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“The Strong Buzz for November 12th: The News (No More Samples, Amai, New Amsterdam Market, Momofuku), Thanksgiving 101, Events, My Dinner at Los Dados”

Hello and Welcome to the November 12th edition of THE STRONG BUZZ: The News (No More Samples, Amai, New Amsterdam Market, Momofuku 2.0), Thanksgiving 101, Events, My Dinner at Los Dados.

THE NEWS
No More Press Stuff, Please.
I don’t often use this blog as a place to vent (why, I am not sure) but for this week, I’ve decided to get something off my chest. I apologize if this comes off as ungrateful, but I am officially putting publicists on notice: STOP SENDING ME STUFF! YOU ARE KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT AND I HAVE NO SPACE TO LIVE! Let me back up.

This afternoon I received a box from UPS so large I thought it might contain one of those mini refrigerators I used in my college dorm room. It was so massive a box and so heavy that I had to get my brother to bring it upstairs for me. I had no idea what it was since I had not ordered a small refrigerator, or a compact car. Inside I discovered a ridiculous number of those Styrofoam “Esses,” (which stuck to me with static fervor) that concealed a large green wooden treasure chest (locked). When I figured out how to open it (the key was also secreted) I found that this massive blue wood box the size of a mini-fridge contained one bottle of tequila. I screamed. One bottle of tequila and all this waste? And that’s when I sat down to write.

People of the spirits industry! Do you understand what Styrofoam does to our world? It is killing it. Birds eat it in dumps and die, it’s not biodegradable, and it’s a major source of environmental decay. The fact that this liquor brand (who shall remain nameless) spent this kind of ridiculous money on sending out this sort of press material is really offensive to me. (Needless to say, I won’t be writing about it other than here.) Then again, it’s also nothing new. I get these sorts of huge wasteful gifts all the time. And my plea to big brands, to PR firms, to marketing gurus is to please stop it.

Here’s the deal: I would like to try to do my part to reduce the waste we produce in this world so let me give you this guidance. I write about restaurants, occasionally books, and maybe sometimes travel, but basically I write about restaurants. If you want to send me a cookbook, a cute new bottle of potato vodka, a case of organic wine, a lifetime supply of pecan or granola or seven pounds of coffee, ask me first. Also please don’t send me invitations by hand-delivery, don’t mail me press kits, and don’t Fed-Ex me giant samples of stuff I won’t even write about. Yes, I want to know what your clients are doing but please, you can let me know by e-mailing me a release or just a note about what’s new. If I am interested in learning more you can send the book, send me that bottle of wine, whatever. We need to save this earth, and the only way to do it is to stop this madness of waste and excess. You know what? You can send the money you’d use for my mailings to Darfur. If you can do that, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.

Wow, it felt good to get that out. Maybe next week I’ll rant about other things I can’t stand, like, well, Eater’s Deathwatch for one. Ben, I love your site and the frantic incessant news cycle you produce (what is it, every four minutes now?). It’s wonderful, often hilarious, stuff. But come on, Ben. Deathwatch is just cruel and you’re killing (or trying to kill) people’s businesses before they even have a chance to survive. The restaurant business may be just fodder to you, but it’s someone’s livelihood. The Strong Buzz says: Cut it out.

Okay. I’m done now. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Amai
This lovely new wood-paneled tea and bake house is (lucky for me) a stone’s throw from my apartment, and after several visits last week, it’s clear that a morning tea ritual is already in the works. Owned by Kelli Bernard, a career changer with a love of tea and pastry who interned at the Polka Dot Cake Studio, Amai offers 40 loose leaf varieties (curated and brewed by Bernard and the very knowledgeable Queenie Fok) in black, green, white, oolong, pu-reh (aged black tea) and herbal, along with coffee, espresso and salted caramel hot chocolate. All baking is done on premises and the pastry menu includes steamed green tea muffins filled with red bean paste, baked roasted pear tea cakes, green tea cupcakes and earl grey currant scones (all about $2, add 50 cents for flavored butters like lavender, honey, and matcha) and Amai’s signature Conversation Cake ($4)—a golden puff pastry piped with fresh roasted sweet potato from the Greenmarket. Pots of tea ($3.50) come with your choice of buttery fluted tea cookies, including earl grey currant, chai almond, white tea & strawberry, and lemongrass ginger. The café has about a half dozen tables for two and offers free wireless. Amai is located at 171 Third Avenue, between 16th and 17th Street, 212-863-9630, www.amainyc.com.

