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November 28, 2004
Asia Palace, Syosset: uneven pan-asian medley
The worst dish we sampled was sizzling beef: chewy slices of meat in a
black pepper sauce with onions and red and green peppers. That same
tough meat, unfortunately, made a surprise appearance in the sambal
delight, which was advertised with shrimp, scallops and chicken. Beef
was substituted for scallops with no explanation. Another example of a
less-than-accurate menu description was the Asian grilled chicken. It
was billed as grilled meat over sautéed mixed greens, with lemon grass
and a red curry sauce. What we received had no greens and was rife
with peppers, mushrooms, pea pods and onions.
November 28, 2004
LONG ISLAND RESTAURANT REVIEW
In Syosset, Asian Five-in-One
The New York Times
By JOANNE STARKEY
THE Asians keep coming at 4 Berry Hill Road in Syosset. There has been
a string of these restaurants: some Chinese, the last two, Pulau and
Penang, Malaysian. Now Asia Palace combines the fare of those two
countries and adds dishes from Thailand, India and Japan.
The sign out front and the menu boldly promise "trendy fusion
cuisine." The offerings here are neither trendy nor fusion. Expect old
favorites like shrimp tempura, won-ton soup, pad Thai and General
Tso's chicken with no mixing of cuisines in a single dish. Pan-Asian
would be a more accurate label: dishes from a variety of countries on
one menu.
The restaurant has a spare look. Its tan sponge-painted walls and
wood-beamed ceiling would be right at home in an American Southwestern
restaurant. A few hanging decorations defined by red tassels bring us
back to Asia. White tablecloths, hunter-green napkins, votive candles,
natural wood slat blinds and carpeting are part of the picture.
The staff means well but is unpolished. Diners are told to hang on to
their forks for the next course; many dishes arrive without serving
spoons and tables are never crumbed.
One night the best appetizer we tried was the edamame (steamed
soybeans in the shell), no great accomplishment. Its preparation takes
little effort or talent. Malaysian-style spareribs, which took some
work, were tough and terrible. We also turned thumbs down on the
rubbery fried dumplings and roti canai, a crisp Indian bread paired
with a spicy sauce dotted with potatoes and chicken, which had only
firepower going for it. Its flavors were muddy.
Two other also-rans were the calamari salad, a decent toss of greens
and mango and jicama strips ringed with tasteless fried calamari, and
hot and vinegar-spiked Thai soup brought down by its squid, which were
chewy while the shrimp and scallops in the brew passed muster.
On a return visit we had better luck. The Thai spring roll was dainty,
crisp and filled with appealing shredded vegetables. It was escorted
by what looked like duck sauce but delivered a spicy kick. That same
sauce arrived with the crisp, greaseless, tender chicken wings.
Two noodle dishes scored: the tasty house lo mein with chicken, and
the Singapore noodles, which starred thin rice noodles in a light
curry sauce. The noodles are often dry. These were moist and
delicious.
Entrees had as many ups and downs as a washboard. Two fish were among
the ups: garlic-roasted salmon in a sweet barbecue-type sauce with a
refreshing salad on the plate, and a crispy red snapper fillet,
lightly cooked, with a topper of julienned cucumber.
The worst dish we sampled was sizzling beef: chewy slices of meat in a
black pepper sauce with onions and red and green peppers. That same
tough meat, unfortunately, made a surprise appearance in the sambal
delight, which was advertised with shrimp, scallops and chicken. Beef
was substituted for scallops with no explanation. Another example of a
less-than-accurate menu description was the Asian grilled chicken. It
was billed as grilled meat over sautéed mixed greens, with lemon grass
and a red curry sauce. What we received had no greens and was rife
with peppers, mushrooms, pea pods and onions.
We did enjoy buah mango: sautéed and shredded mango, green and red
peppers and shrimp in a more-sweet-than-spicy mango sauce piled into
the fruit's shells. Also worthy was basil chicken, a mild and pleasing
dish with tender meat, green peppers, pea pods and basil.
Dessert at Asian restaurants is usually an afterthought. It is wise to
skip the soggy-coated fried ice cream here. Nevertheless, there were
three offerings that made the grade: fried bananas, peanut pancakes
and what our waiter called "coconut Jell-O." The last was a light,
tasty pick that would appeal more if it were called coconut flan. The
fried bananas, two-inch chunks of fruit wrapped in pastry to form
crispy bundles, needed ice cream to set them off. The peanut pancakes,
two long strips folded to enclose a sticky ground peanut filling, had
nostalgia buffs reminiscing about peanut sweets from childhood days.
