From the Archives: A Burger Beacon Beckons
This post originally appeared on October 3, 2003
Visiting The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel feels like walking into a restaurant conceived by David Lynch. But, don't be afraid. I've been there twice, and I haven't witnessed any log ladies. Moreover, any first flush of confusion at the surroundings dissipates once you order and eat the food.
The Burger Joint is hidden within Le Parker Meridien's soaring lobby, which is all sleek marble and mirrors. There is no sign of the restaurant, which is cloaked by a floor-to-ceiling velvet curtain adjacent to the reception desk. Travelers come and go, checking in, checking out while a restaurant is lurking . . . somewhere. Where's the beef? Finally, at the end of a dark passageway is the giveaway, a neon sign of a burger with an arrow pointing to the right.
Follow the sign, turn right, and here is the David Lynch moment. You have instantly crossed a threshold from a space with very high-brow aesthetics into another, much lower-brow world: Bad lighting, music blaring, wood paneling, vinyl booths, television on the wall, and the smells and sounds of burgers grilling and potatoes frying. The space, designed by MCCARTEN, is so completely unpretentious that it risks being absurdly pretentious in its artificiality (not to mention the celebrity signings on the brick wall in the back, including a huge "Ashton Kutcher Rules").
Is putting a burger place smack in the middle of an upscale midtown hotel the last gasp of trucker hat chic? Perhaps, but that's where the "irony" ends. For every Ashton signature there is also a Jerry Stiller autograph, and, thankfully, the "joint" stays true to its simple handwritten menu of burgers, fries, beer, and milkshakes without the high prices and wannabe hip vibe you would expect to find in a concept restaurant like this. You won't find any ironic "takes" on greasy spoon cuisine. No, the burger's the thing here.
For $4.50, you get a very tasty burger ($5.50 with cheddar) and "the works" wrapped up in butcher paper. The burger is not huge, but a size you can actually take a bite out of without making a total mess. Tightly wrapped in paper, the burger reminded me of those delicious patties served at the West coast chain In-N-Out. The crunchy fries, skinny and freshly cooked to order, are served in a brown paper bag, and draught beer is served in plastic cups. If you are not satiated after the burger, be sure to top off the meal with with a black and white milkshake made with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.
The Burger Joint, 118 West 57th Street (in Le Parker Meridien Hotel), 212.245.5000.
From the Archives: Uncooking to Cut the Heat
This post originally appeared on July 29, 2003
The pre-war apartment buildings of New York City are particularly effective at retaining heat. When it cools off outside even slightly, the temperature on the higher floors can still remain sweltering. In a kitchen without air conditioning, the heat makes the entire enterprise of cooking uncomfortable, if not unbearable.
Pasta with an uncooked sauce offers a more tolerable culinary option. Beyond boiling the water, no cooking over a hot stove is required, and the final product has the freshness of a salad.
The following technique is a middle ground between Lidia Bastianich’s recipe for Salsa Cruda (Lidia’s Italian Table) and Giuliano Hazan’s recipe for Orecchiette al Pomodoro e Ricotta Salata (Every Night Italian). It leans towards Lidia’s uncooked recipe, which utilizes cherry tomatoes. The tiny tomatoes almost always seem to be ripe, so they are the perfect alternative to the hard, flavorless, pre-season tomatoes that are often the only ones available. Moving away from Lidia’s recipe, this sauce incorporates ricotta salata, the firm, salty, dried ricotta cheese that is called for in Giuliano’s recipe.
To make the pasta, take about four cups of small cherry or grape tomatoes, slice them in half, and let them macerate in a bowl with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. After about 20 minutes, the tomatoes will have released some of their juices. Boil water and cook the orecchiette, the small pasta shaped like ears, until al dente.
Though any shape of pasta may be used, the orecchiette are perfectly matched in size to the tomatoes, and their cup-like shape and ridged exterior does a good job of holding the chunky sauce. When the pasta is done cooking, drain and combine with the tomatoes, julienned basil leaves, and crumbled ricotta salata. If the sauce is too dry, add some of the pasta cooking water and some additional olive oil, toss together, and serve.
