Fishy Business, Kochi, Rosella, Ha's Dac Biet
Kernels: Jan 9 - 28, 2024 — Part Two
Kernels is a somewhat weekly column of what I’ve been up to lately. If you missed Part One, which has some notes on recent theater productions and a signup form to receive a year-end postcard from my cat, you can read it here.
This part focuses on what I ate this month, both at home and out on the town. I had dinner at Kochi, Rosella, and Ha’s Dac Biet, and there’s a cranky non-review of a new omakase counter. I also cooked some seafood from the farmer’s market and compiled a list of good things I read in the New Yorker.
(If you’re reading this via email, this will probably get cut off, so click the headline above to see the whole thing.)
A Restaurant Week
Once again, there was one week in the month where I had multiple expensive dinners. This time, they were on three consecutive days, and all three restaurants offered novel spins on Asian cuisines.
Ha’s Dac Biet x Gem Wine Bar
“The city’s most exciting chefs are cooking in someone else’s restaurant,” declared Alex Jung in his Grub Street column, and he and I are in agreement that Ha’s Dac Biet are among the best of New York’s thriving pop-up scene. Setting up short term residencies in restaurants across New York and beyond (they’ve appeared in Paris and Montréal, among other locales), the itinerant nature of their pop-ups also makes them a bit too exclusive; a recent collaboration between Ha’s Dac Biet and the famed Bistrôt Paul Bert sold out within seconds. So when I happened to open Instagram mere minutes after the Ha’s Dac Biet team announced a five-night stand at Gem House, a private event space run by a Lower East Side wine bar, I smashed that reservation button as soon as I could: Friday night, 5:30 PM, table for four. Although I’ve taken a hiatus from doing the “book first invite later” restaurant dinners that I’m notorious for, this would be worth an exception.
The warm, brick walled space was inviting, with the shelves lined with candles and wine bottles. A soundtrack of hipster electronic pop from the 2000s (e.g. “Heartbeats” by The Knife, “212” by Azalea Banks) matched with the general age group of the night’s guests. Even though all twenty seats were taken, there was a feeling of intimacy, like you were in the Parisian wine bar of your dreams. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that we were all at New York’s hottest temporary restaurant.
Anthony Ha and Sadie Mae Burns, partners both in cooking and love1, are practicing a sort of reverse colonization of the French. They’re remixing bistro standbys with a heavy Vietnamese twist, a cuisine that itself is heavily influenced by the French. A dinner from Ha’s Dac Biet is an education in how everything came from something, even if that something was colonialism.
With a group of four, we were able to order everything on the menu besides the duck breast, which we all agreed was the most skippable of the dishes. (I saw other people order it and it looked really good.) Three of us split a bottle of a delicious orange wine from Florèz Wines in Santa Cruz. Made with viognier grapes, the funkiness held fast against the onslaught of fish sauce during our meal.
Here’s the rundown of what we ate. The photos are not the best because of the low lighting and I’m not turning on the flash when people are trying to have a nice meal!
Oeuf mayo: Like an egg salad but with pork floss and sliced bird's eye chili, covered in a rich hollandaise sauce.
Duck and pork terrine: the pickled radishes was a far better accoutrement than the conventional cornichons.
Salad: The perfect winter salad. Radicchio, cara cara oranges, sliced fennel, mint, and rau ram are tossed in a fish sauce vinaigrette and topped with fried shallots. The recipe for that vinaigrette is online, so I was able to recreate this salad a few days later!
Tuna carpaccio with limequat and capers.
Peconic snails (escargot) braised in tomato & lemongrass: with a whole bird's eye chili in the sauce, which had a really pleasant spiciness. This would be so good with spaghetti.
Squid ink risotto with lap cheong: Earlier iterations of the menu had this as a stuffed squid, but I figured that sourcing difficulties meant a switch to a more traditional preparation with sliced squid. That didn’t change how terrific this was, with detectable levels of bird's eye chili, fish sauce, and olive oil. Nice and spicy!
Shrimp toast: basically a Chao Tom sandwich. It’s redundant at this point to say that the bird’s eye chili was a nice touch.
Skate wing with ginger nuoc mam & escarole: a classic French fish with classic Vietnames preparation. The fish was steamed over the greens, which were delicious.
Goat “bo kho” vol au vent: This slapped. Bo kho is a traditional beef and carrot stew, and swapping in goat gave it a stronger flavor. The meat overflowed out of the puff pastry shell, showing the straight line drawn between Carême’s classic vol-au-vent and the Vietnamese pâté chaud.
