NYC Report -- hitting the highlights

[Busboy]

I’m thinking it was our best trip ever to New York.

I’d last been to New York City, for work, in mid-June, and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I’d stayed in the Marriot on 46th Street, which is the closest place to Hell on Earth I’ve ever roomed, anywhere – suburban strip mall aesthetics blown up to New York scale and jammed with people who crown their New York visit with a trip to Madam Tussaud’s and dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Dinner was at 5 Ninth, a credible but overpriced joint in a Meatpacking District that now seems eager to prove that, in large numbers, the beautiful, hip and moneyed can be just as repellent as the clueless tourists 40 blocks north.

I needed my faith restored. And, hallelujah! It was.

This was a family trip; finances and the junior palates in the clan (15 and 11, not wildly adventurous despite our best efforts) ensured that this jaunt would not resemble the “nine stars in four days” Paris trips eGulleters seem always to be planning. We planned a more catholic approach to dining – finding good feed or fun dining at every level, and focusing on places the kids wouldn’t mind.

The biggest disappointment: a bizarre series of events, including a cat fight, inability to find another couple to fill our four-top, and a drug regimen for Mrs. Busboy that would have caused violent sickness if alcohol were consumed and which made food taste funny, caused us to cancel reservations at Per Se.

The second biggest disappointment: Balthazar (80 Spring St. 212-965-1414).

I mean, the place looks great, the service was friendly – no hairy eyeball when we brought the kids inside – and I appreciate a good late meal, especially after a five-hour car ride and the hassle of hotel check-in (we arrived at 10:30 PM).

And Balthazar started strong. The dark bread was excellent. The clams on the half shell were proof positive that Balthazar’s chefs have a tighter relationship with their fishmonger that I have with mine – sweet beyond words. I thought that the brandade was effete, with its velvet texture and more-cream-than-garlic flavoring. My wife thought it was ethereal. Although more bourgeois than paysanne, it was unquestionably memorable, and quite good.

The main courses, however, were less memorable and less good. The burger, served on an untoasted English muffin, was pronounced unexceptional by Dylan, 15. 11-year-old Nora’s flank steak, disappointingly, had less flavor than the flank steak we’d picked up at Whole Foods earlier in the week. The frites saved the day however, and kept that side of the table happy for the duration.

On the grown-up side of the table, I tucked into a duck confit which, despite a skin whose texture and lacquered finish were worthy of the best Peking duck, was more stringy than rich, and showed no signs of seasoning or spice. The beefy mushrooms and crisp chips in which it lay almost saved the day, particularly as they were paired with a well-priced half-bottle of Gigondas, but not quite. The warm goat cheese and caramelized onion tart appetizer -- which Mrs. Busboy ordered in lieu of a main course -- was about the size of a silver dollar and looked like a frozen quiche. The taste? Who remembers?

Maybe my expectations were too high. (Curse you, Amanda Hesser!) I loved the room; I liked the wine list (I enjoyed a bottle of Chateau de Varennes ’00 Saviennières for $32, in addition to the Gigondas) and I’m looking forward to having a Plateau de Fruit de Mer some day. But the food felt more “authentic” than toothsome – as though, like the typeface on the menus and the clock above the doors, it’s just part of the theme.

New York made a strong comeback the next morning, though, when we rolled around the corner from the Grammercy Park Hotel (RIP, alas) to Ess-a-Bagel on 1st and 21st. Having visited faux-Paris the evening before we were pleased to be back in real New York – from the Kosher certification in the front window, to the smoked fish behind the counter to the no-nonsense crew taking orders and boiling bagels, everything felt right. And tasted right,too. The bagels are big -- huge, almost inflationary.

Breakfast in Manhattan

But these bagels have street cred, with a tough exoskeleton and a full taste. I liked the belly lox, too. While the critical lobes of my cerebrum keep telling me that the bagels could have been a little maltier; my mouth and stomach are damn glad I still have a dozen in the freezer.

PS – is “no toasting” a New York thing?

After rounding up the kids we took the Q train out to Brighton Beach, searching for a taste of Russia on a truly spectacular July day.

Just wandering beneath the El on Brighton Beach Boulevard is a blast – too bad we had no place to bring or cook the strange and wonderful stuff being dished out at the many Russian traiteurs we looked into, but just looking and smelling was almost treat enough. A couple of inquiries sent us over to the boardwalk, where four Russian cafés site next to one another, each equally exotic and inviting. We selected Café Volna (3145 Brighton 4th Street, at the boardwalk; 718-332-0341), assuming that anything eaten outdoors on so splendid a day would taste good. We were right.

