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 Photo by Cynthia Lamb. 
As 2012 drew to a close, I was amused by the number of articles I came across regarding the dinner party. Gourmet waxed nostalgic over dinner parties past, questioning whether the institution could be saved. The Times lamented its passing as a society mainstay. The Post disagreed, celebrating Brooklyn’s young and trendy for recasting the middle class institution. Brooklyn’s the L Magazine saw fit to take a swipe at the Times, reiterating the Post’s stance on the matter. Meanwhile Time reported on SupperKing, a mobile phone app that makes it easy for ambitious hosts in LA and SF to invite complete strangers to their dinner parties. Continue reading The Dinner Party is Alive & Well on the LES
 
 Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the July issue of The Lo-Down’s print magazine.
For some, summer means the time-honored escape to the Catskills. Others will run their air-conditioners nonstop until September, hiding out in their apartments’ relative cool. For me, part of the pleasure of warm weather is taking meals outside. Our neighborhood may have limited choices for al fresco dining, but there are a number of good picnic spots.
Where do I go for a neighborhood picnic? Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: It’s Picnic Time!
 Orchard Street photos by Cynthia Lamb. 
For a while, Clinton Street above Delancey has been the Lower East Side’s Restaurant Row. WD50 showed that adventurous diners would spend money here, and many upscale establishments followed their lead. Tapas, posh pancakes, and high end Chinese can be found there as easily as pizza by the slice, Cuban sandwiches and four-for-a-dollar fried dumplings. A variety of tastes and budgets are accommodated on a few blocks that can legitimately claim to have some of the best restaurants in town.
Over the seven years we’ve lived here, Orchard Street has emerged as another equally vital Restaurant Row. I’ve had as many enjoyable nights out there as on Clinton. And I’ve found just as much, if not more, variety on Orchard. It seems neighborhood curmudgeons can’t maintain any credibility without a knock or two on the nightlife there, so you know it’s good. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Orchard Street’s Restaurant Rows
 JP, hunting and gathering in Chinatown. Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
After seven wonderful years living below Delancey, and seven before that in the East Village, it’s time for me to do what many musicians have been done over the past decade: move to Brooklyn. While the Lower East side is where it’s at, as far as the Manhattan music scene is concerned, Brooklyn is simply a more musician friendly borough. There’s more going on, and more of my own kind there. And it’s hella cheap, if you choose the right place to land.
Cynthia and I are setting sail for Sunset Park. We have no illusions about whether our dear friends here will come visit us in our new home. Most will not. Fair enough. For years I haven’t gone much above 14th Street unless I was getting paid to do so. So we’ll be back often, both for friends and food. The food scene here has gotten more interesting over the last decade. We have an abundance of everything from super cheap to luxurious, the two often side by side. You can cover more culinary ground in a fifteen minute stroll through the LES than some cities offer in an entire day.
Sunset Park is great for Mexican and Chinese food, but it doesn’t have the breadth of the scene here on the LES. Here are some of the food related establishments that help assure we’ll be taking the eighteen minute ride back on the D train regularly. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: On Coming Back to the LES
 Heritage Meats, Essex Street Market. Photo by Cynthia Lamb
Heritage Meats is on a mission in the Essex Street Market: to sell meat like your great-grandmother ate, from animals raised on humane, small farms, who were bred for flavor and texture, not just to plump up quickly without getting sick in a feedlot. The folks who run Heritage Meats partner with more than 40 small farms dedicated to bringing healthier meat to market while also preserving breeds endangered by a lack of compatibility with modern agribusiness. The staff can tell you the provenance of everything in the store, down to who raised the animals.
My wife Cynthia has seen one too many documentaries on how most meat is raised, and no longer wants to eat meat from the supermarket. As a result, Heritage has become a regular stop for me. When I’m feeling like a splurge, it offers excellent choices of artisan cured meats and charcuterie. It’s high-end stuff at high-end prices, but I can’t resist a little lamb prosciutto every now and then. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Mixing Bargains With A Mission
 Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
Plenty of us go out for shellfish, whether it’s moules- frites at a French joint, Chinese clams in black bean sauce or oysters on the half shell offered at several neighborhood happy hours. But many do not cook shellfish at home. This strikes me as weird, since we live on the coast – shellfish are relatively cheap and plentiful. In the case of clams and mussels, they’re really inexpensive and easy to cook. By most metrics they’re considered “healthy” foods as well, being big on nutrients and low in fat.
