Paul Smalera

A very brief review of a man and his sausage. Verdict: It’s pretty good!

New York Press - PAUL SMALERA - Cheap Eats

Well, I don’t know what’s happening to the East Village. Since I moved across the island, comes word that Kurowycky Meat Products has closed its doors after 50 years of fatty service. This was the Polish deli of my childhood dreams, complete with slabs of greasy bacon back (boczek pronounced bo-check) sitting right out on the counter, totally safe to eat because they had been cured to within an inch of their lives. The kielbasa, sadly, had to be put in refrigeration several years ago thanks to overzealous DOHers. Salty, fatty meat products are the staples of Polish winter cuisine. I didn’t shop here often enough. It will be sorely missed.

As if this blow wasn’t enough, Teresa’s Polish restaurant, also on First Ave., like, I think the same BLOCK of First Ave, has closed too, according to Gothamist. This was just a simple diner, with cheap and quite good food. No elegies (except this one) will likely be written about it, but I’ve always liked “Fanfare for the Common Man” and this restaurant shared that same space in my heart: just a simple place to get simple food, prepared from scratch and with some heart and love. Too many of these places in New York seem to be going out of business. I wonder what will take their places.

In other news, I reviewed an old favorite for The New York Press this week, the Italian restaurant named Max. And then Eater promptly published a rumor that it was going out business too, though this is still just a rumor for now. What is going on?

For the last six months, after only two successful trips to the Daisy May’s cart that roams Midtown West roughly between 44th and 50th Streets, I’ve been dying for a pulled pork sandwich or some beef-tip chili, but DM pulled their carts off the street for the cold New York winter. I can understand that. Working a cart in the dead of cold must HURT, even if the cart operator has unlimited access to that chili.

But Daisy May’s, it’s MAY already. Time to either pull down this inane message about the carts not being back until spring or FESS UP, and tell us why you’re keeping us Midtown office drones pulled away from our pork. Don’t make me wait for Daisy Damned July to not have to venture to 11th Avenue for some pig. Or at least drop these guys a line so we all know what’s going on. Deal?

Another issue of New York Press brings with it another restaurant review from yours truly. Harlem is still mostly undiscovered territory to me, dining wise. I’ve eaten at perhaps a half a dozen restaurants above 96th street. One of the ones I enjoyed most (though you can hardly call it a restaurant) is Charles’ Southern Kitchen on 125th. So good it inspired me to reach back to my ’80s childhood for a headline: Charles’ in Charge.

As you’ll see in my latest New York Press review, I was quite smitten with the soy-fueled goodies at Kyotofu. Have a read, and do yourself a favor– check it out!

PS-Yes, Alone in Kyotofu is a play on the Air song from Lost in Translation. I highly suggest you check that out too!

Friends, there is good pizza, and there is good pizza. Having grown up in New Jersey, I was used to the idea that if a pizza place managed to stay open for more than a year, the pizza they were serving was probably going to be good. Small town economics dictate that crappy restaurants close fast. Yet here in Manhattan, bad pizzerias are everywhere, and they stay open for years! There are simply too many people on this island who don’t know or don’t care what a good slice should taste like. May I suggest, for those of us who do care what a pizza is supposed to be, that you read my New York Press review of Cronkite Pizzeria and Wine Bar, a new joint on the Lower East Side? Although they are definitely a gourmet sort of place, they are doing all right by me. Mangia!

Photo: Wendy Ploger

Stranger than fiction, there's a restaurant called E.U. in my East Village neighborhood that is just unable to stay open. And I swear it's my fault, if you believe in causality. Maybe my girlfriend's. You see, every time we have gone to eat at EU (three times now), they close within 48 hours, only to re-open, still the same visually, but palpably weakened in terms of karma. My study:

Closure the first: After a long, contentious, crazy battle to open, E.U., the European Union, finally started serving in April 2006. Mind you, when we moved to the E.Vil, we had our eyes on EU as a perfect addition to the neighborhood. Yes, my girlfriend and I are hipster gentrifiers. I'm sorry, we'd rather be crunchy, long-time residents, but that wasn't in the cards. We like the East Village for what it once was, not what it is now, but our chances at scoring some $500 a month 3 bedroom suite pretty much went out the window when we weren't born in time to take advantage of living in the drug-ridden, crime infested neighborhood this once was (which may actually be preferrable to the bridge and tunnel infested, street fight, striped shirt douchebaggery carnage inflicted on my neighborhood every weekend night.) 

So, EU opened, after battling like crazy for a liquor license against a community board that stupidly stood idle while a hundred other dumb bars got or renewed their licenses. Yes, the green lantern bar with the awful name (No Malice Palace) on 3rd, which regularly creates a sidewalk queue while the inside of the bar is actually empty, just to drum up some buzz, has a license, but a restaurant serving braised beef cheeks and razor clams does not. Go figure. They opened for three days to give BYO a go, but after they got told they could not operate as BYO, they got closed. But, that one night we got to eat dinner there, the beef cheeks were OUT OF SIGHT.

Closure the second: Brunch. Good burger. Good eggs. Still no booze. They had re-opened in advance of the license, which I gather Giraldi et al. thought was forthcoming. In fact, it was not. Again, le shutter for EU. If the actual EU closed this often, Germany would still be on Weimar currency.

