HUNGRY GERALD

Last week HG/BSK celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary with an extraordinary party and meal at New York’s Dim Sum a Go Go. The celebratory feasting did not end there but continued the next day at a Sunday Brunch generously provided by Restaurateur Daughter Victoria F. at her beautiful Hundred Acres restaurant in Soho. Here’s the menu (read it slowly and let your mouth water and your complexion turn green with envy): Appetizers: (1) ricotta fritters with Hudson Valley honey and powdered sugar. (2) grilled flatbread dressed with arctic char “lox”, whipped cream cheese, dill and pickled onions. Entrees: (1) buttermilk pancakes with New York blueberries and vanilla whipped cream. (2) soft scrambled eggs with summer squash, spring onions, chives, gruyere cheese, sour cream and corn bread. (3) goat cheese-sage bread pudding with poached eggs, wilted spinach and lemon butter. Sides: fruitwood smoked bacon, jalapeno grits. Drinks: Hundred Acres punch (Prosecco, Aperol and freshly squeezed juices) and coffee. It all tasted even better — if that is possible — than it sounds. That night HG/BSK joined SJ at Full House, a little known, superb Chinese restaurant on Bowery a touch North of Hester. Soup dumplings. Scallion pancakes. Minced flounder with tiny, tender bok choy and crab roe; sliced fish with wood mushrooms; braised eggplant. Wine, beer, chilled sake. Sesame balls for dessert. Light, creative cooking. Attentive service. Happily, the place seems undiscovered by food writers and critics unlike Hundred Acres where the crowds keep filing in for the best brunch HG has ever had.

HG spent a week this last December wandering around the Lower East Side, Little Italy, Chinatown and parts of Soho. The LES is becoming more than cool. It’s frigid. Good little art galleries showing challenging work. Excellent restaurants and bars. It’s a venue for the hip and the beautiful. The old parts of Chinatown (the borders of Chinatown have expanded so massively into the LES and Little Italy that HG needs to define which parts of Chinatown HG is talking about) look a bit sad. Swathes of Mott Street have been taken over by stalls selling the worst kind of crap to tourists. Yes, it’s still a food obsessed community awash with fresh fish and vegetables (absurdly low prices). And, street life is lively. But, the neighborhood seems to lack some of the elan and zest of yesteryear (It may that HG is looking at it with the nostalgia clouded gaze of an old guy). Little Italy has been shrunken, vulgarized and totally touristified. Pity. Reports about old ethnic restaurants like Vincent’s, Umberto’s and Grotto Azzura are not promising. HG has been a great fan of the fiery scungili, shrimp and clam dishes that were once available in Little Italy. Now, if you desire food a la Diavalo, you’ve got to travel to Sheepshead Bay or Howard Beach. Foodies claim that Chinatown cuisine has gone downhill and if you want superior Chinese cooking the Flushing neighborhood of Queens is the place. Yes, there’s great food in Flushing. But, HG ate some superior Chinatown food while visiting at Peking Duck House, Dim Sum Go Go and Full House Cafe. It is still the New York neighborhood where the impecunious can dine for very few bucks. One of the hot items in Chinatown is peeled noodles. Basically, hand pulled noodles but cut into wide strips with a knife. HG had a big plate of these noodles with a super spicy lamb sauce at Xi’an Famous Foods (on Bayard west of Bowery). Fabulous. Cost six bucks. HG had a very good dish of peeled noodles with baby bok choy at Sheng Wang (on Eldridge). Cost five bucks. One night, HG and BSK were feeling peckish before settling down to watch some silly stuff on TV. HG walked down the block to J.J. Noodles (Catherine and Henry) and came back with two big containers of congee with fresh fish filets. Perfect comfort food. Cost eight bucks. Yeah, you can still get nourished in Chinatown.