I think a big reason most folks do not cook shellfish at home is because we shop for food at the supermarket. A supermarket favors foods with long shelf lives. Most of the food for sale in a supermarket is capable of sitting for weeks, months, even years without spoiling. This makes it easier for managers to pay attention to the smaller percentage of foods with shorter shelf lives, such as meat, fresh vegetables and dairy. There are greater losses, and thus less profit in selling these things, so a smart manager must choose carefully among them. Fresh fish, particularly shellfish, doesn’t stand much of a chance in this environment, as it’s extremely perishable. It’s simply not worth the risk, and thus uncommon in most supermarkets. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Clams in Garlic and Wine, An Ideal Warm Weather Dish
 Photos by Cynrhia Lamb.
With the opening of Yunnan Kitchen, our neighborhood now boasts one of only two Yunnan restaurants in Manhattan. Until recently, the only Yunnan place in the city was is a tiny noodle shop in Brooklyn, where Cynthia and I have eaten.
We were struck by the similarities to Vietnamese food: the use of fresh herbs, crunchy veggies, chopped peanuts as a garnish and just a little bit of sugar added to play against the hot pepper. This is not surprising, as Yunnan Provence shares a border with Vietnam. They also use vinegar to balance out spicy, sweet and salty flavors. The result is food that’s often simple and fresh tasting, yet nuanced.
I had some trepidation about Yunnan Kitchen — a “small plates” joint on Clinton Street. Like many New Yorkers, I consider the ability to get delicious Chinese food for cheap practically a God-given right. If I must sacrifice some of the bourgeois niceties in my dining out experience to that end, so be it. I’d rather eat good food in a dive than pay top dollar for okay food in a place with great service and décor. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Yunnan Kitchen is a Worthy Splurge
 Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
Consider me shallow if you like, but I do actually think about coolness. I know it’s generally more of a teenage concern than a middle age one, but I can’t help myself. Coolness is like beauty: it has a short shelf life. This transience is part of its appeal. Today’s shock of the “new” quickly becomes tomorrow’s rehash. Either catch the moment or miss out entirely. That’s how it works.
When it comes to neighborhoods, coolness is a function of transition. The early stages of gentrification are cool, the end result is not. If you doubt this, spend a Saturday night in the East Village or a Sunday brunch in Park Slope. Our Lower East Side food scene has been in what I consider a perfect balance for the last five years or so. There’s just enough upscale stuff to make the old schoolers shake their heads in dismay, yet no dearth of cheap, lowbrow deliciousness. Such a balance is a delicate, fleeting thing, and I’m a big advocate of enjoying it while it lasts. Because change is inevitable.
I make no secret of the fact that I think the Essex Street Market is the coolest place to shop for food (and grab a quick bite) in the neighborhood. Why? Balance. In a neighborhood as diverse as ours, it’s easy to feel the cultural and socioeconomic differences between you and your neighbors. Yet we all walk the same sidewalks. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Essex Street Market. Upscale and down to earth businesses are side by side in an historic space originally designed to get pushcart vendors off the streets. They are all small independent businesses – the kind I prefer to patronize. Every one of them is somebody’s dream, and there’s a good chance that person is behind the counter. Continue reading Bulldozing the Essex Street Market Would Not Be Cool
 New Great Bakery - photo by Cynthia Lamb
A contractor friend was giving me some advice on a kitchen renovation. Our conversation eventually turned to cheap eats in the area, as it often does. We both enthused about the dumplings at Vanessa’s Dumpling House, then went on to the joys of the fried fish buns at Chinese bakeries. “You know that bakery on Grand just across Allen?” he asked. “The one with the hot dog wrap thing?” I replied. “Yeah, with the egg in it? For like, two dollars? That’s a pretty good breakfast!”
What we were talking about was the hot dog “sandwich” at New Great Bakery, which has become my favorite neighborhood junk food indulgence. You can find a hot dog bun anywhere in the neighborhood, but this is a step beyond. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: The Hot Dog Sandwich at New Great Bakery
 Photos by Cynthia Lamb.
