"Cue With A Side of Cupcakes

Meat is good. Let me just lead off with that statement. Which is mildly ironic being that I just posted a review of a vegan joint I went to last month. But Mighty Quinn's is much more in my wheelhouse. A no-nonsense BBQ joint in the East Village where they serve mass quantities of charred, tasty flesh. There aren't much better ways to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon than drinking beer and eating slow-cooked meat and that's exactly what Annie, Fyfe-Dawg and myself did a couple of weeks ago. (I know, I know...I've been slow in getting to these things. I promise to try and do better in the future.)

Mighty Quinn's is small, at least small in contrast to how many people want to get in there at the same time...it's seemingly very popular. I can't even imagine how packed it must be during dinner time. As it was there were no tables available for us. We wound up eating at the window counter, which is kinda cool actually. It's a lil cramped in here...but so what. We had meat and beer.

You can get food as a single serving kind of deal or by weight. You can guess what we did. We got ourselves a pound of brisket, a half-pound of pulled pork, a rack of ribs and this mashed sweet potato stuff. We took quite a lot of this stuff home. At Mighty Quinn's they don't fuck around with portion sizes. Mighty's also has a pretty decent selection of beer to go along with their delectables. Annie and I went with Allagash White...always a good choice as far as I'm concerned. Fyfe was driving...no beer for him.

Just look at that sexy smoke ring.

The brisket is smoky and good. Just enough fat in it to be flavorful. But at no point does it taste “fatty”. Not the best brisket I've had but excellent nonetheless. The pulled pork was exceptional too. Both came with really good slaw. In my mind, outside of having good cue, good slaw makes a BBQ joint. What cuts through the richness and heaviness of all that protein better than a really good cole slaw? The answer to that question is nothing. You can both of these things as sandwiches but why bother with bread with all this wonderful protein to ingest. The sweet potato mash thing was so damn good. With candied pecans and maple syrup in it.

Imagine the size of the pig.

The ribs. Now here is where Mighty Quinn's really shines. These GIANT hunks of slain mega-oinkers are marvelous. They look like the beasts that Fred puts on the side of his car in the opening of The Flintstones. They're literally heavy in your hand. Tender and spicy and all sorts of goodness. This is what ribs are supposed to look and taste like.

The only problem I had with anything I ate here was that it all tends to lean towards salty. After your food is cut up right in front of you they sprinkle some salt on it as it moves through the line. If you can, ask the cutter to spare that last dousing of salt. It'll make all the difference. Just a little less salt and this would've been the perfect outing.

Now that I've finally written this up, I'm drooling on myself a little bit. I need to get back here soon. I want more ribs...and maybe the hot link I didn't get to try last time.

Since we got to all the protein, allow me this indulgence. Prior to getting to Mighty Quinn's, Fyfe insisted we stop at Molly's Cupcakes. What a worthy prelude. The nutella/peanut butter and the peach cobbler cupcakes were like tiny, little paper-wrapped 4-bite pieces of happiness.

Mighty Quinn's

103 2^nd Avenue

New York, NY, 10003

212-677-3733

Molly's Cupcakes

228 Bleeker Street

New York, NY, 11014

212-414-2253

Vegan Isn't Necessarily A Bad Thing

I know it's taken me about a month or so to finally get around to writing this but sometimes I'm a lazy guy. It's been a busy month besides. Between keeping up with the podcast and my actual paying job picking up I just haven't found the time to dedicate to writing this. Truth be told, it's probably none of these reasons really is why I haven't written anything about Candle 79. The true reason is I just wasn't all that excited about it. It's not a good or a bad food thing, just nothing about it excited me. The food, in fact, was for the most part pretty good. The service was impeccable. I just wasn't excited. It didn't move me at all. That may seem to be a strange statement when you're talking about food. But when you write, in any forum, there has to be some kind of movement (insert potty joke here). Some kind of emotional resonance. Otherwise, what's the point? I wasn't moved...at all. I just didn't find myself connecting with the vegan fare presented to me. I had an excellent time with 2 fantastic women, but the food itself left me kind of flat.

