The Italian Culinary Academy

Italian Culinary Academy Offers $10,000 Scholarships

Scholarships Available for Students Who Enroll in the Italian Culinary Experience Class Beginning January 5, 2009.

New York, NY, December 16, 2008 --(PR.com)-- The Italian Culinary Academy (www.italianculinaryacademy.com) at The International Culinary Center is pleased to announce the creation of a new $10,000 scholarship by an anonymous donor, available exclusively to all students who enroll in The Italian Culinary Experience beginning January 5, 2009.

"The faltering economy is forcing many people to re-evaluate career options," said Dorothy Hamilton, CEO and Founder of The French Culinary Institute and The Italian Culinary Academy both located at The International Culinary Center. "Through a generous donor, we are pleased to help people invest in themselves and pursue their passion for an Italian culinary career."

Designed by renowned Tuscan Chef Cesare Casella, Dean of Italian Studies at The International Culinary Center, The Italian Culinary Experience immerses students in Italian cuisine, language and culture at campuses in New York City and Parma, Italy where they train hands-on with top Chef-Instructors in world-class facilities. Following ten weeks of intensive cooking classes in New York City, students move to Italy to learn from some of Italy's talented chefs. Students spend another nine weeks working at a restaurant in Italy for real-life experience before returning to New York for one final week.

To learn more about the program, prospective students can attend a free Holiday Cocktail Reception at The Italian Culinary Academy on Thursday, December 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Prospective students can enjoy cocktails and Italian treats with Cesare Casella, Dean of Italian Culinary Studies and Chef-Instructors at The Italian Culinary Academy. RSVP for the holiday cocktail reception at rsvp@italianculinaryacademy.com.

For additional information about The Italian Culinary Academy, please visit www.italianculinaryacademy.com, or call 1-888-324-CHEF. For press inquiries or RSVP's please contact Wendy Knight at Knight Communications, wk@wendyknight.com or 347-924-2812.

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About the Italian Culinary Academy
The Italian Culinary Academy (The ICA), founded in 2007 as a sister school to the world-renowned French Culinary Institute, offers the country’s most rigorous education in authentic Italian cuisine. The ICA’s programs, all of which are informed by its time-tested, hands-on Total ImmersionSM method of instruction, include an extensive roster of classes for serious amateurs seeking quality, intensive education in a condensed period of time. The school is located at The International Culinary Center in New York City. For more information, please visit www.ItalianCulinaryAcademy.com.
source:

garum

Garum

Garum, also called liquamen, is a type of fish sauce condiment that was popular in Ancient Roman society.

Although it enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Roman world, it originally came from the Greeks, gaining its name from theGreek words garos or γάρον gáron, which named the fish whose intestines were originally used in the condiment's production. For Romans, it was both a staple to the common diet and a luxury for the wealthy. Garum appears in most of the recipes featured in Apicius, a Roman cookbook. The sauce was generally made through the crushing and fermentation in brine of the innards of various fish such as tuna, eel, and others. While the finished product was apparently mild and subtle in flavor, the actual production of garum created such unpleasant smells as to become relegated to the outskirts of cities so that the neighbors would not be offended by the odour.

When mixed with wine, vinegar, pepper, oil, or water, garum was served to enhance the flavor of a wide variety of dishes, including pear and honey souffle, boiled veal, and steamed mussels. In addition, garum was also employed as a medicine and as a cosmetic. Ancient Romans considered it to be one of the best cures available for many ailments, including dog bites, dysentery, and ulcers.

Umbricius Scaurus put the ancient city of Pompeii on the map by his production of this product. The factories where garum was produced in Pompeii have not been found yet which has led many researchers to believe that the factories lay outside the walls of the city.

Today one can still see a garum factory at the site of Baelo Claudia, in Spain. This Spanish garum was an export to Rome, and gained the town a certain amount of prestige in its day. The garum of Lusitania (present-day Portugal) was equally highly prized in Rome. It was shipped to Rome directly from the harbour of Lacobriga (present-day Lagos).

