Category Archives: Eating my feelings and paying for it

…it has been many weeks since my last blog entry.  And my last blog entry was a bit of a cheat since it 1) had nothing to do with food, 2) had no text in the body and, 3) was just a picture of our fiberglass shark, Frank, wrapped in Christmas lights.

Urging me into confession today are several of my former classmates from my FCI Blogging Class that got me into this whole mess to start with.  Under the tutelage of Blog Deity Steven Shaw, our merry band of Eat & Tell-aholics became real life bloggers, supporting each other’s daily posts with both feedback and love.  We were masters of the compliment sandwich: “I loved the picture of your pet shark; I wasn’t exactly sure what that had to do with food?; you really did a great job wrapping lights around his hammer-head.”  It was almost a year ago that we started this adventure together and I hear through the grapevine that a new class is about to start next month.  It has me nostalgic.

I was once a blogging machine, posting everyday to not just this blog, but the Cooking Issues blog.  Then something happened – I hit 100 posts and thought, “Ahhh, well now I deserve a break!”  In my free time, I got a job at Murray’s Cheese, and then I picked up another job at Murray’s Cheese while neglecting to give my old job away!  What a brilliant idea!  (If you missed the boatload of sarcasm there, I have only myself to blame for not keeping you seasoned to my typarcasm)

Well, it’s a new year, I’ve got a new job, and hell, it’s time for a new me!  (Yup, there it is again)  I’m going to start blogging again and I promise to blog every… er… um…  well, let’s just start with month for now and I’ll work back up?  Since my life consists of being at Murray’s, a lot of my posts (in the near-term) will probably be about cheese.  Cheese, chocolate, and some form of meat.  I might throw a vegetable in here or there just for good measure – something like a fondue-smothered piece of asparagus.  Or a waffle fry covered in fluorescent cheese and sprinkled with pickled jalapeno…  Still counts in my book!

So to kick off the new year, I’m going to tell you all about a little shop in London called Neal’s Yard Dairy.  And by little, I mean ICONIC.  I would love to say that Murray’s is the American version of Neal’s Yard, but we just are not there yet.  Neal’s Yard is THE affineur and essentially distributor/exporter of English Cheeses.  This week, the American Sales team of Jason Hinds & Raef Hodgson were kind enough to stop in at Murray’s and teach a class for us all about “The Territorials,” English cheeses that all made in a similar style that helps to really boost the acidity in cheeses.  Sometimes that acidity can be called “sharpness,” but it’s basically mouth-watering, tangy-good stuff.  These cheeses are more hearty and refreshing than funky and lingering.  They’re the type of cheeses that you imagine sitting in at least a 2lb chunk in a cool, country kitchen on a well-worn butcher’s block, waiting for someone in a chunky, cable-knit sweater to come in and hack a piece off with a mottled knife and throw it with a hunk of bread into a handkerchief before heading outside to brave the misty, English countryside.

Yes.  You’re right.  Perhaps I have seen one-too-many BBC soap operas.  Actually, it’s really more like I grew up watching one-too-many episodes of Two Fat Ladies (one day, I truly hope to be the fat one in the sidecar – she had the best gig in the world).  Regardless, cheese has a way of transporting you and helping you travel around the world from the comfort of your kitchen table (read: my couch with a plate on my stomach, 1/4 lb of cheese, and a paring knife).  You can TASTE the land, the rain, the care that goes into a good artisanal cheese and that’s magical.  It’s nothing short of experiencing that moment in Ratatouille (yes, the cartoon – that IS the type of blog you are reading) when Ego, the food critic, takes a bite of ratatouille and is immediately transported back to his mother’s kitchen.  Except instead, for Americans such as myself that grew up without easy access to artisan cheese, you’re transported to places that you’ve visited, read about, or watched on the old boob tube.

