Ad Hoc

10/4/2009
Yountville, CA: 6476 Washington St - (707) 944-2487
Rating (1-10): 9
Price: High End

"Luxury in Sweatpants"
Ad Hoc is an inviting, casual neighborhood spot serving ultra-satisfying four-course set meals using French Laundry ingredients at about $50 per person. If that doesn't sound awesome, I don't know what does. This is a restaurant everyone can love, many can afford (at least on vacation), and all would appreciate. Ad Hoc can serve as your casual meal or your fancy meal - regardless it might be some of the best food you will have in the Napa Valley.

Comfort is the name of the game here and it begins with the entry to the restaurant, which features a nice open space, free of tables or any other obstacles to crowd you as you wait. You might grab a drink at the bar or just wait near the front, but you won't feel cramped, rushed, or harried either way. The decor is clean and simple, and the hard wood colors give a nice warm feeling to the room. The service is also pleasant and friendly, clearly trained to keep things laid-back; this is high class food but they remove the pretense from the experience. Unfortunately, the server was a bit strong on the upsell, which always rubs me the wrong way, as if to make us feel bad about not spending more.

Ad Hoc offers a set menu that changes each night except certain nights, which are designated for a special dish, such as Monday night fried chicken. On our visit, the offering was a salad with ham, pasta with cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and beef short ribs, a cheese course and a banana split for dessert. The salad was probably the best I have ever had - certainly the most memorable. Maybe it's just me but I find it difficult to describe the taste of leaves. But these were crisp and bursting with flavor that one might associate with green things. Thin sliced ham was the perfect salty complement to the acidic dressing, which lightly coated the lettuce. This was a rare case where the dressing supported the greens, and not the other way around.

The main course featured large cubes of beef short ribs along with flat pasta served in a saute pan with roasted vegetables and crispy, salty bread crumbs over top. Often, slow-cooked meats are cooked to a consistency that renders a knife unnecessary because the meat is pulverized to shreds by extensive exposure to low heat; it's good, no doubt, but you're losing a little bit of the character and flavor of the ingredient by trying to make it so tender. For example, pulled pork often tastes more like the sauce that it's mixed in rather than actual pork. At Ad Hoc, the beef short rib tastes very much like beef and maybe as a result, they don't even need sauce. The consistency is distinctly meaty and they don't in fact just melt in your mouth; though they were tender and gave way with ease to fork and knife, they retained a bit of toughness as a reminder that this, afterall, meat not pudding.

The accompanying pasta was covered thinly in oil but had no real sauce. Again, this allowed for the ingredients to be showcased and not masked: the tart sweetness of the tomatoes; the earthy cauliflower; the crunch of the breadcrumbs (which were a salty substitute for cheese, as one astute observer remarked); and of course the pasta along with the chunks of beef. The dish was extremely good, satisfying, healthy, unfussy, period.

Many in the area mentioned that Ad Hoc was their favorite restaurant. I'd be hard pressed to find a better value and I'd consider it a matter of course to include this in at least one Napa visit.

Lucali

9/28/2008

Carroll Gardens: 575 Henry St (near Carroll St) - (718) 858-4086

Price: Mid-Range

Rating (1-10): 8

Lucali pizza is a top notch pizza operation with a cozy, fragrant, rustic setting. This is the kind of place that could easily be in the running for the oft-discusssed "best pizza in New York" distinction. In combination with the pizza itself, a very pleasant dining area, and it's one of the best pizza joints I've ever been to.

The bubbly, slightly burnt crust of the brick-oven pizza is fairly thin and crusty but also has a layer of soft doughy-ness to it as well. The sauce is a slightly sweet tomato sauce with a range of basic toppings: basil, mushrooms, artichoke, onions, olives, garlic, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, etc. But they keep it refreshingly simple, emphasizing the quality of the ingredients and the pizza crust. This pizza was light and I didn't feel weighted down like I had eaten a pizza dinner; in this respect, it reminded me a lot of Franny's, another outstanding Brooklyn pizzeria.

Other offerings on the menu are limited to calzones. So if you're not looking for pizza or calzone, obviously Lucali's is not the place to go. I appreciate the focus here as I think it only makes their craft better and more consistent. There is genuine effort put into a high quality product here - stemming from owner Mark Iacono, who built and opened the restaurant two years ago after deciding to jump into the world of pizza on no experience.

The eating area is separated from the kitchen by only a counter where uncut vegetables are displayed. Perhaps the radiant heat from the brick over is the reason it's a bit toasty in here. But it also adds to a nice sense of kitchen cozyness because you are in the kitchen. The dimly lit room is romantic and fun, with a slight buzz echoing through the high-ceilinged room. The decor is rustic, wood, just what you'd expect. Service at Lucali is relaxed, responsive, and very friendly. It's casual joint and the service keeps it chill as well.