The desserts skew more classic French, and were a great way to end a perfect dinner. The meringue, served with a Meyer lemon compote, included tangerine slices, because no Asian feast is complete with that citrus. The peanut pie was good too: imagine a pecan pie, but with peanuts.
The Ha’s Dac Biet team runs a lean operation: it’s just the two chefs working in the back of the house, aided by two servers who brought out dishes and recommended wine pairings. (I assume there was a dishie toiling somewhere, but I didn’t see him.) I suspect this small staff was why the dinner was rather economical, at least compared to the other meals I had that week: after tip and tax, my portion of the meal was $85, plus another $33 to split a bottle of wine three ways. We could have cut one of the dishes and still left satisfied; we left so stuffed that we could barely finish our nightcap beers at a nearby bar.
Here’s the menu and wine list, for those curious:
Rosella
Maddeningly, but fittingly, the word “bimonthly” has two meanings. It can mean “every other month” or “twice a month,” and Mirriam-Webster will tell you both usages are valid. Because of this split meaning, I always have to phrase my frequent dinners at Rosella, my favorite restaurant in New York, as something that occurs every other month. While I’d love to use the snappier “bimonthly,” some may think that I’m eating great sushi every time I get a paycheck deposited into my account. The frustrating sorta-dichotomy of this word is not dissimilar to the current tensions within the New York dining scene. As the prices of everything have increased, especially at restaurants, diners have to make tough decisions about where to spend their money. While we are certainly still eating out at nice restaurants — try snagging a reservation at Tatiana; I can’t — I suspect that most individuals are doing so less frequently. (Or perhaps I’m just speaking for myself.) So where does that leave restaurant operators? If the Rosella team’s new venture, a $250 omakase counter called Bar Miller, can be taken as one indicator: when budgets go low, aim for the high end. There’s still an upper class of people who can afford to regularly drop hundreds of dollars on dinner, and those of us slightly less fortunate will always save up to have a splurge meal.
(One exception that proves the rule can be found in Coqodaq, a new restaurant from the team behind Korean steakhouse Cote. The fried chicken prix fixe is a mere $50ish after tip and tax. But it’s a loss leader, with the owner telling Eater that “if everybody came in and ordered the [prix fixe] and left, I don’t think I would be able to sustain my business.” Temptations come in the form of seafood towers and champagne and caviar: if you took a date here, it would be a bad look to miss out on all the fun that the other tables are having.)
I know this sounds like the preamble to a negative review of the new restaurant. But I haven’t been yet, and I’m not sure when I will. It’s not a ding against the team at Rosella and Bar Miller. I’m sure the latter terrific, transplanting the sustainability ethos of the original restaurant to a more luxe tasting format. (Everything, from the fish to the soy sauce, is made in the USA.) The Infatuation describes Bar Miller as “your friendly neighborhood bar,” and if the service is as great as it is at Rosella, diners will be well taken care of. But it doesn’t cost over $300 for a stool at my neighborhood bar. After factoring in tip and tax, each individual course at Bar Miller averages out to $21.50. At Rosella, the average piece of nigiri costs $12. (To be fair, I assume not every course at Bar Miller is nigiri.) When I go to Rosella, I typically spend a bit over $100 on food2. That’s not nothing, but because I make it a point to go regularly, I can actually treat it like a neighborhood bar. Plus, the à la carte format would allow for someone to factor Rosella into a high/low dinner: pop in for a glass of wine, a couple pieces of great sushi, then fill up from some $1.50 slices.
But this is all rationalizing for a more basic question. Rosella is my favorite restaurant. It costs me about $100 to have a full meal there. Is the omakase at Bar Miller going to be three times better than that, or more enriching than three separate dinners at Rosella? I would guess no, and if that was the case, maybe I don’t want to know that.
Anyways, because this was supposed to be a review of a restaurant I actually did go to, here are some words on my “bimonthly” visit to Rosella. It was terrific, as always. Even though I’ve been eight times now, there’s always something new to discover. It took me over a year to notice how much the staff likes to play The 1975 over the speakers. And one of my friends, who’s got a palate far more discerning than mine, noted how much of what we ate had Korean influences — white kimchi in the fatty tuna roll, gochugaru in the spicy avocado roll. Although that’s not exactly a secret, it was something I had never thought to point out. The monkfish liver, new to the menu, was luxurious: imagine the texture and fattiness of foie gras, but it’s cleaner tasting. Also loved the mackerel nigiri, the fishy flavor of which is never a problem for me, but it was tampered down a bit with some choice seasonings.
