Archive for the ‘In The Neighborhood’ Category
April 3, 2012
My interest in food that originates from the ground (and not, let’s say, the teet or the slaughterhouse) is relatively new. I remember interviewing a coworker about her favorite types of food and typing, with disgust, that she loves Spring and Summer because of the wares from her garden. She was team veggie. I was team butter-rosemary-garlic-chicken-pork. Especially pork.
Two things changed. First, this damn locavore movement. I’d made some recent life decisions that propelled me from everything I’d known for three years. (I left a church.) Somehow I knew that my next step in life would involve community and food. I whimpered a few blocks over to my friend Susan (a master of both) who thrust that Pollan book into my hands. I’d be studying a new gospel.
Second, a prescription. Over the years, my experimentation with fresh produce brought me to an understanding with the Lord that heartburn and itchy lips were a sign from above that I should not veer from my butter-rosemary-garlic-chicken-pork diet. In an act of defiance, I stumbled from my faith in pork and tried modern science. And my doctor giveth me Prilosec. And I was happy. (And fatter; not only could I consume tomatoes without pain, but also white wine: an entire food group I’d been fasting from for years.)
And guess what? Now I like salads! (And butter-rosemary-garlic-chicken-pork. You can like both! There’s a gray area in life, a concept that I’ve paid many a shrink to help me discover.)
There’s also a pink area. And a gooey and awesome bright yellow area, once you break open that heavenly soft poached egg (that somehow went straight from one of God’s creatures and directly into the kitchen at Sage American Bistro). This, friends, is my favorite salad in Columbus. It combines animals and plants. There’s no dilemma here: just eat it in a way that doesn’t involve lifting the plate and dumping it directly into your mouth. Try to use utensils. Each bite magically contains hearty smoky bacon in thick but bite-size pieces, that aforementioned warm egg, soft hidden morsels of goat cheese, pickled onion, freshly cracked peper and a tangy dressing. It’s cool. It’s warm. All salads should be like this. And once Michael Pollan is President of Food, Chef Glover needs to be given some sort of cabinet position involving pork.
(more…)
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
Tags:Columbus, Latitude 41, leaving the church, locavore, Pollan, Sage American Bistro, salads, Wayward Seed Farm
Posted in Columbus, Ohio, In The Neighborhood, Roots, Table Service, Under The Table | 2 Comments »
April 2, 2012
The Subject: A-B-C grilled cheese, from Buttermilk Channel.
In Buttermilk Channel‘s world, A is for apple, B is for bacon, and C is for cheddar, an alphabet I wholeheartedly condone. Nonetheless, the rest of the brunch menu—the warm lamb and romaine salad‘s combination of fried capers, roasted cauliflower, and anchovy dressing is my damsel-in-distress begging for rescue; the fried pork and waffle, a deep-fried chop from a mysteriously gargantuan species of pig, paired with a cheddar-laced waffle, speaks for itself—had always proved too much to resist.But this time around, still full from a weekend of decadent dining, I was finally in the mood for something a touch lighter.
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:Brooklyn, Buttermilk Channel, grilled cheese, sandwiches
Posted in In The Neighborhood, New York City, Sandwich Spotlight, Table Service | 1 Comment »
March 19, 2012
Hey, remember our ramen obsession? Rest assured that it’s still going strong. Fear of sounding like a broken record has kept me from reporting on every bowl of noodles I eat, but this one deserves a mention.
Though Ippudo is still my hands-down favorite, 15-month-old Totto is just a couple of blocks from the office and ideal for a quick, indulgent lunch. Buyer beware, though: Much like Ippudo, Totto has its own rabid following—go solo, during off-peak hours, for the least frustrating experience. After a ten-minute wait on a recent (very cold) afternoon, I snagged a seat at the counter and watched the staff torch slices of pork belly and stir steaming vats of broth until my soup arrived.
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:Midtown, NYC, ramen, restaurants
Posted in In The Neighborhood, New York City, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
March 13, 2012
Jill: Do or Dine oozes of hip. We’re talking the kind of hip that never crosses my radar, aside from the occasional interaction with folks who happen to work at Abercrombie & Fitch’s design department. The servers wear yellow hip-huggers with tassles and drink tall boys of Coor’s Light before and after each trip to your table. The kitchen staff looks like Mario or Luigi or both. And the menu descriptions are abrupt and full of intentional misspellings that if you don’t get then we’re not going to tell you. It’s a place where everyone wears whatever replaced Urban Outfitters and American Apparel once that stuff went out of style. And it’s a restaurant that I would have felt extremely uncomfortable in had I not shown up already warmed up by a bottle of wine with Maya at Sample.
Maya: I would’ve been similarly trepidatious if this restaurant had opened in Williamsburg, say, but Do or Dine is located catty-corner from my old apartment. I obsessively monitored the restaurant’s progress while it was in the construction and renovation stages, and I’d been in the neighborhood longer than most of its arriviste hipster clientele—both of which made me utterly and misguidedly proprietary. A meal or three during the summer, before the back patio was completely packed every night and while the place was still BYOB, didn’t hurt.
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Do or Dine
Posted in In The Neighborhood, New York City, Table Service | 3 Comments »
February 24, 2012
When I see caprese salad, asparagus with hollandaise or cucumber salad on a winter menu, I mentally categorize the dining establishment as one of those whose walk-in coolers are filled to the brim with plastic containers of pre-made distributor-sourced foodstuffs. Side dishes speak volumes about how a restaurant sources its food and what makes a chef tick. Coleslaw year round? That guy spends his free time watching Dancing with the Stars. He drives an SUV and only gets emotional during professional sporting events. The chef who dabbles in broccoli rabe, kale and the beloved tuber lives a different sort of life. He (or she) probably dabbled in the arts — french horn? pottery? poetry? — before deciding to make a living hovering over his (or her) knives and cutting board, turning brussels sprouts and smoked meats from single notes to entire symphonies.
