Kitchen Dish
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Summer has bloomed in all its life-draining, heat-stroke-causing glory, and New York’s restaurants are dreaming up ways to beat the heat.
TASTY TALK Bombay Talkie (189 Ninth Ave., between 21st and 22nd streets, 212-242-1900) is serving potent ices for $10 apiece. The Max Magic Black Currant is a cassis sorbet with Bacardi Limón. The Lychee Mela is a granité of lychee passion fruit, citrus, and light rum. The Tender Coconut has Bacardi Vanilla, pineapple juice, coconut milk, honey, and a splash of Cointreau.
SANGRIA SATURDAY Divine Bar (236 W. 54th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-265-9463, and 244 E. 51st between Second and Third avenues, 212-319-9463) is celebrating Sangria Saturdays. For $8.50 a glass or $32 for a pitcher, guests can choose from among six icy winebased punches: Cranberry-cinnamon, passion fruit-banana, white citrus, green apple-ginger, watermelon-mint, and raspberry-grapefruit.
TRENDY BERRY Sushi Samba (245 Park Avenue South, between 19th and 20th streets, 212-475-9377, and 87 Seventh Avenue South at Bleecker Street, 212-691-7885) is serving mint juleps topped with guarana, a berry from Venezuela and northern Brazil that has recently become trendy.
SPIKED SLUSH Jolie (320 Atlantic Ave., between Smith and Hoyt streets, Brooklyn, 718-488-0777) is serving “Frenchie Freezies” for $10. Varieties of these adult slushies include the Tracy, made with green apple ginger sorbet and calvados, and the Camila, with lime sorbet and Leblon cachaça. If you’re feeling especially cosmopolitan, you can enjoy them during the restaurant’s “Cinetastic Sundays,” which feature black-and-white foreign films on an outdoor screen, starting at 8 p.m.
CLAM BAKE If you have an appetite despite the heat, Savoy (70 Prince St., between Broadway and Lafayette Street, 212-219-8570) is serving a traditional summer clambake. For $40, or $55 with a bottomless glass of rosé wine, you start with iced littleneck clams on the half shell with smoked tomato pepper sauce. They are followed by chef Peter Hoffman’s summertime interpretation of the New England boiled dinner: lobster, mussels, kielbasa, sweet corn, and potatoes. For dessert, try peach and blueberry crumble with buttermilk ice cream.
COOL MENU Louie’s Westside Café (441 Amsterdam Ave., between 81st and 82nd streets, 212-877-1900) has a new summer menu , which includes chilled beet soup with sour cream, and cucumber ($7); gravlax with nectarine, coriander, frisée, and citrus vinaigrette ($9); striped bass with Serrano ham, roasted shallot, and romainemint sauce ($21); and a smoked pork chop with cherry tomato, cranberry beans, and watermelon-mustard sauce ($20).
SPICY SCENE If meat, cheese, beans, rice and salsa all wrapped in a tortilla is your idea of a good summer meal, you might stop by the new Chipotle that opens today (129 W. 48th St. between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-645-6290).
Mr. Thorn is food editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. He maintains nrnfoodwriter.blogspot.com.
