Writing With My Mouth Full

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    • Vinateria

      2211 Frederick Douglass Boulevard corner of 119th Street
      $45 each for 2 people, with drinks, with tip
      212/662.8462
      ♥ ♥

      Finally, a new addition to the Harlem restaurant scene worth writing about. Shauna and I walked around the neighborhood to try and cool off from the hot Saturday weather and got a drink at Bier International before moving on to Vinateria for food. I’ve walked past it a few times while they were under construction and I’ve been looking forward to eating there since they put up their logo using a nice typeface. (Harlem is teeming with laughable typefaces on storefronts.)

      Whoever thought of serving the cavatelli pasta with rabe as an appetizer was a genius. I like my pasta dishes just fine, but I never want a whole plate of it because I always lean towards trying more than 1 dish off the menu. We ended up splitting that pasta dish, which was the best out of all the lot, plus the following:
      – Halibut tartare – I’ve never heard of fish tartare using halibut instead of tuna, and it felt a little short because of the usually bland white fish. There was a surprising sunchoke purée underneath–surprising because most Harlem restaurants have not jumped on the farm-to-table bandwagon–which gave the dish all its flavor, but the fish could have used some more salt and lime for added brightness. I forgot to ask where they got their fish but we trusted that they were fresh; no reports of being sick after!
      – Octopus Frisée Salad – The octopus was sparse but very tender and the potatoes were a great match with the greens.
      – Arugula and Radish Salad with Anchovies – We could have used more anchovies. It wouldn’t have been obvious if they served it on a small plate rather than a bowl. The vegetables were well-seasoned though and made up for it.

      The service was quite attentive but they kept pushing their filtered water which is unnecessary for a New Yorker like me. The cocktails were a saving grace because I have been looking for a place in the neighborhood where I can get a decently-made drink. I hope Vinateria only gets better as the crowd starts to build up.

    • Pig & Khao

      68 Clinton Street off Rivington Street
      $87 for 2 people, with 2 beers, without tip
      212/920.4485
      ♥ ♥ ♥

      Pork, with a side of pork, is what I always hear when Filipino food is being described to me by other people. Top Chef contestant Leah Cohen sticks to that mantra at Pig & Khao, a Southeast Asian restaurant with a lot of Filipino and Thai influences.

      As soon as we walked to the outdoor space to be seated, I felt immediately at home seeing the sun decals on the wall that come from the flag of the motherland. The menu was very familiar too, with crispy pata (roasted pig’s thigh), green mangoes, sisig (sizzling pig’s face) with egg, chicharon (pork rinds), and adobo. Cohen has added her own spin to the dishes: the pork rinds with spices that included cinnamon and the adobo using quail with Sichuan peppercorns.

      There’s no shortage of fish sauce and vinegar flavors, and when coconut was used in the rice and in the cod, my eyes rolled back because of the richness and tastiness of the flavor profiles. My only regret is not coming with more people so that we can try and share more plates.

    • Chef Jose Ramirez-Ruiz’s Pop-up Restaurant at Whirlybird Cafe

      254 South 2nd Street off Havemeyer, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
      $55 each for 2 people, without drinks, without tip
      Email chezjosebk at gmail dot com for reservations
      ♥ ♥ ♥

      Back in 2009, I had a very impressive dinner at a pop-up restaurant inside the Brooklyn Fare store for $70 per person. Three years and three Michelin stars later, the tasting menu is now $225. So when I heard that chef Jose Ramirez-Ruiz used to cook there and at the old Isa and is now running his own popup at the Whirlybird Cafe, I jumped at the $55 chance before the rest of the food world raises his prices.

      You take a risk when you decide to support a pop-up restaurant. As someone who’s served dinner to groups of people on the down-low, I know how it is to cook in a borrowed kitchen without the resources one may have if they were working in a real restaurant. Not only do you prep and cook the dishes for your customers, you also serve and clean up after everyone’s left. In the end, you realize that you really only do it for the love of cooking.