We started with Stoli, served chilled in a somewhat larger than expected glass and started eating immediately, as food began tumbling almost randomly out of the kitchen. First out were some tasty pickled vegetables – tomato, lettuce and cukes in a sugared brine. Then the smoked, pickled beef: a dense Russian loin sliced into dime-thick rounds, chewy and faintly sweet.

Russian charcouterie

Actually, sugar was something of a theme at this place. The cheese-stuffed “dough entrée” – a doughy tortellini --was too sweet for Stephanie, and a little heavy, to boot. But what the heck do I know from Russian pasta? I tucked in enthusiastically, and then cut the sweetness with a second vodka and caviar on a crepe.

Note the generously-sized vodka glass

I’m not a beet fan, so I can’t comment on the borscht, which was flavored with tomato and cabbage and struck me as a little thin. Nora, however, ate it up. The highlight was a simple square of dough, folded over spiced, ground lamb and deep fried, then scattered with paprika. What made it so delicious? I don’t know. The spicing and the crunch, I suppose, but there was something else, as well.

Better than the caviar

At Volna, they seem to have a sure hand with simple preparations.

On a Friday afternoon, you couldn’t hear a word of English in the place; the vodka and the flavors and the beach made Manhattan seem a world away. It was a truly delightful corner of New York to curl up in, and I look forward to getting back.

Of course, it was New York, and we were tourists, so the waitress tried to sneak a service charge onto the bill. But it was only 10% and she looked suitably embarrassed when I asked her about it, so we left full and happy to nap on the beach while the kids built sandcastles and caught crabs.

Castles in the sand...

After a little lounging around we made the hike down to Coney Island, and worked our appetite back up on the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel and a couple of other “National Register of Historic Places”-type rides, and the brief walk to Totonno’s Pizza. Much has been written about Totonno’s on eGullet, and I have little to add, save that it may now be my favorite pizza place in the world.

Ma's clearing tables, the son peels the pizza, the older lady is a cousin who helps out and we were never quite sure how the younger waitress fit in

I also found the place a little surreal – this tiny slice of 50’s-era Italian- American life, complete with extended family on the sidewalk in lawn chairs – dropped into a neighborhood that too often resembles a combat zone. With few exceptions, the walk to Totonno’s from the beach is relentlessly oppressive – vacant lots, boarded up houses, small children with no shoes. Then you turn the corner onto Neptune, a wide, almost treeless street, bright and hot and lined on both sides with the kind of body shop you might go to if you were looking to get your wheels back after finding your car up on blocks. A lot of glare and razor wire; everybody smokes and everybody looks you up and down as you walk by.

When, about a block away, you see the awning and the family out front, you know where to turn in. Inside, there’s a couple of bikers, a couple of yups (besides us), a large Italian family and a soft-core porn queen getting shot for an upcoming issue of FHM.

She didn't even eat any of the pizza!

The kids from the sidewalk are running in and out, the shooter’s strobe keeps flashing, there’s a limo pulling up, the handlers and make-up artist dance in and out of the first booth. And, through it all, the pizza guy keeps turning out brilliant, crisp, spicy pies, with an expression that says: just another day at the office.

This man is my hero

On the D train back a young woman wearing windburn and a translucent wife-beater filled the car with boom-box hip-hop, which somehow seemed just right.

Dinner and a show: I love New York.

After a too-late tour of West Village bars, Stephanie and I woke up just in time to shower, ship the kids off to Burger King and Neutral Ground -- if Magic, Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer mean anything to you, Neutral Ground is a must – and walk the two blocks to the Grammercy Tavern for a noon “breakfast.”

On Saturdays and Sundays, the Grammercy Tavern’s (42 East 20th St, at Park, 212-477-0777) Tavern Room is open all day, and I can’t imagine anything more civilized than dropping in for lunch. I find the room one of the most pleasing places on earth – huge windows let in a calming, indirect light; the wooden tables and floor make the restaurant feel like the grill room of ancient but well-maintained private club; and the top quarter of the walls are given over to a mural encircling the room. Fruits and vegetables are painted in wood block-style with colors Gauguin or Matisse might have selected – purples and blues and deep yellows – setting off the vast bouquet of apple blossoms at the far end of the bar. Service is friendly, but restrained - like the clientel -- and the whole feel is like something out of an earlier, more enlightened time.

The food is pretty good, too. Stephanie began with a chilled pea soup, with lobster, orzo and mint - a clean, refreshing start to the day. I had the rabbit rillets, which were delicate almost to the point of innocuousness, but benefited from an array of South France-style condiments, including a tapenade, braised fennel and capers.

This changed Stephanie's view of pea soup forever

I don’t know if we just weren’t in the mood for the fish soup, but we didn’t bother finishing it. The fish were a little overcooked to my taste – a common enough problem in the bouillabaisse family – but fresh and flavorful. And, the chef pulled no punches on the spicing, so the dish clearly has a lot of potential. I guess my constitution will tolerate gin-spike lemonade from the Tavern’s cocktail list for breakfast, but fish soup is a step too far.

