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Gwyneth's Ex-Chef Serves Faux Duck at Broadway East: Food Buzz

By Ryan Sutton
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April 22 (Bloomberg) -- There's a Chinatown restaurant that serves Peking duck with no duck. It makes cracklings without pork, chorizo with no sausage, and cheesecake with no cheese. The chicken, however, contains chicken. That's a very tasty exception.

Welcome to Manhattan's Broadway East. Expect mostly vegetables. The diet comes courtesy of Lee Gross. He's been trained classically and macrobiotically. He used to be Gwyneth Paltrow's personal chef, and now he's feeding the rest of us. But is this what we want to eat?

Broadway East has a bias. ``Are you vegan, vegetarian or none of the above?'' asked a waitress. I told her I consume everything. She was pleased. Then she recommended dishes without meat, dairy or eggs.

That's not a bad thing. Per the advice of Michael Pollan and other outspoken omnivores, our health would be well served if we ate less animal flesh and fat. It's just that I'm suspicious of places like Broadway East where some of the plants pretend to be meat.

When my kosher and herbivorous friends ask where to dine, I steer them toward flora-friendly venues that let vegetables be vegetables. My favorites are Per Se, Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Craft. They epitomize the modern American obsession with hyperseasonal, picked-from-the-farm-this-morning produce.

Broadway East, at first glance, reminded me of the other style of American vegetarianism, as a fad, a diet. Get healthy with meat-free burgers.

Al Gore-Friendly

A press release says the venue ``utilizes green practices.'' Is that why the lighting is so dim? Staff uniforms use organic vegetable dyes. Shrubbery covers the rear wall. Junglelike lounge music (bongo drums, rain sticks) plays softly.

Then you try the fake chorizo. It's pretty good. Doesn't taste like sausage. More like crispy falafel. Mix it with fragrant fennel, bitter blood orange, and you have yourself a salad.

That's the brilliant side of Broadway East. Simple veggies with restrained use of faux meat. Try the mushroom terrine. The fungi form a silky, earthy patty flanked by a cool gelee.

Pair it all with a Dr. Frank Rkatsiteli, an unusual wine from the Finger Lakes. Many say it evokes a riesling; our bottle was a dead ringer for a dry, fragrant, Loire Valley white. Broadway East deserves kudos for its New York-heavy wine list.

Skip the oysters gratin. Too many breadcrumbs. Fried cauliflower? Batter's too heavy, too greasy. Butternut and chickpea b'steeya? Bland. Yuba cracklings? Not as much flavor as pork cracklings. And too heavily seasoned.

Cheese Sans Fromage

Read the menu carefully. Three dots mean a dish is vegan. I didn't see that symbol next to my cheesecake, which was made with tofutti. Truly worth avoiding.

Try the chicken. It's rolled around kasha; its skin is crisped into a crunchy, fatty goodness. An intense horseradish jus makes the dish destination-worthy.

Peking-style tofu lacks the rich depth of flavor that the poultry version is known for. But if you don't eat meat, order it. Toothsome yuba surrounds two types of tofu: firm and snow- dried. The goal is to mimic the textural contrast of the bird and its skin. It works -- kind of.

Broadway East isn't for everyone, but Gross does make a good case that vegetarians don't have to eat only vegetables. They can also pretend to eat meat.

Broadway East is at 171 E. Broadway at Rutgers Street. Information: [phone] or http://broadwayeast.com/.

Oink

A famous Japanese restaurant chain has made its debut in Manhattan's East Village. It's called Ippudo. Now let's make this simple: Its ramen with pork belly renders a similar dish at Momofuku Noodle Bar completely irrelevant.

The noodles are firmer. The broth is richer. The pig is more succulent. The wait is longer. Ninety minutes on a Friday night.

No need to order anything else. The pork rolls are horrific. The space can get hot. The fried chicken is tasty, not crispy. The tofu blancmange is too sweet and rich. The sake cocktails are saccharine. Just get the ramen. Trust me.

Ippudo is at 65 Fourth Ave., near 10th Street. Information: [phone] or http://www.ippudo.com/ny.

(Ryan Sutton is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Ryan Sutton in New York at [e-mail].

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