Asian Palace's shrimp tempura epitomizes the restaurant. The shrimp
were firm and crisp, but their coating was not an authentic, gossamer
tempura. Japanese restaurants do it better. Asia Palace's five
cuisines at one restaurant illustrate that more can be less.
Asia Palace
4 Berry Hill Road, Syosset
(516) 682-0682
Satisfactory
ATMOSPHERE Stark, spare Asian.
SERVICE Well-meaning but unpolished.
SOUND LEVEL Average.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Thai spring roll, edamame, chicken wings, Singapore
noodles, house lo mein, crispy red snapper, garlic-roasted salmon,
basil chicken, buah mango, peanut pancakes, fried bananas, "coconut
Jell-O."
WINE LIST Around 30 still wines including plum wine and sake ($22 to
$70). Half the offerings are under $30.
PRICE RANGE Lunch, entrees include soup and choice of Thai spring roll
or spareribs, $6 to $7. Dinner, appetizers $1.75 to $8.45; noodles and
rice $9 to $11; entrees $9 to $20; desserts $6.50 to $7.50.
CREDIT CARDS All of them.
HOURS 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, till 11:30
p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.
RESERVATIONS Usually not needed.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY Accessible. A few steps to some dining areas.
REVIEWED BY THE TIMES Nov. 28, 2004.
RATINGS Extraordinary, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Satisfactory, Fair,
Poor. Ratings reflect the reviewer's reaction to food, ambience and
service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices
are subject to change.
[NYT]
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November 26, 2004
newyorkology
Newyorkology, like Time Out! but without the classifieds.
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November 23, 2004
Long Island City
For residents of Manhattan and Brooklyn who can't afford to buy in
those boroughs anymore, Queens offers a number of neighborhoods that
have the restaurants and night life that might appeal to them -
Astoria, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills and increasingly, Long Island
City.
"The up-and-coming neighborhood clearly is Long Island City," said
Andrew Heiberger, the founder and president of Citi Habitats. "There
is definitely a major housing shortage in the New York City area, and
anything with close proximity to Manhattan via train or car is going
to be very desirable. Long Island City is literally a stone's throw
away."
For years, people have been talking about Long Island City as the next
big thing, but its time may have finally come. According to Jon
McMillan, the director of planning for the Rockrose Development
Corporation, recent rezoning laws that allow for development of the
Long Island City waterfront - as well as the conversion of Hunters
Point warehouses and factories into residential space - have
intensified interest in those areas.
Next spring, Rockrose will break ground on seven buildings that will
eventually house 3,200 units. "The city has finally gone in there and
fixed the zoning in a very, very careful, block-by-block way, so that
this neighborhood can start to blossom as a residential neighborhood,
and buildings can be converted," Mr. McMillan explained. "Residential
housing will gradually replace taxi repair shops."
The changes in neighborhoods outside of Manhattan, he said, have
happened in a geographically logical way, and it makes sense for Long
Island City to be next.
"There is an evolution of the gentrification of the waterfront areas,
moving up from Brooklyn," Mr. McMillan continued. "If you imagine that
things started in Brooklyn Heights, moved to Dumbo and then up the
river to Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the next stop heading north is
Long Island City, which is one stop away from Grand Central on the No.
7 train."
Long Island City has also benefited from the fact that the Museum of
Modern Art temporarily relocated there while its Manhattan
headquarters were being renovated. "That brought a lot of people out
to Queens," said Ms. Liebman of the Corcoran Group. "It drew a lot of
attention to the area, and a lot of that buzz has stayed."
In addition, thanks to the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long
Island City, and the nearby Socrates Sculpture Park, "there is sort of
constellation, almost a critical mass, of visual art in Long Island
City," Mr. McMillan said.
"You get the artists and sculptors hanging around, opening up studios
and living in that area," he said. "That is exactly the kind of thing
you want for the development and creation of a new neighborhood."
Furthermore, Mr. McMillan said, Long Island City "offers spectacular
views of Midtown Manhattan - the United Nations, the Chrysler
Building."
