HEY, MR. CRITIC
Meals for a Mensch and the Discerning Sports Fan
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
The rich pork and shellfish dishes at Marc Forgione are forbidden by Jewish dietary laws.
By SAM SIFTON
Published: January 13, 2011
The mail brought, among other things, questions of religious difference and requests for reservation advice and for a place to watch television while eating well. I tried my best to answer. As ever, you can send your own questions to dinejournal@nytimes.com.
Michael Falco for The New York Times
Ouest bans sports from the dining room, but not the bar.
Il Mulino’s veal chop with sage and garlic is for the few who get in.
Q. After two years of endless nagging, my kosher boyfriend has finally decided to come over to the dark side and, at least for one night, temporarily abandon his dietary restraint. Can you recommend a moderately priced place that serves such good pork and shellfish dishes that he’ll convert permanently?
A. Great food can change minds and alter people’s lives for the better, it’s true. But so can faith, for those who have it. Helping you use food to persuade someone to abandon his religious principles cannot end well for me. (Nor for him, if his mother finds out.) The laws of kashrut are clear: No pork. No shellfish.
And so I cannot possibly recommend a visit to Momofuku Ssam Bar, where those two banned proteins often combine into Korean-inflected Continental deliciousness, and where a fellow might be introduced to the pleasures of cured hog’s jowl, served with Honeycrisp apple kimchi and a Lebanese yogurt cut with maple syrup.
Nor could I nod to the Spanish-style Casa Mono, where you can find a delicious chilled lobster with ham (a combination the great Calvin Trillin would call a double-trayf special). For you there can be no suckling pig at the Italian gem Maialino or pig’s trotter at the British pub the Breslin or barbecued oysters at the American bistro Marc Forgione in TriBeCa or clams in black bean sauce at the terrific Oriental Garden in Chinatown.
That said, if you want to skate close to the edge, where the ice is thin and crackly, Chinese is probably your best bet. As my hero Arthur Schwartz, formerly the restaurant critic for The Daily News and author of “Jewish Home Cooking,” put it: “The Chinese cut their food into small pieces before it is cooked, disguising the nonkosher foods. This last aspect seems silly, but it is a serious point. My late cousin Daniel, who kept kosher, along with many other otherwise observant people I have known, happily ate roast pork fried rice and egg foo yung. ‘What I can’t see won’t hurt me,’ was Danny’s attitude.”
But proceed with caution. The Torah calls Jews a holy people and prescribes for them a holy diet. If they choose to abandon it, so be it. But you ever argue with a rabbi? I’m not meshuga. Take this boy to the Prime Grill for a kosher steak and tell him you love him.
Q. Il Mulino. How, oh how, can I get a reservation at this restaurant? I used to go there many years ago when I lived in New York City, but now only visit and would love to take a friend there. Thanks for any suggestions or help.
A. Il Mulino is marvelous in its way, a West Village Italian of the very, very, very oldest school, with food to match. The staff is notoriously bad about picking up the telephone to accept reservations, and not so slick about honoring them, either. Expect to wait for a while before being seated. But make the call all the same. If nothing is available for dinner on the night you want to go, try lunch, when it is less crowded, and you can linger awhile. Or you may try walking in and placing yourself at the mercy of the maître d’hôtel. You are an old customer of the restaurant who has enjoyed many meals there. You tried to make a reservation and failed. And you would very, very much like to take your friend to dinner right now or as soon as they are able to seat you. Either this method will work (you’ll have a great meal), or it won’t (you won’t feel so great about Il Mulino any longer).
Q. A friend and I want the best food we can possibly get while watching a football game. We are not looking for a sports-bar atmosphere and prefer something more interesting than a steakhouse. We want a great restaurant that happens to have a TV in the lounge/bar area. Ideally it would be somewhere we can eat very good food, have a martini, talk and keep an eye on the game. What are the top meals you can eat in New York while watching a game? None of my likely suspects have a TV: L’Express, Artisanal, the Spotted Pig, Compass, Pastis, Bar Jamón, Union Square Café, Grape and Grain, SD26, the David Chang empire, Tía Pol, Picholine (perfect bar menu but no TV), the Breslin.
A. You know why your favorite restaurants don’t have a television on where you can watch the game?
Because restaurants that make it onto lists like yours don’t generally have televisions on where you can watch the game. That’s not a Zen koan, either. It’s part of the Manhattan social contract, the same sort of understanding that keeps polka off the speakers at sushi bars and fluorescent lights out of bistros. Televisions don’t belong in good restaurants.
That said, you don’t want a steakhouse, which is too bad. There are few pleasures to rival eating a steak in the bar room at Keens Steakhouse while a game spools out on the television above the bar. You don’t want an actual sports bar, either, which is also too bad, since they’re designed for the service you have in mind, though with beer in place of the martini, and chicken wings in place of the haute cuisine you desire. You want a proper restaurant. See above.
Of course there are exceptions. There’s the bar at Ouest on the Upper West Side, with a honking big tube up over it, generally playing a game. That’s a nice place for just the meal you describe.
For Double Trayf and Double O.T.
THE BRESLIN 16 West 29th Street, Manhattan; (212) 679-1939, thebreslin.com.
CASA MONO 52 Irving Place, at 17th Street, Manhattan; (212) 253-2773,casamononyc.com.
IL MULINO 86 West Third Street, Greenwich Village; (212) 673-3783, ilmulino.com.
KEENS STEAKHOUSE 72 West 36th Street, Manhattan; (212) 947-3636, keens.com.
MOMOFUKU SSAM BAR 207 Second Avenue, at 13th Street, East Village; (212) 254-3500, momofuku.com/ssam-bar.
MAIALINO Gramercy Park Hotel, 2 Lexington Avenue, at 21st Street; (212) 777-2410,maialinonyc.com.
MARC FORGIONE 134 Reade Street, near Hudson Street, TriBeCa; (212) 941-9401,marcforgione.com.
ORIENTAL GARDEN 14 Elizabeth Street, Chinatown; (212) 619-0085.
OUEST 2315 Broadway, at 84th Street; (212) 580-8700, ouestny.com.
PRIME GRILL 60 East 49th Street, Manhattan; (212) 692-9292,theprimegrill.primehospitalityny.com.
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