Prime rib, reincarnated

Remember that leftover prime rib I took home from Austin's? It sat in my fridge for several days because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. Reheating cooked steak never seems to do anything but make the meat tough, so I knew I wanted to eat it cold, but beyond that I was definitely short on inspiration for how to make it taste good.

But after rummaging around in my refrigerator I found a container of cucumber I had grated for cold soba, and it occured to me that I could cut the meat into strips for a cold steak salad with Asian flavors. I didn't take note of the proportions, just threw together rice vinegar, dark sesame oil, soy sauce, chili-garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, and the remaining au jus from the steak for a savory, spicy, tangy-sweet dressing. I laid the prime rib strips on the grated cucumber, spooned on the dressing, and sprinkled chopped scallions on top. Voila! A thoroughly lip-smacking creation for one—and a much tastier way to eat a mediocre steak.

New Year's Eve at Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Milk Bar

Maybe my hands were shaking from excitement when I took these photos.

A month or so before New Year's Eve, I took the liberty of making a dinner reservation for eight at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. I had a specific purpose in mind, and probably at least some of you recognize the above picture for what it is: the whole roasted pork butt served as the feature of their bo ssäm. For those unfamiliar with what that is, it's basically the massive hunk of meat you see above accompanied by white rice, different sauces, a platter of raw oysters, and bibb lettuce, and you're meant to use the pieces of lettuce as wrappers for meaty mouthfuls of the rest. In other words, a pig-fest, straight up.

I made the reservation without knowing who would join me, and then basically did a call-out to friends to see who was down. Luckily we ended up with the full eight (you do need at least six people in order to make a bo ssäm reservation), because I don't know how any fewer can get through this meal.

I didn't realize exactly how much food we'd be getting at first, though. So when the server said that most groups getting the bo ssäm usually also get four or five starters, I thought we were being conservative by only ordering three.

The cult-following pork buns from the Momofuku empire don't actually impress me that much—especially since the price of them is so steep (an order of two costs nine bucks; that's $4.50 per, yo!). People seem to talk about them as one of the greatest inventions ever, but if you look at Peking Duck or the Taiwanese gua bao, it's really nothing that new. What Momofuku does offer, though, is a high-quality variation using good ingredients, and so for that I suggested getting them, especially since others at the table hadn't tried 'em before.

The other two starters we ordered were the honeycrisp apple kimchi, with "burger's smoked jowl, maple labne, arugula" and the satur farm's fried brussels sprouts, with "mint, scallions, fish sauce vinaigrette." I liked the first dish a lot, which was basically pieces of honeycrisp tossed in a kimchi puree and paired with bacon and yogurt. And even though TL usually doesn't like brussel sprouts, he was quite fond of the Momofuku rendition, going back for seconds and even thirds of the stuff.

Then came the bo ssäm:

Glorious, fatty, gigantic, meltingly tender and flavoful pork butt, the meat coming right off the bone. There's about seven pounds of pig on that platter.

Platter of oysters; bibb lettuce. In the bowls: kimchi, kimchi puree, scallion sauce, and sweet pepper paste. You can consume the bo ssäm any way you like, but my favorite method—stolen from TL—was to fold a bit of meat, a bit of rice, a bit of sweet pepper paste, and a whole raw oyster into a lettuce leaf and to eat that in a few bites. In that way the brininess of the oysters playing off the meat was maximized. Who knew those two would work so well together?

We tried mightily, but damn, we just could not get through it all. Our bellies were straining and there was still a pile of meat left on the plate. Even a dare to TC with several hundred dollars at stake didn't result in her polishing it off…not even close.

Everyone knows there's always extra room in the stomach for dessert, though, so after our meal we trooped through the back of Ssäm Bar to the adjoining and newly opened Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar. I shared a piece of the pumpkin blondie pie with TL, which was good but so dense and sweet I only wanted a few bites. I also had a piece of GQ's blueberry cream cookie, which was absolutely delicious—tender and rich and buttery and crisp and full of fruit. If we didn't have several parties to attend afterward, I would have seriously considered getting a whole one for myself. As it was, I'd already gone beyond my limit—I spent the remainder of the night trying to gracefully digest. Lesson learned: eat light on New Year's Eve, not decadent.

This sh*t is bananas: Rasta Pasta

What makes a pasta Caribbean? From the looks of Rasta Pasta's menu, it's names like Spaghetti Trench Town, The Natural Mystic, and Dreadlock Ravioli, as well as ingredients like pineapples, jerk chicken, and bananas. Throw in some reggae music and it's definitely time to pass the doobie.

I joined MC and her pal for dinner at the Fort Collins location one night (there's also one in Breckenridge). Each dish came with a fresh side salad, accompanied by house-made sundried tomato vinaigrette, and a piece of toasty garlic bread. And the servers were accommodating about our request for a dish of simply pasta with butter, which MC's pal happily scarfed down as her entree.

