Burrata at Frank

I've realized something now that I've started this blog: I'm giving away the locations of my favorite places to eat, and some of them get crowded enough as it is.  I flatter myself to fear they'll be suddenly swamped.  Still, they deserve all the business they can get.  

One such place - a hidden gem that isn't so hidden on a Friday night - is Frank, part of the Lil' Frankie's joints down in the EV.  Or at least I think it's called Frank.  It could also be Vera, which is the "bar" side of the place.  That's neither here nor there, since there's not really a sign or awning outside.  It's an unassuming sliver of frontage on 2nd Avenue between 5th and 6th, offering a menu full of Italian "comfort food" with a fantastic selection of wines and a specials board that is crammed nightly with an array of delights.  That specials board is what I peer at every time I pass by (which is often) to make sure there's still serving their swoon-inducing burrata.  I should clarify: a burrata from Puglia that pulls no punches with it's cream content.  There is a lot on their menu that is delicious, mark my words, and even if they didn't have the burrata (which has happened on occasion) it's still worth going to.  But really, I'm just here for the cheese.

A burrata is literally a cream bomb, its name meaning "buttery" in Italian.  It's a mozzarella made in a way that produces ritagli (strings) of cheese that hold together a liquid panna (cream) that can kill a decency censor at fifty yards.  Served at room temperature with fresh beefsteak tomatoes and the perfect drizzle of balsamic vinegar, the burrata at Frank is what every burrata wants to be.  The milk is so milk-y you feel like you've actually had a relationship with a cow.  It's not too salty but salty enough that you know it's not dessert.  The tomatoes are a fine textural vehicle for the creaminess and the balsamico serves as a flavor enhancer that points up the sweet, the salt and the distinct dairy flavor.

It tastes living and savory, like what you'd imagine roaming the flat-topped hills of Puglia feels like: the Adriatic spread out like countless shining jewels beyond the gentle slope of the coast, the buttery Mediterranean breeze, the smell of the salt sea and hot stone, wholesome, pristine, unchanged by time or progress.  One bite transports you to this place and, like a young lover's kiss, lingers on your tongue, in the flutter of your heart and in the flush of your cheeks; a sweetness you revisit days, if not years, later.

Like the memory of a simpler time, when you were young, unhurt, and you didn't know what that aching in your heart was, thinking about this burrata will catch you at the oddest of times.  You will long for it as you sometimes long for a sunny day with the song of cicadas and a heartbeat the only sounds as you lie in the tall grass side-by-side with that first love who never knew you loved them.  You'll think "something's missing" and before you can rationalize it, your tongue and your soul will have recalled.  To eat this is to remember how bittersweet and simple life was, and to look back with gentle fondness at the self you once were.

When was the last time you remembered?

Tiramisù at Barcibo

The first time I had this I didn't know that I wanted it.  In fact, I don't really have a sweet tooth, so I turned it down.  But Dana, a real tiramisù snob, told me to shut up and eat it.  I thank her for that to this day.

At Barcibo on the UWS they take quite an un-Italian stance on an old Italian standard dessert.  Most Italians I know like to do things "the old way, the right way" when it comes to food.  This is the first deconstruction of a dessert served to me in an Italian restaurant that I've come across so far.

You're given a plate with a cup of espresso, some ladyfingers, a ramekin of zabaione and a spoon.  It really should come with a glass of dessert wine, but that's just peripheral to the zabaione.  You dip the ladyfingers in coffee or into the ramekin filled with what can only be described as the food Helen of Troy was reincarnated as.  It is smooth and cold like custard but with the weight of a mousse, like the soft cleft between perfect breasts.  It isn't frothy or airy like mousse, though.  It is as if air has been replaced by promises of dark delights whispered to you by a beautiful woman in a bright room...She touches your shoulder in a way that sears through your clothes, her lips all but pressed against your ear and you don't so much as hear her say what she's going to do to you as feel like she's already started.  A bite of the dry sweet cookie covered in this parfait parfait is a contrast in texture that only tantalizes you more.  The burnt bitterness of the coffee lingers on your tongue as the savoiardi cookie dissolves and the zabaione makes love to your mouth.  The comparison to other kinds of cream is not out of place, and you think, "if people actually tasted like this, I'd never leave the bedroom".  You continue to ladyfinger the stuff until you're just unable to hold back and go straight in with the spoon, and it's as if you're racing to "finish" before you finish. 

Finally the person next to you comes back into focus as they pry the ramekin from your face before the waitress throws you out.  Every other patron in the restaurant now knows that they should be having what you just had.  You've just had a wild ride with a tiramisù that you hardly know, in public, which is something you never do, and it was unlike anything you've ever thought you would do.  The next time you have really good tiramisù it will be delicious, but it won't feel as forbidden as this.  It'll be like going back to your regular sex life after a night with this mysterious, unearthly woman - it won't make you unhappy with reality, you won't change your life and your tastes for her, you won't even think of her that often, only sometimes when you're alone or after an uninteresting fling.

But you will find yourself finding reasons to be on the UWS.

It only takes one bite...

What do you get when you mix a sexy mama, a saucy chica, a cute waitress, a bottle of wine and the most sinful tiramisù?  You get the irresistible urge to start a blog.

That's what happened the other night when Dana and Lily were at Barcibo on Broadway and 69th.  The better part of their evening was spent waxing pornographic about their Tiramisù in the Raw, a dessert that defies the boundaries of where sex can take place and how.  This devolved into further rapturous discourse on other effing-sexy dishes they'd tried.  The waitress just couldn't keep away.

And so The Lovin' Mouthful began.  Here's where we - that is, everyone - can rhapsodize about food that is sex in your mouth.  We've all had at least one dish like that (though some of us lucky enough to live in NYC have it more often than we really deserve).  Just one bite sends a shiver from the spoon straight down the spine to the sweet spot and you start to wonder if getting your face into the bowl would really be that much of inappropriate thing to do after all.  It could be anything, really - a palate-spanking of whatever kind.  A smoky single malt or a bite of the finest steak; ice-cream or ice wine; pasta or pistou; tiramisù or tira-me-into-the-nearest-dark-corner-and-scrù.  If you've ever had a mouthful of something like pure love or a mouthful of something like sweet sweet lovin', then this is where you can find the sweet nothings that gastronomy whispers.

We're starting off with these three categories:

1. Sex on my plate.  Any food or drink that comes to you in a form so lovely that you can't decide whether to tear its clothes off and ravish it or to just look adoringly at it.

2. Sex in my mouth.  Any food or drink that you can put in your mouth that turns you on, feels like great sex, is better than sex, or gives you a foodgasm.  If it gives you a real orgasm we would, of course, like to hear about it and then get directions to the restaurant.

3. Sex on the table.  Any food or drink that goes above and beyond the call of good food and inspires you to have sex right there on the table.

A few ground rules - no real porn, no links to real porn, no photos that don't belong to you.  Give credit where credit is due - link to what you need to, attribute photos to their owners and tell us where the restaurants/bars are.  We're talking about food that's like sex, not actual sex.  As long as it is a food, food-stuff, beverage or place to purchase said things, it's fine to discuss.  This is a forum to describe bone-in cuts of meat, or boning a fish, and not the other kind of boning you might be doing.  That said, metaphor and euphemism are quite elastic concepts, so no one here's going to be shy.  Don't like it?  Don't read it.

And remember: you can't fake it with food.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the bodice-ripper of broilers, the dirty mag of dirty martinis, the sexting of ceviche, the porn of the porterhouse, the odes of hors d'oeuvres, a little black book for all of your foodie-calls, the back-page listings for all of your gastro-kink.

Have at it.