Jason & Raef spoke about how cheeses such as Caerphilly were made for coal miners and were designed into a thick format with delicious acidity, ripening into mushroomy gooeyness near the rind, in order to provide a good meal for miners who essentially ate at their desks… Imagine if your desk were deep underground and covered in coal dust?  I think you’d like a good bit of tangy cheese, too.  Having never been to a coal mine, I still adore Caerphilly and consider it one of my favorite cheeses.  It’s like being served a giant, homemade slice of savory cake – its driest, crumbly cake layer in the center being lemony and bright, melding into the outer cake layers that have been softened (ripened) into earthy unctuousness the way that a heavily frosted cake becomes sticky where the cake and frosting meet.

Basically, the cheese is DAMN good.  And when Jason & Raef came, they brought some with them for us to use in class!  Sadly, I don’t have  a picture of it because I ate most of what wasn’t plated for students.  And by most of it, I do mean ALL of it.  Down to the rind, it’s a fabulous cheese that I could eat 1/2 lb at a time.  What???  Don’t judge!  What I was able to grab a picture of is 2.6 lbs of Red Leicester…  the reason is that I am currently in possession of 2.6 lbs of Red Leicester!!!  Awwwwww yeahhhhhhhh!  That, my friends, is what I call a “cheese haul.”  Direct from Neal’s Yard in London (but available at Murray’s as well), it’s made from raw cow’s milk and legend has it is one of the oldest cheese-styles in existence.  Sure, it looks like cheddar, and it does have the nice acidity that a good cheddar has, but there’s something unique and distinctive about the lemony, citrus flavor that is wrapped in this incredible, cut-grass earthiness, and beautiful nutty-finish.  It’s got a crumbly, yet smooshable texture and is apparently great toasted up according to Raef, who happens to also be the son of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s owner, Randolph Hodgson.  As an aside, I’ve nicknamed him “Cheesus,” for he is the son of the Cheese God.

Cheese Haul: 2.6 lbs of Red Leicester

English cheeses are almost like pastries to me.  They’re so pleasing.  Something about the way the acidity cuts savoriness, the brightness of the cheese that makes the milk really come through, and the lack of intense pungency makes it satisfying in the way that a beautiful, not too sweet, panna cotta does.  This 2.6lb clothbound confection is going to be my dessert for quite sometime if I keep it wrapped in cheese paper in my vegetable drawer… Well, knowing me, it will at least keep me satisfied for the next week.

Thanks for reading and for the occasional, “Where the hell are you?” email:)  Happy belated 2010!

When I still had my head deep in the FCI Food Technology dungeons, I had the pleasure of fighting for burner space with Alexis & Aaron of Salmueria Rosi.  I could always count on these two kitchen angels to lift my spirits with delectable Italian treats.  I would respond in kind by passing on 100 proof, bubbly cocktails.  They were at FCI developing recipes for Cesare Casella’s “new place” at the time.  That new place turned out to be Salumeria Rosi, open for almost a year now, and for almost a year now it’s been my go-to place for “small” plates of delicious Italian happiness.

The stunning ambience may keep you from appreciating how beautiful this place is in its simplicity.  Half of the store is a counter where you can order salumi, cheese, and pre-made Italian takeaway items.  The other half is elegant, modern dining perfumed with fresh rosemary sprigs tucked gently into crisp white, cloth napkins, serving appetizer-sized portions of modern-rustic deliciousness.  No droplets on plates.  No negative space.  Yet as you can see, the colors of the food itself are stunning.  Pictures can’t capture how much flavor is in each bite, though, and let me tell you, flavor is king here (right under Cesare himself).

One of the best things that came with switching careers is not just becoming a better cook, but meeting incredible chefs who have that “gift” – it’s that ability to see food and know exactly how to prepare it, how to season it, in order to elevate it into something more.  Cesare, Alexis & Aaron are those people.  It’s a luxury to be able to have a place where you know that nothing served to you will ever be under-seasoned, under-cooked, under-loved.  It’s about more than just a delicious menu with fabulous Bresaola (which I can thank SR for making me obsessed with), it’s knowing that anything you order is going to be fail-proof.

