Aw, what a nice review
My friend Outer Borough Eater found this extremely flattering snippet in one of the newsletters he receives from NFT (Not for Tourists guidebooks):
:)
July 20, 2007
July 16, 2007
A Feast for the Senses @ Perry Street
There's a ridiculously good lunch deal out there in the wide, wide world of Manhattan restaurants and I've finally taken advantage of it. I'm talking of course, about the $24 lunch menu at Perry Street. This is the place to go for a meal with a dizzying array of colors, flavors and textures working together in harmony and appealing to nearly all the senses. Even better yet, you get to have your meal in a gorgeous, minimalistic dining room with an appealing hazy glow that evokes lazy afternoons spent whiling away the hours with a good book by an open window.
The Decor: (8.5/10)
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The Food: (9.5/10)
Amuse Bouche: Strawberry Gazpacho
I believe this was blended with tomato? Beautifully smooth and refreshingly tart with just the right touch of strawberry in the aftertaste - I could easily see myself drinking an entire jug of this.
Arctic Char Sashimi, Lemon, Olive Oil and Crispy Skin
Really fresh fish, beautiful colors and the crispy skin on top gave the dish a great textural component.
Crab salad with edible flowers, scallions, cucumber, radishes
Simply AMAZING. I'm usually not fan of overly complex dishes but somehow, every single component of this crab salad was balanced and contributed to the overall deliciousness of the dish. The crab was really creamy and seasoned perfectly and offset by the bright, summery flavors of the scallion, cucumber and radishes and the edible flowers lent a distinct sweetness to the whole affair. Isn't this also one of the most gorgeous presentations you've ever seen? I could barely bring myself to eat it.
Hangar Steak with creamed basil and fava beans and an onion ring
The steak was really moist and tender and worked well with the creamed basil and fava beans but this dish wasn't particularly interesting. I did like the crunchiness of the onion ring though and how it fell apart in layers.
Chili Oil-Poached Red Snapper
I was a bit worried that this dish would be too spicy for me but it wasn't at all - the chili oil lent a very mild flavor to the beautifully flaky, poached fish. The combination of the earthiness of the radishes and the distinct flavor of the red snapper really worked well together and the colors in this dish are again, incredibly striking.
Peach Melba
A perfect simple, summery dessert - white and yellow peaches covered with a noraspberry puree and a milky granita. 
Chocolate Pudding, Devil's cake, Whipped cream and Crystallized Lavender
Appallingly good - it seems like a rather simple dessert but it's somehow elevated beyond the ordinary. The pudding was creamy and dense and full of chocolatey goodness and perfectly offset by the thick, fluffy whipped cream. The crunchy crystallized lavender bits were really pretty look at and also quite good though really intensely strong (take just a few bits with each biteful or else they get overwhelming).
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Conclusion
This was easily one of the best dining experiences I've had recently and I'd definitely frequent Perry Street more often but the location makes it a bit of a trek to get to on most weekdays.
FoodistColony Review
Blogsoop Review
SavorNY review
July 07, 2007
Seattle & Vancouver Trip in pictures & Quick Recap
Seattle:
Noteworthy Food Experiences:
- Ponti Seafood Grill: Amazing seafood (I've never had such great salmon before in my life in a beautiful, bustling dining space)
- Vivace coffee: Hands-down the best cappuccino I've ever had - the perfect ratio of dense milk frothiness to espresso
- Pike Market: Gorgeous produce, quirky handmade goods, very characteristic of the unique Seattle vibe
Vancouver:
Noteworthy Food Experiences:
- Granville Island Market: Gorgeous produce, delicious artisanal goods, more different types of tea than you ever knew existed, great wine
- Mondo Gelato: Yummy gelato in fun flavors like Nutella, Ferrero Rocher and all the classics!
- Richmond Night Market: Feel like you're in a real Asian night market without ever leaving North America - this place is just so much fun :)
May 16, 2007
A taste of the Bar Room at The Modern
As a prelude to the Arcade Fire concert at the opening of the High Line Festival, Connie, Nicky and I were wandering around the bleakly corporate area of Midtown near Radio City in desperate need of some good food. After much deliberating, we decided to pop into the Bar Room at the Modern to get a sampling of some of their interesting and beautifully presented dishes.
