Tag Archives: pork

Bronx, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Restaurant Reviews

188 Cuchifritos

October 19, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

Cuchifritos Frituras, aka 188 Bakery Cuchifritos, was recently featured on Anthony Bourdain’s newest CNN food show, and then written up on Grub Street as a result.

Yanked directly from Wiki with no shame whatsoever:

“In New York City, vendors advertising cuchifritos are particularly notable because they tend to make use of colorful external lighting and big, flashy signs that quickly catch the eyes of passersby. These establishments have dotted Puerto Rican and Dominican areas of New York City for the past 50 years, particularly Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, South Bronx, Brooklyn, and other primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods.”

After seeing that it was pretty much meat heaven, I decided that I needed to go and try this shit out ASAP. Check out the wall o’ Dominican cuisine:

something tells me they didn't brother to secure the license to use Porky Pig in their signage... unless he's public domain now — something tells me they didn’t brother to secure the license to use Porky Pig in their signage… unless he’s public domain now

Not knowing what any of it meant, we pretty much just followed the Grub Street outline but made sure to get some of the nasty bits as well. My wife and I were pretty much shot from walking around all day, two stops away up in the Bronx, at a Japanese exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens. I was also wiped out because the day before I had run a half marathon and then proceeded to walk around for about 20 miles to and from Gotham West Market and for several hours at the NYC Wine & Food Festival.

Needless to say, we stopped in after the park and picked up a sack of food to go – we were anxious to get home, and it was hot, stuffy and crowded in that bustling little pig joint.

But holy shit, were we happy when we got home…

I’m getting right at the titties here – the chicharrones. We ordered both pork and chicken. There’s LOTS of meat on these babies, and the skin is perfectly fried to crisp deliciousness. The portions are rather big too for $6.

We also grabbed some alcapurrias – sweet, tangy pouch stuffed with meat and spices. These were incredibly tasty. I almost forgot to take a pic of the inside before destroying it.

Last, the cuchifritos nasty bits. Blood sausage, pig ears, tail, tongue, skin… you name it… plus plantains. My wife likes this kind of offal shit more than I do usually, but I DO get down on it sometimes, especially if it’s done right. Here, they offer a gravy to go with it, but we opted for no gravy – as if we are watching our diet when eating this stuff! Haha!

When you eat in the restaurant, which I did on a second trip, you can utilize their awesome hot sauce and spicy pickled veggies.

The acids definitely help cut the fats down. Excellent food.

188 BAKERY CUCHIFRITOS (CUCHIFRITOS FRITURAS)
158 E. 188th St. #1
Bronx, NY 10468

Flash Deals, Harlem, Ramen, Upper East Side

Yasha Ramen

September 28, 2014 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

My wife and I grabbed a sweet group on deal for this place: $15 gets you $25 worth of food.

Since it was up on 106th/107th, a good hike for us, we made a little trip out of it. There were a few spots around that corner of Central Park that I always wanted to see, as well as the home of Harry Houdini.

Anyway – back to the point… we were able to try three different bowls of ramen. I had the tonkotsu, pork broth with half a seasoned egg and some cha-shu pork. Very tasty:

My wife had the signature ramen, but the spicy version. This is a chicken broth. I liked the kick of the spice, but the chicken based broth over at Totto edges this out a little.

Last was the curry ramen. This bowl came with wavy noodles (the other two were al dente straight noodles, likely alkaline as opposed to egg noodles), as well as a stew-like broth that even had potato and carrot mixed in. Very flavorful and different.

The establishment was spacious, which I liked. Lots of times at these ramen shops I feel like I am bumping elbows with nearby diners. Annoying. And it also gets way too hot in those cramped little shit boxes. This place had high ceilings, a nice big clean bathroom, and enough eating space to feel comfortable, even when fully packed out for lunch crowds, which it was…

Here’s a look at the dude slinging the goods:

YASHA
940 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10025

Burgers, Flash Deals, Midtown West, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Iron Bar’s Pig Wings

September 25, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

“Pig Wings” are making a big showing now on bar and restaurant menus. WTF are they, you ask? They are small portions of bone-in pork that have been trimmed down to look like little drumsticks of sorts, with a hunk of meat surrounding the bone. I figured I would mention these fuckers since they are pretty good at Iron Bar over on 8th Avenue and 45th Street. They were crisp and juicy, with a really great dipping sauce to boot. I’m hoping to see more of them at other spots in the future.