I always end up ordering with my eyes and not my stomach.  I think “small plate” and forget that 8 bread-and-butter plates make far more than one entrée-sized one.  Yesterday, I left my rain-soaked trek and was welcomed into Salumeria Rosi by a delicious bowl of Chicken & Parmesan broth with a poached egg and proscuitto.  It’s a little like heaven in a bowl, light in texture but rich in flavor.  I could literally eat it everyday (and kinda wish I were eating it right now).

Our server, Rebecca, recommended that my friend Eunice and I try the anchovy-marinated broccoli.  I have a rule – if someone swears by it, you have to order it.  That rule’s definitely bitten me in the ass before, but not this time around.  Tender, chilled broccoli that burst into tangy, saltiness when bitten.  It reminds me of something I love that may sound odd, but trust me, it’s delicious: Chinese sautéed broccoli the next day — it’s cold, tender, and marinated.  Absolutely fantastic.  Salumeria Rosi’s version is spot on, but leaves out the greasiness.

The basil & zucchini farrotto topped with thin slices of toasted almond was vivid and bright in both color and flavor.  How do you make cooked farrotto or risotto taste like you grew it in a garden?  Apparently, the answer is an incredible pesto that screams fresh basil with every bite.  The almost slices were genius – the natural, faint nuttiness of the farrotto is elevated by the crunchy almonds in such a decadent way.

The capstone on an incredible meal was what I can only describe as Italian ratatouille.  Please don’t take away my francophile status, but damn, this version wins, hands-down.  I couldn’t finish all the perfectly tangy & savory zucchini, tomato goodness there, so I took some home and immediately started munching on it when I made it across the park and into my apartment.  As it cooled, this hint of spiciness came through that was absolutely illuminating.  I actually stopped, put the lid back on the takeaway container, and managed to control myself enough to save some for my husband.

So please, friends, please make the trip to Salumeria Rosi if you have not already and then visit again and again.  I have an evil plot whereby Salumeria Rosi does so well on the Upper West Side that I can convince them to open up a second shop across the park a little closer to 1st Ave.  They deserve your patronage, but more than anything, don’t I deserve more dining options up here on the lonely UES???  Yes, I’m selfish.  No, I don’t care.  It’s a wash.

I think I have Food OCD.  I go on food binges where I become obsessed with a particular dish or food item and crave it every second of everyday for weeks on end, sometimes even months.  Eventually, my cravings are satisfied enough that I can find a way to take it out of daily rotation… and put it into weekly or monthly instead.  Right now as I sit on my couch like the giant saddle bag with legs that I am, all I can think about is my new favorite lunch food – kati rolls from where else, Kati Rolls in the West Village.  (Oh, FYI – all these pics were taken with my iPhone!  And yes, there’s definitely a little Kati Roll left on my iPhone screen… and no, I didn’t consider licking the deliciousness off of it… who would do that???)

You know what the problem with New York is?  An abundance of bad food choices.  You can throw a stone here and hit a bland place to eat, then have that same stone ricochet off that bland restaurant and hit at least 8 more that are even worse.  All I want to know is what’s wrong with seasoning?  Huh?  What’s wrong with salt?  If it weren’t for salt, I’d pass out several times a day… without the aid of alcohol.  Salt is delicious!!!  I promise!  Here’s my suggestion if your family has a history of eating bland foods: take one for the team and start introducing flavor into your diet now.  Sure, you may suffer the long-term health repercussions, but your children and your children’s children will thank you.  They’ll eventually evolve and adapt until, like me, they have a medical need for flavor or else they will pass out from blandness poisoning!  While the decor inside Kati Roll is simple as can be, the flavor that is pulsing out of this joint is anything but bland.

Flavor makers. Flavor makers with a smile.

