I’ve never had one that was overly spicy. Just crazy salty.
I never get that excited about anything that’s X plus a lotta rice. I don’t often order bibimbap for that reason, or fried rice.
Ate at La Estancia de la Espiga in corona queens, one bistec and one carnitas taco with homemade tortillas. The tacos were huge and delicious, lots of crispy bits, great sauce and fresh greens. Apparently very crowded on weekends for roast goat and lamb. No one spoke English but we were able to use google translator, service was fantastic and friendly.
Here’s a background article:
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Looks fantastic!
So goat & lamb only on weekends?
Yup. A lot of people were eating tacos but a woman had a beautiful chicken leg with mole sauce and fresh tortillas, looked amazing.
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Dessert from what used to be mamas bakery in corona, they sold to their baker, so same stuff, now called our backyard cafe. This is a cannoli cream filled baba rhum, I’ve been eating these at this bakery for 20 years. If you find yourself here and they are out, the baker will fill one for you.
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looks good!
Totally didn’t think to take any pictures (except of people), but: Threw my son’s 30th at Konban in Chelsea. (He is a huge katsu fan). It is small plates, and we were 12, so we ate most everything we wanted to try. We all thought the food was fantastic: the tenderloin was my favorite of pork katsus, but the others were also very good. Loved the toro and rice dish. Vegetable dishes (cucumbers and shishito peppers) were not particularly inspired, but good enough. The raw scallops were delicious, but the cooked ones with a brown butter/maple soy sauce were supernal. The two (homemade) noodle dishes we tried were extremely good. The spinach udon soup was delicate, the broth excellent and the Mazeman (spicy pork with almond butter) noodle dish was insanely good. I think we had six of those on the table, and we had a couple of vegetarians, so…We drank 4 bottles of sake over the evening, and with a $4 pp cake serving charge (I brought the cake in from Claud, amazing!!!), the restaurant dinner for 12 came to $1,000. I left a nice tip.
The main server Sea Yull, could not have been more lovely, attentive, competent. They made the evening very special for us all. The original Konban is in Seoul, so it is owned and run by Koreans serving Japanese food. My son and his friend who were in Japan in the fall were extremely impressed.
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I went to katsu-Hama in nyc a number of times with colleagues from the Japanese bank where I was consulting, liked it enough to take our family a number of times. So I had high expectations when we ate at a katsu specialist in Tokyo but for the life of me, i couldn’t figure out why the tokyo katsu was superior to katsu-Hama.
In the end, perhaps the Berkshire pork at katsu-Hama is fattier and more flavorful than the meat we had in Japan or maybe my uneducated palate needs to try a bunch of katsu side by side or at least on consecutive days. Has your son tried Katsu-hama and if so, did he like the katsu more in Japan and if so, what did he like more about it?
Anyhow, thanks for the wonderful write up, looking forward to trying konban!
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I had the dahi batata puri at Angel, which was wonderful. One dish over from the pani puri on the menu. It did not disappoint.
I also find most biryani to be a snooze in restaurants because it is an afterthought. I make a sensational one at home, and I’ve had it’s equal in a couple of restaurants. But I can tell how little effort most places put into it.
We have not tried katsu-Hama, and I thought about it. (Read a discussion about the differences on Reddit, I confess!) It seemed to me that for this particular event, having the broader menu would be ideal, and I was not disappointed. However, I intend to snag my son (next time he gets a break from new job started Wednesday) and try the katsu there. The pork noodles and scallops in brown butter/maple soy would probably always make Konban more appealing to me, but I, too, am curious about what my son would say about katsu-Hama!
I think we might have talked about Katsuhama when you were still planning Konban a while back. Or maybe @vinouspleasure and I talked about it.
Now I want Katsuhama. And Konban. Pronto.
It’s nice that they didn’t force a set menu for the group size.
(The brown butter scallops are calling to me.)
Yeah, the open menu definitely appealed! One of his friends recommended Rule of Thirds in Greenpoint to me, if I couldn’t get the table at Konban. I have never heard of it, but for a party our size, we would have had no choice and a set menu. Didn’t appeal to me!
Konban sounds like much the better choice for a celebration, I’m just wondering what separates good Katsu from great Katsu. I feel silly that I didn’t ask my Japanese colleagues and now they are all living in Japan.
Perhaps, like all else, it is what you personally enjoy? Can’t really be any big secret except light crunchy outside and tasty, moist inside, can it?
I dunno, maybe.
I’m reminded of the first time I had sushi with one of my colleagues from Japan, it wasn’t until we were halfway through the meal that I noticed she was using the tip of her chopsticks to lightly paint the top of the fish while I was dunking the bottom of my sushi into my soy sauce dish. When I asked, she explained that each sushi restaurant had its own rice recipe, some closely guarded for over a generation. She was too polite to point out that the amount of soy sauce I’d been using was obliterating any nuance to be found in the rice.
so…I dunno, I’m guessing, like bbq, there are nuances around the breed of the pig, the way the pig was fed and raised, the cut of meat, the bread crumbs, the seasoning, the oil temp and type of the oil, etc that are lost on me. anyhow, that’s what I’m wondering about.
best,
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sounds like that was quite a learning experience! I feel like there must be differences in the meat that matter a great deal Like Nina says, the outer crunch is important, but pork texture and juiciness differ quite a lot. Especially in the US it can be hard to find pork that isnt dry, especially when the “whiter” cuts are chosen.
I have not heard of a great bbq place boasting about the breed of pig. And I have not heard of places breading and frying pork in Japan boasting about that either. A great katsudon does not need to come from a special pig.
I sense we are about to go on a tangent about whether ingredient quality matters or not (which seems like a pretty obvious answer).
