Blue Hill

Watching the Top Chef finale reminded me of the best dish I had this summer. Hung, the eventual winner had a duck dish, whereby the duck was cooked sou vide. Blue Hill had one too. Like the winning dish on tv, my duck was not the world's most attractive looking dish. Cooked skinless, the whole piece of meat was a uniform dirty pink. But the texture was so wonderfully smooth, like a piece of velvet ribbon, that you ignored how it look. It doesn't hurt that each bite yielded tender, juicy pieces of meat, uncharacteristic of duck, so often tough and over-cooked. Treated in this matter, the duck seemed to have lost its usual gristle and fat. The gamey smell too, had been toned down. I was stunned by its perfect texture, much like the esteemed judges acted during the tv show.
What made the duck even more spectacular was the flavors that it took on from the accompaniments. The chef at Blue Hill masters the seasons, putting out the freshest ingredients in a most unobtrusive way that is original, subtle but definitely not bland. Sugar snap peas in season during July added crunch and natural candied sweetness, along with tiny pearl onions. The minty jus added brightness, and an unexpected lime glaze, brushed on with such restraint that you could almost miss it if you were not careful, brought a fresh acidity and summery scent that lingered long after the last piece of duck was consumed.
I too remember the wonderful berry and goat cheese dessert that was at once sweet, tart, creamy and cheesy at the same time; and the apricot that came at the end in place of petit fours, so full of amber juice it was threatening to burst. Last but not least the servers and bartender were the most natural, relaxed and hospitable people I've encountered this summer, that whilst I sat alone at the wide U-shaped bar on an early Saturday evening I did not feel lonely nor out of place. I remember being so guilty about having such a fine time at Blue Hill that I walked home from the village to Hell's Kitchen, paying penance for consuming that many calories while reminiscing about what I had just eaten. With this reminder, it could be time again for another visit.

Blue Hill
75 Washington Place (6th Ave & MacDougal)

Dinner at Yankee Stadium

A Nathan's hot dog, some peanuts and a bag of Cracker Jack. This is the requisite dinner at the famed Yankee Stadium, which I visited with my colleagues for the very first time. The hot dog, while encased in a cold unremarkable bun had great snap, the peanuts was fun ammunition and Cracker Jack popcorn sure beats micronuked Orville Redenbacher's. Snoopy, with his Metlife sponsored Yankee shirt was an excellent dining companion, gamely posing with the vast stadium as its background. My coworkers weren't bad too, gamely coaching me on baseball basics. Had I known watching a live game was this much fun, I would have sang "Take me out to the ballgame" sooner!

Maroons

I packed a lot of eating on a recent trip to Atlanta, from fluffy biscuits to lip smacking ribs, but had neglected to eat fried chicken. A craving for crispy battered chicken did not go away even after I returned to New York but intensified, so in attempt to eat the one dish that got away, AI did some research, assembled my roommates and some friends, including friends visiting from Singapore and ended up at Maroons.

The restaurant, really an assembly of 3 long, narrow rooms tucked on a side street of Chelsea serves not only Southern classics, but also an equal number of Carribbean dishes. We split appetizers, all from the Southern side of the menu, a plate of golf ball sized hush puppies drenched in an unorthodox sweet, buttery sauce and some bbq ribs that I found on the dry side, but others thought fine.

Entrees were next and of course I had to have the chicken. And was I not disappointed. 2 huge pieces of chicken, really more like half a chicken was fried till golden crisp, glistening with oil but non-greasy. Hot savory juice squirts out as I tore the pieces up with my fingers, the only way to eat fried chicken and the meat was really tender and flavorful. Even the breast, usually the victim of over-frying and drying up was moist, registering a slight pinkish tone. I gladly ate all my stomach to take and happily forced the rest of the group to try a superior piece of fried chicken. Collard greens and mac & cheese provided the needed vegetable nutrients and carbs, along probably too much cheese and butter, but they too were good, the mac & cheese being a little too dry however. Gerrie's grits, which she paired with a portion of aromatic and ultra-spicy jerk chicken was even better in terms of its creamy texture and cheesy taste. Others ha bbqed chicken, shrimp and a whole fried fish, but I like think my chicken was the champion of the entrees, for no one elicited as much pleasure as I did plunging into their food that night. Perhaps they were all too healthy =)

