Bite by Byte

Joe Ng and Ed Schoenfeld. Photo by Danny L./Flickr

Note to Future Selves: A hearty thumbs up!

Address: Sixth Avenue & 29th Street; foodparc.com

We have long been fans of Joe Ng’s dim sum at Chinatown Brasserie.* So when we heard he was going to be doing the menu at RedFarm Stand at this new food court in a hotel, we were excited. We went recently and had an excellent assortment of small dishes — dumplings and the like. I don’t remember what we had now. Everything was good except two things …

What to avoid next time: The pastrami egg rolls and the fried rice.

The pastrami eggrolls were OK but sort of gimmicky. You see, the ol’ lady and I visit the Jersey Shore every summer, and there was summer when one of the boardwalk game parlors we frequent had a small eggroll stand with a sign that read, “It’s not Chinese, it’s Chineese.” I believe “Chineese” with a double e because it was a Philly cheesesteak eggroll. Ai yah.

The fried rice was better than most but not as great as I’d hope Joe Ng fried rice to be.

Something to look forward to: RedFarm Cafe. Let me explain: We had the pleasure of talking to Ed Schoenfeld, who partnered with Jeffrey Chodorow in opening Foodparc. He told us that RedFarm Stand was actually part of a three-prong Joe Ng–Ed Schoenfeld attack. Next up: RedFarm Cafe, which will do 40 seatings a night and “will really let Joe do his thing.” Sounds great — but also like it might be a difficult reservation to get.

The third and final prong of the RedFarm trident, Schoenfeld said, would be a web-based Chinese delivery service, with central RedFarm commissaries throughout Manhattan delivering an Ng-inspired menu. This sounds awesome. Though Schoenfeld described it as “like Fresh Direct,” it sounded more like a REALLY GOOD Chinese delivery place that didn’t have a storefront and did delivery-via-web-order only. I hope this catches on and spreads to the outer boroughs.

Anyway. Other food we tried on this occasion and on one other — the burger. Very good. It’s a special blend from La Frieda Meats. I am not automatically a salivator over La Frieda. There are plenty of places cooking this meat WRONG. But when it’s done right, it’s delicious stuff. At the 3Bs stand, they do it right — if you ask for it rare or medium-rare. Anything cooked north of medium-rare obliterates the flavor of the dry-aged beef in the special mix La Frieda makes for this place. (In a post on Serious Eats, Ed Levine says that there is supposedly a “Rare” button coming to the futuristic touchscreen ordering system. Until then, order your burger in person at the counter and not via the machine.)

* We went to World Tong in Bensonhurst once, the place that Schoenfeld lured Ng away from, but it was after Ng left. It had gone way downhill. We asked the hostess if the chef had left. “No!” Are you sure, we asked. “No. No. Of course not! Ai yah, ai yah! What a thing to ask.”

Photo by A Hamburger Today

Note to Future Selves: Do not go back.

Why not? The burger flavor is good. It’s an all-chuck patty that tastes of funky dry-aged beef. However, this burger somehow manages to be both hella juicy and dry as dirt at the same time.

The burger is way too tall. You almost dislocate your jaw trying to take a bite. And when you squeeze it down to fit it in your maw, all the juice squeezes out onto the plate. The resulting patty is dry, dry, dry.

Fries and onion rings are uninspired and undersalted. With rings being undercooked and onion almost raw.

Way too expensive for the quality of burger.

Locations in Hell’s Kitchen and UWS of Manhattan, and Astoria, Queens. This is based only on three various visits to Hell’s Kitchen location and on one visit to Nice Matin, where the same “Five Napkin Burger” there was spun off into this concept.