Our first battle was close, or so I thought. The question was: how would I fare in the next home edition of Chopped, also known as Man v. Food. v. Wife? Our cooking skills were about a half-year better, but this time, there was a twist. Food shopping would be done at the local Chinese supermarket. Would that make a difference? Would Karen really try to screw me this time? And for God’s sake, would duck feet and sea cucumber make an appearance?

Not exactly, but close enough.

"Mystery ingredients" in several senses of the term.

Yes, before we left the supermarket, Karen would grace me with: baby octopus (make that “octopi”), king oyster mushrooms, wonton wrappers, and (imagine host Ted Allen’s pitch-perfect enunciation of the last doozy of an ingredient that seems to say, loudly and clearly, “let’s see what you can do with this!”): grass jelly.

Huh?

Even being an in-law in a Chinese family wouldn’t save me this time. What the hell was grass jelly? And Jesus Christ, I think it’s safe to say that once someone has a bag of baby octopi in her shopping basket and then reaches for the grass jelly, there’s just a tad of sadism motivating the choice, don’t you think?

My mystery ingredients for Karen were laughably tame in comparison.

Mystery ingredients for Karen. Yeah, I know. I should have gone with the sea urchin gonads and gummi cola bottles.

Please, let me explain myself. My premise was that chicken, by virtue of being unordinary, would be challenging because she’d have to find something interesting to do with it. (This was a competition, after all, and yours truly was 50% of the judging panel.) I also thought that eggplant was not a typical side item for chicken. Sure, I see now that there are over 400,000 web pages with the phrase “chicken and eggplant”, but I didn’t know that at the time and neither did Karen. (And if she did, that would have been a clear violation of the official rules.) I also thought both orange and beer at the same time would be tricky, though she could always decide to pull the same trick I was thinking of with grass jelly: lose points in the “making the secret ingredient a star” category, but win in the “thank you, at least this is edible” category.

As per the rules of our first competition, we exchanged secret ingredients at the supermarket and then were each permitted to pick up other ingredients for our respective dishes that we didn’t already have at home. Again, would being in the Chinese supermarket have an effect?

That's chili oil and Chinese five spice seasoning in the middle. And those are potatoes. (Looks like someone's doing northern Chinese cuisine.)

The four ingredients on the left were mine. Normally, I’d call what possessed me to pick these things “inspiration”, but I think “grasping at straws” better fits the situation. I wanted something to “bring the flavors together”, as these chef-types are wont to say, and I had an idea that a rich, beefy sauce would go well with both octopus as well as the Chinese lasagna, make that dumplings, I was planning to make.

What was Karen planning? To start with, she browned the chicken. I’m not sure with chicken you need to brown in the pan first before roasting, but her results were good, so who the hell am I to say?

Browned chicken in the Dutch oven on eggplant and onions. Ehem. Notice she didn't have any octopi.

This maneuver allowed her to roast the vegetables and flavor them to some extent with the chicken. The vegetables were finished on the stove top. Looks like she didn’t snap a photo showing the creation of the orange sauce. That was where she sneaked the beer in.

These were good. And I'm glad one of us made vegetables.

So far, so good. On my side of the kitchen, however, I was busy staring at a can of freakin’ grass jelly.

The can of grass jelly opens... and is even less appetizing than a closed can of grass jelly.

What was this stuff, anyway? Well, a better description for the can, if we were in China where they don’t care about things like copyright, they’d call it “Grass Jell-O”. I was satisfied with the “grass” description, because that was exactly what it was, but “jelly” implied sweet to me, and this was more like something you’d say there’s always room for in one of the four compartments of your stomach, were you a cow.

Time to do something with this grass jelly stuff. So, ready for this? Here goes nothing: red wine, beef broth, butter, flour, grass jelly, and hoisin sauce. Oh, what the hell, let’s put in a little more hoisin… Not too sweet, it can use a bit more… [And Jason's saute pan officially gets out of control. Isn't anybody moderating this?]

Not my most beautiful work, admittedly. Blame hoisin sauce, not me.

I don’t know what it is about hoisin sauce (or was it the beef broth masking it?), but the sweetness engulfing my sauce completely appeared out of nowhere. Hey, I just happen to have the perfect solution for this. Grass jelly! Those lumps you see are not flour, but bits of grass jelly. I figured sauteing would melt it down, and I was right. I should add at this point that I don’t think anyone in the Eastern Hemisphere is, was, or will ever use grass jelly in such a way. Little did I know at the time that it’s usually used in desserts or drinks, with much sweetness added. Hey, at least I got the sweetness part.

The dumpling filling was the easy part.

Now I know why they're called "king oyster" mushrooms. Because when you cut them up, they look exactly like scallops.

I have to say, sauteing the king oyster mushrooms was one experience I’ll definitely be repeating. These things blew me away. I had eaten them before, but never Colicchio-style, as I now refer to it. Meaning: essentially pan-roasted over high-heat. The flavor was intense, and purely mushroom, not dirty or strong in any negative way. To them, I added garlic (of course), scallions, salt, pepper, and chili oil. In fact, the chili oil was what I used to saute them, and flavored them nicely without causing my competitor to run for the milk and/or tongue bandages.

I’m glad I went with the “boring” dumpling idea, because I had enough problems without trying to gauge how long to cook a grass jelly and octopus lasagna.

Initially, this was going to be lasagna. Score one for the left brain.

And no, I wasn’t planning on baking these, they were just hanging out on the pan until the octopus was nice and rubbery.

As per our officials rules, I was allowed to look up cooking preparations for particular ingredients, and I needed Google for those baby octopi. Unfortunately, I can’t blame Google for my combining techniques from two different search results. (At least, I think I read this on two different pages.) The first recommendation was to boil the baby octopi until tender in salted water, about 20 minutes. This is exactly where I should have stopped and everything would have been fine. But I had delusions of roasted octopus grandeur, so in addition, I would finish them by broiling with some chili oil for another few minutes per side. This might have actually worked, had I been watching them and not attempting to finish two sauces at the same time.

Perfectly roasted. If only I hadn't boiled them already.

It turned out that parts of them came out nice and crispy, presumably the parts that didn’t cook properly in the piece-of-crap Cuisinart toaster oven we have. (Yes, there is a cooking appliance that the company is apparently incapable of producing.) But before I start sounding like I’m just throwing sauces and toaster ovens under the bus to distract from my overcooked octopus, let me distract you by moving on to the next sauce.

Let me take the photo of this yogurt sauce so I can get back to my beer already.

Greek yogurt made its appearance in my brain somewhere at the point when I was considering lasagna, and adding the Chinese five spice to it would be my own Asian-Greek-Italian inspired béchamel sauce. I added some salt and a squeeze of lemon for some additional tartness, and it was pretty safe for human consumption. Actually, it was pretty tasty, though I have to say the Chinese five spice mixture was on the strange side. (Did I mention that I also had never cooked with this? I brought this one on myself.) The ingredients in the mixture are: anise, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, ginger, and… mmm… sulfiting agents.

