Grimaldi’s — Or, how I missed my flight

At Grimaldi’s, I noticed a poster facing me. “I’ll make you a pizza you can’t refuse,” it read, alongside an Italian man and a pizza. And this pizzeria wasn’t kidding.

Because of it, I missed my flight home to San Francisco.

But how could one say no to a Grimaldi’s pizza with extra mozzarella, extra basil and pepperoni? The tomato sauce had the sweetness from long-stewed tomatoes, the earthy flavors of oregano and rosemary. The true mozzarella slices (none of the shredded, part-skim mozzarella used by most pizza chains) were partially browned from roasting in the oven, and rendered the occasional air pocket. The basil was spicy, sweet, clovelike. And the crust — ohhh, that crust — was thin, but not to a crisp. It made a crackle upon my bite, but in its aftermath it simply gave way to a soft, smoky-flavored chewiness.

I asked our waiter why he thought Grimaldi’s (in my opinion, the best pizza, world over) had such amazing pizza.

“We use the coal-burning brick oven, which keeps the temperature higher than a wood-fire oven,” he said. Apparently, it’s a subtle art, and Grimaldi’s pies even vary depending on who is making the pizza that day. “If the pizza’s too close to the flames, the dough gets mushy,” he explained. “If it’s farther away, the crust gets crispy on the outside and perfectly blackened on the bottom.”

Was it worth missing my check-in time at the airport, only to wait 3 1/2 hours to barely make it standby on the next flight? Stressful as it was, yes. It was worth every bite.

Grimaldi’s, 19 Old Fulton St., Brooklyn, New York. 718.858.4300

Bouchon Bakery, Part Une

My recent New York visit allowed for a stop at Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center. Situated in the middle of the mixed-development supercenter and across from the Samsung store, it’s a fitting place for a cafe but an odd location choice for discerning restaurateur Thomas Keller. The most unusual part of it is not its placement in the shopping center but the glaring “SAMSUNG” sign that hangs above the seating area.

After a short wait (in which I learned more about Samsung’s offerings), we took the first available seating, which was at the bar. We were almost immediately served bread with butter. The butter was salted and at the ideal temperature for spreading, and the bread, which was slightly warm, was soft in the middle and crispy on the outside, and made that unmistakably airy crackling noise when I pressed it into the palm of my hand.

My first course, chicken soup with herb dumplings, elevated chicken soup to a new level. This wasn’t the cloudy, oversalted, canned Campbell’s soup of Warhol’s fame; it was completely transparent and, if anything, it was underseasoned. I reached for salt and pepper only to realize that it wasn’t in plain sight. Fortunately, the poached dumplings were full of of chicken flavor, and seasoned to boot. The chicken wasn’t greasy (although the soup itself was); the vegetables were tender but not overcooked.

My Bibb lettuce salad arrived, layered on the plate like petals on a rose. It was sprinkled with shallots, garden herbs, Roquefort cheese and red wine vinaigrette – delicate but delicious. Eating through the lettuce leaves was not unlike unwrapping a present.

Andy had a ham and cheese baguette with madrange ham and emmenthaler cheese. When he previously ordered this at the Bouchon Bakery at the Venetian in Las Vegas, he recalled it being simple yet refined. Somehow, it didn’t translate this time around: the bread was hard and cold. We had the option of having it warmed in the panini press, but our server informed us that this made the bread about ten times harder. My feeling is that this dish could have been much better — I will have to try it when we revisit Las Vegas this December.

For a casual eatery, the service was excellent. Despite overhearing our server say she had a terrible headache, she was friendly and attentive. We received multiple coffee, water and bread and butter refills. This may have been due to the fact that we were sitting at the bar.

All in all, a positive experience. As possibly the country’s most upscale bakery chain, I look forward to visiting its Vegas counterpart next month in search for clues about the restaurant’s consistency. Stay tuned!

Bouchon Bakery, 10 Columbus Circle, 3rd fl., New York, New York. 212.823.9366

Cool restaurant interior.

Bobo, West Village, NYC.

I simply stumbled upon this and found it beautiful. Has anyone had a chance to visit?

Unexpectedly Addictive: Momofuku Noodle Bar

Whenever I make trips out to Manhattan (which isn’t very often), I always have a laundry list of new restaurants I’d like to try as well as old favorites that I must revisit. Momofuku was one of the new ones: Restaurateur/chef David Chang and his two restaurants Momofuku and Momofuku Ssam Bar have been at the top of Manhattan’s hyped-up list over the past year.

We were seated immediately, an unexpected surprise for a Saturday night in the East Village. Our server recommended the small plates which included pork buns, fried sweetbreads (“the best in the city,” she said) and seasonal pickles. The deep-fried, breaded veal sweetbreads — a first for me — were crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. While the sweet-and-spicy chili sauce that accompanied them was well-balanced, I just couldn’t get past the fact that they were thymus glands of a baby cow. Something about them had just the faintest, slightest offal taste reminiscent of insufficiently cleaned innards.

The pork buns weren’t the traditional char shui Chinese barbeque pork buns. Rather, they were a twist on the peking duck that is served in Chinese restaurants around the U.S., slick with hoisin sauce, generous slabs of pork belly and flat, steamed buns. (This is in the case of America only, as peking duck in China is served wrapped in a crepelike pancake.) When I glanced to my left, the girl next to me had cut the fat off of her pork bun. For a second I felt pity for that pig who’d given up his life only to have his succulent, aromatic belly fat cut away and left on a plate. What a shame, I thought, as mine melted away in my mouth. By the time I’d finished, I was certain that this dish was as good as, or almost as good as peking duck. (That would be a strong statement: I once put on 15 pounds eating peking duck three times a week for eight weeks in China.)

For the entree, our energetic waitress recommended the restaurant’s namesake Momofuku ramen. It arrived in an oversized bowl, a generous (but not overflowing) amount of noodles swimming in caramel broth, surrounded by two kinds of pork (belly and shredded pork neck meat), chili-pickled bamboo shoots, mustard greens, dried seaweed sheets and a barely-poached egg. The broth had such a delicious pork flavor that I didn’t really even need to add Sriracha-style sauce, something that I do on a routine basis to “spice up” my ramen noodle broth. My only complaint (which my friend Steph echoed in her review) was that the noodles weren’t chewy enough. They were limp and lacked that “QQ,” or bounciness, that Asian people so love in their noodle soups. This was probably intentional, but I’d been hoping for squiggly al dente noodles more along the style of udon than soba. Nonetheless, the poached egg completely made up for this. The egg white’s delicate gelatinous texture and the yolk’s creaminess were a great match for the subtle broth.

The cravings kicked in upon my return to the apartment. When I found the following pictures online, I was tempted to go back there the next day just to try the following:

Roasted Rice Cakes with Onions and Spicy Chili Pepper Sauce

Seasonal Pickles

It’s time to book another trip to New York.

Momofuku, 171 1st Ave, New York, New York. 212.475.7899