The Grocery

288 Smith Street between Sackett and Union in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
718/596.3335
about $125 for two, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

We were in Brooklyn to visit friends who were house and dog sitting while on vacation from San Francisco. When it was time to eat dinner, another friend–a Brooklynite–quickly suggested The Grocery. It’s one of his favorite haunts but he has never visited in the summer when the garden is open, so when we arrived we asked to be seated out back to enjoy the warm summer breeze.

The Grocery’s staff works from a kitchen half the size of a New York City apartment’s. You can imagine how tight it was in there to maneuver but somehow they make it work because they churned out some of the best meals I’ve had this summer. And I do not say churn lightly: we waited for almost thirty minutes to get our appetizers. The waitstaff were so busy running the front and the back that it took twenty minutes to get the menu. We had to order wine with our food because she forgot to show us the wine list while we waited for her to reappear to give us glasses of water.

Because we haven’t seen our Californian friends for a while, we didn’t mind the wait even though we didn’t have anything to drink. We passed the time catching up and talking about our respective lives. We realized we had been waiting too long when the youngest member of the family behind us whined so loudly about being hungry–they were already seated when we came in to wait for fifteen minutes to complete our party.

But when the food came, the short-staffed restaurant delivered as if they worked out of a professional and very spacious kitchen. The slow-rendered duck breast was superb in caramelized red wine sauce with baby carrots and beet greens. I would most likely wait another forty minutes to eat this again. The toasted farro salad was a nice break because of the summer greens in a very interesting sorrel vinaigrette that gave the dish a kick and acidity. The roasted beets were nothing new, but they were perfectly cooked. One of my favorites was the fried artichoke because of its texture. The little crunch lent beautifully to the escarole and the Parmesan. For dessert, I was very happy to get the wild strawberries with the buttermilk panna cotta. You can’t get small and tart strawberries from supermarkets anymore, so I was very pleased that they featured them unadorned. The warm peach cobbler made everyone else happy as we took turns scooping it out of its ramekin.

At the Grocery, the wait time is longer than I want it to be but the food showcases the season’s best and the cooks in the kitchen make up for the service that needs sharpening.

Related post/s:
Frankie’s 457 is in the same neighborhood
I need to return to Applewood which introduced me to Brooklyn cookery in the first place

Brooklyn’s Kitchen at Brooklyn Fare

200 Schemerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn
718/243.0050
$70 each ($95 starting November 2009), BYOB, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

The Daily News just crowned the area around 200 Schemerhorn “Downtown Brooklyn’s hot pocket”. A friend lives upstairs and got incredibly lucky with one of the market-rate rentals before the neighborhood exploded. This means he’s also one of the many fortunate residents who get to shop at Brooklyn Fare, the gourmet grocery store that occupies the space on street level.

Cesar Ramirez is the chef responsible for the store’s prepared foods, but after hours, he turns into Batman and whips up an incredible tasting menu in the store’s kitchen. Up to a dozen people get to eat and drink their own bottles of booze a few times a week. He spent eight years at Boulud and all his training comes through in his intensity. He talked about how everything he was doing had been done before and that all the dishes we were eating were just his own take. He made everything effortless even though each dish looked and tasted like it took some extra time to make.

Before they started service, he snorted at me for taking photographs without asking him for permission. He clearly hadn’t been around annoying food lover types before but he softened up when I volunteered to stow my camera away. He loved having us as an audience and found great satisfaction when we expressed contentment. Here’s a rundown of why we were content:

Hibiscus flower shot. When I was growing up in the Philippines, we mashed hibiscus flowers with a big rock and added it to a container of powdered detergent and water to make our own bubbles. We used the flower stems and fashioned them into rings to blow the bubbles from if hollow papaya stalks were nowhere to be found. I’ve seen hibiscus flowers during my travels around Central America and they’ve always reminded me of that memory. Drinking it like a shot of soup was a completely different story. The flower is naturally gelatinous; Cesar showed us the dried chips he used to make it into a clear juice. It wasn’t thick, but it had that delicious viscosity.

Deep-fried calf brains. I was glad that Cesar decided not to write it down on the menu. We didn’t know the other diners we sat next to and across from us and the last thing I wanted to hear was a complaint about offal. I just had calf brains at Lamb and Jaffy a week before my night at Brooklyn Fare so I had a chance to compare: this version was 100% better. Cesar’s was crispier because it went straight from the fryer to our plates. It looked like a small perfect dumpling on a bed of chives with mayonnaise and mustard.

Oyster on a bed of green sauce. I forgot what the green was made of, but looking at this photograph now, I only have one thing to say: sexxxxxy.

I was reminded of one of my meals at Blue Hill Stone Barns when the tomato plate was served. From right to left: tomato marshmallow, tomato water with cream turned into panna cotta, reconstructed bocconcini on top of tomato purée, a tomato gelée and a stewed tomato top that tasted like an intense sundried tomato. The plate was peppered with small slices of seasoned grape tomatoes and then drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I was in complete awe of this dish.

