Faux Philip at ESCA

I live near Esca, a high-end restaurant specializing in southern Italian seafood. For years I've passed by, figuring I'd go in there one day when the occasion arose. Well, finally it did: my dad's birthday.

The food was pretty nice, but the service was surprisingly bad. The menus took forever to arrive, as did the drinks. And we were feeling a little rushed since we were on our way to the theater. My dad asked the bus boy for the waiter's name, but he didn't know; apparently this was the waiter's first day. Uh-oh.

At least this gave us plenty of time to catch up. Just as my mother was recounting the plot of the latest movie she'd seen, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, another waiter walked into my field of vision who looked A LOT like Mr. Hoffman himself.

Was the actor preparing for a role as a waiter? Could it really be him? Judge for yourself:

You can only tell the two apart because one of them is busy peeling back fish skin.  I was quite disappointed when faux Philip took FOREVER to fillet my mom's pink snapper, because when everyone else's dishes arrived, they were all cold. They had been sitting there on the fillet table the whole time. Shouldn't a place of this caliber have a better system? We had to send the other dishes back to be reheated. And after all that, there were still plenty of bones in the snapper. Had faux Philip ever even filleted a fish before? Odd, since Hoffman's new movie is called Jack Goes Boating.

I'm not sure I'd go back to Esca, despite the fact that the food, once it arrived, wasn't bad. Because, despite the celebrity sighting, we certainly did not get celebrity service.

Mozaic Restaurant: Ubud, Bali

There's not much argument that Mozaic is the best restaurant in the Ubud area of Bali. It's got a world class chef in Chris Salans and is so much more than just a fancy-schmancy resort restaurant, which are so numerous in Bali.

There are four prix fixe menus available:

1. The Discover Menu, featuring Asian and fusion influences
2. Vegetarian Tasting Menu
3. Chef's Tasting Menu, focusing on Western tastes
4. Chef's Surprize Menu, including premium ingredients like truffles, caviar and fois gras.

We shared the Discovery Menu and the Vegetarian Tasting Menu and we were not disappointed. Here were some of the highlights.

This amuse-bouche had a sweet-savory tension, culminating in a unique tomato sorbet.

Sorbet appeared again, this time laksa leaf sorbet over yellow fin tartare. Laksa leaf is also

known as Vietnamese coriander and has a refreshing minty taste.

The next course was a selection of seafood with soft shelled crab as the centerpiece. It came with burnt cauliflower florets, curry leaf meuniere and curry emulsion. I'm not a huge fan of the foam craze in haute cuisine, but it really worked well here.

Then came a hearty Australian beef tenderloin with ripe Balinese jackfruit, in a reductino of vermouth, balsamic and cardamom, with eggplant caviar and Dukkah spices. Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mixture, often used with nuts.

The highlight of the entire meal was a simple sounding dish that really took us by surprise: parmesan-crusted potato gnocchi over a pumpkin sauce with an herb emulsion. These gnocchi were delicate and soft, but had a perfectly caramelized crispy exterior.

The real star of this show, however, was the spice you see in the lower left-hand corner of the photo: candied long pepper. Regular readers of this blog will know my enthusiasm for long pepper, the superior cousin to the more common and sharp-flavored peppercorn. Here is my previous post on the subject. Combining this warm and pungent flavor with a crust of sugar was sheer brilliance.

I've made no secret that my favorite fruit is the mangosteen, and it was a joy to try mangosteen sorbet as dessert. Subtle, fragrant and tart, it was the perfect closer. It was served with mint geleé and black rice tuile.

Savory Donuts

I've been busy traveling and haven't had much time to post, but after trips to India, China, Indonesia, and beyond, I have many new tastes to talk about.

I was just in Jakarta and was looking for fresh flavors in Blok M Plaza. They have lots of fast food borrowed from the West, but sometimes with a twist.

"Savory Donuts" is something I hadn't seen before, nor did it sound too appealing. I gave it a shot, and I wasn't disappointed. Salty, sugary, oily. It was just as gross as I had imagined.

