Palestine on A Plate

I previously blogged on how the Arabs-called-Palestinians have turned cuisine into a major issue of ethnic and national identity within the context of the Arab conflict with Israel and Zionism.

Who created falafel.

Which humus is the best.

But now I see this matter has morphed into a sub-issue which I'll call "cuisine geography".

Here:

Palestinian food can be sorted into three categories, she explained: There is the bread- and meat-based cooking of the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem and stretches to the Jordan River. The food of the Galilee, which sits inside Israel and includes cities like Nazareth, closely resembles Levantine cuisine, with its tabbouleh and kibbeh. The cooking of the Gaza Strip, a dense patch bordering Egypt, is largely fish-based and fiery. 

First of all, Chef Kalla would be upset that there's no maqloobeh in there.

More importantly, what happened to Jordan?  It's not part of 'historic Palestine'?

Most importantly, according to this "Palestine-on-a-Plate" geographic cuisine, the borders of "Palestine" seem to be defined as what one cooks. And food becomes soothing:

“Seeing the physical apparatus of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was very hard to witness,” she said. She found that food soothed the frenzy in her mind. 

Maybe the desire of Arabs-called-Palestinians to eradicate Israel, erase the Jewish people's national history in the Land of Israel and deny any Jewish cultural attachment to the land is just a matter of...hunger? 

___________________

UPDATE

My comment at the NYT story is up

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Palestinian Kitchen Frustration

Chef Joudie Kalla even made it into Haaretz (where she is noted as born in Qatar) and, of course, at Al-Jazeera (where she is listed as born in Syria).

She has Palestine on a plate.

But I found something interesting in this clip, besides the claim that seemingly she was born in...the UK:

and that is maqloobeh.

Ms. Kalla is upset:

Now, there are two things I wish to address.

The first is that maqloobeh/makluba is a traditional Middle Eastern dish, not specifically "Palestinian".  And "Palestinian" does not necessarily mean Arab, by the way. Yes, it is popular among Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-Palestinians but it is not exclusive to that sub-group of the Arab people, even if some recipes call it the national dish of Palestine.  In fact, many cultures have developed “upside-down” dishes. You can find it listed as a Jordanian specialty. Oh, Jordan is part of Palestine, right?

The second point is that many Israelis speak Arabic. Many were born (and fled) from Arab countries. Arab and Arabic culture and gastronomy are not either foreign or repressed in Israel.

The maqloobeh I have eaten and quite enjoyed is at the Eucalyptus Restaurant opposite the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, prepared and served extraordinarily by my friend, Chef Moshe Basson.

Ms. Kalla is highlighted another time in Haaretz.

How many Israeli cooks/chefs are afforded the same treatment in the Palestinian Authority media?

Oh, and one more thing.

If Ms. Kalla attempted to serve lentils in Gaza today dressed like this:

I wouldn't be surprised if she would be physically attacked.

But that's her Palestinian problem to digest.

^

I Have a Hot Idea

I caught this item (thanks HSM):-

OVERLAND PARK, KC — There are only a handful of kosher BBQ’s around the country, but of course Kansas City has the first sanctioned kosher BBQ contest. Jewish and non-Jewish BBQ teams faced off in overland park on Sunday for first place and some bragging rights.


...Everything at the competition had to be provided to insure that it met Old Testament standards.
“The differences are they all the meat, chicken, and every ingredient used in any of the food process is certified kosher from beginning to end,” Rabbi Mendel Segal said...“I can’t inject butter into my brisket, but we get creative and do other things,” Kerschner said.  But in the spirit of competition, it’s all good, because Goodbinder has his own completely kosher strategy.  “Pray hard,” Goodbinder said.

There are others:

In a city where treif BBQ restaurants far outnumber synagogues, it was only natural that a creative team at the oldest, Jewish Orthodox congregation in the Mid-South, Anshei Sphard-Beth El Emeth (ASBEE), decided twenty-four years ago to offer a kosher alternative to the long-standing Memphis BBQ contest of the swine variety.

ASBEE is proud to produce the ASBEE World Kosher BBQ Championship, which has become one of the year's most anticipated events in the Memphis Jewish community. Last year, the festival hosted 40 teams and more than 3000 attendees. 

