Thank You 2012

Last year was an exciting year for food. Mission Chinese and Pok Pok both opened East Coast outposts, two new chef's counters opened via Atera and Blanca, Pete Wells a) became the New York Times food critic and b) wrote a historically scathing review of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant, Dinosaur BBQ announced 604 Union Street in Brooklyn as its next home, Andrew Carmellini opened The Library with work on his French resto Lafayette getting well underway, Gabe Stulman's Little Wisco Empire grew by two via Perla and Chez Sardine (Montmarte, Stulman's next project, will open this year in Chelsea), April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman opened Salvation Taco, The Nomad happened, so did a culinary swap between Eleven Madison Park and Alinea, Italian cuisine invaded SoHo via Principessa, Angelo SoHo, Galli, and Isola Trattoria e Crudo Bar, Great Googa Mooga attracted over 30,000 people to Prospect Park in May, and the entire industry came together after devestation swept through the city in the winds of Hurricane Sandy.

Also in 2012, Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood got its first wine store via Gowanus Wine Merchants, and Third Avenue in the same Brooklyn neighborhood saw the opening of The Pines (our 2012 favorite) and Runner & Stone on the same stretch between Carroll and President Streets (Littleneck is on the same block), creating a culinary nucleus of sorts. Fletcher's Brooklyn Barbecue gave Third Ave a boost a few blocks south when it opened between 7th and 8th Streets last fall. Generally speaking, 2012 was a big year for the borough of Brooklyn. Josh Ozersky wrote 2,000 words to the contrary last year, but the quality of food and number of dining options in Kings County seemed to increase tenfold. Last year alone the borough welcomed Reynard, Gwynnett Street, Aska came and Frej went, Ganso, Talde, Pork Slope, Dassara, Hunter's, Red Gravy, Governor, Gran Electrica, La Vara, Lulu & Po, The Wallace, Dear Bushwick, and Bristket Town. Speedy Romeo, Krescendo, and Brooklyn Central gave pizza fenatics a handful of new options and there was the whole Grimaldi's/Juliana debacle to boot.

The 2013 train is already set in motion and looking to bring another exciting year. Ivan Orkin will open his first stateside ramen shop, the boys behind Torrisi will open two spots on Thompson Street via The Lobster Club and Carbone, Michael White will open The Butterfly, Ristorante Morini uptown and possibly something in the former Fiamma space (the building was sold by BR Guest's Steven Hanson at the end of last year and White's Altamarea Group is leasing the space from the new owners), and Andy Ricker will be opening a Brooklyn outpost of his Portland-based Whiskey Soda Lounge half a block north from Pok Pok Ny on Columbia Street in the spring. Even for the superstitious, there's luck to be had in 2013 and it may come in the form of a Battersby expansion.

For both Manhattan and Brooklyn (and the other, lesser explored boroughs by Digest NY), the lists go on and on and will get even longer as the days of 2013 start to come and go. As they do, we'll be here to keep you abreast and athigh of the latest and greatest of all things food in the greatest city there is.

Happy 2013 New York!

Andy Ricker's Whiskey Soda Lounge is Coming to Brooklyn

Andy Ricker has been operating in New York City for just about a year now. Pok Pok Wing opened in January 2011, but morphed into Pok Pok Phat Thai in August after the demand for Ike's Wings proved too great for the small Rivington Street space. Ricker opened Pok Pok Ny in April, four months after Pok Pok Wing, on Columbia Street in Brooklyn. The restaurant's been packed ever since and the waits are rarely shy of an hour. That might change come spring time, as Diner's Journal confirmed earlier rumors that Ricker was bringing his Portland-based Whiskey Soda Lounge to New York.

The lounge will open this spring in the former Iro Sushi space at 115 Columbia Street, half a block north of Pok Pok Ny at 127 Columbia Street. The extra space provided by the new venue will help with the inevitable waits at Ny. Whiskey Soda Lounge will serve aahaan kap klaem, which is the drinking food of Thailand. Ricker described the food to Diner's Journal as "spicy-salty-sour." Don't worry, Ike's Wings will be on the menu. [DJ]

Go On with Your Bad Self, Mr. Bowien

The end of the year is a time when food critics weigh in on all that happened in the restaurant industry over the last twelve months. In place of a review this week, New York Times critic Pete Wells wrote "12 Restaurant Triumphs of 2012." "At the end of my first year in the restaurant critic’s chair," he writes, "the New York dining landscape still looks like a wonderland to me." The list of 12 restaurants is arranged as a countdown, described as "a cardiogram, with each spike in the chart denoting a restaurant that made my heart race this year." Among the excitement-inducing restaurants are Gwynnett St (12), Calliope (11), Blanca (10), Pok Pok Ny (7), Atera (4), and The Nomad (3).

Landing the number 1 spot is Danny Bowien's Lower East Side smash Mission Chinese Food. "For its bravado, its inventiveness, its low prices, its attempt to ease the suffering of those waiting at the door by tapping a small keg of free beer, and its promise to give some of its earnings on each entree to a food bank, Mission Chinese was the most exciting restaurant of the year."

The free beer while you wait, the donation of .75 cents from the sale of every entree to the Food Bank for NYC, and the low price point at Mission Chinese (with the exception of the cumin lamb breast [$16] and the veal breast a la orange [$24], nothing on the menu exceeds $13), are part of the formula at a restaurant that has quickly established itself as an exciting venue for those seeking a delicious, affordable, vibrant, unique take on Sichuan cuisine in a room unlike no other in the city. "No other restaurant I reviewed this year," Wells explains, "left me feeling as exhilarated each time I got up from the table."

