Tag Archives: burgers

The Hungry Cat

Posted on April 18, 2007 by bellastraniera

On Day 2 of LA trip, it was decided that we would go to the Hungry Cat. Its specialty? Chesapeake-style seafood. In Los Angeles.

I’m originally from Maryland. Whenever I go back to Baltimore, people there want to take me to someplace that is “really New York.” Here I was all the way across the country, and my friends wanted to take me to someplace with an East Coast seafood. There must be some universal human instinct to offer up your city’s own “authentic” food from the diner’s home state. I was reminded of Pete Wells’ entry in Diner’s Journal. When he offered to take a Texan to an NYC barbecue place, the Texan threatened to take him out in Texas for “Houston pizza.”

Very well. Houston pizza it was. Of course, I was halfway through the meal before I remembered Hungry Cat was supposed to be like Baltimore. Minimalist and sleek, set in an industrial space with an open kitchen and patio seating under heat lamps, the Hungry Cat is unlike anything Baltimore has ever seen.

There aren’t a lot of fancy drinks made with fresh-squeezed juices in crab shacks along the Chesapeake. Hungry Cat’s were damn good. The Hemingway Daiquiri could have been flown in from Key West. The mixologists here even feature a cocktail special of the night, which that night was a blood-orange-infused vodka drink made with vodka they had infused in house.

As they say in DelMarVa, we gots lots of ducks down on the wuter, but we don’t got no duck like Hungry Cat’s. The surf & turf special that night was crackly-skinned duck overlaid with creamy bread pudding mixed with smoked trout, served alongside a frisee salad. As our knowledgeable waiter put it, it was on the “extreme” end of the menu’s offerings, but also amazingly good. The salty crispness of the duck went surprisingly well with smoked trout. It was an impressively creative dish.

According to many an LA Chowhound user, Hungry Cat’s oysters are some of the best in town, so we ordered up a dozen of these. There were no Kumamotos, and only one variety, the Hama Hama, was West Coast, so I would have to order East Coast oysters here. This was initially disappointing until we tasted the Chincoteague oysters, which were large, plump and briny – definitely as good as any I’ve had in Maryland.

When our theatrical waiter delivered an enticing monologue about the lobster rolls, I turned to the Kobra, who lived in Boston.

“Are you going to get that?” I really wanted him to order it so I could see what he thought. The instinct to get someone to eat his hometown food somewhere else was kicking in.

“No,” the Kobra said. “I never order lobster rolls outside of Boston.”

And I passed on the crab cakes, since I never order crab cakes outside of Maryland. Wooed by the waiter’s reenactment of removing the cheek of an especially large deep-sea halibut, I ordered this dish. The fabled halibut cheek arrived as lightly breaded and fried hunks of fish tumbled onto more bread pudding. N.B. that I have never once encountered bread pudding on a Maryland menu, yet it was a recurring theme at Hungry Cat. I imagine it was a staple on the Eastern Shore around 1820.

Nevertheless, the bread pudding was quite good, as was the halibut. Presumably this was the fish version of Batali’s obsession with beef cheeks. As with beef, the cheeks were an especially tender and light cut of the halibut, and Hungry Cat’s were expertly prepared. The one disappointment was the morels on top. Though they added a lot of flavor to the sauce, the reconstituted mushrooms were still a little tough and chewy.

Oddly for a seafood place, the Hungry Cat is especially famous for its PUG burger, so named because one of the owners has a pug. He sure tastes delicious. A debate ensued about what made the PUG burger so good, other than that naughty dog that got sent to the hamburger factory.

“It’s the bacon,” Fellow WASP’s husband said.

“No, it’s the blue cheese,” Fellow WASP said.

The smoky flavor of the slow-cooked, chewy, fatty bacon – could it be applewood smoked, like the bacon from Huntington Meats? – was the first thing that struck me too, until I started to deconstruct the taste and wondered if the tang of blue cheese was the key. The sharpness of the cheese kept the whole thing from derailing into absolute fattiness. Each element was absolutely essential. Maybe burgers should never be made without blue cheese and bacon from now on. Unfortunately, we can’t credit an East Coast seafood place with inventing this dish either.

California Girl’s salmon dish looks intriguing, but I didn’t get to it until some of the key ingredients were gone, like this poached egg on top. The salmon itself was a little overcooked, but the buttery noodles that came with were good.

