e a t e r y R O W

The U.S. Open Food Tasting Preview 2015

If you plan to be at the U.S. Open this week, you should know what you're putting in your stomach. To help you with that, the fine people at the open invited me over to Arthur Ashe Stadium,  had me listen to a short, yet interminably long Q&A with celebrity chefs, and then sat me down and stuffed me with food, sampling the fare that you and all of the other high rollers in the club box will get to eat. No Auntie Anne's for us.

Tony Mantuano churned out Avocado Toast with pistachio and pepper alongside Tomato Bread with serrano ham and manchego cheese. There was Lobster Burrata with pickled eggplant and basil, Beef Tartare with capers, and Cassarecci, a squid ink pasta with shimp and scallops courtesy of Champions Restaurant. Chef Morimoto, as per tradition, made the sushi. Aces Restaurant provided Portobella Fries with a ponzo dipping sauce, Salmon Crudo with watercress and cucumber, and Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes. Richard Sandoval made Baja Fish Tacos and Shredded Chicken Tacos along with his Maya Chopped Salad, a lettuce, tomato, and corn salad topped with grilled marinated steak. There was steak by Pat LaFrieda, brisket by Hill Country Barbecue. Food Trucks are in vogue these days, and the Sweet Chili food truck gave us a nicely spicy Honey Chili Pork while the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck showcased a Cheddar grilled cheese sandwich and a Gouda with Herb Butter and Bacon grilled cheese sandwich. Un-named heroes made Lobster Rolls and Banana Nutella Crepes.

KANG HO DONG BAEKJEONG

152-12 Northern Boulevard

Flushing, NY 11354

(718) 886-8645

Mr. Dogz and I were debating dinner. His vegetarian girlfriend was out of town, so he was finally allowed to go to a restaurant without having to pour over the menu in advance to see if there was anything she could eat except a side salad (hold the Bacos). We could go get seafood. What about that Peruvian roast chicken place? Steakhouse! Barbecue! "I have an idea," I said slowly. "How about we go to Flushing and get Korean barbecue. It'll be steakhouse and barbecue and be fuckin' awesome."  "Let's do it." Korean barbecue, for the uninitiated (which is really who I'm writing this for), is not American barbecue. It's not even close. There's no hickory smoked, brown sugar glaze or beef ribs cooked in a smoker for fourteen hours or the ridiculous debate between dry rub or sauce (both taste great, so grow the fuck up). Korean barbecue is like a cross between a more refined meal, a party, and a family style dinner a la Mama Lucia's Trattoria.

Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong, which I will call KHDB because I'll become arthritic if I continue to type that long name at every paragraph, is the kind of place you get to early. Like before 7pm. Dogz and I arrived at 6ish, got a table and my the time we left the sidewalk was crowded with people waiting to get dinner. "We're the only white people here," Dogz said, surveying the large, open dining space. "That's a good sign." And so it was. KHDB is awash in communal tables. Families and groups of friends sat eating vast quantities of food to their hearts content. KHDJ is spotless and gleaming and almost, but not quite, trendy. Stainless steel, smooth concrete, high ceilings, bright lights. It's like eating in the love child of a kitchen and a Tesla factory.

Every table at KHDB, as with most Korean barbecue spots, gets its own grill. The menu consisted of a handful of options, but mostly it boiled down to pork or beef. We ordered the Beef Combo which would be perfect for two or three people. We left stuffed to the gills. Of course, first things first. The Kimchi Soup. Gotta have some kimchi soup. A large bowl arrived and our waitress divided it into two bowls (actually, our waitress did everything. I kinda wanted to grill my own meat, but she did that for us, too) and we dove in. The soup is rich and spicy with the classic bit our vinegary sour that comes from the kimchi. Dogz and I wolfed it down, though Dogz did make sure to say that he thinks that his own is a bit better.

As I said, we ordered the Beef Combo. This came with a full table's worth of fixings and three waves of beef: brisket, prime rib, and rib eye. Our waitress took a few seconds to explain how everything gets mingled together to create the customized flavor you want, from a bowl to a lettuce wrap, mild to spicy, sour to sweet. At the base of the grill you will see a yellow liquid. That's egg. Toss some egg into your wrap, too. Egg, radish, potato, corn, some sauce, a little bit of kimchi, onion... go nuts. You might get a weird look from the waitress, but it's your mouth.

