Go Fish

It’s been about a month since Jess and I moved to the Upper West Side, a stark change from our prior life on the outskirts of Times Square.

The biggest change, really, is the people. We traded tourists from Ohio and Geneva for a lot of old Jews. Fortunately, Jess’ favorite foods line up pretty squarely with old Jews’, so, from a culinary perspective, it’s been a big step up.

Within a block of the new apartment, for example, are both [Barney Greengrass](http://www.barneygreengrass.com/welcome.php) and [Murray’s Sturgeon](http://www.murrayssturgeon.com/), two of New York’s more storied appetizing stores. Appetizing, Wikipedia explains, “is best understood as a store that sells ‘the foods one eats with bagels.'” Lox, whitefish, smoked herring. It’s even better understood, I think, with a quick gloss of kashrut, the laws that govern kosher eating: those laws prohibit eating milk and meat together; they also, in turn, prohibit preparing and selling both milk and meat in the same restaurant. So if deli’s are busy selling meat (think Katz’s, Carnegies, or 2nd Avenue, serving up pastrami on rye and Reuben sandwiches), appetizing stores are the flip side of the coin, selling dairy – cream cheese, pickled herring in cream sauce, whitefish salad.

And it is, as Wikipedia point out, all excellent with bagels. Sort of Jewish soul food for Sunday mornings. Time to eat.

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Drag me to Hell(‘s Kitchen): Applebee’s

I have a business lunch planned; I’m coming from Chelsea, my lunchmate from East Midtown, so he kindly suggests West Midtown as an easy spot for us both.

“Do you have any ideas for a restaurant?” he asks.

“How about Applebee’s?” I say.

“Applebee’s?”

Silence.

Applebee’s it is.

++

“Where are you visiting us from?” asks the waitress.

“Two blocks that way,” I say.

“Two blocks that way?” she asks, confused.

“I live in that building,” I say, gesturing out the restaurant window.

“So why are you eating here?” she blurts, then covers her mouth.

++

I haven’t been to an Applebee’s in a while, I tell her. Can she recommend something?

The fiesta chicken.

“I’ll bring extra salsa.” She says “And some tabasco sauce.”

The chicken itself is fine enough – soft from chemical brining, the sauce salty and thick. The salsa tastes like it’s from a jar, but my waitress is right: it’s bright enough to make the meal work, at least with a good shot or two of tabasco.

It’s not so bad, this Applebee’s, I think.

++

Back at my desk, I reconsider, as all afternoon the chicken fiestas in my stomach.

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Sushi 2010

Six years back, I wrote a run-down of NYC sushi that inexplicably made the rounds of New York blogs, food blogs, etc., and for years floated atop Google’s results for ‘new york sushi’ and ‘sushi nyc’.

By now, that post is far out of date, but more than a handful of friends and colleagues still ask where to find excellent sushi.

So, to help them and you out, allow me to share the complete list:

1. Sushi Yasuda

That’s it. Seriously. I admit to a bit of paternal pride, having pronounced Sushi Yasuda as the future king of New York a few weeks after it first opened eight years ago. But, really, by now, everything else is varying degrees of crap.

I’m not sure what accounts for the decline, exactly. Perhaps fewer diners in a poor economy yields less fish turnover, and therefore older fish. Perhaps restaurants are just scrimping on quality to save. Or, perhaps, as my father (whose foundation focuses on island healthcare) contends, the problem is at the supply, rather than demand, end of the chain: small island countries have been hit particularly hard by the economic downtown, leading to fewer people working fishing boats, less frequent flights to ship fish back to the mainland, etc.

Whatever the reason, despite the reputation, despite the price point, by now, most of the city’s high-end sushi just isn’t that good. Sushi Yasuda’s is.

And, of course, there’s the great story behind the place:

Chef Yasuda was a young hot-shot chef in Japan in the ’80’s, inventing a style of eel preparation that spread nationally in the same way as Nobu’s miso black cod has here in the US. (As an aside, there is no such thing as black cod – it’s really just sable. Nobu took a cheap and widely available cut of fish, covered it with an equally cheap glaze, then re-branded it to sound exotic, and has been rolling in the dollars ever since).

Anyway, Yasuda comes to New York, and takes a job at Hatsuhana, the priciest, most venerable sushi stop at that time. Quickly, he rises up to star status.

