[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 25, 2010]
Good luck to Gabriel Stulman, the restaurateur who has packed 'em in at Little Owl and Market Table and is packing 'em in like sardines again.
To mix metaphors, at Joseph Leonard you can almost hear their pips squeak.
This slightly awkward, split-level dining room and bar, once housed Flor's Kitchen. It's on the corner of a lively Village block, sharing locale if not clientele with the Duplex, the Stonewall Bar, the Kettle of Fish and jazz den "55." Not that JL - named for Mr Stulman's grandpappies - expects passing custom anyway. It was a destination from day one - a "no reservations" destination requiring ingenuity and persistence in securing a table (I managed to grab a bar-stool by showing up at 5.45); and with the exclusivity comes a paradoxical bevy of regulars, greeted as such, apparently able to find space at any time.
Oh well. I was on the upper level, squished into a corner of the bar, and I have to say I've been more comfortable on crowded coach flights. Remember trying to keep your elbows tucked in while cutting your food? Exactly.
I was there for the pork hock, a cut I'm fond of, but started out with a well-made brandade, cod blended with potato and neatly garnished with pickled red peppers - a steal at eight bucks.
The "crispy braised" hock was so in step with the Zeitgeist it made me blink. We have taken a bold step beyond the comfort food trend traditionally associated with economic crises. The cutting edge today is about meat, preferably fatty meat: not only that, it is about fatty meat treated to enhance its richness and heft. Witness the several ways with suckling pig at Maialino, flanked by lamb neck and oxtail dishes for a change of pace. Witness The Breslin: not content with stuffing and braising a pig's foot, April Bloomfield fries it too. Witness the Brooklyn Star, reviewed here last week, which fills a sandwich not only with meatloaf but with mashed potato too. Witness deep-fried chicken feasts, and all the "large format" meat dinners - a whole pig, a whole sheep - around town, and the shameless repetition of the fat-saturated belly cut.
A little unfair on JL that I should come to the pork hock after a belt-expanding tour of some of those delights. The "no mas" reaction was personal, and no reflection on this particular dish. The hock or knuckle, as I understand it, is a cross-section of the shank. Tenderly braised, it's a fixture on everyday menus throughout Germany under the poetic name of schweinshaxe, and France as jarret de porc. No reason it shouldn't be working its magic on the wasp-like waists of downtown Manhattan too. Here it's given a crisp coat too - not an original invention of the JL kitchen, as the Filipino approach to the cut, best exemplified at Iwahan in Queens where it's a specialty - is pretty much identical.
The contrast between the exterior - a sort of crust of solid grease - and the soft interior is theoretically pleasing, except that the crisp parts here were surprisingly dry. I was looking around for mustard, and thinking a sauce was needed. Fortunately the meat became moist as I dug deeper (and deeper). The flesh is partnered by a sharp arugula salad - which reminded me again of Maialino.
Dessert might have followed if not for the back-breaking discomfort of my perch. It is not necessarily critical to say that this ambience, and this food, is a perfect shot of Manhattan, January 2010.
Here's the website.