I came back to this joint when I picked up an Amazon Local deal for $20 that scored me $40 worth of food and drink. Pretty sweet deal. I tried their Iron Burger, which had gorgonzola, grilled onions, and crispy prosciutto. Fucking sweet. Cooked perfectly, lots of funky flavor from the cheese, and good juiciness without going overboard. The fries were excellent too – nice battered style, really crispy, nice and soft inside.

My buddy picked up the Juicy Lucy burger, which is a patty stuffed with cheddar cheese. He gave it the thumbs up and said it was a great burger. Looks beautiful, right?

IRON BAR
713 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Chinese, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Mee Noodle

September 24, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

This little joint looked promising as a spot to grab some Chinese style noodle soup. As we sat down, though, both my wife and I decided that we wanted dry noodles rather than a soup. I went with the same bet and picked roast pork noodles, and my wife went with roast duck. The duck was a bit greasy, and was an efforted meal, as you had to chew around small bones due to how the meat was chopped after cooking. The roast pork, however, was very nice. I went with chow fun noodles (wide ribbons) and my wife went with regular soup noodles.

While my wife wasn’t as happy with her meal as I was, I think we’d both go back at some point to try a few other dishes.

MEE NOODLE
795 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10019

Midtown East, Ramen

Menchanko-Tei

September 23, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

After having a few good bowls at Menkui-Tei, I figured I would try this other hyphenated place in midtown closer to my wife’s office. She had been here before and said it was good, but this day we both had sub-par bowls. The broth was a little bland and watery. I also saw one of the servers pull something out of a bowl with his fingers (carefully, mind you) before putting the bowl in front of a patron. Yuck. I hope those hands were clean!

Anyway, the neat thing about this place is you can get a lunch meal with a side bowl of rice and pork. A bit too much food though, as the ramen portions are large.

I had the regular pork ramen:

My wife had the Kurobuta pork, a better quality meat for an up charge, yet my slices tasted better than hers. Go figure.

MENCHANKO-TEI
131 E 45th St
New York, NY 10017

Recipes

Sweet & Spicy Pork Sandwich

April 6, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

I whipped this bitch up after a surprise trip to the Mosner family meat processing plant for a tour and butchery class. Check out my write-up of that shit HERE.

Once we got home, I was itching to try some of what we just worked on, so I took the stew meat scraps and threw them into the slow cooker with some apple shit and some spice shit.

I set it on low and slow. Four hours later the result was amazing. My wife and I threw it onto a sandwich with some pickled cabbage and a spicy mayo. Check out the recipe below assholes:

What you need:

about a pound, or pound and a half, of pork stew meat
apple moonshine or brandy (3/4 cup)
can of apple sparkling water (12oz) or apple juice
one serving of apple sauce (unsweetened – 4oz)
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 cloves of garlic (cut each into thirds or quarters)
1 small to medium sized onion (halved)
kosher salt to taste
crushed red pepper to taste
cloves (about 10)
1 small cinnamon stick
fresh cracked black pepper to taste
handful of baby carrots, sliced thin
shredded cabbage
white vinegar
mayo
habanero hot sauce or sri racha sauce
sliced jalapeno
sub/hero bread

THE MEAT

1) Mix the apple sauce, apple brandy, and apple sparkling water to use as a braising liquid base. Add to the slow cooker.

2) Drop your stew meat into the slow cooker.

20140405_182207 — stew meat swimming in the slow cooker

3) Add salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, cloves, cinnamon, garlic, and onion into the slow cooker.

Me, magic-wanding in a mix of kosher salt and crushed red pepper

4) Set slow cooker to 4 hours on LOW. Mix that shit around every so often while it’s going.

5) When finished, pull out of the liquid and cut the meat into manageable chunks for a sandwich.

NOTE: This meat is going to come out sweet if you go light on the spice, so what I did below was create some extras to balance the sweet with a little kick of spice. Be a man – do it.

