Sandwiches With Ducasse
by Christine Muhlke, Sept 24 2009 - nytimes.com
When I arrived at Xie Xie (pronounced “shay shay”), Ducasse had already removed his jacket and was standing at the bar, clearly jazzed by both the concept — six sandwiches and two desserts in a high-tech Asian space — and the chef. (As Ducasse explained to me, Angelo Sosa had worked with Jean-Georges Vongerichten for years at several of his restaurants; the two met by chance in Seoul, South Korea. Without knowing his background, Ducasse recalled, “I could immediately tell that he had the hands of a chef, a great touch.” He invited him to cook a special meal at Spoon in Paris in 2005.)
And so Ducasse — who enthusiastically seeks out street food, overlooked restaurants and holes-in-the-wall in every city he visits (he was giddy during a dinner at the original Shopsin’s) — ordered basically everything on the menu: Vietnamese-style turmeric-marinated tilapia with onion marmalade, sriracha and tufts of dill on an ideally crisp-soft roll; sweet pork on a steamed Chinese bun; chicken with smoked egg salad and cilantro; BBQ beef with carrot kimchi and basil-flecked mayo; and, last but not least, a straight-up hot-dog bun filled with Asian lobster salad and tarragon. (We skipped the vegetarian option.) The fish and lobster were the group favorites.
For dessert: oversize, flaky fortune cookies with yuzu custard dipping sauce and the incredible, edible “1,000-year-old” ice cream sandwich — chocolate cookies surrounding vanilla ice cream with a black caramel center, made to look like the Chinese egg of its name. “Can you believe it’s only $4?” Ducasse exclaimed, as he had with the price of almost everything we ate. Vive le euro.
Sosa and his partners have clear plans for their fast-casual project, with a St. Marks Place location opening in November and a big-gun publicist on board. It seems to be on track: on Tuesday it won the 2009 Restaurant Concept Award from StarChefs.com.
As for Ducasse, he wanted to know if they delivered to the St. Regis.
Xie Xie, 645A Ninth Avenue; NYC (212) 265-2975
