August 29, 2010
Most New Yorkers think of the South Street Seaport as a crowded tourist destination, best left to out of towners. But just behind the seaport are some often, overlooked restaurants worth discovering. This part of the Seaport is where the real downtown hustle happens.Suteishi
Address: 24 Peck Slip
Phone: (212)766-2344
Suteishi doesn't look or taste like your average sushi restaurant. For starters, it's outfitted with floor to ceiling windows, futuristic walls, and a sleek, red and gold sushi bar. But if the sushi weren't so fresh, the romantic decor wouldn't matter, at least not to us. Look past the usual, sushi suspects and take advantage of more unusual offerings, like yellowtail toro, salmon toro and King crab. We highly recommend the red snapper sushi, crowned with yuzu gelatin, squid with uni, and the sea scallop with spicy tobiko. Other unique dishes, include green tea soba soup, a black cod hot pot, as well as "hot rock" entrees with your choice of Portobello mushroom, shrimp or filet mignon. There's an extensive sake list with some wonderful unfiltered sakes.
Acqua at Peck Slip
Address: 21 Peck Slip
Phone: (212)349.4433
Outdoor seating is prime real estate in New York, and this is one of the most charming al fresco spots we've stumbled upon this far downtown. Request an outside table at Acqua (pictured above) and a glass of Prosecco at this lively Italian seafood eatery. But no matter what time of year, this is a great spot to linger over a bowl of linguine alla bottarga, antipasti or finely charred pizzas. But our favorites dishes on the menu are the crab salad comes and the Pizza Bianca alla Robiola, topped with speck and white truffle.
Cowgirl Sea HorseAddress: 259 Front St.
Phone: (212)608-7873
From the owners of Cowgirl in the West Village, Cowgirl Sea Horse (pictured right) is serving up its own brand of Tex-Mex grub with an emphasis on seafood. The menu at this casual, culinary canteen features "Pearl Street Oysters," -- a little like Oysters Rockefeller with a Texas twist. These are baked in a cilantro-lime butter and topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan. By far, the best thing on the menu are the catfish and oyster Po' Boys, fried in tasty mix of crackers and cornmeal, and served on a buttery bun
MarkJoseph Steakhouse
Address: 261 Water St.
Phone: (212)277-0020
Located on a sleepy cobblestone street, MarkJoseph Steakhouse is a little hard to find, but well worth it. Owner Charlie Blair learned a thing or two about grilling a well-charred porterhouse, while working as the general manager at Peter Luger before going off on his own. They make great hashbrowns, creamed spinach and steak fries to accompany all of their full-flavored meats. But not many steakhouses can boast homemade mozzarella and a memorable tuna tartar.
Salud
Address: 142 Beekman St.
Phone: (212)566.2220
If you want to make a festive night of the Seaport, this is the perfect place to dine. There's live music in the dining room, vibrant cocktails, and an extensive collection of Latin American dishes. The restaurant looks like a Southern Plantation with tall ceilings, white railings and palm trees scattered around the dining room. There's lots of great cocktails -- mojitos, margaritas, sangria and caiprinhas -- to start with, while wandering the tapas-focused menu. In fact, you don't have to commit to any entree with tapas-sized paella, mini-Cuban sandwiches and little lobster tacos. Our favorite dish on the menu is the Ceviche Ecuatoriano with a tart, spicy, citrus, and sweet mix of shrimp and luscious guacamole.
August 26, 2010
This is one of those times I wish I lived on the Upper East Side. Ever
since Simply Peeled opened a few weeks ago, I want to move. (I’m only
half-kidding.) The Upper East Side has just become home to a unique, new frozen dessert so delicious it may have the downtown set breaking their “no traveling north of 14th street rule.” Now, I’ve been smitten with Mister Softee and his vanilla soft serve since I was a kid. If there’s no truck in sight, I’ll cop to ducking into Pinkberry for tart frozen yogurt on occasion. But I really never thought frozen fruit could be so downright addictive. Simply Peeled serves soft-serve frozen fruit with the silky, smooth texture of soft ice cream and the clean, crisp flavor of fruit. It’s called Fruizo and it’s creamy, light and luscious. That’s not the best part. The best part might just be toppings, like warm, organic peanut butter, wasabi peas, and even chips & salsa.Fruizo sets a new standard for frozen treats: It's made from just fresh fruit, filtered water and organic cane sugar. A four-ounce serving clocks in at less than 100 calories. And it’s non-dairy, gluten free, fat free, organic, vegetarian, guilt free and exactly what we have been looking for. It’s hard to believe anything this craveable could be so healthy. Simply Peeled is the brainchild of four friends -- Michael Sloan, Chloe & Jason Epstein and Lauren Browne -- brought together by their quest to find a healthy alternative to the crack-like desserts they all love to eat. Not many soft-serve spots have scratch & sniff wallpaper, rustic, checkerboard floors, and wooden fruit bins strategically scattered about the space. The three seasonal flavors right now are mango, strawberry, and my favorite, banana, which all somehow taste fruitier then the fruit they’re made of.