Of course, I'm never one to go for simple when I can order "Chicken Montego Bay," penne in a light cream sauce with pineapple chunks, pieces of jerk chicken, and an assortment of fresh vegetables like cauliflower, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots. I didn't taste much jerk on the chicken, but it hardly mattered—the dish was delicious. Huge, too; I only ate about a third before packing the rest up to take home. Next time I get the munchies I'll check out the "Tortellini Jamaica Mon," with its bananas, pineapples, grapes, and "secret spices"….

Eggplant, meet Ramyun

My once shiny, deep purple eggplant had started to look rather pathetic at the bottom of my crisper drawer. So armed with this recipe for pan-fried eggplant spiced with ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin, black pepper, garam masala, and dried red chili flakes, I decided to bite the bullet and cook the damn thing already.

But as usual, I was forced to improvise. I didn't have any of the spices named in the recipe except black pepper (and that pretty much makes up my entire "spice rack"). I thought just salt and pepper would be okay, though, because of Kindelsperger's description:

But it's the eggplant, not the spices, that is extraordinary. When done, the outside becomes crispy and crunchy while the insides turn luscious and velvety. It's my new favorite way to cook eggplant. The key is to use just a little oil and cook it for a long time—about 30 minutes in a pan over medium heat. It may sound crazy, but you can't argue with results like this.

Still, minus the Indian spices the recipe seemed terribly plain. I wanted to figure out how to add some bigger punch of flavor…and that's when I spotted the Shin Ramyun. Not the noodles, which I'd already eaten in soup, but the leftover packet of MSG-laden kimchi-ness that makes the ramen world go 'round.

I really probably shouldn't admit to these things.

But I did it. I followed the directions for preparing the eggplant, and substituted sprinkles of ramen flavoring for the spice mix specified in the recipe. And you know what, it was damn tasty, enough so that I quickly went back to the pan for more. The eggplant fried up as described, and though my pieces weren't all that crispy, the insides were definitely "luscious and velvety." Over a bowl of rice, all that kimchi-MSG'd eggplant disappeared in a flash.

I was pretty thirsty afterward….

Enter the giveaway!

"Oyako" sushi/roll

I had an onion on the counter; eggs, half a chicken breast, and cooked rice in my refrigerator. I got the brilliant brainwave to make oyakodon. Another brainwave, and I decided to mix the rice with a bit of rice vinegar and sugar, and to make the eggs, onion, and chicken into a flat omelette with some soba tsuyu stirred into it (I figured soba tsuyu has dashi, mirin, and soy sauce, so made a nice shortcut for normal oyakodon ingredients). From there, I cut up nori, layered a bit of the sushi rice into each rectangle, and then tucked in a strip of omelette.

Maybe it's a hybrid of oyakodon and sushi; maybe it's a sloppy, artless handroll. Maybe it's simply an abomination. However you want to explain this one, it made for a happy dinner.

Bar Q: Garlic fried milk and little else

Really, I expected a lot more from Bar Q. We were there to celebrate CC's birthday, and though I had read mixed reviews of the place before, I assumed the expertise of celebrated chef Anita Lo would make things interesting.

I didn't take photos of the appetizers we ordered (as you can tell, the lighting was shite in there), but we split three: the unagi and scallion fritters, the grilled "tuna ribs," and the roasted pork belly with kimchee, takuan, and steamed buns. The fritters were good as fried food always is, but the other two were just okay, and at those prices ($12, $15, and $13 respectively) for small portions, I would have been happier if each bite had been a bit more sublime.

Like the appetizers, my grilled loin of Australian lamb was fine but ultimately not anything special. I tried other people's dishes, too, and they all seemed to be tasty enough but not amazing, and they were often paired with pedestrian or oddly executed sides. The only standout on my plate was the garlic fried milk that accompanied the lamb (recipe here), which was creamy and salty, crisply fried, and strong with the flavor of that spicy, pungent clove.

The desserts—a chocolate peanut butter tartelette with pandanus ice cream, and warm sesame mochi with dipping sauce, were decent but unmemorable. There's a theme here, for sure.

Finally, I don't usually mention service as for me the food is the thing, but it was definitely odd that night. As far as I knew BarQ had been open for three or four months already, but it felt as if they hadn't quite gotten things together. The place was near-empty, and the air conditioning was blasting so hard everyone spent the meal shivering. The busboys dripped sauce and food onto the shirts of my friends—not once but twice—while clearing the dishes and failing to stack and balance them properly. Each time, though both CC and JL pointed this out when it happened, it seemed as if the busboys either didn't understand or didn't care because they simply left without expression. We didn't make a big deal about it, but it was definitely suprising in a place where the main courses were priced in the mid-to-upper twenties range.

