Category: Dish of the day

Of course it's a little sad to not be with my family on Thanksgiving, but my god, New York is such a pleasure when everyone clears out.  Holiday weekends make it possible to go out on the Lower East Side on a Friday night and not be suffocated by the descent of the usual choadfest.

Which is how we wound up at Bacaro last night.  I don't go out very often on the weekends because I'm too much of a grandma, but seeing as how my chances of finding a date while sitting at my computer watching Law & Order SVU on Netflix streaming are strangely low, I've decided that it's time to get out there.

And it was a wonderfully brisk night, no?  Just the right side of winter.  A little hard and shiny but with a hidden heat, like the black patent heels I had on with plum tights.  Like the delicate swirly stem of the wine glasses holding the warming, dark cherry Valpolicella we drank all night.  Like the curlicued, shiny white plate holding up a round pool of velvet, buttery polenta and creamy, saline baccala.  

We were there with our friends Andy and Jen, who were in town for the evening.  Eventually, we had 8 people on the bar stools around the front seating area.  We stayed for a good five hours, doting on the fresh face of our curly-haired waitress as Negronis and herbacious Aperol cocktails melted us like chocolate onto the cold marble slab table.  Our crystal tumblers were never without water; a freshly lit white tapered candle replaced the one on our table that had gone down to three inches. 

I could have stayed all night, alternating vino and nibbles, sending text invites to absent friends that went from cajoling to belligerent as the night progressed.  Little fried meatballs arrived like shooter marbles in a glass cup, poppable and crunchy.  When I felt the wine sway in my stomach, crumb-coated fried rice balls oozing a mess of mozzarella brought my thirst back.

Plenty of exposed dark bricks capture the flickering bling of the huge acrylic chandelier, the crystal on the tables, the sweet engraved mirror and the copious candlelight.  The place definitely feels like it's been finished with a woman's touch, and the presence of many pretty women in ripped black lace, striped bustiers and Sol Moscot eyeglass frames were a testament to its feminine appeal. I'm sure it's a totally different scene on a busy weekend night, but I'm so very glad I got to see it like this.

Bacaro
136 Division St. btwn Ludlow and Orchard
F to East Broadway

Captain's Daughter ($8): Salted foccacia with sardines, a sliced pickled egg, and "salsa verde" of whole parsley leaves and sliced scallions tossed with olive oil and capers.  YUMS.  Does everyone already know about this place?  Best possible thing I could have eaten before the gig at The Knitting Factory.  The individual quince tarts' crusts sparkled with granulated sugar, enrobing fuchsia colored fruit.  Though I yearned for one, I held back.  The cup of loose leaf jasmine tea was the perfect cap to a really tasty and virtuous meal. 

From the outside, I wasn't quite sure what the brightly lit, sparsely furnished railroad space was.  A fish and chips shop?  A bakery? The counter is set deep in the narrow storefront, and the pastry case also houses stacks of books. The purposefully askew white lettering on the cartoon whale blue wall menu spells out abstract sandwich names like Spanish Armada and Ship's Biscuit without descriptions, forcing customers to consult the card on the counter for ingredients.  It feels preciously sewn, and it brushes my hair in the wrong direction (Steve Zissou?). But that's a teeny quibble for such sandwich pleasure.  My only request: add some chips to the menu so I can make it a square meal.

Saltie
378 Metropolitan Ave
(at Havemeyer St)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 387-4777
  

So I couldn't tell you where Paul Liebrandt's restaurant will be or what he has in store for it (won't be Italian food), but I can tell you what I hope winds up on the dessert menu. Liebrandt made a bunch of cocktails for a Ciroc vodka demo I went to, the best being a lemon meringue stinger -- an ice cold (Pacojet-ed) vodka lemonade topped with hot Whip-it lashed egg white foam (egg white with with lemon juice, gin, and simple syrup, heated in the whipping canister to 160 degrees in a water bath). High temp meringue on the upper lip, icy tart alcohol on the tongue. Not the kind of thing you want to drink a whole martini glassful of, but a fun trick that you could recreate it at home as a final dessert palate cleanser.

As for the vodka, I didn't try it straight because, well, I drank a whole martini glassful of the delicious stinger on top of several lethal liquid nitrogen-caipirinha sorbets. I was down for the count by the time the straighter cocktails came out. I'll let you know how it goes when the bottle gets opened.

Full review of Pacificana forthcoming on NYMag.com, but their stew pork with preserved vegetables is my dish of the day -- big, streaky hunks of pork belly are stewed in a sweet soy broth with anise and plenty of preserved cabbagey bits, all poured into a clay casserole atop wilting iceberg. Divine. You could split the dish between two people and still have enough leftover to make pork buns a la Momofuku the next day.