Elizabeth's tenure and birthday party

Free Burgers August 28th

I'm pleased to announce that on August 28, 2010 I'll cooking and giving away free slider burgers at the Sparking Pointe Winery in Southhold NY (North Fork of LI). Event starts at 1pm.

These burgers will feature the famous house blend of chop meat from NYC's Pat La Frieda meats and will be topped with the most amazing cheese called Snofrisk, which is from Norway and Rock Chive Cress; Snofrisk is much like cream cheese but is made from 80% goat milk; I first served similar burgers in June 2010 at the James Beard House. Since then these Snofrisk burgers have become increasing popular. I'm bringing enough meat to make 200 sliders, starting at 1pm. So come down, check out the burgers, the music (Live Music by Ray Penney) and the Sparking Wine...

Sparkling Pointe happens to be the only winery in New York State who exclusively produces Sparkling Wines. All vintages are made in the Methode Champenoise Style, respecting the traditional methods of making French Champagne. Since it’s birth in 2001, Sparkling Pointe has gained national recognition, winning the Sweepstakes Award at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine competition for the Best Sparkling in America in 2008.

Since the Sparkling Pointe tasting room has been open, in October of 2009, it has been voted as one of the Top 5 Venue’s Outside of NYC by BizBash Magazine.

Specially for August 28th these burgers will be topped with Rock Chive Cress a micro vegetable from Koppert Cress which is also located on Long Island.

Address:

Vineyard/Winery Address (For GPS)

39750 CR-48

Southold, NY 11971

For more information:

Contact Info

Sparking Pointe

Koppert Cress

Snofrisk 

Chef Hawk at James Beard House

There are still tickets left for the NYC Food Film Festival kick off cocktail party at the James Beard House this Thursday (June 3^rd).

We have some amazing food including Jarlsberg tarts, cured herring and gravlax from Aquavit Executive Chef Marcus Jermark. We have dishes from Fatty Cue pit masters Robby Ritcher and Steve Haritopoulos & Chef de cuisine Andrew Pressler. We have smoked hogget and bacon by RUB pit master Scotty Smith. NYC Food Film Festival executive chef Harry Hawk will be preparing fresh Widows Hole Oysters, gin braised Beef calf muscle, burgers and much more.

The event features cocktails from Alan Katz, Bulldog gin and the Aquapolitan from Aquavit head bartender John Knight.

For tickets go to http://jamesbeard.org/?q=node/2039 and click “Find a Table”

2010 Tickets on Sale

Hey, we are now selling tickets for the 2010 Festival.

Oyster lovers really need to check out the June 23rd event.. which features all you can eat oysters and 4 oyster movies and lots more..

Schack Catering

Schnack Catering is available for all your events including those in the Spring, Summer and Fall. We have fixed menu's starting at $750 and $1000 and custom menu's from $2,000 to $10,000. 

Start it up (again)

Its' been a long journey from Schnack and Water Taxi Beach... but now have left both of those places.. and having a bit more time on my hands, I'm interested in getting this "food club" started again..

Sumatra

I finally got to Elmhurst and a chance to eat at Padangjaya Masakan Padang; the only one "Waroeng." So what's a Waroeng? Via Google: Waroengs (simple traditional hut for lunch or dinner) in Indonesia.

Well, it was a smaller place than I had imagined but the food was very good from chicken to beef intestines all yummy.

It is located 86-20 Whitney Ave, Elmhurst NY 11373.

Food Trip

I'm still in the planning stages, but with the Brooklyn Eats Event behind us now.. and some Schnack things working out ok... I'm planning on completing my research for the next event...

Javanese Food

I'm back from Holland and I had a great time.. and I had a lot of food from Indonesia including food from Java and Sumatra. Also while I was away an article about what I've been up to was printed in the NY Post.

It said in part, "If you like ethnic eats, check out the Brooklyn Food Club, created by Harry Hawk, the chef and co-owner of Schnack, a Brooklyn burger joint with a cult following." See below for the full text or the link to the NY Post.

I'm now researching place to go for a Javanese dinner.


The article can be found here.

October 3, 2004 -- Oprah has done wonders for reading with her monthly Book Club, but with all due respect to the daytime diva, she's behind the times.
It's hard enough to get through the iPod manual, let alone a novel, and leisurely reading is taking a back seat to a more immediate pleasure - eating.

Whether you want to try coal-oven pizza or hang out in the kitchen at Per Se, there's a new club for every culinary craving.

If you're one of those people who reads about every new restaurant and plans dinners with friends to check out what's hot, Culinary Insiders, a freshly launched club for restaurant-obsessed gourmands, is the group for you.

Founded this year by Lisa Mamounas, an entrepreneur with a passion for dining out, Culinary Insiders is packing the fall calendar with day trips to Blue Hill Stone Barns hosted by chef Dan Barber, tours of the Essex Street Market with chef Aaron Sanchez followed by lunch at his Lower East Side spot, Paladar, and a series of dinners at hot new restaurants like Caf‚ Gray.

