Brunch at Le Pain Quotidien

Le Pain Quotidien is a chain that touts organic products and a homey vibe. The tables are rustic and many of them communal. All this comes at a premium. DMR and I ate at the one on Madison Avenue, on the Upper East Side, a section of town we are hardly ever in. Dan actually worked in this neighborhood for a few years when he first moved to New York. I don't know how he remained sane riding an overcrowded 4/5 train and dodging the uppity masses on a daily basis. Sorry if you live on the UES, but damn if it isn't one of the ickiest parts of New York.

Sometimes on my way to work, I'll pop into the Le Pain Quotidien near Bryant Park that recently opened up and grab a cheese danish or organic blueberry muffin to go. Prior to this meal, I had eaten at an LPQ just once. It wasn't a meal, but breakfast, actually a breakfast meeting/interview that went pretty terribly for me. In retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't hired and got a nice laugh a few months later when I found out they were trying to get me back in for another interview.

I ordered a single soft boiled egg and Dan got the grilled chicken and smoked mozzarella tartine. We both got individual pots of coffee as well, into which we stirred in organic sugar and drank out of latte bowls. My lone egg was served with rectangles of house breads and expensive as hell - $4, I think. Dan's sandwich came as a surprise to both of us. Neither of us expected it to be cold or open-faced, much less both.




The tartine was good, but not really the type of sandwich you'd want to eat cold. It came with some cucumber and radish slices, and cornichons, all three of which are excellent sandwich accompaniments. A big plus for them there. We shared a large order of fruit salad, which in the photo looks pretty handsome. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the bowl was mostly melon.



Dan got an underwhelming chocolate croissant for dessert. For $3.50 we expected more than a nib of chocolate. We also didn't expect our request to have it heated up be met with a reply of, "We can't do that here."

Three delicious meals sans photos because the camera stopped working or I just forgot: Momofuku Ssam Bar, Brio, Snack Taverna

Snack Taverna: This is the slightly fancier older sibling to Snack, a tiny Greek inspired place in Soho. It's not much bigger than Snack either. Our table ordered a two small plates to begin: Pikilia, a trio of melitzanosalata, taramosalata and tzatziki served with warm pita and dolmades, and the pan cried cod cakes.

I never pronounce it correctly, but wow, do I love taramosalata. There's a jarred version that's sold in stores in case you can't get to a Greek joint. I usually say, "taramotsola" or "taramasala" by accident. Whoops. I love the way the tiny beads of roe feel against your tongue. They are like some ancient, piscine version of pop rocks. Pita arrived cut in quarters and warm, as promised. We quickly polished off the first basket and asked for a refill. I could eat warm pita and dips all day long. The cod cakes were pretty good but didn't blow me away. I did especially liked the tangy dressing that accompanied the greens the two cakes sat atop.

For our mains, DMR had the pastitsio, which came in an individual crock making it look like a gigantic french onion soup. Nils ordered the roast pork tenderloin with orzo in a spicy avgolemono sauce. I had the enormous whole roasted branzino filet served with an equally large portion of roasted fingerling potatoes, mizuna and two roasted tomato halves. The potatoes were a little bland, but the tomatoes were bursting with sweetness and, I don't know how better to describe it, but intense tomato flavor. As I had filled up on bread, as usual, so I was not able to finish my fish. Actually, I put up a really weak showing, which was unfortunate because it was perfectly seasoned and cooked.

Momofuku Ssam Bar: Can I tell you how excited I was to eat here and take photos? This is the night my camera died. It refused to take a single photo. This is the story of my life. Anyway, this was a dinner with a bunch of work people, including super special guest star Emma C. all the way from the UK.

I think David Chang is awesome. He's kind of the first celebrity chef of Korean heritage, right? I guess there's Edward Lee who used to own Clay in Noho, before moving to Louisville to start Magnolia, but he's not nearly the household name that Chang is. I love his first restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar, even though it's cramped and sometimes the a/c is on so high it cools down your soup way too quickly. I don't care. I love that he doesn't cook Korean cuisine but inputs lots of Korean personality and history into his food.