So now, for the great reveal.

Baby octopi; king oyster mushroom, chili, and scallion dumpings; red wine-beef-hoisin-grass-jelly sauce; and Chinese five spice yogurt sauce.

Sure, my plating skills could use work, but this ridiculously complicated half-a-meal was actually 75% pretty good. If you discount the overcooked parts of the octopi, there were some good flavors here. Karen even gave me points for the yogurt sauce. (And no, in case you’re wondering, we’re not so geeky that we actually tally up points.)

And as for the orange-beer chicken and eggplant:

Orange chicken. (This is my website, so I don't have to sell you on it if I don't want to.)

To be fair, and since my wife is in another country right now, the chicken was slightly overcooked. But not entirely, and the flavor of both the nicely roasted skin and the orange sauce (which, as you’ve noted in the photo above, she spiked with Tropicana) not only came out very nicely, but really worked with her vegetable. I can’t say I tasted the beer in the vegetables, but it’s not like I went grass jelly crazy myself. (In fact, one improvement to my grass jelly sauce might have been to eliminate the grass jelly.)

All in all, we had a fun evening, if experimental to the tenth degree, and this time almost succeeded in making food consumable by only two human beings. I’m giving the win to Karen this time, and because I am a gracious winner, will do my very best to not give her four insane ingredients next time as pay-back. Well, that, and because I have to eat what she makes, too.

A half-day fishing trip aboard a Freeport party boat is close enough to NYC that every New Yorker should do it once a summer.

If this boat ride doesn't relax you, you need another beer.

If you have a car, or don’t mind a 5-minute cab ride from the LIRR station, you’ll be in Freeport, Long Island within 30-40 minutes, or by train from Manhattan, in an hour and a half. (It’s ten minutes closer than Jones Beach.) And if you’re like my wife, whose only childhood memories of large bodies of water were filling and emptying buckets of floodwater from her basement in Queens, then Captain Lou’s Fleet (map) is a good choice for you. Inept at fishing or not, the Captain Lou crew will take care of you.

On the Saturday we went, two of Captain Lou’s boats were leaving at 1:00 PM for a four-hour trip. The choice of the day was fluke or sea bass & porgies. We arrogantly opted for the latter based on taste (have eaten sea bass, though not porgies) and on the assumption that sea bass might put up more of a fight. It’s a breezy, relaxing ride from the dock out to the bay, and then to the ocean. I felt that the $37 per-person fee (which included rods and bait) was worth it immediately. The ocean air, the seaside homes, the awesome motor and sailboats that I’d never in a billion years want to waste my life working on, and the blue sea itself were simply beautiful.  I’ve always thought that spending life in New York City is a perfectly fine choice, but getting out to see the natural word is essential for a whole laundry list of reasons, not the least of which being one’s mental health.

One thing the crew can’t do anything about is prevent sea sickness, and unfortunately Karen got hit with it right in sync with the anchor’s first splash. Fortunately, she snapped out of it just in time to hook a keepable sea bass and beat me in our own unofficial pool.

Porgy and Bess. I mean... porgie and bass.

Sea bass in New York State need to be a minimum of 12-inches, and it looked like she just made that, maybe by a couple inches. We wouldn’t win the boat’s official pool ($5 a person), with Karen’s fish or with my puny sea bass which I had to release. I did end up reeling in my first porgie, though. I was actually all ready to throw it back in, not too impressed with the size, but one of the crew said it was indeed a keeper.

The boat trip concluded back at the dock on Woodcleft Avenue. This street in Freeport is known as “The Nautical Mile”, a semi-depressed but walkable, waterside street of restaurants and bars, most open, some bankrupt. I wouldn’t say it’s a destination in itself, but with the fishing, you have an opportunity for a drink or a meal. Fortunately, right opposite the Captain Lou dock is a restaurant and bar called Blue 42, proudly advertising their fisherman’s special: they’ll cook your fish and serve it to you with fries and a Bud Light for $10.00. That’s an offer I couldn’t refuse. Well, except the part about the Bud Light, which I did refuse. Instead, I opted for a beer. (Sorry, Bud Light fans, but you deserve it.)

$104 fish sandwich

The cook at Blue 42 did a nice job, just barely breading the fish and avoiding my worst fear of drenching it in grease. The fries were slightly coated (not my favorite style), but cooked well, and the tartar sauce was not really tartar sauce, fortunately, but rather a tartar-like sauce with horseradish added.

Let’s face it, our one sandwich for the two of us needed a little help in the seafood department. So, we grabbed a half-dozen oysters.

Doing as the Long Islanders do: eating some gritty blue points.

We added on a nicely dressed chopped salad, with chunks of cucumbers, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.

Decent salad. And we didn't even have to harvest it ourselves.

You don’t do this stuff to save money, but something about buying a $10 sandwich, hidden costs and all, was not at all a bad way to end a summer day. We sat on the side of the bar looking out the open windows, felt the familiar sea breeze on our faces, and enjoyed the results of our labor.

(Update)

We went back again for more: more fishing and more eating. Here are some highlights.

Four sea bass and a blue. Sounds like lunch to me.

Kumamotos with tobiko this time, and absolutely perfect and delicious. (The chef himself recognized us from last time and comped them. Classy guy, and good cook.)

That great chopped salad, tender and crisp calamari, and (as a former Boston resident) well-above-average clam chowder. (Thickening with potato is key!)

There's gotta be a whole sea bass in there.

The bluefish was porcini-dusted. Very nice.

When you just can’t find a third-rate, Bolivian/Scottish karaoke joint, Staunton’s is a great alternative. The lady tending bar is very friendly, to be sure, and for all I know, so is the person responsible for the bowl of semi-flavorless heavy cream and side order of mashed potatoes (more formally known as World’s Worst Shepherd’s Pie Ever). Nice people may or may not be able to cook and serve food.

Always on the look-out for strange and unusual restaurants to try, I biked by this place in Oakland Gardens, Queens, located where no one has an interest in building a subway station.  There did seem to be a friendly collection of characters here, which I guess is to be expected if you choose to barricade yourself in a local bar for four or five centuries. There was no sign, as far as I could tell, that any sort of news, air, or light had ever penetrated the walls of Staunton’s for some time. But not to get overly harsh, it was perfectly clean, and said characters did rip it up to the most technologically inept karaoke  buffoon/DJ I’ve ever come across. (Watching him hunt and peck his way across a keyboard to download special requests from the Internet was especially amusing.)

So, if you want a good place to sing obscure 60s songs with fellow tattooed 50-something former bikers and groupies, this is your place. Just do yourself a favor and eat before entering.

A few squid ruining a perfectly good bowl of cream.

I should disclose that I am no Peruvian food aficionado. However, I think that because I’ve at least had one good experience with the cuisine, I am justified in directing blame for my Staunton’s meal on Staunton’s chef rather than on the entire nation of Peru. The best way of describing the bowl of cream sauce put in front of me would be: elementary school cafeteria New England-style seafood chowder made at a school so far outside of new New England that insulting fish in this way is your way of disproving natural selection and considered fundamental to your Creationism curriculum. But natural selection deserves none of the blame for what was in that bowl. Nature had no way of knowing that this is what man would do to fish.