We lingered over dessert, dessert being one single slice of red velvet cake for the seven of us and were jokingly chastised by the server for our tiny appetites. But along with a large slice of cake that was stained a deep ruby, he also brought along seven forks, so we knew he wasn't being slip. Unfortunately, while the cake was moist and had a dense mouth-feel I associate with red velvet cake, the cream cheese frosting tasted artificial and the cake seemed like it had taken a quick defrost trip in the microwave. A disappointment, because it was my favorite type of cake afterall.
We finally left the restaurant more than a good 2 hours after we were seated, happy to linger with good company in the cramped space. With all that amber walls and exposed brick, its hard not to make the place look warm and inviting. The restaurant had a constant energetic buzz about it the entire night but never a din, and the clientele was eclectic, alternating between African American families to a large frat-boy reunion, couples on a casual date and us, the table full of Asian too full to have one dessert each. The food was excellent and much more expensive than ordering at a roadside chicken shack (which you can't find in new york city anyway) and KFC, but not egregiously so for New York standards and with the Southern hospitality and the chill Carribbean pace (read slow) I would gladly go back whenever I find myself needing fried chicken.


Maroons
244 W 16th St (Bet 7th & 8th Aves)
http://maroonsnyc.com/

Mesa Grill

My sis and I are avid watchers of Food Network shows. She is particularly tickled by this show called Throwdown with Bobby Flay, where Flay, a big name chef in the New York food scene basically travels around the country challenging amateur/professional cooks on their specialties, and loses, most of the time, spectacularly. Intrigued by his celebrity and skeptical about his cooking skills we like other celebrity chef collectors decided to vist Mesa Grill to taste his brand of Southwest American cuisine.
The restaurant was large, airy, with brightly colored walls to evoke the Southwestern style. The burgundy banquette with printed cowboys provided the kitsch factor. The food in general was good. In fact, the bread basket, filled with a variety of sweet and savory baked goods and redundant chili relish was rather tasty. I couldn't get enough of the mini jalapeno puffs, glistening with butter as I pulled them apart. Ruoying on the other hand found the raisin scones just as buttery and irresistible. Cornbread and a pecan/cranberry bread rounded up the sinful quartet.
The entrees were spicy, thanks to the liberal addition of jalapenos. A pair of poached eggs on sweet potato and chicken hash was a riff on classic eggs benedict. The hash, studded with jalapenos was sweet, salty, and spicy at the same time, but a little deficient on the chicken. I preferred Ruoying's omelette to my hash however. I found out that goat cheese tastes really good with eggs, and also neutralizes the piquantness of fresh sliced peppers. Two hefty slices of ham accompanied the eggs, glazed with a sweet apricot sauce and tasted like jerky. Biscuits that were meltingly buttery and fluffy completed the plate. The portions were generous to the point of huge, with my mounds of sweet potato hash seemingly self-regenerative. No matter how hard I worked at it, it remained largely intact.
As we left the restaurant, we spotted some cookbooks, signed by Mr Flay on display for sale next to the hostess stand. I am sure, many of our fellow diners like us are drawn to Mesa Grill by the celebrity factor. There's not quite as much drama at the restaurant as compared to Throwdown, but at Mesa Grill, at least you are assured that the food is tasty.

