A Few Things I Ate in February and March
And the songs that got me through the cold season. Kernels, February 1 - March 20, 2025.
This is Kernels, a grab bag of what I’ve been up to and into lately — essentially my version of a seen/read/heard column. Included in this edition: last season’s fave music, steak frîtes at home, a kale salad at St. Jardim, and Medieval Times.
There was a lot going on for me in the back half of this winter, if you couldn’t tell from those Oscars dinner writeups. Since the last ten newsletters were all related to the Academy Awards, consider this a detox from movie discourse. I certainly needed it!
Winter Playlist
Sixteen songs that I listened to a lot during the cold, cold winter that is officially and blessedly over. Mixed within the typical pop and indie rock selections are my usual guilty pleasures (irredeemably bro-ey country and Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned musical numbers).
Though I’m not usually one to watch music videos, John Wilson directed one for Bon Iver and it has helped with the How To withdrawals I forgot I had:
And why yes, I am a fan of Lady Gaga’s new album. (I’ll be watching the Coachella livestream in a few weeks.) Whether or not it actually sounds like a Taylor Swift vault track circa 1989 is immaterial; “How Bad Do U Want Me” will be at the top of my spring playlist.
On the dancey side of things, Lyon-based DJ Maï-Linh turned in a killer set of bouncy house music for her NTS debut, and then followed it up with a much more chilled out, ethereal mix. Both are great!
Dining In
We Have Steak Night at Home
Some readers (aka my IRLs) know that I share a fire escape with my cousin Olivia and we frequently have friends over for dinner. Another cousin, from the other side of her family, was visiting town and we decided to have our whole New York-based family over for a steak dinner.
I really don’t think there’s ever a reason to go to an American-style steakhouse if you have access to a good butcher: steaks are very easy to cook, and I am not afraid of smoking up my kitchen1.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Olivia and I walked over to Prospect Butcher Co. and picked four different cuts of beef: tri tip, Denver, strip, and bone-in ribeye. In the morning I heavily salted and peppered everything and set them on a wire rack in the fridge, then in the evening let it sit out for an hour or so before firing up the proverbial grill.
The accompanying french fries were not made from scratch, as the frozen stuff at the supermarket is much easier and quite cheap. They were fried in duck fat, a quart of which I had stashed in my fridge as a byproduct from last year’s duck-ventures.
Eric manned the “grill” for most of the night while I focused on fries and sauces. (It’s great to have family who can also great cooks!) In an attempt to reduce inside smoke, we did the steaks on my fire escape, which I had done in the past with success… but the cold night had some negative effects. The smoke rushed back through the open window and into the apartment (and Eric’s face). The first batch of steaks didn’t brown as much as we would have liked. I think it had to do with the surrounding air temp being much colder, so we had to adjust a bit by briefly searing off the sides of the meat and pressing down to ensure good contact with the pan.
The tri tips were solid, and the Denver cut was a revelation: it’s a relatively new, cheap cut taken from the shoulder, that has brilliant marbling and brilliant texture that I highly recommend, especially for the price. Those were served with simple pan sauces of wine, butter, and herbs.
The strips were served au poivre, and I added some Szechuan peppercorns into the crust which I will definitely do again, but with better execution on the sauce next time around as it seized up a bunch. Still tasty.
We ended dinner with a glorious, three-inch thick bone-in ribeye. This one underwent a reverse sear and we left the fat cap intact, because fat is flavor, though we probably could have used some to grease the pans. This came out beautifully, but it’s kind of hard to screw this one up.
I was particularly excited about having a steak frîtes night because it was an occasion to break out the big, bold reds that don’t pair well with what I usually cook. We ran the gamut of classic steak pairings: California Cab Sauv (to go with the California-born tri tip), Argentinian malbec (Denver), Rioja Gran Reserva (strip au poivre — hands down our fave wine of the night; the spices of the wine and the peppers were the perfect match), and Châteauneuf du Pape (ribeye)
In typical Viet family fashion, the night ended with a plate of fruit (thanks to Brian and Amanda!) and karaoke.
Other Fun Things I Cooked
Had a freezer-clearing kick in February in preparation for those Oscars dinners, and I turned two duck carcasses and a duck breast into a big pot of duck phở.
