What a week!

So it's been a little while since my last post, primarily because I've been so busy eating. K and I discovered a great new restaurant near our theatre company's rehearsal space and the harvest has started heating up with our new CSA so I've had some great fresh produce to work with (this newsletter details what our weekly take was).

Let's talk about this restaurant first. It's called Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, located on 2nd Avenue in the East Village and wow is this place a gem: service like you'd find only in the world's most elegant restaurants, jaw-droppingly stunning presentation, complex unique flavor pairings, and quite a lot of bang for one's buck.

I got the tasting menu and here is what I tasted:

• Fruit de Mer Sampler: 1 East Coast Oyster, 1 West Coast Oyster, 1 Littleneck Clam, and a Toast Point with Caviar. Served simply, each with a little flavor-enhancing garnish. Possibly the freshest raw seafood I've had and certainly the best I've had outside of Poke.
• Torchon of Tuna and Foie Gras with Blood Orange and Cilantro: Imagine the texture of creme brulee, rich, creamy and crispy (with a caramelized ginger glaze), but instead of a custard inside, there's a delicately mixed blend of tuna tartar and foie gras. The side salad was the perfect complement, with bright fruity acidic flavors to cut through any of the torchon's fattiness.
  
• Duck Liver Pate with Port Gelee and Truffle: An arresting deconstructed preparation which, when mixed, provided one of the most decadent savory treats I've had in my life. The creamy pate had a light whipped consistency and was topped with the sweet gelee. The waiter instructed me to mix the hefty spoon full of chopped black truffles into the pate, and then spread the mixture on toast points, garnishing it with the accompanying ancient mustard, pickled onions, and cornichon. A-mazing!
• Butter Poached Lobster with Pistachios, Haricot Vert, Mushrooms, and Lobster Jus: All of the pleasure of cracking open a steamed lobster and dipping it in melted butter, except someone has already done the work for you, pulling out the lobster's meatiest bits and infusing them with a deep butter flavor for you. They were tossed with the jus and the vegetables, with the haricot vert's crunch providing a nice counterpoint to the melt-in-your-mouth lobster and chewy mushrooms. The pistachios were ground in a line on the side of the plate, allowing me to coat each bite in the perfect amount of nutty texture.
  
• Pear Sorbet with Greek Yogurt and Vanilla: Simple and delicious. The pear and vanilla are a natural pair (pun definitely intended!) but the tartness of the greek yogurt really woke up my palette and let me taste the full round flavors of the the sorbet.
• "S'More" Chocolate-Pistachio Nougat and Toasted Marshmallow: Above and beyond the best S'mores experience of my life. The marshmallows were homemade and luxuriously textured, each caramelized to perfection like a very small creme brulee.
  

Not bad for $50 right? Yep, I said FIFTY DOLLARS!!! That's insanely cheap for such quantities of food this good. JLOB was the first (non-Japanese) restaurant I've visited since Babbo that I've said to myself, "My god I could never cook this myself!" I mean, it's not like I walk into every restaurant and say, "Oh, this is so easy I could have whipped it up in just a few minutes." That said, I can usually figure out a way to create a dumbed-down and simplified version of most things I eat at restaurants. Not so with JLOB; the techniques, the flavors, the presentation, the ingredients were all lightyears beyond my meager abilities. Reason enough to go to cooking school if I ever tasted one!

...And now a meal I cooked later in the week:


Gorgonzola Salad with Sundried Tomato Dressing:

A simple mixed salad with romaine, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, and slices of gorgonzola, topped with a (thick) dressing made from pureed rehydrated sundried tomatoes, lemon juice, and pistachio oil.

Grilled Figs Wrapped in Serrano Ham and Stuffed with Gorgonzola:

As simple as it sounds. Slice fresh figs open enough to cram them full of the (chilled) smelly fromage. Wrap them in Serrano or prosciutto and give them a good rub down to make sure the ham is going to stay on. Pop them onto a hot grill and turn every 90 seconds or so. Serve immediately while the ham is still warm. Hot and cold. Salty and sweet. A party in your mouth.