Mesa Grill
102 5th Avenue
www.mesagrill.com

Union Square Cafe

Last Sunday Dawn and I dined at Union Square Cafe to investigate the reasons why it is one of the toughest reservation to score in a city filled with tough reservations, and how it has managed to stay atop the Zagat's most popular list for over a decade in a city where a new restaurant is born every 2 hours.
The place: For a place that charged so much, I was certainly expecting a much plusher setting instead of the slightly dated room with sloping floors and a tiny bathroom located too close to the main dining area. But as I settled into our table on the narrow alcove overhanging the main room, laughing heartily at times, sharing food casually with Dawn and peering voyeuristically at the food diners downstairs were eating, I realized that in a room that makes everyday food unique and ordinary events special, there was no room for opulent furnishings and chandeliers.
The savory: A pioneer of the New American bistro since its beginnings in 1985, Union Square Cafe has spawned many copycats. I guess I am spoiled and have been enjoying my fair share of seasonal cuisine and local produce, so while the food was fair, we were not particularly thrilled by the appetizer and entrees. The batter for the frito misto we shared as an appetizer was light and the seafood fresh. My osso buco was tender and the bone marrow a rich spread for good bread but too heavy for me that I brought most of it home. Dawn's duck was tasty, but a little tough and over-salted. Unlike the duo of duck she enjoyed at Cafe Boulud, where she was still waxing lyrical over, its unlikely that she'll remember this duck by next week.
The sweet: Easily the star of the night was the perennial favorite warm banana tart with macadamia brittle and vanilla ice-cream. The alchemy the pastry chef performed on the warm banana encased in the light, barely-there pastry shell, sweet and uncloying vanilla icecream and slightly salted caramel macadamia nuts was pure magic. It was so insanely good that I almost swooned upon my first bite. This humble looking tart is easily the best dessert I've ever had. Our second dish, a baked alaskan with chocolate icecream and served with fresh and candied orange and kumquat slices was unfortunately overshadowed by the extraordinary tart and played second fiddle. Without the tart however, it would have also been a successful dish.
The service: A little slow throughout the whole meal and our server seemed to be very busy with many tables at once. But, Danny Meyer is famous for his dedication towards great service and likewise our server was professional yet friendly and helpful at the same time. I had when making the reservations mentioned that we were celebrating Dawn's college graduation and our server came up to us before the meal to congratulate her. It was such a joy watching Dawn's surprised reaction. As for the icing on the cake, one of our dessert, the baked alaskan was comped, courtesy of the restaurant in commemoration of the happy occasion. It is no wonder the Union Square Cafe is the restaurant people choose to celebrate their special days.
The verdict: The banana tart is enough to bring me back over and over again, but the polished yet personable service makes this a true gem.

Union Square Cafe
21 East 16th St (bet Union Square West and 5th Ave)
http://www.unionsquarecafe.com/

Blue Ribbon Bakery

If you are seated in the sunny front dining room, you'll miss the oversized brick oven in the basement that makes Blue Ribbon Bakery a true bakery and not merely an ironic name for a small restaurant tucked in Greenwich Village. And while you're tucking into the freshly baked bread, you're missing out on the myriad of scents wafting through the semi-exposed kitchen - a combination of warm yeast, spicy caraway seeds and the honeyed sweetness of plump gold raisins - into the subterranean dining alcove. Goh Siew and I were seated right there with another 20 odd other diners, away from the bright sunshine and picturesque village streetscape streaming through oversized windows in the front room. But truth to be told, I think we had the better seats in the house. For the fragrance of baked bread elevated the pleasure of digging into the overly generous bread basket, piled high with the best free bread I've been served in the city. We had warm and chewy olive foccacia, slices of crusty rye and and a crumbly raisin walnut bread, slathered with soft butter, all before even ordering our entrees.
Greedy for more carbohydrates, I chose a heaping platter of french toast made of buttery challah. It sure soaked up a lot of egg as well as an injudicious dosage of maple syrup. All was good, but getting through all that french toast unfortunately became quite repetitive. I managed to offload some to Goh Siew who accepted the challenge, after having just polished off a happy platter of smoked salmon, the orange fish, yellow lemon slice, green chives and purple onions a colorful composition on the austere white plate.

