A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the number of drool-worthy recipes in this month’s Food & Wine magazine. I jumped in with the Sticky Oat-and-Pine Nut Bars, and though they were not a raging success, I was not deterred. A good thing too, because the next F&W dish I made was delicious. (And easier on the teeth!)

We roast a lot of vegetables around here. Broccoli. Brussel Sprouts. Squash. Zucchini. You name it and its likely found its way onto a baking sheet and into our oven. There are occasions however, usually ones that involve dinner guests, when I want to prepare a vegetable dish that is just as simple and healthful, but with a little more pizazz. Something like Curried Cauliflower and Green Bean Salad with Lemon Yogurt.

It was not the recipe’s name that caught my eye. When I see ‘Green Bean Salad,’ I think of over-dressed waxy things at a BBQ. The ‘Lemon Yogurt’ also threw me off. I like my veggies unadulterated. So what did catch my eye? The picture. This was no Green Bean Salad. It was an elegant and inviting melange of white, purple, and green. (The yogurt was conspicuously absent from the photo.)

I was hooked, albeit with some some adjustments (including a name change). And voila. It looked and tasted just as I hoped. The below photo is of the dish I made, but feel free to compare it to the F&W version.

Roasted Cauliflower, Onions, and Green Beans with Curry and Breadcrumbs
(Adapted from Food & Wine)

One 2 1/4 lb head of cauliflower, cut into 1-inch florets
1 red onion, sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 lb green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
1 tsp curry powder
handful of homemade breadcrumbs

1. Preheat oven to 425. In large bowl, toss cauliflower and onion with 3 TBSP of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread on a baking sheet. In same bowl, toss beans with 1 TBSP of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread beans on a separate baking sheet. Roast all vegetables until crisp-tender and lightly browned, stirring once or twice. About 14 minutes for the beans and 17 minutes for the cauliflower and onion. Return all vegetables to the bowl.
2. In a small skillet, toast the curry powder over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Scrape the curry over the vegetables. Add breadcrumb for light textural coating. Season as necessary.
3. Can be served warm or at room temperature. (Though this was just as delicious cold on the following day.)

This eater friends, is a Chesapeake Quesadilla Thing, filled with blackened chicken, crap dip, and cheese. Yes, there is crap dip inside. And yes, it’s as big and delicious as it looks.

Its presence is a staple on the menu at Nacho Mama’s in Baltimore, a dive Mexican restaurant that doubles as a Natty Boh museum and once was an Elvis shrine. You can’t make this stuff up.

I get to sink my teeth into one of these gargantuan spheres about once a year. Afterward, I spend six months recovering and then six months plotting my return. Oh, and Nacho Mama’s also serves margaritas in hubcaps. Need I say more?

In 2008 Motorino opened in Williamsburg to instant raves. Less than two years later it rode its success train to the East Village. (Trend?) The raves continue. Reviewers are obsessed. Yelpers are fanatical. Many claim Motorino’s chef, Mathieu Palombino, is making the best pizza in NYC. As it turns out, I’m an outlier on this one, though I have been known to buck a trend or two.

The restaurant space is adequate, if not cozy with pizza joint personality. The service was solid. We went before the 8pm crush and didn’t have to wait for a table. There wasn’t an incident or issue to cloud our Motorino experience. The pizza simply needed to impress. Instead, the pies fell limp.

The three pies we ordered – the Brussels Sprout and Pancetta, the Cremini and Sweet Sausage, and the Clam special – all had similar troubles. Despite admirable ingredients in potentially winning combinations, every bite tasted singular.

The pancetta overpowered the brussels sprouts, relegating the bright green leaves to mere decoration. The pecorino cheese had its way with the creminis and sausage. The measly clam-to-pizza ratio meant most bites held only the promise of clams, in the form of salty clam juice. The toppings were unchecked, unbalanced, and sprinkled with a light hand, as if the plan all along was for them to cling to the dough’s coattails. Palombino’s dough is good, but not good enough for riding.

The crust is too thick and too naked. The cheese, sauce, and toppings are forced to tread in the pie’s center, instead of being allowed to grab hold of the edge. The result is a soggy and droopy pizza center and a crust that doubles as a bread stick.