The past couple times I went here, I skipped dessert, opting to go to Superiority Burger instead. That’s not a bad idea, one even endorsed by Rosella’s staff. But the desserts here are far from perfunctory. The coconut sorbet and miso carrot cake have stayed on the menu for good reason.
This was one of the bigger meals I’ve had at Rosella. When we were asked how full we were, we made the mistake of saying we were still very hungry, and ten minutes later that appetite disappeared. Spent $125 on food (a couple dishes were comped) and $27 on one glass of wine.
Everything we ate, for a party of four:
Avocado roll (their "bread and butter"), gochugaru layered in for sweet heat
Ceviche, with kiwi
Porgy nigiri
Smoked steelhead trout nigri
Farro miso
Monkfish liver (what if foie gras but fish)
Crab roll
Crudo blanco
Mackerel nigiri 👍
Bluefin tuna nigiri
Fatty tuna roll
Shrimp nigiri
Smoked uni nigiri
Salmon avocado roll
Endive house salad
Bagels on Hudson roll
Smoked Uni roll
Fatty Bluefin nigiri
Coconut sorbet
Miso carrot cake
Nota bene: it looks like the fish sausage slider is back on the menu, which wasn’t available when I was here a couple weeks ago. Get it while it lasts! The monkfish liver seems to have disappeared, but hopefully that is temporary.
Kochi
This Hell’s Kitchen restaurant opened in 2019, one of many fancy Korean spots that would open in the years to follow. My short take is that, while the nine-course tasting menu is very good, and beautifully composed, it’s far too expensive at $185 — after tip and tax, that’s $238. It’s a victim (proponent?) of dining inflation: it was $75 when it first opened, and the initial menu doesn’t look that much different from today’s offerings. The restaurant was full on a Wednesday night, so the high rollers are doing their duty to keep the economy alive. (I suppose I am one of them.)
My palate was thrown off by a first course that was heavier than expected, a “sweet potato soup,” which featured chapsal (a glutinous rice flour beignet) and caviar. But the meal quickly recovered, with a supplemental abalone course that was one of my favorite bites of the night. The braised mollusc had a mushroom-like texture, and combined with the shrimp jeon underneath, it had the feeling of pork belly, but less fatty. “Kochi” is Korean for skewer, and the conceit extends through most of the courses, some more tortured than others. The halibut was cleverly shaped to look like a popsicle, placed atop a soup of bean sprouts and mustard greens (which were very flavorful) and some soft tofu. Many of the skewers come with fun accompaniments; the pork collar had these flattened, layered sheets of savoy cabbage that were salted and parboiled, then dried (presumably in the walk-in), that lead to a crisp-tender bite that offered a respite from the fattiness of that pork.
When it comes to the heaviest course, you’re offered a choice between duck breast or A5 wagyu. I opted for the duck, my friend the wagyu. But the additional $59 is not worth it. As is often the case with these meat supplements, the default choice is usually going to be great anyways. Served on the side was a delicious barley risotto, which was made with an umami-laden mushroom stock. What follows the heaviest meat course at most tasting menus is something carbier, just in case you’re not stuffed by now: a snow crab bibimbap was competent, functioning as a comedown from dishes past, and offering satiation insurance thanks to all the rice. The meal ended with a couple desserts, including a puck of lovely chestnut ice cream with an apple compote stuffed inside.
A downside of dining out so often, and especially at similar Korean fine dining establishments, is that it’s hard to be surprised these days. Was it enough that the cooks at Kochi were fantastic at executing on the vision? Why does a meal have to be surprising to be worthwhile? Normally, I’d be very happy with what I ate here, but the price of that tasting menu has kept rising and rising and rising, and it’s gotten higher than the point of satisfaction. As the cost goes up, so must our standards.
Farmer’s Market Fish
The best vendor at the farmer’s market near me is America’s Pride Seafood, a fishmonger that offers a startlingly wide array of marine creatures. I bought a monkfish fillet and tried two different ways of cooking it. The first way was to fry it in the manner of the Basques. Per my cookbook, the fish was dredged in flour then dipped in a beaten egg before going into the hot oil. It’s more of a batter than a breading. I had made this some months before, following the recipe’s directive to deep fry in a garlic infused olive oil, and it turned out well. This time around, I was already deep frying some chicken in vegetable oil and just used that. It was… not as good as I remembered it.