That one earned CNN coverage. 

and this

The Long Island Kosher BBQ Championship brings an iconic aspect of American culture – team barbecue competition – to Long Island’s Jewish community. This competition, which is for both barbecue enthusiasts as well as casual backyard grillers, is sanctioned by the World Kosher BBQ Championship in Memphis, Tennessee and hosted by Temple Beth Torah in Westbury, New York.

There's also one in Birmingham, Alabama.

In Atlanta, as well.

Just like the first Long Island Kosher BBQ Championship, this event will be filled with great food, family fun and old-fashioned hospitality. With events ranging from a pickle-eating contest to a basketball skills tournament to an array of live entertainment...In 2012, 0ver 2,500 guests, sponsors, participants and teams traveled from near and far – Miami, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Yonkers, and all across Long Island – to make the first annual Long Island Kosher BBQ Championship a success,

So, why not a contest at ... Tel Shiloh.


Can we get Ancient Shiloh to cooperate and provide the space while we mobilize sponsors for equipment and get our wineries to offer reduced prices for their products grown in the area?



I even have two names from which to choose:


The first is 

אַחַת אַפָּיִם

based on the verse in I Samuel 1:

וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם, וַיִּזְבַּח אֶלְקָנָה...וּלְחַנָּה, יִתֵּן מָנָה אַחַת אַפָּיִם:  כִּי אֶת-חַנָּה אָהֵב,

but unto Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, 

and the second choice could be

זבח מַּזְלֵג שְׁלֹשׁ הַשִּׁנַּיִם

based on the other verse in I Samuel 2:


 וּמִשְׁפַּט הַכֹּהֲנִים, אֶת-הָעָם--כָּל-אִישׁ זֹבֵחַ זֶבַח, וּבָא נַעַר הַכֹּהֵן כְּבַשֵּׁל הַבָּשָׂר, וְהַמַּזְלֵג שְׁלֹשׁ הַשִּׁנַּיִם, בְּיָדוֹ.

when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, 

while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand; 

Isn't that a hot idea?

^

Yes, I Do Miss Whitefish

I read an article on whitefish and became nostalgic.

So I excerpted this as the next best thing:-

...the wonderful whitefish-salad recipe from the new “Mile End Cookbook,”...

“Dear neighbors, friends, curious onlookers, deliphiles, crazed nostalgists, sympathetic vegetarians, self-hating Jews, Canadiens fans, lumberjacks, children of the Mulroney era, and lovers of all things ‘Montrealaise’ ” read the sign outside the small, permanently packed restaurant announcing its opening. Members of such groups are likely to enjoy this cookbook...writes David Sax, historian and author of such books as “Save the Deli” and “A Jewish Deli, Born Again,” in his essay for the book. “The Mile End phenomenon is the work of two people, still in their twenties, with absolutely zero professional cooking experience.”

...Noah and Rae met at a Shabbat dinner in a dorm room at McGill, where he was “making a very convincing argument against the existence of God.” He was from the Montreal suburbs, she from New York....The couple moved to Brooklyn in 2007...they opened a restaurant named for the Montreal neighborhood where Noah’s grandparents grew up.

“Many delis became nostalgia acts, just churning out the greatest hits, like the Steve Miller Band of matzo ball soup and corned beef sandwiches,” Sax writes. “Reduced to survival mode, the Jewish delicatessen had stopped evolving.” Not so with Mile End, whose mission of “redefining Jewish comfort food from hash to hamantaschen” you can now champion from the comfort of your own kitchen.

As with the whitefish salad: there’s no mayo involved, so it’s a light, lemony concoction, with pickled asparagus and lots of lovely crunchy things (celery, red onion, and scallions) to keep you digging in. I served it to guests on thick slabs of homemade challah—with every spoonful, sternly warning everyone to watch out for almost definitely non-lethal pin bones—with quick cucumber pickles, an impressive-seeming snack of thinly sliced cucumbers coated in a salt and spice mix just minutes before serving.

Let's see, the last time I had NY deli whitefish was at the brunch following my cousin's son's wedding in New York a year ago.

^

Was That An Arab Gourmet Delicacy?

Found here, January 1928 issue of Degel Yisrael:

^

Palestinian Tartar?