Service was very good for a destination restaurant, Blue Ribbon Bakery being one of those bestowed with more brunch devotees than they can handle, where more often than not you find harried servers and empty glasses. My glass was always filled even though I drank copious amounts of water, and coffee refills were volunteered and not begged for. With a convivial atmosphere and professional service, and all the bread I can eat, I am probably coming back to Blue Ribbon Bakery, albeit maybe not for brunch, as the menu is a tad limited to french toast and about half a dozen egg dishes. But the bread will be there come breakfast, lunch or dinner. And I hear the restaurant makes a killer bread pudding for dessert too. Yes, I think I will be back.

Blue Ribbon Bakery

33 Downing St (Downing & Bedford)

(212) 337-0404

http://blueribbonrestaurants.com/bakery_about.html

Vynl

Everytime I stare into a plate of unidentifiable mush or some strange part of an animal, I ask myself this: Would the range of food I’ve tried be as far-flung if I had not been overseas for the past 5 years? Would I know what sous-vide, gorgonzola and molecular gastronomy meant had I stayed in Singapore? Would I remain in the dark ages of dining, where each meal revolved around my family’s table, the food court at Parkway and whichever kopitiam that served killer vegetarian mifen (hmm.. that’s not too bad a tradeoff)? Living in a major culinary capital like New York has invariably exposed me to new eating experiences and ethnic cuisines. At the same time, while my friends have stayed local, their palates have grown international, thanks to the flourishing of restaurants, cafes and bakeries hawking cuisines different from what you find at the ubiquitous hawker centers.
While a MacDonald’s big breakfast was as close as it gets to brunch when I was 18 (limited by my budget of course), my younger relatives have no lack of options ranging from the chain cafes at shopping malls to the Aussie/ French/ Italian eateries that boast authentic cuisine at relative wallet-friendly prices. If I had wanted French toast when I was in high school, I would have dipped two slices of Gardenia bread into egg and fried it in my kitchen. Now, French toast can be found even in the most humble eating establishment, the kopitiam. Hence, when Dawn, Chloe and Chloe’s friend visited me over the break, I was really scratching my head as to where I could these youngsters with jaded palates to experience something new and unique to New York. With Dawn, we trooped downtown to mingle with Francophiles at the always popular Balthazar. With Chloe and Huiling, it was a trip half a block away to Vynl. If I couldn’t shock them with the breadth of breakfast offerings, then I might as well revel with them in my neighborhood’s glitziest and gayest eatery.
I characterize Vynl as an upscale diner with a theme-restaurant lite vibe, appealing to the local demographics of Hell's Kitchen: young, yuppie, gay. Shimmering silver shades made by linking vinyl records drip from the ceilings, the room glows a deep fuchsia, the walls are lined with Barbie dolls made up to look like popular bands and the toilets are named Nelly, Elvis, Dolly and Cher, with mosaic walls featuring their namesakes. Depending on your mood, you can choose to listen to rock, hip hop to country while washing your hands. Extreme kitsch you say, but no one goes to Vynl for a somber meal. Instead you are always guaranteed with a satisfying meal with great atmosphere. And unlike real theme restaurants, you do not have to make do with overpriced crappy food. While the food is less distinguished compared to the décor, the brunch selection is decent, well made and and prices are competitive to its competitors in the neighborhood. My omelets tend to be dry, but the French toasts are always a good bet. Instead of the aforementioned thin gardenia slices that soaked up too much egg, the brioche toasts are astonishingly thick and very fluffy. Stacked up in doubles, the brioche must have exceeded 5 inches in height and really delicious when paired with syrup. For glitz, twinkles and toast as thick as a phone directory in a convenient local joint, Vynl's the perfect place to hit when in the neighborhood.



