FORK PLAY 29 April 7, 2008
RX for Bloggers. French Tables. Totto Udon. Restaurateurs Peeve
Dear Friends and Family,
What are food bloggers talking about right now? Not about Alain Ducasse's cloning of the legendary bistro Benoit  doing Friends and Family workouts preparatory to opening any minute at the old La Côte Basque space (you read it on Insatiable Critic first). Not about what is Jonathan Waxman up to now, something distracting, he admits. He wouldn't say (but you read it on my web site Monday. No, food bloggers are sounding each other out about that scary headline in the Sunday Times, "Some Writers Blog Till They Drop." Two sudden deaths among bloggers working around the clock racing to be first prompted the Times to investigate. It's true that sometimes at the end of a day at my computer I can scarcely breathe. My heart speeds up as I press to get a juicy gossip item on line ahead of the macho troops around town.
"We eat too much and don't get enough exercise," I suggest to Josh Ozersky, my confrere at New York's Grub Street. So I'm going to a movie Friday morning like I used to when I was an innocent print writer. And I'm making fewer pesty gossip-seeking phone calls. If you happen to go to InsatiableCritic.com and see last week's items lingering in my Short Order bulletin box, you'll know I took my heart out for a walk.
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Still French After All These years
I urged readers to "Ask Gael" and last week the question was "What do I recommend that's French?" As a food world archivist, historian and gadfly I have been so focused on the fading of towering French legends from the 60s - most recently La Caravelle and La Côte Basque - that I had to think for a moment, but only a moment. Le Bernardin, probably the best restaurant in New York was my obvious first thought. And Daniel thrives with four maisons and a fifth little boite for the Bowery on the way. My favorites are Café Boulud and Bar Boulud. Balthazar looks exactly like you want a brasserie to look - the same two chefs who created the first menu are still in the kitchen and keep it consistent. I like Nice-Matin on Amsterdam, and Pastis in the meat-packing district and Tree on the Lower East Side, where they've tented and heated the garden to triple the space since my first review. A French pastry cook does irresistible savories - sandwiches, pizzas, pot pies - at Solex, a wine bar on First Avenue between 6th and 7th. Chez Josephine, an homage to Josephine Baker, is lively and fun. The $28 two course lunch at the mythically seductive Jean George is the best deal in town. (I am dreaming of a frivolous benefactor to invite me for dinner.) I haven't been to Jo Jo for a while and I've never been to Gigot. This is a game where you never catch up.
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Bear Seeks Home
You have till Sunday to bid on my adorable little brown Bear Stearns bear with his tiny white collar and monogrammed tie. He goes to the highest bidder of $1000 or more for Citymeals-on-Wheels. You need this bear and Citymeals needs your check to maintain its lifeline of weekend, holiday and emergency meals to New York City's needy homebound elderly. Email me.
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Noodles and Chicken Parts
I am definitely in the mood for udon and grilled odd parts of chicken Saturday night after a week of more or less serious  dinners, mad over-the-bridge forays, star chef nibblings in noise tunnels, and bearing witness to innocent newbies shamelessly slinging pasta beyond their endowments. But alas, Soba Totto (211 East 43rd Street, 212 557 8200), a tendriL of Yakitori Totto, is not ready for prime time. How can they be out of dumplings and pork at 9PM on a Saturday night? Out of scallion too? Impossible.
We wait forever, a bit miffed at first -- our pals always have lots of catching up to do -- then indignant, finally ready to bolt. The sake drinkers barely notice time creeping and a trickle of appetizers keep us alive as we wait for the skewered items we've ordered. Ethereal chawan mushi -- savory custard and a few squares of luscious maguro -- one or two baby mouthfuls when shared by five, a small square of fried sushi that permits less than a teaspoon each. Leathery fried "chicken chips" are not a favorite. But waiting cold sober an hour and a half to receive one skewer of eggplant and one of slightly chewy tongue out of 10 ordered is not amusing. And there is no one in charge to complain to. Just the impassive waiter rushing food to tables that checked in half way through our ordeal. "Bring the udon now," we urge him. That takes time too. We plot the path to the best nearest burger parlor. At that point noodles and bacon-wrapped asparagus skewers arrive.
I suspect it's not really outright discrimination, rather that the Japanese at tables near us scoring skewers from the grill in fifteen minutes are quick to order, speak the waiter's language and possibly stave off hunger by slurping their noodles while waiting for skewered soft knee bones and tail of chicken. After two hours, the arrival of my long awaited skewered chicken thigh, good as it is -- seems anticlimactic. It will be a while before I'm in this mood again.
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A Tonic for What Ails Tonic
I'm not a tonic drinker but the Road Food Warrior is and he was impressed by the Q Tonic that came from a marketing hopeful last weekend. I had to taste it too, amazed to find its clean, crisp grownup flavor worlds away from the commercial quinine water I know. The people who make Q Tonic claim they go to the Peruvian Andes for hand-picked quinine and sweeten it with organic agave from Mexico. Obviously, they're must be doing something exceptional and a handful of New York restaurants have already discovered it. At Gourmet Garage, Whole Foods, Dean and Deluca, Garden of Eden, and Westside Market ($9.99 to $14.99 for a four-pack).
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Peeved Again
Speaking of peeves, readers are still sending them in. "It's absurd the level of noise that's acceptable," a friend emails me after dinner at Commerce. "It's perfect in an era of emailing, texting, lack of intimacy. Should we wear earplugs and flashlights and text each other in restaurants? Is this what we need to enjoy dinner with friends?" Not that we won't be back again - with or without earplugs -- for more of Harold Moore's inspired cooking.
I am embarrassed to say I recognize myself on a restaurateur's list of customer peeves that I've posted on the site this week. I never think of substitutions as a felony. You might also want to know why I won't be going back to Elettaria but Cassandra will.
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Disco Memories
I was rereading REGINE: FEEDING THE NIGHT CRAWLER, an article I wrote in 1977 in New York before posting it on my site and I actually found myself laughing. How lucky I was to be grownup and single and not noticeably coy in that carefree moment.
"I know I ought to hate Regine's. It's all so precious and pretentious and outrageous. The prices: I seem to have been rudely separated from $309 for an indifferent dinner for four. The décor: a curious mingle of elegance and tawdry flash. The food: so many misses. The wine: I've yet to sip a stirring bottle. The people: all that posing. So much chichi. The pretty glass people who provoke such an embarrassment of both disdain and longing in me. Is Andy Warhol whispering to Diana Vreeland what life is all about? Read more...
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Photos of Keith McNally at Balthazar, Eric Ripert and Maguy LeCoze at Le Bernardin, Totto Udon's kitchen and udon may not be reprinted without permission from Steve Richter.
Fork Play by Gael Greene, Copyright pending 2008
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