Beef Aficionado

Steak and Pasta for Six at Morini

2012-01-20T12:31:00.001-05:00

Another day, another White restaurant. This time the Fashionista and I found ourselves in our native downtown stomping grounds at Osteria Morini with several skinny young things from her showroom in tow. "We want the Beef Aficionado/Fashionista dining experience" they had foolishly requested a few days earlier. Not realizing what that meant and how difficult it would be to get in to their jeans the next day. This request could have landed us at any number of places - Minetta Tavern or Balthazar, one of the Momofuku restaurants, a steakhouse. But since we were six we chose Morini because it is the perfect place for such proceedings - a casual mood, great service, an ability to accommodate large parties and food that we both adore.

Executive Sous Chef Asi Maman and the 64oz Porterhouse

Despite being renowned for pasta Morini is, even on a average day, a carnivores delight but on occasion they run a dry aged steak for two special. I had a better idea. I called ahead and requested something bigger. Much bigger. The steaks at Morini come from my man Pat LaFrieda. I spent a month in his dry age room working on Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat and I knew that one of his prime porterhouse steaks from Creekstone Farms would be perfect for our needs.

I was shocked when I popped into the kitchen to visit the Executive Sous Chef Asi Maman to look at the steak in its raw state - not because of its sheer size - which must have been around 64oz, nor because of the prodigious degree of mold that covered the cut - but because of the amount of marbling on the tenderloin. It looked like a piece of Wagyu. As you might imagine a steak that size takes a little time to cook so we started off with some light snacks.

Prosciutto di Parma, Sopressata, Mortadella, Coppa

Tortellini in Brodo nutmeg parmigiano, parsley

GARGANELLI pasta quills, cream, radicchio, truffle butter, prosciutto

CAPPELLETTI truffled ricotta ravioli, melted butter, prosciutto

GRAMIGNA macaroni, pork sausage, tomato, cream, black pepper

TRIANGOLI DELLA NONNA braised beef, sugo di arrosto, toasted Brussels sprout leaf


STRICCHETTONI bow tie pasta, braised wild mushrooms, rosemary oil Mussetto: white polenta with pig face, cinnamon, clove, cockscombs, cottecchino, taleggio creama

We worked our way through some incredible appetizers and pastas and several bottles of wine. Both the Fashionista and I were pretty impressed by the amount of food the skinny young things consumed and their willingness to try new things; even more so when the steak showed up and it was almost completely devoured. It was perfectly cooked, especially for such a large cut - the inside a rosy red with cool center, the outside a deep mahogany - a better preparation that many steakhouses achieve. It had the funky, mineral rich tang of dry aging and was amazingly tender. Of particular note was the aforementioned filet, which I usually discard in favor of the strip. But here it was just as marbled and packed with flavor as the strip side. A truly magnificent piece of meat perfectly prepared. We didn't save room for dessert so of course we ordered some anyway.

TORTA DI MELE
apple brown butter cake, cider caramel, vanilla gelato

MERINGA ALLA GELATO
meringue, blood orange sorbetto, pistachio gelato, whipped cream, citrus

At meals end Asi asked me how everything was. I could pay him no bigger compliment than to say that the meal could have come from White's own hand. Don't miss out on this steak if you see it on the specials menu (it is usually served for two) If you don't see it ask about it anyway, perhaps if enough people ask for it it will become a permanent menu item.

Osteria Morini 218 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10012

Real Cheap Eats NYC: Winter Edition 2012

2012-01-18T00:33:00.001-05:00

Corned beef hash from the Stage Restaurant

The Winter Edition of Real Cheap Eats is live. My pick? Corned beef hash from the Stage Restaurant, details over at Real Cheap Eats.

Ethereality at Marea

2012-01-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

It was the Fashionista's birthday this past Saturday and only Marea interested her as a dinner destination. We have always loved Michael White's restaurants but since Morini opened a few blocks from her showroom she has become completely enraptured, breaking bread and wine there with alarming frequency. It is not just the food, which is beyond reproach, but also the service and attention to detail, and, I suspect, that both she and the chef hail from the Midwest, that have made her such a White acolyte.

Dispelling with the menus we put ourselves in the chefs large and capable hands and he crafted a meal that ranks amongst the best we have had together, right up there with our experiences at Per Se, Jean George, Daniel et al. Marea doesn't hold quite the critical acclaim (read: NY Times stars) of these other fine restaurants but, as I hinted at in my review of the restaurant for Serious Eats back in 2009, it is equally accomplished yet is more accessible and just more fun.

Lobster with burrata

We enjoyed a three plus hour, eight course, ten wine extravaganza. I didn't take extensive pictures or notes as I was off the clock for once, there only for the sheer pleasure. Suffice it to say that wave after wave of White's greatest hits and newest tricks landed on our table. Delicate rows of crudo, lobster served with burrata or stuffed in to pasta.

