Category Archives: Commentary

Mead & Winemaking

March 8, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

In carrying on the tradition of my late grandfather, my dad and I make wine at home. In fact my cousin does as well.

After my grandfather passed, I convinced my dad that we should carry on the tradition. What started out as a simple kit wine merlot turned into buying grapes from a local vineyard and using our own crusher/destemmer to process our own wine.

My dad even converted half of his basement into a temperature controlled wine cellar. The only thing we don’t do is grow the grapes, but I’m still trying to convince my dad to plant some on the hill in his yard.

I made my first batch of bathtub wine in a NYC apartment back in 2003 or 2004 with frozen grape juice concentrate and bread yeast in an empty one-gallon milk container, using a balloon and a rubber band as my air lock. It was a fucking awful, headache-inducing monstrosity.

My dad, meanwhile, had picked up some good equipment. Carboys, primary fermenter buckets, bungs, air locks, siphon tubes, thermometers, acidity testing strips, etc. We used merlot juice that we picked up from a local home brew shop, and the end result was excellent. The early success inspired us to move on to actual grapes instead of juices. My dad’s first attempt with grapes was a pinot noir, notoriously fickle to make a good wine. The resulting wine was the best bottle of pinot I had ever tasted. We still talk about it today. It was absolutely amazing.

Another great batch was my and my wife’s wedding wine favors. We made blackberry merlot for our wedding favors. Awesome.

I like wine just as much as the next guy; I’m not a wine snob, and I usually prefer a beer or cocktail with my meals. Making wine is pretty damn simple though, so it is a great skill to have. The wine you end up with, if you know what you’re doing, is better than most of the store bought crap that you can find for under $100, so it’s worth it to get into this hobby if you are into wine.

Making mead is a very similar process, just cleaner and a little easier. If you don’t know, mead is honey-based wine as opposed to grape-based. The great thing about making mead is that you can really get experimental with the flavors. My first attempt at making mead was one of our best booze making endeavors to date. I used honey, blueberries, rose petals, cinnamon and cloves. It was a really nice spice wine type of drink. Strong and sweet, great for the holidays.

I’m writing this post because I’ve just started another batch of mead, only this time I stuck to just honey and spices. Ten pounds of honey, a bag of spices like star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, black peppercorns and cilantro.

Here’s how you make mead:

First, you boil some water. Then you add the honey into the desired amount of water, skimming off any white scum that forms at the top of the liquid as you go. Since I was going for strong and sweet, I dissolved the honey into three gallons of water (total amount, after honey was added), but you could probably use a ratio of two or two and a half pounds per gallon if you want. Boil for about 30 minutes and then let the liquid cool down so it is no longer boiling/bubbling.

TIP: You may want to put your honey bottles into some hot water so the honey is easier to pour out, and you don’t have to burn your arms while waiting to pour all that honey out over a boiling pot of water and steam.

Sterilize your primary fermenting bucket as per the instructions on your packet of potassium metabisulfite. Don’t be frightened by this step. It’s really just a matter of mixing the power into the water at the right proportion, and then sloshing the water around in your equipment for a little bit. Then dump out and dry it off.

Pour the hot honey water over your bag of spices, which you should secure in a straining bag, and into a primary fermenting container (usually a bucket that you can later secure with an air lock).

Activate some yeast in a separate cup while you wait for your honey boil to drop down to about 120 degrees or less.

At this point you can add your citric acid (3/4 tsp), pectic enzyme (1.5 tsp), yeast nutrient (3 tsp) and any other things you might find that are helpful for the process.

Once it cools down, add your yeast and give the mixture a swirl before closing the bucket and affixing an air lock on the top.

What is an airlock? It’s a gas trap. It allows gas byproduct to escape the container without allowing air to get back in. Think of the toilet or sink J-trap. It essentially prevents the alcohol from turning into vinegar. When gas escapes, the air lock will bubble up, as seen below:

At the peak of fermentation (yeast eating sugars and releasing lees (sediment), alcohol and gas as waste byproducts), this airlock will be rumbling pretty regularly. At first it may take a few days to get started.

Next step is to pretty much wait. Just leave it alone, keeping the bucket in an undisturbed place that is room temperature or slightly more (maybe 70-75 degrees). When the air bubbles pretty much stop, you are ready to siphon the mead off the dregs and into a secondary fermenting container, or carboy. Place a siphon tube down toward the bottom of the bucket without entering the sediment. Raise the bucket high up onto a table, and line up your carboy or secondary fermenter nearby on the floor. Siphon the liquid from bucket to carboy, and then discard the sediment at the bottom of the bucket. Attach an air lock to the carboy and let it stay that way for a month or two.

