My June trip was off to a crackin' start with LaBute and Perilla, and on day two I added art to the itinerary with a visit to the Met, then showing Frank Stella sculptures on the roof and a Paul Poiret retrospective. Fashion-challenged me, I'd never heard of Poiret, so the exhibit was a fascinating introduction to the man who created the hobble skirt. That item was an aberration: we can thank Poiret for condemning the corset and inventing more draped, movement-friendly women's wear, including the chemise dress and harem pants. (Coincidentally, I recently read in Juliet Nicolson's The Perfect Summer, about the English summer of 1911, that the season's debutantes were forbidden to wear trendy hobble skirts, as these prevented women from curtsying to the Queen.) Fickle fashion turned against Poiret as more modernist designers like Chanel rose. Poiret once met her on the street in the '20s, and seeing Chanel dressed all in black, he quipped, "For whom, madame, do you mourn?" "For you, monsieur," she retorted.
It's an old story: the important but self-important elder, the irreverent upstart. And in fact that was the story at my next stop for lunch, Ed's Lobster Bar in SoHo: weeks after my visit, chef Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar sued Edward McFarland, the eponymous Ed and her former sous chef, for copyright infringement, claiming that he'd copied her restaurant, down to the Caesar salad recipe. "Total plagiarism," she called it. It was a strange and surprising accusation, the first instance I'd heard of a restaurant claiming that its entirety--concept, interior design, recipes--are intellectual property protected by the same laws that apply to art and published works. While I certainly favor protecting creative output, it does seem a step too far to claim copyright on a Caesar salad. After all, if there were such rights, shouldn't royalties go to the descendants of Caesar Cardini, who invented the salad and trademarked the recipe? (Oddly enough, the recipe was born in Tijuana in the '20s--around when Poiret met Chanel?--so that city has at least one item in the "pro" column to offset drunk Americans and donkey shows.)
In any event, the suit (now settled) was a couple weeks in the future when I visited Ed's. Indeed, I was present at a happier time--one waiter was telling the counter-barflies that the Post had just that day dubbed Ed's the best lobster roll in the city. That's a tall statement: lobster roll aficionados are, like pizza fans, martini wonks, and royal matchmakers, highly fussy when it comes to questions of provenance, pedigree, and authenticity. I am not an expert, but I can vouch that Pearl Oyster Bar and Mary's Fish Camp, both in the Village, make excellent models (and in the latter, you might also get served by Amy Sedaris, though I haven't).
So, let us consider
the lobster, as David Foster Wallace says in a fine essay from Gourmet on the ethics of boiling live
creatures for consumption. Lobster's a luxury ingredient these days, but not so
long ago the Atlantic was so rich in crustaceans that they were considered a
trash fish, lobstermen's children presumably peering into their
shellfish-stuffed lunchboxes and tearily longing for Oscar Meyer or PB&J. As
Wallace notes, some of the American colonies "had laws against serving
lobster to inmates more than once a week, because it was thought to be cruel
and unusual, like making people eat rats." The lobster roll seems to be a
20th century, working-class invention, a toasted hot dog bun filled with lobster
meat dressed lightly with mayo or drawn butter and minimal additions. As with
crabcakes, an excess of other stuff in the mix usually indicates an incompetent
cook and/or a cheap bastard who doesn't want to fork over market price. And the
market price is a pincer nip in the wallet: you'll pay north of $20 for a
lobster roll, probably the higher end of the 20s in New York. Of course, as the
price of lobster has gone upscale, so has its cooking, though with rolls you'll
see the expense in thoughtful ingredient sourcing rather than Alinea-like
plating.
Mr. McFarland attended the French Culinary Institute and worked at Le Cirque and Picholine, so he knows starry cuisine and has obviously chosen to focus on flavor without fuss, careful preparation and homey presentation. The lobster is in big chunks, giving you the texture of the meat and a mouthful of its flavor, and it's minimally dressed with a slaw-like thin mayo, served as per tradition on a light, toasted bun. On the side are crunchy, sea-salted fries, house-made tart pickles, and a delicious slaw that got my vote by including shallots and cornichons, a little vinegary bite to complement seafood and salt (a trio that any fish-and-chip fan can vouch is The Way Things Ought to Be). None of those sides tasted like an afterthought, as is so often the case at fish shacks. For those people who don't like lobster rolls (do they exist?), there's a full menu, including lobster pot pie ($22), a raw bar, and a daily blackboard list of fresh fishy goodness, which when I went included an oyster roll, steamed mussels, and a fluke sandwich.
I arrived at the beginning of lunch service and was one of the first to pull up a stool at the bar, but the place was full within 30 minutes, and I'd bet on it being a mob scene in the evening. Still, if you're up for some treyf trencher, you'd do well to elbow your way in. I'd be happy to have a lobster roll in my lunchbox and was stuffing in every bite on my generous plate, giving thanks to Monsieur Poiret for excommunicating the corset.
