Category — nyc

Today is the first anniversary for Feast. One year in business is rarely a special occasion for anyone but the owners, but Feast is a special restaurant.

Some months ago I was having a dinner at Moto in Chicago and got into a conversation with a couple from London who wanted to know if the food served at Moto was widely accepted in the US. I did my best to provide some context: Chicago may have the most progressive diners in the country, but even Alinea relies on a steady stream of visitors who specifically seek out a special occasion meal. Something they normally wouldn’t eat in their hometown.

The couple from UK was a good example. They were clearly knowledgeable about food and made it a point to arrange their travel itinerary around various restaurants. They were genuinely thrilled that Chicago had a whole street (!) full of Vietnamese restaurants and listened with a certain level of disbelief when I described Houston’s Chinatown. The food at Moto blew them away and they marveled at just how open minded US diners must be.

They were even more surprised to learn that I had been to a restaurant in their own neighborhood in London. Living in Smithfield they had passed by St John countless times, but never went in. I tried to convince them that British food is finally getting the respect it deserves, and while it may not be “new” it’s certainly new to most people, but they seemed to have their doubts. Fergus Henderson may have touched off  one of the most important cooking directions today, but even he can’t necessarily convince people in his own neighborhood that British food is worth eating.

This is what makes the first anniversary of Feast a special occasion. The restaurant isn’t merely surviving, they have a loyal and growing following in Houston -  a city with virtually no tourists. Good things are happening to the dining scene in Houston in the midst of a recession and Feast is just one example.

I have written about Feast many times  before and not going to wax even more poetic about their charms. I do want to show a couple of exemplary dishes I had at Feast last night that highlight why it’s such a great place to eat.

Rabbit Shoulders Confit

If you have had the duck neck at Feast before, you’ll recognize the the cooking method used here. This dish is easier to eat and works even better, because there is enough meat to develop a whole range of texture – from tender to fully caramelized – as it slowly poaches in oil.

Smoked Barracuda Tail

The smoked Barracuda tail is the first smoked fish to appear on the Feast menu, but its already one of my favorite items. The meat is firm, sort of like a cross between whitefish and swordfish, but the best part is that the tailbones are coated in a nice bit of gelatinous fish fat. If you see this on a menu, order it. It will be the best $3 you have spent in a very long time.

Eating the local cats

Several days ago Randy Rucker left this comment to my post about Manresa:

guess you just forgot about “us” local cats…

I am sure Randy is only half serious – two weeks ago I had dinner at Rainbow Lodge, not once but twice in one weekend. Still, I wanted to reply in some detail.

[Read more →]

The same week Robb Walsh was in Brooklyn trying the pie at the original Grimaldi’s, I stopped by the newly opened location of the Grimaldi’s chain in Sugarland. My pizza didn’t look quite as awesome as the one Robb’s picture, but it was every bit as good as the location in Dallas I tried on my Ike induced hurrication.

The cheese and toppings are definitely of higher quality than Russo’s ( my more recent visit in January was my last) and the crust has a much better chew, perhaps as a result of the process our waiter called “reverse oxmosis” that brings the water used for the pizza dough as close to Brooklyn quality as possible.

The only possible problem with Grimaldi’s is the layer of slightly gummy dough beneath the toppings, which may be a side effect of the crust being just a little thicker than it should be. I actually like the texture, but not everyone is a fan. Better stay on the safe side and order your pizza with only one meat topping if you want to avoid liquid runoff from vegetables that adds to the gooey mess. 

Last time I was in NYC I couldn’t resist  trying Angelo’s Pizza on West 57th Street, which was about 8 blocks from my hotel. To my surprise I found that I prefer Grimaldi’s, chain restaurant guilt not withstanding. 

Angelo’s is considered to be one of the best coal fired pizzerias in NY and the pizza I had there was good, but the crust lacked the character of the pies served at Grimaldi’s. The terrible caprese salad didn’t help things either (in all fairness, salads at Grimaldi’s are equally bad).

I’ve never had the pizza at the original Grimaldi’s (we’ll have to wait for Robb to find out how the chain compares to the real thing), but this is definitely the best way to get your hands on NY style pizza without buying a plane ticket.

