A pilgrimage to hamburger mecca

Does anyone else remember that article from a May 2009 issue of the New York Times about the Burger of the Month Club? Well I still do and I'll paraphrase it for you: there's a small group of professional men (mostly businessmen and attorneys) who meet every Monday at a local burger establishment to eat and then rate the restaurant's hamburger. These seven guys have named themselves the Burger of the Month Club and you can find the rankings of all of the hamburgers they've sampled at www.burgerrankings.com.

Back when the article was published, the club had sampled and analyzed 47 hamburgers since 2005 and among those 47, the burger at Peter Luger's came out on top. I checked their website again today and Peter Luger's is still number one on their list of the city's top ten burgers, though I can't tell when the site was last updated.

While I do not think my arteries would appreciate it if I ate a hamburger every single Monday, I do like to eat them from time to time (as long as I don't think they're made from industrial ground beef which could leave me with an e-coli souvenir). So last Monday, I took the M train out to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to have a taste of what some burger afficionados consider the best burger in New York.

I have been to Peter Luger's, a celebrated steakhouse around these parts, one other time and loved the steak but did not enjoy the rest of the meal due to the long wait for our table even with a reservation, the rude waiters, the lack of wines by the glass, the mediocre side dishes, and most of all, the massive bill. But lunch on Monday was actually great. We had a 12:45 reservation and were seated at . . . 12:45! Also, our waiter was very friendly and didn't give us any attitude when we only ordered $10 hamburgers (cheese, bacon, and fries are all extra) instead of $50 porterhouse steaks. (The Burger of the Month Club had reported that their snobby waiter at Peter Luger's had asked "Are all you guys ordering burgers? I don't do burgers," and then sent over a replacement waiter to finish taking their order.)

But the main attraction was the burger - made from their hand-picked USDA Prime beef which they grind in-house -- no ammonia-treated and ambiguously-sourced "meat trimmings" here. I can certainly see what all the fuss was about - it was excellent. Specifically, the beef itself was very tasty, and I was very pleased with the amount of American cheese, which I consider less greasy than melted cheddar, the toasted sesame bun, and the bun-burger ratio -- the patty fit perfectly on top of the bun. I also liked that the burger came with a thick slice of raw onion since it can be annoying to have to flag down your waiter to ask for that if it is not included on the plate. I will say that the burger itself was slightly more cooked than I would have liked, but I imagine that the burgers are grilled on the same SUPER hot grill that cooks the steaks, which could make it hard to control how fast they cook.

If you are interested in trying a burger at Peter Luger's, keep in mind that they only serve them until 3pm and that they don't take credit cards.

As a post script, I will admit that a few days later I had a cheeseburger at Bobby Van's Grill Room, which appears as number five on the Burger of the Month Club's rankings, and it was even better. Bobby Van's also grinds their own meat and all of their burgers come with a large serving of french fries AND onion rings for $15. My burger was cooked perfectly - pink but not red in the center, and when you factor in the fact that I didn't have to take the J or M train to Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn, I'd say it is easily bests Luger's.

Restaurant review: Osteria Morini

Michael White seems to have the golden touch. Spiaggia, the famed Italian restaurant in Chicago frequented by the Obamas, earned four stars from the Chicago Tribune while he worked as its Chef de Cuisine. After White moved to New York in 2002, he earned three stars from the New York Times as the Executive Chef at three separate restaurants: Fiamma Osteria (closed last year), Alto, and Convivio. He is currently the executive chef of seven restaurants in the NYC area, including Marea, a widely-celebrated Italian seafood place on Central Park South, recently featured on this season of Top Chef.

You can see why I was very excited to try Osteria Morini, Michael White's new casual Italian restaurant in SoHo last month.

That's me looking at the menu. Everything sounded so delicious that I hemmed and hawed over what to order for a solid ten minutes. There were countless tempting first course options alone: assorted cured sliced meats, a selection of Italian cheeses, fritto bolognese (traditional street food of Bologna), ten homemade pastas, nine different hot and cold antipasti, and two kinds of baked polenta. But because I also spotted short ribs on the list of entrees, I decided NOT to get something super rich as a starter. So I chose soup.

There were actually two soups on the menu, but I chose a soup special which sounded promising: a parmesan broth with whole wheat spaetzle-like noodles and cured-meat "croutons." I know, why not just get pasta if I was going to get cheese soup, but soup always sounds light to me even if it is made with cream, noodles, and fried meat cubes. Sadly, while the cheese broth was quite tasty, the noodles were mealy and the "croutons" were made of head cheese - a jellied cold cut made from flesh from the head of a cow, calf, or pig - ICK!

At least I had ordered the sangiovese-braised short rib as my entree since short ribs are almost universally delicious and difficult to screw up. Except that wasn't very good either. The meat was displeasingly fatty and full of gristle and I ended up having to painstakingly pick it apart to find some edible pieces to pair with the potato puree and roasted root vegetables.

My sister ordered an above-average grilled pork chop with fried polenta, cipollini onions, and balsamic vinegar. It was much better than my short ribs, but not nearly as good as the stellar pork chops offered at Babbo (best pork chop ever) or the Little Owl (where they call their pork chop "the pork chop").

For dessert, we shared a few interesting scoops of gelato (including zabaglione and crumbled biscotti), and a superb vanilla bean panna cotta served in a mason jar and topped with a berry compote. It was among the best panna cottas I have ever had.

