There is much buzz in the food world about the influence of amateur bloggers, Yelpers and Chowhounds on restaurants, but despite the hype, old media still has a mass market that eclipses us. A restaurant will still explode with business after a great review in the LA Times or a Gold write up in the Weekly that is far beyond the impact of any single on-line review. Many of us cringe when a good restaurant gets the write-up, lest it becomes packed and infiltrated with culinary philistines (I recall the night of a Times review of a Salvadoran restaurant, a Salvadoran friend of ours who went was asked by a review-chasing patron whether he spoke "El Salvadoran").
But those massive crowds only last a few weeks, and the publicity and attention can have many good sides as well (aside from the obvious benefit to the restaurant). A couple of months ago, the excellent Thi Nguyen reviewed a new discovery: Krua Siri in Thai Town. The review told the all too familiar story of a restaurant with a bland, Chinese-Thai menu, but a host of off menu (or Thai menu only) specialties from the northern, Isaan region of Thailand.
Fast forward two months, and the back page of Krua Siri's menu is dedicated to a list of recommended dishes, which lists everything mentioned in Nguyen's article (which is also printed on the cover of the menu, for good measure).
While the menu has changed, the food is as good as it was when Nguyen reviewed it. Thai sausages are just a tad acidic and do well rolled in lettuce the large ginger slices and peanuts that are served with them. All of the salads we had were very good. Papaya salad was a nicely balanced version of the familiar classic, every bite of duck larb had a crunch of herb, spice, meat, skin and what I think were small bones as well, and the squid salad was spicy and acidic with tender strips of squid. My favorite dish of the meal was probably the sour curry, a sweet, sour and spicy soup with shrimp and what I can best describe as little square omelets of eggs and greens. The complexity of the broth is what did it for me; it was one of those things you just want to keep eating to make the flavor last.
Krua Siri delivers within a three mile radius, you can order on-line on their website.
Krua Siri
5103 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 660-6196
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Whiskey Wednesday: The Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project
Last week, I poked what I thought was a little good natured fun at Buffalo Trace's new Single Oak Project. Based on the comments, though, it appears that I hit a bit of a nerve. The Project appears to be as controversial as it is innovative, so I thought I'd give it a more in depth treatment.
The Prelude: The Perfect Bourbon
Earlier this year, Buffalo Trace started dropping hints about a major spring release. Back in March, BT Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley, speaking on the K&L Spirit Journal podcast, let drop that there was a big release coming in April.
A few days later, the Washington Post ran a story by Jason Wilson provocatively entitled Does the Perfect Bourbon Exist? In the story, Wilson revealed something called Project Holy Grail, an effort by BT to isolate the variables that would lead to the perfect bourbon, designed to get a perfect 100 point rating the spirits world's most influential critics, "among them F. Paul Pacult, who publishes the newsletter Spirit Journal; Gary Regan, the cocktail columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle; and John Hansell, editor of Malt Advocate magazine."
This led to a long and far ranging discussion on a number of whiskey sites (several of which I participated in). The assumption, reasonably gleaned from the Post article, was that BT's April release would be this perfect 100 point bourbon. People were, needless to say, skeptical.
The Release
What BT in fact announced in April was something very different from the perfect bourbon: The Single Oak Project, a release of 192 single barrel bourbons, each aged in barrels made from a single oak tree and each having some differences which would allow tasters to compare the impact of different variables on a whiskey. For instance, one barrel might be made from wood from the top of the tree and one from wood taken from the bottom of the tree, another might have variations on the coarseness of the wood, another might have the same wood but the barrel might have been aged in a different part of the warehouse. As Chuck Cowdery explained:
The bourbons are all eight years old and will be released in 375 ml bottles at 45% abv for $46 per bottle (that is the BT price; as with many BT products, consumers in markets far from Kentucky will likely pay large mark ups). The bottles will be released twelve at a time, every three months for the next four years.
