Don Q? You're Welcome! The Weekday Weekend

One thing or another (job, business) has always had me working a lot of holidays and weekends.  You're at home with your family on Thanksgiving, I'm frantically trying to run down the satellite coordinates of  the clean feed of another shitty Lions game.  You're carving a beautiful turkey and inhaling Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale by the case, I'm eating catered gravy by the ladleful from a steam table and eyeing the Bunnomatic.  When normal citizens gather for the weekend festivities, I'm waking early, sober and confused, and going to bed, 18 hours later, sober and and just a little less confused.  But come Monday, it's industry night, freak.  I worked through your weekend, and now it's my weekend.  

Conveniently, Monday nights at the restaurant Lani Kai are 'Tiki Monday with Miller' an homage to Donn Beach and Kon Tiki from pirate captain and celebrity doctor (of mixology-NYC's Pegu Club and Death & Company), Brian Miller.  There are buckets of Don Q Rums, both Gold and Cristal, y Añejo también.  Don Q is a Puerto Rican rum, and that is all you need to know.  Because Miller knows the rest-fresh fruit juices, syrups, special spices, bitters, liqueurs, amaros, and for some reason (believe me, it works), more rum.  Venezuelan Añejo Rum, Bermudan Dark Rum, Overproof Demerara Rum, Jamaican Dark Rum, and Black Strap Rum.  Also gin, absinthe, and a couple of fey flower and straw garnishes.  It's the gay pirate thing, out at sea for months, etc. Who am I to judge (see below)?  It's intoxicating and the bathrooms have no locks.  Happy Hour is 6-8PM, so come early.  

For some reason, you can't just drink these cocktails normally

Just trying to wrap my tongue around this one (foto by weinoo)

Steeling the Mates (foto by weinoo)

So how is Norway?

The Boss showed up

Shots of Ramazotti?

Norway is good!

Tuesday evening started with a bang-up dinner at Neil's, a legendary Upper East Side Coffee Shop of which there are probably a hundred, but used to be a thousand, back when a 'regular coffee' meant coffee with milk and sugar and you got it handed to you by someone who just didn't give a shit what your name was.  (When I'm in Starbucks and they ask me my name to write on the cup, I usually say, "Fedoon."  When they call out "Fedoon?", you can literally feel the whole place tense up.  Try it some morning-fucking hilarious.)  Autographed photos everywhere, including, of course, Liza Minelli AND Tony Randall.  Super classy.  The older gentleman I was dining with ordered the chicken noodle soup, and pronounced it to be a fine homemade broth, whose noodles were "al dente".  He actually said "al dente", referring to coffee shop chicken noodle soup.  He is a  truly classy elder statesman married to a  former Upper East Side socialite.  I had the BLT on rye, and pronounced it edible.  The waiter called me 'boss', as in, "would you like me to crumble those crackers for you, boss?  You look a little tired."  And I settled on calling him 'chief', as in, "I don't eat crackers cause they're bad for my dentures, chief."  Super classy all around.
After we picked our teeth, we walked over to Hunter College to see Patti Smith read poetry and play some songs with daughter Jessie and guitarist Lenny Kaye.  Very funny and charming when she forgot the words to 'Because the Night', the hit she wrote with Springsteen, and had to start over after a giggling fit.  As she and Lenny both turn 65 this year, my drooling companion and I actually felt young for a few minutes.  But then those Hunter co-eds set us straight-they were not having any of THAT.  But we try not to let it ruin our weekend.  After all, it's a Tuesday night, freak!

NOT Campbell's

Excellent half-a-sour pickle

Patti's thoughts

Lani Kai 
525 Broome Street
New York, NY 10013
(646) 596-8778

Neil's
961 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10021-5160
(212) 628-7474

Wake and Bake

Eating a healthy breakfast is supposed to be the cornerstone of a productive day.  That goes a long way to explaining why nobody has a job in this country anymore.  The line of people waiting to inhale industrial machine-made gross globules of animal grease and chemicals in various states of matter, ranging from Super-Solid (McGriddles), to String-net Liquid (Dunkaccino®), is ponderous, to say the least.  Ever had a pumpkin scone from Starbucks?  The consistency reminds me of Chinese drywall.  Remember the controversy about Chinese drywall?  How it all contained mold and all the new houses had to have their drywall ripped out and replaced because homeowners’ kids were getting sick with asthma from the mold?  That’s a scone from Starbucks.  Drywall avec mold. 

Fortunately there is one of those greenmarkets on the corner of Broadway and Chambers that seem to be on every corner in NYC, right where they used to have that ratty-salt-and-pepper-dreadlocked skate-punk with his Mexican blanket laid out, selling books by Hubert Selby and CD’s by Serge Gainsbourg.  He also sold weed, by the way, and many’s the day I saw otherwise buttoned-down punters walking away with multiple bindles of cheesle.  But he don’t pay no rent, so him gone.  And now you can buy fresh water-tower bamboo-planking honey, and locally-sourced sea cucumber, right in front of City Hall.  Maybe take some down to the occupy wall streeters, help the kids keep their strength up. 

