Public

I'd been walking by Public a couple times a month for more than a year before I ever got around to making a reservation. From the outside, the restaurant's decor was intriguing: towering ceilings, exposed stonework, and funky lighting lend the space an industrial look. So much effort is put into the look, however, that I had assumed Public to be the sort of restaurant where diners pay to eat in a nice-looking restaurant with nice-looking people, never mind the food. Luckily, a friend's recommendation led me to challenge that assumption one Saturday night in March.

Public is a four year old restaurant in Nolita (location) serving "Australasian" cuisine, which encompasses a wide variety of seafood and Southern Hemisphere meats. I get the impression it has passed its peak of "buzz", which is great for the diner: it's not very difficult to get a table and the service was excellent.

We started with the grilled scallops with sweet chili sauce and crême fraiche and the cured wild boar with Garrotxa cheese. The scallops were the highlight of the meal, with a perfect crispy char on the top and bottom that soaked up all the flavors of the dish.

Our main courses were the braised lamb shank and the mushroom-crusted venison loin. The lamb was on the dry side, but the venison was moist, tender, and not excessively gamey. The diners the next table over were busy raving about their pan-seared New Zealand snapper. The wine list is broad, but trends expensive. We tried a Semillon from L'Ecole No. 41, a Washington vineyard.

The service was good, and most notably, the waitstaff was exceedingly polite. I realize that I've spent enough time in New York that I've become inured to casually rude service at finer restaurants; our waitress at Public stood out for common courtesy and a smile. I've already returned once, and it's on my short list of places to take friends and family.

DON'T MISS: The grilled scallops with sweet chili sauce and crême fraiche.

NEXT TIME: I'll write about The Monday Room, a wine and small-plates bar located above Public through an entrance behind the host's table. They have reasonably-priced wine tasting flights and an extensive selection of wines by the half or full glass.

Shake Shack

The Shack of Shake
Originally uploaded by Ozzdo

Sarah, Matt Mendell and I had dinner at the Shake Shack last Friday. A warm summer evening on the grass, under the lights, in the middle of a crowd has a particularly New York feel.

Madison Square Park has really grown on me during my time in New York. It has the Shake Shack, public art installations, live music, benches and lawns for relaxing, a younger crowd, and most importantly, a dog run. The park is totally different from the way it was ten or fifteen years ago, when it was a dangerous, run-down and overgrown site that most folks stayed away from. Not all of the changes to New York in that period have been good, but it's hard to argue with this one.

Li Hua Korean Cuisine

Li Hua is a tastefully modern Korean restaurant at the corner of Grand St & Center St in Chinatown. The dining space is open but quiet, well-suited for lunch with a few friends. The kitchen serves up high-quality Korean classics like gopdol, bibimbab, scallion pancakes and ribs at downright reasonable prices -- entrées are $10 to $15. The bowls of "little eats" that come out at the beginning of the meal are appetizing even to Korean-food neophytes. I also recommend the warm house sake, even at lunchtime, even if you've never had sake.

VERDICT: Much better than Manna Express off Union Square. If you have a Korean lunch itch that needs scratching, try Li Hua.

A Fire Island Summer.

Summer on Fire Island seems to me what life in Florida should be like, and would've been like if growing up there hadn't led me to take it for granted.

We've stayed at the Malakoffs' rented beach house at Davis Park on Fire Island three times this summer, and each visit has been a transcendentally relaxing experience. Everyone moves from waking to eating fresh fish, bagels, grilled meats and vegetables, to lying on the beach, to reading on the porch, to watching DVDs in a sandy warm haze before falling asleep again. I sit eating rare steak, drinking a margarita and staring off through the trees into darkness and think, "This is what life should be like."

It's taken full-time employment to make me truly understand warm vacations. For the first time in my life, I'm eagerly looking to spend two weeks on a sandy island doing nothing. I don't know where, and I'm not sure exactly when, but it's going to be glorious. If you've got any favorite islands in the middle of nowhere, feel free to let me know. In the meantime, I'm going to miss Sarasota and Siesta Key a little bit.

