Meatopia 2011

"The Woodstock of Edible Animals"

Floyd Cardoz and Joshua Ozersky

The name says it all.  It's a festival of meat.  Every animal.  Every cut.  Every method of cookery.  If you're a meat lover, Meatopia is your heaven.  And that is exactly what it is to the founder of the event, Joshua Ozersky. 

Joshua is very well known in the food world as a food writer and meat lover.  He was one of the founding editors of Grub Street, has written two books including one on hamburgers and a carnivores guide to NY.  It is no surprise that he is the man that brought over forty chefs from all over the country to celebrate his favorite thing.  

Although many people think this year marked the second year of Meatopia, they are actually mistaken.  This event has now passed its seventh year, with the first five years being a small invitation-only event.  Every year was themed, and Joshua invited 5-7 chefs to cook pork, lamb, beef, etc. for about 200-300 guests.

Floyd Cardoz and I were invited to cook at Meatopia two years ago during the lamb event.  "Lamb Bam Thank You Ma'am" was the slogan.  We witnessed six chefs grilling whole baby lambs over spits.  Spraying and brushing the animals with marinades, and sitting back and waiting patiently for hours until the perfect doneness.  At the end of a long, hot day, the animals were brought over to picnic tables, and broken down to serve the diners. It was magical.

Saveur Second Annual BBQ Event

Great food, great people, plenty of chef sightings, and grilling bbq on a pier.  Now that makes for a good event. 

Going to a chef event is sometimes hit-or-miss.  Most of the time they are great.  Plenty of restaurants doing what they do best with a hot guest list, serving top-notch food in a beautiful setting.  Others, however, not so much.  Sometimes you can head to one where every restaurant runs out of food within an hour (that's poor planning due to the PR team, not usually the restaurant), and there's not a lot of care put into the food.  This, thankfully, was a major hit. 

This is the second year Saveur magazine threw this event, and it was so discrete from the public that it was invitation only.  Everything was served off of Pier 66 in Chelsea Piers, very much away from the public eye. 



There was no shortage of top restauranteurs and chefs here (yes I was giddy with excitement because these guys are like rockstars to me).  Here are just a few:

Pictured are Marco Canora (Hearth), Marcus Samuelsson (Red Rooster), Merri Lee Kingsley (Saveur magazine), Marc Murphy (Landmarc), and Dan Kluger (ABC Kitchen). 

L'Express

Imagine this.  You go out for a night on the town.  You're partying, you're drinking, you're having a good time.  Then between 2am and 4am, it's all over.  You're buzzed, you're drunk, you're hungry.  Visit to the open halal cart with the usual chicken over rice and gyros?  Visit the diner with the usual burgers, eggs, and sandwiches?  What could be better at that exact moment than knowing there's a 24 hour Lyonnaise bistro open right around the corner? 

This is what draws me into L'Express.  Not only is the restaurant 24 hours, but the food here is very, very good. 

The decor is minimalistic.  During the overnight hours the restaurant is actually very dimly lit.  White tabletops covering dark wood tables, with matching dark wooden chairs.  Wall-sized windows looking straight out to Park Avenue, and a bar which never stops serving through the night (ok, maybe from 4am-12pm).  It's not the decor which should invite you in here, though, it's the food. 

Even at 2am their menu is full of options, including breakfast if that's what you're in the mood for.  I've been here a few times, and there hasn't been anything I haven't enjoyed.  Granted, I have yet to visit this 24-hour bistro while completely sober, so my opinion here really doesn't matter.  (Side note, I apologize for this fact due to the pics in this post being very blurry and dark.)  On this visit I started with the House-made pate, and finished with the Moroccan-spiced lamb burger. 

Junoon

With Tabla now closed, the torch of fine dining Indian in the Flatiron District has now been passed along to Junoon, which surprisingly is located just two blocks away from where Tabla resided. 

A few months ago I had the pleasure of walking into Junoon for the first time and meeting the Executive Chef Vikas Khanna.  If you’re a fan of the television show “Kitchen Nightmares”, you may remember Chef Vikas from the episode featuring “Dillon’s” Indian restaurant in midtown, in which he was brought in as a consulting chef to help get the restaurant back on track.  The show did a great job showcasing Chef Vikas’ signature style and flavors, and now his cooking is on display at Junoon.  Today I returned to the restaurant and tried his cooking for the first time. 

At first notice of walking into Junoon you realize no expense was spared, anywhere.  Junoon means “passion”, and this restaurant is the lifelong dream of Rajesh Bhardwaj, the man behind “Café Spice”.  This restaurant is beautiful, and there is a touch of elegance everywhere.  Upon entering you walk into a small room with a small reflecting pool, of which the sleek black hostess stand can be seen through two more glass doors.  The hostess stand is directly in front of a 50-foot passageway which also contains a long reflecting pool filled with stones, white sculptures covering flood lamps, and beige sandstone sculptures depicting vines (the same design on their website).  I couldn’t help but feel reminiscent of Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan.  The main dining room is to the left of the pool, in which an open kitchen stands in the middle. 

Boqueria

Boqueria is a small Spanish tapas-style restaurant with two locations in NY.  I’ve eaten only at the Flatiron location, and having worked in the area for the past few years, I can tell you this restaurant is always packed.  If you are going to go, go early, as reservations aren’t accepted and the line is out the door as the night progresses.

The proprietor is Chef Seamus Mullen, who is not Spanish himself, but has worked his way around Spain and fell in love with Spanish cooking.  You may have heard of him as a contestant on the first season of “The Next Iron Chef”, on the Food Network.  Chef Mullen doesn’t spend too much time with the restaurants anymore, and now leaves it in the hands of Chef Marc Vidal, who is of Spanish background, and has been running Boqueria for the past year.   

After wanting to come here for years, I finally made my way in last week for lunch.  From the outside the restaurant was seemingly quiet, to the point I thought they were not even open that day, but that thought quickly changed as I walked in and saw every table was full.  Let me also mention, I walked in just 15 minutes after they opened.  The décor is very simple, with beige and dark brown colors running through the room, from the floors to the tables & chairs, and even the waitstaff uniforms.  Serrano hams hang by their legs in the window, and the bar area up front displays a variety of Spanish cured olives and cheeses.  

The Breslin Bar & Dining Room

The Breslin is a British-style gastropub at its finest.  I love restaurants like this.  A place you can go grab great food, in a casual setting, yet still maintains a type of elegant touch. 

The Breslin is located inside the Ace Hotel, with the main entrance adjacent to it.  I emphasize that because my first time going to the restaurant I missed the entrance completely.  I walked into the lobby of the Ace Hotel and thought “this is the strangest looking gastropub I have ever seen”. 

Walking into the Breslin you immediately walk into their bar area.  Lots of dark wood colors, lively atmosphere, and large windows which allow for a lot of natural light to come through.  They offer a wide selection of beers, and it’s a great place for friends to come in and hang out.

This then carries over to the restaurant.  Comfortable booths, wood chairs, tan paper-cloths covering black wood-finished tables, and a lot of random food and animal memorabilia which covers every piece of empty space in the restaurant.  Still-life paintings of fruit, red paper lobsters, a small bull’s head with a giant ring coming out of its nose, and so forth.  Even though the décor is all over the place, it just screams at you “I want you to be comfortable”, and that I was.