In 2008, archaeologists used the residue of the last batch of garum in Pompeii to date the eruption of Mount Vesuviu

Recipes for Health

Cabbage, an Inexpensive Nutritional Powerhouse

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

Published: December 8, 2008

An article last month by Tara Parker-Pope about the challenges of eating fresh food on a tight budget got me thinking about cabbage. It is a very economical vegetable that is easy to find in any supermarket and it gives you a huge nutritional bang for your buck. This humble food has always been a mainstay for the poor and in cold climates people of all classes have relied on it to feed themselves through many a winter. (The vegetable is at its best during the fall and winter months, when it is in season, and it stores well for weeks).

The family of vegetables that cabbage belongs to is called the Cruciferae family or the Brassica family and related vegetables include kale, broccoli, collards and Brussels sprouts. Johnny Bowden, a nutritionist, calls cabbage “the most important [vegetable] in the world from the point of view of nutritional benefits and cancer-fighting ability.” Cabbage possesses phytochemicals including sulforaphane, which studies suggest protects the body against cancer-causing free radicals, and indoles, which help metabolize estrogens. It’s also an excellent source of vitamins K and C, and a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, folate, manganese and Omega 3 fatty acids.

The sulfuric compounds in cruciferous vegetables are the source of many of their nutritional attributes, but they also lead to bad smells if the vegetables are overcooked. When it’s cooked properly, cabbage develops a sweet, fragrant flavor and aroma.

Stewed Lentils with Cabbage

This humble and hearty combination makes a satisfying main dish, especially on a cold night. Lentils are an excellent source of folate and molybdenum and a very good source of dietary fiber, protein and manganese. Any type of lentil will work in this recipe.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, half of it chopped, half sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 pound lentils (brown, green, or beluga), rinsed and picked over

3 1/2 cups water (more as needed)

1 dried red chile

1 bay leaf

Salt to taste

6 ounces waxy potatoes, scrubbed and sliced about 1/2 inch thick

1 1/2 pounds green cabbage (1 medium head), cored and cut crosswise in 3/4-inch wide ribbons

1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

Freshly grated Parmesan for serving (optional)

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a 3-quart saucepan or casserole over medium heat. Add the chopped half of the onion and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add 2 of the garlic cloves and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Add the lentils, water, chile, and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon salt and the potatoes and continue to simmer gently for 30 minutes, until the lentils and potatoes are tender. Add more salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

2. While the lentils are simmering, cook the cabbage with the remaining onion and garlic in a wide lidded skillet. Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat and add the sliced onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and the garlic and stir together until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the cabbage and turn the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring, until the cabbage begins to wilt. Add 1/4 cup water, turn the heat down to medium, cover and simmer 10 minutes, or until the cabbage is tender and sweet, stirring from time to time. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

3. Spread the cabbage over the bottom of the pan in an even layer. Top with the lentils and potatoes. Sprinkle on the parsley, and serve in wide soup bowls. Sprinkle with Parmesan if desired.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Advance preparation: You can make this dish up to a day ahead and reheat on top of the stove.

Approximate Nutritional Information per Serving (based on 4 servings): 346 calories; total fat: 7.6g; saturated fat: 1.1g; cholesterol: 0mg; sodium: 39mg; total carbohydrates: 54.0g; dietary fiber: 23.1g; sugars: 8.3g; protein: 18.0g; vitamin A: 5% Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) based on a 2,000 calorie diet; vitamin C 129% RDA; calcium 12% ; iron 30%

"Nothin' says lovin' like somethin' from the oven."

Quote: "Nothin' says lovin' like somethin' from the oven."

— Pillsbury advertisement

Typical Costa Rican food

source : Short order

Culinary Travels in Costa Rica: Part 1

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 09:07:26 AM

A view of Volcan Arenal from a hiking trail that traverses old lava flow from its 1992 eruption. Arenal is the third most active volcano in the world.

We hiked through rainforests and gasped at volcanoes, lounged on white sand beaches and wound our way around perilous mountain passes. Oh yes, we also ate. I just returned from six days in Costa Rica, one of the many ecological jewels of Central America, and aside from taking in an almost unfathomable level of sheer natural beauty we ate our weight in tropical fruits, fresh ceviche, and, of course, rice and beans.

Hit the jump for more.

