Hello All, and Welcome to the April 24th 2006 Edition of THE STRONG BUZZ! This Week: DFD Update, The News (Good Fork, Quality Meats, Buzina Pop, Café Condesa, and more), Events, My Dinner at 360.

DINING FOR DARFUR UPDATE

We are just a week away from Dining for Darfur. I know I may sound like a broken record here every week, but the suffering—the genocide—in Darfur is happening on our watch, my friends. This is not some far away genocide of some distance historical past. This is happening today, now, as you read these words. So, I’d like to (again) ask all of you to do three things: please take a moment to sign a postcard for the Million Voices for Darfur program, to make plans to go to the rally in Washington DC , and to make reservations now for dinner at one of our participating restaurants, which this week includes new additions of Koi, Jerry’s, Appellation Wine and Spirits, and Sapa.

This week, DFD was featured in Metro New York and I would like to thank Amanda Klunt for writing a great Q&A and helping us spread the word.

I’d also like to congratulate Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times on winning the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on the genocide in Darfur. I have never met Mr. Kristof, but I read him regularly and have had the pleasure of hearing him speak, and he has become an inspiration to me as a model citizen and journalist. His reporting alone continues to give voice to the hundreds of thousands of people of Darfur who have been burned out of their homes, tortured, raped and mutilated by the Janjaweed and also to those who have died, whose voices have been muted forever.

Look, we are all living here together on this planet, and these days, between Iraq, Iran, Darfur, and Katrina, this world can seem fairly awful. As far as I can figure it out, the only way to bring some light into this impossibly thick darkness, is to make some sort of a difference, and the way to do that is really just to start with yourself, and with what you do today, right now. One person, one act, one voice, can make a difference. Darfur is what matters most to me, but there may be some other cause that means more to you—an after school program, a project to help rebuild New Orleans, something else entirely. Whatever it is that speaks to your soul, I hope that you will consider that you can do something. Make a commitment to do one thing today that you didn’t do yesterday. If we all try to live better lives as individuals, we will all live better as a world. Right? Well, I think it’s at least worth a try.

Thank you all for your support and for making Dining for Dafur possible. I hope you all enjoy your dinner on Sunday April 30th and know that you will be making a difference that night to many people across the world.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

The Good Fork
I had a chance to check out this killer new restaurant in Red Hook last week in connection with a story I am writing for my Sunday column in the Post about the recent developments in that neighborhood, and friends, I was blown away. First of all, you feel like you are a million miles away from New York City, with the blue grass playing in the background, the soft spring breeze blowing through the tall curtained windows, and the East River in the distance. This charming new addition to Red Hook’s restaurant row comes to us from Ben Schneider (a fabulously gifted carpenter who built the place) and his wife, chef Sohui Kim, who has cooked at Blue Hill, Annisa, and The Sony Club.

We had a few bites and a couple of cocktails—refreshing sippers like a French 75 made from fresh squeezed lemon juice, gin and champagne ($7) and a Sojito—muddled mint, key lime juice, and rum ($6) topped off with big fresh sprigs of mint, full enough to wear like a flower in your hair. The gently-priced menu is easy to love, grounded in American ingredients, but touched with Korean flare—plump pork and chive pot stickers ($5), crispy panko-crusted veal sweetbreads with grapefruit salad ($10), steak and eggs Korean style—with kimchee rice and a perfectly fried sunny-side up egg on top—and sides like hand-made shrimp and scallion pancakes ($5). A backyard will open in June to add about 20 more spots to the restaurants modest 36 seats. The Good Fork is located at 391 Van Brunt Street, 718-643-6636.

Quality Meats
Manhattan Ocean Club has officially been transformed. The fish have been left in the dust and the place has morphed into a meat-lover’s paradise, designed by AvroKO with classic New York butcher shop elements—white ceramic tiles, chandeliers made of pulleys and large steel butcher hooks. Chef Craig Koketsu, who worked at Lespinasse and was most recently the chef at Manhattan Ocean Club, is manning the stoves and his rustic American menu features meats from family butchers like Milton Abeles and Strassburger Meats. Many of the cuts are custom butchered to Koketsu’s specks and available only at QM.

His menu sounds killer. To start, roasted bone marrow ($9) is served with red wine glazed root vegetables, hand-cut steak tartare ($16) comes with classic accoutrements. Main courses, as you might have guessed, include several steaks, including filet mignon ($39), aged bone-in sirloin ($42), and aged rib steak ($44). Each steak is served with QM’s signature steak sauce, and prepared tableside with freshly snipped herbs. You won’t want to miss the signature three filets ($42), which showcases the QM version of three classic steak preparations: Beef Wellington, filet au poivre, and Filet Oscar.