A survey of the room showed that most diners had abandoned their crusts once the toppings were eaten. The only exception was a couple who had smartly ordered a bowl of marinara sauce for dipping. I wasn’t kidding about the whole bread stick thing.

The pizzas are far from bad, but they’re also far from the best. Rest easy, Jim Lahey, I’m still happiest in your Co.

Advanced No. 7 Sub Maneuver: After you place your No. 7 sandwich order, instead of waiting idly for it to be ready, head around the corner to Stumpton Coffee and grab a Beet Cupcake to go. What’s smarter than dessert-inspired efficiency?

One bite of this brilliant confection will have questioning your longtime love affair with carrot cake. And yes, that’s cream cheese frosting.

Anchored by the Breslin and flanked by No. 7 Sub and Stumpton Coffee, The Ace Hotel has become a gastro-mecca. Kudos to the brains behind this city-within-a-city, where behind its nourishing walls, you quickly forget about the pashmina and jewelry hawkers that are just a pig’s throw away.

Despite my disappointing Breslin experience, I’ve been eager to return to Ace City since No. 7 Sub docked. It’s the sandwich-only outpost of Brooklyn’s No. 7 restaurant, where a couple of chefs are doing a lot of cool things. The journey to Manhattan has not water-logged their creativity.

Braised lamb is accompanied by mint jelly, romaine, and pappadam. A slab of tofu is fried, doused in General Tso’s, and topped with broccoli mayo, roasted onions, and carrots. Ceviche comes with hummus and roast beef with pickled daikon. A protein, a foil, and dueling textures are always in play. We sampled the lamb and the tofu and were very impressed with both.

There was the perfect distribution and amount of toppings. Not once were we overtaken by the urge to do the “sandwich shuffle.” You know the jig – it usually involves shifting a tomato slice and removing a lettuce leaf. The lamb was moist and the the tofu was perfectly sauced, but the bread, acting like an impenetrable seal, didn’t let a morsel or drip escape.

The bread, baked in Brooklyn, is a smart and well-proportioned vehicle for the cargo. It has a wheaty flavor and wee bit of crunch. It’s easy to get your hands around.

There’s no place to sit, the subs are $9 each, and the wait can be up to 30 minutes (15 minutes to order, 15 while they make your sandwich). But sub or no sub, it beats crossing the river to Brooklyn.

At La Cabrera, a steakhouse known for its blitzkrieg of side dishes. Along with our steak we were deluged with potatoes, olives, eggs, tomatoes, peppers, and more.

Before we left for Buenos Aires, friends who had visited in years past spoke highly of the city’s steakhouses. Along with their recommendations they espoused exclamations of grass-fed!, cheap!, and Malbec!

I scoured message boards and blog posts and enjoyed the lively debates over BA’s best steakhouse. They were reminiscent of the age-old NY steakhouse debate. In the end we decided to visit two of the most highly respected of the lot: La Brigada and La Cabrera.

Is the beef grass-fed? Yes.
Is the Malbec outstanding? Yes.
Is there value compared to a NYC steakhouse? Yes.
Were we impressed? Not even close.

The steak is under seasoned. (And by under, I mean non-existent.) It lacks flavor and intensity. Perhaps I’m a spoiled New Yorker, accustomed to an aged Porterhouse with a buttery char. I’m willing to live with that.

Upon returning, we’ve circled up with the folks who were so effusive before our departure. They have directed us back to their statements, “I never said the meat was awesome. But it was pretty cheap, huh?” One friend, who had talked up the sweetbreads and lomo de bife dared to whisper, “I actually think the meat down there is really overrated. Personally, I think people get caught up in the hype.” Apparently.

This month’s issue of Food & Wine is particularly good. Usually, there is a recipe or two I file away to make in the future. Sometimes I follow through, often I don’t. But the May issue was packed with recipes I’m excited to try, including this one, which from the moment I saw, I could not get out of my head.

The bars came out beautifully, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. But they were more crunchy than sticky, owing to the fact that I let the butter-honey-oat-nut-sugar concoction cook a few minutes too long on the stove top. The color was a hue (or two) past golden and had a faint overdone taste before it even went in the oven.

