The Roast Chicken at Barbuto & Takashi Dessert

Friday night, Mr. FoodandPants and I braved the West Village streets to dine at Barbuto and cast judgment on their much renowned and touted roast chicken.  

Judgment #1: Barbuto is mighty cute.  Open, airy, and family friendly !  Bring your kids here to eat $8 corn on the cob !

Judgment #2: The knives for chicken slaughtering are also cute - dubbed the 'Gaucho.'  I like that.

Judgment #3: The complimentary olives on the table were pretty, but I still do not like olives.  Mr. FoodandPants ate three, despite saying he also did not like olives.  It goes to show, he might just say anything for the purpose of conversation. (Just kidding. Maybe.)

Judgment #4: You get a whole lot of chicken for this $19 pollo al forno plate.  About a full half chicken - one breast (split in two), a thigh and a leg that is simply roasted with olive oil and lemon.

Judgment #5: This is a good looking roast chicken, topped with a fresh salsa verde and plenty of pan juices for the dipping.

Judgment #6: The chicken is sufficiently moist but not exceptionally succulent.  The flesh is fairly tender and fine.

Judgment #7: The skin is most excellent.  Mostly crisp with plenty of seasoning from crushed black pepper and salt.

Mr. FoodandPants casting judgment below.

The waitress alerted us to the fact that the chicken arrives naked and in its lonesome, without a side on...well, its side.  Of the three side options (i.e., corn on the cob, sauteed greens and potatoes), the potatoes seemed the best bet.

Judgment #8: The potatoes are magical.  Basically a whole potato smashed into rustic, crude chunks and fried to perfect greaseless, crunchy oblivion.  The only salt comes from a soft dusting of pecorino, and it's a delicious duo.

Confession: I ate most of this plate while Mr. FoodandPants focused on the chicken.  Sorry, pal, you snooze, you lose!

After, we stopped into Takashi, a really adorable and popular Japanese barbecue spot for a takeout dessert of their signature soft-serve ice cream.  The restaurant was actually being filmed for a German television programme when we arrived.

The soft-serve comes with choice of toppings: rice dumplings, azuki red beans, black / soybean sesame powder and choice of syrups: green tea, brown tea (hoji), salted caramel and goji berry.  I opted for the green tea.  We were then directed to beg a spoon off the deli next door in order to eat our rapidly melting mess.

Judgment #9: The melting mess was quite good.  Each bite was unique, depending on what topping you spoon, but my favorite bites involved the plump rice dumplings that reminded me of my mom's Vietnamese dessert.  Such fun, chewy little buggers!

And that concludes one solid and charming West Village Friday night, especially with all the public street confrontations between couples and friends we witnessed on our dessert stroll.  I thrive on the embarrassment of others !

Barbuto
775 Washington St
New York, NY


Takashi
456 Hudson St
New York, NY

A Public Brunch

During one of her recent visits, Diana and I grabbed brunch at Public, a beautiful spot in Nolita.  Consider me easily charmed by any place that uses old school Dewey Decimal style drawers in their restaurant decor and stamped butcher block paper on the tables.

We were greeted by complimentary herb biscuit-bites that were tiny, cute and lovely.

Strike that.  We were really greeted by a table covered with freshly baked goods and spreads.  These goods were not complimentary, but the self-serve spreads most definitely were.  Diana and I decided to try one pastry, but mainly as reason to eat copious amounts of jellies and jams !

Yeah.  It was hard to stop at just one.  And yes, Diana and I do practice self-control.  Sometimes. (Especially when we have another meal to head to right after!)

We decided upon the lamington, a coconut covered pastry that is filled with a layer of cream and strawberries.

The pastry is a beaut, but the cake was much drier than I expected.  But that's where these come into play!

The spreads were all delicious: there was mango, apple preserves and a lovely coconut milk sauce.  It was hard to pick a favorite because they were all uniquely great.  I think if you just gave us a loaf of bread, our brunch could've ended in pure bliss.

But of course we ordered more!

Like the black pudding waffle with red wine poached pears and whipped foie gras butter.

Man this dish was unlike anything I expected, and sometimes we learn about culinary concepts the hard way.  The dish was incredibly and surprisingly savory for me, at which point Diana explained, "Oh...I think black pudding is what they call blood sausage or something."

Oh.  Not actual real pudding.  Lesson learned.

So if you go in fully aware with that, this dish might be up your alley. The foie gras butter added even more creepy decadence, but the red wine poached pears were quite good and added a nice light element to this otherwise heavy dish.

