Pete Wells Visits Sri Lanka by Way of Shaolin

[dave sanders for the ny times]If there's good food abuzz, Pete Wells will find it. He ended 2012 with a review of Thirty Acres in Jersey City. He's already been to Brooklyn this year, and now he files on Lakruwana on Staten island.

Eric Asimov wrote about Lakruwana in 1995, explaining, "the restaurant, at the time the only Sri Lankan restaurant I knew of in New York, was unlicensed. To get to Lakruwana you had to climb six floors above a pornographic theater near Times Square. You entered a suite and walked to a back room past shelves of exotic canned foods like jackfruit and shark curry. In the back was a wooden picnic table with benches and, unaccountably, an umbrella. That was the "restaurant."" Fortunately, the restaurant operates legally now.

"Lakruwana relocated to Staten Island," Wells explains, "where an estimated 5,000 Sri Lankans have settled over the past few decades." It'll take some extra time to get to, but go to Lakruwana on a Sunday, when the restaurant serves an all-day buffet, the food for which is kept hot in clay pots that sit over open flames. On what's inside, Wells writes, "Lifting the lids, I found deviled chicken in a chile sauce with a balance of sweetness and spice that grew more captivating the more I ate; sticks of pineapple in a lightly hot curry paste soured with tamarind; chopped kale mixed with coconut and stir fried just until the greens begin to relax, a wonderful thing to do to kale; fat yellow lentils stewed in coconut milk with the warming flavors of mustard seeds, curry leaves and cinnamon sticks." Wells awards one star.

In a seperate article Wells penned for Diner's Journal, Wells explains how he came to discover Lakruwana, writing that, after Hurricane Sandy, "Staten Island was one of the places very much on my mind, and soon I began driving across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to scout for prospects." Wells goes on to mention a handful of dining options and praise the oft forgotten borough. [NYTimes] [Diner'sJournal]

Elizabeth Falkner's Presence in New York is Starting to Krescendo

[elizabeth lippman for the times] finocchio flower powerAt the end of 2011, San Francisco chef Elizabeth Falkner announced she was closing Citizen Cake and Orson. The former had been open for 15 years. If you see a pattern in the restaurant names it's because Falkner, a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, was an aspiring fillmmaker before she became a chef. After 25 years in San Francisco, Falkner set her sites on New York City, where she landed on Atlanctic Avenue in Brooklyn and opened Krescendo in the former Downtown Atlantic space. The restaurant has an Italian menu with a heavy lean towards pizza and it showcases her ability in the kitchen as a chef and baker.

Falkner has appeared on Top Chef, Iron Chef America, and The Next Iron Chef for the first time on season four, where she lost in the finale to Geoffrey Zakarian. The last out-of-town chef to have spent time on TV and open a restaurant in the city didn't fair so well, but today, history doesn't repeat itself. Pete Wells awarded two stars to Krescendo.

"The Finocchio Flower Power is the pizza version of the sparkly oven," writes Wells, "a lavishly constructed detail that lets you know that Krescendo is much better than the neighborhood Italian joint it is trying to pass for. I do not know why Ms. Falkner and Nancy Puglisi, the restaurant’s owner, camouflaged the place so thoroughly, but the result is that not enough people are talking about Krescendo." Wells is a big fan of the restaurant's consistency and thorough execution. "The quality of a restaurant’s pizza often correlates negatively with that of its pastas and salads. Ms. Falkner," he reveals, "brings the same quiet focus to all her cooking at Krescendo."

Wells Pops Over to Arlington Club

[piotr redlinski for the times] popovers at arlington clubLaurent Tourondel was working at Cello when the restaurant earned three stars from the Times in 1999. Five years later, Tourondel partnered with Jimmy Haber and the BLT empire was born. BLT Fish, Prime, Burger, and an eventual split with Haber would all unfold by 2010. At the end of last year, the Upper East Side welcomed Tourondel via Arlington Club; a collaborative effort with the nightlife gurus of Tao Group. In his review today, Wells reveals an unconventional steakhouse worthy of two stars.

“When he’s in the zone,” Wells writes of Tourondel, “as he is most of the time at Arlington Club, his cooking is as ingratiating as it is skillful; it wins your affection right away and then your respect.”

Sushi makes an appearance on the menu, but Wells hints that you might want stay away from it, “Do not, I beg you, get involved with the sushi rolls. The rice is cold and tightly packed; the fish is dull. The sushi menu is so out of place that it’s a little embarrassing, in the way of a Hawaiian shirt bought on vacation and worn to the office.”