The Website
Here's another interesting twist. The bottle won't tell you anything about the oak. In order to find out what kind of wood and other variables went into a given bourbon, you will have to visit the very handsome Single Oak Project website. By registering and entering your barrel number, you are given the opportunity to review the bourbon. The website review process consists of 11 questions in which you can click on answers; there is no opportunity to write your own notes. Once you complete your review, you get to view the "DNA" of the bourbon in that bottle, including the fill proof, char level, aging warehouse, tree cut, harvest location, warehouse type, staves seasoning, and woodgrain size. You can also compare your review to other reviews.
Presumably, BT will use the reviews (and their own evaluations) to figure out which variables might lead them further in their quest for that perfect bourbon.
The Reaction
The consumer reaction to this announcement, as evidenced on web forums and blog comments, is somewhat skeptical. Consumers seem unclear as to how it will work, how much the bottles will actually cost at retail, and whether they will even be available given how many of BT's other limited edition bottlings become scarce commodities. There certainly seemed to be a sense of people being overwhelmed with the prospect of 192 distinctly different bottlings being released rapid fire, 48 bottles per year. The cost of owning a complete collection, at the BT price, is $8,832, and when you consider a realistic, non-predatory retail mark up somewhere like California, that easily passes the $10,000 mark.
I'm as cynical and jaded as the next whiskey fan, but I think we should all take a moment to acknowledge that this is possibly the single most ambitious project that has ever come out of any distillery. I may not taste them all, I may not taste any of them, but I'm thrilled that BT is doing this. BT could have done this completely in-house without releasing a single bottle. I assume that distilleries are always experimenting with different variables and their effect on the whiskey. They just don't do it on this scale, and they don't release the results of those experiments to the public. The main beneficiary of this experiment is going to be BT, who will get to learn an amazing amount about their whiskey and its interplay with wood, and that will help them to make better bourbon, but we get a chance to go along for the ride. (I do wish these were released at cask strength, but of course, that would mean even fewer bottles would be available).
Is there marketing at play here? Of course. This is still a product, and BT is among the most skilled marketers in the whiskey business. Think about it, people scramble to grab up the Antique Collection every year, even though it is always the same five whiskeys, and the obsessing over each Pappy Van Winkle release has become akin to the annual Christmas rush to find the latest video game consul.
Even so, I don't think the worry about availability is merited. While it may be hard to get any single bottle of the first set of twelve, there are going to be releases every three months for four years. I'm guessing that by the third release of 2014, people aren't going to be calling their retailers six weeks early to get a bottle. You may not get to taste all 192, but surely everyone will have a chance to sample a few of these.
The new media aspect of this project also merits mention. Letting people enter their own reviews on the website is genius. So far, whiskey companies have been pretty unsophisticated in their use of new media. This is the most promising new media whiskey promotion I've seen, though they probably would have benefited from using even more interactive social media devices, such as letting people comment on reviews or engage in on-line Q&As with BT staff. Even without that though, if people really take to the site, it will be an interesting way to view reviews and a useful tool for BT. After all, how many other distillers get the benefit of a database of individual customer reviews.
So I say, let the festival of oak begin!
The Prelude: The Perfect Bourbon
Earlier this year, Buffalo Trace started dropping hints about a major spring release. Back in March, BT Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley, speaking on the K&L Spirit Journal podcast, let drop that there was a big release coming in April.
A few days later, the Washington Post ran a story by Jason Wilson provocatively entitled Does the Perfect Bourbon Exist? In the story, Wilson revealed something called Project Holy Grail, an effort by BT to isolate the variables that would lead to the perfect bourbon, designed to get a perfect 100 point rating the spirits world's most influential critics, "among them F. Paul Pacult, who publishes the newsletter Spirit Journal; Gary Regan, the cocktail columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle; and John Hansell, editor of Malt Advocate magazine."
This led to a long and far ranging discussion on a number of whiskey sites (several of which I participated in). The assumption, reasonably gleaned from the Post article, was that BT's April release would be this perfect 100 point bourbon. People were, needless to say, skeptical.
