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“Socarrat”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Spanish	Chelsea	Moderate	Good

Rice, an ancient grain rich with history, has roots in every country, and every culture. Korea has its Bibimbap, Italy its risotto, and India its biryani. In my Persian family, rice, what we call polo, is also a main ingredient in our daily life. Whether cooked with dill and fava beans, or steamed with raisins, carrots, braised veal and saffron, it’s not only the centerpiece of every meal, it is really the culinary soul of our family. It is probably the first solid food I ate as a toddler, and if I were asked to name my last meal on earth, a plate of Bibi’s rice could be its one and only course.

If you’ve ever had Persian rice you also know that often the best part is the crust or tadig. In my family, we layer the bottom of the pot with thinly sliced potatoes drizzled with vegetable oil which results in a giant golden potato crust, or we mix a little rice with egg which forms a sort of Frisbee sized rice-as-crepe on the bottom. Either way, whatever gets banged out of the bottom of the rice pot is a prized possession at the dinner table. Many wars have been waged between those seated around the table over that caramelized bottom dweller.

In Spain, where Paella is their country’s rice dish, a crust also forms, this one on the bottom of the wide shallow pans brimming with rice, shellfish, and chicken. The crispy rice is called the socarrat, and I imagine similar crust battles unfolding in homes from Valencia to Barcelona, where socarrat is fervently scraped up from the bottom of the pan until there’s little need for a dishwasher.

Now comes Socarrat Paella Bar, the second restaurant venture from the charming and gracious Lolo Manso, who also owns La Nacional at the Spanish Benevolent Society, an under-the-radar expat hangout on West 14th Street. This is a man who knows his way around a paella pan, and here in his slim, low-lit exposed brick restaurant the size of a cell-phone shop, he and his chef Felipe Camarillo (Suba and Marichu) are serving the best I have had in this city—rice so perfectly cooked that each grain of rice is chewy but distinct and endowed with so much flavor that just a single grain on a plate would (almost) be enough. His paella would indeed qualify as the best I’ve ever had, but that is not possible as I have had paella in Spain, with my toes in the sand, dining at a restaurant on the Mediterranean in Castelldefels after my friend Vern’s wedding in Barce ... [more, click below]

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Posted: July 27, 2008

Other restaurants in Chelsea :
+ Matsuri   + La Bottega   + Tia Pol   + Bombay Talkie   + Cookshop   + D'Or Ahn: THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED   + Buddakan   + Crema   + InTent: THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED   + Trestle on Tenth   + Klee   + El Quinto Pino   + Socarrat   + Txikito   + Co. (Company)   

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