WD-50
50 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 477-2900
My youngest brother is in culinary school. After years of preparing for a secure but unfulfilling white-collar career, he said to hell with it and followed his passion. He's happier now than he's ever been, and a couple of weeks ago it was his birthday. Because courage like his should be rewarded, and because the allocation of life's material pleasures to those who lack such courage is as commonplace as it is fundamentally unjust, my other brother and I decided he deserved an extravagant night of New York gastronomy. One destination came to mind immediately.
Walking down Clinton Street on the Lower East Side, you could be forgiven for not noticing WD-50. Situated next-door to a unisex hair salon with a bright pink sign, the restaurant's facade is an unassuming plane of brick, glass and wood. The only identifying mark is a bronze-on-bronze panel perpendicular to the featureless oak door, so subtle you can't read it from more than three feet away. Inside is a sleek dining room in which all axes lead to the open wall in the back, where chef Wylie Dufresne--unmistakable with his signature ponytail and mutton-chop sideburns--bounds about his immaculate kitchen. He is busy creating the most challenging fare in Manhattan.
The restaurant I have most often heard WD-50 compared to is Per Se, and the comparison is more fair than you might expect. Dufresne certainly has the chops to go toe-to-toe with Keller, having cut his teeth as sous-chef to Keller's four-star rival Jean-Georges Vongerichten. And both Dufresne and Keller have a penchant for joke dishes: deconstructions of old culinary saws that elevate them to the level of haute cuisine. But Keller's gags, confined as they are by the champagne wishes of his clientele, always come off a bit too precious--his "macaroni and cheese" topped with butter-poached lobster; his "oysters and pearls" sporting a half-ounce of osetra caviar. Dufresne, in contrast, is unabashedly honest in his references to the Jewish delicatessens of his neighborhood--a tongue sandwich becomes pickled tongue with fried mayonnaise (WD-50's most famous dish); corned beef on rye with mustard becomes corned duck on rye crisps with mustard. There is no layering on of truffles or cream or foie gras, nor is there any need. Indeed, the foie gras offering at WD-50, often cited as a disappointment by critics, has very little to do with the foie gras, which is prepared perfectly. Rather, the smooth, cool, buttery liver is competing with the sourness and bitterness of dried grapefruit pulp and the eerie discontinuity of pale liquid caramel infused with dried seaweed. For Dufresne, the luxury of foie gras, like the comfort of a deli sandwich, is simply a frame of reference for experimentation. And the point of experimentation in his kitchen is not simply to please, but to challenge.
When I say WD-50's food is the most challenging in Manhattan, I am not referring to the difficulty of its preparation (though it obviously is the product of the highest culinary skill). WD-50 is a challenging place to dine. There is no comfort food, no velvety cream sauce, no oozing ganache, no porterhouse steak. Flavors are stripped bare and placed in close proximity where they are free to behave as they will. Tender, meaty octopus tangles with almonds and pesto. Rich dark mole is reduced to a transfer-strip of "paper", to be judiciously combined with a juicy roast chicken. Pork belly is served dry and firm, not so much the star of the dish as a meaty accent to the rotating cast of garnishes that are served with it. The sweet cherries of clafoutis are body-snatched by unctuous dark olives, while the eggy cake remains as an echo of the classic dessert. Nothing here is to be expected, everything is a revelation or an amusement. Even dishes that don't quite work are educational. WD-50 is a funhouse for foodies.
For my brother's birthday, there was no better place to be than in this restaurant. What Wylie Dufresne does takes chutzpah. For every curious foodie that revels in the experience he offers, there will be three or four casual diners who are scared away. Fortunately for him, he has the backing of his his father (an experienced restaurateur) and his mentor Jean-Georges. As my brother learns the skills of his chosen trade, for one night he saw the limits to which they could be stretched by someone who isn't afraid to take risks. It was a lesson in courage for a kid who's already shown a lot of it. As for me, I'm happy I could help get him in the door. See, the world will always have its use for those of us who play it safe. We make possible the courage of those we love.
Welcome to my favorite Cantonese lunch joint: Big Wong's. This unfortunately named hole-in-the-wall on Mott Street (between Bayard and Canal) serves up the best Cantonese roast meats (spare ribs, duck, pork, you name it) on Manhattan. At lunchtime you can wait by the entrance for a rickety formica-sheathed table in the crowded dining room, or hover by the cash register as the boys behind the counter chop up your order. Either way, you'll have a great view of various delicious dead things hanging off of stainless steel hooks.
