Augieland

A Martini is a gin drink.

Screaming Orgasm, Sex On The Beach, Side Car, Sazerac, Salty Dog, Singapore Sling, Slippery Nipple, Stinger, Shirley Temple, Slow Comfortable Screw, Snakebite, Sombrero, Surfer on Acid, and Screwdriver. All of these are cocktails I can think of that start with the letter S. If I walk into a bar and order them by name I know what I will get. How did we get saddled with the Chocolate Martini?

In the old days, it was a bartender’s job to come up with the recipe and name it. Needless to say, we got some awesome cocktails with imaginative names. Recently, every time I walk into a bar I hear people ordering Apple, Chocolate, or a Raspberry-tinis. The original Martini was such a simple, classic drink that it became a Gibson if you put onions in it instead of olives or a twist. There was dry, in and out, rocks or up.

I am told the messing up of the fine tradition of naming a cocktail, and the pathetic use of Martini to describe any drink in an up glass, can be traced to and blamed on Hollywood. This may just be because I love a good advertising-screwing-up-America anecdote, but here is the urban legend I like best. In the original James Bond books, Bond drank a 50-50 gin and vodka Martini, somehow showing his British, Russian duality. However when the first film was to be released, Smirnoff, the American vodka company, paid United Artists to have Bond’s drink of choice change to the now-famous “vodka Martini,” shaken, not stirred.  As they’d hoped it would, the drink took off and every American gave up on the sanctity of tradition and, in order to sound cool, starting ordering vodka Martinis. Eventually, people began ordering Martinis and expecting them to be vodka drinks. From there it was an easy step to all up drinks being labeled Martinis because they came in a “Martini glass.”  Bars and restaurants started publishing “Martini menus” which included drinks like the Manhattan (which, being mainly a whiskey drink, probably predates the Martini by years, because gin only truly came into vogue during prohibition because of how easy it was to make in a bathtub).

Demand more from your bartenders. When they create a drink, encourage them to give it an original name, learn how they make it, and when you are at your next bar tell the bartender you want one. When he asks how it is made, tell him. Now he will know, and you may be encouraging the next Cosmo, or Kamikaze, or Rob Roy.

The Martini is a classic drink and a rite of passage. It is gin, some small part dry vermouth and, if you have enough tradition, maybe you’ll wash the ice with either bitters or Cointreau. Stir it in a tall metal canister with a long spoon, never shake, serve in a chilled up glass with a speared olive or twist, and love the creativity it inspires.

Be warned: all of my friends and family get belligerent when I drink gin, which I feel just ads to the fun, but your circle may not enjoy debate as much as mine.

Start your-self a wine club.

Ok, so you have your regular place with your regular wine guy, you have read some books, and now your lazier compatriots defer to you whenever you are out. They look to you to know where the value will be, they look to you for little gems like the Albariño cheap little garlicky shrimp at a tapas place, or that a Cabernet Franc from the Loire will pair well with the chicken livers coming in the middle of the meal and keep you out of a white rut. Now it is time to put them to work for you. Start a wine club!
At some point I realized I had about six friends all of whom were drinking at a level above mine financially, and I was frustrated by them not sharing their experiences with me. Even if I hadn’t had the wines I could get a grasp for what to expect and could make a better-informed choice if I had the means or chance. Their excuse was always something like “I don’t know what to say,” or, “I can’t taste as well as you,” so I decided the solution was to help them find their voice and if, in the process, I could put them to work teaching me stuff I didn’t know? Bonus.
I started the 5th Ave. Wine Society (admit that sounds way more fun then Augie’s Wine Club). I invited Wife plus six other people, figuring having much more than the eight of us would get distracting to conversation. I set up a basic structure for the meetings and brought together the first grouping at my house.
    1.    We would meet once a month, rotating between each of the member’s apartments.
    2.    The schedule would be such that odd months would be about a grape and even would be about a region.
        a.    In the tastings that were grape-specific, a price range would be set and all the wines of the world would be allowed, as long as the featured grape was 70% of the blend, comparing apples to apples.
            i. These wines would be tasted blind, and wrapped by the host either in brown paper lunch bags or foil upon arrival.
        b.    In the regional tastings the wines could be from anywhere in the region, of any variety, and         any price.
    3.    The person hosting would get to decide which grape or region that they would host and, in the     case of grape-specific tastings, would set the price range.
    4.    The host could invite a guest.
    5.    Each of the eight or nine people would be responsible for bringing a bottle of wine that fit         within the parameters of the tasting.
    6.    Each person would research the wine they had chosen, maybe with the help of a shop clerk maybe on the web, before attending. For every wine, after it was tasted and discussed, the person that brought it would be responsible for giving some back-story on it.
    7.    We purchased a set of pocket notepads in which each person would write their thoughts on color, nose, flavors, and mouth-feel. This kept people from talking while discovering their own response. Everyone I know is very susceptible to the power of suggestion while his or her nose is in the glass.
    8.    When all the wines had been tasted, and discussed we would judge them based on two               separate criteria: which wines we preferred, and which were worth the price for which they had         been purchased.