If there is more build up of sediment at that time, rack it off again (siphon it off) and into another carboy.

Repeat until the mead no longer drops off any sediment. In the picture below, you’ll see a good three to four inches of sediment at the bottom of the one-gallon carboy. This was my first batch of blueberry rose mead.

Once you are confident that the fermentation has stopped, you’ve racked your wine/mead off the sediment a few times, and no more sediment is falling out of the liquid, then it is time for bottling and/or, soon enough, drinking!

UPDATED PHOTOS – the brown, murky liquid in one of the above pictures (slightly blurry) has now fermented into this golden-amber beauty:

The liquid was once sticky to the touch, due to the sugar content. All that sugar has now turned into alcohol. The mead is strong, sweet, and comforting.

My father and I racked it off the sediment almost two months to the day after we initially began the project:

Then we added a clarifying agent to pull out some of the remaining suspended sediment:

It is now crystal clear. One more racking and then another period of waiting until we can bottle it up.

Commentary

The Great Steak Debate

March 2, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Last night I attended the Great Steak Debate with my wife.

The event was sponsored by Audi and Inside Hook, and hosted by Marc Forgione at his American Cut steakhouse (Tribeca NYC location). The idea was to try strip steaks from eight different meat purveyors and do a blind taste test to see which we all liked best.

The evening started with a nice cocktail hour, featuring Snow Leopard vodka martinis, Highland Park scotch (neat/rocks, or in a kickass cocktail with Cointreau, Drambuie, OJ and simple syrup), Peroni beer and Carnivor wine.

Steve Bryant, the executive editor from Inside Hook, gave an intro to the event and warmed up the crowd.

Chef Forgione spoke as well, but this pic of him listening to Steve came out a little more clear:

Then the fucking meat came out and I nearly crapped myself with glee. They assigned a letter to each purveyor’s strip, and provided us with a card and stamp with which to cast our votes.

This shot below has E, F, G and H from top down, since the plates got attacked too soon for me to snap photos.

A booklet we were all given contained some info about each purveyor, and it even had a few blank pages in the back for tasting notes. As you can see, I had them ranked as follows: H, G, B, E, D, A, C, F. The purveyors we were sampling were Belcampo, Bunn Gourmet, Chicago Steak Company, Crystal River Meats, Debragga, Kansas City Steaks, Main Street Meats, and Omaha Steaks.

The meat was also served with steakhouse classics like creamed spinach (Marc’s stellar “sunchoked spinach” is off the fucking charts amazing) and mashed potatoes.

The big reveal was made, and the judges chose E for first place, C for second, and D for third. That was Belcampo, Debragga, and Kansas City, respectively.

The rest of our votes were tallied from the crowd.

We chose G for first place, E for second, and C for third. That was Chicago Steak Company, Belcampo, and Debragga, respectively.

As for my votes, I chose Main Street Meats in first place, which I was excited about since they are from close to my home town on Long Island. In second place was Chicago Steak Company, and third place was Omaha Steaks. Caught me by surprise! What an amazing sampling of steaks. There was not one that I didn’t like.

The cool thing was that it turns out the purveyors from Main Street were sitting right at our table with us! Everyone at the table was great to chat and eat with.

Oh yeah! I forgot about this little shot of fizzy chocolate milk ice cream at the end of the meal. Very nice touch!

It was a pretty awesome night. At the end, we got to spend some time talking with Chef Forgione about his menu ideas, our favorite steakhouses, and family roots in food, and then we hung out a bit with Steve from Inside Hook at a nearby bar.

Chinese, Commentary, East Village, Fusion, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Tuome

February 26, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

I had the pleasure of being invited to another awesome food party event hosted by Tabelog. Here’s a fun shot of some of the people who run the shit here in NYC:

This time, the location was Alphabet City Asian fusion restaurant Tuome, which is run by fellow Long Island boy-made-good, Chef Thomas Chen. It’s gotten a great deal of good press lately in the food world, and now I understand why.

When I asked him about what inspired him to craft this sort of menu, he said, “It’s all based on things I grew up eating.” Long island is a mixed bag, at least in some parts that are closer to the five boroughs. Lots of cultural fusion happens naturally there, so it makes sense. But the execution of these concepts was spot on. I was impressed with this young dude’s skills.

