Kefi

Last Thursday I went to go see Nosedive’s production of “A Colorful World”. Based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel “The Watchmen” it was clever, witty and all in all well done. Kudos to all involved with special nods to James, Pete and Patrick Shearer, who is a devastingly talented actor. But this ain’t no theater blog kids. The show was on the upper west side, where I spent many a year slaving over a hot stove and subsequently getting kicked out of Citrus only to retreat to All State Café (R.I.P. to the saddest bar I’ve ever been to)

Now originally I wanted to eat at Ouest or Telepan but it seems that my friends are not nearly as eager to spend all their money on food (weirdos). I had heard good things about it and the chef Michael Psilakis who is now hotter than hot (he also is the chef at Anthos and Mia Dona). I looked up the greek menu online and found that it was pretty inexpensive and right around the corner from the theatre so it seemed perfect.

I rushed in my customary 10 mintues late to find Maria, Marsha and Teresa sitting at the bar waiting for me, which was an absolute joy . The bar is small and the front lounge was filled with people waiting for tables. Our waiter, who was also apparently a manager was quite gracious in giving us a table for 5 (Nadine joined us 5 mintes later after she found a power bar- upcoming blog, my thoughts on replacing a meal with a bar).

The dining room was packed and we got a roomy table in the back. Our waiter/manager told us the specials of the night and was incredible knowledgable and passionate about the food and wine. He recommened a greek red (all the wines are Greek) which was absolutely delicious. Marsha and I decided to start our meal by sharing Sheeps Milk Dumplings with Pine nuts, Sausage and Tomatoes. Teresa ordered the selection of spreads and Maria opted to start with a simple greek salad. The sheep’s milk dumpling appetizer was wonderful . Savory and delcious, the dish was perfectly balanced, and the sausage had a little kick, not too much but enough for me to appreciate. The selection of dips was also a great way to start a meal, served with warm pita bread, I love nothing more than having warm bread with something warm to slather over it. Now I have always loved taramosalata, (creamy fish roe spread), but for me the real revelation was the eggplant caviar spread. I don’t really like eggplant. Growing up my mother would serve it fried, in oil that was never hot enough rendering it into essentially a flavorless oil sponge (my mother is a good cook, just not with the eggplant, I love you Ma), served as a spread it was smoky and wonderfully flavorful.

For entrees I opted for the “broken mouska”, which was basically a free form mouska, Marsha the pork medallions with spicy peppers and capers, Teresa, sheeps milk ravioli with brown butter and sage, and Maria shrimp with orzo and feta. Everything was fantastic, I have only had mousaka at diners so it was a real treat to see the dish elevated into something a bit more special with care towards ingredients and method. Marsha’s pork was the perfect dish for her, peppers, capers, lemon with pork worked beautifully and was perfectly balanced. Teresa’s sheeps milk ravioli were delicious ( I feel like if someone ran in and put brown butter on my computer, I might eat it). And sweet Maria, a practicing vegetarian who for some reason feels compelled to eat fish whenever I’m around, her shrimp with feta and orzo was wonderful. The flavors were fresh and the dish worked wonderfully. Everyone enjoyed the food a lot and we had a great time eating talking and laughing like ladies who lunch (or dinner).

Unfortunatly we couldn’t stay for dessert,we had to run to the show, but Kefi with no entrée over $15 is defiently worth treking to the Upper West Side for.

top chef you suck

i know i have really never blogged about top chef this season, but honestly HONESTLY, this season BLOWS, yeah lets keep lisa on, you know fuck it let her win because this season is all about sending home talented chefs to keep a retard who makes peanut butter mashed potatoes on. Yeah I'm bitter, no reality show has ever made me this angry, thanks colichicco you bald fucker, and same to you padma. Honestly? HONESTLY? LISA. This show blows. I'll see you at the finale bravo. I hate you.

He's the Hugo Chavez of Gastronomy. . .

this articles rocks my socks off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/world/europe/01spain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=dining

Congratulations!

My old chef from 'cesca Amanda Freitag got 2 stars in the times, she's the new chef at the harrison and and seems happier than ever. I couldn't be happier for her. Here's a link to the review. I hopefully i'll be able to stop down there soon.

