Max is alive! Out from the Breslin for a day off!! He…Cooks. June 3, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farWith my one day off this week (falling on Memorial Day) I decided to cook up a storm and invite some people over to our new place in Park Slope as it has a backyard (a true rarity in NYC). Being a cook at a restaurant I don’t have much free time, and when I do, I’m often so burnt out that I don’t feel like cooking. But I still love doing it and so this past Monday, I went to Los Paisanos, a butcher in Carroll Gardens, to start my day. I got 3 kinds of sausage, their house-made burger mix, and a whole flank steak.
Once I got home I started in on marinating the flank with some crushed rosemary, garlic, lemon rind, and chilies. I lit the grill and roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and red peppers. Once they were cool, I chopped them with oregano, garlic and red wine vinegar to make a delicious caponata for the sausages. People started to arrive and I quickly chopped some parsley and mint for a chimichurri sauce for the flank. Burgers, sausages and flank went on the grill and we dug in to
the homemade guacamole. An hour later and we were stuffed to the top,
but there was still room for homemade rhubarb strawberry crisp.
The Pics:
burger with homemade caponata (roasted eggplant, pepper, and tomato)
and bacon cheddar potato salad
chimichurri sauce: mint, parsley, oregano, chilies
flank marinade: rosemary, chili, garlic
US! At the Pacific Wine and Food Festival! Max in LA! May 21, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Umm….AH-MAY-ZING.
So we got booked at this and we are totally honored to be a part of such a kick-ass culinary field.
Max is flying into LA so we hope to have at least one other event while he on the golden coast. We are already planning on where to eat when Max is out here. He’s here for 50 hrs and we have 12 restaurants already on a list. This is gonna get gross.
Some of the chefs who are going to be there at the PF&FF: Chefs Cora, Voltaggios (both), Malarky, Delcour, Pagancoss, Hoffman and many more! They are announcing new people all the time and it’s going to be a hell of a weekend. You can buy ticket starting in June but for big groups,media or random questioniess: http://www.pacificwineandfood.com/contact-us/
We are doing a 30 min demo on Sunday…time and place TBD but we will keep you posted as soon as we know more.
We don’t want to cause a scene or anything but there is some big name talent so we are putting together sort of a multi-faceted entertainment show featuring POSSIBLY some cooking.
Tentative game plan of attack for our PW&FF demo:
First off we are working on a SICK dance routine. I’m def doing at least 2 backflips during the demo. That one chick from DWTS’s has been working with me here in LA for months.My glutes are absolutely becoming maximised.Speaking of… Max has been training on weekends with the cast of that Broadway show where they do all that dancing. He’s approaching graceful Julliard status. At the demo there are going to be girls in sexy chef outfits shooting FITK branded pot holders and wine glasses out of cannons like at Pistons games,we’ve secured a lazer light show courtesy of VFX Light Tech Inc. (they do like every tight Bev Hills bar/bat mitzvah) and we are going to come out for our demo on white horse (max) and tamed tiger (eli). Also there will be live graffiti art by BANKSY but it WILL NOT be political at all so…don’t get all crazy and think we are going overboard or anything.
We hope to see you there. Tickets go on sale in June. Until then…have fun envisioning the above.
And follow Pacific Wine and food Festival on Twitter here for tons of updates on the REG: www.twitter.com/PacificWineFood
Website for pretty pics and more serious info: http://www.pacificwineandfood.com/
An Ego explosion during the dinner rush creates controversy and divides NYC May 13, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farA controversy emerged this week after Ron Leiber was kicked out of Restaurant Marc Forgionein TriBeCa. Now, this wouldn’t have been such a massive deal except that Ron Leiber just happens to write for one of the most powerful news entities in the world – The NY Times. So it was with great fanfare and debate that we were virtually introduced to Chef Forgione, Mr. Leiber and the unique way in which they met.
“The event” can all be boiled down to these key points: Chef Forgione yelled at someone on his staff and people in the dining room could hear. It was bothering Mr. Leiber. He walked into the kitchen and had an exchange with the chef and then returned to his seat. The chef then came and kicked Mr. Leiber out of his restaurant.
