vip in the city

Don’t even leave the airport

Memorial Day weekend: the unofficial kick-off of summer! Though I usually try to avoid airports (and the L.I.E.) at this time, the Sasquatch beckoned, sending me to join the ranks of the estimated 4.35 million Americans traveling by plane over the long holiday weekend, thereby substantially increasing my carbon footprint. (I’ll have the chance to plant flowers for my block association on Tuesday to atone.)

I read about DelayCast — a new site which has built mathematical models of the U.S. air transportation system to predict on-time and cancellation probabilities — in The Times last month. Earlier today, I plugged in my arrival and departure airports, one hour flight time window and airline; DelayCast predicted a 44% chance of leaving as scheduled. That did not bode well. And when I arrived at JFK after a 90-minute traffic-clogged ride from my apartment, I discovered that holiday congestion is not limited to the Van Wyck or to TSA security checkpoints.

Yes, that’s the queue of planes waiting for take-off.

We ended up hitting the skies two hours after the official departure time. In what has become industry standard, passengers sat through the entire cross-country trip without an in-flight meal. I did have the opportunity to buy an $8 sandwich. (I passed — perhaps for the best.) The nickel and dime-ing didn’t end there: headsets were offered for $2, and could be used to watch the basic cable satellite broadcast, but premium HBO programming ran extra: $6 for feature length films (like La Vie En Rose), somewhat less for HBO show episodes and comedy specials. I could have relived Bob Saget’s “That Ain’t Right” (which we saw taped at Skirball last year) for another $2.

Well, at least I was able to check my one bag for free. And though I probably could have settled in for the beef jerky episode of “Good Eats,” I found “Deal or No Deal ” was actually improved on mute.

Tomorrow, or rather: in a few hours — The Gorge in George!

Tags: Delta, JFK, planes, Seattle

Ko, continued

So now that I’ve digested a bit – mentally and physically – I can fill in some more details about SC’s and my dinner at Momofuku Ko.

The restaurant’s overloaded, but entirely democratic online reservations system has been the subject of breathless coverage since it went live on March 11. No special treatment: earlier today, The Times restaurant reviewer bemoaned his inability to nab one of the 32 reservations that go up every morning at 10AM. (New York magazine’s Adam Platt and his “many diligent assistants” fared better and rated his meal a rare and rapturous four stars.) Earlier in the week, I was in the throes of my own Ko-fueled frustration, but unlike Frank Bruni I got lucky, scooping up a just released cancellation for a prime Wednesday evening dinner slot.

Behind the metal latticework-wrapped façade is a minimalist, utilitarian interior; the space was formerly home to Momofuku Noodle Bar, which moved to larger digs up the block in November. SC had already checked in by the time I arrived at 7:30PM. Despite prior warnings made to discourage a secondary market for reservations, the hostess did not check for photo ID.

The set-up remains essentially unchanged from the restaurant’s noodle bar days. While backless wooden seats may be fine for Noodle Bar and Ssäm Bar, they are perhaps less suitable for Ko’s 2+ hour tasting menu format. Fortunately, most of the patrons (like the staff) seemed to be in their 20s and 30s — a demographic used to wiling away hours on hard, backless barstools.

To keep track of all of the courses — 8 actual courses, plus a handful of amuse-bouche and a pre-dessert of sorbets — there were tickets printed up with the list of the night’s dishes: Amuse, Fluke, Consommé, Egg, Scallop, Foie, Rib, Miso, Pre, and Apple. Also on the tickets were notes about drinks and menu substitutions or dietary restrictions, e.g., Ebi for Fluke, Pea for Consommé, “No Dairy.”

SC and I were seated in positions 7 & 8 tonight, which put us near the front corner of the counter, from which we were able to catch every slice and dice, sprinkle of sea salt, dunk in the deep fryer and more than a few snarky comments from Chang, chef de cuisine Peter Serpico (in foreground) and Co.

As has been noted, there are no servers at Momofuku Ko: the chefs present all the dishes over the counter, and therefore, are entitled to the tips. The two or three non-chef staffers — all women — were tasked with hostess duties (door management, coat checking and seating), dish clearing and drink serving. There were no printed menus — Chang told us that the dishes “have changed a little every day” since the restaurant opened — so we were reliant on the chefs to describe the plates for us. Most of these interactions felt a bit perfunctory… understandably, as the chefs seemed to have a lot of other duties to concern themselves over. For the most part we resisted the urge to ask follow-up questions, and as a result, several menu details were omitted, or just missed… though sometimes later filled in as we overheard the same dish explained for our fellow diners. (Thanks, by the way, to SC for her quick note-taking on the BlackBerry.)

Amuse-bouche of homemade mini-English muffins, topped with whipped pork fat (oh!) and chives:

Despite his somewhat prickly reputation and known tendency towards outburst, Chang seemed almost jovial this evening, and even found time to check in with me and SC a few times during the meal. During the service, there were stretches during which he would disappear, perhaps to check in on his other nearby restaurants. At one point he returned to show off a newly stuffed baseball bat-sized casing crammed with beef; another time, he came into the kitchen bearing a handful of scallops on the half-shell, which he tossed onto the grill as snacks for himself and the other chefs.