It's difficult to describe just how important the combination of rice and (black) beans is in the culinary life of Ticos. Calling it a "staple" somehow doesn't do it justice -- it neither projects forcefully enough the integral nature of the dish to the country, nor does it give enough credit to the range of preparations and flavors produced from a relatively humble meal. Make no mistake: Ticos are proud of their national dish. This is, after all, a country who three years ago entered into a strange competition of pride with Nicaragua, submitting a 5000-pound batch of rice and beans as proof of their starchy superiority.

An outdoor soda sitting along Playa Escondida in Central Pacific Costa Rico.

At the many thousands of "sodas" (inexpensive, roadside restaurants) dotted across the countryside, rice and beans is dished up in massive, siesta-inducing quantities. It's the main attraction of casado, a massive plate usually heaped with salad, fried plantains, a variety of root vegetables like yucca or potato, and sometimes meat, which can be the stew-like carne en salsa or simply a piece of roasted chicken. The rice and beans though, are always present. The rice is always plain, but the beans are often doctored with peppers, cilantro, onion, or lime.

A typical plate of casado. Avocados grow in abundance here, and amazingly bright, fresh, and creamy.

There are as many variations of casado as their are homes in the country; the only rules is that everything on the plate works to compliment the rice and beans. The salad can be a loose shred of cabbage mixed with tomato and onion, or, as we had at one sleepy soda off the main drag in San Ramon, a mince of raw plantain marinated in lime juice and cilantro. (Unfortunately I didn't get to snap a picture of that meal: it was the first we had off the plane and my camera battery was dead, naturally).

At another soda, the plate came with the strange combination of Chinese-style noodles, grilled skewers of chicken, and long strips of fried plantains.

A beautiful slab of caramelized queso fresco.

Vegetarian platters (almost every place offered this) usually came with a slab of queso fresco, a fresh cow's milk cheese. Sometimes it was raw, other times the cheese was grilled to a crisp on the outside, enabled by it's almost tofu-like texture and ability to be heated without melting.

The other feature of every soda was the bottles of salsa that lined the tables. These salsas are basically what we'd call hot sauce, but there is a staggering variety of them, owing to that many sodas have their own distinct recipe. Tomorrow I'll talk a little more about these hot sauces plus a way to fashion your leftover rice and beans into breakfast. Think: Frijolecakes! (Not really, but that would be fun.)

Culinary Travels in Costa Rica: Part 2

Thu Nov 20, 2008 at 09:22:39 AM

One of Costa Rica's many beach-side sodas, shaded from the hot coastal sun by an umbrella of tall trees.

Yesterday I talked a little bit about Costa Rica's plato tipical, casado - and more specifically, rice and beans. Now, when you're producing rice and beans in such quantities as to make it the central aspect of a plate, you're bound to have some leftovers. Like cold pizza or breakfast burritos, Costa Ricans adapt these heaps of leftovers into gallo pinto: a saute of black beans and rice along with cilantro, onion, and pepper. It basically becomes a flavorful sort of fried rice, turned black or light brown by the natural sauce of the beans. Gallo pinto is served primarily for desayuno (breakfast), but I did find it later in the day at a few places.

Gallo pinto shares the plate with scrambled eggs and a fresh link of housemade chorizo. The little sausage burst with juices when I cut into it.

Whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner, every restaurant or soda you walk in to is going to have two bottles of salsa on the table. The first is Lizano salsa, a sauce so ubiquitous you have to wonder if there's any alternate uses for it other than consumption. Aside from tasting like a pretty damn interesting (in a good way) mixture of sweet and sour, tabasco, and curry, my guess is the yellow-and-brown-flecked sauce is also used to lubricate car parts, degrease stove tops, and sterilize wounds. Actually, it's quite good on a makeshift breakfast taco constituted by gallo pinto, sour cream, and eggs wrapped inside a corn tortilla. I even poured a bit in corvina ceviche, turning the pearly tiger's milk into an attractive beige. I heard the somewhat dubious claim that Lizano salsa is Costa Rica's most requested export. I couldn't substantiate that, but you can purchase bottles of the stuff from online retailers at a slight cost hike.

