September 27, 2010 |
Short Order
Half launched FoodParc is a gourmandlich retreat for techies
Red Farm’s crunch-crusted egg rolls: Bacon, shrimp and pastrami. Photo: Steven Richter.
It can’t be fun to follow in the wake of Eataly. You get a lot of sand in your eyes if you’re racing behind that hydra-headed Italian Goliath. And now just weeks after the 50,000-square-foot MarioMart launched with lines around the block comes FoodParc, a collection of stands at 15,000 square-feet on the ground floor of Kimpton’s new Eventi Hotel on Sixth Avenue.
Ultimately the grazing action will extend into the courtyard garden. There are five for now: Red Farm Stand doing classics and riffs on Chinese cooking; 3Bs bundling bacon, burgers and beer; Fornetti offering everything you can think of served on flatbread; The Press for coffee, breakfast fixings and ice cream; and a bar so you can drown your sorrows in booze if you can’t figure out how to order on a touch screen.
What does Eataly have to do with FoodParc? I can just hear Jeffrey Chodorow roaring.
Red Farm’s spicy won ton, dim sum, 3B’s hash brown snacks. Photo: Steven Richter.
Well…not much, I guess. It’s just that the city has broken out in a rash of food halls. And FoodParc, at this point, seems rather modest, though it has tiered seating in an adjacent dining room and a futuristic design by Syd Mead, designer of the movie “Blade Runner,” who has never done a restaurant. By the time we walked in for dinner at 7:30 Thursday, the place was almost empty after a day beseiged by hungry throngs.
Red Farm’s crunch-crusted egg rolls: Bacon, shrimp and pastrami. Photo: Steven Richter
Ed Schoenfeld, the Chowd’s consultant in FoodParc, looked like he’d been buffeted by wild hordes though he was still game to make sure I tasted his watermelon juice invention, the marvelous bacon-stuffed hash-brown potato balls, the pastrami egg roll – great with mustard dip - and the house-made pastrami bacon Reuben on Eli’s black pumpernickel toast. The sandwich arrived after we’d already eaten too much at Red Farm but I couldn’t help myself and devoured my half and Steven’s too. Indeed the place had been bustling all day. Jeffrey Chodorow’s scion Zach, a co-conspirator here, was dimpling with charm and still full of energy, urging us to try the gelato and demonstrating the individual cardboard coffee press cups.
We got a tour upstairs where the staff was training for the opening soon of Bar Basque, Terry Zarikian’s curatorial job for Chodorow. Were we sworn to secrecy? I can’t remember. I was too drunk on pastrami. I do recall looking out the window to the courtyard and seeing the biggest flat screen TV I’ve ever seen. Bigger than Mario’s pizza oven. So there.
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