"When you are in Long Island City, you can almost feel as if you can
reach out and touch the buildings," he said. "You have this
psychological connection to Manhattan, and that is important."
Ms. Liebman predicted that "two years from now people are going to
say, 'Wow, I wish I had bought in Long Island City.' "
"And I don't know that they are going to call it Queens any more,''
she added. "I think they will probably end up breaking up the
neighborhoods. They will say 'Oh, I'm in Astoria,' or 'I'm in Jackson
Heights,' or 'I'm in Long Island City.' Just like people started to
talk about Brooklyn. The idea of 'Hey, I went to Dumbo' or 'Hey, I
went to Williamsburg.' And each of those Queens neighborhoods will
develop their own personality and persona, much like what has happened
in Brooklyn. There is no doubt about it, Queens has become hip."
Finally.
The New York Times
November 14, 2004
'Outer Borough' Finally Attracts The 'In' Crowd
By GAY JERVEY
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November 22, 2004
Prudential Elliman's open houses.
Prudential Elliman's open houses and Long Island real estate listings.
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November 15, 2004
What does Hillary do for Long Island ?
What does Hillary Clinton do for Long Island ?
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November 14, 2004
Newsday's latest stories on LIRR
Newsday's latest stories on LIRR.
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November 13, 2004
Ramen Houses
JAPAN IN A BOWL
NEW YORKERS have several choices for sampling Japanese noodles:
CHIKUBU, 12 East 44th Street,
(212) 818-0715.
Ramen on Fridays and Saturdays.
HONMURA AN, 170 Mercer Street (Houston Street),
(212) 334-5253.
MINCA, 536 East Fifth Street;
(212) 505-8001.
MOMOFUKU, 163 First Avenue (10th Street);
(212) 475-7899.
NOOCH, 143 Eighth Avenue (17th Street);
(212) 691-8600.
ONIGASHIMA, 43-45 West 55th Street;
(212) 541-7145.
RAI RAI KEN, 214 East 10th Street;
(212) 477-7030.
SAPPORO, 152 West 49th Street;
(212) 869-8972.
SOBA-YA, 229 East Ninth Street;
(212) 533-6966.
SOBA NIPPON, 19 West 52nd Street;
(212) 489-2525.
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Cold Soba and Udon Magic
Cold Soba and Udon Magic
By JULIA MOSKIN
SOBA noodles, made from buckwheat flour, are very popular in
Japan, but they are treated more reverently than ramen.
Traditionally the Japanese take hikkoshi soba (moving soba)
to new neighbors and eat toshikoshi soba (year-crossing soba)
on New Year's Eve in hopes of a long and unbroken life (that
is, a life like a noodle). In New York fresh soba is made
daily at Honmura An, Soba-Ya, Soba Nippon and now at Onigashima,
sometimes right in the dining room. Purists eat their soba cold,
with nothing at all or perhaps a cup of chilled dashi (a
broth of dried fish and kelp) for dipping, to savor the
nuttiness of the wheat. But fresh soba also tastes great
— and is also served in Japan in the winter — in a bowl of
hot dashi, sprinkled with scallions and sliced roast duck.
Both soba and udon noodles are often served topped with tempura
(fried vegetables or fish), but some New York restaurants are
serving tempura separately. "Our American customers want the
tempura to stay crispy," said Satoru Chida, the chef at
Onigashima. "But Japanese like it both ways, paripari"
— crisp — "and yawara kai," or soft and gooey.
The most recent Japanese noodle fad is for a kind of udon,
a thick, springy noodle made from fine white flour. Sanuki
udon is everyday fare in the southwestern region of Kagawa.
It has a noticeable chewiness, achieved by walking or dancing
on the dough to knead it. But it was little known until 2002,
when a Kagawa university professor published a surprisingly
entertaining book, "Osorubeki Sanuki Udon" ("The Magic of
Sanuki Udon"), with about 800 tasting reports on local noodle
shops. The book became a national best seller, and
Kagawa has developed a Sanuki udon cottage industry of tours,
classes and tastings, like the Peter Mayle-theme tours of
Provence.
The first Sanuki udon restaurant in Tokyo, a cafeteria-style
place called Hanamaru, opened in 2002. There are now more
than 100 branches in Japan. Sanuki udon is available, imported
frozen, at Soba Nippon, and Naduman Hakubai will soon be
serving it fresh. A group of New York-based Kagawa natives
have formed the Sanuki Project, dedicated to bringing fresh
sanuki udon to our shores.
