Get the Best of West Coast Charcuterie at Mia Dona
If you’re not going to the Astor Center’s Head-to-Tail dinner with Chris Cosentino on Tuesday, you can also find his food at Mia Dona, the only New York restaurant serving Cosentino’s charcuterie. Cosentino met Mia Dona owner Donatella Arpaia when shooting The Next Iron Chef, on which he was a contestant, and goes way back with the restaurant’s executive chef, Jason Hall. “We use their lonza (pork loin). It’s amazing. The fat cap is like the finest lardo. And the meat itself expresses the purity of pork — it’s perfectly seasoned and cured, ” he enthuses. Mia Dona serves the lonza on two crostini — one with sheep’s-milk ricotta and Sicilian oregano, and the other with winter-citrus mostarda — but Hall would like to use even more: “I want to use a lot of Chris’s stuff, but we can’t overwhelm the menu all at once.” Cosentino, whom we think of as California’s answer to David Chang, also sells his charcuterie online. Visit Boccalone to order for yourself.
Related: Back-to-Back Feasts Will Break the Bank, Blow Your Mind
Video: Inside Mia Dona’s Kitchen
User’s Guide
DeBragga and Spitler Will Supply Great Steakhouse Meat. Should You Buy It?Steakhouses are valued for one thing: their meat. There are no chefs, and no one goes there for the décor. So if the meat is available elsewhere, such as DeBragga and Spitler’s new retail operation, why bother with the steakhouse? The beef supplier, one of New York’s most established, was once the source for most of the city’s top steakhouses, and still supplies some of the best, such as Craftsteak and BLT Prime. Now you can buy a steak that is “exactly, absolutely” the same, says DeBragga’s Marc Sarrazin. Other top meat operations, like elite-meat specialist Pat LaFrieda, and small-farm evangelist Heritage Food USA, have made their stuff available to the public as well. So the question is this: Is it worth it?
Mediavore
Esca Chef to Work for Mets; Bourdain Back on Food NetworkEsca chef David Pasternack will be right at home in the new Mets stadium come 2010, running a place called the Fish Shack. [Insatiable Critic]
Related: Hark! New Shake Shack to Open at Shea Stadium
Kim Severson just ruined our breakfast with a look at PETA’s “Got Pus?” campaign and the question of whether or not milk contains pus. Let’s all share the nausea, shall we? [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
A Brooklyn pizza maker accused of gunning down a mobster was acquitted yesterday, but the case still reinforces those old mafia-in-cahoots-with-Italian-joints stereotypes. [NYDN]
NewsFeed
Pig Farmer to Deliver Pigs in Pig-Fueled Truck
Bev Eggleston, the Virginia pig farmer trying to revive Ossabaw pigs, has refitted his truck to run on barbecue grease! He’s struck up a symbiotic friendship with Hill Country’s Robbie Richter (Richter gets to try great pork, Bev gets to eat great barbecue), and the two have come to an understanding by which Richter will save his grease for Eggleston’s special diesel engine. The idea’s not as crazy as it sounds: San Francisco asks restaurants to recycle grease for the city’s bus fleet.
NewsFeed
Virginia Pig Farmer Is the Toast of the New York Pork WorldIt sounds like a fairy tale: Some Spanish hogs, brought over by Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century, take over an island off the coast of Georgia and run wild there for hundreds of years. Feral and boarlike, they are also about the best tasting pork imaginable, and cousins to the world’s most celebrated ham. Is it a fable, conjured by the heated imagination of foodies? Or an eye-opening truth, as irrefutable as a piece of gamey and rich roast pork? We’re happy to say that it’s the latter. Bev Eggleston, of Eco-Friendly Foods in Virginia, has started selling his amazing pork to a handful of New York restaurants, and soon he may be giving the Spanish a run for their money in the ham business.