Fortunately, we also ordered that breakfast and eGullet favorite: bacon. Here, it is browned and roasted to a deep mahogany and served in planks atop spaetzel, its richness cut slightly by sugar snaps and too little pickled rhubarb. It was wonderful bridge between home cooking and haute cuisine, with a flavor that seems to stay in your mouth for hours afterwards.

Breakfast of champions

After the bacon, dessert seemed superfluous, so we collected the kids, cabbed uptown to the Guggenheim for the Brancusi show – worth a stop – and then subwayed downtown for a Big Onion walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Heights.

Unfortunately, having foisted culture and history on the kids, we had to cede control of the night’s Chinese dinner to Nora, who wanted to go back to “that place we went last time, the one with the swan out front.”

The Peking Duck (not Swan) House (28 Mott Street, 212-227-1810) would be a good restaurant to which to take someone who felt that the usual Chinatown scene is a little too, you know, scungy. It’s been renovated, with white walls, wooden floors and subdued lighting, on the "modern" end of the modern-to-sterile spectrum, but a little too tasteful for my taste. The clean look sure brings in the tourists, though – very few Chinese were there the night we went. On the other hand, Tang’s, a little further up Mott street, was full of Chinese diners as we passed and we know from bitter experience that the food there is abysmal. Another cliché bites the dust.

Peking Duck House serves generally above-average American Chinese, with a chance to stray into the “Chinese Specialties” menu if you’re in the mood. In the past, we’ve had very good braised pork and jellyfish off the specialties menu. This night, we stayed closer to home. Still reeling from being denied my chance to go to Grand Sichuan or Congee Village (next time, Pan) we did not have the sense to order the duck, which was, unquestionably, the best-looking Peking duck I’ve ever seen. I'm curious to hear from anyone who's tasted it. The steamed dumplings, however, were large and meaty, the General Tso’s was a little mild, but well-garlic-ed and battered so that it stayed crisp. The green beans with minced pork went down well. Dylan inhaled a plate of beef lo-mein; his palate is a little suspect but enthusiasm is generally a good sign, and Nora was disappointed with her spring rolls.

All in all, a pretty edible meal. You could do a lot worse in Chinatown, and especially out of Chinatown, but I still feel that I got cheated out of my Chinese fix.

We hit Ess-a-bagel on the way out of town the next morning and motored into Annapolis for the 4th of July. It was a great couple of days – after years of coming to the city we’re getting the Manhattan thing down, so rambling through the other boroughs was delightful and illuminating…and tasty. And the re-introduction to the extraordinary variety of food available in New York City is always a delight.

We’re already planning the next trip – anybody got the private line to Per Se?

Edited July 13, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[enrevanche]

Lovely travelogue and photographs.

In re "no toasting" (of bagels) yes, it seems to be a New York thing. I asked our neighborhood bagel place, not long after I moved here, for a toasted bagel, and the counter lady looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head. "You toast stale bagels, or bagels out of the freezer. These are *fresh* bagels; them, you slice and eat."

Oh, okay.

Any diner or breakfast joint will happily toast your bagel for you, however.

You chose your restaurants very well. Next time you're in town, try the pizza at Grimaldi's (on the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge) and definitely don't miss Grand Sichuan. And a good deli, like Katz's or Second Ave, should be a don't-miss New York experience for the kids.

[Busboy]

Thanks for the feedback.

We've been through Grimaldi's and the Second Avenue Deli is an old friend. But, I would like to get to Katz's, and Grand Sichuan is a "must" for the the next trip. (That's the Midtown/Hell's Kichen branch, right?)

Edited July 12, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[JennyUptown]

Nice recap, Busboy. You covered a lot of ground!

[enrevanche]

But, I would like to get to Katz's, and Grand Sichuan is a "must" for the the next trip. (That's the Midtown/Hell's Kichen branch, right?)

Midtown/Hell's Kitchen is the consensus "best" of the Grand Sichuan branches, but we usually eat at the one in Chelsea (simply because it's walking distance from our house) and always get a great meal there. GS is one of those rare restaurants where you can basically close your eyes, open the menu at random and point and be assured of eating well.

[Pan]

GS is one of those rare restaurants where you can basically close your eyes, open the menu at random and point and be assured of eating well.

I think you're going overboard on that. The lunch and dinner specials suck, because they're "Chinese-American" dishes. I also avoid almost all dishes that are in sections of the big menu other than Sichuan dishes, Hunan dishes, and special dishes like those for the Prodigal Daughter, the special Chinese New Year menu (when in season), and such-like - no Chinese-American dishes, no Cantonese dishes, and rarely any Shanghainese dishes. That's not why you're there.