The other salsa likely to grace a Costa Rican table is simply a Louisiana-style hot sauce made with tabasco peppers. Unlike Lizano, there's no real standard here, and many sodas you find will even make their own. I tried a wide number of hot sauces -- some super fiery and perhaps inflected with a hotter variety of chili such as scotch bonnet, some thick and syrupy like a colloid, some thin and runny like name brand Tabasco.

My favorite, though, was a pretty spicy, thick sauce homemade by the proprietor of this beach-side soda outside of Manuel Antonio. It landed somewhere in between Lizano and a hot sauce, but it was so much better than both: tons of garlic, cilantro, and other dried spices; a distinctive West Indies-style curry flavor; a thick base reminiscent of wet-rub jerk sauce, probably the result of pureed onion and scallions. It was amazing stuff; reminded me quite a bit of another stellar, homemade hot sauce I picked up years ago in Carmel, California.

This place was perhaps my favorite soda I encountered on the trip. God bless that grillin' woman and her amazing sauce.

The gold-toothed senora that ran the soda -- busy manning an outsided grill holding a wide array of chicken, pork ribs, and odd cuts of beef steak -- was reluctant to part with a bottle. But a with a little persuasion, she sold me a 20oz ketchup container filled with the stuff. I've been eating it with my eggs in the morning ever since.

Sometimes, good things come in mislabeled packages.

Culinary Travels in Costa Rica: Part 3

Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 09:13:17 AM

I'm going to wrap up this short little porthole into Costa Rican cuisine talking a little bit about everything -- probably in a very rambling, tangential sort of way. Just a fair warning.

Native fruit is definitely one of the more unique aspects of eating in Costa Rica. You've got your average tropical fair, of course, including bananas and oranges and mangos and guayaba (guava). but then you've got oddities like this:

That disgusting looking spewdum of goo and seeds is a granadilla, and it's perhaps one of the most nectary-sweet, delicious fruits you're going to find in Costa Rica. Yes, it feels like half-melted Jello in your mouth; like the forest's answer to raw quail egg. But there is something faintly, well...erotic about supping on the life-giving goo within the fruit. Obviously someone else thought so too: the granadilla is just one very-ugly-but-tasty variety of what's referred to as passiflora ligularis, or passion fruit.

Jump for more...

On the right here is some Costa Rican papaya, which we ate almost every morning with breakfast. This variety isn't really too sweet; rather it has sort of a gamey pungency. I ate it with bites of pineapple or watermelon, but I didn't like it too much on its own.

Here's a lemon served with a piece of fish at a soda; only it's not exactly an ordinary lemon. It was like a cross between a lemon and a tangerine, slightly sweet but mostly very sour. I didn't get an exact answer on the variety, but I think what we're dealing with is a Panama orange, popularly known as a calamondin in Asia.

We also ate a bit of carambola, or star fruit. The variety in Costa Rica is shockingly sour. Remember Warheads? Yeah, like that. I could only eat it in small bites or mixed in with sweeter fruit or even bananas.

You didn't only have to eat your fruit in whole form. Batidos, a sort of fruit-infused milk shake, were very popular all across Costa Rica. Miamians have probably had the Cuban version of the drink, which is largely the same. It's basically ice, fruit, and lots of milk, blended until smooth and frothy. They're extremely refreshing on a hot day. This one is a guava batido... hard to tell, eh?

Not the best picture, I know. I blame the beer.

Of course this isn't fruit at all... but I was just talking about refreshing, and nothing refreshes like some Costa Rican cerveza. My favorite, not pictured because I was always too drunk to remember to take pictures of it, is Imperial. But Pilsen is nice too - basically, Costa Rican beers are mostly crisp, light lagers similar to dozens of other Central and South American lagers. If Bud or Miller or any other crap American lager were half as crisp and tasty and light as these beers we'd be in better shape.

A little bit more about sodas:

I just wanted to take a brief moment to elaborate on the soda, Costa Rico's answer to the food counter. These small restaurants are the backbone of Costa Rican cuisine. They're not fancy and they're not necessarily creative. They are, however, where hard-working people eat every day. Where a huge plate of comforting, home-cooked food will cost you only a couple thousand colones or less. (Under $4) But the most interesting aspect about the sodas to me was not just how many thousands are scattered across the countryside, doing very much the same thing in close proximity to each other yet still retaining a loyal and vibrant customer base, but how much pride the folks manning them were.