The Release
What BT in fact announced in April was something very different from the perfect bourbon: The Single Oak Project, a release of 192 single barrel bourbons, each aged in barrels made from a single oak tree and each having some differences which would allow tasters to compare the impact of different variables on a whiskey. For instance, one barrel might be made from wood from the top of the tree and one from wood taken from the bottom of the tree, another might have variations on the coarseness of the wood, another might have the same wood but the barrel might have been aged in a different part of the warehouse. As Chuck Cowdery explained:
Think about it this way. You can taste two bottles of Blanton's or any other single barrel bourbon, from two different barrels, and know that any differences you taste are coming from the barrel, but you can’t know what it is about the barrel that is causing the difference. With Single Oak Project bourbons, you know, because the only difference is that one is fine grain and the other is coarse, for example. Everything else about the distillate and barrel is the same. Hell, all of the wood is from the same tree.
The bourbons are all eight years old and will be released in 375 ml bottles at 45% abv for $46 per bottle (that is the BT price; as with many BT products, consumers in markets far from Kentucky will likely pay large mark ups). The bottles will be released twelve at a time, every three months for the next four years.
The Website
Here's another interesting twist. The bottle won't tell you anything about the oak. In order to find out what kind of wood and other variables went into a given bourbon, you will have to visit the very handsome Single Oak Project website. By registering and entering your barrel number, you are given the opportunity to review the bourbon. The website review process consists of 11 questions in which you can click on answers; there is no opportunity to write your own notes. Once you complete your review, you get to view the "DNA" of the bourbon in that bottle, including the fill proof, char level, aging warehouse, tree cut, harvest location, warehouse type, staves seasoning, and woodgrain size. You can also compare your review to other reviews.
Presumably, BT will use the reviews (and their own evaluations) to figure out which variables might lead them further in their quest for that perfect bourbon.
The Reaction
The consumer reaction to this announcement, as evidenced on web forums and blog comments, is somewhat skeptical. Consumers seem unclear as to how it will work, how much the bottles will actually cost at retail, and whether they will even be available given how many of BT's other limited edition bottlings become scarce commodities. There certainly seemed to be a sense of people being overwhelmed with the prospect of 192 distinctly different bottlings being released rapid fire, 48 bottles per year. The cost of owning a complete collection, at the BT price, is $8,832, and when you consider a realistic, non-predatory retail mark up somewhere like California, that easily passes the $10,000 mark.
I'm as cynical and jaded as the next whiskey fan, but I think we should all take a moment to acknowledge that this is possibly the single most ambitious project that has ever come out of any distillery. I may not taste them all, I may not taste any of them, but I'm thrilled that BT is doing this. BT could have done this completely in-house without releasing a single bottle. I assume that distilleries are always experimenting with different variables and their effect on the whiskey. They just don't do it on this scale, and they don't release the results of those experiments to the public. The main beneficiary of this experiment is going to be BT, who will get to learn an amazing amount about their whiskey and its interplay with wood, and that will help them to make better bourbon, but we get a chance to go along for the ride. (I do wish these were released at cask strength, but of course, that would mean even fewer bottles would be available).
Is there marketing at play here? Of course. This is still a product, and BT is among the most skilled marketers in the whiskey business. Think about it, people scramble to grab up the Antique Collection every year, even though it is always the same five whiskeys, and the obsessing over each Pappy Van Winkle release has become akin to the annual Christmas rush to find the latest video game consul.
Even so, I don't think the worry about availability is merited. While it may be hard to get any single bottle of the first set of twelve, there are going to be releases every three months for four years. I'm guessing that by the third release of 2014, people aren't going to be calling their retailers six weeks early to get a bottle. You may not get to taste all 192, but surely everyone will have a chance to sample a few of these.
The new media aspect of this project also merits mention. Letting people enter their own reviews on the website is genius. So far, whiskey companies have been pretty unsophisticated in their use of new media. This is the most promising new media whiskey promotion I've seen, though they probably would have benefited from using even more interactive social media devices, such as letting people comment on reviews or engage in on-line Q&As with BT staff. Even without that though, if people really take to the site, it will be an interesting way to view reviews and a useful tool for BT. After all, how many other distillers get the benefit of a database of individual customer reviews.
So I say, let the festival of oak begin!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Lukshon: You Get What You Get
There's a saying among parents of small children charged with cutting up birthday cake amidst shouts of "I want a star" or "I want the pink piece": You get what you get and you don't get upset. It could also be the motto of Sang Yoon, the proprietor of Father's Office and the new Lukshon who has become known for his refusal to offer substitutions or even provide any ketchup for his burgers.
