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ALWAYS BE EATING The best dishes we ate in MaySummer has (unofficially) begun, and all those warm soups and stews we were praising in the winter are giving way to delights of consistently warm weather: coffee ice cream, Spanish tortillas in actual Spain and post-beach banh khot. Here are our favorite bites for May: Chocolate cake and coffee ice cream at Cafe Kestrel I found myself in the West Village, I mean, Red Hook with some friends over the weekend and went for a double dinner: brisket, potato salad and God-level cornbread at Hometown Bar-B-Que followed by an early dinner at the eternally quaint Cafe Kestrel. The highlight was the chocolate cake, essentially a molten version, which I paired with the most creamy coffee ice cream. It was actually what dreams are made of. NIKITA RICHARDSON 293 Van Brunt Street (Pioneer Street), Red Hook, Brooklyn “Slimy bomb” at Yopporai Scanning the menu at Yopporai, a quiet izakaya on Clinton Street, one dish name stopped me in my tracks: “slimy bomb.” Getting it was an absolute no-brainer. What arrived was a small bowl of natto, okra and an egg yolk, all of the slimiest ingredients in Japanese cuisine, with chunks of raw tuna and sheets of nori for crafting perfectly slimy, stringy, delightful bites. BECKY HUGHES 49 Clinton Street (Rivington Street), Lower East Side, Manhattan The salt bagel at Papa d’Amour Dominique Ansel’s Papa d’Amour, a Gallic ode to Asian bakeries, keeps drawing me back for a simple reason: The kitchen loves putting out cool new stuff. On a recent visit, I finally tried the salt bagel, which isn’t really a bagel, but rather a bagel-shaped riff on shio pan, or salt bread. Ansel’s take boasts a fluffy crumb hiding beneath a crisp, salty shell. It’s drenched in an unconscionable amount of butter, so you need the accompanying mascarpone-laced cheese spread to tone down the whole affair with a bright dairy tang. RYAN SUTTON 64 University Place (East 10th Street), Greenwich Village, Manhattan Galicia-style tortillas at La Falda You could spend a lifetime in Madrid hunting for the perfect Spanish tortilla. Or you could text the local food writer Max Rosenberg and end up at La Falda, a chic taberna in the Lavapiés neighborhood, that same night. The restaurant’s Galicia-style tortillas are assembled with shingled potatoes — no onions! — and served, still wobbling, in that deep shade of yolk yellow I saw in a San Sebastián sunset a few days earlier. LUKE FORTNEY Calle de Miguel Servet, 4, Madrid, Spain Knafeh at La’Shukran It’s wildly creamy, from a mix of ricotta and Nabulsi cheese from the West Bank, salty and stretchy, holding its shape as it melts so it stays gooey. The kitchen makes one giant knafeh a day, in a three-foot-wide copper pan, and flips it out at 5 p.m. to cut for service. There are only 30 orders available a night. Come early. The moment you climb the stairs and step inside, the time won’t matter anyway, or even the city: You could be in Paris or Beirut in its jet-set heyday. LIGAYA MISHAN 417 Morse Street NE, Second Floor, Washington, D.C. Khao soi at Dahla Hear me out: What if we turned the world’s greatest curries, like vindaloo and massaman, into a line of pasta sauces? OK, the idea isn’t actually mine; it was inspired by the fantastic khao soi mafaldine I had this month at Dahla, a new Thai restaurant in Chelsea. The dish marries rich and aromatic khao soi curry paste with frilly ribbons of housemade pasta and fork-tender chunks of braised beef cheek. It’s then topped with salty-sweet sunchoke chips and a few well-placed puddles of pickled mustard seeds for acidic balance. Be still my fusion-loving heart! MAHIRA RIVERS 202 West 14th Street (Seventh Avenue), Chelsea, Manhattan Banh khot at Banh Khot Vung Tau I was off for a few days right at the end of May and, on my way home from the beach, I stopped for a platter of shrimp-filled banh khot at Banh Khot Vung Tau in Fountain Valley, Calif. I love this dish, and they make it beautifully: deeply crunchy at the edges and still slightly tender in the middle. It came with a shocking amount of pristine lettuce leaves and herbs, and some shredded papaya, reviving me from my sleepy, sun-stoned state. Back to work! TEJAL RAO 9110 Edinger Avenue, Fountain Valley, Calif.