      Chef Jose Ramirez-Ruiz, and his sidekick of the night @wandrlstng, both love to create and cook. The dishes were grown-up and technical, and the vegetable-focused dishes were adventurous, savory, and delicious. As a carnivore, I am impressed when someone can push a vegetable’s limit to different heights.

      Armed with a nice bottle of Haden Fig Pinot Noir, we sat by the window facing the street to enjoy our meal. I’m going to try to describe what we ate here. Apologies to the chefs if my taste buds misidentified something.

      – Salted cod spread with warm crepe that reminded me of a Korean scallion pancake
      – Vegetable broth that was so rich I couldn’t believe it was not made out of meat bones, served with small pieces of ramp stalks
      – A beet green dusted with powdered yogurt
      – Soft tofu with peas
      – Date bread and the most delicious and evil ramp brioche served with ramp butter
      – Young lettuce with Phu Quoc flavors of fish sauce, vinegar and Sriracha
      – A surprising combination of strawberries, turnips and salmon roe that worked
      – Asparagus, mushrooms, and olive sauce with a surprisingly technical foam made from canned tuna
      – Confit of carrots, cardamom and wild watercress
      – Amazing textures of creamed spinach, beets and millet with an arrow leaf spinach
      – Savory parsnip brûlée with mustard creme
      – Beet yogurt hazelnut bar

    • Seven-Hour Leg of Lamb Roast

      I’m not Greek, but I sure do love my lamb. For Greek Easter this year, I was unable to join my friends in Boston for a full-on lamb roast because of new responsibilities at home (read: a new Rottweiler). But I didn’t want to miss the celebration so I biked over to Fairway supermarket, bought a highly-marked up leg of lamb for $34 and roasted it for seven hours while I walked the dog out, ran errands at Home Depot, and gardened the rest of the day.

      Ingredients:
      1 3 to 4-lb lamb leg
      2 red onions, quartered
      2 sprigs of rosemary
      olive oil
      salt, pepper

      For the dressing:
      a handful of basil leaves
      a handful of parsley
      a handful of mint leaves
      1 tsp stone grain mustard
      a jigger of sherry vinegar
      1 tbsp capers, rinsed
      juice from 1 lemon
      1/4 cup of olive oil

      1. Preheat oven to 315º. Meanwhile, place the lamb in an aluminum-lined roast pan. Using a small sharp knife, make about 12 small but deep slits all throughout the meat and stuff them with garlic and rosemary leaves. Rub the entire lamb with olive oil using your hands and generously roll in salt and pepper.
      2. Cover the pan loosely with more foil, lightly tucking the foil around the pan. Roast in the oven for 7 hours, or until the meat is soft and falls off the bone with a gentle prod of a fork.
      3. While lamb is cooking, make the dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a food processor or blender while slowly drizzling the olive oil to create a consistency similar to a runny pesto. Season to taste.
      4. Gently remove lamb from the oven and let it rest on a chopping block for about 20 minutes. Transfer to a plate to serve with the dressing on the side, or pull the meat apart with your hands and divide among your guests and drizzle the dressing all over.

    • Mulberry & Vine: The Whole Menu

      73 Warren Street between West Broadway and Greenwich Streets
      under $15 for lunch
      212/791.6300
      ♥ ♥

      I walked by this new spot in TriBeCa the other day and I had to stop and peek in because it looked like a cute IKEA cafeteria inside (in that yellow chair/wooden table kind of way). I’ve been working in the neighborhood for almost 3 years now and my lunch options are dwindling. If I’m not packing my own food, I almost always feel bored about the choices around me: the Whole Foods buffet that always seem to cost so much, the Halal cart right outside the Chase bank, Chipotle, or if I’m inclined to eat Vietnamese food, Nicky’s right off Fulton Street.