After that Gross tour of Jerusalem, the NYTimes continues with this:

Street Wise | Tel Aviv’s Hot New Block

Food, Travel By ANTHONY GRANT

Nahalat Binyamin Street, which crosses lower Rothschild Boulevard — Tel Aviv’s chief axis of white Bauhaus beauties — is emerging as the microhood of the moment. By day this thin strip is all garment-district shuffle and cheeky graffiti art, but at night the street takes on a moody but electric air. You might find Bar Refaeli, or at least plenty of women who look like models, at the street’s hottest spot, Mizlala (No. 57). Here the city’s star chef, Meir Adoni, whips up dishes like fish kebabs, garlic-sage linguine with white asparagus and something called Palestinian tartar — ground beef, raw tahini paste, pine nuts, charred eggplant puree, cumin and parsley.

A less clublike energy prevails at the new 44, named not for the address (No. 29) but for the house libation, which involves 44 oranges, coffee beans and as many quarts of vodka (or something like that: none of the revelers here seem bothered with keeping count). The kitchen is captained by a talented graduate of Joz and Loz, Tel Aviv’s famously lesbian-owned eatery, who feeds the hipster brigade pomegranate seed salad, oxtail tortellini and a crushed sesame semifreddo that opens new doors of Levantine bliss.

High-ceilinged HaTraklin (No. 41) looks like a Paris bistro crossed with a Greenwich Village cafe, and has a staggering selection of Israeli wine. (Try some Asif, a fruity white made by two rabbis who tend a nonkosher vineyard [?] in the Negev Desert.) You can also roast your meat on a piping hot rock at the bar, then rip off bits to dip in the chef Moshe Assaf’s date- and honey-infused roast garlic bulb. Yossi Ben-Odis, the sommelier and owner, organizes regular cinema-themed feasts in the back room.

Skip the garlic if you’re headed to Shpagat (No. 43), a mixed-but-mostly-gay bar whose name means “splits” (as in what those Batsheva dancers do so well). The modish duplex space, with unusual tiered seating, fills up fast with a smart but low-key crowd swilling and chilling over glasses of arak.

But kosher?  Well, for sure the wine is.

^

Buying Pumpkin

Buying vegetables is always a challenge.

I try to do my vegetable and salad shopping at the Machaneh Yehudah shuq (open-air market).  And one of my son's lives nearby so I get to either drop off mail for him or get a glass of water.

I have, by now, regular 'bastas' (basta is our word for market stall although I don't really know the etymology) and to my luck, I'll get very good service as yesterday, when the pieces of pumpkin were not inviting.

The stall owner simply opened up another, every large one even at the end of the day:

A great stall owner.

^

Go With Artichokes

.

^

Hamataschen Recipe

From the NYTimes:-

Hamantashen With Poppy Seed
Time: 2 hours 15 minutes, plus at least 1 hour refrigeration


FOR THE DOUGH:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 large egg yolks
8 ounces unsalted butter at room temperature, in small pieces
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 1/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
Dash of salt
1 large egg, beaten, for the glaze

FOR POPPY SEED FILLING:
1 cup milk (or not if you want parve)
1/2 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1/2 orange
1 cup poppy seeds
1/3 cup raisins
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tablespoon brandy
1/2 tablespoon orange liqueur
1/2 tablespoon butter (or not if you want parve)

1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract.

1. Put the confectioners’ sugar and the egg yolks in a food processor and blend. Add butter and lemon zest and process to blend. Gradually add the flour and the salt, pulsing until it forms a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.


2. Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Put milk, sugar and orange zest in a saucepan over medium heat. Grind poppy seeds in coffee grinder. When mixture is warm, turn heat to low and add poppy seeds and raisins. Cook until the seeds absorb the milk and the mixture is thick, about 15 minutes. Add the lemon juice, brandy, orange liqueur and butter. Stir and cook for 2 minutes more. Stir in the vanilla extract, remove from the heat and cool.


3 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 pastry sheets with parchment paper.


4. Roll out the dough to 1/4-inch thickness and use a cookie cutter or glass to cut 3-inch circles. Put a heaping teaspoon of the filling in the center of each, and press up the sides to form triangles. Brush the tops with beaten egg.


