My steak-eating crew and I came in here and tried 16 different items, so there’s no time for bullshitting. I will just get right down to it.
STARTERS
Dry-Aged Beef Tartare (bar menu)
This was damn good. Not as beautiful as Vaucluse, but it had a different flavor profile (Italian) that worked just as well as the classic French style.
Fried Soft-Shell Crab
So delicious. The zucchini puree underneath was a great Italian play for the sauce element, and the whipped ricotta just made it soar.
Octopus
The radish, white bean and salsa verde made the perfectly tender and grilled octopus shine with a bright pop of acidity.
Tomato Salad
This had stracciatella, pesto and watermelon. Very refreshing.
MID COURSES
Lobster Cavatelli
This sounded amazing but it fell a little short. It was by no means a bad dish. It was just not as stellar as the other entrees. Of course I would prefer this over the tomato salad from the appetizer courses. Duh. I just didn’t get a lot of robust flavors.
Spaghetti with Blue Crab & Bottarga
Winner. This was so delicious. Every aspect of it popped, and the robustness was there, while still preserving the delicate flavors of the crab meat.
Scallops
What made this really special was the corn pudding and toasted corn on the plate. I could eat buckets.
White Label Burger (bar menu)
My favorite of all the Michael White burgers. This one has Calabrian aioli and pickles on it, along with fontina, tomato and red onion. The blend is dry-aged Pat LaFrieda, just like the other White Label burgers as well. What’s really awesome here at Ai Fiori is the potato side that comes with it: pommes dauphines. I didn’t get a good shot, but they are basically breaded and deep fried balls of mashed potato. Again, buckets are needed!
ENTREES
Butter Poached Lobster
Insanity. One of the best lobster dishes I’ve ever had. So tender and flavorful, and it’s a really meaty lobster tail portion size with some sliced claw meat along the side.
Lamb Chops
These were wrapped in caul fat and crusted/glazed very nicely. The snap peas were a nice refreshing touch here to cut the fat, and I liked the use of barley in this dish. One of my favorite grains to eat when done right.
Tomahawk Steak (Costata)
This was an easy 10/10. Michael White’s large format steaks are just amazing at every one of his restaurants. While pretty much identical to the steaks available at Vaucluse and Osteria Morini, there is something to be said about the consistency of these steaks. Every time I visit, they are just as good, and they are all good at every restaurant. These are definitely signature items, and they are 100% worth ordering.
The charred lemon is killer! The rest of the meal was sides and desserts, which were all great but I won’t really dive to deep. My favorite dessert was the chocolate budino. There was some banana incorporated into that. Delicious.
SIDES
Broccoli Rabe
Chicory
DESSERT
Chocolate Budino
Almond Cake
Cheese Plate
I highly recommend both the burger and the tomahawk here. To start, split a pasta and a burger. Then hit the tomahawk for your entree, and get some extra pommes dauphines for the road!
Originally set up by the late meat enthusiast Josh Ozersky, this is the 11th Meatopia event. Meatopia also happens in other cities worldwide, expanding like my belt size after indulging in these delicious meats.
The concept here was pure wood and coal fire, no gas or electric. Just flames and meat carcass. Some shit was done quick on the flames for a sear, and other shit was done low and slow in smokers like these:
With heavy hitters like Creekstone Farms and Pat LaFrieda involved in the mix, you can imagine how excited I was to be here. And without mincing words I will simply say this: Meatopia is the greatest food event I have ever attended in my life.
Upon walking out onto Pier 92, I was blasted with the invigorating scent of roasting meat, and bathed in the billowing bovine smoke that was coming off of the giant Pat LaFrieda fire pit. Heavenly rays of sunlight shone down through the smoke and kissed the meat, as if God himself was proclaiming this to be a righteous undertaking.
What a sight to behold! And nothing was wasted from this animal. As you can see, even the head got picked apart by the savage carnivores that roamed the pier. Even the guys at Gotham Burger Social Club took a bite.
Want to know the most depressing part about the LaFrieda station? I didn’t know this meat was for the crowd. I thought they were providing the meat for all the other stations to use in their dishes, like a supplier of sorts. By time I figured out that I could eat this shit, they had run out. That’s right – they ran out of 1000lbs of meat!!! I was on line for it, five people away from getting a bite, when they finally called it quits on the beast. Not even a scrap!
I did try every other item at the event, however, which is probably a rare claim to make for anyone who attended, I would imagine. There was so much food. I think maybe 30 stations or more. It was very easy to get full if you weren’t smart, or fat.
My first and last stop of the day was this killer broth made by Marco Canora’s “Brodo.” This hearty and hot beef stock was just the right thing needed to keep warm on the windy pier.
As I wandered around with childlike wonder, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the Beatrice Inn station, where Chef Angie Mar was slinging pig for her hungry meat minions. I found myself just staring at this shit. Something deep inside me was triggered. Something primal and cave man -esque…
These not-so-little piggies were roasting on a spit all day and night.
Watch them spin!
