La Vara and Cobble Hill Get Two More Stars from Wells

Cobble Hill and Pete Wells are becoming great friends. Andy Ricker opened Pok Pok NY on Columbia Street in the western reaches of the neighborhood earlier this year and Wells gave it two stars in June.  This week, Wells goes back to Cobble Hill, to La Vara, and gives it the same two-star treatment.

La Vara opened on Clinton Street back in May.  It's the newest project from Alex Raij and her husband/co-chef Eder Montero.  Here, the married couple are bringing a unique twist to the Spanish cuisine that can be found at their other restaurants in Chelsea: Txikito and El Quinto Pino.  At La Vara, there's a focus on "the vast legacy of the Jews and Muslims who shared the Iberian Peninsula with Christians for centuries.  This three-way marriage, known as la convivencia, did wonderful things for the country’s kitchens."

"La Vara serves most things as small tapas-size dishes.  Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t."  In a Diner's Journal article published today, Wells asks the reader, "Do you like small plates restaurants? Do you like lots of little tastes, or do you want more?"  The result is an ongoing dialogue on Twitter (read the highlights here) that includes the likes of Bloomberg restaurant critic Ryan Sutton and David Chang.

Wells clearly enjoyed a few dishes at La Vara, namely the griddled red shrimp and a pasta called gurullos, which he found to be "as fluffy as an Italian grandmother’s prizewinning gnocchi."  The review is as much a dissecction of La Vara's efforts as it is a thorough lesson on the history of religion in Spain.  "La Vara, by the way, was the name of a Jewish newspaper published in New York until it ceased in 1948."

Apparently, Phat Thai's Aren't Just What People Wore in the '70s

Diner's Journal reports Andy Ricker is changing things up at Pok Pok Wing.  The demand for Ricker's wing rendition has proven to be too big for the small Lower East Side space.  Pok Pok Wing will be closing this Sunday for minor renovations and menu adjustments and reopen Friday the 24th as Pok Pok Phat Thai.  Phat Thai, aka pad Thai, is a popular noodle dish Ricker was eventually going to build a space around.  That space will be the former Pok Pok Wing.

He introduced the east coast to his wings when Wing opened back in January.  When Pok Pok NY opened on Columbia Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the wings showed up on the menu there as well.  Cobble Hill will be the only place to get the wings after Pok Pok Phat Thai opens next week.  Ricker hasn't abandoned the idea of a wing space in Manhattan, it's just a matter of finding a space with a kitchen big enough to accommodate the demand.

As for PPPT, there will be four types of the noodle dish, with the option of rice or glass noodle: pork, prawn, prawns and pork, and vegan.  Everything (vegan dish aside) will be stir-fried in rendered pork fat.

Two Two Stars Stars for for Pok Pok

Pete Wells gets some use out of his GPS and heads to Pok Pok Ny in Cobble Hill for this week's review.  

James Beard Award winning chef Andy Ricker opened Pok Pok Ny on April 18th.  He introduced New York to his crazy pantry a few months earlier when he opened Pok Pok Wing in the East Village.   Pok Pok Ny is the Portland based chef's first sit down establishment on the East Coast and it's been on the media's radar ever since.  A garden opened in the back a few weeks ago and helps to soften some pretty lengthy wait times.

Wells welcomes the restaurant to the list of the city's Thai mainstays with its unique, regional menu.  "The first way Pok Pok Ny shifts your perspective is by offering the food of northern Thailand, which has been largely missing from New York."  "So yes," he goes on, "by all means go to Ayada and Sripraphai. Everybody should. But don’t tell yourself that you’ll be getting the same stuff, because it isn’t true."

Wells' two stars drives home the fact that the trip to 127 Columbia Street in Cobble Hill is worth it.  "Altered perceptions come free with the price of dinner at Pok Pok Ny."

Pok Pok Ny Now Open Seven Days a Week

Pok Pok's garden, get tiki with itAndy Ricker's East Coast Pok Pok outpost opened in Cobble Hill just shy of two months ago.  Starting tonight, according to a facebook post last Friday, the restaurant will be serving dinner seven nights a week.  The hours switched around a bit "to reflect the habits of the neighborhood."  Pok Pok NY is now open from 5:30pm to 10:30pm, lunch service is still TBD.

Waits are still to be expected, but much less severe now that the restaurant is open seven days and the garden is in full swing around back.  The garden has an extra 30 seats or so and guests can order drinks and hang out while they wait for a table either in the main dining room or the garden itself.

Andy 'Pok Pok' Ricker

Andy Ricker is the man behind the Portland based Pok Pok restaurants.  The east coast got its first taste of his Thai food in January, when Pok Pok Wing opened in the Lower East Side.  Last week, with the opening of Pok Pok Ny in Cobble Hill, the city gets its first full menu from the Thai food genius student.

In this interview Andy does with Eater, he talks about his past, his present, and his future, and how annoying it is to get shit for making Thai food without being of Thai descent.

"There's always going to be someone that will say that I'm a white dude doing fusion food, and I can tell you that that's absolutely not the case."

"There's been a lot in the press that calls me an expert on Thai food. None of that came from me. I'm a student and that's how I feel about it. I've got a lot to learn, even about the stuff that I already understand."

Andy Ricker is a perfect example of what succeeds in current restaurant trends.  He is a man obsessed with a particular cuisine who has gone to many reaches learning, studying, and ensuring that the food he is presenting is the closest thing you'll find outside its country of origin.  The incredible success of his restaurants is proof that, while he may not consider himself a master, he most certainly knows what he's doing.

Pok Pok Ny Pumps the Breaks

Andy Ricker's Pok Pok Ny, on Columbia Street in Brooklyn, will not open tonight as originally thought.  Dinner service will begin Wednesday night when they open the doors at 6pm and run from 6 - 11pm Wednesday through Sunday, with full week dinner and lunch service to follow.  Head over to Grubstreet for a slideshow.

Just Another Pok Pok Monday

Flo Fab reports in Off the Menu, from today's dining section, that Portland chef Andy Ricker's Pok Pok Ny will be opening for dinner in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn this Monday, at 127 Columbia Street. 

Ricker first gave NYC a taste of his Thai fried chicken with Pok Pok Wing, which opened in the Lower East Side, at 137 Rivington Street in January.  Pok Pok Ny will serve a wide array of Northern Thai food, including spicy minced catfish salad and sweet-and-sour game hen.

Seriouseats sat down with Andy a month ago to pok pick his brain about the allure of Thai food.  When Pok Pok Ny opens Monday, Ricker doesn't want you to expect anything fancy, "we don't have any fucking tweezers."

Portland is Getting in on the Brooklyn Boom

Terroir is opening an outpost in Park Slope.  So is Dinosaur BBQ.  Al Di La offshoot Bar Corvo just opened in Prospect Heights.

Now, Portland chef and James Beard award winner, Andy Ricker wants in.  He is planning to open a version of his Portland based restaurants Pok Pok on Columbia Street in Cobble Hill.  The Pok Pok menus are inspired by the street food of Thailand.