5. Bake until golden and dough is delicately firm all the way through, about 15 minutes. If trays are on different racks, switch them after about 10 minutes.


Yield: About 30 cookies.


Note: You can skip Step 2 and use the recipe for chocolate chip cream filling.

Don't foget to eat them.  They are not for show.

More recipes.

Silly Post

Reported:-

Man Sues Restaurant For Not Stopping Him From Eating An Entire Artichoke

A doctor {sic!} has sued the Houston's restaurant in Miami after he ate a complete artichoke that he ordered, including the spiny and sharp exterior leaves. He subsequently suffered "severe abdominal pain and discomfort," and a "exploratory laparotomy" showed that the artichoke leaves were jammed in his "small bowel." His lawsuit claims that he had "never seen nor heard of previously" an artichoke and that it was the restaurant's fault for not teaching him how to eat it.

"It takes a sophisticated diner to be familiar with the artichoke," says the man's lawyer. "People might think that as a doctor, he'd know how to eat one. But he was thinking it was like a food he might have eaten in his native Cuba, where you eat everything on the plate."

A spokesperson for the restaurant group told Business Insurance, "What's next? Are we going to have to post warnings on our menu they shouldn't eat the bones in our barbeque ribs?"

As explained, and the way we Medads do it, if to eat an artichoke one plucks off a leaf one-by-one, placing the wide side in your mouth and, with your teeth lightly grasping the soft part of the fibrous part you 'scrape' the leaf, leaving the soft part in your mouth. Repeat until you reach the soft inner heart. Then you carefully remove the 'heart' from the dangerous thistle-like leave enclosure

Credit

better picture:

What is left is soft and delctable and can be consumed whole.

^

If They Keep This Up, They'll Starve

Starve?

Well, hummus is a staple for some people.

But for these students, they'll prefer the non-Israel product:

Students campaign for alternative hummus

The Princeton Committee on Palestine has sponsored a referendum in next week’s USG elections that asks Dining Services to sell an alternative to Sabra hummus in all its retail locations on campus.

The Strauss Group and PepsiCo each own 50 percent of Sabra Dipping Company.

In August, Philly Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a Philadelphia group that encourages activism against Israel, released an open letter calling for a boycott of Sabra for the same reason.

Both PCP and Philly BDS take issue with The Strauss Group’s support of the Israeli Golani Brigade. Members of the Brigade have been reprimanded by the Israeli military for inappropriate behavior.

The brigade has “a culture of aggression,” Yoel Bitran ’11, president of PCP, said in an e-mail.

...Bitran also created a “Boycott Sabra Hummus” event that had 129 people listed as attending as of Thursday evening.

In response, officers of Tigers for Israel created their own event on Facebook, titled “Save the Hummus!--Vote Against the Sabra Hummus Boycott.” It had 1,878 people listed as attending as of Thursday evening.

...The University has been stocking Sabra for the last four or five years based on “customer preferences” and “current industry needs,” Stu Orefice, director of Dining Services, said in an e-mail. “We have suggested the PCP set up a table at Frist with information and alternative products so that the community can taste different products and understand the cost differences,” Orefice added.

In regard to whether Dining Services would consider boycotting Sabra, Orefice said that it was “premature to speculate at this point.”

The hummus served in the dining halls and the Center for Jewish Life is prepared at the University. Olive’s Restaurant, located on Witherspoon Street, also sells containers of hummus, including at the U-Store.

I wonder what brand of pitta they use.


(Kippah tip: AG)
^

Hummus

At Pinati:-

Man, Oh Manna

Coriander-like?

Seems people are promoting Ancient Manna on Modern Menus

...When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? In ancient Hebrew, what is it can be rendered man-hu, a likely derivation of what this food has come to be called, manna. The Bible describes it as being like coriander seed, and white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.

...Mannas form best in extremely dry climates like the Middle Easts where sap oozes at night and dries up in the morning. The favored theory on what the Israelites called manna is the sap of a tamarisk tree...Behroush Sharifi, a New York dealer in rare spices and dried foods from the ancient Silk Road whos known as the Saffron King, imports two venerable forms of manna from Iran: Hedysarum manna and Shir-Khesht
manna.

