May 2, 2013--New New York

Since we try to catch up on trends while in New York City, it was fortuitous that a double issue of New York Magazine--"The Best of New York"-- awaited us in our mailbox.

They do this every year and, as usual, the first article was about restaurants, because everything new and trendy gets played out more than anywhere else in the city's restaurant scene. 

For example, I learned that during the time we had been out of town, "Asian fusion" cuisine has been replaced by "Asian hipster" cuisine. So to get with things we had to figure out the difference--what is the meaning of hipster when applied to food? Where do we go to find the best of it? And what now constitutes hipster dress since I didn't want to look like a lapsed snowbird when sampling some?

New York Magazine food critic Adam Platt, tries to help--

Long ago, Asian fusion was the all the rage in trendy culinary circles, but these days Asian Hipster is the fashionable phrase on many jaded Manhattan chowhounds’ lips. At his eponymous West Village restaurant, Wong, on Cornelia Street, the talented Simpson Wong dresses his light, temperate Southeast Asian creations with sunflower sprouts (on shrimp fritters) and shiitake mushrooms (over rice noodles), but if you’re in the market for a stout Chang-style feast, try the appropriately named typhoon lobster, which Wong and his chefs toss, in grand neo-Cantonese style, with curry leaves, crispy garlic, and industrial amounts of ground pork.

Get it?

And, I learned, that in order to blend in, a hipster jacket from Rag & Bone would be a good idea. As incredible as it may seem, since a friend works for R&B, I already have one in my closet and so I am all set. Rona, on the other hand, is not so uptight; and whenever we head out for typhoon lobster she’ll be just fine.

More striking is Platt’s list of the best restaurants in the city. To me this usually means in Manhattan.

Technically, the “City” consists of all five boroughs—but what could possible be best in a place like the Bronx much less Staten Island? A ride on the ferry? And Brooklyn? That’s where Rona and I were born and raised; and we spent decades—like millions of ambitious others—desperately trying to figure out how to get out and find our way to the City—the real city, Manhattan--across the East River. That, after all, is why more than 100 years ago they built the Brooklyn Bridge. 

But fully half the restaurants Platt listed as New York’s best are in Brooklyn. Most of those in Williamsburg. Where, New York tells us, are found the best real hipster and “indie rockers.” It’s also where the hottest of hot HBO series is based—Girls. Lena Dunham’s creation that captures depressingly well the vacuous lives of her generation of young people. Especially those from over-privileged backgrounds who are being subsidized by their parents. How else can these under-employed 20-somethings afford $7.50 lattes and apartments that begin at a million-two?

The Brooklyn I remember had a few local Chinese restaurants like the Golden Ox and Italian places such the Tower of Pisa. Shrimp with lobster sauce was featured on Kings Highway and spaghetti and meatballs at the Tower in East Flatbush.

But at Parish Hall in the new Williamsburg, where the Satmar Hasids and old Polish immigrants are being squeezed out by soaring real estate prices, you can order grass-fed lamb tartare, steamy bowls of Cayuga-flour dumplings threaded with turnips and Swiss chard, and wedges of a classic French pear tart for dessert, which the kitchen tops with scoops of vanilla ice cream flavored with the faintest hint of blue cheese.

Suddenly ravenous, I asked Rona, "Do you know anything about Cayuga flour?"

Ruefully, she said, "I think we've been out of town too long."

"Though I don't know," I said, "about ice cream with blue cheese."