Mornings are a little rough for me, contemplating the imminent cloud-filled sky of the day’s events I am about to  be covering, so I like to start my day with the whimsical mini-tarts and quiches that are made from scratch by The Orchards of Concklin.  Sounds a bit dramatic for a farm, I know, but the list of ingredients for the quiche starts with, ‘Fine assortment of cheeses’, so they come by their bravado honestly.  Light crust, just enough heft.  It’s healthy, it’s tasty, it’s two bucks.  Nice little treat, makes you feel good about yourself.  If you need to carb-load, then I would suggest you walk up a few blocks to Chinatown, where the breakfast of champions is the green tea waffle.  You can get it stuffed with anything from whipped cream to peanut butter.  Although it is usually eaten for dessert, by the time I finish my Banh Mi from Paris Sandwich on Mott St., I’ve had enough, so it always gets eaten for breakfast the next day.  It’s good to plan ahead.

Toasty

Crumbly

Custardy

What delightful filling is inside, you may ask?

I already scooped it out with a spoon, so you'll never know

But if you’re truly feeling like you need to shovel some nasty shit down your rusty gullet in the A.M., you can always try this wonderful fall holiday recipe from Cooking with Dunkin’ [pumpkin gravy breakfast made from Dunkin' Donuts muffins and coffee]  It is so grotesque I feel uncontrollably drawn to it.

And it actually goes great with a big bowl of cheesle. [Smiley]  

New York on a Dollar (Dumplings) a Day

New York has the reputation of being a very expensive place to live.  It is well-deserved.  Money goes flying out of your pockets faster than a $20 blow-job, which, by the way, in New York, is $100.  Fortunately, there are a lot of cheapo breakfast and lunch spots for the working types: your egg-on-a-roll, your meat-on-a-stick, your dollar-slice, your dollar-dog, and your halal lamb-and-eggs, all of which can satisfy the most basic hunger and then get you back to work in a New York minute (which is officially four seconds).  The five-for-a-dollar dumplings craze is still popular in Chinatown; so popular, in fact, that they are now four-for-a-dollar.  The dumplings at Vanessa’s seem to be bigger than most, and their other menu items make it worth wading through the grime of non-gentrified Eldridge St.  Although if you’ve never seen someone empty their nostrils, one at a time, by holding one and blowing the viscous stream of gungess out the other onto a city sidewalk, then you might consider that a plus.  My point is, watch where you walk.

Meaty

Lunch at your Desk

Look Inside for your Prize!

Buns of Pork

Eight Fat Dumplings, Two Thin Dollars

All This for $7-That's a full quart of Congee, FYI

The ‘sesame pancake sandwich’ is a big round of lightly fried dough more than two feet in diameter, that is then cut into slices like a pizza.  The spongy slice I had was stuffed with ‘Peking duck’-duck meat, hoisin sauce, scallions ($2.50).  Was it enough for lunch?  Possibly.  But since I had already made the trip, and dodged the dregs, I got a few other items-the ‘pork fried bun’ (3/$1); a large bowl of ‘mung bean congee’ ($1.50), great on a cold day and as a hangover cure; and of course two orders of the titular 'chive and pork fried dumplings’ (4/$1).  All this food actually lasted for two lunches, so my total of $7 was cut in half, or $3.50/lunch per day.  There are also a bunch of vegetarian items for those who swing that way, and they sell frozen dumplings, 50 a bag, for $9 (chive/pork) and up.  And if you don’t want to make the trip, they do catering-although you’ll miss the tiny lady flipping the giant pancake, which brought squeals of delight from the Dutch tourists next to me.  And you can’t put a price on squealing Dutch girls.

NeMesis, My Nemesis...

There is a trend in Miami dining, as everywhere else, to put the chef’s face on everything.  Like the chef?  Love the restaurant!  This works for the most part because chefs caught on some time ago that they could be more successful, i.e., make more money, by pretending they were more than just cooks, more than just a face behind a stove.  In fact, in case you weren’t aware of this, most chefs would have us believe that they are actually super-heroes saving the world from evil, and teaching our children about the good in all of us.  In other words, they have read the official restaurant PR manual backwards and forwards (or their PR people have, and then related the highlights), and understand that their true personalities may need to get subsumed in their desire to connect with their customers, and especially their customers’ wallets.  (Although of course there are also many chefs who believe their own PR and have their own costumes.)

This kind of thing works well for most creative types, like filmmakers or visual artists, who can be total assholes on the set or in their studios, but then clean up for the press junkets and gallery openings and make with the charm to boost the box office or the opening night sales.  Chefs have become a subset of the Hollywood/Chelsea elite, with their own TV deals, book deals, and consultancies, raking in the dough without ever having to cook a lick in a real kitchen.  Some seem to disdain the actual cooking, in fact, as a simple rite of passage that must be endured in order for one to get to the other, more fun, more lucrative ventures.  So if you plan on successfully engaging the public six nights a week in a very public way, there is a way to go about it, even if you have a not-ready-for-prime time attitude about your customers and your critics.  All you have to do is get a copy of the playbook and study it at home.