...Garrett McMahon, a sous-chef at Perilla in Manhattan, uses Hedysarum manna with sea salt to finish off a foie gras terrine with Marcona almonds, candied kumquats and toasted brioche. The manna allows us to achieve a sweet, salty balance while maintaining a great crunchy texture, Mr. McMahon said.

...Even more complex and subtle is the Shir-Khesht manna from the cotoneaster nummilaria shrub. Shir-khesht looks like broken-up bits of concrete or coral and is whiter than hedysarum manna. It is sweet, with some gumminess that eventually dissolves in the mouth...

Well, what do you know. Another Bible story come true.



(Kippah tip: RH)


- - -

The Americanization of Hummus

Reported:-

“BACK home, they would shoot me in the head for doing this to hummus,” Majdi Wadi said as he waited to board a flight to Los Angeles, where he would meet with Costco executives to pitch his company’s roster of 14 flavored hummus varieties, including artichoke-garlic and spinach.

By “home,” Mr. Wadi meant Kuwait, where he was born, and Jordan, from which he immigrated in 1994, places where hummus is usually a purée of chickpeas, sesame paste, lemon, garlic and not much else...

...In 2000, Holy Land introduced hummus flecked with jalapeño. More recently, the company, which makes about 100,000 plastic tubs of hummus each month for the Midwest market, rolled out guacamole-flavored hummus. By August, its blend of hummus and peanut butter will hit the shelves. “That one is for my daughter, Noor,” Mr. Wadi said. “She didn’t think she liked hummus. Then we stirred in peanut butter.”

Other companies are also taking liberties with hummus. In Somersworth, N.H., the Crazy Camel company makes six varieties of dessert hummus, including a blend of chickpeas and cocoa it calls chocolate mousse hummus. In North Carolina, Good Health Natural Foods of Greensboro makes Humbles baked hummus chips in four flavors, including one with feta.

A Denver company, using the Spanish term for chickpea, is selling Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill franchises, which feature hummus dishes ready to be accessorized with cilantro and green chili sauces...

...“Everything is possible,” Mr. Wadi said, just before boarding his flight to California. “Through hummus, we can achieve so much.”

You want hummus, good hummus?

Pinati

Jewish Deli. What's Your Response?

Can the Jewish Deli Be Reformed?

...New delis, with small menus, passionate owners and excellent pickles and pastrami, are rising up and rewriting the menu of the traditional Jewish deli, saying that it must change, or die. For some of them, the main drawback is the food itself, not its ideological underpinnings.

So, places like the three-month-old Mile End in Brooklyn; Caplansky’s in Toronto; Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, Ore.; and Neal’s Deli in Carrboro, N.C., have responded to the low standard of most deli food — huge sandwiches of indifferent meat, watery chicken soup and menus thick with shtick — by moving toward delicious handmade food with good ingredients served with respect for past and present.

...These new deli owners are bringing a high set of culinary standards to once-plebeian food. They are mashing local potatoes to make peppery hand-wrapped knishes; holding tastings to determine the most savory fat for chopped liver (Mr. Gordon says that butter, the nonkosher choice, tastes best); and even brewing zippy homemade celery tonic — to reduce the carbon footprint, to save on the shipping from Brooklyn and because it simply tastes more like tradition.

...These cooks are fighting — independently, but with similar weapons of salt, smoke and fat — to rescue the Jewish deli, an institution that has been deteriorating in numbers and quality for decades.

“The old-school places are closing faster than I can write about them” said David Sax, the author of “Save the Deli,” a 2009 history of, and guide to, the remaining authentic Jewish delis in North America.

By today’s standards, the classic deli’s food is strikingly unhealthful, its vast menu financially unmanageable and its ingredients no longer in tune with the seasonal products of local farmers. Too many shortcuts are taken: sourdough bread instead of rye, prepared blintzes, lax lox.

