foodie nyc

2004: Year of the Ham Hock

Looking back over the last year, the single ingredient that influenced my cooking most would defintiely be the smoked ham hock. I've mainly been using it to create a 30 minute stock that I use primarily for soups.

Smoked ham hocks (along with chopped celery, onion, carrots, bay leaves and peppercorns) can be simply simmererd in water for a half an hour to produce a deeply flavored, smoky bacon infused broth.

Best of all, the ham hock stock comes out incredibly light vs. my initial expectation.  While it needs to be skimmed, it's less fatty than most chicken stocks I make. 

Use this stock in the Thai soup I created for Gothamist and you'll see what I mean.

Cafe Gray: All That Wait for This?

The build-up to the opening of Cafe Gray was the grandest I have yet to witness in my years of living in NYC (Jonathan Waxman's comeback to ill-fated Washington Park was the second.)  Front page previews in the Times and New York, pictures of the kitchen being built on eGullet, rumors of opening dates via Chowhound were all encompassing.

From the first moment I heard about the Cafe concept, I immediately thought about the time I ran for treasurer in middle school.  It was safe.  I thought I couldn't win a popularity contest with the coolest kid in the school, so I didn't compete.  I watered myself down and didn't shoot for a top spot.  I aimed for two stars, and so did Gray Kunz.

Kunz wasn't going to give us a taste of the innovative, polished and refined cuisine of his 4 star days at Lespinasse.   He was going to take his painstaking, four year process of finding a restaurant and play it safe.  Why take all of his investment in time and money to come up with a second ran to Thomas Keller at Per Se? Could he live up to the hype and expectation of his reputation and absence from the food world? Rather than taking those question on, he avoided comparisons to Keller upstairs in the food mall or Jean Georges across the street by aiming for 'cafe' food, unfussy bistro fare of global proportions.

And that's exactly what we got on a recent visit to Cafe Gray.  A four star restaurant in camoflage, serving 'bistro' food deliberately crafted to not be four star worthy...

Props to Neptune Room

Context:

I've only been to Neptune Room twice.  I've only tasted about 10 dishes total at this point.  I live conveniently near the restaurant on the UWS.

Opinion:

Neptune Room has cracked my top 5 new restaurants of 2004, no doubt about it.  Every single dish has been fantastic.  They not only do fish well, but the chicken has been fantastic both times we've been.  The menu is well crafted, lots of unique combinations, fairly priced, and has lots of choices.

The paella (Sunday and Monday only) is fantastic - lots of perfectly done fish and a soupy yet authentic rice that rivals my previous favorite at La Nacionale. The scallops, still attached to their shells, are baked with a bechemel type sauce and topped with breadcrumbs and herbs - fresh, succulent, yum. A pea risotto during the summer is still fresh in my mind.

Other restaurants on the Top Five Newbie list?

Per Se, Porcupine, Spotted Pig, Tia Pol and Honorable mention for 'Cesca.

Holiday Drinking

  For wine lovers without a large collection (i.e. me), the holidays can be a great opportunity to break out one of your precious bottles to share with family and friends.  While we had lots of great wines throughout Christmas and Christmas Eve, the best wine by far was the Pahlmeyer 1995 Proprietary Blend (sample lable at right if of the '92).  Definitely worthy of the praise it received from all of the wine critics.   Of all of the high end producers in California, I think Pahlmeyer may well be my favorite.  The merlots are also out of this world.