To anyone who grew up eating seafood on the East Coast, there might be something charmingly amusing about the Hungry Cat. Rarely have crab cakes been paired with fava bean puree and harissa aioli. Peel ‘n’ eat shrimp don’t usually appear on the same menu as caviar. Things that are plain and simple out East are a little more complicated here. Lest you think that the Hungry Cat is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, however, you need only note that their respect for
the ingredients, however plain or fancy, is absolutely sincere. And by elevating them to a new level, the staff could even teach East Coasters a trick or two.

The Hungry Cat
1535 North Vine, at Sunset
323-462-2155

Also in Santa Barbara

Posted in food, travel | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Angus McIndoe

Posted on October 6, 2006 by bellastraniera

As any humble (or seemingly humble) actor will tell you, so much of making it in the theater depends on being in the right place at the right time. So I felt especially fortunate when I happened to be at a restaurant on 44th Street when the entire cast of The History Boys stopped in for a pint after their last performance, the one I had just seen, with a television crew trailing behind. Angus McIndoe was exactly the right place to be.

An upscale Scottish pub, Angus McIndoe (pronounced MAC-indoo) was the subject of a Times story when Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane first starred in The Producers. They ate at Angus McIndoe nearly every night, and when Nathan Lane couldn’t make it to the restaurant itself, he ordered in. Whenever Angus McIndoe, the eponymous owner, called to see how Nathan Lane’s meal was, he replied, “Surprisingly good.”

The food is in fact surprisingly good for the theater district, where most restaurants have no qualms about keeping it mediocre, presumably thinking they won’t ever see these damn tourists again. But Angus McIndoe is the sort of place people come to once, then again, then over and over, not just because the food is good – though a little uneven – but because each night there is a frisson of behind-the-scenes excitement. You can almost imagine Eve Harrington stopping by for a drink – or poisoning Bette Davis’. After the shows, many of the stars arrive for a late dinner, and beforehand, the real producers fill the seats.

With all of this hullabaloo, it’s fortunate that wine is always served immediately and as a quartino, so pre-theater diners don’t have to suffer anxiety pangs wondering if they’ll be able to order a second glass of wine before they have to bolt. Upstairs and downstairs are equally entertaining places to sit, depending on the hour – upstairs is better later.

On a preliminary visit for this review, I find the food not as surprisingly good as I remembered, however, perhaps because the kitchen is serving a large private party on the top floor at the same time. The all-day breakfast plate, which has been reliable in the past, doesn’t thrill like the first time. The pork-apricot sausages that sound so good on the menu seem pre-cooked and warmed over, and the “potato scone” prompts my friend to say, “This isn’t a scone. This is fried mashed potatoes.” Overall she pronounces the dish “all right.” The tasting plate, part of the nightly special menu, manages to be uneven all on one plate. The country pork pat&#233 with cornichons could be my new favorite, but the smoked salmon is bland and the grilled shrimp smells fishy. The hamburger with Boursin cheese sounds intriguing. There is a little too much Boursin caked on top when it arrives, but it’s a nice combination, and the burger itself is great – ground sirloin with a little Worcestershire sauce thrown in, just to add a touch of Great Britain to the mix.

On another day at lunch with a friend who works for a certain newspaper whose Times Square offices are right above Angus McIndoe, the kitchen is running on an even keel. We have oysters similar to Kumamotos, with the same fluted shell and delicate, sweet taste. The presentation on a bed of chipped ice is very pleasing, though not so for the shrimp cocktail, which is served a plate of rather sad mesclun. Neither of us likes the chipotle dip that comes with the shrimp alongside the usual cocktail sauce, but then again, I am a traditionalist and don’t tend to encourage things like chipotle sauce with shrimp cocktail. We also order chili with our three seafood appetizers, and the waitress doesn’t blink an eye, perhaps assuming we are stoned.

The chili is good, fired under a broiler until the cheddar cheese melts on top, then sprinkled with crispy bits of bacon that really make the dish. It adds the same crunchy texture crackers would, but with the bonus of contributing flavor. The pork chop is not as exciting, and my friend calls it “a little dry.” I blame the matinee ladies. It is Wednesday, after all, and hordes of tourists have just eaten here, probably demanding pork chops cooked to at least 180 degrees Fahrenheit. This chop is a little pink but not alarmingly so. I don’t think it’s half bad, but it’s not as good as the pan-roasted free-range chicken, pounded thin like chicken paillard and seared on the outside, juicy within. The mashed potatoes that accompany it are so smooth and buttery I would almost accuse them of being fakes, if they were not Angus McIndoe’s, which, though it is not Irish, does know its potatoes. Any guilt from eating mounds of mashed potatoes can be assuaged by forking up the garlicky sauteed kale served alongside.