The group that formed was awesome because it was just my friends who loved wine, even though very few of them knew each other previously. They were from very different financial situations; some barely starting in their careers and others earning well into what would be called upper-class salaries. When these people agreed that, for example, a certain wine from the Malbec tasting was worth $35 dollars while another was not worth $30 it was significant. In their wine shelves at home one of those votes had Yellow Tail and another had some DRCs.

All in all, the wine club met for about ten months. Sooner or later, as always happens with singles, one or two people found a significant other and couldn’t be dragged away from those they were smitten with. By that point, the rest of us found ourselves drinking together about four nights a week anyway and it just seemed easier to let it devolve into a bunch of people hanging out. But while we were still running strong, we learned a couple of really cool things. That wines made of Grenache in the $40-$50 range seem to want stew, and that the Sardinians call the grape Cannonau. That on the whole we feel that the wines of the North Island of New Zealand are over-priced by about 25%, no matter how promising their publicity machine finds them, and that Love my Goat is horrible swill that, “tastes like, what I imagine bums drink.”
Every now and then I have people over for wine nights and we pretty much follow these same guidelines, give or take, and I have to tell you it is much easier to learn about wine discussing it while drinking it. The notes help you remember what consuming the equivalent of one bottle per person inherently loses. Get to it!

Buy your-self a wine book.

OK, so you have been drinking wine for a while and you have developed what you consider a good appreciation for it. You have a local or two with a good wine list and a staff you enjoy discussing it with. In your vast group of friends are a couple of people that enjoy wine, and when you are out with them you compare your perceptions, furthering your comprehension. Now you want to go out on your own, bring a new thing to the experience. Plus you are not sure any more that your guy isn't making stuff up, to stay ahead of you at this point. What to do? Buy a book.

I don't know if Vino Italiano by David Lynch and Joe Bastianich is as great as I think it is, because it was my first and probably helped me learn more, faster, then any other book, but in my mind it is how all wine books should be written. Vino Italiano never separates wine from food; at each point in the book you are close to a page that will tell you what is eaten with the wine you are learning about. Loving both food and wine equally, and seeing them as almost inseparable, this jibed well with my approach.

The first section is about the basic rules of Italian wine. Although the Italians as a whole seem very willing to change absolute rules very regularly in the interest of marketing, knowing what DOC, DOCG, and IGT are will at least help you start to navigate the aisles. There is a section here that explains the markups involved in importing wine to America and how it gets so out of hand. It doesn't, however, explain how Bastianich's store IWM comes to their markups. Don't fret very much over this section. Regionally, the importance of these laws is very different; Helmet's favorite Italian wines were outside the codification forever and have just recently been folded in.

The next nineteen chapters comprise Section Two, and this is where the book starts to cook. The nineteen chapters are divided into the sections of Italy that make wine (with a couple of regions combined in the interest of efficient writing). Each chapter breaks down into parts: the region, the wines, a quick reference, and the food.

The first part of each chapter, the region, is where Joe and David's great familiarity with the streets of Italy pays off. Really it is just an anecdote about the area, but it does a great job of setting the mood. At one point you are on a wild boar hunt in Tuscany, the next you are eating raw fish in the Marche; in all of them you are meeting the people of the region.

The wines make up the second section of the chapter, and are divided into white, red, sparkling, and sweet. There is a discussion of the significant wines from each area and how they are made. The DOC and DOCG wines are covered, as well as significant IGT wines. When a region has a particularly group of interest, like the Super Whites of Friulli and the Super Tuscans, they get an inset of their own which offers an overview.

The data section that follows serves as a quick guide to the region -- where it is, what DOC's and DOCG's are there, and a breakdown by grape -- and then the first truly unique thing about this book comes into play. The authors make suggestions for flights of three red wines and three whites, from the region that should be obtainable in the States. Sometimes they choose the same type of wine from three different producers, sometimes different types. Either way, the exercise provides a good practical base on which to build your comprehension. The last bit in this section is suggested stops along the way for wine-traveling in Italy.