Pok Pok Phat Thai is Up and Running

Andy Ricker's Pok Pok Wing reopened as Pok Pok Phat Thai Friday, after closing Sunday the 19th so the kitchen could transition from "Ike's Wings" factory to a phat Thai, aka pad Thai, restaurant.  Ricker is now serving his "Ike's Wings" exclusively at Pok Pok NY on Columbia Street in Cobble Hill. 

Pok Pok Phat Thai is serving five different types of phat Thai, Hoi Thawt (a crispy broken crepe with mussels and eggs), and "A Bangkok Chinatown specialty" known as Kuaytiaw Khua Kai (a wide rice noodle dish with chicken, cuttlefish, and duck egg).  The grub can all be washed down with the famous Pok Pok drinking vinegars or a few other iced tea and coffee options.  Nothing on the menu exceeds $12.

Serious Eats was there to document the reopening Friday, and the Pok Pok Phat Thai website has a few other pictures of some of the dishes.

La Vara and Cobble Hill Get Two More Stars from Wells

Cobble Hill and Pete Wells are becoming great friends. Andy Ricker opened Pok Pok NY on Columbia Street in the western reaches of the neighborhood earlier this year and Wells gave it two stars in June.  This week, Wells goes back to Cobble Hill, to La Vara, and gives it the same two-star treatment.

La Vara opened on Clinton Street back in May.  It's the newest project from Alex Raij and her husband/co-chef Eder Montero.  Here, the married couple are bringing a unique twist to the Spanish cuisine that can be found at their other restaurants in Chelsea: Txikito and El Quinto Pino.  At La Vara, there's a focus on "the vast legacy of the Jews and Muslims who shared the Iberian Peninsula with Christians for centuries.  This three-way marriage, known as la convivencia, did wonderful things for the country’s kitchens."

"La Vara serves most things as small tapas-size dishes.  Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t."  In a Diner's Journal article published today, Wells asks the reader, "Do you like small plates restaurants? Do you like lots of little tastes, or do you want more?"  The result is an ongoing dialogue on Twitter (read the highlights here) that includes the likes of Bloomberg restaurant critic Ryan Sutton and David Chang.

Wells clearly enjoyed a few dishes at La Vara, namely the griddled red shrimp and a pasta called gurullos, which he found to be "as fluffy as an Italian grandmother’s prizewinning gnocchi."  The review is as much a dissecction of La Vara's efforts as it is a thorough lesson on the history of religion in Spain.  "La Vara, by the way, was the name of a Jewish newspaper published in New York until it ceased in 1948."

Apparently, Phat Thai's Aren't Just What People Wore in the '70s

Diner's Journal reports Andy Ricker is changing things up at Pok Pok Wing.  The demand for Ricker's wing rendition has proven to be too big for the small Lower East Side space.  Pok Pok Wing will be closing this Sunday for minor renovations and menu adjustments and reopen Friday the 24th as Pok Pok Phat Thai.  Phat Thai, aka pad Thai, is a popular noodle dish Ricker was eventually going to build a space around.  That space will be the former Pok Pok Wing.

He introduced the east coast to his wings when Wing opened back in January.  When Pok Pok NY opened on Columbia Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the wings showed up on the menu there as well.  Cobble Hill will be the only place to get the wings after Pok Pok Phat Thai opens next week.  Ricker hasn't abandoned the idea of a wing space in Manhattan, it's just a matter of finding a space with a kitchen big enough to accommodate the demand.

As for PPPT, there will be four types of the noodle dish, with the option of rice or glass noodle: pork, prawn, prawns and pork, and vegan.  Everything (vegan dish aside) will be stir-fried in rendered pork fat.

Two Two Stars Stars for for Pok Pok

Pete Wells gets some use out of his GPS and heads to Pok Pok Ny in Cobble Hill for this week's review.  

James Beard Award winning chef Andy Ricker opened Pok Pok Ny on April 18th.  He introduced New York to his crazy pantry a few months earlier when he opened Pok Pok Wing in the East Village.   Pok Pok Ny is the Portland based chef's first sit down establishment on the East Coast and it's been on the media's radar ever since.  A garden opened in the back a few weeks ago and helps to soften some pretty lengthy wait times.

Wells welcomes the restaurant to the list of the city's Thai mainstays with its unique, regional menu.  "The first way Pok Pok Ny shifts your perspective is by offering the food of northern Thailand, which has been largely missing from New York."  "So yes," he goes on, "by all means go to Ayada and Sripraphai. Everybody should. But don’t tell yourself that you’ll be getting the same stuff, because it isn’t true."

Wells' two stars drives home the fact that the trip to 127 Columbia Street in Cobble Hill is worth it.  "Altered perceptions come free with the price of dinner at Pok Pok Ny."

Pok Pok Ny Now Open Seven Days a Week

Pok Pok's garden, get tiki with itAndy Ricker's East Coast Pok Pok outpost opened in Cobble Hill just shy of two months ago.  Starting tonight, according to a facebook post last Friday, the restaurant will be serving dinner seven nights a week.  The hours switched around a bit "to reflect the habits of the neighborhood."  Pok Pok NY is now open from 5:30pm to 10:30pm, lunch service is still TBD.

Waits are still to be expected, but much less severe now that the restaurant is open seven days and the garden is in full swing around back.  The garden has an extra 30 seats or so and guests can order drinks and hang out while they wait for a table either in the main dining room or the garden itself.