The Villager is a bar out in Babylon, near the train station. After a group of us spent the day drinking out at the wineries on Long Island’s north fork, we came here to get some grub. I have to say: I was pretty surprised at how good the food was. I was not expecting much. Shame on me for assuming shit.
The group started with an order of gouda fries. They were waffle style – nice and crisp – and covered with melted gouda, crumbled bacon and scallions.
I ordered the breakfast burger, which was topped with American cheese, bacon and a fried egg, served on a toasted English muffin.
Since I wasn’t sure what kind of place this was before ordering, I went with medium on the cook. I was kicking myself once I tasted the quality of the meat. I should have gone medium rare. It was still fucking fantastic though, and it came with a side of tater tots.
My wife ordered the duck burger, which was topped with gruyere and applewood smoked bacon. She, too, ordered it medium. The burger was cooked perfectly and had a hearty flavor to it, but, as a result of the medium poultry, was a bit on the dry side.
I will definitely be back here, and next time I will order properly at medium rare for my burger.
Many of you are probably aware of my high praise for Capizzi, a pizza, light Italian fare and wine spot on 9th Avenue near the back side of the Port Authority in Hell’s Kitchen. The food is spectacular, and the service is stellar. I highly recommend it.
Well, the news here is that they recently opened a second location out on Staten Island, which has a much different menu. I figured I would take the opportunity to let my readers know about it, and highlight some of the items from that menu that owner Joe Calcagno pointed out to me.
Casarecce, their “Sicilian Mac & Cheese,” is homemade pasta with truffles, truffle oil, fresh burrata and roasted tomato – all cooked in their wood burning oven. $18 sounds like a steal for all of that high quality stuff.
Their red snapper is served with a tequila sauce (!!!) and comes with broccoli rabe and roasted potatoes for just $25.
For the lighter appetite, the $10 arugula salad with tomatoes, onions, green apples, cranberries, walnuts and goat cheese is simply tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
You’re probably noticing that the portion sizes are all big. Bigger isn’t always better at some places, but Capizzi uses insanely high quality ingredients, so bigger is most definitely better here.
The best part is that you can still get all those awesome pizzas and high-end Italian meats here, just like the Hell’s Kitchen location. The Staten Island joint just has a bigger, more diverse menu.
All the pastas, raviolis, deserts, etc. are made in-house, fresh from scratch, every day. The genuine wood-burning oven (built by owner Joe Calcagno himself) is used to create some of the finest oven-roasted meat and fish dishes, along with those amazing pizzas that are reminiscent of old world Italy. Capizzi uses local fresh fish, produce and imports, with many of the ingredients arriving from Sicily on a weekly basis.
Joe also developed his own olive oil and started a company called Bel Evo, which is produces his all natural and chemical free olive oil, which is unlike many mass-produced olive oils being sold out there.
Bel Evo is a blend of high quality extra virgin olive oils and vegetable oils with a great, bold olive taste, with a deep green color and a thick luxurious consistency that makes it a great option for all chefs and restaurateurs. It fits nicely with salads, pastas and pizzas, and with its high smoke point, it’s ideal for sauteing in a pan.
As a little boy, Calcagno’s grandmother introduced him to the freshest and finest Italian food available, when accompanying her on her rounds of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Together they visited the best shops for freshly butchered chicken, sausage, just-baked bread, pastries, vegetables, ravioli and everything else needed for a traditional Italian Sunday dinner (God, how I miss those). He also helped out in the family garden, growing tomatoes, eggplant and peppers to be canned, and wrapping fig trees for the winter (a feat of willpower, patience and strength).
Today Joe owns a few of his own Italian restaurants, keeping his family’s tradition alive. Capizzi, the restaurants’ namesake, is a small town in Sicily (a province of Mesina) where Joe’s parents and grandparents grew up. His restaurants are a tribute to them and to a time when things were simple, with fresh-made meals that were constructed with a sense of pride.
I was recently invited to A.O.C. for a press meal. The menu looked pretty stacked, with lots of things I wanted to try, so I jumped at the opportunity to come here.
