Opening
Madam Ji Ki Shaadi
Indian weddings are famously lavish affairs with food, dance and flower-filled festivities stretching over days. At this uncommon entry to the growing lineup of Indian restaurants, whose name means “Madam Ji is getting married,” you only need to set aside several hours, even after the seasonal dessert in an elaborate simulated wedding feast menu ($65) has been cleared. (Seating is at 7:30 and 8 p.m. with an à la carte menu from 5 to 7 p.m.) Chipotle paneer, chicken tikka kebabs, truffle harvest kofta, coconut shrimp curry, slow-cooked goat royale and mithai, sweets offered as a “wedding favor” to take home in a gift bag, are served in rooms elaborately decorated according to symbolic wedding colors. The owner, Abishek Sharma, is a chef, restaurateur and caterer whose portfolio also includes the restaurants Swagat and Badshah.
Raon
There have been menus of pizza tastings, truffle tastings and taco tastings. This restaurant with a $255 10-course tasting menu is another example, featuring an array of kimchis. Most courses involve kimchi, with dishes like crab and oi (cucumber) kimchi, tuna and caviar with baek (white) kimchi, seafood terrine with radish kimchi, and foie gras mandu with aged kimchi jam. The food is a personal interpretation by the chef, Soogil Lim, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Sasook Youn; they’re also the owners of the East Village restaurant Soogil. A coordinated wine pairing is also available ($195).
Ernie O’Malley’s
The timing couldn’t be better. Opening a homage to Ireland a couple of weeks before St. Patrick’s Day, like putting turkey dinners on the menu in early November, should attract a dedicated audience. What had been Jack Diamond’s is now a pub named for a figure in the Irish Republican Army, its green walls adorned with memorabilia collected by Joe Byrne, an owner and Dublin native, in partnership with Clyde McKenzie. The whiskies are abundant and the food leans Irish. In back, entered through a bookcase, is a speakeasy component, a bar with music and entertainment.
Café D’Anvers
Odysseus has hit home port, so to speak, with the long awaited arrival of gas to fuel the kitchen. After a hampered opening about a year ago, and with some financial help from the nearby East Harlem community, the chef Johan Halsberghe is now serving the full menu at this homage to his native Belgium (Anvers is French for Antwerp). Moules frites, carbonnades à la Flamande, shrimp croquettes, waffles and chocolate mousse to wash down with Trappist brews are on the menu. In addition, there’s a to-go window, a “freitkot,” dispensing frites, sausages, veal croquettes, burgers and chocolate mousse.
Hear and There
A bar serving cocktails like the Rice & Nori with seaweed-infused Toki,, along with otsumami (small bites) and larger plates, is the veneer. Behind it is a 22-seat green quartzite omakase counter serving a 13-course tasting ($105) and a more lavish version with “luxury otsumami,” some of which include caviar ($165). The owners, Howard Ng and Samantha Nie, are working with the executive chef, Mark Garcia, formerly of the Kissaki Group.
Branches
Okdongsik
This chain has shrunk the tasting menu to one, maybe two dishes. As Pete Wells said in his two-star review in 2023 of the Koreatown branch of the flagship in Seoul, slurping dweji-gomtang, a rich slowly simmered Korean broth served over rice is the only reason to score one of 13 seats at the counter at Okdongsik, named for its founder and chef. Mandu dumplings are the other option. Founded in 2017 in Seoul, it has expanded to other American cities (with locations in Tokyo and Paris set to open this summer) and has now opened a second New York location that broadens the menu a bit, adding haemul wanja (seafood cake) and naeng jeyuk (cold sliced pork) and two more seats. More branches are on the way, including a nine-month pop-up at Stile, 929 South Broadway in Los Angeles, starting April 1.
Looking Ahead
F&F Pizzeria Restaurant and Bar
Have pizza, will travel. Now that they’ve taken over a small stretch of Court Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with their pizzerias and more, Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo (the Franks) will be expanding their footprint and opening a couple of pizza restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. As first reported by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the first one, coming this spring in Mount Lebanon will be a spacious affair selling slices but also whole pies, both classic, including clam pies, and inventive like croque monsieur pie, and full-service dinners with pastas, salads and dishes like scampi with polenta. Another leaner version, F&F Pizzeria, is planned for later in the year at the Original Pittsburgh Winery in the strip district. The Franks have longstanding Pittsburgh connections and are opening these branches with Steel City partners, Robert Mullin and Anthony Simasek.
From Kiln to Kimchi: A Celebration of Korean Culture
An evening to demonstrate the connection between Korean crafts, especially pottery, and food like kimchi, will be held at the American Museum of Natural History on March 14 at 7 p.m. Food tastings provided by Korean restaurants, presentations of the science of fermentation, and demonstrations of pottery-making are some of the evening’s activities open to those at least 21 years of age.
On the Menu
Celeriac
Celeriac, the versatile celery root that chefs have been serving shredded as an appetizer, as soup or frequently cooperating with potato purée to enhance a protein as at Manhatta and the River Café, has not often been the center of the plate. It’s like the kid hanging around the ball field waiting for a chance to play. But now, at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Four Twenty Five, newly anointed with three stars by The New York Times, it’s at the top of the entree batting order. Celeriac francese, three medallions lightly breaded, sauced with white wine and bedded on tender buttery leeks, is an exceptional vegetarian option, a home run. It will be served for lunch and dinner until the end of this month.
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The post There’s Always a Wedding Banquet at Madam Ji Ki Shaadi appeared first on New York Times.
