simon says french food blog

BERRA PIZZA LOGIC

By Joe Ray

BOSTON

It might be my inner Red Sox fan talking, but the best pizza we found in New York was in Boston.

This is completely unscientific but while in the city, I had to make a choice between burgers or pies and went with the former. Pizza stops were a bonus. Spills and all, Spunto was grand and Lombardi’s had fantastic toppings, but their crust must be an acquired taste.

Seeking a slice in Boston’s North End a few weeks later, we asked a Sox-capped local in front of a packed back street bar where to get a slice. The ‘slice’ part of the request gave him some trouble as he flipped through his mental Rolodex.

“Ah! Il Panino Express.”

Sold.

We ordered at the cafeteria-style counter, sat, bit and stared at each other in amazement.

She said: “This is better than New York.”

He said: “Yeah.”

Crisp crust, sweet sauce, a good dose of good cheese.

We’ll get ‘em next year.

Il Panino Express - MAP
264-266 Hanover St.
Boston
+1 (617) 720-5720

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

 

MONKS AT THE TABLE

MANHATTAN

By Joe Ray

There’s a lot to notice when we arrive at WD-50. The most outstanding is a booth of guys who look like they could be fraternity brothers, yet they’re silent as monks, paying close attention to what they’re eating; the antennae are up, they love the challenge.

You have to be up for the ride. Chef Wylie Dufresne bristles at the thought of preparing anything leaning toward making standard bistro fare for his customers. He’s just not interested.

What would he rather do? Stuff like floating plump scallops and pine needle udon in a bowl of grapefruit dashi. He deconstructs eggs benedict. He chars avocado. (?!?!) Even if his family is in the business you have to wonder how he thinks of this stuff, but when you put bites in your mouth, the combinations and preparations will stand hairs on end and leave you wondering how no one thought of it before.

Daniel Boulud’s kitchen at Daniel has a beautiful wall of spices sourced from around the world while Dufrene’s wall has pectins, starches and syrups. Yet the adjectives Dufresne cuisine inspires are words like ‘clean’ and ‘clear’ – you leave feeling like you’ve eaten a healthy Japanese dinner. His parsnip tart somehow makes me rethink my understanding of the vegetable. Parsnips!

Some argue the validity of this type of experimental cuisine - they should eat here to join the converted.

Finally, all hail Dufresne for having the confidence to keep and highlight the work of pastry chef Alex Stupak. Instead of a clash of egos (that would usually lead to the latter getting dumped), you just sit there and say ‘wow’ all meal long.

Count on about $65 plus drinks if you go à la carte. The tasting menu runs $140 plus $75 for wine pairing.

WD-50 – MAP
50 Clinton Street
New York
+1-212-477-2900
www.wd-50.com

Full disclosure: I ate at the restaurant while working on an upcoming story about Dufresne and his collaboration with chef Daniel Boulud. That said, Dufresne didn’t realize we were in the restaurant for dinner until dessert was over and the check was paid.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

FORK SLAPPING GOODNESS

MANHATTAN

By Joe Ray

I lied. I said there was ‘one’ NYC restaurant I’d really like to go back to eat in and, well, like I said…

Even at brunch a short while back, you could tell the new Le Pescadeux is a spot to watch: there’s a perfect smoked trout omelette and a steak and eggs that might stop your heart for multiple reasons at prices that won’t. And that’s not even counting Champagne and chats with Chuck.

Dinner’s what I’d really like to try, preferably with a partner for footsie. The restaurant’s fish-focused Quebec cuisine (harking back to owner Charles Perelmutter’s origins) is on display – and he’s breaking his new chef’s back to please by offering dinner ‘duets’ - a pair of half-sized portions – a great way to showcase what you can do and get a good new restaurant’s good name out there. Perelmutter chalks it up to “culinary A.D.D.”

I checked in with Perelmutter to find out about a chef change – the impressive Matthew Ridgway left and has been replaced by Adriano Ricco (clever poaching on Chuck’s part as Ricco’s done stints at BLT Fish and Tabla) – here’s what Chuck had to say about the ‘duet’ concept.

Even if I am in a great Seafood restaurant I get bored with my fish halfway through, and look to see what I can 'mooch' from others, usually with no success (people don't share anymore). I decided I would not be bored again and now I, and my guests, can enjoy 2 different half orders of fish prepared 2 different ways without getting their reaching fork slapped away.

Note the capitalization of Seafood.

Right now, I’d take the grilled octopus and Wild Rock bass with a little neck nage … kick the tires on a fun concept and see what the new chef can do.

