A bite of the Big Apple

Saturday began slowly. Our hotel was having major problems with its lifts - guests kept getting stuck inside them - so it was operating only the grimy service lift for most of our stay. Needless to say it took a while to get downstairs with only one lift working. But things picked up with brunch in Soho, and this time with current and former New Yorkers as guides we saw Soho at its best. We brunched on mimosas and eggs benedict at French café Manon on W Houston - in the former space of Deux Gamins (set up by Robert Arbor, whose recent book tried to instil some French joie de vivre into Americans' lives. (Incidentally, most haute cuisine in NYC is French - unlike in Australia, where we are under Italy's thrall). Then we prowled the cobble-stoned streets beneath fire escapes hanging off the cast-iron buildings and prowl the boutiques, including Barneys Co-op (for a wine velvet Marc Jacobs shrug) and the luxe Dean & DeLuca gastro-emporium (bakery counter pictured left). Pricey, but worth a browse. So much sumptuous and fresh food on display, I was salivating.

Late in the afternoon Fara and I caught the subway to the Upper West Side to visit her friend Rona in her fantastic apartment which was once the parlour of an elegant brownstone. I could easily see myself living there, curled up with the New Yorker in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, with Central Park just a few steps away. Took at ramble around the Park where the trees are budding and the daffodils had just burst into flower, before meeting Gerard back at the hotel. Dinner with Fara and her friends at Bello Sguardo back in the swanky Upper West Side on Amsterdam Avenue, for elegant Mediterranean fare with a neighbourly feel. Where, amazingly, it transpired that Fara's Dubliner pal Rona was Gerard's best mate's cousin. The media world is indeed a small one. The evening ended with a late-night subway ride with a cupcake at the end - a red velvet one with satin buttercream frosting and little heart-shaped sprinkles from the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery in the Lower East Side. Red velvet cake? Popular in the American south, it's got cocoa in it, and red food colouring. Yeah, I know. Food colouring. Somehow the colour enhances the taste though. Cupcakes are definitely having a fashion moment; blame the Magnolia Bakery and that Sex and the City episode.

On Sunday morning we slurped dimsum in Chinatown beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, then we walked around bustling backstreets in search of Fara's favourite handbag stall where I picked up a very good "Birkin-inspired" ostrich leather bag. Then Lisa and I paid our respects at Bloomingdale's (in Ann Arbor we are truly shopping deprived!) before I went uptown for two swooning hours at the Frick Museum. Words cannot do this place justice. It's a small but perfectly formed feast of masterpieces - from the canvases to the sculpture, period furniture, even entire rooms shipped out from French palaces. There's a sublime Vermeer, an ecstatic Bellini, and two Holbeins of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell facing off each other from either side of a fireplace. I wonder how long Henry Clay Frick dreamt of owning them both so that they could stare each other down for all eternity.

The Frick could have been sufficient food for me that night, but we had more treats in store. The appetiser was the view of the lower Manhattan skyline from the Manhattan Bridge en route to Brooklyn, where we met up with Graham and his friends Leslie and Jim for a sublime dinner at Al di Là Trattoria. This place is a real find; I am so thankful that Manhattanite snobs are reluctant to enter Brooklyn, because then this place might charge a lot more for its gutsy, honest Italian food. Some stars from the menu? The white asparagus with poached egg and parmesan; the baccala mantecaqto with grilled polenta, the casunziei (homemade ravioli filled with red beets and ricotta, served with melted butter and poppy seeds); hand-cut tagliatelle with a meat ragu; and braised rabbit with black olives and creamy polenta. A pear and chocolate cake and an affogato lent a sweet finish, and their wine list (and downstairs wine bar) added more magic. This was the meal of the trip.

Monday was a working day: after onion bagels from the corner deli we visited the Wall Street Journal (their building recognisable from photos of September 11 - being adjacent to Ground Zero it was used as a temporary morgue) and spent several hours at the New York Times, including lunch with the managing editor.

In the early evening Graham's friend Jim got us prime seats at the taping of The Daily Show, where we hammered for being the only people in the audience dressed in business attire. Jon Stewart is still cute in person, but actually better looking on the TV screen. The night swung on when a splinter group took drinks at the British consul’s apartment (after an exhilarating cab ride through some of NYC's more glittering streets) before we met up with the rest of the gang at Artisanal for a dinner of cheese gougères, fondue and still more cheese with rather a bit of Argentinian malbec, one of the iconic drinks of the fellowship.