Finally comes the food, and here lies the true genius of the book. Each chapter concludes with either a recipe from Mario Batali or Lydia Bastianich. The recipes are very easy to make, and are very specific to the area. An appropriate wine is suggested as an accompaniment. The first chapter is Friuli-Venizia Giulia and once you have read the book you have a basic understanding that this is a northern region that makes great white wine and good red, you know the cuisine and wine are heavily influenced by the region's position between three or four major nationality influences, and you know that this is the crossroads that people used to get everywhere in the region. Once you make Lydia's frico and wash it down with a Tocai or a Super White, you feel it all, even if you are in your kitchen in Greenwich Village.

In the final section, the book goes into some of the most in depth indexing I have ever seen. To be honest, it scares and frustrates me.

I took this book one chapter/region at a time. The chapters average about thirty pages apiece, and were easy to read when I wasn’t beating myself up trying to memorize all the IGT's and grapes. When I finished a chapter I would either make the food and buy the wine, or go to a restaurant and do the region. After reading the section on Veneto, I went straight to 'Ino and got a bottle of Prosecco and four little panini that had the meats of the region in them and had a fantastic lunch. Then, inspired by the book, I bought a bottle of Valpolicella at Crossroads, wrapped it in a brown bag, and enjoyed a hot spring day walkabout with Pappa and Apostrofus, sipping all the while.

There are all kinds of wine books. Much like wines, I suspect different ones appeal to different tastes (look at Lambrusco). My feeling is you will know in thirty-five pages if this is the book for you. If it isn't, bring it back and exchange it till one strikes a chord. Heck the American wine world is desperate for the guy that loved the Austrian wine book. We could all use a guy that loves talking about the wine without pretending he is Colonel Klink while pronouncing their names.

Find your-self a wine geek.

People love to ask me, "How did you learn so much about wine?" usually followed by, "I wish I knew more about wine," or "I obviously just don't taste as well as you do."

The answer is easy. I wanted to learn about wine, so I found people that knew more than I did and listened to them talk about it. That really is the easiest way, and it takes no special tasting skills. Seek out or start a wine club, or go to your local restaurant with a good wine list and engage the sommelier.

Every restaurant has a highest-ranking cork dork, even if it is just the waiter that drinks the most. Have him recommend a wine and then discuss why he likes it. Of course not at 7:30pm on a Thursday. But early/late in service on slower nights is always good. My only warning on this is: the minute you find a guy that brings up hours of daylight, slope, elevation, biodynamic, or great extraction from pump-over rather than punch-down cap maintenance, end the conversation, pick a color (white or red), pay in the $30 range and cut your losses. It's ok to discuss that stuff but you should lead that conversation, when you find it interesting. All he is really saying by going to those places unprovoked is: “I have read books, I geek out on process, and I have generally missed the nuanced beauty that is wine. But still I can dazzle!”

When you do find a guy that works well at your level and helps you find wines you enjoy, talk about them with him. The more wines you find you like and the more you discuss them, the more you will be able to explain to strangers the kind of wine you love. Once you start doing this, it is easy to find more wine and talk about what makes you love or hate it. Knowing you like a big red is far better then knowing you like red, and knowing you like fruit-forward big red wine with enough tannic structure may be a little cliché, but will make you able to get what you want.

The best part about this process is it makes you a regular at his place. When I found Paul Grieco at Gramercy Tavern, I would show up on Wednesdays and Thursdays around 2:30 in the afternoon, when I wasn't working, and order a roasted chicken and a glass of Pinot Noir. Sooner or later Paul would show up and meet the guys trying to sell him wine and they would discuss them. I would listen, usually Paul would notice me listening, recognize my face, and send me a taste of what they were having. After listening to two pros discuss it, I would taste the wine and look for things I understood. When I would dine at Gramercy, I would ask for Paul and have him help or just choose our wine and discuss it a little. Drinking juice with Paul is still one of my favorite pastimes. Now we do it at his restaurant, Hearth, his legacy sticks I now know a lot more about wine and am very familiar with the staffs of two of NY's best restaurants because I paid attention to a pro and asked him do his job.

Six years later, I can discuss pump-over with any agro-geek in the world, I can find the value on most of NY's better wine lists, and when I call GT or Hearth they think of me as a good customer that loves wine, which is so true.

recipe for bacon-and-egg pie

Growing up, we would see the Weisses twice a year. Mr. Weiss had gone to some school with my father and they were close enough that once a summer they would come visit us and go to the beach, and some weekend in December we would all pile in the car and drive out to visit them in Pennsylvania for their tree-trimming party. Their part was awesome because it was a big party, we were out of town, and they had it catered. The better visit, though, was when they would come to visit us because we would have bacon-and-egg pie and popovers.  Bacon-and-egg pie was always one of my favorites. As a child I hated eggs, with the exception of hardboiled. The fact that in the early 70’s eggs were still as important to a growing kid’s diet as three glasses of milk, made the fact that I liked this version of them another plus, because I was cheered for eating it.