The Decor: (7/10)
Shot of interior courtesy of The Wandering Eater
The interior of the Modern is really quite pretty - clean lines, artfully placed plants and plenty of room around tables.
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The Food: (8.5/10)
Every dish on the menu is a small plate broken out into 3 sections: section I (primarily cold plates), section II (primarily hot plates) and section III (half sized entrees).
Roasted Long Island Duck Breast with peppercorn crusted apples and toasted pistachio-truffle dipping sauce ($16)
Since I'm slightly obsessed with duck, I ordered this dish of course and was so incredibly glad that I had. There's something about the combination of incredibly tender roasted duck and the crunchy tartness of apples that creates a nearly heavenly sensation. The toasted pistachio-truffle dipping sauce was just the icing on the cake and lent the dish a really mellow, earthly flavor.
Slow Poached Farm Egg In a Jar with maine lobster, roasted jerusalem artichokes and sea urchin froth ($17) Wow. There's not much else to say about this dish - you just really need to run out and get a few jars. There's been this craze surrounding egg dishes that I've totally bought into:
At Degustation: 
Slowly Poached Egg with jamón serrano, chorizo, smoked cheese and rice cracker crusted asparagus
At Inoteca: 
Truffled Egg Toast (photo courtesy of Kathryn)
At WD-50:
Carrot-Coconut "Sunny Side Up"
And the list goes on and on over at NYM's list of the top egg dishes of NYC
But back to the matter at hand:
Beer Braised Pork Belly with sauerkraut and ginger jus ($19)
Ah, pork belly... it's really hard to go wrong with this dish - I'm not a huge fan of sauerkraut but it really worked with the sweetness of the beer braised pork belly. Everything was perfectly cooked and everything on the plate served a purpose.
Roasted Garlic Gnocchi with wild mushroom, sage and crispy sweetbreads ($17)
Really tender, flavorful gnocchi and deliciously crunchy sweetbreads. The sage was also fried which lent a nice texture tot his dish.
Beignets with maple ice cream, caramel and mango marmalade ($10)
Ah, beignets... these were a bit too soft for my taste but the sauces more than made up for it. There's just something so deliciously decadent about swirling caramel around maple ice cream and topping it off with a big chunk of fried dough...
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More info and reviews:
FoodistColony aggregated reviews
Blogsoop aggregated reviews
May 09, 2007
May 01, 2007
Taste of the 5 Boroughs: An Ode through Ice Cream?
Contrary to public polls, I have returned from my trip alive, well and completely in one piece :) The original plan was to go through Spain & Portugal but alas, things change and I made a 6 day detour to Ireland (quite possible my best decision ever). I'll be sorting through the pictures and putting up a brief travelogue over the next week but just wanted to do a short update and point to this extremely funny representation of the taste of the 5 boroughs through ice cream:
5 Boroughs Ice Cream Flavors
Interview with Founders
Gotta love the UES flavor :)
March 28, 2007
Flirting with Spain @ Degustation
I know, I know - I've mentioned my newfound love for Spanish cuisine several times already on this blog but ever since my trip to Barcelona back in November, I haven't been able to get the memory of it out of my system. So, this past weekend, instead of doing the responsible thing and finishing up my taxes, I booked the airfare for my triumphant return trip to Spain! I'm going in mid-April (3 short weeks from now!) from 4/13 - 4/29 and so far, the plan is to hit San Sebastian, Madrid, Cordoba, Sevilla, Granada (maybe) and end up in Lisbon. If anyone has any recommendations for any restaurants/activities in any of these cities, please funnel them to me. :)
On to the food... in an effort to 1) try out a place that has been gushed over by foodies from all over and 2) whet my appetite for all the spanish goodies I'll soon be consuming, I headed over to Degustation on tuesday night.
The Decor: (9/10)
What a gorgeous dining room... when we walked in, we mistakenly walked into Jewel Bako (pictured on the right) since it shares a space with Degustation (the two restaurants are literally right next to each other, separated by a hallway). On a tuesday night around 7, the place wasn't really that busy - there were probably 5-6 other diners there with us that night so it felt like we had the undiluted attention of all three of the chefs standing behind the counter including the young, infinitely talented and unbelievably (and quite distractingly) good-looking Chef Wesley Genovart. It's really remarkable that he's turning out such interesting food and running a critically acclaimed restaurant at the tender age of 27 (I can't believe I'm turning 25 next month... I think I seriously need to pick up the pace!) I really love the whole concept of eating at a counter and watching all the culinary magic happening in front of you. My only gripe with the dining space was that it felt a bit stuffy but that might have been due to the time we were dining and a less than bustling dining room.
