This was my first stab at reproducing a drink I had at Milk & Honey, a cocktail bar in the Lower East Side. Milk & Honey has been around since 2000, and may be single-handedly responsible for kicking off the speakeasy trend in New York City. In the past decade a number of bars have opened downtown, each boasting about serious mixology and decked out in Prohibition-era decor. Milk & Honey retains its authentic exclusivity, though. Unlike the other bars, you can’t just walk in. You can apply and pay for a membership, or obtain their phone number through some vague referral process. Once in possession of the number, you send them a text when you want to go, and they’ll text you back if they have an available space. Or not. There’s a certain chanciness and willingness to wait around implicit in the visit, but on the other hand, getting the text back is a mark of accomplishment. The bar is located through an unmarked door on Eldridge Street, and its windowless darkness and lack of crowds lends it an air of instant sophistication. In case you’re less than classy, rules of decorum are posted in the bathroom. There’s no menu, instead the bartender asks what you like… you know what, I’m not going to review Milk & Honey. Sure, the drinks were great but I’m not a member and I don’t have the damn number and for $15 a drink, I can buy the ingredients and go cocktail crazy at my house–which is EVEN MORE exclusive and has a better view.

So, one of the drinks I had at Milk & Honey that I really liked was the Paper Plane. If someone asks me what I want in a cocktail, the first thing I’ll say is I like bourbon and citrus, and dislike overly sweet things. This drink hit every mark. It’s dry, refreshing, and strikes a balance between the bourbon, lemon, bitter orange, and aperol, which is herbal and bittersweet. So, without further ado, the recipe:

3/4 ounce bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
3/4 ounce Amaro Nonino (I couldn’t find this and used Ramazotti)
3/4 ounce Aperol
3/4 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon
Shaken with ice and served in a coupe glass (I don’t have this so I used lowball glasses with big ice cubes so it doesn’t melt too fast and get watered down)

I noted the ingredients during my visit and grabbed the proportions from FoodandWine.com. The nice thing about cocktailing at home is that you can start tweaking the recipe to your tastes. I’m wondering how this might taste with scotch, but for a first try, this was dangerously tasty.

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…

OK OK. Let’s look past the name for a minute. When I see a dude hustling toward the checkout with three big bottles of a beer I’ve never heard of, I know something is afoot. A closer inspection of the label, a fairy-tale depiction of dandyfied pantsless rabbits waving from the back of a covered wagon, intrigued me enough to drop $8 on a 1 pt 6 oz bottle. But in all honesty, I did not expect much, except maybe bemused stares from my cohorts as I nursed the pussiest-looking beer known to man.

But wait, there’s magic in these bunnies. Fluffy White Rabbits poured out a foggy golden color with an–ahem–fluffy head and just a hint of citrus. Gone was the rough alcohol punch or in-you-face fruitiness I normally associate with Belgians. The underpinnings were there, but mellowed by the right amount of hops, and enhanced by just a bit of prickly carbonation. I’m not sure how else to describe this except as “smooth” and “springtimey,” quite a feat for an 8.5% ABV ale. In fact, I could probably chuck all those over-hopped IPAs and watery pilsners and drink this all summer.

Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project is a small brewery in Massachusetts. With brews named “Confounded Mr. Sisyphus” and “Babayaga” (a witch from Eastern European folklore), they’re aiming for the imagination as well as the palate, and if Fluffy White Rabbits is any indication of the quality of their beers, I’ll be looking for more from them. On a sad note: apparently there’s no plans to extend Fluffy White Rabbits‘ run beyond springtime. All the more reason to hop into Whole Foods and stock up while you can!

Available at Whole Foods Beer Room
95 East Houston Street at Chrystie Street

You know the expression, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans?” I was reminded of it after eating at Kampuchea. While I don’t know much about Cambodian cuisine, I know that Cambodia is close to Vietnam, so I was planning for some bahn mi-style goodness from Kampuchea’s num pang sandwiches. But as it turned out, the highlights of the meal were not what I was expecting.

On my first visit, I sat in the dining room, a streamlined space with a view of a spotless open kitchen. On my second trip, I ate at the adjoining Norry bar, dark, cozy room with rustic tables and cushioned benches. The Norry’s ipod was cranking MC5 and De La Soul, some of the rare hip-hop I can actually stand. Overall I slightly preferred the informal atmosphere of the bar to the dining room, although the menu was the same.