We sat outside in the back garden, which is beautiful, shaded and perfect for a spring/summer meal outdoors, especially with some colorful cocktails like these.
We started with this amazing charcuterie and cheese board called Le Grand Mix. At $28 I felt that this was great. Usually these kinds of items are way overpriced to me, to the point of feeling like ass rape mixed with getting your balls stomped-on by stiletto heels. Here, however, it seemed very fair, if not actually a good deal. There were five sliced meats, a pair of duck confit crostini, three cheeses, some grapes, sliced apples and strawberries. There was even a small mixed greens salad beneath the apples!
Prosciutto, country ham, smoked duck, mortadella, spicy salami, if I had to guess on the sliced meats. The cheeses were brie, gouda and a harder style like parmigiano reggiano.
For our meal, we shared the cote de boeuf rib eye steak for two.
At $79 it comes with a bowl of mixed veggies and french fries. Great deal! The mixed veggies were all fresh, not frozen, and consisted of green beans, asparagus, broccoli and carrots. These had some basic seasonings like garlic and butter.
The fries were thin shoe-string style, which I like. Some were very crisp, and some were half crisp. It was an interesting mix of textures, but the flavors were spot on and they were well-seasoned.
The steak itself was overcooked, unfortunately. There was a bit too much grey going on for medium rare. The meat, as a result, was a little more dense and tough than I like, but it had good flavor otherwise, especially when dipped into the bernaise sauce that came with it (you can choose peppercorn as well, I think).
Here’s a closer shot of the steak. I boosted the reds a bit in Photoshop on both images, because I couldn’t help myself and I wanted it to look nice for the Instagram post.
I’m giving this a 6/10 instead of a 5 or 4, because ultimately this is a wonderful deal and the only real issue was the cooking temperature. I would definitely come back here and order this again, so don’t get the wrong idea. Compared with other steak-for-two deals that often times don’t come with sides, are smaller, and cost much more money, this is a steal. Just make sure you insist on rare.
For dessert we tried the tarte tartin. I wasn’t expecting pie format for this, since it was described as an apple turnover on the menu. But the apple flavor was very natural and not overly sweet. The crust, however, fell short and was a bit gummy. Ultimately it just lacked character, and tasted more like a thick apple sauce than a pie or tart.
My overall recommendation: Definitely get the charcuterie and cheese boards, and if you want to order steak, go for it but just be mindful of the cook temperature. The hanger looks great, and I’m sure the entrecote shell steak is nice too, traditional steak frites style. The mussels look amazing as well. I wish we had room in our guts to try more stuff, especially those.
A.O.C. L’AILE OU LA CUISSE
314 Bleecker St
New York, NY 10014
My wife and I stopped in here on a Friday night for a quick meal at the bar. We heard great things but never had a chance to try before.
We ordered three items: meatballs, fried calamari with shishito peppers, and the Randy Levine sandwich, which came with fries.
First, let’s start with the weirdly named item: the Randy Levine. It’s a sandwich made of pork belly, plum sauce, Chinese mustard, half-sour pickles and garlic bread. It’s named after something that the president of the Yankees had once eaten in the Catskills.
Unfortunately the “slow cooked” pork belly was a bit too chewy. I attribute that to fat content that was not cooked long enough at low temperatures to get good and soft. Also the glaze on it tasted a bit bitter and burnt. Bummer.
The fries that came with it, however, were excellent. They’re called “Italian fries” because they’re tossed with herbs and parmesan cheese, I suspect. Nicely cooked and crisp, golden brown.
The meatballs were great, and I’m a stickler for these fucks. Nothing beats mom’s meatballs. Since these came off as the soft, long-cooked stewed kind, I did find it odd that the center looked medium rare. That had me concerned about whether they used veal or pork in the mix. In any case, no tummy aches from raw meat, and the flavors were great – even the red sauce. It was light and flavorful. Still though: the best way to make a meatball is to fry them in a pan first, get a crispy coating on the outside that locks in the juices, and then slow cook in the sauce on low for a while.