Of particular note was a new dish - the Uovo con tartufo nero - an immersion cooked egg comes bathed in a red wine veal sauce under a shroud of earthy black truffles.

We split the steak, a funky 50 day dry aged strip served with bone marrow panzanella that is one of my favorites around. My half was cooked on the plancha to a perfect black and blue, the Fashionista's was grilled perfectly medium rare.

A heartfelt thanks from the Fashionista and I to Chef White and the entire staff at Marea for a wondrous evening. It is going to be hard to top this meal, and so early in the year!

Marea 240 Central Park South New York, NY 10019 (212) 582-5100

Momofuku Ssam Bar - Ribsteak

2012-01-03T11:49:00.001-05:00

It had been a while since I had eaten at Ssam Bar when I rolled in with my girlfriend the Fashionista right before an Xmas trip to the Midwest, even longer since I had eaten the steak there. So long in fact that the ribsteak, once sourced from Four Story Hill Farms, is now listed as coming from Niman Ranch. I found the steak virtually indistinguishable from the ones I had eaten at Ssam before, suggesting that perhaps the same meatlocker is being used to age the meat. But no matter, the method of preparation remains the same - it comes seared and served with a garlic confit and a heart-stoppingly rich au jus - and so does the result - it's a fabulous hunk of beef.

Service in motion

But it also takes about 40 minutes to prepare so we started off with a light snack of crab claws, mussels and ham, while quaffing a lovely bottle of Decenio Riojo. The steak was as epic as I remember it although the Fashionista was a bit annoyed that I ordered it so rare (which is to say raw). The kitchen was kind enough to re-fire a couple of the slabs for her, to her preferred (and frankly rationale) temperature of rare. We both left happy, a fine send off for our trip. Food porn after the break.

Jonah crab claws – harissa mayo

Benton’s smoky mountain ham

PEI mussels

Niman Ranch dry aged ribsteak

Beef Jus

Ribsteak with shallot confit

Spuds

Momofuku Ssam Bar
207 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003

Great Food Photos

2011-12-13T12:06:00.000-05:00

I am honored to be interviewed over at Great Food Photos.

Giveaway at Serious Eats: Pat LaFrieda's Big App For Meat

2011-12-08T15:39:00.001-05:00

Pat LaFrieda and ZPZ are giving away 5 copies of Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat over at Serious Eats

Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat Named iPad App of the Week by Apple

2011-12-08T12:33:00.001-05:00

The headline says it all, and just when I thought that I couldn't be prouder of having worked on the app. App available here

Introducing Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat

2011-12-08T10:08:00.001-05:00

It gives me tremendous pride to announce Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat available exclusively on the iPad. TheBig App for Meat is the definitive butcher's guide to every cut of beef, lamb, pork, veal and poultry with hi-res photography, video, interactive features and Master Butcher Pat LaFrieda's insider knowledge.

I served as the Creative Director on the project which included shooting 98% of the images. The app was produced by the incredibly talented folks over at Zero Point Zero Productions (ZPZ) and developed by the equally estimable Domani Studios. Here is a quick video of it in action. You can purchase it in the App store.

A Pig Surprise at Wildwood

2011-12-07T13:21:00.001-05:00

I ate dinner with my good friend Larry Chicane last night, ostensibly to plan our annual pilgrimage to Texas to eat barbecue, but mostly just to eat some here in NYC. I hadn't eaten with Larry since my birthday at Il Mulino so we where rather over due to break bread (or in this case rib bones). It had also been a while since either one of us had dined at Wildwood so we went there with brisket and beef back ribs on our minds.

We did get the beef ribs, and they were delicious although I could tell that Larry, ever the proud Texan, would have preferred them to come sans sauce. But we skipped the brisket because towards the back of the restaurant we noticed something interesting. There we found, splayed out on a large wood chopping block and bathed eerily in the orange light of heat lamps, a small sized hog with a bronzed skin and olives for eyes.

Unbeknownst to either Larry or myself this spectacle occurs every Tuesday at Wildwood and pit master Big Lou himself is there to carve the swine. While not carving he works the room, slapping shoulders and winking at the ladies.

An order cost $24 and it is a good amount of food. It comes with a small roll, a triangle of corn bread, a wonderfully creamy slaw spiked with caraway and what looks like two Big Lou sized fists if pork. The dish comes with a trio of sauces - I liked the South Carolina inspired mustard sauce the best. But really the hog was flavorful enough on its own - the smoke flavor was present but restrained, allowing the flavor of the pork itself to really come through. Big Lou brines the beast before a lengthy smoke which renders the it ethereally tender - the meat falls apart easily into delicate ribbons. Larry and I split a portion because we also had beef ribs but you'll want to order one for yourself, as we intend to do when we return next week.