Now, I try to avoid restaurants that have recently been reviewed in the LA Times, so I was a bit miffed when, two days before my reservation, Irene Virbila came out with a review. The only saving grace was that she only gave the restauarnt one and a half stars, which I figured might cut down on the craziness that usually follows a Times review.
Sitting directly adjacent to the Culver City Father's Office, in the old Helms Bakery building, Lukshon is a pan-Asian restaurant with family style service. It bills itself as Southeast Asian, but the flavors run from South Asia to Japan with everything in between.
Overall, I was very impressed with the food, bright Asian flavors and whimsical concepts resulted in a really good meal. I started with a Lukshon sour, a play on a whiskey sour using Michter's Rye and tamarind. It had a nice sweet/sour/salty interplay which seemed to reference both tamarind drinks and the salty limeade you get at Vietnamese restaurants.
The menu features a number of small plates. Shrimp toasts were satisfying little fried grease bombs. Lamb roti was a nicely seasoned lamb with a raita-type sauce on a deep fried roti, sort of an Indian lamb pizza. From the raw menu, mackerel slices topped with a green papaya salad were pleasant but not very exciting.
Both of our entree sized dishes were big hits. Short Ribs Rendang, a Malaysian treatment, were melt in your mouth soft with a nice crust. They were served with fried coconut rice cakes which had a satisfying combination of crisp and stick-to-your-teeth chewy; they were highly craveable, tasting like deep fried popcorn. Garlic pork belly was a Chinese style stir fry. The pork belly was in small bites, each featuring equal parts of nicely caramelized, chewy meat and luscious, slippery fat. The bowl also included cabbage and little rice cakes, of the tubular variety, that had a nice crispy crust, another nice textural contrast.
While the food was very good, the service was chaotic. We were brought one dish that wasn't ours while our dish was served to another table, we waited a very long time between the small plates and mains and the waiter forgot one of our dishes entirely. Part of it might have to do with the fact that the waiters use hand-held computers to place orders and run credit cards (like at the Apple Store) and they may not have mastered the technology yet (or maybe our waiter just hadn't).
After dinner, they offered Vietnamese Coffee, but they didn't have decaf, so we regrettably passed.
Strangely, there is no dessert menu. Everyone is served a small, complimentary dessert. The night we were there, there were two plates. A mango panna cotta with coconut sorbet was very nice. The panna cotta was creamy and the mango and coconut blended well (there was a citrus element which tied it all together well but I can't remember what it was). The second dish was a Vietnamese Coffee Truffle and a marshmallow. The truffle was a basic chocolate truffle without any discernible coffee flavor and the marshmallow was fine but unexciting.
The desserts are quite small, and the table next to us asked if they could get a bit more of the delicious coconut sorbet. The waiter was fairly gracious in his refusal, but didn't they know this was a Sang Yoon restaurant - you get what you get, and you don't get upset.
Lukshon
3239 Helms Ave.
Culver City, CA 90232
(310)202-6808
Now, I try to avoid restaurants that have recently been reviewed in the LA Times, so I was a bit miffed when, two days before my reservation, Irene Virbila came out with a review. The only saving grace was that she only gave the restauarnt one and a half stars, which I figured might cut down on the craziness that usually follows a Times review.
Sitting directly adjacent to the Culver City Father's Office, in the old Helms Bakery building, Lukshon is a pan-Asian restaurant with family style service. It bills itself as Southeast Asian, but the flavors run from South Asia to Japan with everything in between.
Overall, I was very impressed with the food, bright Asian flavors and whimsical concepts resulted in a really good meal. I started with a Lukshon sour, a play on a whiskey sour using Michter's Rye and tamarind. It had a nice sweet/sour/salty interplay which seemed to reference both tamarind drinks and the salty limeade you get at Vietnamese restaurants.
The menu features a number of small plates. Shrimp toasts were satisfying little fried grease bombs. Lamb roti was a nicely seasoned lamb with a raita-type sauce on a deep fried roti, sort of an Indian lamb pizza. From the raw menu, mackerel slices topped with a green papaya salad were pleasant but not very exciting.