Momofuku 2.0
Now that the weather’s gotten chilly, it’s time for a return to ramen. Just in time for the ramen rush, David Chang has moved his slim-line blond wooded ramen joint just a few storefronts over to a new space with seats that allows for 50 (as opposed to 27) lucky people to slurp his soup, scarf down pork buns, and savor his gloriously pigified Greenmarket specials. The new Momofuku is located at 171 First Avenue, between 10th and 11th Streets, 212-777-7773.

New Amsterdam Market—Chefs Needed!
If you’ve never heard of the New Amsterdam Public Market, there’s a good reason. It doesn’t exist—yet. This future market is the vision of founder Robert LaValva, an architect, city planner and Slow Food advocate, whose mission it is to create New York’s first indoor public food market dedicated to sustainably produced foods, sold by purveyors and sourced regionally. He describes it as a cross between Greenmarket and Chelsea Market, with a little of London’s Borough Market thrown in there too, and he’s rallying the city to locate the market in the former Fulton Fish Market space at the South Street Seaport, New York’s public market district since 1642. To generate buzz and give you a taste of what’s to come, he’s gathering producers and purveyors to hold a Wintermarket on Sunday, December 16th with a selection of wild foraged foods to artisanal cheeses, all produced or sourced within 500 miles of New York City.

Here’s where all you chefs come in. Robert is looking for chefs to prepare a seasonal dish, using primarily regional ingredients and offer small tasting samples during Wintermarket. The dish should be one that can be cooked at home and should come with the recipe. The idea is that folks attending the market will taste the dish and run around and buy the ingredients needed and head home to make it for themselves. They’re looking for dishes that use more economical or less popular cuts of meat, as one of our goals is to encourage a fuller appreciation for animals used for food. For more information on how to participate in the New Amsterdam Market please contact Robert at robert@newamsterdampublic.org.

Thanksgiving 101
While I can’t come over and cook for you (and I am not sure you’d want me to), here are some tools to make your holiday a bit easier—from wine to stuffing to pie. And wherever your turkey finds you, I wish you all a Thanksgiving with people you love and cherish, and maybe even a few who you don’t but can still manage to behave around.

Cooking Help
If your cooking experience includes making toast with butter and jam, you might consider hiring a private chef! You can hire someone through the Dish’s Dish, a private chef service with a crew available on Wednesday the 21st ($250, plus ingredient cost) to help pre-prep things, and a few chefs still available for the day of ($500 plus ingredient cost). Email Jill Donenfeld at jill@thedishsdish.com. Also, a few private chefs looking for holiday work on The Strong Buzz include Bettina Fisher at radish101@nyc.rr.com, and Dana Kitzberg, DKlitzberg@aol.com. They’re both available for private events throughout the holidays (and the rest of the year!).

Wine Help
You all know what you’re gonna eat on Thanksgiving—some form of turkey (or tofu in the shape of a turkey if you’re my brother). Now, for help on what to drink, allow me to offer two sources.

The first is Pour, an intimate 650-square foot Upper West Side wine shop (321 Amsterdam Avenue, at 75th Street, 212-501-POUR (7687) that specializes in food and wine pairings. They’ve got a $39 Thanksgiving special that includes THREE bottles of easy to drink, easy on the wallet wine, that are all pretty fruit-forward, bright and juicy and make a great hostess gift. For $39 you get a boxed set that includes a bottle of 2006 Woop Woop Shiraz, a bottle of 2005 Domaine de Chardignon Côte-de-Brouilly, and a bottle of 2005 Domaine Laurens Marcillac Rouge.

The second option is to get help from Snooth (www.snooth.com), a new wine database that features 1.8 million reviews for over 300,000 wines with wine recommendations, ratings and reviews, and a wine information search tool that seamlessly connects you to over 1,000 merchants and wineries and critics. For Thanksgiving, Snooth has built a dedicated page geared toward what to drink. You’ll find ten wines that can take you from appetizers right through pie. There’s a Champagne and a Prosecco, a Chablis and a Gewruztraminer, a California Rose and a White Zinfandel, a Chianti and a Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a Tawny Port and an Australian Tokay. Most of these wines are under $30.

Thanksgiving Pie Help
Baking a pie for Thanksgiving is a great way to feel a part of the “giving” experience without shackling yourself to your stove. To learn how to make your crust flaky and how to keep your apples moist and sweet, sign up for the Apple Pie Class at One Girl Cookies in Boerum Hill ($60 per person) on Tuesday November 13th from 7:30-9:30. Bring your own pie plate to bring home your freshly baked pie.

