Not only has the recent spell of despicably cold weather nipped at my already chapped extremities, but it’s also induced a paralyzing idleness when it comes to eating. I’ve become an Atkins nightmare. I’ll settle for instant polenta and peanut butter Puffins any day if it saves me from leaving my apartment to be consumed by the howling winds.
My parents offered to take me out to a belated birthday dinner this past Wednesday. Free food and wine? Yes, please. Keeping the above-mentioned agoraphobia in mind, I booked a table at The Stanton Social since it’s located on my block. And no, Whitney Port’s dinner date there a couple weeks ago on MTV’s The City did not influence this decision (though I am embarrassed to have seen a full episode of that show).

The candle-lit dining room is populated by yuppie thirty-somethings who’ve got money to burn at a trendy bar. Dark woods, stacked wine bottles, and white brick walls decorate the handsome interior. Organized tapas-style, the menu’s small portions are ideal for group sharing. It features innovative, New American dishes, from French onion soup dumplings to Kobe beef sliders. Here’s the rundown of what we ordered, from my favorite to least favorite plates: braised short rib soft tacos ($19), mushroom & goat cheese grilled pizzetta ($14), red snapper tacos ($10), French onion soup dumplings ($11), wasabi pea-crusted salmon ($15), and parmesan, prosciutto, and potato croquettes ($10). Other than the bland croquettes, every dish was a winner. Both taco dishes were packed with flavor and textural variety, and the pizzetta was simple, crisp, and mildly tangy from the goat cheese. The soup dumplings were tasty and creative, yet the onion-stuffed centers were a bit too sweet for me.

For dessert, we were territorial and gluttonous and ordered our dishes individually. I got the apple turnover ($10), which was flaky and accompanied by a dollop of cinnamon-flavored ice cream. Not to hate on the sweetness again, but I would have liked if the apples were more on the tart side. I was also too stuffed and satisfied for my mouth to discern tastes any more.

All in all, the dinner was a great success. The staff was friendly and service was quick, the food was varied and delicious, and the décor was attractive. Instead of being full from one dish, I was able to sample eight. And luckily my parents were footing the bill, because my birthday checks would never have covered the steep price.

Photo from Flickr

The cookie, which, if I might add, doesn’t even appear appetizing, is an exaggerated representation of stereotypical African American facial features. I’d much rather bite into a crispy, salty Obama fry than this oversized, waxy concoction. Bulging red eyes, a spread nose, and thick, protruding lips characterize the face. Lafayette French Pastry Bakery’s customers were appalled by Kefalinos’ flippant, racist remarks. One woman stated that the baker offered her a cookie using the N-word. It would be impossible to concoct a Ted Kefalinos Face cookie because there’s not enough substance available to fill the baking pans.

Photo via Gothamist.

Raj Mahal, not to be confused with its neighboring competitors, Raj, Taj, or Taj Mahal, serves traditional Indian food that is reasonably priced. The menu features chicken, lamb, beef, and vegetarian dishes, as well as an assortment of naan and paratha breads. Most dishes range from $7-$12. For those of you fresh under-21ers, beer and wine are forced upon you sans carding (anything to jack up the bill).

The décor is, to euphemize, eclectic. Generic tropical location paintings are plastered to the walls alongside a Michelangelo-esque calendar picture of two angel babies. Christmas lights are strewn along the ceiling, suspending the dining room in a reddish glow (hence the lack of food porn attached to this article).

I’ve ordered a few dishes here, including tandoori chicken ($9.50), chicken sag ($9.95), aloo palak ($7.95), and my favorite, chana sag ($8.50). The tandoori chicken, my baby-step entrance into the saucy world of Indian food, is a bit dry. The sag and palak dishes are all served in a mild spinach sauce and are just moist enough to be sopped up by complimentary basmati rice or breads. The chick peas, whose soft insides absorb the sag in which they are cooked, are tender and filling.