Both of our entree sized dishes were big hits. Short Ribs Rendang, a Malaysian treatment, were melt in your mouth soft with a nice crust. They were served with fried coconut rice cakes which had a satisfying combination of crisp and stick-to-your-teeth chewy; they were highly craveable, tasting like deep fried popcorn. Garlic pork belly was a Chinese style stir fry. The pork belly was in small bites, each featuring equal parts of nicely caramelized, chewy meat and luscious, slippery fat. The bowl also included cabbage and little rice cakes, of the tubular variety, that had a nice crispy crust, another nice textural contrast.
While the food was very good, the service was chaotic. We were brought one dish that wasn't ours while our dish was served to another table, we waited a very long time between the small plates and mains and the waiter forgot one of our dishes entirely. Part of it might have to do with the fact that the waiters use hand-held computers to place orders and run credit cards (like at the Apple Store) and they may not have mastered the technology yet (or maybe our waiter just hadn't).
After dinner, they offered Vietnamese Coffee, but they didn't have decaf, so we regrettably passed.
Strangely, there is no dessert menu. Everyone is served a small, complimentary dessert. The night we were there, there were two plates. A mango panna cotta with coconut sorbet was very nice. The panna cotta was creamy and the mango and coconut blended well (there was a citrus element which tied it all together well but I can't remember what it was). The second dish was a Vietnamese Coffee Truffle and a marshmallow. The truffle was a basic chocolate truffle without any discernible coffee flavor and the marshmallow was fine but unexciting.
The desserts are quite small, and the table next to us asked if they could get a bit more of the delicious coconut sorbet. The waiter was fairly gracious in his refusal, but didn't they know this was a Sang Yoon restaurant - you get what you get, and you don't get upset.
Lukshon
3239 Helms Ave.
Culver City, CA 90232
(310)202-6808
Thursday, May 5, 2011
New York Report: Third Wave Coffee at Grumpy and Stumptown
On my last visit to Manhattan, I was impressed at the rise in quality coffee. On this year's trip, I wanted to try two of the well known Chelsea espresso bars: Cafe Grumpy and Stumptown.
Cafe Grumpy is a surprisingly quiet little shop tucked away on West 20th Street. The set up is pretty no frills, but they do a good drink. My cappuccino had a nice, bright flavor and creamy texture. It was pretty standard third wave coffee fare, but the standard these days is high.
Stumptown Coffee, along with Intelligentsia, was one of the pioneers of the Third Wave. Founded in Portland in 1999, they now have outlets in Seattle and the one I visited on 29th Street in Manhattan. I've never been to a Stumptown, so I was excited to try it. Quite the contrast to the casual Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown had a long line and sort of an industrial feel. The seating area is the ultra-cool lobby of the Ace Hotel. The coffee at Stumptown was superb. The cappuccino was perfectly balanced with just the right amount of tannic notes coming out in the cup. I had an espresso as well. It was darker than what I'm used to from Intelligentsia, which I personally enjoy in an espresso, even if it's against the norm these days. (Note that the cappuccinos from Grumpy, above, and Stumptown, below, look almost exactly alike, down to the cup.)
All in all, both of these were great cafes. I enjoyed Stumptown's coffee more, but the ambiance was nicer at the less uptight Cafe Grumpy.
Cafe Grumpy
224 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 255-5511
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
18 W. 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 679-2222
Cafe Grumpy is a surprisingly quiet little shop tucked away on West 20th Street. The set up is pretty no frills, but they do a good drink. My cappuccino had a nice, bright flavor and creamy texture. It was pretty standard third wave coffee fare, but the standard these days is high.Stumptown Coffee, along with Intelligentsia, was one of the pioneers of the Third Wave. Founded in Portland in 1999, they now have outlets in Seattle and the one I visited on 29th Street in Manhattan. I've never been to a Stumptown, so I was excited to try it. Quite the contrast to the casual Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown had a long line and sort of an industrial feel. The seating area is the ultra-cool lobby of the Ace Hotel. The coffee at Stumptown was superb. The cappuccino was perfectly balanced with just the right amount of tannic notes coming out in the cup. I had an espresso as well. It was darker than what I'm used to from Intelligentsia, which I personally enjoy in an espresso, even if it's against the norm these days. (Note that the cappuccinos from Grumpy, above, and Stumptown, below, look almost exactly alike, down to the cup.)