I used quick oats, which I’m fairly certain didn’t have an impact. I also used toasted pine nuts, mainly because the toasted variety have a lot more flavor (and because I happen to have a lot of them on hand). In retrospect, that might have paved the way to the dark side. In addition to the recipe’s call for white chocolate, I also dipped in semi-sweet. The much sweeter white chocolate was a better foil for the nuttiness.

I have a feeling this recipe could be tweaked to heavenly levels. Pretzels bits and peanuts come to mind.

I do urge cutting bite-sized squares instead of bigger bars. They looked adorable and disappeared before I had time to get the camera out.

Sticky Oat-and-Pine-Nut Bars
(As printed in Food & Wine)

1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 cups old-fashioned oats, preferably thick-cut
1 1/2 cups pine nuts (8 ounces)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
4 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1/2 teaspoon canola oil

1. Preheat oven to 325. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line the bottom and two sides with parchment paper. (the parchment paper should be in one piece)
2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter, honey, and sugar and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until an amber caramel forms, about 5 minutes. Stir in oats, pine nuts, pepper, and salt and cook, stirring constantly, until the pine nuts begin to brown, about 2 minutes. Scrape mixture into the prepared pan and smooth surface. Bake for about 20 minutes, until bubbling and browned around the edges. Let cool completely in pan.
3. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and lift out the square. Cut into desired bars or squares.
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds. Stir in oil and let cool slightly. Dip the bottom half of each bar into chocolate and set on the baking sheet. Refrigerate until chocolate is set. Bars can be re-dipped for a heavier chocolate coating.

We just returned from Argentina, where for the last nine days we’ve been stuffing ourselves with dulce de leche, empanadas, and of course, cow. Lots and lots of cow. When a customs officer asked if we were bringing any meat products back to the US, saying “no” almost felt a lie. I imagine if our bodies were conveyored through the x-ray machine one might see the start of bovine resemblances. Like I said, lots and lots of cow.

Truth be told, we were not impressed with the Argentinian meat, but there will be more on the non-seasoned and non-aged later this week. This carnivorous post is dedicated to Choripan, our Argentinian love.

Mainly a street food, Choripan is a sandwich whose name is derived from its two ingredients: a chorizo sausage and pan (bread in Spanish). The beef and pork sausage is cooked on a parilla (grill), split in half, served on a roll, and smothered in spicy chimichurri. Order your pan tostada (bread toasted) for the truly subliminal experience. If cooked right, the sausage skin will be crisp and its interior moist. The grease it emits will coat your fingers and threaten to stain your outfit. It’s worth every bite. The whole affair costs you about 6 pesos, which is about $1.50 (beer not included).

Joe Dobias, chef owner of East Village restaurant JoeDoe, has a real distaste for food bloggers, Yelpers, and even NY’s beloved Eater staff. He has ranted his way to a canceled Twitter account (one can only assume his wife, who is also a partner in the restaurant, put the kibosh on his Tweetrums). So when I ate at JoeDoe last week, it felt almost dangerous, as if I was dining in enemy territory.

JoeDoe is a seemingly small restaurant for Dobias’s big personality, but then again, JoeDoe’s open-air kitchen is seemingly tiny for the grand inspiration it churns out. Joe Dobias’ appeal is that he’s committed to high-quality, locally-sourced ingredients and inventiveness. Long gone are the days where an organic chicken with a crispy skin can make me swoon. Joe elevates the potentially mundane – his beet appetizer the perfect example. A mound of beets were spiced, pickled, and piled on quark cheese and hazelnuts. Beets are the old ramps, but Dobias manages to invigorate a somewhat tired ingredient with new found energy.

There were some other big hits at JoeDoe. A basket of fried chick peas in lieu of bread. Jalapeno Braised Rabbit with a slab of fried dough and a jalapeno salsa that was a dynamite dish in every way and like nothing I’ve had before. Grass fed Hanger Steak was tender, flavorful and nicely paired with a Tex-Mex homage of avocado and rice and beans. For dessert, the Wildflower Honey Custard with Turkish flatbread bordered on ethereal.

JoeDoe’s misfires show more gumption than potential, starting with his much touted Prepared Beer concoctions. A Gin Cured Scallop, one of the menu’s few attempts at delicacy, also missed the mark. As for the Braised Mussels, if anyone could pull off mussels topped with ground pork, I thought it would be Dobias. Apparently, no one can. The dish was haphazard at best. I keep wondering if the toasted Challah that accompanied the shellfish and pig was Dobias’s attempt at irony. Maybe this passionate chef has a sense of humor? Let’s hope so.