My office had a cookie swap in February, which was a perfect reason to bake my absolute favorite cookie recipe, from now-closed Ochre Bakery in Detroit. Chocolate chips and hazelnuts are always a winning combo, but the secret ingredient here is honey, which gives the cookie a perfectly moist texture.
On President’s Day (aka a Monday off), I hung around the house to braise a lamb leg with olives and other aromatics, and served the meat on a bed of puréed celery root. This Melissa Clark recipe was a winner, and it’ll make it onto my “having friends for dinner” menus come fall.
A byproduct of making the tortellini en brodo for my Oscars parties was all of the simmered meat used to make that broth. The American Sfoglino cookbook has a recipe for Lesso Ripassatto, in which the meat is quickly simmered in some tomatoes to make a light, stewy pasta sauce. It’s much lighter on the palate than it would seem, more chicken noodle soup than ragù.
For my Oscars viewing party, I took it easy and ordered a bunch of pizza so I wouldn’t spend all evening making food. The one thing I made was a batch of chocolate cream scones (for a pun: A Complete Un-scone). I used to make these a lot, and not sure why I ever stopped. They’re amazing!
One of my fave seafood appetizers is Spanish-style squid and white beans. I used this recipe as a basis but mostly eyeballed everything.
Fun Things I Want To Cook
The New York Times has a package of recipes from Andy Baraghani to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year. These all look great, and would make for a complete feast, but look at the wild green of the Kuku Sabzi (Herb and Scallion Frittata)! I love Persian food but eat it and cook it far too rarely.
Eating Out
This section is particularly off the cuff because my “deadline” for this piece was one week ago. (Editors, ignore that sentence! I do not procrastinate!) All prices are inclusive of tip and tax!!
Mắm
I went here in summer 2022 when Bún Đậu Mắm Tôm was all they offered. My initial disappointment that they took it off the menu was quickly replaced with delight. The restaurant has grown in size but still feels homespun, with the same metal tables and plastic stools that you’d see in Vietnam. Your meal may be soundtracked by a playlist of Vietnamese throwbacks that suddenly switched to “Not Like Us” for some reason.
I think the menu changes fairly often, but my favorite dishes were Ốc Bươu Nhồi Thịt (stuffed snails with lemongrass and pork) and Đậu mắm hành (fried tofu with a yummy scallion fish sauce). Their Northern-style Phở Bò is clean and not as aggressively spiced as I’m used to, but it’s very very beefy all the same, which many of the Viet places in New York neglect in favor of cutting costs. If you’re into it, add on the tendons and youtiao. We got all the snacks plus the one bowl of pho for $29 a head.
Potluck Club
There are quite a few second-gen Cantonese restaurants these days — Bonnie’s wasn’t the first, but it started the trend — and Potluck Club seems to be the next success in this category, at least judging by how all my friends posted it on their Instagram stories last year. It’s a well designed space, inspired by American diners. Several months removed from the hype, I had a very good brunch here, though I’ve been told that dinner is where they really shine. Highlights were a brilliant endive salad with ample pecorino and the karaoke fries, which use fish balls (genius idea) and curry sauce. Those don’t sound particularly Chinese, but the fruit gummies dropped with the check are a rejoinder that the people here are building on their roots, not ignoring them. Be sure to go to the bathroom, which has this really cool Space Age Jetsons thing going on.
Place des Fêtes
I think the move here is to treat a meal here as one should with sushi: get some great wines (the bottle list skews Spanish) and their best small plates, but rely on a pizza slice for sustenance. Perhaps we just didn’t order right; I can’t wholly recommend a restaurant that charges $18 for five slices of mortadella, no matter how beautifully presented. The move at these kinds of New American spots is to go for the vegetables; the grilled beets were tossed in beef marrow, giving it a depth of flavor while remaining light on the stomach. On that note, I also loved the fried maitake which comes with a black garlic dip. Including two bottles of wine, my cut of the check was $144.