All in all, both of these were great cafes. I enjoyed Stumptown's coffee more, but the ambiance was nicer at the less uptight Cafe Grumpy. Cafe Grumpy
224 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 255-5511
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
18 W. 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 679-2222
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Whiskey Wednesday: Introducting The Single Cow Project
Usually I use this space for whiskey talk, but there has been an exciting development in the world of milk that simply cannot wait. Last week, the Buffalo Herd Dairy announced an innovative new program made especially to please the milk obsessives and dairy geeks among us. Over the next eight years, on a bi-weekly basis, the dairy will be releasing 785 single cow milks. Each batch comes from a single cow. Buffalo Heard Brand Ambassador Harlen Milky explained as follows:For the first time, we've eliminated all the variables so that consumers can taste the difference that each cow makes. People are always talking about various milk varieties, but they seldom think about factors like teat location, utter volume and other micro-factors that we have been able to isolate in this project. For instance, we've got some front teat only milk and some back teat only milk and they taste entirely different, same with right and left. In fact, you will be able to taste milk that comes from a single teat of each cow (the exclusive "single teat" bottlings.)
Other variables include cows treated with bovine growth hormone, cows massaged and bathed in beer and a choice few that have mad cow disease.
The milk will be released 20 at a time in gallon jugs for $45 per jug. As Milky says, "you really have to taste them all to make this project worthwhile." Consumers will be able to rate the milks on the dairy's website, and if the dairy finds one cow that is a favorite, they will continue to milk that cow, and the entire concept, for all it's worth.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Whiskey Wednesday: Know the New Knob
After busting open the boutique bourbon business in the '90s with their small batch collection, nothing new came out of Jim Beam for a decade or more, save the occasional commemorative bottle of Maker's Mark (a separate, but Beam owned distillery). Suddenly last year, though, the sleeping giant of American whiskey seemed to awake from its slumber.
First, without press or fanfare, Beam released a six grain bourbon for the duty free market. Then came the much publicized Maker's 46. This year, we've already gotten two new Beams on our shelves: Jim Beam Devil's Cut and Knob Creek Single Barrel, a single barrel, high proof version of the popular 9 year old that is the cornerstone of the small batch collection. I recently had a chance to sample the new Knob Creek.
Knob Creek Single Barrel, 9 years old, 60% abv ($40)
This has a big fat candy nose with caramel, chocolate and some honey and maple notes. It smells like a candy bar! Big corny flavor. Yes, this is definitely in the Beam family, no doubt about that. Even at a higher strength, it's got that light, sweet, corny flavor. Oak starts to come out mid-palate and sets in for the finish, though that corn syrup is still there too. I'd say this is a solid step up from the regular Knob; the extra abv gives it some heft, and I'm sure they are picking for barrels with some strong notes, but if you're not generally a fan of the Beam flavor profile, I doubt this will make you into one.
First, without press or fanfare, Beam released a six grain bourbon for the duty free market. Then came the much publicized Maker's 46. This year, we've already gotten two new Beams on our shelves: Jim Beam Devil's Cut and Knob Creek Single Barrel, a single barrel, high proof version of the popular 9 year old that is the cornerstone of the small batch collection. I recently had a chance to sample the new Knob Creek.
Knob Creek Single Barrel, 9 years old, 60% abv ($40)
This has a big fat candy nose with caramel, chocolate and some honey and maple notes. It smells like a candy bar! Big corny flavor. Yes, this is definitely in the Beam family, no doubt about that. Even at a higher strength, it's got that light, sweet, corny flavor. Oak starts to come out mid-palate and sets in for the finish, though that corn syrup is still there too. I'd say this is a solid step up from the regular Knob; the extra abv gives it some heft, and I'm sure they are picking for barrels with some strong notes, but if you're not generally a fan of the Beam flavor profile, I doubt this will make you into one.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
New York Report: Minetta Tavern
Every spring I get back to Manhattan (where I spent time as a student) and take some time to see what's new and fun in the Village and adjacent food scene; over the next few weeks, I'll be filling everyone in on my latest trip.