Kati rolls are a good way to start.  Indian flatbreads (paratha) are toasted up on a skillet and then rolled and filled with ridiculously flavorful grilled, marinated chicken, beef, potato mix, paneer, egg, or some combination those with thin slices of red onion.  The toasted paratha alone are a delicious treat – it’s the perfect balance of slightly chewy and almost flaky with the very slight taste of tangy yeastiness.

Toasted, tasty, obsession-worthy paratha.

Truly, one roll is plenty for lunch…  Unfortunately, because these damn things are so tasty, I always order two because I can never decide between my favorites: the marinated, grilled Chicken Roll or the spicy, tangy Aloo Masala Roll.  Two warm rolls wrapped in foil and served on a paper plate.  It’s not winning any plating points but I’ll gladly give up a visual show for warm, slightly sweet paratha wrapped around spicy, well-seasoned meat or potatoes with fresh, tangy onion slices.

Hello delicious Chicken Roll.

The only other roll I’ve tried so far is the paneer roll – also delicious, just not as delicious in my opinion.  Eventually, when I do tire of my obsession, maybe I can find a way to try other rolls.  Besides, with a menu like this, you kind of feel obligated to try every picture shown:

You know what’s a terrible idea?  Blogging about the food that you’re obsessed with when you don’t have any access to it… and staring at pictures of it at the same time.  Probably one of my worst ideas yet, right after that time I tried to make a kale smoothie.  Don’t ask.  So one last picture for my self-inflicted kati roll torture to leave us all drooling with spicy aloo desire:

Aloo happiness.

No, I’m not trying to make my blog post titles more feisty and suggestive, I’m just quoting the t-shirt that I donned yesterday in an attempt to promote The Brooklyn Cheese Experiment while also interviewing contestants and spectators.  Sadly, I neglected to take pictures or sample all of the contestants’ dishes.  Instead, I’m going to defer to the good people at the Village Voice who covered the event in detail.

The 30-second rundown is this: cooks prepped, they came, they served, some conquered, and all laughed themselves to pieces at the cheese & grapefruit+vodka cocktail party.  Quick note: grapefruit vodka doesn’t really pair well with a particularly garlicky camembert.  That’s an aftertaste that just won’t quick.  My favorite dish, even if she weren’t my favorite competitor, belonged to Bonnie Suarez.  Her three cheese spicy cracker with a chilled tomato-ricotta soup chaser put CHEESE in the forefront and didn’t relegate it to a side flavor.  If you adhere to Iron Chef judging guidelines, then you know that if you luck out and your secret ingredient is cheese instead of something like a gingko nut, you count your damn blessings and make your dish all about the cheese.

After the after party, a mass gathering headed to Lucky Eight restaurant in Borough Park Brooklyn – my first time dining in both this incredible Chinese restaurant and this neighborhood in general.  Well, I was immediately stopped and asked for directions in Chinese which is funny because a) I’d never been there before and b) I don’t speak Chinese.  I used my handy iPhone to help communicate directions and even drew my newfound Chinese friend a little map to where she was going.  After dinner, we had to call for car service to get home as there don’t seem to be any taxis roaming about in Brooklyn outside of Williamsburg.  Here’s a little tip – if you ask a Chinese restaurant for the number a good car service and they nod, write down a number, but never really acknowledge you in English, chances are that your car service is going to be a multilingual experience.  Once again, my iPhone bridged the great divide and Chris and I managed to get home safe and sound.

Today, however, I am trying to get over what seems to be the onset of a mild flu.  My weapons of choice in this immune battle are gummy bear vitamins by the handful.  Let’s hope it’s not the swine flu…

If you read this post before 10PM on Saturday, you probably noticed the plethora of typos… you can thank my lack of iPhone typing skills for that.

