Don't pity this foul

Long-time readers of this blog are probably already familiar with the Yemen Cafe, so I simply wanted to second Mike's recommendation of it by encouraging any diners to try the delicious foul (pronounced, more or less, the way Mr. T would say "fool"), a large bowl of hearty fava beans that are stewed with garlic and topped with a drizzle of olive oil. It's served with a large, slightly smoky flatbread about the size of a tennis racket and similar to naan in flavor (though a touch chewier and a wee bit sweeter). The $5 appetizer easily makes a filling lunch.

Also of note is their zoug, the green Yemeni hot sauce that, I think, might be the single greatest new food item I've tried in at least a year. It's a crisp, slightly zingy mix of tomatoes (just a tiny amount), jalepeno peppers, cilantro, raw garlic, and blended onions that made me think, "If I could marry a food item, this would be it." If you want just a little idea of how amazing this stuff is, try a spoonful of the house soup without it first, and then add a few teaspoons in before your next spoonful. You'd swear it's an entirely new recipe.

Speaking of which, If anyone has a recipe for this, I beg you to send it to me, or post it here.

Yemen Cafe (map)
176 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn

Taco Hop, Part I: Lend me your ear ...

Just as (I'm sure) the rest of the country rolls its eyes whenever New Yorkers bemoan the lack of a decent pizza* outside their home turf, it has long been my experience that, whenever I talk food with a transplanted Californian, the conversation will inevitably turn to the supposed lack of decent Mexican food in New York.

I've never been terrifically fond of that remark, not just because I'm just a testy and defensive person, but more because there are just so many different types of Mexican food. Besides, there's been a noticeable boom in the Mexican population here as of late, and I am hereby officially declaring our West Coast friends' statements obsolete.

So I took it upon myself to put this myth to bed, or at least make it a little drowsy, by taco-hopping (well, not just tacos, but you get the idea) some old standbys, and checking out some new places Uptown and in Jackson Heights. A report on the latter two will come in the future.

South of 96th Street, I tend to gravitate towards three places. The Zaragoza deli in the East Village (not to be confused with the Zaragosa restaurant in East Harlem), the taco truck on 14th Street and 8th Avenue, and the Tehuitzingo Deli Grocery on 10th in Hell's Kitchen (What the hell is "Clinton?").

Tehuitzingo, carved out in the back of a narrow Mexican grocery, is easily my favorite of the three. The kitchen staff usually doesn't speak much English, but there is a beat-up English menu with obscure treats like pumpkin flower quesadillas in addition to the standard taqueria fare. I couldn't resist the allure of the succulent barbacoa (goat), perfectly dressed with a sprinkle of onions, cilantro, and lime. All the tacos are made to order.

Also enticing is the taco truck on the northeast corner of 14th Street and 8th Avenue, which seems to get there around 8 or 9 p.m. all week. They've got a pretty elaborate setup for what it is, even offering grilled sopes and a quesadilla that almost looked like a deep-fried gyro. I was encouraged by the Mexican-accented Spanish I heard from the steady stream of customers, so I opted for an asada, a chorizo, and an oreja (that's pig ear) taco. The first two, alas, was rather dry, and the included lime wedge was a little bare. The oreja, however, was rich and silky, reminding me of the texture of cabeza, which I don't see as often as I'd like to. If you don't mind biting into the occasional layer of firm, chewy skin, it's a perfect drunk food.

Which brings me to my last favorite, Zaragoza. This is another grocery-cum-taqueria, but (alas) does not make its tacos to order. Still, it's in the middle of the East Village, it stays open very, very late (I've eaten there after the bars have closed), has a rotating menu of three or four options, and always has the friendliest folks inside. It beats a slice in that neighborhood anytime, so maybe we don't need to bemoan the lack of a decent pizza so much, even in our own turf.

Tehuitzingo Deli Grocery (map)
695 10th Ave. b/n 47th and 48th St.

14th Street taco truck (map)
14th St. and 8th Ave.

Zaragoza Mexican Deli and Grocery (map)
215 Avenue A at 13th St.

* I actually say the best pizza in New York is in New Haven, but I'll save the details on that for another time.

