Fat Guy

Noticed, at Fairway on Broadway, that they're selling OU-kosher bison frankfurters by Abeles & Heymann, the venerable kosher meat-products company in the Bronx. They're not exactly cheap -- $6.99 a pound -- but they're quite tasty. A bit underseasoned, and of course no natural casing, but as good or better than most kosher beef franks. A good demonstration of the possibilities for bison.

Yes! And no girly drinks.

If you look in the fourth photograph above, Larry is the guy in the blue shirt and blue jeans. Obscured by Larry, in the yellow sweatshirt, is Jimi Yui the kitchen designer. Gray Kunz is the man in the sportcoat. And the guy with his back to the camera is Chris Broberg, the pastry chef. Jimi and Chris are more visible in the fifth photo. The other two key kitchen manager types seemed to be the two guys on the far right of the fifth photo. I have to get their names.

We finally managed to get a reservation at Spice Market. Things didn't start off well: the reservationists I spoke to were uniformly rude, the host who greeted us was in total anti-consumer mode ("You'll have to wait until your whole party is here"..."But we are all here"..."Well, just wait a minute then") not to mention they had misrecorded the number of people in our party, our waiter was totally aloof (moreover I was disappointed we didn't get one of the pretty waitresses with the exposed-back shirts), the explanation of the "family style" (I'm sure I'm not the first person to joke that these tiny dishes could only be called family style during a famine) approach was annoying especially "the dishes come when they're ready" as if they magically cook themselves and the kitchen has no control over sequencing, they were out of the first wine we ordered, and the first dish we had really kind of sucked. It had been described by Amanda Hesser thus: "Egg rolls stuffed with mushrooms gleam under Mr. Vongerichten's touch. Softened shiitake and oyster mushrooms are loosely swaddled in a wrapper that is fragile and crisp on the outside. A tangy herbal galangal sauce is whipped into a celadon foam. When you dip the egg rolls, the sauce clings in a light, loose layer." The egg rolls were heavy and super-saturated with grease, probably a sign of the frying oil being too cold or the fryer being too crowded. The mushroom filling was underseasoned and bland. Accompanying the egg rolls were two pathetic sheets of iceberg lettuce, presumably to be used as wrappers. And there was a foamy sauce (celadon doesn't strike me as an accurate description; it was more like a honeydew color) that actually would have been quite good had there been anything good to put it on. I was all set to hate the place, at which point the rest of the food started to arrive and the meal went in a whole different direction. The other two appetizers we tried were astounding. The "shaved" tuna with tapioca pearls, little Asian pear slices, and chilies in coconut-and-kaffir-lime broth is one of the best tuna-sashimi dishes I've ever tried, and the green papaya salad is the best rendition of that dish I've had since we were in Singapore a few years ago (to use the best Thai place in the city, Sripraphai, for comparison, the Spice Market dish was much better). I couldn't bring myself to try the three-star chicken wings. The dish of the night was a succulent piece of cod (real cod, not that black cod stuff they serve at most Asian places) served over a thick/chunky chili-garlic-ginger-scallion-Thai-basil (I think) sauce. It had that aromatic kick and barely-able-to-contain-itself flavor balance that real Southeast Asian food in Southeast Asia has and that we so rarely get to taste in New York. Also excellent was a bowl of noodles (well, the noodles were kind of dull) topped with boneless chili-and-onion-crusted braised short ribs. The noodles were better in the side dish (the only portion of the night that I thought wasn't stingy) of grilled shrimp over spicy noodles. The one weak entree was the "BBQ Skate Newton Circus." After making too many jokes about what a Skate Newton would taste like, and after a few more bad jokes about the image of a flea circus but with Fig Newtons instead of fleas, the aloof waiter was able to inform us that Newton Circus is a popular street hawker center in Singapore. I think I was there and never even absorbed that it had a name. Anyway . . . the dish could have been terrific, with its sweet barbecue glaze, but the skate was an inferior specimen and overcooked. The coconut sticky rice we were served should have been called soggy rice -- great flavor, wrong texture. We only tried a couple of desserts -- the rice pudding and the chocolate-coffee tart -- but they were quite tasty, especially the rice pudding with its brulee top and accompanying passion-fruit shebert. The place is gorgeous, that's for sure, and I learned this morning when looking over Steve Cuozzo's review that we were seated at a prime table ("Prime tables overlook a lower-level lounge reached by a dramatic center staircase"). I had a prime table in a Vongerichten fantasy. I have arrived.