Other than cow, you’ll find pan-roasted lamb T-bones with black mission figs and mint ($29), roasted chicken with kumquats, grilled veal chops ($39), pepper-glazed tuna ($32), sautéed Dover sole ($44), and whole Mediterranean sea bass ($70, for two). For dessert, pastry chef Cory Colton has created this thing called “A Pie of My Own”—a dessert menu of homemade tarts and pies made for one (you can feel free to share). Quality Meats is located at 57 West 58th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, 212-371-7777.

Buzina Pop
A little samba is coming to the Upper East Side with Buzina Pop, a new Brazilian restaurant from French restaurateur Patrick Laurent and his wife, a boutique owner and former model Stephanie Monserrat-Laurent. The name Buzina Pop is a nod to Chacrinha the clown, a much-loved pop icon in Brazil. The menu comes from chef Adriano Suppa Ricco, a native of Minas Gerais (a region in the southeast of the country) who will serve contemporary Brazilian cuisine. To start there are classic Brazilian snacks like pão de queijo ($12, Brazilian cheese bread), pasteis de angu ($9)—assorted cornmeal pastries filled with meat, cheese and fresh hearts of palm, and cod brandade ($14), with black bean sauce, crispy collard greens, and bone marrow. Entrees include grilled prawns ($32) with coconut quinoa, and deconstructed caipirinha, crispy sautéed cod ($28) with chilled black-eyed peas en vinaigrette, and dende farofa, and grilled sirloin ($38) with aligot potato purée, red wine sauce. Fresh fruit cocktails match up nicely with the outdoor café. Buzina Pop, which will open Wednesday April 26th, is located at 1022A Lexington Ave. at 73rd Street, 212-879-6190.

Café Condesa
This new West Village Mexican joint named after the chic, artsy section of Mexico City, La Condesa, is the labor of love of a trio of guys who met at French Roast: chef Luis Mota, manager Emir Dupeyron and barista Enrique Jardines.

Condesa will serve breakfast (pastries and omelettes), lunch (cobb salad, cemitas, roasted salmon), and a market-driven dinner menu of appetizer-sized plates like braised halibut with purée of asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, and fingerling potatoes, and Albóndigas (meatballs) in a Spanish tomato sauce with saffron-pine nut rice. Coffee is taken seriously here, with a San Marco machine, a special blend of espresso called Antica Tostura Triestina, and a new blend of ground to order coffee called "Kick Ass," for one intense café con leche. Café Condesa is located at 183 West 10th Street, off of 7th Avenue, 212-352-0050.

Yummy Shawarmy
Homemade pita and baguettes are the hot pockets for the shawarma sandwiches served at Yummy Shawarmy, a bright new Middle Eastern café and takeaway owned by Kobi Weichman (who also owns 86th Street Wines) and chef Yuval Golan. The pita and baguettes, which are also available for sale in bulk for happy home consumption, can be filled with turkey or chicken shawarma ($3.50-$6.50) with housemade hot sauce and fresh vegetables. The menu also includes family-style shawarma platters, falafel, cous cous, babaganoush, hummus, roasted eggplant and Israeli salad. Yummy Shawarmy, which is open until 2am weekdays and until 4am on weekends, is located at 71 Seventh Avenue (at Bleecker Street), 212-989-7170.

Arium
The other day while strolling around the Meatpacking after a great lunch out in the garden of Five Ninth, I stumbled onto Arium, and almost feel off my Target peep-toe wedges. (Which you should know is not hard to do, because they were way too high, and I am more of a flip flop girl most of the time.) Anyway, the point is, I was in shock. Imagine finding an oasis of serenity and calm with proper tea service, and classical music played on a Steinway B Grand piano just steps away from the tragically hip madness at Pastis and Spice Market. Indeed, Arium is like the pink elephant of the Meatpacking. It is so peaceful in there it’s almost unnerving, but in a good way. It’s über-civilized with its old fashioned bone China dishes and it offers something a little different, which I think is quite nice. It is modeled after a traditional European salon—it's a cafe and tea salon, as well as an art salon with a gallery and performance space. Tea service (there are 90 teas to chose from) is $13-$42 per person, depending on how many courses you like (scones with clotted cream, cute little crustless sandwiches, desserts). There’s also a weekly changing menu of salads, sandwiches and light entrees for lunch. For those who prefer wine to tea, there is a small wine list as well. Performance tickets ($20) can be purchased at www.ariumperformance.com, or at Arium, 31 Little West 12th Street (near Washington Street), 212-463-8630.