"We ate sanuki udon every day in school," said Miki Osaka,
a leader of the group. "Ramen is O.K., but we need sanuki."
[NYT, 2004 November 10]
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November 10, 2004
Ramen, explained
Ramen belongs to the family of Chinese mein, meaning noodles.
(The word "ramen" is a Japanese pronunciation of the
Cantonese term "la mein.")
November 10, 2004
Here Comes Ramen, the Slurp Heard Round the World
By JULIA MOSKIN
AS a Tokyo-based jazz musician, Shigeto Kamada used to book gigs for
his band in remote towns in Hokkaido (the Japanese equivalent of, say,
northern Wisconsin), just so he could taste the ramen there. "I would
hear of a place with a special broth or a new topping, and I just had
to taste it," Mr. Kamada said.
"Ramen?" you ask. "That plastic-wrapped block of dry noodles and
powdered soup?" But freshly made ramen is another thing altogether. In
Japanese ramenyas (ramen shops) a bowl of ramen holds a house-made
soup, springy noodles, the chef's own tare (a mix of soy sauce, sugar
and rice wine to flavor the soup) and exactly six traditional
toppings. The wait at top Tokyo ramenyas can be up to three hours.
Remember the 1985 movie "Tampopo," in which a ramen chef undergoes
training as rigorous as a boxer's to create the perfect bowl of noodle
soup? That's ramen mania.
And with new and authentic ramenyas opening in Manhattan, New Yorkers
are getting a taste.
Places like Momofuku, Minca Ramen Factory and Rai Rai Ken in the East
Village offer Berkshire pork, free-range chicken and proprietary
blends of organic miso paste. In Chelsea the just-opened Nooch, part
of a Singapore-based chain, is raising the fabulousness quotient of
ramen with Karim Rashid-designed donburis (bowls) and a D. J. booth.
Chikubu in Midtown makes its succulent ramen only on Friday and
Saturday, but it draws a loyal crowd of regulars. Sapporo, though it
has all the charm of an office cubicle, serves the best goma (sesame)
ramen in the city.
The difference between these richly satisfying bowls and packaged
ramen, flavored mostly with MSG, is vast. "New York might never have
really great ramen, just like Tokyo might never have really great
pizza," said David Chang, the Korean-American chef, trained at Craft
and now the owner of Momofuku. "But I'm having a lot of fun trying."
In Japan ramen is more than a cheap cup of noodles. It is the national
dish, cheaper than sushi, available everywhere and perpetually
fashionable. With its rich, meaty broth, ramen is very different from
other Japanese soups; in fact the dish is a relatively recent import
from China. But since ramen became popular in Japan in the 1950's, it
has been a national institution: quick, inexpensive street food, as
closely associated with young people and budget meals as it is here.
One Japanese name for instant ramen is gakusei ryori, or student
cuisine. Ramen stalls cluster around train stations, and vending
machines provide customized bowls.
"It's inescapable" said Mark Schilling, an Ohio native who has since
1975 lived in Japan, where he is a film critic. Especially in the
winter Japanese diners line up to indulge in the much-loved ramen
ritual, wreathed in steam, salt and slurping.
It is fiercely beloved and bitterly missed by expats like Mr. Kamada,
the musician, who owns Minca Ramen Factory in the East Village.
"I only started making ramen here because I needed some to eat," he
said. "I can't live without it."
He is hardly alone. "There is an insatiable appetite for ramen and
ramen culture in Japan," Mr. Schilling said.
Like American barbecue joints, ramen shops close when they run out of
their key ingredient: soup, which is always carefully made on the
premises, like a French stock. This only adds to the mystique.
In Japan ramen chefs can become famous by playing variations on the
ramen formula, like browning the scallions that garnish the soup. Such
innovations are covered in magazines like 1 Week Tokyo, which has a
column devoted to ramen, and on television. Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi is often photographed at ramenyas, sitting at the counter
along with the regular customers, just as our political candidates
conspicuously patronize country diners. Last year an online brokerage
firm, Traders Securities, inaugurated an investment fund with returns
pegged to the earnings of 200 ramenyas around Japan.