Of course, you can get your Fruizo plain, but everything is even better with accessories. We love the strawberry Fruizo with wasabi peas because it’s spicy, sweet and just plain exotic. The mango Fruizo crowned with tortilla chips and salsa bears an uncanny, frozen resemblance to mango salsa. The Crunchy Salty Sundae is a mind-blowing -blend of banana Fruizo, chocolate chips, banana slices, pretzels and warm gooey peanut butter sauce. With its sudden, new cult following, Simply Peeled is the next big things in frozen treats. Fro-yo is so 2008.
August 25, 2010
Last week's sleek popsicle molds inspired a search for other inventive gadgets for making frozen treats. There's only one frozen dessert we love as much as popsicles and that's ice cream sandwiches. And apparently, we're not the only ones who feel this way. The mix-and-match ice cream sandwiches at The Meatball Shop, located in the East Village, are just as popular as their meatballs, With this ice cream sandwich maker (pictured right), you can make your own ice cream sandwiches whenever the craving strikes. The possibilities are limitless. You can make a peanut butter and strawberry ice cream sandwich, a chocolate chip mint, or snickerdoodles with moosetracks. Just bake a freshly baked batch of cookies and use the cookie cutter to create equally sized triangles for the two cookie layers. Use the mold to combine the cookies and ice cream together, remove the plunger, turn the sandwich maker upside down and let it rest until the sandwich slides out of the mold. Voila - perfect ice cream sandwiches ready to eat or put in the freezer for entertaining! if you want a healthy option, try sorbet or frozen yogurt, which work just as well in the mold.
Cuisipro-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-Maker $19.95
August 24, 2010
Opening your own restaurant is a daunting task in and of itself, but Anita Lo had to open Annisa twice. Last year, a fire destroyed her thriving West Village eatery. And just a few months earlier, she closed Bar-Q, another one of her restaurants. Instead of calling it a day, she started over again and rebuilt Annisa from the ground up. She and her partner even hired a feng shui consultant to clear the "bad energy" in the space. Second time around, Annisa's just as successful and beloved by New Yorkers. She's revived her now-classic, foie gras soup dumplings and miso-marinated sable in a bonito broth and added seasonal newcomers, like softshell crabs with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin. Following her appearance on Top Chef Masters, she says she's still suffering from "Post-Traumatic Top Chef disorder" and next time around, she'd rather be a judge. Single/Married/Divorced?
Single
Where were you born?
Detroit, Michigan
What are fondest food memories from childhood?
There are so many: eating rambutans off the tree at my aunt’s house in Malaysia, eating steamer clams and lobster on Cape Cod, my nanny’s chicken paprikash…my mother’s noodles…
What was your first job in food and what did you learn?
Canapes at Bouley. I developed basic knife skills in that station and learned about ingredients, especially produce. We were using a lot of local vegetables and David liked to highlight their purity.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A concert pianist, but I lacked the drive and the talent.
Who are your culinary influences?
David Waltuck, David Bouley, my mother…
How would you describe your cooking style?
Contemporary American—upscale and adventurous
Your dishes reflect so many vastly different cultures and cuisines. What’s your unique approach to integrating them and getting inspiration from them? Are they any cuisines that don’t inspire you or don’t pair well on a plate?
I grew up with so many different cuisines and cultures, so on some level this is just my identity; integrating cultural influences comes naturally. If you think about it long enough, you should be able to mix any cuisine. Mongolian cooking, or what I saw of it, wasn’t that inspirational for me, but some of the raw ingredients from that country were amazing.
What’s your favorite cuisine?
Don’t have one, and couldn’t live without diversity.
Prior to Top Chef Masters, you were one of the more low profile chefs. What was that tv and celebrity chef experience like for you?
It was incredible to cook with all those chefs, and especially to hear the stories from the older generation. And competing for charity made it a much more positive experience. But some of the challenges were intense, and I think we all have post-traumatic Top Chef disorder as a result ;)
Is that something you want to do more of?
I’d rather be a judge, but I’d certainly go to bat for charity again.
You must’ve been devastated when there was a fire in Annisa last year. Did not reopening ever cross your mind?
There were three occasions when we thought we had lost the restaurant for good. Our lease was expiring, so we couldn’t rebuild without resigning, and that was a hellish rollercoaster.
What inspired you to hire a feng shui consultant for Annisa and what did she suggest? Which of her ideas did you implement and were there any that you decided not to use?