Alta

Wrap something in bacon and there's a good chance it'll be pretty darn tasty. But this is also the reason I try not to eat tapas too often. The Spanish really know how to use rich ingredients to create bursts of flavor. That's great, as long as I don't start bursting at the seams as well.

Tonight I plan to visit my fave tapas place in New York, Alta, on West 10th Street. To prepare myself, I thought it would be nice to remember the last time I was there last July. I dined with Rob Sheffield, rock critic and local genius. What a feast we had! White sangria put us in a festive mood (it's nice and strong!) We sat upstairs at the edge of a balustrade looking down on the ground floor. The list of tasty morsels is long and colorful, so we just started choosing at random. Pretty much everything we ordered was excellent. We started with the grilled Japanese eggplant scallion gratinee, aleppo pepper & toasted sesame seeds.
Then we tried grilled chorizo-wrapped gulf shrimp with whipped avocado lime mousse. Don't let that word chorizo fool you. Basically, it's bacon!
Next up were the lamb meatballs with spiced butternut squash foam and lebne. Delish. Lebne, by the way, is kind of like Greek yogurt.
Following closely behind in this parade of calories and saturated fats, we had crabmeat canneloni with crème fraîche-verju foam, almonds and halved grapes. Oy.
Think that's rich? How about crispy duck confit. Unh.
Believe it or not, we were still hungry! We tried the Danish pork ribs with kecap manis and coriander. I couldn't resist something that included kecap manis, the sweet Indonesian soy sauce I grew to love while living in Bali.
"Oh sure, that's pretty fattening," I can hear you say, "but isn't there some dish made with about a stick of butter per serving?" Not to worry: the specialty of the house is the crispy, carmelized Brussel sprouts with Fuji apples, crème fraîche and pistachio nuts. In-sane. Scrumptious to the point of being unfair.
After such a repast, what dessert could possibly add enough calories to fill the corners of our appetites? No problem. First we tried the warm chocolate fondue with almond-scented grappa, with a side of Marcona-almond-and-orange biscuits. Actually, this was the one item I found hard to take. The alcohol of the grappa was so intense and stinging that it seriously detracted from the total pleasure of the dish.
Such concerns were short-lived, however. To put us over the edge, we ate Crema Catalana, which the Spanish claim is the predecessor to the French crème brûlée.

As I get myself ready for this meal, which is now just a few hours away, I know it will be a delight for my tongue and an assault on my arteries. So I keep telling myself, Hey, I haven't been to Alta since last July. That's a long time ago!

Holy Cow

On my recent trip to Bombay, I noticed this McDonald's menu was a little different than I'm used to seeing. It includes the McVeggie, the McChicken, the Chicken Maharaja Mac and the even the Paneer Salsa Wrap. But the one thing missing completely: beef.

A Way With Words

Last November in China, I found myself standing in front of a fast food restaurant near the Beijing Silk Market. The various items on the menu were displayed in big lacquered posters mounted in the window. Everything glistened and looked pretty savory. But somehow the descriptions did not inspire me to walk in and order something. I assume something was lost in translation.Well, a duck blood cake is a duck blood cake. No way around that, really. But I never thought of pork hock as "tonic & beautifying." I think it would be hard to market that in high-end toiletries.
"Hey, Ma! Can we have chicken gristle tonight?" No, I don't see it.
I'm sure a "yellow croaker" is a lovely fish, but croaking just doesn't sound appetizing. And "coarse grains" probably means something healthful, but couldn't they have found a nicer way to phrase it?"Boiled pig's large intestines": it is what it is. And there's just no good way to phrase it."Rough fish"? What's that?
I tried a "squirrel fish" once. It was okay, actually. But please don't make me eat something called a squirrel.
At last, a dish with a charming name: "Pretty pepper fall in love with cockerel." Aww! Whatever it is, I'll have it!

