Ann Arbor: Monahan's Seafood Market

When I made the decision to attend law school in Michigan almost two years ago, no one told me that I would be constructively depriving myself of decently fresh seafood for three years. That's just one little tidbit they left out of the glossy brochures. The seafood in Michigan is abysmal. It is so abysmal that even some of the supposedly higher end restaurants in Ann Arbor succeed in serving fish and shellfish entrees that at best, are of questionable freshness, and at worst, taste defrosted or old.

The one bright spot in this rather bleak picture is Monahan's. Generally considered to be the best place for fresh fish in Ann Arbor, founder Mike Monahan sources fish from the usual out-of-state suspects (New England, Florida, Hawaii, etc.), as well as locally (Michigan is, after all, surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes). They also pride themselves on being the only market in Ann Arbor to bring fish in whole, and then cutting or filleting to order.

Monahan's also does a brisk lunch business out of a small side counter in their fish market operation. Everyday from 11am to 3pm, the staff serves up tried-and-true favorites, as well as daily fish and chowder specials that they post on Twitter. During a particularly unproductive weekend, I meandered down to the fish market, located in Sparrow Market in Kerrytown, to check out some of the lunch offerings.

Fish and chips: Beer battered, North Atlantic pollack, with hand-cut fries

I went for the classic fish and chips during my first visit. The pollack was flaky, tender, mildly flavorful and fresh - just as it should be. The house-made tartar sauce, thick and tangy and loaded with pickled cucumber, only accentuates the quality of the fish. However, the frying technique at Monahan's leaves a bit to be desired. The batter encasing that great pollack was resoundingly crisp in some spots, but greasy and limp in others. The hand-cut fries exhibited similar unevenness in texture.

Bernie's Fabulous Chowder of the Day: New England clam chowder

Monahan's Atlantic Salmon Burgers, served with lettuce, tomato, onion and mustard-dill sauce

Still, I enjoyed my meal enough to pay Monahan's a second visit a few days later for a salmon burger and some New England clam chowder. The burger is served on a lightly toasted hamburger bun, which gives the sandwich just enough crunch. However, the salmon cake, while velvety and moist, could have used a bit more seasoning. I took a few bites sans the mustard-dill sauce and found the salmon flavor too mild. The sauce was a necessity with this sandwich, not a superfluous indulgence. The chowder, on the other hand, was well-balanced and expertly seasoned, with generous chunks of potato, celery and clam immersed in the creamy broth. For once, the clams were tender, rather than rubbery, and they didn't look or taste canned.

There is no doubt that the seafood at Monahan's is supremely fresh, and for that, they should be commended. The staff also deserves praise for their attentiveness and willingness to accommodate; my servers on both occasions were jovial and prompt. Monahan's aquatic fare is good, but the kitchen needs to tighten up their seasoning and cooking technique so that the preparation stands up to the quality of the product. Nevertheless, Monahan's has great potential, and I look forward to sampling more of their specials during the remainder of my time in Michigan.

Monahan's Seafood Market

407 N. Fifth Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

(734) 662-5118

Best dishes: Chowder, fish and chips

Hours: Lunch served Monday-Saturday, 11am-3pm; Sunday, bagels & lox served all day

Website: http://www.monahansseafood.com/

Sunny and Annie's Deli

The Korean deli is a New York staple. Where else can you find made-to-order sandwiches and salads, soups, groceries, a hot and cold buffet, sushi and udon noodle soup all in one place? It is the perfect lunch standby for the mercurial and demanding New Yorker. The key, of course, is to figure out which delis excel in whatever it is you're craving at the moment.

Upon moving to the East Village this past summer, I did a quick search on Yelp, which revealed that Sunny and Annie's was the place for sandwiches in the neighborhood. Specifically, the P.H.O. Real Sandwich - pho masquerading as a hoagie.

Sunny and Annie's does an impressive job of capturing the flavors of a bowl of pho between two pieces of bread. All of the necessary aromatics - bean sprouts, cilantro, onions and basil - are in there, along with some unconventional but welcome additions, such as avocado and tomato. In lieu of mayo and mustard are squirts of sriracha and hoisin sauce. Crammed into the heart of the sandwich is a generous amount of roast beef. Unfortunately, the beef is dry and well-done. A bloodier, moister roast beef would better mimic the rare beef that is usually sliced into the broth. I can picture a more upscale establishment taking the concept even further, serving a star anise spiked beef broth with the sandwich for an Oriental riff on a French dip sandwich.

