New York Restaurants by Area – Page 50 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Rai Rai Ken

214 East 10th Street between First and Second Avenues
212/477.7030
about $30 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

While Rai Rai Ken reminds me of the Japanese movie Tampopo, it is my quick trip to Tokyo a few years ago that always comes flooding back whenever I enter the shop for a simple bowl of ramen. Separating the curtain at the door, I immediately get transported back to winter Japan. Rai Rai Ken’s narrow space and wooden bar remind me of cold cheeks and frozen hands after my usual bike commute through the suburbs of Tokyo. There is a simple menu of three kinds of ramen bowls: shoyu, a soy sauce-based broth, shio, seafood-based and miso, made of soy beans, all served with bamboo shoots, spinach, roast pork, nori or roasted seaweed and scallions, and then topped with the ever-so Japanese pink fish cake. Long strands of ramen noodles complete the package that require pulling, twirling and slurping. You can order fried vegetables and pork gyoza, or dumplings on the side, as well as edamame, or boiled soy beans, and white rice. Sapporo and Kirin beer overflow for those who want to extend their stay.

In New York City, the temperature does not drop as low as it does in Japan during the winter months, but it is nonetheless cold. It is so cold only an imaginary trip back to Japan at Rai Rai Ken can warm me up.

Snack Taverna

63 Bedford Street on Morton
212/929-3499
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

I always write about eating at Snack, my favorite Greek spot, so I decided to try its new sister restaurant, Snack Taverna on Bedford. It has a more grown-up menu with some French influences and the ambiance is a lot less casual than its counterpart. I later learned that its chef, John Fraser, cooked at The French Laundry in Napa for almost three years.

I had my first excellent dinner of 2004 at Snack Taverna. I started with the veal cheeks served with hostas, or giboshi to the Japanese, a green plant that could be as tender as an asparagus. The loukaniko, a Greek hot sausage with oh-so-savory fennel and diced pear was excellent, I almost forgot about my crispy lamb’s tongue. We shared a braised lamb shoulder with bitter dandelions and a small serving of the monkfish. A mix of Cabernet and Merlot from Greece was the perfect match. At Snack Taverna, the meals are better than the desserts, but I couldn’t resist the chocolate soufflé with raspberry sauce even though our waiter warned us about the fifteen-minute wait. He served us a complementary piece of baklava for being patient.

Esca

402 West 43rd Street off Ninth Avenue
212/564.7272
about $700 for four, with a lot of drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥ â™¥

Some friends I met while traveling in Ireland were in town. Remembering how much we all liked our seafood while we were traveling, I booked a table for four at Esca. At least two people are required to order the tasting menu per table, so my companions opted for that while I ordered the crudo appetizer, or tasting portions of raw seafood: uni served on its shell, an oyster, scallops with chervil, razor clams with chilis and hamachi with scallions. I’ve never had seafood worshipped this way. I salivated over the carpaccio yellowfin tuna and the linguine with mahogany clams and pancetta. The shrimps with caper and thyme vinaigrette, the squid-ink spaghetti with cuttlefish and the striped bass with caramelized apples were all delicious. The Maine halibut was a little bland if not eaten with the burdock root and black trumpet mushrooms, but the scallops were perfectly seared. I loved the warm fruit turnover and the raspberry ice cream for dessert. Unfortunately, I could not find room in my stomach to accommodate the creme brulée.

There was no Guiness beer but there were plenty of other wee-drinks: a bottle of Marchese di Gresy, another bottle of Moscato D’Asti and yet another bottle from Piemonte for dessert. Champagne, vodka and gin and tonics were also ordered several times before the main courses were served. Esca, which means bait in Italian, is a great place for groups–just don’t bring Irish friends who can outdrink you.

Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca

110 Waverly Place between MacDougal and Sixth
212/777.0303
about $200 for two, with a few drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥ â™¥ â™¥

Our first time at Babbo, we went all out, asked questions about never-heard words written on the menu (braciole! francobolli! scottadita!) and picked out a bottle of red wine to match. I started with spicy lamb tartare with mint crostini and a quail egg in the middle. It killed me.
The boy chose the grilled octopus with “borlotti marinati” and spicy limoncello vinaigrette. You know how octopus can be chewy sometimes even in the best Japanese restaurants? This was perfectly tender.

For primi, I had the one-pound lobster with spicy budding chives, sweet garlic and what seemed to be four pounds of spaghettini. The boy opted for beef cheek ravioli with crushed squab liver and black truffles. I was so full after all that, sharing the secondi became a good call: guinea hen braciole with favas and pecorino.

Ufortunately, we had to draw the line on desserts. There was just no way I could have squeezed in another bite but our waiter gave us complementary cookies anyway.

On our second visit, we managed to control ourselves. We decided to share a lot of the offal starters since we knew the pasta dishes were too much for us. We finished the night with four of the best dishes we’ve eaten in our lives:

Warm lamb’s tongue vinaigrette with chanterelles, pecorino Toscano and a 3-minute egg
Calf’s brain “Francobolli” with lemon and sage
Goose liver ravioli with balsamic vinegar and brown butter
Fennel-dusted sweetbreads with sweet and sour onions, duck bacon and membrillo vinegar

Sharing the appetizers was definitely the way to go. It allowed us to get a better sense of the Mario Batali behind Babbo.

Jing Fong

20 Elizabeth Street between Canal and Bayard
212/964.5256
about $60 for two, without drinks, without tip
â™¥ â™¥

You can’t miss Jing Fong with its shopping mall-style escalators. Sunday is the best day to go for dim sum to experience just one Chinese tradition in the middle of Elizabeth Street. There’s a lady at the bottom of the escalators who screams into a microphone to call out people’s parties. Upstairs is like a madhouse bingo hall. A true red and gold banquet awaits guests and round tables are shared with strangers. Waiters push rolling food carts around so you can stop them and peek at the small dim sum dishes. A lot of them don’t speak English; they just tell you the Chinese word for a dish over and over, hoping you’d back down and stop asking.

My only advice is to try whatever looks interesting and skip the mixed fried rice you usually end up getting from a Chinese takeout. I never know the names of my favorite dishes but I go for a lot of shumais and dumplings when I’m with friends who just want the familiar, or else I go for chicken feet and snails when I’m with dim sum regulars. There is also a long table up front so you can pick other hot dishes not available in the rolling carts. If you feel more comfortable ordering from an English menu, they have it available for dishes served in larger portions.