Busboy, great report!

You're adventurous, so I think next time, a trip to different parts of Queens adjacent to the 7 line is in order.

[Busboy]

Queens is on the list. We've done a little exploration -- MoMa TeMp, Little India -- but I understand there is much more. Hoping to hit the Noguchi Museum and either Asian, better Indian, or maybe Greek. We will request guidance from the intrepid New York eG cell when the time comes.

[hillvalley]

Only Catholics would go to Brighton Beach and not get a knish OR go to Nathan's Excellent pics. I love the junior Busboys on the beach. Tell the Mrs. that I expect a blow by blow detailed report about the pea soup on Sunday.

[Busboy]

We were so intimadated by the thoroughness of your Lower East Side reportage that we avoided the neighborhood -- and all specialties of that neighborhood, including knishes -- completely, for fear of looking like amateurs in comparison.

I did gaze down longingly at Nathan's from the top of the Wonder Wheeel ("the highest ferris wheel in the world"), but decided to double down on Totonno's instead.

[picaman]

I did gaze down longingly at Nathan's from the top of the Wonder Wheeel ("the highest ferris wheel in the world"), but decided to double down on Totonno's instead.

Well, it's not an either/or proposition

My usual pre-Brooklyn-Cyclones-game routine is Totonno's, followed by a dog at Nathan's, followed (sometimes post-game!) by pistachio soft serve ice cream at that place I don't know the name of that's a bit to the left of Nathan's.

If you have a group of people splitting items, it's not too much food. Really.

Jamie

[Pan]

Hey Busboy, just remember that "amateur" means someone who loves something! I hope all of us, professional or not, are food amateurs, in the original sense of the word.

Oh, and next time, tell us to speak in generalities on neighborhoods in Queens, so that you don't feel "intimidated" and actually go.

[Busboy]

I'm not actually that intimidated, more that we just didn't have time to fit in a trip to a neighborhood to which we've been many times. And just as well: it did seem as though it would have been snarky to pile onto a great report, and I was pleased to see that our trip and HillValley's complemented, rather than overlapped one another.

On to Queens! Vive les amateurs!

[docsconz]

In re "no toasting" (of bagels) yes, it seems to be a New York thing.  I asked our neighborhood bagel place, not long after I moved here, for a toasted bagel, and the counter lady looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head.  "You toast stale bagels, or bagels out of the freezer.  These are *fresh* bagels; them, you slice and eat." 

Oh, okay.

Any diner or breakfast joint will happily toast your bagel for you, however.

←

The diner or breakfast joint will toast them because they're not as fresh as the bagel place! I don't toast fresh bagels, but happily do so to those that have been sitting around a little bit.

Great post, Busboy! How did I miss this when it first came out?

[Busboy]

In re "no toasting" (of bagels) yes, it seems to be a New York thing.  I asked our neighborhood bagel place, not long after I moved here, for a toasted bagel, and the counter lady looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head.  "You toast stale bagels, or bagels out of the freezer.  These are *fresh* bagels; them, you slice and eat." 

Oh, okay.

Any diner or breakfast joint will happily toast your bagel for you, however.

←

The diner or breakfast joint will toast them because they're not as fresh as the bagel place! I don't toast fresh bagels, but happily do so to those that have been sitting around a little bit.

Great post, Busboy! How did I miss this when it first came out?

←

I always assumed you boycotted NYC posts because of the ancient upstate-downstate rivalry.

[Al_Dente]

Thanks for the ideas for my trip!

[alacarte]

I had missed this too -- glad it got bumped to the top so it got my attention. Nice write-up, and love the picture of the pea soup. Coming back soon, I hope?

[Busboy]

As soon as the budget allows -- we have our EZ Pass now -- and we can get through to Per Se.

OK, maybe we won't count on Per Se.

[docsconz]

In re "no toasting" (of bagels) yes, it seems to be a New York thing.  I asked our neighborhood bagel place, not long after I moved here, for a toasted bagel, and the counter lady looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head.  "You toast stale bagels, or bagels out of the freezer.  These are *fresh* bagels; them, you slice and eat." 

Oh, okay.

Any diner or breakfast joint will happily toast your bagel for you, however.

←

The diner or breakfast joint will toast them because they're not as fresh as the bagel place! I don't toast fresh bagels, but happily do so to those that have been sitting around a little bit.

Great post, Busboy! How did I miss this when it first came out?

←

I always assumed you boycotted NYC posts because of the ancient upstate-downstate rivalry.

←

With downstate origens and upstate presence I can enjoy the best of both worlds.