Well hang on a sec… I’m getting ahead of myself. First we had some cocktails that were specially made for the night:

Fire in the Sky – sake, thai chili, yuzu.

Tuome City Limits – sherry, kina, Chinese five spice

East Village Blossom – brut rose, hibiscus, blood orange

All three were fantastic, but since I have a pair of ball between my legs, I’d have to say that the Tuome City Limits was my favorite of the three. The other two were incredibly tasty as well though.

Okay now back to the food. Here’s a composed plate of all the items we sampled. Everything here is on the menu with the exception of the oxtail roll.

First was the beet with quinoa, five spice yogurt and pumpkin seed. This was a really fresh bite of food, with a crunch texture and complex flavors to mix things up.

Next was the chicken liver mousse spread onto milk bread and topped with NY maple. Fucking delicious. So smooth and decadent, yet light.

Then I had the oxtail egg roll with cumin mint dipping sauce. This was one of my favorites of the night.

There was a really delicious blue crab mac and cheese too, with karee and mascarpone. I could eat this shit all day long. In fact, I wish more steakhouses would swap king crab and lobster mac and cheese dishes out for blue claw. Them shits be better, yo.

Next favorite of the night was the crispy fucking pork belly. Hoooolyyyyyyy shiiiiiiit was this good. Before the water pulled away I tried three. One with no sauce, and one with each of the two sauces they were serving it with. One was a mignonette style, and the other was tomato based, I think.

The last savory item was a soon-to-be wildly famous crispy fried deviled egg with chili. This was by far the ultimate winning dish of the night. Unbelievable. So tasty. Creamy, crunchy, with a little spicy kick to it. Perfect. I apologize for the blurry photo. I was so excited that I started furiously jerking while trying to shoot the photo. Needless to say I was shaking a little.

And finally, there was an ice cream filled beignet. It was more like a cream puff to my taste buds, but filled with ice cream and sweet red bean instead of cream filling. It definitely reminded me of some classic Asian desserts, but with a cream puff twist to it. Nicely done.

It was a really fun night. As always, the folks at Tabelog always make us bloggers feel like kings and queens, putting us at the center of attention. They’re a great crew, and the website is truly a great resource for your dining research needs. Here’s a shot of all the bloggers with some of the Tabelog peeps:

UPDATE: Photos from the “Pig Out” meal.

TUOME
536 E. 5th St.
New York, NY 10009

Commentary

Tux-Con NYC

January 23, 2015 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

My buddy and I recently came up with a concept to rally together NYC’s classiest and most well-dressed folks for a day of martini drinking and fancy-pants conversation. Tux-Con is meant to be NYC’s classy, warm-weather answer to Santa-Con. Think of it like this: Bruce Wayne is throwing a block party / bar crawl. We are going to start at the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central, hit a few other joints along the way, and then circle back up to end at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central for a classy meal to close out the loop. Most likely it will be on Saturday May 9th, but nothing is set yet. Men wear tuxes, black suits, fancy pinstriped attire, etc. Women wear gowns, dresses, etc. If you’re interested, check out the website for updates, or follow us on Facebook. This shit is going to be legit!

Keep an eye out for the invite cards too. We’ll be passing them around any chance we can get.

Commentary, Education, Recipes

Bring Home the Bone

January 11, 2015 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

As you know, I eat a lot of steak and consume large quantities of meat. If Conehead is to Johnny Prime, then beer and chicken embryos is to rib eyes and porterhouses.

As you might imagine, my steaks and meats are often still connected to some kind of bone when they come to the table.

“Bring Home the Bone” is a project of mine that’s meant to keep that meaty, beefy, steakhouse goodness going all week long, after the meal has concluded. I’ve even seen this starting to become a trend in the food world, with a few articles discussing the idea.

Chow article.

NY Times article.

Some places just serve broths now. There’s even a video about it too:

What exactly happens in my BHTB initiative? This isn’t fucking rocket science, people. I take home the scraps and bones in a doggy bag. If we get a bone marrow app, the bones get packed. If I eat a bone-in rib eye, or a porterhouse for two, I’m taking those fucking bones home.

It’s a great way to conserve and save too. Shit is expensive these days, even the offal, less common/cheap-o cuts and bone bits are pricey at the grocery store – especially marrow. People are waking up to how good these things can be if put to the right use. The market is responding to the demand and costs are rising. And there’s simple inflation as well.

