A Tiger In The Kitchen

Xiao Ye: A Hainanese Chicken Rice Discovery

There has been a flurry of buzz recently about Xiao Ye, a sliver of a place in Manhattan's Lower East Side that would be easy to miss -- except that you could just look for the gaggle of twenty-something Asians clogging up the narrow sidewalk, waiting for tables.

The prognosis of this Too-Cool-For-You Taiwanese comfort food restaurant that plasters the word "Dericious" above its kitchen and has christened its dishes with cutesy names that are also light jabs at Asians hasn't always been good. Although chef Eddie Huang's "Trade My Daughter for Fried Chicken" has gotten some raves in online reviews, the insatiable Gael Greene pronounced it too dry, "like wood shavings on chunks of white meat." Last week, there was a final straw -- Eddie (first known for Baohaus, the popular Taiwanese sandwich shop) announced on his blog, Fresh Off The Boat, that he was overhauling his menu after reading a lukewarm review on a New York food blog that expressed disappointment in Xiao Ye's "normal" and generically flavored food." As an experiment, Eddie, who calls his dishes "bootie call food" designed for late-night eating, has added items like Cheeto fried chicken and gochujang grilled cheese to the menu.

I don't disagree with the criticism -- when Gael and I hiked over to the LES for a catchup dinner a few weeks ago, the place had both misses and hits. Midway through dinner, we even decided to order a few more dishes after wondering if perhaps we had just made some wrong choices. 

I will say this, though -- the restaurant has one shining spot that made this Singaporean transplant very happy: its Hainanese chicken rice (listed on the menu as "Big Trouble in Hainan Chicken" for $15) is a delight.

In the 16 years that I've lived in the United States, I've searched eateries all over for acceptable versions of the incredible dishes of my home country. I've managed to find decent versions of chicken curry, satay, tauhu goreng (deep-fried tofu that's filled with julienned vegetables and drowned in spicy peanut sauce) and even oyster omelette, Teochew style. 

Good Hainanese chicken rice, however, was more elusive. This dish basically consists of chicken (steamed, boiled or roasted) and paired with a fragrant oily rice that's been steeped in a broth with chicken fat and vanilla-like pandan leaves and a phalanx of condiments -- minced ginger, garlicky chili sauce and "dark sauce," a Southeast Asian soy sauce that's sweet and as thick as molasses. It may sound easy, but the combination is harder to pull off than you'd think.

In the years that I've eaten my way through America, I had never sampled a passable version of chicken rice. Xiao Ye's isn't a dead ringer for the versions you'll find in Singaporean hawker centers, of course.

But it's not bad. And trust me, that's high praise from this finicky Singaporean.

Totto Ramen: Noodles Worth Sweating Over

 

This is my general policy on sweating: It's disgusting. Don't do it.

Well ... unless there is good reason. Like, say, an awesome bowl of soup noodles.

On the hottest day of summer so far in New York, a scorching bowl of ramen seemed like an insane choice for dinner. But there we were in Midtown, just blocks away from the recently opened Totto Ramen -- a new sliver of a noodle shop by the owners of Yakitori Totto, whose grilled rice balls coated with a crispy soy-sauce glaze have occupied more of my dreams than I can count. (Hey, Thomas Keller is a fan of the place, too.)

Since we were practically within sniffing distance of the new place, a visit was definitely in order ...

The Lion: And On The First Night ...

When a girl leaves town for seven weeks, the City is full of advice for her the moment she returns.

Because she has been known to have an appetite, there is, first and foremost on the minds of many, the issue of where she should eat now. Restaurants have closed and opened in the time she's been gone, sequestered in the woods of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., finishing a book, making new friends.

"Obviously," a friend emails, "the Lion in the Village is the place to go."

And by all accounts, that appears to be right. The West Village restaurant with Waverly Inn chef John DeLucie at the helm and backers like David Zinczenko of Men's Health magazine has been one of the most breathlessly anticipated new restaurants of spring. In the last few weeks, its private preview dinners have been a Page Six hotbed, reportedly drawing bold-faced names like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Nora Ephron and Mary J. Blige. 