Making coffee is in many ways just like any other form of cookery. My coffee-making improved dramatically (which isn't to say it's all that great; just a lot better than before) once I got into that mindset. The fundamental realization about coffee that most people haven't had is, I think, that coffee beans are an ingredient -- the only ingredient -- in a dish called coffee. In cookery of, say, steak -- another basic single-ingredient dish -- you fundamentally need a great piece of meat, and it has to have been well handled, aged, butchered, etc., if you're going to make a great steak. If you give Jean-Georges Vongerichten a shitty steak and have him cook it in his ten-gazillion dollar kitchen at Rare, and you give any reasonably competent amateur cook a Lobel's New York strip and a crummy New York City apartment kitchen, guess who's going to produce a better steak? The amateur, because if everything else is in its place it's just not all that hard to make a good steak, whereas if you start with a bad steak it doesn't matter if you're Escoffier himself you just can't turn it into a good steak. It's the same with coffee. If you don't start with good beans, and they're not properly roasted and gotten from the roaster to the grinder to the coffee-maker in a timely manner, there are going to be significant limitations on the quality of your coffee even if you're the ten-time barrista champion of Italy and you have a $15,000 espresso machine at your disposal. Whereas, if you have great beans, well roasted and fresh and uniformly ground, you can make some pretty damn good coffee in a press pot with little skill.

One of Gray Kunz's former Lespinasse sous-chefs is the chef-de-cuisine (or executive chef; I'm not sure what title system they're using), and I recognized a few other Lespinasse names on the staff list (most notably beverage director Alexander Adlgasser) but I need to figure out how to spell everybody's name before I post any of that info. I met so many people so quickly there wasn't time to get it all down.

They don't have an opening date yet. I believe they'll start taking reservations shortly before opening.

You've got to remember that Gray Kunz comes by his fusion organically. He was born in Asia and grew up with those flavors, and he also cheffed at the luxury end of the Asian hotel industry. Those flavors and that palate are simply part of his culinary toolkit, just as is his European training under Girardet, and the American sensibility he has developed here. And as Peter Kaminsky helped Gray Kunz express so clearly in his cookbook, the Kunz style is very much the product of a flavor balance and tension system that transcends any sort of geographic sense. The creativity you might see in an identifiably French Kunz dish and in an identifiably Asian-fusion Kunz dish are, to Kunz I think, the same thing. This brief narrative, from Kaminsky's New York Magazine article on Kunz and Keller, is a telling demonstration of the Kunz creative process. This is a description of what happened when Kunz and Kaminsky went to a regular old supermarket in order to do a chicken dish demonstrating the aspect of bitterness: http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/food/features/n_9682/

I'm planning to give very serious consideration to Zora's recommendation of Agnadi -- that will most likely be my next Greek hit in Queens. In terms of the others, the three I've been to in the past few months are Stamatis, S'Agapo, and Christos. To get Christos out of the equation quickly I'll just say that if you want steak, Christos is a good choice, but not if you're looking for a more standard Greek meal. As between S'Agapo and Stamatis, I'm currently divided. S'Agapo is a more refined restaurant, and the cooking and presentations are a bit more precise. Stamatis is more upbeat and rustic. The past few times I've been out to Astoria, I've made the decision en route, based on mood. For example, when out celebrating a friend's son's birthday, Stamatis was totally the clear choice. When venturing out there with a group of picky eaters, there was no question in my mind that S'Agapo would be more approachable and reliable. I don't consider Uncle George's, Elias Corner, or Telly's Taverna (is it still there?) to be viable choices anymore. My last meals at each indicated serious decline. That being said, I'm not sure there's any Greek restaurant in Queens right now (leaving aside Zora's find, which I haven't visited) that I consider to be particularly good. Although pricier, I've been having much better Greek food in Manhattan at the semi-upscale places at the Avra level. I'll probably lose my Chowhound membership card for sure by saying this, but I'd happily pit the top Manhattan Greek restaurants against those in Astoria. The only arguments right now for Astoria, as far as I'm concerned, have to do with price and vibe. The food is better in Manhattan.