In short, little reason to return, even with garlic fried milk on the menu.

Entrees at appetizer prices: Dojo

A "turkey burger dinner" from Dojo. This fusion-y, Japanese-flavored place used to be a godsend in my college days because of its disturbingly cheap prices for somewhat "real" food, but at some point it hit me how grody the place was and I stopped going. Nonetheless, the thin turkey burger, here served with chunks of fried potato and a small salad, is surprisingly juicy, flavorful, and delicious. It's also $5.25 for the whole plate. With these prices, Dojo might still be worth walking into once in a while; it's the kind of place that inspires you to order several entrees at once just for the hell of it.

Eats and sweets at Kaleidoscope, Chikalicious Puddin' Bar

EK was in town for several days, and for dinner with MH and I, she suggested Kaleidoscope. Above is my order of "East Indian Rice Sticks," which was sautéed with "shrimp, red onions, spinach, yellow split peas, and cashew nuts in a cilantro turmeric wine sauce." The description doesn't mention the yellow raisins in there, which some people don't like, but which for me usually adds a welcome, subtle sweetness to fried rice or noodle dishes (as in the Golden Needle fried rice at Canton Gourmet).

The shrimp was of decent quality and quantity, but despite their fierce coloring the noodles themselves were a little on the soft side and tasted both bland and wet. The different textures and flavors just didn't come together. All in all I'd call the food at Kaleidoscope serviceable but not really outstanding; it's one of those places that reaffirms my belief that places trying to cover a variety of cuisines may be better off focusing on doing one of them very well.


Afterwards we hit up Chikalicious Puddin' Bar, just a few doors down. Between the three of us we got all of the varieties offered: Brioche Bread Puddin', Adult Chocolate Puddin', and Vanilla Custard Steamed Puddin'. These were puddings of the British variety, meaning steamed, boiled, and baked sweets with sauce poured over them, instead of soft mounds of creamy pudding (like I was going for here, but failed at). I was surprised to see that the dark chocolate pudding was thick enough to be scooped out like ice cream, and that it also had a similar texture. It had a nice bitter edge though, which I enjoyed: adult, indeed. The bread pudding and the steamed pudding were both okay—the former was cold and the latter was hot, but had both been the same in temperature, I feel like they would have been similar.

Everything was tasty enough, but nothing that I would crave or return for (I suppose that sort of sums up the entire evening of food). Well, at least it was good to spend some time catching up with the ladies.

Hype-free high at Momofuku Ko

By now, there have been many, many posts written about Momofuku Ko, ranging the gamut from utter elation (over the food) to utter frustration (over the maddening reservation system) to utter snarkiness (over possible ko-nniving). As I caught bits and pieces of the madness, and listened to the laments of friends unable to gain a reservation, I shrugged my shoulders and wrote the whole thing off as hype. "Ehhh, there are so many amazing restaurants in this city—why try so hard for this one place?" was my attitude.

But I kept hearing more and more about Ko, and one after another the reviews were coming back full of starry-eyed praise. I went to the site, curious to see how the system worked. Before I knew it I had registered my email address and credit card number, and then I was there with the rest of food-obsessed New York City, clicking away at the refresh button to see what would happen.

I didn't get a seat, of course. Unlike the seemingly blessed VI, who so far has managed to score a reservation not one or two but three times, my initial attempts didn't reward me with any kind of gratification. I clicked onto the site a few times a day for about a week, resigned to being shown a screen of red X's, by the end doing it more out of habit than hope.

But of course there was an end. Just before I left work a few Fridays ago, a text message blinked up on my phone. "Do you want to go to Ko with me tomorrow?" my friend JSK had sent. This was a complete surprise—I had never talked about Ko with him before, and I had no idea he had even been interested in going.

"YES WHEN? I've been trying to get reservations!" I texted back immediately.

"6:30—call you later," he typed in reply, and that was that. We were on.

The next day, after spending the afternoon being photographed for People (hee hee) and bumming around SoHo—I met a bunch of folks from Mercer Kitchen while I rested on a stoop, which was fun—I joined up with JSK in Union Square to walk over to the restaurant. We confused our destination for the noodle bar at first, but we weren't the only ones; when we entered, a couple ahead of us was also asking where to find Ko. The patient hostess directed all of us further down the block.

Shortly after we got settled and placed our beverage requests, two crisp shards of housemade chicharrón (essentially fried pork rinds) were set down in front of us. Moments later, two mini english muffins griddled with pork fat and topped with chives appeared as well.

The taste-fest had begun!