Just a quick reminder to buy your tickets for tomorrow’s Brooklyn Cheese Experiment! If you don’t like cheese, beer, or good food in general, feel free to stay home…

Instead of my usual napkin rolling, I’m going to be helping out in a different way this year. My friend’s father, the iconic food commercial director and Greenwich restaurant mogul, will be filming the event and making a documentary about food competitors and spectators, and what makes our generation gather together in the middle of Brooklyn to go cheese wild. I will be the mic girl, walking around and interviewing everyone. Well, at least it’s not live, so there’s time to edit me down into something coherent. On my blog, I usually just use the backspace button like it’s going out of style.

Come mock my interviewing skills and watch as the camera add a cinnamon roll to each side of my face. Brooklyn Cheese Experiment! 1pm tomorrow at The Bell House!

So Ippudo FINALLY added an egg that doesn’t have a green ring around its yolk.  I was surprised today when I ordered my usual Akamaru Modern (after a 45 minute wait at 6:15 PM) with an egg and was asked which egg I wanted: hard-boiled or poached.  Holy pork fat, Batman, I want the poached egg!

Um, big mistake.  Huge.  While it seemed like a great idea in theory, it just wasn’t executed well.  There were three of us and we basically had the Goldilocks scenario of poached eggs.  My friend Annette had one where the white was too runny and my friend Angela’s egg was nicely poached but cold in the center.  My egg was an interesting mix of a semi-firm half-custard yolk and that was all.  I literally had no whites, just a floating yellow orb of yolk hanging out in my bowl.  Most likely, Ippudo is now circulating eggs (aka “slow poached) and someone in the back is not re-therming them to a warm temperature for service and hasn’t gotten the hang of cracking the egg without damaging the fragile whites.

just a yolk.

The other surprise is that the rich custardy yolk makes the broth TOO RICH.  It becomes almost uncomfortably slippery.  Who knew that the already rich and decadent tonkotsu broth could be made TOO rich and decadent.  I wouldn’t have believe it possible unless I had tasted it myself.  It overwhelmed the normally amazing, rigid noodles.

So in the end, jokes on me… I actually prefer a marinated, hard-boiled sulfer egg to the slow-poached option.

I truly don’t understand why you would order tough, rubbery, mostly-batter, fried clam strips.  I concede, there’s a really good, oceany pungency to them that tastes they way a found clamshell on the beach smells.  But that texture…  It’s just unpleasant.  I might as well make nuoc mam-flavored chewing gum.

Growing up, I couldn’t understand why you would fry clams at all.  Why take something so succulent and juicy and turn it into what tasted like bland-battered and deep-fried bouncy ball?  Clam strips don’t usually hold up in flavor well to how heavily they’re battered, either… and I do mean battered in every meaning of the word.

The clam belly platter at Flanders Fish Market

So long ago, when my mother-in-law told me that we were going to be stopping for fried clams on our way up to Maine, I had my doubts.  When she placed her order at Flanders Fish Market in Connecticut, she was very specific to order fried clam “bellies.”  I had no idea what this meant, but knew there must be a distinction.  The entire family sat out on the sunny deck and waited for our orders while “enjoying” the soft rock that was being pumped outside.  Hey, it’s Connecticut.  When the basket came out, it didn’t look like any fried clam basket that I’d ever had.

Fried clam bellies, it turns out, just means that they’ve gone ahead and fried the entire small clam varietal, not just a shredded strip of a giant clam tongue (read: rubber central).  When done well, i.e. lightly battered so it fries quickly, the little clam doesn’t get overcooked and tough.  Instead, you break through crisp bready shell into a juicy and decadent clam center.  Hollaaaaaa.  Sprinkled with lemon juiced and lovingly dipped in horseradishy cocktail sauce, these little clam bonbons (vs. the clam mentos that I had tried and hated in the past, although regular mentos are great) engraved themselves into my food memory.  I nodded at my mother-in-law in acknowledgement of this food accomplishment and she nodded back.  A silent exchange of a common clam-belly ground.  Clam bellies – my solution to bonding with your in-laws.  Vodka doesn’t hurt either.