Thanksgiving Recipe Therapy at Bottlerocket
On Saturday Nov 17th from 1-4pm three New York City chefs—Don Pintabona (chef of Dani), Nancy Olson (pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern), and Galen Zamarra (Mas, Farmhouse), will be on hand to help you work out your issues with turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. You’ll spend the afternoon hanging out with the chefs, learning how to make your Thanksgiving tastier, while sampling Turkey and trimmings from City Bakery and sampling wine to match. The event is free. Bottlerocket is located at 5 West 19th Street, between 5th and 6th, 212-929-2323.

Thanksgiving Bread
The one thing I don’t know how to make (yet) is my own bread. My friend Jamie is a star baker (she was a pastry chef) and when the time comes, I hope she’ll teach me a thing or two. (She’s got a “mother” in her fridge from like thirty years ago.) Anyway, until I can get Jamie to teach me how to bake bread, I get my bread from Amy Scherber, of Amy’s Bread. For Thanksgiving dinner, you can pick up a country sourdough boule with a turkey stencil, an organic rustic Italian, a whole-wheat oat pecan, a black olive, or a potato onion dill loaf. If you’re more into rolls, she’s making whole wheat, semolina raisin, French, and soft dinner rolls. For breakfast, snack time and dessert, there’s coffee cake, pumpkin walnut cranberry bread, cornbread and pies. Place your orders by November 14th at noon at 212-462-4338.

Thanksgiving Take Out—Three Ways
Now, I’m not encouraging you to order in (it can be a lot of fun to make your own bird), the reality is that cooking may not be your thing or you may just not have the energy this year. So, here are three take-out feasting options.

Make your holiday smoky and saucy with a Thanksgiving from Hill Country. Their feast serves 5-8 for $175, or 9-12 for $255, and includes a whole pit smoked turkey, with cornbread, honey butter and four sides (from choices like sweet potato bourbon mash, Longhorn cheddar mac’ and cheese, green bean casserole), and your choice of pies—Bourbon pecan, Grandma Betty’s Apple, Ginger snap pumpkin—or German chocolate cake. Orders must be placed by Thursday November 15th; call 212-255-4544.

For a more traditional take on the turkey dinner, City Bakery has everything you need from Heritage Turkeys ($75-$155) to cornbread and green chile stuffing ($15 serves 4), and greenmarket sides like buttermilk horseradish mashed potatoes, spicy baked cipollini onions, and butternut squash with Asian pears and hazelnuts. Orders must be placed by Nov. 17th, 212-366-1414.

Made by Murray’s, the catering arm of Murray’s Cheese is also up for doing all your Thanksgiving cooking. Their Thanksgiving Feast runs $300 for 6 people ($50 each per extra person) and includes a free-range turkey roulade made with Taylor Farm Smoked Gouda, Grana Padano, cranberry relish, homemade stuffing and fresh herbs, and sides of local Green Bean and Cayenne-Dusted Onion Ring Casserole, candied yams, cranberry relish, and stuffing made from Amy’s Bread. For dessert, there’s pumpkin cheesecake made from local pumpkins and Ben’s cream cheese. Add-ons like an all-American Cheese Board ($65), a Poached Pear and Walnut Salad ($35), a cheddar onion pie ($35), and bourbon pecan pie ($40) are also available. To place your order call 212-243-3289 x 19. Orders must be placed by noon on Sunday November 18th. Murray's will also deliver Thanksgiving dinner to any location in Manhattan; rates vary with address.

THE STRONG BUZZ CLASSIFIED OF THE WEEK

The Campbell Apartment cocktail lounge in Grand Central Terminal is looking for an experienced Manager, several private chefs are looking for holiday cooking work, a retail Wine Associate is needed at Harlem Vintage, and an Upper West Side restaurant space is available. Read more and post your own ad on The Strong Buzz today!

EVENTS, written by Colu Henry

Beer and Barbecue at Blue Smoke
On Monday, November 12th, Blue Smoke’s executive chef Ken Callaghan will partner with Brooklyn Brewery’s brewmaster Garrett Oliver for an educational evening of beer and barbecue. You’ll dig into a five-course dinner of braised pork belly; Louisiana white boot brigade shrimp; and smoked chicken while learning tips from Oliver on how to expertly pair our two favorite “b” words. The dinner will be held downstairs at the Jazz Standard and begins at 6:30 pm. The price is $99 per person, including tax and gratuity. Blue Smoke is located at 116 East 27th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues); 212-447-7733. Space for the class is limited and reservations are recommended.

