Sitting astatine the counter, I could spot that Lee was successful the room (what a kitchen! It’s a choky linear agelong moving down the antagonistic similar a studio-apartment galley setup), arsenic she is seemingly each evening. With a sous oregon 2 astatine her side, she m.c.’s the show, plating and garnishing and chatting gaily with customers and staff. Here, arsenic astatine her pop-ups, Lee wears chefdom with a joyful lightness. She makes it look easy—conceiving the dozens of tiny dishes, doing each the inheritance prep and labour that goes into this benignant of pickle-and-fermentation-heavy cuisine, and nailing the carnal choreography, but, much potently, she makes it consciousness fun. There’s artistry to her dishes, but not a shred of an artist’s self-seriousness. Upon a decidedly Korean foundation, she nimbly experiments with planetary harmonics: a peculiar of roasted and pickled mushrooms, meaty oyster and chewy wood-ear together, tossed successful a garlicky tahini dressing, oregon an eggplant namul (long-stewed, until the rootlike collapses similar an overstressed popular star) with an unexpected caponata-ish, Eastern European-ish flourish of raisins and bits of marinated celery.
Lee opened Sunn’s successful concern with the vino maven Grant Reynolds, of Parcelle, who oversees the rather fantabulous vino program; arsenic befits specified a petite restaurant, the database is tiny but mighty, and by-the-glass options are constricted to 1 red, 1 white, 1 orangish (it’s Dimes Square, aft all), and a “special pour” of immoderate the unit is into astatine the moment. The wines brace uncannily good with Lee’s high-saturation flavors—even a spicy-tuna manus roll, which possibly leaned a small excessively heavy connected the spicy, inactive did large against a bright, acidic Loire Valley red.
It’s been a bully fewer months for pop-ups putting down brick-and-mortar roots connected the Lower East Side, and adding immoderate superior vino cred to the mix. Ha’s Snack Bar, which has been unfastened since January, is from the husband-and-wife squad down Ha’s Đặc Biệt, a prolific Vietnamese pop-up that was astir arsenic celebrated for the velocity astatine which tickets to its events sold retired arsenic it was for its thrilling, sophisticated, often unexpected food. Pete Wells, the erstwhile Times edifice critic, declared its 2021 residency (a pop-up treble measure with Kreung Cambodia) astatine Outerspace, successful Bushwick, “the edifice of the summer”—coincidentally, the time aft being truthful dubbed, Ha’s owner-chefs Sadie Mae Burns and Anthony Ha discontinue the residency, the culmination of a agelong play of trouble successful their narration with their host.
Ha’s was backmost astir immediately, partnering with restaurants again—and what a acceptable of restaurants! The Four Horsemen! Yellow Rose! Bistro Paul Bert, successful Paris! Still, I ideate that, for Burns and Ha, to present beryllium capable to enactment wrong the stabilizing model of a lease, and plumbing, and their ain prime of colour connected the walls—mostly white, it turns out, successful a romantic, dimly lit benignant of way, though the unfastened room successful the backmost of the cozy abstraction anchors the full country connected large quadrate tiles of primary, elementary-school blue—it indispensable beryllium a relief. (But possibly not an unalloyed one: a Ha’s preservation has been 1 of the hottest tickets successful municipality lately, the buzz truthful beardown it’s verging connected a roar; erstwhile Burns and Ha learned I’d beryllium penning astir the restaurant, they politely requested that I not, saying that they “are not looking for immoderate further property sum astatine this time.”) The chalkboard paper lists a daily-written lineup of dishes, their flavors legibly Vietnamese but with an appealing dose of cool-kid weirdness, and a decidedly more-French-than-you-might-expect French inflection. A grated-carrot salad, for example, that stodgiest of Parisian luncheon dishes, is present jolted into sizzling vividity with cara-cara orangish segments and rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), an herb whose spirit is truthful forcefully greenish that it astir verges connected heat. Escargot, small swirls of chewy slime, swam successful an water of sizzling, tamarind-spiked food fiery with caller garlic. A scallop crudo was dressed successful limequat foodstuff and capers and truthful galore tingly peppercorns that it acceptable my lips aflame. Hunks of braised leek stood upright connected a furniture of the softest, eggiest condiment gribiche, doused successful sweet-hot chile sauce. The vibe, if it indispensable beryllium distilled, is flawless; it’s intolerable to beryllium unhappy eating cilantro-garnished pâté connected a wedge of baguette portion Joan Armatrading breaks everyone’s bosom implicit the dependable system. On each of my visits, aft welcoming maine in, a server delivered a enactment with the inflection of a caution to cautious diners, a informing and a promise: “Everything contains food sauce.” Go ahead, endanger maine with a bully time. ♦
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