Food, mostly tasty

I've gotten a lot of remarks over the last couple of weeks about all the cool places I eat. And I respond with "Actually, I've eaten at a lot more places lately than I blog about, but I'm worried that the perpetual food entries will get boring." Then I remembered who my readers are. So I decided to do an entry about all the other places I have been that haven't gotten mentioned yet.

Back in early June, Jim and I finally hit Fatty Crab. I have been excited about Fatty Crab ever since I read it's short review in the Times, and also, Eric Asimov's (whom I have dumped in favor of Frank Bruni) comments on in The Pour. In a word: disappointing. FC is located on Hudson Street in the Village. It's teeny tiny, and as such, there is usually a wait. But there was space to sit at the bar, and so we had a drink. FC's specialty is Malaysian street food, and so, food ought to be shared. We ordered the fatty duck, chicken claypot, short ribs and chicken wings. The claypot was quite tasty, with lots of tofu, which I liked, and the short ribs were tender and had a nice sauce. But the duck was disappointing as compared to Hunan Cottage and the chicken wings were undercooked. Jim says that the practice in China is to undercook the chicken, as compared to here where we burn the shit out of it. I personally prefer the latter method. And sadly, at the end of the meal I was still a bit hungry. Oh well.

As Jeeves was busy being a law student on my birthday, he took me out in June for a belated celebration to Yama, which he assured me would blow my mind. And it did. Apparently Yama is another place where you can expect a wait, and there's not much space inside to stand around, so it's best in good weather. But it is certainly worth standing around. Once inside, we marked off how may pieces of nigiri that we wanted (we had tuna, eel, yellow tail, salmon, mackeral, giant clam and maybe another piece which has subsequently escaped me, along with an eel avocado roll and yellowtail salmon roll). The pieces of sushi were completely enormous - I've never seen anything like it. The eel took me 4 bites to get through. Everything was superbly cut and tender, and the rolls? Heavenly. I daydream about the eel avocado roll - the eel sauce was perfect and the avocado was super ripe.

Other notable city eats - Great Jones Cafe for brunch which serves cajun spins on breakfast food. I had the eggs with ham on biscuits and smothered in gravy with a side of grits. It's pretty hard to find good grits in the northeast and my mom always made the best. But these grits definitely gave hers a run for their money. Creamy, but not too runny. And eggs with gravy? Brilliant. Jeeves swears by the bloody marys and indeed, they use fresh horseradish. And on this past Friday, very late, I went to Florent in the meatpacking district. Think of it as a french diner. I was boring and got eggs and bacon (sorry, but that's my go-to late at night in a diner-type setting), which came with a nice thick multi-grained toast and the bacon was well-done as requested. Jason was more adventurous and had the goat cheese and apple omellette and Jeeves had the veggie burger (which I think is bizarre, especially coming from someone who eats as many hamburgers as I do, but he insists is excellent). Also, I like that it's on Gansevoort Street, mainly because "Gansevoort" is fun to say.

What of New Jersey, you ask? Have I abandoned the food of my home state? Not at all. Wendy and I went to Reservoir in South Orange for her birthday. If you live in the area, you may know of it - great word of mouth. And with good reason. They serve up a nice thin-crust pizza. Wendy and I had one of those, some bruschetta (which was seriously out of this world - thick cuts of toasted bread which were crispy on the outside, but east to take a bite out of, with ridiculously fresh tomatoes and onions and a nice balsalmic maranade). We also had a penne dish which came with an excellent marinara sauce, mozarella and prosciutto. I highly recommend it, and in fact think I will suggest to Wendy that we head back there soon. Also, in typical Jersey , cash-only, Italian fashion, the prices were quite low - all that food for $30.

Well, another weekend has slipped by me and I had intentions of multiple entries, but as it is late, I have a cold... and sadly work tomorrow, I will have to postpone.