[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 23, 2010]
Dr Who fans will know that the Tardis looks the size of a phone booth from outside, but is a spacious space vessel within. Likewise Korzo.
Same goes for Korzo Haus, really - less a house than a Küchenschrank (look it up!). But it's bigger than you think.
For many years, a feature of my summer was retiring to Dawgs on the Park after supervising my daughter around the Tompkins Square Park playgrounds. I liked their dogs, deep-fried and crunchy. You could take them back to the park to eat, or sit at one of two tiny tables squashed under the window, or on a bench outside. The service counter, decorated with doggy pictures, was in your face as soon as you entered. The premises later housed a gyro vendor, and I never visited. I couldn't imagine how the Korzo people, the proprietors of Korzo in South Slope, could squeeze anything like a restaurant into this cubbyhole.
They've done a good job. Goodbye service counter, hello slender bar running along the right hand wall as you step inside. The place has been knocked through all the way to the back, and after the bar one finds a series of simple wooden tables surrounded by plain brick walls. Uncrowded as yet, it's something of a concealed haven.
The menu is much shorter than South Slope, although it shares some chirpily named specials like the Wunderwurst Platter. The focus here, doubtless reflecting limited kitchen space, is Hungarian fried bread with toppings, burgers, sausages and salads, with a couple of Hungarian specials - halušky noodles with cheese and bacon and a spicy goulash.
We may be approaching glut point for burgers in the East Village, once a patty wilderness. Following Royale and Black Iron Burger a while back, a new independent seems to open almost every week, the names less and less distinguishable (Black Market Burger, Mark Burger....). Korzo at least puts a spin on the dish. Yes, you can get a burger on a sourdough bun, but who can resist a version encased in the Hungarian fried bread mentioned above.
Lángos is a deep-fried dough bread, and Korzo will top with garlic and cheese or sausage and peppers, Roquefort with apples and walnuts or lingonberry jam and cream. When it comes to the burger, a sort of pocket is formed, very much like a thin, crisp, hollow donut - no sugar dusting. Within, discover a hefty beef patty, good smoky bacon, Emmentaler cheese, mustard and a pickle. And believe me, it all arrives white hot.
Tricky to eat even though it doesn't leak, because pickled juices and melted cheese run readily from the rim of the hemisphere as you lift it to your mouth. But it's good, a really filling piece of meat and no heavy, bready roll. The homemade red cabbage kraut is dandy too.
Fries - potato and sweet potato - were nothing to dance about. Kind of soft, like fries you'd make at home if you weren't bothered to double fry them.
Beer or "craft" sodas only, and value fiends will correctly make a beeline for their own Korzo Organic Ale, a smooth, brown ale selling at $4 a pint. Golden Pheasant is on tap too.
Will the crowds find this place? And how much of a crowd will fit inside?
Here's the webpage for Korzo Haus.