Now Max and I have both worked in restaurants of varying degrees of quality. We have had our share of loud conversations that we didn’t care or didn’t bother to think if guests could hear, we’ve both been yelled at by superiors, owners and other workers and have even talked a fair amount of shit about guests not limited to – their orders, the general stupidity of diners lack of food knowledge and their lack of restaurant etiquette. Max is now a chef at The Breslin in NYC and works 12 hour shifts in one of the NYC’s most popular restaurants so when I first saw this post and starting see the controversy unfold over twitter, I immediately called Max on his cell to get his take. I am currently, a professional diner so I thought we’d maybe have completely different opinions on the situation.
Below are our first thoughts:
Max: I see both sides. I don’t think this Chef should be a dick to his cooks, but I also don’t think anybody should go in to the kitchen during service. Even non-kitchen staff who work at the Breslin don’t dare to come in to the kitchen during service. The kitchen is where the work gets done and a diner should respect that space. If people have a strong moral objection to people getting yelled at they probably shouldn’t go out to eat because it happens in every restaurant. Chefs yells at their staff. Although it is very unprofessional to yell so loudly that the customers can hear, since they’re there to have a nice meal and obviously somebody yelling takes away from that experience to say the least. But that doesn’t mean that Chefs don’t yell and that there isn’t a really good reason why they are yelling.
Eli: At first I thought Mr. Leiber was a serious badass and should be commended for telling the chef he was ruining all the diners experience with the loud yelling. Mr. Leiber was eating dinner out (for which he pays handsomely in NYC) and expects a certain level of service and quality. He most likely assumes that his experience won’t contain (or at least shouldn’t have) someone loudly being yelled at within earshot, so he does something about it by letting his own voice be heard. Up to this point, I am totally cool with Mr. Leiber standing up for what he believes in. You want to rep the little guy? Awesome. Go for it. Where he loses me is when he walks in the kitchen. That is just absolutely bonkers and I wonder at what point in his mind he thought “yep. I’m just gonna go back into the kitchen because this seems like the right way to handle this situation.” I mean, the wait staff takes your food when you send it back due to unhappiness, so they’d most likely be the proper conduit for voicing your concern about this issue as well. So at first I was totally on Mr. Leiber’s side. He wanted to remedy his own situation and make himself (and fellow diners) more comfortable. But I totally switched over to the chef’s side when Mr. Lieber went into the kitchen. The kitchen is the chef’s office. In there, he can treat his employees (within the law) as poorly or as wonderfully as he sees fit. If someone messes something up, the restaurant, chef and its employees can be severely damaged. So yelling may be at times, a necessary tool of the trade. Mr. Leiber overstepped his bounds and told a stranger how to do his job. This wasn’t a mom hitting a kid at a supermarket where you are like, holy shit I gotta say something. This was a full grown adult (Mr. Leiber) out of his element telling the chef ( fully immersed in his element), how to handle his own business. I think Mr. Leiber owes the chef a public apology for dragging his name through the mud via the NYtimes.
To close: I’m actually less interested in the interaction between Mr. Leiber and the chef than the ”fall-out” or controversy surrounding the event. I mean, without the NYT in the equation this happens the exact same way and maybe 20-50 people in Mr. Leiber’s circle of friends hear about it. It becomes a great story to tell the next time Mr. Leiber is out to dinner with friends and that’s about it.
The truly unique aspect of this story is that with the instant connection the web gives us along with the power of the NYT forum, this has becoming a legit newstory in the food community. Grubstreet and EATER both picked it up and as of the writing of this post there were 439 reader comments on Mr. Leiber’s original NYT article. That’s probably more than on any of the oil spill articles that have been dominating the news in the past few days.
The amazing thing is the amazing split of people taking each side. People are enraged that Mr. Leiber would take matters into his own hands. Others are livid that he was kicked out of the restaurant by the Chef. People have found certain aspects of the story that they find unbearable, annoying, terrible and despicable. It’s actually quite awesome that one event can elicit such a dizzying variety of emotions.
So max had to go and he closed the phone call with this: Obviously all this pr is good for this chef and his restaurant in the long run, I’m sure.I mean, I had never heard of this place until today. So maybe some people go into to check out the food and others go in to check out the ”psycho” chef. Let’s hope people don’t go in with the mindset of “getting tossed.” So I guess the old adage still rings true, all press is good press.
And all along you thought a person’s palate was the only way a restaurant could divide a room.