As authentic as chop suey

With the lunar new year already almost a week past, and with a newfound taco-eating quest* temporarily on hold after an overambitious foray into late-night food trucks, I've had a real hankering for noodles lately. Firm, springy, savory, meaty noodles. So I took a quick train ride down to Hyo Dong Gak, an ostensibly Chinese restaurant right in the middle of Manhattan's Koreatown.

I've been to Hyo Dong Gak a many times over the years, and I've never been a big fan of their "Chinese" Chinese food, save a few vegetarian dishes that I (sorry!) can't recall. But they do two things well, and they do them cheap: jja jiang myun, and champong.

First, a little backstory. Jja jiang myun is basically the pizza of Korea, in that it's the cheap, filling go-to food that people get delivered whenever they're just not up for cooking. It's billed there as Chinese food, although I've never seen it anywhere in China (I'm told by one friend, though, that it's very much like some dishes in Taiwan). In fact, I've been told (perhaps not entirely correctly) that it was invented in the middle of the last century by an enterprising Korean restauranteur who had never even set foot in China. Instead, he threw together some noodles with a black soybean sauce, and started marketing it as authentic Chinese food. It quickly became a staple and, as cultural boundaries started to fade, made its way into parts of China very recently. In the Jilin province, I'm told, it's marketed as (!) Korean food.

The classic jja jiang myun (listed on the menu as noodles with special brown sauce, at $7) has a spaghetti-shaped noodle that's more like udon in texture and flavor. The special brown sauce is made with beef, fermented black soybeans (which add a trace of sweetness to the otherwise savory flavor), onions, zucchini, shredded cucumber, and (I think) potatoes that are blended in as a thickener. It almost tastes as if you made a potroast with bean paste instead of stock, and it's very, very filling. I wouldn't be ashamed to ask for a fork, either, because the jja jiang myun requires some pretty vigorous mixing, and the flimsy disposable chopsticks that Hyo Dong Gak gives you just don't cut it.

The version with unspecial brown sauce comes with a lot viewer vegetables, and little or no beef. It's well worth the extra dollar to trade up. Do try the yellow daicon chips that come with every dish, though--their crisp sweetness is a lovely contrast to the richness of the sauce.

Slightly more adventurous is the champong (noodles with hot seafood soup, $8), which is allegedly a Korean version of a Japanese adaptation of a Chinese dish (got that?). It's much soupier, and sports a good blend of squid, clams, shrimp, and scallions. We also got tang su yuk, which is a bit like sweet and sour beef, but with very little sourness. The beef is floured before its fried, and reminded me of cafeteria chicken fingers. I plan to skip it in the future.



*Results pending, I promise.

Hyo Dong Gak (map)
51 W. 35th St.

Spiffy (we hope) new feature!

Mike and I were talking about ways to improve the site, and one of things we wanted was to make this site easier for our hungry readers to use. To that end, we're putting together a Google Maps mashup of the entries in this site--you'll find a link to it to the right.

It's all very much in its early stages right now, but we hope to put some time into it as the blog progresses. In the meantime, any suggestions and/or other feedback is more than welcome.

"Free" and "Pizza" in the Same Sentence Can't Possibly Go Wrong

I wouldn't blame anyone for being a little skeptical after reading this headline. After all, many of us are first-hand victims of the steady Ray-ization of the New York pizza: dry, reheated crusts supporting tinny, processed sauce and cheese that tastes like it was made from the cow's sweat more than its milk. So when a friend of mine insisted that I try the free pizza at Williamsburg's Alligator Lounge, I simply shrugged the suggestion off and feigned interest.

Last night, I realized that I made a mistake of epic proportions.

The pizzas at the Alligator are, for lack of a more accurate summary, completely legit, solidly well above any of those eponymously famous or so-called original guys. Though the place is really a bar, there is a blazing brick oven in the back of the room, which doubles as an excellent source of heat in this here weather. I had a good feeling about the place right away, not only because the pizza maker was constantly busy (and the pies are made to order), but also because there was that slight but lovely aroma of smoke and salt* that every good pizzeria has.