So the actual food item being served here was a whole roasted wild boar, blackberries, port and mash. Here’s what a small plate looked like. My photo does it no justice:
This was succulent, juicy, crispy and savory. It had a slight hint of sweet from the berries that made the pig flavors pop. It was one of my top choices of the day, for sure.
Another favorite was Hometown Barbeque. This was a masterful execution of beef rib. So tender and juicy. I know those words are used up like cheap hookers, but they are accurate. The bark on these ribs was crisp without being too hard – just enough to lock in all the meat juices. It had sweetness, but the savory beef flavor was the star of the show.
Occasionally some meat angel would come around and plop one of these dinosaur bones in your hands for you to gnaw on for a while. Some were from Hometown, and some were from LaFrieda.
Another favorite was this sri racha pork belly by The Backroom at Moody’s. I went back for it twice. The belly was cooked sous vide style for 48 hours (okay that probably involves electricity), and THEN smoked. It had a nice pungent flavor that reminded me of fish sauce or Vietnamese food.
They also presented a nice array of charcuterie:
My favorite of the day, just slightly ahead of that pork belly, was this hot beef tongue sandwich by Harry & Ida’s Meat & Supply Company. The meat was so soft, unlike what you might expect from common tongue preparations that can sometimes be rushed, or have the consistency of deli meat.
This was more like pulled meat, or braised stew meat. Absolutely delicious. And they even had a nice tongue hanging on display for food porn photos:
I’m jumping around again here, because I want to front-load this review with the most interesting shit up top, in the event that you meat minions start to nod off, or the ADD kicks into high gear.
CHORIZO ICE CREAM!
There. Did that wake you up a little? It was actually good. These novelty ice cream flavors always strike me as purposefully odd – done with the intent of shocking someone rather than actually delivering a good flavor. But this chorizo ice cream was lightly chorizo flavored, and it was balanced by the presence of caramel. Oddfellow’s is not pulling stunts here. This is good shit.
There was a healthy variety of rib eye and prime rib preparations going around (Hawksmoor London, Andre Lima de Luca and Balthazar, in particular). Never did I feel like the shit was overlapping or redundant. I was actually surprised at how nicely cooked they all were, given the windy conditions and an open flame that is hard to control or regulate in terms of temperatures.
Speaking of those wind conditions causing problems, I think Jason French and the guys at the Ned Ludd station were battling what was probably the worst of the wind conditions. They were one of the first booths next to the large tent in the back. As the wind whipped in from the southwest, it gathered along the tent walls and flowed directly to their station, which was on the south-facing side of the pier. WHAM. The wind over there was bonkers. I have no idea how they were even able to cook in such conditions.
The meat quality of their lamb dish suffered a bit, at least in the plate I had, as it was overcooked and slightly tough. My guess is that these guys were concerned about serving something raw, and wanted to keep the meat roasting despite the wind – so they had to keep stoking the flames. It was still really tasty despite all that nonsense, which is a testament to the chef and cooks. I think if they had more control over the environment this would have been a winning dish: Whole roasted pastured lamb with grape leaf cumin yogurt sauce, and a basmati rice salad with golden raisins and cilantro.
And I was glad to see a nice lamb carcass gracing their work station:
Perhaps the most prominently featured cut of the day was short rib. Check out all the different varieties below:
Tough to choose a favorite between those. If I had to, I’d probably lean toward The Cecil (their veal was really memorable), or Hill Country.
Naturally there was some brisket as well:
One interesting item was this braised beef cheek terrine from Employees Only. Super soft and flavorful. I was hoping to see more cheek represented at this event, but this was really nice with the pickled tomatoes and radishes on top.
The only place featuring strip was El Blok. It as really nicely cooked with fresh turmeric and sour orange, sitting on a side of smoked calabaza.
There was a beef pinwheel sandwich from Brindle Room:
And several other pork and non-beef items, most notable of which was probably this Portuguese porchetta fried rice from 42 The Restaurant – a very interesting mash up of Asian and Portuguese flavors:
Funny thing about that last photo: I was joking that chicken doesn’t really count as meat. The sauce on there was actually really great though, so it became acceptable to serve at this event, in my eyes.
This station sent me home with a packet of Badia spice seasoning. I always like samples!
There was even some dessert as well. I didn’t take a picture of the cookie I ate, but this banana chocolate turnover with maple bacon and peanut butter from Oceana was excellent. In fact their menu looks pretty brilliant, and it’s somewhat nearby, so I will have to go with my wife soon to try it out.
Don’t look so glum, whoever you are working back there in the pit… There’s meat hanging behind you and I’m sure there will be other Meatopia celebrations in the coming months. Can you say MIAMI?!?
That about does it guys. What an amazing day. I don’t want to wash any of my clothes because the lingering smell of smoke and meat is too precious to cast aside. It should somehow be bottled and sold as cologne.
Oh yeah… one last photo – my stalker pic of Iron Chef Michael Symon, who was the host of the event. People were waiting for hours just to press the flesh with him. I was too busy eating for any glad-handing with celebs!