You can read Mr. Leiber’s article here: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/why-i-got-kicked-out-of-a-restaurant-on-saturday-night/
Chef Forgione responds via Grubstreet here:http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/05/marc_forgione_flips_out.html
LA blogger Food Woolf’s (a 15 year restaurant veteran) take on the situation here: foodwoolf.com/2010/05/nyt-writer-in-forgione-kitchen.html
It’s a bi-coastal feud son! Maxie Smalls vs. Epac March 26, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentFor fashion, for fraduelent investment schemes and for Broadway, New York is the mecca. For movies,weather and ”get off a bus and get discovered” fame, LA is the place. But when it comes to rap, you might get shot arguing the whole east coast vs. west coast. The debate still rages – Which coast has better rap? While neither Max nor I consider ourselves connoisseurs of rap music (XXL mag rejected my article ”The Tizzity talmud: Influence on lyrical verses 1998-2003″) we do believe we know a bit about food. So now that Max has become a NY’er the debate rages sasha fierce. Which coast offers better food??
For people working in the food industry and even passionate tasters of great food worldwide(im phasing out foodie), New York is the mecca.
You are a great cook in Milwaukee? In NY you are about to beg to peel carrots for 6 months. You were an exec chef in San Antonio? You’re now working overnights cleaning pork loins and peeling potatoes.
People laugh off the NYC vs. LA food scene argument as if LA doesn’t have a chance. But, these irrefutable facts above do not force me to alter my never ending battle to rep LA’s food scene in the face of the bigger,snottier,more established NYC scene. And since Max and I are brothers, its perfectly natural that we argue about everything. When he was living in Ann Arbor, it was no contest. It’s a great college town, but is no match for LA in terms of food scene. So when he moved to NYC just 2 short months ago, I had to endure constant text messaging, tweeting and emailing as Max tried to make up for lost time and regain food tasting superiority in our relationship.
So upon arrival this past weekend to visit Max,our feverish debate continued in person over which coast has ”the best food.” But food is an objective pursuit. Who’s to say that a person cannot draw greater satisfaction from a $3 pupusa than a $46 ribeye dry aged steak? How impossible is it to compare two cuisines at two seperate price points in two seperate cities? Who determines whether an In-N-Out burger is not a finer dining option than that of a handmade ravioli at Del Posto?
As the coastal debate raged, I found myself drawing similarities between myself(LA) Max(NYC) and biggie and tupac’s east coast – west coast fued.
See the rap game is exactly like the food game…
There are big name stars that don’t do now what originally made them famous(Emeril and Dr. Dre) Guys who don’t work anymore but have amazing street cred (Bourdain and Rev Run),Talent producers who churn out hits for themself and others(Batali and Timbaland), Cocky young guns who run their mouth and get into trouble (T.I. and Chang), Charismatic young stars with more to prove and show (Drake, Shook and Dotolo) and those that everyone talks shit about but America loves unabashedly(Soulja Boy, Guy Fiere).
The similarities were so clearly staring me in the face with our bi-coastal fued. It was just like Biggie and pac. They loved each other and they loved rapping but they could never just agree on who was better. Same thing with me and max.
As anyone will attest to, Max back in the day used to let his tape rock till his tape popped, smoked weed and sip on private stock (usually from our parents liquor closet) and now of course he is in the limelight cuz he cooks tight. Max was out to prove he could spread NYC food love the Brooklyn way.
Me on the other hand – I welcome everybody to the wild wild west and my supper clubs are untouchable like Elliot Ness. LA’s food’s all good from Diego to the Bay, my city is the bomb NY is yesterday.and even more so… I ate Mexican today, but you ate KBBQ yesterday, selling food outta trucks to the kids, well hey, that’s just the way it is.
New York is No-No-Notorious as a foodie snob city where one can get any type of ethnic fare found no where else in America. But to live and die in LA eating seasonal fare, finding food trucks via twitter is many a foodie’s dream. So how would we be able to determine who’s city had better food?
There was only one way.
To eat. and to talk.
and to eat. and to argue.
(We drank a ton too).
Our parents were there which meant that while we were so excited to reunite the family and spend QT, it also meant Max and I could go absolutely fucking bonkers ordering because it wasn’t on our dime. ( Now this sounds like we are taking advantage here, but actually its not. Max is a up and coming chef and I am working on opening a top secret restaurant project in LA,so for us,and we needed to settle this coastal food fued, so this was really market research at its finest)
Our NYC stops: Brasserie,Katz’s Deli,Cafe Gitane,The Breslin,Locanda Verde,Luz,Pulino’s
Katz’s
The famed Pastrami counter. Sliced fresh to order.