For some reason the only time we had the dish was during the Weiss’ visits, so in my head it was always a big thing that was very labor intensive. Now that I have my culinary wits about me a bit more then I did as a seven year old, when Wife said, “let’s have some friends over for brunch,” I decided I was making bacon-and-egg pie. One call to Dad confirmed it was as easy as I now suspected, and almost impossible to get wrong.

All you do is:

Buy a piecrust.

Cover the bottom of the piecrust with raw bacon pieces you have cut up. (At this point I prefer a thicker bacon then the kind Dad used to use so I par-cooked it by throwing it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350°.)

Crack a dozen eggs into the crust.

Add an herb. (I had wanted to do chervil but it looked pathetic so I went marjoram. I pulled it off the stalks and gave a rough chop.)

Put another piecrust on top. (I folded the edge up and ran a fork around the outside, because I think that’s what you do.)

Put it in the oven at 350° for 45 minutes. (My twist on that was to butter on the top crust (hee hee, I added butter) and throw it under the broiler for about 5 minutes at the end.)

Let it cool for 30 minutes. (Like a very few other foods – fried chicken for example – bacon-and-egg pie tastes as good, if not better, cold as warm.)

Cut and serve.

The bacon-and-egg pie is awesome; the wonderful taste of eggs cooked with bacon, in piecrust, I mean come on. Next time it’s popovers.

Pio Maya 444 sectrillian stars

I am going to take a page (Ostend Queen) from our Michelin brothers in France and declare that a restaurant that will open in about three to four weeks will be a huge success, deserving of 444 sectrillian stars. What makes me so confident? Well, I like the guy in charge of the place and believe he will run a good restaurant.

I don’t think I am giving away a huge trade secret when I divulge that most of the food you have eaten in New York’s finer restaurants was prepared by people that have emigrated here from places like Mexico. Zooma is the genius that has gotten the food from the kitchen at Otto to the bar and the tables since it opened, and Zooma is Mexican.  Every now and then, Zooma would come up to me and say, “Gringo, they made a good Mexican tonight, nice and spicy. You will like it.” I don’t know how you get the privilege of having the late-night family meal at Otto without working there—which I did for a short time—but when the guys in that kitchen are cooking their own food (as special as the work they do with the Otto menu is), it is something amazing.

I believe I go to Otto more now, as a customer, than I ever did as an employee, and although I lost my family-meal privileges, when the good hot peppers roll into the green market, Zooma always sets a couple aside for me hoping he will find the one so hot that I can’t eat it. The boys in the back hated that the gringo was eating hotter peppers than them, which—of course—encouraged me to new heights of hot.

The storefront on 8th St. between 5th Ave and 6th Ave. that currently has the Von Singh’s sign up will open in a couple of weeks as Pio Maya. Zooma will be the guy in the front, and his brother will be cooking real Mexican in the kitchen.  I am assured Zooma’s brother is a great cook, and if the dishes are even the smallest bit inferior to those dishes Zooma encouraged me to eat from the Otto larder, I will let them know. Zooma also swears he has his brother working on a special salsa that should cripple me, so if you are a hot guy, run in there and get the special salsa, the one made to hurt Augie. I know I can’t wait.

Noodle Pudding 130 stars

When I asked him, Fittsdoola said, “If you want Italian in Brooklyn Heights go to Noodle Pudding.” Having trusted him on Brooklyn before, I chose to do so again. So I responded to Wife’s email “of course we should join Spidey & Shmoo for dinner. I think Noodle Pudding would be a good place to try.”

The space is everything you want Brooklyn Italian to be – long, narrow, somehow humid, while still feeling like it is warmed by a fire. A bar is planted in the middle and, while people wait at it, the artery that is already narrowed by its placement gets almost impassible. The servers are all in black pants and white shirts and their assignments seem to be handed out in age order, with the oldest guy doing the seating and the youngest clearing tables.

I have surgery scheduled for Wednesday and have been told no drinking, so I didn’t even crack the wine list. I did notice that the cover was a color photocopy of the cover of Wine by André Dominé, a book I am reading at the moment and enjoying very much.

