Pomme Frites – NYC

If your restaurant only serves one thing, it better be good. Props to Pomme Frites for sticking to what they do best. And nothing else. Major props for not bending to the continuous pressure to supplement their servings. With no caving to customer cravings and no willing the whims for wilder ingredients, Pomme Frites is a restaurant for those with a one-track mind.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, they serve French fries. In French. And nothing else. Sounds boring at first glance, but their massive sauce menu ranges from mundane barbecue to every flavor of mayo including organic black truffle and smoked eggplant and covers more continents than the wine list at Ayza.

We split the large, dunked in Curry Ketchup and Blue Cheese. The fries are a perfect golden brown, crisp on the outside, soft within. The perfect snack during an East Village stroll, the perfect cure during an East Village stumble. 

Commendable Café Orlin - NYC

Nestled among the gaudy Asian restaurants and storefronts of St. Mark’s Place, Café Orlin’s unadorned exterior screams city-sleek and café-chic in a wasteland of neon lights, bubble letters, and the more garish garb of the far east. In this case, Café Orlin’s middle east tragically trumps the far east in all matters of taste. I think its namesake is a mountain range near Bosnia, a sensible inspiration for the minimalist wooden-table, bare-floor décor. I, for one, truly appreciated Café Orlin’s lack of bright lights. It’s always too sunny the day after your friend’s bachelorette party, and the dimmer lighting inside was a relished retreat from the stifling sun.

My Poached Eggs over Potato Cake was perfect for the post-bachelorette, crispy-without-being-crunchy and fried in just the right amount of grease to help it down. The poached eggs provide protein, with runny yolk (the way poached egg yolks should be!) pouring between the cracks of stacked potato. I didn’t think I’d find smoked salmon appealing as the first meal of the day, but it turned out to be surprisingly refreshing, a break from the compact carbs.

With the Goat Cheese Tomato and Spinach Omelet, Café Orlin achieved the impossible. They made the perfect omelet. Each bite packed a harmonious combination of ingredients that meld into one explosive mouthful, with a distribution of filling that seems quite impossible, even for the most skillful of chefs.

The Labna cheese zaatar from the Middle Eastern Breakfast is a tasty pita topper and doubles as a way for the middle east to screw over the far east. That rich cheese concoction is a lactose-intolerant Asian’s nightmare - forgive me for using lactose-intolerant and Asian together as the terms are rather redundant.

I’ve never really bought brunch with dessert, considering the pancakes and French toast offerings will give diabetes to even the most insulin-independent, but for the birthday boy there was Banana Bread with an amazing gelato. The banana bread actually tasted homemade with real banana and chunky chocolate chips. You want to have your cake and eat it? I had someone else’s cake and ate it.

Café Orlin embodies the so-awesome-I-don’t-take-reservations swagger of the cool brunch offerings of NYC. Outdoor seating lets you soak up the sun while sitting in the shade, and the garden-level indoor dining is smoothly sheltered from the smells and snippets of pedestrian noise. Even after the sweaty seventy-minute wait, these little midday-meal Meccas will secure your love. 

Awe-Ssam-ness at Momofuku SSam Bar – NYC

I just had Ssam

And it felt so good

Chang put a prix fixe meal inside me…

I just had Ssam

And I’ll never go back

To the not-havin’-ssam way of the past

A parody of a parody. This is my finest satirical moment. Though it’s not really satire if you secretly love the song…I’m not saying that it’s on my ipod, my computer, AND my phone, but I’m not saying it isn’t…

I’m back in NYC for the first time in a year, and naturally I’m realizing a NYC-life-long dream of conquering David Chang’s empire one restaurant at a time. Ssam was the perfect restaurant for my NYC revival – it was my sorely-needed reminder of why I so desperately miss my empire state of mind. And believe me, I still wanna be a part of it in old New York.

As per Momofuku tradition, we started with the Pork Buns, the Empire State Building of the Momofukus. As the signature landmark of a much bigger masterpiece, they met their usual Empire height of awesome perfection except the pork buns really are the tallest buns in the world – no way they’ll ever steadily drop to 19^th like the building.

We took a chance with the Spicy Honeycomb Tripe, which was as prudent a decision as venturing out to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The festive coleslaw-like party of perfect tripe, paper-thin celery, and pickled tomatoes was a bit overrated and was clearly a much better idea in theory than in practice. The ball sure looks pretty when it drops on NYE, but the crowd of wasted tourists makes it hard to see. The tripe sure looked pretty in that mélange of green and red, but the acrid surfeit of ginger-scallion made it was hard to taste.

The Veal Sweetbreads were a much-needed reprieve from sharp ginger-scallion and tasted like a pastry from my favorite shop. Creamy as a Pasticceria Rocco cannoli; it’s simple goodness, with no over-priced complications of that tourist-trap Magnolia. The creamy almond sauce was sweet as candy, the crisp breading gives it a satisfying crunch, and the not-at-all-sour sauerkraut and kick of chili keep it light. That creamy mascarpone from Rocco’s is also as sweet as candy, the crunchy pastry shell gives it a satisfying crunch, and the fluffy texture keeps it light. When you’re done with the sweetbreads, make sure to find its equivalent in dessert. Everyone should experience pure ecstasy at least once in life.

