I knew I'd come across Dr. Romera before...

The New York Times’ new restaurant critic, Pete Wells, tears Romera New York a new one in his review of the restaurant that, by most accounts that I’ve read, is way to pretentious and self-important for its own good

I don’t usually like to read the take-down of a restaurant, because restaurateurs really put their hearts into them. But Wells did have some great lines. I wanted to tweet them, but they were more than 140 characters.

Then I remembered that I have a blog.

And so, please let me share two sentences that I really enjoyed:

“Yet as much as you might admire Dr. Romera, you can’t help feeling that you will never be able to admire him quite as much as you’re supposed to.”


And:


“But to eat at Romera New York is to be told repeatedly that you are in the presence of greatness, while the evidence of your senses tells you that you are in the presence of, at best, okayness.”


Wells also did me the service of reminding me that I had met the chef, Dr. Miguel Sanchez Romera, before, in a surreal experience that itself reminded me that, when it comes to self-importance, Americans, even American artists, are wannabes compared to Europeans.


The Times critic mentioned that Romera eschewed “chemicals” used by such culinary artists as Ferran Adrià (and by now many fine dining chefs in the United States) and instead used a cassava derivative called Micri.


Micri! I remembered Micri.


I was introduced to it years ago, near the turn of the century, at an event in New York hosted by the French Culinary Institute.


It was very well attended by many of New York City's coolest chefs. I'm pretty sure Wylie Dufresne was there. I know David Burke was there because he sat next to me and began thinking about what to do with Micri — instant shake-it-up-yourself milkshakes was one idea, but I'm pretty sure nothing came of it.


On stage, David Bouley made fascinating dishes displaying Micri's seemingly endless capacity for soaking up liquids, and Dr. Romera gave a lecture that seemed to last for at least three hours, but that was probably about 35 mintues, about his gastronomical philosophy, his own epistemological notions of how we perceive taste, I think from some sort of gastro-historical perspective, but I don’t really remember and couldn't possibly find my notes on the subject. 


It was all in Spanish and I don’t know whether it was translated badly or if it simply didn’t make sense, but the charts describing Dr. Romera’s thought process were equally obtuse and absurd. And it was without a doubt a display of the sort of colossal self-importance that Wells indicated was on display at Romera, and I don't doubt it.


At the time of the demonstration, I was not only awestruck by the ridiculous way that Micri was presented, but also by its seemingly magical properties. But I was young.


Since then I've seen lots of those ingredients and was more intrigued by the scallop quenelles Josh DeChellis made with a slimy Japanese tuber called nagaimo than anything I saw the Micri do, and I didn't have to endure a lecture.

Why they served French wine at an Italian luncheon

November 15,

I had a fun lunch today at the David Bouley Test Kitchen, which is a place that Bouley set up in Tribeca as a sort of food lab for visiting chefs to play in, but it also has become an event space. 

The lunch was thrown by Legends From Europe, a three-year marketing campaign by the Italian consortia representing three Italian cheeses — Parmigiano Reggiano, Grana Padano, and Montasio — and Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele. Since those consorzi are traditionally enemies, it’s something of a political breakthrough that they’re all working together.

The Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano people announced their partnership a couple of years ago with press conferences and a big party at Madison Square Garden (Magic Johnson inexplicably walked through the party, causing macho Italian-American men to become giddy) followed by a VIP viewing of a basketball game in the fancy boxes at the top of the Garden (Knicks vs. Nuggets, which the Knicks inexplicably won). 

Here’s what nobody ever says about those two cheeses, which come from similar parts of Italy and are part of the same family of cheeses known as grana (hard, aged cheeses that cleave in a particular way): Parmigiano Reggiano is more expensive than Grana Padano, it’s generally aged longer and is widely regarded as being more complex in flavor and, well, better. 

That’s not bad for Grana Padano, which is suitable for cooking or grating and serving over pasta. Parmigiano-Reggiano would be wasted if used in that way, and it’s too expensive for non-rich people to use as anything other than a special-occasion cheese. 

I understand why saying that is politically sensitive, but they really need to get over that. Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano are not natural competitors. They are different products at different price points to be used differently and eaten on different occasions. I think they’ve decided to work together to stress that they are different from generic Parmesan cheese, and consumers should know the difference.

Bringing two kinds of prosciutto into the mix just makes it better all around. And Montasio, well, why not? It's delicious and melts good.

So, we had five food products, all from Northeastern Italy. So what wines did they serve during the pre-lunch reception? Two sparkling German wines. At lunch, the wine was French — a white Bordeaux and a red Burgundy.

We asked the Test Kitchen's manager why he did that, and he said he was instructed that he should by no means not use any Italian wine, because members of the different consorzi would never agree on which wines were suitable to be drunk with all of their products. The Montasio and Prosciutto di San Daniele people would likely have been happy with a Tokai Friuliano, but the other three groups might have been irked by such a choice. And I can't imagine the Friulians do anything but smirk if they were served a Lambrusco from Emilia Romagna.

