BAMN: The Automat Returns to NYC

I haven't been, but just saw this post on A Hamburger Today about Bamn, a new automat-style restaurant in the East Village.

Looks cute, from the pictures, but not sure i'd expect much from the food. LTH operatives in the area are encouraged to provide firsthand accounts...

Follow the various links above for pictures and media hype -- it looks like this is the week that they really are getting into the buzzstream.

"Satisfaction is Automatic". Great slogan.

I saw one pic on one of the websites that they linked to that shows a sign above one machine that says "Spam Musubi". Cool.

i saw it featured on CNN on Friday morning... (they're probably replaying the segment). They have the clip online, too... if you go to CNN.com and search their site for Automat the link to the video comes up on the right in green (http://search.cnn.com/pages/search.jsp?query=automat is the search link w/ the video on the bottom right).

it sounded suprisingly gourmet. a lot of the items had some uniqueness to it, not just fries and a burger. the manager claimed that everything was fresh, that they throw it away if not served in 15 minutes. an article i read online said 25 minutes...

they said everything is $2-3... the target is tourists and NYU students...

Automats still exist, particularly in netherlands they have Febo (http://www.febo.nl/) ... everything there resembles a fried cheesestick, but they're actually different sausages and stuff..

I'm still recovering from the five-day food blitz in NYC (Dirty Bird To Go, soup dumpling-fest, as much foie gras as I could handle...), which I'll try to post about later, but here's my take on BAMN: YUM.

As far as I can tell (things were a bit gin fuzzy by the time I got there), the food is rotated every 15 minutes. So if an item has been sitting in its little hot, glassed-in compartment longer than 15 minutes, they toss it. I believe they also make big, Belgian-style frites to order, and have a few other made-to-order menu items, but I was too, er, distracted to get details.

The place is shiny and spotless--even on the disgust-o, rainy night I made it in there. I'm sure that sheen will fade over time, but it was sparkling and inviting, and already attracting "experts". There was a guy who had clearly been there for several hours (or days?) doling out advice on his favorites, and schooling newcomers on where to get change, and how long it would be before the next delivery of PB&J empanadas.

Mac & Cheese Kroket: Large, egg roll-sized tubes of macaroni and cheese, breaded and either deep fried or baked. Somehow, it all managed to stay together in an easy-to-scarf log, and I generally don't like to eat foods that can be described as "logs". Crispy with bread crumbs on the outside, oozing with toothsome and creamy mac-and-cheese on the inside. The only thing that might make this item even better: bacon crumbles.

Pork Bun: More bun than pork, but the pork filling was tender and tangy. Almost like a pulled pork bbq, but more Asian flavors than smoky.

Mini Burger: A slider with a nice, beefy patty (in flavor, not size) on a cutesy bun with pickle-lettuce-mustard fixins.

BAMN Donut: If a Cafe du Monde beignet and the best doughnut hole you ever ate had sex, this is what their love child would taste like. Four yeasty, warm donut holes with either the lightest glaze ever, or a dusting of powdered sugar that melted under the heat lamp. So, so tasty.

We did not, unfortunately, have time or gut-room (too many soup dumplings to count) to wait for the PB&J empanada to appear, but the creepy-friendly BAMN vet told us this was his favorite.

I hope this place outlives its hype, and the goods stay as fresh and inventive as they were when I was there. A place like this can trigger a great trend, or die from its own laziness.

Anyone know if there are plans for one here?

crrush wrote:I'm still recovering from the five-day food blitz in NYC (Dirty Bird To Go, soup dumpling-fest, as much foie gras as I could handle...), which I'll try to post about later, but here's my take on BAMN: YUM.

(Hilarious) Contrary take on Bamn from the New York Post.

If its mostly vile $1-$2 delicacies - from chicken nuggets to peanut-butter-and-jelly empanadas - were sold in a deli, they wouldn't draw a fruit fly. They are possibly the worst foodstuffs ever offered for human consumption outside a famine zone.