Tribeca: City Hall, Home of Pat LaFrieda's First Custom Burger Blend

2011-11-16T08:49:00.001-05:00

The story over at AHT

Clifton, NJ: Breakfast of Champions at Tick Tock Diner

2011-11-01T13:54:00.001-04:00

I review the Tick Tock's Bacon, Egg and Cheeseburger over at AHT.

Rome: Pizzarium

2011-10-20T18:27:00.001-04:00

My review of Pizzarium in Rome is over at Slice

Rome: Da Baffeto II

2011-10-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

I return to Serious Eats after a sabbatical with a review of Da Baffeto II pizzeria at Slice.

Serious Eats: The Book

2011-10-13T08:10:00.000-04:00

The official title is Serious Eats: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Eating Delicious Food Wherever You Are. It will be released on November 1st and features some of my photography and some excerpts from my hamburger reviews as well as ton of content from the Serious Eats crew. You can pre-order the book through Amazon or your favorite book seller.

Ed Levine on Bill's and my return to Serious Eats

2011-10-12T08:10:00.000-04:00

Bill's Sliders from this years Burger Bash

Serious Eats overlord Ed Levine tries the sliders at Bill's after he and I had lunch and I waxed poetic about them. Turns out he loves them. I can't blame him, they are superb. He also reveals that I will be soon returning to Serious Eats which was actually the reason we were eating - to discuss some exciting projects that I will be working on. No details yet but I will let you know ASAP. And fear not, there will still be a lot going on here at Beef Aficionado.

Introducing Real Cheap Eats

2011-10-11T13:38:00.001-04:00

The sliders from Mark, my Real Cheap Eats pick 2011

I am honored to be have been asked to contribute to Real Cheap Eats which features a consortium of some of NYC's top food bloggers. RCE is the brainchild of my Serious Eats colleague James Boo (he also publishes The Eaten Path) RCE has two simple criteria: The selections must be delicious and cost under $10. RCE is minimally designed and contains no advertising, it looks particularly good on handheld devices and makes the perfect on-the-go resource.You can find my picks below:

Nick Solares at Real Cheap Eats

This Little Piggy....Had Roast Beef

2011-10-11T08:47:00.002-04:00

This Little Piggy... is the brainchild of Francis Garcia and Sal Basille of Artichoke Pizza fame. Artichoke is an obvious homage to DiFara Pizza and with This Little Piggy they have brought another taste of Brooklyn to Manhattan - the signature sandwich here - dubbed "This Way" is a splitting image of the one sold at Brennan and Carr in Sheapshead Bay.

Slow roasted beef round is sliced paper thin and served on fresh baked rolls from Cammareri Bros. bakery in Brooklyn. The cheez-whiz that is ladled on is anything but a random brand, Garcia claims that he tried almost every option on the market before coming up with the right one. He claims it is more expensive than the mozzarella he uses.

But what really make the sandwich is the hearty au jus that the sandwich is soaked in before being handed to you. I recommend eating this one at the location. Getting it wrapped to go will inevitably lead to a sandwich that will completely fall apart. Either way though the sandwich make for good eating. Order the beef as rare as possible and you will be rewarded with tender, flavorful beef. The cheese adds a tangy punch and the bread, even in a soaked state, acts as the perfect canvas.

There are other options on the menu - a credible pastrami and the option of substituting mozzarella for the whiz and a hero for the roll. But to me the This Way on a roll is the crowning achievement and the one I would eat all the way home.

This Little Piggy 149 1st Avenue New York, NY 10003

Saxon + Parole

2011-10-06T10:16:00.001-04:00

Saxon + Parole - Click image for slide show by Nick Solares
I had dinner at Saxon + Parole the other night. I have to admit I was rather drunk by the time I got to the restaurant, even more so by the end of the meal. Consequently my recollection of the food and photography are both a little hazy.

I do remember looking up at the large halo of Edison bulbs above me and thinking that the critics are going to hate this place. I hadn't eaten anything at this point its just that the restaurant subscribes to many of the current trends that tend to turn off the old guard - a loud, boisterous bar scene, a general "olde timey" motif, a nod to locavorism (S+P produce their own Rye and whiskey finds its way in to all sorts of menu items) A generally young, hip crowd. Think Bored to Death meets Boardwalk Empire.

None of this particularly appeals to me but stacks of seafood followed up by dry aged prime steaks and a burger thrown in for good measure sure do. Given my inebriated state I was rather hungry and devoured all that was laid before me. As far as I can recall it was all very good.

We started with a tower of fresh seafood and a creamy chicken mousse spiked with port. The brawny steaks that followed had a decent char and a bold dry aged funk, especially the ribsteak. A velvety bone marrow Bearnaise (daintily served in a bone marrow pipe) was a nice flourish but ultimately superfluous - the steaks pack enough flavor on their own.

I will have to go back for the burger, it all sort of fell apart on me when we divided it in to quarters for sharing and I didn't really get to try it in all its glory. None of the food lasted long on the table, although I may have eaten most of it, including the desserts.