...If anything can save the deli single-handedly, it’s pastrami. A Romanian-Jewish-American hybrid of barbecue, basturma (Turkish dried, spiced meat) and corned beef, it is loved by pit masters, salumieri and chefs alike...Pastrami, traditionally made from a fatty cut of beef belly called the navel, is not easy to master. It must be brined for days or even weeks, rubbed, smoked, steamed and sliced at the peak of juiciness. The seasonings — coriander, black pepper, salt, sugar, sometimes cumin or fennel seed — must sing in harmony. At each step, attentiveness is required: to the shape of the piece, its fat content and the tendons that run through it. Great slicers have become the stuff of legend: Katz’s and Langer’s, in Los Angeles, are among the only old-school delis that do it by hand. Some feel strongly that the slices should be thick; others, cold-cut thin.

All this means that pastrami fits right into two major contemporary food cults: traditional cured meats and barbecue. Modern cooks are so enamored of meat that even those with no particular connection to delis — like Tom Mylan, of the Meat Hook in Brooklyn; Elizabeth Falkner, of Orson in San Francisco; and Amorette Casaus, of Ardesia in Midtown — now make their own small-batch versions...

Another Lunch

Following Sunday night's meal with Canadian bloggers, I found myself at the King David Hotel yesterday with some friends to discuss another matter.

Thoughtfully, our host provided lunch. Here are two of the four courses:





There was smoked salmon with green salad in citrus vinaigrette (not shown), roasted spring chicken, herbs and lemon sauce, grille4d sweet potato in maple & ginger, bouquest of sauteed vegetables, fresh tropical fruits with apple sorbet, petit fours and the wines were from Barkan Winery, Chardonnay Colombard and Cabernet Merlot.

Cooking

My wife makes oven-cooked [or is that baked?] vegetables for Shabbat.

I am not quite sure whether there are different temperatures, or rather length of time in oven, for different types: potatoes, sweet potato/yam, pumpkin, squash and onion, for example, which are on our table but they come out good in any case, for the most case.

I found this recipe at the NYTimes and I am sure it can be altered to suit to taste:

Oven Fries
By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

These fries have savory, crisp, dry edges, and they’re satisfying and somewhat addictive, just like regular fries. I use a mix of regular and sweet potatoes for this. Choose waxy potatoes, like new potatoes or red potatoes, which have a lower glycemic index than starchy russets.

1 pound waxy potatoes, such as red potatoes

1 pound sweet potatoes, cut in half crosswise

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt or coarse sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil, shiny side up [I think the special non-stick baking paper my wife uses could be used as a lower layer]. Place in the oven while you prepare the potatoes.

2. Cut the potatoes into wedges that are about 1/4 inch thick at the thickest point. Place in a large bowl, and toss with the olive oil and salt to taste.

3. Remove the hot pan from the oven, and add the potatoes to the pan in an even layer. They should sizzle. Return to the oven, and lower the heat to 450 degrees. Roast 25 minutes or until tender.

4. Remove the pan from the oven, and loosen the potatoes from the foil using an offset spatula. Return to the oven and cook for another five minutes. Serve at once, seasoned with more salt if desired.

Today's Odd Post

What's Bibimbap?

No, it has nothing to do with Israel's current Prime Minister.

And yes, that's the correct spelling.


Here:

Pronounced pibimp͈ap, it is a popular Korean dish. The word literally means "mixed rice" or "mixed meal."

Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste). A raw or fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef) are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating. It can be served either cold or hot.

Really:





(Kippah tip: NYT)

A Chef Getting Fried in A Food Review

...a few dishes in the pasta section — specifically the gnudi and the gnocchi — suffer from Mr. Thompson’s sometimes reckless hand with butter.

He doesn’t grasp the nuances of excess as well as a Mario Batali or a Michael White — doesn’t fully understand what’s splendid decadence and what’s just overkill.

In general he’s indiscreet with salt, though you never know. During one meal, a side of crispy potatoes had just the right amount of it, while the similarly crispy potatoes alongside juicy slices of hanger steak were so salty they had me lunging for my water glass.

The seasoning of some other dishes was also out of whack. Citrusy notes came on too strong in both sea scallop crudo and escolar ceviche. An entree of grilled quail had been splashed with an oppressive measure of red-wine vinegar.

There were dishes that read more intriguing than they tasted. Oxtail calzone? It was like an elongated pot pie on a sludgy swish of béchamel. Wagyu tongue with cabbage and rye? A messy Jewish-deli mishap.


Source