City Grit, Yo! “CITY GRIT is a Culinary Salon – a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste.”
Mrs. Robot, because she is clever and all, grabbed us a spot at the latest City Grit dining food eating club... thing. Paul Qui, the Top Chef winning chef from Austin was hosting this week and because we are a bit of pathetic nerds about certain television shows, we were excited to go.
Dinner is held in an old school house in NOLITA (ugh, I’ve never called it that before) and we had spots for the past Saturday night dinner. Were you in NYC this past weekend? If you were, you’ll remember it was/is pretty hot - oddly so. Normally, that first week of July is the killer week for heat, but Saturday and Sunday were both borderline unbearable.
I mention the heat because this school house didn’t have AC and the City Grit folks did their best with a ton of fans and portable AC units to keep things cool (partially successful - while we were warm, people at other tables looked like they might not make it).
What we had
Tuna Jamon
Lardo, olive oil, melon
Tomato Water
Mussel, celery, basil
Sunchoke Dashi
uni, squash, creme fraiche
Smoked Trout
Brown bitter, preserved lemon, verjus
Quail
beer, miso, strawberry
Pork Jowl
corn, coriander, black lime
Rice Milk
Coconut, pandan, parsnip
What I adored
Tuna & Lardo
Oh, tuna and pork. Why are you just now getting together in my mouth? Crazy. Like a fatty fatty tuna.
Tomato Water + Mussels
The tomato water was apparently made up of uber-pricey heirloom tomatoes and the staff was nervous toting it around. Perfect for a hot evening.
Quail
No mention on the menu of this crazy small peppers that packed some heat that showed up in this dish. The quail was literally finger-licking-good.
Pork Jowl
Stupid good. Crispy and savory. The little bits of burned/charred bits were out of this world.
Actually, I liked all the dishes.
The trout with browned butter was spectacular. The sunchoke dashi dish. All super tasty.