grilled corn

First of all, I was pleasantly surprised by the beer list. The Norry and dining room have several mircobrews on tap like Mothers Milk from Keegan Ales, Sixpoint Sweet Action, and Blue Point Toasted Lager. There was even a Belgian on tap (St. Bernardus). On both visits I opted for a cocktail to start, and the Norry ($14), a mix of lemongrass-infused maker’s mark, fig puree, honey syrup and lemon juice, was a winner. Most of the time I find restaurant cocktails to be disappointing, but this one was well-mixed and quite soothing for a cold–if a tad overpriced. I expected little from the grilled corn on the cob ($6), but I ended up savoring the roasted kernels covered with spicy chili mayo and coconut flakes. If you’ve had the corn at Cafe Habana you know what to expect, but this is twice as good. Fried chicken with chili-spiced salt ($11) was the perfect accomplice to a pint of Sweet Action, although the chicken was more lightly-breaded than deep-fried crunchy. The crispy pork belly with honey/cider glaze, scallions, and toasted lemongrass had a satisfying crispy layer–like a crust of bacon atop succulent pork and rivulets of fat.

fried chicken

Of the num pang I tried the catfish sandwich was the best ($11). The fish was topped with cracked pepper, honey, soy sauce, carrots, cucumbers, and cilantro, and served on a crunchy baguette. It was a well-balanced sandwich, if overpriced compared to what you’d pay for bahn mi. The cured bacon, pickled chili and red onion sandwich ($10) was poorly executed; the bacon was so tough it was impossible to get a good, balanced bite. The oxtail, tamarind, and honey sandwich ($13) wasn’t bad, but wasn’t especially enjoyable. I felt as though I should be eating a pulled pork sandwich, but the pork had been replaced with something stringier and suspiciously gamier. Granted, I’m not no oxtail connoisseur, and this may be a fine example of the ingredient. The sandwiches were served with sweet potato waffle chips, which were unforgiveably uncrisp.

catfish sandwich

Dessert was notable in that it was both a near-miss and a total disaster. The fried brichoe with apple butter, pecan, and butterscotch would have been good if the apple filling inside the doughy balls was warm instead of barely unfrozen. On the other hand, the honey granite with winter citrus and thai chili was, in a word, weird. Picture a bowl of shaved ice, topped with something akin to fruit and hot sauce. I’d recommend rolling into the Norry late at night for relaxed beers and appetizers, or maybe starting off the evening with a Norry cocktail and catfish sandwich. If you want a tasty sandwiches quite similar to this but cheaper, and atmosphere is no object, it’s a no-brainer: veer south into Chinatown for bahn mi.

Kampuchea and The Norry Bar
78 Rivington St. at Allen St.
Dinner: Mon 5:30pm-11pm, Tues-Thurs 5:30-1am, Fri-Sat 5:30pm-2am, Sun 5pm-11pm
Brunch: Sat-Sun 11am-3:30pm

You can eat poutine any time of year, but this Quebecoise treat tastes best when it’s really, really cold outside. I’m talking Montreal in January cold, the kind of frigidness that invades unusual places like your eyeballs and your teeth. Now that I don’t drive a car anymore, I don’t mind winter. I enjoy having an excuse to stay home, drinking dark beer and swaddling myself in layers of wool–the better to hide the gut I’m packing from savoring my favorite foods. Poutine is actually very simple–it’s just french fries and cheese curds, melted into savory gobs under a layer of steaming gravy. But it is somewhat tricky to execute. Proper curds are not easy to find, the fries should be fresh, the gravy ratio MUST be perfect, and a snowstorm backdrop doesn’t hurt either. Unlike your typical diner cheese fries, which fill you with self-loathing and regret, poutine, when it’s done right, warms your cockles, which I believe are located somewhere somewhere between your gullet and your spleen.

Poutine is pretty rare in the States but there are a few places in New York City that serve it. On Saturday, I checked out TPoutine on Ludlow Street, a relatively-new burgers-and-fries shop advantageously located in the booze-soaked Lower East Side. A classic poutine ran a steep $7.25, and came served in an appealing iron skillet, the curds just beginning to melt in their gravy bath. The cheese curds tasted authentic, and were generously-sized, although this possibly prevented them from completely melting. The fries, to their credit, maintained a fair amount of crispness, but the gravy didn’t taste much more than hot. A friend’s plate arrived with entirely too much gravy, which soon made the fries soggy, so it may be to your advantage to tell them to go light. All-in-all, this did a fair job satiating my poutine craving, but I’m told it’s not as tasty as the stuff you’d find in Montreal. TPoutine is open til 5am on weekends, so I could foresee a making late-night pit stop, but I’d probably keep looking for the really good stuff–my next destinations will likely be Mile End or Sheep Station in Brooklyn. There’s also decent and cheaper version available at Pommes Frites in the East Village.

TPoutine
168 Ludlow St between Stanton St & Houston St.
Tue-Wed 12pm-2am, Thu-Sat 12pm-5am, Sun 12pm-2am