It looks like a little truffle that when bitten, pops with tender clam goodness

On our way back from Fisher’s Island, CT a few weeks ago, I made Chris call his mom from the drive for SPECIFIC instructions on how to get back to Flanders – the site of my clam belly inauguration.  Soft rock and sunny deck in place, we once again enjoyed an entire basket of delicious fried clam bellies with a side of fries, and then only slightly regretfully stared at our empty plate while contemplating the long drive back home.

Make sure to order extra cocktail sauce...

Well, I finally made it back to Ippudo a few weeks ago.  And I only had to wait 10 minutes!  That’s because my friend, Angela, and I decided to have dinner at 6PM like a couple of old blue-hairs.  Actually, Ippudo was senior citizen-free as 20 and 30-somethings all over NYC are willing to leave work early to try and beat the hour or more wait for a taste of Ippudo goodness.

I’ve tried several times to make it to Ippudo since I started writing this blog a few months ago, but every time I went, the hostess smiled as she informed me that I would need to wait about 90-minutes for a table.  During those months, I’ve had a lot of ramen and my resentment for not being able to get a table at Ippudo almost made me forget how much I love a bowl of Akamaru Modern.  Almost…

Once we sat down in our do-it-yourself-loveseat, which can be pushed together or spaced out depending on who you’re ramening with, I started to remember why I enjoy the Ippudo experience so much.  Ippudo is like swanky ramen – dark interior with giant booths or communal tables circling a driftwood centerpiece.  While I appreciate the ambience, I’m usually too pissed off by the wait to enjoy it when I sit down and usually curse the giant, red, sprouting wood sculpture and spacious booths filled with all of two people.  This time around, since there was no wait, I thoroughly appreciated the air-conditioning and elbow room so often compromised in a good ramen joint.

Ginga Kogen: Plateau of the Universe. Indeed it is, whatever the hell that means.

As I sipped my favorite Ippudo go-to beer, Ginga Kogen (a crisp, refreshing wheat beer that apparently means “Plateau of the Universe” in Japanese), I perused the menu pretending like I didn’t know EXACTLY what I wanted to order: flavorful chicken buns (which I actually prefer to the pork – go figure!), savory & tangy agedashi tofu, and a steaming bowl of Akamaru Modern – rich, porky goodness with a dollop of chili miso paste with an added marinated egg.  Oh, and I’d like my house-made noodles firm.

Chicken bun beats pork bun

If you know me or are starting to understand me, you know that ordering chicken over pork is a rarity for me, especially when that pork comes in the form of pork belly.  I’ve loved pork belly long before it became a fad.  It’s bacon in its purest form.  So know that when I say that the chicken bun is better than the pork bun at Ippudo, it means that this chicken is damn delicious.  The problem with chicken normally is that it’s flavorless.  At Ippudo, the chicken is marinated and then pan-seared to salty, spicy, umami happiness before being tucked into a marshmallowy soft and squishy white, steamed bun and garnished with crisp iceburg (no nutrients, but it adds good crunch and lightness) and Kewpie mayo (God’s answer to mayo right next to your everyday Hellmann’s).

Agedashi it up, tofu lovers.

Agedashi tofu is basically tofu that’s been very, delicately battered in a light, watery tempura batter before being quickly deep-friend until the outside is just crisp but still pale (Asians like pale).  It sits in umami-full dashi broth and is topped with grated daikon, ginger, and thin slices of radish and scallion.  It’s so light, yet tasty, that if you were someone other than me, it would make the perfect light meal on a humid summer day.

delicious tofu in sweet and savory dashi broth

With my second Ginga Kogen came my hot bowl of hakata broth ramen, its steam wafting up and spiraling around my face like a pork fat facial.  I quickly grated a small blizzard of sesame seeds on top and gave it a gentle stir to mix the miso paste into the broth.  Then I tasted just a small spoonful of the broth.  Damn.  Damn, damn, damn.  Damn you, Ippudo.  Damn you and your stupid hour-long waits for perfect hakata broth.  If you were a single person, Ippudo, I would kick you.  The broth is so rich, so flavorful, yet so perfectly balanced so that it’s not overly porky to that point where it almost gets fishy.  It’s not just about flavor, it’s about mouthfeel – Ippudo’s broth coats your mouth in a pleasing way that doesn’t leave a fat slick that prevents you from tasting anything else.  You enjoy its richness and then wish for more as it begins to fade and dissipates.  It coats, it scores.