Pain D’Avignon, bread supplier to some of New York’s top restaurants – Eleven Madison Park, Momofuku, and Corton just to name a few – recently opened a NY retail location in the Essex Street Market. Today I stopped in to check out the new digs. What the bakery outpost lacks in square footage it makes up in charm. Loaves, rolls, croissants, and baguettes cover every inch of counter and shelf space.

It was hard to resist one of my favorite bread indulgences, the Cranberry-Pecan Round ($6.50) which turned out to be softer than expected on the inside, with just the right amount of exterior crunch and cranberry tartness. It is a definite contender for Balthazar’s Cranberry-Walnut Round ($8) which is a tad denser and sweeter.

Tip Alert: If you come by in the evening and they’re not sold out, you’ll be able to purchase half loaves. They’re open from 8am-7pm Monday-Saturday. Sometime soon Pain D’Avignon plans to sell sandwiches and coffee as well.

Our night at SHO had a lot of things going for it. 1) It was the first time in months that my husband and I had a weekend night to ourselves. 2) We were armed with a gift certificate (a very generous thank you from dear friends). 3) I didn’t do any of my usual pre-dining research about the restaurant.

Note to self: Have more romantic, free dinners at fancy restaurants of which you have no expectations.

SHO is located in the labyrinth that is Wall Street, and many aspects of Chef Shaun Hergatt’s restaurant reflect its locale. Both the service and decor were all business. Waiters and servers did their work efficiently, though the sommelier was the only one on the floor who appeared to enjoy his job. The lights are bright and the tables are big. You’re a handshake’s distance from your dining companions and there’s a sterility that’s fitting for a merger, not a proposal.

Before our six-course tasting even began, we were primed with four superb canapes, including a quail egg with caviar that literally exploded with flavor and a decadent foie gras truffle. Then came two amuse bouches – yes, two – a scallop followed by a play on white and green asparagus. The preparations were exquisite and unique. The bar had been set high and we quietly agreed that the meal had only one way to go: downhill. And then came the venison tartare. Rich. Complex. Sublime. We ate in silence, the dish commanding every ounce of our attention.

The rest of the meal brought an intense mushroom soup, striped bass that was trumped by the langoustine that accompanied it, lobster that lost steam on behalf of its langoustine lead-in, and a beautiful piece of veal. While the proteins were prepared flawlessly, their accompaniments came across as after thoughts rather than part of a grander conception.

For dessert, the chocolate souffle was only adequate, while the citrus palette (a special request that was granted without question) was divine. The wine tasting was well-intentioned, but too whimsical.

Overall, Shaun Hergatt isn’t doing anything New York hasn’t see before, but he’s getting the job done. And well. SHO is also aggressive on price. At $110 for the six-course tasting, you’ll be hard-pressed to find similar value for a NYC fine dining experience.

SHO is the hard-working employee who earns their salary, but never goes above and beyond to garner the big promotion. No one said life on Wall Street was easy.

We did not eat at the same Colicchio & Sons as Sam Sifton. Not even close. We ate at the same Colicchio & Sons as Adam Platt and Jay Cheshes, where there were only a couple standout dishes – for us the Sweetbreads starter and the Cod entree – from a menu that has more bark than bite. Where the service was fine, but stiff and forced. Where the desserts were the best part, the real deal, of an otherwise forgettable dining experience at too high a price.

In bestowing three stars on Colicchio & Sons, Sifton has brought his reviewing practice into question. Awarding three stars to a restaurant that is under two months old and has otherwise been receiving middling reviews gives reason for pause. Was Sifton recognized by the staff and therefore the recipient of better food and service? Probably. Does Sifton have a soft spot for Colicchio? Likely. Does all of this taint his review? Most certainly.

Most of the scuttlebutt about Chef Tom’s newest restaurant in the old Craftsteak space has been lukewarm. Opening a new restaurant is incredibly difficult, which is why it’s often a smart move to stay away while kinks and growing pains are worked out. In the first month of being open, Colicchio & Sons went from an a la carte menu to a prix fixe and then back to a la carte. Diners complained about bad service and poorly executed dishes. There were clearly some wrinkles that needed ironing. My own dining experience a week ago was lackluster.