Ouch.

At least he liked the krokets.

We clearly had two different experiences...and, to be honest, a lot of Cuozzo's kvetching sounds like backlash fever--that giddy eagerness people have about poo-pooing anything that's gotten overhyped.

I also don't think this place is geared for the 3 p.m. weekday lunch crowd. It's a late night place for the booze-soaked. Not that that means it's okay for the food to be vile and greasy, but that the turnover and number of options may be more appealing at, say, 11:30 on a Saturday night, than 2 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. It's not a great excuse (and doesn't bode well--thus, the comment about it outliving its hype and not suffering from its own laziness), but it might explain his experience.

crrush wrote:a lot of Cuozzo's kvetching sounds like backlash fever

Absolutely agreed, but it was funny so I thought I'd share. It sounds like a place I would check out were I drunk in Manhattan at 1:30 a.m., especially after hearing stories from friends about similar places in The Netherlands and Japan.

Kristen

<soapbox>wth would anyone eat here when there are countless izakaya and yakitori houses up n down St. Marks?</soapbox>

i can't WAIT to eat here when i go back. it somehow sounds better than the retarded dumpling house down the street

Yeah, seriously...what kind of dumpling house closes at 10 p.m.?

In defense of the Automat, again: agreed on the yakitori stalls--I was obsessed with the takoyaki and okonomiyaki at Otafuko when it first opened--but do not underestimate the joy of popping a few quarters in a slot and pulling out hot, tasty food. It's a different kind of eating experience altogether. Granted, the thrill may not translate into enough business to keep the place afloat for years to come, but thrilling nonetheless.

When I was a kid, I ate a number of times in Manhattan automats (Horn & Hardart's), and even then it was more about the novelty of the experience than for the quality of the food or the 'improved' service. My siblings and I would insist on eating at an H&H now and again and our parents would sometimes indulge us.

I'm not surprised this idea has been dug up in this period when so many such things from the post WWII decades are brought back, in part to play on nostalgia for those who survived the period and on novelty for the younger ones, though in this, to my mind, they reveal the limitations of imagination that the backers of these things have.

If anyone should be nostalgic about the appearance of the neo-automat, I suppose I should, but frankly I find it a silly marketing gimmick. I also think it's a bad idea in light of the following evidence from crrush's report:

As far as I can tell (things were a bit gin fuzzy by the time I got there), the food is rotated every 15 minutes. So if an item has been sitting in its little hot, glassed-in compartment longer than 15 minutes, they toss it.

Modern restaurants are inherently wasteful institutions but one can make a case to justify a certain (and possibly substantial) amount of that wastefulness; the wastefulness of the neo-automat, however, at least judging from ddane's and crrush's description of their practices, seems to be poised, at least potentially, to surpass even normally high levels. Obviously, it's not in their best financial interest to throw food out unsold but I wonder if doing so is part of an overall marketing schtick and something they feel they can accept as an operating expense. Still, there seems to be a less than wonderful either/or involved here: either they stick to the freshness policy and cook up and then throw out a certain amount of unspoilt food or else start to fudge the length of time things are left sitting. Leaving a substantial number of the boxes unfilled runs completely counter to the whole concept.

Anyway, in curmudgeonly solidarity with Cuozzo and his Post review, I think this is a pretty lame dining concept. For some of us, at least, this seems to be about as good an idea as bringing back the chastity belt: not all technological developments need survive.

Be that as it may, no one's forcing me to go there and, beside that, I enjoyed the reports and discussion... (spent some time reflecting on dusty memories of H&H...)


Antonius

I, too, have fond memories of being taken to H&H as a child. The thrill was the format; even as a kid the food was not the reason. I also clearly remember my parents, particularly my mother, struggling to find something they could enjoy. If I were in New York and my kids were still young, I'd love to take them there. With the kids long past the age for an automat, I've no interest this kind of format.

I have, however, very much enjoyed the reports.

Jonah