New York Magazine - USA (2019-09-16)

70 new york | september 16–29, 2019

the dish

Black Bean Vongole

After waiting eons for Con Ed to show up and switch on the gas, the

excellent Golden Diner—which has been operating as a breakfast-

and-lunch-only electric kitchen since March—is ready to roll up its

sleeves and really start cooking. On the just-launched dinner menu:

“wontonini” en brodo, Xian-style lamb gyros, tuna melts, and this

silky, briny, altogether succulent black bean vongole pasta special. Chef

Sam Yoo says the riff on linguine and clams is a nod not only to the

restaurant’s Chinatown environs and one of his favorite dishes—Great

NY Noodletown’s clams in black-bean sauce—but also an homage to

his former bosses and mentors, Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone, and

their Torrisi Italian Specialties kitchen. Yoo gets the

Taiwanese wheat noodles he uses in the dish at a

nearby Asian grocery store, but Torrisi and Carbone

might say they look like the ruffle-edged Italian pasta

known as mafaldine, a.k.a. reginette. r.r. & r.p.

I’m thinking of the knuckle-size fried-
dough gnocco fritto, draped, as in some
crowded market in Bologna, with ribbons
of mortadella and salami, and platters of
soft white cheeses (burrata, mozzarella,
stracciatella) plated with different kinds of
Greenmarket bounty (tomatoes, cherries,
frizzled ricotta-stuffed zucchini blossoms),
which you can enjoy with dense slabs of
griddled bread drizzled with olive oil
(fett’unta) for an extra five bucks. Emilia-
Romagna is one of the great meat and offal
regions of Italy (it shares a long southern
border with Tuscany), and Secchi and his
cooks serve up wobbly veal cheeks poured
with onion sauce, portions of rabbit cooked
in various enticing ways (braised and in
sausage form with some veal sweetbreads
thrown in), and a flowery-sounding steak
dish (“Cow Grazing in Emilia Romagna”) so
good that my daughter refused to part with
it when I timidly asked for a small bite.
I managed to get a taste of my tender,
grass-fed Emilia-Romagna beefsteak in the
end, and one day, when the pasta loons
have moved on from the packed little din-
ing rooms, I might even return for a bite or
two of the dry-aged bone-in rib eye per due,
which is enlivened, according to the menu,
with a proper pesto Modenese made with
a mash of garlic, rosemary, and plentyof
lardo. After all of this pasta and meat,the
desserts are mercifully light. Inquire about
the seasonal option, which was a straw-
berry meringue earlier in the summer and
is a thin, crumbly wedge of peach tart now,
served with a puff of whipped ricotta onthe
side. For all seasons, however, your safest
bet is the smooth house gelato, which
comes in a combination of flavors (half-
pistachio, half-stracciatella on my last
visit), served in a frosty metal coupe and
garnished on top, in the classic way, witha
large, pinwheel-shaped waffle cookie.

scratchpad

Onbusyevenings,thespacecanresemble

a crowdeddiningcarduringrushhour,but

service,qualityofcooking,andstrongpoint

ofviewadduptoa veryrespectable85.

bites

IDEALMEAL:Stracciatellawithcherries,

toastedbreadwitholiveoil,taglioliniwith

ragù,vealcheeksorrabbit,gelato.

NOTE:Thefive-coursepastatastingmenu

hastobeorderedbythefulltable(and

doesnotincludedessert),whichmeansit’s

bestenjoyedinsolitarycontemplation

atthebar.OPEN:Dinnernightly.PRICES:

Appetizers,$5to$19;pastas,$20to$25

($90tasting);entrées,$27to$31.

Cherrystoneclams

aresteamedinwhitewine,

fennel,onion,and

garlic,thenchopped.

Onthemenuat

GoldenDiner;$18;

123 MadisonSt.,

nr.MarketSt.;

nophone

Taiwanese wheat noodles

are subbed for linguine.

PHOTOGRAPH: STELLA BLACKMON/NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Panko bread crumbs

toasted in garlic

butter evoke the flavor

of baked clams. The sauce gets its earthy,

briny, savory oomph from

garlic, ginger, clam jus, mussel

butter, fermented black beans,

and Calabrian chiles.