The P.H.O. Real sandwich may not warm you up like a bowl of noodles would on a cold winter day, but if you happen to be running around Alphabet City one day with a hankering for pho, the P.H.O. Real at Sunny and Annie's is a stand-in that's worth a try.

Sunny and Annie's

94 Avenue B
New York, NY 10003

Basta Pasta

The hackneyed, usually misguided notion of "East meets West" has conferred a number of horrors upon society. An era of bad "Asian" fusion restaurants. General Tso's chicken. Steven Seagal movies.

Unfortunately, Basta Pasta joins the ranks of these botched attempts at cultural amalgamation. An experiment in Japanese-Italian cuisine, it exhibits many of the same qualities that befall the worst offenders of the East-meets-West cliche: novel enough to pique your interest, questionably lauded by many, neither country represented particularly well. The result is confused and poorly executed fare that captures neither the clean precision of Japanese cuisine nor the comforting heartiness of Italian food.

The meal begins innocuously enough. Truth be told, I enjoyed myself somewhat at the bread and appetizer stage. Little crisps of bread anointed with slices of goat cheese "lite" were brought to the table. I say goat cheese "lite" because it tasted like a cross between butter and goat cheese, the usual gaminess of the goat's milk diluted by a creamier, saltier flavor.

Calamari alla griglia: Grilled squid served with homemade sausage stuffed with curry risotto, golden raisins, pistachios and prosciutto.

Bagna cauda: Fresh vegetables with warm anchovy cream dip.

Calamari alla griglia arrived next. Though a bit salty, this dish wasn't half bad. The squid was tender, and the sausage was moist and well-spiced with curry. A less aggressive hand with the salt shaker and this would have been a solid appetizer. However, bagna cauda, the Piedmontese garlic-anchovy vegetable dip, would have been more aptly named "cream of garlic and salt." There was not one discernible anchovy in the white gloop that was served, and the consistency was reminiscent of those Campbell's condensed cream soups that I loved as a child. Still, strangely tasty, in that processed, I-know-it's-crap-but-my-taste-buds-like-fat-and-salt kind of way.

Spaghetti ai Ricci di Mare: Spaghetti with sea urchin, tomatoes and basil in garlic oil.

Server tossing pasta in Parmesan wheel.

Spaghetti con Prosciutto e Parmagiano: Spaghetti with Parmesan and Parma Prosciutto

Then the pastas arrived, and things took a turn for the worse. The much-hyped sea urchin spaghetti is perhaps one of the worst pastas I have ever had. Lackluster, pink tomatoes (can someone please explain serving out-of-season tomatoes in the middle of summer at a half-Italian restaurant?) languished on top of bland, store-bought noodles. Raggedy scraps of sea urchin littered the plate, polluting the dish with a bitter and metallic taste I never quite managed to rid my mouth of. The Spaghetti con Prosciutto e Parmagiano was equally as insipid, despite being energetically tossed in a gargantuan wheel of Parmesan cheese tableside. This bit of theater is probably the best part of ordering pasta at Basta Pasta, but it's sort of like going to the strip club - you get a tantalizing show, but leave with a noticeably thinner wallet and a hard-on for something a lot more fulfilling and expensive.

Tagliolini con Ragu di Pesce: Homemade tagliolini with Chilean sea bass ragu, capers and shredded zucchini in a spicy tomato sauce.

The tagliolini with Chilean sea bass is the one saving grace of the restaurant's pasta offerings. The texture of the pasta is slightly better, and the sauce is zesty and chock full of fish and ripe tomatoes (presumably, not the same ones thrown on top of the sea urchin monstrosity).

Vulcano: Melting chocolate inside warm cocoa sponge cake with vanilla gelato and fresh fruit

Crepe con Mela: Crepe filled with vanilla gelato, apple compote, Earl Grey jelly and sliced almonds.

For some reason, we ordered dessert. The molten chocolate cake was even more generic than most, being neither dense nor molten enough. And the Crepe con Mela tasted strangely of Kool-Aid, which was amusing and nostalgic, but nevertheless, unsatisfying.

In the right hands, fusion cuisine can be a success. However, Basta Pasta's neglect of the basic ideals of both Japanese and Italian cooking (unripe tomatoes? old sea urchin?) makes for a muddled and subpar experience that fails to impress on either front.

Basta Pasta

37 W. 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

(212) 366-0888

Best dishes: Calamari alla griglia, tagliolini with sea bass ragu