THE TOPPING

1) Get some tupperware and put the carrots, cabbage and white vinegar into it.

2) Add some spices as you see fit.

3) Let that shit sit and soak until it’s party time.

THE DRESSING

1) Add habanero sauce or sri racha sauce to mayo as you see fit.

2) Mix.

NOTE: if you have the ability, like my wife did, then you should make your own mayo from fucking scratch. How? Whisk together 1 egg yolk, a little blob of dijon mustard, a little white vinegar, a pinch of salt, a little olive oil, and a squirt of lemon juice until it becomes like a nice aioli. That shit will have a little zing of acid to cut the sweetness and spice of the other sandwich elements.

PUT ALL THAT FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER

1) Toast your bread to your liking.

2) Assemble the sandwich by first dressing each side of the bread with the mayo/aioli.

3) Add your meat and some of the pickled veggie topping. Here’s where you throw on some of those sliced jalapenos.

4) Eat that shit.

Recipes

The Italian Peasant Sandwich

March 25, 2014 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

I grew up eating some classic Italian peasant food; recipes that were handed down from the old country to the new country. One such dish was escarole and beans. My mom used to make it so that it was like a porridge or thick soup. I thought: maybe I could make it less watery and throw it onto a sandwich with some braised pork. Below is what I came up with. I call it the Italian peasant sandwich.

What you need:

1 lb Boneless fatty pork meat (I used country style ribs here, but pork butt works too)
1 head of thoroughly rinsed escarole
1 can of cannellini beans (white kidney beans)
Crusty style sandwich bread – I would go with two 10-inch rolls
5 Cloves of garlic (2 for the braise and 3 for the sautee)
Olive oil
Crispy fried onions or shallots
Unsalted butter
Slow cooker or crock pot
A few sprigs of rosemary
Cheap white wine
Onion flakes
Onion powder
Crushed red pepper
3 Thai chili peppers
Salt
Black pepper

Step 1: Sear the pork quickly in olive oil after coating all sides with salt & pepper. This will lock in the pork’s juices when it braises. LEAVE THE PAN DIRTY – you will utilize that porky brown goodness in a later step.

Step 2: Place pork into slow cooker with 2 cloves crushed garlic and wine, just enough to cover the meat. Maybe half to 3/4 of a bottle. Add salt, pepper, fresh chilis (cut into halves or thirds), onion powder, onion flakes, crushed red pepper, and rosemary. Set to cook 3 hours on high.

Step 3: Rinse your escarole to get all the fucking sand off. This green leaf is more “Sandy” than a chick with no arms and legs on a beach. Dry the leaves after rinsing.

Step 4: Sautee the escarole with olive oil and 3 crushed garlic cloves on medium heat, putting it right back into the pan you just used to sear the pork. Start with half the escarole, let it wilt a little, and then add the rest. Trust me it will all end up fitting into a normal large sized pan.

Step 5: Once the escarole is half wilted add the can of beans, plus the liquid in the can, and turn the stove to high. You want to boil off all the excess liquid while still retaining the flavor, infusing it into the leaves. Cook the liquid out, and add salt and pepper to taste as it finishes.

NOTE: As an alternative to adding the beans to the escarole in the traditional way, you could puree the beans into a spread, which you can then smear onto the bread.

Step 6: Pull the pork meat out of the slow cooker and pour the excess braising liquid into a wide sauce pan or a wide based pot.

Step 7: Add a tablespoon or two of unsalted butter to the sauce pan and reduce the braising liquid into a thickened sauce. While you wait, pull the pork meat apart with a pair of forks.

Step 8: Toast the sandwich bread and slice it open. Fill it with escarole and pork, and top it with crispy onions and the sauce made from the braising liquid.

Step 9: Eat, shit, repeat.

Recipes

Homemade Ramen – Just Like The Real Thing

March 9, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

My wife recently went to a food expo at the Javitz Center, where she sampled some ramen that contained black garlic oil. She was blown away by it, so naturally I started looking for black garlic oil online. I couldn’t find anything like a bottle of it. But I DID find this on Amazon, so I ordered it:

I figured it can’t be any worse than Maruchan, right? Shit – maybe it would even be good.

