Rainy Days: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: October 6, 2014]

Back from the banqueting in London reviewed in last week's diary, I found myself splashing around a rainy New York as September 2004 gave way to October.

But I did have some nice meals and saw a blockbuster, nostalgic rock show.

Cooking began at home with some milk-fed veal chops in charcutière sauce and a parsnip hash. I drank in the bar at Odessa through a particularly heavy storm, but when the skies cleared I headed to Kurt Gutenbrunner's Wallsé for some comforrting Austrian cuisine.  Spätzle was grandly dressed up with braised rabbit and late season corn, and touched with tarragon.  The kavalierspitz (boiled beef) was less surprising. It came with an apple-horseradish sauce--a combination which, for me, needs to make up its mind--a potato rösti, and some creamed spinach. I drank Austrian wine with those dishes, and the Livarot which followed, but my diary doesn't say which ones.

Dévi, just opened in the Flatiron, was in many ways the Indian restaurant New York bec-fins had been waiting for. Created by tandoori master Hemant Mathur from Amma (still grilling up a storm at Tulsi), and food board regular and chaat guru Suvir Saran, Dévi added some modern twists and some fine dining swank (tasting menus!) to the usual formula, in a richly decorated and shrewdly lit room. I didn't eat the tasting on my first visit, but I loved the spicy brains on toast, and shared stuffed chicken and the tandoori lamb chops before finishing with saffron kulchi.

Another restaurant food wranglers have always loved is Otto, and I lunched there on bruschetti spread with the leek-onion-chili mix known as lilies, a selection of salume, and a bunch of pizzas. Oh, and there were gelati, of course.

Another daytime meal was at the veteran B&H Dairy on Second Avenue, an old kosher lunch counter which had reinvented itself as a vegetarian spot, but still with the matzoh balls. I ate mushroom and barley soup, smoked whitefish on challah, and shared a plate of home fries.

There was a new restaurant to visit too: Onera on the Upper West Side, Michael Psilakis' first NYC venture, which opened not only with a superb Greek wine list, but with an all-offal tasting menu.  Yep:

Sea urchin on beets

Headcheese

Brains

Sweetbreads, foie gras dumplings

Tongue

Cheeses

Yes, I count sea urchin as offal, because you are, after all, eating the gonads.  You didn't know?  Sorry. 

The space which was Onera has been home to a succession of Psilakis projects--casual Greek (Kefi), gastropub (Gus & Gabriel), and now seafood (Fishtag).  First thought, best thought. Onera was terrific for two years, for anyone who wanted to eat organs and drink Greek wine.

Oh, the rock show.  Roseland.  Patti Smith.  Supported by Television.  Okay?