St. Jardim
Pretty much the same style of cuisine as Place des Fêtes — fun wines with small, seasonal plates in a cozy room — but I had a much more consistently enjoyable meal here. I’m not exactly sure why. Pretty much everything I ate at St. Jardim was a winner. If I had to pick my highlights: an amazing lacinato kale salad with a buttermilk dressing, fava beans, and chicken skins; roasted sunchokes with a barely melted slice of lardo (animal fat makes everything better); and a simple seeming shrimp rice, cooked in a super fishy dashi (triple the bonito) and served with bacon and peas. It’s an Asian risotto riff on a gussied up mac and cheese, and seems like a family meal favorite that made its way onto the menu.
One of my tips on what to order, when you know you’re at an excellent restaurant: if the ingredients list seems far too quotidian compared to the rest of the offerings, that dish is probably there for a reason. Part of my check was comped, as I was eating with one of their staffers but without the homie hookups it probably would have cost me $130 with a couple bottles of wine.
Lighthouse
This Harlem mainstay for soul/seafood specializes in giant trays of seafood dinners for just $20 a pop. You’ll have to find somewhere else to eat if you go to the takeout-only westside location, and I have to say that I preferred the blackened catfish to the fried counterpart. Not a complaint: both are very good and you will be very full after.
Medieval Times
Told some New Jersey natives that I was going for a birthday party and they asked if my friend was turning 12. She’s a bit older than that, but most of my fellow attendees in Lyndhurst were either children or their associates (parents). If you’re not familiar with this establishment, as I was not until last Sunday: you eat a three-course meal2 while watching knights fight each other, sometimes on horseback. The “dinner” side of this dinner theater was adequate; you’ll get the finest tomato soup and garlic bread that Sysco can provide. Famously, the main dish is a half chicken, sans utensils, but eating with your hands is actually more sensible than fumbling around with a fork in the dark. The thighs were surprisingly juicy, the breasts expectedly okay, and the baked potato side really needed more salt. Dessert on this day was a chocolate éclair, fresh out of the walk-in.
But we’re not gathered here for a gourmet meal. As to the “theater” that unfolded as we greased our fingers with chicken drippings: maybe I should go to a Wrestlemania show? Undoubtedly thrilling to watch a bunch of dudes fake fight each other, but the script is lacking in terms of character arcs and tangible stakes. They should do a Medieval Times “After Dark” with more violence (the King wouldn’t allow any kills, presumably to protect the young children even if it’s what we all wanted), deeper storylines, and perhaps a bit of Middle Ages burlesque. I am certainly not the first person to suggest this. The experience cost me $93, which included a drink ticket and a commemorative photo, and I had a very fun time celebrating my friend’s birthday. We dressed up in period-appropriate garb, with varying levels of effort.
I wonder how many times a day, on average, are the knights on the receiving end of post-show flirtations. I know the birthday girl contributed two.
February Grog Log
A running tab of my first alcoholic drink of the day.
Colonel Taylor Bourbon at Byron's
Priorat "Bellmunt", Mas d'en Gil 2020 at Olivia's
Killsboro gertrude’s brew pilsner at Gertrude's
Kirin Ichiban at TV Eye
Nothing
Anora Cosmopolitan test at home
Southern Tier Winter Ale at Young Ethel's
Jazz Adjacent at Sisters
Alewife Queens Blvd at Beer Culture
Corpse Reviver at Francie
Nothing
Nothing
Cocktail experiment OFTD coffee midori at home
Venus Rising at Vacations
Herbal Tea at Monkey King
Crémant de Limoux, Racine at Dan's
Yemanueva Airén de Pie Franco, Bodega La Tercia 2023 at home
Gavi di Gavi, Tenuta Il Bergo 2023 at Josh's
Nothing
Broc Cellars, Love Red 2022 at home
Brooklyn Kura Test Tide at home
Delacroix Brut at home
Naked and Famous at home
Cassis Blanc, Dom. du Bagnol 2021 at Olivia’s
Nothing
Sterling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 at home
Nothing
Nothing
I make an exception for Korean-style joints like Cote, since making all of those banchan can be effort-prohibitive.
Medieval Times claims that this is a four-course meal but be for real; garlic bread is not a separate course.
✍️ note to self: get a friend who will cook you steaks on their fire escape...
I feel like you may already know this, but Lori Jayne in Bushwick has a pretty good $20 steak frite and they also add Szechuan peppercorn to the sauce!
LOL I went to Medieval Times for a school field trip in high school. It was so much fun with absolutely no educational value whatsoever.