(This venue is closed.) After a rainstorm brought down the heat and humidity from insufferable to tolerable, I was willing to consider Picnic's Wednesday-only special of choucroute garnie ("dressed sauerkraut"; $22): potatoes, fatty ham, one thin beef Frankfurt sausage, and a couple of slices of some much thicker and paler sausage. All of this was nestled among sauerkraut cooked with caraway seeds and something on the rich and oily side, perhaps pork fat. Juniper berries are traditional, too, according to Jeffrey Steingarten; I may have overlooked them. You won't need an appetizer.
Choucroute garnie is similar to a Slovak dish I still enjoy every so often at family get-togethers; usually kielbasa serves as the single meat, and mushrooms and prunes as the "dressing." (Family lore has it that this dish is better, and more "potent," on the second day, after it's sat out on the porch the night before.)
Tonight I took my meal to go — Picnic seems to do a lot of takeaway business — but the cafe and the few seats outside are perfectly serviceable.
Picnic
2665 Broadway (101st-102nd Sts.)
212-222-8222