      Mulberry & Vine is spacious and airy inside. The space’s cleanliness makes you immediately think that the food will be light and healthy. Some may think it’s a little too sparse which could translate to an impression that the food will be bland, but displaying everything in colorful enamel bakeware make it somewhat homey.

      Prices vary but are comparable to the neighborhood’s: $13 for 3 dishes (1 hot, 2 cold), $12 for 3 cold dishes, $3 to $4 for soups and other sides, and a dollar here and there for extras (a bed of lettuce or arugula, a small container of green sauce, etc.)

      Fourth visit, May 30, 2013
      3 cold
      – Farro salad – This was so much better today; the eggplant was not as tough as the last time
      – Beets – The pomegranates were a nice touch and texture addition
      – Roasted vegetables – Excellent and a little bit tangy because of the pickled cucumbers and onions, this actually made my day!

      Third visit, May 21, 2013
      1 hot, 3 cold
      – Turkey meatballs – Tasty, but could use some texture. The finely grounded meat looked fake to me
      – Soba noodles – Good and simple
      – Farro and eggplant salad – I really liked this except for the tough eggplant skin
      – Kale salad – I think it would have helped if the kale was shredded in smaller pieces so that it didn’t feel like you were eating big pieces of raw kale

      Second visit, May 10, 2013
      1 hot, 1 soup
      – Chicken enchilada – Tasted more like a lasagna with white meat
      – Lemon cardamom rice – Sounded promising but was a little too thin for me; needed some oomph

      First visit: May 3, 2013
      1 hot, 2 cold dishes
      – Roasted cauliflower – Simple and clean; just like how you would make it at home, but it came with a so-called “green Sriracha” which tasted just like cilantro pesto.
      – Curried freekeh with mango – The Arabic bulgur, this curried freekeh tasted healthy with the mango chunks.
      – Spanish spice-rub roasted chicken – Although it was under the list of warm dishes, this was a little too cold for my taste. If it’s not cooked Hainanese style, cold chicken just tastes undercooked. I didn’t check what makes a rub “Spanish” but there was definitely paprika all over.

      * And when I write “the whole menu”, I mean just about the whole menu. The menu changes according to the season’s ingredients and I will start writing about it this Spring 2013.

      Final update: Mulberry & Vine is a great lunch option in the World Trade Center/TriBeCa area and is a better alternative to the salad bar at Whole Foods for the same price range. The food is good and is always fresh. It proves that presentation helps a lot, as well as a clean and airy space. I do find myself wanting a snack by mid-afternoon, but that’s just because I mostly chose their no-meat options. Watch out for your lunch budget as spending $15 on lunch everyday is not sustainable for me.

    • Fennel, Chickpea and Almond Salad

      Talk about an easy salad. My friend Stacie of OneHungryMama turned me on to this salad via Instagram. She adapted it from Homemade with Love by Jennifer Perillo.

      Ingredients:
      1 tbsp sherry vinegar
      2 tbsps olive oil
      juice of half a lemon
      salt
      pepper
      1/2 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
      1 can of chickpeas, washed and drained
      1/4 cup parsley, torn into pieces
      1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
      a handful blanched almonds, coarsely chopped

      1. In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, and lemon juice until well mixed. Season the dressing with salt and pepper to taste. Add the fennel, chickpeas, parsley, and cheese to the bowl. Toss together to combine. To serve, spoon the salad onto a large platter, and sprinkle the almonds on top.

      Related post/s:
      Buy Homemade with Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie’s Kitchen from Amazon.com
      Check out OneHungryMama whose recipes are as friendly to children as they are to adults

    • Eggplant in Ginger-Garlic Sauce

      Ever since I moved to my Harlem apartment, I had to keep myself from buying any more new cookbooks. It was hard enough to pare down my copies when I moved in, so I’m trying not to accumulate any more new stuff. I mostly borrow from the New York Public Library now just to get my fill of touching the cover and feeling the pages of a newly-published book, but when it comes to Fuchsia Dunlop, I make an exception.

