restaurant reviews
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The New Dessert Menu and More at The Chester
If you’re wondering where the pretty people in NYC are eating (or not eating, to maintain their girlish figures), it’s at The Chester in the Meatpacking District. The restaurant serves American food, but the crowd is a mix of world flavors thanks to its prime location, attached to the Gansevoort Hotel with its famous rooftop pool. I happen to work right next door and looked longingly at the soft blue-and-white striped banquettes on the outdoor patio every morning at The Chester until I finally convinced my friend Kim to join me there for lunch one day. We ordered lobster Cobb salads with chopped lettuce and piles of hard-boiled egg, bacon,…
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Restaurant Review: Mile End Delicatessen in Brooklyn
I have a hard time explaining Mile End to people. I’m inevitably hanging out with hungry friends in my neighborhood, and when I call it a deli, they inevitably say, “Oh.” So then I have to explain that it’s a hipster deli, but no one likes that, either. So then I have to explain that it’s a really cute East-Village-meets-Cobble-Hill kind of place that happens to serve the most delicious meats in the style of a New York deli. And also has plated entrees and wine. That usually wins them over. smoked meat sandwich The cured and smoked brisket is the thing to get. The burger is always awesome. The…
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Holey Donuts NYC: Low-Fat, Low-Calorie, Highly Delicious
Here’s a secret about me: though my blog is called donuts4dinner, I find most donuts disappointing. The idea of them is always perfect in my head. They always look perfect when I see them. Even the sight of the simplest glazed donut makes me drool like a bulldog. But most of the time when I actually taste one, I realize that the idea of a donut is usually better than a donut itself. And then there’s Holey Donuts. When they found me on Twitter and invited me to their grand opening here in NYC, I was super mega skeptical. Low-calorie, low-fat food is exactly the opposite of what I’m all…
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Momofuku Ma Peche Chicken/Lamb and Rice Large-Format Dinner
I’m often made fun of for being a Momofuku fangirl, but up until a few weeks ago, I’d blasphemously never been to the most recent addition to David Chang’s assemblage of NYC restaurants, Ma Peche. But my friend The Pretender set up one of the large-format feasts for a group of 12 of us, the Ma Peche Chicken/Lamb and Rice dinner ($450), and now I can say that I’ve been to all of the Momofukus and that each one is just as amazing as the last. My friends who’d rather spend their money on shoes than food were initially skeptical about the idea of a dinner involving chicken that wasn’t…
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Big Daddy’s Still Makes Me Feel Like a Kid/Alcoholic Again
I’ve written about Big Daddy’s, a diner with a focus on absolutely delicious/disgustingly fatty throwback foods, before, but I just found some photos in my archive and need to show them to you in case you need a reminder of how amazing/awful/amazing this place is. I understand entirely that this is the sort of food meant for children and drunk people. And I’m both of those at heart. Bow Wow Wow Breakfast on a waffle: buttered waffles, scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, American cheese, hash browns. A completely nutritional dinner. Real “Mac” Coy A burger, covered in mac & cheese and crispy bacon, served with sweet potato (excuse me, sweet potater)…
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North Restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, and One of the Best Things I’ve Ever Eaten
My boyfriend was in Providence, Rhode Island, for a couple of weeks on business, and people kept telling him how up and coming the food scene was. I was skeptical, because everyone from everywhere loves to tell me how comparable to NYC their town’s food scene is, but Jack took me up there to find out for myself. There were two restaurants everyone seemed to be talking about in Providence, and one of them was North. Honestly, despite the reviews, I was convinced I wasn’t going to like it. I wanted to fine dine, and this sounded like some hipster hole-in-the-wall with a teeny menu where nothing looked interesting and…
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My Favourite Thing at Louro is Actually Everything
Louro has been open in NYC’s Greenwich Village for over a year now and is still surprising me with its robust flavors every time I go. Sometimes I’ll be sitting at a happy hour spot closer to home, and I’ll think, “Yeah, I could be at Louro right now instead, but what’s the big deal?” And then I’ll actually go to Louro and am like, “Why have I been wasting my life?” Chef David Santos has let me come photograph his food several times, so I won’t be giving Louro a score so as to avoid looking like a shill, but you’ll know that in my heart, it’s 5/5 all…
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Brucie NYC Blew My Mind with Brussels Sprouts
If you’ve been reading donuts4dinner since its inception, you know that the original purpose of this blog was to chronicle my rise from a farmgirl to a three-Michelin-star dining powerhouse. Well, since I became a full-time resident of a new Brooklyn neighborhood and also unemployed at the same time, I’ve been focusing on local restaurants and healthier living. It’s been great for the most part–there’s not a lot that’s more satisfying than finding delicious food that’s a short walk away–but part of me has missed the beautiful plating and mindblowing bites of the finest eateries. But then, thanks to my roommate/landlord/former co-worker/boyfriend, I found Brucie in Cobble Hill. The menu…
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The Entire Dim Sum Menu at RedFarm UWS
There are no reservations at the Upper West Side outpost of RedFarm, so my group of five showed up at 6:30 on a Thursday night hoping to beat the usual 8 p.m. dinner crowd. Even though it’s apparently twice the size of the original West Village location, the place was packed, and even having called earlier in the afternoon to put ourselves on a waitlist wasn’t helping. But the staff was zealous in finding a spot for us, and soon enough, we were seated at the end of a communal table in the middle of the checkered-table-cloth and blond wood dining room, about to eat every single item on the…
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Char No. 4: American Southern Food and Whiskey in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
I happen to live in the midst of all of the cutest parts of Brooklyn, so a night out to one of my favourite neighborhood restaurants usually involves passing four more that I want to try the next night. Char No. 4 is one of the places I’ve always noticed with its dark tones, ceiling full of lanterns, and bar bustling every night of the week. I remember looking at the Southern-inspired menu once and thinking it was too small, but when my friend Kim, her cousin, and I decided to go on a recent weekend, I realized that the menu’s actually too big, because I wanted every single thing…