Megu Midtown
Megu, the massive Japanese restaurant in Tribeca brings its Godzilla presence to midtown this week with Megu Midtown, located in the Trump World Tower, 85 First Avenue (47th Street), 212-964-7777.

EVENTS

Tia Pol and Sherry Tasting at Appellation Wines
This Tuesday, April 25 from 6-8pm, Alex and Eder, the chefs from Tia Pol, will prepare a few of their favorite dishes to be paired with Spanish Sherry. There will be Pringa, a typical Andaluz stew, Chamis al Ajillo (marinated button mushrooms), Tortitas Santiago—sweet little almond cakes. Due to the popularity of the Chef Tastings, guests are asked to register for one of two time periods that evening: 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm or 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. To register, e-mail info@appellationnyc.com with subject “Tia Pol Tasting” indicating the time you would like to attend or call 212.741.9474. Appellation Wines is located at 156 Tenth Avenue between 19th and 20th Streets.

Sunday Supper at The Harrison
Starting April 23rd, chef Brian Bistrong of The Harrison will offer a special four-course prix fixe ($55) Sunday Supper that is meant to evoke childhood memories of spending Sunday nights around the family dinner table. Funny, my childhood did not involve such activities, but it’s nice to know that someone’s did. To start your own Sunday memories, head over to The Harrison where the menu includes Spring pea soup, local lettuce salad, leg of lamb, and strawberry rhubarb crisp. The outdoor café will open shortly for al fresco dining. The Harrison is located at 355 Greenwich Street, at Harrison Street, 212-274-9310.

MY DINNER AT 360

There are times in life when you need to leave your comfort zone, to force yourself to step outside your self-imposed womb and dip a toe in unfamiliar waters: take a risk on a new relationship, try a fresh start in a different career, or in my case, take a train (and then a bus) to a far away land known as Red Hook.

Personally, I tend to be a sad creature of habit; I am often found within my downtown rectangle, below 17th Street. I am a sheltered New Yorker, I admit it. When I travel, it’s to Barcelona—or soon to Rome to visit Susie who I miss every day— not outside my nook of comfort here in the city. But I am also a seeker of pleasure in the form of food and a former resident of Brooklyn, and I often head to Billyburg, Park Slope, and Cobble Hill for great food and to visit friends who have reproduced and moved out to the Brooklyn ‘burbs. But Red Hook? Not so fast. A few months ago though, I was writing about a bakery out there called Baked—which is AWESOME—and discovered Van Brunt Street, just a stone’s throw from the East River, a little peaceful village that made me feel very far away from everything that was familiar. I wandered around and discovered The Good Fork (which was under construction at the time), learned about the Fairway that would open (it opens in mid-May) and popped into a cool cocktail and wine store called LeNell’s. The guys from Baked told me I should come back and check out a little seasonal bistro down the block called 360, and I made a mental note to return. I did last week with Jamie, Court, and Harvey, and we had an eating rave.

Now, let me be straight with you. Getting to Red Hook from Manhattan is what I tend to call a schlep. You have to take a subway (F to Smith/9th) and a bus (B77), but when the subway comes out of the tunnel, it’s great fun, and the bus, well, it’s makes for a total experience. Seriously, it may feel like a hike, but your efforts are immediately rewarded by a sweet little street that feels remote and unchartered, but welcoming, like a docile version of the wild old west. Kids are playing in the streets, business owners are planting flowers in the window boxes, and homeowners sweep their stoops. It’s like Oz.

Somewhere down the yellow brick road you will find 360, a French-American bistro owned by Arnaud Erhart, a veteran of spots like Balthazar, Orsay and La Goulue. Erhart was living in the neighborhood (he’s been there for 10 years) and wanted to open a place for his friends and neighbors to come for dinner. So as not to alienate the community, he priced his three-course prix fixe menu at all of $20 (three years later, it is now $25 and also includes several a la carte offerings), and decided to offer his neighbors a restaurant that reflected the way he liked to eat and drink—serving seasonal local ingredients and wines from vineyards using organic and sustainable farming and wine making practices. It’s a pleasure to mimic Arnaud.