What I ate:

Slow-poached Connecticut farm egg with Prosciutto di Parma and a Parmigiano Reggiano cloud

Fresh sardine with tomato-saffron broth, fingerling potatoes, Prosciutto di San Daniele, Grana Padano crisp

Melon soup with ricotta ice cream

Hot caramelized Anjou pear with chocolate, biscuit Breton, hot truffle sauce, lemon verbena and Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream.

On pizza, authenticity and fire

“Oh, uh, hey, you're on fire there,” I said.

Nonchalance probably isn’t the best approach to take when you see flames start to spread behind a person, but the guy standing next to the woman whose coat and bag had drifted too close to a candle was on top of it. He let out a sort of masculine scream, grabbed the bag and coat, threw them to the floor and beat out the flames.

“Sorry,” he said.

People say New Yorkers are rude and uncaring, but we’ll totally let you know if you catch fire, help you to extinguish yourself and apologize for making a commotion. What more do you want?

I was at the opening of Forcella, one of a growing number of Neapolitan-style pizzerias popping up in New York City.

Really, there are a lot of them: Chipp in Sheapshead Bay, Capizzi in Hell's Kitchen, Donatella in Chelsea, Keste in the Village. I could go on and on. That’s kind of strange considering New York has a delicious type of pizza that the locals love and that has little in common with its Neapolitan cousins. I wonder why we’re seeking out some sort of authenticity from Naples when we have our own kind of authenticity right here.

It's not like people in Georgia are clamoring for St. Louis barbecue.

Then again, authenticity is a weird and slippery notion. Last night I had dinner at the James Beard House, because Frank McClelland from L'Espalier in Boston was cooking, and I was sitting next to journalist Charles Passy, a New York native who recently returned home after a prolonged sojourn in West Palm Beach, Fla.

He said he had encountered a visitor to New York who had heard that the Big Apple was a great bagel city, and so she was disappointed and outraged that you can't find asiago cheese bagels here.

Which of course you can’t because we have real bagels here.

Anyway, the Forcella opening was a good party. Kind of weird — one of the owners decided an opening party also would be a good occasion for Open Keyboard Night — but good.

Margherita pizza and pizza with arugula and truffle oil were passed around, along with the restaurant’s signature deep-fried pizza and little arancini. I also had a slice of a dessert pizza stuffed with a chocolate-hazelnut spread that shall remain nameless and whose charms elude me.

It went well with the Lambrusco I was drinking, though.

The crowd was good, too: Many well-dressed Italians with great bone structure who seemed to be talking about important things and didn’t seem to know that, at crowded restaurant openings, you’re supposed to get your drink at the bar and then move away so other people can get to it.

Still, good bone structure. And editors from Travel + Leisure, Food + Wine, Every Day with Rachael Ray and so on were there, too.

As I was heading out, actress Stephanie March arrived with her husband Bobby Flay in tow. And as far as I know nobody else caught fire.

Chain restaurant workers really can cook

I’ve spent the past four days or so at two conferences thrown by Nation’s Restaurant News. The first was the Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference, better known as MUFSO (rhymes with STUFF-so, not GOOF-so).

The second was Menu Trends & Directions, which I don’t think is better known as anything — possibly as “the one where Nancy Kruse drops a bunch of knowledge about food trends on your head.”

They’re terrific conferences where people who know a lot about what they’re talking about enlighten the audience with ways to run their businesses better.

The conferences have to be great to get people to show up, but, like pretty much any convention, people really go to them to network.

Where else can the owner of a fledgling grilled cheese sandwich chain pick the brains of the CEOs of Domino’s and Panera Bread? Where else can marketers responsible for naming new ice cream treats share ides with the head of culinary development for Baskin-Robbins?

And where else can I hang out with the country’s corporate chefs and figure out the next thing that’s going to transform eating in America?

Of course we had extended panel discussions on that topic for all to see, but one interesting fact emerged as I talked to these chefs between sessions: You know those kitchen workers at chain restaurant that no one thinks about? The ones who are occasionally mentioned as data points when calculating turnover, or the nameless mass for which restaurants must decide how much medical insurance they can afford?

It turns out that many of them are really good cooks.

Some of the corporate chefs charged with developing menu items at their chains’ headquarters told me that the cooks who have to actually prepare those items are being underutilized. Many of them cook at casual-dining chains for one shift and fine-dining restaurants for the next — and they say if you can successfully work the line during a lunch rush at Chili’s, you can jam during dinner at a white tablecloth establishment.

One corporate chef at a big casual-dining chain said he thought the next frontier for his segment was unleashing the skills of their cooks. Not only would they make better food, but by handing more responsibility to their cooks they would improve morale in the kitchen and possibly clean up the foodservice industry’s reputation as a place loaded with dead-end jobs.

Food for thought (sorry, but it is).

Read more: http://nrn.com/article/chain-restaurant-workers-really-can-cook#ixzz1ZS2omEHP

Times Square kiosk awardees come forward

August 25

I just got off the phone with my friends at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, who I think were bursting with desire to share the news that they’re one of four restaurants that have been granted the right to set up a kiosk in the unbelievably high-traffic area of Times Square. 

The other three are international empanada stand Nuchas; Snack Box, a creation of Jonathan Morr of Republic and Bond St., which will be serving espresso, milk shakes and gourmet hot dogs; and panini stand Salumè.