So what am I making with the bones and scraps?

BROTH/STOCK

According to the great Alton Brown, a broth is a liquid that has had meat cooking in it, and a stock has to be made from bones. In most cases, I’m making a broth or stock, but in the case of BHTB it is stock. Boil the bones and scraps with some other herbs and spices, add a little salt, and after a while you can strain it off into a container to use later as a soup base. Some flavors I like to play around with are what I like to call “faux-pho,” which is star anise, cloves, cinnamon and sometimes cardamom. Add noodles and some of your own thinly sliced eye round and you’re set for a delicious meal.

If not, even a hot cup of clarified broth is sometimes enough to do the trick, especially in winter. Hot beef liquid is better than coffee, tea or hot chocolate in my opinion. More nutritious too.

SAUCES/GELATINS/FATS

In other situations, I’ll make a sauce or concentrated beef gelatin of some kind. Essentially this means I just keep reducing the above broth until it becomes less liquid. I don’t do anything to thicken, solidify or gel up the base other than to keep boiling. The fat, marrow, gristle and cartilage break down into collagen and blend into the water and these substances will naturally thicken on their own. Most times, when I do this, I pop the stuff into the fridge and the liquid gels up into a substance that is more like jello than liquid. I can then scoop or spoon that out to use as a flavoring or cooking agent while cooking something in a pan, or to coat some pasta after boiling, during the saucing phase.

Here’s a shot of a friend’s process. His bones cooked for a few days. Look at the delicious jelly-like stuff:

Here’s his recipe:

~15 pounds of Frozen grass-fed beef marrow bones
~8 frozen chicken feet (from local farm, pasture raised chickens)
Fresh thyme (whole package from grocery store)
~10 Fresh Bay Leaves
2 Onions
~ 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

He filled the 20 quart pot up with water to the top. He put in enough bones to reach the top of the 20 qt pot, then applied water to match the top of the bone level.

On the second day he added in two 8oz beef shanks to add some more meat flavor. He noticed an improvement to the broth on the second day. First day was mostly clear, second day turned a golden color.

While cooking he was skimming off the fat, and removed roughly 48 oz of fat from the top of the pot over the course of 2 days.

The fat also rises to the top in the fridge and naturally separates from the beef gel or stock. You can sometimes lift it away with your fingers and put the solidified fat into a separate container. I use this like I would use butter or olive oil. Beef fat is a great way to grease your pan for cooking eggs, cornbread or whatever. Even better if you’re using pork bones in your “Bring Home the Bone” endeavors. The fat is softer.

STEWS/LEGUMES/GRAINS

It’s always good to add a bone of some kind when you’re making barley, stewed beans or lentils, rice or even something like split pea soup. Throwing in a ham hock, or a bone with some bits of meat still clinging to it, is an excellent way to add flavor and depth to all these items.

In it’s simplest form, you can just gather all your bones and put them on a baking sheet. Roast them in the oven to punch up the flavors.

Once your house or apartment smells amazing, take them out and put them into a pot with some onions, garlic, and whatever spices you want. Boil or simmer for several hours, at least until all the excess scrap meat comes off the bones and is falling apart with the touch of a fork or stirring spoon.

Pretty simple, right? Bring home the fucking bone, yo.

Commentary

Health & Weight Loss

January 6, 2015 Johnny Prime 11 Comments

“Your cholesterol must be through the roof!”

“How are you not 300lbs? All you do is eat!”

Those are a few of the things I hear pretty regularly from people who follow the blog.

“Are you Bulimic? Do you spit the food out?”

“What’s your dieting trick? Atkins?”

Those are some questions I get from people who have only met me in the past few years and have seen my loss of weight.

I figured it was time to post an official response to these sorts of questions here for all to see. I guess the best thing to do is start at the beginning:

I was always a skinny dude growing up. In fact my whole family is skinny. We are those people that everyone hates: we can pretty much eat whatever we want, not work out or exercise, and stay skinny (the women in my family might beg to differ, but that’s just how broads are). My dad, at his fattest, was 122lbs after he quit smoking and retired. I came out of high school at about 115lbs, maybe 120lbs. Coming out of college, I was the biggest in the family. I was the tallest at 5′ 10″ and heaviest at about 150lbs (I grew taller in college, by about 4 inches). At the peak of my youth, I looked like this:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Feel free to mock this photo all you want. I do.