A discussion about New York restaurants on the Houston Chowhounds list made me think about my visit to WD-50 last year and a great episode of After Hours filmed in its kitchen. 

I expected After Hours to be full of New York food scene elitism. An even more insipid version of Dinner for Five, but with restaurateurs. Instead its just a couple of food geeks screwing around in the kitchen and serving up baby eels (why don’t they ever put that stuff on the menu?) to their friends. Daniel Boulud even seems genuinely interested in Wiley Dufresne ’s food experiments. No hint of superiority one would expect from an traditional French chef.

After Hours is a great show and the WD-50 episode is one of the best. Where else can you watch Daniel Boulud burn the desert and learn how to pronounce “clafouti” all in one scene?

To download the full version visit vuze.com

Like any proper food obsessed fanboy I am fascinated by things that go on in kitchens and After Hours lets you see a kitchen unlike any other. WD-50 is more like a lab than a kitchen, stocked with as many chemicals and Rube Goldberg machines as items humans might actually identify as food.

While the guests seem interesting enough, I had a lot more fun watching Dufresne teach Boulud how to make instant vanilla yogurt by combining pectin, syrup and milk. Prediction - within 5 years the Food Network is going to cancel the nonsense that has become of Good Eats and replace Alton Brown with a food chemist mixing edibles up in a lab. Every kid is going to want the Fisher Price Molecular Gastronomy Set with an optional thermal immersion circulator, which is going to become the biggest selling Christmas toy since the Furbie.

WD-50 is an interesting place. It’s your average neighborhood joint that serves avant-garde food that every red blooded American wants to have close to home. Searching for the address in New York I actually passed it several times because I thought it was a laundromat.

WD-50 does not seem like a restaurant chasing Michelin stars. You come here to eat. All dishes are available ala carte. Prices are downright affordable for the level of R&D that goes into the food. I made reservations, but at 7:30 there were plenty of seats inside. I walked in, grabbed a seat at the bar and never for a minute got the impression that I was at one of the best restaurants in NYC.

Slow poached egg, chorizo, pickled beets, dried black olives

WD-50 is a perfect example of how little molecular gastronomy, for lack of a better term, has to do with the science and chemicals, and how much of it is the art of isolating rare flavors in ways conventional cooking techniques simply do not allow. Foams, emulsions and gels show up on dishes at great restaurants such as Nana in Dallas, but there they seem foreign and forced in less capable hands.

Contrast that with one of the Wiley Dufresne’s creations I tried on my visit there and you walk away with a much better understanding of what he is trying to do. When I first tasted the eel dish at WD-50 I hit that space that only comfort food takes you - the flavor was reminiscent of etheral chopped liver that only Jewish grandmothers unafraid of chicken fat know how to make. I only later figured out that the brown stuff on the side of the eel was chicken skin emulsion.

Smoked eel, blood orange “zest”, black radish, chicken skin

How and why Dufresne choses to go where he does with flavors and textures doesn’t even matter as much as his brilliant ability to successfully combine something that triggers flavor memory with a dish built around eel - which no Jewish grandmother in her right mind would dare touch (is eel even Kosher?).

If food is supposed to take you on a journey, WD-50 does just that. I can’t wait to go back.

I continue to be impressed by Grant Achatz. After flirting the idea of opening an Alinea branch in New York he decided to focus on Chicago and did it for all the right reasons.

Alinea is one of the few restaurants where reach does not exceed the grasp. The food is highly conceptual, but it works, in a way that Cubism works for Picasso, but fails in lesser hands. It’s hard to replicate what Achatz does at Alinea without losing something in the process. No matter how faithful the franchise, eventually the Xerox effect takes over - the food might even still be good, but the whole never quite transcends the sum of its parts.

New York brings acclaim and limelight that only a world megacity can bring, but that’s not where food is at it’s best. When I think of the most progressive outposts of cuisine today it’s Chicago that comes to mind, not NYC. Alinea belongs in Chicago and judging by the success of the restaurant, Chicago deserves to have it all to itself.

Beef shortrib confit, dehydrated Guinness sheet, broccoli puree,
spiced peanut pudding, pink peppercorn, micro-cilantro