We ordered a whole mess of plates for everyone to share, with the exception of Molly, the lone vegetarian, who managed to find an heirloom tomato and tofu dish she could eat. The pickle plate was a rainbow of colors and tastes featuring shitake mushrooms, cucumbers, hot and spicy radish and cabbage kimchi, carrots, beets, tangy fennel, celery and even some pickled melon! Edward's Wigwam smoked ham from Virginia was served in paper thin slices, a la prosciutto, and along with a little dish of what our server called a red eye gravy. It was not your typical red eye gravy. In the dark light of Momofuku, it looked like a mustard, but it was actually mayo based. It sounds gross, but the combo of coffee, drippings and Kewpie created this savory butterscotch flavor which I became I addicted to. The ham came with two warm pieces of bread and we immediately asked for more and to that we were told we could order the bread and butter dish. Well, they told us. Their bread plate was basically a warmed baguette with two types of butter: sea salt from Vermont and St. Helen's Farms goat butter from England that definitely tasted like it came from a goat. I preferred the salty butter. A plate of cured hamachi featured nearly translucent pieces of one of my favorite fishies in the world. We were informed it was one of the house specialties and it did not disappoint. Toasted seawood, edamame and wasabi sauce rounded out the plate. There were also these round, pale yellow, circular mystery crunchy bits. I have no idea what they were, maybe from a furikake mixture? These too were pop rockish and I hope I wasn't being too rude as I picked them off the plate. To meet our vegetable quotient, we also got the roasted cauliflower, with came sprinkled with toasted puffed rice and bathed in a light fish sauce. I've become a recent convert to cauliflower. I had no idea it could taste this good.

Then came the mains, three porcine variations: spare ribs, steamed buns and saam. I'll start with the steamed buns, because this is the homerun dish at both Momofukus. A hunk of braised Berkshire pork belly with glistening fat that melts in your mouth is tucked into a white, slightly sweet bun. It gets dressed with a little hoisin and cucumber slices add a necessary crunch. It is a magical combination that sadly disappears in like two bites. Onto the pork ribs, a pile of meaty bones slathered in a subtly, spicy sauce that recalled the kochujang (red chili pepper paste) based concoction my mom would slather on her ribs, which she'd cook on an aluminum foil covered pan in the oven. Did I mention the ribs were sprinkled with toasted shallots, which is another one of my favorite things in the world? The ribs came with a small dish of pickled green tomatoes and a creamy potato salad.

The third dish was probably my least favorite, but still tasty. Eating this variation of ssam is like eating Vietnamese spring rolls, but instead of a spring roll, slabs of coarse ground pork sausage (kinda in the shape of SPAM, no less!) served as the centerpiece. You could pack your piece of bibb lettuce with pork, pickled carrots and radish and then dip into the fish sauce based dressing. To drink, a couple bottles of Hitachino Nest Ale for me, of course. Just like its sister space, Momofuku Ssam bar is loud and crowded. They cram in too many seats and you don't have any leg or elbow room. But it also serves some of the tastiest food ever.

Brio - We were served an enormous amount of cheese, including two plates of burrata, which I had never had before and now can't stop thinking about. There was also a plate of sopressata, prosciutto, and bresoala. For my main, I got the parpadelle with sausage, cherry tomatoes and cremini mushrooms. But since I had stuffed my face with burrata and Parmigiano-Reggiano, I barely made a dent. I managed to rally to try the assortment of desserts: ricotta cheesecake, panna cotta with balsamic, tiramisu and an addictive Napolean cake.