No, wait. I was in awe of this dish. In a beautiful ridged bowl from JL Coquet, three kinds of grains were toasted–black rice, bulghur wheat and quinoa–and topped with an egg gently and slowly cooked sous-vide. The egg whites were made into a crème fraîche-like texture that contrasted well with the crunch of the grains. Every time I scooped, my spoon scratched the ridges of the bowl and it delightfully added to the sound in my mouth. It was such a beautiful dish, I still sigh just thinking about it.

The most decadent dish came up next: langoustine with a tiny Oregon snail and a perfectly-cooked scallop topped with an unexpected sheet of speck. The green sauce was tarragon and parsley. I was pretty much full after this because of how rich the three pieces were. The Dr. and I looked at each other and agreed that they couldn’t be making money off this venture. Clearly, Cesar and his sous-chef, Juan, were given free rein in the kitchen by the Brooklyn Fare owners. The only objective was to cook whatever they want, however they want and use whatever ingredients the market provided.

Summer came next: asparagus pieces, shredded green peas, pickled giant beans and sweet corn kernels. A sheet of crispy spinach purée topped it all. I would have been okay with the mix of vegetables, but they were more than generous and served it with a nice chunk of halibut. Halibut is always a bland fish for me but a very meaty one; it paired deliciously with the veggies.

Unbelievably, another dish was served: Maine lobster with port and red wine reduction mixed with a green foam of, I think, parsley. Molecular gastronomy has come a long way from when no one paid attention to it except Wylie Dufresne, to everyone foaming everything in the kitchen. But I’ll take foam any time, even Top Chef‘s Marcel’s, if it makes my plate presentation pretty.

I have no idea how I even ate the duck after all that. The small piece of duck was encased in an artichoke and in another green paste. The artichoke resembled the duck skin and fat. A most beautifully seared and steamed foie gras chunk sat on the side with a bed of–watch out–puréed foie gras. It seemed like a preparation perfect for squab as well.

For dessert, Juan prepared a mango parfait. The glass was sealed with a sheet of mango purée which made eating it more fun because you had to tap it “open” with your spoon. I had no idea dicing mango that fine would result in a tingly texture in my mouth. I should dice my yellow mango more often!

We finished our own bottle of wine with all the food Cesar and Juan prepared after four hours. We left a hefty tip because we’ve never had dinner that tasted home-cooked but with so much finesse dedicated to it. Now that the word is out about these Brooklyn Fare dinners, the price has gone up to $95 per person because of recent high demand. It’s still the best deal in the city of this caliber, so I highly suggest that you make your way to Brooklyn before prices go up again. Good prices never last, but I hope Cesar and Juan keep churning their hearts out in the kitchen.

Related post/s:
The last time I remember this much hullabaloo in Brooklyn was for egg
Frankie’s 457 is one of my favorite restaurants in Brooklyn

Raw Soul

348 West 145th Street between Edgecombe and St. Nicholas Avenues
212/491.5859
$50 for three, with 3 juices, without tip
half a ♥

I consider myself an omnivore and don’t turn my back on vegetarian dishes even though my first choice will always be meat or seafood. Once in a while, I crave all vegetables to feel “cleaner” and lighter. I’m known to surprise my friends by ordering a vegetarian burger from Shake Shack because it’s as good as their beef burgers. (Really!)

I’ve lived in Harlem for almost six years now and have always walked by Raw Soul. I’ve always been curious about the place and finally stopped by with friends after biking around Central Park. We needed food badly to combat the heat, so we stopped to pick up a few dishes with some of their homemade juices.

On the Raw Soul menu it says: Raw, vegan meals prepared with fresh organic ingredients from scratch. We use no soy, refined sweeteners, dairy, or processed foods. I went inside Raw Soul with an open mind but I still don’t understand why anyone would consider the food satisfying. The eight-inch personal pizza hit the spot with all sorts of vegetables and something they called walnut cheese, but man, that flax crust was like eating sand. The tamale pie was layered with vegetarian chili and would have been edible if not for the dehydrated corn bread. It was just so bland and tasteless that we couldn’t even finish eating it. If only it was baked just a teeny bit and served warm, maybe the flavors of all the vegetables would have melded together as one real pizza. The tamale pie also needed some heat, both in temperature and taste.

We put our remaining hopes on their fresh juices. I ordered Grandma’s Greens made of celery, kale, parsley, cucumber, chard, dandelion and spinach. Kate opted for the Intestinal Cleanser with carrot, beet, spinach, cucumber, cabbage and garlic with some cayenne pepper. Jase got the best drink out of all of us: a green lemonade of apples, ginger, lettuce and kale. I’m not a big fan of sweets, but my drink seriously needed a carrot as a natural sweetener. Instead of tasting greens, it tasted more like Grandma: tepid and boring. Kate’s and Jase’s drinks were so much better with the ice cubes we got from the Starbuck’s around the corner.