Food nerdiness has a great reward: eating well. If you go to the trouble of learning your food landscape, you know where the best restaurants and sources for ingredients are located. If you acquire the knowledge and skill to cook well, your home becomes a temple of good eating. But even those of us who buy good ingredients and cook from scratch are at the mercy of others when it comes to a basic staple: bread. Most of the food nerds I know rarely bake bread; it’s simply too labor intensive and time consuming for most New Yorkers. Continue reading JP’s Adventures: Happiness is a Hunk of Good Bread
 169 Bar, 169 East Broadway. Photos by Cynthia Lamb.
169 Bar. I remember when it was a pleasant dive where I’d catch friends’ bands playing for peanuts. I remember when Flight of the Conchords was shot there. They eventually switched over to acoustic acts due to noise complaints. Somewhere around that time, 169 dropped off my radar. The acts I was going to see were playing Rockwood Music Hall or the Living Room. So I missed 169 Bar’s reinvention as New Orleans style bar, complete with a menu and oysters on the half shell. I had some catching up to do.
169 still feels like the middle ground between a dive bar and a lounge. They still have beer and a shot specials. The decor has been slightly upgraded with plenty of hanging colored lights – it is evocative of New Orleans. An oyster shucking station between the bar and the pool table offers a selection of East and West Coast examples. The beer choice ranges from PBR to Spaten. The mostly retro music selection is played a little on the loud side, but not annoyingly so. This adds up to 169 being a comfortable place to settle into on a warm evening.
Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: New Orleans Flavor at 169 Bar
 Top Hops, 94 Orchard Street. Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
I like Top Hops. The name sounds like a play on London’s Topshop, which took fashion cues from my buddies in the Strokes a number of times. Their music was playing when I walked into the shop, at 94 Orchard Street, making me feel at home. Beyond that I like Top Hop’s nerdiness. Before I was a food and wine nerd I was a beer nerd. I brewed my own beer, learning the nuances of roasted grains and “bittering” verses “finishing hops.” The difficult part back then was tasting examples of wide-ranging beer styles. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Top Hops is Top Notch
 Antibes Bistro, 112 Suffolk Street.
When home cooking is your hobby it’s easy to become jaded about restaurants. Some high-end places are exciting, but this excitement is not part of my everyday life. Crazy dishes from hole in the wall places manned by immigrants are fun to seek out, but every now and then I want to “up my game.”
And it’s the middlebrow restaurants ($30-$60 per person for an entree, wine, an appetizer and/or dessert) that tend to make me hyper-critical. I don’t expect a trained chef to cook my supper, but I assume the menu was put together by one. The food has to be better than what I bang out in my own kitchen most nights or I’m leaving dissatisfied. I don’t expect a sommelier, white tablecloths or uniformed servers, but I want a pleasant vibe, proper service and decent wine choices. I want a place where the dining experience is lovely, and the food impressive. Antibes bistro is such a place. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Interesting Twists on Bistro Classics at Antibes
 Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
I generally take a conservative approach to sushi. I don’t have much interest in fast food sushi or novelty rolls. Supposedly sushi is an art it takes a lifetime to master, and I’ve been lucky enough to have tasted some great examples of it here, on the West Coast and in Japan. That’s made me a little bit of a purist – I’d rather forgo the stuff entirely than shell out my hard-earned dough for lackluster examples. This orthodoxy allowed me to be caught off guard when I came across the most compelling thing I’ve eaten in a while at Ni Japanese Deli in the Essex Street Market. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Unconventional Sushi at Ni Japanese Deli
 Puebla, 47 1st Avenue. Photo by Cynthia Lamb.
When it comes to Mexican fast food some folks are crazy for California style burritos. Others enthuse over tacos, which have practically become a fetish item over the last few years. I’m down with both, but my particular weakness is for the torta sandwich. The premise of a Kaiser roll smeared with refried beans, stuffed with taco filling, then some avocado, lettuce and onion? Maybe a little tomato, too? Great. Add some queso to make it a cemita? Even better. That’s what I want to eat.
My neighborhood go to for a torta sandwich was Roots and Vines, on Grand Street. . Theirs wasn’t the best I’ve had, but it was flavorful, generous and very close to home. I got a roast pork torta there at least once a month. Unfortunately Roots and Vines stopped making sandwiches a couple weeks ago, leaving me in need of a new local source. This proved a difficult search. Tacos and burritos are all over the place, but tortas, ubiquitous in many Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, are hard to find on the Lower East Side. The best I’ve found yet is an unorthodox example just above Houston Street. Continue reading JP’s Food Adventures: Where to Go For a Torta
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