Interior Photos from the New York Times review of Degustation and Jewel Bako
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The Food: (8.5/10)
Slowly Poached Egg with jamón serrano, chorizo, smoked cheese and rice cracker crusted asparagus
This is going right on my list as one of my favorite comfort food dishes. The texture of the slowly poached egg (courtesy of the increasingly popular sous-vide method of cooking) is incomparable to that of an egg cooked by any other method - silky smooth, creamy and jiggly all at the same time. The rice cracker crusted asparagus had great flavor and was meant to be dipped into all the lovely, dribbly egg. I think the jamon serrano really brought a great dimension to the dish. Ultimate takeaway: this dish gave me the first hint of the chef's deep love of spanish flavors and inventiveness.
Corn and onion croquetas with saffron aioli
I love croquetas and these were four perfect representations of their kind - all beautifully crispy on the outside and creamy and soft inside. The saffron aioli was delicious and complemented the sweet corn innards as well as being a great visual accent.
Seared scallops, fried artichokes, vegetables in jamon serrano jus
I don't normally like scallops all that much but this dish has gone a long way in changing my mind about them. We ordered this to try out the fried artichokes and we weren't disappointed. The scallops were delicately sweet, had a deliciously seared flavor and nearly melted in our mouths. The fried artichoke was just as wonderful as I remembered it being (I discovered and ordered them way too often in Barcelona) and acted as a nice, crispy, salty counterpoint. I don't think the vegetables really contributed much to the dish overall but sneaking some into your diet is a good thing, right? (just kidding - I make it a point to eat plenty of veggies)
Squid stuffed with braised short ribs and lentils
Another signature Degustation dish - grilled squid stuffed with braised short ribs and lentils? What kind of wacky combination is that? Miraculously, this is a winning combo. The short rib was so tender and the squid was perfectly grilled so the combination of the two resulted in an explosion of flavor and soft textures. The lentils lent a really earthy quality to the dish though the bits of chorizo sprinkled throughout made them way too salty.
Crispy sweetbreads + cucumber dill greek yogurt with chilies
Wow, I had no idea sweetbreads could be so good... I foresee a mass tasting of them coming up. The sweetbreads were really delicately fried so the texture was perfect and the pretty green cucumber dill greek yogurt sauce drizzled all over the plate gave them a cool, refreshing taste.
Ribeye with a red onion marmalade, molasses and bone marrow foam
I have to say this really isn't the prettiest dish I've ever seen but it was seriously good. The meat was barely cooked and so tender it was remarkable. The bone marrow foam was an interesting touch - apparently the chef loves the flavor of bone marrow but finds the texture disgusting thus the incorporation into foam form. The foam combined with a really tasty red onion marmalade and molasses equated to seriously good flavor.
Suckling pig
Yum - crackling skin, tender meat, enough said. Nothing extraordinarily innovative here but it was delicious :)
Apple Tart Tatin with greek yogurt
The dessert portion of the menu was limited to the apple tart tatin and a cheese plate. With my notorious sweet tooth, I opted for the ooey, gooey goodness of the apple tart tatin. This was a really nice ending to the meal though not overly exciting.
