Chefs wEE Love: Ben Lee, Nicoletta

 Ben Lee, Executive Chef
Photo: A. Medvin, Eatery Expert

He's 33, he is a protégé of Michael White's school of Marea culinary madness, and he makes a delicious pizza pie. He's Ben Lee, the Executive Chef of the new East Village hot spot Nicoletta. It's all about the up-and-comers these days in the NYC restaurant scene and Lee is definitely one to keep your eye on. Not only does he know how to throw that dough around with the greatest of ease, he's a really nice guy too. I sat down with Chef Lee over a delicious Salsiccia pie to discuss his favorite pizza, learning Italian cuisine in Italy and where he loves to get the best Korean food in NYC. by Joleen Zanuzoski

Q: What is your background? You don't look like the typical pizzaiolo we're used to seeing around these parts! 
I'm Korean-American. My parent's immigrated to the United States from South Korea and we lived in Chicago for a while. 

Credit: A. Medvin, Eatery Expert

Q: Oh - I love Chicago. Any great deep-dish recommendations? 
I remember really liking Lou Mainati's. It's been years since I've been there.

Q: Any great Korean restaurant recommendations since you grew up with the real deal right at home? 
Han Bat (35 West 35th nr. 6th Ave.) in Koreatown is great - I love the scallion pancake and you can add seafood and other things, but I just like it the simple way. It's basically Korea's take on the pizza. 

Q: Where do you live in NYC and what are your favorite places to eat in your hood?
I have lived in Astoria for the past three years and I really enjoy HinoMaru for Japanese (33-18 Ditmars Blvd nr. 35th St.) and Los Amigos (2273 31st Street nr. Newtown Ave.) for Mexican.

Q:What was it like working under Michael White at Marea? Must have been a-mazing! 
I still learn so much from Chef [Michael White]. He always says "This is a marathon, not a sprint" and emphasizes that patience is key for a chef. Also, he has taught me about tenacity and to always keep going, despite setbacks. He is a genius and knows what he is doing and most importantly knows good food. 

Q: You lived and worked in Italy to learn more about Italian cooking. Tell me more! 
It was an amazingly educational experience. I was living in this northern Italian town called Bergamo in the Lombardy region. It was great to learn from [the source] about Italian cooking and ingredients. 

Photo: A. Medvin, Eatery Expert

Q: What is the secret to making really great pizza?
Don't rush the dough and don't load on tons of ingredients. Keep it simple and you will get a really delicious result.

Q: What are you cooking when you're not making pizzas?
I honestly cook a lot of Italian food all the time. I cook at home a lot and have been making a lot of handmade, egg-based pastas. I love to make fettucine and tagliolini and mix in some nice tomatoes, good extra virgin olive oil and other fresh, seasonal ingredients. Keeping it simple is what I like best - it gives tribute to the ingredients. 

Q: Nicoletta has some really inventive pizzas on the menu with some seasonal options.  Will the specialty pizzas change with the seasons? 

Salsiccia pizza, Nicoletta
Credit: A. Medvin, Eatery Expert

Definitely. I try to use the Union Square Greenmarket as much as possible and find ingredients that pair well with the Wisconsin staples we will always use. I just got some really great heirloom tomatoes and corn from New Jersey at the market. They are both really in season now so we are showcasing them in the Estiva. It's a great, summery pie. Also the Fior di Zucca is topped with zucchini blossoms and grated summer squash - both awesome seasonal items. 

Q: What do you like to drink with your pizza? 
It depends. Right now I love pairing the seasonal pizzas with a nice prosecco or rosé. In the winter with a heavier, meaty pie I definitely like a nice red like a Barolo. Anything with sausage and a Barolo is awesome to me.

Q: A group of your friends are coming to Nicoletta for a feast. What are you going to serve them from start to finish? 

Photo: A. Medvin, Eatery Expert

I would begin with the suppli' (risotto, mozzarella, pork ragu) and buffalo mozzarella that features the summer corn from our assaggunu e sfizi ("small bites") menu. Also, the polpette (meatballs) are a must try. Chef [Michael White's] casarecci pasta is a great seasonal pasta dish to share before the pizza. It includes the summer corn and squash so it's great for the end of summer. For the pizzas, I love the spicy Salciccia pie - it has great Wisconsin mozzarella, fennel sausage which is Chef's [Michael White] recipe, calabrian chiles, broccoli rabe, tomatoes and garlic. It's perfect for people that like a little heat in their pie. Also the calabrese pizza is definitely meant for the meat-lovers.   

