I am never happy to find out that I have to wait for something, but when I was told there was an hour wait for a table at the Meatball Shop the other night, I was ecstatic. The last two times I tried to go, there was an unendurable two-hour wait, and since then Meatball Shop hype only seemed to grow. There were mentions of it everywhere: the Food Network, the Yahoo.com homepage, my Facebook friends’ status updates. Taunting me.

Yes, I allow myself to be taunted by hype, when it comes to food. We all have our weaknesses.

The wait might have been shorter due to the fact that it was a bitterly cold weekday night, right after a snowstorm. I put my name down for a table and waited at Epstein’s, a bar next door, where I met up with fellow food blogger, Mr. EateryROW. There was literally no breathing room for onlookers at the Meatball Shop, but they called to tell us our table was ready, as promised, about an hour and fifteen minutes later. We were seated at a side table along the wall of the small dining room, which is mostly taken up by a long communal table. The diners at this table seemed younger than the Tone Loc vintage tunes pumping through the ceiling, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Really—if you’re eating meatballs and drinking beers to Funky Cold Medina and not enjoying yourself a little, something is probably very wrong. Read more…

If you enjoy vistas of deserted industrial streets and dramatic harbor skies, Red Hook is the hood for you. But even if you’re not in the market for cheap Swedish furniture or reveling in misanthropy, there’s other reason to head out here. Ever since the Red Hook Lobster Pound opened last year, lobster-lovers in particular have been finding the trek worthwhile.

(looking down Van Dyke Street, Red Hook)

Ever since Luke’s Lobster opened in the East Village, I’ve consumed more lobster rolls than I care to admit, including a couple from the not-enigmatic-enough Dr. Claw in Greenpoint. Sadly, Dr. Claw was shut down by the Department of Health in August for running an underground lobster roll operation out of his apartment, but when he was in business he bought his crustaceans from the Red Hook Lobster Pound. Taste-wise, Dr. Claw’s rolls were totally legit. But I couldn’t really see the outsized persona (we’re talking shades, gold lobster claw bling, and third-person self-referencing) and the novelty of exchanging cash on the street for a hot paper bag, NOT attracting a big story in New York Magazine. (The article at the NYmag link has some interesting info about why lobster is suddenly affordable street fare by the way). I hope Dr. Claw is back in a DOH-blessed operation soon because the rolls spoke for themselves, but generally I’m happy to cut through the pretense and go to the source.

(a shot of one of Dr. Claw’s deliciously basic creations, before the bust)

The Red Hook Lobster Pound is located in the midst of gentrification creeping up Van Brunt Street, which is relatively lively with shops, galleries, and restaurants. Inside the pound, two large vats hold live, fresh-catch lobsters trucked in from Maine. They’re available for purchase although they encourage reservations on weekends. Rolls are ordered up at the counter, and seating consists of a bench outside or a picnic area next door.

I ordered a Connecticut-style lobster roll ($15 and pictured at the top of the post), which was served with grilled lobster meat topped with lots of butter, paprika, and scallions in a toasted split-top bun. The roll comes with chips and a pickle, and ginger ale was $2.50 extra. My friend got the Maine-style roll (pictured above), which had cold meat lightly dressed in mayonnaise. Both were excellent and filled with huge chunks of delicate claw meat. I slightly preferred the Maine version, since I couldn’t resist eating the Connecticut roll long enough for the lobster to cool and quit burning my tongue. My friend slightly preferred the less mayonnaisey version at Luke’s, and I thought the toasted bread at the Pound was a bit better, but we thought they were pretty much neck-in-neck. The amount of lobster in the rolls was generous at both places but the total price when you included the soda was slightly steeper at the Pound than at Luke’s, where a drink is included for $16.

In addition to the slight pricing difference Red Hook is not that easy to get to. The F train makes a hard right away from it, damning residents to walking from the Carroll Street stop under the Gowanus Expressway and through housing projects to get to the snacks. One alternative is the M61 bus, which runs from the 9th Street stop up Van Brunt Street. The ferry from Ikea to Pier 11 in Manhattan is another option, although they recently started charging $5 each way unless you spend $10 at Ikea. Basically, if you’re up for furniture shopping, exploring the neighborhood, or heading out to the Latin food stalls at the Red Hook ballfields, stopping in for a roll is a must. But if you’re feeling lazy, you can do just as well at Luke’s.