360 is a simple contemporary space with banquettes, ceiling fans, raw wood tables and floors, and a menu by chef Rick Jakobson (Daniel, Bouley) who has quite a wonderful way with ingredients. While we looked over the menu and waited for Jamie and Court, who were delayed at work, we started with a smashing steak tartare ($12), meaty and hand cut and boldly seasoned with capers, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard and served with mesclun salad and toast points. We paired the tartare with a fabulous bottle of juicy Bourgueil (2002) Perrieres, from C&P Breton ($32), producers Arnaud has recently visited in the Loire Valley. Jamie and Court arrived and were slightly unnerved by the length of the journey, but once they had a sip (or two) of wine, they were singing a new tune. Court was in love with the place: “Aside from the fact that I feel like I should be carrying luggage, and that we may need to save some of this bread for a trail to find our way home, I love it here.” We all agreed, as did the rest of the diners who packed the dining room, a nice crowd of suits, couples, friends and neighbors all sitting down to dinner together on one magically warm Spring night.

Spring is all over the menu—in a gorgeous sugar snap and pea soup, cool and fresh and touched with mint, with a flirty swirl of crème fraiche, and in a bright fricassee of fava beans, carrots and snowpea tendrils served with wonderful hunks of seared monkfish. But even where the ingredients are more ordinary, the dishes shine. The smoked trout salad is the sort of salad you might want to devour at a backyard picnic. It is smoked at Gold Star (yes, the horseradish people) and served in lovely, lightly smoked, moist lumps with a nice, roughly chopped, potato salad tossed with a horseradish vinaigrette. The pork belly, from Flying Pig Farm, is served in a luscious fatty square with a glistening crispy top layer of fat, over Anson Mills polenta, and the spaetzle, a nod to Arnaud’s hometown of Strasbourg, is spectacular, fashioned into a sort of spaetzle succotash with rich gamey pieces of dark meat pulled from a roasted Cloonshee Farm’s chicken, braised leeks and mushrooms ($8.50) in a deep, buttery chicken jus.

I was also taken with the country pate ($6.50). It was infused with some warm spices and had a fabulous rough texture, served with cornichons and whole grain mustard and a green peppercorn vinaigrette. My steamed PEI mussels were about as fat and plump as I have ever known mussels to be, served in a seriously slurpable Thai curry and chile broth. Jamie’s steak was super tender, marinated and grilled to perfect, with a zippy puree of chimichurri.

We ordered another bottle of wine at this point, a Barbera D’Asti (2003) from Cascina Tavijn ($33), which Arnaud chose for us based on our need for a bigger red than the first. It too, was perfect. As we toasted to more dinners in Red Hook, Arnaud was working the room, welcoming guests, pouring wine, chatting up locals families sitting at the sidewalk tables with their new babies. As I watched him stroll from table to table, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Gerard Depardieu. (If a movie ever gets made, Depardieu must play Arnaud.) Like Depardieu, Arnaud is sweet and sort of big and burly, with long hair that he keeps tied back in a ponytail, and a rich gravely voice with a sexy French accent. He is quite the consummate French host—warm and welcoming and devilishly charming. A night of Arnaud, coupled with Jacobsen’s food and that great (and reasonable) wine, and you will find yourselves in Red Hook heaven.

After dinner, we shared some cheese (they have a great selection including a bold blue from Cato Corners) and passed around a bottle of late harvest Riesling, and then made an attempt at desserts which were fine, especially the panna cotta, though the spice cake tasted like Christmas leftovers. But then at this point, we were overly stuffed and just plum tuckered. We called a few cabs and lingered over the last bites of crème caramel and sipped down the remaining drops of Riesling, getting pretty silly at the table. About fifteen minutes later, in the middle of a fascinating conversation about polygamy (we are all in favor of monogamy, though I mentioned that I feel I have entered some rare form of single life known as "nonogamy"), Arnaud let us know that our cars were outside. This was quite fortunate considering we were almost high from food and wine. We strolled out into the soft spring night and our cabs were waiting to whisk us home to our cozy Manhattan womb.

The funny thing is, on the way back home, we couldn’t stop talking about when we would return to Red Hook. That’s the crazy thing about leaving your comfort zone—once you do, you realize, it suddenly expands.

360 is located at 360 Van Brunt Street, between Wolcott and Sullivan Sts., (718) 246-0360.

And that’s THE STRONG BUZZ for this week! Until next week, READ IT AND EAT!