My final (futile?) act in New York was purchasing the City Secrets guidebook at the Met's airport store. Only 5 days too late. It's a compendium of beautifully-written prose worthy of the great city, and is great fodder for armchair travelling and as an aide-memoire. Hopefully I'll get to make use of it in NYC soon.

New York, New York

I was surprised to find that it took me a few hours to warm to New York City. I wasn’t expecting it to look so ordinary, so mundane. Maybe I was comparing it to postcard-perfect European cities and their splendour, but first impressions of NYC were of bland brick buildings, cracked concrete footpaths, unappetising food outlets, poorly-dressed people and traffic. By the end of the five days I was crazy about the place and didn’t want to leave.

It started well on Friday morning with brunch – we dumped our bags at our Midtown hotel (the top floors of a UN building) and hopped the subway with a vague idea of seeing some “Village” streetlife and getting fueled up for our day. Luckily Graham phoned at the precise moment we entered Grand Central Station as we were clueless of where to go; he pointed us towards the Noho Star on Lafayette and Bleecker, and told us which stop we needed. It’s a great light-filled space with high pressed metal ceilings and columns, and an easiness that lets the bohemian crowd linger over their newspapers. Gerard covered all bases with the California Sunrise Breakfast of fresh OJ, poached eggs, bacon, fingers of french toast, chunky fries and coffee. I swooned over a bowl of thick Greek yogurt (impossible to find in the midwest) with honey and toasted almonds. Beside me on the banquette seat was Lauren Hutton – treating the place like home and almost dishevelled, but still gorgeous. The gal makes as little effort before she leaves the house as I do, but she can get away with it.

Afterwards we set off to see the before-mentioned cool streetlife but we were woefully unresearched (and our guidebook was a dud) – every turn we made took us to seedier streets. We weren’t quite sure what we were looking for, but we knew we hadn’t found it. Feeling like country hicks, we started walking north on a slow trip towards the hotel, saw a lot of NYU and Union Square, and eyed off Once Upon A Tart patisserie with little chairs and tables out front with a possible idea to return (and did the next day with Lisa and Fara).

We were lucky that the nearest fast-food outlet to our hotel was Zagat-approved burger joint Goodburger. We enjoyed their cheeseburgers, which continued the trend of never encountering food less than delicious all through the visit - including the street meat from the hotdog cart outside the Daily Show studio). The buns are softer than I usually like, but the flame-grilled burgers are all cooked to order and came with pickles, onion, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard. Not bad for $5.25.

So, we were set up nicely with full tummies for drinks (peach martini) and light plates (crab cakes, cheese selection) under rosy lighting at Birdland that evening, where sax virtuoso Igor Butman played some sublime improvisations with piano, double bass and drums. I’ve never seen Gerard moved by music until that night. He seemed to take as much pleasure in the sounds as the musicians. Afterwards, Lisa lead us past the swollen theatre crowds and the mad neon lights of Times Square on the way to a cab rank. By the end of our first day in New York City I was in awe.

Snow falling on canals

The year I was 16, my best friend and I spent far too many schoolnights (after Expo 88 visits) at Café the Hague. It was a city coffeeshop full of leadlight windows and dark timber, and real espresso, and made us feel like European sophisticates instead of the Brisbane exurbanite teens we really were. Apart from developing a lifelong taste for french fries with mayonnaise, we fell in love with bitterballen (breaded croquettes of pureed beef served with mustard) and poffertjes (tiny pancakes swimming in melted butter and dusted with icing sugar). Eighteen years later I finally got to try them out on Dutch soil. Searching for a taste memory is a dangerous quest, but Amsterdam did not disappoint.

The cafés are tranquil and atmospheric and frequently candle-lit; they're made for whiling away the hours over a coffee or a glass of wine, under a yellow ceiling (like the Café 't Smalle, pictured above). But there are so many more things to love about a city which has raised the gathering of objects on windowsills to an artform. The 17th-century canal houses look almost edible, in their cookie colours with white trim and curlicued neck gables. Fleets of sturdy bicycles have all but replaced cars in the inner rings of the city, giving it a village feel. Some bikes haul around pail-loads of children to and from school. Cheeseshops emit a golden light, with their wares stacked right up to the ceiling. Spicy speculaas biscuits enhance your coffee, and perfectly-executed dinners at French restaurants are easy to find (we loved the paté and the wild boar, with Charles Aznavour accompaniment, at Quartier Latin at Utrechtsestraat 49).

