Shrimp Rolls from Luke's Lobster

 

With great excitement, I discovered that Luke's Lobster, a lobster roll shack in the East Village known for serving one of Manhattan's least expensive lobster rolls, is opening a larger restaurant just a short walk south of my apartment.  It is rare that a restaurant that is both newsworthy and wallet-friendly opens on the Upper East Side, so I am eagerly counting down the days until Luke's arrival.  Nonetheless, Significant Eater and I could not resist a recent craving for buttery seafood served in a toasted hot dog bun, so we decided to make Luke's shrimp rolls at home, thanks to this recipe from New York magazine.  All the credit for the shrimp rolls goes to Significant Eater, who briefly earned the slightly more functional but no more lovable name of Significant Cook for making these beauties.  She had the great idea to top each roll with a dash of Old Bay Seasoning, which we are pretty sure is done at the restaurant but is omitted from the recipe.  For one night only, my studio turned into a seafood shack... well maybe not quite that big.      

Two Little Red Hens Bakery: The Best Cupcakes in Manhattan

With few good restaurants, a bunch of fratty bars, and a mile-long disaster zone of cranes and dump trucks that is the start of the 12-year dig to build the Second Avenue subway line, the Yorkville neighborhood in which I live is one of the least charming neighborhoods in Manhattan right now.  When I want to do anything more interesting than a couple of pints at the local bars, I find myself venturing over to the more hip neighborhoods of Manhattan.

But there is one area where Yorkville does beat all other neighborhoods.  The Upper East Side lays claim to one of the most sought after prizes in all the isle, and that is the award for having best cupcake in all of Manhattan.  Yes, the best cupcake in Manhattan is well north of 14th street-- 72 blocks, to be exact-- and is right smack in the middle of the Second Avenue Subway construction at Two Little Red Hens bakery.  The sidewalk outside the storefront is fenced in--this ain't your quaint little West Village street-- but walk in and I promise you will be able to forget the eyesore that lies all around.  Country in feel, Two Little Red Hens makes you forget that you're in Manhattan, much less the destruction that has become of my neighborhood. 

As for the baked goods, just about everything I have tried at Two Little Red Hens, from the chocolate chunk cookies to the chocolate pudding pie is excellent, but you must try the cupcakes.  They are everything that I dream of in a cupcake and hit all the notes that most other Manhattan bakeries miss.  They fit comfortably in the palm of the hand and are not so big that I feel sick after eating one.  The cake part is wonderfully moist and has tons of flavor whether you go for the chocolate or yellow (I'm a yellow man).  The cream icing does exactly what icing should do; it complements the cake and is not cloyingly sweet.

Best of all, my neighborhood bakery is free of gimmicks; a sinfully rich Brooklyn Blackout cupcake filled with chocolate pudding is as far as the bakery strays from the standard-issue yellow cake with chocolate icing.  Two Little Red Hens needs no trendy address, funky toppings, Carrie Bradshaw touts, or teenybopper shouts.  It gets the job done in boring old Yorkville.  Kind of fitting that the best cupcake comes from the least trendy of bakeries, isn't it?

Two Little Red Hens
1652 Second Ave. (at 86th St.)
New York, NY 10028
212.452.0476

Flex Mussels

I recently made a trip to Flex Mussels, a recently opened Upper East Side (E.82nd St. b/w 3rd and Lex) outpost of a popular Prince Edward Island restaurant that specializes in what else but Prince Edward Island mussels. Being a Floridian, I am somewhat of a seafood snob and am all too often unimpressed by the seafood options in the Northeast. Nonetheless, Flex Mussels won me over on my visit.

The restaurant was packed when my girlfriend and I visited on a recent Saturday night. The the main room was booked for those with reservations, but the hostess sat us at the ledge in the bar room. The bar room is not particularly conducive to conversation as it is a fairly awkward arrangement in a loud room. Imagine being surrounded by other diners eating large pots of steaming mussels on a fairly narrow ledge, and you get the idea. It does not help that a mirror lines the wall behind the ledge, forcing you to stare at yourself during your meal. Not a particularly bad thing if you are a narcissist, but a little creepy if you're not.

Fortunately, the meal that my girlfriend and I shared was better than the surroundings. As a starter, we shared the "Burnt Fingers," a plate of fried calamari, shrimp, and oysters served with a spicy aioli for dipping. Being the fried oyster fiend that I am, I would have preferred a few more oysters than the two that were served and not so much calamari, but seafood proportions aside, this dish was an excellent execution of fried seafood. Each piece was perfectly cooked and the breading was crispy and well-seasoned. The fried seafood could have stood on its own without the spicy aioli which was still a nice complement.

As good as the fried seafood platter was, we were at the restaurant to try its mussels, the various preparations of which made up most of the menu. The menu reads like a global tour of the mussel industry, with preparations ranging from "Geisha Girl" (sake, green onions, pickled ginger, garlic, bird's eye peppers) to "Dubliner" (Guinness, toasted walnuts, caramelized onions). My girlfriend and I chose the Thai mussels (curry coconut broth, lemongrass, coriander, lime, garlic, ginger). The mussels were very meaty for PEI mussels, which I find can sometimes be so small that they are not worth the mess of eating them. The broth was well seasoned, although slightly too sweet; we would have preferred slightly less coconut milk and more spices. Sweetness aside, my girlfriend and I were still sopping up every last drop of the sauce with the crusty bread that came with our meal.

With the exception of the rare excellent key lime pie at a Florida seafood shack, dessert tends to be an afterthought at seafood restaurants. At Flex Mussels, at least one dessert is not to be missed: the fried dougnuts, which come in several flavors. My girlfriend and I ordered the chocolate doughnuts and meyer lemon doughnuts, and four hot doughnuts (two of each flavor) soon arrived. The doughnuts were superb: perfectly golden on the outside and light and doughy (in a good way) on the inside. The fillings were great, with the chocolate being our favorite. They were served with a vanilla bean custard sauce, which paired much better with the chocolate doughnut than with the vanilla. Our only complaint was that one of the chocolate doughnuts had very little chocolate filling, but the doughnut dough was so delicious that this was a minor issue.

Flex Mussels has a nice beer list comprised of bottles of domestic microbrews and Belgian beers. I would have preferred a selection of draft beers, but I was quite pleased with my choice of the Rogue Mocha Porter, a creamy beer with a nice hint of coffee. I will definitely seek out this beer for home consumption.

My only other complaint about the restaurant is an issue that every restaurant that specializes in steaming seafood dishes faces: the stinkyness factor. The restaurant itself does not smell bad, but after leaving, my girlfriend and I both noticed that our clothes smelled heavily of the onions, garlic, and spices that were in the mussel broth steam that was surely circulating throughout the restaurant. While Flex Mussels is not a very expensive restaurant, you must factor in the additional cost of dry cleaning your outfit when calculating the overall cost of the meal.

Overall, this Floridian was impressed with the seafood at Flex Mussels. It is not only a welcome addition to my neighborhood, but a welcome addition to the New York City restaurant arena.