Damn Brazilians

I’ve been pretty lax in posting lately sorry. Late nights, good times, regrets the same old same old. I heard a story last night about, that I found particulary interesting in terms of how you deal with difficult service.

Memorial day, table of brazilians they order an $800 bottle of wine. Our sommlier goes to un cork the bottle and the cork disintergrates. It’s from 1971, so this is bound to happen. Protocol for this situation is to decant the bottle (through a coffee filter) and to serve it to the guest. When the matire d goes to tell the table they freak out and insist on a new bottle. Now there is nothing wrong with the bottle that they have. In fact it’s quite a nice bottle. And it’s not cheap, we can’t just give you an $800 bottle of wine for free without good reason.

Now I’m not the kind of person to order a bottle of wine that expensive. I don’t have that kind of money. But here’s the thing. If I did, I would trust the estabilishment selling the wine to know how to serve it (which we do). I would not get beliegerent and accuse a two michelin star restaurant of trying to sell a 90 dollar bottle of wine as an 800 dollar bottle of wine. And no matter how bad the service was. I would not leave no tip on a $2145 check. NO TIP. The matire d ran after the party on the street, and convinced them into giving the restaurant a 15% tip. Retarded man. Retarded.

In other supernon related news I’ve been listening to the violent femmes a lot. I suppose I’m late to this party. Oh well I’m late to everything.
Oh related news interesting article in the observer about ironic food.

Interesting

Here's a little slideshow from the new york times about chef's knife bags. Frankly I think it's fascinating, but that's just me.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/06/16/magazine/20060618_CHEF_SLIDESHOW_1.html

Friday was busy

I had an interesting day on Friday. I spent most of Thursday night and the wee hours of Friday morning celebrating the birthday of my friend Troy. The next day we put on our Friday lunch best and continued the birthday celebrations at Eleven Madison Park. I love Eleven Madison Park. I went when they first opened years ago and recently with Nadine. Nadine and I had the tasting menu which was amazing. I wanted to take Troy there because he loves fine dining and wine and rarely gets to go out to nice restaurants in the city.

We walked in and were greeted quite warmly by the hostess, who wished Troy a happy birthday and talked to Troy about being the maître d at Bouley. They sat at a wonderful table by one of the giant windows. For those of you that haven’t been there, it’s a gorgeous dining room. Art deco inspired with massive ceilings.

We started out our meal with champagne; they brought out a champagne cart driven by a sommelier. Troy decided on a German sparkling white, (I may be wrong here I will fact check over the weekend). It was really refreshingly dry the perfect way to start the meal. We decided to have the tasting menu, because, you know I like tasting menus. As it was Troy’s birthday they had the foresight to give us menus that said “happy birthday” it was quite sweet and Troy was quite touched.

The first course was a Garden pea and Coconut panacotta with “crunchy spring vegetables”. The panacotta was lovely. Light and delicate, the crunchy spring vegetables balanced the panacotta texturally perfectly. A wonderful way to start the meal, it really tasted of spring.

The second course was halibut with razor clams, cauliflower puree and green almonds. I cannot stress enough how exquisitely cooked the halibut was. Tender, juicy and cooked all the way through, the halibut was divine. The accompanying cauliflower puree, green almonds and some sort of saffron sauce balanced the dish beautifully. The razor clams added another dimension of savory that was unexpected and worked quite well.

At this point I suppose it’s prudent to mention the wine. Now as much as I love tasting menus, I also love them with wine pairings. Troy however being a sommelier is a bit weary of them. He went through the 90 page wine list (shouldn’t it be a wine book at that point?) and chose a German white, a Franken Rielsing ( Hans Wirsching, Iphöfer Kronsberg , Spätlese, Trocken 2006, and yes I did just copy and paste this from the restaurants website. Sue me). The bottle was not the usual wine bottle shape and short, which is why a lot of restaurants don’t carry it (it’s hard to store). It was absolutely perfect. It was a pleasant compliment to the panacotta and the halibut. This is one of the perks of going to eat with a sommelier; he knows stuff about booze that I am sure not to know.