They told me Salumè would open this week, and the rest will open in the coming weeks. Rickshaw's targeted opening date is late September or early October.

All of the kiosks will be opening on Broadway Plaza, the pedestrian zone that Broadway has become.

A press release the Rickshaw folks forwarded to me from the Times Square Alliance said construction of the Salumè stand would start tomorrow, between 46th and 47th streets, and that it would open by mid-September. 

But of course a restaurant’s not open until it’s open.

And once these particular spots are open, I suspect they’ll be mobbed. 

So, congratulations all around.

Family & Friends night at Frankies 570 Spuntino

August 19

That picture on the left is what the outside of Frankies 570 Spuntino looked like last night. You really need to be confident that you’re in the right place to open that door.

It struck me as being very much in the style of Franks Castronovo and Falcinelli, who own and run the restaurant and who, if they didn’t invent the current fashion of Brooklyn grunge chic that dominates large chunks of that borough (and maybe they did), they’re certainly the poster boys for it in the food world.

They have that we’re-so-cool-we-don't-need-to-shave-or-even-trim-our-beards-and-we’re-certainly-not-going-to-try-to-impress-you-because-we-don’t-care-what-you-think vibe that, damn it, is quite alluring.

I was invited to family-and-friends night at their new West Village restaurant, which isn’t even slated to open for another month, hence all the construction materials and building permits and hidden entrance. Eventually it will have a perfectly nice and conventional entrance with big windows letting natural light into the restaurant.

But last night, with the walls boarded up, it was dark, and I could barely see the food at my candle-lit table.

But the cool insider people were there. Life and Style reporter Juliet Izon swung by my table to say hello (we periodically eat together on expeditions organized by New York Post reporter Max Gross to iconic or merely awesome restaurants in the outer boroughs, such as Pirosmani in Brookly and Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan in Queens).

I ran into Food & Wine editor in chief Dana Cowin on my way to the bathroom. Andrew Knowlton of Bon Appétit, who I never see anymore, sat down at my table and snacked on the cheese from my antipasti plate while we mused about changes in the food scene. His two-year-old daughter Julep snacked on my salumi, which is fine. There was plenty to eat.

What I ate:

three crostini: sungold tomato and basil; white anchovy, avocado and setti anni peppers; and rocotta with speck and honey

saffron arancini stuffed with bolognese sauce

vegetable antipasti including broccoli raab and a variety of olives

farmhouse cheeses

cured meats including capicola and two types of sopressata.

baked clams

heirloom tomatoes and pickled market beans

fennel, celery root and parsley salad

grilled squid with pickled peppers

cavatelli with hot sausage

meatballs with pine nuts and raisins

egg yolk & cauliflower ravioli with brown butter, almonds and anchovy

Mast Brothers chocolate ganache tart

red wine prunes and mascarpone

What to do with an oversized zucchini

August 12

I've spent the week visiting family in Denver, which is always fun. I've played Guitar Hero and run around at Chuck E. Cheese's, had my breakfast burrito at Pete's Kitchen and calmed my stomach with a Colorado Smashburger after indulging in the rides at Elitch's. I've examined the local beer just to make sure it's still awesome. I'm somewhat despondent that the peaches are not yet in their prime, but I'm working through that heartache.

I've even done some cooking.

We had some family over for dinner and mostly had it catered: We drove to Tacos y Salsas and bought 30 assorted tacos. But I thought some sort of vegetable was in order. So I looked in my mother's refrigerator and was confronted with a giant zucchini from the garden.

My eyes narrowed. When I was growing up, the family custom was to slice zucchini into rounds and saute them with onions, peppers and tomatoes. The mushy centers of those rounds still haunt me.

So I started by peeling the thing, slicing it into quarters and scraping out that damn mushy middle. Looking at the seeds that came out with the gunk I was instantly reminded of making Jack o'Lanterns, and the side activity of toasting pumpkin seeds.

I'd never heard of toasting a zucchini seed. But I separated them out and set them on a cookie sheet to dry.

I decided to dice the zucchini flesh and blanch it in salted water, mostly as a delaying tactic while I thought of what else to do. But actually it blached beautifully. I dropped it into salted boiling water and then drained it and rinsed it in cold water as soon as the water started boiling again.

The zucchini was tender, but still had body. And it tasted fresh and green, like an August evening.

I had thought of making a salad out of it, but I didn't think it needed to be buried in vinegar and olive oil, so instead I just picked some basil from the garden, tore it and added it to the zucchini, along with black pepper and some salt. Then I stuck it in the fridge because it seemed like something that should be served ice cold.

I had dried the seeds in a 200 degree (Fahrenheit) oven, and they already started to get crunchy and nutty. I heated the oven to 400 and promptly burned most of them. But the ones that survived were very much like smaller versions of the pumpkin seeds of my childhood and would have been a great addition to my zucchini dish, but we ate them beforehand.

Anyway, the zucchini was a hit. Next time I'll add some blanched, diced garlic, as well as toasted seeds, which I'll toss in a dry wok instead of trying to toast them in an oven. They cook really fast.