As fantastic as my culinary adventures over the holidays were, it was inevitable that disappointments would be a part of it. I always hope the disappointments are outweighed by the positive experiences. During this week, they were, overwhelmingly so. The few sub-par experiences did not ruin my trip by any means. In fact, if I had a flawless three meals a day for an entire week, I would have considered it a failure in a different sense. Trying new things and exploring the city is something that I love to do, but I came across a few things that I will not try again, and some that I hope will find redemption the next time I do.
Something that I have tried at home is baking falafel. I have had limited success, and I actually have never baked them 100%. I have quickly fried them to get a crispy exterior, then cooked them the rest of the way in the oven. I have also recently cooked falafel in an ebelskiver pan. Both of these produced acceptable final products, but neither approached the quality that has been reached when I fully deep fry the balls of chickpeas and herbs. When I heard about chickpea and its few locations in New York City, I was intrigued. They bake their falafel, and this healthy alternative seemed worth a shot. When I arrived, I looked over the straightforward menu, and ordered two items. I ordered a chicken sandwich served in a pita. I chose between the four different kinds of hummus, original, roasted red pepper, basil toasted pine nuts, and jalapeno and scallions. I chose the jalapeno and scallion hummus, and it was served with lettuce and tomato. The vegetables were fresh, the chicken had a nice flavor and was cooked well, and the pita was of decent quality. What I was shocked by was the quality of the falafel. I had imagined what baked falafel might be like, and I thought that one should be able to produce something satisfying, even if it was not on the same level as fried. What I did not expect was something so dry that they practically needed to be submerged in sauce to absorb enough moisture to be palatable. Not only did they need to bake and not fry their falafel to achieve this state, they needed to severely overcook them. They probably needed to add too much flour and leave them out for too long as well. These were so far away from an acceptable falafel.
The next morning I woke up at my friend’s apartment and was ready for breakfast. It was 6:30am, and I was starving already. My friend would not be up for hours, so I had a little food at his apartment and hopped on the subway to the lower east side. I had never been to any of the Momofuku establishments but have been interested in much of what they are doing. Something that people seemed to be excited about were the steamed pork buns. I wanted to try them, and I saw that they served them for breakfast at Momofuku Milk Bar. I walked in at 9am and ordered them to go. I walked a couple blocks to a Starbucks, ordered a coffee, and sat down to enjoy the slow cooked pork belly in the soft, tender bun. What I experienced was by no means outstanding. The bun had a very pleasant texture but was a little overwhelming only because the bread to pork ratio was too high. The pork had clearly been cooked a long time, as the fat had become pleasantly tender. Unfotunately, the meat of the pork was a little dry and chewy. The sauce was okay, but it lacked a certain brightness. It just fell a little flat for me. Part of me thinks that 9am isn’t the best time to go get these buns. It was very quiet in there, and I am not sure when the pork was cooked, when the buns were cooked, and whether or not you might be able to expect a higher quality product during dinner service at one of the David Chang eateries.
The last evening I spent in New York, I went to Kefi for dinner. I had been there on a couple of occasions previously, and I was returning because of how much I enjoyed the food. I have had fantastic octopus, pasta, and meatballs, and I was never disappointed with a dish. On this visit, I would not come across a dish that satiated any of my expectations. I ordered the octopus appetizer (described in a previous Kefi post), a sweetbread appetizer with spinach, garlic, and crispy shallots, and the pork souvlaki. The octopus appetizer was so good the last time I went, but on this visit it was like I had been given another dish. The octpus was a little tougher than I remembered, and the tomatoes and bean salad might as well not have been there. On my last visit, it was extremely flavorful, the cooked tomato serving as an acidic sauce mellowed by a generous drizzle of olive oil, and the beans were well cooked while still holding onto some of their texture. The beans this time were undercooked and it seemed like they had run out the saucy tomatoes and thrown in a couple reconstituted sun dried tomatoes. I am not saying they did this, but they might as well have. The pork souvlaki was also not what I remembered. The pita was okay although a little soggy, the pork was slightly overcooked, and the tzatziki sauce was hardly that. It needed to be thinned out and freshened up a bit. The herbs seemed to have lost some of thier freshness, and the cucumber was a bit soggy. I hope to return to Kefi at some point in the future not because of this last experience, but because of what I remember from my first two trips. I want to give their food a chance to wow me again.
This last plate was by no means a bad dish, but it is one that I have read so much about recently. Over the past few months, I have seen so many rave reviews of the sea urchin toast at Marea. I had a fantastic meal when I went, but I would not say that the sea urchin toast was a highlight. The sea urchin is served on a piece of toast with a thin layer of lardo over the top, sprinkled with sea salt. I am a huge fan of the briny, oceany flavor of sea urchin, so all of the reviews I had seen excited me. When I took the first bite of this first course, I was not blown away. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and I cleared the plate. Regrettably, I did not find that the dish as a whole offered more than high quality sea urchin served on vinegared rice by a sushi chef. The addition of the lardo varied the texture some, offering a fatty film to coat your tongue. The sea urchin was fresh and flavorful, but I think a well toasted piece of bread with the same slathering of roe could be enjoyed to the same extent without the lardo and sea salt. The entire meal was surely a highlight of my trip, and this dish did not want to take away from the experience. I enjoyed the sea urchin, but after all that I read about it, I did not share the same feelings as some. The dish, in my eyes, was not a revelation.
Disappointing experiences clearly have much to do with one’s expectations. I experienced disappointment on a number of different levels while investigating many different kinds of food in New York. At Marea, the sea urchin toast was good, if not great, but I may have sat down that night with unrealistic expectations. At Chickpea, I was looking for decent falafel, not expecting anything close to the best falafel I ever had. I did, however, leave disappointed nonetheless. After having the Chickpea falafel one night and the disappointing meal at Kefi the next, I felt compelled to search the city late at night to make up for these meals. This is where my trip to Minetta Tavern from my last New York post fits in. It was one thirty in the morning, and I was elated to find the best burger I have ever had, only to leave the meal, cross the street, and order a surprisingly good falafel from Mamoun’s for $2.75. This was a perfect way to end my New York trip. I may have been up until four in the morning, but it more than made up for any of the dishes that had let me down.
Posted by guiltygourmet 
