• bigtime celebrity,  food porn

    I’m a Foodbuzz Top 9!

    I’m one of Foodbuzz’s Top 9 today! Thanks to my wd-50 review from yesterday and the apparently half-decent photo I took of the chocolate hazelnut tart. I’m totally surprised, flattered, and ecstatic. Check out the photo and the strangely thrilling comment I got on it from one of my favourite faux-vintage clothing sites. I guess it just goes to show that everyone likes looking at food.

  • 5,  american (new),  food porn,  lower east side,  offbeat eats,  restaurant reviews

    Restaurant Review: wd-50

    Evidently finally seeing my review of our first dinner at wd~50 made my boyfriend crave some foams and powders, so before we left for Christmas vacation in our respective home states, we made a reservation to return. The only time we could get on Saturday night, even with a few weeks notice, was 6 p.m. Which means that despite the terrible economy, New Yorkers are still lining up to pay $200 each for dinner. We were oddly seated in the same exact table as last time, which happens to have a straight view into the kitchen, where we saw chef/owner Wylie Dufresne talking to Chef de Cuisine Jon Bignelli (who…

  • financial district,  french,  i am a country bumpkin,  pure carbs,  sweets

    Financier’s Bûche de Noël

    I figured it was too late to post about my first bûche de Noël experience before I left NYC to spend the holidays with my family in Ohio, but since Blondie & Brownie revealed that Financier is still selling them, it looks like I’m good to go. Being from the Midwest and being very much culturally sheltered, I had no idea what a bûche de Noël was until my office decided on a whim to order a couple of cakes from the downtown Financier Patisserie the week before Christmas. When I called at 3 p.m., the order-taker told me that they were down to a couple of roll cakes, one…

  • food porn,  i am a country bumpkin

    Oh, maybe this is why I gained five pounds over Thanksgiving.

    In the wake of Eating the Road‘s unapologetically gluttonous fast food romp, the Big McSausage Egg Surf & Turf Mac, I feel confident that the Internet can handle my own Tower of Gorge: click here for the full size, which is really, really enjoyable for a second until you think about it and puke That’s two McDonald’s cheeseburgers, an everything bagel with garden vegetable cream cheese from Tim Horton’s, and a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza, topped off with extra pickles. The pumpkin pie milkshake that I followed it up with isn’t pictured but was heartily enjoyed. My total caloric intake for that meal alone and not including the Cheesecake…

  • 5,  american (new),  lower east side,  offbeat eats,  restaurant reviews

    Restaurant Review: wd-50

    It was more than a year ago that I announced my impending trip to wd~50 on my personal blog and got a load of comments from my mostly-Ohioan readership that mostly talked about how ridiculously small and not-at-all-like-real-food the dish in the picture I posted was. I was skeptical, too, to be honest, but it turned out that the meal was fantastic–really, really fantastic–surprising, playful, and memorable. It must have overwhelmed me so much, though, that I failed to write about it, and my boyfriend has been bothering me about it ever since. Now that we have a January reservation to try the current tasting menu, I figured I owed…

  • burgers,  flatiron,  restaurant reviews

    Restaurant Review: Fresh-N-Fast Burgers

    I was skeptical at first, but like many New Yorkers, I call the burger from Shake Shack in Madison Square Park my favourite in the city (and maybe tie it with the burger from Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger in the West Village). So naturally when I heard the burgers from the new Fresh-N-Fast on 23rd St. compared to the ones at Shake Shack, I had to go. I also heard them called blatant ripoffs of California’s famous In-N-Out burgers, so I had to bring along my San Franciscan friend Beth to act as judge. The problem was, um, that Beth had never actually eaten an In-N-Out burger, something which I…

  • offbeat eats,  recipes . . . FOR DISASTER

    Office S’Mores

    Fun things to do after hours at the office when you’re hungry: 1) Grab two space heaters and place them on the floor, facing one another. 2) Find a random metal rod on a nearby desk that may or may not be used to itch someone’s butt. 3) Procure leftover ghost-shaped Halloween marshmallows from the candy bowl at the reception desk. (Note that though marshmallows are orange and brown and may appear to be flavored, they are, in fact, just like white marshmallows.) 4) Stab the leftover ghost-shaped Halloween marshmallows with the random metal rod. 5) Hold the marshmallows between the opposing heaters for ten minutes. 6) Grow anxious and…

  • pure carbs

    Easy-Baker Microwave-Ready Potato = NOT NORMAL!

    When I was home in Ohio last week for Thanksgiving, I found myself not having eaten for 20 whole minutes and went rooting through my best friend’s pantry for something to snack on. This is what I found: She claims this is completely normal thing that completely normal people buy and eat and that it’s totally worth the 2000% markup from what you’d pay for a whole bag of them just to have your potato pre-washed. Another friend tells me that the Easy-Baker comes out of the microwave super-soft and ready for mashing on your plate with some butter. I think they’re crazy, but I still love the lengths we…

  • carroll gardens,  german,  restaurant reviews

    Restaurant Review: Prime Meats

    My best New York friend, Beth, loved Carroll Gardens when she first moved to the neighborhood but now may be regretting it since I found that they don’t make a bad restaurant down there. The most recent meal I forced her into was dinner at Prime Meats, which is getting glowing reviews from everyone, and deservedly so. Prohibition-era decor is everywhere these days, but Prime Meats takes it a step further with a homemade alcoholic punch of the day and waiters dressed in suspenders and handlebar mustaches. Eater NY has some lovely photos of the place in the daylight, but when Beth and I visited, it was all dim chandeliers…