The Selected Ballads Selects...Coffee and Baked Goods

Stumptown is my go-to supplier for coffee beans, as they have a great selection, they get consistently good beans, and they seem to know how to roast to just the right level. Just about everything I try from them makes a great cup of coffee, though I tend to like the Guatemalan and Ethiopian coffees the best. Hopefully this was an anomaly, but on my last trip to the Ace Hotel location, I had a hard time finding any beans roasted most recently than a week before. I feel a little silly even mentioning this, but Stumptown has spoiled me with their usually dependable freshness (often selling beans roasted the previous day), and after all, the beans only have to make it from Red Hook to the Flatiron. When I see Stumptown for sale in Brooklyn stores like Union Market and Blue Apron, it's much more common to see that they've been sitting around for a week or two.

After running out of my last bag of Stumptown beans, I decided to give Gorilla Coffee another try. I'd written their coffee off as overroasted, with the consistently heavy hand on the roaster eliminating flavor differences between single-source beans from different parts of the world, but based on the Guatemalan beans I just bought from them, they seem to have eased up, much to the coffee's benefit. After only one cup, I can't judge the new-and-improved Gorilla yet, but if I was going to name some honorable mentions behind Stumptown, the first two that come to mind are La Colombe, the Philly roaster that now has cafes in Manhattan, and Blue Bottle, the San Fran "microroaster" with a Williamsburg location. Blue Bottle is probably Stumptown's nearest competitor in quality and attention to detail in their cafe - they've been getting serious with their baked goods lately and they serve NYC's best (and possibly most expensive) iced coffee. La Colombe takes a different (Italian-influenced) approach, focusing on blending rather than single-source coffee, and roasting darker across the board. Though I tend to like lighter roasts than the typical La Colombe coffee, they seem to really know what they're doing, and if I'm in the mood to switch things up with a darker roast, I'll go with one of their blends. Intelligentsia beans (from Chicago), some of the best in the country, are available at a couple places in NYC, but haven't been fresh when I've looked at them as I don't think they're being roasted locally. I'll pick up a bag next time I'm in Chicago.

[Update: good piece on Stumptown here - "the Jesus Christ of caffeinated beverages"]
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For me, the undisputed king of NYC bakeries is still Almondine - their bread is the best (they wisely stick to a few basic French styles that they've mastered, rather than trying to be everything to everybody) and they can contend with anyone in the pastry and cake department (I was very fortunate to receive some of Almondine's superb macarons as a gift recently). Grandaisy is not far behind, though, and may be the best bakery in Manhattan, also very strong in both bread and sweet stuff (my observations are based on the W 72nd St location). In Brooklyn, Marlow & Sons, though only having a small pastry case at the front of the restaurant, produces consistently excellent scones, biscuits, and the like. I also tried Peels on the Bowery for the first time recently, and the two items I got (a biscuit and a banana donut) were enough to convince me of its potential elite baked goods status.


Venturing into still sweeter realms, I was in Yorkville for the first time in some time over the weekend and stopped in at Two Little Red Hens. I was glad to be reassured that it's still the place to go for unpretentious and unashamedly sweet and rich desserts - cookies, lemon (or lime-coconut) bars, cakes/cupcakes, and though they didn't have it when I stopped in, the best cake/loaf-style gingerbread I know of. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for my health), I didn't make it to neighborhood landmark and old-school butter-bomb cookie and pastry provider Glaser's. I need to get back there for what may be the world's greatest prune danish before they go on their annual extended summer break.

On the doughnut front, I've been hearing great things about Dough, the new place in Clinton Hill. While a still-warm dulce de leche from Doughnut Plant has put doubt into my mind at least once and Pies 'n' Thighs puts out a fine product (though they don't taste quite as good as they look - P'n'T might have, to my eye, the most visually appealing donuts in town), I still haven't found any place that seriously challenges Greenpoint's Peter Pan for NYC donut supremacy. I do tend to favor the purity of an unadorned or lightly glazed cake donut over the yeast-raised, heavily-iced-in-exotic-flavors style Dough seems to be working in, but I look forward to trying their offerings with an open mind. I've somehow not mentioned pie in this post, but Four & Twenty Blackbirds in the Gowanus is also high on my list of places to try.