Chefs wEE Love: Amanda Cohen, Dirt Candy (East Village)

Chef Amanda Cohen, Dirt Candy
Photo: Stephen Elledge

A Creative, Chic Way to Eat Your Vegetables - Eat Dirt Candy

by Alexi Melvin, Contributing Writer 

Chef Amanda Cohen's rebellious preparation of vegetables has taken Manhattan by storm, in the form of Dirt Candy, her restaurant in the East Village. The restaurant is small, chic and inviting. The dim purple lighting and simple decor give it a modern twist. As diners enjoy Chef Cohen’s creations, they can watch the culinary artist at work a mere ten feet away from their tables. Also, to add to her superpowers of being a masterful chef and restaurant owner, she is releasing her first cookbook tomorrow, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook: Flavor-Forward Food from the Upstart New York City Vegetarian Restaurant. 

Dirt Candy: A Cookbook
Photo: Clarkson Potter

The appetizers and entrees at Dirty Candy are named after their defining ingredients. During my recent visit to Dirt Candy, I was presented with the "Pepper" dish; a yellow pepper soup with smoky red pepper mousse and jalapeno chips. The "Tomato" dish was my favorite. Smoked feta enveloped in a tomato cake, cherry tomato leather, and a spring herb puree. Finally, I enjoyed the "Bean" dish, an addition to the menu that I did not notice on their website before visiting. A very pleasant surprise! Coconut tofu over green beans, accompanied by rice cookies with a bean mousse inside. Everything was absolutely delicious and unique to my tastebuds.

Pepper!
Yellow pepper soup with red pepper mousse
and jalapeno chips

In our interview, Chef Cohen talks veggies, and gives us the scoop on being the Chef/Owner of one of the top rated vegetarian restaurants in NYC.

First of all, tell us where the name "Dirt Candy" came from.

It’s a restaurant-eat-restaurant world out there so I wanted a name that people would remember. Plenty of places go for the random assemblage of letters and numbers (SPX 12), there’s the proper noun name (Fork, Table, Salt), the foreign word name (Mangia, Voltare, Kishu), and there’s the name name (Mary Anne’s, Thompson’s). I wanted something different, and since vegetables are candy from the dirt, I figured that Dirt Candy would be memorable, at the very least, even if people hated it. Now I’m seeing it pop up everywhere online as a reference to vegetables.

Tomato!
Smoked feta in a tomato cake, cherry tomato leather, spring
herb puree

How would you describe Dirty Candy to someone who isn't necessarily a "foodie?"

It’s a vegetable restaurant that doesn’t care about your politics, your health, or what you had for lunch. At Dirt Candy, the only thing we care about is cooking great vegetables.

So many people don't have enough appreciation for vegetables. Why are vegetables so important and unique to you as a chef?

Vegetables are the Wild West of cooking right now. No one is doing anything with them. Lots of people are cooking offal, and game, and seafood, but no one is just focusing exclusively on vegetables. The bad part about that is that I’m not considered “cool” by the press, but that’s far outweighed by the awesome part of that, which is that I’m on this roller coaster all alone, no one telling me what I can and can’t do, no one arguing with me, or telling me the “proper” way to do anything. Dirt Candy is my laboratory and every day I get to experiment a little more, pushing the boundaries of what can be done with vegetables.

Inside Dirt Candy
Photo: Michael Harlan Turkell

Were there certain moments throughout your career that served as inspiration for the concept of Dirt Candy?

Not to sound totally selfish, but Dirt Candy was made just for me. I’ve been cooking professionally for close to 15 years and over that time I’ve worked for, or consulted on, a lot of restaurants in New York City. In all that time I learned a lot, some of it about what NOT to do and a lot of it about what worked and what didn’t on the plate. I became convinced that there was a huge hole in the market where people who just wanted good vegetables weren’t being served. So Dirt Candy was the first time I could put my theories into action, and not listen to anyone else who was peddling conventional wisdom. Fortunately, I’ve turned out to be at least half right.

Your menu is constantly changing, but which few dishes would you say you have been the most proud of?