      Her books were my reference when I began my Sichuan kick a few years ago. Nothing out there compared to her work, living in the Sichuan Province and learning from the area’s cooking schools and the local chefs. I lived vicariously through her and her cooking.

      From her latest, Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, I ended up adapting her eggplant dish, or rou mo qie zi, from Hangzhou. I found myself in Flushing, Queens with my friend Josh over the weekend and bought some eggplants on the cheap. I didn’t have all of her required ingredients, so I played with what I had. Instead of ground pork, I used the minced beef I had in my freezer. She also required a sweet fermented sauce but I figured a dollop of chili paste will do. I also skipped the potato flour because I simply didn’t have any and I didn’t want to substitute regular flour or cornstarch with it. I have two kinds of cooking wines in my pantry so I used both just to have something else to splash in.

      Feel free to eliminate the beef if you don’t want meat in this dish.

      Ingredients:
      4 Asian eggplants
      salt
      cooking oil
      1 lb ground beef
      1 1/2 tbsps Sichuanese chili paste
      1 small knob ginger, peeled, thinly sliced
      5 cloves garlic, minced
      a splash of chicken stock
      2 tsps sugar
      a jigger of Shaoxing wine, or Chinese cooking wine
      a jigger of mirin, or sweet rice wine
      3 stalks scallions, finely chopped

      1. Cut the eggplant lengthways into three thick slices, then cut these into thin and even slices. Sprinkle them with salt, mix well and leave in a colander for at least 30 minutes to drain. Discard the water when ready to cook.
      2. In a wok or a deep skillet, heat the oil for deep-frying. Add the eggplant in batches and deep-fry for three to four minutes until slightly golden on the outside and soft and buttery within. Remove and drain on paper towels.
      3. In the same wok on medium flame, cook the ground beef until golden brown. Feel free to add more oil so it won’t burn. Add the chili paste and stir-fry until the oil is red and fragrant, then add the ginger and garlic and continue to stir-fry until you can smell their aromas. Add the stock and sugar and mix well.
      4. Add the fried eggplant to the sauce and let them simmer gently for a minute or so to absorb some of the flavors. Splash the vinegar in and add the scallions and stir a few times. Serve with a bowl of hot, steaming white rice.

      Related post/s:
      Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop

    • Chicken-Fried Beef Steak with Curry Gravy

      This recipe is from Filipino Top Chef Dale Talde. Don’t be fooled by the name; he used a simple fried chicken batter and applied it to beef. The original version required 1/2 cup of milk to make the batter, but I only had almond milk in the fridge that I didn’t really want to use, so I decided to skip it. It might not have made the batter stick the way it should, but my beef slices looked okay in the end without the milk. I also used lemon instead of lime and cut down the amount of ingredients needed here. This could have lasted 3 meals if only I stopped snacking on the meat while I cooked the pasta.

      Ingredients:
      1 large egg, lightly beaten
      1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
      salt
      pepper
      6 1/4-inch-thick slices of top-round beef
      egg noodles

      For the curry gravy:
      oil
      1 small onion, finely chopped
      2 garlic cloves, minced
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
      1 tbsp curry powder
      2 squirts of Sriracha
      1/2 cup strong-brewed coffee
      half a 13-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
      juice from half a lemon
      1 tsp sugar

      1. In a shallow plate, whisk the egg. In another plate, generously season the flour with salt and pepper. Dredge the beef in the flour, tapping off the excess. Dip the coated slices in the beaten egg and dredge again in the flour, lightly patting the coating to help it adhere.
      2. In a large skillet, heat 1/2 inch of oil. Working in 2 batches, fry the steak over moderate heat, turning once, until golden and crispy, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and season lightly with salt. Slice in strips when cool enough to the touch.
      3. In the same skillet, add a little more oil and sauté the onion, garlic and ginger. Cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened. Add the curry powder and Sriracha and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the coffee and boil until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add the coconut milk, lemon juice and sugar, season the gravy with salt and pepper and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes.
      4. While the gravy is cooking, boil a pot of water and cook the egg noodles al dente, about 15 minutes. Drain and put in a serving bowl. Topped with the sliced chicken-fried steaks and pour over the curry gravy. Serve with some lemon wedges.