So the shipment came. I had a serious hankering for good hearty ramen, REAL ramen, but I didn’t feel like getting back on the train to the city to go find a decent bowl (there’s nothing good out on Long Island in terms of ramen – same goes for pho and Vietnamese food in general). So I decided to doll-up some of this instant ramen with some ground pork and various other cuts of pork.

What you see below is center cut pork chops (top/back), boneless country style pork ribs (center) and pork belly (the ground pork was not pictured). That slab of bacon isn’t anything special either, by the way. My grocery store doesn’t normally sell big hunks of pork belly, so I picked up a $4 package of Hormel brand “salt pork.” I figured if I cooked it correctly, it would taste like the real thing.

So what did I do to the meat? I prepared the pork by using a slow cooker for about 6 hours on low. I filled the pot with about a half cup of soy sauce, 2 Tbsp duck sauce, 2 Tbsp sugar in the raw simple syrup, 2 tsp Chinese 5-spice, a stick of cinnamon along with a few shakes of ground cinnamon, 3 red chili peppers, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp ginger powder, a few shakes of garlic powder, 1 tsp Sriracha sauce, a shake of nutmeg, 1 roughly cut scallion shoot, and about 8 or 10 cloves. I whisked it all together with 2.5 pints of water. At first I was thinking this was too much liquid, but as it turns out it was just the right amount. You’ll see why later.

Then all I had to do was wait… But I bore easily. So I went out and got a little drunk with some friends at a local St. Patrick’s Day parade. There’s nothing quite like day-drinking. My wife was at a baby shower, so I would have just been sitting around playing with myself or watching horror flicks anyway. She picked me up after the shower and the timing was perfect. I came home to this, which I scooped out of the slow cooker:

I tasted it. Holy shit. Fucking perfect! Four beers and two shots didn’t take me off my cooking game, either. With all that excess slow-cooker liquid that I thought was too much, I decided to make a concentrated reduction to use later on as a dressing of sorts for plain noodles, or for SOMETHING. I’d figure out a way to use it because it was delicious. But then I had this brilliant idea to make the freeze-dried instant ramen noodles taste better: I boiled them in the slow-cooker liquid as it reduced. As a bonus, the starch helped to thicken the reduction as well.

In the meantime I cooked the ground pork with soy sauce and garlic, and made the ramen broth, which essentially was just the seasoning packets from the ramen package + water + heat. I also sliced some fresh scallions and some baby bella mushrooms for garnish, and sliced some boiled eggs that we already had in the fridge.

When we put it all together, we popped open the little package of elusive black garlic oil. Here’s the end result:

It came out a slight bit salty, so next time I will adjust seasonings accordingly. But if I ordered this in a NYC ramen shop for $15 I would be none the wiser that it was made with instant packets, and I would love it.

Commentary, Education, Restaurant Reviews

The Great Noodle Chase

January 18, 2014 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

Lately I’ve been on a Japanese ramen binge, but I should also mention my decade-long hankering for Vietnamese pho as well. My wife is Vietnamese, so real-deal, authentic pho is more common in my belly than good ramen. But after having it a few times lately, I felt the need to whip up a post about the two dishes, with pics of course.

First, pho (pronounced like you are saying the word FUN but without the N, and with a tone as if you are asking a question):

For those who may not know, I’ve give a quick rundown of what this awesome shit is. Pho is a very aromatic and highly flavorful beef soup (pho bo) made with LOTS of different parts of the animal: oxtail, marrow, tripe, brisket, eye-round, processed beef balls, etc. The meats are stewed to tender perfection and then served in an almost clear consomme broth that simmered for hours with all the meats and spices like star anise, cinnamon, clove, ginger, and other warm, comforting flavors. The rice noodles used are long and flat, almost like a linguini. It’s topped with cilantro, chilies (optional, of course), bean sprouts, scallions, thinly sliced onion, and a wedge of lime. It’s usually accompanied with plum sauce (hoisin) and chili paste (sri racha) on the side for you to add to taste. The result is something so delicious that you will crave it every day of your life. It’s light, yet hearty. You’ll never find a broth so clear and thin with so much flavor packed in it. Most Vietnamese joints will offer it with chicken too (pho ga), but come on… really? If you are getting it, get a big bowl of the mixed beef. Although, I must say, sometimes I like to order with just the thin-sliced eye-round meat, or that and beef meatballs.

