Restaurants: July 2003 Archives

I love, love, love that Nick's is our local pizzeria, although I can't imagine taking it out. I'm sure it's fine once you've carried it home from the restaurant, the cheese cooling and congealing, the crust getting flabby, the sauce getting cold. But it's a transporting experience dining in. There's always a moment, when Todd and I are about halfway through inhaling a small pie, that we look up, interrupt whatever we're talking about, and smile around our chewing. It's good to be alive.

Nick's pizza is one of those thin, crispy, burnt on the bottom crust, just enough sauce and cheese, and fresh strips of basil sort of pizzas. We start with a green salad, which is coated with a great vinaigrette and comes with four cherry tomato halves and a generous grind of fresh black pepper. When the pizza comes to the table, it's just barely cool enough to eat, and there's a moment a few minutes later when the pizza's the perfect temperature, and every bite holds a hint, a sweet tease, of oregano.

I'm ashamed to say, from beginning to end, we don't really linger; we gorge. We can be in and out of Nick's in 30 minutes. But it's a happy 30 minutes, and the glow can last hours.

They've apparently opened a new restaurant in Manhattan (upper east side?) and serve pasta there. As long as our Queens outlet doesn't change, that doesn't bother me.

This one's from Martha's Everday Foods. Can't say that I'm 100 percent sold on the crust, which is delicious but much too crumbly. (I suspect it might have been a problem when they were testing it, too, because there's a note on the recipe that says something about the crust materials seeming crumbly but coming together just fine once you press it into the pan. Hmmm.)

Anyway, to make this overly crumbly crust, pulse 5 graham crackers, 1/2 cup toasted nuts (recipe said pecans, I had walnuts) and some sugar (2 tablespoons). Add some melted butter (3 tablespoons) and process until combined. Pour into 9-inch pie plate and press to the bottom and sides. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes.

To make the filling, mix 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk with 2 egg yolks, then mix in 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice and pour it into the cooled crust. Bake for another 15 minutes, then let cool. Refrigerate for an hour.

The crust is tasty, nutty and buttery, but, as I mentioned before, too crumbly. The filling, though, is great: smooth, cool, the tang of lemon balancing the sweetness.

Instead of going for the snap peas or cherries at the farmers' market this weekend, I bought these beautiful little bok choy, which inspired me to stir-fry last night, which is something we used to do all the time but haven't had for a while. First I stir-fried sliced tender, inner celery stalks, diced red pepper and carrots shredded with a peeler. Then I added the bok choy and cooked it for a couple more minutes. Removed that from the pan, added more oil, then added cut-up chicken, stir-frying it until cooked. Then a tablespoon of Thai chili sauce with garlic, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar and a glop of honey (I never measure honey - too messy). Stirred in the veggies, then 1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved into 1/2 cup chicken broth. Let it all thicken, then served over rice.

Still have more bok choy, so I'm going to try it raw next, maybe with a peanut or ginger dressing.

Todd and I were walking around the flatiron district last night, looking for a place to eat, when we noticed a great big clog of people on the sidewalk up ahead. It looked like they were filming something. There was a thick, red carpet to the front door of a resaurant, and lots of very attractive people milling around outside, guarding a velvet rope.

Is the velvet-rope feeling what that new show, The Restaurant, is going for? I guess the sight of all those well-heeled young people guarding the gates of an exclusive new restaurant sort of deflated me about the whole concept of the show. I thought it was going to be more of a gritty, what-goes-on-behind-the-scenes kind of thing, not a look-at-all-the-beautiful-people-and-their-dramatic-lives kind of thing. I don't even know if I'll watch it now. (Although I think I will - maybe it'll be both.) Is it going to be about the food at all?