The house-made noodles are my favorite ramen noodles yet.  They aren’t mushy, curly, springy noodles.  They’re made in the basement of Ippudo and each, thin, chewy, square-width noodle has its own almost-meatiness to it.  When slurped, or pinched with chopsticks, they fall into a perfect waterfall.  Ramen noodles are made with an alkaline mineral water (according to Wiki-doodalah) which probably accounts for the depth of flavor in the noodles.  It may also contribute to a mildly unpleasant smell in the basement right outside the noodle room.  Bleh.  Luckily, unless you’re curious like me, you’re probably not snooping around the noodle room anyway, so order your noodles a little firm and then enjoy the mildly sweet, nutty taste and chewy texture combo  of the noodles.

The sliced pork belly in Ippudo’s ramen is also pretty well-executed.  It’s sliced just thin enough and braised carefully to ensure that it’s as tender as it is flavorful.  The only drawback to the entire Akamaru Modern bowl is the sulfur yolk inside the marinated egg.  It’s so unfortunate.  The marinated “whites” of the egg (stained coffee-colored by the soy-based marinade) are the most flavorful of any egg that I’ve tasted, but without a delicious custard yolk, the egg disappoints me time after time.  Of course, I keep ordering the egg because I’d rather have the delicious whites and slightly sulfur-smelling egg (complete with green ring) than no egg at all.  <sigh>

green ringed-yolk. At least it's a whole egg vs. just a half...

So in the end, Ippudo strengthened its hold on my belly while its repulsive wait times continues to anger my heart.  Ippudo is the bad boy of ramen joints: he’s slick; when he pays you attention, you feel like gold; but he sometimes leaves you waiting for hours or just stands you up entirely.  But you keep coming back…  By the time we left, the almost empty lobby that greeted us at 6PM was now PACKED with hungry and anxious ramen addicts who stared longingly at us as we stumbled towards the door, bellies painfully full of delicious ramen.

i've seen it twice as packed. no, four times as packed! nay, twenty times as packed!

I’ve been meaning to post about Egg in Williamsburg FOREVER and now finally have a chance, but my husband just told me that I’m a little late – it’s apparently being featured in every cab in NYC.  Late to the party as usual, and most-likely, underdressed.  Regardless, I have to sing the praises of this wonderful restaurant while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Here’s my disclaimer: I rarely go to Brooklyn.  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Brooklyn and wanted to live there when I first moved to Manhattan.  My husband, however, is not a Williamsburger.  So we moved to the Upper East Side where my husband and his 70 year old friends feel more at home.  No, my husband’s not actually 70, but he’s almost 27 going on 68 at the very least.  I don’t make it to Brooklyn because I’m lazy and I hate transportation.  I know, it sounds weird, but I do.  I hate driving, busing, subwaying, ferrying (sailing is OK because it’s more like a sport than commuting), training, flying, vanning, shuttling, mono-railing… whatever.  I hate it.  I love to travel in the sense that I like being in other places, but I hate the act of getting anywhere.  Yeah.  I have issues.  Way ahead of you there.

I almost picked and ate these as an appetizer...

