NYC food halls a global feast for gastronomes on the go
For a food-lover visiting New York City, the trip can be boiled down to so much deliciousness, so little time.
Culinary attractions abound, from almost 80 Michelin-starred restaurants to the pleasures of pastrami at Katz’s Delicatessen, from cheesecake to Cronuts to hotdogs to pretzels to world-class sushi and ramen.
But what if you’re pressed for time, and can’t make that commute to Flushing, the neighbourhood in Queens that boasts the best Chinese food in the five boroughs, and also keep your appointment for a Broadway show or trip up the Empire State Building?
The practical answer is to eat as many New Yorkers do, quickly and casually, in one of the city’s bustling food halls, which can be found beneath hotels, connected to subway stations or inside landmarks such as Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station. These food halls aren’t the cookie-cutter affairs you can find in many a Canadian shopping mall. Instead, you can find acclaimed and even fetishized New York eateries such as Katz’s or Ivan Ramen or Roberta’s pizzeria setting up spinoffs in food halls to vie for New Yorkers’ disposable income.
Before my recent trip to New York, I consulted an article at eater. com’s New York website that listed 15 alluring food hall options in Manhattan between Central Park and Battery Park, plus a few more in Brooklyn and Queens.
For my first food-hall excursion, I made the subway trip across the East River to DeKalb Market Hall in downtown Brooklyn. While this food hall’s marquee tenant is the stand run by Katz’s Delicatessen, the Lower East Side institution made famous in When Harry Met Sally for something other than sandwiches, I sought out even more exotic treats for a hip, multicourse, multicultural lunch.
At the sprawling, underground, 60,000-square-foot space that opened this past June, it took time and hard decisions to decide what to eat given options that ranged from Turkish kebabs to Japanese crepes to Vietnamese sandwiches to fried chicken to key lime pie.
After several circuits past 40odd vendors, I started at Daigo Hand Roll Bar, where the specialty is temaki sushi — a.k.a. “hand rolls” — meaning cones of seaweed, wrapped around rice and raw fish or seafood fillings. I went for rolls filled with sweet, luscious Hokkaido scallop and snow crab with avocado, and wasn’t disappointed.
For a more fiery course, it was on to Pakistani barbecue fare served at BK Jani, an offshoot of a small Brooklyn restaurant. I watched staff grill my lamb chops, toss them with a finishing spice blend and arrange them on a plate with some fried cauliflower and shredded veg. The lamb was remarkable — tender, meaty and potently spicy.
There are several more geographically focused culinary destinations, including the two Eataly food halls in Manhattan and the France-themed Le District complex, while the 20,000-square-foot Japan Village is to open in Brooklyn next spring.
I was most curious to sample as much as I could of the Scandinavian-based fare on offer at the Great Northern Food Hall in Grand Central Terminal.
Opened in 2016, this food hall was brought to New York’s iconic commuter rail hub by Danish culinary entrepreneur Claus Meyer, a key figure in the Nordic cuisine revolution that has made waves globally since the early 2000s. His food hall relies on some imported items, but also imposes Meyer’s food philosophy and recipes on seasonal ingredients from New York producers — “Nordic roots with a New York accent,” says Meyer, who with his family has moved to the Big Apple.
Since I was leaving New York on a midday train, it was too easy to have breakfast at the food hall’s “grain bar.” I had a bowl of “grød,” a porridge that revelled in its ancient roots, consisting of rye bread cooked down to a pudding-esque mush, garnished with caramelized rye, sugar, sea buckthorn berries and milk foam.
After a bit of time to digest, I had a “Great Dane” hotdog dressed with spiced ketchup, remoulade, pickled cucumber, red onion and crispy shallots.
Somehow at the Great Northern Food Hall, I missed out on the smørrebrød (open-faced rye sandwiches topped with deluxe ingredients and chunky Danish tartar sauce, crispy onions and horseradish), just as at DeKalb Market Hall I wasn’t able to try the Shanghai-style street crepes, the hero sandwiches, the perogies or the paella. All compelling reasons for return visits, I think. phum@postmedia.com