high-end sashimi, and ramen

October 24

I popped my head into Megu in Midtown to sample a new tuna they’re serving. Kindai bluefin is named after Kinki University in Osaka, or Kinki Daigaku in Japanese. Kindai is a common nickname for the place. They have spent something like 37 years developing farming methods for bluefin, which unlike many other farm-raised fish must constantly keep moving, which means the areas in which they're raised have to be quite large.
Kindai start out in a facility on the island of Kyushu, but after a few months are moved to the warmer waters off of Okinawa. They are fed food that is closely monitored by the university, which says the fish are sustainable and even organic.
So I sampled akami, chu-toro and o-toro cuts of tuna both from Kindai and from wild Boston bluefin while making small talk with Megu midtown general manager Koichi Yokoyama.
Inevitably we spoke about Japanese food, and where to get it in New York. We shared observations of the ramen at a couple of wildly popular ramen places in the East Village. I'd only been to one of them. Koichi first spoke of the newer of the two and damned it with faint praise. "For me it’s okay,” he said, which from a Japanese person translates as “it’s barely edible.” I had only been at the older one, and we agreed that the broth of the ramen there was bland, and that the expensive pork used with it was not helpful.
He suggested I check out Minca in the East Village and Rokumeisha in the West Village for ramen. For soba: Soba Koh.
I decided that this evening was as good as any to have East Village ramen, so after sampling my sashimi, I high-tailed it to Minca, where I had their Minca ramen.

Here now is a picture of the Kindai at Megu. The akami, the cheapest cut, is in the front, garnished with a sprig of kinome, which is the plant of the sancho pepper. Then above that is some wakame seaweed. The chu-toro is on the right, garnished with hojiso, which are flowers of the shiso plant. To the left of that is o-toro, with a shiso leaf in the background and resting on shredded daikon. That's daikon on the far left, too

Molyvos turns 10

October 23

Did you know that the almonds of Sicily have such tough shells that you can't even crack them with a nutcracker?
I learned that at Molyvos’s 10th anniversary party this evening, which was celebrated with a cocktail party featuring samplings of wine and food from different regions of Greece — the Peloponnesus, Crete, Lesbos and Macedonia.
Arlyn Blake, who lives to introduce people to one another, introduced me to a Sicilian almond grower whose business card I seem to have lost, but he said they’re working on promoting the distinctiveness of Sicilian almonds, which he said are more intensely flavored than the California ones I recently became acquainted with. That would make sense, as the yield of the Sicilian olives is much lower.
I spent much of the evening catching up with freelance writer Francine Cohen. I explained to her my belief that Jewish weddings benefit very much from having Greeks and WASPs at them. The Greeks are necessary because their dances are very similar to Jewish ones, but with the great advancement that Greeks see no need to dance in a closed circle. Jews, especially at weddings when doing traditional East European Jewish dances, stay cramped together in a circle. Greeks know to break the circle and lead dancers into loops and spirals not unlike conga lines. It's much better.
WASPs are necessary for the traditional lifting of the bride and groom while they’re seated in chairs, because wouldn’t you rather be lifted by some nice corn-fed WASPs than by asthmatic accountants?
The music at the party made me want to do a bottle dance, but I did not get drunk enough to attempt it.

Sometimes it just comes down to bacon

October 22

My brief stay in San Francisco was followed by a trip to Napa Valley for Nation’s Restaurant News’ R&D Summit, a fun little weekend event for corporate chefs of chain restaurants that involves visits to wineries, a pig roast and Wiffle ball, but that centers around a trip back to San Francisco to purchase local, seasonal foodstuffs at the Ferry Building market, which are then taken back to Napa and cooked by the participants at The Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus, in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena.
It’s an interesting thing to watch the chefs who develop the food that America eats get together and chop vegetables and braise things and devise new salsas. It turns out that persimmon does not make a particularly good salsa, but hey, it was worth a try.
Chefs from places like Applebee’s and Baja Fresh and Cheesecake Factory were there. And also from Culver’s, IHOP, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Shari’s, Taco Bell, Subway and TGI Friday’s.
They were split up into teams, and here’s some of what they cooked with the seasonal stuff they found in the market (if any participants want to correct me, please go right ahead):

From Team V

Striped bass dusted with cornstarch and fried, with a five spice-black bean sauce
Fried chicken mushroom tacos with tomatillo-gooseberry salsa and chopped cilantro
Arepas with Humboldt Fog goat cheese, also with tomatillo-gooseberry salsa and cilantro
Squash blossom quesadillas with shallots, limejuice and that same salsa and cilantro
Layered “pizza” (sort of like lasagne, really, but firmer) with Humboldt Fog cheese, tomato, basil, fresh peaches, burrata and pesto vinaigrette
Autumn cioppino with butternut squash, served in a bread bowl

From Team IV

Grilled flat bread with caponata
Wild mushroom (shiitake, cremini and button) soup garnished with fried mushrooms
Turkey thigh ballotine stuffed with oyster, raisin, walnut bread, port-infused dried cranberries, chorizo and ancho honey vinaigrette, served with smashed Peruvian potatoes and roasted butternut squash
Pear crisp with fennel ice cream

From Team III, which I affectionately call Team Bacon

Challah French toast with applewood smoked bacon and blueberry-ancho dressing
Shrimp poached with sherry and slab bacon
Beets with pancetta and goat cheese
Brussels sprouts with garlic
Duck bacon BLT
Bacon-wrapped linguiça with porter barbecue sauce
Potato skins with Gruyère and “bacon sausage”
Arugula salad with blue cheese and chard, served with goat cheese-pumpkin gnocchi wrapped in bacon
Assorted roasted and raw oysters, mostly topped with pancetta, among other things
Skate with lime, olive oil, bacon fat, garlic, limejuice and bacon croutons
Chocolate truffles with cured bacon and tarragon

From Team II

Late season heirloom tomato carpaccio with baby tropea onion
Grilled black Mission figs stuffed with blue cheese and bacon
Oyster duet: chilled and topped with honeydew vinaigrette sorbet, and grilled with Warner pear-fennel compound butter
Quinoa in garlic vinaigrette with peppers, dried blueberries and pomegranate
Arugula-pear salad with roasted pepper vinaigrette
Crab salad with fennel, pear, tarragon, wilted arugula and pancetta-honeydew vinaigrette
Pumpkin seed and sage sausage pizza
Piquillo peppers stuffed with chèvre and merguez sausage, topped with pumpkin seeds
Beef cheeks with trumpet and cinnamon cap mushrooms
Pomegranate sausage sourdough buschetta with roasted tomatoes and fennel

And from Team I

Grilled bruschetta with chèvre, king trumpets, chanterelles, arugula, sweet onion vinaigrette and roasted pepper oil
Pepper-tomato soup
Oven roasted and raw figs with orange sauce, balsamic-veal stock sauce with sea salt and crème fraîche
Beer-braised sausage, shaved Brussels sprouts and shallots sautéed in bacon, haricots verts and roasted garlic-potato ragù, served with stone-ground mustard, blueberry-ancho dressing and deep-fried bacon
Apple-white chocolate bread pudding with pomegranate