The star of the meal for my wife (for me it was the meatballs) was the fried calamari with shishito peppers. They had a great crispy crust, a good ratio of rings to tentacles, and the peppers offered a great pop of flavor to mix things up.
All in the bill came to $85 with tax and tip, which also included a beer and a glass of wine. A bit pricey, but at least three of the four items we ate were tasty.
As a non-butcher, I’m sort of learning beef anatomy on my own. I recently purchased a 7lb hunk of top sirloin to dry-age at home in my SteakAger. Upon close inspection, I noticed that my cut had a strange, skinny, and somewhat triangular-shaped section of meat that was clearly separated by some connective tissue.
When inquiring about how to best prepare the top sirloin (either as a roast or as individual cuts of steak), I learned that this triangular piece of meat is in fact called the top sirloin cap.
Digging a little further, I came across this great excerpt from Boston Magazine article about butchery:
“Time for a little anatomy lesson, with a subprimal cut of sirloin. 1. Tenderloin. 2. Top sirloin. 3. Top sirloin cap, also known as a Culotte steak.4. Tri-tip steak. 5. London Broil, also known as knuckle steak or outside round.”
So as you may have deduced, similar to how the rib eye has a cap, known as the spinalis dorsi, so too does top sirloin have a cap; it’s just more fancily known as the Culotte. It’s much bigger and more lean than the spinalis dorsi on a rib eye, but it has similar grain structure.
Check out this cool butchery video that mentions the Culotte:
So back to how I discovered this: A chef I’m acquainted with, Andre Lima de Luca, suggested that I cut the top sirloin cap off and prepare that separately from the rest of the top sirloin, so that’s exactly what I did after confirming that what I thought he was talking about was indeed the triangle of beef that I noticed at the outset. With the fat ridge still connected, this cut is essentially the same as picanha.
Below is a shot of my cap/Culotte, after being dry-aged for over a month and trimmed of any bark. Since my 7lb hunk was already cut down significantly from it’s original size, I wasn’t left with too much.
My first encounter with Culotte on a menu at a restaurant was at Bohemian, a secretive, dine-by-referral-only restaurant that’s nestled in the back of a high-end Japanese butcher shop called Japan Premium Beef.
The cut there is washu, another name for the wagyu cattle from Japan, so it is considerably more tender than most normal cuts of this stuff. The flavor and texture is similar to strip loin, but a bit less grainy and more buttery. I recommend cutting this into small pieces when you actually eat it, smaller than you would for, say, a filet mignon. The larger the piece, the more chewing you will have to do. More chewing means it will feel tougher, and that’s not good.
These cuts can be very simply prepared: sear in a pan with butter, salt, pepper and herbs. Cook to medium rare to preserve tenderness, as the meat grain will tighten up the more you cook it, making the beef tough. Also cut cross-grain to maximize tenderness.
You can see the grain here in this cut. When slicing for plating, you want to cut diagonal from top right to bottom left, against the grain.
Here’s a nice way to serve it after slicing:
Finishing salt flakes really make the flavors pop.
Check out this other butchery video for more detail on slicing methods, with some suggested preparations too:
I recently received an email from the gent who co-created The SteakAger. He offered to send me a unit to review here on the site. I had no idea what the product was until I clicked over to their website to check it out. It’s an in-fridge box for dry-aging steaks at home!!! Check out their video:
Okay so just what is aged beef and dry-aging? I have a nice article about all that HERE, but the quick and dirty summary is that aging is a way to concentrate and intensify beef flavor and create a more tender steak.
I have had some limited experience dry-aging steaks with dry aging bags in the past, and the results were, surprisingly, very good! Since then, I have been secretly trying to figure out a way to fit a dedicated dry-aging fridge in our small NYC apartment. Needless to say, I was not excited about using more cubic footage for food stuff. In addition to our fridge, we have a drop-freezer, a baking work bench, and extra shelving for all of our cooking dedications. So The SteakAger was perfect for us; it goes right into the fridge! Most days the fridge is pretty empty anyway. We eat out a lot, as you can imagine, since NYC is pretty abundant with awesome restaurants. I do, however, like to cook steaks at home on occasion, to save a little dough here and there.
