Tröegs Nugget Nectar – Beer of the Week

Photo: DROOO/Flickr

Ah, hell’s bells. Is it February again already? Another year, another couple thousand gray hairs. But there is a—har!—silver lining to this icicles-and-all month: the release of Tröegs Nugget Nectar, an super-aromatic amber ale with a kicked-up dose of hops and 7.5 percent ABV that’ll put some hair on your chest. This Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, beauty is only out this month, so drink it up on the double. Curious? Check out my full review at Slashfood. Drink it up!

Gut Instinct: The Heart of the (Reproductive) Matter

These men are named Milt. Trust me, you didn’t want to see a picture of cod milt. Eeeee!

Over the last three decades numerous dubious foodstuffs have passed twixt my lips, from spicy horse jerky (chewy!) to sautéed lamb mammary (squishy!) to stir-fried pork bung (rubbery!). But till last week, I’d never experienced the gustatory pleasures of sperm.

To rectify that glaring culinary omission, I licked my lips and sought out shirako, aka cod milt, aka cod sperm. Come winter, the cod is mature and raring to mate. Before it can spread its seed, the cod is caught and its baby batter—a fat blob that recalls brains—is carefully harvested. Most is shipped to Japan, where locals relish this fleeting, um, delicacy. Instead of booking an overseas flight to sample milt, I instead booked it to Williamsburg’s Zenkichi (77 N. 6th St. at Wythe Ave., 718- 388-8985; B’klyn). Each winter, the izakaya makes milt the centerpiece of its omakase tast ing menu. I booked a reservation for two. My girlfriend did not favor joining me for dinner.

“I’m not putting that in my mouth,” she said. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“A vegetarian that eats fish,” I replied. “That is not fish,” she said. “Go ask your meat girlfriend.”

Whereas my girlfriend has many wonderful attributes—a kindly heart, sharp design sense, the ability to tolerate my moods that shift as quickly as the San Francisco weather—her vegetarianism can be a thorn in my stomach.When I crave flesh or edible oddities, I instead enlist my friend Julie. She’s a curious, limitless eater with an unquenchable thirst for spirits and beer. I presented her with my pitch, not bothering to sugarcoat what would go down her throat. “Want to eat cod sperm?” “Eeeeeee,” she replied. “Is that a yes?” “Eeeeeeeee!” And like that, we strolled into the dark and winding Zenkichi and sat in a secluded booth.We started with a bowl of lightly salted miso swimming with chewy strips of fried tofu.The warming, comforting broth was followed by a selection of cool and fresh sashimi and a bowlful of jiggling milt. It was as white as a Florida beach, though far less appealing.

Not allowing common sense to override my stomach, I grabbed a tiny spoon and dug into the custard-soft coiled milt.The texture was as smooth as gelato, with a sweet, mineraly flavor, like undercooked sweetbreads of the sea.Though some may savor the silkiness, I found the relentless creaminess off-putting— oh, my kingdom for some textural contrast! Moreover, the earthy undercurrent reminded me that this was seminal fluid masquerading as sustenance. Halfway through, I called it quits.

“All done!” Julie said. “Did you enjoy it?” “I ate it quickly.” Any lingering traces of gonads were rapidly erased by slippery, unctuous Kumamoto oysters served with a sprightly ponzu citrus sauce. A lightly grilled scallop preened on a bed of greens tarted up with onion-ginger dressing.The seared kobe beef was fatty and flavorful, and grilled black cod was given a rich, salty depth by a miso marinade.

But our escape from reproductive organs was brief. Silky tofu was topped by uni, better known as a sea urchin’s ovaries. Sweet shrimp, which arrived with a pleasingly spicy cod-roe sauce, also wore a crown of uni. It was scrumptious, sure, but I was nearing gonad overload. I smiled wanly as a crisp, golden pile of tempura comprised of green chrysanthemum leaves and cod milt arrived. This was less a repast than a test of someone’s manliness. Or lack thereof.

“Do it!” Julie urged, as I tossed some tempura into my mouth.The batter-dipped bite was crunchy and unctuous, delicate and addictive—another testament to the transformative powers of hot oil.

