New York Restaurants

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.)

ian totally has a crush on the sushi gen waitress. it is cute.

last weekend tried an italian spot in the village called Maremma. the chef is a protege of Mario Batali and the menu showed it, homemade testa (headcheese) and two pork-ragu pastas. i was tempted by a pasta special of spaghetti w/beef ragu made from cattle 'the chef raises on his upstate farm it's leaner and sweeter' but I planned to make a ham on sunday so I went with the old standby of chicken cooked under a brick w/garlicky greens and a great starter of sea bass w/veg whipped into a spread-- like an ital version of whitefish salad!

like an ital version of whitefish salad

do you mean it was italian or rastafarian?

ooooh me <3 whitefish salad. i am still trying to remember the name/exact location of a really excellent italian place i stumbled upon in the east village ~2.5 years ago... it's killing me because it was really good but i can't remember which avenue it was on. it was somewhere btw houston and 14th, probably closer to houston, but there are so many italian restaurants around there...

i get my hair cut down the block from maremma, and have been wanting to try it for a while. it sounds great.

t, do you remember any details about the place?

at the new cubana cafe in carroll gardens i had for the first time, coffee with frothed coconut milk. i don't know why I had never thought of that before.

it was on the nw corner of the block (i think), kind of dark wood inside... had like two rooms side by side. there may have been some red in the decor.

do you mean it was italian or rastafarian?

italian, though a rasta might do a similiar salad w/stockfish aka salt cod. could be er, "irie" or terrible.

I haven't found the pizza at Otto amazing but I think it's generally an enjoyable place to eat. The gelato is pretty damned good though.

I ate at Maremma a while back and didn't think it was so great. I posted what now seems to me like kind of an obnoxious review upthread. Maybe I was in a bad mood and should try it again.

I've been to Cafe Mogador a couple times lately and was pretty happy. Not the best Moroccan I've ever had, but good lamb tagine, good couscous, good tabouli and hummus and nice atmosphere, and the prices are very reasonable. The waitresses also knew their wine and made very good recs.

ian totally has a crush on the sushi gen waitress.

Of course he does. SHE BRINGS HIM FOOD.

I heard a thing on NPR today about the Moonies and was reminded that Rev. Moon has a virtual monopoly on the sushi industry in this area.

i like mogador a lot. pretty cheap and generally always good. they have excellent breakfasts, too.

used to go to Mogador back when I lived on St Marks Place, nice to hear it hasn't declined or slipped into self-parody over the years the way so many long-running NYC restaurants do.

xpost
still? does Moon control the suppliers? in the 80s people said he owned all the Korean vegetable markets too.

both mogador and cafe orlin up the street are still totally solid. for some reason i associate the two places.