If only the Irish part of the meal were as good.

Like a decent apple pie with no apples.

Sure, the mashed potatoes looked fine. And if I had ordered mashed potatoes, maybe I wouldn’t be complaining. Really what I’m annoyed about is that I forgot to snap a photo of the half-eaten Shepherd’s Pie so you could share my sense of wonder at how those few, poor peas and three spoon-fulls of ground beef somehow managed not to be crushed by that massive weight of potato. Yes, the potatoes were nicely browned. No, the meat was not. I don’t think the meat even had flavor on the day it was made. You might say the world’s worst Shepherd’s Pie is the one completely lacking in flavor. You’d be wrong. It’s the one not only lacking in flavor, but lacking in mass of flavorless substance. A dish that leaves you wishing you simply had more to complain about.

If you are about to die from a severe black bean deficiency and when you look over your shoulder, all you see is a sign for Staunton’s, go for it. Eat your beans and be gone. I liked those beans.

I have a strong suspicion that many of the world’s foie gras critics are a lot like I was back in my anti-Brussels sprouts days.

"I'm hungry. Do you think we'll get to eat today?"

Were the lowly Brussels sprout force-fed several times a day, you can bet I would have used the fact against my mother on Brussels sprouts nights.

“Don’t make me do it! Think of the poor, innocent Brussels sprouts!”

And, just like the foie gras critics, my ultimate goal would be to use this moral crowbar to get a maternalistic ban on a whole category of foods. In their case, meat. In my case, vegetables.

But let’s not minimize the moral position of the foie gras critics. If they were against foie gras merely on the basis of taste, that would be several notches up from where they are currently. In the typically dishonest fashion of animal rights activists, their true goal is concealed or understated until later. Their ultimate goal is to ban the production and sale of all meat. Yet even though they’re (supposedly) shocked and appalled by the slaughter of innocent animals, what they want you to think they’re shocked and appalled by is simply the method of feeding one particular breed of animal. It is a crowbar, and they intend to use it. (It’s as if these people read Animal Farm, the stuff about tyranny went over their heads, and all they got out of it was that animals talk and have feelings.)

Whether you like foie gras or not, it’s worth familiarizing yourself with what it is and the process used to make it. Every foodie – make that: every adult who understands that animals lost their claim to the concept of “rights” the moment they were invited to the First Continental Congress and they responded by laying eggs, mooing, and/or eating their young – everyone needs to understand that the attack on foie gras production, and on your potential enjoyment of it, is a control freak’s giddy employment of your own ignorance and emotional anthropomorphism against you. Goose and duck liver today, leather tomorrow. Steak, pork, fish, and chicken the day after that.

There’s enough information out there now to help an honest person to make a decision about foie gras. This Village Voice article is one starting point. This Anthony Bordain clip is another. An article in Edible Hudson Valley is also worth reading. Just understanding why foie gras can be produced in the first place is an important point to learn. (For example, the next time a critic tells you the enlarged goose liver is “diseased”, you’ll know that producers just exploit the goose’s naturally occurring pre-migration state.) This stuff is especially important because the general public do not consider themselves to be foie gras aficionados, another thing the critics know well. There will likely not be protests in the streets against foie gras bans. Therefore, it’s up to all those who care about food to be informed and to speak up.

Cruising around in the land of Cyrano.

While vacationing in France this year, I had the opportunity to visit a goose foie gras farm. My wife and some friends saw the geese, learned more about the production process, and witnessed the gavage (force-feeding) first-hand. We also got to eat and bring back a ridiculous amount of the stuff. (Would you believe me if I told you dinner after the tour consisted of foie gras two ways, duck ham, escargot, and frogs’ legs? Well, I’ll gladly provide proof a bit later.)

It was an opportunity for a group of us to show an iota of interest in where our food comes from. And yes, the idea of an animal being force-fed, as tasty as the resulting product might be, raised an eyebrow. How bad was it, anyway?

Canoeing down the peaceful Dordogne river (post-paddle-splashing war).

The Dordogne region is the foie gras capital of France, located in the southwest part of the country. We stayed in a village named Beynac-et-Cazenac, wisely recommended by Rick Steves. Beynac is a fairy-tale village, with the Château de Beynac standing prominently at the top of a hill, the medieval castle occupied by the French during the Hundred Years’ War. Just across the Dordogne river is Castelnaud, England’s fortress during the war.

Seemingly endless hills follow you as you canoe lazily down the river, and as if that isn’t enough, actual cro-magnon cave paintings are available for touring nearby, before or after a lunch of foie gras sandwiches. The mere existence of these sandwiches, a few slices of foie gras on a fresh baguette, is a revealing glimpse into the unique French ability to appreciate such delicacies and their insistence in making them a part of their everyday lives. Did I mention that Dordogne was also the home of the Périgord truffle? It all almost makes you want to preserve your senses, if only the wine also weren’t so tempting.

I'm waiting for the force-feeding (by the waiter, after the goose farm tour).

Elevage du Bouyssou is a farm near Sarlat, and can also be found in the Rick Steves France guide. We arrived after what would have been a pleasant drive through cute French towns, had it not been necessary to test the limits of our rental car and retrace our tracks several times trying to find the damn place. Fortunately, (a) we were the only four people planning to take the tour that day, and (b) the friendlier-than-necessary tour guide (the farmer’s wife) was actually patient enough to direct us to the farm by cell phone. (I was blissfully ignorant at the time of what the iPhone bill would look like.)

If I were a PETA lunatic, I guess I'd be calling this place Auschwitz.

The thing that hit me as I walked on the farm was that nothing was hitting me. It was a farm. White asparagus on one side, geese at an early stage of growth on the other. It was “just” a farm, but it was also a farm that was part of a tradition going back hundreds of years, if not thousands if you count the Ancient Egyptians. What I consider a delicacy, this farming family considered a livelihood. It’s kind of amazing that simply stepping on the farm, you realize that (apart from the fact that Customs is going to grill your ass when you get back on American soil), like all other of man’s best creations, it all starts from an intelligent selection of raw materials from nature, and an application of an intelligent, goal-directed process by man. In fact, the farm itself is an amazing symbol not of “living with nature”, but of tweaking it, arranging it, modifying it, obeying it in order to command it. This foie gras stuff doesn’t grow in cans.

Free-range prisoners

I learned that if you’re a goose, mommy needs to teach you how to fly, otherwise your warden/farmer will have no need to clip your wings. In fact, he’ll even let you walk around the yard to your heart’s content, giving you quite a leisurely life (not counting the force-feeding and slaughter part).

Whoa! We get to eat all that?