Le Pescadeux - MAP
90 Thompson St
New York
212-966-0021
[email protected]

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

EYE FOOD

BROOKLYN

By Joe Ray

They could serve Spam in the can here and I’d still come back. With a view this good, it really doesn’t matter what you eat. At Alma, it’s all about the view of southern Manhattan from the roof.

I joined friends of mine here - they were nibbling away on sturdy Mexican food - and accidentally figured out a peculiar system that allows you to bypass the restaurant’s Mexican-themed drink offerings, get a tasty microbrew at the b61 bar downstairs (try the Sixpoint Ale), then walk it topside and enjoy it with your guacamole and fish tacos.

“It’s almost winter!” you cry?

No worries - the roof deck is still open on the weekend and imagine it to be just as blissful watching an autumn sunset or when the snow flies.

Alma - MAP
187 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
+1.718.643.5400

www.almarestaurant.com

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

EGGING FOR MORE

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN

By Joe Ray

Now that I’m back home and typing up a bushel of NYC blogs, the one place I really want to go back to is Brooklyn’s Fort Defiance. Not only are the drinks top notch, chef Sam Filloramo wowed me while, thanks to some sort of new restaurant timing/shipping glitches, he was still working from a half-empty* kitchen.

His deviled eggs were so good, I went home and told my mom about them and if that wasn’t enough to get me to want to go back, the ever-changing menu they now post on their Web site does: rabbit and chorizo hash, oysters Rockefeller, pan-fried catfish … my word. Apparently, they even do breakfast and all I can do is imagine the possibilities.

I’m interested to see how the combination of a serious drinks bar combined with chef who’s making his mark pans out. It can only be good.

Fort Defiance - MAP

365 Van Brunt St

Brooklyn, NY

+1 347-453-6672

www.fortdefiancebrooklyn.com

*Apparently, in mid-September, after the equipment arrived, a health inspector stopped in to check the kitchen and found gas equipment without gas service - like a car with an empty gas tank - and decided the restaurant would be better off closed for the week until they got the pipes hooked up… go figure.

Click here to see my Boston Globe Travel story, “Small Wonders” - featuring an interview with Fort Defiance owner and drinks expert St. John Frizell.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

Last Hours in New York

By François Simon

NEW YORK CITY

The party's almost over, it's time for me to leave New York. A visit to the Lowell Hotel (Member of the Leading Small Hotels of the World; 28 East 63rd St.; (212) 838-1400; www.lowellhotel.com), conveniently located just off Central Park, tucked away in a tree-lined enclave - is profoundly comfortable with a fireplace in certain rooms. There’s also a visit to Zabar's (2245 Broadway, between 80th and 81^st St.; www.zabars.com): an Aladdin's cave of cookware - highly recommended by our friend Gould. Thank you! Feeling petered out, hot and somewhat homesick … 

BLINK AND YOU’LL MISS IT.

The Food Leprechaun strikes again.

We found SoHo’s 10-seat Snack by walking in front of it - all three paces of the facade’s width. The name is odd for a sit-down Greek restaurant, but it’s a perfect lunch spot: the hummus is deep-flavored, brightened by lemon and there’s a fish roe spread that’s pure sea-salty goodness.

Two doors down, there’s an even tinier establishment – Porto Rico Importing – a four-seat coffee shop with three beautiful ladies holding court on a bench out front. We sit with them, sip an espresso and watch the world go by.

Snack - MAP
105 Thompson St, NYC
+1 (212) 925-1040

Porto Rico Importing
107 Thompson St. NYC

NYC: At The Four Seasons Restaurant, Taste the Sweet Thrill of Power

By François Simon

NEW YORK CITY

Here, you are at the foot of the Seagram Building (99 East 52nd St. and Park Ave.; (212) 754-9494), a prime example of the influence the Bauhaus had in New York. Here, you'll see only extremely serious looking gentlemen, the egghead type, admirably boring (very few women); they're probably congressmen, mayors… These are the characters who fall victim in our fantasy scenarios to corruption, violent death and perverse girlfriends They're gathered around very classical dishes like this wild salmon; the fish, at least, is quite honorable.

I was delighted by this episode because it carried with it a sort of irresistible atmosphere - the feeling of power or something like that - and I enjoy approaching it and feeling its sweet thrill. The setting is magnificent, though the grill is much nicer with the bar. The restaurant - on the other side - is more academic

Map  Web

New York: Lunch at the MoMA

By François Simon

NEW YORK CITY

This Sunday morning had a funny little taste to it. I found myself roaming the streets for hours. The rain stopped and out came the sun with its sticky thickness. I took shelter in the Museum of Modern Art, jumping from one room to the next to avoid groups and caterpillar-like queues before dropping into the museum restaurant.