Then it all went to shit. After I graduated law school things changed. My life became sedentary with the beginning of my career, sitting at a computer desk for 8-12 hours at a pop. No walking around, no fun with friends playing sports, and I was NOT the working out or running type.

My mid to late 20s hit and suddenly 150lbs became 175lbs. I wasn’t too concerned at the time. It actually felt good to have a little meat on my bones. I felt normal around people instead of being “holy shit I can see your ribs” skinny. I had just met and fallen in love with my future wife. I was comfortable, and not looking to impress anyone. Girlfriend became fiancé, and fiancé became wife (and wife became Cake Dealer). Meanwhile the steakhouse quest had started, so 175lbs became 180lbs, and 180lbs became 185lbs, then 190lbs and 195lbs… you get the picture… And I also started losing my hair! That sucked. A bald spot meant it was time to take it all down and accept being hairless. That made me bald and getting fat. Eww. A horrible double whammy. I was becoming George Costanza.

A random visit to the doctor revealed that I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and borderline diabetes. I was put onto some blood pressure meds for a few months while I tried to diet. The timing was good here (2008-2009) because my and my wife’s wedding was approaching. I was probably around 180-185lbs for the wedding, which was in April of 2009. I had lost 10-15lbs and was generally keeping it off.

The steakhouse quest was slowed if not halted. Until two things happened: (1) a trip to New Orleans, where all I wanted to do was eat and try everything in sight. Muffuletta sandwiches, beignets, gumbo, po’ boys and all that fantastic shit.

The diet was out the window at that point. Then, (2) we moved from NYC to Long Island after the wedding in the Summer of 2009. Three hours of my day had suddenly been sucked out of existence and lost to the horrors of the LIRR commute.

The first thing to go was home cooked meals. The last thing I wanted to do at 8:00pm when I got home from work was to cook a “sensible meal,” and then clean up afterward. By the time I finished eating and cleaning it would be close to 11:00pm, and my alarm was going off at 5:00am to catch a 6:09am train. Fuck that. Fuck ALL of it.

In my defiance of all things healthy, and with a raging middle finger held high to the LIRR, I re-started the quest for great steakhouses, all the while keeping notes and a list of places to go next. In April of 2011 I decided to put my notes into a blog format, and, eventually, here we are today.

But from mid-2009 to December 31, 2013 I was blowing up like a balloon. I never thought I could be a 200lb person, yet by the end of 2013 I was pushing fucking 220lbs! What a fat fucking bastard! I’d go up a flight or two of stairs and feel winded, my heart would race, and I felt weak. I was killing myself.

So I made a New Year’s resolution to lose some weight and get in shape. My target weight, at first, was 185lbs. At my heaviest I was 218lbs, so that meant a serious effort. I was looking at BMI (body mass index) calculators to see where someone my age, height, and activity level should be, and I was shocked. To get down to the high end of the acceptable BMI range for my frame, I needed to be about 175lbs. I didn’t think I’d get there, but I did. Here’s how:

I woke up early every morning to run on the treadmill. In the beginning I was going two miles in 20 minutes. Pathetic. Eventually I was doing three miles in 30 minutes, or switching off to do some stationary bike cycling to mix it up. Still a pretty bad pace, but at least I was going for longer. I did this every day, with the exception of weekends. Once the weather got nicer I was running outside. I liked this a shitload better than the treadmill. In fact, I found that my pace was quickening, and I was going for longer distances.

I also switched my diet up drastically. I was counting calories. In the beginning I was trying to keep it well under 2000 calories per day, that way I would get the ball rolling on the weight loss. I thought of the calories like money. I had $2000 in my wallet for each day. If a candy bar cost $300, was it worth it? Or would it be better to spend that $300 on fish and a veggie, getting more food for my dollar? Lunch was typically carrots and celery, raw, with hot sauce to dip. Or pre-portioned serving sizes of nuts, dried fruit, trail mix, etc. Other lunches included Greek yogurt, or simply cooked veggies (steamed with seasoning, or sautéed in garlic and oil).

For dinner, I tried to double the veggie portion and half the meat portion, and always tried to watch the number of calories and serving size. More chicken, fish, or lean meats. Less grains, fatty meats, sugars, breads and starch. High fiber, low calorie, low carbs. I was also eating slowly. Fiber tricks your body into thinking it’s full, and it takes 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach that it’s full. Eat slowly and get full before you gorge yourself. Otherwise, that’s how over-eating happens.