Max pondering his next bite.
Max has never been to Langer’s… 0hhh #19 how I dream of thee… (http://www.langersdeli.com/) so this one is a bit unfair, but honestly, in pure flavor Langer’s edges Katz’s Pastrami in a head to head battle. If you need a secondary source, David Sax, author of Save The Deli will confirm (http://www.savethedeli.com/).
LA – 1 NYC – 0
The Breslin http://thebreslin.com/
Max works here 5-7 nights a week during the dinner rush meaning he’s tried every single thing on the dinner menu. So we decided to head here for brunch. Here’s the menu : http://thebreslin.com/i/menu-brunch.pdf
We ordered all the pastries. The housemade scones were as close to a scone can be to remarkable and the Peanut Butter deep fried sandwich made a full grown man at our table giggle with delight. The pumpkin pancakes with chili pecan butter were aromatic and had surprising subtle hints and flavors. Max had the house smoked ham and 3 cheese grilled sandwich with egg. As he held it in between bites, egg oozing down his fingers with soft pink peices of ham peeking out from the perfectly toasted bread, I realized the Breslin was putting any brunch I had ever consumed to shame. I ordered the lamb burger because well, I don’t eat eggs after 11am ever, under any circumstances and the lamb burger hype was deafening. It arrived and was the most perfectly hand formed burger I have ever seen. 100% hand ground lamb done in house… cooked to absolute perfection. Not gamey or too strong and the cumin mayo was a genius compliment. After eating the thrice cooked chips you may as well redefine your priorities on life because you will be salivating over these for the rest of your days. They are far greater than the hype. This wasn’t Joan’s on 3rd, or Quality or even Pann’s. It was a reinterpreted classic brunch menu that was all Breslin.
LA – 1 NYC – 1
Locanda Verde
This Italian Tiverna in TriBeCa came very highly reviewed and regarded. Andrew Carmellini from Gramercy Tavern. It would be our second Ken Friedman meal of the weekend. This dude is everywhere. Here is what we ordered:
Crostini: Sheeps’ Milk Ricotta with sea salt and herbs
Wild Mushroom with parmesan and watercress
Blue Crab with jalepeno and tomato
Antipasti :Mediterranean Sardines in saor
Marinated Beets with pistachio pesto and gorgonzola
Smoked Duck Terrina with roasted delicata squash, pistachio and mostarda
Pasta :My Grandmothers’ Ravioli
Fonduta Ravioli with wild mushrooms and parmigiano reggiano
Orecchiette with rapini pesto, sweet pepper and pine nuts
Secondi:Roasted Sea Scallops with sicilian cauliflower and citrus
Porchetta Sandwich with grilled onions & provolone
Dessert:Banana Walnut Brown Butter Cake
banana gelato, walnut brittle
Lemon Tart
buttermilk gelato, limoncello granita
While we all agreed there was nothing jaw dropping about this meal, the beauty of the food was in it’s accessibility and for the most part, simplicity. The meal was incredibly consistent and delicious from top to bottom. Considering we ordered 1/3 of the menu, ate for nearly 3 hours and had not one moment of bad service, we thought this was place was worth recommending onward. There are better Italian places I’ve been to in LA, and definitely better places in NYC, but let’s let this one be a push. If you are going to be in TriBeCa, it’s worth a visit.
NEXT POST: The rest of NYC including Luz in Brooklyn, Pulino’s on the LES and the conclusion of this bi-coastal food battle.
Bi-polar dinner disorder and cooking in the unconscious February 25, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farUnlike Max who is always at The Breslin working a 12 hour shift, I work at a “9-5″ job in a standard-ish office. Yes, the deep dark secret about us is that I do not have a full time cooking job… unless you count twitter as a full time job (which unfortunately for our society, some people now can). Max and I often talk about the vast differences between the mindset it take to be in a kitchen, in your zone – tickets flying, hot pans, yelling, consistency, timing -often total unbridled chaos…and the more composed order of an office routine still with large stresses and fires to be put out, but lightyears different in their form and solutions. But while I sit for hours “doing advertising” the thoughts that dominate my subconscious are what I’m eating for lunch or what I’m going to be cooking for dinner. The busier I am at work, the more I look forward to rushing home, cracking open some wine and cooking with a record playing in the background. So yeah, when my brain is free to roam, I daydream about driving 20 min home from a full work day in order to spend an hour plus standing in a small kitchen at home cooking.
