at the sign of The Pink Pig

Where's My Pig (Again)?

Where's my pig?  Well suck this does, but I am following in the painful footsteps of such gastrohogs as the blessed A.J. Liebling and our contemporary Josh Ozersky.  Gout indeed - or pseudogout (look it up!).  I, of course, am a blameless victim of the affliction.  Thanks to last week's darned incapacity, I have practically been fasting when it comes to alcohol, rich food, and can barely remember what the interior of the restaurant looks like.  Hey, guess what?  Dehydration causes gout too.  Cheers. 

I cancelled with a heavy heart (and heavier foot) the reservations geared to this week's edition.  Again, this week, we scrabble around to find something, and all I have is a re-visit to Motorino, which I wasn't planning to re-review at all. 

Quick Bites: Disappointing Motorino

[Pigging by Wilfrid: April 26, 2010]

I published a quick review of Motorino in February, finding it so-so.  Circumstances took me back there recently for another brief meal.

Meantime - a few weeks after my review - Sifton of the Times anointed it "best pizza in the city."  I do hope he's wrong.

The Shad's In: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  April 26, 2010]

With rain driving against the window this afternoon, it would hardly occur to me that it was spring and that shad roe might be had from the market; if it's available at all, it should have been around for a few weeks now.  Anyway, ten years ago I was pigging on my annual supply.

Update: Sixth Street Kitchen Does So Have a Website

Although it kind of underlines my point about having a name which can be tricky to search for, I am happy to give you 6thStreetKitchen.com.  "6th," you see, not "sixth" - that was the trick.  Enjoy.

Dear Mr Sifton...Re: SHO Shaun Hergatt

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  April 21, 2010]

Dear Mr Sifton,

Sincere thanks, at last, for reviewing SHO Shaun Hergatt.  Two stars is better than nothing, and eight months late is better than never (it opened in June 2009, and was dismissed by Pete Wells in what was very much not a full review in August). 

Let's be honest, it was starting to get embarrassing to have a restaurant of SHO's scale and ambition be studiously ignored by the Times while column space was devoted to Chin Chin,Novitá, and a re-review of Strip House.

Half a Pig

So there I was, rubbing shoulders with a fellow fine-beak, as one does - NYC Foodie in this case - and he was telling me about ramen at Ippudo and he asked me about the last thing I ate which I really liked: and he had me cold.  "I did have a hot dog today."  Because the best part of last week was abjectly lost to an unexpected and unexplained battle with throat and fever, and with it all my good intentions to write about something other than another casual East Village snackhouse.  But no eating, no reviewing, so with apologies to the assembled multitude - and also to the restaurant itself, barely open and visited only once, I give you the only thing in the bag this week.  Further afield next time, fate willing.

Quietly 6th Street Kitchen

[Pigging by Wilfrid: April 19, 2010]

After writing about The Brindle Room and Northern Spy Co. last week, nothing could have driven me to launch a review of another East Village casual new American.  Except, as explained elsewhere this week, it's all I have to offer.

And not entirely fair on the restaurant either, as this was scarcely more than early drop-in to see if it might be worth writing about once it had run itself in for a few weeks.  But since I am not going to say anything bad...

The Brindle Room: An E.V. Oasis

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  April 11, 2010]

How's the downtown market for sane, well-made food in a tranquil setting?  More bear than bull, I'd say, which sets  some hurdles for a joint like the Brindle Room, which offers just that.

This week's Pink Pig is deliberately constructed to highlight two contrasting approaches to offering casual dining in fairly small East Village storefront spaces.  I review Northern Spy Co., which follows the instruction manual for downtown/Brooklyn rus in urbe  to the letter.  And here's the Brindle Room, proposing some more traditional virtues.

Northern Spy: Dining By Numbers

[Pigging by Wilfrid: April 11, 2010]

I try to be conscious of the fact that a restaurant doesn't choose when and where it shows up in the ongoing parade of an individual customer's dining experience.

I would also be sympathetic to suggestion that a restaurant's main aim is to feed and entertain people and not to represent the Zeitgeist - if only Northern Spy didn't strive so mightily to do the latter.

London Calling: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  April 12, 2010]

Here I went again, and although there are some things I miss about the constant trans-Atlantic commuting which once took up such a large part of my life, I'd hardly go back to it.  All those mornings of waking up and asking oneself in which direction one had just journeyed and whether it was yesterday or tomorrow.  Only airborne was it ever really today.