Contrasting with the waffles were these delightfully bright coconut pancakes topped with ricotta and fresh mango chunks.

Simple and wonderful.  Especially with some of the above described compotes and preserves !

I also asked for a side of chorizo which was a bit of a disappointment, with a strong note of fake smokiness to the whole thing.

Overall, the atmosphere and spaciousness of Public makes it an ideal place to host a group of friends for a cheery brunch.  It's warm, inviting and c'mon. Self-serve spreads.  That's all you need to know.

Public
210 Elizabeth St
New York, NY

Square Slices and A Round Pie at Di Fara's

En route to Coney Island this summer, we paid a visit to our dear friend Di Fara for a very long-awaited pizza meal !

Heather and Harry !

The wait was not terrible, perhaps 15 or so minutes for the slices and about 20 minutes on top of that for the full pie.  It helps to visit Di Fara on a Monday holiday.  Seems New Yorkers get the heck out of dodge for Memorial Day, making it prime pizza picking time at Di Fara!

Our order is scribbled in the bottom left of this sheet.  Triple H.  Holla!

We ordered one square vegan slice for our pal Ryan.  Di Fara's son was super nice about making the slice vegan for us and warned that some parmesan cheese may accidentally be dusted on it.  We said we would take our chances, and just failed to mention that small disclaimer to Ryan.  It worked out alright though !

The cheeseless slice looked positively radiant, topped thick with sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli rabe.  

The rest of us shared one plain square slice as an appetizer to our full round pepperoni pie.  The square slice was absolutely delightful - the bottom crust was so crunchy, practically fried in the oven by the generously drizzled layer of olive oil at the bottom of the baking sheet.

Though I definitely enjoyed the pizza, my favorite part of the whole dining experience was watching Di Fara in the kitchen working his magic.

And soon we were watching him make our pepperoni pie !

Swift scissor snips released lovely leaves of basil onto the bubbling pizza surface.  

And with a heavy pour of olive oil, Di Fara completed our pizza masterpiece.

Excitement !

And the pizza was terrifically satisfying: fresh flavors evident of high quality Italian imported ingredients, and the whole pie imbued with the utter charm of a truly remarkable pizza artisan.

I simply cannot wait for a return visit !

Di Fara

1424 Avenue J

Brookyn, NY

Ad Hoc Fried Chicken at Bouchon Bakery

(There will be a series of late posts.  This is one of them.  My apologies as always.  This summer has been busy !)

Although neither Mr. FoodandPants and I are fathers, we couldn't help but partake in a Father's Day meal at Bouchon Bakery in our ongoing dedication to finding the best fried chicken ever.  So naturally, we could not miss ol' Thomas Keller throwing his hat in the fried chicken ring with the Bakery dishing up his signature Ad Hoc fried chicken in the east coast for the first time.

Our meal began with a light salad of beautifully poached eggs, asparagus, prosciutto and slivers of ricotta.

Fine, Thomas.  I'll let you seduce me with your luscious hen yolks.

The whipped butter was fine too, though the cornbread more crumbly than I would like.  (Southern girls know best, you know.)

The chicken was golden and crisp, attractive and inviting under thick sprigs of rosemary.

But that critical first bite did not elicit swoons as I had expected from a chicken that is brined with lemon overnight.  The chicken was sufficiently moist, but not succulently so, and though the crust had a fine crunch to it, the crunch was not of a bird that was freshly fried to order.  It's semi-warm interior was a clear indication that this chicken had already been sitting in the kitchen that morning, awaiting the wave of New Yorkers clamoring to get a piece.

It was disappointing.

So disappointing, I didn't even feel like eating this celeriac coleslaw thing.

But I did try some of the leek bread pudding that was creamy and thick with ham chunks.  It was simply okay, mushier than I'd prefer but flavorful.

The blueberry pie with buttermilk ice cream was okay also.  With an ultra thin crust and minimal, if any, filler, the pie resembled more of a tart, and paired well with the perfect ball of ice cream balanced on top.

As expected from Thomas Keller, this fried chicken meal had beautiful presentation, but unfortunately was altogether quite ordinary in taste.  In fact, of all the fried chickens I've consumed in my life (which may be enough to feed a small country), I don't think this Ad Hoc fried chicken would even make the cut in my top 10.  Oh well !  Better luck next time !

Bouchon Bakery
10 Columbus Circle
New York, NY