Sanctuary T Launches Monthly Cocktail Series
Master your mixologist moves with the new, monthly Cocktail Club series at Sanctuary T, which kicks-off on Tuesday, November 13. Led by Benoit Cornet, this drink demonstration and tasting takes you through the art of crafting tea cocktails at home. In addition to learning how to make drinks such as the Moroccan geisha; cava de cama and the autumn chai, you’ll snack on Sanctuary T’s newly-launched bar menu from executive chef Kevin Stanton, which includes items such as grilled Gulf shrimp and guacamole pizza. Sanctuary T will also offer a Cocktail Kit, available for purchase ($30), which includes a shaker, a tin of tea, and other necessities. Proceeds from the kit will be donated to City Harvest. The Cocktail Club is $20 per session and includes recipe cards and complimentary tea samples. Sanctuary T is located at 337 B West Broadway (at Grand Street); 212-941-7832. Reservations are required as seating is limited.

MY DINNER AT LOS DADOS
Every semester, as some of you know, I teach an introduction to food writing class at mediabistro, an eight-week course where we cover the ins and outs of feature food writing, restaurant reviewing, and the (sometimes frustrating) dance between writer and editor. I like to celebrate the end of our eight weeks together with dinner, usually at a new place, with a chef whose food I like, that will be able to seat about 10-12 of us. Last week we decided to try Los Dados, the new Mexican restaurant from chef Sue Torres (Sueños) and partners Will Regan and David Rabin (Lotus, Double Seven).

Los Dados is a departure from the Sueños formula is several ways. First, it’s in the Meatpacking, not Chelsea, which necessitates a certain amount of scene. This is accomplished by atmospheric details like gothic candelabras, exposed brick walls, recessed sills displaying Mexican shrines to saints, roomy banquettes tucked into wall cubbies and alcoves, and lean communal tables. While Sueños feels festive and cheery, like lunchtime in a sunny Veracruz town, Los Dados feels sexy and perfectly suited for night, like a long (possibly drunken) dinner in the heartland of Mexico.

 

Aside from the décor and vibe, the menu at Los Dados is also a departure from Sue’s more modern and complex cooking at Sueños. At Los Dados, she’s bowing her head to regional home-cooking, to simpler dishes cooked by families in kitchens across Mexico—tacos ($14-$18), enchiladas ($13-$15), panuchos ($9), and more affordable, pared-down main courses like hanger steak glazed with tamarind over nopales and pasilla chile ($20), grilled salmon with a pumpkin seed pipian and fresh corn tamal ($18), and tilapia Veracruz with white bean puree and corn tortillas ($18). There’s a bare-bones humbleness to the food that perhaps some critics have seen as a decline in Torres’ skill. I see it as an attempt to do something different, and as a conscious departure from her food at Sueños. It’s not the same, but there’s still plenty to enjoy at Los Dados.

When I arrived, about half of my students were already seated, with bowls of guacamole and pitchers of sangria and house margaritas already littering the table. I know how to teach my kids, right? One of my students, Heather, had just written a piece comparing guacamole from various Mexican spots around town so after we all had tasted Los Dados’ version, we asked what she thought. “I love it. It’s great,” she said. “It has a nice kick, and it tastes really fresh.” I agree. This guac is creamy and chunky, with bits of tomato and onion lending both sweetness and sharpness to the mix. What’s more, it’s served with homemade soft tortillas and a basket of nicely salted, freshly fried corn tortilla chips that were among the best I’ve had. They’re thick enough to hold up a good heavy scoop of guac, and thin enough to be audibly crispy. While we were scooping up guacamole, bussers arrived with complimentary baskets of chips, served with three salsas—a smoky chipotle in a ramekin, and two squeeze bottles, one filled with vibrant salsa verde—limey and spicy at the same time—and a dark brick red salsa roja kicked up with Serrano chiles. This chip set-up goes a long way to get a night started off well. The drinks kept it going.

While I was all about the margaritas ($35 pitcher, $10 a glass)—fresh and tart, if just slightly too strong, Hannah was falling for the Sangria. “This is the best Sangria I’ve ever had,” she said, pouring herself a bit more from the carafe on the table ($45 pitcher, $10 a glass). “There’s no aftertaste of fruit punch and it’s really smooth. I could drink this out of a beer funnel.” Let me assure you that Hannah, who is very pretty, with straight shiny dark hair and perfectly manicured fingernails, is not someone I could ever see using a beer funnel, so that may give you an understanding of just how good this Sangria was.

But Sangria and House Margaritas really only make up a small percentage of the cocktail list that offers seven margarita variations including cucumber, strawberry-guava and hibiscus-blueberry, and drinks like The Dandy—Makers, strawberry, basil and honey ($11) and the Chili Palmer—42 Below Passion Fruit Vodka, passion fruit and Serrano chile. In short, if it’s great drinks and excellent chips and guac you’re after, the bar at Los Dados may become your future part-time residence.

