at the sign of The Pink Pig

The Meat: Armando Batali's Mole

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  December 16, 2011]

A selection of Batali sr.'s salume is now available from the Heritage Meat Shop in Essex Street Market.  Batali's stuff is all good - I've known that since I visited the mothership in Seattle.  But do try the mole.

Mole salami, I suppose they call it.  Ancho and chipotle peppers give it a warm, spicy after-glow, but the upfront flavors include chocolate and even sweet tobacco.  For once, the right word is "complex."

Quick Bites: Rabbit At Fatty Cue

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  December 14, 2011]

So, the West Village Fatty Cue is a more "grown up," relaxed, comfortable version of its "Billyburg original.  Well yes... kinda: but it's still rambunctious.

Even on a midweek evening, it's fairly full, the staff are in party mode, it's dark and noisy.  But the rabbit - which comes in a carved rabbit bowl - is good.

You Should Know Um Segredo

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  December 5, 2011]

If you don't know Um Segredo, it's because it's a too-well-kept secret.  It's what happens when a skilled restaurant chef ends up between gigs, and just can't stop cooking.

The chef in question is Dave Santos, most recently of the crazed Hotel Griffou, but with a solid background in fine dining at places like Bouley and Per Se.

Quick Bites: Back To Roberta's

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  November 29, 2011]

I returned to Roberta's recently, not for the lauded multi-course dinner which served to parties of four-and-a-half in leap years only, but to tour the regular dinner menu in the company of a visiting food writer.

It turned out to be the best meal I've yet eaten at the place.  (Note: the picture above is from Roberta's, but from a previous occasion; photos from this meal "from me yot").

Mas (La Grillade): Turn Me Over, I'm Done

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  November 22, 2011]

I'd noticed this restaurant quietly opening a few weeks back, and it was easy enough to walk in for dinner on a weekday evening.  In fact, I dropped by after a reading by the artist and activist Stewart Home a few blocks away.

High-ceilinged, white-walled, rather elegant, the grill was fairly quiet.  I asked for a table rather than the bar and got one.

Saxon + Parole = ?

[Pigging  by Wilfrid:  November 21, 2011]

Well, Saxon + Parole = two race horses, and I am sure I missed several press releases telling my why that's a great name for a restaurant.  But what kind of restaurant is it really?

It's a steakhouse with a raw bar.  Simply that.  Except it's also a kind of New American market-seasonal bistro.  It's a celebrity chef restaurant too, so it bears Brad Farmerie's distinguished signature.

Quick Bites: Pot Roast At Northeast Kingdon

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 28, 2011]

It's that time of year, isn't it? Thinking about onion soup and cassoulet rather than sushi and lobster rolls. How about a pot roast?

I found a good one at NorthEast Kingdom.  Now The Morgan has given up and started serving a cheap Thai menu, Northeast Kingdom is back to being the other restaurant in that grim, industrial corner of Bushwick.

Quick Bites: Brooklyn Star Shines More Brightly

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 24, 2011]

This was an entirely impromptu drop in.   So much so that I didn't even have my camera with me (pictures are from early last year). 

I was headed somewhere else to do something different, when I thought - hey, let's at least go and take a look at Brooklyn Star's new premises.   I looked, I entered, I ordered.

New York Journal Sifts Sifton

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 20, 2011]

I can always find things to disagree about with my Mouthfuls colleague Marc  Shepherd, although I think we share similar views about where the New York dining scene is headed.  Where Marc is eminently reliable, however, is in his detailed assessments of the New York Times' restaurant critic -- in this case, the outgoing Sam Sifton:  "vacuous, bored and intellectually lazy."

Read the arguments -- and facts and figures -- which support that conclusion right here.

Isa Is Important

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 17, 2011]

There was a time (2008, in fact) when I thought it might still be possible to defend the barricades of gastronomy and grown-up dining against the assault of the comfort-food-smackdown barbarians.

 

I was wrong.  The walls fell and we are now overrun with the amateurish posing as the hip, the infantile as the casual, and the obvious as the novel, all dressed up in PR rages and even talked up by people like Andrew Carmellini who should know much better.

Is there a light glimmering in the darkness?