As a final note, I'm pretty sure I got fatter just by typing the second half of this post.

bits/bytes/birds/bags

I don't know much about the electronic musics, but I'm enjoying this guy's crazy sounds (scroll down for player).

One of the most amazing things I've learned recently:
Many of the nests for bird's nest soup are "produced" in "factories".

One of the other most amazing things I've learned recently:
David Allan Coe cut a record with Dimebag Darrell?!?!?

Memo to Andre 3000 and Big Boi

Why is there not an Outkast-sanctioned Chonkyfire^TM brand hot sauce? I would carry it around in one of these and put it on everything.

Hiding in Plain Sight - Three Recent Discoveries

Lahore Deli
I've walked by this tiny, almost hidden Pakistani spot on Crosby St. (just south of Houston) many times on the way to Housing Works Bookstore, but only tried it for the first time a few days ago.  Located across the street from a gas station, it's the quintessential cabbie pit stop.  I only grabbed a couple of snacks, a samosa and a round, flat chicken kebab (slightly spicy, very tasty), but the quality was impressive enough than I'm definitely returning for more soon.
 
Pastrami Hash at Carnegie Deli
Tipped by a recent article in the NYT and finding myself in the neighborhood at an hour when the tourist-frequented deli was half empty, I decided to stop in for some hash. I'd never considered ordering hash at the Carnegie before reading that article, but it is truly a classic hiding in plain sight on the menu.  As you might expect from a place with sandwiches that look like this, the hash is generously portioned and dominated by pastrami, with small chunks of potato, even smaller chunks of green pepper, and nearly invisible (but definitely present) onions.  There's also a corned beef version which I haven't yet tried.  $16 for a plate of hash might seem ridiculous, but I got three solid meals out of one order, and I've got a pretty healthy appetite.  (It looks like this person got through a bit more of their hash at the restaurant than I did.  The potatoes and peppers also look a bit chunkier than they were on my plate.)  I didn't take the fried egg option at the deli, but did add an egg when reheating the second portion of leftovers at home, and it was mighty fine.

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Another of those classic albums that I've somehow avoided hearing for years, I picked up a used copy of the Ryko reissue of Bowie's Scary Monsters after Christmas, and have been digging it in the new year.  I knew how great "Ashes To Ashes" is, but then Bowie follows it with "Fashion" and "Teenage Wildlife" - POW! POW!  I guess I was pretty predisposed to like this album, being a big fan of Station to Station (which features many of the same musicians, notably Carlos Alomar and Roy Bittan), but it really delivers. 


Note: I'm still tinkering with my list of the best live music I saw in 2010, perhaps subconsciously trying to be the last blogger to submit a Best Of list for the year.  I think I'm already past the point where anyone could possibly care, but I hope to post something in the next couple days.

Three Food Tips

I.
I'd heard some internet murmurings that Soup Burg, a nondescript diner on the Upper East Side that I had walked by many times without taking notice, justified the second half of its name by serving a mighty fine burger.  I have confirmed that these rumblings are true.  The patty is big, loosely packed, and if you order it on the rare side, there's a nice contrast between the crisp char on the surface and the super-juicy pink center.  If that last sentence sounded at all sexual, I apologize.

II.
If you're looking for a way to liven up a bland Chinese takeout meal, might I suggest stirring in a small spoonful of Indian pickle (say, a nice mango chili).  Transformative.

III.
Pickled turkey gizzards, straight out of the jar, may not sound appetizing, but you might be surprised.  I was.  They're a highlight of the excellent "bar snacks" menu (consisting mostly of pickled things in jars) at The Old Fashioned in Madison, WI.  This place packs 'em in, and with good reason.  If you find yourself in Madison, go and drop a buck on a gizzard.  You won't be sorry, and even if you are, you've only blown a dollar on the experiment, and you can tell people you ate a pickled turkey gizzard.  Worth it for the anecdote alone.  Also, this place lets you add braunschweiger to any sandwich for $1.25 - as a Midwestern German-American, this almost brings tears to my eyes.  As much I as like this place, I still have to say that the namesake drink, a Wisconsin tradition, is an abomination, a warped bastardization of one of the foundational classic cocktails.  They should just call the drink a Badger, and I'd be OK with it.

