Umami Mart

It was brought to my attention that I may have come across as pretentious and obnoxious last week in my “Making Fun of Times Dining” post. And although I feel that the NY Times editorial staff needs to be called out once in a while, simply for the fact that it has so much POWER in the dining community, it was not my intention to be overly snarky, so I’ll work on my delivery.

Today, I will be nice- our precious Pete Meehan is still hanging out in these venerable pages, with an ode to ramen, no less (LOVE YOU PETE!). It’s taking a lot of restraint not to comment on Bruni’s “casual favorites” article, but I’ll zip it (Bruni’s “frustration” response here. Not a peep from me!).

Here’s a special review for you. A month ago, Bruni named a small Boston restaurant, O Ya, #1 in his top 10 new restaurants outside NY. I was at a work party when Larry Kardish, Senior Film Curator of MoMA, mentioned that he booked a spot for himself there after reading his review. See, now that’s the power of Bruni. I was curious to hear about the meal from someone I actually know, and asked Larry for thoughts on his experience. Here’s what he had to say about O Ya.

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Dear Kayoko:

Indeed, I had a superior meal at O Ya – the portions are little more than appetizer size, fresh and very well prepared, often with a subtle ix of flavors. The dishes run from $8.00 to $28.00 and you can order how many and in whatever sequence you wish. The wait staff is very friendly.

The restaurant is small, with many seats at the “sushi” bar – not too many tables. I sat at the bar and I called the day before from New York to make a reservation and got an answering machine and was called back in New York to say that I could have a seat at the bar at 9:00 p.m.the next night which was perfect for me because my lecture at the ICA finished at eight. The restaurant is right behind South Street Station (main railroad terminal), and I was able to walk to O Ya from the ICA (but needed a map because the street that it is on is small).

I ordered (if I remember correctly five dishes) – warm eel nigiri with thai basil, grilled sashimi of of chanterelle and shitaki mushrooms, sake braised short ribs, chilled cappellini noodles with charred lobster sashimi, and chicken broth with foie gras shumai – and liked them all. I also ordered (a mistake but I was intrigued) a small bottle of sparking sake, but it was too sweet for my taste.

The restaurant was low key and perhaps a bit funky but very comfortable and welcoming. The kitchen was exposed and there were many chefs behind the counter. I was impressed by the number of staff and the careful preparation of each dish – but for all the staff-to-customer ratio I never felt “rushed” or “crowded”. Everyone, the couples at the table and at the bar seemed to be having a good time. I was the only solo person there but never felt awkward. I would say it was Asian inflected but probably particular to the restaurant. In serving portions and choice and friendliness of service it did remind me favorably of Nobu.

The meal with the sparkling sake and tax and tip came to $120.00 – not bad by New York standards for a superior meal.

I can’t say the restaurant deserves a #1 spot simply because I don’t travel enough around the US, but I think it ranks with some of the best. I would definitely return there with friends, and have already recommended it to people I like. And yes, I was hungry a little when I left because i did not want to over indulge with such special food. I always like to leave a good meal with a little pang.

Larry is just as much of a tastemaker for film-going as Bruni is for eating, introducing this city to the world’s best cinema since 1968. I am always skeptical of reviews- the Times, Yelp or otherwise, but if Larry agrees with Bruni here, well I suppose I just need to can it (at least this week).

Thank you Larry for a great testimonial! You can take me to O Ya anytime!

For more on Mr. Laurence Kardish, here’s an interview on Gothamist from 2005.

O Ya
9 East Street
Boston
T: 617.654.9900

I’m having some hitech problems so haven’t been able to post anything. Will be back online as soon as I can.

In the meantime, someone please explain to me what this article in the last post on fossil fuels and food shortage is talking about.

And then, let’s all contemplate the most memorable thing Charlton Heston has ever said: SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OUT OF PEOPLE.

Mining the i n t e r n e t for stuff worth reading (sorry, there’s a lot this week):

• The global food crisis, rising food costs, and something about fossil fuels (NY Sun)

• Interview with David Bouley: on kaiseki, Tribeca, and his upcoming 3 tier, behemoth of a restaurant, Brush Stroke. I’m sorry Dave, but that has got to be the worst restaurant name ever- what were you thinking? (via Tmonkey, Gothamist)

• Bittman answers your questions live on his “Minimacast” on Sunday at 5:30pm EST. Love this man (via Alaina for SE, Thirteen Cooks)

• Jail food: no porkchops or lasagna, but you can get your moon pies on for 65 cents! (via Radhika, Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

• Various NYC restaurant star-rating systems decoded and broken down (via Eater, NY Journal)

