tommy:eats

Dozzino: Hoboken, NJ

Readers of my past words may have come to understand that if there's a single style of pizza that I enjoy more than any other, it's Neapolitan-style. I can certainly enjoy a properly executed NYC slice every now and again (and they are few and far between), but there's just no comparison to the glory that is a well executed Neapolitan pizza. So sure, my bias will always be at play when I talk about restaurants that do this well, and I always seek them out.

So when I heard there's Neapolitan-style pizza in Hoboken, to paraphrase Guy Fieri, well I just had to check it out. And I don't mean Grimaldi's, which 1) isn't Neapolitan-style, and 2) isn't very exceptional.

Dozzino is both.

The Cookery: Dobbs Ferry, NY

Is this my new favorite restaurant?

Weekends afford us time to find some interesting food around the NYC area. Unfortunately, on weekend afternoons, the vast majority of restaurants seems to abandon what they do well, what they've worked hard to develop, the food that gives them an identity and sets them apart from the competition, and shift to a menu fitting of a Holiday Inn buffet for weary travelers.  This is know as "brunch," and "brunch" is strictly for amateurs.

But not The Cookery in Dobbs Ferry. Their brunch menu is no fucking brunch menu like I've ever seen, of this you are assured.

Lots of pig, pasta, eggs (a brunchy item and normally handled in unexceptional ways, but not here...purgatory, coddled etc.), fish, meatballs, all over the brunch menu. In fact it looks a lot like their dinner menu. This reason alone is enough for it to be my new favorite restaurant.

A t:e reader turned me on to this place, and after reviewing the menu online, it wasn't long before we took the quick drive from Bergen County to see what was doin.

Dry aged burgers: so easy, with some scraps

A while back I made dry-aged burgers using the obvious: dry-aged beef. I concluded a few things from this experiment:

1) it is expensive
2) there isn't as much dry-aged flavor in dry-aged beef as you'd think

The second point was something that I had been thinking about, as it related to the steaks you get at Peter Luger. I'm of the opinion that much of that dry-aged, funky flavor is from that butter/tallow mixture that they use. I have to think they are using scraps of dry-aged beef and fat, the really tasty stuff, along with butter, to make a very potent sauce, which they then cook your steak in and serve your steak with. An earlier experiment to supported this theory yielded good results.

But that excellent steak didn't solve my dry-aged burger challenge. However, it certainly lead to some ideas.

The first approach, which I've been using for a while, is to ask my butcher, Sal, at Westwood Prime Meat in Westwood, NJ, to put some of the dry-aged "odds and ends" into his already excellent ground beef. Surely this is what they do at Peter Luger. This has lead to some fantastic and work-free dry-aged burgers at the t:e headquarters.

A recent burger went and looked like this:

Huîtrerie Régis: Oysters in Paris, France

It didn't occur to me that France was known for oysters until a reader of t:e, who travels to France an awful lot, suggested that I visit Huîtrerie Régis, a tiny restaurant in the left bank, right off of Boulevard Saint-Germain.

We showed up for lunch, 15 minutes before they were open of course, as Americans do, and waited in the rain for the doors to open. Another couple was waiting as well. Between the 4 of us we took up a quarter of the restaurant. Yup, it's tiny. Did I mention it was raining in Paris? Every day?

I was looking forward to trying Belons, and some of the other premium oysters that you'll see on the short and sweet menu at Huitrerie Regis. From what I read in preparation for this meal, the price of oysters goes up (and the flavor profile changes) based on how crowded the oysters are and how long they spend in the cleansing pond. However, only a few were available that day, none of which were the most expensive, so I was SOL. This doesn't mean that this wasn't an exceptional meal. No it doesn't mean that at all. This turned out to be one of the if not the top oyster experiences of my life. And that's a life that has had many oyster experiences. It was also one of our favorite meals (probably top 1 or 2...Deux Fois Plus de Piment is a formidable competitor) during our trip.