Every soda I went to was spotless. The workers - almost exclusively women - wore bright, clean clothes and tucked their hair away in cute, white caps. This might be simple, cheap food, but it's their food. The small sample of sodas I experienced made me wonder about our American equivalents, the ethnic eateries that dot strip malls across South Florida, and why many white Americans are almost afraid to check them out. It really gave me a renewed sense of vigor to dive into our little "sodas" and find out just how proud our immigrants are to be bringing the foods of their homelands to us.

/off soapbox

Pura vida, folks! Thanks for reading. I'll leave you with a few pics of Costa Rica's breathless landscape. (Click for larger versions)

A gorgeous view of Arenal.

La Fortuna Falls.

Pristine, white sand beaches of Manuel Antonio.

Looking off Punta Catedral in Manuel Antonio.

A monkey trying to get some "me" time; cameras thwart his attempt.

The rare, Costa Rican Penis Plant.

The sun sets on Costa Rica.

-- John Linn

Taquería

TACO HAVEN La Superior: Brooklyn in a California mood.

A Taqueria That Doesn’t Stop at Tacos

By PETE WELLS

Published: November 26, 2008

Which was a nice way of saying La Superior isn’t much to look at. This small restaurant in South Williamsburg emulates a small-town Mexican taqueria, but it reminded my friend of Southern California. A coat of red paint, a row of dim filament bulbs, and a scattering of posters for Mexploitation films with titles like “El Mal” and “Hijos de Tigre” pass for décor. Four well-worn wooden skateboards propped up alongside the service counter contribute to the Angeleno effect. A room that looks so nonchalantly slapped together doesn’t happen by accident, but you can never quite catch the signs of effort.

He said they’d got the prices right, too, resisting the urge to milk extra cash out of carnitas-starved Brooklyn residents. All but two items on the dinner menu are under $10, including tax. Tacos are $2.50 each, except for the very fine one with cubes of beef tongue, for which you must pay another dollar. Each time I ate there, I did a double-take when I got the check. Did I really just spend less than $50 taking three friends out for dinner? (I really did, helped along by La Superior’s temporary bring-your-own-Pacifico policy and its permanent refusal to sell dessert.)

My friend thought La Superior cheated a bit with the architecture of those tacos, though. They ought to have been built on a foundation of two soft corn tortillas, not one, he argued, and he wanted to see the toppings heaped up in a generous mound.

I didn’t care. For the most part, the tacos held together on the short trip from plate to mouth. I don’t ask for much beyond that from my tacos as long as the fillings taste good, and the ones at La Superior did, resoundingly. I was wild about the tacos with rajas, strips of mild roasted poblanos swaddled in thick cream. Shrimp in chipotle sauce had a sneaky heat. Pescado zarandeado is described on the menu as “non-fried fish,” a translation that needs its own translation. The fish is grilled and seasoned with habaneros and tomatoes, making it a very welcome addition to New York’s fish taco landscape.

If you’re the kind of eater who keeps track of worthwhile Mexican restaurants on a wall-size map of the five boroughs, La Superior would rate a pushpin on the strength of its tacos alone. But what sets it apart is its dinner menu, with types of street food less frequently spotted in the city.

Its quesadillas, for instance. As used here, the word refers to something that New Yorkers might call an overgrown empanada: big, deep-fried turnovers. These half-moons are filled with sautéed mushrooms or a mash of potatoes and chorizo, then hidden under thick cream and fresh cheese ($3.50).

Or its gorditas. Definitely the gorditas, pockets of hot, crisp cornmeal that are split open and stuffed with chopped lettuce and a tender fresh cheese called requesón. Its fluffy curds somewhat resemble ricotta and are exactly the thing you’d want to stuff into a pocket of hot, crisp cornmeal ($5 for two).

Once in a while, the kitchen can disappoint. Black beans may taste underseasoned, and the chicken buried under a rich cloak of tomatillo sauce in enchiladas suizas ($10) makes no impression at all. Perhaps it gave all its flavor to the rich broth in a remarkable bowl of sopa de verdura, filled with squash and corn kernels ($5.50).

