Can Kawakawa’s Caribbean Pie be the next Momofuku pork bread?

(Bloomberg) – What can Paul Carmichael do for Caribbean Patty for his boss David Chang for pork bread?

This is my last visit to Bar Kabawa, the newly opened bar at Momofuku Group that specializes in two things: rum drinks and pies to eat with them. Chang launched its famous brand in 2004 at the Momofuku Noodle Bar. This place started the world’s obsession with Chinese steamed pork bread.

Kabawa Bar opened in early February at the Lower East Side attraction occupied by Momofuku Ko. It was added Tuesday by a more ambitious tasting menu restaurant in the adjoining space. Together they represent the Barbados Carmichael paying tribute to the Caribbean food and drinks, who returned to the city after the helm of the late, faint Momofuku Seiobo in Sydney.

“I hope this place is a love letter to the Caribbean and I can share my culture,” Carmichael said. “You come to the bar and we will serve you drinks from Cuba and food from Haitian and Jamaican.”

The restaurant opens at a time when Caribbean cuisine in the Big Apple seems particularly favorable. Food on these islands has long been upscale in cheap restaurants in the outer city of New York, after we’ve seen a pattern of Indian cuisine. Classic Caribbean fares such as bastard chicken, stewed oxtails and fries, are served in Lincoln Center in Lincoln City and Mango Bay in Fort Brooklyn, Kokomo in Williamsburg, Kokomo in Brooklyn, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, Kokomo in Tatiana, and Kokomo in Tatiana. Now, in the new high-style print restaurant in the Financial District, chef Gregory Gourdet has attracted attention from Caribbean ingredients and dishes.

But Chang said more simply: “This restaurant is Caribbean because Paul is that simple.”

In Kabawa’s prix-fixe ($150 per person), the menu includes dishes containing Puerto Rican chuletas kan-kan (Tomahawk pork chop), Blaff (lemon fish), and duck and rice sausage. One thing you won’t get is all the most familiar Caribbean dishes. “I’ll never eat assholes,” Carmichael said. He thought it was too cliché. “Even in Jamaican cuisine, there are a lot of other things in Caribbean cuisine, and I want to show these things,” he said.

The restaurant menu also does not include pie. The closest you will get is the Bajan Coconut Turnover, a dessert option.

Carmichael’s restaurant menu isn’t ready for tasting on my mid-March visit night, but the bar is already buzzing. As you might expect from an island-themed place, the cocktail menu tilts heavily into the rum’s delicious butter, with ingredients ranging from pineapple and coconut to bay leaves and brown butter. Similarly, the nibbles menu features Caribbean classics such as Solomon Gundy (dried fish paste, Carmichael topped with a creamy butter shell with caramel sugar).

But the pride of Chuanchuan went to Patty. Carmichael said he briefly considered making another island’s staple, Caribbean Roti, the heart of the bar menu. Plush bread will be made for quality bar food. However, making rotis would require more equipment than the compact kitchen that the Chuanchuan bar could accommodate, so the decision to make the pie with Carmichael was decided.

Just like Chang becomes a feeling of BUN, his classic Chinese steamed Bao version has top-notch pork belly, and Caribbean Patty has the humblest origins as street food for workers. However, it has more diverse culinary precedents that match the island’s cross-horticulture cultural heritage.

Patty is especially credited to the Spanish colonial empanada, as well as the Cornwall paste of Samosa, a British contemporary and an Indian indentured worker. The Indians could also make great demands on the spice mixture of fillings, but the real kick was given by the hot peppers of the island and the chili peppers of the mainland of China. The preferred filling is ground beef or chopped chicken, although I prefer curry goat.

Pie comes in all shapes and sizes, but the most common form is a half-month sized palm. The most common Jamaican pies tend to be made into sheet crusts with ghee, usually painted with turmeric, while Haitian changes are puffed.

The crust on Carmichael’s pie is halfway between the two, crispy and light, with a crispy texture of a slightly toasted croissant. Eight options on the bar kabawa menu are evenly distributed between baking and frying. They appear in triangles, squares and circles, each presented in pockets of banana leaves.

Carmichael’s filling is more adventurous than the regular, including unusual combinations such as short ribs, conch, and bone marrow. Still, I was attracted to eggplant, tomato and Raclette Patty, the last one I tried: the subtlety of melted cheese is the opposite of the spicy flavor of the past pie. But my favorite is the roasted Galla goat, which balances the slight spots of the meat with the power of the auburn to create a strong overall flavor. Meatballs range from $10 to $20; the order for pork bread from Momofuku Noodle Bar is $17.

The pies themselves are delicious, and they don’t require slam dunk seasoning. But if you ask well, Carmichael brings out a side dish of Bajan hot sauce, simple mustard oil, fresh turmeric and Scottish Bonnet or Habarero Peppers that add enthusiasm to the pie without adding taste buds. The recipe comes from his father. His mother sold a bottle of sauce in Barbados.

This brings me back to my original question: Is the pie the next pork bread? For my money, the answer is yes. Carmichael’s pie has a lot of ingredients (regardless) on it, which makes Momofuku’s pork bread such a breakthrough. Patties’ legacy resonates with a wider audience. Why, even Carbone people are in the form of Cavatelli with the menu on Jamaican beef ragu’s menu, which tastes like a small patty poured on pasta. It’s a fun, exquisite, basically street food. Like pork bread, Carmichael’s pie looks simple and easy to hold, and you always think you can have more.

“Dave didn’t invent pork bread, and Paul didn’t come up with pies,” said Marguerite Zabar Mariscal, CEO of Momofuku Group. “But like Dave, Paul has the ability to take away food he likes, filter it out through his perspective, and really connect with people.”

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