Matthew Schneier

2 weeks ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

When Jeremy Salamon, of Agi’s Counter in Crown Heights, opened a second restaurant, I would not have guessed that the standard-bearer of Hungarian Jewish cooking’s party-of-one revival movement would go so goyische. Salamon had just published Second Generation, a cookbook devoted to keeping alive the traditions of his grandmother, Agi, who survived Holocaust-era Budapest.

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Bánh Anh Em’s soups and sandwiches are chewy, crunchy, crispy, and crackly — usually all at once. Taste, smell, and spice tend to absorb the lion’s share of a restaurant critic’s attention, not to mention his adjectives. Texture often pulls the short straw. Non-western cuisines have been quicker to appreciate its merits — QQ, the Taiwanese-derived term for springiness and bounce, highlights exactly this — and it’s time I stood up for the chew and the chaw.

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Blessed are the pasta-makers. That, in a nutshell, is the message of Santi, chef Michael White’s return to the city’s semolina trenches. The name comes from an old saw of his former mentor, Gianluigi Morini: “Le mani degli chef sono come le mani dei santi” (The hands of the chef are like the hands of the saints). That’s what we call setting the bar high. But White, the founding chef of Marea and Ai Fiori, among others, delivers.

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

Kabawa is a new kind of restaurant for the company — one devoted to the many cuisines of the Caribbean. Stock in good feeling is sinking of late. An atmosphere of headache prevails. The markets, the mood, the outlook: low, low, low. That’s a lot to heap on a restaurant, especially one down an East Village cul-de-sac: Oh, look, another dead end.

2 months ago | grubstreet.com | Matthew Schneier

My lunch date dabbed at her mouth, and we signaled for the check. We’d have stayed longer, lingering over the last leaves of a petite salade (nicely dressed with nuoc chomvinaigrette and tiles of lightly pickled rhubarb) and a remnant scrap of gingery crab rémoulade, but she had places to be. She was off to a consultation with her new cosmetic dermatologist. I didn’t plan it this way, but I would’ve if I could’ve.