The crust was wonderfully thin and chewy, with a good, springy resistance and a spattering of those nice patches of burnt crispness on the bottom. I wouldn't have minded it very much if the chef had left my pie in for another minute, but I'm also partial to smokier crusts. The sauce was pretty mild, although I did occasionally bite into spikes of garlic powder or dried oregano. Mozzarella was nice and salty, maybe a little more stringy than premium-priced fresh mozzarella, but definitely a step of from the big-market stuff that, alarmingly, seems to be carrying more and more of an ochre (or jaundiced, if you don't want to be nice about it) tint every time I see it.

Each pie is about 9 or 10 inches, the equivalent of a little more than two slices. Toppings do cost you--$2 for the first one, $1 each additional. If you're like me, though, toppings are just a distraction. You do have to buy a drink if you want the free food, but even on a busy Saturday night, the bartender was perfectly friendly and happy to get me a whole pizza after I bought just one drink. Beers are $4 or $5, so my evening of three Brooklyn Lagers and a pie cost me just $20.

Just a little editorializing, though: These guys obviously care about the quality of their pizza as something to share with their patrons, and not just a gimmick to lure in drinkers. I've had free chicken wings, free hot dogs, and free tater tots in other bars, but even with the rather generous price tag, I never really felt like having too much of the food. Maybe that's the point, but the pizza at Alligator is more than worth paying for. It's not quite as great as the stuff from, say, Patsy's (East Harlem, that is) or DiFara, but it's solidly in the next tier. That's why I was saddened to see more than a few people order whole pies, but only have a few slices. The food might be free, but it's clear that these guys put at least a little bit of their hearts in it.

* Okay, so salt doesn't have an aroma, but there was still something lovely about that smell.

Alligator Lounge (map)
600 Metropolitan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211

New wor(l)ds, old flavors

First of all, a brief "Hello" to all of Mike's readers. Mike has graciously allowed me to fill in for him in his absence, so I hope to prove a worthy successor. Enjoy your posh ski bunnies, your fat European benefits, and your sickeningly sweet beer, Mike. At least I've got a roti shack around the corner ...

Now, on to the stuff you came here for.

A lot of you might have been hearing about tongdak, or Korean-style fried chicken, particularly after last week's food page in the New York Times. It was a story that brought great warmth to my (so far) relatively unclogged heart, as fried chicken and Korean food have been two of my great loves, ever since childhood. The two had seemed separate in my mind--fried chicken seeming like a quintessentially American food--but I was happy to see it evolve in my trips to Korea. It became wildly popular in there in the late 1980's, died down quite a bit after a health food craze kicked in, and then made a pretty nice comeback in a lighter, more refined form.

Unlike Southern or (another one of my favorites) Dominican-style fried chicken, Korean fried chicken is pretty minimal on the saucing/seasoning. The skin has, at most, a bare dusting of batter, and the relatively small bird is dipped quickly into a deep fryer. The Times seems to think that the secret to its crisp skin and relatively juicy meat is that it's fried just a little bit (not completely cooked), then refried after it cools. (Oh, and there is a variety that's made with a sweetened red pepper paste [yangnyum tongdak], but that seems a bit like overkill to me.)

I can't speak for any cooking techniques, but I can certainly vouch for the tongdak at Baden Baden, in Manhattan's Koreatown. Baden Baden is one of many businesses above eye level on 32nd St.--if you look around, you'll see karaoke parlors, other bars, a bathhouse (legit, mind you), and a lot more karaoke parlors. You'll find Baden Baden on the second floor of 28 W. 32nd St., through what's pretty much an unmarked door. There's a sign inside that says Restaurant Forte (which, incidentally, is also what will show up on your credit card slip), and once you make it upstairs (just use the stairs, the elevator is maddeningly slow), the sign on the door just says BBNY, and looks like it's hiding some old gambling parlor or something else unsavory. Once inside, though, you'll find what's essentially a pub-like atmosphere.

