A Month’s Worth of Notes
It’s been an eventful month since I last posted. Rather than go into detail, I’ll highlight the fun and exciting New York dining moments.
From left to right: Peasant interior, Gordon Ramsay, and Orchard interior.
Dinner for six at Peasant (194 Elizabeth St.), where Wook, Novi, Mel, and I joined our two guests from Korea. Rabbit gnocchi was delicious as was the spicy cuttlefish. Their wines are very reasonably priced (low thirties for some great reds), and their desserts were magnificent. You’ll get most value if you go with a bigger group.
After this New Yorker article, Gordon Ramsay has become my hero. On seeing a waiter at his restaurant with a big tie knot: “You know what they say in Britain—the bigger the knot, the smaller the cock. Young man, I’m sure your cock is very big. Will you do something about your knot, please?” He’s great. I’ve tried making his Sublime Scrambled Eggs twice now, and yes, they were quite sublime.
Went to The Orchard (162 Orchard St.) on the Lower East Side for Wook’s birthday dinner. The lighting made everything seem orange, but the overall atmosphere was pleasant. The Orchard shares owners with Peasant, so I expected the food to have the same sort of zip, but I was a bit disappointed at the overall fare. I enjoyed my seafood paealla very much and their filet mignon wraps tasted almost exactly like a toned down kalbi ssam.
From left to right: The Pegu Club Cocktail (strong), UFC logo, a new season of Entourage.
After Orchard, we all went to Pegu Club (West Broadway and Houston Sts.) for some drinks. Whiskey Smith was exceptional as usual, but the surprise of the evening was the Earl Grey MarTEAni, which Andy ordered twice. It’s got a smoky and complex taste that just hits the spot over and over again. The Sidecar was also a good, strong drink.
We gave Unidentified Flying Chicken in Jackson Heights another shot. Although Andy almost had his car towed while we went to place our order, we came home with a great big order of wings and drumsticks that satisfied our immense Sunday afternoon hunger. Mel, Andy, and I all prefered the UFC Spicy over the Soy & Garlic seasoning on the chicken. I love the pickled Korean turnip that comes with each order - it’s basically the kimchi stand-in for when you eat chicken.
Later on that same night, I fired up some sam gyup ssal (pork belly) for us to eat (with the addition of Brandon, who came later) while watching the season premiere of Entourage on HBO. Doesn’t get any better.
From left to right: Funny fish at Nana, kimchi jigae (not mine), and an eel with quail egg dish at The Monday Room.
Nana in Park Slope for Joyce’s birthday - the food was cheap, the atmosphere was nice, and the huge fish tank had those funny, large fishes with big kissers.
I looked up a recipe for kimchi jigae (soup) on the popular Koreancooking Xanga site and followed it loosely, using a bit of intuition and my own kimchi jigae taste expertise to gauge the flavor. While the meat didn’t seem to have flavored the soup enough, I think this first endeavor was fairly successful. I added extra jalapeno (in addition to the massive amounts of kimchi) to give the jigae a nuclear spiciness.
Il Bambino (34th St. and 31st Ave. in Astoria) has amazing paninis. I had gone there about a month ago with Mel for dinner, which we enjoyed very much (and it’s BYO, so we had wine for cheap). This time, I ordered in and got a Bresaola with parmesan, arugual, and lemon aioli and a Proscuitto with sweet onion marmalade and grana. Both were amazing (I preferred the tart and savory taste of the Bresaola panini), and I was very pleased to have such quality paninis delivered right to my door.
Went to The Monday Room (at Public, 210 Elizabeth St.) with Wook after a busy day. We ordered a flight of red and a flight of white wines, allowing us to taste six different varieties. I was very surprised by a Greek white we had, which strongly resembled a riesling with its sweetness. My favorite was the Ribera del Duero by the famous vinter Perez Pascuas, which our sommelier, a Spanish native, was very proud to recommend. Wook noticed that one of the partners of Avroko, the design firm that owns Public, sat two tables away from us. I asked our server and she confirmed it. I asked the sommelier some stupid amateur questions like - do tempranillo wines and nebbiolo wines have anything in common? (”nope, nothing at all” - in his amusing accent). He told me that he preferred primitivos to zinfandels (I agree) and also said that he always found himself going back to Burgundy wines as his most reliable.