Well Bilt: Cocoa-dusted seared venison from the Biltmore Room.   (Photo: Joe Scafuro)

The Return of Asian Fusion

Giant prawns in sarong is not a dish designed to bring comfort to my friend the food aristocrat, who, like many members of her snooty guild, considers the term “Asian fusion” to be a florid, passé, possibly vulgar phrase, on a par with hors d’oeuvre, say, or spittoon. So imagine my surprise when she took a tentative bite of this exotic composition (it’s sautéed prawns wrapped in crunchy egg noodles) during our visit to THE BILTMORE ROOM, in Chelsea, and pronounced it to be “quite okay.” Our spicy duck samosas turned out to be “quite okay,” too (actually, they were delicious), and so was the sweet, exceedingly soft piece of black cod, marinated in miso and served with pickled lotus root, red-pepper sauce, and a toppling arrangement of cold somen noodles.

These recipes are the work of Gary Robins, a longtime Asian-fusion expert who has found sudden fame after wandering the food landscape for years like an errant Japanese ronin. Farther south, in the West Village, similar exotic dishes have been on display for several years now at ANNISA, although the hot new restaurant in my own Sixth Avenue neighborhood is JEFFERSON, where the chef-proprietor, Simpson Wong, serves up crisp fried lobster knuckles flavored with turmeric, fillets of red snapper ornamented with sweet persimmon, and, for dessert, a properly wobbly helping of chrysanthemum-scented panna cotta, which I enjoyed with a bracing pot of Nantou oolong tea.

Cross-Cultural: Crisp-skinned red fish with ponzu butter sauce at Jefferson.   (Photo: Rick Lew, ricklew.com)

BAO 111 is not, strictly speaking, a fusion joint, although Michael Huynh can’t help peppering his inventive Vietnamese cuisine with short ribs (wrapped around sticks of lemongrass) and little cubes of filet mignon prepared Saigon-style, with frizzled shallots, garlic, and a sidecar of chili sauce for dipping. The artful Pan-Asian finger food at the diminutive KUMA INN, on Ludlow Street, is Japanese in spirit, although the best thing I had there was a little pyramid of sweet Chinese sausages, sautéed with caramelized onions, served with sticky rice and a little bowl of Vietnamese-style salsa verde. The genial proprietors of CHICKENBONE CAFÉ, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, work similar wonders with Vietnamese sausage, which they serve crumbled, with cilantro and spoonfuls of creamy aïoli, in a French baguette. And if that doesn’t fill you up, do what I did and order a bowl of the nourishing house chicken stew (simmered in coconut milk and Thai curry), followed by a comforting hot pressed chocolate brioche sandwich for dessert.