The Spirit of Al-Andalus, Between Two Slices of Bread

I recently finished reading Maria Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World, about the rise and fall of Al-Andalus.  Though it leaves readers to draw their own conclusions about its relevance to the modern world (with the book nearly ready for publication on Sept. 11, 2001, Menocal resisted the urge to make any changes to her text), the book clearly celebrates the cultural richness of medieval Spain as a product of religious tolerance and laments the fundamentalism (both Christian and Muslim) that brought this luminous era to a close.  Despite the fact that it was published eight years ago and deals mostly with Spain in the 10th to 14th centuries, it is literally difficult to think of a more topical read.

Sure, Al-Andalus had its Arabic-speaking Jewish warrior poets, its Muslim Aristotelians, its immortal works of architecture, but I'm proud to live in a city where one of the best places to get a Jewish deli sandwich is a Muslim-owned restaurant (that closes for Friday prayers) in a neighborhood synonymous with hip-hop culture.  If I was hungry enough, I might even say that this compares pretty favorably with the Alhambra as a work of art.

A Useful Tip From Ted Leo

The phrase "leaving it all onstage" was coined for performers like Ted Leo.  I was in the audience the night in 2003 when, unfortunately, his voice was one of the things he left onstage, partway through a set in Urbana, IL, the resulting strained vocal cords forcing him to cancel several tour dates.  He did his damndest, though, to give us our money's worth, and I think everyone came away from the show admiring the effort he made.  He's always a very high energy, "on" performer, and thanks to the food diary he just wrote for New York Magazine, his secret is out:

"It's a really good, quick pick-me-up: mix, say, two fingers of Jameson, a packet of Emergen-C, and a dash of hot sauce. You're best off doing the orange or tangerine flavors; anything else doesn't work so well. It's not the tastiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done."

Jersey Slim

As an amateur pizza maker, the major problem I have is not getting my dough stretched thin enough.  I always end up with a crust that's too thick.  So, the photos in this article absolutely blow my mind. 

The Case of The Missing Organ

Why isn't "second stomach" available?!?  There must be a good reason. [Via Grub Street]

NYC Food Hat Trick

Three great meals in two days:

Shake Shack (Upper West Side)
This was my first time having a burger at the Shake Shack - I've had frozen custard via the "express lane" a few times at the original, but have aborted the mission every time I've tried to visit the UWS location (too crowded).  It was still jammed when I went this time, at noon on a weekday, but the line hadn't yet spilled onto the sidewalk and the wait was surprisingly short.

I went with the classic pairing, a cheeseburger and a shake (putting me in mind of the longstanding Midwestern chain - and Roger Ebert favorite - Steak 'n' Shake*).  The burger was pretty much as good as everyone says it is, and I can't emphasize enough how important the bun is to the success of this place.  You might think that if you find yourself thinking about the bun after eating a burger, the burger must not be very good, but in this case you would be wrong.  I got the burger cooked to the default medium since I couldn't get my preferred medium-rare (rare, medium, or well only at the Shack, which makes sense when you're dealing with thin patties and super-high volume), but I might try rare the next time just to see how it compares.

The shake was a "Fair Shake" - a vanilla shake with presumably Fair Trade coffee blended in - nothing like consuming a milkshake and a cup of coffee simultaneously to get a person all jacked up for the afternoon ahead.  I just wish I'd been there the day before when the custard flavor of the day was "Coffee and Donuts"!

As a sidenote, if you happen to be visiting Danny Meyer's hometown of St. Louis and want a burger, I'd recommend Carl's Drive-In on Manchester Road, a bit west of the city limits.  It's like a particularly good location of A&W, when A&W was in its heyday and served amazing root beer, before it became an interchangable fast food module that could be combined with a Long John Silver's or a KFC.  Go to Blueberry Hill for the live music and to the check out the memorabilia, not for the food.