“Now that’s good milt,” I mumbled, my mouth full of reproductive matter. I had seconds, pairing the fried milt with a rich, malty Yebisu lager. Beer and spermatozoa: Two great tastes that taste great together!

Julie was equally enraptured. “My insides have been spanked by the fishie sperm and ovaries,” Julie said. She sighed, then patted a belly grown big on the instruments of procreation. In the darkened light, with eyes grown hazy on beer, you might say that she looked a little bit pregnant.

Give me a big ol’ rating—or hate me—at the New York Press site.

The Bruery’s Mischief – Beer of the Week

Photo: Charlie Essers/Flickr

Though I’m more concerned with drinking my first cup of coffee of the day than cracking a beer, I’d be remiss if I didn’t turn your attention to Mischief, my latest beer of the week. This beauty from California’s The Bruery is, at its core, a Belgian-style strong ale. But thanks to an intense dose of hops, and a yeast strain that makes the beer desert-dry, it’s got a fragrant, IPA-like aroma that’ll drive even the most casual beer fan crazy pants. Interested to read more? Drink it up!

Gut Instinct: The Roast With the Most

Oh, these oysters got in my belly, yes they did!

If nothing else, New York City is divine at destroying itself. I could harp on Penn Station and Ebbets Field—architectural monuments martyred to the gods of progress—but I’m too hairy to be mistaken for Jane Jacobs. Besides, I’m more concerned with comestibles.Thus, this’ll be an elegy for the oyster.

More than 150 years ago, New York’s waterways were choked with oyster beds, which provided sustenance for city-dwellers of every stripe: High-class swells could sup on oysters Rockefeller at Delmonico’s, while the proletariat dined on bivalves by the pail. Shuck ’em, slurp ’em, chuck ’em—oysters seemed as inexhaustible as bison. Oh, the 19th-century’s sweet naiveté.

By the early 1900s, the bivalve beds had collapsed like the Mets come September. Oysters were overfished and stricken by diseases from foreign species.The estuaries were open sewers. Scarce oysters became splurges, trotted out alongside champagne to aid Casanovas in their quests to disrobe a paramour.

“They’re potent aphrodisiacs,” my friend Matt insisted, twisting his mustache.

“That’s because they look like a giant clitoris,” added his girlfriend, Emily.

Now, I’ve probably seen more clitorises than I’ve eaten oysters, a ratio that’s not as impressive as it sounds. And I don’t believe that those sea-dwellers serve as oceanic Spanish fly. For a fraction of the cost, a flask of Old Grandad and a 24-ounce Coors rev my engine into fifth gear. “You just need to come to a North Carolina oyster roast,” Matt said. “That’ll change your tune.”

“Are you inviting me?” “Yes. Emily’s family has an oyster roast every January. Bring your girlfriend, too.”

Quicker than you can say free vacation, we climbed into Matt’s purple eggplant—to the laymen, a Hyundai Elantra—and aimed south toward the Newport, located in southeast North Carolina’s scenic Outer Banks. In an earlier, more carefree life, I road-tripped with abandon, crisscrossing America while subsisting on crunchy Corn Nuts, cherry Icees and burnt coffee spiked with amaretto creamer. These days, I only take cars when I’m too trashed to ride the subway home, fearful that I’ll pass out and awake in Coney Island with my pockets slashed and my wallet missing.

But I digress. The trip south was seamless, with our hunger and thirst cured by sesame sticks, yogurt-covered pretzels, macadamia nuts and bourbon. “Anyone want a before-dinner drink?” I asked, brandishing a bottle of Buffalo Trace.We were in the homestretch, with an hour till arrival. I took a toot, and Emily did too. Matt removed one hand from the steering wheel and flailed blindly, like a baby bird opening its beak for worms. “Gimmegimme!” “Not yet,” I said, like a semi-responsible teenager in an after-school special.When we pulled into the driveway, Matt took a pull of bourbon. We unpacked and ate a light repast—kale, turkey sausage, white beans— then turned in. “I hope everyone’s ready to shuck some oysters tomorrow,” Emily’s aunt said, her words both comforting and frightening. Let’s see if this Northerner can crack a bivalve without severing a tendon.