By far the most delicious bowl we ever had was in Vietnam, up in the mountains of Sapa at a resort. It should be noted that pho in Vietnam is different than here in the states. First: there’s a more robust flavor. Second: the sri racha is non-existent as it is not needed. They just utilize their abundance of fresh chili peppers. They DO have a chili paste in Vietnam, but it’s creamier and sweeter than sri racha, and probably better for dipping with fried items than mixing into soup.

Clearly not everyone can just up and leave to the mountains of Vietnam for a bowl of soup. So if you can’t, try this bowl, from Thai Son restaurant on Baxter Street in NYC. Yes: it’s a Vietnamese food restaurant, not Thai. Definitely not as good as the one above, but at around $6 a bowl you really can’t go wrong:

Okay now for Japanese ramen:

First, check out this little film to get a sense of what real ramen is. I’m not talking about the little fucking soup packets for $0.33 each in the supermarket, which contain so much fucking sodium that they can be used to salt the highways of a major city in a snowstorm.

The few places I’ve been to in NYC have a variety of flavors and broth bases, ranging from the more traditional pork, to chicken, to miso, to veggie. They vary based on noodle type too – wavy or straight, etc., and also toppings. Some places will serve a basic bowl with a few things in it, and charge a nominal amount for extra toppings like extra pork belly or lean pork, a boiled egg, spicy paste, extra noodles, etc. I tend to lean more toward the pork broth (tonkotsu), although I’ve had some really good chicken based and even curry based broths.

Note: there are lots of people who make it their mission to hunt down the great ramen places all over town, especially in Japan. I can’t compete with those guys… yet… My experience is very limited, but I WILL share a few of my favorite bowls so far, along with location:

Mega Ramen at Totto II in Hell’s Kitchen (51st & 10th) – no need for ordering extras on this. It’s a chicken based broth (REALLY good, by the way – not your average bullshit chicken stock). So hearty and fatty, and topped with tons of different kinds of pork meat. I refer to this one as the pork pool party. $15.

Tondaku Green Curry Ramen at Bassanova in Chinatown (Mott Street). Different, but really good. More greenery than you would normally expect but it really works. $15. Egg was extra.

Tondaku Ramen, also at Bassanova. Traditional tonkotsu pork ramen made with Berkshire pork. $13.

That’s all I’ve got for you assholes right now, other than the fact that the guy from the video is the guy who opened Bassanova.

Do yourselves a favor and go for a swim in a pork pool party – your gullet will thank you. In the meantime, if anyone knows of a beef or rib eye ramen, I’d love to try it. Does it exist? If not, maybe it’s time…

UPDATE 3/15/14 – Real deal beef ramen DOES exist. I heard about some late night ramen joint in the west village called Takashi that serves up an all-beef broth ramen on Friday and Saturday nights only, from 12:00am to 2:00am. It was tough, but I ended up getting a seat for my wife and I to slurp up some of this delicious shit. We started with some beer and took in the surroundings:

As I mentioned, it’s a beef broth, but it contains crispy beef intestines, FUCKING BRAISED KOBE BEEF BELLY!!!, a soft boiled egg, and alkaline ramen noodles. The little blob of red you see in the middle is the spicy paste that my wife got with her bowl. I prefer no spicy paste, as it masks the beef flavor too much for my liking (though I DO love very spicy foods):

If you’re in town overnight on a weekend and are up for something bold and adventurous, give this bowl a try. The only problem is that you will need to try for a reservation on the Monday prior at 5pm. That’s when they start taking reservations. I emailed on Tuesday afternoon for my rez and they were already booked solid. They asked if I wanted to be on a waiting list in case someone cancels: I said yes. I found out on Friday at about 4:00pm that they had an opening for me and my wife at midnight. SWEET!

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carnivore connoisseur