I need to return to S+P for a proper evaluation. And not just because I was rather drunk on my last visit. There is a Guinness & five spice glazed short rib for two that I am most interested in trying.

Saxon + Parole 316 Bowery New York, NY 10079

Photo of the Day: A duo of burgers from the Apple Pan

2011-10-05T08:32:00.000-04:00

Apple Pan

Decadence and Gluttony at il Mulino

2011-10-03T12:33:00.000-04:00

Two of my best mates took me out for my birthday to il Mulino a few weeks back. Let's call them Larry and Mr. Relentless. Not their real names. Larry is an art dealer who traffics multimillion dollar modern masterpieces but perhaps contrary to stereotype spends all of his lucre on guns, compounds in the woods and a variety of all terrain vehicles customized to withstand an assault on Fallujah. He grew up in Texas and despite forays into the subcultures of skateboarding, punk rock and heavy metal, not to mention a career in fine art, he is pretty much a red blooded/state/neck (take your pick, or combine) American carnivore masquerading in metrosexual clothing. He organizes a yearly pilgrimage to Texas Hill Country to eat barbecue that both Mr. Relentless and I attend. Eating at eight different barbecues a day for days on end is good practice for eating at il Mulino.

Mr. Relentless has a similarly effete career as a real estate broker. While Larry was raised in the wilds of Texas Mr. Relentless grew up in the New Jersey suburbs surrounding NYC and spent his adolescence slumming it on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the hardcore punk music scene eventually blagging a job that earns him a very decent salary. While Larry is the rugged, fit, outdoors type Mr. Relentless practically defines a stereotypical Texans view of a stereotypical New Yorker - loud, obnoxious, soft around the middle. Mr. Relentless is incredibly well connected, he knows all sorts of interesting people from all sorts of interesting places. But his crowning achievement is marrying a woman than can both put up with him and cook better than most chefs.

Being the good friends that they are Larry and Mr. Relentless never forget my birthday and always take me out somewhere special. I think they were both a little surprised that I chose il Mulino, rather than something more avant garde or overtly carnivorous. But I wanted something old school. and it being my birthday and what not I was feeling sort of nostalgic for the NYC of my youth. Back in the 1980's il Mulino practically defined upscale Italian. And so we found ourselves around a table that seemed capable of seating six or eight people. It turns out is really was just a four top, the extra room was for all the plates.

Even before we were presented a menu, let alone a wine list a mountain of food descended upon the table, delivered by a procession of tuxedo clad waiters. Salty coins of salami, delicate slivers of fried zucchini piled high on a plate, mussels served alongside a neon red bruscetta, a generous hunk of Parmesan cut from a giant wheel. The bread basket alone could feed the 5,000. The bucket of garlic bread that shows up a little later on felt like a sucker punch.

In light if all of this we skipped appetizers. We had actually already been served enough food that we could have skipped the rest of the meal altogether and still left sated. The three half orders of pasta didn't seem unreasonable when we ordered them. While we waited and digested Mr. Relentless and I argued over the edibility of the food at the San Generao feast. He professes to know where the "real deal" places to eat sausage and peppers are. But he claims this about almost everything - the best hot dog in Yankee stadium, best oysters on the boardwalk in Coney Island, best coffee in Soho.

Of course the "half "portions of pasta that showed up were twice the size of most half orders at other restaurants. I dread to think what a full order looks like here. The pastas were generally respectable - a brothy carbonara and a briny squid ink pasta with a treasure trove of seafood both proved toothsome; a soupy spaghetti Bolognese was merely adequate, the Parmesan cheese serving as its only organizing principle.

And then, like the apocalypse came the main course. A whole roasted rack of lamb, cooked to a pitch perfect rare served with potatoes was simply wonderful. The eye was almost as big as a veal chop (although not the veal chop il Mulino) and had impressive marbling along with a tender texture.

You might expect a chop this size to be considered mutton with a gamey character but it tasted as sweet as any lamb I have had. It was probably enough food for three rationale minds but of course we had ordered two additional mains.

The massive, softball sized veal chop was preposterous in both preparation and price - it came stuffed with prosciutto and mozzarella before being battered and pan fried and it cost $56. Despite all that is going on with the dish - it approaches turducken in absurdity - the quality of the ingredients redeems it.

The veal is tender inside, the crust pleasingly crispy. The cheese and prosciutto meld into a creamy, oozy, savory mass. Throw on top of it all a mushroom infused sauce and one attains a level decadence that not even the Romans could have conceived.

But perhaps most impressive/distressing was a sprawling veal Parmesan the size of a Neapolitan pizza. Thicker than you might like, but not too bready, as you might expect it to be it, came blanketed in molten cheese, a moat of red sauce circling it. The cutlet is served with a rib bone sticking out of the side but I suspect it was purely for presentation purposes, there is simply not enough meat in a veal chop to craft the massive disc of meat. I am pretty sure that we were eating a cutlet from the round (or leg) that has the bone pounded into to it to attach it. Despite the gargantuan proportions of the thing it somehow worked in a way that, for example, a giant hamburger never does.

