The Food Maven Diary
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A Few Local Restaurants
I thought it was about time I wrote about some New York and New York metro restaurants. I'm not eating out much these days, at least compared to the frequency I used to when I was a restaurant critic. But I do eat out sometimes, when I have a reason to, like I need a day off from the kitchen, I have guests, I have friends who drag me out. After 35 years of enforced restaurant-going, I have to say I am happy to stay home and eat my own food. At least I wake up in the morning knowing I am going to eat well, or well-enough, which is not the case when you eat out. Tonight I am having Italian-style vegetable soup – call it minestrone -- with pasta cooked right in the soup, and some well-chilled, wine-poached pears -- my grandmother's recipe. That's it.
THE BROOKLYN DINER AT TIMES SQUARE
It's a pretty delicious way to do penance for last night's overindulgence at the new Brooklyn Diner on 43rd St. just east of Broadway. La Baronessa, Cecilia, is in town, along with her cousin, the adorable Marinella, plus her sister, my good friend Enrica, and a friend of Enrica's who I have yet to meet. Silvia was too tired to go out last night, and as she and Enrica are staying elsewhere, we haven't yet laid eyes on each other.
The women wanted to eat something American, and I couldn't think of a better place to do that than Shelly Fireman's second Brooklyn Diner. The original Brooklyn Diner is on 57th St. and Seventh Ave. This newer one opened in the fall and has pretty much the same menu.
When I arrived, I found my Italian ladies sitting at the counter drinking Martinis. They didn't realize the counter is more a fountain than a bar. They looked chicly out of place in their simple, classic-cut custom knitwear and bold jewelry – a very Salernitana look -- holding Martini stems instead of soda fountain glasses.
"We couldn't think of what else to drink?" Cecilia said sheepishly. Usually, she doesn't drink alcohol at all. Even a little wine can upset her stomach. But, she said, a Martini seemed the right thing in the middle of Manhattan. I told her that at this bar an egg cream would have been more appropriate. She made a disgusted face. Even at the end of the meal, as dessert, this usually adventurous eater wouldn't even take a sip. The idea of a milky soda turned her stomach. I kept telling her that they make the best egg creams in town at the Brooklyn Diner. No exaggeration, but no deal.
Anyway (allora) … When we got to the table, we ordered Pigs in a Blanket to go around. They are made with hunks of the Diner's famous, gargantuan, well-spiced hot dog wrapped in puff pastry. The ladies adored them, as they did the Buffalo Chicken Wings. They especially loved the story of how it is Buffalo, New York's bar food, and has nothing to do with the animals. As Cecilia is a water buffalo breeder and farmer, indeed the largest and most important in the province of Salerno, we did make some lame jokes about buffalo, bison, wings, and mozzarella. Don't ask. They called the hot sauce, "la salsa di peperoncino," which made me giggle. And I'd forgotten how good the Diner's blue cheese dressing is. I happily dunked in with the celery sticks, which is what you do to quell the fire of the salsa di peperoncino.
To round out their experience with American bar food, we also ordered guacamole. At Brooklyn Diner it comes out in a molcajete, the black lava bowl it is made in, stuck with many blue-corn tortilla chips. It looks like a black-purple rose. They went crazy for blue corn tortilla chips. They never knew corn came in any color other than yellow. And the guacamole to them was a delicacy: Enrica pointed out that avocados are twice the price in Italy as here.
It was an evening of gasps and pleasures. The Brooklyn Diner's burger comes with an avalanche of fried potatoes and fried onions.
The Chinese Chicken Salad, the recipe for which is right here (just click on that name), is a mountainous heap of Napa cabbage and chicken capped with fried rice noodles. (The noodle garnish is not in the recipe on this site: To prepare them, heat 2 inches of peanut oil in a skillet to 400 degrees (it won't be smoking but it will be very close to the smoking point. If the oil begins to smoke, immediately remove the pan from the heat and add a little more oil to cool it down a few degrees. Fry the noodles, about 2 ounces, which is quite a lot, in small batches until they puff up and become crisp, which is immediately. Remove from the oil with tongs. Drain on paper towel or brown paper.)
The salad with grilled salmon has enough fish to feed a family of four -- by Italian standards. I had the most modest looking dish, the macaroni and cheese, which we all agreed was very much like the one at Harry's Bar in Venice. The reference didn't make it any more delicious. It didn't need to be.
And then there was the lemon meringue pie passing by, a monumentally proportioned topper of egg whites sculpted into a stepped pyramid. They had to have that. I had to have an egg cream – my digestivo, they pointed out.
Tempo, in Park Slope
I am told that I am unusual in my desire to stay in my own neighborhood even when I want to have a meal that is more … let's say adult ... than the usual Brooklyn neighborhood experience. Other people, it seems (actually, I sort of know), don't want to spend real money in their own neighborhood. They want to go to Manhattan to spend money.