Feng shui wasn’t my idea. We had had such bad luck in the past year, that my partner Jennifer thought we should have the space cleared. I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’m pretty sure we did everything the consultant suggested. And now everyone comments about how great it feels in here.
What’s the most difficult part about opening a restaurant? And re-opening the same one?
Its difficult all around, so its hard to choose. Money? Staffing? We were lucky that almost all of our staff came back after we were closed for 9 months.
How is the recently opened Annisa different from the original outpost? And how are the two restaurants similar?
Its in the same spot, and at the core the same restaurant. The layout is the same, but we got nicer chairs, and we warmed the space up a bit by introducing some darker, walnut tones. We have a paneled wall to absorb sound, and more floral decoration.
What’s your favorite dish on the menu right now? Least favorite?
I stand behind everything on the menu, or I wouldn’t put it on. I really like the Spanish Mackerel right now—I’m getting gorgeous heirloom tomatoes from Early Girl Farm right now. I also love the softshell crab with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin; it won’t be around much longer as the season is ending but I love those flavors and the summer squashes are beautiful—I get them from Bodhitree Farm.
You’ve been involved in both fine dining and casual ventures. Do you have a preference for one style?
I prefer fine dining for its complexity and detail, but I equally love working on new concepts-- casual as well.
What obstacles have you faced, as a woman, in the kitchen?
It wasn’t easy working in France. There were some chefs there that were outwardly opposed to having women in the kitchen. And there’s still a lot of subtle gender bias everywhere; we all have to keep questioning how we add to it.
Which female chefs do you admire the most?
Anne Sophie Pic for her 3 michelin stars. Martha Stewart for building an incredible empire. My friend, April Bloomfield for consistently craveable dishes in such high volume.
What’s the one cooking tool you can’t do without?
I love my tasting spoon.
Any plans to open additional restaurants?
For now I’m focusing on annisa, but I would love to open other restaurants in the future with the staff that has stuck by me at annisa.
We heard you’re working on a cookbook. Tell us a little about it.
It is a classic collection of recipes celebrating multiculturalism and contemporary American cuisine. Charlotte Druckman is helping me write it and Stewart, Tabori and Chang is the publisher. If all goes well, it should come out in the fall of 2011.
Annisa
Address: 13 Barrow St., nr 4th St.
Phone: (212)741-6699
August 22, 2010
You always hear about pregnant woman craving strange food combinations, like pickles and ice cream. We 've been craving fried pickles and we've discovered quite a few places to get our fix. Mara's Homemade
342 East 6th St., btwn. First & Second Aves.
(212)598-1110
One of our favorites are the fried pickles at Mara's Homemade, a small, southern spot in the East Village. Mara's pickles are dusted in cornmeal and served with a creamy remoulade dipping sauce. The fried green tomatoes rank pretty high on our greasy fix list, too.
Whiskey Tavern
79 Baxter St., Bayard & Walker Sts.
(212)374-9119
An unexpected find in Chinatown, Whiskey Tavern is known as much for its vast whiskey selection as for its pickle offerings. Supplied by The Pickle Guys, these excellent specimens are cut into spears and breaded in panko before being fried to a golden crisp. They're served with a thick, herbed sour cream that's almost as tasty as the pickles themselves. You can even order a shot of whiskey with a pickle back!
SoHo Park
62 Prince St, btwn. Lafayette & Crosby Sts.
(212)219-2129
This popular clubhouse in Soho offers a number of local beers on tap as well as fried pickles from our very own, Guss' pickles in the Lower East Side. A basket of Southern Fried Pickles are practically a rite of passage here and there are plenty of dipping options to choose from. We recommend you pair your pickles with their feisty sambal ketchup or their garlic aioli.
Southern Hospitality
1460 2nd Ave, btwn. 76th & 77th Aves.
(212)249-1001
The menu at this Upper East Side barbecue spot, is an homage to Southern cooking, like fried catfish and bbq chicken and deep-fried pickle chips, which apparently are a “Memphis classic”. They're salty, greasy, delightfully crispy and served with a tangy side of ranch dressing.
Brother Jimmy’s
1485 2nd Ave, 77th & 78th Sts.
(212)288-0999
Frickles are the name of the game at this neighborhood sports bar with locations all over the city. A mash-up of fried and pickles, Brother Jimmy's frickles come with a potent horseradish sauce that makes this a piquant bar snack that goes well with a dark beer. You can up the ante further with by adding a little hot sauce.
BLT Burger
470 6th Ave., nr. 11th St.
(212)243-8226
The servers and the bartenders all wear t-shirts that read, “We are what we eat." The starter of fried dill pickles is the dish to order at BLT Burger. They're delicately battered and potently sour at the center, accompanied by a ranch-chili dipping sauce.
