From the Wild and Wonderful to the Wild and Expensive: Food in NYC

***Originally Published September 1st, 2023

It was 3:30 in the morning and we were rummaging around in my car: I had a bag and a half of Caputo pizza flour and all the equipment I needed.

But I couldn't find my yeast.

I promised to make pizza the next day and we needed to make the dough now so it'd have time to rise–oh also we were in the middle of Manhattan.

Where the hell were we gonna be able to use an outdoor pizza oven anyways?

"Why were you trying so hard to make pizza in Manhattan so late?"

You may be wondering.

Especially in NEW YORK, which has goated pizza.

Well... After bragging about my pizza and letting it slip that the oven was in my car, a pretty Austrian girl asked if I could make it.

And tomorrow was my last day in the city.

What was I gonna say, NO?

I didn't care that it was past 2 in the morning: she was getting her pizza if I had to go through the 7 circles of hell.

But it was worth every lost hour of sleep.

Three of us ran around a supermarket for mozzarella tomatoes basil and yeast at nearly 4 in the morning so we could prepare the dough.

The next morning we lugged a propane tank and pizza oven ten blocks in the city, and had some homemade pizza that Michelin would’ve recommended if I let him try it.

The pretty Austrian girl never came but pizza is life so I'm okay.

Totally okay.

Anywho Prosciutto is deliciousssss on these oh lord.

Best combo so far: only sauce and basil on the pizza when it goes in the oven. Then take it out and add buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto, and some parm. I think that's like a super classic combo and for a damn good reason. It tastes so fresh and bright and salty and creamy and is so well balanced 👌👌👌

I feel slightly blasphemous that the only pizza I had while in New York was my own, but man, my pizza is that good.

How did I end up in New York, anyways?

“Warnings were given to vacate and my planned flight happened to be well-timed.”

The campground tenants and I had, over the course of a few weeks, dealt with rowdy neighbors, hellish storms, and the chaotic human experience of living life with no home.

What formed was a kind of neighborhood community in which we shared food, stories, cigarettes, and weed with each other gladly as if we’d been roommates for years.

There was a woman with a camper and kids that had been there almost a month; the two school buses owned by husband and wife gypsies who’d stayed about two months; and across the road a older preacher living out of a small teardrop who’d been there a month as he worked his full-time job working with recovering addicts. Plus, there was the huge family from Oak Hill that had stayed for two weeks, but had been gone a couple weeks by this time.

The official limit was 14 days, and though we were given sly advice to simply move sites to reset the counter—the jig was up.

Warnings were given to vacate and my planned flight happened to be well-timed.

And anyways I began to feel as if I was overstaying my welcome somewhat—not that I wasn’t welcome at all—as a friendly outsider I was of course welcomed.

But I was always going to be an outsider, a visitor. 

As West Virginia began to feel more permanent of a place…I think it unsettled me a little. 

It was time to get back to my Vision Quest, lest I stopped seeing what was in front of me.

”I was really impressed with how the different components of the dishes balanced each other out.” 

New York was an experience defined by food.

I stayed with my Uncle and Aunt, visiting two old friends from a previous job I had as an intern at a Neuroscience lab back in Boston.

We caught up over food, and more food, some drinks, and then some more food.

We had the good fortune of being shown around by someone who’d grown up in the City, and well, he knew the food!

My favorite place we visited was the Bar at Momofuku Ko

The dish most starkly in my memory was a very simple dish of mackerel, tarragon, and roasted red pepper.

It was served with a sauce of spiced olive oil blended with those same roasted red peppers and lemon juice.

The balance of flavors was incredible. 

Immaculate. 

Astounding. 

Expertly crafted. 

Designed and executed like it had been a dish evolved by a culture over thousands of years. 

At first it’s small, unassuming, very pretty—but not impressive.

The flavors are simple: fresh creamy fish, pungent tarragon, and sweet charred pepper.

But combined together with the spices and sauce everything rounds out to as close as you can get to a perfect circle.

I plan to make a pizza harnessing a similar flavor profile in the near future.

Also consumed there was cold quadruple fried chicken (the fucking bombest firest fried chicken I’ve ever had in my life), and a fried chicken sandwich embedded with foie grois.

And what really impressed me about the chicken sandwich was not the hot greasy fat that spilled out after the first bite, or the moist salty umami bomb that exploded from inside those pasty triangles of white crustless sandwich bread, but it was the tangy tartar-esque sauce that perfectly balanced out the powerful flavors with a cold and creamy vinegar tang. 

I was really impressed with how the different components of the dishes balanced each other out there. 

Kudos to the Chef! 

I guess that’s why they have those Michelin stars…

Lastly, and certainly not least…dessert! 

The bar served up yet another unimpressive looking dish. 

The melon soaked in Sake served on top of a light cream sauce was a rollercoaster of flavor. 

The first piece of the dish to hit your tastebuds is the cream sauce: and it coats the mouth with a sweet fat in preparation for the melon.

Then the melon comes in sour, but sweet, and fruity with a strong fermented tang. It melds with the sauce into a delightful bite.

It reminded me of my experience drinking Cold Brew coffee. 

I drink hot and iced coffee black, but not cold brew.

Whether it’s due to a mistake in how most places brew it or just the natural result of brewing coffee without boiling temperatures, I find cold brew acidic and sour and lacking the trademark bitterness I love from coffee.

Sooo I always add a hefty pour of cream to cut through the sourness to arrive at a balanced and easy-to-drink treat.

This dessert functioned similarly, as the cream sauce melded with the strong sourness of sake soaked melon.

But the sauce was much thinner that the melon slices, and once it was fully gone the dish sent you out with a final *punch* of sharp sourness that was not unlike taking a sip of some melon sake itself.

The flavors transformed and flowed in each bite.

A very exciting, delicious, and simple dessert. 

We had other fantastic food during our stay, the next coming from another Michelin starred restaurant, Tuome.

There was a grilled octopus that was rich and salty with a creamy potato cream; a wagyu tartar overwhelmed by capers or onions or whatever else they mixed in there that disappointed me; and a pork dish that while technically impressive tasted not incredibly far off from some (it was delicious, what I am saying next is not to disparage the meal I’m just relating what I compared it to) canned pulled pork from Dollar General I had while in West Virginia.

There was, however(!), a snow crab seafood dish that highlighted the delicate shelled pinchy boi better than anything I’ve ever had before—save simply dipping it in butter straight out the shell. 

It was a pasta dish with “snow crab, squash, and dashi butter.”

I do not know how the squash was incorporated, for it was not visible. 

But it was genius, and well executed, nonetheless.

I think the sweetness and inherent creaminess of the squash worked really really well with the sweet and delicate snow crab.

If the creaminess was achieved solely on the god-given merits of butter and cream the crab would’ve been overwhelmed and more of a fancy looking topping.

Instead the sauce, the noodles, the whole dish oozed the taste of that wonderful soft white flesh.

And that touch of dashi in the butter is I think what brought out the final finish of umami that sent it over the edge.

They had some wonderfully fluffy beignets as well that we crafted into teenie little ice cream sandwiches. 

Quite wonderful.

I believe I’ve expounded on my love for food enough this post.

Go eat some food caressed by human hands.

You deserve it!

(And tip your servers! They deserve it!)

-Andy