Grapefruit Rosemary Sorbet

I am the fortunate recipient of a hand-me-down Cuisinart ice cream/sorbet machine that friends of mine didn't want and had almost never used. So I decided to invite those friends to dinner and serve them the first sorbet ever made in the machine.The flavor I settled on is grapefruit & rosemary. This may sound strange at first, but it really works: original, fresh, palate-cleansing, intensely aromatic, bitter-sweet, herbaceous, and just plain taste-bud-exploding.
I've been told that grapefruit & rosemary sounds like a bar of soap, and it well may be the case that this newest obsession was subliminally inspired by such a soap spotted while waiting on line at WholeFoods, near the impulse purchase displays. But when I woke up on a recent morning trying to come up with a good flavor combination for a sorbet recipe, I already had grapefruit in mind, and then rosemary just popped into my head.

Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:
•1 1/2 cups sugar
•2 cups water
•1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice, strained (yellow is okay, too)
•juice of half a lime, strained
•zest of one grapefruit
•pinch of salt
•3 large sprigs fresh rosemary

As per the Cuisinart instructions, I put the freezer bowl in the freezer overnight. Then I boiled the sugar, salt and water in a small saucepan with the rosemary for about 5 minutes, until sugar and salt is dissolved. Let cool to room temperature. Make sure the rosemary is fresh and gorgeous. For best results, try bruising it first to release the flavors. The amount is really to taste; be warned, the flavor may be intense. Don't be afraid!Meanwhile, grate the zest of one grapefruit with a very fine grater, being careful not to get any pith. When the syrup is cool, strain it well and combine it with the grapefruit and lime juices and grapefruit zest. Pour mixture into the machine's freezer bowl and switch the machine on.

Let it run about half an hour, or until good and slushy and starting to be firm. Then transfer the firm slush into a closed plastic container and store in the freezer overnight. The next day, you will know what I'm talking about!
Best served in small scoops, either by itself or accompanied by a little shortbread cookie or anything salty and buttery like that. Actually, my friends have yet to try it. They come to dinner tomorrow. In a sort of Iron Chef way, I'm book-ending it with an appetizer of jicama-cilantro-pecan-grapefruit salad. I hope they like it!

Vada Pav

An article in last week's New York Times brought to mind my recent two-month trip through India. On a train in Rajasthan, I was getting very hungry. The train was several hours late and there was still a long way to go from Jaipur to Jodhpur. A vendor working the train came down the aisle selling snacks, which I had been warned against eating. I didn't want to get "Delhi belly," but I figured a sandwich he called "vegetable cutlet" didn't sound so bad. Turned out it was quite bad. Just a cold, soggy lozenge of fried potato between two pieces of white bread. The risk/reward ratio was not in my favor.

But later, on the streets of Mumbai, I eventually shed my fear of getting sick from street food and learned what a "vegetable cutlet" was truly intended to be: vada pav. As the Times article mentions, chef Anthony Bourdain singled out this humble snack as his favorite food in India. As described in the article by Kavitha Rao:

The vada pav is a glorious carb-on-carb overload — a spicy potato patty encased in a gram-flour coating, then sandwiched in a buttered bun and bathed in tangy garlic chutney.

The specimen in this photo was hot, crisp, well-spiced and delicious. In fact, I went back to the vendor for seconds. I wish I could find a street stall like this in New York!