I won’t deny there was potential, which was one of the reasons I was willing to give Colicchio & Sons another go, especially with the a la carte menu being offered again. Then I read Sifton’s review. His glowing diatribe has had the opposite of its intended effect. Colicchio doesn’t need my patronage and support if he’s got Sifton in his corner. It’s likely that Colicchio & Sons will be much more crowded in the coming weeks than it was on the Friday night I was there, but I have a feeling the stars will quickly fade.

Fare trumps pretense, phew
Dumplings with oxtail divine
Ciao 8 hello Scott

Faustina is located in the Cooper Square Hotel.

French restaurants often serve Gougeres nestled in a basket or small bowl, covered with a napkin for warmth. Sometimes they’re served as an elegant bar snack. So while they’re not uncommon, Gougeres still manage to feel like a special treat. These savory cheese pastries are perfect for a pre-dinner nibble or as an accompaniment to your favorite libation. And the best news is that you can make Julia Child proud by making them at home. I love that they keep your hostess-with-the-mostess reputation intact, without ruining your guests’ appetites for whatever fabulous meal follows. They smell ridiculously good while they’re cooking and much excitement ensues when these golden beauties emerge, crusty and soft all at once, from your oven. Good luck getting them off the baking sheet and onto a serving platter before someone snags one.

Gougeres from Jacques Pépin (makes about 30)

1 cup milk (I used whole milk)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Dash cayenne pepper

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups grated Gruyere cheese

Coarse salt (fleur de sel or kosher salt) to sprinkle on top

Bring the milk, butter, salt, and cayenne to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat, add the flour all at once, and mix vigorously with a wooden spatula until the mixture forms a ball. Return the pan to the heat and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 1 minute to dry the mixture a bit. Transfer to the bowl of a food processor, let cool for 5 minutes, then process for about 5 seconds.

Add the eggs and paprika to the processor bowl, and process for 10 to 15 seconds, until well mixed. Transfer the choux paste to a mixing bowl, and let cool for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a cookie sheet with a reusable nonstick baking mat or parchment paper. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the grated Parmesan cheese, then add the remainder and all the Swiss cheese to the choux paste. Stir just enough to incorporate. Using a tablespoon, scoop out a level tablespoon of the gougère dough, and push it off the spoon onto the cooking mat. Continue making individual gougères, spacing them about 2-inches apart on the sheet. Sprinkle a few grains of coarse salt and a little of the reserved Parmesan cheese on each gougère. Bake for about 30 minutes, until nicely browned and crisp. Serve lukewarm or at room temperature with drinks.

*Mine were perfect at the 23-25 minute mark. Keep your eye on them.

“Thanks for picking up lunch,” my husband said, “and for those things you fed me.” And just like that, he had perfectly described K! Pizzacone’s addition to the already flush Manhattan pizza scene. “Those things” are pizzas served in cones, a hybrid between a calzone and a slice. Some things are better left alone.

K! Pizzacones have less grease than a slice of pizza and also less sauce. The cheese tastes like the pre-shredded grocery store variety and melts into a similar mess, globby and chewy. The cone is cooked until crisp, making it much less doughy than a calzone. It was much less prominent than I was expecting, its presence merely a vehicle for the ingredients it carried.

The available toppings stuffings are the pizzeria norm: pepperoni, mushroom, sausage, onion, etc. You can choose from a smaller cone (K!) or a larger cone (K!!!), both of which are more expensive, take more time to assemble and cook, and are less filling than a regular ole’ slice. They’re not served by dough-slinging-sometimes-impatient Italians, but by overly-excited-outfit-wearing youngsters. The cones are packaged in wasteful boxes and plastic bags that should make any quasi-green consumer cringe. So while the pizzacones tasted okay, everything about them felt wrong. Call me old-fashioned.

After the hype dies down, K! Pizzacone might find the most success with their dessert cones, which for the time being are buried under a menu of their savory counterparts. The Banana Flambe & Chocolate cone was not only tasty, but it had all the right charms for a sweet treat. It succeeded in every way the pizza-filled cones failed.