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Big Apple Barbecue 2009
Kamran and I arrived at last year’s Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park just as it was closing down. We got free leftover Snapple and ate cheeseburgers at Shake Shack. It was a lovely time but sadly barbequeless. This year, we planned a little better and decided to go on Sunday when there was a better chance of rain and therefore a better chance that all of the less-barbeque-fanatic types would opt to stay home. We found the menus of each of the 15 pitmasters, bookmarked guides to the best of the festival on our BlackBerrys, and decided to arrive halfway between the lunchtime and dinnertime rushes. What we…
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A Man and His Marzipan Piggy
At the same old-timey German deli where Dr. Boyfriend and I found the fish balls, we also found the sweetest little marzipan pig: The two of them were fast friends and couldn’t be separated for approximately three hours. And then we bit his head off. Wikipedia claims that marzipan is from Iran, but my Persian boyfriend had never tasted it. I myself have only had it a few times in my life, because I don’t really understand it. I mean, almond flavor is fine and everything, but I’m American, and I demand that all of my desserts involve chocolate and peanut butter.
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Junk Food as Art
One Saturday a few weeks ago, I was invited to Gina Minichino’s gallery opening on the Upper East Side by a completely random stranger. I would’ve been happy to attend no matter what but had no choice in the matter when I found out that the subject of her paintings is JUNK FOOD. And I would’ve been happy to attend no matter what but was especially glad that I did when Dr. Boyfriend and I arrived at the Allan Stone Gallery and found out that her stuff is really good. Like, the so-real-they-look-like-photos type of good that you know you could never do yourself. For example: She sold this while…
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Thumbs Down for Thai Me Up
If I was to tell you there’s a sandwich shop on 14th Street called Thai Me Up, which of the following would you think?: 1) Heeeeeeeeeee. 2) Laaaaaaaaaame. 3) Grooooooooooss. 4) A combination of 2 and 3. I appreciate a good pun as much as you do, but what if I told you the store is owned by this guy and his hair?: And what if I told you that the ingredients in one of the dessert drinks is magic? And what if I told you the website says, “Thai Me Up Sandwich Bar opened in march of 2007 to rave reviews from visitors loving its delicious dishes and fun,…
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Would You Eat This? #1: Fish Balls
While riding the bus down 2nd Ave. a couple of weekends ago, I forced Dr. Boyfriend out the back door and into a shop called Schaller & Weber, thinking it was a cheese store. Because its sign is yellow and red, which everyone knows are the universal colors of cheese. But no, it turned out to be a totally famous and ancient meat shop that we later saw profiled on this Anthony Bourdain special about disappearing Manhattan culture (about two minutes and 45 seconds in). One wall of the store was taken up by a display case of various sausages and terrines, the other wall was a refrigerated case of…
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Domino’s Breadbowl Pastas Unexpectedly Gross Me Out
As someone who desperately, desperately loves carbs, I’ve been known to crave bowls made of bread in the past. Only as someone who doesn’t necessarily consider soup a real food–even the super-creamy ones aren’t solid enough for me until they’re laden with an entire sleeve of saltine crackers–I don’t necessarily go for the requisite broccoli cheddar soup in a breadbowl that everyone wants to serve me. In fact, one of my finest weird-look-getting exploits of recent history involved me asking a cashier at Panera if she could fill my bowl o’ bread with chicken salad instead, while my best friend lovingly took photos. So the dawn of Domino’s Breadbowl Pastas…
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Food Porn #1: Half-Sour Pickles
This is my best friend, Tracey, very sexily enjoying a pickle at Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger on Broadway in the West Village, my absolute favourite burger joint in the entire world. Or pretending to enjoy it, at least. That’s because Cozy, like most other New York City diners, serves half-sour pickles. These are pickles that have been cured in a lower-salt brine so that they don’t ever become full-on delicious dills but remain nearly cucumbers. Cucumber-lovers seem to like half-sours because they taste sweeter than the regular full-sour pickles you find in stores. But for people like me who only dine on cukes in sushi joints because they’re less gross…
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Bacon Candy Bar
I really hate that loving bacon has become such a trendy thing–i.e. Josea in the Bacon is a Vegetable t-shirt in last season’s “Top Chef”–but I do love that I can now basically find it everywhere and in everything. Case in point: Mo’s Bacon Bar by Vosges Haute Chocolat, modeled here by my boyfriend and fellow smoked meats fan, Kamran: We spotted it amongst the coffee-flavored beer and the tofu jerky at Whole Foods, and since my co-worker Tim is always raving about his bacon-flavored gum, we went for it. The website directs you to “rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aromas of smoked applewood bacon…
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Restaurant Review: Sakagura
The sign outside of Sakagura is a perfect representation of the restaurant as a whole: to use one of my favorite clichés, it’s like putting pearls on a pig. Maybe I’m squeamish, but I had my doubts about the place when I discovered I had to walk through an office building, past a security guard, and downstairs to the basement through a cinderblock hallway to get to the dining area. The restaurant was nicely decorated, with lots of bamboo and spot lighting, but I couldn’t help feeling that the dark look was less trendy and more meant to hide the fact that we were sitting in a dank back room.…
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Re-Ment Sushi Miniatures: the Only Fish I Don’t Actively Hate
Since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated by things that are miniaturized. I think it all goes back to a family vacation to Walt Disney World when my dad took me to the hotel gift shop and told me to choose anything I wanted; the cutest little black-and-white spotted pig caught my eye and became my most prized possession, and after that, my dad was always surprising me with miniature everything. One afternoon while my boyfriend, Kamran, and I were busy stuffing our faces with French fries in paper cones at Pommes Frites, we decided to stop in the Japanese toy store next door despite the fact that…
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