Closure the third: Brunch, again. Good burger (fried egg on top, Aussie style, but I guess Aussies were once Brits, right?) Then comes Eater to tell of the Sunday night meltdown that apparently happened mere hours after the hostess told us we had to sit at a two top right next to another couple because the next table over "had to stay a four." At 1pm. In a restaurant that had six other occupied tables. Out of, like, fifty. Neighborhood brunch place? Uh, if my neighborhood brunch place is empty, you'd think they'd have the courtesy to space out the diners OR just say "anywhere you'd like," when we go to sit down. Perhaps this is why EU advertised for a whole new front house on craigslist.

Finally, according to Eater, a new chef, Akhtar Nawab, the FOURTH attached to this restuarant in less than two years, (Burrell, Ochs, Elliot) has brought some solid experience to the resty, along with hopefully enough of a clue to bully the management for a decent front of the house. And they've re-opened in just four days, the shortest time ever in all the jinxes we've apparently put upon EU by attempting to dine there. I looked forward to seeing what Ned Elliott could do, but now Giraldi and Hennings say he was just a warm body while they went after their man Nawab.

Please, EU, don't give up the good fight just yet. We really want to see what you've got to offer. And may I put a word in for the braised beef cheeks, if Akhtar deigns to serve them? 

Somehow this blog has neglected to comment much upon what Homer Simpson called "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems: alcohol!" I think that's because I originally started it as a repository for clips and failed pitches, but as I've gotten a better feel for what kind of blogging I'd like to do, I've strayed a bit from that formula. So, it's time to talk about drinking.

When I was a sophomore in high school, a teacher advised me that if I ever had writer's block, the best way to unblock myself would be to take a swig of Wild Turkey, or better yet, just keep some by the desk. When I was legal, he added, five minutes later. Great guy.

Now that I'm well into the age of majority, I have to say that one Manhattan is a nice way to get the creative juices flowing. Two Manhattans, however, and while I'm probably charming at a bar, I'm useless on the page. This is all to say that I just discovered NPR : Great American Writers and Their Cocktails, and it's a damn fine compedium of what our great men and women of letters preferred to get soused on. 

Just remember, as F. Scott said, "first you take a drink, then the drink takes you." You've been warned. Now drink up!

Since I'm going to be doing some more food writing in the coming months, I thought I might start an occasional feature on the blog of writing about good meals I've had between reviews. I was lucky enough to be dining with my photographer/girlfriend Wendy Ploger when I ate brunch at Flea Market, which on the surface seems like any number of tiny French bistros that line the streets of Manhattan. 

I don't think anyone goes to a bistro expecting to be introduced to the future of food, a la foams, cooking in plastic bags, Parcojets, or any of the other exotic kitchen devices and techniques that have gained currency in recent years. No, what you expect is to enjoy the original culinary revolution: the techniques, precision and combination of ingredients that brought the French to global preeminence and made the name The French Laundry a perfect one for Thomas Keller's more modern culinary revolution.

What you're seeing in the picture above is what the Flea Market does well. The place has a cute feel, good music, and a slammin' brunch Croque Madame. The Croque ("munch") is nothing more than a good piece of French bread with a slice of ham, some Gruyere cheese and bechamel sauce, heated and grilled so that it gets all gooey and perfectly melted. It's then topped, as shown, with a poached egg. Do you know how easy it is to make a bad one of these?

I've had some real stinkers. Hard (not runny) yolk. Bad cheese. Unmelted cheese. Cold cheese. Icky ham. Stale bread. Old sauce. If it's not all perfect, it's not worth eating. So to make it as good as Flea Market does, and to pair it with a lightly dressed mesclun, as above, that makes use of the sauce and egg yolk as a de facto second dressing, shows that not only can someone in the kitchen make a Croque Madame, they understand the thinking behind it and why the ingredients are prepared the way they are. It shows competency and appreciation for the old ways. It complements the atmosphere of Flea Market, where you feel you might actually be in a bistro somewhere on the Left Bank. It's food that doesn't know how artful it is, even as it outclasses so many other pedestrian meals.

Lichee foams and thyme sorbets are great, but for my money, nothing beats a perfectly poached egg. Flea market, on Avenue A right across from Tompkins Square Park, is a place I'd recommend to those who agree. The service is fine, the wine list works, and the price is right. It probably won't change your world, but then again, if you've never experienced a great duck confit, it just might.

Have you ever really, really wanted to like someone, but just couldn't? Like, no matter what they said or did, or how cool they were, this person just rubbed you the wrong way? And you're kinda pissed off at yourself because you don't think you're a very judgmental (at least not in a  harsh, calculating sense) kind of person, but, regardless, there it is. You don't like 'em.

Well, when I reviewed Kampuchea Noodle Bar for the New York Press, that's sort of how I felt. As much as I wanted to settle in at a table and slurp up all the goodies and flavors I had come to associate with Southeast Asian cooking, in the end, I just left the place feeling a little flat. I hope to see this place come around, but for now, if you want to know what I'm talking about, have a click on my review above. Thanks, and enjoy.

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