ZuZu Ramen 
At this newish noodle place on the Park Slope-Gowanus fringe, I ordered the dinner special, cold spicy noodles with beef tongue.  The noodles were coated with a some-kind-of-red-pepper-based sauce, and the roughly rectangular blocks of tongue were tender and liberally distributed among the noodles.  The dish also had (I'm going from memory here) bok choy and peanuts tossed in, but everything worked together - big flavors, plenty of heat, a winner.  I've been to ZuZu a few times now and never been disappointed, but this was easily the best thing I've had there.


Barney Greengrass ("The Sturgeon King")
I surprised even myself by effortlessly polishing off a corned beef/chopped liver double decker on pumpernickel at this oft-overlooked UWS classic.  While the corned beef was pretty good and in good proportion with the liver (about 1:2 corned beef-to-liver), three slices of bread was one too many for my taste, though I understand that the middle slice is there to separate the meats and create the triple decker effect.

Still, it would be hard to screw up any sandwich that contains this chopped liver.  The liver at Greengrass is top two in the city for me, with only Russ & Daughters edging it out (I had them both within a week's time, so I'm pretty confident in comparing them).  If chopped liver was labeled like peanut butter, both R&D and Greengrass would fall into the "chunky" category - they share a looser texture, with visible chunks of egg, and everything less fully incorporated than, say, the smooth, uniform, but also very good liver at 2nd Ave Deli.  And like peanut butter, chunky vs. smooth is a personal preference - if smooth is your thing, you'd probably prefer 2nd Ave's liver (and they give you a lot of it).

We also had some latkes for the table (I don't think they're a regular menu item, but are frequently available on weekends).  Greengrass' latkes are fairly large and mounded rather than flat, almost like big falafels, giving them a nice contrast between crispy outside and soft center.  Highly recommended.


*I'm pretty sure we were on our way to a Steak 'n' Shake (in Ebert's old stomping grounds of Champaign-Urbana, IL) when some friends and I were pulled over and surrounded by multiple carloads of shotgun-wielding police.  Turned out that the Ford Taurus we were traveling in matched the description of the getaway car for an armed robbery that had just gone down in the area.  Thankfully, they soon realized they had the wrong Taurus and let us continue on our way with our appetites undiminished (and probably enhanced) by the experience.

Following the Recipe Down the Path of Excess

My dining companion and I felt remarkably OK yesterday after consuming heroic amounts of oil, salt, and garlic the night before.  I made two Spanish dishes I'd never attempted before, pollo al ajillo (from Anya Von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table) and Canary Island-style wrinkled potatoes (from Jose Andres' Made in Spain, the glossy-yet-practical companion to his PBS travel/cooking series).  Between the chicken and the green mojo sauce for the potatoes, I used something like 25 cloves of garlic (not an exaggeration) - smashed and added to frying oil, sliced and used in the chicken sauce, crushed/ground in a mortar and pestle to make the mojo.  The potato recipe called for a full cup of salt.  This is why recipes exist, though.  I would never dream of using this much salt or garlic if left to my own devices, but the recipes worked - the sauces came together, the potatoes wrinkled.  (The excessive oil was my own fault - I don't think I poured enough out of the pan before making the sauce.)

If this was a proper food blog, I would have photos of the meal, but it isn't and I don't.  I will give a quick  wine recommendation, though, to add a little value to this post: 2008 Rayos Uva, a young, unoaked Rioja.  I was surprised to see the Louis/Dressner (great French wine importers) name on a Spanish wine, so I picked it up based on that alone and was not disappointed.  Was it the perfect pairing with all that garlic?  I don't know, but it held its own well enough (and was even better the 2nd day) and is certainly a great choice in the sub-$20 realm (a realm I rarely venture out of).

A Pizza Recommendation

I can safely recommend anything and everything at Grandaisy Bakery on W. 72nd St., but I recently found something new that might be easy to overlook: celery root pizza.  A small, thin square, but loaded with a very nice mix of sweetness and herb flavors.  They didn't offer to heat it up for me, but by the time I thought of asking, I was too far in to turn back.  Delicious, even cold.

Flavor Almonds

Funniest thing I've seen on McSweeney's in a while.  I don't want to spoil it with analysis, but there's something about the repetition of the words Lord and Denise.

