Posted by: Michael Orey on December 05
There are three things I want from a restaurant for a business lunch:
1. Good food (Otherwise what’s the point of meeting over a meal?)
2. Efficient service (How many times have you practically killed the afternoon trying to get the check?)
3. Quiet -- a dining room in which you can actually hear what others at your talbe say (Hmm, did he say CBS or CDS?)
You can get all of this at Tamarind, an Indian restaurant on East 22nd Street in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood. I’ve had both dinner and lunch at Tamarind, and the food is exceptional. Many of the dishes and ingredients will seem familiar to those who frequent more ordinary Indian places that abound in New York and elsewhere – and I often find those places perfectly satisfying. But everything at Tamarind seems to have been taken up several levels; there’s a distinctness and clarity to the flavors, and a far-ranging menu that can take diners far beyond the typical. Sure you can order saag paneer if you want. But how ’bout nargisi kifta: lotus root dumplings with homemade cheese, in a saffron-onion sauce? Avtar Walia, Tamarind’s perpetually dapper owner, told me that his offerings are “authentic Indian food,” though that clearly refers to the flavorings and preparation more than it does some of the things that land in his pots. How else to explain the (delicious) lobster masala, venison or quail? Walia says his kitchen also experiments to come up with its own creations. One example: a dish of cauliflower, lightly crisp on the outside in a tangy sort of sweet and sour sauce. “I sell it by the ton,” he told me, and I can see why.
Tamarind’s contemporarily decorated space features a muted beige/white palate. And, at least at lunch, the noise level is subdued, as well. Before the recent financial crisis, Walia says, it used to be a bit more bustling, particularly because bankers from nearby Credit Suisse used to fill up tables. They appear less frequently now. (Prices are not cheap, especially for those used to Indian food being a low-budget option, but there is a $24 prix fixe option at lunch.) Even if it is crowded, the dining room has a half dozen banquettes that offer an semi-private place for those who may want to plot the next big deal -- or bailout. If those discussions stray into whether or not to have dessert, I would suggest yes. Try the kulfi, a pistachio and cardamom flavored ice milk or the mango cheese cake. Heck, if the market’s up for the day, order both.
Posted by: Michael Orey on November 07
At any company the full range of one’s coworkers’ talents is often not immediately evident. My colleague Alethea Black, for example, works assiduously on the copy desk to make sure that each and every word and sentence that ends up in BusinessWeek magazine is clear and correct. But we’ve also learned that Alethea is an award-winning writer of short stories. Recently, I discovered something else: She is a brilliant sandwich maker. I had occasion to sample one of her creations, and the sandwich I made myself today was fully inspired by what she made. As with hers, all the ingredients are from Trader Joes, which makes this a one-stop-shopping wonder. The sandwich: pea shoots, apple-chicken sausage and goat cheese on curry flavored naan bread. I was working at home today, so warmed the bread and sausage in the toaster oven first. Deeeelicious. Copy edit that.
Posted by: Michael Orey on October 24
Everyone is cutting back these days. The item below, from my BusinessWeek colleague Rebecca Reisner, certainly offers some guidance on making do with less -- and yet finding pleasure in it. As for her 1,200 calorie-a-day diet, I think I'm on triple that. Does that mean I get 3 rolls?
Nearly every weekday for the last year, my lunch has included a cranberry pecan roll bought from Corrado Bread & Pastry in Grand Central Station. They’re also sold, I’ve noticed, at Whole Foods, Garden of Eden, and a couple of other places around the city.
I got curious about the provenance of the cranberry pecan roll because, first of all, I wondered who was responsible for this reason for living. The rolls consist of whole cranberries and pieces of fresh, sweet pecans dispersed throughout slightly dark, soft bread. The cranberries on top of the rolls are crisp and smoky flavored as though they were roasted over a fire, and the ones inside are springy and tart. And the rolls have hard, crusty tops, but aren’t flaky. You can eat them at your desk and barely leave a crumb.
Second, I was curious about the calorie count. I’m on a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet, and cheat on it every single day, but I like to know by how much. The rolls are petite, slightly bigger than clementines but smaller than tangerines. Fresh Direct carries raisin pecan rolls that look similar in size and shape, and the Web site said they have -- oh, no -- 236 calories each.
A call to Corrado’s flagship store yielded some clues. “The rolls are very popular,” said Claudio Martins, one of the principles of the Manhattan business. “We buy them from a bakery in Long Island City called Pain D’Avignon.”
“So are you a fan of the cranberry pecan rolls yourself?” I asked.
“I don’t sell anything I don’t adore,” Martins said. He put me in touch with Mr. Branislav Stamenkovic, one of three Yugoslavian brothers who left their troubled land and opened Pain D’Avignon in Massachusetts in 1992.
“The roll was first baked at our original location in Cape Cod,” Stamenkovic explained in pleasantly accented speech. “Everybody was making raisin rolls. There are a lot of cranberries on Cape Cod, so it was only natural to make cranberry rolls and bread.”
Between the Cape Cod and Long Island City bakeries, Pain D’Avignon sells about 3,000 cranberry pecan rolls a day. And the calorie count? Just 170 calories per roll. Bon appetite.
Posted by: Michael Orey on October 21
What you see pictured here is my empty box of take-out from the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, the mobile outlet of the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. Why is the box empty? Because even though Rickshaw lets you order 9 dumplings at its restaurants, the guy at the truck said I had to order in groups of 6. So I ordered six, ate them, and found the box empty but myself not full. Instead, I’m cranky. I would happily have paid for 3 more dumplings. Why on earth wouldn’t they put three more in the box? I posed this very question to Rickshaw via a contact form on their Web site and, to their credit, they responded very quickly. David Weber told me that “traditional dumpling purveyors” serve dumplings in orders of 4, 6 or 8 of a kind. This makes serving people fast and accurate, he says. Hmm, perhaps I’ll have to open a competing nontraditional venture that offers orders of 3, 6 and 9 . . .
By the way, I was not enamored of the dumplings I ordered. (Yes, I am in fact complaining that (a) the food wasn’t that good and (b) that there wasn’t enough of it -- lunch blogger’s prerogative.) I got six of the Chicken Thai Basil dumplings, which seemed to be all about the seasoning and nothing about the chicken. I had wanted to try 3 of the pork dumplings as part of my intended order of 9. Perhaps the pork ones are fabulous; but Rickshaw wasn’t willing to make it easy for me to find out. This is the third time in recent weeks (see here and here) I’ve been burned in one way or another by my quest for dumplings. I guess that makes me a glutton for punishment.
Posted by: Michael Orey on October 12
Orange you glad I didn't have a banana?
Working from home might seem to offer an ideal opportunity to assemble creative and wholesome meals from the plethora of ingredients in one's pantry and fridge. More often that not, though, I've found it leads to impulsive grazing, and that the combination of foods ingested around the noon hour ends up being rather horrifying. Above is my "lunch" from Friday. No, I did not pick out the Doritos and think they would pair nicely with the Honey Nut Cheerios; those were sequential impulses driven by craving (Doritos) and then a need for a speedy supplement (Cheerios). As for my choice of beverage, well, the carrot juice just happened to be in front of the cider in my refrigerator. How did it happen that everything I consumed was orange or in orange packaging? The subliminal influence of the pervasive Halloween promotions, I suppose.
