Ten courses. Ten restaurants. Ten chefs. Two hours. It's enough to make even the most diehard foodies blanch a little (ten courses?). But when the culinary talent includes 2010 Iron Chef winner Marc Forgione, Next Iron Chef contestant Jehangir Mehta, and Chopped judge Marc Murphy, and the offerings include pulled pork sliders and crab bruschetta, buffalo prime rib and warm molten chocolate cake, you'd be a fool to turn down the challenge. I mean, someone's gotta man up and do it.
So, armed with my foodie friend and colleague Sarah Shaker, I tackled the titanic banquet that was the press preview luncheon for the upcoming Taste of Tribeca culinary festival. Not just an excuse for gluttony, the festival aims to raise funds to support the arts and enrichment programs of TriBeCa's two public elementary schools, PS 150 and PS 234. Taste, which officially kicks off on Saturday, May 21, will feature dishes from 75 of Tribeca's finest eateries – ten of which we were able to sample during the preview luncheon.
The feast was held at the bottom level of the exquisite Plein Sud in TriBeCa's Smyth Hotel, where two long wooden tables were laid out and beautifully made. Opening remarks were made by Plein Sud's jovial sous chef, Ed Cotton, who described the charmingly congenial and non-competitive nature of the chefs in the neighborhood.
"If I ever run out of something, like a cup of sugar or flour, I just run over to my buddy Marc Forgione across the road and he helps me out," Cotton quips. "We're a great little community here. We help each other out."
Pleasantries aside (and some white wine down the hatch for good measure), it was food time. As each plate was brought out, each chef personally introduced their own dish. That's right, ten of the city's finest chefs in one room, explaining the inspirations behind their cooking, what our meal was composed of, the flavors to expect and why they chose the dish for the festival. In other words, foodie heaven.
Though I'd love to write about all ten dishes (which ranged from fantastic to phenomenal), space restraints force me to pare my recommendations down to my top three. In descending order: Chef John Sierp's (of M1-5) pulled crab bruschetta, Chef Jehangir Mehta's (of Mehtaphor) spiced kabobs and Chef Marc Forgione's (of Marc Forgione) buffalo prime rib, ramp chimichurri and pomme fondant. Three stand-out culinary creations that I believe are well worth every penny of your $35 ticket.
Sierp's crab bruschetta was, in my opinion, the tastiest thing I sampled on the menu, and I believe the simplest when compared to Suhanosky's chicken liver crostini and Cadolini's spicy sausage orecchiette (both great but almost overwhelmingly flavorful). The dish, essentially just layers of crunchy, garlicky bread, onions, fresh tomatoes topped by delicate slivers of sweet, tender crab, wholly exemplified the M-15's satisfying, upscale-bar food vibe. Not as complex as the other dishes, but I'm a simple kinda gal, and this is the type of unpretentious grub I love – that would be equally serve-able to a food critic at a five-star restaurant, as well as to a flock of hungry twenty-somethings watching football in my little Brooklyn kitchen.
My second recommendation is Mehta's spiced kabob, and not only because he is an exceptional chef of whom I was already a devoted fan, but because these individual little morsels of perfectly-spiced meat – like delicious, baby Indian meatballs – were so divine I was tempted to ask for another serving. Packed full of onions, green chili, coriander and mint, the kabobs were exotic, spicy and deliciously smoky. Served with a sweet, chipotle-based sauce that accentuated the piquant, sharp Indian flavors in the kabob, I felt it was the most exciting dish on the menu, and way, way too small. "I could eat a whole burger of this thing," I remember one of my fellow reviewers raving through a mouthful of kabob.
Similarly, Forgione's buffalo prime rib had the reviewers singing. Cooked to tender perfection with an elegant tartare that was a fusion of sweet, sour and spicy, the dish was faultless. The prime rib alone is worth your $35 (could you really expect anything less from the Iron Chef?). And that's pretty much all I have to say about that dish.
For dessert, we got down on Chef Marc Murphy's s'mores cookies (exactly what they sound like – marshmallowy, chocolatey, crumbly yet chewy with a slight burnt mallow taste), and Chef Madeline Carvalho Lanciani's warm molten chocolate cake ("Oh my god," was the only thing myself, Sarah, and NearSay contributor Megan could mutter after one bite). Both were equally tasty and we all would have eaten more if we'd hadn't already polished off eight courses.
All in all, the collective offerings for the 2011 Taste of Tribeca food festival were impressive and wide-ranging. Because one $35 ticket (purchased in advance) will get you six dishes, I do suggest you choose carefully beforehand and get yourself a nice mix of high-end and casual fare (you can view the participating restaurants here)...and don't forget the crab bruschetta.
More information on Taste of Tribeca can be found at their website. The event will run from 11:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21.
The Taste of Tribeca 2011: Duane St., bet. Greenwich & Hudson Streets.