Portion control was key though. If I needed a snack, I was hitting on nuts, dried fruit, yogurt or an occasional Fiber One snack bar – ALWAYS in the proper portion size as per the nutritional labels, and keeping my daily intake under 2000 calories. I tried to limit myself to two snacks per day: one between lunch and dinner, and one after dinner if necessary.

It was fucking tough. I was irritable at first. But I banged it out, and lost a shitload of weight in the first month; something like 25lbs. I kept this diet and exercise routine up for three or four months without changing too much up. If I ate a larger dinner, sometimes I would double up on my running for the day to shave off some of the extra calories out of pure guilt. This is analogous to working overtime to earn a little extra calorie dollars to spend.

Suddenly I was down 40lbs in four months. That meant I could normalize my diet a bit and just focus on maintaining weight instead of losing. I had hit my initial target, pretty much, but part of me wanted to push it more, to get into that “BMI” range of health and fitness. I still kept my lunches light, but dinner was pretty much a free for all (yay for steaks!). I didn’t do much snacking, but when I did, I tried to make sure I don’t go overboard.

The final pounds were the slowest to come off. My wife and I moved back to the city in the summer of 2014, so I continued my running in Central Park. Eventually I upped the daily average to five miles a day, typically in about 37-40 minutes, and only taking one day off per week instead of two. I was burning more calories, and occasionally doing ten mile runs (once a week) or even half marathons (once a month). That meant I could eat more (more calorie $$$ to spend each day), yet I was still losing weight. PERFECT! I shed even more weight. I donated all of my fat-guy clothes to charity, and broke out some of my older, skinny-guy clothing, as well as picked up some new stuff. I went from a 37 inch waist to a 32.

weight loss before & after 2 — LEFT: me on 12/21/13. RIGHT: me on 12/25/14.

I currently fluctuate in my daily weight between about 168lbs and 173lbs (generally we are lighter in the mornings). So I’m down about 50lbs from the start! I still weigh myself several times per day. Constantly knowing what I weigh is important to me, because it helps me manage my weight. I’m in the proper BMI range, and I’m in the best physical shape of my life. I place no restrictions on my dinner meals. I still keep to a light lunch, unless I plan on burning more calories with a longer run that day. Snacking is still generally kept to a minimum, but I am not afraid to partake. All I do now is run and watch my lunch and snack intake, and I can eat anything I want for dinner. If I can do it, anyone can.

So what do you call this “diet” that I followed? I don’t know. It’s part Atkins, part “paleo,” part portion control and lots of good old fashioned exercise.

As for my cholesterol, I don’t know. Back in my fat-guy days, it was 169 for LDL and 259 total. As of February of 2014, which was only two months into my diet, it was down to 126 for LDL and 205 total. Improvement. No idea what it is now; hopefully much better. But I couldn’t care less.

Commentary, Food Halls, Union Square/Flatiron

Eataly

January 2, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Here’s a shameless photo-dump of some mouth watering scenery at Eataly, Flatiron’s legendary Italian food market. I suggest coming here for a long day. Get lunch, walk around, taste shit, walk around some more, taste more shit, and then sit for dinner. Enjoy the food porn, you bastards.

Front signage:

Hallway: like a department store for food.

Desserts:

Signage for what looks like a great roasted meats sandwich joint:

CHEESE!

Nice looking seafood:

“Meat: restaurant:

Shellfish:

Eaters:

Of course I managed to find the meat counter:

Pasta shelves. There are rows and rows of aisles like this.

Expensive fois gras:

Bread bakery:

Pizza:

Chelsea, Commentary, Food Halls

Chelsea Market

December 23, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Below are a couple of photos from Chelsea Market. Eventually I will give some more info about what’s to be eaten here. For now, other than these two photos, I can really only provide you with a link to my review of the famous Mokbar ramen joint that is located here.

Commentary

Priceless New York Oktoberfest Event

October 24, 2014 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

My wife’s credit card gives us all sorts of perks, like being able to attend Top Chef Duels and Masters premiere parties, or to dine on a billboard above Times Square. The perk we took advantage of yesterday was a special Oktoberfest beer tasting and food pairing event hosted by several breweries around New York, right next door to our apartment at the bar in Whole Foods. Yes – there is a bar in Whole Foods, and it is actually a pretty good bar!

I won’t go through all 12 beers that we got to try, but I will highlight some of the better choices.

