Car F#@% Day!

Yesterday was Car Free Day (I call it Car F*** Day). Either way, it was observed in many places across the globe, but unfortunately, nowhere along my usual -- read: wine-errand-related -- cycling routes. These are the routes that I am mostly likely to take on a daily basis.

Which is exactly why I found the above poster that's been floating around the Internets so interesting. You may have seen it.

This strip of Lafayette in New York City is among my most travelled when I'm in Manhattan. That giant wine store you see situated prominently on the corner with the big red flag that reads Astor is the reason why I frequent this stretch. (I realize most people may not have recognized it but it was the first thing that caught my eye when I saw this scene -- I've got a wino-track mind.)

The next thing that comes to my mind -- most likely what the ad designers wanted to elicit in the mind of any cyclist who sees the poster -- is that this accident is actually me on my bike having been cut off by a car f***.

In my case, it happened like this: The car f*** would've thought that the yellow light meant I was about to stop and so the car f*** edged out, as they so annoyingly do before they get a green. In fact, I was not stopping. I was not even slowing down. I was moving fast because I was going to make this light in order to hurry back into Astor Wines & Spirits to take back some corked wine that I had just bought and opened at the NoHo Star BYO resto at the corner of Bleeker a couple of blocks down the street.

God. It's bad enough interrupting dinner because you've got to make a wine run. Last thing you need is a car f*** getting in your face. This is why you need to wear a helmet.

At least I am a master at bike-spill recovery and injury-avoidance. And at least that corked bottle I was carrying in my knapsack put a hole in the car's windshield.

Midtown Manhattan's best picnicking (plus five more picks from New York City)

Jump to: Picnic pick | Eric Asimov's wine pick | Brooklynguy's wine pick | Alice Feiring's wine pick | Doktor Weingolb's wine pick | Special BYO resto pick


The plan was to blog but I stopped fighting the weak wireless signal that gave me the Internet one minute and totally disconnected me the next. So I decided to leave the laptop in my room and hit New York hard. While that made for a bit of gap in my blogging, I now have lots to say about my five-day getaway, including a few juicy tidbits about wine and food.

Consider this update as five posts in one (use the anchored links at top to navigate through it -- it's lengthy). I hope this makes up for the recent inactivity.

* * * *

First of all, as I alluded to my last post, New York City is fiery hot pit of asphalt and sweat in the summer months, especially when you are caught in Midtown or on a subway platform, or worst of all in Midtown on subway platform (Warning: Never take an uptown train from the 47th-50th Streets/Rockefeller Center station without a towel). What I discovered is that but just 10 streets down from that sauna stop on the B, C, F and V line, I discovered an oasis of refreshment and air-con at the corner of 37th Street and Madison Avenue, also known as the Morgan Library & Museum. The collection alone is well worth the price of admission, but what I went in for was its fantastic café which is at the centre of this amazing building complex.

As you can tell from the photo I posted at the top of this entry, the food is just as inviting as the cool and airy space of the café (pictured below), which the Morgan website accurately describes as "a casual dining atmosphere in the glass-enclosed central court, evoking European alfresco dining." You bet, alfresco! This is by far the greatest place for a picnic during the dog days of summer. Save Central Park for less humid weather.



The brilliant thing is that the Morgan Café emulates a real outdoor courtyard: the high ceiling is composed of a lattice of glass and steel slats, there are trees amid the small dining tables, and on exceptionally warm days like when I was there last week, the sunlight enters the space in bearable measured amounts through the help of automatically shifting shades along the glass structure (follow part of that transition in the photos below).



As for the café menu, plenty of picnic-perfect choices but my order of a plate of cold cuts, goat's cheese and olives is an amazing deal. For only $8 you get to make a couple of your own prosciutto and salami sandwiches (just slap on the cheese and that lettuce onto the complimentary rolls they offer you!) and for $7 more, get a glass of wine. (I felt like I won the lottery the instant this $15 alfresco feast started -- surely you can do no better in Manhattan.)

I chose the Château Routas Rouvière Coteaux Varois 2006, a salmon-coloured rosé from France's Provence region. It was thirst-quenching, quite dry and very likable alongside the spicy marinaded olives and salty cured meats. It had a drinkable table-ready style that some alcohol-drenched rosés from Provence don't handle as deftly. Light and appetizing, this wine is meant for casual lunches when it's really hot out. But I don't need to tell you that. See more detailed notes on this wine.