We learned that on his days off, Chang likes to sleep late and order in Chinese food – who doesn’t? – and that he has gotten “pretty sick” of the current Ko menu and its iterations… though when it would be changing, he couldn’t say.

Momofuku Ko’s tasting menu is a more refined implementation of Chang’s culinary aesthetic, which until now, has been best glimpsed on Ssäm’s late night menu. The dishes themselves have been analyzed endlessly — and by those better equipped with the vocabulary than I — so I’ll just note that the standouts for me included the “Foie” (pictured below: a white porcelain boat of lychee, candy-like pinenut brittle and Riesling gelée, buried under a delicate mound of snowy foie gras shavings, which melded into an unexpected, but delicious combination of tastes and textures), the “Rib” (a rare, juicy chunk of beef, braised for 48 hours before being deep-fried to produce a spectacular crust) and the “Scallop” (one of Chang’s favorites, too: perfectly seared, and juicy within.)

The most ordinary dish, though still good, was probably our final savory dish of the night, the “Miso“: a bowl of soup accompanied by a grilled rice cake slathered in… butter, maybe? and served over stewed cabbage. Coming off the ultra-rich Scallop-Foie-Rib stretch, it served as a palate cleanser. Speaking of which, the pre-dessert cantaloupe sorbet over candied pineapple was packed with more cantaloupe flavor than any fruit I’ve ever eaten. To finish: the fried apple pie — oh, fried pie! — with a quenelle of sour cream ice cream and a smear of salty toasted miso hit all the right crispy, creamy, savory and sweet notes. (SC and I noted that a couple of other diners had received what appeared to be a panna cotta dessert, served with chocolate and avocado mousse.) By that point in the evening, though, we were experiencing serious feasting fatigue, and couldn’t manage more than a few bites before we reluctantly allowed the hostess take our plates.

Previous diners’ reports have claimed problems with the pacing of the dishes — with the chefs rushing them through their meals — but we found the opposite true. And although we were more than happy to linger and take in the spectacle of food preparation, there were several gaps in the service during which our stomachs’ fullness receptors had ample time to kick in and inform us that we had eaten entirely too much food.

For us, the 7:30PM start time was ideal: midway through the dinner service, as the chefs were easing into their evening’s routine. But at two hours and forty minutes, our meal did run long, and by the time we rose, staggering, from our seats, the couple with the 9:30PM final reservation had long been waiting. This morning, in navigating through the reservations system (out of curiosity only — really!) I noticed that instead of 15 minute intervals, the seating times have been adjusted to allow for two-hour seatings in staggered groupings at 6PM, 8PM and 10PM, with a gap between 6:30PM and 8PM.

Good to know, if ever I get lucky again.

Momofuku Ko photo set on flickr.

Tags: David Chang, East Village, Momofuku, Momofuku Ko, tasting menu

The wild green yonder

We drove up into the Poconos Mountains this semi-stormy Sunday, to the area around Lake Wallenpaupack. Just two hours from the city, there were rafters of wild turkey and herd of deer milling about, most of whom seemed more curious than timid of our wanderings through their woods.

On the Delta website to purchase a flight out to Seattle, I noticed an option to add $5.50 to my ticket price for a compensatory tree-planting program to offset carbon emissions.

To help protect the special places that Delta flies throughout the world, Delta’s Force for Global Good has partnered with The Conservation Fund to plant trees that will help offset carbon emissions… Contributions of $5.50 for a domestic roundtrip flight and $11 for an international roundtrip flight will be used by The Conservation Fund to plant trees throughout the U.S. and abroad.

No real information was available about how the offset would be calculated, other than to note that “The Conservation Fund uses standards and procedures set forth by Greenhouse Gas Protocol to estimate carbon offset amounts.”

In an October 2006 article for The Guardian, British environmentalist and writer George Monbiot compared carbon offsets to the medieval practice of purchasing indulgences from the Catholic Church. Though the analogy is imperfect as it somewhat misrepresents the concept of indulgences, Monbiot suggested that carbon offsets offer an easy excuse for individuals not to modify their bad practices with regard to pollution.

I don’t know how I feel about this concept of expiating one’s “environmental sins” — and yes, they are sins now — through financial contributions to some temporal authority, even one as seemingly worthy as The Conservation Fund. Quite clearly, simply using carbon offsets to justify a more carbon-intensive lifestyle will not result in overall carbon-emission reductions; it’s rather more important to live conscientiously, actively reducing the amount of waste and carbon we produce on a daily basis. As a New Yorker, I’ve already got a head start.

Related: City Council Approves Congestion Pricing, 30-20. Onward to Albany!

Tags: carbon footprint, carbon offsets, environment, Pennsylvania, Poconos, wildlife