At feeding time, the geese lined up in a fenced-off, wire mesh-bottomed path inside the building. There was no screaming, mind you, nor even any complaining as far as I could tell. Admittedly, though, aside from a few, select four-letter words, I don’t speak fowl. (You didn’t actually think you were getting out of this blog post without a “fowl” joke?)

Prepping the corn for dinner.

Their food consists of dried corn that has been soaked in plain, old metal buckets overnight. The soaking helps in digestion. (I had the impression that this soaked corn was all they ate, though this Wikipedia article claims it’s a combination of wet and dry corn.)

Super-duper gavaginator.

These days, a buzzing electric pump brings the corn up through a tube and into a gas pump nozzle-like device which is inserted into the goose’s mouth.

The gavage.

The feeder grabs the next goose in line by the neck, and pulls it over. This is when you do hear some complaining by the geese, as well as right after the feeding. I guess it’s possible they might remember previous experiences and are reacting to that, but since the quacking – excuse me, honking – is timed to the moment hand grabs and lets go of the goose, it looks like getting grabbed is what annoys the goose the most.

Just another day at the office.

Here’s the amazing part. With the aid of the electric pump, the whole feeding process takes a whole seven seconds or so. Even so, it is a tad disconcerting at first to see the long gas nozzlish tube get shoved down the goose’s throat. First of all, as someone who’s subjected himself neither to literal nor figurative sword swallowing, you wonder how the hell the bird is able to deep-throat that thing without gagging. Second, you can clearly observe the end of the nozzle rubbing against the inside of the goose’s throat. Why isn’t the goose seriously flipping out?

There are scientific answers to both of these questions. The answer to the first is that the esophagus and trachea come together in the mouth of the goose, not down in the throat like in human beings. In other words, there is no gag reflex involved. The answer to the second question is that the inside of the goose’s throat is made to eat the kinds of stuff that geese tend to eat. I.e., less on the “tender as foie gras” side and more on the “scaly as a fish” side. Another way of putting it is: they’re fucking birds!

As quoted by Hudson Valley Foie Gras (who use ducks rather than geese for their foie gras):

“Unlike that of mammals, the throat of waterfowl is lined with tissue similar to the palm of our hand, permitting them to eat live, wriggling fish, spines and all, without harm, or to accept the feeding tube….The windpipe of waterfowl opens at the center of the tongue, not in the throat, so ducks have no need of a protective gag reflex and can breathe normally during feeding.”

(Dr. Lawrence W. Bartholf, 2005 President, New York Veterinary Medical Association)

In this case, a couple videos are worth a thousand words:

And here is a longer one, showing three geese being fed:

Yes, it’s a little rough for us city folk, but this is what it is to raise livestock. As the farmer’s wife said to us, “Of course they don’t like it.” It turns out that when you raise animals (or kids) sometimes you need to be a little pushy to get them to do what you need them to do. And I’m ok with that.

Feeding tools for the home goose farmer.

If you don’t have the Euros for a fancy Gavagomatic, there’s always the manual devices. Evidently, these will take closer to three-quarters of a minute or so to get all the corn down. Either way, the results are the same…

Somebody wake me up. I think I see a foie gras store.

The tour was eye-opening, in the sense that I have a better understanding for how that unbelievably delicious food product gets on my plate. I have greater knowledge, and now a greater respect, for the person whose work brings the product into being. And walking the streets of the small Dordogne towns, I can see why the residents have an endless respect for the product. There are foie gras stores, for Christ’s sake. It is part of their history and their culture.

Selling nothing but foie gras is so passé. So this guy also sells truffles.

I discovered that nothing really puts you in the mood for foie gras more than, well, seeing it all day long, talking about it, learning about it, and tirelessly calculating how much of the stuff you can actually eat on one vacation. Fortunately, after the farm tour, our hotel restaurant was kindly able to satisfy us. I knew when I mentioned my post-farm tour dinner earlier, you would expect evidence of said divine experience. Well, here it goes:

Royale with cheese for lunch. Seared foie gras for dinner.

If you're not going to eat frogs' legs and snails while in France, stay the #$@! home.

Only one thing had been missing from the meal: foie gras terrine. Problem solved. But don't forget about the duck ham.

People claim that when you pass through Dordogne, your palette can grow tired of foie gras, if only temporarily due to extreme overload. They could have something there. I will have to make several flights back to test the theory. In the meantime, can you pass the pâté?

I Trulli on E. 27th St. is one of those Italian restaurants I seem to hear about all the time, but have never actually had the chance to try for myself . A friend was in town from the Netherlands, and I consider his taste in food to be sort of “upscale meat and potatoes”: nothing super fancy, but nothing boring and mediocre. Italian made sense, and being restaurant week, maybe we could go a little higher end without being ridiculous.

But first, let me say something about restaurant week. (Now extended through September 6th, so it might be called “Economy Sucks, Customers on Vacation, Trying Our Damnedest to Meet Payroll Month”.)  I have mixed feelings about restaurant week, both in terms of whether I should actually go to restaurants at this time and whether I should judge them by the same standards. The answer I’ve finally come to is: yes, and yes.

Ever since having a rushed and mediocre meal at Blue Water Grill during a restaurant week lunch several years ago, I’ve assumed that restaurants can get overwhelmed by unexpected traffic and not be prepared to provide the same level of service as on a typical day. But this is a cop-out and it’s giving unknown restaurants much undeserved slack. (I had never even eaten at Blue Water Grill before and still gave them the slack.) This view began to change last year with a single meal. Ilili, just two and a half blocks from I Trulli, was able to provide a delicious meal with friendly and competent service. They proved it could be done. And I’ve been back since.

But while sitting in the crowded, absurdly noisy dining room of I Trulli (an investment in carpeting would help), it occurred to me that it’s not like a restaurant adds extra tables during restaurant week. Presumably, they (a) have the staff to handle their tables, and (b) they’ve been fully booked before prior to restaurant week. If they can’t handle that many tables, it’s their own damn fault for participating in restaurant week and/or they have too many tables. Still, apart from a sommelier who promised to help us then never returned, I think I Trulli was capable of handling the number of customers. So for two reasons, that I Trulli was capable of handling the customers, and that they should be capable of it, I think it’s perfectly fair to judge them by my usual standards.

My friend and I both started with a fried squash blossom appetizer stuffed with ricotta. It was well cooked and right out of the fryer (further evidence that I Trulli was not overwhelmed by the crowd), but drenched in batter. Presumably it was a fresh, seasonal, squash blossom, so why hide this fact? Even if it were last summer’s squash, I would’ve enjoyed tasting it. It also suffered from a dominance of saltiness, not helped by an anchovy dressing. There’s a reason the Brits like vinegar with their fish and chips. I also would have liked an acid. With the vegetable overwhelmed by batter and cheese, essentially I was served a fried cheese stick. So where was the marinara?

