Dear friends and family,


    Whenever anyone asks me my favorite Italian restaurants in New York I always put Lupa

    But one night recently friends wanted Lupa and I must admit I hungered for the house's rich fatty oxtail with the bravado of scattered greenery on top.
We wait at the maitre d' podium while a couple without reservations begs for a table, then wander to ours in a back corner feeling privileged.  I can't say I notice it right away but after a while, yes.. it's strangely almost quiet.  And we aren't shouting at each other. I look up. Sound proofing. It must be new. What a pleasure..the absence of the howl.

    A longtime Lupa regular had made our reservation -- that's new too, I discover, since early in 2007.  It used to be you could only reserve in the tiny back room. Or tap the privilege of being a house fixture.  

    We are nibbling marvelous little fried prosciutto croquettes when suddenly a big wooden paddle of Lupa's mostly house-made salumeria lands on our table, a gift from partner Jason Denton for our pal, I dare to hope. (Denton divides his time now between here and 'Inoteca on Ludlow, a partnership with his brother Joe.

    A second wave hits, what we actually have ordered:  bowls of wonderfully spicy, oily verdure, tonight, raddichio salty with anchovy, ribbons of cavalo nero showered with ground pecorino, summer squash and hot peppers. And my old favorite, escarole salad with walnut, red onion and more, much more pecorino.

    No complaints tonight, everything is splendid: Cuttlefish with almonds, baby octopus with chickpeas and celery, house cured tuna with canellini beans, bavette pasta with cacio and black pepper, bucatini all'Amatriciana, even pork shoulder eccentrically paired with rhubarb, ginger and Compari. I definitely would not have thought I'd fall for stuffed rolled skirt steak. And the special of the night, fried baccala could not be crisper -- greaseless, impeccably cooked. Local strawberries with balsamic are an excellent finale.

    The new tamed Lupa, is a real find. I've always liked it better than Babbo.  Now we can come home again. 170 Thompson between Bleeker and Houston. 212 982 5089.


I've been thinking about Brooke Astor, what fun she had, how graciously she gave all that money away, her generous gifts to Citymeals-on-Wheels. The year we honored her as a co-chair of our annual Power Lunch for Women, her assistant said she would not speak. But after I recited my celebration of her unique self, she jumped up the steep step of the platform and took the mike.

"It's not enough to give," she told the 350 accomplished women and two dozen chivalrous $10,000 men assembled in the Rainbow Room.  "You must go and see what they do with your money. I always like to see for myself."

    This week in BITE, My Journal, I share a list of lessons learned from Brooke Astor.  Here's a sample.

    *Live life every moment.

    *The first time you marry, marry for love.

    *The next time you marry, remember it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man.

    *Be thin.  more.

    As I promised, My Buenos Aires Hot List is up on insatiablecritic.com If you have friends going to Argentina they'll want these addresses.  As the Road Food Warrior says, the two of us eat out every night to save you from regret and indigestion.  And because THAT'S OUR JOB!

    Of course when we're off duty I think we are almost like normal people.  We want to eat less and sometimes, even healthy, and we definitely gravitate toward penny pincher spots we love.  Inside always there lurks the prima donna and it's still a shock when we ask for a table for two and we get led to a table for two. 

    It drives me crazy and the famously cantankerous owner Mitch London fires up too that Fairway Café, our once-a-week fall-in, is so inconsistent.  "What can you expect with a $29 prix fixe," I tell him.  One evening the kitchen cannot deliver the burger I nominated as "best" in New York magazine because the meat didn't arrive.  Next time it's perfection, just as described.  A week later, it's not really rare because somehow it's grown more meager than its usual fat hockey puck silhouette. Five slices of crisp bacon try to make nice for the flaw.

    A few nights ago my marinated skirt steak is beyond imagining perfection - thick, rare, juicy.  Steven's rib eye --$3 extra on the $29 prix fixe is one-third gristle and fat. Last week my leg of lamb, rare as requested, could have been dinner for two. 

    It is a long holiday weekend but there is Mitch, very butch in long shorts, uncharacteristically grinning.  He is giving away fruit crumbles - for some reason he calls it a cobbler -- to Café regulars "because we made too many" he explains.  I explain to him the difference between a crumble and a cobbler. 

    "Maybe we'll change the name," he muses.  And maybe he won't.
Trust me a crumble expert, a crumble addict, this is a delicious, slightly primitive crumble you want to take home. In a six-inch aluminum pie plate, plum alone or three berries -- it's $4.99 in the bakery downstairs and $5-to-go in the Cafe.
 
    Although it's way downtown in Tribeca, we happily find ourselves meeting friends at Mai House once every few weeks.  A block from home, the subway gets us there in less than 20 minutes. We discovered the pleasure of Michael Huynh's Vietnamese food at Bao III and followed him here to Drew Nieporent's loft-like space to find him cooking on a loftier plane. And each time we've been, there are sophisticated new dishes to discover.  

    It took time but I finally mastered not ordering too much..tonight on a sultry summer evening, we're skipping my favorite yam soup and indulging friends on a diet with spicy clam salad and what turns out to be a fabulous artichoke salad, hiding the wild boar sausage from them on our side of the table.

    Huynh is full of plans for his new noodle place in Soho, "My restaurant for my wife," he says. His wife Thao Nguyen was a cook in Saigon, a master noodler it seems.  Away in Argentina, we missed the news.

    They plan to be open from 7 a.m. till 2 a.m. September 19 at 143 Grand Street near Lafayette 212-431-7999 with a 60 foot dining bar and a few tables..with many dishes Huynh says can't be found anywhere else in the country.."or even in Vietnam."  He boasts that his partner is Warren Cuccurullo. "You know, Duran Duran." He is unabashedly thrilled at the connection, surely on a par with Nobu's ties to Robert de Niro. 

    "Drew can't be very happy about this," I observe.  Michael shrugs.

    I speak to Nieporent by phone. "Michael goes to the beat of his own drum," he begins, philosophically. " I've been in this business twenty years. People need to exercise their own judgment."

    "There's nothing in your contract with him that controls him?" I ask. 

    "He has the freedom to do what he wants."

    "He thinks he is the Nobu of Vietnam," I offer.

    "That's okay," says Drew.  "I have two great guys in the kitchen at Mai House.  Sean (Scotese) and Spike (Mendelsohn). They both worked at Le Cirque. They've learned from him..Michael took them to Vietnam. Whatever happens, we'll be fine. "Michael's on to doing his own thing.  He says he's creating a vehicle for his wife. We'll see. Mai House is running very well."
   
    Last Tuesday Patricia Sharpe, food editor and restaurant critic at Texas Monthly posted a review of my memoir in her blog, Eat My Words at www.texasmonthly.com

Elvis and the Fried-Egg Sandwich
posted by Patricia Sharpe

high up on my list, warning that it can be crowded and noisy.  The truth is we had avoided Mario Batali and Joe Bastinach's wonderful Rome-inspired trattoria for years because I would be wiped out after an evening of screaming to be heard above that noise. Hope you won't think me even less modest than normal if I reprint it here.  Click above to read my response.