Arlington Club strays from traditional steakhouse routine in many ways. “But,” Wells explains, “like many such things at Arlington Club, it’s memorably good. The restaurant doesn’t know how to follow the script, but its improvisations are inspired.” [NYTimes]

Uno Estrella Por El Toro Blanco

[lauren decicca for the times] lobster puerto nuevoJohn McDonald and Josh Capon are the guys behind Lure Fish Bar and B & B. El Toro Blanco, their most recent venture, is a new addition to the white-hot trend of hip Mexican restaurants (Salvation Taco is the newest), and it's on the receiving end of a colorful one-star review from Pete Wells this week.

Josh Capon built out the menu with Scott Linquist, who has worked on both coasts making contemporary Mexican cuisine. A pan of chorizo fundido was a big hit with Wells and co., leaving Wells to desribe the dish as one "in which Mexico looks Switzerland calmly in the eye and says, “I’ll see your cheese fondue and raise you some green chiles and a heap of crumbled spicy sausage.” (Switzerland folds and leaves the room.)"

"The look of El Toro Blanco," writes Wells, "is the latest sign that in New York City, Mexican cuisine is cool, of the moment and ready to be presented without quotation marks." Alex Stupak definitely helped get that palota rolling when he opened Empellon Taqueria and Empellon Cocina less than a year apart. Calexico helped get the fuego burning. Park Slopes's Fonda landed an outpost in the East Village last year. Dos Toros is settled in. Hecho in Dumbo is still a fresh favorite. There's Gran Electrica...

Thirty Acres, Two Stars

[robert stolarik for the times]For his last review of 2012, Pete Wells landed at a restaurant in Jersey City. Thirty Acres is the vision of chef Kevin Pemoulie and his wife Alex. Pemoulie has five years of chef de cuisine at Momofuku Noodle Bar on his resume and the glowing two-star review is likely to bring a few new customers to the PATH in the ensuing weeks. "A restaurant like Thirty Acres would be a find in any state," Wells writes. "It is the kind of place that can redraw regional boundaries, making the Hudson River no more of a barrier to eaters in search of inventive cooking than the East River has become in the past few years. For those who live near a PATH station, it may be easier to reach than several talked-about restaurants in Brooklyn."

Wells has a few gripes with the reservation policy (only available for groups of 5 or more), but likes just about everything else in the 32-seat restaurant, including "the servers, who are unusually friendly and free of pretense," and "the pastel portraits of Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford on corrugated cardboard."

Thirty Acres is B.Y.O.B. and the menu makes for a wonderful canvas to be painted by a slew of different wine. Smoked quail with walnut bread pudding, cranberry bbq sauce, and kale, gnocchi with mushrooms, sauerkraut, sour cream, mustard, and ricotta salata, and steamed cod with mussels, kielbasa, Old Bay, and celery make excellent partners for those old rieslings and expressive zweigelt some of us might have laying around. [NYTimes]

Thank You 2012

Last year was an exciting year for food. Mission Chinese and Pok Pok both opened East Coast outposts, two new chef's counters opened via Atera and Blanca, Pete Wells a) became the New York Times food critic and b) wrote a historically scathing review of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant, Dinosaur BBQ announced 604 Union Street in Brooklyn as its next home, Andrew Carmellini opened The Library with work on his French resto Lafayette getting well underway, Gabe Stulman's Little Wisco Empire grew by two via Perla and Chez Sardine (Montmarte, Stulman's next project, will open this year in Chelsea), April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman opened Salvation Taco, The Nomad happened, so did a culinary swap between Eleven Madison Park and Alinea, Italian cuisine invaded SoHo via Principessa, Angelo SoHo, Galli, and Isola Trattoria e Crudo Bar, Great Googa Mooga attracted over 30,000 people to Prospect Park in May, and the entire industry came together after devestation swept through the city in the winds of Hurricane Sandy.