Anyway, my package arrived and I rushed home to get it before the package room in our building closed for the night. Here are some unboxing photos:
AC power and extension cable, along with other materials:
Keys are in there so you can get an idea of the sizing:
Charcoal pad slips into air passage:
Salt goes into the burlap bag and then gets placed at the bottom of the SteakAger, inside the box:
Sizing in my fridge:
It also fits if I turn it sideways, and it even has a viewing window on the side as well. Awesome! This orientation leaves me with a bit more space in the fridge.
So the way this works, is you connect an extension wire to the back of The SteakAger, which you can see above on the upper left portion of the unit. You then snake that through the door hinge of the fridge and plug it into a socket behind the fridge. I was apprehensive at first, wondering whether the wire coming out of the fridge would mess with my fridge’s efficiency, but it does not. The seal is still tight, and everything in the fridge is still nice and cold.
So after monitoring my local grocery stores and butchers, I found a good sale on beef. I picked up about 7lbs of top sirloin and popped it into The Steak Ager.
I adjusted my fridge setting down a bit to keep the temperature slightly colder than usual, at about 37 degrees. Then came the hard part: waiting… I started this baby on April 11th, 2016. Here’s a peek at it after 34 days in the box:
As you can see, a nice dark bark formed around the outside. I carved that off and portioned the meat into two top sirloin cap filets (aka Culotte), and two top sirloin steaks.
Here’s a time-lapse video of me doing that:
Right away, I cooked up a culotte. I seasoned it with salt, pepper and garlic powder, and seared it in a cast iron skillet with some butter.
I’m really happy with this product. It costs less than $250 with shipping. That’s a great deal for the ability to access dry-aged beef any time you want from your own fridge. I highly recommend this product to all beef aficionados.
UPDATE: Standalone Unit – Master 45 Series. AMAZING!
Bohemian is a dine-by-referral-only joint on Great Jones Street that’s nestled in the back of a high-end butcher shop called Japan Premium Beef. My wife scored a referral to eat here through one of her friends, so we set up a meal with her sister and her sister’s husband to celebrate their anniversary and sample as much as we could fit in our stomachs.
We started with a bunch of cocktails, which are all really great and unique. We tried about seven or eight over the course of the meal. Here are a few pics of some of them:
They have a great selection of hard-to-find Japanese beers too:
Plates here are small and pricey, but very good. We started with this poke bowl that consisted of high grade tuna, soy, sesame and micro greens. Absolutely delicious and super fresh.
Next up was the wagyu short rib sashimi. This had great fat content and was super tender. Each piece gets topped with a little bit of wasabi and fried garlic slices.
This fois gras sushi with aged balsamic and sea salt was incredibly decadent, but pricey at $17 for the pair:
My favorite of the starter items were these wagyu beef tartare squares, served on blue cheese stuffed toasted grilled cheese. The cheese was mild and didn’t overwhelm the awesome flavors of the beef. Add a bit of dijon from the smear on the plate and you’re set.
This mac and cheese is served with a tomato butter toast that is out of this world. The mac itself is perfect in every way: creamy, smooth and topped with a crunch.
This slab of bacon was a bit chewy in the part that I had. My wife had a better experience with her piece. The good bits were super tasty though, so maybe the slab itself was just a little inconsistent.
And why not have a pair of wagyu mini burgers with pecorino? They were perfectly cooked to medium rare, and served with some pickles for good measure.
The miso black cod was really nicely cooked, but a bit on the small side in terms of portion.
We regretted not going with the branzino when we saw that it was a beautifully presented whole fish and smelled like charcoal. But I wasn’t too worried because we were about to eat some fantastic wagyu beef. We started with a trio of beef (3.5oz each) that contained flatiron steak, culotte (top sirloin cap) and skirt. We liked them from best to worst in that order. I’ll review them now in the same order.
The flatiron was buttery and tender, cooked perfectly to medium rare and came in, for me, at an easy 9/10 for flavor.
