Cravings

Every once in a while I start to crave eating. I know we all crave different kinds of food from time to time for whatever reason, whether it be sushi or fried chicken or chocolate, but what I’m talking about is a dining experience. For some reason, I start to get an image in my head of a specific restaurant and I can’t help but picture experience and taste my meal. I think of the ambience, I look at the menu and try to imagine how the food tastes and I can even see myself drinking a very specific bottle of wine. This craving is extremely visceral for me despite sometimes not even knowing what the restaurant looks like. I become fixated on a dining experience and I feel like it has to happen and won’t be satisfied until it does.

Today I thought I’d write about 5 or so restaurants that I can’t stop thinking about. I get to go to some soon, have been to some before and hope to find a reason to go to others in the future.

1. Degustation. As it turns out I’m actually going tonight. This restaurant has been on my radar for a while as I read interview after interview with famous chefs who call Wesley Genovart’s 16 seat French inspired Tapas joint one of the most underrated restaurant finds in the city. Add in the fact that it’s moderately priced (meaning if I like it I can go again soon) and there is a recipe for excitement. I can already picture myself biting into the squid stuffed with short ribs over lentils and chorizo and smiling as I finish it off with a sip of good Rioja.

All The Degustation info you could want.

NY Times Review

Degustation menu

2. Picholine. Another restaurant that I get to go to soon. However this one is more of a destination dinner with its refined eclectic European style cooking. Luckily my parent’s 30th anniversary and my birthday are both next week, giving me a good excuse to talk them into taking me here. In addition we are friendly with a good friend of the chef. I’m incredibly intrigued by the idea of chicken stuffed with liquid foie gras and adorned by chanterelles. Another interesting choice is the sea urchin panna cottawhich promises to be incredibly fresh and sea like in a totally unique kind of way. I’m hoping this meal beats the elegance and refinement of the one I had last summer at Eleven Madison Park

Dinner Menu

Tasting Menu

3. Sushi Yasuda. I’ve already been here but I think I’m going again for my quarterly blowout (Spring version) in early April. At least twice a day I have fantasies of sitting at the wood sushi counter and being fed perfectly seasoned morsels of different kinds incredibly fresh and succulent tuna from all over the world. I taste perfectly fishy slices of mackerel (more kinds than I can remember) expertly seasoned with nothing more than lemon and sea salt and I envision appreciating the subtle differences in six different kinds of fresh salmon. I love Yasuda for its amazing fish and hate it for ruining everyday sushi for me forever.

NY Mag write up

Adam's thoughts

4. Bar Jamon

I’ve been here recently but I cant help thinking of how much I enjoyed trying different quartinos of Spanish wine and eating manchego and pan con tomate ( a fantastically underrated dish.) The bocadillo sandwich is also one of the most simple (pan con tomate again, this time with aioli and serran ham!) yet delicious sandwiches I’ve had in a while, rivaling the three terrine Banh Mi from Momofuku. I think part of the reason I want to go back is because it’s so accessible. You can walk in and pick a communal table and stand and eat. Add this to the affordable prices and you have a restaurant that I should be at bi-weekly. I’ve also been on a Spanish wine kick lately. I think I need to find a buddy to go back with. Come on friends, step up.

Menu

5. Telepan/Blue Hill

Been to both recently and have to say that both seasonal farm to table restaurants do two things really well—pork and eggs. And I always have a pork and eggs craving. No rush to go but I’ve been thinking of the Telepan brunch (only 30 dollars) featuring coddled eggs, biscuits and scrapple (almost like a super sausage biscuit with egg) and the slow poached egg with oyster mushrooms in an herb broth from Blue Hill—creamy earthy green and perfect. The thought of a perfectly soft cooked egg letting its richness melt into a savory herb broth makes me want to learn how to better slow cook eggs.

