Tag Archives: venison

The Stand

Wyoming Whiskey teamed up with pitmaster Tyson Ho (from Arrogant Swine in Brooklyn) for a killer meal at The Stand near Union Square.

To get the juices flowing, we sipped on the Wyoming Whiskey bourbon as well as a cocktail made with Delirium Tremens and the whiskey. Very nice.

We started with a delicious Brazilian style elk tartare that was paired with a herbaceous frozen cocktail called a batida that featured the whiskey.

Then we moved on to a Filipino style BBQ quail with a smoked old fashioned. This course was awesome.

The smoked leg of venison was nice, tender and thinly sliced, served with Bengali spices and a fat washed whiskey sour.

Next up was nori wrapped rib eye and BBQ sweetbreads. An odd combo for sure, but the sweetbreads were my favorite bites of the meal. This was paired with a nori and mushroom infused Manhattan.

Dessert was a nice blackberry and vanilla ice cream pie/crumble with a swig of the single barrel.

I really dug this meal. Most of this is not available on the regular menu at the Stand, but based on tasting chef Harold Villarosa’s cooking alongside Ho’s cooking, I would go back for sure.

THE STAND
116 East 16th St
New York, NY 10003

Lincoln Ristorante

Lincoln Ristorante is now part of the Patina Group of restaurants. These guys are awesome, because if you sign up to their newsletter, they send you $50 off for your birthday. You can use the discount pretty much any time within a month of your birthday. So my wife and I decided to check this place out since it was just her birthday the other day. This joint offers a four-course meal for $94, which I thought was pretty awesome, especially considering how great the food is.

I was impressed with the cocktail menu, which sports a prosecco bar and an entire menu of negronis. We tried the caffe negroni, which, later on, was perfect with our desserts. Here’s a pic of it (I kinda made it look like a pussy on purpose):

The meal begins with some complimentary bread sticks and house made focaccia bread with whipped ricotta. This shit is addictive. If you eat a few rows of this stuff (they will bring out more), then you can just get the three course meal for $78.

Then a small dish of smoked trout came out for us, compliments of the chef. This was great.

I started with an escarole salad, and my wife had the octopus. The salad was awesome. I love escarole, and I loved seeing it used raw rather than the usual sautéed or braised. This salad had shaved, truffled sun chokes, sliced apples, radishes and grated cheese. It was delicious, and very large.

The octopus was nice. It came in a spicy tomato ragu with some perfectly cooked beans. I was happy to see more than one tentacle given. As far as portion sizes go, this place is way above average.

For my pasta course, I had conch pasta with octopus and guanciale. This was really nice, and the toasted breadcrumbs gave it a great texture.

My wife had lobster risotto with an arugula pesto. This was herbaceous and fresh, and contained lots of lobster meat. It ate a bit more like a thick soup than a traditional risotto though.

My wife went with the lamb shank for her main course. This was tremendous, and really tender. We couldn’t finish. It had pancetta, roasted chic peas, and other goodies underneath.

I had the venison loin, which was probably one of the best meat dishes I’ve eaten in a while. Certainly the best rendition of venison I’ve ever had.

I highly recommend giving this a try if you can. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, and it had none of that typical iron flavor that you normally associate with game meats. It was mild yet full of flavor. I loved it!

Dessert was incredible. My wife had a trio of gelati. Pistachio stracciatella, toasted faro, and prune. The toasted faro (middle) was our favorite of the three, and tasted like the flavor of the cone of an ice cream cone. The prune was like an elevated rum raison, and the pistachio stracciatella was creamy and rich.

I had the creme fraiche coffee cake, which came with anisette gelato, crumble, bitter lemon coulis and ricotta pasticcera. This shit is crack! I fucking loved it.

Then, a pair of tasty marzipan coconut bites came out with the bill.

We can’t wait to go back. I think we will do the three course meal next time, since we were really full after four courses.

LINCOLN RISTORANTE
142 W 65th St
New York, NY 10023

Chomps

Chomps brand beef sticks are similar in size and style to Slim Jim brand jerky sticks, but they are a bite more tender and less grainy. A nicer quality. My wife picked these up for me as a gift, and I liked them.

“Cracked Pepper & Sea Salt” (venison) and “Hoppin Jalepeno” (grass fed beef) were my favorite flavors.

Worth a shot!

Minton’s Jazz Club

The story behind Minton’s jazz club is pretty great. The way it worked, back in the day, was this: Musicians would be given a free meal of soul food if they played. They were allowed to solo, as long as they could keep up with the house band. At the time, that house band was run by the great Thelonious Monk. His style was tough to keep up with for most musicians, but guys like Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were able to hang with him when they came in to play and eat.

The joint closed in 1974, reopened in 2006, then closed again in 2010, and reopened again in late 2013. The neighborhood has undergone some dramatic changes in real estate values, demographic, businesses that operate there, etc. If I had to guess, I’d say that tho splice is not going to close again anytime soon. The music and food are just too good.

First, let’s get your appetites brewing with a little bit of battle jazz:

Now, I’ll tell you about the delicious food we ate. My wife picked up a Living Social deal for the amazing price of about $90, which included two apps, two entrees, a shared dessert, two cocktails and a jazz album to take home, on top of the great music that you get to watch and listen to while you’re there.

The first thing to come out where a pair of balls: hush puppies for an amuse. These were tasty: crunchy on the outside, pillowy on the inside.

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I started with the fried green tomatoes. Two thick, tangy slices of tomato were fried to a golden crisp and topped with hot smoked arctic char and dandelion greens, which were deftly dressed with a creole dressing. I’ve only had fried green tomatoes a few times in my life, but he addition of smoked fish on top was really incredible. It added substance, flash and style to an otherwise ordinary dish. I loved it.

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My wife had the deviled crab cake, which tasted exactly how it sounds. It was meaty and spiced, and came with some black eyed peas and celery leaves for texture and herbiness. A really nice southern take on a northeast classic.

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The music roared as we mowed through our apps…

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We sipped on a pair of delicious cocktails while enjoying the band. I had something called a prima, which consisted of sage infused rye, sorrel syrup, lemon juice, aromatic butters and agave honey. My wife had the satchmo, which was made with smoky is lay scotch, bourbon, bale syrup and bitters.

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…And soon enough the entrees were served.

I ordered the venison burger, which was topped with farm cheese, blackberry onion jam and country ham, with a side of yucca fries (I think that’s what they were).

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The burger was smoky from the country ham, and the melty cheese was thick and sharp, Everything was cut nicely by the sweet blackberry onion jam, which I think they can bottle and sell as a gourmet BBQ sauce. Really tasty. The venison wasn’t gamey or funky: It was tender and packed with robust flavor, and it was cooked to a perfect medium rare:

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Those fries though… WOW. Nice and crispy with a crunchier texture than potato. They had a good snap to them, and they were perfectly fried and seasoned.

My wife had the buttermilk fried guinea hen. This was served with a bourbon peach tea glaze, black eyed peas and pickled collared stems for a bit more crunch and punch. The meat itself was perfectly cooked. It was nice and juicy, with tons of flavor coming at you from every angle. There was even a hint of maple syrup for that chicken and waffles type of flavor.

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For dessert we had the lemon tart with blueberry sorbet and shaved fruit leather. This was nice and tangy, and the shell around the lemon curd was super light and airy. A light and refreshing way to end a great meal:

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MINTON’S JAZZ CLUB
206 W. 118th St.
New York, NY 10026