So the day after, I kept it simple and seared the rest of my monkfish in a pan, tossing in some Thai basil after turning off the heat. Garnished with fried shallots and fish sauce, it was a preparation that I preferred a lot more. The plating left a lot to be desired but it was very tasty! (Using a white plate was bad move. A darker color, to offer contrast with the light flesh of the fish, would have looked nicer.)
The seafood market also sells fresh roe sacs, and this one came from a John Dory. I asked the guy at the counter what to do with it, and he said just to pan fry it in some olive oil or butter and garlic, which is exactly what I did. Wish I could say I loved this but the taste and texture of the cooked roe is best described as brain-like, maybe more like tofu. It was only $6 which is pretty darn cheap. Next time, I might try curing it at home for some DIY bottarga!
Other Fun Things I Ate This Month
Tinned hake kokotxa at my friend Aaron’s place. He worked some black magic to get this imported into the US.
A chopped cheese from a deli that I desperately needed before heading to a birthday party.
Vegetarian black bean chowder, livened up with orange juice and Jamaican rum.
Butternut squash steaks with brown butter and sage. I love this recipe.
Not pictured: lamb scottadito and potato gratin that Eric made, and a very warming soup night hosted by Sravya.
The New York Review of New Yorkers: January
I’m one of those people who actually reads their New Yorker each week, practically cover to cover. (This is also why I don’t read as many books as I’d like.) These are the pieces I liked the most from this month:
A Palestinian Poet’s Perilous Journey Out of Gaza, By Mosab Abu Toha
I don’t want to hug anyone, because I don’t want to believe that I am leaving them. I kiss my parents and shake hands with my siblings, as though I am only going on a short trip. What I am feeling is not guilt but a sense of unfairness. Why can I leave and they cannot? We are lucky that Mostafa was born in the U.S. Does it make them less human, less worthy of protection, that their children were not? I think about how, when we go, I may not be able to call them, or even find out whether they are alive or dead. Every step we take will take us away from them.
The Mongol Hordes: They’re Just Like Us, By Manvir Singh
Global history was supposed to transcend all such forms of parochialism, and this goal, at first, seems realized in the steppe restoration. The nomads, we are told, created cities, enforced peace, and guaranteed religious freedom. They encouraged trade and cultural interaction, recombining ideas, peoples, and technologies—with world-shaking consequences.
Yet a paradox runs through these books. Steppe peoples are most noteworthy, they seem to assure us, when they look like rich, settled societies. They have a role in “world history” insofar as they affect the rise and fall of sedentary, often European, polities. And so the steppe restoration ends up affirming the standards it set out to challenge.
Adventures of a Teen-Age Wharf Rat, By Jon Lee Anderson
Once our documents passed inspection, we were allowed through, but the Guardia had made it clear that we were not welcome in Las Palmas. We weren’t worried. Surely, we thought, we’d be leaving for Africa within a few days.
A Passion-Fruit Devotee’s Pilgrimage West, By Hannah Goldfield
To follow the scent of passion fruit around Los Angeles is to discover some of the city’s most inventive cooking.
“Chance the Cat”, By David Means (fiction)
Did it matter that there were a few perfect days that would remain in her memory, days when they listened to music and shared ideas, days when they sat with the cat and William danced around the apartment, imitating his father’s flat, secure, calm legal voice; days when the clear fall air came across the quad as they walked, as he told her about fishing trips to northern Wisconsin, clipping his voice in a way she liked; or how she reached down and pulled the threads from a hole in his jeans, spreading her fingers over his bony white kneecap?
An Uneven “Prayer for the French Republic” Comes to Broadway, By Helen Shaw
The playwright Joshua Harmon broaches profound questions of Jewish identity in his drama, but a bigger stage and a changed moment reveal its flaws.
Goodyear, By David Sedaris
One of the many good things about Dawn is that she never complains about walking, never says, “You told me it was only another few blocks an hour ago,” never moans that her feet are tired or so swollen that her shoes no longer fit. The farther the better, that’s our motto.
Our record is forty-three miles in a single day—ninety-one thousand steps, according to our Fitbits. “Where did you do this?” people ask when I boast about it. It’s a question that baffles me. If someone told me he’d eaten seventy-five corn dogs in one sitting, my response wouldn’t be “Where?” but “Why not seventy-six corn dogs? Why not eighty?”
are they basically living out the 21st century version of The Taste of Things? I think maybe!
I’m not including drinks in these comparisons, as the costs are probably comparable.
finally paid my first visit to Rosella and it did not disappoint