The menu was simple first courses, then seconds, with a list of daily specials. Having had a big eating week, I opted for the Cavatelli and Cannellini Beans and the Grilled Chicken over Salad. Walking in, I had squeezed through the artery past a single woman eating it, and stuck it out in my head as looking pleasing.

The Cavatelli was perfect: equal portions cavatelli and cannelini beans, with some olive oil, garlic, tomato, and basil.  Simple.

The chicken was a paillard: pounded flat, brushed with some herbs and olive oil, and grilled. It was over a salad of the same baby mesclun mix everyone is using these days with a huge amount of parsley added. A lemon was on the edge of the plate so I squeezed it over along with the parsley it made for a very fresh flavor. Again, simple.

For dessert, I had an espresso and it was what it should be. Short, strong, and with a thick crème. The amount of places in this city that get that wrong is embarrassing.

No matter who is cooking Italian food, it is right when the cook has fresh ingredients and the confidence to let them be the show. This is what you get at Noodle Pudding. I added some salt here and there, and put a drop of balsamic in Wife’s asparagus soup to add the zing it wanted but, on the whole, left very satisfied with the experience.

THOR 12341 stars

Veterans’ Day was a day off and it was Parm’s birthday. So Bear, Parm and I decided it was time to try THOR. THOR is an acronym for The Hotel On Rivington and it has been getting good buzz around town for most of the three months it has been open. The discussions I have been listening to have intoned the dishes I seem to be appreciating most these days, new and creative things that remember flavor is the most important of the five sensory components of food.

The room is decorated. I mean you can tell someone was paid a lot of money to make this a cool space, and it is. The wallpaper is a series of white, gray, black, and sometimes margarine, colored hexagons that look like they are mimicking lace from up close but snakeskin from across the room. Most of the seating is tan sofas set in squares around black wooden tables, and the back of the place is under a vaulted glass ceiling that must be very cool at night. I would strongly suggest lunch, though, if you can arrange to be there when they are washing the glass ceiling. It makes for quite an interesting show.

The most drastic design aspect is the angular steel cave you walk in and down to get to the restrooms, which was off-putting to Parm. Once you get down there though, the way to differentiate men’s from women’s is whether you open the door by pulling a little white statue of a man or a woman which Bear and I thought that were cool enough to outweigh the resounding loneliness of the journey through echoes of footfalls in an empty, hollow, steel chamber.

The wine list was tough to assess. There is a good sampling of wines from around the world and even a section called “Sommelier’s Picks” which is comprised of lesser known grapes and regions they find interesting. The thing that struck me was that the bottles I was familiar with were the cheaper versions of the better (or able to command higher prices) wines from a region priced as if they were the better ones. The steep $310 dollar bottle of ’99 Cristal also reminds you that you are in a hotel bar, even though you are almost below Canal.

That wine service is not their priority is evidenced by their use of the Riedel O series of glasses. These stem-less glasses, which are perfect for whiskeys and water say: “we care more about design then wine enjoyment.” Aesthetic or not, Riedel or not, these are not the glasses of a serious wine program. That thought was borne out by the fact that our red bottle arrived before our white, and that we were queried individually as to which we would be drinking, rather than offered a second set of glasses so we could try both, regardless of what we were settled on drinking.

I chose an ’03 Rioja Vega Blanco and an ’01 Antonelli Montefalco Rosso. The Rioja was cheap, and cheap Rioja almost always plays all the roles well at lunch. The Montefalco was chosen because Parm doesn’t care, but wanted red and Bear likes big mean reds like Quinterelli Amarone and will choose wines like this whenever asked. I figured a Sagrantino blend would be light enough for a sun-up meal, yet the Sag would be big enough for him. Also, most of what we had ordered was fish so I was afraid to go any bigger.

Lunch started with Kumomoto Oysters with Yellow Fin Tuna and American Sturgeon Caviar $16. The tuna was chopped and stacked on top of the oyster and the caviar was on top of that. There was also a yellow cream that looked like some kind of sabayon between oyster and fish. It was presented on a cool pedestal of chopped ice that had been molded into a circle. It looked very pretty and exciting. However, the adductor muscle was not cut from the shell, which is simply inexcusable. When I was fourteen and illegally working at a beach hut frying frozen food stuffs and opening clams and oysters, I knew to cut the muscle attached to the shell we were serving on, and I see no reason for a pro in a New York restaurant not to understand that.

I then had White Tomato Mousse with a Rainbow of Heirloom Tomatoes and a Tomato Tuile $11. This was the kind of dish I was looking for – the mousse was a stabilized foam on top of the Tuile, both of which sat atop sections of tomato in tomato water and olive oil. I love tomatoes. The more you design your tomato dish to play up the flavor of tomato, the more I am going to love it. The foam and Tuile showed all the tartness of the acids, while the meat and water were washing and unctuous. This is a great dish.