Unfortunately, Micah Edelstein has not done her homework.  The chef at downtown’s ‘NeMesis’, has come out of the kitchen to attack her detractors, and in so doing has stumbled, perhaps fatally, over her own clogs.  It is one thing to be upset when the food critic from the Miami New Times puts your restaurant name at the top of his ‘Worst Restaurant Names’ list.  It is quite another to fail to understand that Lee Klein is the least self-aware ‘critic’ you are ever going to read, and that when he tries to be funny, he usually comes across as mean-spirited and petulant.  That is because he has no sense of humor and is not funny-but hey, you can’t take another guy’s failings personally.  The name is your baby, and perhaps that name has been swirling around in your head for many years and has a very sentimental attachment.  So complain to your mom and move on.  No one cares about your name like you do and no one ever will.  Shrug it off, invite the guy to taste your food, and then sit back and bask in the good will you’ve created by being a better person.  But patience and tolerance for other people’s opinions doesn’t seem to be Ms. Edelstein’s strong suit.  So maybe she should stop reading Yelp?

As a bartender at a lovely dive on Biscayne Boulevard a couple of years ago, I took care of a lot of drunks and lowlifes, and occasionally a Yelper or two (I also ran the Yelp site).  Whenever a negative review appeared on Yelp, I would contact the poster privately, and offer to refund their money and buy them a beer (no one ever asked for a refund, but all took me up on the beer).  When a blurb would appear with incorrect information in one of the local publications, I would politely but firmly, and with my inimitable sense of humor (I actually have one), take issue with the incorrect information, asking that it be corrected, and move on.  Most people responded positively, and many became regular customers, good tippers, and friends.  But there were also legitimate complaints about the bar that needed to be addressed, and I was grateful that there was a forum where people could be honest about their concerns, and where management could respond privately.  I emphasize ‘privately’.  But who cares if the owner/chef is sullen or even outright nasty in her online diatribes?  It works for Anthony Bourdain, right?  Doesn’t her spewing get attention and maybe some name recognition that might make people decide to wander into NeMesis, see what all the fuss is about?   

And that’s where it all falls apart.  For NeMesis the restaurant is not about bravado at all.  In décor, and especially, in the menu, it is a timid affair, limp and bland, a weird amalgam of past culinary-trend highlights that never quite come together, created by a chef who does not seem to have either the temperament or the talent or  to pull it off.  The dishes I tried were all either bland, boring, barely recognizable, or baby-sized.  Perhaps that is the result of having a six-year-old run the front of your house, I’m not sure, but it may be time to put the grown-ups back in charge.  The adorable six-year-old, I might add, is the chef’s daughter, a delightful little girl who delivers plates and also tells you how her day is going.  This is very charming, of course, but I could see how this behavior could turn alarming and then make you start to wonder, “Why am I babysitting the chef’s child?  Will I get credit for this on my bill?”  I am not against children in restaurants, that is a necessary evil when you live in a society that breeds; but the social compact does not include me taking care of your children against my will.  Unless there is an emergency, and I don’t consider ‘I have to make potstickers’ an emergency.  Should someone call Protective Sevices?  Maybe when the kid starts valeting the cars? 

Or maybe she should be in the kitchen-perhaps she possesses a bolder hand than her mom?  For starters, the duck pot stickers were so bland I had to be reminded what we ordered.  I get more flavorful dumplings, at four for a dollar, on Eldridge St. in Chinatown.  What’s the point of using an upwardly-mobile item like duck if you can’t make it taste as good as the ‘lesser’ pork or chicken?  You can charge more for it, I guess.  The P4 dish was just a mess, couldn’t tell potato from the pancake from the other two ‘P’s’, and the chicken sausage in the dish was replaced with flavorless duck sausage.  The hearts of palm salad looked and tasted like it came straight from a catering table, and the grouper special was small and disappointing, very little flavor.  But at least there was no duck in either.

Seriously, the ‘90’s are over.  And you can’t have it both ways-either you are a small unpretentious establishment that serves serious food at reasonable prices in a warm neighborhood location, or you have giant celebrity photos gracing your walls and your grouper entrée costs $31.  And the pose of gracious chef cannot be maintained when the obviously uncomfortable chef makes a tableside appearance to mutter something unintelligible while you’re trying to have a quiet conversation with your companion after a long day.  Look, I don’t mind when Michel Richard stops by the table to tell you to “eat your vegetables!”  His French charm and bravado are legendary, and infectious.  But not everyone can bring off that kind of exuberance, and when it falls flat, it is not only unnecessarily intrusive, it is just sad.  So maybe stay in the kitchen, perfect your recipes, and let the six-year-old run the front of the house.  The service was excellent, so the kid must be doing something right.

NeMesis  http://www.nemesisbistro.com/

1035 N. Miami Ave.

Miami, FL  33136

305.415.9911