Foodievents
Fergus Henderson to Cook Tomorrow at Savoy, Wednesday at the Spotted Pig
We stopped by Soho House last night to speak to Fergus Henderson, the celebrated London chef whose gospel of offal, Nose to Tail Eating, conquered the culinary world back in 2004. Henderson and his friend Justin Piers Gellatly, his dessert chef at London’s St. John, have written a sequel to Nose to Tail called Beyond Nose to Tail (“It’s like Buzz Lightyear, isn’t it? Infinity and beyond?” Fergus said of the illogical title). Henderson will be cooking some of his signature dishes from St. John tomorrow night at Savoy and Wednesday at the Spotted Pig; both evenings are open to the public.
The Annotated Dish
Trabocchi Reinvents Porchetta at FiammaFabio Trabocchi gained fame, and a James Beard award, for his modern Italian food at Maestro in Virginia. Now, he’s Michael White’s replacement at Fiamma, and his contemporary take on porchetta, the most intensely rural and down-market of dishes, is a fair example of Trabocchi’s style: “In Italy, porchetta is a pig on a spit with wild fennel. It’s either boned and stuffed in a meat-loaf shape or opened up, like a book, on a spit. It’s something we tried to reinvent with a modern version without losing the original flavors.” As always, mouse over the different elements to see them described in the chef’s own words.
Foodievents
Il Buco Goes Hog Wild Thursday Afternoon
Il Buco’s annual Sagra del Maiale festival (pig party to us Americans) runs Thursday from 1 to 6 p.m., and it kills us that we can’t go. The restaurant, which has always been a source of ingredient-driven Italian food, has taken its aesthetic up a notch under chef Ignacio Mattos’ watch. The pigfest is perfectly symbolic of that — it’s not just whole hog, but Ossabaw pork from an island off Georgia. It’s one of the most intensely flavorful pigs in the world, with a taste reminiscent of Spanish Ibérico hogs, wild boars, the sound of rushing water, first kisses in prehistoric South American jungles, and your first pork chop. The menu, which includes barbecued pork, Ossabaw panini, ricotta fritters, farmer’s-market panzanella, and wild arugula with lemon, red onion, and Pecorino, is a paltry $20 a plate. Do what you can to get there; it looks to be pretty special.
Sagra del Maiale Festival
NewsFeed
Mere Mortals Confront the Ultimate Ham It’s the ultimate prize, the holy grail for pork-lovers: the famed jamón ibérico de bellota, the black-footed, acorn-fed Spanish ham. It’s illegal in this country, but one of our meat operatives managed to smuggle a bit across the border. We arranged a little taste test among some New York staffers to see what the ham — about which Casa Mono chef Andy Nusser says: “Once you taste ibérico, you can’t compare it to anything else” — tastes like to non-foodies. Would the man in the street be as moved? We didn’t tell our panel the ham’s identity, or hint of its vast, cultlike fame. Their reactions?
NewsFeed
Shake Shack Hamburger and Little Owl Pork Chops Can Soon Be Yours
The famous ground-beef mixture from Pat LaFrieda has been the talk of burger circles the last few years — a dizzying time in which the Spotted Pig, Shake Shack, Stand, and half a dozen other contenders have taken the previously humble sandwich to the proverbial next level. The source of all that burger greatness, as Men’s Vogue recently wrote, is LaFrieda, the city’s top source for high-end wholesale meats. Scratch the wholesale part! Soon, and for the first time ever, the burger that launched a thousand blog posts will be available at the retail counter at Market Table, Joey Campanero and Mike Price’s new restaurant in the West Village.
Back of the House
Bacon Has Jumped the SharkThe nation’s infatuation with bacon gets stronger every year, but now it may have gone too far. We were members of the Bacon of the Month club from way back. We too fell in love with the bacon-flavored chocolate promoted at the Fancy Food Show recently. We even hosted occasional bacon tastings, and just for good measure included everyone’s favorite breakfast meat in our recent Grub Street grilling video. But to say “everything should taste like bacon,” like the zealous producers of Bacon Salt do, is perhaps taking the obsession too far.
