[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 19, 2010]
After all, what's in a name? "Traif" - unkosher, as it's generally rendered, although it originally referred to the pre-vehicular equivalent of roadkill. And initial coverage of Traif the restaurant dutifully reported it as a temple of pork and shellfish.
Not really. I don't want to get into whether it's a cute goof or perhaps a little tasteless to bill your cuisine as traif when you are neighbor to a large Hasidic community. It's not my fight. I will say that it does the restaurant itself insufficient justice.
In fact, one reason Traif hadn't come to the top of my list since its April opening was that I wasn't interested in a menu based around some objection to religious eating restrictions. It turns out that it's not about that at all - despite the sign of the pig (please!) strung outside the front door.
On an unpromising block almost under the Williamsburg Bridge - the other side from Peter Luger - Traif is feeding excited regulars a varied, light, seasonal and well-priced menu which ranges from hamachi to roasted carrots to short ribs, with hardly a pig in sight. Okay, there's bacon on the donuts, but "celebrating pork and shellfish," as the website has it, is not the half of what they do.
And they do it in an extraordinarily small space. The restaurant itself has room enough: a parade of tables (about forty covers) on the left as you walk through the room; a long, curling bar on the right; a garden beyond the glass doors. Kitchen? Oh no. Chef Jason Marcus is confined, along with two collaborators, to a few feet of range, a fridge and a deep fryer behind the bar at the garden end. You can't really sit along those few feet of the bar, because that's where the tickets are, that's where plates are finished, that's where servers pick them up. I can hardly believe it, but there's more room for cooking at Zucco's on Orchard Street. There can't be more than two square feet of counter-top.
They start you off with a little cup of watermelon gazpacho anyway.
It's a long menu which is served from that corner - mainly small plates with a few entrées. Much tempted by the broccoli rabe topped with truffled (brioche?) toast, a fried egg and shaved parmesan, I did my seasonal thing with the corncakes. A pair of them, crunchy to bite and soft inside, topped with a mango and tomatillo salsa and crumbs of queso blanco. Topped with cool marinated shrimp as well, but honestly the shellfish was unnecessary. Good shrimp, but the sweetness of the cakes and the sweet-sour spice of the salsa was all it needed.
White bait (bait fish on the menu) came out of the deep frier, sizzling and very hot. Slices of lemon had been fried too. I grew up with this dish, and rarely fail to order it. A smoky chipotle aioli was there for the dipping. If you are looking for a bigger catch, the whole fish, pan-roasted two at a time, served with the flesh slashed juicily open, might appeal. As for the scallops, they went like hot cakes - eighty-sixed before you knew it.
Pork belly, I know, and I don't much care for it any more, so I picked the short rib sliders. One trick I missed is where and how the kitchen brings the ribs, surely long-braised, to high temperature. I didn't see a microwave. Anyway, poked into little buns, the meat is tender, probably too sweet for some tastes but I liked it. Sweet potato fries, for once, didn't make me yearn for regular fries. These were freshly cooked, perky, crisp. Spicy mayo, I think, this time around.
The kitchen is remarkably cool under pressure (service not so much). Approaching the dinner peak, things seemed fatally in the weeds as the tickets collected on the counter. Solution? Co-owner Heather Heuser moved from the host desk to the service area of the bar and began expediting. Within ten minutes it seemed, the kitchen was back on top, tables were eating, and the chefs took a break. There is real pleasure to be derived from seeing something done right.
The wine list, as you'd imagine, is reasonably priced - most bottles under $40. For once it isn't an excuse for a wine-list, assuming that cocktails and beer are the only things Williamsburgers drink. This is a grown-up selection; there's a Casteller Cava which is correcctly priced at $30, but a much better wine than the price suggests. I also enjoyed the simple, also very inexpensive, Côtes du Rhône "Les Garrigues." Actually, most people seemed to be on the cocktails.
With small plates at $6 to $8 and entrées in the teens, you end up with the kind of check you'd like to see more often at the other end of the bridge. Traif. I don't know - why didn't they call it Nice Dinner, or something fitting like that?
There's your website. Wub the pig.