Deux Fois Plus de Piment: Sichuan in Paris, France

There's only so much foie gras and duck confit and red wine that I can take, he said, not believing that he said it.

Really, though, after a few days of eating the largely rich flavors and round textures of food in France, our palate begged for a kick in the teeth. Something with edge. With bite.

While we did have a very good Chinese meal a few days prior to this lunch (at Impérial Choisy), we were hoping for some of the assertive flavors of Sichuan cooking. En route on foot to Chinatown (in the 13th), a quick on-the-fly google for "Sichuan in Paris" led me to the very helpful blog by David Lebovitz (I relied on this blog quite a bit, partly because its Google ranking is very high and thus it's always in the search results, and more importantly because it's an enjoyable and informational blog). Deux Fois Plus de Piment is not in Chinatown, so an about face was in order. I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of something spicy.

Fairway's steak: with tomatoes, Asparagus: with fried egg

A few weeks ago, I posted a throw-away Facebook post about some steaks at Fairway which, to my novice eye, looked pretty good at $18/lb. As often happens when I open my mouth, a long, convoluted debate emerged, primarily with my nemesis from the north, who I will call "Ant-nee." As if Ant-nee and his strong opinions weren't enough, the discussion took some additional turns with input from some other nice folks, visiting topics like editing Facebook posts, the source of Peter Luger's beef, and if these steaks were actually expensive. Adding to the mix was the recent Facebook change which causes comments to appear out of order for some reason.  Nobody knew what the hell anyone was saying.  Which was probably just as well.

Ant-nee, who no doubt has a lot of experience with eating and drinking and drinking and even husbandry, proclaimed that he would "pass" on these "ghetto ass steaks." There was only one thing to do, after arguing.  I mean two things to do:

1) not invite Ant-nee to dinner

2) cook these steaks to prove him wrong

Next Door: Montclair, NJ

tommy:eats reader and friend 'Curlz' has been telling me about the burger at Next Door for a few years. I finally got around to getting over to Next Door, which is Zod Arifai's more casual restaurant next to his appropriately- and much-ballyhooed Blu. 

Speck and peas: pizza

When I'm trying to come up with pizza ideas, I'll think "pasta." Conversely, when I'm pulling together a pasta dish, I'll think "this would work with pizza." It's obvious why. Pasta is made from flour and water (sometimes egg) and pizza dough is made from flour and water. When pizza is done well, you'll even have that layer of dough right under the toppings that has the consistency of a noodle. Pizza carbonara and pizza all'amatriciana? Of course.

Since the speck and peas and pasta with cream sauce experiment, the thought of applying the same approach to pizza had been rattling around in my head. I took a few minutes yesterday to poke around the internet before I jumped in, and found that Jim Lahey has a recipe for prosciutto and pea pizza in his book 'My Pizza.' I took his idea of using bechamel and off I went.

Forcella: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Representatives from the t:e organization spent a recent weekend whoring through Williamsburg.  I had several goals in mind:

1) Neapolitan pizza
2) BBQ
3) cocktails

Even with what was essentially one Saturday, we managed to do it all, and more.

Speck and peas and pasta: cream sauce

iamnotafoodstylist

The fella from iamnotachef.com and I were emailing each other about food the other day, as we generally do, and the subject of speck came up. Speck is sort of like prosciutto, but it's smoked, which means it might even be better than prosciutto.  iamnoachef had just got done cooking a pizza with some speck, and my response was to tell him to put speck in his carbonara, since it's smoky, and since he thinks that bacon is an appropriate meat for carbonara. I do not, and this is a constant point of contention. 

He graciously ignored my ribbing, and then we moved on to the idea of pasta with speck (but not carbonara). My mind was now focused on speck/peas/pasta/cream. iamnotachef quickly suggested a bit of mint (inspired) and pecorino romano (which I always pair with pork/pork products).  Off to Fairway I went for the speck (and then to King's for the mint, since Fairway inexplicably didn't have any mint).