Joseph Leonard, New York - June 2011

Where: Joseph Leonard and Fedora, West Village, New York 

With who: me, myself and I (and a great deal of pig)

It's a quirky and cosy two-level West Village pub that rapidly became a favourite on my recent trip to New York. Partly for the welcome, somewhat for the atmosphere but mainly for the most decadent piece of ham I've ever eaten.

With only seven tables, each the epitome of the ragged-rustic house style, and a slew of bar seating mean Joseph Leonard is an intimate space, perfect for solo diners such as myself propping up the zinc counter or a quiet dinner with close friends. 

A sign of the resolutely local restaurant, they don't take reservations, so get there early or you'll be hovering around the doorway waiting for someone to vacate their place. Tonight being Gay Pride in New York, and Joseph Leonard being situated opposite the Stonewall Tavern in the heart of the festivities, the crowd is a little on the camp side. Someone's gone all in on the stereo and the music tonight (I hope only for tonight) is utter cheddar.. Cindi Lauper into Chaka Khan into Bohemian Rhapsody went wrong...

It's a relatively small menu, no more than 5 or 6 items per course, focussing on seasonal American fare. The aforementioned pork hock is the permanent house speciality. I was briefly distracted by the interesting cheese and oyster selection, a European cheeseboard with a focus on the raw and oozy, but I put that down to hunger and no one other than the barman to talk to. 

Thankfully I didn't pay too much attention to my conversation with the barman, he tried to upsell me the appetiser of the day, a crispy fried medley of dark chicken meat. If I'd taken the bait, I'd have been in the hospital by now. See, the ham hock had been pre-identified as the must have dish, and I'm not a man to let 95 degree heat get between me and a leg of fried animal.

The speciality deep fried ham hock hits with the subtlety of a moreish, porky brick. It's cooked twice overnight, first in brine and then in pork fat before being deep fried. And my god is it satisfying. Served with a caper and a rocket salad that cut through with sharpness but do nothing to negate the salty kick of the hock. Best served with beer, lots of the stuff. Handy considering the selection at the bar, one might think the two were linked.

It isn't the most obvious combination, a bar / restaurant metro enough to feel like the girls of Sex & The City might drop by for lunch, with as macho a main course as I've ever had. New York, city of contrasts, town of meat...

Stumbling out of Joseph Leonard, flushed with the meat sweats and discombobulated. I felt like a chubby Brit who'd just ingested a week's worth of swine. I needed somewhere to go and drink / sleep it off. Luckily the team behind JL have taken over Fedora, a basement dive round the corner and turned it into a low ceilinged macho speakeasy. It has a small but successful cocktail list, and an old fashioned hit the spot perfectly. It has it's own menu, but after the challenge I'd just been through I didn't have the guts to check it out. I would however recommend it for pre or post-dinner drinks.

Bocca Di Lupo - July 2011

Where: Bocca Di Lupo, Soho

How much: £35 a head including a carafe of house Merlot

Now I have history with fried. Show me a tapas bar, a fine dining restaurant or a street-side snack joint and I'll gravitate toward the section in batter.

BDL is a perfect case in point. A menu spanning the best parts of Italy available on a small plate. It could very well be the older, grown up brother that Polpo doesn't have or a distant cousin for similarly light and upmarket Barrafina.

Admittedly it's got a 'build your own' Frito Misto section and an obsession with the (literally) gutsier end of the pig, but in the main it's a well brought up, properly behaved small plate Italian. Friendly staff in black buzz along the thick, light marble bar into the serious restaurant at the rear. If you're only a two (or a very close three) then snare seats at the wide bar if you can. It's well designed for flowing access behind you and relatively calm, even opposite the frantic kitchen, and doesn't thankfully feel like either an afterthought or a corridor.

There's plenty on the keenly priced sharing menu to tempt the non meaty. I could happily graze from their side dishes, and a small plate of plump, fresh broad bean tortellini was well executed and possibly life extending if not eye opening. But in all honesty, if you're at BDL for a bite, chances are it's going to be porky.

Most of the dishes come with two sizes, and even the small plates are reasonably proportioned. We started with plump olives, as green as snooker baize and a brace of sourdough bruchetta, layered with some of the sweet and seasonal broad beans scattered across several other dishes on the menu, here combined with salty thin shards of pig's cheek and a deep umami laden jus. They paired perfectly with similarly seasonally apt courgette flowers, stuffed with mozzarella and lifted out of their slightly oily batter with the soft bite of anchovy. 

If I were to throw a criticism, it'd be that oil. It slightly marred the courgette flowers and soaked deeply into the sheet holding the so-so Frito Misto too. Not a deal-breaker, but enough to make you regret another order of fried. You build your own frito from a small menu, baccalau was unctuous flaky battered pollack, whole squid gave great texture in the tentacles but over floured rings and bland aubergine, little more than an oil trap, let down the final dish.

Thankfully, and expectedly for a restaurant with its own ice-cream parlor over the road, they made up with the desserts. My guest took a trio of the homemade, fruit stuffed ice creams, here nestling in a toasted brioche roll, I went for Sanguinaccio, the devil's own nutella, a thick chocolate paste with pine nut and pig's blood from Abruzzo, the blood adding a dark note of sweet iron, lifting the dark cocoa to the heavens. I licked the bowl clean. I'm not a proud man...