Normally, I don’t complain about bread and butter. Bread before a meal is usually either average or noteworthy, edible but forgettable and neither adding nor subtracting to a meal, or a surprising stand-out. I Trulli’s focaccia, with its good amount of sun-dried tomatoes (meaning, not too many) was solid and could have been a stand-out. But then someone in the kitchen tried to be creative. A dish of seasoned ricotta (or ricotta butter?) replaced the standard butter or olive oil as its condiment. The result was a solid B for effort and B- for taste. Just too dry, especially when the bread is a focaccia. Had they given me a bottle of store-bought olive oil instead, I wouldn’t be complaining right now.

After working against the appetizer, salt saved the cavatelli. With almonds and broccoli rabe, it was an average dish, not a great one. Which brings me to my main problem with this restaurant, not counting the semi-audible nature of my dinner conversation. The prices are laughably out of proportion. $24 bowls of pasta and $28-average secondi plates?

A restaurant gives me average during its restaurant week promotion, a promotion that aims to gain new customers, and then expects me to come back and pay $24 for ravioli with tomatoes and basil? They better extend restaurant week a long, long time. Their market must be the rich and stupid, and in this economy, the stupid aren’t as rich as they used to be.

One of these days, maybe I’ll stop being so impressed about what you can see, where you can go, and what you can eat when you live in New York City. But it hasn’t happened yet.

That's me on the bicycle, holding the iPhone.

A recent weeknight bike ride turned into one hell of an adventure, culminating in a meal consisting of a subset of a cuisine I had never had before. It was like someone beamed me to another planet and I got to eat what half the population eats when everybody’s mother has the day off. The evening’s discovery? Guyanese-Chinese restaurants. Blocks of them.

In this case, my roundabout “discovery” of the restaurant where I ended up was the most exciting part. I say this as a former Jersey kid who finds it immensely cool to be able to get on his bike and find himself wandering around the JFK Airport. I also say it as someone who finds it immensely annoying to hear a permutation of the phrase, “the journey is more important than the destination”. You seem to hear this from people who are less than satisfied with their destinations. As if they like the process of journeying to the shit-hole, they just don’t like being in the shit-hole. Me, I try to keep my journeys generally in the direction of non-shit-holes. I don’t always succeed, but I try.

Jersey kid feeling at home.

Getting to JFK was surprisingly easy from where I live in Queens. If you can find your way to Lefferts Blvd., it’ll take you all the way there. Oh, and to other clueless ex-Jersyite bike-riders: I recommend an iPhone. Nothing beats having some idea of where you’re going, but short of that, GPS will do. It was actually seeing JFK on the map not too far from where I had already biked that convinced me to go for it.

Trucker takes my advice. Poor guy.

It turns out that just because you see a big sign that says you’re at JFK Airport, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily at the airport. Not in the “this is where people go to get on airplanes” sense of the term. JFK is a big place. After I snapped the photo of the sign and continued past the gas-tank-laden swamplands (wait, is this Queens or Newark?), I suddenly became the official JFK groundskeeper. A trucker stopped me at an intersection and called down for advice from some random guy on a bike that could only, by the grace of Steve Jobs, find his way back home. Nevertheless, I had just gotten into this maze, I could tell him how to get out.

Incidentally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Apple for including a “snap” sound in their iPhone photo software, thereby helping to preserve the phrase “snap a photo” in the English language. I’ll be damned if I’m going to beep a photo.

Maybe they're on their way to Guyana, too.

Soon after helping the trucker get the hell out of the maze that is the web of JFK back-roads, I found myself on… well, let’s call it a back-side road, which was true in both senses. I soon hear a car approaching me from behind along the garbage-strewn, pot-holed pavement.

Let’s just say that whoever was in the sketchy, red economy car could have had my iPhone and these photos long before I left the damn thing in the cab. (Yes, I lost it recently.) The car slowed down next to me, and I had one of those “how do I want to live my life?” moments: ignore the bastards on the premise that they were up to something, or assume the best? Instead, I told them both to fuck off. Just kidding. Actually, it turns out they were at the wrong airport entirely and were really looking for LaGuardia. (I guess they only saw the word “airport” on all the “JFK Int’l Airport” signs.) They mustn’t have been fans of the fact that my directions consisted of telling them to drive the way the crow flies, because they stopped the first car they encountered to get a second opinion.

Dude didn't trust my directions. (Smarter than the trucker.)

All this time driving around JFK, and still no sign of passengers. Where the hell was the main terminal? I was discovering where every third-rate shipping company parked its airplanes, but still no terminals. Clearly, there was only one thing to do. Kamikaze highway time. The cars had their lights on by now, so there was a pretty solid chance they’d be able to see me.

Not exactly a bike lane.

It turns out a bicycle helmet is actually good for something. Those branches along the Belt Parkway can be a bitch.

Relaxing, midweek, evening bicycle ride officially gets out of control. Usually, I just get lost, but this is even better.

Wait… wait… I think we might have something here…

Hopefully, the eighteenth Kennedy Airport sign might actually mean that Kennedy Airport is somewhere in the vicinity.

Good thing JFK is located within civilization, because it’s starting to get late and I’m in a country that possesses working light bulbs. Would I see an actual airplane and be able to take a photo to prove it? At first, no. I was too late on the draw and/or was too busy thinking the words “Holy shit!” as the first plane took off over me. I was only yards from the fence around the runway. Cool. Still, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving without something. So, there I stood with my flashless iPhone (not that a flash would have helped, except maybe to blind the pilot) and waited while the sun went down. At last, I finally commit an image to memory at 8:44 PM.

Loud, powerful, and impressive. But maybe you had to be there.

Ok, time to blow this joint. Must be that way. No, that way. Oh, shit, just open up Google maps for Christ’s sake.

Yes, I'm on a bike. You think I'm making this stuff up?

Shockingly, I’m not the only idiot exercising at an airport. A female jogger passes by, truckers and sketchy LaGuardia guys be damned. And she didn’t even have one of those all-powerful airport weapons like I had. (It was interesting that they let me this close to all those airplanes with a water bottle. That thing could have blown at any moment.)

Look carefully, she's there. Crazy chick didn't even have a bike.

Nineteen minutes later and the sun has set. I’m really hoping at this point that the Guayanese place I saw on the way here hasn’t closed yet. I have a blog post title in mind and I kind of need the part about “Guyana”.

Eastbound and down.

The only thing that could prevent me from getting home at this point is a hotel bar. If anyone loves a hotel bar, it’s me. Fortunately, though, it’s going to take more than Courtyard by Marriott. (Plus, the driver of their airport shuttle honked at me while I was taking the photo and it kind of spoiled the whole mood for me.)

The lure of the almighty hotel bar quickly loses its allure.

Getting back to Lefferts Blvd. took some time, with a brief visit through some immigrant neighborhood where post-sunset pastimes were sitting on the front stoop and driving cars through stop signs. I had a helmet, what did I care? But I kept peddling.

An iPhone Hansel and Gretel moment.

Eventually riding through a more populated area along Lefferts Blvd., I passed by a bus stop. Wait, was that…?