Openings
Batali Protégé Goes for Her Share of the LimelightIron Chef America fans know Anne Burrell as Mario Batali’s sous-chef on the show. (Spotted Pig customers know her as a regular.) The question now is whether she can actually cook when not doing Super Mario’s bidding. Her Centro Vinoteca is opening up this week with recognizably Batalian food: plenty of pork, robust flavors, and the kind of “why not” aesthetic that results in, say, deep-fried gnocchi in lamb ragù (“they’re like tater tots,” the chef says) or a poussin crusted with pancetta and rosemary paste.
Mediavore
Chefs Are All Over ‘Ratatouille’; Allen and Delancey May Open AfterChefs say “Ratatouille gets it, it totally gets chef culture.” Even Tony Bourdain is onboard, calling it “the best restaurant movie ever made — the best chef movie.” [Ruhlman]
Related: How Much Thomas Keller Is Really in ‘Ratatouille’’s Remy?
Allen and Delancey may be coming back. Or rather, opening for the first time. [Eater]
Related: Allen and Delancey Tripped at the Finish Line, Won’t Open
The good people of Iowa may not get the whole niche-pork thing, but they are happy to supply the product. [Des Moines Register]
Mediavore
Mr. Chow Sued for $5 Million; Loans Crush Wannabe ChefsMichael Chow of Mr. Chow is hit with a $5 million lawsuit for skimming tips, demanding “cult-like attention” from staff, and utilizing “degradation as a management technique.” [NYP]
Cooking-school graduates are being crushed by their student-loan debts: “The story is always the same. The school convinces the student they are going to be the next Julia Child or Wolfgang Puck, and the student will sign anything.” [NYT]
The Smith and Wollensky Restaurant Group finally agrees to be bought out by Patina Restaurant Group [NYT]
Related: The Secrets of Steakhouse Riches [Grub Street]
The Annotated Dish
Boqueria’s Renowned Rectangle of Rich Suckling PigAlmost since the day it opened, tapas restaurant Boqueria has had the beau monde flocking to its rather nondescript block on 19th Street. Young Spanish-trained chef Seamus Mullen’s star dish is his suckling pig, a crisp, irresistible brick of concentrated pork goodness. As ever, mouse over the arrows for details from the cook himself.
The Gobbler
You Know You’re a Meathead When …The Gobbler recently introduced the world to what he called the “Refined Meathead” school of cooking. Meatheads are mostly male, pork- and offal-obsessed cooks who disdain classical (read “French”) haute cuisine in favor of an earthier brand of cuisine. Mario Batali is king of the Meatheads. David Chang is a Meathead. Daniel Boulud, who grew up eating robust Lyonnaise food and cooks the best pork belly in town when he feels like it, is a closet Meathead. Who are the rest of the Meatheads? How would you know one if you met one in the street? Here are the Gobbler’s Six Meathead Commandments.
What to Eat Tonight
A Very Special All-Pork ProgramWelcome to a Very Special Episode of Grub Street. In honor of National Pork Day, we’re going to turn back the clock and look at some of the most memorable pork moments from our first six and a half months. We remember them as if they were yesterday …
Mediavore
Bourdain Talks Smack About Chodorow, Others; The Joys of Rotting MeatThe joys of rotting meat, as explained by Robert’s Steakhouse chef Adam Perry Lang. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Tony Bourdain was captured on video at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival talking shit about Food Network personalities to a crowd. [Snack]
… And late yesterday, laid into Chodorow using Bruni’s Robert’s Steakhouse review as a pretext: “One might ask if it’s ever a good idea anyway to spend 40,000 bucks reminding the public that the New York Times think you suck.”