Mamounas, a longtime foodie and a former Web entrepreneur, decided to turn her love of eating out into a business after an Internet company she started was bought out and she lost her job.

"If you're a member of an art museum or junior group, you go on trips, go to art openings, go to galleries, and I realized that there was nothing like this in the food world," she said.



Tomorrow night, chef Daniel Boulud will host the launch party in his private dining room, with wine, hors d'oeuvres and kitchen tours.

"It's a social outlet, but it's really about learning," said Mamounas.

Other people just want to eat. And for them, Foodie is nirvana. This gourmet club was started by Joe DeSalazar, 28, a former ad exec with an incurable desire to cook.

In December 2002, he created a dinner club for folks who love tasting menus but can't stand their pretense or price tags.

He's hosted nine events at rented loft spaces around the city. For the last one, attended by about 50 guests - singles and couples from their mid-20s to late 50s - DeSalazar prepared a six-country tasting menu including dishes from Mexico (banana leaf steamed cod with Queretaro green mole) and Italy (eggplant parmigiano bolognese with wild boar ragu). The dinners are $100 per person and include wine, tax and tip.

"With Foodie, you get a fun, casual, affordable food and wine-tasting event," DeSalazar says. "Plus, it's a great way for me to showcase what I can do in the kitchen without having to make a full career change."

While Foodie presents elegant multi-course menus, Social Eats takes a more down-home approach to dining, hosting weekly parties at the apartments of home cooks around the city.

Ben Marcus, 28, who works in the hotel business, created the group last year as an extension of the regular dinner parties he threw at his studio on the Upper West Side. He still hosts one dinner a week (he can squeeze in about five guests) for Social Eats, but other hosts hold bigger parties.

Dinners are usually themed ("Steak Night," "My Favorite Salmon"), three- to four-course meals with wine ($10 to $30), and usually attended by "sophisticated" foodies in their 20s and 30s "who want to meet new people," according to Marcus.

If you like ethnic eats, check out the Brooklyn Food Club, created by Harry Hawk, the chef and co-owner of Schnack, a Brooklyn burger joint with a cult following.

Every couple months, Hawk chooses an ethnic restaurant and leads a group of intrepid eaters through a five-course dinner, keeping the tab under $30 per person.

Hawk started the club two months ago by e-mailing like-minded friends and is seeking only those with a desire for dishes that might be "an acquired taste."

The first Brooklyn Food Club dinner was at Teeda, an authentic Thai spot on Columbia Streeet in Brooklyn where the feast included Todd Man Pla (fried fish cakes), sea scallops with curry sauce,and Thai custard with ice cream.

If those dishes are your speed, you might want to join the Joey Thai Club - a monthly dinner group held at Joey Thai (17 E. 31st St., [212] 213-3773). The club was started by last summer by Sharyn Rosenblum, a publishing executive who discovered the restaurant with her her boyfriend.

"We thought it would be fun to get a bunch of people together here, so we got 10 of his friends and 10 of my friends together, and it became one of those things," says Rosenblum.

"It's all you can eat, it's very reasonable [about $20 per person] and it's so much fun. We let Joey prepare the menu and we just say, 'Feed us!' He puts out family-style apps and entrees, curries and things, and some new dishes that we've never had before. And then we all share."

Pizza, too, has a fan club - the New York Pizza Survey, which grew out of on-line discussions on the foodie Web site eGullet.com. The club meets about once a month to eat (and dissect) pies at spots like Totonno's, Di Fara's and Lombardi's, examining the crust with particular rigor.

"We believe that the crust is 80 percent of the game," says Sam Kinsey, an eGullet site developer. "We don't rhapsodize about the toppings or the sauce because it's not our bag."

Battling the New York Pizza Survey is Adam Kuban's Slice.com Pizza Club. Kuban, a copy editor at Martha Stewart Living, has enjoyed pizza since childhood.

"From the time I was about 9 years old, my dad and I used to spend days in the kitchen experimenting with recipes," he says.

Now 30, Kuban is creator of the pizza Web site www.sliceny.com, and since March 2003 he has lead a monthly group to sample and critique different styles of pizza.

They've covered New York favorites (Di Fara's, Totonno's, Patsy's, Lombardi's, John's) and are slated to hit Arthur Avenue in The Bronx for the next trip.

Kurban's Slice Club discusses all aspects of the pizza in detail,

He warns, "We really just talk about pizza, so you really have to be a big pizza nerd."

He adds, "It's not the kind of thing you do to meet other singles." At least he's honest.

The vitals

Culinary Insiders:

www.culinaryinsiders.com. info@culinaryinsiders.com

Foodie:

www.foodienyc.com, info@foodienyc.com.

