A few weeks ago I stopped into the downtown (original) location of Chef Pelaccio's Fatty Crab for dinner. The tables are a bit close to one another for my liking, and the place has difficult acoustics for holding conversations. But let's face it, sometimes it's just about the food. So, I squeezed into my seat and perused the menu. Something about Malaysian food begs for a beer, so I ordered the Porkslap Farmhouse Pale ale, which turned out to be a fantastic choice. Fatty Crab is meant to be sharing, family style eating. So, we ordered a few plates and split them. To start, we ordered the watermelon pickle and crispy pork...Five huge cubes of watermelon with cubes of fried pork belly on top and some greens with a light vinaigrette (this is a pretty large appetizer serving for just two people). You get these fantastic bites of salty crisp pork cut with sweet watermelon. Our next dish was the Malay Fish Fry with fried filets of fish on top of rice with a crab curry and green chilis. This was pretty spicy and lacked any depth of flavor. The fish was pretty bland and not the flaky, fried fish I was anticipating. It was just one of those dishes that you have no desire to finish. Our final plate was short rib rendang braised with kaffir lime, coconut, and chili topped with fried shredded coconut and accompanied by a side of coconut rice. Woohoo...we saved the best for last. These short ribs were so unbelievably delicious. Yes they were fatty...short ribs are but that's what makes them rich and delicious so deal with it because its worth it. The braising sauce, coconut rice, and short ribs made the perfect bites. The sauce was heavy on the coconut, but there was a hint of lime and the sweet shredded coconut made for a delightful texture variation. Honestly, this was one of the most remarkable dishes I've had in a while. I would totally deal with the crowded space to have this dish again. It's one of those dishes that once you have, its hard to go back to the restaurant and order something else. After we finished our meal, they brought over these superb coconut flavored pastry bites.
The other day, I happily stopped for lunch at Mimi's Hummus on Courtelyou Road in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. This is a tiny spot that has an adorable home-town feel to it. The minuscule kitchen is open and tucked into the back corner of the restaurant and Mimi is hard at work in it. My sister and I split the meat hummus, spinach salad with root vegetables and a raspberry tahini dressing, and eggplant pearls with parsley, tahini, and honey. The homemade pita bread arrived piping hot in a basket alongside the meat hummus. Meat hummus is something I've never had before...I always think of hummus with vegetables, but not anymore! The ground meat on this had a subtle nutmeg flavor and the surrounding hummus with oil was so delicious. I scooped as much as I could of this onto the pita bread. The cold eggplant dip was very nice and the honey on it was clearly fantastic quality, but I thought the honey overpowered the eggplant flavor a bit (my sister and her husband totally disagree and LOVE this dish). Part of my knows that there's nothing I can do...I'm either going to have to go back to Mimi's sometime soon for the meat hummus or try to make some of my own at home.
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