I slept well that night. I ate well that morning: Southern-style biscuits, sage sausage and eggs. That afternoon, I was well confused. I assumed an oyster roast entailed cooking bivalves in the sand. “That’s a clambake,” Matt said. Instead, an oyster roast involves a wood-fired, flat-topped stove. Oysters are scattered atop the surface, then topped with water-soaked burlap sacks. They’ll steam, then stop, then steam again—the oysters open and release their briny broth.

“Oysters are served!” shouted the chef, a tireless, heat-reddened gent wearing overalls. He shoveled a heap of shells onto a plywood table, where round-nosed oyster knives were scattered along with juice-sluiced rags and several tangy mignonettes. I grabbed a knife and an oyster, as warm as a sauna stone, and made a few hesitant stabs at the stony creature—a killer unable to make the mortal cut.

“It’s already dead,” Matt said, showing me how to unleash the meat within. Holding the bivalve curved side down, I inserted a knife into its hinge and twisted. The shells parted, revealing a grey oyster as long and plump as my pinkie. I dipped it into a tangerine-tinged sauce and chewed the flesh: smooth, creamy and fresh, it was the ocean by way of heaven.

“What do you think?” Matt asked. “Feeling sexier already,” I said, grabbing a second oyster and calling for my girlfriend.

Read the original story here!

I’m Officially Obsessed: Trader Joe’s Mission Street Beers

This week in Time Out, I sing the praises of Trader Joe’s Mission Street beers, both the IPA and Pale Ale. Dollar for dollar, these are the cheapest, tastiest beers you’ll find. Recession drinking, you see, has never tasted so good. Curious? Drink it up!

Mother Earth’s Endless River – Beer of the Week

Beer!

Well, hello there, strangers. Last week, I adventured to the wilds of eastern North Carolina, where I stumbled upon the new — and marvelous — Mother Earth Brewing. This spanking-new outfit manufactures palate-pleasing beers like the aromatic Sisters of the Moon IPA and my fave, the Endless River. The kölsch-style ale is a crisp, easy drinker, with hints of lip-smacking fruits. I lurve it. Anyway, for the full write-up, drink it up!

I’m Officially Obsessed: Xi’an Famous Foods

Photograph: Michael Kirby Smith

Too often, I’m remiss in posting the stories I pen every week. But I can’t overlook this week’s treat, published in the latest issue of Time Out. Xi’an Famous Foods crafts killer, wildly flavorful noodles and lamb dishes (think: cumin, chili oil, cilantro, vinegar) sold for a song. To boot, most dishes hover around $5. Hard to go wrong with that, my fellow cheapskates. If yer interested, read it up!

Gut Instinct: No Good Cheat

Yes, that man is trying to eat a pint glass. Watch out for your uvula!

During my hormone-ravaged youth, I’d often encircle my younger brother with elastic luggage straps then suspend him upside down, like a side of seven-year-old beef. Or I’d lock him in a darkened closet with no company except his racing, panicked thoughts.

“Let me ouwwwwwwt!” Jon would holler, cries drowned by Smashing Pumpkins cranked to 11.Yes, today was the greatest day I’d ever known.

Thankfully, the twin powers of amnesia and family ties—har-har!—restrain Jon from taking revenge and submerging me in the barnyard excrement he investigates as an Ohio EPA employee. We get along swimmingly, sharing passions for beer, dim sum and Japanese flicks such as Machine Girl, in which a bullet-belching gun is attached to a teen’s forearm. You share common ground wherever it’s found.

When Jon swung through Brooklyn a couple months back, I decided to treat him to some microbrews. First, we popped into Washington Commons (748 Washington Ave. betw. Park & Sterling Pls., 718-230- 3666). While the raw, spacious saloon lacks comfy booths, there’s a handsome semi-circle bar, superb happy hour (two bucks off till 8 on weekdays) and 16 finely curated taps. Chief among them were Green Flash’s malty, bitter Hop Head Red and Captain Lawrence’s sweet, tropical-scented Xtra Gold, a potion that transfixed Jon with its alcoholic spell.