The culotte was similarly buttery, but a bit tougher in texture. It reminded me of strip loin, but a little less grainy. 7/10.
I wish I had used a knife to cut these skirt steak bits a little smaller because they were too tough in the size that was served to us. They were cooked perfectly, but just lacked a bit on the flavor and texture fronts. 6/10.
All of the beef was served with a small tray of sea salt that you could use to season as you saw fit. This was key, because otherwise the cuts were all a little too bland.
The last cut of beef we tries was a 10oz hanger steak. This was super tender and extremely delicious, and cooked absolutely perfectly with a great crust and a bright pinkish red center. 10/10. It was served on a mountain of potatoes that seemed to have been baked first, and then fried to a golden crisp on the outside. Awesome.
Dessert was pretty nice too. We tried two ice creams: ricotta and strawberry balsamic. The strawberry was tart, but really nicely balanced between the sweet aspect of it. It ate more like a sorbet at times. The ricotta was light and fluffy, more like frozen cheese or a semifreddo. The ricotta cheese flavor was definitely prominent. What was best was mixing these two flavors in each bite. It was like eating a delicious frozen strawberry cheesecake.
Sorry for the shitty pics. At this point the lighting changed drastically in the joint, and I didn’t bother to fix my settings.
We also tried the trio dessert sampler, which consisted of creme brulee, matcha green tie cake and cheesecake.
My favorite of the three was the creme brulee. It was really smooth and creamy.
I met up here with two friends for a meal after hearing a lot of good reviews about the joint. I wasn’t really sure I should call this place a steakhouse, and when I spoke with owner John McDonald he confirmed my thoughts. The idea, according to John, it seems, is not to pigeon hole the place as being a traditional steakhouse (usually just attracting an all male crowd, for the most part), but, rather, a meat-centric restaurant with a menu that appeals to all kinds of diners. Not only that, but he and his business partner/chef Josh Capon have endeavored to put together a unique menu, with cuts that you don’t often see in other restaurants, if ever. Other restaurants they are involved with include Lure Fishbar, Burger & Barrel Winepub and El Toro Blanco.
Given the above discussion about the term “steakhouse,” I decided not to rate this joint on my traditional 100-point scoring system (though I will include it on the list for convenience purposes). Instead, I will respect the owner’s concept and write it up like I do other restaurants. It just happens to be a wonderful meatopia!
The bar is a nice marble stretch, wide, lots of room, and has high-top seating behind, along the street. Easily a fun place to hang out. There’s also some lounge seating and regular tables beside it. This is a neat spot because every so often you can steal a glance into the kitchen through the swinging door next to the bar. There’s plenty of room to walk in and eat in the bar/lounge area if you can’t score a rez in the main dining room; just try to beat the crowd.
I started with a “Sagely Seventy-Five,” which was a really refreshing gin drink with lime, pear bitters and garnished with a sage leaf. No: I did not grow a vagina. I actually love gin drinks, mixed or straight up. It smelled and tasted exactly how I expected. The bartender, Alison, did a great job with the mix too.
I swiped a taste of my buddy’s “Loneliest Monk” as well, which was a really nice rye, chartreuse, amaro and orange bitters concoction. Very classy.
The bar, by the way, was a warm and comfortable place. Lots of elbow room too, which is nice. The bartenders and patrons were all very sociable. In fact, we had the good fortune of sitting next to a gent who is close friends with Chef Josh, so he gave us some pointers about what to get from the menu.
After our cocktails, we took a seat at a table next to the bar, in the lounge. Our waitress, Melanie, had a really deep knowledge and appreciation for beer. She made some excellent suggestions throughout the meal, the best of which, I thought, was this really effervescent Belgian beer that packed a ton of flavor without being hoppy or bitter. I fucking hate IPA shit, so this was excellent for me:
We then had the great pleasure of meeting the man of the hour, Chef Josh Capon. He was a really fun, down-to-earth guy, cracking jokes with us, being vulgar and ridiculous (like we are), but at the same time making us feel not only welcome, but like we were kings. He was awesome: warm, friendly, easy to talk to, and it felt like we’ve known him forever. Check out this incredible display of meats he brought to the table, explaining each cut and how they are prepared:
The first thing to come out was a plate of warm, sliced rosemary focaccia and some slices of soppressata. The bread was savory and herby, and the meat was soft and melty. I thought it was very cool and thoughtful that they put enough for each of us to try our own: three slices of each. That kind of attention to the diners does not go unnoticed by me. You’ll see the same thing was done for other dishes.
