Special Guest Food Adventure: Joel Speasmaker at Good Fork
By now, you all know our honorary NumNum’er Joel Speasmaker of Forest Design. He has been on many of our food adventures in addition to taste testing several of our at home eats. So it was only fitting that we ask Joel to his own food adventure, and he chose The Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We took Bryn along for the ride, being that its one of her favorite restaurants.
The Good Fork serves high quality, seasonal foods without the snooty attitude. Its actually all about comfort, from the staff, to the atmosphere, and most importantly, to the food.
The chef, Sohui Kim’s Korean roots begins to show right off the bat in our appetizer, the infamous pork dumplings! (Her pork dumplings beat Bobby Flay’s in their very own showdown) Oh those dumplings, so juicy, so savory… In addition to the dumplings we couldn’t pass up the crispy onion rings. As a starter, Bryn got the frisee (or as we call it the “angry lettuce”) and arugula salad with dried apricots, feta, pistachios, and poppy citrus vinaigrette.
Lisa got the Wild Atlantic Cod with manila clams, ramp puree, potato puree, sugar snap peas, meyer lemon confit. Who can pass up ramps at this time of year? And along with the perfectly cooked Cod, the textures were amazing.
Bryn got the homemade tortellini filled with ricotta, mascarpone, mint, fresh peas, parmegianno. A light, fluffy little pasta cloud with a slight refreshing kick of mint.
Oh, bacon, how I love thee. I (Caroline) was a pescatarian for 6 years and Lisa, longer than that. You know what turned us? I’ll give you one guess. Yup, that’s right, bacon! I couldn’t pass up this bacon wrapped pork tenderloin
with creamy hominy grits, swiss chard, spicy apple jam. The juicy pork wrapped in crispy bacon was absolutely delicious, but the apple jam got to be a little too sweet for me towards the end. But hey, it had bacon, so it was still good.
As for our special guest of honor, Joel, got the signature dish of the restaurant. The “steak and eggs” korean style grilled skirt steak, kimchee rice, fried egg. He couldn’t have been happier with his choice, steak and eggs, and even for a person who can’t take anything spicy, the kimchee wasn’t too spicy for him.
With our bellies full and mouths happy, we happily report a well accomplished food adventure.
The Good Fork (391 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn)
Food Talk with Joel Speasmaker
1. When did you first start cooking and how?
When I was growing up my mom would make my sister and I each cook one night a week. I think I was usually charged with Sunday’s, and I started making Chicken Flautas literally every week. To break up the monotony, my mom then made me do this weekly at-home cooking “class” through the local newspaper , where I learned such recipes as “Tuna Waffle-whiches” and homemade fruit rollups.
2.What is your “Go-To” Dish?
Salmon with lemon, butter, and garlic, with cous cous and asparagus.
3. If you had a last meal, what would it be?
I think I would have a really hard time deciding, just like I have a really hard time deciding what I want to eat every night. It would most likely include some sort of combination of prime rib, french fries, caesar salad, ceviche, brussel sprouts, kale, and an expensive beer. Or probably a Chipotle burrito bowl.
4. Why did you choose Good Fork as your food adventure?
My first choice was going to be The Brooklyn Star, but unfortunately they were still closed down due to a recent fire. So I did what anyone would do in this situation – steal an idea from a friend – and in this case it was Mike Treff, who claimed Good Fork is his favorite restaurant and would choose it if lucky enough to be asked on a food adventure with the Num Num girls. I had had their dumplings at the Brooklyn Flea and was excited to try it.
5. Where is your favorite place to get a meal? and a Drink?
Right now my favorite restaurant of all time is Ippudo, but this will undoubtedly change in a few weeks or so. For a drink, I’d rather stay at home and make something fun (like a wine spritzer!). But if I had to choose I would go to Bar(n) or Prime Meats.
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Great Review!
Ha! I remember the tuna waffle-wiches! I seem to remember you, Joel, making a ridiculous amount of chicken with peppers over rice.
Comment by Leya Speasmaker — May 12, 2010 #