Now the next course was the foie gras. Ahhh foie gras, so delicious, so hard to mess up (though apparently it does happen). The foie was served with rhubarb and was absolutely delicious. Our waitress brought us a glass of dessert wine to accompany it. This is where the weirdness with the service starts. Troy had to be at work by 4, and told our waitress when we sat down. So she gives us a dessert wine to accompany the foie, it tasted like sweet lacquer. Sweet delicious lacquer. She said that they chose to give us the dessert wine rather than an extra course because of the time constraint. After we left Troy and I looked at each other like “bitch please”, the courses while delicious were on the small side and we were eating fairly quickly. They totally could have done an extra course. But no matter, the glass of wine with the foie was quite nice (though Troy pointed out that the pairing was “textbook”).

The next course was a lamb en croute with artichokes and prosciutto. They presented us the lamb before they plated it which is a nice old school touch that I always appreciate. The lamb was delicious. Lamb loin wrapped in prosciutto wrapped in puff pastry, it was served with tomato confit, and baby artichokes. A note about baby artichokes: my first garde manger job at ‘Cesca I had to clean and cook cases of artichokes, babies and full grown. I love artichokes but I rarely order them in restaurants or cook them for myself because they are so labor intensive and I feel bad. Hats off to you entremet at Eleven Madison Park. They were magical. They also sent us a glass of red to accompany the lamb. Worked together very nicely.

So now on the tasting menu we had a choice of cheese or dessert. And to quote my favorite movie I thought “can’t we have both?”. So we did. Now when I came for dinner they brought the cheese cart. I still dream of that cheese cart. It was filled with lactose loving sometimes while I’m watching law and order I wish a captain from eleven Madison Park would show up with the cart and offer me some goat cheese to accompany my favorite crime drama. But I digress. Um no cheese cart for lunch. This made me sad. I was tempted to add an emoticon but thought better of it. The cheese plate though was delicious. They were served with wine gelees, which frankly added very little to the cheese but looked pretty on the plate. There was a Portuguese soft sheeps milk that was a standout. Our German white (remember that) went perfectly with the cheese, which Troy predicted when he first tasted it.

Dessert was a “ Vacherin” of Lemon and Basil Parfait, Strawberries and bits o’ Meringue. It was really refreshing. The parfait was light and delicious, the strawberry ice cream tasted much more like a sorbet though it was far more intense than a normal sorbet. Now here’s the weird bit about lunch. When I made the reservation I told them I was bringing the maitre d from Bouley for his birthday. When we walked in they greeted us with a happy birthday, they even wrote it on the menu. Now just about every restaurant that has sit down service if they know it’s your birthday will bring you a dessert with a candle. I was sitting there looking for anyone with a plate with a candle. Nothing. I discussed it with Troy, he said he didn’t mind, he was for more touched by the menus. He got up to go to the bathroom, I asked our waitress if she could bring out just any dessert with happy birthday written on it. She brought out a cookie plate with happy birthday written on it. Cookie plate was nice, had some awesome dark chocolate and peanut butter tarts. We washed everything down with a glass of cognac that Troy chose, a wonderful way to end a meal. Now the bill came and it wasn’t cheap, they comped us the two glasses of wine and the cheese course. But they charged me for the cookie plate. That was weird. Now I don’t mind paying, going into Eleven Madison Park you know that you will be dropping at least $300 (I think our total was like 340 after tip), but $12 for a cookie plate for a birthday? Really? To sum up food fantastic, service pretty great with a few odd missteps.

Now did my day end there? NO Friday night I went to see Stone Soup Theatre Arts Production of Ghostdancers (quality linkage). I met my friend Nicole at Gusto and we had a quick dinner at Dallas BBQ before the show. Now after the champagne, the wine, more wine and then the cognac I was as they say a tad overserved so all I really wanted was some fried food. And frankly I don’t like the barbeque at Dallas BBQ. So I ate some fried shrimp and a giant apple martini because I am classy. Comparing the restaurants would be odd, but I’m glad I went to both in the same day to get some perspective on restaurants in general.

The show was great, I am blessed to have some amazingly talented and wonderful friends. (Please vote for Nadine. A lot). After the show we went to some tiny Mexican restaurant. I didn’t eat anything, so there’s really nothing to report other than apparently I intimidate my friend DR with my knowledge of food. A few things, DR you are sweet and naked, 2. I just love food I don’t judge. Unless you put ketchup on your eggs which is just gross. Other than that most everything is fine. All in all a great day filled with wonderful food, drink and friends.