Reasonableats.
The Black Keys – She’s Long Gone by Toblerone
N.B. – I think for at least the next couple of posts, I’ll continue with The Black Keys as soundtrack. Objections? Oh, wait…doesn’t matter; I won’t be changing my mind regarding the Keys.
Sooo…been quite awhile since my last post. I started a new job writing for a website back in March, and since then, it’s been kind of a struggle to find the time and motivation to do some work here. However, for the time being, I’m feeling inspired. Onward into the abyss…
So back in the beginning of April (shit!) I did a post about some of my favorite restaurants in the city where you don’t have to spend loads to eat well and enjoy yourself. Well, let’s make good on that claim! (However, I’m not going to write about the exact three I said I would previously. I’ll get to all of those…just not right now.)
Grand Sichuan International
To my knowledge, I believe there are five outposts of the Grand Sichuan located throughout the city. There’s one a few blocks from my apartment at 24th and 9th, and Marjorie and I have gone there twice in the last month. (In case you are wondering, Marjorie is my girlfriend. I used to mention her before, but then kind of stopped, but not for any particular reason at all. Lately, she’s really been giving me grief about it and requesting an alias, haha. Well, there it is. She’s eaten with me at every single restaurant I’ve written about).
Why all of a sudden? I’ve really put a nice crack in the binding of the Momofuku Cookbook lately (probably gone through the whole thing at least four times) and D. Chang mentions Grand Sichuan on multiple occasions. After that, I looked up their locations, and found there was one close to me.
The food is really, really good, and the prices are extremely reasonable. I don’t have pictures of anything we ate because I don’t bring a camera to meals (and neither should you). However, this is the rundown over our two trips.
The cold spicy Sichuan noodles were, I thought, just cosi-cosi. Marjorie enjoyed them because she’s a fanatic for sesame noodles, whereas I’m lukewarm on the subject. I felt like these were just a slightly spicier version of sesame noods, while I was expecting something new and different. They weren’t bad, but weren’t necessarily great either. Dan Dan noodles on the other hand are pretty much just about my favorite thing to eat right now…proverbially, “the shit.” Thick chinese noodles (about the diameter of bucatini, except not hollow) covered in über-spicy broth/sauce and topped off with crispy bits of fried pork then finished with Chinese spinach. They’re really, really, really good…really good! Chicken with spicy green peper was…really, really f’n spicy, but also delicious. If you like the burn of chilis, you will love that dish. Dried string beans with ground pork were, for such a simple dish, amazing. A whole plate of these were consumed at our table, and mind you, the portions are more than generous. Shredded chicken with garlic sauce was tasty, but not memorable; fried pork dumplings were a let-down, and a little bit funky.
If there’s a Grand Sichuan near you, it would behoove you not to consider any alternative the next time you’re in the mood for the fiery delights of Sichuan Province (or any kind of Chinese food). 謝謝!!
The Spotted Pig
Anyone who knows anything worth knowing about food knows about The Spotted Pig, April Bloomfield, Mario Batali, and Ken Friedman’s West Villahhge gastropub. It’s nothing new to the city (neither is Grand Sichuan) but I’m just coming up on a year in NYC, so it’s something worth writing about in my eyes. It’s a pretty hip spot, and the food, I think, is awesome.

The interior at The Spotted Pig. One day, I'd like to have a place in my home that looks like the inside of this restaurant. (flickr.com)
Marjorie and I rolled in here on a snow day, from work for her and school for me, and had a really, really awesome late afternoon lunch. Things kicked off with their pickle plate; cornichons, roasted red pepper, pearl red onions, I think some radish, and I don’t remember what other veg. Everything was pickled, deliciously crisp, and pleasantly briny. The pickled, roasted (I think) red pepper was especially enjoyable. For mains, I went for the burger; a hunk of delicious Pat LaFrieda special blend beef made especially for the Pig that is perfectly, perfectly cooked and smothered in roquefort. On the side, the honest to God best shoestring fries I have ever had in my entire life. They’re tossed with fresh rosemary and sea salt right out of the fat…I ate every single one of them on my plate. I couldn’t stop eating them. The burger was nothing short of, for the day, time, and weather, absolutely perfect…burger-vana…I would do unspeakable things for one right now. Marjorie, being the intelligible young lady she is, went for the grilled cheese with onion marmalade and mustard. It was the single best bite of grilled cheese I’ve ever had…and that was all she shared. I think Marjorie enjoyed it. The bread was crisp and buttery, and the cheese was in the right state of gooooooo.