I'm not going to discuss which of the cuts of meat was best because to do so is pointless. They were all good. I'd like to return and try the pork options, though part of me feels that the beef would triumph. Dogz and I valiantly made our way through the three rounds of our entree and left so full that it was hard to breathe. Meanwhile, next to us was this table of model-thin girls who I swear ordered twice as much as we did, seemingly to no effect.

Korean barbecue is as much a show, an experience, as it is a meal. People weren't there to have an intimate conversation over a glass of wine and a quiche. They were there to have fun with friends and be loud and drink from huge bottles of beer. It's not a cheap experience, at around $50 per person with tax and tip, but then again few experiences are.

KHDB has a midtown Manhattan location for those too lazy to travel.

DOVER

412 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

(347) 987-3545

There are only so many restaurants named in the Top 25 Best New Restaurants In America 2014 list by GQ Magazine. Specifically, there are 25. Dover, in Carrol Gardens, is one of them and Dandelion and I showed up one sunny evening to try their "spontaneous tasting menu". As it turns out, a friend of mine knows the owner. As it turns out, she forgot to tell him that we were coming. So, as it turns out, we got treated like normal paying customers. And, as it turns out, you don't get to read yet another article written by some pretty face who gets white glove treatment.

A lot of people don't know this, but Carrol Gardens is NOT named after Carrol O'Connor, the famous television actor from All in the Family and In the Heat of the Night. BUT, like me, he grew up in Manhattan. Like me, he found himself living in Forest Hills, Queens. Like me, he, at some point, had dinner in Brooklyn. Creepy, eh?

The interior of Dover is simple. Brooklyn rustic might be a good description. It's small, but not too small. Intimate but not cramped. The design, with simple tables, chairs stolen from a French bistro, and zero artwork won't win any awards, but you barely notice. There's a warmth that is immediately noticeable. In the winter, I imagine a clam chowder here would be quite enjoyable. Dover has an outdoor space that could be called ginormous. There's probably a developer in Midtown on the phone with a hitman right now, scheming a way to ice the building's owner so they can build a condo on it.

We aren't animals, we ordered cocktails. They arrived. They were good. We drank them. An amuse bouche arrived. A Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho, which was creamy, spicy, and smooth. Very refreshing but with less than a shot's worth in that little porcelain bowl there, it barely coated the tongue. Far more substantial was the house-made strawberry sourdough bread, which was amazing. Frustratingly, all of my notes got scrambled so I don't remember the order in which our tasting menu came. So, in no particular order, our tasting menu.

One of the best dishes of the night was the Fatty Tuna served as a tartar with scallion and black sesame on a thin rice wafer. I could have eaten a full sized entree portion of this. The tuna literally dissolved once it hit the inside of your mouth. Chew slow. Relish this. In three bites it will be gone. Another great dish, and also a tartar, was the Steak Tartar with crispy quinoa and house-made potato chips. The house potato chips were a recurring ingredient this evening and they were fine, but they kinda got soggy over the moist beef. Still, I'm not complaining. The beef was sweet and while I would probably have never added quinoa to the dish (is it me, or are other people also feeling quinoa fatigue?), I really did like it. It added a little fresh texturing that otherwise wouldn't have existed.

One extremely pleasant dish was the Summer Squash salad with raisins, almonds, and a colatura anchovy dressing. Sweet and herbal. Some might scrunch their nose at having something with anchovy, but you couldn't tell. This was a delightful summer dish that I regret having only a small bowl of. Dover tossed on some more homemade potato chips. I guess it's use 'em or lose 'em. Soon after came the Local Big Eye Tuna, served with wrap of prosciutto was so tender that it could be cut with a spoon but there was too much salt. Good, but too salty.  Finally, before dessert (I think), the Duck Confit with borlotti beans and olives was very good with a big but. But like the tuna, it was overly salty. I love duck confit more than many because I've failed so often trying to make it at home. So I appreciate when it's done well. This one was done well, but it was like a shaker spilled open into either the sauce or the brine. Shucks. Salt. Bummer.