Telepan Brunch Menu

Blue Hill Dinner Menu


There are others too. I want to try the Burgers at Stand and Veselka and have a strong urge to eat Bone Marrow at both Landmarc and Blue Ribbon. In fact every time I look into the cupboard at work and spot the matzos meal I cant help but think of Blue Ribbon’s matzos meal coated fried chicken. Allen & Delancey and Fiamma are other restaurants that I want to try in a very general sense while Bar Boulud has me thinking of a good Crozes-Hermitage and Charcuterie. I also feel the need to eat some more soft Brisket and Kreuz sausage from Hill country. For some reason I’ve also been thinking of romaine hearts a lot recently. I guess I’m weird like that.

Happy eating…

Sunday Cooking Project (I apologize for the strange camera settings)

Ever since eating at Telepan a couple of Saturdays ago I’ve been thinking of their smoked trout and celery root blini dish and of ways to make it my own. My Sunday project was celery root blinis, milk poached scallops, and fried leek filaments. Although my camera was on a weird setting, the final result can be pictured here:

Milk Poached Scallops, fried leek filaments, celery root blinis

Overall the dish was ok, but it was definitely missing something. I think the poached scallops probably lacked a depth of flavor of the smoked trout I had at Telepan. I did think however, that the fried leek filaments were a nice addition (they were like some delicious shoestring fry and onion ring hybrid) and the celery root blini was spot on. I really have to thank Bill Telepan for introducing me to this newfound love of the blini. Since I made the batter on Sunday, I’ve eaten at least eight of these savory little pancakes and even had more blinis, with pickled herring and green apple sour cream for dinner last night.


My other Sunday cooking project was a venison dish. I don’t know why I was thinking of venison but it definitely had something to do with the cold weather and the fast approaching Christmas holiday. My goal with the venison was to create a dish that tasted like descriptions of the smell of red wine. First I browned the venison and then I braised it in red wine with a mirepoix, red berries, roasted cocoa nibs, sage and rosemary. After the braising was finished I served the finished meat with a sauce of sautéed cranberries, cherries and cocoa nibs as well as crispy fried potatoes and roasted Brussels sprout. I thought the red and green might be reminiscent of Christmas! The flavors worked really well together and now I’m thinking of ways to improve on both of my Sunday projects.

Braised Venison with a cherry, cranberry cocoa nib sauce, crispy potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts

Dining Brief: Telepan

Every once in a while I take a peek at the menu of a restaurant I will be visiting and I feel comforted. I know the food will be good. However, sometimes the flashy descriptions on the menu overstate the food and I end up being disappointed. The halibut accompanied by six different obscure and precious ingredients might be dry and not that flavorful.

The menu at Telepan is very comforting to me, and after my first visit the food pulled through as well. Executive chef Bill Telepan is one of a number of chefs whose menu reflects the seasons. He is an avid greenmarketeer and even has a cookbook Inspired by Ingredients, that can help the home chef along with cooking as determined by the market’s produce. The menu wasn’t comforting to me because of fancy descriptions or tales of Wagyu and Kobe beef. There were simply a lot of things that I liked to eat. It’s filled with eggs, potatoes, pork, pierogis and blinis and even (gasp) foie gras donuts! What was even more comforting however, was that as someone who frequents the Greenmarkets, all the ingredients were recognizable and accessible.
Although I only had brunch at Telepan, the food definitely warrants a dinner

trip in the near future. The smoked brook trout on celery root blini with green apple sour cream was too good not to taste again at some point. And everything I ate involving eggs, from the coddled eggs with scrapple (yes scrapple and its delicious) to the biscuits and gravy, a combination that reminds me of some sort of heavenly breakfast sandwich, everything I tasted was a winner. The four course $64 dollar prix fixe dinner even seems like a bargain. Even though the food does look very nice on the plate, it’s really the distinct and vibrant flavors on each plate that make the restaurant so much fun. You really get to taste your food. So, if you find yourself on the upper west side, a neighborhood relatively devoid of good restaurants, you should give Telepan a try, I promise you’ll like it.

Smoked trout, celery root blini, green apple sour cream