On a long list, The Spotted Big's burger is up there with the best of all my experiences involving ground animal meats. (unbreaded.com)
It goes without saying that The Spotted Pig is just plain worth it. We made it there with about a foot or so of snow on the ground, and then waited for roughly 40 minutes. It was worth every minute of walking and waiting.
Co.
Co., short for Company, is another Chelsea fave of mine, and the brainchild of Sullivan Street Bakery’s Jim Lahey; in my opinion, the preeminent bread guy in NYC right now. (Aside – if you shop at a Whole Foods in the city, look for Sullivan Street’s bread; in particular, the stirato, which is essentially an Italian riff on a baguette.) Co. is an upscale pizzeria featuring salads, some Greenmarket offerings, and a fantastic selection of beers. At Co. instead of ordering a pitcher, you get a growler (see below).
I spent the evening sipping on Six Point Sweet Action courtesy of Six Point Craft Ales in Red Hook, BK. It has quickly become one of my favorite local brews to go for when I have the chance. It’s got a nice hoppiness, isn’t too bitter, and is, truly, just a tiny, tiny bit sweet. To start, we went with bread (I believe Sullivan Street’s pugliese) and fresh ramp pesto. It was delicious because ramps are delicious. Everyone should eat them.
From bread and pesto, we moved on to pies and ordered two. First, the margherita. Marjorie is never a big fan of this move, but when I eat at a pizza place for the first time, I always try to get the plainest pie I can. Any respectable pizza spot in NY serves a margherita, so it’s a good benchmark for comparison; Co. is no exception, and theirs was exceptional. Next, we moved on to the meatball pie; veal meatballs, gaeta olives, carmelized onions, mozz, rosemary, aged pecorino. The meatballs were top-notch (I love meatballs), and played well with everything else, except the olives. Olives on pizza are, I think, really tough to pull off because they have such an intense and concentrated saltiness. At least on this particular occasion, Co. fell just short of really good with this one.
For anyone who really enjoys pizza, Co. is a must-try. Lahey’s wizardry and grasp of baking is too good not to at least give it a shot. In my view, even if the toppings miss the mark on occasion, it’s some of the best crust I’ve ever had in my life…and I don’t normally eat mine.
Put out the SocialVibe!
I just wanted to remind everyone about the widget I added a few months ago that donates to the United Nations World Food Programme. It’s called SocialVibe and it’s directly to the right of this post in the column with the tag cloud, archives, search field, etc. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take a couple of extra minutes to check it out! MFAB doesn’t get crazy traffic, but I still think we could do better than we’ve managed. So far, eight meals have been donated on MFABs behalf. I know I contributed to seven of them, so a HUGE THANK YOU to whoever the one other person is who took the time with the widget! Sincerely, thank you! You made a difference to someone for a brief moment in their life!
Doesn’t that feel good???
Also, New Yorkers, the recent change in weather/season means one thing…RAMPS! (And of course, beautiful weather.) Delicious on both counts! Head to the Greenmarket (I prefer Union Square, open on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) and pick some up! For all your Greenmarket needs in the future, check out Grow NYCs website at http://www.cenyc.com
Why Does my Oxidant have to be SO Anti???
Here’s the second of three short critiques we’ve been assigned for “The Science of Food Farming and Flavors.”
The 2000s ushered in a whole new theater of eating and thinking about food. With this has also come the mainstream introduction and promotion of lots and lots of new food products, additives, and nutrients. However, there’s actually not really anything new about them besides the fact that a lot of these things (such as ginseng, ginko bilboa, taurine, etc) are now readily available to us in a lot of the products we, as Americans, consume on a regular basis.