Big Wong's has a full menu, but there's really only a few things worth ordering. Aside from the roast meats, there are some tasty rice crepes filled with shrimp, pork, duck, or (carb-haters beware) fried Chinese crullers. Noodles and other entrees are passable at best; there are plenty of superior options for such fare elsewhere in the neighborhood. But for a quick, greasy, salty meal on the cheap, you can't do much better than this little dive on Mott Street.
The roast pork bun is a ball of dough encasing chopped cantonese roast pork, which is often heavily slathered in that delectable smoky-salty-sweet sauce you find on all types of animal flesh in Cantonese shops. The dough can be steamed or baked, but for a handy satisfying lunch I generally opt for the baked variety (steamed buns are nice for a weekend dim sum brunch). I've eaten roast pork buns from every restaurant and bakery from Baxter to the Bowery, and my favorite - by far - is the golden treat served up at the May May bakery on Pell Street, just East of Mott.
The food at 'Cesca is fairly good, but frankly, not worth all the hype it's been getting. Lisa's beef carpaccio, flecked with chips of dried bresaola and studded with croutons, was pleasant but not memorable. My roasted oysters with tomato zabayon, which kept up the dried-dried-meats motif with flecks of crunchy prosciutto for garnish, provided a warm, creamy squirt of tomato flavor but not much else. Any trace of the oyster's flavor was irretrievably lost to the onslaught of eggs and tomatoes, and all that remained was the serving-dish of a shell and a squishy little nugget of anonymous sea-flesh.
My main dish was my favorite of the night: an expertly braised pork shank, sitting in a bowl full of pastina floating in a delicately sweet broth, topped with perfectly roasted carrots, celery, onions and garlic. Lisa fared not quite as well: her bucatini all'amatriciana was too clever by half. Valenti, straying from his cucina di mama formula, has deconstructed the classic amatriciana sauce, tossing his snakelike pasta in fresh tomatoes, pancetta crispies, pepperoncino flakes and chopped-up hard-boiled egg. I prefer an amatriciana that allows all the components of the sauce to come together smoothly. If I add egg at all, it's off the flame, raw, similar to a carbonara preparation, allowing the heat of the just-cooked pasta to gently coalesce the egg around the noodles and thicken the tomato sauce. It's better than cheese, better than cream, and a hell of a lot better than Valenti's bucatini. Consider the chunky confusion of 'Cesca's pasta bowl against the balanced smoothness of this amatriciana dish, from San Teodoro in Rome (just a stone's throw from the Roman Forum):
Case in point: 
I asked the hostess -- who had seen me taking photos and notes and decided I deserved some extra attention -- for a recommendation; she said her favorite dessert was this dried fruit and nut tart. Figs, dates, and prunes float alongside walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, and pine nuts on a pillow of the gentlest whipped cream I've ever tasted - satiny, scented with vanilla, without any buttery clumps or air pockets. Honey drizzles the plate, smoothing out the unrefined sugars of this earthy closer.
The "Priest's Hat" (also referred to as the "Pope's Hat") is a triangular pork sausage, wrapped in sheets of pork fat to hold its shape, and poached in broth for four hours. When it's done, the fat wrapper is removed and shredded, and served alongside the sliced sausage. Picchi pairs this porcine powerhouse with a little tart of 
Lisa ordered a dish that had a very intricate description, but which was essentially eggplant parmigiana. Lisa loves eggplant parmigiana. She sometimes gets it on a sandwich, for lunch. Now she can never do that again.
Once the amuses are done some slightly larger plates appear: not quite appetizers, but too large to swallow in a single bite. These cold dishes can be nursed until your first course arrives, and provide ample entertainment in the interim. The cold tripe salad, dressed in olive oil and lemon juice with pepper flakes and herbs, was a fortuitous way to introduce Lisa to the world of offal. The tripe has been cooked long enough to remove any offensive organ flavor, and served cold it lacks the squishy texture that reminds you you're eating guts.
Soon after we finished our starters, the first course arrived. Lisa ordered a ricotta flan, which came with a meat ragout similar to a bolognese sauce. The flan was remarkable; I think if it had been cooked even one second less it would collapse. Fortunately the cooking was stopped at precisely the right time, and the custard melted like butter on the tongue. A sprinkling of parmesan and a drizzle of melted butter rounded out the dish, but were used with such moderation that it came across as anything but greasy. It was a simple juxtaposition of intense, rich flavors.