They're listing 212-343-1551 on the under-construction Web site http://www.cafegray.com

Me!

The menus are in draft form. There hasn't been any sort of formal pre-release or anything like that. I know the risotto and short ribs are locked in not only because they're Gray Kunz's major signatures but also because they've purchased specialized bowls and silver pots for the risotto service and they've devoted some effort to developing the best butchering system for the short ribs. But if you look at the draft menus they have taped to the wall in the temporary office, there are all sorts of notations and colors, dish descriptions are in constant flux, they're still meeting with suppliers (as I was leaving the meat guy was coming in), etc. The breakfast menu looks like it will take an ingredients-centric approach to that meal. The emphasis is on products from Ronnybrook, Emmi (yogurt from Switzerland), Vermont Butter & Cheese Co., and Knoll Krest (eggs). The thing that jumped out at me from the lunch menu was the short rib panini-style sandwich, but that menu seemed to be in a much earlier stage of development than the others. At the bar, there's some overlap with the main menu items as well as pomelo crusted scallops with pickled ramps and some sort of fancy low-acidity sherry-like vingearish substance that I tasted a capful of (it was excellent) and grilled shrimp and green mango salad with kaffir remoulade. I believe the scallops will be sold by the piece at the bar (I think they were looking at $3.50 a piece) and as a portion of 6 on the main menu. The tentative price on that shrimp dish was, I believe, $18. The dinner menu had a range of stuff including some trout (I think) from Tasmania (big article on Tasmania in this month's Saveur), Dover sole, the short rib dish, I think the maple-shallot chicken dish he developed with Peter Kaminsky is still on there, the risotto as an appetizer, and a bunch of other stuff. I took a few notes on the menus but quickly realized it would be premature to report in detail on a bunch of dishes that may never see the light of day, especially since, with delays, the restaurant is probably going to open with a spring menu and then move quickly into a summer menu. The only thing I actually ate were some of pastry chef Chris Broberg's signature lavender-scented white-chocolate-crunch petits fours. But I only ate about 30 of them. I'm going to sit in on an actual menu-planning session in a couple of weeks. As I mentioned above, this is all primarily about research for my book, but I'll share whatever I'm allowed to share here. If the chef asks me not to share menu details pre-opening, I'll have to respect that. If not, I'll tell you everything I know.

I would recommend 9 pounds: 1 pound per Jew and 1 pound for the 4 Genitles. Seriously, though, in my experience the nicest briskets tend to be the ones in the 4-5 pound range (for the half, not the whole). I have no operating theory on why this is the case. In any event, I recommend you get two in that size range. Over-portioning is not only necessary to compensate for shrinkage and heavy eaters. It's also part of the spirit of the event: it's supposed to be a feast. Nobody should feel as though he or she runs the risk of taking the last piece of anything. There should be so much food on so many platters that everybody feels entitled and required to overeat to exhaustion. At which point you can serve dessert.