But my memories of the less satisfying dishes were more or less obliterated in the face of the mighty torta ahogada. This sandwich is, understandably, a subject of much passion in Guadalajara. Inside the sandwich are crispy, juicy chunks of carnitas, but it’s what goes outside, and on top of, and around the bread that counts: a fiery red sauce made with skinny chiles de arból. True, the sauce at La Superior could be spicier. But it’s got enough warmth to justify the difficulty of eating a soaking wet sandwich served in a bowl ($7.50).

With a few more chilies in that sauce, you might not notice how cold it’s been in the restaurant the past few weeks. The heating system is still getting used to New York, so if you go before spring arrives, wear a coat you don’t mind eating in.

La Superior

295 Berry Street (South Second Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 388-5988; lasuperiornyc.com.

BEST DISHES Tacos; gorditas; quesadillas; torta ahogada; fish pibil.

PRICE RANGE Most items under $10.

CREDIT CARDS Cash only.

RESERVATIONS Not accepted.

HOURS Sunday to Thursday, 12:30 p.m. to midnight; Friday and Saturday, 12:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS All on one level.

Dining and current events.

Friends, here we have an apt sample of interrelatedness in our human lives.Dining and current events. We do benefit and nourish from the sharp wits and keen knowledge of the dining scene that a restaurant critic presents to the reader. In order to fully satisfy our hunger we must seek good taste and good life diligently, when we can afford to do so. And while doing so we verify that eating is indeed a physiological and a cultural need. That we can renew our strength through it as well as entertain ourselves in the process and of course there is a season to everything. This is an interesting relation concerning a Thai restaurant in New York which I think the critic does superbly. Let's read. And let us remember that if we have had been provident enough we can take it, every now and then, when we go wrong in a circumstancial choice. Although for sure we aim to keep our misses down to a tolerable minimun.

RESTAURANT REVIEW | KURVE

JUST when you think you’ve witnessed all the restaurant kraziness there can be, along comes a Kurve.

Rebecca McAlpin for The New York Times

LANDING IN THE EAST VILLAGE Kurve serves Thai and Chinese food in a futuristic room.

Kurve
Satisfactory (Zero stars)

Diner's Journal

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Frank Bruni on Kurve

It opened in July. And then in August. And then in September, at which point it finally broke its go-stop, yes-no pattern of losing its nerve, locking its glass doors, reshuffling the staff and reconsidering the galangal. Still, telephone issues lingered. For a spell last month, you got a “temporarily disconnected” recording when you called. Just last week, the recording was back.

Rest assured, or maybe uneasy: Kurve was doing business, in its fashion. I know because I was there to hear the restaurant’s D.J. follow up a track from the Andrews Sisters with one from Michael Jackson, and to stare at the futuristic white furniture and all the glowing arches and washes of pink and purple light. Kurve looks like a nail salon on Venus.

It serves Thai food, for the most part. But also Chinese food. And also, naturally, spaghetti carbonara, which I recently spotted on the menu of a new French brasserie in TriBeCa as well. Is carbonara the next tuna tartare, presented by Manhattan restaurateurs as a legitimate player in every culinary tradition? Hope springs.

Kurve struts. Until recently it outfitted its servers in proper hats, which prompted associations that changed depending on how far our meal had progressed, how thoroughly our patience had been taxed and how sinister our outlook on the restaurant had become.

“A Tommy Tune musical,” a companion said merrily at the start.

“That apple-for-a-face Magritte painting,” someone else said mischievously at the 25-minute mark.

“Liza in ‘Cabaret,’ ” I snarled after another 20 minutes.

“Malcolm in ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ ” someone else declaimed as we breached our second hour.

Kurve does everything with a swerve. On the gleaming pink menu, which begins with a page of dim sum options and then a page of appetizers, the entrees are grouped under “legs” (meaning four of them, and signaling red meat), “wings” (meaning two, and crying fowl) and “gills, fins and shells” (guess).

It could be argued that reviewing a restaurant this assertively kooky is shooting gills, fins and shells in a barrel, but Kurve is a riddle and lesson too ripe to ignore. How do restaurateurs pour this much money and this much vanity into a project and bungle it to the extent that the Kurve brigade does?