The phenomenal steamed mussels with bacon and peas are the pinnacle of the meal, the pinnacle of any of my meals at Angus McIndoe over the years. The mussels themselves are little and sweet, dunked in a creamy sauce flavored by the thin, limp folds of bacon and fresh peas. I devour nearly the entire thing myself and start dreaming of the next Copycat Chef recipe…

The History Boys don’t show up for this meal or for the one before. They come to Angus McIndoe when I’m there by chance, because we’re looking for a good place to have an after-theater drink in the neighborhood, and Angus McIndoe is a good place. It’s this kind of loyalty, almost reflexive at times, that can pay off in the theater district, where sometimes kismet is of your own making.

yle="float:left;cursor:hand;margin:0 10px 10px 0;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4504/3645/200/card.0.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Angus McIndoe
258 West 44th Street
between Eighth Avenue and Broadway
212-221-9222

Corrections amended: A Mr. McIndoe wrote in to inform this geographically-challenged American that Angus McIndoe is in fact Scottish, not Irish, which I would have realized had I carefully reread the Times article cited. Therefore, some phrasing in this review has been changed from “Irish” to “Scottish,” “of or belonging to Great Britain,” or simply “not Irish.” Gastro Chic is horribly embarrassed by the error.

Posted in food | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Prime Burger

Posted on September 10, 2006 by bellastraniera

Whenever I find myself near Fifth Avenue and 51st Street at lunchtime, I make an obligatory stop at Prime Burger, which is right across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The burgers here are so good, however, that “near” has become a relative term. I am “near” Prime Burger if I am on 61st and Madison at Barneys, say, or 37th and Fifth. Especially if the weather is nice enough to warrant a walk down Fifth Avenue. Okay, even if it’s raining.

If the food was totally crappy, I think I might come here anyway just to take in the décor. Everything about this place is old school. Not only the walls but even this clock is covered in dark brown fake wood laminate. The ceiling lights look a lot like the lights in my parents’ basement in the 70′s.

The staff is old school too; this waiter has been here at least since I started coming here in 1995. You’ll note that he is wearing a tie, a decision that must have been completely voluntary, since several of the other waiters weren’t. Supposedly some other guy has been making the Prime Burger’s pies and cakes – including an especially tempting coconut cake – for 55 years. That’s a lot of pies and cakes.

The menu is one of those long coffee shop dealios, but I generally ignore most of it and focus on the burgers. I don’t know why they’re so good; they just are. Perhaps because, as the name implies, they only use prime meat in their burgers. Or because they’re broiled in an old-fashioned broiler, not fried. The end result is so delicious that this coffee shop won a James Beard Award – how crazy is that? N.B. that you have to say you want lettuce and tomato on your burger if you do. Then they charge you 15 extra cents or something similarly amusing. Non-meat-eaters can order the grilled cheese, which is also excellent. Either way, if you’ve already broken your diet by coming here, you might as well get one of their chocolate milkshakes.

Like Momofuku Ssam Bar, there is a definite masculine vibe to Prime Burger. Part of that stems from the décor, which resembles a 1960′s bachelor pad as described by a prime decorator of the day, Carleton Varney. “Any bachelor can easily capture the feeling of a hunting lodge in his apartment,” he writes, in one of my favorite, most fascinating decorating books You and Your Apartment, 1967. “To bring out the lodgelike appearance, use plywood, or simply cover [ceiling beams] with a wood grain wallpaper. If you select a wallpaper, choose the darkest wood paper available.”

Prime Burger still attracts bachelors. Unfortunately, the less attractive one of these two – I’m sure you can tell to which one I refer – was the one who spoke to me, saying, “We thought it was very admirable the way you attacked that burger.” There must be something sexy/threatening about a youngish, not-fatish, reasonably well-dressed woman eating red meat and carbs during the salad hour at an ostensibly male hangout. The compliment was a backhanded one, laced with the image of me “attacking” my lunch when I was eating it as slowly and politely as possible.

Oh well. Such is the danger of occupying the tiny intersection where fashion and carbs meet. I thanked him and turned back to my milkshake.

Prime Burger
5 East 51st Street, between Fifth Avenue and Madison
New York, NY 10022
212-759-4729

Addendum: Anyone interested in finding out where the hell to eat lunch in midtown should check out Midtown Lunch, which discusses different burger joints here.

Posted in food | Tagged , , | 2 Comments