Dover gave each of us our own dessert, so we got to try two. Dandelion received the Panna Cotta with a teeny little dollop of strawberry sorbet. Good, but bland. The fruit and the sorbet seemed to be there for flavor. The panna cotta itself would have gone unnoticed if it wasn't shaped into a pyramid. I got the White & Black Forest Cheesecake with a cherry soda effervescent sorbet. The sorbet was an experimental thing that the chef was doing by blasting sorbet with CO2 and carbonizing it in a seltzer siphon. It was interesting. I've never had fizzy sorbet. I don't know that I'd get it again, but, uh, interesting. In the meantime the cheesecake won't be beating out Junior's or Veniero's any time soon, but it wasn't bad.

THE CAMPBELL APARTMENT

15 Vanderbilt Aveune

New York, NY

(212) 953-0409

Cocktail lounges are a quintessential part of urban nightlife. Without them, we'd be subject to an existence of Miller High Life neon signs, solo cup bro bars, and the ESPN Zone. Hey, there's a time and a place for drinking a mudslide at a TGI Fridays while listening to Mac McAnally, but that place is the suburbs, and that time is when you have no choice. I'm not a snob. Anyone who's seen my shoes knows that. But there's a not-so-subtle joy to being able to sit with friends or a date and not have the distraction of a ball game interrupt your conversation.

Hence it was with great pleasure that the other day I was joined by Emma and Sparkles at The Campbell Apartment, the one time private office of John Campbell, of the New York Central Railroad. He clearly had a lot of money. These days, it's a cocktail lounge. Jazz standards sung by Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin play overhead. The waiters wear white tuxedos jackets and black bow ties. Dark wood is everywhere. You drink on sofas and velvet cushioned chairs. The cocktail menu is filled with classics and variations of classics like a pisco sour, a Moscow mule variant, and a gussied-up margarita. There's also a selection of wine, whiskey, beer, and finger foods.

I don't like to review cocktail bars and talk much about the drinks unless they're either awful or amazing or in some way extremely unique. Mostly, this is because you can only drink so much, and the menu is only a suggestion. Unlike walking into a Greek restaurant and asking for Mexican food, they'll make you anything you ask for from off menu. These places are more about the ambiance, the experience, and the company. Nine times out of ten, that's all that really matters.

So, without going into too too much detail, here's what we ordered: My first drink was the Highlander, scotch, sweet vermouth, and orange bitters. A Rob Roy, with a swap on the bitters. Sparkles, seeking something sweet without entering appletini territory, went for the classic Aviation, gin, creme de violet, maraschino liqueur, and lemon juice. Meanwhile, Emma chose the more unique, very sweet Hibiscus Blossom, hibiscus tea infused gin, pineapple juice, and honey syrup. Everyone liked their choice a lot, though Emma was not much of a fan my drink. "I'm learning that I don't like cocktaily cocktails." she explained as picked the floating, edible hibiscus flower out of her drink and handed it to Sparkles.

When one pays the kind of prices that The Campbell Apartment demands, there is a certain level of class that one must demand and it must soak a little bit deeper than pure showmanship. Up until this plate arrived, everything was impressive, slow service (which it very much was) notwithstanding. When the cheese plate came, none of the wait staff explained which cheeses were which or which meats were which. This is a first. I literally cannot remember the last time I've not had the waiter say "here's an aged brie, and here's an organic cheddar, here's a lovely prosciutto". So yes, it was delicious, and we all but licked the plate clean, but it was sloppy (and no, it wasn't on the menu). The mustard in the middle of the plate was a waste. Are people making sandwiches? I felt like it was placed there to give the plate a center. "They should have a bowl of almonds instead" suggested Sparkles, though I'd have voted for jam. Finally, and this is really the biggie, the bread wasn't a freshly baked sliced loaf from the Zaro's a hundred feet away, but instead the bread was so obviously store bought Carr's Water Crackers and mini toasts that it was laughable. It's akin to going to Les Halles and having them serve butter in the foil like at a diner.

In the end, I had a great time. Yes, service was slow. Yes, the crackers that they probably got from Stop & Shop with a coupon from the Sunday paper were a bit of a let down. But it was fun. The drinks were good. There was no wait. The ambiance literally can't be topped. Access to transportation is all right there. I'd go back for sure.