“Now that’s a tasty beer,” my brother said rapturously, licking his lips like a Labrador. I beamed: After Gitmo-esque childhood torture, I was finally making reparations! After several more pints, we took our buzzes down the block to

Franklin Park (618 St John’s Pl. betw. Franklin & Classon Aves., 718-975-0196). The indoor-outdoor beer garden equally attracts tight-jeaned twenty-somethings and Caribbean expats— a scene that melts together as well as roomtemp Neapolitan ice cream.

We seized a cozy corner and several pints of Sixpoint’s Righteous Rye. We clinked glasses. I turned quizzical: This tumbler felt too heavy, as if it had piled on some holiday weight. I examined the pint, discovering a solid-glass bottom as thick as a Corner Bistro burger. “Jon,” I said as authoritatively as an older brother should, “we’ve been hornswoggled by a cheater pint.”

Allow me to explain the conspiracy: The sturdy, tapered cylinder from which you sip your suds was originally designed to mix drinks, thus dubbed the “shaker pint.” However, bartenders loved the vessels’ stackability and started using them to serve beer—about 16 ounces, AKA the American pint. Across the Atlantic, the U.K.’s imperial pint is a government-regulated 19.2 ounces. Barkeeps use authorized glasses etched with the word “pint” and European Union’s official “CE” mark. But in the United States, a pint, you see, is not always a pint.

Several years ago, a hop shortage spiked beer costs. Some bar owners raised prices. Others ordered 14-ounce shaker pints, depriving drinkers of several enjoyable sips.

This is perfectly legal—and perfectly misleading. Beer drinkers have been conditioned to believe that a pint glass contains 16 ounces. It’s like shaving several dozen grams of beef off a quarter-pound cheeseburger and keeping its name the same. “Big whoop,” you complain. “You have too much time on your hands, Bernstein. Why not concentrate on a real problem—like why you’re as emotional as an automaton.”

Reader, I’m all hot and bothered because this is petty deceit. It sucks to be a clueless sucker. It was time for this little man to stand up for the little men. “Jon,” I told my brother, “watch me make a fool of myself.” I strode to the bartender. “Excuse me,” I asked, sweet as a schoolgirl, “but are these your normal pint glasses?” He looked at me as if I asked him to lift his shirt and do the Truffle Shuffle. “Uh…yeah, I guess,” he replied. “Why?” “Because these are cheater pints.” I pointed to the thick bottom and explained the loss of two ounces of joy juice. I stood there a few beats, awaiting a response that never came. My cheeks bloomed red and hot. What did I expect to accomplish? Shame a bartender who’s but a pawn? I retreated to my seat, my point proven, my point changing nothing. My brother and I consumed our Righteous Ryes in a snap— too quickly, if you ask me—then placed our empty pints on the bar.

“Do you want another?” the bartender asked, trying to placate his crazy customer.

I shook my head. “I’d like a pint,” I mumbled to Jon as we headed to the door, “but I won’t get one here.”

Read the original story here!

Sichuan Food: The Spice Is Right!

Makes your sinuses spontaneously leak, eh?

Heavens, I’ll take second helpings of any spicy Sichuan food. It’s my favorite cuisine, one that simultaneously numbs my tongue and sets my lips aflame. “Well, if you love it so much, why not write a story about it?” you ask. I did. Today’s tale, the Bob Barker–referencing “Spice Is Right,” is my survey of the Sichuan spots dotting our fair burg. Curious? Eat it up!

Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout – Beer of the Week

Photo: DROOO, Flickr

Though the temperatures have ramped up a tad this week, last week was all icicles and frostbite. Fittingly, I had a hankering for a super-dark beer, one to put even more hair on my chest. To that end, I looked toward Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout, a barrel-aged beauty that’s as dark as my heart with just a hint of bourbon flavors. Heavens, this could warm up a corpse, it’s that’s good. Perhaps we should send St. Bernard dogs into the icy tundra with bottles of this strapped around their neck. Anyway, if you’re thirsty, drink it up!

Gut Instinct: Tricky Mickey

Oh, if only our mice died so nice.

It was a lazy weeknight, with a computer on my belly broadcasting horror flick Santa’s Slay, when my girlfriend’s scream pierced the night like a steam whistle.