Next up was Baby Romaine Lettuce with One hour Poached egg, with White Anchovies, and Crisp Parmesan $10. The idea here is that, by using a water circulator and letting the egg poach at a temperature like 60 degrees for a long time (like an hour), you produce a far more constant consistency. Maybe, but more then texture this egg brought water to the salad, blowing the richness the egg would have offered. The lettuce was the beautiful hearts of romaine. The egg was nestled in there and a Parmesan crisp that I believe contained Thyme leaves topped the bowl. You broke through the lattice of the crisp to reach the egg and mix it. The Anchovies were four filets and were great but I would have cut them. With the small lettuce and the way the crisp breaks, the filets are outsized to the dish and cutting them your-self with a butter knife is hard work, as anchovies have tough skin.

I chose Artichokes, Mussels and Carrots in Basil Juice $13 from the Warm Plates In The Middle section of the menu as my main course, having had three from the Cold Plates To Start so far. One Artichoke heart is chopped and is lost under a pile of mussels (maybe a better name would be Mussels, Artichoke…).  Once I figured out to shell all the mussels and put them in the basil juice, the tomatoes and onions on their meat joined with the carrots and artichoke and bacon in the juice and it came together to be quite a nice dish.

The cool ice disc showed up again at dessert as the column on top of which the Crushed Avocado, Lime Sorbet and Salted Caramel $9 was served. The lime component overpowered the whole. I had ordered the dish because salted Caramel was the twenty-fourth of twenty-four courses at the best meal I ever had and was hoping to show it to the guys. Sadly, it was imperceptible because of the lime foam.

THOR is new, and obviously has things to work through, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is a very cool room in a cool part of town and, at this point I would say the food on the whole shows promise. If you choose to go, I would suggest going late, with a group, and not very hungry, as I suspect the space will be a lot of fun to order a couple of things in and find the one or two gems the menu offers.

The Vendy

One of the greatest things about living in New York is that a quick snack is available at least every ten blocks in the parts of town people work. No need to stop in and sit, just look for a cart and grab a dog or a pretzel or a knish. I like my dogs with kraut and mustard and, honestly, my criteria for their vending has never been much more than that anything more than a buck-and-a-quarter is too much, and a dollar is better. If you are a street-food guy, reward those couple of holdouts for the simple dollar dog by buying from them and thanking them. Other then a vague preference of Sabrett to Hebrew National, I never gave much more thought to levels of quality for cart vittles.

Downstairs emailed me last week to let me know she would be judging the first annual Vendys, an award for the best street vendor held by the Street Vendor Project, a branch of the Urban Justice Center, and that I should come out and support a good cause. So Bubby, Octopus, and I popped over to meet Downstairs and try the offerings of the four finalists that had been chosen from a list of about 60 nominees.

The donation for entrance was $35 which got you beer and wine. Three of the four carts were selling their offerings inside the long, empty white space which, assuming from the stacks of vending carts outside under tarps, must be one of the garages that houses a collection of carts overnight. The fourth finalist was on the sidewalk, which made sense.

Beer would seem to be the right thing to have with street meat, but it turned out to be Killians. I do my best in every food choice to choose local product from local vendors whenever possible, wherever I am, and Killians is a product of Coors, kind of the Burger King of beers. It is usually pretty easy to avoid since it’s really just not very good. The wines were Argentinean: a Sauvignon Blanc and a red they could not identify. I went with the red and then decided drinking nothing would enable me to use two hands, helpful since we were eating standing up.

I have spent time searching out good, cheap wine, my current favorite being Corvo, from Sicily. They make a red and a white both, I suspect, are blends of local grapes, both are good, and both can be had at Warehouse Wines on Broadway at Astor for six bucks. They’re never going to win an award but are still very drinkable wines. Why people that do these low budget things like art openings seek out patently bad wines to serve I’ll never get; and if they are donated, why not donate a nice wine?

We decided to start with Mohammed Aboulelenin’s Best Halal cart. I got a lamb gyro and Bubby got the chicken, figuring we could switch and try both. The high point of both was an exceptional hot sauce. The meat had nice flavor and the pita had a great chew from being steamed on top of the cooking meat. There was an incredible disparity in the amount of accoutrements. The chicken had lettuce, onion, cucumber, and tomato; the lamb had a little lettuce. The wait was also about 12 minutes from end of line to the sandwich, which would be upsetting if I were on a half-hour lunch break.  The nicest part was when I tried to give Mr. Aboulelenin the six dollars for the two sandwiches and he asked me to put it in the donation box. That seemed very much in the spirit of the event, and won my allegiance for next time I am around 53rd and Sixth Ave.

