FORK PLAY April 27, 2010
Kenmare. 5 & Diamond. Wall & Water. Bromberg Home Cooking
Dear Friends and Family,
Kenmare could be a very hot place by now. The tall women in stilettos drawn to a certain kind of Manhattan  heat were already clicking across the floor on the evening
four of us settled in for dinner, excited to see Joey Campanaro standing at the kitchen through pass directing traffic. I'm here to taste Joey's food. It seems most everyone else has followed nighttime Pied Piper Paul Servigny from the mythic ruins of his Beatrice Inn, teamed here with Nur Khan who runs the snooty Rose Bar at the Gramercy Hotel. It's eerily quiet. I'm sure we only sneaked in because there's no list at the door yet and aging club kids don't eat at 8.
I never could get into Campanaro's Little Owl - so small, tables so in demand - and finally I gave up. At Market Table, the chef's storefront "grocery" on Carmine Street with executive chef Mikey Price, I got a taste of their down-to-earth seasonal cooking. Shoehorned into a tiny table  table in such darkness I couldn't see my food, shouting over the din, it was hardly my comfort zone.
But it's civilized here - a new design since Civetti took a quick dive in this space -at least, until suddenly we're all shook up by the subway rattling beneath us. Servigny, a legend for the rhinestone luster of his celebrity posse, has insisted he's too old for late night decadence and Kenmare will be the serious restaurant he's always wanted. That's why Campanaro's doubling here.
I feel the chef is trying too hard to do something different with the same old menu faithfuls. Spinach-strawberry salad with scallops. A swath of salsa verde, arugula and ricotta salata on the breaded veal cutlet (I rather like it but the Frenchman who ordered it is apoplectic). Asparagus gratin and endive are smothered in
 fontina and bread crumbs. It sounds like macaroni but it's a mess. Green-tinged basil gnocchi with short rib ragout makes
me happier. And my guy and I like the shrimp and lobster spaghetti fra diavolo - supper for just $14. Our friends are wild about the truffle-scented risotto with a poached egg on top. Halibut rides in on a cliff of bright green "chive mashed Stroganoff" and rides right back to the kitchen almost intact it's so unappealing. Twice salted Cheddar fries are rejected and replaced in a more edible state.
If I hear rumors the kitchen has perked up I might go back. If not I'll leave it to the orphans of Beatrice Inn who should be ecstatic to find a new home. 98 Kenmare Street. 212 996 9440.
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In this newsletter, I think we've captured the colors of the pansies in the flower boxes on my block. I am amazed they survived that cold snap.
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Epiphany on Frederick Douglass Boulevard
I suspect my desperate need to get back fast to 5 & Diamond in Harlem for another tasting is not just because I liked it and chef Ryan Skeen has a rap sheet for short 
engagements. It's more likely I'm on a psychedelic high from tasting the best thing done to a sea urchin since Jean-Georges's uni on dark bread with jalapeņo, possibly even since the urchin in a Nantucket scallop shell that had foodies storming Union Pacific in the days when Rocco Di Spirito was still cheffing. Luscious chunks of Japanese sea urchin ride on the rich fat fish belly with bits of grapefruit in citrus puddles all around. And yes, the whole briny package is surfing on a pork rind. But there's more to love in this brave little Harlem storefront so smartly decked out. To read more about the gifted and peripatatic Ryan Skeen's new roost and know what to order, click here.
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Let's Do Lunch On Wall Street
"A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner," Samuel Johnson is quoted atop the menu at Wall & Water. Indeed, the minions of dining in Hyatt's new downtown Andaz Hotel seem earnestly  focused on details once we get their attention, though not much on dinner. There seem to be just two servers and they can't quite keep up with demand tonight. The woman pouring our delicious Petite Syrah ("I'm out of what you ordered, but you'll like this") has memorized all the details of David Rockwell's rich, sly and handsome design: the floor pieced from old wine casks, spikes high above evoking the seal on the dollar bill, the watermarks repeated everywhere, curtains and columns with abstract floral patterns like the backgrounds of stock certificates, bubbly hand-blown pearl-like sconces for, what else, proximity to Pearl Street. But we practically have to send up flares to get our order taken.
Ideally, if the fates conspire, eating in the dimmed dining room could feel rich and sexy, a smart setting for seduction, romantic or financial. Click here for a guide to what's on the menu and why you might make a detour for brunch.
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Another Cookbook Cover I Could Eat
Why did Blue Ribbon so quickly become the hangout chefs and the food savvy had to storm 18 years go? It was the appeal of their unfussy food, the comfort and simplicity. Maybe the late hours helped too. But soon Mario and Bobby, Daniel and Jean-Georges were stopping by to let Eric and Bruce Bromberg serve supper. "Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook" (Potter) a guide to "Better Home Cooking" is full of childhood favorites, restaurant signatures, influences from New Jersey as well as from their Cordon Bleu days in France: braised beef short ribs with succotash, spicy egg shooters, smoked bacon and garlic soup, even brioche buns for burgers. And that's their justly celebrated chicken on the cover that makes me hungry. I don't know if I'll use this book to cook. You know how lazy I am. But I do find a surreal pleasure in merely reading the recipe for Recamier's crispy potato cake.
Photos of Kenmare's chef, his asparagus gratin and the halibut, the photos of 5 & Diamond shrimp with patatas bravas, and Wall & Water's vegetable pot pie may not be used without permission from Steven Richter
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