Next was a little plate of bone marrow and oxtail rice balls: again one for each of us. These are called “arancini,” and they were spiced with lemon zest. I think at some point “put my balls in your mouth” was uttered by at least one of us, if not Chef Josh. The man had us cracking up hysterically at the table with his wit and outgoing personality. These were amazing little bites, by the way. Flash freeze these and put them on the shelves of stores in the frozen food section and you could make a killing!
One of my buddies was too slow in putting Josh’s rice ball into his mouth, so there was a little bit of a threat happening with a tomahawk chop:
Next, Josh brought out a sample of the crispy polenta for us to try. I enjoyed this. It had a nice texture with bold earthy flavors from the mushroom and shaved cheese on top.
I think the star of the amuses (if you can call them that), was the dry aged wagyu meatball. When explaining it to us, we were all blown away, jaws dropped and salivating like wolves at the scent of fresh blood. I think Josh even said something like, “Yeah, it’s great. Basically, if you don’t like this meatball, then you can go fuck yourself.” HAHA! And he’s absolutely right. If you go to this restaurant and you try this meatball and DON’T like it, then I will say you can go fuck yourself. You don’t need to hear it from the man himself; you can take my word on it. It is amazing. Everything from the meat itself, to the consistency of the ball, to the herbs folded in, and to the sauce were all done with unrivaled culinary prowess. And I’m a hard man to please when it comes to meatballs!
Okay so now let me tell you what we actually ordered for the apps. Yeah: all that stuff above was just to wet our beaks! Wait – I just typed out “wet our beaks.” Who do I think we are, a bunch of fuckin’ Don Fanuccis from The Godfather?!??
Anyway, we started with the broiled oysters with garlic, romano cheese, breadcrumbs and parsley. Delicious! But watch your mouth because these muthafuckas are HOT! I typically don’t like cooked oysters, but these were done really nicely. They were briny and soft, properly cooked, yet crisp from the breadcrumbs. A great texture contrast.
Next app: fois gras and chicken liver parfait. This was so rich and decadent, yet not heavy or filling. It was served with an onion jam and spread across toasted brioche. Chef Josh even spread the delicious shit on our bread for us when he served it. Amazing service! This is a must-try dish if you are into this sort of thing. All three of us absolutely loved it.
Our third and final app was the Chinese BBQ pork belly lettuce wraps. Fresh, savory, light, bright and packed with porky goodness. The touch of acidic pickled veggies on the side, fresh cilantro and lime, and sliced chili peppers really made these bitches pop. So simple, yet so complex: a conundrum.
For our mains, my bitch-ass friends wanted to share two entrees rather than three. Whatever. We ordered the Bowery Steak, which is the first time I have ever seen anything like it on a menu. It’s essentially a pinwheel-wrapped fat cap from a rib eye, fashioned into a circle/spiral that’s roughly 10oz, if I had to guess, trussed, and cooked like a proper cut of steak. They serve it on top of creamy whipped potatoes, and top it with a chimichurri-like salsa verde.
The owner, John, explained to me how the dish was conceptualized one night when coming home from a wedding that he and Josh had attended. They prepped that night, and the next day they brought it to life. Bravo, gents. You’ve made me very happy. This steak was fantastic, unique, innovative, tasty and perfectly cooked. Medium rare inside with a nice crust on the edges. Mmm.
We also tried the cheeseburger, which is said to be made with 40-day dry-aged beef. This baby has been gaining some serious notoriety in burger circles, so I was excited to try it. It comes topped with griddled onions, raclette cheese and tomato aioli.
