There are four restaurant-related stories in this week’s issue, and they ask you to take a side. Are you a New Yorker who glories in the freshness of newly arrived strawberries and seasonal cooking in general? Or are you an atavistic who prefers to sit in air-conditioned steakhouses, consuming red meat in 90-degree weather? This week, at least, Adam Platt is clearly the latter, dining in the Freon fortress that is Landmarc and finding only the heaviest, most beef- and bacon-laden foods worthy of (faint) praise. Those of us who have fathers like him are enjoined, in one of this week’s Short Lists, to visit various steakhouses with our dads. On the side, there is more cool, natural frozen yogurt than ever to be had, enumerated in another Short List, and this week’s In Season features a recipe for delicate pasta with strawberries from Sfoglia.
• Platt hands Landmarc a bagel, despite their winning his grudging praise for competent food in an aircraft-hangarlike setting. “The unending tsunami of entrées … tend to blend into one, but as a general rule, the heavier the dish, the better your chance of success,” the Big Man harrumphs.
• This week’s In Season takes advantage of the extraordinarily sweet, bright-red strawberries we’ve been seeing this week, which the husband-and-wife team behind Sfoglia use in their signature spaghetti dish.
• Will New York ever get enough yogurt? After a punishing multi-media battle between Pinkberry and Yolato, another combatant in Park Slope has entered the fray; an old standard is still around too. Rob and Robin put all four together in the first of the issue’s Short Lists.
• And, what with Father’s Day coming up around the corner, now would be a good time to reserve a table at one of the city’s top steakhouses. The Robs give three very different choices – presumably for three different kinds of fathers.
Off the Mark
In Season: Strawberries
I Can’t Believe It’s Still Yogurt!
Happy Steakhouse Day