With this kind of fuel I had energy to wine-shop...

MÂCON, MÂCON-VILLAGES, AND THE MANY RESOURCEFUL TOWNS SOUTH OF THE CÔTE D'OR

My initial instinct was to take a tip from Eric Asimov and so I went for white Mâcon -- Burgundy's best summertime deal. If wine is your bag, Mr Asimov is much-respected and hard-to-miss in the blogosphere. Of all his recent recommendations, I'm finding these white Burgundies to be the most up my alley.

I love this style of Chardonnay, which is full of mineral and bright citrus flavours, though some deem it too light. I happen to value light, and not just because it often translates to light-on-the-wallet. This is Eric's point about Mâcon and its hinterland, known on the label as Mâcon-Villages.

While the results are not yet in on any specific Mâcon bottles (for that please refer to Eric's notes), I can report that New York definitely has better price-points on these wines than here in Quebec. These $12 bottles in Manhattan routinely convert to $20 bottles here in Montreal (and this is not usually the case with most French wines). Expect tasting reports for some Mâcons soon around here, most imminently for the one pictured here!

MACON, MACON & STUYVESANT, AND THE MANY GREEN STREETS OF BEDFORD-STUYVESANT

When I met the wine-wonderful Brooklynguy for lunch in TriBeCa, we discussed our common interest in wine and love for MTA buses. They are certainly cooler transportation than the subway and are routed all around the city and its four boroughs. To get to Macon Street in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighbourhood, buses are the best means of public transit and, much to the glee of Brooklynguy, I recounted how I traveled along the #43 - Franklin, the #48 - Lorimer and the #25 - Halsey.

Why do us winos like buses so much? Besides being street-level and perfectly temperature-controlled (most of the time), they are wine-shopping-friendly, or to put it more precisely, they are bottle-friendly. This is because they have padded interiors and are rather spacious if you like to buy by the case. Most importantly the differential in ambient temperature between a shaded bus stop and the coach is a lot less bottle-shocking than sweltering subway platform and meat-locker train car. (Also the bus is more personable, even when you haven't got a supply of wine on you: just before getting off at Classon Avenue, a kind Bed-Stuy rider pointed out all the globs of sunscreen smudged across my face that I had missed smoothing out.)

Brooklynguy, being the generous and knowledgeable guy that he is, suggested I take advantage of a rare Beaujolais while I could and snap up the Domaine du Vissoux Pierre-Marie Chermette Beaujolais 2005. It's not that difficult to find in Manhattan. I would certainly get it again. It's an unfiltered wine and you can sense it immediately, as in I-can't-believe-it's-not-Beaujolais-cru. My uptown hosts thought it was bold, round, rich and delicious. A hit from an advised expert... check out the full review on Brooklynguy's Wine and Food Blog.

A HEAVY FAVOURITE FROM LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON

I have never met Alice Feiring, New York-based wine enthusiast of great expertise and integrity, though she has responded to my brusque queries and desperate emails. She is the one who saved New Year's Eve for us when we hadn't a clue where to take our Cervaro Castello della Sala Antinori Chardonnay for a hopping good time. Well, Alice answered that question and supplied so many more reliable suggestions, like this next wine pick, for instance.

Yes, it was a total no-brainer to instantly buy the Domaine des 2 Ânes Fontanilles 2004 when I happened past it at Astor Wines & Spirits. She wrote about it as an everyday wine with substantial value back in February so I wasn't sure it would still be in supply. Luckily it does seem to be quite well stocked. But unfortunately, it's put into one of those extra heavy bottles that sit in your bag like a stone and makes you wonder why you're schlepping around so much weight at a free jazz concert staged in Washington Square Park. My advice: Make your purchase on the way home rather than when setting out. Astor's open till 9 pm every weeknight.

I'D LIKE A SIX-DAY VERNACCIA IN NEW YORK

For THE best Vernaccia di San Gimignano that gets made you've got to try Mormoraia. It's a little more expensive than most Vernaccia varietals at about $16 per bottle but it does taste like the height of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a grape that gets very little respect.

Respect is something that it may not need if pure aromatic refreshment comes this easily and this cheaply. In the Mormoraia Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2006 you also get great balance, nutty depth and a profound finish for an otherwise lightweight varietal. I wish I could've brought back more of this across the border. I certainly could've afforded more. As it stands on my map, I've clearly marked down New York Wine Co. (it's 21 Warren Street near the Chambers Street subway station), the Lower Manhattan wine shop that sold me this great stuff.