I tightened the brakes and drove back. Sure enough: there was the night doorman of my building in the process of commuting. I was only five minutes from a questionable neighborhood, one he might have lived in, and feeling like I was about to live out the beginning of Grand Canyon and/or Judgment Night. (Just seeing the latter movie was bad enough, believe me.)

So many Guyanese restaurants available, I had my pick. (Saving this one for another day.)

Approaching the Guyanese section of South Richmond Hill, a neon sign advertising “Fish Juices” and “Live Cricket” tempted me. Eventually, I understood the “live cricket” part, but I’m still not sure whether “fish juices” also involve a English-derived sport or if they are, in fact, the juices of fish.

I proceeded along Lefferts, and arrived at Kaieteur Restaurant. (Check out their snazzy website.) I must have been hungry, because, alas, I have no photo of the restaurant. I locked my bike and went inside.

A dark, sports bar atmosphere, with one of those friendly, square bars which patrons can sit around. About a dozen people inside, at one time or another, and the mood was lively. (Not counting the near-comatose drunk guy I sat next to.) I quickly discovered via the stereo a genre of music new to me. I’d later find out it’s called “chutney“, which is a pretty cute name for the Indian-flavored, Caribbean dance music. (I guess, technically, I might have been listening to chutneyish pop music, but don’t ask me.)

Sherry, the smiling, friendly bartender got me a Carib beer and kept them coming. Not my typical way of rehydrating after a bike ride, but this was a special occasion. The real question was: what to order?

Start with the fried shark, or the banga mary? The banga what??

“Spicy chicken wings” were calling my name, but with things like “lamb black pudding” and “jerk pork lo mein” on the menu, I wanted something a little more exotic. I had just come to this place via JFK Airport, for Christ’s sake. I went with the jerk pork lo mein. The idea of combining two things I love, jerk pork and noodles, was hard to refuse in itself. But when I asked whether hot sauce was available and was promptly provided with a small, plastic container of homemade scotch bonnet sauce, I was pretty much in a state of bliss. Along with the Caribs, Sherry refilled my hot sauce supply as I finished them, without me even having to ask. As I write this, I’m wondering: why haven’t I taken my wife here yet? I need to get back.

Oh, and the actual food? This was about to be my first encounter with Caribbean Chinese food, after all. Well, I guess I’d say it tasted like pork lo mein. The noodles were slightly below average and the pork slightly above. At the moment, though, absolutely perfect.

Just like they (the Chinese) make it in Guyana.

It was dark and I had a flashless iPhone, so I’m allowed to pretend to be artistic with the photo. And besides, in this case, I think it’s fair to say that the journey really was more important than the destination.

Some recent travel has thrown off my writing schedule, so I have a lot of updating to do. This spring’s vacation included a road trip from Paris to Barcelona followed by a stop in Madrid, so there are plenty of food and dining discoveries to write about. In the meantime, there are a few domestic highlights I wanted to mention. Let me know if any of these spark an idea or two.

Soft-shell crab sandwich with a (get ready for it...) non-hot house, American tomato

You wouldn’t know it from the photo, but this soft-shell crab sandwich involved my inaugural soft-shell crab cleaning. I had, passing the buck as usual, asked the guy at the fish store to clean them for me. Upon arriving at home and unwrapping the crabs, I discovered that his and my definition of “cleaning” differed somewhat. (I wondered if maybe he had been using a sponge behind the counter.) It was a fortunate coincidence, though, because it forced me finally to confront the job myself. One quick snip removed the eyes, and then I folded each crab out to the side in order to remove the gills. The whole job only took a few seconds per crab, and they were ready to cook. (Referring to this how-to video helped.)

I dusted the crabs lightly in flour, and sauteed on medium-high heat in just a little corn oil for about 4 minutes per side as Mark Bittman recommends. Since I’ve cooked them before, I knew not to stick my face near them to see how they’re cooking this time. (Yes, they can pop from the internal moisture heating up, so keep your face at a safe distance and/or keep your glasses on.) We love Eric Ripert’s basic vinaigrette (which includes olive and corn oil as well as Dijon mustard), so we made that to drizzle on top. Soft-shells need some sort of acid, and the combination of both vinegar and mustard provide a helpful double-dose. As long as your bread is decent and your tomatoes are ripe, you’re set with a couple average-sized crabs per person. Great dinner, kick-ass lunch.

Drunken spaghetti (with pappardelle)

Now here’s a dish that’s both simple and exotic. We first discovered spaghetti all’umbriaco, otherwise known as “drunken spaghetti”, in Florence while on our trip to Italy last year. Fortunately for us, chef Gina DePalma of Babbo apparently discovered it at the same restaurant, learned the cooking method, and posted a recipe for it. (Hers appears much darker, which I’m not sure why.)

The whole idea behind drunken spaghetti is counter-intuitive, at least to me. Normally when you cook with wine, you plan on cooking off the alcohol. Not so in this case. Basically, the idea is to boil your pasta in a combination of half (well salted) water and half red wine. I sauteed sliced garlic (yes, more than called for in the recipe) in melted butter and olive oil. Before adding the pasta, I added a splash of red wine in with the garlic. And since you want the flavor of that extra wine, I did not cook it until the alcohol evaporated. I added the pasta, mixed, and it’s ready to serve.

Oh, and you might have noticed that I used pappardelle instead of spaghetti. The reason for that is really another reason why this dish is so cool: that if you have dried pasta and a couple bottles of non-expensive red wine around, you can make it. (You do keep garlic at all times, right?) We actually had spaghetti, but the pappardelle was one of those “fancy” imported kinds, so I thought, therefore, I should go for the pappardelle. Wrong. Even though the dish came out great, with that deep, wine flavor and slight tang infused right into the pasta, this was kind of a lesson in why pastas are better than others for various applications. Because the pappardelle has so much surface area, it gained a relatively slight gummy texture, even though it was cooked al dente. So, do like I’m going to do the previous time I made it: stick with good, old spaghetti.

Buffalo mozzarella and the best damn beefsteak tomatoes available (if you're a midget)

Because this was a “cook something interesting but make it easy” night, salad consisted of cut grape tomatoes and sliced buffalo mozzarella, with some chopped parsley and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I remember how the woman who had showed us around the un-effing believably amazing Bologna food shops had described this particular balsamic as “good for salad”. Later, I realized the extent to which that was the world’s biggest understatement.

And in our neighborhood, the general rule is the smaller the tomato, the better. For now, I can only daydream about the heirloom tomatoes I sampled at the San Francisco farmer’s market. But I’ll take a good cherry or grape tomato over a truck-ripened tomato impostor (or Holland import) any day.

Oops, made too much food last night. We'll just have to eat it today, this time with sausage.

We had some drunken pappardelle left over, so I figured: why wait? The only thing we felt might have been missing was some meat, so I went out and bought some ground pork. This recipe is one of those worth making again, and maybe next time with the actual sausage casing. Seasonings were essentially the opposite of what you get in a standard, store-bought sausage: vibrant and spicy. Without the sausage casing, and more importantly with the lean pork, the sausage was dry. But still a nice addition to some fortunate leftovers.