[Rulhman]
Back of the House
The Travails of the Produce Biz; A Rebuke to Our Rachael Ray DefenseAn inside look at what restaurants’ produce suppliers go through and the razor’s edge their business turns on. [NYT]
Nina Lalli believes that we were wrong to defend Rachael Ray, who, she says, just throws fatty food at the masses, with no care for their well-being. [VV]
Joël Robuchon has confirmed that he’s going to open a restaurant in Chicago; now it looks like Alain Ducasse will be doing the same. If, as some speculate, Ducasse never reopens here, we may actually end up behind Chicago in something. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Openings
Silent H Not Deaf to New York’s Pleas for Vietnamese“I don’t miss anything about California except Mexican food and Vietnamese food,” says Vinh Nguyen, a onetime UCLA premed who fell into the hospitality business as a bar back at Santa Monica’s legendary Father’s Office. Since moving east three years ago, Nguyen has found New York’s Vietnamese options sorely lacking, especially when compared to the home cooking of his mother, an immigrant who left school at 9 to sell street food in Hue. The problem, as he sees it, is laundry-list menus that are too hit-or-miss, combined with “atmospheres” defined by single-white-napkin dispensers and dirty bathrooms.
Ask a Waiter
Boqueria’s Jeff Deisel Refuses to Take Reservations for Howard SternJeff Deisel was working as a bartender at nightclubs and then at Lower East Side Pan-Latino restaurant Suba before the owners of the latter invited him to be part of the opening team at their new joint Boqueria. He brought with him Suba’s (in)famous beer sangria but found that working at a straight-up tapas bar had a flavor all its own. We asked the bartender and server how local diners, including Ed Koch, are responding to the no-reservations rule, befuddling portions, and that elusive suckling pig.
The Underground Gourmet
Batali Helps Devise Insane Feast for Spotted Pig StaffWhen one thinks of the great feast-givers throughout history, one thinks of the medieval dukes, earls, and kings of England. One thinks of Chinese and Roman emperors, the Persians, the Turks, maybe a Fijian cannibal chief or two. Add to this illustrious list of revelers Sir Ken D. Friedman, the owner of West Village gastropub the Spotted Pig. This past Sunday, Friedman threw a belated holiday–Super Bowl party at Del Posto for his 80-person staff, and it was of such Rabelaisian excess that, like an old Woodstock hippie, the restaurateur is having trouble remembering it all.
At the Greenmarket
A Farewell to Farms: Whey-Fed Pork and Mâche Crown the Season
Next week we turn to specialty and gourmet markets in search of seasonal produce and other ingredients. We’ll return to Union Square with springtime’s ramps and fiddleheads; in the interim, stalwart Greenmarketers can look forward to a winter’s worth of greens, onions, garlic, potatoes, and apples — not to mention fragrant rosemary garlands, cranberry-pecan sourdough, guinea hens, Christmas trees, and jars of golden pear chutney.
Click and Save
Gastronomical Gifts, Lovable LatkesTo add to Rob and Robin’s picks for chocoholics and pork fiends, more gifts like wild-boar soppressata and the $350 El Bulli cookbook. [TONY]
A former sandwich of the week from Philly Slim’s snubbed for 99 Miles to Philly in roundup of best sandwiches. [Gridskipper]
A list for latke lovers, including the $1.50 special at G&M. [amNY]
How to steer clear of Cuban-food “poseurs” like Azucar. [Epoch Times]
Back of the House
Delays at Park Chinois, Flood at E.U., Another BLTYau’s Park Chinois not ready for prime time. [Eater]
Pipes, owner’s blood vessel burst at E.U.[Eater]
Ray-Ray’s husband a foot freak? [Chow]
Bye-bye, Tang Tang. [This Is What We Do Now]
Sushi Sasabune: Menu, shmenu. [Strong Buzz]
Pork fiends, drink this. [NYT]
Chocoholics, go here. [ Gothamist]
Travel + Leisure’s top 50: usual suspects, plus news of yet another BLT, as Tourondel jumps on the “market-driven” bandwagon. [Travel + Leisure]
Wine authors order $11 bottle at A Voce. [NYP]
