(Early) Autumn in New York: Casa Mono

For your listening pleasure, may I suggest you download this Billie Holiday song (you'll have to open the link in a new window) to play in the background while reading this post, which will be the first in my Autumn in New York Week on "In Praise of Sardines."

I vanished from the blogosphere for a few days while I stole away to New York. Ostensibly there to do some research for a project, my stomach apparently had a different agenda entirely. It was there to eat, and eat well, at that.

Appropriately, the gastronomic focus of this trip quickly became the sardine. At each of my three dinners in New York last week, I managed to get a taste of my favorite little fish.

Because of New York's closer proximity to the Iberian peninsula, restaurants import the big fat true sardines, sardina pilchardus, from Portugal. They are admittedly plumper and tastier than the faux sardines, clupea harengus pallasi, that we find in our local Pacific waters in the Bay Area, which are actually small herring.

I wasn't surprised to find sardines on the menu at my favorite Spanish restaurant this side of the Atlantic, Casa Mono. After my flight landed late Tuesday night, I headed to the Gramercy Park tapas restaurant desperately hoping to snag one of the few coveted seats at the counter. Happily, I did!

Reminiscent of tapas bars in Barcelona, like Cal Pep or Pinotxo, all that separates the diner from the Casa Mono kitchen is a short glass partition, preventing a surreptitious swipe from the cooks' mis en place. To get any closer to the kitchen, you'd have to work the line.

I started my meal with a glass of sparkling pink Spanish Cava (from Codorníu) and the Ensalada Mono, which despite the name neither contained monkey parts nor gave me a throat infection. Rather, it playfully riffs off some quintessential Spanish ingredients to create a salad you would find nowhere in Spain: frisée with manchego cheese and quince membrillo-sherry vinaigrette, showered with pimentón-flavored crushed almonds.

Next came two delectable fried sardines, reminding me why, despite the obvious fact that I would scare off potential readers, I couldn't resist naming a blog after what is essentially bait. The plump, juicy sardines were accompanied by a salad of sweet onions, preserved lemons and chives. These paired nicely with an extremely aromatic white wine from Gramona Gessamí (Penedés, 2004), an unusual blend of muscat and sauvignon blanc.

For my final tapa I enjoyed a couple of tender fried sweetbreads, accompanied by caramelized roasted baby fennel bulbs. How I wish we would see sweetbreads on more menus in the politically correct veal-phobic Bay Area!

For dessert, I enjoyed the refreshing and barely sweet Mono sundae, which featured pumpkin arrope and the same crumbled almonds that were on the salad.

All in all, I perfect welcome to my brief stay in New York City. Stay tuned tomorrow and the rest of this week for more stories about my eating adventures in the Big Apple.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Review|New York|Spanish

Comments

[radish]

next time you're in nyc, do try The Mermaid Inn... While they might not have sardines on the menu (it changes a lot), they do know how to make fish - and do it beautifully. And as for sweetbreads - all I can say it "yum"!

[Brett]

radish, thank you for the recommendation. Next time. I also want to visit Mary's Fish Camp to see how it compares to Pearl, another place I love.

[radish]

Ooh, Mary's Fish Camp is excellent!! Pearl is superb. I just love love love The Mermaid Inn - their littleneck clams are the best!