neighborhood
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Schnipper’s, the Fast Food Alternative in Times Square
I never look forward to eating around Times Square. My second date with my boyfriend was at Chevy’s Fresh Mex, but that’s only because we changed our movie location at the last minute and weren’t familiar with the area at the time. Since then, we’ve had one unexpectedly delicious French meal inside Port Authority at Metro Marché, a great sushi experience at Haru, and “real barbecue” at Virgil’s, but the majority of Times Square fare is along the lines of Applebee’s and McDonald’s. Even when I’m excited about a restaurant in the area, the idea of the crowds and the lack of cleanliness and the way the restaurants cater to…
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Otafuku’s Okonomiyaki in NYC
The New York magazine review of Otafuku says, “It’s very rare to find this stuff in New York. Consider yourself lucky.” Similarly, my boyfriend has been going on about this place for the entire nearly-three years I’ve known him. He went there on a date with a girl before my time and claims that while the date sucked, the food was life-changing. I don’t actually believe him about the date, but I was at least interested in the food. Otafuku is not a restaurant. It’s a hallway divided in two by a counter, with men cooking on one side and customers ordering on the other. There’s enough room for four…
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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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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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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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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.…