Unfortunately, splitting it three ways left me wanting more, much more. It’s tough to make a solid review off just a bite or two. I did notice, though, that it was a bit salty, and could certainly have benefited from a cool, crunch element like lettuce. Here’s my pathetically small third of a burger. Thanks boys… Next time I’m ordering my own.
The burger also came with fries, and a little tray of pickled tomato, okra and cucumber. The fries were really nice. Beautiful golden brown, crispy, herby and flavorful. I suppose we should have topped the burger with some of the pickles to get that needed crunch element, but digging into them on the side was nice too.
We also took down an order of garlic spinach. This was really flavorful without being too overpowering on the garlic angle. Unlike typical sauteed spinach items, this wasn’t laden with oil either. It was fresh and light. Definitely a good choice.
We were going to skip dessert, but Chef Josh brought out a nice trio of dolce de leche ice cream balls. This was a nice snack to take in with a glass of amaro, as we did.
That about does it. If you’re wondering what the damage was, it really wasn’t too bad at all, especially given all the samples that Chef Josh brought out to the table for us to try. Here’s Sir William Price, in all his glory. Very fair, if you ask me.
On a second visit, I had the pleasure of meeting Chef Paul, who fired up this amazing 38oz cote de boeuf, which I think is probably the best large-format rib eye I’ve ever had in my life. It had a nice seasoned crust that crisped up nice under the broiler. Also – unlike most thick cuts of beef, it wasn’t overcooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside. it was just right. A perfect medium rare.
Alright so I am forcing this into the review system despite the fact that they don’t claim to be a “steakhouse.” Let’s be honest – this shit is a steak joint!
The Charlie Bird restaurant team recently opened this joint, and since opening it has gotten a lot of hype and attention from the food fanatic community. Namely, for the pizza and the pasta.
My wife and I came here with a crew of other food instagrammers so that we could try a lot of stuff and snap a bunch of pretty pictures.
The menu isn’t too extensive, which I liked. It listed a bunch of eye catching stuff that I wanted to try. I was also happy to see escarole make an appearance here in the greens section (though I didn’t get to try it out).
We tried three starters: pane carasau, cuttlefish and sugar snap peas. All were good, but slightly small in terms of portion size for the price point. While this is a “no tipping” restaurant and one should expect higher pricing, I felt that they went a bit too far. Based on my accounting of things, I’d say they are charging about 40-50% more per item. If you figure a 20% tip into the math, then you’re still overpaying by 20-30%, depending on the particular item in question. So while the idea of a no tipping restaurant may seem great, the real loser is the customer, who can no longer adjust their tip downward for low food quality or poor service. Our waiter was kind of a dick, and I wasn’t super impressed with the food either. As such, I felt like I over-paid for several aspects of the meal.
The pane carasau is essentially what you might get for free in a bread basket at a high end Italian joint. It was really just thin, crispy bread chips with a small dollop of delicious, warm honey and black pepper ricotta. $9.
The cuttlefish was steep at $18 for this plate:
The pickled peppers on top were a nice hit of heat, and it was cooked nicely in terms of texture, with only a slight bit of it being, perhaps, a bit overcooked and chewy. It tasted clean, though, and the charcoal grilling method added a nice earthy ash flavor to it.
The snap pea dish with watercress and cream was probably the best of the three, but, again, extremely overpriced at $17.
The peas carried a nice sweetness, but I was hoping for more cream.
Now for the pizza (category 1: full pies only, no slices available). We tried two pies: little neck clam and the special pizza of the day, which was a morel mushroom and cheese pie. The clam pie had good flavor, but it felt a little sparse on the actual clams and toppings. That means the diner feels ripped off when paying $24 for six small slices. That’s a hell of a profit margin when you think about how cheap it is to make this shit!
The morel pizza could have used more toppings a bit closer to the edge of the crust. That wasted real estate also translates to the feeling of being ripped off when the bill comes. This was, however, the better of the two pies, in my opinion. The morels had a meaty quality to them, and a good amount of earthiness.