At first, I regretted not having gone to the dining room that offers a view of the gardens. That's where you'll find the gastronomic restaurant ($ 55 for lunch; (212) 333-1220). I actually sat at the bar. Much better as it turned out with its fashionable small-plate snacks like this vegetable-lobster verrine. It was perfect.

I left feeling revived, all the more so because I'd found my lost copy Tom Wolfe 's "From Our House to Bauhaus." Then, I stopped by Tiffany's and came across a very funny elevator attendant. A man distractedly walked in and pushed the number for his floor – the 3rd floor. Expression of surprise on the capped employee's face: "Why don't you go ahead and push all the buttons… Want my cap, while you're at it?" The daydreamer looked stunned, the elevator car audience was delighted.

Map www.themodernnyc.com

THE NEW YORK CITY BURGER ATTACK – PART II

 

By Joe Ray

Our gang watched late-summer jazz in Madison Square Park, but eyes rolled when we saw the line at the Shake Shack. It snaked hundreds of feet from the order window out through the park gates.

“What about the secret burger place?” said Maria.

We all stared and she smiled and dragged her toe in the dirt like she might not share her secret. It was rather sexy.

We got her to spill the beans and six of us bolted uptown by bike and subway to the … Parker Meridien. A burger joint in one of the city’s fanciest hotels? Hard to figure.

The lobby was everything you’d expect: high ceilings, artwork and fancy bars and restaurants … but it smelled like burgers.

Sure enough. A David Lynch-esque floor-to-ceiling curtain juts out into the lobby concealing the secret space. Approach and you’ll notice a skinny corridor with a neon-sign hamburger and a right-pointing arrow at the end.

Inside, it’s night and day; the space looks like a cross between Arnold’s Drive-In from “Happy Days” and my fraternity house basement. The burgers are great -you get to choose the cooking temperature and usually, you can elbow your way to a just-opened table right when they call your order number.

A good burger joint in one of the city’s fanciest hotels. Go figure.

Count on around $15-20.            

Burger Joint – MAP
119 W 56th St
New York, NY
+1 212-708-7414

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-Trotting.

New York: Clean-Cut Corton

By François Simon

NEW YORK CITY

The most sought-after table in New York is called Corton and you immediately know why: a refined cuisine that delivers smart clarity free of any aggressiveness: vegetable salad, variations on lobster and a deconstructed Vacherin enhanced by litchi, honey and earl grey… The customers are reserved (a nice change from the vociferating hordes) and the wait staff anxiously watches over the tables. There's no denying that they're doing their utmost…

Corton: 239 West Broadway;  (212) 219-2777.  www.cortonnyc.com Map

KILL SOUP DUMPLING!!!

NEW YORK CITY

By Joe Ray

Years ago, when I cooked at the Left Coast’s Betelnut, a hidden army of wizened Chinese men would come in to roll dumplings in the basement. These quiet, artistic men were lost in their craft, turning dough into flat discs that, with a twist of the fingers, would encase whatever filling they put inside them: crustaceans, meat, vegetables, love.

They would make what seemed like thousands at a time and, unlike the other cooks in the kitchen, once that task was done, so were they.

Lucky bastards.

My first visit to Joe’s Shanghai was part of a get-to-know-you weekend with a former sweetie’s parents a decade ago. Then as now, there’s a reason the grease-splattered walls are festooned with pictures of mayors and glitterati with their arms swung around the owners: Joe’s dumplings are the bomb.

Instead of searing something (like a steak) and hoping all the tasty juices stay inside, here, the pork and crab goodness is held neatly inside the dumpling.

Skewer one with a chopstick and sip the juice that fills the spoon, or take a bite and blush as it runs down your chin.

Shudder with happiness as you swallow. 

Joe’s Shanghai - count on about $10-15

http://www.joeshanghairestaurants.com/ - while on their site, do not miss the “Kill Soup Dumpling” video.

Three Locations – I went to Chinatown - MAP

9 Pell Street
New York, New York 10013
+1-212-233-8888

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

DID SOMEBODY SAY NEW YORK?

 By Joe Ray

NEW YORK CITY

Time to toot our own horns!

Last Friday, Simon Says was mentioned in the New York Times 'Diner's Journal' section - our third NYT mention in less than a year! - read it here.