The ramen museum and theme park in Yokohama, which serves all eight
major regional styles of ramen, receives more than 120,000 visitors
each year. This is not to be confused with the instant ramen museum in
Ikeda, a separate tribute to the founder of Nissin Foods, Momofuku
Ando, who had the bright idea of deep-frying ramen noodles to preserve
them. Nissin produced its first packet of instant ramen in 1958. In
2003 each Japanese citizen ate an average of 45 packets of instant
ramen, or almost six billion packets. (Americans ate nine packets a
person, or about 2.6 billion.)
In Japan there are more ramenyas than any other kind of restaurant,
over 200,000 at last government count, in 2002. Each one holds only
about eight customers (hence the long waits). As at a sushi bar, part
of the ramen experience is sitting at the counter, watching the cooks
and directing them to add a little more of this and a little less of
that. The Japanese do not cook this complicated dish at home, but
leave it to the ramenyas. The classic ramenya meal starts with a plate
of gyoza (crisp fried pork dumplings, also of Chinese origin) and a
beer, followed by a big bowl of soup and noodles, eaten with as much
slurping as possible.
The manager and chef of Rai Rai Ken, Hirokazu Yoda, has been
(figuratively) immersed in ramen all his life. His parents own a
ramenya in Tokyo. He says that each element of a bowl of ramen
deserves equal attention, especially on non-Japanese terrain. "The
soup alone took two years to develop here," he said. Ramen is
definitely fast food in that it is served and eaten quickly, but
making the different elements of the bowl is a full-time commitment.
First into your donburi (bowl) go a few spoonfuls of the chef's tare
of intense seasonings. The tare is stored in a terra-cotta pot and
aged to mellow its flavors: more ingredients are added as needed, but
the pot is never emptied or cleaned. According to Satoru Chida, the
manager of the Midtown restaurant Onigashima, some noodle shops have
been replenishing the same tare pot continuously for more than 300
years.
To the tare flavorings like ginger, garlic and miso are added. This is
where the flourishes of the chef have the most play. At Minca, Mr.
Kamada uses a pungent purée of fried garlic and oil. At Rai Rai Ken,
Mr. Yoda blends five kinds of miso.
A big splash of soup, enough to keep the noodles hot for at least 10
minutes, comes next. The soup can be based on pork, chicken or a
combination of seafood and kelp, which is traditional, but not very
popular in New York ramen shops. Mr. Chang said: "I use bacon, ham
hocks, dark chicken meat and roasted pork bones, and then I deglaze
with sake. In Tokyo I would probably be run out of town, but this is
my own creation."
Now the noodles. Ramen belongs to the family of Chinese mein, meaning
noodles. (The word "ramen" is a Japanese pronunciation of the
Cantonese term "la mein.") Oil is added to the dough and also sodium
bicarbonate, to make the noodles springy. Resistant noodles, not soft
ones, are the ideal, though many New York ramen chefs admitted to
cooking them longer for American customers. "We like them to be ha
gotai," Mr. Yoda said, a phrase that translates as "responds to
teeth," or al dente.
The toppings are sliced and readied: traditional ones include cha-siu,
roast pork; tamago, a hard-cooked egg, with soy sauce added to the
cooking water, which turns the egg white a pale brown; naruto, a slice
of white fish cake with a spiral of pink; scallions; black mushrooms
(known to Chinese food fans as tree ears); and bamboo shoots. Butter
and corn, oddly, are also popular toppings. (Both are rare in Japanese
cooking.) Another garnish is a poached egg, which transforms the dish
into tsukimi ramen, or moon-viewing ramen, with the deep yellow yolk
representing the autumn harvest moon.
Japanese diners start with the noodles, lifting them with chopsticks
and sucking up the strands whole. (Biting noodles is considered
unlucky in most Asian cultures, as they represent longevity.) The
toppings are eaten between mouthfuls of noodles. And last comes the
broth, which grows richer and more flavorful as it cools, because the
starch of the noodles and the flavors of the toppings have been
released into the soup.
By phone from Tokyo, Mr. Schilling offered an illustration of the
stature of ramen in Japanese culture. "I just got back from a
screening at the Tokyo Film Festival," he said. "And guess what
Kadokawa — it's a major media business, like the Japanese equivalent
of Time Warner — gave to the audience as a perk? Five packages of
instant ramen."
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