Gnocchi with Chanterelles & Crispy Sage in a Brown Butter and Truffle Oil Sauce:

This picture looks pretty gnarly but the dish itself was one of my best gnocchi preparations. As you're boiling up the gnocchi, saute the fresh sage and chanterelles in butter. Pour in a glug or two of truffle oil and some starch pasta water to thicken. Toss with gnocchi and garnish with crushed red pepper and shaved parmesan.

Had enough?

Tough. It's my foodblog and I'll back log as many posts as I like :) ! You can be sure I've spared you from the details of most of the fabulous meals I've consumed this past week, like the great stir fry I made with the mizuna and chinese cabbage that came from my CSA this week, or my intoxicating trip to Poke with E & K. But there are two more recipes I want to keep in my little virtual recipe box, both from last night:

Grilled Seafood Salad with Grilled Tomatoes and Grilled Citrus Vinaigrette:

The perfect summer salad. Get your grill (or your grill pan) hot and keep it hot. Halve a lemon and a lime and grill them till they're striped. Squeeze half of the lemon and half of the lime into a bowl, reserving the other halves for garnish. Whisk in some olive oil, honey, salt, and black pepper until you have a nice emulsion. Put that dressing aside for a bit and work on the salad itself. Grill a medley of halved small heirloom tomatoes until they're striped and put them on a bed of chopped greens (I used the mizuna and red sail lettuce from my CSA). I happened to have some garlic scape on hand so I chopped that up and threw it on top of the greens and tomatoes. Now, with a hot grill, char up any mixture of small shrimp, calimari, and tiny bay scallops (at those sizes you can cook them all together without overcooking either of the elements...Trader Joes makes a frozen bag of the stuff!). Toss them on top of the salad, drizzle the dressing on, and garnish with the grilled citrus fruits and summer savory (also came with CSA but wow that was a great discovery!).

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce:

It's true, I had a box of gnocchi I've slowly been working my way through; it's a great way to turn a skimpy meal into hearty fare and takes to a wide variety of flavors very well. Simmer some light cream and melt gorgonzola in to taste. Stir in some dried sage and a dash of white pepper. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce, drain of excess cream with slotted spoon, plate, and garnish with summer savory and shaved parmesan (as cheesy as the sauce is, the parmesan still cuts through and adds some nice treble flavors).

Birthday Bash

Spent the weekend eating and imbibing to commemorate my birth.

Day 1 w/fam:

• Dinner at Grand Central Oyster Bar.
  
• GCOB has what is arguably the best shrimp cocktail in New York. 5 lobster tail-sized shrimp cooked to perfection and a tangy cocktail sauce with just a bit of bite.
  
• I had an oyster craving and what better place to satisfy it. For some reason I tend to prefer Canadian oysters, so I ordered one each of the Conway Cup (Prince Edward Island), Cortez Island (Cortez Island), Denman Island (British Columbia), Great White (Nova Scotia), Malaspina (British Columbia), Malpeque (Prince Edward Island), Nootka Sound (British Columbia), Ship's Point (British Columbia), and Snow Creek (British Columbia). The sweet and perfectly slurpable Malpeque is always my favorite, but the others were tasty too. I do wish that GCOB offered consumers some guidance with oyster selections...would it kill them to offer 4-6 word descriptions of the 15+ varieties they offer or at least arrange the oysters on the plate in such a way that the buyer can tie a name to a taste for future reference (when I open an oyster bar, each platter will come with a printed card like when you order the wine flights at Metrocafe)?
  
• For my 8th raw item, I ordered a single sea urchin. Now, uni is definitively my favorite piece of nigiri sushi (when served at a high quality restaurant, otherwise they're too pungent to actually consume) and I've had raw sea urchin preparations at French restaurants, but I've never actually ordered urchin at a raw bar. I fished around for the tasty parts that looked like uni, but didn't know what to do with the rest of the organs floating around in the shell. Did I miss out on some rare delicacies here?
  