• Ramsey sued 500,000 brit pounds for humiliating restaurant manager on Kitchen Nightmares. Jerry Springer mentioned in the comments- awesome! (via Emily for SE)

• Spain’s Ferran Adria wants to reduce his precious El Bulli to 2-3 TABLES in five years. I will start prostituting myself for a reservation immediately (via Eater, Big Hospitality)

• NY vs. SF Pizza War: readers throwdown from New Haven, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Chicago and LA- along with an exciting mention about a Freebird’s burrito in Isla Vista, CA. HOLLA! (Gawker)

• Gold trolls through seedy parks and mini-malls for the best taco trucks in LA. Forget pizza, LA would win the taco war any day (LA Weekly)

Here is a soundtrack while you snoop through my refrigerator: Hua’s Fridge muxtape

(I am hooked on Muxtape. Here are more.)

Fifteen pieces of flare are required to work in this kitchen. The photograph in the top left corner is of Araki Yasusada, who I met on a train many years ago. I do not think we should invade France, but some angry citizen at a rally in Cambridge in 2003 apparently did. Above the fridge is one of those eco-friendly Cup Noodles things. Foucault and Freud are having a broment. I bought the portable mug next to the fridge in order to transport Typhoid vaccine from Cambridge to Brooklyn, or something.

A jar of strawberry jam I bought the day I moved in. I am sure the light of day will reveal it to be filled with strange growths, so it stays in the corner. A brick of foie gras from France that I have three more years to eat. Disgusting organic peanut butter. Rao’s Pasta Sauce, which I bought after watching a segment on ESPN. Mayo, mustards flanking apricot preserves, capers.

A long-neglected bottle of wine. Soy sauce and ponzu sauce. Rooster sauce. Sesame oil. Genesee Cream Ale, which is far more exotic if you grew up on the West Coast and discovered it late in life. Pomegranate juice, peach (?) beer, Smokin’ Habs hot sauce (The label depicts a bunch of peppers who seem to be stoned. Or maybe their eyes are bloodshot from the sauce?). Red peppers and Flax Seed oil.

Somewhere in there: artichokes, asparagus, string beans, carrots, tomatoes, broccolini, blueberries, a ubiquitous block of tofu, banana bread, Pellegrino.

The only reason I bought fake bacon is because I was at the store looking at the fake meats and I thought to myself, There should be a brand of fake meats called HAIL SEITAN! or SEITAN RULES! I’m sure I’m the eight-thousandth person to open their fridge and make this joke.

Radishes, smoked swiss, an apple (not a Pink Lady, unfortunately), some bacon fat in the Pellegrino bottle that I nobly saved but will probably never use, and beer. In the back of this tier, spotlit by the Regal Beagle lighting, is a pan that catches a leak–I’m unclear where the leak originates. Mango salsa, purchased after thinking briefly about the cavemen.

Two containers of ice cream I don’t remember buying, some fish and frozen peas. Inspired by Richard Yates (manuscript) and William Jefferson (pilfered $), I keep my cash in the freezer, under my ice tray. I’m not sure why I am telling you this, other than to make my freezer seem more interesting.

*Hua teaches English at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. You can hear his fantastic mixtapes and his voice live on Tuesdays, for his weekly radio show The Finer Things Club on WVKR.

What’s in your fridge? Send pics to umamimart@gmail.com. Check out all the Fridgin’ Out posts here. Come back every Friday to see all the scary shit we find in these dungeons of moldy condiments.

kayoko (1:51:48 PM): tell me about that steak you had at Diner

My obsession for baking is somewhat subsiding, also my social calendar is a bit busy and I don’t have time to spend all night in the kitchen.

After my crappy experience at Ippudo, I decided I make my own ramen soup. Noodles are too hard to make from scratch (or is it? Should that be my next agenda?), so I bought them. Unlike many other dishes, ramen recipes are VERY hard to find anywhere. I believe this is due to the lengthy and complicated process. Also I think ramen masters don’t want us to find out a way to make it at home.

My lovely neighborhood supermarket, Western Beef sells very weird meat parts, which is perfect to make stocks. So I bought chicken legs, pork parts (skin, meat, bone, all in). I also bought vegetables to kill the animal flavor from meat. With these meat, I added onion, leek, ginger, and dried shiitake mushrooms and simmered for about 5 hours.

I drained the soup, and man, it already looks like ramen soup, doesn’t it? To this, I added dried sardines (iriko), and got a bit of fish flavor. At real ramen shops, they make concentrated soup base, and put about table spoon of it, then add stock like below. But that’s for professionals, and I couldn’t be bothered by it. So I added whatever was available into the stock base.