Candle 79 is a vegan restaurant on the Upper East Side. And make no mistakes, this is a restaurant. Dark wood, wait staff in black, tablecloths...an elegant place. This ain't no Billyburg sprout-shilling hipster shack. You won't find a Birkenstock or an ironic beard anywhere...and I was glad for that. It puts a different face on veganism. The hostess was very nice and seated us even though the third member of our party was late. (A big plus to me. Entirely too many places refuse to offer this consideration and it fucking bugs me.) Our waiter was a fun guy. He answered all of our questions...even the sometimes strange ones from Adrienne. At some point he told us we were his “weird” table. The folks that keep him entertained and laughing while he deals with other less personality-endowed clientèle.

We started ourselves off with cocktails. Drinking something called “The Reforestation”, which was much like a less sweet mojito. The company that makes the vodka used in the drink supposedly plants a certain amount of trees for every bottle they sell, hence “Reforestation” This led to some strange questioning of our waiter. He took it all very well. Didn't even roll his eyes at us.

     We didn't really go with a traditional app, entree, dessert kind of meal here. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure we didn't order a single entree at all. We just kept ordering appetizers and sides. Maria, Adrienne and I basically turned Candle 79 into a vegan tapas joint. Whatever caught our eye, we ordered it. What we started with and in what order was inconsequential and truthfully I simply don't remember the order of it all. Thankfully, I took some notes.

We had some Seitan Wheatballs with a Tomato-Basil Sauce. These were excellent. Excellent enough that we got a second order of them. Under the right circumstances, in the right dish, I could see them as a substitute for a regular meatball. The sauce was clean and tasty. The balls had a nice flavor to them. Even a little bit of crunch. I liked these a lot.

The Polenta Fries, I wasn't as big a fan of. They were a bit bland to me. Maria loved them.

We had Grilled Oyster Mushrooms with a Jalapeño Vinaigrette that were OK. The mushrooms themselves were pretty good. But really, it's hard to fuck up grilled mushrooms. Unfortunately, there really was no heat. Maybe they forgot to put the jalapeño in the vinaigrette because I didn't taste it at all.

A Warm Brussels Sprouts Salad was pretty good. Not great but good, which will be a theme through most of this review. It came with some root veggies and cranberries and a pretty tasty garlicky rosemary dressing.

There was a Mushroom Fricassee special that came with polenta and stuff. I honestly don't remember a lot about this dish other than I liked it a lot more than the jalapeño vinaigrette mushrooms.

Guacamole Timbale, which is basically a guacamole and black bean cake. I'll give it to Candle 79, they make a fantastic guacamole. The key, really, to good Guac is fresh ingredients and the right ratio of them. They've got that down!

Then we had “Angel's” nachos. This was the most disappointing thing I ate. The refried beans and salsa were really good. I could even live with the fake cheese they use. It doesn't taste like cheese but whatever. It was the seitan meat stuff they used. There's no reason for it. You can have nachos that don't have meat. And this isn't meat anyway. It's braised Goodyear tires. Completely ruined what could've been a decent dish for me.

We even managed dessert. A Mexican Chocolate Brownie that came with Caramelized Bananas and a Chocolate-Ancho Chile sauce. That was pretty damn good. Maria said you can always count on good desserts at a vegan place. She was certainly right about this one. To go along with our brownie, Maria and I shared a spiced espresso. Might've been just a little too spiced for my taste actually. I think I'd have liked this better if it was in regular coffee.

If you're a vegan looking to have a real restaurant experience, where you don't feel ostracized because of your particular food choices, this is a place for you. If you're not a vegan and you're just accommodating your weird friends, this isn't a bad choice. It honestly didn't feel like a complete meal to me. But that could have just as much to do with us not ordering entrees at all as it did with the food, although I suspect it might not have. I didn't love that we paid what were basically steakhouse prices for that meal for what amounts to side dishes. It was a good experience with good food and good service with great people. Candle 79 wasn't really worth what it cost and based on that I'm not sure how eager I'd be to go back. But I can certainly see the appeal if vegan is the way you roll.

Candle 79

154 East 79^th Street

New York, NY, 10021

212-537-7179

http://www.candle79.com