Social Eats:

www.socialeats.com, socialeats@socialeats.com

Brooklyn Food Club:

www.brooklynfoodclub.blogspot.com, or email harryhawk@gmail.com.

Joey Thai Club:

email joeythainyc@yahoo.com

The New York Pizza Survey on eGullet:

www.egullet.org/nypizza

Slice Pizza Club:

www.sliceny.com

Javanese Food

I've been talking to one of the Chefs at Kotobuki Bistro on Columbia St who comes from Java about Javanese food. We may have to travel to Queens. First I'm traveling to Amsterdam to check out the Indonesian food there.

I'll be posting again on or about Oct 15th - Stay Tuned.

harryhawk@gmail.com

2nd Food trip

It's time for another Brooklyn FOOD Trip!

I'm Harry the Chef/Owner @ Schnack.

It's time for an other 5 course dinner in Brooklyn. This time it's Restaurant 360 in Red Hook. There isn't a vegan option and it's a bit more expensive. But it's totally worth it; I have setup a great menu at 360. There needs to be 8 people to make this happen.

This dinner is set for Wednesday Sept. 22nd promptly at 8pm.

As always, please forward this message to any one else who may be interested.

This dinner is for those who are into adventure in their food. As always, to RSVP send me your $$ via Paypal to hhawk@yahoo.com. The cost for this dinner is $38 including food, tax and tip. Drinks not included. I don't make any $$ on this and I pay my own way. please RSVP ASAP or by Sept. 16th.

The menu is:

Cod Fish Cakes
Veal or Lamb (TBD) Tongue
Calf's Liver
their famous tripe
Dessert (TBD)

Teeda Dinner

Ok friends, it's time to try our first eating adventure...

I want to introduce friends to some of the more interesting restaurants I have discovered. The first is at a new Thai restaurant called Teeda. If this works, I'd like to lead a series of dinners to interesting restaurants mostly in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.

Teeda is located very close to my place, Schnack. The dinner I've arranged is set for Wednesday August 4th @ 8pm. I have eaten their
about 6 times and the food is very good. I've often asked for more authentic spices and spicy to sweet ratios and they have always accommodated me. I've asked for this dinner to be fairly authentic in taste without making it "way to spicy." If you are looking for mild spicy food, this dinner isn't for you. I'v e gotten to know the Chef
and I feel he will push himself to do a great job for this meal.

There are two choices of menus. They are otherwise fixed; everything (food, tip & tax) is included except drinks. There are two tasting menus; one including meat and seafood and one that is Vegan. Both are 5 courses and have the same dessert.

The regular menu is $26 and includes::

Fried Fish Cake. (Todd Man Pla, my favorite)
Tom Yum Shrimp
Sea Scallop with Panang Curry Sauce
Nuer Yang (thai steak) with spicy lime sauce
Thai custard with Ice Cream

The chef/owner promised truly vegan fare including no fish sauce, fish, etc.
The Veggie menu is $21 and includes:

Thai Spring Roll
Seared Veggie Dumplings
Tofu Veggie Soup
Sautéed Eggplant with salty yellow bean and chili.
Thai custard with Ice Cream

Teeda is located at 218 Columbia St, their # is (718) 643-2737.

If your interested in attending you need to reserve by sending a payment via www.PayPal.com to hhawk@yahoo.com for $26 or $21 for each regular or vegan menu. All reservations are final but transferable. If you have trouble using paypal I can send you a PayPal "invoice."

I'm not making any $$ on this adventure in fact I'm probably losing a few % due to the fee's that paypal charges. I'm paying for my own dinner.

/hawk

A beginning

The story of my pure lust of authentic food started in a small Japanese place off of 3rd Ave and 9th St. My Japanese friend and partner in food crime, Hiroyuki Kurashige, suggested we eat the $3.95 special listed on the "table tent." Hiro spoke, then, little English and I thought we were having a communication breakdown... There wasn't any thing for $3.95 on the menu in English... But he showed me the Japanese side and there in Arabic numbers was $3.95! Then I had the fear that the place was charging less $$$ to those who read Japanese. A quick count of the items on the menu however quickly revealed the truth; there were 3 more dishes listed on the "Japanese" side then on the English side. They were editing.

It turned out they offered 3 dishes with various combinations of grated radish (Daikon), tiny fishes, soya and things like mushrooms or seaweed. Hiro and I loved the dish, esp. the tiny fish. Visiting there the again a month or so later I pointed out this "editing" to a couple at the next table who then excitedly order one of these dishes; they hated it.

Thus germinated my idea to get some friends and friends of friends together to delve into the authentic food that doesn't have universal appeal; I don't always like such aggressive food in fact my next restaurant will likely specialize in the authentic food that is easy to enjoy.

If you like to eat almost anything... shoot me an email and I'll keep you posted.

harryhawk@gmail.com