neighborhood
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Num Pang is the New Banh Mi
When you look up “banh mi” in the Midtown East MenuPages listings, you find Num Pang, a tiny Cambodian sandwich shop started by two friends that’s distinctly not-banh-mi yet nonetheless satisfies every spicy sandwich desire I have. The menu is about fifteen sandwiches long and four side dishes deep (plus a bunch of soups and salads that I barely notice the existence of due to their health benefits), and my boyfriend and I haven’t tried anything yet that hasn’t left us wishing for one more sandwich to eat and one more side to hold onto like a little family pet that we bathe and take on a walk from time…
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Jungsik is Worth the Trip – Korean – Tribeca
I’ve never seen a negative review of Jungsik. And it’s lucky that people are talking about it, because it’s not the kind of place this American-comfort-food-lovin’ gal would seek out on her own. Luxury Korean food? In Tribeca? It seemed so exciting when I made the reservation, but in the days leading up to the dinner, it started to seem scary and foreign. In the moments before we entered the restaurant, I was almost dreading it. And then I loved it. And then I couldn’t stop exclaiming over it. amuse bouches • squid ink chip with kimchi aioli: the salty familiarity of a light-as-a-feather potato chip with the sourness of…
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Don Antonio: Pizza Fried, Stuffed, and Racquet-Shaped
If there’s one thing I love about NYC, it’s that for every diehard fitness fanatic waiting impatiently at the gym’s front door at 6 a.m., there’s a fried pizza fanatic who thinks four pizzas for three people might not be enough food. It used to be that you had to go to Park Slope’s Chipshop for a deep-fried slice, but Forcella took the fried pizza from an outer borough novelty to a full-on Manhattan sensation. Of course I was interested from the words deep-fried and pizza, but it was New York magazine’s article about the new Don Antonio by Starita that made me finally put down my Papa John’s and…
- 4.5, celebrity chef, french, great for dates, michelin-starred, midtown west, restaurant reviews, seafood
Le Bernardin – Seafood/French – Midtown West
For the longest time, the list of restaurants in NYC with three Michelin stars was three long, and there was one I couldn’t visit: Le Bernardin. My boyfriend, god bless him, didn’t want to drop a few hundred on a bunch of fish that he knew I’d only complain about, even after he went to the restaurant with a client and came home unable to stop talking about the things he’d seen. But after proving myself capable of continuing to gulp down guppies even in the face of great adversity recently, he finally relented and invited me to the three-course, $70 lunch. And just as he suspected, I’m going to…
- 4, cheap eats, east village, good for groups, jeans-appropriate, korean, meat sweats, restaurant reviews
Momofuku Ssam Bar Rotisserie Duck – Korean – East Village
Momofuku Ssam Bar‘s large format duck dinner is a whole rotisserie Long Island duck served with chive pancakes, bibb lettuce, hoisin, duck scallion sauce, crispy shallots, and two sides of your choosing. It’s $140, feeds three to six people, and is The Best. This and the bo ssäm (pork shoulder) dinner are the only ways to get a reservation at Ssam Bar, and that alone is enough to make the dinner worth it, as the wait at Ssam is regularly two hours in my experience. (Get there before 6:30 or after 9:30 on weekdays if you want to avoid the line.) My group of six included a couple of people…
- 4, cafe, cheap eats, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, sweets, upper east side, vegetarian-friendly
Sprinkles Cupcakes – Sweets – Upper East Side
I had my first taste of the famous/infamous Sprinkles cupcake last year in their homeland of California when my boyfriend’s sister brought an anniversary cupcake cake to his parents’ party. My cupcake was yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a pink block letter of questionable edibility that seemed to be made of sugar but refused to melt in my mouth. Hardcore New Yorkers will stand loyally behind their Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, but I prefer the much more elaborate/gluttonous cupcakes from Crumbs Bake Shop and really only go to Magnolia for the banana pudding, so I was completely open to trying Sprinkles. And it was fine. Not life-changing. Not make-me-move-to-California-immediately-ing. But…
- 4.5, celebrity chef, great for dates, japanese, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, tribeca, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu
The Tasting Menu at Brushstroke – Japanese – Tribeca
A good review can entice me to eat almost anything. David Bouley’s Brushstroke, with its very traditional and structured Japanese menu, isn’t exactly a comfort food haven for this corn-fed Ohio diner, but Adam Platt’s New York magazine review somehow had me craving kaiseki. Partly because I liked that they wouldn’t let him order sushi in the dining room and partly because there’s no way I’m resisting a restaurant once I see the words candied duck breast in a review. the book room Brushstroke is all recycled blonde woods, reclaimed steel from ship’s hulls, and 27,000 paperback books formed into walls inset with Japanese street scenes in the bar area.…
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The Duckavore Dinner at Wong – Chinese – West Village
My foodie friend Lucy read about Wong‘s Duckavore Dinner on a Chowhound thread and sent the link to a couple of us. Tempted by the promise of the duckiest meal we’ve ever had (even the dessert!), our friend Tiffany made a reservation for four with the required 48 hours notice, and we converged in the West Village restaurant amid candles, school desks, and beakers for a wildly successful large-format meal that was more than just novelty. the menu bread Although quite confusing at first, the bread service perfectly set the tone for the meal. We still have no idea why one piece of bread was puffed and one wasn’t, and…
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The Omakase at Sushi Yasuda – Japanese – Midtown East
Earlier this year, I wrote about my only visit to Sushi Yasuda, widely regarded as one of the best sushi restaurants in NYC. I was still in my twenty-four-year phase of not liking fish then and had really gone out on a limb there by ordering a tuna roll. Since then, my boyfriend has mentioned going back approximately four hundred times. Usually I’d have no problem accompanying him and ordering the very safest items on the menu, but the problem was that he wanted to try the chef’s omakase, where you have no say in what you’re served. Which, from the reviews I’d read, involved everything from scallop roe to…
- 4, chain restaurant, cheap eats, chelsea, healthy, meat sweats, restaurant reviews, sandwiches, tribeca, vegetarian-friendly
Muscle Maker Grill – Healthy/Sandwiches – Tribeca
I know it’s awful to talk about dieting on a gluttonous food blog, but the truth is that when I’m not shoveling sweets into my piehole at fancy restaurants, I’m trying to avoid carbs at home. Not being much of a cook, it can be rough trying to find anything for lunch, so I was pumped to randomly type “low-carb” into Seamless.com‘s search function and find Muscle Maker Grill. With a menu full of items made from lean meats and low-fat cheeses and served on low-carb and whole wheat wraps, this is the kind of place that makes me feel guilty about the food I’m eating until I remember that…