Vynl
754 9th Ave (Bet 50th & 51st St)

WD-50

Clockwise from topleft: Yuzu custard, spruce yogurt, pistachio; Irish cream, chocolate, coconut, hazelnight icecream; Soft chocolate, avocado, chocolate soil, lime icecream; Beet, umeboshi, chocolate
For lovers of simple, traditional desserts like brownies and ice-cream, or pie ala mode, the dessert tasting at WD-50 is not for you. My experience Wednesday night was an exercise of mind calisthenics, as me and my girlfriends waded through 6 desserts, some more conventional than others but all containing no less than 3 different flavors. Each artistically plated dish, with a touch of beet foam, a dab of avocado puree or a sprinkling of licorice powder demanded our full attention as we tracked down each subtle flavor with the tenacity of bloodhounds and then try to guess the chef's intentions behind creating each quirky dish.
Some dishes were straight forward enough. Our amuse bouche was a smart riff on breakfast spreads, with a grape jam injected in a disc of cream cheese. Sesame seeds and sauce on the side emulated peanut butter, rounding up the breakfast trinity. A deconstructed Irish coffee dish was a crowd pleaser, with hazelnut icecream paired with a cyclinder of coffee ice filled with extremely spiked whisky caramel.
Some flavor combinations made us pause and go hmmm, but the final presentation and taste worked pretty well and we cleared those plates. Shortbread crumbs with tea flavored ice cream and marshmallows, guava puree and peanut butter/brittle was an explosion of flavors and textures. A long swirl of soft chocolate was paired with avocado sauce, chocolate and licorice soil and a scoop of lime icecream. While the avocado was a surprisingly mild and good fit with the chocolate, the lime icecream didn't fare so well. While it did cut down the richness of the chocolate, the aftertaste was overly bitter and the limey taste jarred disharmoniously with the sweet chocolate. The spruce flavored yogurt (as in the coniferous type) with yuzu custard and pistachio puree was medicinal when it tried it alone, and overwhelmed by the lime and pistachio when paired with the other ingredients on the plate. Still the yuzu custard was without repraoch and the dabs of yogurt thankfully insignificant enough that we too polished off this dessert.
And then there was the dish made us pause and go HMMM. Despite being a big fan of beets, I do not think beets should be dessert, even after having a go at the mildly sweet and very vege-tasting beet foam that came with some chocolate bits and umeboshi plum bits. We were however very impressed with how the kitchen could foam up beet and make thin glassy shards of sweet and very yummy beet chips. WD-50 with its signature method of molecular gastronomy has had a fair amount of hype, and it sure is entertaining and a visual treat if not always tasty.
While its easy to find a slice of pie or cheesecake anywhere, WD-50 offers something unique, even borderline strange to adventurous dessert lovers. And with so much fodder for discussion at reasonable ($35 for 5 courses, $25 for 3 courses) for New York prices and courteous and attentive service, WD-50 is a great alternative New York experience.

WD-50
50 Clinton St (Bet Rivington & Stanton St)

HK

A couple thoughts about my dinner at HK, a more upscale version of the neighborhood diner, with a fun vibe and decent prices a few days ago:
1. While HK is understandably an acronym for Hell's Kitchen, where the restaurant is situated, HK is more known as the acronym for Hong Kong. This led to many confused dinner companions, who called to ask "where are we eating again? wok and roll?"
2. Despite reading dire warnings about the service (or lack of one), the servers were surprisingly prompt at refilling our glasses and very nice about sending some bread our way. But isn't bread something restaurants dole out for free anyway?
3. The vibe is cool and youngish, and the decor sparse but in a good way. Just a little incongruous with the rest of the block and the whole area surrounding the Port Authority, but that's not their fault i guess.
4. "The attack of the loudmouths" was the soundtrack of the night, or at least the first half of the evening. A group of diners sitting at the back of the room was talking and chortling so loudly that we seriously contemplated leaving the restaurant. I hope they aren't regulars so the sake of the rest of the diners' sanity.
5. The fried calamari was really hot, chewy and crunchy. The entrees were less noteworthy, but fairly decent for the neighborhood. My chicken paillard was on the dry side, while gerrie's pasta was too creamy. The sandwiches weren't bad though.
6. Other considerations: HK serves up a mean brunch, and is worth a visit especially if you are planning to explore the flea market next to it after lunch.

HK
523 9th Ave (bet 38th and 39th St)