Bloody Marys.

The usual crew went to Prune last Sunday for a warm, lazy brunch. Prune serves about ten different Bloody Marys, ranging from the traditional to the Chicago Matchbox (pictured at right and served with pickled green beans, caperberries, turnip, radish, brussels sprouts and loaded full of horseradish and homemade lemon vodka). I went with the Southwest, which featured a bit of tequila alongside a smoky chipotle pepper and tabasco sauce and almost burned my tongue off. Thank goodness they're all served with a small beer chaser on the side. The fried oyster omelette was excellent, while the huevos rancheros were good but not worth the wait on their own.

I feel like there's a lot to be said for the New York brunch, when one rolls out of bed, strolls a few blocks to meet equally-disheveled friends, and munches on comfort food while sipping a deceptively strong cocktail. I think after a few more of these I'll come up with some mind-blowing conclusions, but for now I'll settle for this: it's certainly a great way to begin a Sunday.

If all of you faithful readers *cough* have any favorites, I'd appreciate your brunch recommendations.

Pizza & Ice Cream.

This afternoon Sarah, Michelle, Alex and I took a trip across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights, home of Grimaldi's Pizza and the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. The line at Grimaldi's Pizza was about six parties and fifteen minutes long, so we were sitting in front of the pizza pictured at the right in no time.

It was delicious. I'm not quite sure if it's my favorite; my previously uncontested favorite, Pepe's Pizza, has become a bit obscured by the fog of my un-memory in the two years since I've been there. I'm going to have to arrange a return trip before too long so I can form a proper evaluation (Scelfo, I'm looking at you). But the slightly-thicker-than-thin-crust, perfectly-sized mozzarella chunks, and tasteful amounts of fresh basil, along with all the other elective toppings, really added up to the ideal texture and taste for a pizza. Nothing overwhelming, and everything complimentary. Highly recommended. Two small pizzas was just the right amount for four people, or perhaps even a bit too much.

We trundled our full bellies out of Grimaldi's into the bright, unforgiving light of early afternoon and walked a block down to the waterfront and the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. We split two cones between four people, sampling the chocolate chocolate chunk and strawberry flavors. I can't imagine how strawberry ice cream could've gone wrong on a hot, sunny afternoon along the East River; unsurprisingly, it was great.

If anyone in New York is looking for a pleasant afternoon excursion in this warm weather, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest a trip across the Brooklyn Bridge to Grimaldi's and the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.

Internet For Winos.

MD 20/20

I read an article in Wired a while ago claiming that public-access Internet terminals, and even laptops, allowed the homeless to create a home for themselves without having to pay rent.

Living in a squalid, Woodstock-style bus parked in a Fillmore, California, orange grove, the 53-year-old homeless man [named Happy Ivy] charges a power generator from a utility shed and uses Wi-Fi from a nearby access point. From this humble camp, he's managed to run a 'round-the-clock internet television studio, organize grassroots political efforts, record a full-length album and write his autobiography, all while subsisting on oranges and avocados.

I imagine Happy Ivy is a bit of an exception; most homeless surely don't have the luxury of owning their own laptop. I'm willing to bet, however, that homeless individuals with 'net access via public libraries and similar methods do, as the article contends, use e-mail as the postbox they've never had.

I know social networking has been expanding at a rapid pace into ever more focused niches. But imagine my surprise to find a social networking site tailor-made for those guys on the benches in front of Libby's in Central Square: Cork'd!

The creators may call Cork'd a wine reviewing/networking/tagging site, but I tend to see it as a liberating way to trade tips on cheap wine. Unfortunately, it's currently occupied principally by yuppies. You should probably check it out, as it's wicked cool. Me, I've got to do my part for the less fortunate and start reviewing the "Mad Dog 20/20 Blue Raspberry (BLING BLING)".

P.S. For extra coolness, check out the inline wine journal below my blogroll on the right. Kickass.