Aska Silly Question

A review of ASKA

You know, for someone as light in the loafers as my son Robbie, he sure seems to have an iron constitution.  I know this, because it was his fault that I ended up at Aska, the latest “sensation” / stunt-food emporium in the Brooklyn restaurant scene.  Locally sourced, hand-picked, sustainable, forward thinking, yet nostalgic, $65 a person, 7-course Scandinavian, free-range grass-fed neo-Nazi albino chicken, swamp weeds, and fjord discharge served on pottery made by Pine Tree Mary.

We were seated at a table surrounded by bearded men and their equally hirsute women. A waiter appeared and dropped an “amused bush” on our table: dried pig-blood cracker with sea urchin foam.  That sounds like something Thor would scrape off his knee.  Safe to say, this amused Robbie’s bush more than it did any part of me.   In one movement, he golf-clapped his hands and shoved the whole rusty looking thing into his mouth, like the world’s girliest Viking.  Inside, I was already sharpening my battle axe.

“Are we really paying to eat this?” I asked as he chewed. Robbie’s smile quickly faded as he actually tasted the cracker.

“Yes,” said Robbie, spitting the cracker into his napkin, “this is one piece of meat I refuse to swallow.” He grabbed for his wine and gargled. “That was horrible.”  Now, I was amused.

Hungry, we waited for the next course. A sommelier walked over and presented us with a cabbage and beet juice cocktail to pair with our next dish, pig trotter. Cabbage juice? Pig trotter?  I’m pretty sure that was the last Exacta I hit at Aqueduct.   But I’ve learned something valuable: if you want to clear out a room, just let some cabbage and beet juice work its brown magic on ol’ Yutzi’s insides.  Works faster than a fourth scotch.

Anyway, I think you’re sensing the trend here.  Four more dishes followed with unidentified lumps of meat and vegetables.  Some of it was actually tasty, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I ate walrus and some lichen at one point.

But hey, if surviving all 7 courses at Aska gets me into Valhalla with those big blonde broads in the breast plates, it will have all been worth it.

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Requiem for an affordable lobster roll

By Yutzi.

Ah Labor Day…it meant so much more when I was still a working stiff.

Instead, your correspondent, Yutzi, found himself on the coast of our beloved New Hampshire enjoying that last meal of summer: the lobster roll.

But you know what really sticks in my claw?  You see what I did there?  Claw?  Marvelous…Anyway, can anyone tell me why you can’t find a goddamn lobster roll for under twenty bucks?  WHY?

Back in Yutzi’s heyday, the lobster roll was considered the poor man’s turkey sandwich. With only three low-rent ingredients- hot dog bun, lobster and mayo- even a flappy-armed lunch lady could slap one together and call it a meal for five clams.

So, how do these three humble ingredients now end up being $19.99? Well, I spent the last week investigating and have found the causes of inflation:

1. Using more than three ingredients…stick the the script, you bunch of tutu-wearers.

2. Something called Himalayan pink salt…I think my last escort used that in her bathwater, or was that her name?

3. Acts of oxymoronic, culinary delusion: artisan hot dog bun, organic lobster, gourmet mayonnaise.  For the sake of my sanity, can someone point me to an inorganic lobster?

4. McDonald’s no longer serves the McLobster. Boy, oh boy, were those the best!  If the Hamburgler needed a lobster-lovin’ sidekick, sign me right up!

So there you have it. The beloved lobster roll is no longer affordable to anyone without a beret or a mustache. So, like your white shoes after labor day, say good-bye and order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before those too fall into the greasy subway-pole hands of beatniks and hipster youth and set you back twenty bucks.  Yeesh.

Ain’t Nothin’ But a Paulie Gee’s Thang

PAULIE GEE’S
by YUTZI

Okay, first off, what in creation does that title mean?  Who edits this shit, e.e. cummings?

Anyway, my son Robbie and I have this little game.  We can never agree where to go to dinner – he finds my selections “de-class-ay”, whatever the crap that is, and I leave his places as hungry as I came, because I’ve been eating goddamn bird food all night.

So, we play a game where I pick the cuisine, and he picks the restaurant or vice versa.  It was my turn, so I said “pizza.  I want a goddamn proper pizza pie.”  So he picked Paulie Gee’s.

I did some research first…Paulie Gee, apparently, he used to be a…what, goddamnit…claims adjuster or something.  Anyway, he chucks it all aside and buys a pizza oven.  And as soon as I walked in, I could see why: so he could surround himself with a hot waitstaff!  My god, I felt like I was back in my room, spanking it to an issue of Cosmo.

Our waitress, a sweet little Oriental number, came by and we ordered wine.  Forget the wine, sweetie, want to be the next Mrs. Yutzi?  Ninth time’s the charm, you know.  But Robbie rolled his eyes and ordered some red…with bubbles!  I don’t get that boy sometimes.

I looked around, nothing but good-lookin’ dames carrying food, just the way Yutzi likes ’em.  “Hey, Robbie check out the talent in this joint” I said, but he was busy sniffing around the menu, finally squealing like a little girl with a box of shaved kittens.  I thought maybe bubbles from the wine shot in his nose.  “Dad, I’m getting the Grapeful Dead!”

I asked if that meant grape tomatoes, but he said no, there’s actual GRAPES on the goddamn pizza!  What’s this poncey hippy bullshit?  They gonna splash it with patchuli afterward?  I told him if he ordered that kind of flowery crap, he might as well deduct the price from his inheritance.  I just about smacked the black off of him.

Then I looked at the menu and saw the “Hellboy,” some pie with honey on it.  In fact, almost everything in this place had some kind of goofy name and, I don’t know, pimentos.  I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.  The waitress came back, and I just got a plain pie, and Robbie got “the Mootz” with sausage.   Sausage, now there’s something a REAL man puts in his mouth.  That’s my boy.

I must admit, the bubbling red wine went down pretty nice, and the environs…well, they were a little woodsy and modern, whatever happened to red tablecloths?  The waitresses more than made up for it, though.  Ay, chihuahua.

Oh, and Paulie came over and said hello!  Nice guy.  I asked him to turn down the music, but he misheard me and started showing me ticket stubs on his phone from all these rock concerts he used to go to in the ‘60s.  So I told him about the time Ann Murray played on the cruise ship, back when I was tending bar, but he didn’t seem too impressed. Yeesh.

Anyway, I’ve tugged on your coat long enough about this place…but I do have good news… the pizza is delicious!  Nice burnt crust you can tug at, bubbling cheese, hearty chunks of sausage…this is the kind of place you can take a dame to.  Or Robbie.

Wolf insisted I pick him up a pie if I liked the place.  Oh, waitress, one Grapeful Dead to go…and gimme your number while you’re at it.

Paulie Gee’s, 60 Greenpoint Ave., Brooklyn, NY