The issue, of course, becomes, well, how on earth to get a table? If you aren't God, Gwyneth Paltrow or Graydon Carter, that is.

On Monday, the very night that it opened, we decided to swing by and try our luck ...

Colicchio & Sons: Super-Rich Locavore

Unless you've been in deep hibernation, if you live in New York and have been known to consume food, you've probably noticed that Tom Colicchio opened a new restaurant in Manhattan last week.

The breathless chatter over Colicchio & Sons in the Meatpacking District has been inescapable since the "Top Chef" judge announced that he was turning his ailing Craftsteak space into a locavore joint with a comfort food bent. (The restaurant is an offshoot of Colicchio's popular Tom: Tuesday Dinner, a weekly 32-seat event in which Tom himself put together a $150 to $200 meal made with of-the-season ingredients.)

Now, being a big lover of red meat -- even if I wasn't exactly a fan of the concept of Craftsteak's $100 steaks -- I'm always a little morose whenever a steakhouse shutters.

If its replacement is a worthy one, however, that's another matter.

We decided to investigate ...

Top 10: The Memorable Eats Of 2009

 

You know it's been a good year when you are able to say this: 2009 was when I began to eat for a living.

I'd always been a devotee of affairs of the stomach. I may have written about fashion and other lifestyle areas for a living but baking, braising, trying new recipes, eating out -- those were what consumed me when weekends rolled around. 

Luck has its ways of finding you, however. Now, on the precipice of 2010, I'm beginning to close out a lunar calendar year of cooking and eating with my family in Singapore as research for my book, "A Tiger In The Kitchen." 

My journey so far has taken me many places -- France, where I had the loveliest gingery champagne cocktail with friends old and dear; China, where my father and I went in search of my great-grandfather's footprints in the village of his birth. And, of course, Singapore, where my aunties and maternal grandmother have been plying me with meals, recipes and much, much love along the way.

With all that I've packed into 2009, it's hard to decide what the highlights have been. But, inspired by some stellar Top 10 gastronomic lists out there (definitely check out Sam Sifton's list of Top 11 dishes in New York in the New York Times), I decided to give it a go.

Here, in no particular order, are my 10 memorable eats of 2009. 

Enjoy, buon appetito and listen, let's do this again in 2010 ...

The Breslin: Gastropub, Grown Up

This is the sort of restaurant that The Breslin is: You will arrive on a Monday night to find the restaurant full and the bar jammed with the studiedly -- and also studly -- casual set. The wait, they will say, is 45 minutes to an hour.

You have a drink, some snacks and 45 minutes go by. An hour passes. There is still no word -- even though a stroll through the dining room shows that there are not one, not two, but a few tables that have been sitting empty for a bit.

At almost 90 minutes, it's getting a little tiresome. Nearby Koreatown is starting to look like a surer bet for dinner -- but just as you start to gesture toward your bar waitress for the check, you spy her spotting you and then sprinting over to the hostess for a quick discussion. Faster than you can say "Check, please," the hostess is by your side, telling you that now, there is a table open.

You consider leaving because, well, this is all a little bizarre. But you decide to stay -- and it's a good thing you do because what's on the dinner menu, it turns out, is worth waiting for.

But you really wouldn't expect anything less or different from owners of the Spotted Pig, the small West Village gastropub that quickly became the place for Leonardo DiCaprio spottings when it first opened in 2004. 

East Side Social Club: Not Quite Monkey Bar Lite

"Let's meet here," I had said, noting an Eater.com post that called the new East Side Social Club "a sleek sexy spot for the Monkey Bar rejects."

My "been everywhere" friend Bob's immediate response? "I never get rejected at the Monkey Bar."

Good point.

Even so, East Side Social Club held some intrigue. Opened by Billy Gilroy (owner of Macao and Employees Only), with celebrity photographer Patrick McMullen as an investor and Devon Gilroy, who's clocked time at Chanterelle and A Voce, helming the kitchen, the restaurant had generated plenty of buzz well before its doors officially opened last week.