Tonight it was raining in LA and while I am the most staunch advocate of it being sunny and 74 every day, tonight the rain seemed extremely relaxing and for some reason, weirdly appropriate. I opened the sliding side door off of my kitchen to listen to the rain and get a breeze going and then put on a record. It’s only slightly coincidental that I find myself reaching a lot for the Phil Collins album “No Jacket Required” when I cook. I say only slightly coincidental because well, it’s awesome (Don’t Lose My Number, Sussudio and Doesn’t anybody stay together anymore – Instant classics) and secondly, I only own like 25 albums on vinyl so my choices are somewhat limited. And…here’s where we get down to the actual cooking part of the post.
Unlike my limited vinyl selection options, on sunday I went on a black out shopping binge at (industrial grocery store) Smart+Final where I came to, lying on the floor in my living room, drowning in plastic bags and opened items having sampled 1 of everything I had just bought (as I always do when I come home from the grocery store).”EVERYTHING IS SO DELICIOUS” I cried in between mouthfuls of beef jerky chased with salsa chased with pickles chased with peanut butter chased with Soy Sauce chased with tortilla shells chased with batter blaster (what can I say, I’m reckless).”I JUST…. WANT ….TO TRY… ONE OF EVERYTHING!” (you know you do this too).
So when I came home today after work, I was greeted by a still overflowing fridge offering me a bounty of industrial sized riches. The dinner possibilities were endless. But this, this my friends is where it gets tricky. If you have bread and PB+J…there is only one true direction. But me, I looked at my full fridge and I got bi-polar dinner disorder. My mind began to race. I’m high and low. I’m thinking italian. Then mexican. Then middle eastern. Then american…
“I want chicken nuggets and french fries.” No problem! I began to defrost the chicken, got out the bread crumbs and pulled some potatoes to make the fries.
“Wait wait wait…I think I want an artichoke, sundered tomato and grilled chicken sandwich. Yea….that’s def gonna be delicious.”
But when I reached for the artichokes, I noticed the white mushrooms and the yellow and green peppers.
“Hmmm…those are going to be no good soon, so I should probably cook those up… I guess now it’s looking like a spicy chicken hoagie with grilled peppers and mushrooms. Maybe put some bbq sauce on top…So i began to reach for the BBQ sauce only to spot the heirloom tomatoes. I took a step back.
Don’t they make some sort of pill for this type of food-born anxiety illness?
So with all these flavors and choices and options…literally a wealth of food…and with my mind all over the map…in what direction would I go? It was then I realized that while I had been pulling item after item deciding what to make, I had chopped garlic which was now sautéing lightly in oil and had began breading the chicken. (Is it possible you cook and think with different parts of your brain or do I just black out around food a lot?) I sliced the peppers and the mushrooms and added them to the garlic. I still had no direction but I was going with it. Water was boiling. Penne entered the water, for what – you’re guess at that point was good as mine. The heat against my legs reminded me the oven was on, set to 425. The chicken went in and began baking.
Artichokes , tomatoes, spinach, black olives and some left over cooked sausage hit the frying pan and sizzled, juices and flavors creating a thick aromatic sauce. I was making ‘the kitchen sink’ jealous with this display. With the chicken cooked and the perfect ratio of the italian breading KFC crisp and slightly burnt, I diced it and added it to the frying pan along with the penne. I added parmesan cheese and folded it in gently. A little drizzle of BBQ sauce for some bite. Then over the top I sprinkled bread crumbs creating a solid crust. A light drizzle of olive oil and then I put the frying pan in the oven to bake.
What emerged was not where my brain started. It was some sort of bastardization of a baked pasta. A frankenstein dish borrowing from lasagna,utilizing homemade chicken tenders, sausage, olives, artichokes,peppers,mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes. A ripoff based on pasta al forgo? A pizza-esque pasta? Whatever it was, It was insanely delicious and will be tomorrow’s lunch and dinner too.
So I started off in one place and ended up somewhere else completely different. The brain is funny like that. I was either thinking too much or wasn’t really thinking at all.Trying out things without a real dish in mind, hoping for the best by mixing flavors and just going for it.
Mostly, I guess I was just cooking.
And that’s just the way I like it.
