New York City, Day 3: Dinner at Pok Pok NY

DINNER.

There’s a wait. There’s always a wait. But we’re in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, by the waterfront, and happily waiting in front of a used bookstore for our turn to reach the hostess at Pok Pok. After half an hour we’re inside, elbow to elbow with other guests, our bodies ready for beer and Northern Thai food specialties.

Bring on the sweet and sticky chicken wings, Ike’s Fish Sauce Wings, with a side of chili paste. Then the Kung Op Wun Sen, four large prawns, minced pork belly cooked and simmered with mung bean noodles in a clay pot; it tastes smoky, peppery, there’s soy sauce for sure and other ingredients we can’t place. The best parts are the prawns and the noodles that have crisped up at the bottom, its savoury sauce calls for a side of sticky rice. The Muu Kham Waan arrives shortly after. It’s slivers of pork neck marinated in a spicy rub, very pretty, very tender, oddly delicate, the heat builds up over time and can only be offset by the chilled mustard greens and cold beer. But my favourite is the Hoi Thawt, crispy, egg crepes with steamed mussels and served with Shark Sriracha sauce.

Assuming you’re visiting New York and you’re in Brooklyn, it’s well worth a trip and the queue – until Andy Ricker brings his now-iconic Pok Pok empire to Toronto anyways, could happen right??

Pok Pok NY
127 Columbia Street | Website 

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New York City, Day 3: Rice & Miso Everyday, Van Leeuwen Ice-Cream

SNACKS.

I love the Brooklyn Flea. This year we snacked on a Japanese basil onigiri from Rice + Miso and drank a cucumber and mint lemonade from Dosa Royale. Afterwards we visited Prospect Park, where Leo bought jam at the local greenmarket, followed by ice-cream at Van Leeuwen in Greenpoint. Not a bad way to spend the day in Brooklyn.

Rice + Miso Everyday
Website | Twitter

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice-Cream
Website | 632 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn

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New York City, Day 1: Num Pang Sandwich Shop, Maison Premiere, Pies’n'Thighs

Thurs., May 9.

We arrived in New York around noon ready to take on the day like nobody’s business.

LUNCH.
Num Pang Sandwich Shop serves Cambodian-style sandwiches, not to be mistaken for the more well-known banh mi (Vietnamese subs).  I had the Five Spice Pork Belly sandwich. It was delicious, fatty, juicy, ’nough said.

SNACK.
Our friend got us strawberry doughnuts from Dough! They were good, but I think Toronto’s Glory Hole Doughnuts does it better. ;)

HAPPY HOUR.
Happy Hour in New York is incredible. You have a two options: stay in Manhattan and find any run of the mill dollar-oysters OR head to Brooklyn for a more thoughtful – decadent? magical? – experience at Maison Premiere. The decor is nineteenth century French, think Paris, the Impressionists and Manet’s Girl at the Bar, and, yes, there’s an absinthe fountain.  The service was excellent, efficient and attentive, though a tad slow as the after-work crowd filtered in. Did I mention the absinthe fountain?

P.S. we’ve noticed an alarming trend of wooden toilets popping up in Williamsburg… what’s up with that?

DINNER.
If you didn’t heed our warnings over the last two years to check out Pies’n'Thighs as soon as you could, maybe you’ll find Guy Fieri’s recent Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives episode more persuasive! Our pie of the night was a tart Lemon Blackberry pie over a shortbread crust and our choice of thigh was their honey and hot sauce chicken thigh on biscuits.

After our little dinner, we took touristy pictures at the Williamsburg Bridge and did some pre-drinking in the hostel courtyard with friends. There was a failed attempt at finding a bar we could all agree on and ended up at a place called the Chelsea Pub.

Num Pang Sandwich Shop, Chelsea
75 9th Ave, Manhattan | Website

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn | Website

Pies’n'Thighs
166 S 4th Street, Brooklyn | Website

Breakfast at Marlow & Sons

Marlow & Sons is where your local Brooklyn hipsters come to congregate in the morning. Moustaches, impossible haircuts, ironic t-shirts, liberal use of French swears in front of toddlers, $300 handcrafted leather bags, and a very cool barista who can make you anything – it’s got everything! But hey, if your first instinct is to dismiss it as a pretentious joint in an overwhelmingly gentrified neighbourhood, defer judgement till you’ve actually tasted the food. The menu is simple comfort food, but done very well and made with locally sourced ingredients. Martha Stewart even took a trip down there to get the recipe for their brick chicken, and that’s something, right? It’s also Dave 1′s (of Chromeo) restaurant of choice. Who wouldn’t trust the taste of a sexy French professor who once wrote a dissertation titled Theorizing the Pleasure of Reading in Eighteenth Century France?

We got the rhubarb scones, biscuit with egg and bacon, and poached eggs with polenta, shaved asparagus, and fiddleheads. We thought about prolonging our stay to get the lunch menu or coming back for dinner for the oysters, but it will have to be for the next time we’re back in New York.

Marlow & Sons
81 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Website | Yelp

Roberta’s

A lunch at Roberta’s.

We shared the Smoked Breakfast Sausage, the Treviso, and the Famous Original pizza with a runny egg as an extra topping. It all looked deceptively light, but I was pretty full near the end of it. While my loyalties are still with Pizzeria Libretto for the thin charred crust, Roberta’s pizza is something else. My guess is the tomato sauce. It was rich, complex, and most likely simmered for hours, and strangely reminiscent of something eaten during high school at a local pizzeria. Neither of us thinks it’s a bad thing at all. We just can’t explain what made it so good. Was it the taste of childhood and young adolescence? Was it a psychosomatic experience? (Can you tell I really like that word? Pychosomatic.) Do we project too much on food? Probably.

Their lunch menu also featured some very interesting plates we were eyeing, like the sweetbreads with lime and goat cheese and sweet potato hash. Regrettably, this is where we completely missed out! Their small plates and tasting menu have garnered a litany of praises, good enough to place Roberta’s on the Michelin’s 2012 Bib Gourmands list. And it all makes sense now. The treviso drizzled with a cheese we never heard of (Époisses de Bourgogne), presented without much fanfare and most likely straight out of their roof top greenhouse, is definitely something you wouldn’t see at your local dive bar. It’s no gastronomical wonder, but there’s enough thoughtfulness to hint at better things.

Well…then! Looks like we inadvertently forayed into Michelin territory. Not bad. Not bad at all. Perhaps next year I can convince Leo to put on a suit for Le Bernadin?

Roberta’s
261 Moore Street | Website