Lotsa Eating, Little Writing

Some meals of late:

Taro Sushi - Jim popped his sashimi cherry this night, while Beth and I tried the omakase here for the first time. I went with the sushi and sashimi combo, while Beth was sashimi all the way. We started with an appetizer of monkfish liver atop a ponzu dressed sunomono. The liver had a really interesting texture. It was denser than I thought and reminded me of a smooth version of mentaiko, which I ate a lot of when I was younger. Anyway, everything tastes great with ponzu, IMHO. Next came the fish parade, including sardine, mackerel, butterfish, hamachi and a red-skinned whitefish which I think was called kinmae. Following that was a fatty tuna roll and a California roll made with real crab. But there was still so much more to be had, including variations on tuna such as bonito, which I love and some uni, which is not really a favorite. The uni nigiri was composed of two small orange oblong pieces atop the seasoned rice and I ate one of the pieces but left the other. I was incredibly stuffed after the meal, which I feel does not happen often when eating sushi.

Jim tried many new tastes and I think hamachi and mackerel came out on top as favorites. Hooray for Jim for trying new tastes!

Kushi Q - I discovered this futuristic hole in the wall Japanese place the other week when I had to stop by a friend's office to drop off Mets tickets. Though only half a block from Oms/B, where I go for lunch from time to time, I'd never noticed it before.

I ordered a atsuage tofu bento set with salad (you can also choose rice) and miso soup for $6.50. There was a trio of sticks, each with three cubes of battered tofu. Underneath the light and crispy shell was soft, creamy tofu. The salad was basic, composed of chopped romaine, carrots and corn, but filled me up nonetheless. I'd like to go back and try the butabara (bacon) and so-se-ji (little Berkshire sausages with pineapple). I've read some complaints about the portions not being big enough, but I felt more than satisfied.



Hibino - I did a bunch of small plates with the CLC and Dani before heading over to Floyd for bocce practice. The presentation on the fresh tofu is so cute, it's hard to pass up. It's amazing how rich and nutty tofu can taste. On this night, it was like eating a custard. It's also difficult to pass up the beef kakuni, a big hunk of braised short rib sitting atop a round of daikon. I rounded out the meal with one of the special daily obanzai - shitake and shisito pepper tempura, which unfortunately came sitting in sauce. I prefer to keep the tempura as dry as possible to maintain crispiness and do my own saucing.



Brio - I had lunch at this Upper East Side restaurant on Thursday with my coworkers Molly and Kendel to celebrate the latter's birthday. Molly knows the family who owns it, so we got treated to some lovely surprises, like a bottle of Prosecco and these two ginormous portions of tiramisu for dessert. To begin we noshed (am I allowed to say that to describe an Italian restaurant?) on a cheese plate and carciofi fritti, pan-fried baby artichokes. The cheese plate featured aged provolone, parmegiano and a deliciously milky salted fresh mozzarella. Kendel and I then shared the garganelli in salsa aurora rivista, which was a tomato-bechamel sauce, green peas, prosciutto and porcini. It was super rich, so a half-portion was the perfect amount. Then I wanted to take a nap, but I had to go back to work. Boo.

Sura - This Korean restaurant has undergone a bit of a makeover since I've last been. The setting seems a lot more serious and mature as the servers now dress in hanboks. The food was just as tasty as I remembered. Heidi and I shared the "pear and pork delight" to begin with. Layers of barbequed pork alternated with slices of Asian pear to create a nice contrast in textures. I just wish the kitchen was a little stingier with the sauce, which was a mixture of chili miso, raspberry and soy. It was too much and too gloppy. A light brushing of one of those flavors would have been more than sufficient. My main, the doobu kimchi bokeum suffered from the same over saucing but otherwise it was pretty damn tasty. The kimchi was gently sauteed with discs of rice cakes and surrounded by wedges of plain, steamed tofu. It was served with a small ping pong sized ball of mashed potatoes with cubes of Asian pear, what I guess is one of their trademark touches. It sounds weird, but provides a nice, cooling crunch in between bites of spicy.