neighborhood
-
The Swingle from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies
Red Hook is a neighborhood on the southwest coast of Brooklyn that’s accessible by cruise ship and nothing else. Okay, there’s one bus that goes there. And you could take the IKEA ferry if you were desperate. But for the most part, it’s meant for people who own cars, which excludes me, because I basically live in NYC just so I don’t have to ever drive. But one weekend, my landlord/roommate/former co-worker/friend Jack had his parents’ car, so I did what any responsible food blogger would do and asked him to drive us to Red Hook to eat chocolate-covered key lime pie on a stick from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime…
You May Also Like
Kellogg’s NYC in Times Square
- 4, celebrity chef, german, good for groups, great for dates, italian, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, west village
The Marrow
I’ve read recently about how hard it is for a restaurant in NYC to survive after the initial buzz is over. A place opens, every blogger in the tri-state area rushes to review it, it gets no press after the first few months, and it dies. Naturally I accept all of the blame for this, because I’ve never been to any of the old Chef Harold Dietrle restaurants, but I’ve had my eye on The Marrow for months now. I watched him and cheered for him as he won the first season of “Top Chef”, and then I was so excited to live in New York City when he opened…
-
Distilled is More Than Just Wings (But the Wings Are Pretty Amazing)
It only took seeing “gochujang wings” and “Momofuku Noodle Bar veteran” in an article about Distilled to convince me. Our friend Colin had already visited and said the wings were “weird”, but they apparently weren’t weird enough that he wouldn’t come back, so he joined my friends Nik and Tim and me there one day after work to share what felt like a whole lot of food at the time but turned out to be just a little bit of southern comfort food and a whole lot of wine, mead, and cocktails made of wine and mead. Distilled wings These wings are not weird. Well, unless you consider it weird…
-
California’s Umami Burger in NYC
There’s nothing a New Yorker loves more than feigning disinterest in other cities. We have everything worth having here, and Chicago can take its sparkling blue lake and shove it. But somehow, when it comes to food, New Yorkers have a fascination with everything from everywhere. Maybe it’s just that we want to say we’ve had it. Maybe it’s just that we want to be able to intelligently naysay it. Maybe it’s that we want to put it on a cronut. In any case, I found myself at the made-famous-in-L.A. Umami Burger on its fourth day in NYC. Partly because I had planned to go to the park and it…
-
Mission Chinese Food: Crazy Spicy, Crazy Delicious
The first reviews of San Franciso’s Mission Chinese Food outpost here in NYC were written by professional critics and were, by my estimation, universally adoring. The New York Times said James Beard Rising Star Chef award-winner Danny Bowien “does to Chinese food what Led Zeppelin did to the blues. His cooking both pays respectful homage to its inspiration and takes wild, flagrant liberties with it”. The blog reviews that came soon after were less excited. I read complaints about the prices, which range from $4 for the vinegar peanuts to $14.50 for the mapo la mian. I read complaints about how everything was overwhelmingly spicy. Then I read complaints about…
-
The Tasting Menu at Louro
Having first met Chef David Santos at his home supper club, Um Segredo, I felt a sense of pride when he opened his first restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village, Louro. As he sold out his Monday night themed dinners (like the truffle feast) and received a star from the New York Times two months in, I was already telling people that “I knew him way back when”. The restaurant is a little bit of everything: a rustic floor and seating, nature-inspired lighting, and black and white photos of highbrow book collections. The food is on the fancy side, but the service makes you feel comfortable. I get the feeling that…
-
April Bloomfield’s Salvation Taco
Having eaten a whole suckling pig at Chef April Bloomfield’s The Breslin a couple of years ago, I was excited to see what she could do with one of my comfort foods: tacos. What made Salvation Taco even more appealing to me is that it’s on 39th Street, just south of my boyfriend’s apartment, in this part of the Murray Hill neighborhood that’s mostly filled with highrises and Irish pubs meant to attract the after-work crowd. (It was ridiculously dark in the restaurant, so please excuse my heavily-lightened pictures.) 5 Island Rum, coconut horchata, cold-brewed coffee, Fernet Vallet, cinnamon and vanilla I’ve secretly loved the totally-Americanized horchatas I’ve had with…
- 4.5, american (new), flatiron, good for groups, great for dates, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu
The Lunch Tasting Menu at Gramercy Tavern
We’ve long had Gramercy Tavern on our list simply because it’s a part of the Danny Meyer/Union Square Hospitality family of restaurants that includes Shake Shack, The Modern, and formerly Eleven Madison Park. With the Shake Shack burger being my favourite in NYC and Eleven Madison Park my third-favourite restaurant in all of NYC, my expectations for the $58 lunch tasting menu were high and were met both in the food and the service. fluke tartare, tangerine, peanut and fried shallot So citrusy, with a highlight of celery and a little crunch from the kohlrabi and fried onions. ruby red shrimp, carrots, quinoa and coconut broth So tender, with the…
- 4.5, celebrity chef, great for dates, italian, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, west village, wine-paired menu
The Lunch Tasting Menu at Babbo
Our first trip to Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Babbo was way, way back in 2010, before we had visited NYC’s Italian heavy-hitters like Torrisi Italian Specialties and Del Posto. At the time, I said that Babbo was doing Italian food better than anyone in its category in my usual superlative-laden way, and three years later, my boyfriend and I wanted to see how it’s holding up. This is the four-course lunch tasting menu at $49 with an extra pasta course each for $20 and $35 for wine pairings: marinated eggplant with pickled chilies, Pecorino and black garlic vinaigrette Very appetizing thanks to the bright vinegar notes. Just a touch…
- 4.5, american (new), celebrity chef, french, great for dates, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, upper east side, wine-paired menu
The Tasting Menu at Daniel
I called our first visit to Daniel back in 2011 “as close to perfect a meal as Kamran and I have had in NYC”. It was our first time at a restaurant with three Michelin stars and our first time eating one of these over-the-top, wine-paired, France-fueled tasting menus. Since then, we’ve been to all but one of the three-Michelin-starred places (if anyone wants to put in a good word for Masa, I’m listening) and have basically had so much good food that we’ve started to question whether or not it’s been a mistake to ruin ourselves for mediocre food, so we decided it was time to go back to…