WHERE TO TAKE YOUR WINE PICKS OUT TO DINNER . . .

And to save the best for last, there's Petite Crevette, the longtime fish-specialty restaurant on Hicks Street in Brooklyn. I had the pleasure of taking a friend of mine out for a birthday lunch there even though she does not eat fish. Fish lover or not, this is a cozy little nook that charms you and sates you, thanks to Neil Ganic, "a chef who has a knack for turning out satisfying, homey but refined dishes that value flavor over frills."

Here's a guy who can single-handedly chat up your table and whip up a codfish burger at the same time. That neither one comes out overdone, rushed, or inauthentic makes this restaurant a true winner. Evenings are much busier so if you like the welcoming chit-chat and attention, definitely try it for lunch. Also definitely bring you own bottle of wine. There's none of those huge corkage fees here. Perhaps a vivacious and slightly rustic Greco di Tufo dei Feudi di San Gregorio 2004 to handle the flavourful fish and mouth-watering appetizers (two words: Cremini mushrooms!) as well as all the other non-seafood plates that are served.

The city waits for no one

Manhattan moves fast. There's no stopping it. And so too do Manhattan bloggers. Yesterday, The Shophound scooped me (but Shophound sounds like nice people -- they at least left behind a link to Weingolb so I'm not totally spun out in their dust).




The removal of Madison Avenue's Soup Burg has been swift, to say the least. The new luxury clothing store that is taking its spot on the Upper East Side seems to be visibly moving in with each shutter opening on my camera. Blink and you might miss it.

The Soup Burg diner, a restaurant I profiled over the summer just before it shut its doors, was a unique landmark on the UES turf. It was odd. It stood out. It wasn't at all cashmere; it was more like chamois, worn but still useful.

Come to think of it, Soup Burg in 2006 was more Madison Street than Madison Avenue. It was almost like the tiny eatery was in constant Halloween costume at the corner of 73rd St. It really belonged with the other Manhattan Madison.

And no one really mentioned it as it closed. Lord Norman Foster's project to add 30 stories to a building in need of renovation across from the Carlyle Hotel, just three blocks north from this intersection -- that change to the street scene was met with derision. The ambitious addition would make this posh area of the Upper East Side seem less like Paris, with its steady flow of architecturely similar seven-storey buildings. Lord Foster's plan to make five floors multiply up into the sky not be accepted. It would change the tone too much, or so it was deemed.

Somehow, without any impact on the surrounding architecture, the Soup Burg changed the tone of this section of the neighbourhood and changed it immensely.

But now it is gone. Did anyone blink?

Gourmet donuts, defined

Of all the things I've learned about New York, three single things encapsulate all the travelling gourmand needs to know. Quality coffee is scarce, wine selection is plentiful, and food portions are gargantuan to a fault.

So go to the great 9th St Espresso, enjoy the many fine wine shops that the island of Manhattan has to offer, and know that only mediocre kitchens overfill customers' plates (Monday's trip to A.O.C. Bedford was a shining example of how better restaurants have a real conception of serving sizes).

But this post is NOT about oversized portions. Yes, the doughnuts you see here are large, and yes they are served out of a huge galley on Grand Street that draws big crowds (consider yourself lucky if you can find room inside the building to stand in line, let alone to eat your purchase). And when I was there to order a half dozen, I was not allowed to leave without agreeing to a baker's half dozen. Hmph. Size matters.

BIG APPLE BEIGNETS

Doughnut Plant is all about being big but proportioned. Make no mistake about it; these delicacies are just the right size, as my vigorous testing on sample sizes shown above concluded beyond a doubt.

Largeness is constitutive for Doughnut Plant doughnuts. Why? That's a bit of a surprise. These doughnuts have holes have in them like you might expect, but many of them are actually filled in various areas inside the ring. A trail of fruit that trace out the shape of these adorably unctuous loops of dough. (Sorry to spoil the shock of delight.) So these things need to be big. Please give the people who make them the real estate they need to do their thing.

Doughnut Plant doughnut makers capitalize on the space they grant themselves in another way. To sizable volume they inject magnificent flavours from a sweeping list like ginger, Valrhona chocolate, vanilla bean, rosewater, pumpkin, real spiced apples, and peanut butter and raspberry jelly. Those are just the ones I tasted last week. There are more. Many more, all with big mouthfilling sensations harnessed in an appropriately sized torus deep-fried in fat and coated with sugar.

