Restaurant Review: La ChineChef Kong Khai Meng’s kind of elaborately sourced, “Pan Chinese” hotel cooking is a fairly recent development in the long history of Chinese cuisine
Jacques Pépin Eats Everything Except Raw FetusesIt was a foodie fantasy last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, where the likes of Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Sirio Maccioni, Drew Nieporent, and Jacques Pépin had gathered for the lavish annual Food Allergy Ball. We caught up with Jacques Pépin in the grand ballroom before he was to be honored for his valiant fight against cross-contamination. Asked if he had any food allergies himself, the master chef admitted, “No, I don’t,” adding that “I’m a real glutton. I eat anything you put in front of me.” We found that hard to believe from a man known for culinary perfection. “Ask my wife!” he said, so we did. “He’ll eat anything I put in front of him!” Mme. Pépin testified. Still, we wondered if old Jacques can be a diva at home — had he ever pronounced Lady Pépin’s grub “unacceptable”? “Are you kidding? She’d put it on my head, I say that!”
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Peacock Alley, Soon to Become a Lounge, Serving New Small PlatesThe lounge-ification of New York continues apace. At the Waldorf-Astoria’s Peacock Alley, long a citadel of haute cuisine, the lounge will literally swallow up the dining room at the end of the month, and an already-expanded small-plates menu will take the place of the traditional dining and à la carte service. “We can have bolder flavors,” John Doherty, the hotel’s executive chef, tells us, “because you’re eating less.” Allow us to elaborate: In one new dish, chef Cedric Tovar is smoking salmon (in another, sturgeon) with cedar chips and serving them with braised endive and a bright citrus emulsion; in one holdover, he’s serving jumbo Maya shrimp cocktail with spicy horseradish, tomato marmalade, and tomato sorbet. The new menu will be 90 percent seafood, Tovar says: “People love the way I work with fish.”
