Snapshots From Pok Pok Ny's Tastemakers NY Dinner
Pok Pok Ny, located on Brooklyn's Columbia Street Waterfront, is one of the hottest restaurants in town, and on Thursday night Pepcid and Eater.com co-sponsored a dinner there as part of their Tastemakers NY dinner series. Seven dishes were served (several of which were off-menu), as well as several house cocktails, and Chopped host Ted Allen was on hand to host.
Snapshots from Pok Pok Ny's Tastemakers NY Dinner (Slideshow)
Pok Pok was opened two years ago by chef Andy Ricker, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest in 2011, as an offshoot of his immensely popular Portland, Ore. restaurant of the same name. The menu here is focused on the cuisine of northern Thailand and its emphasis on pork, the grill, crabs, and salads bursting with fresh herbs as opposed to coconut milk and spiciness.
Even though it moved into roomier digs recently (and Ricker's Whiskey Soda Lounge, which opened across the street, helps with the overflow), it's still one of the hottest tickets in town, and even Ted Allen admitted that he hadn't been there before.
The purpose of the dinner was to emphasize the fact that even though heartburn is most commonly associated with greasy foods like pizza and fried chicken, it can also strike when you least expect it, at Pok Pok for example ("I can tell you from experience that it is possible to get heartburn at Le Bernardin,"Allen quipped), and by the end of the meal we were wishing that some Pepcid was actually made available to us.
Three specialty cocktails, three appetizers, two entrées, one vegetable side, and a dessert were all on offer, so loosen your belt and check out these photos of everything that was served.
Rhubarb Blush
Specialty cocktails included the Rhubarb Blush, made with Aperol, gin, lime juice, rhubarb bitters, and an orange twist; the Southside, which included gin, lemon juice, mint simple syrup, soda, and mint; and the Apple Gin Rickey, with gin, drinking vinegar, soda, lemon, and a cherry.
The Bar
All cocktails were made with Tanqueray No. TEN.