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More info and reviews:
NY Times Review
SavoryNewYork Review (with chef interview)
Aggregated blog reviews via Blogsoop
March 14, 2007
Openings: Ed's Lobster Shack & East Village Ice Cream
From DailyCandy: "There’s a good chance that the menu in heaven looks something like this: lobster roll, lobster pot pie, grilled lobster, and — aw, what the heck — another lobster roll. Paradise gets a step closer tomorrow when Ed’s Lobster Bar opens in SoHo. Ed McFarland, longtime cook at Pearl Oyster Bar, is now going it on his own. And not a moment too soon: The east side has been itching for a proper seafood shack. Ed’s is charming and unpretentious: long dining bar, a dozen tables in the back, gray wainscoting, and oceanic scenes on the walls. A fitting home for the simple, magnificent crustacean. Right. About the lobster-rific menu. It includes all the heavenly wishes and a raw bar, clam chowder, steamers, PEI mussels, seared scallops, and New York bouillabaisse. And just about everything falls between $10 and $20. Yes, pinch yourself. No, you’re not dreaming." "There are really only two kinds of people (lunatics, geniuses) who would dare open an ice cream shop in the dead of winter. But East Village Ice Cream, a bite-size, creamsicle-colored store just opened by a Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory alum, is a case of mad brilliance. Everything in the tiny gem of a shop is handcrafted in carefully curated, ever-changing flavors: mango made from fresh fruit and brown sugar; pistachio with bits of toasted, hand-mashed nuts; and sweet, rich coffee that revives better than any cup of joe. Calculate the beneficial effects of vanilla with caramel or strawberry with rainbow sprinkles on your seasonal affective disorder. Before you know it, you’ll be scarfing down amazing Scharffen Berger chocolate-chocolate chunk in zero-degree weather, wondering whether you are a lunatic or a genius. Or a little of both."
Ed’s Lobster Bar
East Village Ice Cream
March 04, 2007
Burgers and shakes, all grown-up @ Stand
When did New York become so burger-crazed? Not that I'm complaining - I think the burgers + fries + shake combination is one of the best things ever. There's Burger Joint (my favorite thus far but primarily because of the awesomeness of having a dingy greasy burger place hidden in the lobby of a prim and proper hotel in the heart of Midtown), Shake Shack (re-opening 3/21 much to the joy of fans everywhere), Corner Bistro (tried going last friday night but the lines were too long), brgr (burgers 2.0 style anyone?) and too many others to list.
I think that Stand is going to become my go-to place for a nice, civilized burger and fries experience going forward.
The Decor: (9.5/10)
Stand has a really clean, comfortable, pop-modern interior courtesy of Studio Gaia. The dining room is composed of lots of long picnic tables and comfortable benches which give the place a very laid-back feel but you also notice that all the furniture is custom-tailored by BDDW, a Soho design house. That's essentially the theme of the day - upscale burgers in great digs.
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The Food: (9/10)
Fresh blackberry soda, $4
Such a refreshing drink - nicely sweet and mildly carbonated. I think the flavor of the blackberry wasn't strong enough though and there was a bit too much lime in the mixture.
Chocolate Malt Shake, $6
Amazing, amazing shakes... if this is any representation of the full line-up of shakes (I really couldn't stomach more than one even though I wanted to try them all), Stand's shakes are huge winners. The chocolate malt shake hit all the right notes and felt velvety, creamy and well-rounded. All shakes are made with gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato, which might explain how these are so mind-numbingly good. They're also unfortunately $6 each so these might be quite a dangerous addiction.
Small shoestring fries, $3
These were a great example of what shoestring fries should taste and feel like - really crispy, fresh from the frier and perfectly salted- and went really well with the burgers.
Medium-rare cheeseburger - Sesame bun, beef, onion marmalade, lettuce, blue cheese sauce, $11
This was a really good burger and cooked just perfectly (medium rare) so that the juices were leaking all over the plate before we were done.
Mushroom Beef Burger with onion marmalade, lettuce, porcini sauce, $10
Since I love mushrooms so much, I had to get the mushroom beef burger and I was so glad I did. I have to say this is one of my favorite burgers now - the meatiness and richness of the mushroom really complemented the smoky grilled flavor of the beef. I got mine medium since I don't like bleeding meat and the burger was really firm but still juicy and bursting with flavor. I did notice that this was a bit under-seasoned but overall, excellent.
The condiments: Bertman ball park mustard, Kewpie mayonnaise (so cute!), Heinz ketchup
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Summary
Stand is a really aesthetically appealing place to get some upscale burgers, great drinks and yummy fries in the Village. I think that the food is a bit overpriced (our meal for two came to ~$40) but the ambiance and generally high quality of the food make up for it.
As a side note, I welcomed a new addition to my tech family this week - meet my new toy, the Canon Rebel XT - we're going to be grand friends :) This is the first set of photos from my new cam, but I'm hoping to start upping the quality of my photos as I learn more about what this baby can do.
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