Before I get to the details of the food, I need to point out that the team at Los Dados does need to work on service. This has been an issue since the beginning, and while things are certainly improved, the service still needs attention. I might as well have lit flares in the restaurant to get my water glass filled. I asked about seven different times and got nothing more than nice nods and a still empty water glass. Attentiveness is not a strength at the moment. However, a new manager has been installed and improvement will hopefully be forthcoming.

Now, let’s talk about the good parts of Los Dados. Let’s start with the shrimp ceviche ($15), which, while not a ceviche in the traditional sense, was hard to resist. Rather than a bath of lemon and lime citrus, Sue submerges a dozen or so juicy shrimp into a sort of hot cocktail sauce, then tops it off with cool chunks of avocado, and tall half-moon tortilla chips. The dish reminded me a bit of a nice spicy Bloody Mary, while Sasha said it made her think of a reinvented shrimp cocktail. In any case, I think the name ceviche is a misnomer because it raises an expectation for a clean citrus profile, not a hot and spicy cocktail sauce. As we spooned out the last few shrimp with our tortilla shovels, we decided to rename it Shrimp Cocktail 2.0.

Our next round of appetizers—the sweet plantain gordita ($8) and the panuchos Yucatecos ($9)—left the table murmuring a sea of Mmmms and Wows. What can I say? These women know how to express themselves. The gorditas are round and thick, about the size of hockey pucks, and are fashioned from sweet plantains (sort of like Arepas, as Heather pointed out) and then stuffed with Oaxacan white cheese and pan fried so the cheese oozes out in gobs when sliced in half. My favorite part of this dish was the sauce—a deeply flavored, cinnamony roasted tomato and chipotle sauce that left me feeling warm on the inside, like I’d just had a shot of whiskey. The panuchos (which translates to snack) are adorable crescent shaped corn cakes topped with a schmear of black beans, a luscious mound of braised and shredded achiote pork, and a garnish of cured red onions for a bit of brightness and punch.

As we passed around pitchers of margaritas (what round were we on?), I watched as oversized salads (Sue offers a selection of seven salads priced between $7 and $17) descended upon a table of women seated at the long communal table in the center of the dining room. It was then that I noticed that the restaurant was, well, filled with women. We had nine at our table, the table next to us was four, the one in the center at least eleven. The only men I could find were serving the salads. Wait, was that one sitting in the bar? It’s possible. While I’m not sure why there was such a shortage of men at the restaurant, I guess I’ll use this opportunity to alert all you single men out there to the quantity of hot women (eating salads) at Los Dados.

In any case, we were not eating salads. We were now eating tacos. The coconut cod were my favorite—perfectly cooked fish that’s practically creamy, and just sweet enough from the coconut, but balanced out with an avocado poblano salsa ($18). Our chicken tacos ($14) were rather dried out, but the meat was redeemed by a selection of sauces that could have revived cardboard—chile mecco (dried smoked jalapeno, aka chipotle), avocado salsa and pipian (with pumpkin seeds). Clearly, the strength of this kitchen is their sauces—deep and soulful, complex and almost chameleon like, changing in one bite from warm to hot to sweet. Beautiful is a word that comes to mind.

The shrimp and Yucatan pork tamale ($19) was also winning-—saucy pulled shredded pork secreted inside a steamed tamal like a filling for a sweet corn Twinkie, in a pool of ancho chile sauce that anchored a perimeter of grilled shrimp with tails flying in the air. On the side, we ordered some roasted corn on the cob ($5), which hacked into thirds, and dusted with cheese. It was demolished in minutes. Dainty, we’re not.

After all we’d consumed, we honestly had little room for more. But Monika, one of my students who is from Northern India, had made a batch of Divle (say Dee-va-lay), cookies made for Diwali—the Indian and Nepalese festival of lights. They were little crisped pancakes topped with toasted almonds with a sweet gloss of sugar. As we passed around the Tupperware of Monika’s cookies, Juli sent around photos of her kids (adorable and already foodies), Irina told us a little more about moving to America from Russia, and Sasha shared the story of her husband’s marriage proposal, while Tuula, Liz and I discussed my recent dinner at Hangawi, which Liz had written about for class as part of a round-up on Koreatown. Meanwhile, Barbara and Heather were commiserating about some stories they had pitched and were having trouble selling. “Welcome to the world of freelance writing,” I said, raising a glass. “It only took eight weeks, but you’ve officially arrived.”

Los Dados is located at 73 Gansevoort Street, corner of Washington, 646-810-7290.

And that’s THE STRONG BUZZ for this week. Thanks for reading, and until Thursday, READ IT AND EAT!

 

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Posted: November 12, 2007

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