While there’s a difference between seasonal and local on a menu, my respect goes out to those who attempt one or both.
I’m not the most astute at observing (or writing about) trends, but I’ve noticed that the potato, in hash form, has received much attention on my favorite menus this winter. Has it always been there, and I’m just starting to notice? I can’t say. But it’s the perfect venue for cool weather veggies and my treasured winter meats, and is often the reason I choose a dish. Like snowflakes, each is unique. Let’s take a look.
1. Short Rib Hash at Buttermilk Channel, Brooklyn
With a 2:1 beef-to-potato ratio in its hash, Buttermilk Channel — one of my favorite stops in Brooklyn — definitely knows how to make a potato seem glamorous. Served alongside lightly dressed greens, the dish is well balanced: heavy meets light, green meets beige and brown. The beef is seasoned with cinnamon and topped with a salted egg. And the soft texture of the potatoes is embellished with crispy bits of beef, scraped from the bottom of the pan, reminiscent of childhood dinners of pot roast. And if one can ever be excited about carrots, this is the time.
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:brunch, Buttermilk Channel, Columbus, Friday Five, Grand Rapids, hash, Michigan, sage, Skillet, Tip Top
Posted in Columbus, Ohio, Destination: Appetite, Friday Five, In The Neighborhood, Michigan, New York City, Table Service, The Fifty | 1 Comment »
February 10, 2012
Jill: Brooklyn Flea: the weekly market that fittingly sells repurposed and crafty wares in a bank repurposed as a three-floor mall, filled to the brim with furniture, boots, hand towels and jewelry that we can only dream of owning and with people who are way cooler than you or I will ever be. Maya and I visited this past December with a mission: to visit as many of the basement food vendors as humanly possible. And although I became momentarily distracted and purchased a porcupine-screened tea towel, we completed our task with precision and professionalism. (Porcupines are obviously the new bacon-owl-mustache. Duh.)
Maya: Though the allure of the Flea has diminished for me (thanks both to the ubiquity of the mobile vendors and to my awareness of what vintage goods bought at flea markets should cost), it was worth the trip just to introduce Jill to some of New York’s premiere food-truck players. Today’s Friday Five highlights some of the things we managed to stuff in our beaks.
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:Brooklyn, Brooklyn Flea, food vendors, NYC
Posted in Bargain Bin, Friday Five, In The Neighborhood, New York City, Shacks, Carts & Trucks, Table Service | 1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
When I started coming up with a list of topics for my Freelance Diet series, I never imagined that lobster would qualify for inclusion: That crustacean hasn’t screamed “budget cuisine” since the days when it was known as poverty food and only deemed suitable for prisoners and indentured servants.
To say things have changed would be an understatement, but fortunately for the modern-day lobster-lover, deals are still there if you know where to look—or even if you don’t. It’s not just $29 rolls (or even $14 rolls, for that matter) in this town.
(more…)
Like this:
2 bloggers like this post.
Tags:Chinatown, deals, lobster, NYC
Posted in Bargain Bin, In The Neighborhood, New York City, Table Service, The Freelance Diet | Leave a Comment »
January 23, 2012
One of my favorite Twitter hashtags is #firstworldproblems. For the Twitter uninitiated, it’s typically used when someone is complaining about bourgeois or tedious day-to-day issues that are not actually problems, a self-effacing nod to having the good life. So when I say that I needed a vacation from my vacation, I hereby acknowledge the ridiculousness of the statement. Nonetheless, it was true. After ten days of non-stop travel (during half of those one or both of us were sick), Ben and I needed a way to recover from our trip to London. We needed to rest. Luckily, I’d anticipated this happening, and booked a weekend stay at the Inn at Cedar Falls for the weekend after we’d return home.
This? It’s the opposite of the near panic attack I had on an over-crowded, over-heated Picadilly line where I accidentally stepped on a woman’s foot before hitting her head with my bag. And, happily, it’s only about an hour and a half from my house. In recent experiences, a trip to the destinations within the Hocking Hills of Southeast Ohio can seem like a trip to Disney World, with lines of crying children and gossipy octogenarians. And to be honest, Cedar Falls (which incidentally, has no cedars nearby), was no different.
(more…)
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
Tags:#firstworldproblems, bed and breakfast, day trips, Hocking Hills, Inn At Cedar Falls, Ohio
Posted in Columbus, Ohio, In The Neighborhood, Table Service | Leave a Comment »
December 2, 2011
Shortly after Jill got her first iPhone, we traveled to Vermont together, and I’ll admit—I just didn’t get it. In lieu of providing her with street names when I was in charge of navigation, Jill urged me to follow the blue dot on the Maps app; “iPhone says” became a commonly heard phrase in our Mustang rental. And then, a year later, I got my own and became an instant convert. While I might not refer to mine in the third person, I am similarly addicted. Today’s Friday Five pays tribute to the New York-centric food apps that keep me (even more) glued to my touchscreen.
1. The Scoop.
While categories devoted to bars, coffee shops, events, and day trips out of the city make this New York Times app the most well-rounded of the bunch, I particularly love the Sifty Fifty section—ex-restaurant-critic Sam Sifton’s top fifty dining destinations in the city, complete with a checklist and sharing options. (No word yet on whether or not his replacement will be renaming the column, but with “Wells” as a surname, the possibilities are endless.)
(more…)
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Tags:apps, Friday Five, iPhone
Posted in Friday Five, In The Neighborhood, New York City | Leave a Comment »