Also in 2012, Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood got its first wine store via Gowanus Wine Merchants, and Third Avenue in the same Brooklyn neighborhood saw the opening of The Pines (our 2012 favorite) and Runner & Stone on the same stretch between Carroll and President Streets (Littleneck is on the same block), creating a culinary nucleus of sorts. Fletcher's Brooklyn Barbecue gave Third Ave a boost a few blocks south when it opened between 7th and 8th Streets last fall. Generally speaking, 2012 was a big year for the borough of Brooklyn. Josh Ozersky wrote 2,000 words to the contrary last year, but the quality of food and number of dining options in Kings County seemed to increase tenfold. Last year alone the borough welcomed Reynard, Gwynnett Street, Aska came and Frej went, Ganso, Talde, Pork Slope, Dassara, Hunter's, Red Gravy, Governor, Gran Electrica, La Vara, Lulu & Po, The Wallace, Dear Bushwick, and Bristket Town. Speedy Romeo, Krescendo, and Brooklyn Central gave pizza fenatics a handful of new options and there was the whole Grimaldi's/Juliana debacle to boot.

The 2013 train is already set in motion and looking to bring another exciting year. Ivan Orkin will open his first stateside ramen shop, the boys behind Torrisi will open two spots on Thompson Street via The Lobster Club and Carbone, Michael White will open The Butterfly, Ristorante Morini uptown and possibly something in the former Fiamma space (the building was sold by BR Guest's Steven Hanson at the end of last year and White's Altamarea Group is leasing the space from the new owners), and Andy Ricker will be opening a Brooklyn outpost of his Portland-based Whiskey Soda Lounge half a block north from Pok Pok Ny on Columbia Street in the spring. Even for the superstitious, there's luck to be had in 2013 and it may come in the form of a Battersby expansion.

For both Manhattan and Brooklyn (and the other, lesser explored boroughs by Digest NY), the lists go on and on and will get even longer as the days of 2013 start to come and go. As they do, we'll be here to keep you abreast and athigh of the latest and greatest of all things food in the greatest city there is.

Happy 2013 New York!

Go On with Your Bad Self, Mr. Bowien

The end of the year is a time when food critics weigh in on all that happened in the restaurant industry over the last twelve months. In place of a review this week, New York Times critic Pete Wells wrote "12 Restaurant Triumphs of 2012." "At the end of my first year in the restaurant critic’s chair," he writes, "the New York dining landscape still looks like a wonderland to me." The list of 12 restaurants is arranged as a countdown, described as "a cardiogram, with each spike in the chart denoting a restaurant that made my heart race this year." Among the excitement-inducing restaurants are Gwynnett St (12), Calliope (11), Blanca (10), Pok Pok Ny (7), Atera (4), and The Nomad (3).

Landing the number 1 spot is Danny Bowien's Lower East Side smash Mission Chinese Food. "For its bravado, its inventiveness, its low prices, its attempt to ease the suffering of those waiting at the door by tapping a small keg of free beer, and its promise to give some of its earnings on each entree to a food bank, Mission Chinese was the most exciting restaurant of the year."

The free beer while you wait, the donation of .75 cents from the sale of every entree to the Food Bank for NYC, and the low price point at Mission Chinese (with the exception of the cumin lamb breast [$16] and the veal breast a la orange [$24], nothing on the menu exceeds $13), are part of the formula at a restaurant that has quickly established itself as an exciting venue for those seeking a delicious, affordable, vibrant, unique take on Sichuan cuisine in a room unlike no other in the city. "No other restaurant I reviewed this year," Wells explains, "left me feeling as exhilarated each time I got up from the table."

One Glowing Star for Royal Seafood Restaurant, Jake

A few days after Hurricane Sandy, Pete Wells wrote "Why Downtown Needs Diners Now." The article pays homage to the southern end of Manhattan, where power was out for six days. "Chinatown alone is worth fighting for," he wrote, and in his favorable one-star review of Chinatown's Royal Seafood Restaurant today, he has this to say of a particular visit, "This was a week after the hurricane and a few days after the lights had come back on in downtown Manhattan. Chinatown was on my mind."

Wells highlights a dish he notices is not on any menu, but is on every table. He explains, "Chinatown veterans look around the dining room to see what others are eating." At Royal Seafood Restaurant, the answer is lobster. "It was hacked into sections and wok-fried with a sticky, time-honored Cantonese sauce of scallions and slivers of ginger."

The Times critic offers some advice for those looking to dine at RSF in the future, "The best strategy: sit on an aisle unless you speak some Cantonese. Tables are jammed together, and sitting too far from the trolleys puts you at risk of missing a favorite dumpling." "You can order from the menu all day," he continues, "but the best time to explore it is by night, when the dining room and presumably the kitchen are less frantic."