What was cold at Raw Soul would have been better warm; what was warm would have been better ice cold. I trust that everything was what they said it was, but I don’t think I’ll ever be that person who will enjoy this kind of cooking.

Related post/s:
Photos of Per Se’s vegetarian menu

Rouge Tomate

10 East 60th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/957.5550
$72 each for a group of five, with tip
♥ ♥

I’ve been hearing about Rouge Tomate here and there so I wasn’t surprised when my girlfriends and I ended up there for dinner. The space is massive and perfect for big groups. It’s the first restaurant I’ve been in a long time where the servers all had custom-made uniforms versus the all-black outfit. The interior design screams money (from the architectural firm Bentel & Bentel) and I was saddened to think that the business might not make it past these economic times. Four days prior, I easily scored a table for five on a Friday night at 8pm. This would have been a difficult feat in regular New York time. It wasn’t exactly empty when we walked in, but the crowd did dwindle after 9:30 and we ended up being the last group by 10:30.

Rouge Tomate has been talked about as the latest restaurant that features local ingredients and farm to table philosophy. Yada, yada, yada, right? For the past two years, I’ve always said that that philosophy in the kitchen should not be a feature anymore–it should just be a given. Every restaurant should just be in that bandwagon today or risk being different, and not in a good way. That said, Rouge Tomate has some well-flavored dishes that spoke louder than they could present them–our waiter could not edge himself between us talkative women. Oh, this is not so bad, was the common response at our table after every taste even though we dismissed every waiter who approached our table.

I opted for the $35 lamb a la plancha. Our waiter explained to all my Spanish-speaking friends what “a la plancha” meant, but could not tell us which part of the lamb was on the grill. I’ve learned my lesson from other restaurants and I’ve always made sure that I’m not paying $35 for shoulder. When the waiter returned and confirmed it was loin, two of us ordered it. Another chose the Berkshire pork and the rest shared the fish in Thai curry. We thought it was a nice touch when they split the fish in two separate dishes, but alas, our bill at the end of the night counted for two of them. We had it corrected, to their chagrin, because our waiter had left mid-service and could not confirm the mistake he had made.

MIstakes aside, the lamb loin was so delicious I found it hard to share it with my group. It was perfectly medium rare served with string beans and tomatoes. The pork loin was naturally sweet that I could have eaten it without the vegetables on top. The Thai curry was delicious even though I always find sea bass a pretty bland fish. The appetizers fared better at our table: the fluke ceviche was bright and fresh; the frisée and fennel salad with prosciutto was my kind of salad, while the asparagus with maitake mushrooms and warm farm egg just made me happy.

I loved the blueberry crepe dessert that tasted like fluffy pancakes. Not too sweet, it was light enough to finish without forcing it down my throat after a pretty hefty meal.

Related post/s:
Some waiters don’t know–and worst, don’t care–about the difference between lamb shoulder and lamb chops
Only at Irving Mill did I have a waiter who left mid-service without telling us he was turning the table over to another server
Warm poached egg in salad? You got me!

Klee Brasserie

200 Ninth Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets
212/633.8033‎
$104 each for a group of 11, with several bottles of wine
♥ ♥

From Klee’s Web site, I imagined a Meatpacking District type of place where we would be screaming at each other so that we can have a conversation. It’s probably the first restaurant Web site I’ve seen where the creator is in touch with what New Yorkers are looking for these days: a blog from the chef, updated food photographs and, oh my god, a Facebook group. I expected the restaurant to be as loud as the site. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in: Klee is a lot smaller than what I originally thought and it’s actually cozy even with eleven girls sharing a long table.

My friends had arranged for a group dinner to celebrate another’s last days of singledom. A pre-fixe dinner for $55 per person was arranged which included a choice of appetizer and a main course; mignardises were served as desserts selection. We ordered several bottles of wine to share and still, our bill only came out to $100 each.

There was chilled pea soup poured into a bowl of squid tentacles. They didn’t seem to go together, but it worked and the presentation was pretty. I opted for the beets with blue cheese. Three of them came on a rectangular plate: one gold, one red and another pink. I thought the romaine lettuce worked well with the sharp blue cheese even though the pumpernickle “soil” didn’t make a difference except to make the plate look like a mini-garden. My mahi-mahi was a bit on the bland side–such is the nature of the fish–but it came with an interesting broccoli rabe purée and a crispy potato. The grilled chicken won me over with a crumble of chicken-peanut sausage and a faint taste of corn and lemon together. It’s from Murray’s and it would have been naturally sweet anyway without all the accoutrements.

Klee was very generous with the dessert selection, a good move on their part knowing that eleven girls were eating during a bachelorette party. The sommelier was very helpful with the wine: I ended up selecting a Hungarian rosé to start and continued on with two bottles of Burgundy. The service was swift since our party took half of the restaurant space; they just wanted us to keep moving. We still closed the restaurant but I think they couldn’t complain after our hefty group bill in the end. I was equally content.