SO, here at the Travel desk, we’re spending the week obsessing over food. Truthfully, this week is not all that different from other weeks; this time, however, we’re torturing you with our nonsense. (Because everybody gets a turn.)
To pull the whole package together — we started Tuesday, we’ll wrap on Friday, right here on NYPOST.COM — I sat down with series guest-co-editor-person Andy Wang for a friendly chat. When he’s not in Las Vegas or elsewhere on the road for the Travel section, he oversees things on the Real Estate desk at the paper.
DAVID: What was the last great meal you ate, Andy?
ANDY: Five-minute pressure cooker chili in my apartment with ingredients from the Paisanos butcher shop on Smith Street. Also: Fabio Trabocchi makes good dover sole. But I may have to leave town to eat that in the future, if he ever cooks it again.
DAVID: Mine was using a 30 percent off coupon at Fort Defiance in Red Hook. I love a good coupon, almost as much as I love Fort Defiance. It’s so of the moment: Sophisticated, casual, welcoming, attentive to detail. Thanks to that great Web site Blackboard Eats you told me about, I got a discount on my Bourbon Milk Punch and biscuits and gravy. You were there too and liked it, as I recall.
ANDY: Yes, it was great. Let’s talk travel. We both ate at some fantastic out-of-town places. There were so many memorable meals at eateries I visited for the first time. My top 5:
1) Zahav, Philadelphia. Michael Solomonov’s Israeli restaurant, which I mentioned in this week’s main feature, really elevates a cuisine that you can easily find in New York but at nowhere close to this level.
2) Animal, Los Angeles. This meat-happy place and its no-frills, anything-goes vibe made me so giddy.
3) Sage, Las Vegas. The best restaurant at CityCenter, from Chicago’s Shawn McClain. It’s contemporary American with the finest ingredients. Farm-to-table and seasonal might seem like weird things to talk about in the Nevada desert, but they won’t after you go here. This was near the top of our list of Strip restaurants.
4) Hakkasan, Miami. Alan Yau’s food and the sexy room offer a Chinese fine-dining experience better than what you can get in New York. It’s too bad that, Scarpetta aside, the rest of the Fontainebleau has so many issues.
5) Kogi, Los Angeles. Korean fillings, Mexican wrappers, served from a truck. This might be the taste of LA, but New York needs this too.
DAVID: Here’s mine:
1) Great Lake, Chicago. Nick Lessing’s pizzas were the best I ate in 2009. Worth every penny, too.
2) Slows BBQ, Detroit. This essential gathering place across from the abandoned train station is Motown at its absolute best. Great catfish, good Michigan beers on tap, super people.
3) Xi’an Famous Foods, New York. When newspapers shut down and travel editors go the way of telegram boys, it’ll be okay — I’ll panhandle in the subways to make the $5 I’d need for a plate of cumin lamb with hand-pulled noodles. I had a lot of good meals here at home but nothing excites me like quality and low prices combined.
4) XOCO, Chicago. Rick Bayless won me over with this counter service Mexican-ish spot. The pork belly vermicelli soup was complex and bright and captivating; better than most pho I’ve eaten. The ingredients they use here are stupendous, so many come right from the region. One of the best affordable things to eat in Chicago right now.
5) La Petite Grocery, New Orleans — Abita root beer braised short ribs — accompanied, right or wrong, with a French 75 cocktail. The young chef, Justin Devillier and his wife Mia Freiberger are breathing new life into the already charming space, running it more like a family business. I can’t wait to go back.
DAVID: Let’s talk trends. What’s over?
ANDY: I’m really hoping that Scott Conant’s new Cooper Square Hotel restaurant serves the fried chicken that was on Scarpetta’s late-night menu (which is better than any other fried chicken I had last year), but the skewing toward simple, unhealthy food has been a little much. I’d be happy if vegetables become a trend in 2010, and you know that I’m not exactly a healthy eater, ever.