The Grateful Dead

What could be creepier than a living creature, a sentient being, that wants to be eaten by you? It laughs at its own death. It welcomes you to stick the knife in. It even serves itself up! My neighborhood, Times Square, is full of such imagery.
I am lucky to live near Esposito's, one of the few remaining old school butcher shops in New York. It's still a family business that emphasizes house-made sausages and fine technique. But I can't say that I have ever found its storefront image particularly appetizing. I think it's the way the pig is drooling with anticipation to the point where the saliva is flying off its tongue. Why is he so happy to be eating his brethren? Or perhaps his own self?
The longstanding classic Rudy's Bar & Grill has a sculpture out front that appears to be a happy pig dressed as some kind of maitre d'. I suppose this is a tad less disturbing because he seems gainfully employed and therefore safe from slaughter for the time being. But he must know there's a hot dog in his future (or his future in a hot dog).
Spanky's Barbecue, just a few yards from my apartment, has a logo in which a self-satisfied hog goes the extra mile and brings you a beautiful bone-in smoked ham on a platter with one hoof, and a sausage on a grill fork with the other. It makes me wonder: is there something he knows that I don't know? Is he bringing me a Trojan ham full of esophagus-blocking gristle? Will he be wearing the same grin as he watches me choke on it? When marketing death, a sense of humor is always useful. Here's a shot of a butcher shop not in the Times Square area in which a pig chomps its own tail. It shows that a little whimsy goes a long way when the ax comes down.

X2O

Some great New York restaurants slip under the radar because they are just outside the city limits. They don't appear in the Zagat guide or in Time Out New York's listings. Most Manhattanites won't even schlep to Brooklyn to try something new, so mention the word "Yonkers" and watch their faces melt.
I recently adventured to X2O (Xaviar's on the Hudson), which is, in fact, in Yonkers and very much worth the trip. Chef Peter X. Kelly has created a beautiful oasis of calm situated directly over the Hudson River and featuring delightfully creative cuisine. On the way in, past the attractive bar, I noticed someone had ordered some unusual bar food: a Kobe beef hot dog. I don't know which requires more chutzpah: putting that on a menu or ordering it. Once we sat down, we were fawned over by the staff and brought an amuse bouche that truly amused. First I tasted a sweet and creamy little cup of cold soup made with peaches and yogurt. And a slender slice of maguro tuna aligned over a slice of watermelon was a revelation. Just pairing the two almost-identical colors was a visual coup, but the combination of taste and texture was the very definition of amusing.
Next we were served one of the most festive plates of sushi/sashimi I have ever seen. The fish was not only fresh and tender but molded into heart-shaped maki rolls stuffed with mango and other surprises. For appetizers, we chose the little quail legs served with a square of fried polenta topped micro-greens. Next came the shaved fennel and arugula salad with Shropshire cheese. But nothing could compare with the ravioli stuffed with short ribs and foie gras in truffle butter with grated amoretti and broccoli rabe. Short ribs, foie gras and truffles are pretty much my three favorite foods but if I order them all in the same meal, I usually have to lie on the floor and groan for an hour. So having all these tastes in the same appetizer is something of a miracle. The main courses were no less satisfying. The crispy duck schnitzel was perfectly cooked to juicy pinkness. A nice touch was the side of simple and starchy spatzle that complemented the rich and sweet flavors elsewhere on the plate. The most dramatic dish of the evening was the mignon of Berkshire black hog and grilled bacon. I doff my cap not only to the chef, but to the brave pig who gave so generously. My favorite entrée, if I must choose, was the grilled breast of squab with sweet eggplant and tamarind glaze. The crisp panisses criss-crossing the wilted spinach was a nice touch, but the key to my heart was the bed of white corn and cheddar grits. I'm a sucker for well-turned fancy cookin' mixed with a touch of comfort food. The dots of sweet and tangy sauce really finished the dish nicely. I'm usually a no-dot-and-no-foam kind of guy, but in this case I made an exception. It was around this time in the meal that I realized I was staring out the window at the flowing Hudson and, in the distance, the George Washington Bridge. Nice! For dessert, we ordered the lemon Napoleon with curd and mousse. It arrived looking something like a poodle with a bad haircut. The menu description boasted of soft meringue and crisp phyllo, and it had all these things, but it didn't do much to add to the over all experience. Or maybe it was because by the time dessert arrived I was simply too full to appreciate anything. I've been known to make that mistake on occasion. As we left, we had the best digestif of all: a view of the restaurant glowing in the dark as the river burbled below.