And then, one day, like many days before, somebody comes in and orders a spicy tuna roll.

This time, however, Yasuda refuses. He can’t take it. Never again, he says, will he serve spicy mayo sauce.

He and the owners fight it out. The Hatsuhana side contends that, while spicy mayo is indeed a completely inauthentic way to destroy excellent fish, we Americans are too stupid, too unsophisticated to appreciate the real deal.

Yasuda, instead, argues that we’ve simply never been given the chance.

Hence Sushi Yasuda. Exceedingly good, exceedingly traditional sushi.

Try it out. Or better yet, don’t. Because, honestly, after you do, you’re going to have a hell of a time appreciating the sushi that’s served these days anywhere else.

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College Slice

We Yalies had no idea how good we had it.

Two of the pizza spots in New Haven, Sally’s and Pepe’s, clocked in at numbers 6 and 12, respectively, on the Today Show’s (by way of GQ’s) top 25 best pizzas around the country.

Tip of the hat to long-time friend and former Sharkbyte colleague Dave Fischer, who not only passed along the article, but also pointed out the disturbingly dead on Sally’s review:

6. Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, Conn.: White pie with potato
Sally’s is ancient, in an old Appalachian way. I can’t believe the men’s bathroom has been cleaned since 1938, when the pizzeria opened for business. Service was equally dismal. I noticed regulars getting some attention, not so much that they appeared pampered, but the rest of us waited about ninety minutes before our first pies appeared. To me, Sally’s should be renamed Sartre’s Apizza, home of absurdity and despair. I wasn’t there on any particular holiday, April Fools’ Day or Halloween, but the somnambulant staff wore weird outfits — nutsy party hats, outdated ties, Bermuda shorts, and T-shirts (in winter). I wondered if Sally’s was the headquarters of a work-release program for the culinarily insane. The customers weren’t impressive, either, especially the lady in the booth across from mine, fast asleep. Out of this agonizing ambience appeared a pie of incredible finesse, a tour de force, a white (no tomato sauce) pizza prepared with thinly sliced potatoes cooked to an artful golden brown, a scattering of equally faultless onions, and a masterful touch of rosemary, all perfectly complemented by Sally’s crust, a bit denser, chewier, and thinner than the one up the block at the equally fabled Pepe’s. By the way, I bet Sinatra got great service when he ate here.

I’m a bigger fan of Pepe’s, personally, though the ambiance is, fortunately and unfortunately, pretty much exactly the same.

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Amazing News

My brother informed me moments ago that there’s apparently a [Chick-Fil-A in New York City, mere blocks from my office](http://www.yelp.com/biz/chick-fil-a-new-york).

My lunch life will never be the same again.

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Eat Here: East Village

Momofuku Noodle Bar (171 1st Ave @ 11th): Order the pork buns, the Momofuku ramen, and a Hitachino White Ale. It’s so good, you won’t even mind that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a reservation at Ko, David Chang’s newer, hipper restaurant (an Asian knock-off of Per Se) just down the block.

Perbacco (234 E 4th St @ B): Cash only, so stop at an ATM first. Then skip the forgettable entrees, and instead order as many of the Sardinian, tapas-style appetizers (and glasses of the excellently paired Italian wines) as you can afford. You’ll literally crave more for days after.

Itzocan (438 E 9th St @ A): Cash only here, too, plus a wait to get in and sweltering heat once you do, given the closet-sized space and the adjacent, hard-firing oven. Suck it up. It’s worth it.

Kanoyama (175 2nd Ave @ 11th): You knew there had to be a sushi place on the list, and this one’s extraordinarily good. If you’re feeling adventurous, ready for top-quality slices of fishes you’ve never even heard of, order omakase (‘at the chef’s discretion’) and enjoy the best sushi bang for the buck in all of NYC.

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Japanese Roulette

Game theorists say that, if you intend to tip well, you should do it before the meal. Which my friend Ophir does, at least at sushi restaurants. He’ll sit at the sushi bar, slip the chef $50, and order Omakase – “at the chef’s discretion”. I’ve seen him do it several times when we’ve met for dinner, and each, the sushi served has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Ophir is vocal in his praise and appreciation as well, which spurs the chefs on even further. And whenever he orders a bottle of sake – something that, over the course of one of our average dinners, we do several times – he pours a glass for the chefs.