Arrivederci!
As previously noted, we're off to Italy for two weeks to explore Liguria, Tuscany, and (ever so briefly) Rome. Thanks to everyone who commented or sent in their must-eat and must-see recommendations for our visit.
With camera and notebook in hand, I plan a full report upon my return, but there won't be any new postings while we are away. Taking a page from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, I've lined up a series of "classics" from The Food Section archives to appear on auto-pilot over the next two weeks.
As this site approaches its two-year anniversary -- which will take place on July 7, in fact -- I'm also going to try something new here, a pledge break.
Have you come to enjoy this site for its feature posts on food, wine, and travel, weekly listings of food events, and daily links to stories, recipes, and other food finds from around the web? Or, perhaps you just ended up here on a google search for those cheesy Rachael Ray photos. Whatever the case may be, if you have become a regular reader of The Food Section, I ask that you consider supporting this site.
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Her First Lobster Roll
If the television camera adds ten pounds, does blogging software take a few inches off of a blogger's height? That's what I was thinking after I met Clotilde Dusoulier last Sunday at Otto, where she was feted by the many fans of her famed food blog, Chocolate & Zucchini. Although she was taller in real life than I had imagined her to be, she otherwise lived up to her blogging persona in every other way -- cute, charming, inquisitive, thoughtful, and completely down-to-earth.
Read More >
Agenda: 6/22 to 6/28
1. Herring Festival, annual festival featuring fresh North Sea herring shipped daily to New York City from Scheveningen, The Netherlands, continues though Saturday, June 18, at the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant in Grand Central Terminal (212.490.6650).
2. Summer Restaurant Week, three-course lunches for $20.12 and three-course dinners for $35.00 (beverage, tax and gratuity additional) at participating New York restaurants. The promotion continues from Monday, June 20, through Friday, June 24, and Monday, June 27, through Friday, July 1.
3. Murray’s After Hours, Murray’s Cheese and Slow Food NYC will present a food, wine, and beer event benefiting the New York State Farmstead & Artisan Cheese Makers Guild Educational Programs on Wednesday, June 22, 8:15 to 10:15 p.m., at Murray’s Cheese, 254 Bleecker Street. $75/person in advance, $80/person at the door (tickets are available online at www.nycheese.org or by calling Sue Sturman at 516-883-7892).
4. Spanish Wine Festival 2005, taste more than 150 Spanish selections representing each of Spain’s wine regions at this event benefiting City Harvest, Thursday, June 23, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., at the Landmark on the Park, 160 Central Park West. $75/person (212.567.5500).
5. Summer Gourmet Food & Wine Tasting Benefit, Project by Project New York will present a food and wine tasting event to benefit End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes–USA (ECPAT-USA) on Friday, June 24, 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., at The Gallery Room in The Metropolitan Pavilion, 123 W. 18th Street, 4th floor. $75-$100/person.
ONGOING EVENTS
1. Have You Eaten Yet? The Chinese Restaurant in America, an exhibit exploring the Chinese restaurant’s origin and growth in America and its cultural significance, at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas (70 Mulberry Street, 2nd Floor). The exhibit continues through June 2005. Suggested admission is $3 (212.619.4785).
2. Cookin': A Sizzling Entertainment, "a fast-paced kitchen percussion show combining comedy, rhythm, and non-verbal performance," at the Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane (212.420.8000).
Kenepas, Part Deux
Following up on the yesterday's sighting of kenepas (also known as genipa, quenepa, mamoncillo, or Spanish lime), these are small fruits of Melicoccus bijugatus, a tropical tree. The dark green skin looks like that of a lime, but the resemblance ends there, as it can be neatly cracked open between the teeth with a soft bite.
Once hatched, inside is a large seed covered with a peach-colored layer of sticky, gummy flesh. The taste is sweet-sour, and leaves your tongue with a little of that "furry" feeling some fruits can give you.
