So I've been reading about
Fatty Crab in NYC for a long time, but the gods have kept conspiring against me when I've tried to eat there. In fact on Friday, I first showed up for lunch only to find a sign on the door saying they were closed until dinner -- undaunted, I wandered the West Village for 4 hours and returned promptly to chow down.
The dishes aren't huge so even with only 2 people we got a nice variety. A
green mango with chili-salt "snack" was simple and refreshing -- Asian wisdom knows that the salt brings out the sweetness in an otherwise tart fruit. The other "salad" (which usually implies healthy...) was
pickled watermelon with crispy pork. The striated cubes of fatty pork were deep-fried, so when you bit into them the fat melted in your mouth like butter.
Our two main dishes were
Sambal clams: which included one huge succulent razor clam and over a dozen cherrystones simmered in a spicy, pungent sauce. I wasn't familiar with Indonesian
Sambal sauce, being more used to Chinese chili-garlic sauces, but I'm gonna look for it next time I'm at the Asian market; and the
fatty duck: large chunks of duck that have been brined, steamed, then fried had a wonderfully peppery flavor, crispy outerskin, luscious fat layer, and nice meaty flesh. They were topped with crisp pickled cabbage, thinly sliced red chilies, and served over fragrant toasted rice with a rich sweet sauce. The sweet teeny rice flour cakes they brought out with the check were nice too. We were pretty fatted-out, so for dessert we just grabbed a couple lovely little Valrhona chocolate cookies at
Three Tarts. They sell gifts, collectibles, cutesy baby things too -- everything in the store was just precious.
The dishes aren't huge so even with only 2 people we got a nice variety. A green mango with chili-salt "snack" was simple and refreshing -- Asian wisdom knows that the salt brings out the sweetness in an otherwise tart fruit. The other "salad" (which usually implies healthy...) was pickled watermelon with crispy pork. The striated cubes of fatty pork were deep-fried, so when you bit into them the fat melted in your mouth like butter.
Our two main dishes were Sambal clams: which included one huge succulent razor clam and over a dozen cherrystones simmered in a spicy, pungent sauce. I wasn't familiar with Indonesian Sambal sauce, being more used to Chinese chili-garlic sauces, but I'm gonna look for it next time I'm at the Asian market; and the fatty duck: large chunks of duck that have been brined, steamed, then fried had a wonderfully peppery flavor, crispy outerskin, luscious fat layer, and nice meaty flesh. They were topped with crisp pickled cabbage, thinly sliced red chilies, and served over fragrant toasted rice with a rich sweet sauce. The sweet teeny rice flour cakes they brought out with the check were nice too. We were pretty fatted-out, so for dessert we just grabbed a couple lovely little Valrhona chocolate cookies at Three Tarts. They sell gifts, collectibles, cutesy baby things too -- everything in the store was just precious.
2 comments:
Man, we gotta go when I am up in NYC- the Shopsin's rules applies for the size of the party, too. Damn friendship when the food looks like that.
Things to order next time that we didn't get to: the house specialty the Fatty Crab (dungeness crab steamed in spicy sauce with white bread to sop up the juice), and the Nasi Lemak (curry chicken over coconut rice with a runny poached egg).
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