Which is how, a few months back, we found ourselves still sitting in the back of Bond St. Sushi, the restaurant long since closed, presented with course after course of ever more inventive and expertly prepared sushi and sashimi.

And, at the end, the coup de grace: a piece of fugu, each.

Fugu, from Takifugu, a Japanese pufferfish of the genus Diodon. A fish famous because its internal organs contain lethal amounts of tetrodotoxin. Prepared right, with just a bit of the toxic liver lining the meat, a small dose of the poison supposedly provides an unparalleled taste and texture sensation. But, a bit too much, and the poison paralyzes the diner’s muscles, leaving them fully conscious as they slowly asphyxiate.

So, in short, not something I’d previously placed high on my ‘foods to try’ list. And, certainly, nowhere on my ‘foods to try when prepared by red-faced sushi chefs who might have shared in just a bit too much of our three bottles of sake’ list.

Still, though the chefs swayed smilingly behind the bar as they stood, each deft flick of their knives betrayed their decades of formally trained muscle memory.

Or so I tried to convinced myself, as I stared down the chunk of fugu on my plate. I glanced sideways at Ophir, who, looking equally dubious, shot a glass of sake. Then glanced up at our new friends, the sushi chefs, who grinned on expectantly.

Eyes back to the fish. Then to Ophir, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged. My heart thumping, I picked up the piece of fugu, and put it in my mouth.

The next morning, all the New York papers ran stories saying that Bond St. Sushi had sustained major fire damage late the night before, just an hour or two after we left. And while I can’t be sure that our drunken chefs played any part, held even indirect fault, I couldn’t help but imagine that they did.

Which made me feel doubly relieved. First that, despite it all, I was still alive. Second that fugu in particular hadn’t been my last meal. Because, truth is, despite the hype and the near-death experience, it just doesn’t taste that good.

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Sushi, Redux

A little less than three years back, I dashed off a quick post about New York’s best sushi restaurants. And, rather inexplicably, that little compendium became a big hit; it quickly garnered well over a hundred thousand views, and continues to draw a sizable crowd today, remaining atop the Google results for ‘sushi nyc’.

But, in the years since, several of the restaurants I listed have gone out of business, the sushi playing field has shifted, and the entire piece has aged its way further and further out of date. So, to keep the self-aggrandizement flame of service journalism alive, I’m circling back around, resampling old haunts, testing newcomers, and culling recommendations and reviews from fellow fish fanatics.

I’ve already nailed down my early contenders for each of the new piece’s five categories: Uptown, Downtown, Cheap, Not Sushi, and Retardedly Overrated. But, if you, fair reader, have thoughts on places I should be stopping, that might fit in one of those five categories, and that I might have unfortunately overlooked, I’d much appreciate the advice.

Arigato in advance, and itadakimasu.

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Eat This

As much as France is regarded the culinary capital of the world, and as much as I’d consider myself a foodie, I must admit I’m not a huge fan of French food. At Italian restaurants, I often find I’d happily eat anything on the menu. At French, I often find there’s hardly anything on the menu I’d happily eat.

The bottoming out of this occurred at a cute little brasserie overlooking the Seine, where Jess pointed out something being eaten at the next table over, and I deduced from side-dishes that it was likely the Jarret de Porc.

Fortunately, the expression of the waiter upon my ordering led to a sign-language conversation in which I deduced that I was actually on the verge of eating pig knuckles. And though Jess was people-watching, rather than observing that silent exchange, which led to a Laurel and Hardy routine of her explaining in French that I wanted the Jarret, and me explaining to her that no, I most certainly did not, I eventually avoided that cartilaginous fate in favor of something far more tame.

On one evening, however, on a friend’s strong recommendations, we headed over to Le Reminet, a New French bistro on the Left Bank. And while one or two menu items were, indeed, terrifying, the vast majority looked exactly like something I’d actually want.

And when they arrived, want them I did. The food was excellent – amongst the better meals I’ve had in my life – and we left after countless courses stuffed to the point that we could barely even walk.

Maybe the Frogs are on to something after all.

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Sayonara Carbonation

Why is it that waitresses at Japanese restaurants always insist on pouring bottled beer into glasses while holding said bottles a solid foot above said glasses?

Check, prease.

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