DAVID: Vegetables, yes. As much as the whole fried chicken / bacon / hamburger / pizza thing appeals to my lower nature, I’m with you. Keep all that good stuff around (in fact, let’s have more of it), but let’s also do fun things with boring veg like broccoli, and whatnot. These guys now with the fried chicken and what not, they’re like, “Hey, fatties — tuck in!” Everyone loves to eat bad, but for God’s sake, the enabling going on in New York right now is just appalling. My doctor is about to issue a restraining order against April Bloomfield’s cooking, before it can hurt me again.
ANDY: Trends that should definitely stick around include the whole seasonal, farm-to-table thing.
DAVID: Is that even a trend anymore? I think it’s just a necessary, on-going retooling. Local and seasonal is always more interesting. I am noticing fewer writers making fun of the concept, which is nice.
ANDY: It’s how Top Chef fan favorite Kevin “Beardy” Gillespie cooks, so America is into it. It’s showing up all over. It’s a reminder that good food is slow and often way more expensive than we’re used to paying.
DAVID: Speaking of slow and expensive. One trend that needs to expand — Cocktails. I want more bartenders to learn how to make a proper Sazerac or an Old Pal. For all the talk about cocktails, it’s still hard to get those two things made correctly. Many bartenders at upscale places don’t even know what those things are. We’re really growing in this area — that whole speakeasy crap may be a fad, but good cocktails are forever. I want more Dutch Kills (Queens), Violet Hour (Chicago), Seven Grand (Los Angeles); less PDT, secret-knock foolishness. The cocktails aren’t any better in the exclusive places. They’re just more expensive and hard to get.
ANDY: Looking back on 2009, a year when the Post visited all 50 states and you personally hit dozens (exact number?), what do you think is the state of food in America?
DAVID: I did 40 states in 2009, I think; close to that. I was really tired towards the end. As far as food in North America goes, I’ve always felt that the only difference between sainted France or sainted Italy and places like California, Wisconsin, Ontario or British Columbia is that Europe has more practice. As time goes on, you can see a New World food culture taking root that’s so unbelievably serious and worthy and loads of fun to explore. We focus too much on the bad things about our food, but the fact that we’re focusing on them at all reflects a growing awareness of the need to change. Change is happening all over, often in small towns and places that reporters don’t generally pay attention to. A friend of mine just got back from Decatur, Illinois, home of Archer Daniels Midland. Even there, in the shadow of one of the biggest agricultural behemoths in the world, she found folks that were into the whole local / organic / farm-to-table thing. It’s happening — it may take a century or two to get it right, but we’ll get there. I’m loving the ride.
ANDY: Unlike you, I didn’t have the luxury of bouncing from small town to small town. I spent an inordinate amount of time in Vegas. But I also ate fab food in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even Miami. The best meals I had were ones that really defy categories: Animal in LA is unlike any place I’ve ever been. Kogi in LA is a fricking food truck. Zahav in Philly takes Israeli food to places well beyond what you can find on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. And the staff cares so much about food. Solomonov urged me to go to Pho 75 (which was great the next day), and the waiter at Zahav overheard that I had just been to Animal and came over to ask for recommendations because he was about to go.
Beyond those places, Italian food is hot. Every kind of Asian food is hot. NYC can beat anyone at Italian, but Asian is so much better elsewhere. It’s better in California, of course. But also all over Vegas. And Miami has Hakkasan, for goodness sake.
DAVID: We could have had Hakkasan, if Ian Schrager and Alan Yau would have hugged it out. What a pair of drama queens. I don’t know that we needed Hakkasan in New York, though.
ANDY: We don’t need Hakkasan, but it’s better than Chin Chin, way better than Philippe and Mr. Chow. We could use it. But the Asian food in Vegas is even more impressive than Hakkasan. Raku is the coolest chef’s hangout we’ve encountered. Ichiza. K J Kitchen. All the Korean BBQ places where you’ll find party kids and high rollers in the know hanging out at 4 a.m.