    • Easy Cocoa Brownies with Salt

      Wow. I’m not the biggest dessert fan, but wow. I saw the photo of this recipe with the rock salt on top and I was immediately tempted to make it. Shauna was coming over with a bottle of wine to catch up, so I thought why not make dinner for the both of us while she made dessert?

      Ingredients:
      10 tbsps, or 1 1/4 stick, unsalted butter, sliced in small pieces
      1 1/4 cup sugar
      3/4 cups plus 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
      1/4 tsp salt
      1/2 tsp vanilla extract
      2 cold large eggs
      1/2 cup all-purpose flour
      rock salt

      1. Position the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325º Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Set aside.
      2. Simmer some water in a deep-enough and wide skillet. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in the skillet when the water starts to simmer. Stir from time to time with a heatproof spatula until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test.
      3. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. Stir in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the spatula.
      4. Spread evenly in the lined pan. Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack. Lift up the ends of the parchment, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Sprinkle with rock salt and cut into squares.

      Related post/s:
      Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate on Amazon

      Recommended tool/s:
      The Spatula by GIR (Gear that Gets it Right)

    • Green Tea Afternoon Cake

      This is the non-baker’s version of green tea layer cake. The original recipe called for two extra steps to make frosting, but I didn’t want to buy all those extra ingredients to make this sweeter than I really wanted it to be. I wanted this cake to be more like an afternoon snack–with hot tea–rather than a dessert.

      I didn’t have cake flour, so I texted Haewon from purplepops to ask what would make an okay substitute. When I got home from the store, I measured exactly 1 cup of all-purpose flour, flattened the top, removed exactly 2 tbsps from it, then replaced it with 2 tbsps of cornstarch.

      I had to read about this substitute to understand how and why it would work. According to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, cake flour has been treated and “strongly bleached” with chlorine gas. This causes the starch granules to absorb water and swell more readily to disperse the fat more evenly. This invention “allowed U.S. food manufacturers to develop ‘high-ratio’ packaged cake mixes, in which the sugar can outweigh the flour by as much as 40%.” The cornstarch replacement restrains the formation of gluten and avoids the cake from being tough and chewy.

      I did notice that this cake is lighter, more velvety and more em-oh-eye-es-tee, even though I initially thought it was because of the yogurt. So maybe there is a case to buying my own package of cake flour after all, or at the least, substituting it the frugal–but exact–way.

      Speaking of substitutes, I used the Maeda-en brand of green tea powder I bought from my local Japanese store. I gather you can open green tea bags and use those, too, or finely ground the dried green tea leaves you already have. I know I’ll be doing just that when I try the earl grey version of this cake.

      This recipe made 2 small loaf pans and 3 minis. The one you see in the photograph above is a ceramic loaf pan that’s a mere 4 inches on the longer end: really cute. The small pan took about 40 minutes to bake, while the minis I put in for 30. It goes without saying that they’re great with a cup of hot green tea on a dreary afternoon.

      Ingredients:
      1 cup all-purpose flour
      1 cup cake flour
      1 teaspoon baking soda
      1 teaspoon salt
      4 teaspoons powdered green tea
      1 1/4 cups white sugar
      1 cup vegetable oil
      3 eggs
      1 cup plain yogurt
      1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

      1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease the loaf pans.
      2. Sift together the all-purpose flour, cake flour (or substitute), baking soda, salt, and green tea powder. Set aside.
      3. Using your electric mixer, beat together sugar, oil, and eggs until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the yogurt, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
      4. Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before slicing to serve.