Because I have become such a homeboy, however, I have been a big fan of Tempo, 256 5th Ave, between Carroll St. and Garfield Place (718-636-2020), in my very own neighborhood of Park Slope. Chef Michael Fiore is a wonderful cook and he offers a menu with a few Italian-inspired items, a few Moroccan-inspired items, and some items that are just inspired, or at the very least, very well cooked. The service is professional and somewhat formal, but not stuffy. Proper is a friendlier word. They don't (well, not usually) blare hard-beat music into the room. The tables are large and not too close together. In other words, you can talk comfortably. The room is coolly contemporary, but not affected. For all these reasons, I like going when I am willing to splurge a little, to pay a little extra for these niceties. I like bringing guests here, too, to show that in Brooklyn we are not just about hamburger joints, little ethnic restaurants, or hipster bistros, lounges, and bars. Not that there is anything wrong with those.
Most people are apparently not like me, however. That is one possible reason that Tempo has not fully succeeded at being the high-level restaurant it is. It's a big space to fill and it's hard to fill it every night. To that end, Tempo has just started a new menu and pricing policy. It has a $25 fixed price, three-course menu from Monday through Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, the menu is $35. Tempo's sensational porterhouse steak for two is now $48 a person for a three-course dinner.
It's a fine menu for $25, but I have to say I am a little disappointed in the change. It has too many starch-based main courses, meaning pasta and rice, especially considering that some of the appetizers are starch-based, too. That said, avoiding paying a supplement for lamb or orata, I had a very nice meal the other night.
Do try the sweet pea flan as a first course. I also enjoyed the wild salmon encrusted with whole and crushed spices, although I would ask for it to be undercooked next time. Salmon is hardly ever rare enough for me. Tempo has mostly wonderful gelati – well, sometimes the flavor combos are a bit weird for my conservative palate – and they serve a wonderful toffee cake.
David Drake in Rahway, New Jersey
A couple of weeks ago, my friend James Carrozza, the Cake Chef of Staten Island (Jewitt Ave., off the corner of Victory Blvd.) schlepped me to Rahway, N.J., for lunch. I viewed the trip as an adventure, and a welcome respite from testing recipes all day, and an opportunity to carouse with and give my full attention to James without the magnetic attraction/distraction of his fabulous wife, Maria, and two fascinating children, Salvatore and Armando. Usually, we do family things together. I did wonder, however, why we needed to go all the way to Rahway to get away from them all.
"It's only 20 minutes from the bakery," James countered, "and I think this place is going to surprise you."
In fact, all of Rahway, not just David Drake's romantic restaurant, surprised me. Who knew this town was going through revitalization and redevelopment. Actually, the New York Times did. The week after we went to Rahway, the Times had a whole page on the town. The town's new New Jersey Transit railway station is beautiful and only 37 minutes from Penn Station. That's why the mayor and other town fathers are trying to sell the town to young professionals who need to be near Manhattan, but not necessarily live there. A new combination office building-condominium is going up very fast. The old stores in the town center are being vacated and are renting for high prices in anticipation of the hoped-for Yuppie onslaught. Good luck Rahway. You already have one great restaurant.
If the name David Drake sounds familiar, it's because he was the executive chef in a restaurant in Scotch Plains that I used to do commercials for on WOR. I was fond of David's food then. I am fonder now. The restaurant itself, in a mid-19th century building, has been beautifully restored and decorated in a contemporary romantic style, with handmade this and that, dark colors, and comfortable seating on two floors. The service is polished. (See how the bus boy holds a napkin so as not to splash water when he pours it.)
David's food is refined but very flavorful, relatively straightforward but with little touches that make it memorable, and I have to say … oh well, fancy. Maybe the portions are small for some people, but I found my three-course lunch – with a few on-the-house pre-appetizer tidbits (amuse bouche, in French) – satisfying enough to skip dinner.
David Drake's menu changes regularly, according to the season's market, so don't count on eating anything I mention. For instance, as an appetizer, both James and I ordered white asparagus with sautéed morels, a dish that is in season for maybe a month. A suave and creamy leek and potato soup was garnished with ramps, which are wild leeks (or garlic, depending on whose definition you abide), and their season has about ended already, too. I had pork cutlets Milanese with mashed potatoes and tiny Brussels sprouts, and that's not a late spring dish either. James loved his fettuccine with scallops so much, he went back the next week to eat it again, only to find Drake had changed the menu again.
On the dinner menu that I am looking at now, at my desk, I see several things I would be very happy to eat: Pekin (sic) duck breast with shrimp and seasonal vegetable fricassee, in a shellfish and tamarind sauce; potato gnocchi with porcini, English peas, and a sherry-game vinaigrette; black-trumpet (that's a mushroom) crusted loin of lamb with fiddleheads, green asparagus, and goat cheese fondant. Like that. Creative, but grounded. I think.
There is one dish that is always on the menu; lucky James because it's his favorite dessert. A bowl of papaya "consommé" – let's say a fruit broth – comes with a scoop of coconut ice cream. It's incredibly refreshing. It's what a professional baker wants as a change of pace. I mean James bakes and eats great cakes, pastries and cookies every day. (By the way, early this fall, he's opening a new bake shop, The Cookie Jar, where he will display his collection of hundreds of collectable cookie jars.
Lunch at David Drake is à la carte and will probably cost about $60 a person for three courses with no wine. The three-course dinner is $54, the only possible supplement being an added cheese course for $7. David's six-course tasting menu is $85, $130 with wine pairings. Restaurant David Drake is at 1449 Irving St., Rahway; 732-388-6677.
