Dovetail’s Deconstructed Muffuletta Is a Trojan Horse for Lamb’s TongueDovetail, John Fraser’s new Upper West Side restaurant, is enjoying a critical reception not seen in some time. Adam Platt’s three-star review highlighted the deconstructed muffuletta sandwich with fried lamb’s tongue. Fraser says the dish came to him in a dream but also has a more practical explanation: “Lamb’s tongue is not the easiest thing to sell, so you have to pair it with something really interesting.” As always, mouse over the different elements to hear them described in the chef’s own words.
The Annotated Dish
Suba’s Spanish LambapaloozaSpanish fine dining has been a hard sell in New York, but insofar as anyone has been able to make a go of it, it’s Seamus Mullen. Suba, Mullen’s chicly dungeon-like space on the Lower East Side, produces some of the city’s most intense and inventive Spanish-inspired food, and the Silla de Cordero, or saddle of lamb, is a perfect example. Three separate parts constitute the saddle, and Mullen puts them all together on plate, a tribute to the Spanish love of lamb: “the whole dish is about lamb, soup to nuts” he says, “lamb tenderloin, lamb belly, lamb loin, sheep’s milk cheese, sheep’s milk yogurt, and a nice lamby vinaigrette. We love it.” As always, mouse over the different parts of the dish to hear them described in the chef’s own words.
The Orange Line
Riding the V Line: A Turkish Oasis at Sip SakWe’re riding the B and V from Coney Island all the way to Forest Hills, jumping off frequently to rave about our favorite restaurants and food stores near the subway.
This week’s location is 53rd and Lex, the V’s last stop in Manhattan. It’s delis and hotels everywhere you look, and it doesn’t get much better as you head east on 53rd Street. But hang a right on Second Avenue, and pop into Sip Sak, Orhan Yegen’s one-of-a-kind take on Turkish fast food.
The Annotated Dish
A ‘Clean, Elegant’ Lamb Trio at Le CirqueChristophe Bellanca, the new chef at Le Cirque, is a veteran of a number of Michelin-starred kitchens in France, and his work at the venerable restaurant shows off classical French technique in spades. Everything is pared down to its most basic essence, and even dishes like this lamb trio seem elemental in a very purified, austere way. “I wanted something that was interesting, clean, and elegant,” the chef says, and he got it. As always, mouse over the different sections of the image to hear it described in Bellanca’s own words.
Mediavore
Hello, Five Guys Burgers; Bush Versus OverfishingThe Five Guys burger chain, which has fanatical adherents in Washington D.C., came to New York without anybody knowing it. And the burgers at its Queens location are outstanding. [Serious Eats]
All we have to do to replenish the ocean’s devastated fish populations is to leave them alone, which is well within the power of our unpopular president. [NYT]
Shock jocks JV and Elvis have, predictably, been fired for their idiotic Chinese-restaurant phone prank, in which they called up live to ask for “shrimp flied lice” and “some old dung.” [WNBC]
The Annotated Dish
Insieme’s Complicated Quartet of LambMarco Canora has the reputation as a chef’s chef, a guy who knows how to take great ingredients and develop their taste with a minimum of artifice or flash. He was that way as the original chef at Craft, at Hearth, and now at Insieme, his ambitious new midtown restaurant. Lamb four ways with lavender, spring garlic, peas, morels and spicy greens is a quintessential Canora dish, intense, multilayered, but somehow humble. Mouse over each element for Marco’s description.
NewsFeed
Matt Weingarten Bids Savoy Adieu, Brings His Lamb Sandwich to Midtown
The last time we heard about Matt Weingarten, the bespectacled, red-bearded chef’s first restaurant, Porcupine, had gone belly up, and he had brought his checked pants and his knives to Savoy as chef de cuisine. But Weingarten, an intellectual type who thinks about food night and day, couldn’t be contained forever, and he will be leaving Savoy in early April to head up Café St. Bart’s, the terrace restaurant attached to St. Bartholomew’s Church at Park and 50th. Weingarten will be consulting on the food this summer and in the fall remaking the menu as executive chef. What can diners expect? “Well, there won’t be any foams,” he says. “I’m not a molecular-gastronomy kind of cook. Everything will be very simple and classic.” He does assure us that he will be bringing with him the leg-of-lamb sandwich with prune-hyssop butter that he has carted around with him since Porcupine. Good. We were worried.
Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St., at Park Ave.; 212-888-2664.
The Gobbler
How to Eat in LondonThe Gobbler’s recent Rabelaisian adventures in London produced a piece of measured and in-depth reportage. As usual with pieces of in-depth reportage, however, plenty of stuff got left out. The Gobbler forgot to mention his favorite Indian restaurant (it’s Pakistani, actually), his favorite outdoor market, his tips for ordering dessert (any dish that includes the word “sticky” will do), and his secret strategy for not blowing all of your precious cash (there isn’t one). So here, in slightly expanded form, are the Gobbler’s ten rules for eating well in London.