Its eye-popping space-age look, courtesy of the designer Karim Rashid, suggests an investment of millions, and getting that sheen just right is an explanation offered for its failure to open any time near an initially projected date of September 2007.

Its kitchen is run by Andy Yang, widely praised for his cooking at the less shiny, more matter-of-fact Thai restaurant Rhong-Tiam.

And Mr. Yang, who is also one of the restaurant’s principal owners, has reached out to talented hands to supplement his own efforts. Sasha Petraske helped with the cocktail list, while Pichet Ong pitched in with desserts.

Kurve, in short, has ambitions.

Pleasures, too.

Those cocktails, using a variety of fresh juices, rise above the hack work at many restaurants of this self-consciously glitzy ilk, and after a few of them Kurve’s walls, striped and swirled in the manner of a Maori tribesman’s face, seem less menacing than hypnotic.

Much of the dim sum is terrific, a judgment that applies not only to such straightforward selections as juicy duck or delicate crab dumplings but also to less predictable ones: bacon-wrapped tiger shrimp with a beguilingly spicy sriracha mayonnaise; deep-fried croquettes of tiger shrimp and fresh mango.

And the curry pastes — rich with coconut milk, lively with kaffir lime and lemon grass — are sometimes excellent. The green one over king salmon has spinach in the mix, while the tawny one over dark-meat chicken has cashew nuts.

But there are nearly as many causes for head-scratching, like a dish that molds salmon into a slender, slippery cuff around a stunningly salty heap of pulled and minced duck. Or like the “Thai style risotto,” a viscous gruel that’s served with a clump of pork belly and intended, perhaps, for the Siamese twin of Oliver Twist.

Thanks to one of my first visits to Kurve, I’m aware of a maritime labor dispute never mentioned in the mainstream media. Rock shrimp went on strike in late October, or so I concluded from their failure to participate in the rock shrimp tempura, which tasted only of tempura, and a somewhat greasy tempura at that.

Ong or no Ong, the desserts — one parfaitlike creation after another, each served in what looks like a broad drinking glass — are entirely unremarkable.

But the service is the biggest puzzle of all.

Our waitress one night had apparently been told by management that the single thought to keep in mind — the single syllable — was glum. I wasn’t sure whether to give her a tip or a Zoloft.

When asked which of 23 dim sum options shouldn’t be missed, she said, “The dumplings,” thus narrowing those options to 15. When asked which wines Kurve served by the glass, she said, “Red and white.”

Every time I went, Kurve didn’t have something — usually, many things — advertised on the menu.

On two occasions I asked for the “veal chop” listed among the dim sum, intent on learning how something so typically hefty could be shrunken to the size of a canapé. I never got that education.

On two occasions I asked for a dish of lobster with sea urchin. But Kurve wasn’t stocking that, either.

Although I had the shrimp wrapped in bacon twice, I asked for it only once. The second time it came in lieu of the pork wrapped in bean curd.

Although I indicated surprise, I never received an explanation. Maybe the bean curd had wandered off with the veal and the lobster. Maybe Kurve considers any one wrapped entity interchangeable with any other.

But I think the server — entranced by Kurve’s music, distracted by Kurve’s lights and taking a kue from Kurve itself — was simply konfused.

Kurve

Satisfactory (Zero stars)

87 Second Avenue (East Fifth Street); (212) 260-8018.

ATMOSPHERE Sleek, minimalist white furniture, reflective surfaces and striped walls contribute to a futuristic room aglow with pink and purple light.

SOUND LEVEL Moderate when I visited, but it wasn’t crowded.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Pork, vegetable, duck or crab dumplings; shrimp and mango croquettes; bacon-wrapped shrimp with spicy mayonnaise; coconut salmon or tom yum lobster soups; salmon with green curry.

WINE LIST Limited and supplemented by a sake selection and special cocktails.

PRICE RANGE Dim sum, $7 to $10; appetizers, $5 to $14; entrees, $16 to $35; desserts, $6 to $9.

HOURS 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday to Wednesday; to 4 a.m. other days.

RESERVATIONS Same day usually.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Small step to entrance; dining room and accessible restrooms on one level.

WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.