But after my husband, my bro-in-law, and me dropped my cousin and her friend off at the airport, we decided to head to Egg for a late lunch, early dinner.  It’s an unassuming place with a lot of character.  Aren’t those the best types???  Egg is small, but its substance is deep: they only use local or organic supplies – some of which they grow themselves!  After we realized that there wasn’t really a wait even though a do-it-yourself wait list board was sitting out front, we quickly grabbed the very front table so that I could sit next to the grape tomato plant that was growing in the window, nay, the table box on the sidewalk.  Tell me the last time you dined al fresco in the company of a good grape tomato plant!  Thanks to my husband and my bro-in-law, I refrained from picking and eating said-grape tomato for fear of embarrassing them.  Had I been on my own, however…  Oh, and before I forget — I need to give a shout out to Mr. Reginald Andre, aka Big Man In Williamsburg (BMIW), for introducing me to this extraordinary dining establishment.  It’s too bad that even though he’s my good friend, he never reads this blog or else he could receive his kudos pseudo-directly.

ham & cheese biscuit with a side of the best grits I've ever had

Anyhoo, when you go to Egg, there are certain things that you MUST order.  Either you order a biscuit, fried chicken, a milkshake, or ALL THREE.  Normally, I recommend all three.  However, since we weren’t quite at dinner time and this little excursion counted more as a snack than anything, I stuck to just one out of the three and ordered a biscuit… or rather bisuitS… yup, I ordered a ham & cheddar biscuit with grits PLUS a side of biscuit in sausage country gravy.  Don’t judge.  Go ahead and tell me that biscuit with a side of biscuit doesn’t sound appealing and I will go ahead and call you a communist.  It’s your God-given duty to love biscuits as an American.  If you’re not an American, thanks for reading my blog… now go find & try a biscuit and learn to love it.  Oh!  And to keep you occupied while you wait for your order, they provide crayons for you to doodle on your paper tablecloth with.  The people next to us drew amazing sketches of eyeballs while I just practiced writing my new last name: Lvoff… sooo many consonants.

sausage country gravy & biscuits

Here’s the thing – I wouldn’t have totally gluttoned-out except for the fact that I wanted country gravy to dip my ham & cheddar biscuit into.  At Egg, country gravy is made TO ORDER vs. sitting around in a giant pot over a water bath all day to develop one of those attractive, crusty skin layers on top.  Once that was explained to me in what seemed like an attempt to discourage me away from the side of country gravy, I stubbornly made my gravy stand and just ordered the entire biscuit & gravy appetizer.  What would you have done???

tell me that you wouldn't have done the same! ham & cheese biscuit WITH sausage country gravy.

Once my biscuits came, I knew that I had made the right decision.  You may question the logic behind a biscuit+biscuit afternoon snack, but I stand by my logic!  Once I was able to top dense, crispy-on-the-outside biscuit filled with salty ham & pungent cheddar, with a giant chunk of sausage smothered in perfectly peppery country gravy, I knew that my ordering had not been in vain.  Sure, my arteries went into instant contraction, but the buttery, salty, spicy, meaty melting pot of flavor that I experienced was surely worth blockage.  And while I’m no expert when it comes to grits since I’ve never had them south of Philadelphia, I will say this: these were the best grits that I’ve ever tasted.  Speckled with little bits of corn, these grits were mild on the palate (the right balance to the super-savory ham biscuit) and then sweet on the finish.  Normally, I just *like* grits but at Egg, I worship them.

Eggs from Egg... wish I had tasted this bite vs. just photographing it.

My husband’s sunny-side-up eggs and chorizo with raspberry jam looked pretty damn appetizing as well, even though I never got a taste…  The color of his farm eggs was a vibrant marigold vs. the pale yellow Food Emporium eggs that I’m used to.  I *imagine* that they were delicious based on how quickly he consumed them, only pausing to allow me a picture, but stopping his generosity just short of an actual tasting.

Now THAT'S a tablescape!!! My glass of chilled Muscadet was the perfect compliment to a savory summer's meal al fresco.

I’m sure you’ve seen the taxi advertisement on how great Egg is, but please allow me to reiterate: Egg is incredible.  It’s more than eggs, it’s reason enough to move to Williamsburg… or at least hop the L train over.

The Brothers Lvoff trying to ignore me as I hop around and take pictures like the blogger monkey that I am.