Notes From The West Coast, Part Two - Food

The second installment of my notes from a recent trip to the SF Bay Area and points north, in which The Selected Ballads tries his hand at food writing. The third and, mercifully, final installment will be stuff I drank.

Acme Bread - Berkeley, CA
I've been describing this place to people as looking like the photos in coffee table books about bread - everything about it is pure, archetypal artisan bakery. This location (the original?) is mostly a working bakery with only a small walk-in sales area, leading to a perpetual line out the door. I tried Acme a few times during my stay in the Bay Area, but on my first visit I was thrown off by the local convention of labeling non-sourdough breads as "sweet" (as in "sweet baguette" rather than just "baguette").

I've eaten a lot of bread in NYC, and I'd say that only Almondine and Sullivan Street are in Acme's league. Unfortunately, I didn't get to find out who else in the Bay Area is in Acme's league - maybe on my next West Coast trip.

Flour + Water - San Francisco, CA
Apparently, this place has had a lot of buzz in SF food circles over the past year, as evidenced by the crowd assembled outside the door 15 or 20 minutes before they opened for dinner. The menu is split evenly between pizza and pasta, with some ambitious appetizers and mains, but I seemed to be one of the few diners who ordered pizza. Maybe pizza as an upscale dinner option hasn't quite caught on in SF the way it has in NYC. In any case, the pizza (size and shape conforming to the lately en vogue Neapolitan style) was quite good, especially the crust, as might be expected from the restaurant's name. (Adam Kuban of Slice was not overly impressed, though he also noticed that most diners didn't seem to be there for the pies.)

What I tasted of my dining companion's pasta was also good - pastas made in-house from unusual ingredients (like beets) seem to be the focus. We also had a lamb's tongue and potato appetizer. I was initially thinking that lamb's tongue might be a green (turns out I was thinking of lamb's ear), but of course it turned out to be exactly what it said it was - the tongue of a lamb - and it was delicious.

Cafe Reyes - Point Reyes Station, CA
I had another good pizza at Cafe Reyes, near Tomales Bay, one of the major spots for oysters on the West Coast. I was slightly disappointed the cafe didn't offer the local specialty, BBQ oysters, but in the end I was happy I ate them raw. I'm not really a great oyster lover, but eating these was an intense sensory experience, tasting so strongly and purely of the ocean that they produced sense-memories of childhood beach vacations (seriously).

Returning to the pizza, I ordered it because it was clear that they took their pizza (a little too?) seriously - prominently displayed peels, wood-burning oven in full view, flour info on the menu. As with Flour + Water, the crust was the highlight, though I may have erred in ordering sausage - the overgenerous portion of crumbled topping caused severe "tip dip" and overwhelmed the sauce and cheese.

El Dorado Kitchen - Sonoma, CA
The trendy boutique hotel vibe of this restaurant was cause for trepidation, but it turned out to be a good experience, with some well thought-out food and old-fashioned good service. Cheese and charcuterie plates were the highlight, each meat and cheese successfully paired with some complimentary flavor (honey, sauerkraut, and prunes were involved, among other things) instead of just being sliced and arranged on a board.

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

According to George J. Nicholls' 1917 book Bacon and Hams, the pig, not Oliver Wendell Holmes, is the true "autocrat of the breakfast table". That's just one of the pieces of information I picked up from this amazing Cooking Issues post. Among the not-to-be-missed gems:

• A Flash reproduction of a color fold-out pig anatomical chart
• A 19th century portrait of a man dressed as a side of bacon at a London costume ball
• A PDF presentation on American country hams
• Some rather horrifying photos of the Chicago hog butchering industry in the era of The Jungle (not that today's meat factories are any less horrifying in their own way)
  

The Cooking Issues folks are certainly not squeamish. Other recent posts include the finer points of duck pressing and how to prepare tuna spinal jelly.