The menu was designed to be Italian, with some modern American dishes with a locavore bent tossed in. And the cocktails, given Papa Gilroy's other establishments, promised to be interesting.

We had no big complaints about either, really -- the price and the ambience, however, were another matter altogether.

If you're expecting anything like the fashionable, genteel comfort of modern supper clubs like Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar, you're going to be a little disappointed.

Obao: Panned Asian

New York is filled with so many "pan-Asian" restaurants that it can be difficult to get excited about yet another one setting up shop.

Vietnamese pork chops? Been there. Summer rolls? So, so done that.

And Obao, Michael Huynh's newest addition to his rapidly expanding string of Manhattan restaurants, hits these and all the other usual notes that you'll find at many other similarly billed places in the city.

What's different? Not much, compared with your run-of-the-mill multi-ethnic Asian restaurant.

There are some hits -- anything meaty and/or grilled. And, of course, some misses, namely a "spicy" Singapore laksa (pictured above) that's so watered down that its broth tastes like hot water with some curry powder tossed in toward the end.

But here's the thing: Even at Obao's recession-friendly prices (which put entrees between $9 and $18), for those who enjoy a hearty bowl of noodle soup or a crisp papaya salad now and then, there are just so many other places in the city to go for better versions.

So, why eat here?

Purple Yam: Filipino, Just Like Mom's

It's hard not to be leery of restaurants that try to please too many palates.

When dishes as disparate as bibimbap, goat curry and wild boar pizza pop up on a menu that's supposed to have a distinct Filipino bent, you get the distinct feeling that something's got to give. Korean and Filipino dishes, after all, can be complex undertakings.

At Purple Yam, the new Filipino/pan-Asian restaurant in Ditmas Park by Chef Romy Dorotan (who shuttered his well-regarded Cendrillon in Manhattan earlier this year), the menu is that varied. But there's a lot to like about Dorotan's food so far.

Well, as long as you stick to the Filipino dishes.

Gourmet: A Letter to Si Newhouse

Dear Si,

By now, you may have heard from others like me--the heartsick and the grieving, all mourning the demise of Gourmet magazine, a formidable kitchen companion to many for almost 70 years.

By now, you may have seen the words "iconic" and "institution" bandied about. You may have heard the sepia-toned reminiscing of armchair travelers and culinary voyeurs whose lives have been the better, even for just moments, because of Gourmet.

And you've probably heard the words: Save Gourmet.

Gourmet has been a victim of the economic downturn, to be sure. The financial reasons for the close are clear -- its advertising revenue had plummeted 43% in the first half of 2009, a bigger drop than the industry average, and newsstand sales have suffered as well.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Condé Nast chief executive Chuck Townsend said of Gourmet: “It is the epitome of Condé Nast photography and journalism, but it’s a poor business.” On the flip side, Bon Appetit, with its more accessible, recipe-heavy emphasis that hews more toward Rachael Ray than Anna Wintour, has fared better in this economy.

I get that. I do.

But I also mourn the broader cultural shift that this shuttering reflects -- the move toward the practical instead of the aspirational. The embracing of the everyday and the 30-minute meals that populate it at the expense of the fantastical and the imaginative -- the meals, the experiences, that many only dream of one day having.

Through Gourmet, I've been able to get an intimate glimpse of Paris through the young and newly infatuated Aleksandra Crapanzano's eyes in the award-winning piece "Benedictions." I've also been transported to little Ragusa in Sicily, where I got to know the Modicana cow, which produces some of the richest milk in the world.

Many magazines tell stories such as this -- Gourmet always did so memorably. 

Yes, the practical is essential -- and right now, that's what sells. But it must exist alongside the other side of food journalism -- the one that enriches lives beyond just one meal.

Without the lush pictures and the glorious tales of meals made and eaten in far-flung locales, cooking and eating becomes reduced to just pots, pans, recipes and the mere act of putting food on the table.

And with the closing of Gourmet, we're a big step closer to that.

Sincerely,

A Fan