Aska Brooklyn | Eating With Ziggy

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Henry’s End – Game of Thrones

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Ziggy

Winter is coming! An odd thing to say in mid January. Game of Thrones has made “Winter is Here” or every other phrase with the word Winter in it(e.g. “Winter Coats for Sale”) sound uncool. Besides, you could be reading this post in the Summer or Fall, and as long as our moon is intact, winter will be just around the corner. Imagine for a second Planet Earth without a moon, or a much smaller moon. The earth’s rotational axis would pretty much not exist, hence no fixed seasons. It could be Turks and Caicos weather for 7 years, or Antartica for 9. Imagine having to wait years or decades for Henry’s End Winter Game Festival. Its like imagining the unimaginable. Like Kim without Kanye. Hooray for moons!

File this one under the I cant believe I haven’t done this before. We were again with Mr and Mrs Hummus Whisper, a prenatal eating tour if you will for them. Turns out HW is still recovering from catching his former nanny wearing his boxer shorts. Knowing the former nanny, I now join in the recovery efforts. It was also very cool meeting Steve from the Chowhound board finally after first meeting him on the Italy board. The rustic Henry’s End by the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn was packed on a Friday night as it should.

Enjoyed the Turtle Soup. Got it lukewarm but it was just fine. Finely chopped turtle meat, nicely spiced. Recipe originally came from Paul Prudhomme when he was with Commanders Palace, incidentally the last Turtle Soup I had. The CP soup nowadays is a bit different, with chunkier meat, which could be turtle or not. Turtle soup to me is not so much about the turtle meat. It could be veal, pork or rubber ducky meat as far as I care. But the manager at Henry’s assured me it was real Turtle from Louisiana.

The Game Charcuterie Plate was something else. Great Buffalo, venison, duck pate. Venison sausage was nice and earthy, almost mushroom like. My favorite however was the rabbit with ginger sausage. So tender and flavorful. Wife enjoy her corn chowder.

For main we shared a few dishes. Nice Rabbit Strudel – a bit too sweet for my taste but enjoyable. The Pappardelle with Buffalo short rib ragu was one of the best Pappardelle with ragu I ever had and certainly one of the the meatiest. Melts in your fork, super tender, tasty meat which looks a bit one sided in the picture but it wasnt. The New Zealand Elk Chops however stole the show. Huge, rich, lean tender chops, herb and breadcrumb crusted on top of a very tasty Madeira wine sauce. Just excellent excellent stuff! I was giving a food tour to a couple from New Zealand right before dinner, so it was a NZ kind of a day for me

Dessert was fine. Liked the homemade banana gelato. Another memorable meal in Brooklyn

Henry’s End

$$$

44 Henry St, Brooklyn (Right near the Brooklyn Bridge and DUMBO)

Recommended Dishes: From the Game menu: Turtle Soup, Game Charcuterie Plate, Elk Chops, Pappardelle

Categories: Brooklyn, New York City | Tags: Aska Brooklyn, Best restaurants in Brooklyn, food, Henry's End, Henry's End Brooklyn, NYC food, restaurants, Travel | 5 Comments

Aska and You Shall Receive

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Ziggy

There comes a time in life when you have to count your blessings for not being allergic to shellfish. Otherwise, you quickly find out if you are allergic to cow’s thyroid or a goat’s heart. Or baby formula!

Aska, is one of those places that you book first and research later. The immediate “hotness” it got off the bat coincided with “where am I eating on my birthday” to the point where I quickly had to reserve a table for 2 before the critics pour in. But the more I looked into it, the more I questioned the decision, especially after seeing the announcement that Saturday’s only option is a 10 courser. Will Mrs Ziggy eat blood sausage, dehydrated scallops, baby formula, cow’s thyroid, anyone’s thyroid? After taking a quick glance at the menu Aska emailed to me, her response was “Its ok I guess”. Good enough for me!

This was a memorable meal to say the least. 20 diners at the back of an art studio, 20 servants (including cooks and the man himself Mr Berselius bringing you teh final touches with the explanations), what seemed like 10o people by the bar, Morrissey blasting in the background, and one extremely interesting 10 courser.

Ok, before I start any rumors, there was no baby formula on this night nor any night as far as I know. But it did cross my mind while we were eating our apple sauce and milk

Started off with some delicious bread, crispy hard bread with whipped NY butter.

Molasses shortbread, trout roe and cheese was interesting. Seemed more like an Amuse than one of the courses

Hay, milk, tomatoes, parsnip, and milk salad. Clearly the best Hay, tomatoes, parsnip and milk salad I ever had. Seriously this was good. I couldn’t help comparing to the amazing Jungsik salad from the night before but this was inventive and satisfying. Great tasting veggies

Parsnip with brown butter and more whipped butter thank you. Delicious! The closest I get to eating parsnip normally is the leftovers from the veggies my wife throws out right after finishing making her chicken and bean bullion. So best Parsnip I ever had goes without saying. Berselius really does a great job bringing all those veggies to life.

Pheasant with sunchoke, liver. Sort of a Pheasant extravaganza with both the dark and white meat (much preferred the dark), and the liver which integrated nicely with the broth of the cooked sunchoke. Sunchoke itself had a nice crispy texture

Blood pudding with seabuckthorn, lardo, dill and anchovies. Pretty to look at without much substance, like Paris Hilton. Didnt care much for this one

Oats, tiny bits of bone marrow, Shad roe, egg yolk (pictured on top). Just like mama makes! All worked together beautifully. one of my favorite dishes of the night.

Pork and beets. A very tasty piece of fatty pork belly and the beets were another example of the great taste Berselius brings out of veggies. Beets is something I never order and the only time I eat them is with an occasional red Borscht, but this was simply delicious.

Whelk – Snails of the sea. Dont believe I ever had them. Although it was very interesting and you could really sort of taste the sea here, it wasn’t one of our favorites. But loved the dehydrated scallop “chips” that cam along

Beef, Burnt potatoes. 60 days aged served rare and very tasty. Potatoes were smoky and fantastic. Add sweet onion – Great dish.

Egg yolk. Not a fave of this one. Looked more promising than its tasted. Sort of sticky, gummy and not much flavor

Apple sauce, oats, cream, baby formula. Awesome! Ok, so there was no baby formula here but as we were discussing with our neighbors it wouldn’t be a total shock to see and Berselius could probably pull it off

Dessert – Some sort of sick ice cream with hazelnuts and other goodies. A great finish.

So there you have it. Dinner was a 4 hour marathon with a lot of big breaks between the dishes. It was mostly a local crowd with the exception perhaps of one particular couple that looked like Michelin inspectors. It was fun seeing the boys (all but one) casually Williamsburg dressed do their thing. Would I come back? Probably not but still a very enjoyable, memorable meal and perhaps the closest I will ever get to Noma, considered by many the world’s top restaurant in Copenhagen.