Mr. Relentless had ordered broccoli rabe as the waiter finished our order. A typical move on his part, he has to try to get the last word in, even if that word is a limp, garlicky vegetable. Of course no one ate it when it arrived, it looked like mere garnish amongst the slabs of meat on the table. Still, between us we polished off everything else but the potatoes which were soggy and rather tasteless.

Larry was looking a bit grey at this point. But Mr. Relentless and I were determined to press on up river. Apocalypse Now. We ordered a predictably-frozen-solid tartufo and poached pears with crema Inglese. The latter is prepared table side, yet another tuxedo clad waiter daintily divides the pears, arranging them neatly on the plate with kiwi, raspberries and blackberries used as garnish. Meanwhile the head waiter will ply you with home made grapa. Drink it, it softens the blow of the inevitable bill which is bound to be astronomical, even if you do order the cheapest cab.

The thing about the cuisine at il Mulino is that it doesn't really exist outside of the confines of the restaurant. It is of course Italian on some level but I can't imagine a veal milanese this size, or price, anywhere in Italy. Everything is oversized and over the top. It is expensive to be sure but the portions are outrageous in size and are constructed from high quality ingredients. Good meat is expensive, very good meat is very expensive and the meat here is very, very good. You get what you pay for in terms of quality and quantity, thats for sure. What you don't get is authentic Italian food, at least not as we understand it today.

An Italian chef friend of mine asked me how il Mulino compares to Patsy's in Times Square (the classic red sauce restaurant that Frank Sinatra popularized, not the pizzeria chain) I replied that the cuisine is more evolved and refined at il Mulino but equally stagnant and locked in time. While Patsy's is stuck in 1944 il Mulino is stuck in 1984. But, I suppose that is the point of these restaurants, they have become quintessential. Just as Larry and Mr. Relentless have in my life. Thanks for everything chaps.

Il Mulino 86 West 3rd Street New York, NY 10012-1095

Photo of the Day: Burnt Ends Chili Sliders from Mexicue

2011-10-03T06:51:00.000-04:00

Mexicue

Snapshots from the 2011 NYC Burger Bash

2011-10-02T12:37:00.001-04:00

Burger Bash 2011 - Images by Nick Solares

Photo of the Day: Shake Shack Cheeseburger

2011-09-30T09:57:00.001-04:00

Shake Shack

Photo of the Day: French Dip Sandwich at Philippe's

2011-09-29T18:05:00.002-04:00

Philippe's 1001 N. Alameda St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 Tel (213) 628-3781

Related

Photo of the Day: Keen's Prime Rib

2011-09-28T09:14:00.002-04:00

Keen's Chophouse 72 West 36th Street New York, NY 10018 Tel:(212) 947-3636

Photo of the Day: A Single with Cheese at Workingman's Friend

2011-09-27T12:19:00.002-04:00

Workingman's Friend 234 N Belmont Ave Indianapolis, IN 46222 Tel:(317) 636-2067

Slideshow over at AHT

Hill Country: Dry Aged Barbecue

2011-09-26T10:33:00.000-04:00

Dry Aged Barbecue

I am not sure what this says about the economy but Hill Country was running a special on Saturday night offering a 30 day dry aged USDA Prime grade prime rib that they smoke alongside their wonderful brisket, ribs and sausages. Either Hill Country's butcher is having a fire sale on their prime dry aged beef (which seems highly unlikely considering how expensive and scarce prime beef is these days) or steakhouses continue to suffer and lose market share to cheaper alternatives. Before the crash in 2008 it would have seemed inconceivable that beef this good would be served at a barbecue joint, there was just far too much demand from high end steakhouses.
That Hill Country is selling it might just mean that there is less demand from the high end of the market. At $49 a pound the beef is not cheap, especially compared to the rest of the menu, but it is fairly priced considering its quality. A similarly sized prime rib at a chophouse would cost about the same, but of course you would get white table cloth service and a proper wine list. Still, if you like dry aged beef Hill Country's prime rib is hard to argue with.

I worried that the flavor of the dry aging would be masked by the dense smoke from post oak and the heavy salt and pepper rub that Hill Country applies to the rest of their beef. But thankfully neither proved to be the case. The seasoning was judicious and the unmistakable tang of dry aging came roaring through. I was actually surprised at its intensity, especially along the crust outer band of the spinalis dorsi - the muscle that caps the eye.

The eye was pleasingly tender, if a bit over cooked for my taste. Foolishly I let the cut languish underneath a mountain of brisket and beef ribs (both superb by the way), wrapped in wax paper and it got heated up. If you like your beef on the rarer side ask them to leave it unwrapped.

I am not sure how often Hill Country offer the cut as a special but it is well worth your time and money.

Hill Country 30 West 26th New York, NY 10010 Tel:(212) 255-4544

Photo of the Day: Sliced Steak at Pietro's

2011-09-26T08:35:00.001-04:00

Pietro's 232 E. 43rd St, Manhattan, NY 212 682 9760

Full Review

Photo of the Day: Beef Ribs at Blue Smoke

2011-09-23T09:19:00.001-04:00

Blue Smoke 116 E 27th St New York, 10016

A Return to White Rose System, Linden, NJ

2011-09-22T09:21:00.000-04:00

I had the good fortune to find myself at White Rose System in Linden, NJ last week. I was there to be interviewed for a TV pilot George "Hamburger America" Motz is filming for the Travel Channel. George brought me in because my initial review of White Rose and subsequent Guide to New Jersey Sliders, both published on A Hamburger Today, had brought national renown to the humble little restaurant on the other side of the tracks.

George looked like a kid peering into a candy store when he looked to the vintage diner.

My Guide served as inspiration for a slider story by Bobby Flay on CBS Sunday Morning (video link at bottom of page) as well as a piece by Josh Ozersky for New Jersey Monthly. But perhaps the most important seal of approval came when George included White Rose System it in the second edition of Hamburger America.

Hamburger Royalty: Shelly, Rich and Bally Belfer

It is always great to see owner and hamburger genius Rich Belfer. On this occasion his parents Shelly and Bally showed up to help George with the interview.

Rich exclusively mans the griddle at White Rose. If you eat a burger here it will be cooked by him personally. White Rose is not open if he is not there. I think this has a lot to do with the consistency of the product.

Despite the National renown White Rose remains a local neighborhood diner catering to a parade of regulars.

Having just spent two weeks in Italy I had not eaten a hamburger in quite some time. I couldn't imagine a better back to America burger than a single with cheese at White Rose. I ate three before the film crew even showed up!

I also got to try the Jersey burger, which Rich created by fusing his classic sliders with several slices of Taylor Ham, a New Jersey diner staple that is not much known outside of the state. Rich quipped that "you can go 5 miles north to Staten Island and they've never heard of it."

Taylor ham isn't actually ham at all but a pork roll. It is closer in texture, saltiness and smoke to Canadian bacon than your average ham. You will have to wait for the TV show to air to hear my opinion about it.

Related:

My original White Rose System review at A Hamburger Today and my more general Guide to New Jersey Sliders

Video: CBS This Morning with Bobby Flay

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Josh Ozersky's Blue Collar Burgers

Hamburger America Second Edition now available featuring White Rose System, Linden.

White Rose System 1301 East Elizabeth Ave, Linden NJ 07036 Tel: 908-486-9651

Photo of the Day: Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles

2011-09-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

Photo of the Day: Prime Rib at Smith and Wollensky

2011-09-21T09:13:00.002-04:00

Smith & Wollensky 797 Third Ave. Manhattan, NY 212-753-1530

Previously:

Behind the Scenes Look at Smith and Wollensky's Prime Rib

Review

Photo of the Day: Slicing Brisket at City Market Luling, TX

2011-09-20T08:38:00.000-04:00

City Market 633 East Davis St Luling TX 78648 Tel: (830) 875-9019

Photo of the Day: Grigliata Mista at Osteria Morini

2011-09-19T09:34:00.001-04:00

Grigliata Mista mixed grill of side pork, sweet sausage, lamb blade and skirt steak.

Osteria Morini
218 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10012-4021

Photo of the Day: Giant Burger, M. Wells, Queens NY.

2011-09-16T07:24:00.002-04:00

M. Wells - Closed

Photo of the Day: Hot Dogs and Fries, Hiram's, Fort Lee, NJ

2011-09-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

Hiram's 1345 Palisade Ave, Fort Lee, NJ (201) 592-9602

Photo of the Day: Roast Beef Sandwich, Brennan and Carr, Brooklyn NY

2011-09-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

Brennan and Carr, 3432 Nostrand Ave (between Avenue V & Gravesend Neck Rd) Brooklyn, NY 11229

Photo of the Day: Chopped Beef Sandwich, Taylor Cafe, Taylor TX

2011-09-13T07:06:00.005-04:00

Taylor Cafe 101 North Main Street, Taylor, TX 76574-3638 (512) 352-8475 ‎

My Steak in Umbria

2011-09-12T08:50:00.010-04:00

I just spent a relaxing week lounging by the pool in a villa in Umberia. And while I made occasional forays to local restaurants and pizzerias I cooked and ate in far more than I ever do at home in NYC. A quick trip in to the town Umbertide provided a bounty of local produce from the small outdoor market in the square and a variety of meats from Macelleria Rinaldi on Via Roma.

I purchased several pounds of the local style pork sausage that is sold throughout the region - it is porky and salty without a hint of fennel. It would probably be unfamiliar to most Americans as "Italian sausage" but to me it tastes exactly like Umbria.

But best of all I purchased a lovely ribsteak. Grass fed Chianina beef that is dry aged rendering it tender with a pronounced funky flavor that eliminates the soapy, herbaceous notes that I find rather distasteful in wet aged pasture fed cattle. The dry aging is also important because of the relative lack of marbling apparent in the beef.

The beef is so lean in fact that I doubt it would even rate Select on the USDA grading system. Yet the dry aging gives it a buttery texture that I would never expect from such lean beef. I noted that the butchering is slightly different here. The chop contained portions of the Latissimus dorsi and Trapezius muscles that you normally don't see on ribsteaks in the States. At under €10 the steak was more than fairly priced.

While I would have preferred to cook such a steak over hardwood the villa came equipped with a gas grill that sufficed for my purposes. I have heard that there is a rule of thirds when cooking grass fed beef - it should be cooked a third less time and by a temperature that is a third less than that of grain fed beef. I ignored the rule since I always cook steak as quickly and at as high a temperature as possible as I like it steak black and blue.

I wasn't able to achieve that on the gas grill but I manged to at least get the hatch marks right with out over cooking the steak.

I appreciated the extra belt of muscles capping the spinali dorsi - my favorite muscle on the steer - it helps protect it from over cooking.

The steak came out a perfectly rare (note the color above is direct daylight which tends to wash out the look of meat a bit) It had a decent enough crust, considering the circumstances, a delicate texture and a wonderful tangy, creamy flavor. It was simply delicious.

Admittedly it was not the same experience as eating a fattened, grain fed dry aged USDA Prime steak with its over the top boldness. But never the less there was something contextually very satisfying about the experience. The steak imparted a real sense of terroir and also of history. And not just because of the pasture feeding but because it seemed such a logical by-product of the local agrarian economy.

Traditional meat consummation and production in old world rural communities such as those in Umbria was never the principle focus of farming. Cattle were worked as draft animals, their meat consumed when they no longer served that purpose.

We have perverted this in the modern world. Meat has become its own agri-business. While I love the results at the high end such as the best grain fed USDA Prime dry aged steaks and boutique hamburgers, the results further down the food chain is, unfortunately, the bland, boxed, wet aged commodity beef that most of the country dines on.

This unassuming steak in the Umbrian hills brought this into stark relieve. There is of course no going back, there simply isn't enough farmland to produce beef the old way. But I don't mind wallowing in nostalgia when it tastes this good.

Photo of the Day: Katz's Pastrami on the Chopping Block

2011-09-12T08:49:00.002-04:00

Shot with Fuji X100, 1/60, F2.8, ISO 640

Two Days Eating In and Around Siena, Italy

2011-09-08T11:26:00.000-04:00

This post was written two years ago and for some reason I completely neglected to publish it. Having just returned from Italy again I will have some new posts in the coming weeks but thought I would start with this blast from the past:

A few years ago I was at a holiday party, decked out in one of my favorite suits - a bespoke tailored pin stripe affair from Mark Powell of London, England and unfortunately it caught fire. I was sitting a little too close to a candle and the super 120 wool ignited in fairly spectacular fashion, at least according to the man that extinguished the blaze that left a good sized hole on the back of my jacket.

Despite the tragic circumstance, at least from my wardrobes perspective, it was a fortuitous meeting for me. It turns out that my savior - Francesco - owns the Palazzo Ravizza, one of the oldest and finest hotels in Siena, Italy.

Siena is a city that I have had a long love affair with since visiting several times as a child. One of my most vivid memories is of watching the Palio - the chaotic bareback horse race that circles the central Piazza del Campo and that dates back to medieval times. But I have other memories - eating plates of spaghetti in cavernous brick cellars, munching on crisp slices of street pizza while walking in the shadow of the Duomo. And the gelato, oh the gelato!

The view from The Palazzo Ravizza

I was eager to return to Siena, and after having made such a good connection I made sure to visit when traveling through Tuscany back in 2009. The Palazzo Ravizza turned out to be even more idyllic than I imagined, and Francesco a gracious host. We stayed up late in to the night drinking grapa, talking about the history of Siena and, most importantly, about food.

My first meal in Siena was a casual late dinner affair at Enoteca I Terzi, named because it lies at the intersection of the three "terzi," or districts that divide the ancient city - Terzo di San Martino, Terzo di Camollia, Terzo di Città. I feasted on prosciutto and local cheeses while quaffing a bottle of Ruffino. The thick home made spaghetti was pleasant, but the lamb ragu lacked a bit in the way of depth of flavor. Speaking to Francesco later in the day he lamented the fact that while adept at producing wonderful pork and beef the Sienese were not so expert with lamb.

Enoteca I Terzi, Via dei Termini 7, 53100 SIENA.

While locals content themselves with a cappuccino and a coronet (croissant every where else in the world) for breakfast I wanted something a bit more substantial, especially after all the grapa I had consumed and held out for a slice of the street pizza. I wasn't expecting much after having eaten pizza in Naples the previous day, but I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed it. Admittedly, my pleasure was comprised of two parts nostalgia and one part taste, but it seems to confirm the notion that even bad pizza is pretty good. And the pizza was hardly bad - a crisp crust with a generous smearing of tomato sauce dotted with mozzarella. It was a world away from the deluge of cheese that we expect in America, but it achieved a synergy of its own, highlighting the tomatoes themselves.

Da Divo

Da Divo is literally cut out of the volcanic bed rock that Siena is built upon. One can imagine resistance fighters hiding out during the war in the caverns that lie down the irregular stairs leading from the restaurants entrance, past the kitchen and the bricked walls of the upper dining room. The caves date back to Etruscan times. Once you descend in to the lower reaches of the restaurant you will find remarkably intimate surroundings, although the acoustics take a little getting used to.

The menu promises, and largely delivers, seasonally driven Tuscan cuisine, although I was perhaps looking for something a tad more rustic. The recipes seem to have visual touches meant to impress Michelin inspectors more than they meant to be reflective of local cooking. But the fussy presentation aside, I had no qualms about the quail, served perfectly rare, salted with pancetta and drizzled in a sticky balsamic reduction, nor the scallops laced with citrus whose tender flesh was complimented nicely by crispy onions

The risotto was served with a flourish - poured in to a large wheel of Parmesan, the piping hot rice softening the walls and allowing the server to carve out swaths of cheese the way the Etruscans carved the rock to form the grotto in which I dined. The result was a wonderfully salty, creamy risotto.

The gnocchi came encased in a crisp pastry shell as tall as the wall of Siena.

Da Divo provided an intimate dining experience, the service was effusive and the food mostly delicious.

Da Divo Via Franciosa 25-29, Siena, Italy Tel: 0577-284 381

La Taverna di San Giuseppe

I was most looking forward to trying the famed Bistecca alla Fiorentina, named after Siena's principal rival Florence but served throughout the region. Francesco recommended La Taverna di San Giuseppe located a short stroll from his hotel. It did not disappoint.

The waiter brought out the cut that I would be served for my inspection, a custom that I wish more steakhouses in the states would employ. The beef is from grass fed Chianina, pasture raised steer. The animals are lean in terms of inter muscular fat, quite unlike the corn fed steaks served in America. To compensate for this the beef is dry aged for long periods of time to insure tenderness. In the case of the steak I ate, the waiter claimed 50 days.

I can believe it, despite lacking the marbling that is so prized in the states (the beef here was exceptionally lean) it was very tender. While it did not have the crust that a fattier, corn fed steak might exhibit, it was cooked rare and there was a pleasing textural contrast between the interior and exterior.

Macelleria Falorni

Located in the bucolic town of Grieve in Chiante, Macelleria Falorn has been around since 1729. While they specialize in wild boar, they also stock a bounty of local meats and cheeses.

Pizzeria di Nonno Mede

The view from Pizzeria di Nonno Mede

Francesco is a proponent, as am I, of Neapolitan style pizza with its airy, puffy crust and moist center. He warned me that I wouldn't be impressed with the local pizza in Siena because it was closer to the Roman model with a crisp, dry crust. But I found it really rather good. For the record I didn't mind the Roman stuff either but my pizza heart does admittedly lie in Naples.

The pizza was certainly not as airy as a Naples pie but it was not as vanishingly thin as a Roman pie either, it was somewhere between the two. It had some crunch to be sure but also some suppleness. The sauce was mild and sweet, the cheese mild and milky. The generous slices of local salami added a salty punch along with a pleasing gaminess. Not earth shaking pizza but quite respectable and the view from the outdoor seating is wonderful.

Pizzeria di Nonno Mede Camporegio 21 Town Centre near Piazza San Domenico, Siena.

La Taverna di Vagliagli

On my way out of Siena and on the way to discover the joys of Umbrian porchetta, I stopped off for another steak at La Taverna di Vagliagli. Located atop one of the rolling hills that surrounds Siena, Vagliagli itself is surrounded by vineyards.

La Taverna is famous for their steak - a large, dry aged Floretine cut from further back on the steer that the t-bone I enjoyed from La Taverna di San Giuseppe. It would be considered a porterhouse in the US.

The steak came served with grilled potatoes and deep fried scallions.

Cooked rare as requested the beef had a herbaceous, soapy flavor with a distinct dry aged tang. The beef was tender and succulent.

I greatly enjoyed my time in Siena and look forward to returning. Things worked out pretty well for my suit as well. I took it to Alice Zotta who expertly rewove the fabric so that it looks as good as new.

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