New York Restaurants

Wait, you forgot pork form.

i go to sushi gen in pspect heights for brunch almost every weekend now. they do an amazing job with everything. and the only eggs are a tamago patty usually with eel or crab.

and i am so over potatoes in the morning, they just put me to sleep!

i really hate the paprika-heavy home fries with green/red pepper and onion that have become the standard at a lot of places trying to class things up. it doesn't help that they're almost always lukewarm.

god i love eggs and breakfast meats but would gladly go back to santana sooooon. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I think home fries are better than potatoes cut up as far as this xpost to b_l

The blueberry pancakes at Clinton Street Baking Company are really good.

Peppers in home fries are gross. Home fries: day-old cooked potatoes, onions, fried in butter/olive oil mix with shitloads of pepper. A dusting of paprika is fine to give veggies a smokey taste but in other circs the paprika ought to come via the tiny pieces of chorizo you fry off with the onions. Simply put, do not embellish HF recipe until you can make it with only onions, pepper and the cooking fat of your choice.

Lauren is also correct in that HF should be HOT.

My best experience with day-old potato usage is (attn Londoners) the chips from the Fryer's Delight, which are chunky and fried in beef tallow.

I want brunch. Is the Greenpoint ramen open yet?

that place is never opening, as far as i can tell.

Ah, well I'm working this Sat. but could do a Sun. ramen/brunch if it goes done.

Alan Richman slams Les Halles after receiving Douchebag Award from Anthony Bourdain at Golden Clogs.

Oh, Astroland opens this Sun.--maybe a C.I. brunch?

oh, re: ramen - someone on c.hound posted that ippudo should be open next week (person has apparently received the friends & family invite).

they have help wanted signs in japanese as well.

ippudo's specialty is tonkotsu, right?

To be really technical, their specialty is "hakata" ramen which usually features a tonkotsu broth.

i don't know what any of that is but WANT.

the richman/bourdain beef is fucking fantastic, and makes me like AB even more

I think les halles kinda sucks, but don't see what responsibility Bourdain has for the place these days.

I am saving up my quarters to play racecar games at C.I. this Summer

i'm reading a bourdain book (a cook's tour) and it is making me hungry all the time. though the guy is totally corny.

bourdain is not a very good writer.
even if his anecdotes themselves are sometimes illuminating, and definitely hunger-inspiring.

i want to see his show.

the one episode i saw was so awesome that i priced airfare to hong kong the next day, but it kinda depends on your acceptance of him as some kind of bad-ass rebel rock star persona.
he also recreated sequences from kung fu movies

his show is good TV, last season especially was great, but it's still good. I mostly find him annoying but then he says something really OTM, or suprisingly poetic, or something really funny or crazy happens, or you just see some awesome food in an awesome locale, and that's enough to make me watch.

the only part I don't like is his once per episode "my producers made me do this / I'm too good for TV" schtick

when he's sincere it's usually really good

hungover and craving ramen, i tried to go to setagaya yesterday afternoon but got there just as they stopped the afternoon service. heartbreaking. went to m0m0fuku noodle bar instead and had the pork neck ramen. eh. not great, not bad. the noodles are good, but i didn't care much for the broth. a liberal dose of sriracha helped out. the pork was tasty, but there was so much of it that it was kind of overwhelming - more like meat with noodles instead of the other way around. it's certainly a generous portion, as i ate until i was stuffed and still had about a third of the bowl left over. the other menu items sounded delicious, but sadly the ramen was all that my budget could accommodate. 3 of the dishes i had my eye on would have set me back about $45.

yeah the ramen is really the least interesting thing on the menu at m0m0fuku - the best thing I've had there was a big plate of schezuan crayfish.

i really wanted rice cakes with oxtail ragu.

also the grilled beef tongue, and the sweetbreads. /glutton

Lauren, I ordered in brunch from Taco 5antana last weekend, just to relive the deliciousness. Next stop: their enchiladas. I can hardly wait!

SZECHUAN CRAYFISH OMG WANT. Even though I don't know exactly what it is. Describe this?

what do people think about Otto? went for the second time Saturday. the pizza is just .... not that good. the crust is like a hard cracker. it's not terrible (the anchovies I had to start were great) but for the amount of hassle you have to go through to eat there it ain't worth it.

have not tried otto, but that seems to be the conventional wisdom. they're seemingly quite child-friendly, which is a plus for people who want to go out somewhere interesting/nice-ish with the kids.

haha, laurel - i had huevos rancheros there on saturday. so good. my friend wanted to go to egg, but fuck an hour wait for eggs and grits. over to t.s. we went.

that seems to be the conventional wisdom - by that i meant that the pizza is actually not their strong suit.

i can't decide if i am craving ramen or pho today. i have a sore throat so i think that super-salty ramen broth might destroy me. does anyone have a favorite pho place (that isn't in jackson heights)?

i think the crunchy pizza crust @ otto works on the no-tomato sauce pizzas like my favorite clam pie. but it's kind of weird on the pepperoni, say, though their house-made meat on that one is wild, really spicy. it is a good place to take kids and easier to get reservations at than babbo. the wines and side-dishes are great.

but then my tastes in restaurants are "middlebrow" compared to serious foodies, so take it w/a grain o salt.

you always seem pretty otm to me.

ah thanks laurel the feeling is mutual. it's just lately when i read restaurant reviews I don't feel so adventurous.

lol

laureN sorry i am pathologically typo-prone

linds, stop in chinatown for pho. several vietnamese places - pho bang is ok and cheap, but can anyone recommend something a lil better?

brunch at gen this weekend:

-sake mimosa
-loos leaf "special" green tea

-crab curry soup

-salmon/tuna/mackeral chirashi
-mini eel & onion fritatta
-renkon hasami age

-spring roll with sponge cake, mango, peach & red bean in mango puree.

-green tea ice cream

soooooooo good.

ugh, i really don't like pho bang. i like nam son and pho tu do a lot, although i'm not sure how the pho is. cong ly always gets high marks for that, but i've never tried.

great $5 lunch: a package of "finger maki" (basically thinner, elongated korean sushi) and a small container of octopus salad from m2m on 3rd avenue & 10th st.

i had brunch at bogota bistro in park slope yesterday. guava mimosa! i loved it, and i am usually a bloody mary girl. my friend's friend is an owner and brought us bunuelos with guava butter. yum. i had mexican breakfast (eggs scrambled w/ jalapenos and chorizo and some other stuff, rice, beans, salad, tortillas), which was OK, but my friend's 'carribean breakfast' was yum - eggs with scallions and some other stuff, arepas, tostones, cabbage, potato cakes. so much food, we couldn't finish.

went to that downstairs place on Doyers last month, used to be called Vietnam? it's still tasty and super-cheap. had curry squid and a spicy beef salad but no pho (see what I mean about not being adventurous.)