Red Hook Lobster Pound
284 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn
Wed 12pm-8pm Thurs-Sat 12pm-9pm Sun 12pm-8pm

I believe there’s a therapeutic value to having your water unobtrusively refilled, without needing to ask anyone. The knife you dropped in your appetizer that is swiftly replaced before the next course; the napkin that is neatly refolded when you return from the restroom; the single beam of light that misses you and falls instead on your soon-to-be-full plate, all have a similar soothing effect. Whatever chaos reigns outside, here is the kind of calming order that makes eating better.

Certainly the menu for the front room at Gramercy Tavern is nothing fancy–a pulled pork sandwich and lasagna are among the entrees–but the place does have a Michelin Star, and the front room offered a glimmer of hope of being more affordable than the posh dining room. The front room doesn’t take reservations so we waited an hour at the height of the Saturday night rush for a table. Time passed quickly enough while sipping cocktails at the bar and perusing a copy of Edible Manhattan from the waiting area. The tavern is a pleasantly unstuffy space, with ceiling beams evoking an 18th century inn, and a splashy mural of fruits and flowers lending brightness to the room.

After we were seated I ordered a single raw oyster, which our server brought in a bowl of ice, with lemon, diced cucumber, and cocktail sauce. I’d never eaten an oyster before, and had heard them described either in utterly delightful or completely repellent terms. I stabbed the slithery mass with a dainty fork and rolled it around my mouth a little before it slid down my throat, leaving a memory of butter and brine. It was gone too fast for me to pin any specific words to the moment, but I felt like I’d had an espresso shot. We ordered some more. I chewed the second one a bit in order to better taste it, but this time I got all brine and no sweetness. The difference in taste was intriguing since both came from the same place (Island Creek, MA). I could have had a few more but I was eager to get on with the rest of the meal.

My appetizer, the porchetta salad ($16) goes down as one of my all-time favorite salads. Cider vinegar lightly dressed escarole, fennel, radishes, parsley, toasted bits of buttered bread, and thinly-sliced roast pork. Porchetta can be overwhelmingly rich and fatty, but just a few slices layered with crisp vegetables were delicious. My crappy camera phone shot doesn’t really do it justice. I also tasted the fish croquette appetizer ($12), which was appealingly delicate and non-fishy, although our server couldn’t specify what kind of fish was in it. It was served with tasty heirloom white beans and arugula.

For an entree I ordered the meatball ($18). Yes, that’s a meatball–singular–for $18. But what a meatball. It was, thankfully, enormous and served sliced in half, interlaced by strings of melting fontina cheese, atop a buttery smooth potato puree, red wine onions, and some pitch-dark, intensely beef-flavored demi glace. I tried a bit of the chicken entree ($19), which consisted of a perfectly moist breast and thigh with crisp skins, served with broccoli rabe, more heirloom beans and green beans. It was fine, but plain compared to the in-your-face flavors and heartiness of the meatball.

I’ve been burned by many a bad dessert when eating out, but when a place employs their own pastry chef I make it a point not to miss it. We decided to split the butterscotch bread pudding with pear sorbet ($9), and our server brought an extra scoop of sorbet for us–a nice touch. The bread pudding was the perfect consistency, somewhere between french toast and custard. It was served with an orange sauce that tasted of citrus mellowed with honey, and a crisp almond cookie. The pear sorbet was refreshing and tart, and when you loaded all elements on your fork, you got sweet, tart, warm, cold, crunch and smoothness; more depth and flavor than I’ve had in a dessert in a while.

All-in-all we spent about $145 for two appetizers, two entrees, three drinks, a few oysters, and one dessert, including tip; but everything I had was very good, and the salad and dessert were excellent. Know something else that makes eating better? Someone else picking up the check.

Gramercy Tavern
42 E. 20th St. between Park Ave and Broadway
Tavern hours: Sun-Thurs 12pm-11pm, Fri-Sat 12pm-12am

Dining-out disappointments on this scale only happen once in a blue moon so Snackish has returned from vacation to share the tale of her spotty dinner at The Spotted Pig. I’d been eager to to try this place for a long time. It is the gastropub of gastropubs in New York City–starred by Michelin, revered by Yelpers, and favored by the Times. Celebrities knock elbows with plebians in its small confines and its kitchen, bolstered by a well-regarded chef, supposedly justifies the sceneyness. I even have a couple of first-hand accounts from friends who said they liked it.