Then I was reading some of the ramen related sites, and many of them said that it’s important to put MSG into the soup. For some reason, good ramen soup can be achieved using MSG. No wonder ramen noodle came from China and so addictive… I don’t have MSG at home, so I used some of the concentrated soup that comes with noodles, and surely, after adding in the MSG filled concentrate, the whole soup tasted like real ramen soup. What a wonder!

Unlike greasy, dead-pig-in-the-soup Ippudo, mine was very gentle, yet flavorful. I made cha–shu (pork belly cooked in soy, ginger, sugar mix), thinly sliced it, plus ground sesame seeds and scallions. Wala, semi-home made ramen is done. Mind you, Sandra Lee, I don’t think you can create this good of a semi-home made dish!

When eating ramen, it’s almost MUST to have dumplings and rice. It’s like you need caviar when drinking vodka. So I made it as well. Unlike the regular shape, this one is sort of tube shaped. Partly because I only had wonton skin, but I also saw tube shaped dumplings served at many restaurants in Tokyo recently. This is a pretty genius idea. Unlike the regular shape, the tube version holds a lot more meat, and it’s also very easy to assemble. No creasing business.

Yum.

My awesome colleague Chris Poston always eats his buttered morning toast at his desk. It was finally revealed that he actually bakes the bread each weekend himself! After telling him about my no-knead bread baking adventure, he said, “Kayoko, it actually NEEDS to be kneaded.”

He’s been fooling around with different recipes and came up with his own easy peasy rendition- we’ll call it the Poston Must Knead Bread. Kindly, he has shared the recipe with us- here it is below.
– KA

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Kayoko,
This is the recipe I’ve been using thus far, with some modifications noted in RED. I do not profess to be a master baker yet…but I’m working on it. In the meantime, my kids seem to like it and I know exactly what they’re putting in their mouths, at least as far as the bread is concerned.
CMP

Recipe: Simple Crusty Bread Adapted from ”Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

Time: About 45 minutes plus about 3 hours’ resting and rising 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt 6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough

Cornmeal.

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Cover with damp dish towel and let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours. After initial rise, punch down, knead briefly, transfer into two bread baking pans and let rise again for 2~3 hours.

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn Preheat oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Place bread pans on middle rack in oven. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 2 loaves.

Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Place pan on middle rack.

With the news of Meehan leaving the NY Times, I feel this is the perfect time to inaugurate a column dedicated to the downfall of its Dining section. This is sort of an offshoot of the famed (now sadly defunct) Bruni Digest, but is dedicated to the Times in general, not just Bruni.

It all started for me about a year ago when I noticed the slow decay of Meehan’s $25 and Under column, and exacerbated by the recent 99 cent store cover story. WHO the HELL are they writing for???? They are clearly going through an identity crisis.

To the Times Dining’s credit, I am a loyal reader, and have been consistently BUYing the print edition ($1.25 now!) every Wednesday morning for my subway ride to work for the past 5 years. My mind can easily recall articles and restaurants reviewed from years past. It’s sort of pathetic, but there’s no better person to be able to make fun of it now.

Here’s a few things I noticed in today’s edition:

– Moskin uncovers Pinkberry ingredients: Sorry Julia, but UM’s Yamahomo discovered this LAST SUMMER after many trials of duplicating Pinkberry in his own home. Not only that, but the ingredients, as you mention, has been on the i n t e r n e t for months. SHOCKER. I’m sorry but why are we still talking about this? Pinkberry is so last year. And they are making fun of us in LA because to them this is so 2005.

– Bruni’s friend asks Rusty Knot bartender, “what kind of really interesting beers do you have?” Fucking DUMB! I’m surprised the bartender didn’t punch her in the face. Wouldn’t you?

– Read Meehan’s great farewell interview with Eater. Meehan, I have had a huge crush on you for years, and we will all miss you very much. Off to greener pastures, I am sure. Will someone please hook us up on a blind date?

*Did I miss anything? Put it in the comments please.

Here’s a fancyfun activity for next Monday night at the ever-enchanting Kyotofu in Hell’s Kitchen- a 7 course shochu pairing dinner! Shochu is a Japanese barley liquor- basically Japan’s version of vodka. Explore all the wacky varieties with different dishes!

Mention Umami Mart when you make a reservation, and get $10 off your spot! I’m sorry but $58 for a 7 course meal PLUS alcohol is not a bad deal. This would be a good excuse to ask your cute officemate out. Get wasted and make out!!! DO IT.

Here’s Kyotofu’s description below.

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Many say that Dinosaur is the best bbq in town- nestled deep into the northwest corner of Manhattan, borderline Harlem/Morningside Heights, under the rumblings of the West Side Highway. It’s quite a trek, which made for the perfect Umamiventure.