      Recommended tool/s:
      Purplepops for mad inspiration
      Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking
      Amazon.com also carries the Maeda-en green tea powder I used

    • Beer-Braised Sichuan Chicken

      This Henan Chinese recipe was adapted from Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food, a Sichuan restaurant that opened in New York City with a lot of promise but, to me, lacking of flavor. I looked forward to the San Francisco-based restaurant opening here, but when I finally made it with my friend Lauren, I was disappointed that there was no depth to the spiciness of their dishes.

      Sichuan food tops my list of favorite cuisines and I’ve always tried to cook it at home. They require a lot of ingredients, but once you buy them, you won’t have to do it again any time soon. (Well, unless you cook as much as I do.)

      With the dried chiles and Sichuan peppercorns I smuggled from my trip to Bhutan, the search for good spicy recipes has been resurrected. I think toasting the spices here is key even though the original recipe didn’t call for it–maybe that’s what I mean when I think of depth of flavor. Before I ladled to serve, I used a flour sifter to strain the spices from the liquid. (I didn’t have a fine-enough strainer.) You can use a spice bag if you have it handy, but I wanted all of the flavor to fully soak while cooking.

      Oh, this is probably the only time I’ve ever bought Budweiser, too! Any lager-style beer like Tsingtao is okay as well.

      Ingredients:
      8 chicken pieces
      1 1/2 tbsps salt
      2 tbsps fish sauce
      1/4 cup vegetable oil
      5 pieces dried red chiles, toasted
      2 tbsps Sichuan peppercorns, toasted
      2 tbsps fennel seeds, toasted
      2 tbsps cumin seeds, toasted
      2 pcs star anise, toasted
      4 pods green cardamom, toasted
      2 tbsps Sriracha hot sauce
      2 cups chicken stock
      16 oz can of Budweiser
      1/2 cup soy sauce
      1/2 cup sugar
      a handful of fingerling potatoes, washed
      a handful of parsley, roughly chopped

      1. In a large bowl, season chicken with salt and fish sauce and let sit 5 minutes.
      2. Meanwhile, set a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add oil. Once oil is hot, work in batches to brown both sides of chicken pieces, about 6 minutes per batch, transferring chicken to another bowl as you go.
      3. Return chicken to pot, increase heat to high and add all remaining ingredients except the parsley. Bring pot up to a rolling boil, cover and cook until chicken and potatoes are tender and sauce is reduced, about 20 minutes.
      4. Before serving to a bowl, use a fine strainer to get rid of all the solid spices and discard.

    • Aska at Kinfolk Studios

      90 Wythe Avenue corner of North 11th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
      $120 each for 2 people, without drinks, without tip
      718/388.2969
      ♥ ♥

      I never got the chance to check out the Kinfolk Studio space when it housed the pop-up Frej, but when my friend Josh started working at what is now Aska, I really had no excuse not to support him.

      The last time I’ve been to a restaurant where the food on my plate looked more like some kind of art piece rather than a meal was at Alinea in Chicago (in 2006!), but even there, the dishes looked like I was going to get something out of them. At Aska, I was in doubt the whole time that I was ever going to be full, but there was something about the combination of ingredients and the timing of the presentations that somehow worked. By the time the last course of beef was served, I was pretty satisfied even though it was just a single kalbi-like slice of short rib.

      There were 7 courses including dessert, but I counted at least 3 amuse-bouches and a pre-dessert palate cleanser. There were a couple of cocktails, a bottle of wine, and a digestif that helped, too.

      Best:
      1. Cocktails that take forever to make!
      2. The most humble cabbage dish with a tiny piece of monkfish and its liver
      3. Sunchoke presentation

      Weird:
      1. Service – It’s a small space so they seemed to have too many staff members hanging out. At one point, we looked up from our conversation and there were 5 people at the pass. They all seemed to be stressed out and I felt very pressured to finish my plate to give them something to bus. But we did break a bottle of wine at the bar and they were nonplussed about it as they cleaned it up.