Next up we had Dosa. I wanted Thiru Kumar to be best because his cart, at Washington Square South and Sullivan, is very close to my place. Not being very familiar with Dosa we had Octopus basically negotiate an Omakase for three. There was a dosa (rice and lentil crepe) with potatoes wrapped inside. The chef chose a fried bit on a piece of sugarcane, a salad, and a small soup to round out the plate. The high point of this for me was the salad; it had sliced chilies and bits of raw ginger in it and was very fun to eat. The fried bit we were convinced had to be meat of some kind turned out to be soy protein. I am not sure how healthy soy protein is after you bread and fry it enough to make four people assume it is animal protein, but either way it was very cool.

Rolf Babiel’s Hallo Berlin came next. At this point the fact that just a sausage on a roll was an option was good, having eaten what qualifies as a complete lunch for many New Yorkers twice at this point. I went with a Brat on a roll with mustard and sauerkraut. The sauerkraut was far more flavorful then the simple vinegary cabbage I am used to, the Brat had a good Germanic spiced flavor, the mustard was brown, spicy and perfect. The bun seemed too much bread for the little sausage but was good and chewy. For four bucks I would drop by any time I am around 54th and Fifth.

Tony “the Dragon” Dragonas was the big winner with me. Octopus and I split a steak-and-cheese sandwich and Bubby and I split a sausage and peppers. The steak was actually a small rib eye, grilled over charcoal, then sliced, mixed with peppers and hot peppers, and served on a toasted bun with fresh mozzarella. It was a great sandwich. The thing that put Tony over the top for me was the sausage. New York has many street fairs in the summer where sausage and peppers stands are ubiquitous and I stop almost every time I see one. This was something I could directly compare and it was far and away the best I have ever had. It was a sweet sausage on a bun with peppers, hot peppers and hot sauce and it was great. I will go to 62nd and Madison next time I need a proper street sausage.

Ultimately, the one that I was least impressed with (Hallo Berlin) won the day, but that happens. The idea of supporting local guys making unique and better versions of foods they care enough about to make for a living sits well with me. For this reason, I am willing to over look things like the fact that there was only one accessible garbage can, the power for the DJ went out about every eight minutes, and they were completely out of beer by 9 pm for an event that was set to run from 7-10:30. I am sure most of this will work itself out by the next event. I guess, in the long run, the cool thing is to live in a city with enough variety to justify these awards, with people that care enough about the little guy to work to see that attention is paid to his quality of life. Viva New York!

Gramercy Tavern 703 gojillian stars

For Christmas '01, Bestfriend told Wife to give me a copy of Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio. On Bestfriend's recommendation, I read it like a book rather then just recreating the dishes inside. The story of Young Tom at the beach eating the family's whole allotment of shell steaks while they swam, because he was playing with salt, struck me. I remembered eating myself sick on a basket of tomatoes out of our family garden when I was eight, because for some reason my dad had brought home a box of something called kosher salt. I had finished the book, made the chicken, and was desperately awaiting Spring so I could pop over to the Greenmarket and buy ramps and morels and try my first trilogy when it was announced that, to re-stimulate a post 9/11 NY restaurant community, a special two-week Restaurant Week would be held in January.

The plan was that I would eat ten lunches, spend about $240 (including 20% tips), and try a serious amount of this guy's food. If you eat ten consecutive lunches in any restaurant because you are so appreciative of the chef’s new book, even if you are doing it on the cheap, you become a regular of that place. If you become a regular of a place as special as Gramercy Tavern you go for many occasions.

Occasions are different for different people. My new associate, Client One, has just moved to New York City from London and is a vegetarian. My birthday was Thursday. GT has a wonderful vegetable tasting menu. Occasion! Last night Coworker, Client One, Client Two and Augie had dinner in the back of GT. C2 had been before, Co and C1 were both new to the experience.

We met in the actual tavern portion and had cocktails -- for me, gin Gibson; for C2 vodka-soda; and the rest went with the Rouge draft beer. GT always has wonderfully esoteric beers on draft and even if you know the producer, Brooklyn Brewery, for example, GT will have a unique label of theirs, such as Saison, which they are pouring now. One down, we popped back to start our dinner.

C1 and I went Vegetable tasting menu $80.00, Co and C2 Autumn tasting menu $95.00. We also decided to add a $60 white truffle course to be split by the four of us and fit in at the chef's choosing.