You’re asking me to choose between my children! But the most popular dishes over the years have been the Stone-ground Grits with Tempura Poached Egg, the Portobello Mousse with Truffled Toast and Pear & Fennel Compote, and the Cauliflower and Waffles with Horseradish Sauce. And people keep asking me when we’re going to bring back the Candied Grapefruit Pops.

Dirt Candy, street view
Photo: Michael Harlan Turkell

Is there a certain type of crowd that usually visits the restaurant, or is it a mixed bag?

I’ve been really lucky to have a mixed crowd here. I’d say about half my customers are people who are either vegetarian or vegan, but the other half are people who just like good food.

What are your top three favorite restaurants in the city? 

I really love Legend, a Sichuan place on Seventh Avenue that serves my favorite Chinese food in Manhattan right now. Going to Brooklyn scares me, plus I’m lazy, but La Vara in Cobble Hill does fried food like nobody’s business. Their fried artichokes and the crispy chickpeas alone were worth the trip. And whenever I’m feeling fancy, Dovetail on the Upper West Side is the place to go. It always feels like a special Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad, which is not a bad thing. Sometimes it’s really nice to pull on your big girl pants and be an adult having a super-mature, sophisticated meal.

Who are some other chefs that you admire?

Most of the chefs who inspire me, or who mean a lot to me, aren’t the famous ones. The people who have changed my career and my life have been the other women working in professional kitchens who I’ve had the privilege of working alongside. You won’t read about them in a magazine, but people like Glory Mongin and Debbie Lee really changed how I work and the way I approach food.

After competing on Iron Chef America, are there any other TV shows that you'd be interested in appearing on?

I’m not built for reality TV. It takes me a long time and a lot of experimentation to get a dish the way I want it. But if they ever have challenges that last 3 months, let me know. That’s about my speed.

What are some of your guilty pleasures?

I’m incapable of feeling guilty about pleasure.

When you aren't cooking, what are you doing?

Sleeping.

Which cities in the world that you've visited have the best food?

I think you can find great food anywhere, but Hong Kong is where I really fell in love with vegetables.

If you were stranded on an island and could only have three food staples with you, what would you choose?

I’d choose to have tequila and triple sec (I’m counting that as one item), limes, and a gun. That way I could have a really, really nice margarita and then shoot myself. I don’t want to be stranded on a desert island!

If you could invite any celebrity to dine at your restaurant, who would it be?

President Obama, because…are you kidding me? He’s the president!



         ______________________________________________________________________

Alexi Melvin is a writer and an actress in NYC. She graduated from the prestigious Lee Strasberg Institute, and is currently getting her Bachelors Degree in Liberal Arts at The New School. Her passions include classic films, musical theatre, discovering great restaurants and traveling.

Battle Of The Best: Maharlika vs. Empellon

Everyday, we scour Manhattan looking for the best food it has to offer.  During our search, and after multiple dinners, Battle of the Best was born.  How it works:  We order, taste and then throw 'em in the rink to battle it out.  Our first battle; Adventurous eating in the East Village.

Battle: Adventurous eating in the East Village

Competitors:  Maharlika 111 1st Avenue nr. 7th St.  vs. Empellon Cocina 105 1st Avenue nr. 6th St.

Competitor 1:  Maharlika

Tito's vodka, honey, lemon & a splash of seltzer

Outcome: A true knockout.  This drink is refreshing, tasty and makes you want to ask for a pitcher all to yourself.

Lumpiang Barquillos: Crispy, tightly rolled rice paper filled with beef, pork, water chestnuts and carrots.

Outcome:  This Filipino finger food is cheap and tasty.  Especially when dipped in their house made pickled vinegar.  Perfect balance of savory and sweet!

BBQ Chicken:  Banana ketchup, honey, coconut vinegar marinade.

Outcome:  A huge blow to the competitor.  This chicken is moist, saucy and delicious! 

Tocino: Pork marinated in 7up.

Outcome:  Strike 1, Strike 2...almost a winner!
Marinating pork or any type of meat in 7up is a new one to me, but it more than works.  The tocino is perfectly marinated to create a sweet and delicious marinade.

 Competitor 2:  Empellon Cocina

Roasted carrots with mole poblano, mole and watercress

Outcome: Starting off strong, this dish highlights seasonal ingredients and flavors and the hint of dollop of yogurt on the bottom is the perfect touch.

Summer squash with arugula leaves and squash blossom buttermilk

Outcome:  It's certainly refreshing, and tasty.  However the squash blossom buttermilk's texture fails to impress.