Antioxidants, along with the aforementioned supplements and foodstuffs, are just another example of a molecule being thrust into the limelight in the last five to ten years. For me, I had never really heard much about antioxidants until green tea became such a popular, mainstream beverage. I enjoy tea and prefer it to coffee quite a bit, so once green tea was everywhere I started drinking the stuff close to a daily basis, especially at lunch time. I found it was a great way to make it through my afternoons. But we’re not here to talk about green tea; we’re here to discuss antioxidants, which green tea happens to be loaded with.
Antioxidants are molecules whose primary function is to prevent the oxidation of other molecules within the human body. Oxidation is a chemical reaction occurring within the body that results in the transfer of electrons from some substance to an oxidizing agent. This oxidation reaction can lead to the release and production of molecules called free radicals, whose primary function is to set off chain reactions in the blood that damage cells. This is not a good thing, and antioxidants work in opposition to this phenomena.
Once free radicals are present, antioxidants go to work. “Antioxidants terminate these chain reactions by removing free radical intermediates, and inhibit other oxidation reactions by being oxidized themselves. As a result, antioxidants are often reducing agents such as thiols, ascorbic acid, or polyphenols” (“Antioxidant”). Because science believes that antioxidants may play some sort of roll in staving off diseases resulting from oxidation in the blood, antioxidants are used widely as ingredients in dietary supplements. Two of the diseases they are believed to protect against are certain forms of cancer as well as coronary heart disease.
Originally, antioxidants were useful mostly in industrial processes to combat “…metal corrosion, the vulcanization of rubber, and the polymerization of fuels in the fouling of internal combustion engines” (“Antioxidant”). A lot of early research involving antioxidants really had little to do with human biology. Initially, the scientific focus was on determining their role in the oxidation of unsaturated fats, which can lead to whatever fat (meat) becoming rancid. It wasn’t until the discovery of vitamins A, C, and E that antioxidants were able to figure prominently into human biology. “Research into how vitamin E prevents the process of lipid peroxidation led to the identification of antioxidants as reducing agents that prevent oxidative reactions, often by scavenging reactive oxygen species before they can damage cells” (“Antioxidant”).

A strawbery field; my favorite source of antioxidants! (Not the field, the berries.) (treehugger.com)
Depending on who you ask, the jury may still be out as to whether or not there is considerable scientific basis for the benefit of antioxidants. Here, I think, you have to consider the uses, or possible uses, of antioxidants. The human “brain is uniquely vulnerable to oxidative injury due to its high metabolic rate and elevated levels of polyunsaturated lipids, the target of lipid peroxidation” (“Antioxidant”). Because of this, antioxidants are often used in the treatment of various brain injuries such as reperfusion injury and brain trauma. There is also a lot of investigation occurring in order to determine what, if any, effect that antioxidants have on people experiencing Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and also, hearing loss on account of extended exposure to loud noise.
Lots of fruits and vegetables protect against heart disease and types of cancer, and these fruits and vegetables also subsequently have lots of antioxidants in them. Research was conducted to see if the antioxidant molecules in these fruits and vegetables had anything to do with the reduction in the risk of disease, and the results were inconclusive . There has been no clear, distinguishable effect on the diseases courtesy of antioxidants, so it is believed their positive effects may come from other substances in the fruits and vegetables. There have been lots of other tests done involving antioxidants and how they effect certain parts of human biology relating to disease and health, and they too have produced rather inconclusive results.
Science is one of those fields that is constantly changing and evolving, and that also means certain things that at a time were thought to be true might not be anymore. You could say this about antioxidants and not necessarily be right or wrong because so much of the science is now somewhat inconclusive in regard to what benefits these molecules may provide. Because of this, I don’t feel that I can offer some sort of ringing endorsement to immediately run out to the store and buy all the berries and green tea your little paws can carry. However, antioxidants, like pretty much everything else, are okay in moderation, and because no one really knows for sure, possibly good for you in moderation as well. I think that is the most important thing to realize or take away from this here. It recalls to mind Michael Pollan’s simplistically beautiful philosophy concerning food and eating in the post-modern age, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Apply that mantra with, possibly, a side of your favorite antioxidant, and you’ve got, I think, a pretty good recipe for human biological success and longevity.