I went with an old standby, white polenta with butter and parmesan. The polenta was creamy, faintly grainy, and punctuated here and there with tiny capers and flecks of herbs. But against the bold flavors elsewhere on the menu, this dish didn't really stand up. It's gentle, and comforting in an innocuous kind of way. But I came to Cibrèo to be shaken up, and the mildness of white corn, even augmented with splashes of dairy fireworks, just didn't do the job. It was time to bring on the big guns.
Cibrèo
Once you have placed your order, a parade of amuses begins to arrive. There is a variation on the classic Tuscan crostini with liver paste, on a precious little square of untoasted white bread. An equally precious square of herbed cheese gratin accompanies it, as does a plate of hand-sliced prosciutto. One last crostini arrived a moment later; a toast square topped with melted cheese studded with bits of candied fruits. This is one of Picchi's favorite tricks, to deliver the magical trinity of fat, salt, and sugar in a single bite. When these three elements - each of which we have an instinctive craving for - are combined in perfect balance, you will always be left wanting more. This technique not lost on the best chefs: David Waltuck uses it in his prosciutto, fig, and foie gras pinwheel amuses at 
We saved the most intriguing - and decidedly un-French - entry for last. This was the 
Escoffier, unsurprisingly, balks at the prospect of preparing a rock-candy-mountain for every damn fool customer who orders the Saint-Honoré. Instead, they have come up with a clever single-serving tribute to the classic dish: a caramel-dipped profiterole filled with whipped cream, sitting atop a schmear of pastry cream in a disk of caramel-dipped choux paste, all resting in a pool of crème anglaise. The caramel was perfect - brittle and light with just the faintest suggestion of the bitterness of burnt sugar. The pastry was airy and delicate, and the subtle contrasts between the sauce, the pastry cream, and the profiterole filling kept me engaged until the dessert was all gone. Another triumph for the next generation of master chefs.
I began with the terrine of foie gras. To dine at Escoffier and not order the foie gras is, to my mind, the height of idiocy. Nowhere else can you get a preparation of this quality at a lower price. To students of the Culinary Institute of America, this costly ingredient is a school staple. The tuition-paying staff of Escoffier are a source of revenue, not an expense, and since the Culinary is a non-profit institution, it can charge far less than fair market value for its thick slabs of carefully cooked foie gras. Best of all, these kids have learned exactly how to handle this intimidating foodstuff: I asked our waiter what wine I should pair with the terrine, and he didn't hesitate: "Sauternes." Give that man an A.
On to the main course, my favorite of the night. I ordered the braised veal cheeks with orange, a mammoth portion of four veal cheeks in a rich brown sauce garnished with whipped potatoes, baby root vegetables, orange fillets, and candied orange zest. The braise had left the meat meltingly tender though it still held its shape. I didn't need my knife once, but neither did I need to go digging through the sauce for shreds of disintegrated flesh. The fresh citrus note of the oranges cut cleanly through what might otherwise have been a rather heavy entree. I have never tasted a more skillfully prepared braised dish. Lisa's beef Wellington was also a treat, and was served with a similar rich brown sauce (hers infused with madeira). When she asked what it was, I explained to her that her sauce and mine were probably both made from the same base of veal stock, and that it probably took about fifty pounds of veal bones to make a quart of the stuff. She glanced from the pillows of tender meat on my plate to the shimmering amber pool on hers, and shook her head. "All the baby cows," she lamented. I quietly nodded my agreement. "All the delicious baby cows."
After an hour riding the redial button to try to get a table at 
Last night was the firm's annual holiday party at the 
There are three fruit sorbets on the menu: lemon, peach, and coconut. Because of my recent health kick, I opted for the peach sorbet over the tiramisu and ricotta cheesecake selected by my dining companions. As my lunchmates' rather uninterestingly plated desserts came out, I was presented with a frozen peach sitting upside-down on a plate, hollowed out and filled with a smooth, rich peach sorbet, a slice of the peach's bottom standing at attention in the midst of the frozen fruit puree. As I polished off my dessert, I saw a waiter returning a plate to the kitchen with a hollowed-out lemon on top of it. I can only imagine that there are sorbet-filled coconuts sitting in La Locanda's freezers; I wonder if they have little paper umbrellas sticking out of them.