I hit pause—satanic Santa had just impaled a Jew with a menorah—and sprinted to the kitchen. Had hoodlums descended our fire escape? Or was something nefarious afoot at the neighboring assisted-care facility? Narcotics, the elderly and nurses can be a wicked brew.

“What’s wrong, hon?” I asked my girlfriend. She was as petrified as a Pompeii resident. Her index finger aimed beneath the table, empty save for dust bunnies. We surely needed to sweep, but her reaction seemed excessive.

“I just saw a…a…a…” “A ghost?” “No, a mouse.” “So what,” I said, which was probably the worst possible retort.

“So what?” she parroted. “We need to kill it.” “By we, do you mean me?”

“Yes.” As a murderer, I’m a mixed bag. When I lived in Astoria, my apartment was overrun with New York’s twin plagues: mice and roaches. I turned cockroaches into brown paste with a rolled-up Maxim—back then, the lad mag possessed sinister heft. Meanwhile, print media didn’t easily kill mice.

They were slippery bastards, crapping on my canned soup and nibbling the ramen, my main nutritional sources. Few moments are more disheartening than washing mouse poo off your last can of Krasdale-brand tomato soup.

To cure the infestation, my roommates and I purchased stick-’em traps. Basically, they’re plastic rectangles topped with a tacky substance. If a mouse explores said surface—say, to sample the cheddar cheese you’ve cunningly placed in the center—its paws will be as stuck as Flick’s tongue to a frozen flagpole in A Christmas Story. Thus ensnared, you can drown the critter, turn it into a fur Popsicle or enlist an executioner. Ours was called Steve. As a roommate, Steve left lots to be desired—slow on rent, prone to wall-banging sex in his loft bed. But as a murderer, he was top notch.When a mouse was snagged, Steve would shove it in a plastic bag and grab a hammer. One swift tap silenced the squeaking.

“You can throw it away,” Steve would say, giving me the visceral thrill of discarding viscera.

But in my Brooklyn apartment, I’m the alpha male. To eliminate the rodents, I selected time-tested spring traps, which snap necks like toothpicks. I arranged a quartet around the apartment, carefully baiting them with blue cheese from Murray’s and Rudi’s Organic whole-wheat English muffins. Perhaps these were gentrifying mice with discriminating tastes?

After several days, a varmint relented to stinky-cheese temptation. My girlfriend was the first to discover the corpse, leaving me a note and the body. “Mouse in trap,” the Post-It read, followed by a sad face. I tossed the carcass into a trashcan outside and baited another trigger. For days, I mindfully eyed the traps, watching as the food withered and turned rock-hard. Maybe the sight of their expired comrade had served as a warning, like Amazonian tribes displaying their enemies’ severed heads on sharpened sticks.

Then one morning I discovered that the trap beneath the sink had vanished. “Hon, did you throw away the trap?” I asked. “Why would I do that?” “Well, it’s gone.” She came to the kitchen. We commenced searching the dusty crannies, uncovering rusty bottle caps. Then I noticed the trap’s wooden base peeking out from beneath the refrigerator. I poked the trap and it twitched, as if it were alive. Oh, no.

“I’ll pick up the fridge and you knock out Mickey,” I instructed. “No way,” she said, shirking like, well, Dumbo to a mouse. “Well, then you pick up the fridge.” “Fine.” She reached down and, summoning the strength that allows mothers to lift cars off pinned kids, tilted the icebox back. I swept the broom beneath, dislodging petrified carrots and the trap. Inside, a mouse’s left front leg was pinned, cheese smeared across its paw.

“Eek,” it said. “Eek,” I said. “Kill it,” my girlfriend said. Using my metal cooking tongs, I grabbed the trap and took it downstairs to my concrete front yard. I snatched a loose brick and raised it above my head, sizing up the mouse’s skull. It was so small, so crushable, so… cute. I dropped the murder weapon and fell to my knees. I lifted the metal bar. Not wasting a millisecond, the mouse limped forward then boomeranged around and, with a speed and purpose belying its broken leg, accelerated back toward my apartment.

The Most Micro of Brews

Photo: Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine

Whee! Small feature in New York Magazine this week about homebrewing in Brooklyn. Who would’ve thought, right? Anyway, if yer curious, read it up!