• My mom was pleased with her gorgeously seared scallops in puttanesca sauce and my sister had the best fried calamari of her life (I guess it helps that this one was probably made from fresh calamari instead of the frozen stuff they deep fry at most restaurants).
• Dessert at Chikalicious.
• This microscopic East Village dessert bar is a must-have New York experience. Chef Chika stands behind her counter with a sous chef or two assembling stunning presentations of some of the tastiest sweets I've ever had. $12.95 buys you a 3-course dessert prix fixe (menu changes daily, but a sample can be found here) and $7 more pairs your choice with a perfect dessert wine (my prix fixe was paired with a sparkly red dessert wine: Les Clos De Paulilles Banyuls 2002 I think). Though the wait is often upwards of 45 minutes to get seated on weekend nights, the maitre'd is so calming that I've rarely grown impatient.
  
• Course #1: Dessert Appetizer. Lime curd with Mojio sorbet. Delicate and tangy, just enough to get my taste buds primed for the main event.
• Course #2: Dessert Entree. Strawberry soup with honey parfait. I've had this before: it's delicious and refreshing but I had my heart set on the lavender marinated kiwi that had sold-out. I actually think the dessert pictured above, the warm chocolate tart with red wine sauce and pink peppercorn icecream might be my favorite as it mingles three seemingly incongruous tastes.
• Course #3: Dessert Dessert. Petit fours. Coconut covered marshmallows, a little cake, and shortbread cookies. The marshmallows are always the best on this plate, completely distinct creatures from the puffed sugar we roast at campfires.

Day 2 w/friends:

• Brunch at Alice's Teacup.
• With a party of 11, we were really gambling in our attempt to get seated as walk-ins when all 3 of their locations were booked solid from 8am-8pm. K and I arrived 90 minutes ahead of when the rest of the party was going to arrive and out our name on the list. The very accommodating staff found a way to seat us just a few minutes after my first 6 of guests arrived.
• I ordered the "nibble," a tiered tea service that comes with a scone, a sandwich, a pot of tea, and cookies for $22.
  
• I chose the fragrant and pleasant Mango Amazon tea, an Indian black tea with mango pieces.
  
• The pumpkin scone, served warm with jam and fresh clotted cream, was easily the best baked good I've ever head.
  
• The sandwich was simple but tasty, smoked salmon and dill butter on Russian black bread.
• I ended up giving away most of my cookies, but the little peanut-butter one was heavenly (I am a sucker for all things with peanut butter. Hence, for the evening's proceedings, my friend A picked up a peanut butter pie!)
• Dinner with delivered Brother Jimmy's BBQ.
• I know, I know, NYC doesn't have real BBQ, but this comes very close. I don't usually step foot in any of the chain's frat-tastic locations for fear of getting trampled, but I'm happy to order delivery. But careful: it's always slow, very slow, and if you are ordering more than a few dishes, they usually forget one or two items.
• I always order the same thing: Northern and Dry Rub ribs (the real ones, no babybacks here!), collard greens, and mac & cheese (sometimes I opt for the candied yams instead). The Dry Rub ribs are spicy and smoky and firm and just perfect drenched in Jimmy's house vinegar-based BBQ sauce. The Northern ribs don't need any extra sauces as the meat is so tender, it's practically liquid already (and that's a good thing!). Even my friend C, a Texan transplant, enjoyed them.
  
• The collard greens are probably the least healthy possible preparation of what could be a very nutritious ingredient, but damn they're good. Always a bit saltier than I'd like to be, but if I keep some beer on hand, I'm usually fine...
• There's nothing really special about the mac & cheese except that it's perfect for absorbing the fatty greasy salty saucy flavors from the ribs and greens. The candied yams are really quite good, though: you can actually distinguish 3 or 4 different types of sweetness, and it's a really nice mix of mashed and solid pieces.
• Although it sounds like pregnancy-fare, E convinced me to go in on an order of fried pickles (frickles) with her and wow I'm happy I did. I think they have now joined the pantheon of my other two favorite friend offerings: Sicilian aroncini and British deep fried Mars Bars.

My birthday extravaganza finally wrapped up last night, over leftovers of Brother Jimmy's, with K's birthday gift: a Personal Wine Curator for my computer. I'm very excited to start using that.