Last night we went to a gallery opening (the photography exhibit was called Enchanted Evening, and a lot of famous photographs and well-known photographers' works were on display) on 22nd and 10th and then took the bus over to Bread Bar at Tabla. We had been to Tabla in January and I was kind of disappointed, although the dessert I had was fantastic (a Meyer lemon souffle with sour cherry compote). At Bread Bar, which has a lot of small dishes that you share tapas-style, Todd panicked that he wasn't going to get enough to eat so we ended up ordering way too much food, all of which was pretty good. The chutneys really made the meal, though.

Part of the reason Todd panicked is because we ordered a summer vegetable frankie, which turned out to be spicy summer vegetables (mostly summer squash) wrapped in a thin egg pancake and served with a smooth mint chutney, which managed to be spicy and cooling at the same time. He ate the egg and gave his veggies to me. We also had quail with chunky kumquat chutney and microgreens, aloo parantha, which is a puffy bread like naan that has chunks of potato, and onion rings. The aloo parantha was my favorite; we ordered a spicy tamarind chutney to accompany it. The onion rings were made with chickpea flour and they had a substantial, dry crunch that made them kind of different from traditional crispy onion rings. They were served with a homemade ketchup that was very good.

Alas, we were too full for dessert. But I definitely want to go back and try some things we didn't get to have, like the lamb sausage with mint and ginger and the saag paneer pizza.

Yesterday Todd and I tried a place we've passed hundreds of times but have never gone into: Kati Roll Co. on Macdougal Street. I had seen it in New York Magazine's 75 under $20 issue about a year ago but, even though Todd goes to NYU part-time and is always looking for a quick place to get dinner, we had never tried it.

It's a tiny shop a flight of steps up from the street. No posted menu, but there are only about 10 options so if you're a regular you don't even need a menu. All they serve are these rolled-up thin pancake-like things, called "parantha," filled with chicken, beef or paneer (a tofu-like Indian cheese). Todd had a chicken tikka one, and I had a paneer one; they were both spicy and mine included what the menu called "pickles," red onion and green bell pepper that was a sharp, fresh contrast to the earthy spiciness of the cheese. With our sodas the whole meal was $10.50, and we were both pleasantly full when we were done. Todd's pretty excited to have found a new quick bite near school. I'm jealous that he's going to be in the neighborhood regularly and I'm not. (The same thing happened with BB's, the not-quite-a-real-Philly-cheesesteak shop on West 3rd. They're cheap and delicious and I never get to have them because Todd gets them on the way to class all the time, then when we're in the neighborhood together he doesn't want it because he's sick of it.)

We went to our friends' apartment in Brooklyn to watch the East River fireworks from their roof. (I was skeptical about their view until I got there, and then I decided it was one of the best rooftops I've been to: When you're in Brooklyn or Queens, the Manhattan skyline is the backdrop for the fireworks display, which beats the big neon Pepsi sign that you see from the Manhattan side any day. Plus, it's one of New York's best kept secrets, so there's no jostling 40,000 other people and trying to wheedle your way past vigilant doormen trying to put the kibash on July 4th roof parties.) Our host made some great salmon burgers and a cherry granita from Martha Stewart that I'm definitely going to have to track down (it was almost chewy from the cherries, with a beautiful deep red color and a vibrant cherry flavor).

I took a panful of brownies from a recipe I cut from Cooking Light. These really are fantastic, fudgy brownies. One of the best things about this brownie recipe is that all the ingredients are things you probably have in your kitchen already (except maybe the espresso powder, but that's a good baking staple to have).

Set the oven for 325 degrees. Then you beat 1 cup sugar and 2 eggs with a mixer on high until it's pale and thick (about 5 minutes). Add 2 teaspoons of espresso powder that has been dissolved into a tablespoon of water, 1/4 cup melted butter and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and mix until combined.

Next mix 1 cup flour, 2/3 cup cocoa powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Add that to the sugar mixture (the batter's really thick), and spread it in a 9-inch square baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake for about 25 minutes, checking at 20 minutes to see if it's cooked through. They're fudgy so they may never look "done," but the center should start looking a little dry like the outer edge. It's hard to describe what I mean, but it's probably better to undercook them a little rather than overcook them.