So Saturday night my associate and I finally landed at the Pig. After not-unbearable half-hour wait (they don’t accept reservations, you must walk in and put your name on the list) we were seated at the coldest table in the house, near the door. (Lest you think I’m a bloodless wimp, a bearded dude sitting next to us wore his coat and hat throughout the evening). But my need for food was greater than my need for warmth so I ordered a pint of highly-enjoyable Sixpoint Righteous Rye cask ale to combat the draft. Appetizers arrived in the form of perfectly-paprikaed deviled eggs ($3) and a plate of “devils on horseback”–pear-stuffed prunes wrapped in sticky candied bacon, speared with toothpicks ($7). They tasted better then they looked but were powerfully sweet, salty, and not entirely pleasant. My next course was the sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi in brown butter sauce with fried sage ($15). The sheep’s milk added an interesting bite to these tender dumplings, and I enjoyed the crispy sage, but yet again the dish was overwhelmingly salty. Next came more beer and an epically-proportioned burger under a heap of paper-shaving thin “shoestring” fries. Someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to make the fries substantive by adding a copious amount of rosemary. The burger all but disappeared under the funk of the Roquefort cheese which stubbornly adhered to the bun. I suspect it was a good-enough burger, but it was hard to taste anything but cheese, and for $17, I expected to be in burger heaven.

(Rosemary fries comin’ atcha. Run!)

At this point our server wandered off and we spent several minutes getting drunker and chatting with a couple next to us, who were similarly underwhelmed. By the time the she re-appeared, the sting of how much this meal would cost was sufficiently diffused for us to order dessert. I had a scotch and the creme caramel–a fine take on creme brulee ($8)–while my associate wound up with a stale-tasting walnut tart (perplexingly, the server recommended it but it was the worst thing we had all night).

Aside from the tart, I can’t say any one thing about the meal was terrible. But the combination of the wait, bad seating, strange seasoning, sluggish service, and just-beyond-reasonable prices is enough to keep me from going back. In retrospect the burger, perhaps, was not the thing to get (but judging by the steady stream of burgers floating by on servers’ upraised hands while we waited, it seemed to be a house specialty). I can say that the space had a convivial upscale-pub atmosphere and seemed to be full of pretty and interesting people. If you’re lucky enough to grab a seat upstairs you’ll probably stay warm, and on an off night I could see it being pleasant to cozy up to the bar for a pint of Righteous Rye and some deviled eggs. But I suspect that the Spotted Pig’s off nights are as few and far between as my epic dining disappointments.

The Spotted Pig
314 West 11th St. at Greenwich St.
Brunch: 11am-3pm (weekends), Lunch: 12-3pm, Dinner: 5:30pm-2am
Bar Menu: 3pm-5pm

I had my first lobster roll tonight. I tried to wait until I got home to eat it, but the toasty bread was just faintly warm under the crinkled aluminum foil wrapping, and I was feeling weak. So I just had a nibble of buttery bun. Inside were big, tender pieces of fresh lobster, lightly seasoned with celery salt and pepper. Mayo made only the briefest appearance, a mere scraping. But the time I reached home my roll was all gone, and I promptly went back for another one. My snacking associate kindly placed the order, sparing me the indignity of seeming a woman obsessed. This time I had a crab roll, which was almost as delicious as the lobster roll, though not quite.

Did I mention I hardly ever eat seafood? In fact I had wondered if Luke’s Lobster was a wobbly proposition, when I spotted the Coming Soon sign, with its hand-drawn smiling lobster, tacked on a hole-in-the-wall next to Caracas Arepa Bar. After all, lobster is pretty expensive, maybe not ideal street fare from a little takeout spot. But on Thursday, as I threaded through a pack of foodies eager for Luke’s opening day, I thought there might be something to operating a lobster shack in the East Village. For one thing, although I’m hardly an expert, the tastiness of the lobster spoke for itself. For another, it cost half as much as it would elsewhere in the city. A 2oz lobster roll (maybe 4 inches) ran $8 and a 4oz roll was $14. My 2oz crab roll was only $5. Restauranteur Luke Holden ships his lobster wholesale from Maine, where his father owns a seafood plant, which may account for the low prices and freshness (according to NYmag, it takes 1.5 to 3 days for the lobsters to travel from the ocean to bun). Also, never underestimate the advantage of being open late on weekends on this stretch of East 7th street. I can easily foresee making a quick detour some evening, after a couple of drinks have loosened my hold on my wallet, and filled my head with strange ideas, and once-in-a-blue-moon cravings. Hopefully this winter has some clam chowder or lobster bisque in store.

Luke’s Lobster
93 E 7th St. between First Avenue and Avenue A
Sun-Wed 11am-12am, Thurs-Sat 11am-2am