My secret to not overcooking shrimp: undercooking them.

Think of this dish as the poor man’s Daniel Boulud open faced lobster ravioli with lobster bisque and pea puree. Alternately, think of it as the version of the dish that’ll take you less than 5 hours. I’ve made the dish from the Boulud cookbook twice before. (If you hold the book close enough to your ear, you will hear it laughing at you. Especially the place on the page where the word “appetizer” appears.) The solution/work-around to keeping this dish challenging but testing the bottoms of your Crocs to a lesser degree is: skip the goddamn lobster and lobster bisque.

I bought shrimp instead of lobster, and (hallelujah) I cooked the shrimp properly by intentionally trying to undercook it. I wanted it to be only partly cooked at the final stage when I added it and the ravioli to the pan to soak up the sauce. Hopefully my brain registered the pink color of the shrimp and will recall it the next time I want to fully cook some shrimp.

Ravioli that actually look like ravioli. Someone's wife must have made them.

I made the pasta dough, and rolling it out was a tag-team effort. But, given the regular shapes and straight edges, clearly I had no part in the forming of the ravioli. I did puree the proverbial shit out of the peas, though, thank you, very much.

All that was necessary for the pea puree, incidentally, was to cook the peas as usual in boiling water, and then puree with olive oil. I gradually added the olive oil (and salt and pepper) until I was happy with the texture, which I left thicker than I would if I were serving it outside of a ravioli. Fresh mint would have been an obvious addition, but I wasn’t sure it would work with the tomato, onion, and garlic sauce I intended on adding, so left it out.

Winging it on the ravioli sauce.

Taking the place of Boulud’s recommended lobster bisque for this recipe (or more accurately, taking the lobster bisque out back and smashing a Jack Daniels bottle over its head) was some garlic and onion sauteed in olive oil, and a little briefly cooked fresh, chopped tomatoes.

It's finally been beaten into my head: cook your pasta in the sauce before serving it.

The cooked pasta, along with the, ehem, perfectly cooked shrimp, were added to the pan with the sauce and (as I yell “feet don’t fail me now!”) I immediately dump out the contents so as to quit cooking the shrimp while I was ahead.

Open-faced lobster ravioli with pea puree, except closed and with shrimp.

We must have really been influenced by last year’s trip to Italy, because this “improvised” salad came straight from a memory of something we ate in the Jewish section of Rome (immediately before a plate of fried artichokes, themselves worthy of a separate blog post, if not a feature-length biographical film). For our version, we sliced up pears and Parmigiano-Reggiano in nearly the same size and shape, and threw them in with a bag of mixed lettuce and sliced tomatoes. And yes, some of that freakin’ delicious aforementioned balsamic vinegar from Bruno e Franco – La Salumeria.

Pear and Parmesan salad, taking us back to Rome.

One of these days, I’ll have to do a compilation of our mid-week meals, but for some reason I don’t see the intricacies of take-out sushi and Boston Market to be quite as interesting to an outsider.

A local doughnut shop recently installed a pizza oven. Said doughnut shop is within walking distance of my favorite local bar. It was only a matter of time before I convinced them to make me this:

If you're on a diet, don't ask for the extra cheese.

You might be thinking: “I’ve seen that before. That’s one of those Munchkin and Boston cream doughnut pizzas.” But what you don’t realize is that underneath all that cheese is a layer of mushrooms. That’s right, this is one of those Munchkin and Boston cream doughnut pizzas with mushrooms.

This brilliant concept was brought to life in a two-stage process. The first stage was R&D, which occurred on a previous day and also required alcohol. The second stage was the “Jesus Christ, this is so ridiculous I have to get these bastards to actually make this” stage. But I use “bastards” in the nicest sense possible. Not only was the doughnut shop employee slash pizza maker willing to make this absurd creation for me, he even took special care to make sure the Munchkins were cooked properly.

Huh? That’s right. Whereas the mushrooms and cheese were placed on the pizza at the beginning of the cooking process, he insisted on adding the Munchkins later so as not to, well, “ruin” the pizza. And this guy had another handful of Muchkins ready to go on top. I actually had to tell him I had enough! I’m the drunk fool asking for the doughnut pizza and here I am having to weigh the pros and cons of additional Munchkins before saying, “No, thanks, I think my pizza has enough Munchkins.”

In yet another flash of inspiration, I asked for a big doughnut to be placed in the middle. It only made sense that it be a cream-filled doughnut, so on went the Boston cream. You might not be able to see the chocolate and sprinkles under the cheese, but oh yeah, it’s there.

That meatball almost makes this pizza look good. Oh, never mind. That's a chocolate Munchkin.

Since some Dunkin’ Donuts executive somewhere is flipping out about an unauthorized pizza oven installation, let me point out that I’m using the term “Munchkin” in the generic sense. This was a Twin Donut Plus restaurant,  but I’ll be damned if I use the phrase “doughnut hole” (and I’ll be even more damned if  I use the spelling “donut”). As far as I know, Dunkin’ Donuts invented the Munchkin, so they’re going to have to live with the fact that, thanks to me, there will always, throughout the rest of time, have existed at one time on this Earth: a Mushroom, Munchkin, and Boston Cream Doughnut Pizza. If either they or the city of Boston should wish to use this name for marketing purposes, I hereby grant permission.

Ever since reading about the existence of miracle fruit in a New York Times article, I’ve been curious to try it. The small, tart berry that supposedly would change the way your taste buds perceive the flavors of sour and bitter was intriguing. But two issues always got in the way. Fortunately, both have been solved with a new product I recently came across: mberry tablets, containing miracle fruit powder plus corn starch. Essentially, miracle fruit in a pill.

When life throws you lemons, trip on miracle fruit.

The first issue slowing me down from trying miracle fruit had been having to go out of my way to buy it. The berries spoil quickly, so rather than keeping them around until the day you feel like giving them a try, you need to eat them within a day or two. Like other New Yorkers, I’m open to new addictions; I just wasn’t convinced by it yet and didn’t feel much like traipsing across Manhattan to buy it. (Unfortunately, I don’t live or work near the Washington Square Park of miracle fruit.)

The second issue was: when exactly would I want to experience the supposed flavor-tripping caused by the berry, which would last for an hour or more? Presumably, when I’m hungry, right? But what if I don’t like the experience? I’d have to suffer through a god-awful meal that tasted like my third-grade elementary school orchestra sounded (that was me playing B flat instead of C on the saxophone), or at the very least, wait hungrily until the effects wore off. In fact, when I had bought some miracle fruit berries two summers ago, they sat uneaten because my friends and I were in the mood for a more mundane taste bud experience. Stuff like: cilantro, habanero, guacamole. Nothing that we felt required any tongue-altering substances. We couldn’t seem to work them in between the margaritas and the entrees. Fortunately, I’m happy to say after two years that I’ve overcome my issues.

