at the sign of The Pink Pig

Botequim's Feijoada

[Pigging by Wilfrid: September 30, 2014]

Marco Moreira is well-established as the chef-proprietor behind that pair of Union Square gems Tocqueville and 15 East. That story goes back to 2000, when the original Tocqueville served fine French-American food in the awkward triangular space which is now 15 East. In 2006, Tocqueville shifted to a swankier space at the 5th Avenue end of the block.

More recently, his One Five Hospitality operation partnered with the new Hyatt Union Square to launch a casual street-level brasserie, Fourth, and just this month, the Brazilian Botequim in the hotel's basement.

Gorging in London: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: September 29, 2014]

As the dust lifts from the pages of my journal for September 2004, I remember a highly entertaining trip to London--courtesy, as I recall, of a previously employer who wished to celebrate a reunion anniversary with some former, as well as current, employees.

Sure, I can get on a plane for that. And so I did, and read Dostoevsky's Raw Youth and the New Yorker style issue as we drifted overnight above the Atlantic.

Quick Bites: A Little Corner Of Persia

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  September 26, 2014]

Funny how things sometimes work out, when it comes to spontaneous eating. I'd read Ligaya Mishan's Times piece a year ago, and added Taste of Persia NYC to the never-ending list of places I'd was curious about.

But it took a fire in the PATH system last weekend to get me there.  My daughter and I were shopping on Sixth Avenue when a thick cloud of threatening smoke gathered, so we darted around the corner onto 18th Street.

Spiegel: From Israel To Everywhere

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  September 24, 2014]

You could be forgiven for thinking that Spiegel is a new East Village German restaurant. There's the name, there's a schnitzel plate, there's a bockwurst on a pretzel roll.

 

And then you look online and see that it's...Moroccan?  Or international?  And you start worrying that it's one of those places with no theme or focus, just there to line alcohol stressed stomachs on a busy strip of First Avenue. But you'd be wrong.

Montana's Trailhouse, And Neighborhood

[Pigging by Wilfrid: September 22, 2014]

There's a little strip of Brooklyn which has transformed itself into a night-life, bar/restaurant hub over the last year--and maybe you didn't notice it. It's the block of Troutman which heads kind of north by northwest from Wyckoff, in the direction of away-from the L Train.

Once home to machine shops or other light industry, there are now three bars (two of them enormous), a fries shack, a pizza vendor, and the twinkling lights of what was once an auto-repair business. That would be Montana's Trailhouse.

A Slow September: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  September 22, 2014]

After the Seattle-Vancouver trip, I settled into a quiet September back in New York. I was reading Mademoisse de Maupin for the first time, and spending evenings up in Harlem, especially at a little neighborhood duve bar called Jewel Lounge--one of a vanishing breed of uptown corner bars for locals.

I headed over to the Brooklyn Lyceum to see a double bill of Gogol, "The Overcoat" and "The Nose"--and I ate out a few times too.

Quick Bites: Brooklyn Piggies

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  September 15, 2014]

I think it would be fair to say--and I don't believe the staff would argue--that the Brooklyn Piggies storefront on Avenue A has not been quite the sensation of the stand at Smorgaburg.

I dropped by out of curiosity recently, and I admit I was glad I hadn't stood in line for their signature dish.  That's it, right there.  Pigs in a blanket; three of them. Oh, with a squirt of house BBQ sauce.

Summer Dump

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  September 15, 2014]

Let's clear the in-trays in a really random way. The sublime, and the ridiculous, coming right up.

And yes, I'll be trying to get into some of the new restaurants opening this fall, and hope I do better than my three tries--and fails--at Root & Bone.

Vancouver And Back: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  September 15, 2014]

Recovered from the sea voyage, we spent our first morning in Vancouver in Stanley Park, watching the wandering wildlife, tripping over ducks and geese, then lunched on local hot-smoked salmon in the park restaurant.

That night was family dinner, but the next day we dug into the restaurant scene.

Downtown Will Rise Again: Fall Restaurants 2014

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  September 10, 2014]

Uh oh, uh oh, as Queen Bey would say, but the wheel of history sure spins fast. Scanning the lists of restaurants set to open this month (or next month; or before the holidays; or early next year; or three years from now if you're Fatty 'Cue) I have just one thing to say:

 

There are only two places of even slight interest--and I mean slight--set to open in the whole of Brooklyn--not just in Williamsburg (which is where they're opening).  All the action, save a few uptown swankeries has returned to downtown, primarily to the East Village and Lower East Side (now one neighborhood).  This is some turnaround.