I think the tongdak there is cooked on the rotisserie first, then deep fried. The skin is crispy and perfectly seasoned, and slides off the wonderfully moist meat. The thigh pieces are definitely the way to go here; the white meat, alas, is not quite as satisfying. A whole bird is close to $20, but it easily feeds two. My companion and I couldn't actually finish it, and neither of us are shy about our appetites. It comes served with mul kimchee, or "water kimchee." It's made from daicon radish, and free of the pepper powder and garlic that most kimchees have--leaving a crisp, slightly sweet flavor that's a nice palate cleanser and a good introduction for those who are normally squeamish about kimchee. Pitchers of beer run about $14 each.

Baden Baden also has a range of anju, which is basically just a pretentious, Korean way of saying "snacks for drinking." Most of them are grossly overpriced, and unless you're feeling nostalgic for nights of drunken Seoul street food, I strongly recommend that you skip them. The same goes for the soju--the infused versions taste pretty good, but they really don't complement the chicken at all. Besides, soju is cheaper than soda in Korea, it's criminal to pay twenty bucks for it just because it's been sitting in a few slices of mango.

Baden Baden (map)
28 W. 32nd St., 2nd Floor.

Zum wohl!

Dear readers,
The astute among you have noticed my lack of posts, and some of you have surely wondered if I perished during a food excursion somewhere. I haven't, but I -have- moved to Switzerland. This being a rather expensive nation in which to dine out, the blog (which has always concentrated on NYC things, with the occasional travel piece, anyway) no longer is really maintainable.

I will give you, in parting, a few tips from my last few weeks in NYC and one from my first few in the vicinity of Zürich:

1. Get to Momofuku Sääm bar for their late night menu. I know it's a splurge; just do it. I've probably never had an evening with so many new and unique flavors, textures, and categories of food, and it was all exceedingly delicious. Order one of everything with a few friends.

2. Also slightly more expensive than average (but totally reasonable for the category) is the first Mexican place in NYC that can compete with the Red Iguana et al in more than just the taco category. Ironically named Taqueria y Fonda, I had some kind of special (chicken enchiladas? note taking has never been a forte) involving the nogada sauce (cream and nuts with fruit). It was really damn good. They also have moles and pipian on the menu, which I would check out if I were you.

3. The last place I crossed off the list before I left was Upi Jaya. I didn't think it was particularly great, but it could have been the excruciatingly bad teen television I was forced to sit through as the surly offspring of one of the staff members tried hard to forget their own teenage miseries for a moment. Should have gotten it to go.

Z. My favorite sector of Zürich so far is the Langstrasse south of the train tracks (sounds vague, but look at a map of the city if in doubt), where ethnic groceries and restaurants co-mingle with porn palaces, pseudo-casinos, and record shops. It's like a little slice of the EV sans pretension (or, at least, sans NYC-pretension). On the Zwinglistrasse, which intersects Langstrasse a block or two south of the tracks, there is my favorite Thai grocery (Sala Thai - they make their own curry paste) and the restaurant that blew my head off, Keo Inn. Order the pork salad Thai hot and prepare to die.

Finally, if I can brag (and also explain why I haven't gone through withdrawal), I'd like to share my dinner schedule for my last few weeks in NYC. This (with a few exceptions marked *) approximates something like a list of my top favorite restaurants in the whole city - those I wasn't going to hightail it without sampling one last time. There are notable omissions, of course (off the top of my head, Corner Bistro, for instance) but the list is a pretty fair one.

11/27: dinner at Cheburechnaya
11/28: dinner at Spicy Mina
11/30: lunch at Snack Taverna*, dinner at Cafe Kashkar
12/1: dinner at Super Taste
12/2: lunch at Defonte's heroes, dinner at Château Blanc*
12/3: lunch at Taqueria de Guerreros, dinner at White Mana (JC, NJ)
12/5: dinner at Upi Jaya*
12/6: lunch at Rare*, dinner at "A"*
12/9: dinner at Schnack
12/10: lunch at Nicky's (Atlantic Ave.), dinner at Bedouin Tent
12/11: dinner at Spicy & Tasty
12/13: dinner at Taqueria y Fonda
12/14: lunch at Alidoro, dinner at Momofuku Sääm bar
12/15: lunch at Shopsins...the last meal before leaving.

Best to all, and take advantage of your cheap ethnic eats resources while you can - you never know when you'll end up in a country where everything is calculatedly and perfectly bland.

-Mike King