Despite the heavy snowfalls, walking around the Jordaan neighbourhood was ultimately the most fun we had in Amsterdam. Meandering through narrow streets and over canal bridges, we got up close to the houseboats with their compact kitchens in the wheelhouses, and houses with their exterior plaques revealing the building's original use (here a hand writing with a feathered quill, there a barrel with a bunch of grapes), and peered into dozens of funky bistros, galleries and boutiques. It was the best way to see the streetlife away from the museum crowds. But two museums were well worth our time. The Van Gogh Museum was a hypnotic experience when combined with the audio tour, all the better to experience the riotous colour and energy of his brushstrokes. The Rijksmuseum was sadly a truncated experience due to major renovations, but even its small group of treasures on display were staggering. How could you not love the rich domestic interiors of Jan Vermeer, the lush still-life paintings, or the 17-century doll's house with its miniature tapestries, murals and porcelain?

Turkish delights

I love Turkish food. Rich yogurt, thick as clotted cream... tenderly cooked vegetables full of flavour... tasty plate-loads of mezes to pique the appetite. Heck, even the raki is good. There's a lot more to the Turkish appetite than grilled kebabs and pide. And there's more to Istanbul than the glorious Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern. We were spoilt on this trip, with a never-ending parade of university professors, diplomats, journalists and columnists, artists, cartoonists and even the nation's pre-eminent businesswoman to illuminate Turkey for us. That's all off the record though, so here's my prejudiced list of highlights:

* Egyptian bazaar or spice market. Soft pyramids of spices, dried fruits and nuts, turkish delight, baklava and tea inside a covered market, while outdoor stalls brim with fresh seafood or stacks of white blocks of cheese. Buzzing with activity in the late afternoon, and within smelling distance of the fried fish stalls on the riverfront.

* The circumcision feast at Asitane restaurant, off a menu featuring dishes from a circumcision feast given for Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent's sons in 1539. Some unusual combinations of fruits and nuts with lamb lead to complex flavours. Grape leaves filled with sour cherry; dolmas stuffed with lamb, rice, currants, pistachio, and rosemary; hummus with cinnamon and raisins.


* Asitane is alongside the Chora Monastery (Kariye Muzesi) and its breathtaking Byzantine mosaics which have survived from 1320. The mosaics and frescoes are surprisingly intact despite being whitewashed in the 16th century when the church was converted into a mosque. Nearby you can see the remains of the city walls built by the Emperor Theodosius II in 413.

* The silken Imam Bayildi with a glass of pomegranate juice at Haci Abdullah restaurant (a favourite haunt of Orhan Pamuk, the waiters told me).

* Great European-style dining: tuna au poivre and porcini risotto at Lokanta; enjoying the views from the uber-cool circular booths at 360

* Turkish fusion music from Mercan Dede (sufi-techno sounds) and Orient Expressions (Buddha Bar-style beats). I'm awaiting the new doco on Istanbul musicians from the director of Head On, Fatih Akin.

* The Robinson Crusoe English-language bookshop on Istiklal Caddesi is a good source for mind fodder.

And the Turkish bath? It was one of those touristy joints, where they segregate men and women, and hurry you through when you just want to linger in the steam room. But it broke down a few barriers in the already tight-knit fellowship group. Now we've really done it all together.

At the Sultan’s table

While in Istanbul, CNN Turk arranged a dinner seminar for us with Turkish food historian and champion - not to mention award-winning cookbook author - Engin Akin. She’s a passionate guide to the marvellous cuisine of her homeland.

Although Engin is fluent in English her Greece-Turkey at the Same Table isn’t available in translation (but she has a website on the way). Instead, plenty of cookbook writers have benefited from her generosity in sharing recipes. I’ve cooked recipes of hers from Paula Wolfert books, and the Clarks from London’s Moro restaurant tapped her knowledge and recipe bank for their latest cookbook, Casa Moro.