The first wine was an Alzinger Smaragd Reisling, '02. I was torn between this and an Auslese from Germany. Our server figured the Austrian was the way to go because it would have the fruit and acidity to make it fun with the foie that the autumn menu offered first, but would not be as sweet and slow down our palettes at what was the beginning of an eight-course menu. Well chosen. It was light and bright, while remaining engaging enough to play off the food.

The second wine was an Olek-Mezy Chinon '99. Opened with the white, so that if anyone hated the Riesling there would be a red, it was interesting, light enough not to muddle their first courses while still being a red, which most members of the Client family insist is all they drink. Hey, I knew it could take me all the way to the mushrooms. As it turned out both were well received and the Riesling went pretty quickly.

At some point in this dinner truffles were going to show up so, following the "what grows together goes together" credo, I went Barolo for number three. '95 Roche dei Manzoni, Capella Santo Stefano had the earth and minerals, while incorporating the kirsch that plays to modern palates (without getting in the way of the food.) Plus Wife and I walked up and touched the Capella while touring the hills of Monforte (really do stay here) and I love that.

First up for dinner was fennel a la grecque with figs, feta, and mint. It was presented on a thin rectangular plate, nicely spread so that there were four fennel ribs (I believe braised) with the other ingredients between, encouraging you to include each ingredient in each bite, and they played very well together.

Eggplant napoleon with piquillo peppers and lemon came next. A lemon section was presented on a sliver of roasted (or at least skinned) piquillo pepper on a small salad. Lemon played again in the Napoleon in the form of zest. The eggplant, which was like a caviar or a caponatina but simple enough that it tasted like eggplant, was great. The discs that separated the layers were some how like flat gougeres without the cheese. They had that egg-y toothsomeness that made them fun to bite with your front teeth.

Penne with Savoy Cabbage, cranberry beans, autumn truffle and Parmesan was cast as character three. Great simple dish with black truffles, strangely, sliced in the kitchen. As great as it was, and as much as they permeated the entire dish, I thought the wonderful waft of truffles hitting the hot food for the first time was lost. At this point the big tragedy of the meal happened. Co, who hadn't flirted with the attractive waitress in a couple minutes, called her over and had her remove my half-eaten dish while I was distracted picking the Barolo.

Next came our supplemental white truffle course. Homemade fettuccini in what was basically a butter Parmesan sauce, with a fried egg and sliced white truffles. The sauce was creamy and really worked to translate the aroma of truffles. In fact, I was very happy that when I skipped to the loo between courses, I smelled the remnants of truffle in my retro nasal cavity over that awesome hand soap they use. I still wish the truffles had been sliced at table but it's hard to argue with the result.

Roasted beets with wax beans, garlic chips and chervil showed up after the truffle course. A thin crimson beet juice covered the bottom of the plate with roasted yellow beets on top. It was a lot of fun to knock the little fried slivers of garlic and sliced wax beans into the beet juice, let them turn red, and suck the sweetness out of them while you ate.

Last entrée was mushroom tart tatin. Roasted mushrooms stacked on puff pastry with a pickled mushroom salad and a mushroom cappuccino. The tart tatin paid great attention to detail: scoring the broader stems in the mix, giving it a look that made me I think they may have snuck me some roasted bacon till I bit it. The cappuccino is just the amazing essence of good mushrooms and the pickle brightens up the earthiness of the other two components.

Possibly the greatest dessert ever invented for people that prefer savory to sweet is GT's coconut large pearl tapioca with passion fruit sorbet and basil oil. I have yet to find anyone not floored by it. So I was delighted to see a smaller version of it in the dessert amuse spot. C2 took one bite, decided he didn't like it, put his spoon down, then had the layers of flavor hit him and devoured the rest in four swift spoonfuls.

Two versions of a tasting dessert were next. One was a study in chocolate with an opera cake, a chocolate raspberry tart, and an ice cream. The other was raspberries: a canoli, a napoleon, and a pile of them with some crème fraiche. And it all came together to a finish with a plate of petis fours.

Jack Nicholson is one cool M-er F-er. When he is around guys like Bon Jovi say "oh my god, that's Jack Nicholson!" The best part is no one ever says "Jack is cool because..." He is so cool it is just accepted. GT is this kind of cool: the place exudes a, "we have nothing to prove" confidence that is readable throughout the place; from the guy in the t-shirt sitting at a table next to an 80-year old couple in bespoke clothing (all there because this is our unique place in our unique town) to the fact that a little dessert wine was sent over at the very end to say Happy Birthday. They really just rule.