DAVID: Vegas is poorly understood, I think. I still have to explain to numerous New Yorkers who say “I’d never go there. I don’t gamble.” Or, they spout the usual claptrap about how they don’t want to be around all that tacky architecture or all those fat Midwesterners. I’m a proud native, but New Yorkers can be so simple sometimes. Travel writers, too — I’m amazed at how many of these clowns are almost delighted to tell you that they’ve never been to Vegas. God forbid they should set foot in one of the most popular travel destinations in North America.
DAVID: Moving on — what was your overall favorite food scene you encountered in 2009?
ANDY: LA is becoming a fun food town. You really do get a scene with your food at places like Jose Andres’ Bazaar. The dishes might be more impressive than they are good, but the experience overall is special.
DAVID: That food is old, though. He’s been doing it at Minibar in Washington, DC for years now. A friend of mine said the other day that Jose Andres was the most “green” chef there is: He’s crazy about recycling.
ANDY: But seeing locals who look like they came from the “90210” extras tent diving into molecular gastronomy is fun. Spherical olives and liquid nitrogen martinis along with a hot crowd is cool. When you go to Animal nearby, you’ll see a similarly hot crowd, eating pig ears and oxtail poutine.
DAVID: That’s right, I’m going back to LA soon.
ANDY: Because LA is an early town, the fun starts right after work. We have fun “scene” restaurants like Abe & Arthur’s in New York, but when I was in LA, I wanted to stop by Katsuya because I had seen it in Entourage and Melrose Place. I went at 6, and Don Cheadle and Anthony LaPaglia were there eating with their families. Katsuya is a neighborhood restaurant! I was at the Brentwood one, and there were kids all over, in a Philippe Starck-designed dining room serving dishes that nobody would scoff at at Nobu 57. And our sushi was good and our robata was even better.
DAVID: I used to never spend more than $25 per person on a meal in Los Angeles, not because you couldn’t find good fine dining, but because the most exciting thing as a visitor from New York was the overwhelming selection of cheap eats from parts of the world that are not properly represented back at home. Give me Tacos Baja Ensenada on Whittier Boulevard or Chichen Itza in Westlake or the lomo saltado at Los Balcones del Peru in Hollywood over much else any day. But it is marvelous to see the Los Angeles food scene diversify and grow as it has. They really need to take back the power from those smug SOB’s up in San Francisco!
ANDY: I liked Los Angeles because I could find things I just can’t find in New York.
DAVID: That’s a great point: We’re now in a three-way-tie between New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. All three have incredible depth and breadth to their dining scenes. It’s impossible for me to say that one is better than the next. I like them all equally, for different reasons. Same with San Francisco, the ingredients capital of the continent, i’d say; same with Portland, which is just a delicious place from top to bottom. Ditto New Orleans, which is really waking up these days. Then there are the spots bubbling under, like Houston, which I personally am so fond of, probably because it is in Texas, and I have a Texas fetish. Some of my heroes are Kinky Friedman, along with Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, may they both rest in peace. The food in Texas is overwhelming. Texas is overwhelming. You are from Texas, Andy.
ANDY: I’ve spent years trying to find worthy barbecue and Tex-Mex in New York.
DAVID: Keep looking. I thought maybe Brooklyn Star would do the trick. But it tastes like Williamsburg to me, not Texas or the Southwest. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
ANDY: Lobo and Hill Country have helped things, but it’s not the same.
DAVID: Better you should fly to Dallas and have the Dr. Pepper Short Ribs, served with Queso Blanco Mashed Potatoes at Dean Fearing’s restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton.
ANDY: Michael Solomonov has Percy Street Barbecue in Philadelphia. The brisket and ribs were good when I went — and just as good when I ate leftovers the next day. It’s a lot closer than Dallas. We’ll go soon.
Follow David and Andy around town (and the world) on Twitter @davidlandsel and @andywangny