Using her considerable knowledge of the development of Turkish cuisine, Engin devised a banquet of Ottoman palace dishes and she enlightened us throughout the course of the dinner at Hünkar restaurant. A most enjoyable education.

Engin Akin's sultan’s dinner

Mezes
* Mercimek Köftesi of red lentils with red pepper, “the spice of Turkey”. Seems that paprika isn’t so Hungarian after all – the Ottomans brought it with them from Turkey when their empire expanded. Fara could almost hear her Hungarian partner, Frank, hurrumphing from Detroit.
* Pureed fava beans – both dried and fresh – with yogurt, onion and olive oil. In Turkey, fava beans are cooked in their casing. Everywhere else, the outer casing is removed.

Customarily mezes are eaten with raki – the national drink – until the main course is served. So we did the same. Raki replaced wine as the national drink, after wine was deemed to be a symbol of Christianity. Another Turkish drink, incidentally, is boza, which is made out of millet.

Soup

Lamb trotters in a broth of olive oil, lemon and vinegar (pictured). A ceremonial Ottoman dish, and these days a popular restorative dish after too much raki. It’s also served the morning after a wedding night, presumably because that’s when one needs an energy boost most. Engin emphasised the importance of olive oil in Turkish cuisine. It is considered sacred in the Koran, and there is an entire category of Turkish cuisine for vegetables slow-cooked in olive oil. Butter is also important, having entered the diet early on when the population were nomadic animal-herders in Asia.

Appetiser

Hamsi pilav – a rice pilaf made with anchovies (hamsi) and currants. Black Sea anchovies are said to be the prince of fish to Turks: they put them in everything, even bread and baklava! Ordinarily I loathe anchovies but these little babies were fresh, so thankfully lacked the overpowering flavour of their heavily-salted tinned brethren which ruin many a good pizza.

Böregi (puff pastry fingers)

*Puf borek - fried and puffy
*Lady’s thigh köfte with lamb, rice and onions
*Pastirma borek – air-dried beef covered with a spicy paste of fenugreek, garlic and red peppers. The palace would make pastirma from their own cows
*Sarmas and dolmades. Sarmas means “rolled”, dolmades means “stuffed”. Both must include rice. Hang on, aren’t dolmades from Greece? Engin's explanation of how cuisines evolve from encounters with other cultures was romantically Mediterranean: “it’s a big tree which has roots going all the way around, getting nourished from where its roots are, growing new fruits”.

Manti

The crowd favourite. Basically Turkish ravioli filled with minced lamb, covered with garlicky yogurt and browned butter with red pepper flakes. The first time I tried them in a garden restaurant overlooking the Antalya harbour, with cats weaving between my legs, manti were large pockets and the topping was nothing more than a scoop of yogurt. I still loved them. Hünkar's handmade dumplings, in contrast, were works of art. For a start, they were tiny. (Traditionally, before a Turkish girl could marry, she had to master the art of making them small enough so that 40 could fit in one soup spoon.) And butter-soft.

Lamb

Hünkar Beğendi, the “sultan’s favourite” dish. Grilled cubes sat on a soft blend of smoky pureed eggplant and bechamel – a surprising European enrichment. The hint of cheese made it quite rich, and worthy of a sultan. Served with white rice, the traditional signal the feast had come to an end.

Characteristically, the lamb wasn't at all spicy. Engin explained that Turks actually prefer delicate tastes (and as spices were used as medicine in the Ottoman empire they didn’t want the same taste in their food!) The spices and onions we associate with Mediterranean cuisines came from Greeks and Armenians, who opened the first hotels and restaurants in Istanbul in the 20th-century. Meals in these establishments were cooked by non-Muslims and changed the way Turks ate, with the introduction of larger chunks of meat, more butter and oil, more onions and sweetness, and cinnamon.

Dessert

*Kabak Tatlisi – pumpkins cooked in syrup and sprinkled with crushed walnuts.
*Quince with kaymak (clotted cream from buffalo milk). Slow cooked, divine.
*Helva, of which there were 26 kinds made in the palace kitchens.
*Tart, strained yogurt, topped with pekmez – boiled-down grape juice (tasted like malt)

The banquet finished with thick Turkish coffee and fluffy pashmak (what Australians call Persian fairy floss), white tufts of spun sugar with sesame oil.