Next, my NYC food and drink centric story and photo set - "Small Wonders" - ran Sunday in The Boston Globe's Travel section.

A blurb...

Across the river, I walk into Fort Defiance, a new bar that’s a subway, bus, and world away from Manhattan in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood .

WHAM, WHAM, WHAM!!! Behind the bar, St. John Frizell, the owner, clubs a cloth bag of ice with a large wooden mallet to make a drink called the prescription julep, an 1857 recipe that blends cognac and rye whiskey, which are poured into a metal shaker cup and topped with a sprig of mint and a cherry. If it sounds a bit froufrou - like there should be a little umbrella shading the ice - instead, it looks perfect, almost serious, like something to pay attention to while you drink it.

Read the whole story here.

NEW FORMS OF PIE SLINGING

By Joe Ray

NEW YORK CITY

Alystyre had been wearing her brand new, straight-from-Barcelona pink espadrilles for about an hour when the waiter launched a pizza onto them.

You’d think it would happen in slow motion: the pizza wobbling back and forth in the waiter’s hand and both of them wide-eyed for the impending disaster. Instead, it was over in a flash with the pie on her shoes.

Spunto’s staff handled it perfectly. The manager whisked Alystyre away, dabbing her duds with a towel soaked in mineral water for a good 20 minutes. In the meantime, they sent a new pitcher of beer over to our table of six.

The pizza, particularly the thin-crusted mushroom version, laced with a judicious splash of truffle oil (something I don’t usually go in for) was the best we had while in the city, easily trumping the Lombardi’s we had on another night.

The bill, which included three pizzas, two pitchers of beer and a Coke had a big “X” through it. Normally, it would cost about $20 per person. Our total: $0.

We left a big tip.

Spunto - MAP
65 Carmine St.
New York
www.spuntothincrust.com
+1 212 242 1200

La Manual Alpargatera Espadrilles - MAP
C/. Avinyó, 7 - 08002 Barcelona
Tel. 93 3010172
www.lamanualalpargatera.com

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

BURGERS FOR BREAKFAST -- THE NEW YORK CITY BURGER ATTACK PART I

Manhattan,
By Joe Ray

“The Shake Shack?” asked a friend, “That place is a gimmick.”

I brought another friend when I went. We had burgers for breakfast.

That might be a bit of a stretch, but not by too much. We got there at around 11. On a nice day, the Shack has a line that stretches clear across Madison Square Park. I have no idea how long you’d have to wait, but I’ve got no desire to find out.

We ordered two cheeseburgers and two black and whites and, feeling generous, I told my pal I’d pick up the tab.

“Twenty three dollars,” said the woman at the register.

Ai-yeeee!

It’s still worth it as a special treat. Plus, it’s a good burger and I had struck out looking for really good burgers on a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. It’s not perfect, but there’s a friend, a seat in the park and a happy mouthful.

Shake Shack - MAP
Madison Square Park (not to be confused with the faraway Madison Square Garden)
www.shakeshacknyc.com

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN

By Joe Ray

NEW YORK CITY

Celebrating Eating The Motherland’s 100^th (or so) post, we’re heading to New York!           

Want dining as entertainment? All the show you need is on display at Buddakan. Outed by “Sex and The City” and now (Fortunately? Unfortunately?) full of mini Carrie Bradshaws, I’m not normally a big fan of this form of pomp and glam, yet here I ate it up; it’s impossible to stand at the top of the stairway and not look slack-jawed into the dining pit.

For its part, the food is up to the task, but the food is not why you come. Buddakan is an East Coast cousin to Betelnut – the San Francisco beautiful people restaurant where I once worked as a cook – it’s high end Asian fusion that’s very well thought out like long beans with shrimp and soy and a rather exquisite Peking duck salad served French style with frisée and a poached egg.

There are a few cracks showing. A pricey martini arrives with miraculous speed from the packed bar yet it’s barely cold. I’ll leave more than half of it on the table at the end of the night.

Later, our astute waiter asks about our appetizers.

Me: I really liked the duck.

Him: Yes, the duck salad is quite good.

We both intentionally left out the short ribs.

These are quibbles. We were here for the show and got it in spades – Carrie might have to elbow her way back in, but she won’t be disappointed. Dinner also turned out to be rather reasonably priced for a special treat kind of place – about $50 per person with drinks and a doggy bag full of lunch for the next day.

 

Buddakan - MAP
75 9th Ave, New York, NY‎
(212) 989-6699‎
www.buddakannyc.com

 

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.