Shrimp with crispy masa, sea urchin mousse and lettuces

Outcome:  The sea urchin takes the show.  The perfect texture; crispy, creamy and hearty pieces of shrimp.

Halibut with cape gooseberry, chipotle and masa cracker

Outcome:  Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3....

You so badly will want the gooseberries to be cherry tomatoes, but they just aren't! Their sweet and tart flavor brings this champion crashing down to the floor and it's over!

And the winner is...

wEE recommend Maharlika for a casual, fun dinner in the East Village with friends.  It's also a great spot for birthdays.  The food is great, and the price is right!

Chefs wEE Love: Sara Jenkins - Porchetta, Porsena

by Joleen Zanuzoski, Editor

Chef Sara Jenkins

She may not be native Italian, but Chef Sara Jenkins' understanding of Italian food and tradition makes her just as Italian as her olive farm in Tuscany. Yes, she has 150 olive trees in the hills behind Cortona, she is fluent in Italian and started spending summers in Italy when she was eight. Her knowledge and love of Italian cuisine and culture is reflected in every morsel of pork roasted at Porchetta and every bite of pasta served at Porsena. This summer, Jenkins will open Porsena Sinistra, a lunch counter and wine bar next door with the help of Chef Sebastian Jaramillo. Her budding Italian empire is just beginning and oh how delicious it is. 

Despite her love for Italian food, cooking for a living wasn't something she considered until a few years after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied fine art photography. It was cooking in the kitchens of Todd English and Barbara Lynch in Boston she realized "this is what is going to get me out of bed in the morning - this is what I'm supposed to do." 

She moved to New York and gifted the East Village with Porchetta and Porsena, piling both restaurants high with accolades including four stars from New York Magazine (Porsena & Porchetta), 10 Best Things to Eat by Time Out New York (Porchetta), Eater's 12 Epic Pastas to Eat Before You Die (lasagna al forno, Porsena) and a nod from the James Beard Foundation in 2011, nominated for the award of Best Chef: New York City. Also, it doesn't hurt that Mario Batali sings her praises, saying "she is one of the few chefs in America that understands Italy and how Italians eat." She's the real deal - genuine, affable, intelligent and savvy. Oh, and her food is insanely delicious, too. 

Lasagna al forno, Porsena

Jenkins opened Porsena in January 2011 with the intention of creating a similar experience as the restaurants in Rome that "feel like an extension of your own dining room table." She believes the easiest way to understand a culture is through the food, and the easiest way to make friends is through breaking bread. She is robustly poetic when she talks about her childhood summers in a small Tuscan village made up of peasant farmers and had yet to be introduced to running water. "There was a village donkey and electricity had just arrived," she muses. In this small village, Jenkins was introduced to Italian cooking by her "adopted Italian grandmother," Mita Antolini and that is when her love affair with food began.

When talking about dishes that remind her of growing up in Italy, she talks about Antolini's gnocchi with ragu. "If she had a signature dish, that was it." I had to ask what was the secret to perfect gnocchi? "Don't get the potatoes too wet. I bake the potatoes because that way, no matter what, they don't absorb too much water. If the potatoes absorb too much water, then that's when you have to start adding flour and then you get heavy, gross gnocchi." Well, that explains why my gnocchi has the density of rocks and tastes like a day-old baked potato from Wendy's.

Porsena 21 East 7th Street nr. 2nd Ave.

Jenkins had no formal culinary training besides learning at the source in her neighbor Mita's kitchen and working in a kitchen in Florence for three years. "Italians are very rigid [chefs]. I had great years really absorbing the food there in a way I didn't necessarily do as a kid, but I wanted to learn more about the variation." And that she did. She doesn't think cooking school is necessary to be a chef and one is better off learning through travel and experiencing the culture first hand.

"I'm staggered at how expensive cooking school is. I've always thought [young chefs] are much better off taking the money they would spend on formal [training] and going someplace like Bangkok and eating the food and renting an apartment and cooking with all different kinds of ingredients, or finding a farm and working on it." Also, Jenkins believes a true appreciation for ingredients can only be learned by experiencing the culture and cuisine first hand. "It's taken a long time for culinary schools to get on the bandwagon about ingredients. They couldn't get their head around the idea that an eggplant was not just an eggplant - there is a difference to how and where that eggplant is grown."