After seven months of living on top of this restaurant and pining for a bite of the cuisine within, my wife and I finally got a chance to check it out.
I had heard insane things about this joint: “Best restaurant in the city;” “Best Italian food in the country,” and so on. The place has been awarded two Michelin stars, and with a four-course price fix menu at $99/pp, it was a no-brainer that we’d hit this place up.
First off, excellent fucking martini – one of the best in town actually, garnished with three perfectly soft Castelvetrano olives.
And amazing table breads like fresh olive or black pepper focaccia:
First was an amuse of smoked fish on a sesame cracker. This was a nice bite:
My wife started with six oysters, one of each available variety; two from Massachusetts, two from Washington, one from Rhode Island, and one from Virginia. She preferred the two from Massachusetts. They were served with a balsamic mignonette that cut the fishy flavor of the west coast jammies, and the other sauce was a bright citrus motherfucker that I liked a lot.
I had the grilled octopus with smoked potatoes. This was really nice and soft, with a great char flavor, though I HAVE had better grilled octopus around town.
For the pasta dishes, we tried the red wine braised octopus fusilli with bone marrow. This was a little heavy, but full of flavor. The octopus wasn’t up to snuff in this dish, which was depressing, but the pasta itself was perfect.
The winner of the pasta dishes was this gramigna (small, extra long, curly, elbow style pasta) with wild boar sausage and savoy cabbage. It was lighter than you might expect, perfectly dressed, perfectly seasoned, and absolutely fucking delicious – especially with the addition of some bread crumb crunchy shits on top. I could eat vats of this, and THIS ALONE is why I can get behind their two star Michelin rating. Amazing plate of pasta.
For the entrees we had duck breast and steak. Let’s start with them duck titties.
The duck was served with a crispy polenta, which was nice but lacked a little flavor. The greens were overly tart, as if overdone to cook the bitterness out of the broccoli rabe (which was a little overcooked anyhow). The duck itself was nicely cooked, but after digging into my steak for a bit I really couldn’t take the iron-rich, blood-riddled, gamey flavor of the duck for too long. It was good and everything, nice crispy skin, etc. I just couldn’t go there, because I was busy with this:
It was cooked nicely to medium rare.
This is a sirloin, 50-day dry-aged, served with braised romaine lettuce and a fucking wonderfully fatty bone marrow panzanella bread. I sometimes dislike the grain and texture of this cut, but I really didn’t have any other choice for beef. I’ve had better strip or sirloin preparations elsewhere, and I suspect this cut was not from the “NY-Strip” side of a proper porterhouse. Perhaps it was from the T-bone area, which is less desirable (hence the 50-day dry-aging, to give it a boost). In any case, I ate all of it, so there’s that.
Dessert was nice, but there was some unexpected tartness in my wife’s panna cotta (from the green apple, not the roasted pineapple sorbet). Despite the tartness, this was still the better of the two desserts that we sampled, in my opinion.
I had the lemon tort, with which I totally expected the tartness. It had a cheesecake texture, and I loved how the ginger, citrus, and cinnamon gelato cut the lemon flavor.
When the bill came, there was a small amuse of candies to try. A passion fruit marshmallow, a tart white chocolate sort of thingy (which I didn’t like), and a white grape granulated sugar gelatin (also very tart). Actually, I wasn’t really a fan of any of these, now that I think about it.
In sum, we will definitely be coming back to try some more stuff, particularly the fish items, which, maybe, we should have gone with on this first visit. We’ll definitely sample more pasta dishes as well. Some of those things must really shine, and I suppose that’s why they received two Michelin stars. Otherwise I’m sort of baffled.
UPDATE: 6/25/16
My wife and I cashed in some OpenTable rewards points to the tune of $70, which we used toward dinner here. This time we stuck strictly to pasta and fish, with the exception of dessert.
First, we had this lovely crab meat paccheri pasta, which was the big winner for the night. The sauce was a rich butter and tomato concoction that I went wild for.
This tagliolini with clams and calamari was nicely executed as well, with a texture and shape that was similar to ramen. Other than that it was a classic riff on a white clam sauce dish. Very nice.
For the fish courses, we had halibut and monk fish, both roasted. The halibut was served on a bet of sautéed spinach and topped with shaved water chestnuts and an olive. The fish itself was just slightly overcooked, but I didn’t mind because the spinach and water chestnuts added that moisture back in.
The monk fish was similar in texture to catfish. Nice and hearty, with a snap that almost resembles lobster meat. This was served with beans, trumpet mushrooms and hazelnuts. While I liked this a lot, my wife wasn’t a huge fan of the flavors. We both liked the halibut better in any case.
For dessert we had blueberry doughnuts, or bombolini. These were absolutely delicious. They were stuffed with blueberry filling, and dusted with blueberry sugar. They came with lemon curd and honey for dipping. Only downside is that this order, which came with five “munchkin” or “doughnut hole” sized doughnuts, was a pricey $14.