Our second course ("Raw"), consisted of scallops with dehydrated soy sauce and pickled grapes for me, and fluke in a spicy buttermilk sauce with chives and poppy seeds for JSK. I didn't know why I had been given the scallops while JSK received the fluke, but I was grateful, as the scallops were amazing (it wasn't until midway through the meal that I was able to stop thinking about them). Fresh, cool scallop; sweet, jellied grapes; crunchy, salty soy sauce—the textures and flavors were extraordinary in combination. Yes, yes, I gave some to JSK of course—we ended up sharing everything pretty much evenly whenever we received something different—but damn, those scallops were a hard last bite to part with.

As we waited for our third course, we watched the chefs before us at work. This is definitely one of the charms of eating at Momofuku Ko: the ability to observe all the dishes being prepped and plated in front of you. In this case, it was raw oysters. Aw, shucks.

The oysters made their appearance in our "Soup" course: Berkshire pork belly, oysters, and napa cabbage in kimchi consommé for JSK; spring pea soup with crawfish and a nugget of yuba-wrapped morels for me. I was getting curious about how the chefs were choosing who was getting what—as we were always respectively addressed as "the lady" and "the gentleman," my best guess is that they offer their lighter dishes to women—but in any case I was supremely happy with my creamy, bright-tasting pea soup. I tried a spoonful of the kimchi consommé, and thought it interesting in concept but ultimately too salty.

The next course ("Egg") is where my fortune turned and JSK was awarded the better of the two. A smoked egg with caviar over soubise, accompanied by teeny potato chips, was set down in front of him; I was given a chawan mushi with cashews, asparagus, and caviar, drizzled with argan oil. The silky, nutty chawan mushi was great, but despite excellent ingredients still seemed a bit ordinary; meanwhile, the rich, briny smoked egg dish felt both playful and inventive, like breakfast potatoes and eggs gone high-end mad. JSK all but licked his plate clean.

We both got the same thing for "Pasta": an open ravioli of porcini mushrooms and snails topped with asparagus, "toasted ricotta milk," and some kind of foam. I wasn't keen on the chalky texture of the toasted ricotta, but overall it was quite good.

Our "Seafood" course was also the same for both of us, half of a soft-shell crab with "celery noodles" and ramps in an Old Bay broth. After tackling this dish, I'm finally ready to admit that I'm just not a fan of soft-shell crab. I'd told myself for years that the thin-skinned crustacean was the epitome of awesome, ignoring the fact the its sharp casings scraped against my throat and that there wasn't ever enough meat to balance this unpleasantness out; it was the idea of being able to eat an entire crab whole that blinded me to how little I actually enjoyed the experience. As this particular specimen hadn't been fried, the shell was especially tough, and the pool of Old Bay broth was much too salty. This was one of the few dishes I didn't finish entirely.

Next up was the "Foie" course, probably the most acclaimed of all of Ko's offerings, consisting of foie gras shavings over lychee, reisling gelée, and pine nut brittle. JSK put one spoonful of this concoction into his mouth and didn't say a word. Moments later, he started to giggle in pure delight. I understood his giddiness after I, too, tried a bite, and our joy lasted throughout the rest of the course. Each spoonful melded fluffy, savory, unctuous fat with sweet, cool lychee, fragrant jelly, and a fine shatter of brittle. It was sensational and delicious and eye-opening.

The "Meat" course was a ramp-filled chicken roulade with baby turnips and zucchini for me, and deep-fried, marinated short rib with braised daikon, grilled ramps, and pickled mustard seed for JSK. You can see from the picture how awesomely fatty the ribs were; that and the sweet, complex marinade made them taste like they might be the best ribs you'll ever have, ever. I was into the pickled mustard seed too, which I'd never encountered before. The roulade was quite good too, but next to the ribs, beef was the clear winner.

Our "Pre" was a cantaloupe sorbet with cashew butter for JSK and an Arnold Palmer sorbet with dehydrated tea cake for me. I found the Arnold Palmer too sweet and the bits of tea cake too hard, but the cantaloupe was amazing—the smooth, cool sorbet tasted like the essence of the fruit intensified and went perfectly with the rich, slightly crunchy nut paste.

And then finally, "Dessert": fried apple pie with sour-cream ice cream and toasted miso paste for JSK; "cereal milk" panna cotta with corn flakes, chocolate, and avocado cream for me. After all the food that had come before this, my one bite of the pie tasted overwhelmingly heavy (I think it might have been fried in pork fat). I was more into the panna cotta, which was set off nicely by the salty avocado and crunchy corn flakes.

So as you might have guessed, I was really happy with my meal. Ko had definitely lived up to all its hype, and while I usually don't splurge this much, when I consider the food we were served and the intimacy of the 2.5 hour experience I think $85 is really quite a bargain. Both of us left Ko that night in extremely high spirits: I, drunk with food-love, and JSK, who had done the wine pairing—well, just drunk.