THE BRIEF REVIEW Cove★ Cove is without question one of the most beautiful dining rooms in Lower Manhattan. The Hudson Square restaurant is a grand cocoon of gauzy lighting, silky cherry wood and gentle floral artwork that falls on the pleasant side of boardroom chic. In a town where space comes at a premium, Cove luxuriates in it. It’s also true that Cove’s chef, Flynn McGarry, is an impassioned talent, and has been since he embarked on his well-documented fine dining career at the age of 10. (He’s now 27.) I wish, then, that the food coming out of Mr. McGarry’s latest, most ambitious kitchen matched the seamlessness of his restaurant’s design. Instead, it’s as if he wants you to see the work that goes into bringing seasonal, farm-to-table cooking to this nondescript corner of the city. I’ll admit, the routine can be thrilling, but Mr. McGarry doesn’t always stick the landing. Take the bean and artichoke schnitzel. It was cooked to perfection, not to mention clever as heck, but an excess of toppings was overly rich and cumbersome. The aged whole squab was impressive, but undone by a lackluster vinaigrette. Still, there’s no shortage of interesting ideas. Ramps folded around pistachio paste like tortellini, workshopped from Mr. McGarry’s first restaurant, was a neat trick. But the tasting menu’s overcomplicated kaiseki-inspired first course was outshined by an elegantly simple cured snapper with jasmine tea gelée. The plating, as with the room, is visually exquisite at Cove, and Mr. McGarry’s thoughtful cooking is clearly inspired by ingredient-driven Japanese and Nordic philosophies. And yet, an essential feature of those two cuisines — harmony — can be elusive. Address: 285 West Houston Street (Hudson Street), Hudson Square; 347-213-9073; cove-nyc.com. Recommended Dishes: Red snapper with jasmine tea gelée, chilled soup, baby beets, crab custard, ramp leaves, bean schnitzel, black cod, liege waffle. Price: Bread and small bites, $8 to $14; shareable appetizers, $24 to $38; main plates, $44 to $72; dessert and cheese, $15 to $18. The four-course tasting menu is $135. Wheelchair Access: The restaurant and its bathrooms are A.D.A. compliant. FOOD POLITICS Candidates in L.A.’s mayoral race are making a lot of promises to restaurantsToday, Angelenos are heading to the polls to determine which mayoral candidates will run in the city’s general election. One of the hot-button issues: restaurants and the hospitality industry, which have been hit hard by the pandemic, Hollywood strikes, wildfires and ICE raids. Meghan McCarron reports on how candidates are courting restaurant owners, and by extension, diners. Read the story →
FROM OUR CHIEF CRITICS LungiHey, Upper East Siders, your chief restaurant critic here. I know you feel I’ve neglected you. But finally the neighborhood has a seriously hot spot — in the most literal sense — to call its own. Lungi, a southern Indian and Sri Lankan restaurant is serving tender goat, flaked and scrambled baby shark and extravagantly furious curries. The storefront is awkward, the service sometimes drifty. But the kitchen deploys spices and chiles with both nuance and outright force, making no compromises. XOXO Read the review →
EXTREMELY LOCAL NEWS The Baklava Guy’s legend is growingAnyone who has posted up outside Madison Square Garden during a Knicks game or in a Brooklyn park on a sunny afternoon has most likely encountered Jacob Komarow a.k.a. Roy Donk a.k.a. the Baklava Guy. Today, Pete Wells has a short piece on the pastry entrepreneur and how he landed on the idea. (Hint: It involves the band Phish.) Read the story →
RESTAURANT AT HOME Chez Panisse’s blueberry cobblerIn just a few short weeks we will have crossed into true summer and the season of oven aversion. Here’s a plan: Make the biscuits and blueberries for this five-star blueberry cobbler from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., early in the morning, while it’s still relatively cool out, and then serve it with a good vanilla ice cream in the afternoon. See the recipe → Need to know where to eat across the United States? Check out our guides to Atlanta, Austin Boston, Chicago, Washington, |
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