Manhattan trick or treat: A foodie's guide to what's an avenue and what's a street

The best thing about Manhattan has to be its neighbourhoods. They are what make visits so stimulating, whether you are sightseeing, windowshopping or just walking around. No two are alike yet each one seems to be totally vibrant and alive in its own right.

Since I like shopping for wine, I have now begun to associate wine shops with certain neighbourhoods, like Martin Brothers Wine & Spirits with the Upper West Side or Chamber Street Wines with Tribeca. And as I've been getting to know them both the shop and the block it's on have become a little anthropomorphized in my mind. All human like, you know?

On Hallowe'en, it's particularly fun to let your wires get crossed and transpose Manhattan 'hoods. Swap the personality of, say, Murray Hill with the Meatpacking District. Hmmm. Interesting disguise.

Here's one that's veh-ry scah-ry!Try it yourself:

Instead of hitting Madison Avenue's Sherry-Lehmann (where I recently was thoroughly pampered at a Bordeaux tasting)...

...end up at the Lower East Side's Madison Liquor on Madison Street. Whoops! Hey where's that map? It's like walking into a vegan dinner party with Ronald McDonald.

Clash. And so I found out that Manhattan's got two Madisons, both on the east side. But the Upper East Side and Lower East Side could not be more different, and not just when it comes to wine shopping. So I felt it appropriate that I would dress up each one in the other's costume today. The theme, as always, is "wining and dining." Can you tell which Madison is which?

A

This first duo shown above is especially tricky. Those bell peppers seem a little too perfect to be real don't you think? And a Cherry Nail only looks juicy enough to slurp up -- so you've been warned. (Who says it's only Madison Avenue where the admen play?)

B

Only one is labelled here as Madison but actually they both are! To figure out which is "avenue" and which is "street" look to the other writing on the wall: One says Nesquik and one says Marché. Yes, that's French and that's about as big of a hint as you're going to get.

C

Can you separate these two twin green awnings and get to who's really behind the disguise?

D

"Madisons under glass"

Onion Square

Union Square greenmarket. Monday. Half past ten. The square looked more like a pumpkin patch than anything else but it was a display of gourmet onions -- including its smart cipollini onions -- that caught my eye.

(Actually the woman using her baby stroller to balance a giant pumpkin was quite eye-catching too... don't be alarmed, there was no child in the stroller at the time -- it was 100% pumpkin buggy and up to the task.)

I love onions. Many cooks say garlic is the most indispensable ingredient in the kitchen but something about garlicky cooking draws me away from wine and toward cognac (its ability to act as a breath freshener maybe?). This happens especially after I've just finished a garlic-heavy dinner and usually calls for my favourite alternative to Cognac: St-Vivant V.S. Armagnac, with its lovable wonky bottle. Onions, on the other hand, make me a better wine lover. Don't ask me why. All I know is please don't make me eat them raw.

Caramelized or blanched, roasted or stewed. Anything but raw.

* * *

A.O.C. Bedford. Moving SW to Houston and 6th Ave. Ten hours later. My New York hosts Frances and James and I made a wise choice to dine at A.O.C. Bedford. Mondays are corkage-free BYOW night (maximum one bottle of your own -- the restaurant remains fully licensed for additional drinks, should you desire them). But not only was it Monday; it was October. And you could really tell, in a good way. The chefs presented us distinctive seasonal dishes. Harvest time at the greenmarket was particularly evident in their butternut squash soup. It was made with 100% fresh squash and no cream. Amazing! It was richly and deeply flavoured -- the essence of squash with only a dab of garnish added to the centre of the bowl.

...I wonder if swan neck gourds have a similar culinary claim-to-fame or whether their interesting physiology is their best contribution to autumn. That's what the schoolchildren touring the greenmarket early in the day had thought. They grabbed one after the other by the goose neck and flung it about their heads. Or at least until the swan neck gourd farmer noticed...

The wines we drank seemed suitably autumnal as well. The bottle I brought was a rather light-ish Cahors and I rushed through it to get to Clos Del Mas Priorat 2003, a Grenache-Carignan blend on the wine list that really embraces fall fare like rack of lamb, duck breast and suckling pig, which were the three dishes we ordered.

This was my first taste of Priorat. It lived up to all the hype. Full, gripping flavour profile, extracted, not flabby at all. But it'll be A.O.C. Bedford that will have so much to live up to when I return for more at the next possible opportunity.