Next was the monumental Duck Sandwich - an imposingly large roll with crispy crust filled with good stuff and buried treasure. The parts of the sandwich are easy to savor, but you need to persist for a bit if you really want to dig out all the flavors. Like the Strand, a mecca of used books, you begin by appreciating the sheer size (sorry guys, it matters…) – the sandwich is clearly more than enough for one and perfect for two to share (that’s what she said), and the Strand is just massive. You walk in the door and you taste the slice of duck, and you notice all the nondescript shelves of popular reads and uniformly chopped iceberg lettuce. If you stick around long enough to go to the basement of the Strand, you wander the endless archival shelves and start to unearth the sweetness of the peppadews. Everything is held together by the overall theme of rich literature, and crystal mayo gives the ingredients of the sandwich an unparalleled harmony. But sometimes the Strand and this sandwich get to be too much, so share with a friend and know that you’re no less of a New Yorker if you don’t go back.

The endnote of Pear Sorbet was the very foot of the Statue of Liberty back when Ellis Island was actually used to immigrants. An initial cacophony of mixes, the ingredients of this dish are as distinct as each country represented by the huddled masses that once flocked to NYC, but they eventually collaborated into what is now America’s melting pot. As initially jarring as America to an immigrant, the pear sorbet is one of few desserts that isn’t sweet. But take a few bites and you’ll see that the pumpkin and the sorbet are a rich combination, and the blue cheese adds a whole new layer and texture. It would have been better with less blue cheese as too much of this pungent accompaniment sometimes drowned out the other subtle creams and overwhelmed the palate, but props to Ssam for having the nerve to serve something so foreign to the mainstream desert culture of sugar by the pound.

The Grapefruit Pie was a hidden treasure, much like those I uncovered during my thrifting days. I was skeptical when I heard I would be eating something consisting entirely of grapefruit, but I was as wrong about the pie as I was about thrift shops. The pie was so fresh I felt I was biting into a ripe creamy grapefruit straight off the vine. The candied grapefruit was impossibly cool and refreshing, and this pie disappeared faster than vintage Chanel. Like the thrift stores, with that first bite, when I first opened the door of that first shop, I knew I’d struck gold.

I give Ssam a tentative 4 stars. The food was amazing with a few deductions, and I’ll need an entourage to tackle the gorgeous platters of Bo Ssam and Duck Ssam. I’ll also need to try a few more of the meat dishes and gander at some duck before I can make an entirely fair judgment. But fear not, it won’t be long before I’m back, and I’m guessing it won’t be long before Ssam earns another star.

Master Chef of Momofuku Noodle Bar – NYC

After months of work, this is the homage to the only chef I worship as much as Ken Oringer and Tom Colicchio (and maybe Michael Schlow)… David Chang. I even included the pretty pictures. Ok, fine. The blurry I-can’t-afford-an-iphone-yet pictures. But who needs pictures when the food speaks for itself?

The pork buns are a must. I don’t care if you don’t eat pork. Make an exception here. IMO, there is no god that won’t forgive you for eating something that was clearly inspired from above. A slice of melt-in-your-mouth pork belly ensconced within a fluffy, flawless bao shell, rich but perfectly balanced with cool cucumber, a sprinkle of scallion, and a dash of hoisin sauce. If you really don’t eat pork, the chicken buns are a reasonable (but not even close!) substitute, and for vegetarians I found the shitake buns surprisingly tasty…

I usually don’t order chicken at restaurants, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the smoked chicken wings. Sadly, they’re only on the menu in summer, but you can still get them on the late-night menu. The smoky flavor permeates all the way through and the marinated-at-least-overnight wings taste almost sweet. Props for not being drowned in sauce though if they were, I would probably drink the sauce it’s so good…

For the main dish, have the momofuku ramen. That is an order. Prepare for love at first sight with the incredible combination of pork belly, pork shoulder, and poached egg. Again, if you reallyreallyreally, hafta-kill-me-first don’t eat pork, the spicy chicken ramen is again a reasonable (but not even close!) alternative. If you’ve had the momofuku ramen countless time like I have and hunger for something new, the kimchee stew is a mouth-burning choice that I fully endorse. Sadly, it’s not on the menu currently, but something tells me they’ll bring it back…If you’re vegetarian (the kimchee stew is NOT vegetarian) and your pork-lover friends dragged you here, the ginger scallion noodles are a cool, refreshing dish. The ginger scallion noodles are also the ONLY dish I will allow you to add hot sauce to as it is savory but bland, and a little hot sauce kick actually enhances the dish.

An aside on the use of hot sauce at Momofuku (in anything other than the ginger scallion noodles): NO. The answer is always NO. Do not ask because I will say NO. And I might slap you in the process. Hot sauce is reserved for bad food, bland food, and flavorless food. Momofuku serves none of these things. So if you find that the little red plastic bottles of hot sauce speak to you, tune them out. No matter how loudly they speak, no matter how much you fall under their spell, NO.

If you still have room after all that, the apple pie cake truffles or whatever dessert truffles they have are great. I’ve also had the orange-coconut cake truffles, but it looks like the truffle flavors change with the seasons and/or the whims of the staff. As for the apple pie cake truffles, I expected warm gooey pie in the middle, but they’re actually more crisp than gooey with a great mix of cinnamon and crust. They’re lighter that I expected and are an excellent way to finish your meal if you’re on pork overload.

One truly laudable quality of Momofuku is that all their ingredients are locally produced. One of their boards, which names the daily specials, has a companion that divulges the origin of their top notch ingredients. Props for sustainability!

The only gripe I have here, which cost it that last half-star is that the food is a bit salty and it’s unpleasant to have an open kitchen. There is a home-like warm feeling that comes from watching the genius chefs at work, but half the time that warm feeling stems from the oil smoke you inhale, the smell of which tends to permeate your clothing and linger. I would usually dock more than half a star for these offenses, but the food flavoring is such genius that even saltiness remains beyond reproach.

Bottom line: Few places that work with so much pork and far fewer that can make it so well. Someday I’ll have saved enough to go to Ssam and Ko. For now, meet me at Momofuku. I’ll buy you a pork bun.