Though the food is tasty, it takes a backseat to the epic rendition of the happy birthday song. I hate to ruin the surprise for any of you who dare to publicly lose your dignity by hosting a party here, but here’s the line-up (spoilers contained. Read at your own risk.): The lights are dimmed, and a blaringly loud, upbeat remix of happy birthday is blasted. Multi-colored strobe lights are employed, causing nausea, epilepsy, and palpitations. All waiters, including my favorite, whose name is either Ibrahim or Brian depending on the day, emerge from the shared kitchen and clap around the table. A dessert of spongy fried bananas and cardamom ice cream, topped with a lit sparkler, is brought to the table and placed before the designated birthday boy or girl. Everyone in the restaurant stares at your table, possibly enthused, but most definitely appalled, and the song takes an interesting turn from techno happy birthday to a happy birthday-Old MacDonald Had a Farm-remix (complete with ee-eye-ee-eye-oh’s).

So for those of you who are celebrating a December birthday, or who have no upcoming birthdays but need a good laugh to salvage sanity during these tough times we call finals, I’d strongly recommend Raj Mahal. If you’re bringing friends, don’t tell them what they’re in for. It’s always better to witness the fear/excitement/bewilderment in friends’ eyes the first time they attend a Raj Mahal birthday.

Any restaurant that can upstage arrogant celebrity chef Bobby Flay is worthy of praise. I stopped by Caracas tonight to sample the arepa that took the man down on his newest Food Network show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay. There’s usually a throng of people waiting outside the red vestibule at the 7th St. eatery. Lucky for me, 9:15 pm on a Sunday night is a pretty dead time to dine out. Other than me, the cooks, and the iconic Virgin María protruding from the wall, Caracas To-Go was empty. Its sister restaurant, Caracas Arepa Bar, is located next door and accommodates diners who want to stay a while and enjoy table service.

I ordered the arepa de pabellón ($6.75), which is a fried cornmeal pouch stuffed with shredded beef, black beans, sweet plantains, and cotija cheese. The food was delivered to me immediately (I really was the only one there). The arepa appears small but is stuffed to the brim and leaves you in a similar state. The beef was tender, the plantains subtly sweet, and the cheese salty and tangy. I’ve had the arepa de pollo ($5.75) in the past and would definitely suggest the pabellón instead. Its various flavors and textures add depth to the meal yet work harmoniously.

Photo by Allix Geneslaw

$15 gets you brunch and never-ending mimosas or bloody marys. The menu offers traditional breakfast options, like eggs benedict and omelets, as well as more substantial dishes like burgers and steak sandwiches. I ordered two eggs over medium and a mimosa as my productivity destroyer, vowing that I’d just have one so that I could work on my paper. But we all know how that goes.

Though the icy-eyed Australian waiter frightened me at first with his biting sarcasm and reluctance to answer questions about the menu, I soon took a liking to him as my glass remained in a perpetual state of runneth over. My one-drink quota was filled and exceeded in no time, leaving my expectations for getting work done that afternoon quite low (nonexistent).

Unfortunately, the portions weren’t the gracious, alcohol-sopping sponges I needed them to be. The eggs and home fries were tasty, both warm and fried to a golden hue at the edges, but I was still hungry after I finished eating. I watched over my coworkers’ plates like a zealous child and even made an unsuccessful attempt at swiping a lone potato from the slowest eater’s dish. The focus is clearly directed at getting your money’s worth of champagne-spiked orange juice. The space is also fairly limited with only a handful of tables which can accommodate large groups, so be prepared to wait an hour even if you’ve been promised seats in 30 minutes.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

If I don’t eat ramen at least once a week, my body enters a dangerous state of sodium deficiency-induced paralysis. With every saline spoonful of piping hot broth, I feel my limbs gradually engorging like basketballs overfilled with air. I crave the tender pork and resilient noodles that glisten beneath their soupy blanket, and I long to hear emphatic shouts of “irasshaimase!” and communal noodle slurping. In light of Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s recent East Village ramen rating, I’ve also decided to compare some of the purveyors of this typical Japanese street food. Unfortunately, unlike Morimoto, I don’t get paid to eat and consequently did not stop by his top pick, Momofuku Noodle Bar. At $16 a bowl, I’ll leave it to the salaried food bloggers to verify Morimoto’s assessment.