On the pasta angle, we went with the baby goat pappardelle. This was a delicious dish. The meat was very tender, and the pasta was well dressed with sauce. The texture of the pasta was just right. While the portion size felt a little bit small for $23, I didn’t mind as much because it was top notch quality.
For the meats, we tried two dishes: pork shank for two, and dry aged rib eye for two. Let’s start with the pork.
This was delicious. While a bit small for two, the price of $48 wasn’t too bad. Well, I mean, when you compare it to the outstanding crackling pork shank with firecracker apple sauce at Maloney & Porcelli, which only costs $36 and can feed two people with extra to bring home, then, yeah, it’s way overpriced here. But given all else on the menu, I felt this was probably the best bargain. The flavors were outstanding and it had hints of sausage spice from the fennel and rosemary. This is a must-order if you decide to come here.
You can pass on the rib eye, however. It definitely delivered on the dry-aged flavor, but it was very small for two people to share at $125. If I had to guess, I’d say this was about 22oz on the bone. Maybe 24oz. For that size steak at a steakhouse, you pay between $50 and $60. So here, I would have expected to pay about $75 to account for the tip being included. At $125, we are looking at a massive fucking mark-up.
Contrast this with the best rib eye in Manhattan over at Osteria Morini, just around the corner, which offers a steak that’s more than twice the size of this thing at 52oz, with 120 days of dry-aging flavor, and accompanied by two generously-sized sides for just $145. Uhh… no brainer. Anyway, this steak had a bit of chew to it. Not as tender as we had hoped and expected from dry-aging.
It was cooked perfectly to medium rare, and it had a great crust on the outside. The crispy meat surrounding the bone was excellent as well. However there was no rib cap to speak of. Perhaps it was butchered off for some other use. 7/10.
The steak came with this nice roasted onion:
And something came with this side of citrus-dressed arugula:
But the highlight of the night, aside from the pork shank, was seeing Michael J. Fox and Dennis Leary in the dining room, eating together with their wives.
To sum up: skip this place unless you are focused on the pork shank. If that’s not your thing, then stick with the pizza and pasta, but I, personally, would still go elsewhere for those even though both were pretty tasty.
By now many of you have navigated to my guide to regional American BBQ styles. But there’s so much more to know about BBQ, even more than what I provided about the meats and an overview of the regional techniques.
For example, one could easily spend years just learning about and perfecting the various side items that go along with American BBQ – baked beans, pickles, corn bread, grits, collared greens and what have you. But those are just the basic ones. What about molasses cake, or ginger cake? Well, in my quest to dig deeper into the world of BBQ, I came across a really informative, useful and practical book.
Be The BBQ Pitmaster, by Will Budiaman, hit me with a thorough history of American BBQ, detailed discussions of the various regional techniques (well beyond what I covered in my guide), tips for wood selection, smoking instructions, analyses of various types of smokers, an exacting survey of the various ingredients and spices involved in BBQ, and even recipes from well known pitmasters in each region. I actually met one of those pitmasters last year at Meatopia (Tyson Ho, of Arrogant Swine), so I can personally vouch for the expertise that’s captured within the book.
It’s seriously a one-stop-shop for all your BBQ research and cooking application needs. The book obviously comes chock full of delicious-looking photos and recipes, but it’s also intuitively laid out and presented in such a manner that keeps the reader constantly engaged from cover to cover.
It starts with an overview of BBQ, and then dives deep into each regional style, with chapters neatly organized accordingly. Recipes are included that correspond to each region within these chapters. The book is an invaluable resource and recipe guide that will benefit both the novice and the seasoned smoker alike. And while I am unable to keep and maintain a smoker here in my microscopic NYC apartment, I will certainly be tackling some of the other recipes within the book.
This book is a seriously informative food guide. That’s why I felt compelled to write a review about it here for you meat mavens. I feel like, since you guys like this blog, then you’ll probably like this book.
Check it out. It’s available in both ebook and physical formats:
Be the BBQ Pitmaster: A Regional Smoker Cookbook Celebrating America’s Best Barbecue By Will Budiaman
Sonoma Press, May 2, 2016 Paperback: $14.95 (250 pages) Kindle: $6.99