I made a reservation for 10 people on a Sunday night. THANK GOD. When we got there, the place was overflowing with people, there was barely any room to stand around the bar. First Dinosaur tip- make a reservation.

This place is perfect for big groups- it’s really bustling and chaotic, to a point that it could actually give you a panic attack. But it’s fun if you’re in that sort of mood- they have live music even on the weekends. The decor is motorcycle garage kitch with a lot of random antiquey tchotchke on the walls. A self-proclaimed “honky tonk rib joint”. That it is.

Equally heart attack inducing of course is the food. The appetizer platter of wings, fried green tomatoes, beer-boiled shrimp and deviled eggs (at which point I was still too shy to use flash- why do I even pretend?):

How was the bbq? Here’s what everyone thought.

MICHELLE
On the appetizer platter, I though the wings were excellent. Meaty, tender, yummy sauce. The deviled eggs were also quite good (even though I’m not typically a deviled egg person.)

Overall it was a good experience. I think the only reason I would hesitate to come back is that I’d be worried about having to wait a long time to be seated. It was a madhouse! I guess that’s what happens when you serve good food and word spreads.

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CONNOR
Dinosaur BBQ is a great bbq experience, for the theater of it. If I want a good ‘ol bbq meal, i would still go to RUB, but for a big group of friends getting in and grinding away for a meat-fest, Dinosaur is a lot of fun

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KIWA
I had the Two-Meats Combo with the pulled pork and ribs, with mac & cheese and mini iceberg wedge as sides.

The ribs were definitely the best part of the meal. Oh, and the deviled eggs! So creamy! The mac and cheese wasn’t the crispy-top kind, so I was a bit disappointed, but it’s all good cus I had just had some mac and cheese for lunch the day before and was cheesed out anyway. The iceberg wedge was good for offsetting all the lard, but it wasn’t as good as at Smokejoint cus it was a mini and not an actual huge wedge. Not sure I’d go back there unless I already happened to be uptown cus it’s a long way to go…even for ribs!

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KANITRA
– strange/bad cornbread
– dry brisket
– great ribs
– good collard greens
– excellent vodka selection (The first time I have found Tito’s Vodka outside of Texas!!!)

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KELLY
I had the Traditional Sampler, a tasting of beef brisket, ribs, and 1/4 roasted chicken. The chicken was definitely the highlight, as I thought the brisket was rather dry. The ribs were good, but I didn’t think they were exceptional. I found the baked beans to be very peppery, and the St. Louis salt potatoes were okay. I would say chicken is the way to go there b/c I also liked the chicken wings on our appetizer plate. Overall, I must say, I wasn’t very impressed with Dinosaur BBQ. I agree with Connor, I prefer RUB BBQ to Dinosaur. The atmosphere was good, but so very busy! I had a great time as an experience, but I wouldn’t go back…personally.

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DAVE
6:45 PM DCT: went through a bucket of napkins

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STEPHANIE
i had the 1/2 rack of ribs, mac and cheese and bbq beans sides. the mac and cheese was my least favorite–it had a little bit of the taste and texture of the velveeta version and the noodles were not at all fat and roly-poly but skinny and meek. the ribs were delicious though–juicy and tender and generous amounts of meat. bbq beans also a winner–smoky and sweet.

compared to hill country i’d say the meat was just as good and the service/ambience a little more manageable b/c you dont’ have to stand in line like you’re in a cafeteria in texas. the mac and cheese at hill country was far superior and you can get these huge portions of them. dino bbq was way better than the place (mama’s?) way on eleventh ave. in hells kitchen though.

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Misc. pics (yes, that is fried rice there- not great, but awesome that it’s on the menu):

The champion dish of the night- the wings:

The place is really huge- they have a take-out counter in the back. The line for that was pretty long too.

A short westward walk from the 1 train on Broadway and 125th Street.

My friend who was visiting from Japan thought that the experience was very “American”- loud, fun, huge portions, bustling service (she liked that they just throw down your food at the table. Ha!). If nothing else, I suppose that Dinosaur is truly an American experience.

Dinosaur BBQ
646 W. 131st Street
at Twelfth Ave.
NYC
T: 212.694.1777

Please join us for our next Umamiventure! Join the Umami Mart FACEBOOK group to stay updated on these monthly trips, where we burrow deep into the crevices of NYC for good, cheap eats.

Past Umamiventures include:
Puerto Alegre – 3/08
Pacificana – 02/08
Jackson Diner – 01/08
WINTERMARKET – 12/07
Sripraphai Restaurant – 11/07
Taste of Jackson Heights – 10/07
Red Hook Ball Fields – 06/07
Ocean Jewel Restaurant – 06/07