Roundup of Things Seen/Heard/Eaten Lately

Saw the Paul Motian Octet + 1 at the Village Vanguard. 2 bass + 2 guitar + 2 sax + viola + piano + drums = "Octet + 1" Though I thought the ensemble became a bit unwieldy and sagged a little under its own weight in a couple of places, this was another rewarding set of music from the relentless, 78-year old creative force of nature that is Paul Motian. If nothing else, the assemblage on stage was a remarkable sight. Motian's fruitful years with Keith Jarrett, what might be considered the second (or even third?) major phase of his career, were already behind him before some of the musicians in the Octet + 1 were born.

Many of Motian's defining characteristics were in evidence with this group: his affinity with pianists and electric guitarists (almost all his best work has been with one or both of these instruments), his deep feel for standards, the mystery and beauty of his own compositions, and most of all, the vitality and freshness of his drumming. A few songs into the set, the thought came very clearly into my head, "Damn, he's playing great!"

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Finally saw the underground/cult classic video "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". The original movie itself is only about 16 minutes long, but the filmmakers have made good use of the remaining space on the DVD, loading it up with sequels (including the almost-as-good "Neil Diamond Parking Lot", related documentaries, etc, etc.

One that I found strangely compelling was a feature on a collector and record store owner with a basement literally full of Judas Priest memorabilia. For several minutes, the filmmakers just keep rolling as he slowly flips through a stack of records, essentially narrating a critical history of Priest's entire discography. What could have been a throwaway bonus feature turned out to be one of the best portraits of the obsessive rock'n'roll collector type I've ever seen.

Also recommended along similar lines is Banks Tarver's "Beautiful Plastic", a short that's available as a bonus feature on the DVD of Tarver's Guided By Voices doc Watch Me Jumpstart. It's eight minutes of Robert Pollard going through boxes of old lyrics and collage materials from his basement. There's almost as much insight about Pollard's personality and creativity to be found packed into this short as there is the full-length movie (I don't mean that as a knock on Jumpstart - it's fantastic and essential if you're a GBV fan).

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Went to Geoff Dyer's reading at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. He read from his most recent book, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, which I've written about here, and from two older books which have recently been reissued, Out of Sheer Rage and But Beautiful. He also read an unpublished piece, a strange, funny tribute to John Berger which took the form of a deliberately stilted, cliched essay on Jackson Pollock. Dyer is almost shockingly tall and thin in person, and has the type of English manner that many Americans find irresistible, a major component of which is an effortless wit of the dry and self-mocking variety. In his readings and answers to audience questions, Dyer showed his wide range of interests: art, photography, travel, jazz, D.H. Lawrence. The readings drew a lot of laughter from the audience, and were mostly genuinely funny, with the notable exception of the moody, impressionistic pieces from But Beautiful, his book on jazz.

A semi-dramatic moment occurred during the Q&A when a young woman from Varanasi, who was sitting in the front row with her mother, asked if he had gone to the city with the intention to write about it or if the idea had come about later. Dyer indicated that he dreaded being confronted at readings by people that might be in a position to harshly judge the accuracy of the portrayals in his books (he mentioned jazz musicians, having confessed to some inaccuracies in But Beautiful), and he seemed quite relieved when the woman from Varanasi seemed to agree with him about the impossibility of "misrepresenting" a place as complex as her home city (if it's impossible to misrepresent a place, is it also then impossible to truly, accurately represent it?).

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Tried the new burger at fancy hot dog joint Bark in Brooklyn a couple of times. Very good small burger, with the variety of pickled things and the "special sauce" working perfectly with the meat and bun. I only wish it was possible to get it a bit rarer - the default is medium/medium-well whereas I'd prefer medium/medium-rare. Black Iron in the East Village, where I've also eaten a few times lately, will cook their (also fairly thin) burgers to order, but your results may vary depending on who's on the griddle. Bark is more consistent, but when Black Iron is on their game I'd give their burger a slight edge.

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Sorry to have missed:

Ethan Iverson/Tootie Heath/Ben Street at Smalls. Smalls is the place to see a piano trio, as I found out when I saw Fred Hersch there. Apparently Iverson/Heath/Street are playing again this winter at Iridium with Lee Konitz and Mark Turner, so hopefully I can catch that. (Very Cool Thing: Smalls is streaming the sets on their website, so I can feel a little less bad about missing out in person.)