The service was slow and spotty, the dining room was cramped and loud, and I didn't recognize ANY of the wines by the glass (all Italian). Still, I'm not ready to write off Osteria Morini just yet, mostly because I blame myself for making bad menu selections (I was overwhelmed with all of the choices!). I would like to go back again to at least try a few of the pastas, but if those aren't mind-blowing, I see no reason to return. Michael White, perhaps you've spread yourself a little too thin?

*

Details:

218 Lafyette Street (between Broome and Spring)

New York City

(212) 965-8777

Dinner for two with a school night-appropriate amount of wine: ~$200

Best and worst of 2010

Happy new year! I spent new year's eve enjoying a very decadent 4-course pre-fixe at my favorite restaurant, the Little Owl. It was a really wonderful meal - the chefs in that tiny kitchen know what they're doing - and I even splurged on a $40 shaving of white truffles on second course, a parmesan and organic egg yolk risotto. It was my first time eating shaved white truffles and while they were tasty, I think a drizzle of white truffle oil is just as good and much less expensive. Oh well - live and learn.

As 2011 gets underway, I want to share a list of the best and worst places I tried in 2010 so that you can make sure to try or avoid them in the coming months. I'm only listing places in New York that I tried for the first time in the last twelve months that I didn't already independently review or otherwise describe in a prior post.

THE BEST

Aurora

50 Broome Street (between Thompson and West Broadway)

A rustic Italian restaurant - think rough wooden tables and exposed brick walls - in SoHo with a selection of excellent homemade pastas. I also still have fond memories of a roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprout salad.

Celeste

502 Amsterdam Avenue (between 84th and 85th Streets)

They don't take reservations or credit cards, the tables are packed so close to each other you're practically sitting on top of the people next to you, and the host and wait staff are less than friendly. But most of the tasty items on Celeste's menu are less than $15. I particularly enjoy the pizzas.

Ovest Pizzoteca

513 West 27th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues)

Excellent Neopolitan pizza from the pizza experts behind Luzzo's in the East Village. The pizzas with tartufata (truffle paste) are particularly praise-worthy.

Saraghina

435 Halsey Street (Brooklyn)

My friends who used to live in Bed-Stuy introduced me to this pizza destination that was well-worth the long subway ride. In addition to six classic pizzas, they also have daily specials featuring seasonal ingredients.

Tolache

251 West 50th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue)

"Contemporary Mexican cuisine" in the theater district from Julian Medina, the chef behind Zocalo, which had been one of my favorite places on the Upper East Side before it closed in 2009. I was delighted to find that many beloved items from Zocalo's menu live on at Tolache, including the manchego cheese, corn, black truffle, and huitlacoche quesadilla.

THE REST

Francisco's Centro Vasca

159 West 23rd Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

Judd and I ended up here one night after I'd researched a place to meet in Chelsea in my trusty Zagat. I like seafood and Spanish food, so it seemed like a safe choice. WRONG. I have never had less appetizing paella. I think everything in it came out of a can or a freezer before it was over-cooked in a microwave. ICK, ICK, ICK. No amount of sangria could make me go back.

Mason Jar

43 East 30th Street (between Park and Madison)

This was hands-down the worst restaurant I've been to in memory. Frat-boy ambience (one notch above Brother Jimmy's), unimpressive service (I think our waitress may have been brain dead), and TERRIBLE FOOD (a chicken quesadilla that I literally couldn't eat because it tasted like it had gone bad). What a shame in a neighborhood that is otherwise a barbeque hot zone (Blue Smoke, Hill Country, and RUB are all only a few blocks away).

Momofuku Má Pêche

15 West 56th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)

My sister must have lost her mind when she suggested we take my mother to David Chang's newest and most formal restaurant in midtown (all other outposts of his Momofuku empire are in the East Village) this fall. I didn't like almost anything we ordered, including an overpriced and undercooked pork-chop for two, strangely-textured and overpriced shrimp and tofu summer rolls, and unpleasantly fatty and overpriced spareribs. Add servers with serious attitude, communal tables, and no dessert, and this place was a complete strike out. (NB - you can get dessert to go at the Momofuku Milk Bar on your way out.)

Sparks

210 East 46th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)

Undoubtedly the most expensive disappointment of the year. The $40 sliced filet with mushrooms and bordelaise sauce tasted like it came from a hospital cafeteria. And with the outrageous prices, could they renovate the place!? I felt like I was in a dirty English pub. Sheesh!

A healthy start to 2011

As I mentioned the other day, the food at Cal-A-Vie, the spa where I recently spent a long weekend, was exceptional. Jason Graham, Cal-a-Vie's chef, is a healthy food wizard and works his magic on local produce, whole grains, and lean protein without any butter, cream, or sugar. Even on only 1500 calories per day, I felt completely satisfied and also energized enough for all of the walking, hiking, weight-lifting, and exercise classes they scheduled

One of the more popular items on Cal-A-Vie's breakfast menu was steel-cut oatmeal with baked apple and toasted maple pecans, which was served with a side dish of scrambled egg whites and steamed spinach.

I wanted to start off the new year with a healthy breakfast and decided to take a stab at recreating Cal-A-Vie's oatmeal. Since my in-laws very nicely sent me and Judd a box of Harry and David's famous Royal Riviera pears, I used pears instead of apples, which I caramelized with a little Smart Balance in a non-stick pan instead of baking. Also, I just used regular pecans which I toasted in the same pan as the pear chunks, and drizzled maple syrup on top. Not quite spa cuisine quality, but I was pleased.