It's no big deal anywhere for a cafe or brasserie or steakhouse to have twice that many seats and as many sittings. I agree that nobody in New York has pulled off a fine-dining restaurant at that number without compromises -- and in fact I think your formulation is exactly correct and the best statement of the issue I've heard in that regard -- but Cafe Gray isn't modeled after Gramercy Tavern, where the opening promise was that it would be the first four-star American restaurant. Cafe Gray is modeled after the cafe-brasserie axis. It seems to me that Gray Kunz is trying to capture the high end of that formula. And, although I had some initial suspicions that Cafe Gray would be pulled in a fine dining direction, I'm reasonably certain after talking to the chef that he's a true believer in the upscale cafe concept. I suppose he'll satisfy his higher-level creativity at the chef's table and perhaps in a future fine-dining venture. But as for the main part of Cafe Gray, I think the proper operational reference points lie somewhere on the spectrum between brasseries like Pastis-Schiller's-Balthazar and the new-breed upscale steakhouses.

Gordon, as I mentioned above, "there is a behind-the-scenes production kitchen and a very visible service kitchen that runs the entire length of the dining room." The production kitchen has all the stock pots, deck ovens, walk-ins, etc. Also the dishwashing area and the pastry kitchen. There's quite a bit more room and equipment in the Cafe Gray kitchens than most any chef would think is necessary for a 120-seat restaurant.

It's definitely going to be a new challenge for him. At Lespinasse he had carte blanche to create, without needing to be concerned (at least in the original conception of the restaurant) about the resources needed to get it done. At Cafe Gray, he needs to fit his culinary creativity into an unforgiving, challenging, and in some aspects unprecedented (the whole Time Warner situation is a huge factor here) business model. It would be unrealistic, however, to write off Kunz's five years of deals-gone-bad experience. You can see the life-lessons in his face, and you can hear them in his voice. When I used to talk to Kunz at Lespinasse -- rarely, just a few hurried words at a time, on account of his well-know shyness -- I could have sworn he and I were the same age (he is in fact 14 years older than I; he's 48 right now, I believe). These days he still has that trademark baby-face but his bearing is elder statesmanlike. I think we're going to see a very different Gray Kunz when Cafe Gray opens. I'm still not buying into this theory of "too many meals," though. Marcus, what are the operational limitations you're envisioning for Cafe Gray? Assuming the place is properly conceived and everything is in its place, a 120-seat restaurant simply isn't a big deal. For example, the choice to feature short ribs as a signature dish seems pretty safe from a consistency standpoint: provided you have the equipment, time, and training, it makes no difference at all if you braise 10, 100, or 1000 portions during prep. The dish is cooked in the back kitchen long before service. The line cooks, when serving the dish, don't need to do very much -- they bring a portion to temperature and they do whatever they have to do to adjust and add the sauce and garnishes. It wouldn't be much of a challenge to design a restaurant that could serve 1000 portions of that dish per night in a very consistent manner. Yet all of Kunz's little twists on the formula (the way several ribs are butchered to give the appearance of one big rib, the cooking under weight/pressure, the saucing) yield what scores of seasoned veteran diners have declared the definitive short rib dish of all time. Now, you'll be able to sidle up at the Cafe Gray bar and get that dish any time, and at lunchtime you can get a sandwich version -- basically the same meat preparation but done panini-style. I find that prospect appealing. Of course, when you get into cooking scallops and Dover sole, you need a really solid line cook who can hit the right level of doneness every time. And that gets harder and harder to do as the numbers go up and the ability to supervise every dish goes down. But one hopes and imagines Kunz will know the limits of his crew and will start with a conservative menu that operates within those limits, and then he'll go from there. Gray Kunz is nothing if not careful and precise. For all the talk of Thomas Keller being such a perfectionist, I think anybody who has seen Gray Kunz at work in a kitchen will testify that he's the human equivalent of a Swiss watch.

....I disagree that it's more difficult to work with (all you need to do is skim the fat off the gravy if you make it a day or two ahead of time). They were speaking in terms of cooking time (you have to cook the point/second-cut longer) and slicing (the regular shape of the flat/first-cut makes it easy to get lots of nice, even slices).