The Eccentric Soul Revue (feat. the highly underrated Syl Johnson). I imagine Johnson's career and reputation was held back a bit by his being in Al Green's shadow when they were both on Hi Records. He may have adhered too closely to the (obviously commercially viable) Al mode on some of his singles, but the fact that he was so convincing in this style (which may have really been the Hi style more than the Al Green style), coming within a hair's breadth of the master himself, is a testament to his enormous talent.

Big Star at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Waited too long on this one, and it sold out. Review here in the Voice (including a typically, unnecessarily nasty comments section).

Underrated, Underappreciated (#4 in a Series) - Pick-A-Bar

What is the most underrated candy bar? I've got it down to two contenders:

Zero, the cult classic, white fudge coated, freezable bar with Midwestern roots and some of the best-looking packaging in all candydom.

Take 5, the salt-sweet exploiting newcomer with the jazzy name.

Is Zero just getting by on its striking looks while the more homely, generic Take 5 scores with its skillfully balanced flavors and textures? Can the Take 5 be as ubiquitous as it now seems to be and still be underrated?

Clearly, more thought and research is required before I can come to a decision. Please comment if you have an opinion on this critical issue.

Droppin' (Gymnemic) Acid

The mad food scientists at the French Culinary Institute went on a freaky trip with Gurmar the Sugar Destroyer.

Poor Ian, Poor Elliott

Reduced to frosting.

Eaten Lately, NYC (#4 in a Series) - John's

With all the new pizza places opening around town, old-time Village landmark John's on Bleecker Street has now become old hat. Already viewed by many as just a tourist joint, the opening of the much-hyped, much-debated Keste across the street has set up a face-to-face old school vs. new school showdown (although Keste and many of the other new schoolers would probably argue that the Neapolitan style they're trying to replicate is actually older and more "authentic" than what's served at old school places like John's).

Every time I've even thought about going to John's, the down-the-block lines have put the idea right out of my head. And for what it's worth, those lines usually do appear to be populated by tourists, including large tour groups. A couple of Saturday nights ago, though, there were only a handful of people in line at John's, barely spilling out of the vestibule, while Keste had a disorganized mob in front with 45 minute waits (or so I overheard from a few people who had given up and crossed the street).

I haven't tried Keste yet, but I've seen some of the press it's been getting, following the classic hype-to-backlash pattern that seems to happen faster and faster these days with restaurants, bands, and anything else that can generate an online buzz. Una Pizza Napoletana's Anthony Mangieri said Keste's pizza "tastes like shit" in the New York Magazine profile that preceded his departure from the NYC food scene. Robert Sietsema generated a great comments thread by leaving Keste out of his Top 10 NYC Pizza list in the Village Voice, saying in response to commenters shocked by the omission that "they can't control their oven" and "their crust is not up to par".

I have to admit that Keste was the original destination on that Saturday night (I'm not immune to hype and wanted to see what all the fuss was about), but seeing the relative size of the crowds made it an easy decision to hit John's instead. I was a little surprised at the weird decor, something like a cross between an old-school Italian restaurant and Southern college town staple the Mellow Mushroom, but I guess the whole hippie-mural-next-to-ancient-brick-oven vibe could be seen as a charming palimpsest of Greenwich Village history (or something like that). Anyway, nobody comes to John's for the ambience, so here are my impressions of the pizza (a half sausage, half basil):

• just the right amount of char in the crust

• good, slightly (and naturally) sweet tomato taste in the sauce (a sauce that tastes first and foremost like tomatoes, pure and unmuddled by other flavors, is one thing that most of the classic NYC pizza joints have in common - the original Totonno's might be the best example of this that I've tasted)

• good ratio of sauce to cheese - I like to see some "exposed" sauce in this style of pizza instead of wall-to-wall cheese
  

• toppings - not a lot of basil and what was there was pretty shriveled by its time in the oven, but just enough to make a solid contribution without dominating - the sausage was very flavorful and seemed fresh

Overall, an excellent pizza and definitely not the product of a place resting on its laurels. As St. Louis frozen custard impresario Ted Drewes used to say in his low-budget, high-energy local commercials, "it really is good, guys!" (he later added "and gals" in the name of inclusion).