, I’m going to have to buy something from there. (Of course, it’s more likely pronounced as Heh-sus than Gee-sus but that’s not as funny.)

I was alone and I immediately found out that two tacos were my limit, maybe three if I pick on the filling and skip the tortilla, so I kept it down to ordering chorizo or ground pork tacos. At the stores where they didn’t carry the pork kind, I either bought beef, goat or chicken. I also didn’t spend more than $2.50 on each taco, the cheapest being two dollars. As for selecting which ones to go to, I looked around as I made my way up Amsterdam Avenue and went in to every store, restaurant and bodega that had an awning painted with the Mexican flag colors and had, well, “tacos” or “Mexican food” plastered on the windows. Banderitas, loud Spanish music or television and a picture of the Lady of Guadalupe were all big pluses.

Noche, 852 Amsterdam Avenue between 101st and 102nd Streets, 212/662.6900

Italian Mexican, 886 Amsterdam Avenue between 102nd and 103rd Streets, 212/316.1427

Los Paisas, 890 Amsterdam Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets, 212/961.1263

Taqueria y Fonda, 968 Amsterdam Avenue between 107th and 108th Streets, 212/531.0383

Yuca Mexican Products, 1345-49 Amsterdam Avenue corner of 125th Street

Cielito Lindo, 1354 Amsterdam Avenue between 125th and 126th Streets, 212/222.0938

Mex Juquila, 1486 Amsterdam Avenue between 133rd and 134th Streets, 212/694.7142

Jesus’ Taco, 501 West 145th Street on Amsterdam Avenue, 212/234.3330

The verdict: chorizo tacos are indistinguishable; ground pork is ground pork. What makes a difference is how the chorizo is cooked and how the taco is prepared. My favorite was the chorizo taco from Taqueria y Fonda between 107th and 108th Streets because the bits and pieces of pork were grilled, crunchy and toasted. Even the onions were grilled so they added some sweetness to the flavor. Their salsa also came with small pieces of avocado and finding each one was a nice surprise. The chorizo from Cielito Lindo between 125th and 126th Streets came in a close second. They actually cut a sausage into smaller pieces; crunchy chorizo skin is always a plus.

As for the non-chorizo tacos, the goat from Yuca was great and the huge peppers were a nice touch. The chicken from Mex Juquila was pretty much like how white meat tastes: boring and unexciting. Between the two beef tacos I got, I liked the one from Noche better than the ungodly experience at Jesus’.