Olives & Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from 
Italy, Spain, Cyprus & Beyond by Sara Jenkins & Mindy Fox

Chef Jenkins is not only a talented chef but incredibly media savvy, frequently updating her Tumblr page Teverina Dreaming with pictures of her travels, upcoming tastings at her restaurants and some truly mouth-watering food writing. Her father, Loren Jenkins, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist so not only has Italian cooking always been a part of her life, so has writing. Jenkins is a contributor for The Atlantic, writing about everything from cooking with olive oil to not fussing over fresh pasta (dried is just as good, sometimes better). She is also active on Twitter - @porchettanyc is filled with her ruminations such as how she hates missing poppy season in Tuscany (don't we all) to her love of the whitefish salad at Mile End Delicatessen in Brooklyn. She frequently exchanges twitter love to Chef Marco Canora (Hearth), a chef she greatly admires and tweets about memorable meals at restaurants in and around her home in Williamsburg. She's "dazzled" by Isa, calling it "a grown up restaurant for Brooklyn," mentions Fatty Cue as another favorite, thinks Diner has "set the bar in so many ways" and tips her hat to Chef Nate Smith's Allswell.

Other New York City-based chefs she loves? Cesare Casella (Salumeria Rosi) and April Bloomfield (The Spotted Pig, The Breslin). "Every night I sell ten orders of salt cod, I bless her because ten years ago you couldn't sell ten orders of salt cod to save your life. I think she's done a lot to [promote] the whole meat-centric, nose-to-tail kind of thing. It's shocking to me that the ten years I've been cooking in this city what we can get away with serving people now and what they are willing to order. I have tongue on my menu and I sell enough of it that it's worth my while."

In addition to some nose-to-tail offerings that sporadically pop up on the Porsena menu, Jenkins ensures it's consistently about the pasta. "One of the things that's really interesting to me is two of the dishes I insisted be on the menu are really the most boring - spaghetti and tomato sauce and spaghetti and ragu. They are the backbone of Italian cooking and it says in a way, it's always about the pasta just as much as it is about the sauce." That is the fundamental difference of pasta in America versus pasta in Italy - Americans load up their pasta with tons of sauce and in Italy "they have an entire mantra that if there is more sauce in the bottom of your bowl that you can't easily wipe up with a piece of bread, then there is too much sauce on the pasta." That's the model her ragu is based on and it's what makes the pasta at Porsena consistent each and every time.

Now that she has the roasted pork sandwich and perfect pasta dinners on lock down, what is next for Chef Jenkins? She is working on an Italian pantry app that will suggest combinations for dishes based on the ingredients you have available. "I always feel like one of those tricks of cooking spontaneously is having a really good pantry." Ingredients that are always in her pantry? Pasta, a good extra-virgin olive oil and garlic, of course. In the refrigerator? "Lots of condiments, hot sauce, sheep's milk yogurt and a lemon and lime." What she whips up in a pinch? "I love having those Satur Farms cooking greens on hand and I'll mix it in with some left over rice from Chinese takeout and I'm set." I tried this shortly after speaking with Jenkins and let me tell you, never have I been so satisfied with my leftover Chinese takeout rice. Now I just have to get the moisture out of my gnocchi and I'll be set for life.

Featured Request of the Day!

Here's a request that'll make you hungry!! Beware.

Request:  Fried chicken and sumptuous Southern sides in the East Village.

EE's Recommendations:

1.  Bob White Lunch and Supper Counter - 94 Ave. C @ 7th Ave.  Salivating just thinking about their fried chicken and biscuits.  I don't know how they do it, but they've mastered the art of fried chicken.  What's so great about it here is depending on the day, their menu is ever-changing to 'show off their southern roots.'

Photo cred: Gastrochic.com

2.  The Cardinal - 234 E. 4th St. nr. Ave. B. The southern sides here take up most of the room on their menu - fried green tomatoes, fried okra, mac n' cheese,  and deviled eggs are just a few.  What really steals the show is their bbq plate and fried chicken so make sure to come with an appetite!

Photo cred:  Serious Eats

3.  The Redhead - 349 E. 13th St. nr. 1st Ave.  Their buttermilk fried chicken, gravy and potatoes are truly incredible.  To top it off, they begin the meal by serving you their homemade bacon peanut brittles which will make you feel like you're dining in the good ol' South.