ES Local: Midtown Momofuku Madness in NYC

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If you’ve been keeping up with the New York food blogerati over the past few days, then you know there’s been only one pressing recent world event. Clearly I’m not talking about water on the moon or health care passing the house, but Momofuku’s inevitable march into midtown. On Thursday, David Chang’s much, much, much talked about mini-chain soft opened Ma Peche, its first non-East Village location, inside the trendy Chambers Hotel. The Manhattan food world is basically treating it as a live-blog-worthy breaking news event. Here are a few of the first thoughts:

Midtown Lunch:

“The three terrine banh mi…is out of control good.”

Eater:

“I think it’s safe to say we have a new banh mi king in town”

Hotel Chatter:

“Even if you’re not into the rest of the food, you could order the cookie and a glass of milk and still have a smidgeon of the Momofuku experience. In fact, that’s what we recommend.”

Sorry, TVFF – sounds like the bahn mi trend isn’t dead quite yet.

Since it’s safe to say Ma Peche will be packed to the brim every lunch hour for the next, oh, five years or so, over at Oyster we’re looking at a few alternative spots to grab lunch in this just-south-of-Central-Park slice of Midtown.

(Photo: Food in Mouth)

T Minus Ten Days: Our Best Thanksgiving Sides Recipes

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Uh-oh! Ten days and counting to National Gluttony Day, and the crew here at ES is far from finishing our Thanksgiving menus.

How about you all? In need of some inspiration? To get the ball rolling, here are some of our favorite side dishes from Endless Simmer Thanksgivings past:

Cranberry-Butternut Squash Spring Rolls

Curried Parsley Sauce with Brussel Sprouts and Potato

Squash with Portobellas, Walnuts and Feta

Hot and Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

Julienne Root Vegetable Salad

Turkey-Bacon-Potato Onesie AND Sweet Potato-Feta-Spinach Onesie

Roasted Pumpkin Stew

Ginger-Gorgonzola Acorn Squash

Mindless Baked Sweet Potato

Curry Pumpkin Soup

Squash and Spinach with Curry-Ginger Yogurt Sauce

Have a great Thanksgiving side recipe? Drop the details (or a link) in the comments.

Restaurants are Catching Up

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Now that I’m sufficiently through with summer vegetables, I’ve been getting really excited for a new season of vegetables. But what really excites me is restaurants that are also embracing the idea. I went to bird watch at a neighborhood pizza place. What caught my attention was the blackboard sign: “$5 slice and draft beer.”

That shit just doesn’t exist in the District. Shit, sometimes you can buy a Miller Lite for as much as $4. Anyway, so a bunch of us went to Radius and all of a sudden my mouth hung open and I oggled the menu.  There was pumpkin ravioli and butternut squash soup and a pizza with kabocha pumpkin puree, ricotta, feta, caramelized mushrooms and red onions. Unfortunately I was too hungover to experiment and just grabbed a large slice of cheese. I just love that everyone from high-end restaurants to the local pizza place endorses the mantra of eating seasonally.

Back to my kitchen.

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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

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– Everybody loves scrapple! (seriously), and everyone’s got their own way of eating it. Don:

Have to make some soon. I cut them between 1/4? and 1/2?, lightly flour to help in creating a nice crust. Medium heat in a lightly oiled skillet until both sides are nicely browned. Delicious! Matches up nicely with eggs of any style but try this next time: scrapple, eggs and grits – yes, GRITS (cheesy grits are best) – a great combination!

Kenneth Moore:

I do love me some scrapple… But I’m mostly vegetarian now. It would take something quite drastic for me to bend so far as to eat scrapple, but it used to be one of my secret delights! My preferred use is about half as thick as yours, TVFF. I like crunch in my meat. :P Then, stack it on an english muffin with an egg, maybe some cheese (and a bit of syrup does make it yummy, yes!). Anything is better encased in carbs!

Pat:

If you travel in and around the Lancaster, PA area (PA Dutch/German epicenter), the scrapple is served with syrup. You cut those pancakes/waffles up, mix in the cut up scrapple (or bacon or sausage), then pour syrup over the whole mess. That’ll stick to yer ribs!

– modoo works the fifth borough into our Ultimate NYC Hot Dog Crawl:

Skippy’s on Hylan Blvd on Staten Island. It’s a truck, so its not always there. The only better is Nathans.

– And the Washington side of ES has plenty to say about changes in DC’s gayborhood – join the convo!

(Photo: John Donges)

Friday Fuck Ups: The Illusive Fried Shrimp Head

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A funny thing happened a few weeks back. And I have to say I’m still a little shocked I’m actually saying this, but credit where credit is due.  A few Sundays back, Food Network actually did something that kinda blew my mind.

As much trash talk as I dish out on Food Network programming, this new show of theirs, The Best Thing I Ever Ate is pretty damn good. It probably also helped that the episode I caught just happened to be the Best Fried food tribute. I’m sure there are other lovely categories, but an entire show dedicated to the wondrous variety of fried foods is without question one of FN’s better attempts to win over viewers.

It was Duff’s obsession with the apparently abundant but never advertised part of an animal we rarely think about eating: shrimp heads. Fried shrimp heads. A whole basket of them! I knew immediately that I had to learn how to make these little delicacies.  And that’s pretty much when everything starts to go down hill…

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ES Local: Pre-Thanksgiving Treats in NYC

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In that great annual Thanksgiving debate, I fall decidedly in the camp of sides (and dessert) being way more exciting than turkey, which means around this time of year I start getting way too excited for sweet potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. So let’s be honest, I’m just not gonna be able to hold out two weeks until the big day itself.

Fortunately, some of New York’s crazier chefs are incorporating Thanksgiving flavors into their pre-turkey day dessert offerings. Here are a few of the more exciting/insane options:

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Top Chef Exit Interview: Episode 11

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Wow, I thought Top Chef: Las Vegas couldn’t become any more of a foodie fantasy than Natalie Portman telling dirty jokes in a steakhouse, but then they go and top themselves this week by serving Padma and Nigella breakfast in bed. Total head explosion.

Speaking of Padma, look out for her making an “exotic and robotic” guest appearance on 30 Rock tonight! Is this NBC testing out Padma’s potential as a sitcom star?!

Oh right, they cooked some stuff last night too. On with the (spoiler!) exit interview…

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