My absolute favorite of the night came from local Oceanside brewery Barrier Brewing Company. It was a briny, salt-of-the-sea Belgian style wheat beer that had hints of toasted peat, called Le Pete. It was fucking perfect. The only thing that would possibly make this beer better is if it were served with an ice cold place of oysters on the half shell.

My next favorite was Original Sin’s Hard Apple Cider. It was crisp, light, flavorful, and not too sweet. Most cider’s hurt my teeth because of the sweetness. This was naturally sweet without being overbearing. Boozy, bubbly apple water. Awesome.

My third favorite was the Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout. It was a beastly 10.2% ABV with notes of chocolate and molasses for sweetness and toasted coffee for a little bitterness at the end. This was paired with our dessert (see below).

Okay now onto the food and pairings.

We entered the bar to a nice set-up of bench tables with an assortment of snacks already set out for us:

The best was by far the hummus with toasted, herb pretzel bread pieces (immediately above).

The first course was a barley risotto with aged cheddar. This was pretty nice. Good texture to the barley, great flavor from the aged cheddar, and a little bit of sauteed apple in there for a kick. Naturally this was paired with one of the Original Sin ciders.

Next was quail with a butternut squash bread pudding and some sliced root veggies. This dish was great. The sauce was a little bitter, but when you mopped it up with the bread pudding it was a great balance. This was served with a Barrier beer made from butternut squash. Pretty nice.

Dessert was chocolate cheesecake made with the Narwhal beer I mentioned above. A whipped cream was made from the beer as well, and it was garnished with cocoa nibs and sat atop a nice graham cracker crust. Top marks for presentation here though – dessert in a mini beer mug for Oktoberfest:

We closed with a really cool presentation of a home brew kit product from Brooklyn Brew Shop. Looks pretty simple, and tastes pretty great. We were served their chestnut brown ale from the kit, which was my fourth favorite beer of the night, alongside the Barrier cream ale.

Commentary

NYC Wine & Food Festival

October 20, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I got access to the NYC Wine & Food Festival on what was essentially “industry day.” People there were mostly people who work in either the food, wine or liquor business in some way or another.

There were a few stand out tables that really blew us away. I’ll feature those up front, and then do a photo dump on the rest. Enjoy.

First, the big winner for me: Fossil Farms. This place was slinging the best food at the event: duck pastrami with pate, foie gras and micro greens on a wonderful baguette.

After getting down on that deliciousness, I was intrigued. I starting chatting with the representatives and the owner. They’re big on game meat, and not-so-common products, like alligator, kangaroo, elk, etc. Check out the list below:

Here’s a scan of their “about us” info pamphlet as well: This is like my dream supplier!!!

It turns out they supply some of my favorite joints in the city. It’s no wonder I was drawn to this table. Blue Smoke, Eataly, Freeman’s Alley, Hill Country, Momofuku, Ottomanelli… Some of my old favorites. I even noticed some others on the list that I’ve been wanting to try, like St. Anslem and Route 66 Smokehouse. After my experience here with the fine folks at Fossil farms, I will definitely be adding those two to the short list. Lance (CEO/Founder) and Jen (Marketing/PR) were really informative and easy to chat with. I’m glad I was exposed to this.

Next up was the 3D sugar printing machine. WTF?!?? YES. I couldn’t believe the stuff this thing was printing! All edible, all made of sugar. Incredible. They had everything from little candy machine type things, to modern art sculptures. You can imagine that my wife was floored by this masterpiece of modern technology, being a baker and all.

We got to speak with the inventor of the machine. Apparently these babies are selling for $10,000 each, and soon there will be a smaller, more affordable version available as well.

Next: Booze. There was an abundance of wine here, but my wife and I were all about the booze. Here are a few of the stand-out brands that we got to try:

Fifty Pounds gin. I’m a gin martini guy. This stuff was incredible. I sipped it neat and warm, but it still was delicious. It had all the flavors I want from a slightly dirty but very dry martini (this is a London dry gin) in all the right proportions. The name is clever too: it stems from an old tax that the king levied upon producers of booze. All distillers were supposed to pay 50 pounds per year.

Four Roses bourbon. The single barrel (on the right) was by far my favorite of the three. The cool thing is that these guys gave out high quality glassware as well:

Some very smooth brandy, which was set up next to the gin:

Nice aged rum:

An Irish cream type liquor, which I really loved, by Amarula. Silky smooth, lots of flavor, and a cool elephant keychain to take home. This hails from South Africa, I believe: