Eataly / Les Halles

Part 2 Les Halles.

  If you move a couple of blocks uptown to Les Halles, you will enter into another unique world of food. Les Halles is a little more of what I have come to expect from a fine dinning establishment. Les Halles is a "brasserie", which is a type of French restaurant with a relaxed, upscale setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. A brasserie can be expected to have professional service, printed menus, and, traditionally, white linen, unlike a bistro which may have none of these. Typically, a brasserie is open every day of the week and serves the same menu all day. I know it's not The London, Le Bernardin, or Per Se, but I really wanted to experience dinner at a place that I know so much about, thanks to Anthony Bourdain. Now I know thats sounds all fanboy like and all, but the truth is that I am a fan of Bourdain, as well as anyone else that has busted their ass in a professional kitchen or at home, cooking great food for lots of people. Unlike Eataly, which has that open european market feel. Les Halles is dimly lit and the dinning room is a bit cramped with tables , but spacious enough to enjoy you meal. I guess the only complaint I would have is that, it is a bit noisy in the dinning room but deal-able. Being that it was a Saturday the place was packed, and the kitchen seemed to be moving along with the demand of the dinning room. Our appetizers came out quickly, and I got to have a dish that I havent had since I was a kid. My old man would once in a while make me Escargot when I was around ten or so. That was around the time in my life where my dad and I would eat what most people that dont know good food would consider heinous and disgusting. Now I have been in many French restaurants since I was ten, but never really felt the need to order Escargot, but tonight was different. I saw that item on the menu and everything else seemed not as enticing. Of course everyone that was at the table did not care for a taste of "snail awesomeness"...Oh well, more for me.

 
 Our entrees were timed very well, so no one had to wait too long for a dish to be served before we all could eat. That is one of my biggest pet peeves when going to a better than average restaurant. The host/hostess shouldn't seat a table if the kitchen cannot time the food properly for that table. The staff that work at Les Halles are pros. The flow of waiters and servers, seem to be completely in sync with the kitchen....Well at least while we were there. The entrees and specials all looked great, but I wanted to have a steak done perfectly, so I ordered the Filet de Boeuf, Béarnaise. A beef tenderloin with a Béarnaise sauce. Served with a salad and their award winning "Steak Frites".













It was perfect. I couldn't have had a better steak unless I cooked it myself...

 Aside from the beautiful filet, I got to try a bit of everyones dishes and they were all outstanding. The Confit de Canard is one of my favorites. A crispy duck leg confit with a frisée salad, and truffled potatoes. The Steak au Poivre was done perfectly, it reminded me of my latest version of the dish and what I need to do to improve on it. Steak au Poivre is a lean steak coated with cracked black peppercorn and served with a Cognac pan sauce. That dish will be featured here on this blog, Facebook, as well as my YouTube channel in the near future. Probably the highlight of the evening was when my wife Liz ordered the alway exciting "Crepes Suzette". This dessert dish is prepared and flambeed for you table side, and at Les Halles this is even more entertaining due to the full dining room. From beginning at Eataly to ending at Les Halles, I had an amazing time with friends and family. We enjoyed So many great meals, snacks and drinks, that I wish we could do this everyday. Sadly we can't, but we can all learn from our culinary experiences, try to replicate some of the dishes at home, and focus on eating well and eating healthily. Check out the links below, and try to visit these places when you can.

http://leshalles.net/
http://www.eataly.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhqpKuKU1w0

Eataly / Les Halles

Part 1 Eataly.

 There is nothing like a great meal at a highly acclaimed restaurant, or a nice snack and outstanding wines in a unique Italian market in the middle of Manhattan. These are the experiences that I try to make time for in my life. Sure I could go out to a local restaurant and celebrate my birthday with family and friends, but this year I dragged them with me to one of my favorite places in NYC and a restaurant that I have wanted to go to for a very long time but never had the opportunity until now. First we went to Eataly for snacks/wine and some shopping. Eataly is a slice of heaven here on earth as far as I am concerned. The fact that you can do everything from have a snack or a meal, get groceries, fish, meats, and fresh pasta while walking around with a glass of wine is uniquely cool, and very Euorpean. They offer the best of Italian imports that you really cant find anywhere else. Now I know that I could probably order any of those things online, but I like to see the product, inspect it, read the label, and discover things that I have never tried before. For example ...I found a "brown" Canaroli rice that I cant wait to make a Risotto with.

 

 Next we decided to grab a snack at "La Piazza". A beautiful etoneca with standing tables that offers so

 many tasty things to snack on. There are so many great things to choose from, but my favorite thing there is the "Grande Piatto Misto Di Salumi". A variety of cured meats, amazing cheeses, flavored honey's and fresh bread that will discourage anyone to buy salami in a plastic container ever again. The only thing that made this snack better was the wine. A glass or two of the Barolo Serralunga and you will forget that your in New York City. I know that its a bit pricy for a glass, but I firmly belive that life is to short to drink shitty wine.

 This snack was followed up by probably the best gelato I have ever had. In the market area, there are so many cool imported spreads, preserves, and honey's, as well as the housemade gelato. If you go to Eataly you shouldnt leave without tasting this amazing treat. My favorite so far is the "Salted Caramel", but I think I need to try all of them before I make a final decision. Right next to the gelato is Eataly's Caffe Lavazza, located right at the Fifth avenue entrance. There you can get a variety of great coffee beverages, but for me a "Doppio Espresso" is all I need to venture off to the next part of the evening. Now we leave Italy and walk a few blocks over to France...

It's been a while...

So it's been awhile since my last post.... OK more like a couple of years since my last post, so I thought it might be a good time to go back and recap some of my best and worst "food experiences" of the past couple of years. These "food experiences" will be both about restaurants that I have frequented as well as my own cooking. Now I am certainly not a professional food critic, but I do have a better than average understanding on how the food industry works. Since I was about five or six years old, I had the amazing opportunity to be around some great chefs and home cooks. They took the time to explain some of the things that most people take for granted or dont know or care about when it comes to food. For example, when I was five, my dad and my uncle were planning a big gathering of family and friends and needed to feed about 50 to 60 guests. So they concluded that they would go to a local farm (I wish I could remember the name of it...Oh well), and get everything that they needed for this party. Turns out the farm trip turned into a crash course in how we as a society get our food. I have been hearing this term a lot lately "From the Farm to the Table". That has got to be be the biggest load of bullshit these giant processed, frozen, preservative filled, boldface lying food corporations could ever serve up. The truth is that no matter what the package says, its a more likely that those Sweet Peas or Corn that come in a bag, are from a different country, and has been frozen for a lot longer than you may think. The true sense of the phrase " From the Farm to the Table" is a hell of a lot more expensive, and is not as available as the other crap. The best thing any of us could do for our health is read the damn label. If there are more ingredients than just the "Sweet Peas" in the bag, I wont buy them. People have said to me in the past,"but buying organic produce is too expensive. I would rather save some money and buy the stuff with all the pesticides and chemicals". You could do that, just make sure you sock away enough of the money you saved for you future chemo treatments. I know that not every pesticide laden onion is going to lead to some type of cancer, but if you think back on how many people we all know and lost due to some horrible disease, it would only make sense to not ingest those chemicals and pesticides and give yourself a stronger and healthier chance of not having to deal with these diseases. So back to the farm. Now when I have told this part of the story to people before, I usually get a response like, "oh that must have been terrible for you" or "thats cruel how could your dad do that to you". I never felt that way. In hindsight I feel that my dad taught me one of the most valuable lessons any one could learn. Part of the farm trip included a visit to the slaughterhouse, to get some farm raised lamb and beef. I witnessed how chickens are euthanized, and how a cow becomes a porterhouse. The thing that we didn't witness was the lamb. My father chose to do that himself... at home. Now my old man grew up on a vineyard in Argentina. He knew more about wine than anyone I have ever met, but this was the first time that I knew of when he also took on the role of butcher. The Lamb lived with us for a couple of days until the day before the party, Thats when my mom told us that we couldn't go play with the lamb in the basement. After my dad butchered the lamb, he butterflied it and stretched it across what looks like a crucifix. A cross made of metal with sharp ends that you stick in the ground over an open flame. It was the coolest, most archaic thing I have ever seen. You have seen concepts liks this in movies and tv shows set back in medieval times, I got to see it in my back yard. Although I was upset that my new pet was gone, I understood that it was there to feed us. And as I ate all the things my dad cooked that day, I came to realize that this is where our food comes from and this is how our society should be eating. I don't mean that we should be slaughtering animals in our homes, but we should embrace the true meaning of "From the Farm to the Table" Now that was a long time ago, and there are a lot more options for people like me that live in more urban areas, such as food stores that carry certified organic produce and proteins. My choice is my local Wegmans in Woodbridge NJ. They have a wide variety of organic produce that is reasonably priced. The meat and fish departments are outstanding as is the knowledgeable staff. It helps when you get to know the people that work there and they help guide you towards the products your looking for. If you do go there, say hi to Chef Marvin who is usually cooking some amazing tasting seafood dish for folks to sample. Another option is a CO/OP for produce. There is a health food store close by that offers its customers with an option to buy into the CO/OP and receive a variety of fresh organic fruits and vegetables for a weekly or monthly fee. Not bad considering that all the hard work is being done for us. Its up to you as the consumer to make the choice to eat better and healthier or continue the cycle that in my opinion is what has killed off a good part of the generations before us.