A few other helpful tidbits: it's byob (which means you have to bring drinks and perhaps risk that they'll get warm while you're waiting - but also means a cheaper bill! There's a few bodega's a couple blocks away); it's cash only; and you'll have to wait, outside. Call ahead. You can also get to-go pizzas, although it's never nearly as good as eating it there.

No way around it, Lucali's is awesome. If you're serious about pizza, you should make a visit.

Song

8/27/2008

Park Slope: 295 5th Ave (and 2nd st) - (718) 965-1108

Price Range: Cheap Eats

Rating (1-10): 6

Song is a neighborhood "go-to" restaurant when you need take out, delivery, or a satisfying but cheap - yet somehow fancy - sitdown meal. It's solid, generously-portioned Thai food in a sleekly designed restaurant. I've enjoyed all my meals here - standard Thai fare: pad thai, masaman curry, green curry, fried rice, chili basil sauce krapow dishes, spicy noodles, etc. In short, it gives you your money's worth and probably more. If you're looking for Thai and you're in Park Slope, look no further. (If you're in Carroll Gardens area, you can call on its identical sister restaurant Joya).

Of course, if you're being critical, Song isn't super gourmet and the menu doesn't change a lot so it could get old if you go too much. The service could be better and the music is sometimes too loud. It's not daring or innovative from a strictly culinary perspective...but it does what it does well.

The service is friendly enough and fast. The design of the place is clean and contemporary and there's a nice, quiet backyard if you want the outside dining. You can also go to a pretty cool looking bar for a drink if that's all you want. All this for sub-$5 appetizers, sub-$7 pad thai/noodle dishes, sub-$8 curries, and moderately priced drinks.

The consistency, good taste, affordability, and "hip feel" of Song are make it one of the better cheap eats places I've been to in New York.

Franny's

2/16/2008
Prospect Heights: 295 Flatbush Ave (btwn 6th Ave and 7th Ave) - (718) 230-0221
Price: Mid-Range
Rating (1-10): 7

Full Review:
New York is known for good pizza but there's actually also a lot of pizza here that kind of sucks. Franny's does not suck, at all. All around, it's one of the best pizza joints I've visited in New York. It's casual, fun, cozy, a little chic, and hip without being hipster. There’s something real about the restaurant, genuine about the people, tasteful about the interior. The smallish joint has contemporary but un-glitzy features and simple light wood furniture. Printed on the window is the restaurant’s name in orange, and that’s it. But somehow there’s nice character to the place. Its medley of rock music, exposed brick walls, and consciously but unpretentiously casual waitstaff all help to make this a friendly, welcoming spot.

The pizza is a notch above in price, but still affordable ($8-16 for a personal pie) and worth it. I had the tomato, anchovy, and parmesan on a simple thin crust. Not all of the choice have tomato sauce and none that I saw were doused with cheese USA-style. As the bartender told me, all of the pies are light. When I was about 13, I had pizza at a place called Sal’s in New Haven, CT, which I understood to be something of an institution there. It might have been the best pizza I’ve ever had and definitely the most memorable. The two things I remember about the cheese-less pizza were: 1) a very thin, soft, and not-rock-hard-but-still-pleasantly crispy crust, and 2) a delicious, garlicky and light tomato sauce with clams. Franny’s is the closest thing I’ve had to both of those things (save the clam).

The pizza was charred black in a few too many places, but that was the probably the only thing that felt unhealthy about the pie. This was refined pizza. It seems that countries with food-rich cultures like Italy have gone thru an evolution - and are particularly remarkable because they have figured out how to make things healthy without sacrificing taste. They've had time to develop a cuisine that can sustain a nation over centuries while still delighting the taste buds. I like to think that a pizza like Franny’s is an emblem of that. What might have started as something that looked like say, Domino’s – a good idea with some elements appealing to the gluttonous side – improved itself over time in both taste and sustainability to become Franny’s. It’s not a fried chicken, it’s healthier than that. And it’s not a turkey burger, it actually tastes good.

Service was laid back, not in your face, not rushed, attentive but laissez-faire. But one thing that didn't impress me was that the server didn’t know what kind of tomato they used for the sauce. (They were San Marzano tomatoes.) For a small menu that specializes in pizza – and a small number of pizzas at that – it’s an elementary piece of knowledge. This kind of thing only matters. to some but service, whether casual or formal, should know the food inside and out, and at least as well as the customer.

I see no reason to keep you from frequenting Franny's and support what they're doing – something both genuine and well-balanced in pretty much every way. Drop in, and expect to find healthy, reasonably priced, tasty food in a very comfortable but cool setting. I'm sure Franny's would kill in the East Village - it's a big win for Park Slope/Prospect Heights community.