cheers and jeers

Happy Memorial Day! Judd and I are enjoying some down time in warm but quiet NYC and today seemed like a good time to fill you in on some local culinary highlights and lowlights from the last few weeks.

CHEERS TO:

Rigatoni alla ricotta at Pomodoro Rosso, an otherwise lackluster restaurant near our apartment. The rigatoni is fresh, not dry, served in a tomato sauce with prosciutto and onions, and topped with a big dollop of fresh ricotta cheese. It's really good! NB - I believe that Pomodoro may also win the prize for largest serving of wine per glass on the Upper West Side.

The most delicious veal saltimbocca I have ever tasted at Lupa, Mario Batali and Joe Bastiantich's Roman trattoria on Thompson Street. I found this picture on flickr if you want a visual, but otherwise imagine an ENORMOUS but super thin breaded and fried veal cutlet, topped with salty prosciutto and savory sage leaves, finished with white wine and lemon juice. I had an underwhelming and overpriced New Year's Eve dinner at Lupa a few years ago and had not been back since, but the veal saltimbocca put it squarely back on my radar.

A big, bubbling dish of excellent moussaka at Kellari's Parea Bistro, an upscale Greek tavern in the Flatiron District. Moussaka is a baked casserole-style dish of layered eggplant, potato, ground beef, tomato sauce, and bechamel sauce, and Kellari's version is outstanding.

"Lemonese" chicken at Henry's End in Brooklyn Heights. Henry's End has been serving this chicken dish - a cutlet breaded with romano cheese and served on a lemon cream sauce - since the 1980's and while is sounds uninspired in 2011, it was really quite good. Henry's End has a great wine list, too.

Pancetta bread at Eataly -- cubes of pancetta are baked right into the bread -- a stroke of genius! Actually, everything at Eataly is delicious, including their homemade super-buttery onion focaccia. I also discovered a gorgonzola piccante in their cheese case that I'm still thinking about several weeks later. The only negative things I have to say about this otherwise incredible store is that it has a very confusing and hard to navigate layout and it is always crowded.

JEERS TO:

A shamefully tiny serving of "mignon de porc" at Les Halles. I cannot believe they have the nerve to charge $20 for three bites of pork tenderloin, no vegetables, and a huge pile of mashed potatoes. Tisk, tisk, Anthony Bourdain.

The number of strollers at the new Ditch Plains on the Upper West Side. I felt like I was in day care center. Even though my fish tacos were tasty, I won't go back for to meet people for dinner unless one of them wears diapers.

Smallish portions of strange things at Kin Shop. The spicy duck laab salad was too spicy for me to eat, the grilled prawns came with their heads on, and I didn't recognize the mushrooms or the chickpeas in the roasted king oyster mushrooms with bamboo shoots, garbanzo beans, and turnips. Harold Dieterle, I think you've taught me that when it comes to thai food, I prefer the more mainstream offerings (e.g., chicken satay, spring rolls and pad thai).

Soggy grilled pizza at Cafe Fiorello, a pre-Lincoln Center mainstay. For close to $30, pizza better be perfect. But their "signature" thin-crust pizza was practically burnt around the edges and soggy in the middle - so disappointing! Everyone who had recommended that place loves their antipasto bar, so maybe I'll go back to try that.

Dingy surroundings and mediocre sushi at Yama on Irving Place. This wouldn't be noteworthy if Yama hadn't previously been my favorite sushi place in town. They make really good spicy mayonnaise that they drizzle over everything, but it couldn't spruce up my spicy tuna rolls or my avocado, cucumber, carrot and lettuce roll (a/k/a the salad I didn't finish, mixed with rice, and wrapped in seaweed).

asparagus soup

I do love to make soup and for Easter this year, I celebrated spring with a tasty asparagus soup. This soup, adapted from an excellent Williams-Sonoma cookbook titled "Soup for Supper," is incredibly easy to make and rich despite the lack of cream. Here's how to make it:

3 bunches of asparagus* (2.5 - 3lbs), tough ends removed

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1.5 cups peeled and diced russet potato (~1 large potato)

3-4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 cup milk

chives

creme fraiche

salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut off tips of the asparagus spears. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the asparagus tips and boil for 2 minutes. Drain and immediately immerse the tips in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain, pat dry, and set aside.

2. Cut the remaining asparagus into 2-inch pieces. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the asparagus pieces (not the tips!), stirring occasionally until well coated with the butter, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the potato and 3 cups of broth. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the asparagus and potato are very tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

3. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender or food processor. (Or if you have an immersion blender, that works well, too.) Return the soup to the saucepan, add the milk and as much of the additional broth as needed to achieve the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and reheat over low heat.

4. While the soup is reheating, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in a small pan over medium heat. Add asparagus spears, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the asparagus spears are heated through - about 2 minutes. Stir asparagus tips into soup.

5. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with a dollop of craime fraiche and snipped chives.

serves 6

*I prefer the thick stemmed asparagus, but the pencil thin ones can work here, too.