Chef Will Horowitz is the type of cook who’s as comfortable making smoked alpaca stew as he is creating vegetarian charcuterie, or in the case of the above video constructing a sweet and sassy spin on the ham and cheese sandwich. It’s called the Sweater Weather and he’s serving it at Harry & Ida’s Meat and Supply Co.
I have yet to eat one, but the combination of smoked pork loin, fried eggplant, kicky pimento cheese, piquant pickled green tomatoes, fruity mincemeat, and maple cream looks absolutely heavenly. Click on over to Esquire’s Napkins Necessary for the recipe, or better yet throw on a sweater and take a stroll over to Harry & Ida’s.
Harry & Ida’s Meat & Supply Co., 189 Avenue A., 646- 864-0967
Queso fresco and poblanos give this chicken sandwich a Mexican accent.
Will Horowitz is the type of chef who pickles, smokes, and ferments anything that isn’t nailed down. He’s a cook who creates flavor combinations as vibrant as any modernist chef, not with rotovaps and liquid nitrogen, but with decidedly old-school techniques, and not in a sleeve garter steampunk poseur fashion either. He’s the type of guy who does his own foraging and who reduces poblano chilies to cinders to sauce a smoked chicken sandwich. (more…)
From Gothamist and Eater to The Village Voice and Bloomberg much well-deserved praise has been heaped upon the pastrami sandwich at Harry & Ida’s Meat and Supply Co. The kudos are piled as high as the smoked deckle meat is in Will Horowitz’s new-fangled yet old-fashioned entry into the deli game.
Before all these recent accolades, in fact before Harry & Ida’s even existed, the Pop’s Pastrami Sandwich received the highest accolade of all being named “The World’s Greatest Sandwich.” The honor came from the creators of video series Make Me A Sandwich— Rob Serrini and Jeremy Spector—who upon tasting Horowitz’s creation declare their quest to find the world’s greatest sandwich over. (more…)
“We’re thinking of calling it Pop’s,” Will Horowitz told me a few months ago when he gave me a sneak peek of his new Alphabet City trading post/deli/laboratory. He was taking delivery of a comically large immersion blender that looked like an outboard motor. The name’s been changed to Harry & Ida’s Meat and Supply Co., and I had a chance to stop by earlier this week.
Never has such a short menu of sandwiches confounded me so much. “Gee the cured meats with fennel chili butter sounds real good, and so does the smoked eel with kalechee butter,” I said like a kid in a candy—er meat—store, “but I really want to try the pastrami.” (more…)
“Wow, kids these days really love their meat,” I quipped to a gal on line at Monday night’s Brisket King NYC. The jam packed brisket competition was held at the sprawling Irondale Center, a gigantic space that was once a Sunday school auditorium. It was a fitting setting for faithful foodies to come out and worship brisket in all its incarnations, from straight-up traditional like American BBQ and deli to the downright strange, like bulogi and nigiri . (more…)
Willie Mae’s fried chicken is astounding. Photo: foodbitch.me
When it comes to New Orleans—land of jambalaya, crawfish, and po boys—fried chicken isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Turns out though that, like much of the South, the Big Easy has some mighty fine fried chicken.
I ate more fried chicken—heck more everything—in the course of a whirlwind weekend with my good friends from Chowzter than I have in quite some time. A quick cab ride from Louis Armstrong airport and Yvo “Feisty Foodie” Sin joined our fellow Chowzters at the iconic Dooky Chase’s, where everyone from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to President Barack Obama have dined. (more…)
The hordes of barbecue and booze and enthusiasts had a blast.
About 10 years ago good barbecue in New York City was about as available as snow boots are this winter. Back in the dark ages of low and slow smoked cooked meat the best place to get the best ‘cue was on the competition circuit, an opportunity I availed myself often enough in the guise of my hard-drinking, meat-eating, smoke-loving alter ego, Joey Deckle. Fast forward to 2014 and there’s more quality barbecue in our fair city than you can shake log of post oak at. (Heck my pal Tyson Ho is even opening up a whole hog emporium later this year.) Much of it was represented at last night’s Brisket King NYC, in which more than a dozen pitmasters vied for the crown. It was so crowded that I found myself chanting, “Ain’t no riot like a meat riot, cause when you’re on a meat riot, you never diet.” (more…)
A Weekend of Japanese Culture at LIC Flea & Food Saturday, October 5, Sunday October 6, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City
Those who missed the Hokkaido Gourmet Food Fair at Mitsuwa might want to check LIC Flea and Food this weekend as it turns Japanese thanks to Kazuko Nagao of Oconomi. Foods will include okonomiyaki and yakisoba from Oconomi,tonkotsu ramen from Chef Koji of Hakata Ton Ton, onigiri from Maid Café, and experimental Sushi by Chef Sonny.
Butcher Paper Dinner: Rooftop Crab Boil Sunday October 6, 3:00 p.m., $80 Brooklyn Grange, 37-18 Northern Blvd., Long Island City Edible Queens and the Brooklyn Grangeare holding their inaugural Butcher Paper Dinner this Sunday afternoon. And they’ll need plenty of that brown paper to line the table because the series of dinners kicks off with a crab oil by none other than Will Horowitz, the chef behind the Cajun-Southeast Asian joint, Ducks Eatery. The menu includes fresh oysters,mountains of blue crab, plenty of farm fresh veggies, as well as beer from Queens Brewery and wine from Bedell Cellars. Tunes will be spun throughout the afternoon and evening by celebrated DJ and saxophonist Neal Sugarman, co-owner of funk/soul label Daptone Records and resident of neighboring Sunnyside.
Most people go to Jazz Fest for the music. I go to Jazz Fest for the food, and there is no food I enjoy on the fairground of Jazz Fest more than an oyster po-boy. “What’s the big deal?” ask those who are less obsessed by food. “A po-boy is just a sandwich, right?” Well, not exactly. If it’s just a sandwich then it should be possible to find a well-executed po-boy anywhere in the world. The truth is the probability of finding a good oyster po-boy diminishes the further away you get from New Orleans. Even in the Big Easy, you find many mediocre po-boys but few great ones. (more…)
Will Horowitz cooks “Vietnamese Cajun food” at Ducks. Photo: ELK
This week I pose Seven Questions to Will Horowitz, the chef-owner of Ducks Eatery in Manhattan’s East Village. Ducks is the kind of place where trail mix, crispy pig’s ears, and yakamein with barbecued brisket and clams all appear on the same menu. Strange, beautiful and delicious.
How would you characterize the food at Ducks?
We like to tell people that it’s “Vietnamese Cajun food, strongly influenced by local terroir” so people have some sense of category, maybe next week we’ll just start calling it “New Orleans 2047.” Really though, I have no fucking idea. I’m building recipes like stories, my inspiration is found in old trade routes, travels, nature, wars, traditions and heritage techniques. With that being said, there’s also a very “stream of consciousness” style undertone to our creativity, which we tend to paint on what’s often a very comedic canvas.
Do most customers get it?
A lot of people get it, a lot of people don’t. Not that I expect everyone too, that wasn’t the goal. Religion gives faith to the uncertainty of the universe’s question marks… we are a question mark with no religion. We’re utilizing a mentality driving some of the world’s most exciting restaurants in the form of corn dogs & moonshine. With that being said we have a huge following from the neighborhood, food writers and most of all industry folk. We’ve become sort of a cult hangout for a lot of really cool chefs, which makes me happy. I love cooking for other cooks.