It seems that New York is busting with food, even more than usual if that's possible. There suddenly seem to be a million more gelato places than I remember in the Village, Eaterly (which I didn't get to this trip) towers over Chelsea and the food truck trend has definitely migrated east...I saw everything from a legit looking taco truck to a truck called Kimchi Tacos (gee, where did they come up with that concept?) One place I'd been meaning to get to since my last year's trip was Minetta Tavern in the Village to try their famous Black Label Burger made of all kinds of prime cuts of dry aged beef.
The Tavern has a great old-school feel with lots of polished wood. I arrived early as a walk-in and had no trouble getting a seat at the bar, where I enjoyed a house specialty Dodd Cocktail, a flip made with bourbon, absinthe and peach bitters; I love a good flip (guilty pleasures you know), and this was a smooth and lovely drink; foamy, cool and slightly fruity, it was the perfect thing for a hot New York afternoon. I was less pleased with the Maple Sazerac, a sazerac with maple liqueur. Any maple notes were drowned out by absinthe, which was of the artificially bright green and overly sweet variety (might have been La Fee). As a disclaimer though, I should say that I'm very picky about my sazeracs.
Then onto the burger. Instead of fries, I opted for the punched potatoes, smashed white potatoes fried in duck fat with rosemary and garlic. The burger, served with caramelized onions, was very good, cooked medium rare it was a nice bright red in the center. It had a rich meaty taste but was a bit less funky-beefy than I might have hoped for. It's a high quality burger, but it didn't strike me as a revelation. I'm not sure that it was significantly better than my favorite LA burgers, and at $26, it was $10 more than Comme Ca's burger, for one, though this is New York and a ten dollar mark up from LA is probably just par for the course. The potatoes were quite tasty, but again, not a revelation. I found myself wishing there had been more fried surface area and bits, that they had punched harder.
Overall, a fine meal in a nice atmosphere, but not one that I will be dreaming about.
Minetta Tavern
113 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
(212) 475-3850
It seems that New York is busting with food, even more than usual if that's possible. There suddenly seem to be a million more gelato places than I remember in the Village, Eaterly (which I didn't get to this trip) towers over Chelsea and the food truck trend has definitely migrated east...I saw everything from a legit looking taco truck to a truck called Kimchi Tacos (gee, where did they come up with that concept?) One place I'd been meaning to get to since my last year's trip was Minetta Tavern in the Village to try their famous Black Label Burger made of all kinds of prime cuts of dry aged beef.
The Tavern has a great old-school feel with lots of polished wood. I arrived early as a walk-in and had no trouble getting a seat at the bar, where I enjoyed a house specialty Dodd Cocktail, a flip made with bourbon, absinthe and peach bitters; I love a good flip (guilty pleasures you know), and this was a smooth and lovely drink; foamy, cool and slightly fruity, it was the perfect thing for a hot New York afternoon. I was less pleased with the Maple Sazerac, a sazerac with maple liqueur. Any maple notes were drowned out by absinthe, which was of the artificially bright green and overly sweet variety (might have been La Fee). As a disclaimer though, I should say that I'm very picky about my sazeracs.
Then onto the burger. Instead of fries, I opted for the punched potatoes, smashed white potatoes fried in duck fat with rosemary and garlic. The burger, served with caramelized onions, was very good, cooked medium rare it was a nice bright red in the center. It had a rich meaty taste but was a bit less funky-beefy than I might have hoped for. It's a high quality burger, but it didn't strike me as a revelation. I'm not sure that it was significantly better than my favorite LA burgers, and at $26, it was $10 more than Comme Ca's burger, for one, though this is New York and a ten dollar mark up from LA is probably just par for the course. The potatoes were quite tasty, but again, not a revelation. I found myself wishing there had been more fried surface area and bits, that they had punched harder.
Overall, a fine meal in a nice atmosphere, but not one that I will be dreaming about.
Minetta Tavern
113 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
(212) 475-3850
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