It's not possible to know in advance how the kitchen will handle the traffic, but it does appear that the selection and placement of every piece of kitchen equipment, the production of every dish, the style of service, and all the other pieces of the puzzle have been conceived from the ground up as able to be replicated accurately on a 120-seat-dining-room, 3-turns-a-night scale. The restaurant is by no means huge. It's certainly smaller than Daniel, and even smaller relative to the world's most consistent restaurant, McDonald's. So I don't see it as having "too many" of anything. But it's a heck of a lot bigger than Lespinasse. It will be interesting to watch it come to life.

This morning as part of the research for my book I paid a visit to the Cafe Gray space, which is reported to be approximately 5 weeks from opening, in order to tour the kitchen with the chef, his team, and kitchen designer Jimi Yui. The kitchens (there is a behind-the-scenes production kitchen and a very visible service kitchen that runs the entire length of the dining room) are essentially ready and have been utilized for at least one event. The remaining work is minor, on the order of moving a few faucets, adding sound insulation (critical in an open kitchen) to some of the metal carts and doors, closing up the ceiling, and hanging the lights. The dining room is still a construction site. The infrastructure is in place but there is much to be done. Cafe Gray is scheduled to be open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I saw some draft menus and they included a combination of Kunz signatures (the herbed risotto with wild mushroom fricassee; the braised short ribs with creamy grits and Meaux mustard sauce) as well as plenty of new stuff. The breakfast and lunch items are more casual, and there is also a bar menu. There are slated to be 120 seats in the dining room. There's also a chef's table at one end of the kitchen and a private dining room at the other end. When standing in the dining room, one looks through the kitchen and out onto Central Park and Columbus Circle. The view is similar to the one at Per Se one flight up (the restaurants are not exactly aligned in the building but parts of them overlap), save for the private room which has a really sweet view because it's positioned where the building bends so you can see the whole of Central Park -- all the way north and east. This is how the kitchen looks right now. The first photo was taken from where the private dining room will be, and the second was taken from one end of the main dining room. The dining room as viewed from the kitchen: Chef Kunz and the team inspect the kitchen:

In the Saveur issue in question, in the kitchen section in the back, there is, ancillary to the brisket article, a couple of photos and brief discussion of first cut and second cut. Their conclusion is that second cut is more flavorful, though less convenient to work with.

Okay, I got me some white creme de cacao. But now I can't find the damn Lillet. I know I have some. Where did you guys hide it?

In case any of you missed the mentions in Slkinsey and Gifted Gourmet's posts above: Anybody with the slightest interest in brisket simply must acquire the April 2004 issue of Saveur. It contains the best and most comprehensive article I've ever seen about brisket, by my friend (and I'm not the type of person to refer to every acquaintance as a friend), Saveur Senior Editor and James Beard Award-winning writer, Kelly Alexander.

I don't see what the big deal is. My little DeLonghi machine can make half a dozen lattes in less than two hours. If I start before dinner, and I skip dinner, I can have them all ready by dessert and the last one will still be hot.

For me, to use the language of business plans, psychotherapy is a "fixed cost."

How is writing a book jacket blurb a business relationship? Nobody gets paid to write book jacket blurbs. After a book manuscript is edited and before it goes to the printer, the publisher sends galleys around to various big-name food people and asks for blurbs. Most of them don't even look at the book, or just read a few pages, and then write some bullshit blurb. Vongerichten probably just told his publicist to do it as a matter of course. It's no different from saying something nice about someone else in print, anywhere. If Vongerichten had given a magazine interview to Vogue and said "I think Amanda Hesser's book is really good," would she have to disclose that in her restaurant reviews? Of course not, even though Vogue goes to a million people and Hesser's book jacket is only seen by the eleven people who bought the book. The burning question, though, is what happens if Hesser is still the interim critic when Cafe Gray opens? Will she be able to figure out a way not to mention who the chef is? (Sam, if you move the other posts on this tangent, please don't forget this one, though I'd prefer it if you would disclose our, um, relationship first . . .)