Thank You
I want to thank everyone who came out yesterday evening for the food blogger panel discussion at Makor. Not only were food blogs represented on stage (Slice/A Hamburger Today, A Full Belly, and the Strong Buzz), but they were in the audience as well (The Amateur Gourmet and A Year in Food, and maybe even some others who did not reveal their identities). It was fun to see a few familiar faces and also meet some new folks as well.
I was impressed with the size of the crowd, and despite my own apprehension about public speaking, I really enjoyed the discussion and Q&A. There seemed to be a lot of photo snapping going on, so I have a feeling a photographic record of the event will surface at some point on the Internets.
If anyone who attended has any burning questions that were not addressed during the discussion, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks again for coming!
Agenda: 6/15 to 6/21
1. Herring Festival, annual festival featuring fresh North Sea herring shipped daily to New York City from Scheveningen, The Netherlands, continues though Saturday, June 18, at the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant in Grand Central Terminal (212.490.6650).
2. For the Main Course, A Blog, see food bloggers in the flesh at this panel discussion with Adam Kuban (Slice and A Hamburger Today), Alaina Browne (A Full Belly) and Josh Friedland (The Food Section [that's me]), moderated by food writer Andrea Strong, Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m., at Makor, Steinhardt Building, 35 West 67th Street. $12/person in advance, $15/person at the door (212.415.5500).
3. The Cultural Impact and Implications of Las Vegas on the American Table, a panel discussion with Ruth Reichl, Tom Colicchio, Mark Furstenberg, Fabio Parasecoli, and Brett Traussi on Las Vegas and its restaurants, presented by the American Institute of Wine and Food, Wednesday, June 15, 4:00 p.m., at the Fales Library at New York University, 70 Washington Square South. $30/person, $20/AIWF members (718.229.6565).
4. Porchetta Festival, roasted pig festival, Wednesday, June 15, 7:00 p.m., at Miss Williamsburg Diner, 206 Kent Ave., Brooklyn. Free (718.963.0802).
5. Taste of the Nation: Brooklyn, tasting event featuring samplings from Brooklyn restaurants, benefiting Share Our Strength, will take place on Thursday, June 16, 7:00 p.m., at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn. $75/person in advance, $90/at the door (917.640.8953).
6. Exploring Iberia, tasting tour of cheeses from the Iberian Peninsula, Thursday, June 16, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the Artisanal Cheese Center, 500 West 37th Street, 2nd Floor. $75/person (877.797.1200).
7. Maryland Crab Fest, Maryland blue crabs paired with wines, Thursday, June 16, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the Institute of Culinary Education, 50 West 23rd Street. $80/person (212.847.0770).
8. Summer Restaurant Week, three-course lunches for $20.12 and three-course dinners for $35.00 (beverage, tax and gratuity additional) at participating New York restaurants. The promotion begins Monday, June 20, and continues through Friday, June 24 and Monday, June 27, through Friday, July 1.
ONGOING EVENTS
1. Have You Eaten Yet? The Chinese Restaurant in America, an exhibit exploring the Chinese restaurant’s origin and growth in America and its cultural significance, at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas (70 Mulberry Street, 2nd Floor). The exhibit continues through June 2005. Suggested admission is $3 (212.619.4785).
2. Cookin': A Sizzling Entertainment, "a fast-paced kitchen percussion show combining comedy, rhythm, and non-verbal performance," at the Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane (212.420.8000).
Days and Nights of Shakerato
The land of the shakerato calls, and we heed its silky, crema-topped siren song.
We are going away to Italy in just two weeks, and the vacation couldn't come sooner: Five days in Santa Margherita Ligure on the coast of Liguria, followed by seven days in Grosseto in the Maremma region of Tuscany, and, finally, three days in Rome.
We are reading up on all of our guidebooks and perusing the web for things to do and, of course, places to eat. If you have any suggestions based on your own visits to these places, please leave a comment below.