The results: interesting, partly enjoyable, and with not enough residual enthusiasm to be trying it anytime soon.

mberry (one of those annoying brand names without a capital letter, but at least they leave out an exclamation point) can be purchased in New York City at various locations of Garden of Eden Gourmet. I had purchased the actual berries at the store location on 14th Street, so that’s where I stopped to see if they still sold them. The employee told me that the Chilean earthquake affected crops, so therefore they were stocking only the super-shelf-life variety. Bullshit? Maybe, but I coughed up the cash.

That night (turns out I didn’t even need to take advantage of the long-shelf-life), my wife and I decided to go for it. The moment would be early dinner, right at the bar of our local Irish pub. I opened the package.

This aspirin-sized pill won't cure a headache, but might help you in the consumption of your village's rancid fish meal porridge.

The instructions were simple: “Place one mberry tablet on your tongue and dissolve completely.” The company claims the process is simpler than the consumption of the actual berry since there’s no pit to deal with, which is bitter and to be avoided. The tablet itself tasted both sweet and sour, with a consistency like a slightly chewy Flintstones vitamin or SweeTart, and a fruit flavor of raisin or blackcurrant. It took about a minute or less to fully dissolve the tablet. And then we were ready to go.

The downside of our choice of location for the experience was that we didn’t have the super-geeky array of food items that some people prepare themselves. (See the mberry website for examples.) Here’s what we had, along with, ehem, tasting notes:

• Guinness (beer) – I read somewhere that a Guinness would taste like a chocolate milkshake. Not quite, but a prominent sweetness was evident. And probably due to the creaminess of the stout, the sweetness didn’t seem foreign; for a small quantity, the taste was both interesting and complementary.
• Ketel One vodka with club soda and lime - You’d be convinced that this drink had tonic rather than club soda. If you prefer your drink sweet and were on a diet (or a diabetic, I suppose) this would be just once instance when miracle fruit would come in handy.
• Shepherd’s Pie – This was the only thing we consumed that didn’t taste particularly good sweet, even in small quantities. Some things were meant to be served savory, and if Shepherd’s Pie weren’t one of them, I’m sure Irish chefs would already be adding sugar. (Now that I think about it, I have had sweet Shepherd’s Pies in the past, and didn’t like them.)
• Tabasco sauce (straight) – I had expected that the vinegar (the main ingredient in Tabasco) would be altered to sweet. It was, and much more than I imagined. But additionally, the strength of the spiciness was noticeably reduced. I have a high tolerance for hotness, but I wouldn’t normally be able to taste spoonfuls of straight Tabasco without experiencing some pain. So, given that your taste buds and your tongue’s pain receptors are totally different things, this means either the miracle fruit affects both, or the newfound sweetness alleviates the spice.
• Lemons (raw) – Slices of raw lemon were by far the most enjoyable, and fun, thing we tried. If there’s any doubt about the effects of miracle fruit, eating a raw lemon changes that. The lemon, while tartness was still evident, tasted absolutely sugary. It was literally lemonade. Very cool, I have to say, and this pretty much made the experience worth it. Interestingly, if you ate several bites of lemon in a row, the tartness became more evident and the sweetness a bit less, like the lemon was starting to overpower the effects of the miracle fruit.

The effects of the mberry tablet lasted about an hour, which was longer than I would have preferred since I had moved on from Guinness to Harp and wanted my old taste buds back. All in all, though, an interesting experience, and one I’m glad I tried. But fortunately there’s enough decent food still left in this country that I probably won’t be rushing to do it again.

Classiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, forgive me if my perception sounds skewed. It’s just that I couldn’t really behold much of anything about Apothoke from outside in the alleyway. The stars didn’t align: Apotheke Bouncer and Apotheke Door Guy never met in that sacred union that would allow for entrance into the Mecca of cocktail artistry deep in the heart of Chinatown.

Their website made their unbridled pretentiousness loud and clear, and yet here I am bitching about it.

“At Apothéke, the presentation of a cocktail is just as dramatic as the cocktail itself. The bar is no longer a bar. It’s a stage. A chemistry lab. A theater. A place where if you own a penis, you better know the Door Guy.”

Alright, I made up that last part.

Some friends and I were in the area one Saturday night for an annual dinner, to be held this year at Danny Ng’s, what turned out to possess the exact opposite attributes of Apotheke: casual appearance, and classy service. Oh, and crispy-skinned chicken stuffed with sticky rice that’ll leave you with a smile on your face as your heart stops. (Like the booze at Apotheke, this dish requires an advanced reservation.)

I picked Apotheke for our after-dinner spot. We arrived around 11:00, and were promptly asked by a bouncer whether we had… reservations? Ah, one of those places. I should’ve known. But wait. I had suspected it, which is why I checked their website first. Nope, nothing there that said anything about it being amongst the .01% of bars in the city where reservations were accepted and recommended.

Maybe I’m too business minded for the bastion of free-spirited artistic purity that is Apothoke. But I’d do things differently. If I ran a cocktail bar that takes reservations, where I instructed my bouncer to ask guests upon their arrival whether they have them, I would say something about it on my website. In other words, I’d follow the well-respected model of other, more familiar establishments possessing stages and theaters. I’d also respond to customer emails that politely address the issue. And if I didn’t do these things, I’d be thinking about them as my business tanks and wishing I hadn’t taken the existence of customers for granted.

At first, I was annoyed at myself for not calling anyway for reservations. But here we were: six well-dressed guys in sports jackets ready to spend the 15 bucks plus for a drink, politely awaiting permission to do so. All we needed was to witness Apotheke Bouncer receiving word from Apotheke Door Guy. Note, incidentally, that Apotheke Bouncer and Apotheke Door Guy hold distinct responsibilities. Also note that Apotheke Door Guy needn’t be consulted for the young ladies who arrived after us. (Again, one of those places.)

The real problem with Apotheke is not that it’s a bar that requires reservations and doesn’t tell you that in advance. Well, ok, that’s a real problem, but not the main one. The main problem is that Apotheke management are not capable of identifying that the random people loitering in the alleyway outside their business have the potential to become customers of their business.

After asking Apotheke Bouncer twice after our arrival whether he thought we might be permitted entrance, he said that that would be a decision for Apotheke Door Guy, a man of mystery with whom Apotheke Bouncer had not once made an effort to communicate. (At this point, I’m wondering if Apotheke Door Guy is a green midget or commutes from Loch Ness.) But no hard feelings against Apotheke Bouncer. This was all explained to Apotheke Management afterwards. Apotheke Email and Apotheke Website are both modeled on the same set of principles that guide Apotheke Bouncer, Apotheke Door Guy, and the self-professed means of service of Apotheke Cocktails. It’s all really just for show.

Fortunately, there are cocktail bars, albeit outside of Chinatown, where a concern for appearance is only one of many concerns. Allen & Delancey, Employees Only, and Milk & Honey are a few such examples that I can personally recommend. Just be advised that if you should visit the latter of these respectable cocktail joints, you should do as you would for Danny Ng’s chicken with sticky rice and make reservations. But, hey, what do you know: they actually tell you that.