Every month, Karina Longworth picks a different food and eats her way around New York until she finds the best preparation in the Five Boroughs. This month, her search for New York's best macaroni and cheese will take her from speakeasies to supermarkets. First stop: Dumont.
I'm thinking back to the lardon-studded macaroni and cheese ($9) I had Sunday night at Dumont (432 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211) and I'm torn. As I'm craving the meaty chunks of salty ham, my mouth is simultaneously puckering from the memory of the even saltier islands of Parmesean.
The DuMac and Cheese is a traditional baked macaroni and gruyere. It arrives in the small dish it's been baked in, too hot to touch, with a brown crusty cheese crust. The chunks of lardon and Parmesean are held to the (undercooked) radiatore pasta by melty cheddar and gruyere and a bechamel style sauce. This bechamel is probably the highlight of the whole dish; I love a good bechamel, and this one was buttery and thick, the texture of savory Elmer's Glue. It's essentially the stuff my most gluttonous dreams are made of.
The lardon is a nice touch, too. It's a type of bacon that often makes an appearance in French country cooking, but is rarely found in its American bastardizations. Much more substantial than the flakes of pancetta you often see in these things, they threaten to overwhelm the dish.
That undercooked radiatore is problematic, though. More than al dente, I wondered if it had been calculated to match the firmness of the ham and unmeltably aged Parmesean. The mixed-up textures of the DuMac simply don't really work. And I felt the salt surging through my bloodstream for hours afterward. On that score, the dish makes McDonald's french fries seem bland.
Overall verdict? *Not* The Best Macaroni and Cheese in All of New York.
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