Shio ramen from Ramen Setagaya

Ramen Setagaya remains my favorite go-to ramen enclave. Their rendition of the dish is by far the saltiest; if a slab of beef were soaked in it it’d be preserved for weeks. The shio ramen ($9.50) – the signature dish – is a yellow, chicken-based broth embellished with two pieces of pork, scallions, seaweed, a soft-boiled egg, ginger, and an entanglement of chewy noodles. The pork in this dish is much tougher than the meat served by its competitors, and many claim the soup’s just too salty. If you’re anything like me and liberally dump salt and/or soy sauce over nearly every meal, the salt factor is not a detriment. The restaurant is small and not ideal for groups, though its counter-seating only setup is perfect for grabbing a solo lunch or dinner.

Shiomaru moto ramen from Ippudo

At Ippudo, the bowl of shiomaru moto ramen ($13) is enormous and clouded by a rising waft of meaty steam. While Setagaya’s chewy noodles make its ramen unique, Ippudo’s pork-based broth is its claim to fame. The focus directed toward the cafe au lait-hued liquid is certainly apparent. It tastes creamy and smooth, and it gently slides from the spoon to your throat like a bead of rainwater down a glass window. Pork is completely submerged in the soup, and its absorption of the broth makes it tender and flaky. Other than a few crisp pieces of floating cabbage and the pile of noodles, the broth is relatively barren in garnishing. It doesn’t need it. The dining room is much larger and accommodating for group seating than most East Village ramen vendors.

Yesterday I visited Kambi, the sister restaurant to Minca on 5th St. This restaurant is divided between counter seating in the front and tables in the back, so groups and individual diners are all welcome. Unlike its two competitors, Kambi’s menu is like a choose-your-own-adventure storybook in that it offers noodle and broth options. I chose the thin, wavy noodles and basic pork broth ($9.50) (pictured at the top), regrettably. The broth was disappointing. It was described as possessing a salt and roasted garlic flavor, though it tasted as though the garlic had been blackened in the pan rather than only slightly browned. The bitterness was relentless, never dissipating with desperate gulps of ice water and remaining in the back of my throat even after the check was paid. Other than that, the dish was fantastic. The pork was soft and well-seasoned and the noodles springy and firm. The egg was hard-boiled, in contrast to Setagaya’s soft-boiled one, and the dish was topped with seaweed and some vegetables and ginger. I think I’d like to come back and try the dish with a chicken-based broth instead.

Photos by Allix Geneslaw

Slow-roasting is the cooking method of the gods. Anything that sits in an oven for hours, seeping in its own juices and fat is destined for greatness. Exhibit A: the porchetta sandwich (pronounced pork-etta, which sounds like it could be an Italianism for a hunchbacked, barrel-chested matron), whose namesake is shared by the newly-opened East Village restaurant that specializes in this meaty, fatty Italian rendition of pork roast. After reading positive reviews of the sandwich in both the New York Times and Serious Eats: New York, I decided to head over to Porchetta to try this tasty little morsel.

At Porchetta, the small menu isn’t the only thing aimed at emphasizing its slow-roasted star. The restaurant’s tiny, counter-seating-only interior is decorated modestly in white tile and warm wood, its golden-skinned, attention-grabbing flair resting peacefully behind the glass heater. Besides the porchetta sandwich, cooking greens, beans, crispy potatoes, and a mozzarella and sun-dried tomato sandwich are available. I ordered the porchetta sandwich ($9) and the crispy potatoes with burnt ends ($5). Beware: for those of you who’d prefer to down Porky in peace, the cashier is a chatty one and will recommend the coffee shop on the corner all of fifty times to you. I’m convinced he’s receiving some sort of compensation and/or one of the baristas working there is his suga’ daddy. For me, spending my days at a pork-perfumed eatery surrounded by a fat man’s supply of tender meat would be worth well more than any of the bling or free coffee that man may or may not be receiving.

The porchetta is served sans-garnishing on crispy Sullivan Street Bakery bread and packs about as much salty flavor as a pastrami sandwich as Katz’s Deli. Roasted for five hours in garlic, sage, rosemary, and wild fennel pollen, the pork’s seasoning was absolutely perfect. Its texture, though not dry, could have retained just a bit more moisture. Sautéed with wisps of the meat and its skin, the potatoes are hot, crunchy, and coated with glistening, porcine zest.

The expensive price tag of the meal makes it a dangerous one; it’s so delicious that it had me counting pigs in my sleep last night. For $9, the sandwich could have been more generous, though that fat swine does stick in your gut for some time.

Photos by Allix Geneslaw

As for munchies, here’s a list of sugary and/or pumpkin-infused goodies featured at restaurants throughout the city:

• Treats Truck serves Halloween cupcakes
• Delicious pumpkin scone at Alice’s Tea Cup
• Pumpkin cake at Two Little Red Hens
• Farmer’s Market pumpkins and other fall produce
• Friend of a Farmer serves pumpkin pancakes 
• Jack-o-lantern donuts at Krispy Kreme

Photo: Flickr courtesy of cardamom

The menu features various types of fish to fry, which can be accompanied by sides such as chips, onion rings, potatoes, or baked beans. I ordered a small portion of haddock and chips ($9.50), which was delivered to my spot at the counter with an affectionate “enjoy, my love!” And that I did. The moist, flaky fish is encased by a crunchy crust fried to golden perfection. I sheepishly observed the regulars who liberally sprinkled vinegar onto their fish and followed suit. This seasoning added much-needed tanginess to the meal. Sadly, however, I could do without the chips. They’re more like potato wedges than thin French fries and are a bit limp and flavorless.

I’d recommend coming here for some tender fish and quality time with Mr. F., though I’d be sure watch out for cars driving on the left side of the bloody road. (I vowed to resist the urge to randomly insert the word “bloody” into this post, and I am quite proud that I was able to comply until this point.)

Photo by Allix Geneslaw

In Banksy’s world, you and Fluffy the pet rabbit can sweep pink blush against your porcelain cheekbones (and, er, fur) as you get ready for a night of wild club hopping together. The enigmatic British street artist has designed a mock-pet store in the West Village in which animals adopt human mannerisms and are displayed as manufactured edible and material goods. Titled “The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill”, the art exhibition bridges animal and human behaviors and habitats into a trippy world of encaged frat boy chimps and makeup-applying Peter (or Patty, more accurately) Cottontails. A monkey sits behind an episode of mating chimpanzees on the Discovery Channel, a crushed beer can under his foot and headphones perched on his ears. The white rabbit perfects her appearance in a vanity mirror complete with used nail polish bottles and eye shadows.

Not only does Banksy provoke the questioning of animal humanization with these two characters (think the emergence of doggie boutiques and fitness centers), but he also portrays them as literal products of human intervention in the natural world. In one cage, a poised hen overlooks two fried chicken nuggets self-sacrificially dipping themselves into barbecue sauce and a scrambled egg hatching from its shell. A wall of creepily pulsating, caged lunchmeat is placed beside a vertical rack of packaged lunchmeat that appears to be part of the store. Two mammoth fish sticks swim in a bowl, and a lizard emerges from a discarded Louis Vuitton purse, the same logo etched on its back. Human consumption has invaded the animal world, and you should continue our species’ hedonistic whims by seeing this exhibit in person! If this description didn’t wet your whistle and you don’t have the time to head over to 89 7th Ave. S. between W. 4th and Bleecker, you can check out the Times’ photoshoot.
Photos by Allix Geneslaw