• i am a country bumpkin

    Eating My Weight in Fryer Grease

    I flew home to Ohio last night for a week of the CIRCLEVILLE PUMPKIN SHOW! Which some people like to refer to as the “Circleville Pumpkin Festival” or the “Circleville Pumpkin Fair” or the “Podunk Hillbilly Gourd Celebration“. But they are wrong. It’s a show if I’ve ever seen one. While there, I plan to EAT EVERYTHING I ATE LAST YEAR ALL OVER AGAIN. (And more.)

  • 5,  american (new),  celebrity chef,  east village,  great for dates,  japanese,  michelin-starred,  restaurant reviews

    Momofuku Ko – Japanese/American (New) – East Village

    I maaaaay have said some mean things about Chef David Chang in the past. I may have suggested he’s arrogant and that all of the NYC food critics are stuck up his butt. I may have complained about his anti-photo policy and his online reservation system that requires weeks (months!) of clicking just for the opportunity to spend $700 and not eat until 9:40 p.m. on a Monday night. But I was wrong, and on Saturday, Dr. Boyfriend and I had what was so unequivocally the best meal of our lives that I might have to add an extra doughnut to my rating system just to accommodate it. We’d heard…

  • 4.5,  american (new),  good for groups,  great for dates,  michelin-starred,  restaurant reviews,  upper east side

    What You’ve Read About The Wright is Wrong – American (New) – Upper East Side

    I was secretly concerned about going to The Wright inside the Guggenheim Museum for my birthday this weekend. The menu looked classically delicious, and photos of the decor made it seem like a hip 1970s spaceship (it won the 2010 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design), but the reviews were a little too so-so, and we’d been totally unimpressed by a similar museum restaurant a few weeks earlier. But, you know, I’m always happy to find out for myself how a restaurant rates. Dr. Boyfriend and I decided to do the chef’s tasting with wine pairings, and right away The Wright scored points with me when our server…

  • i am a country bumpkin,  sea meats are gross

    Shrimp Heads as Homewrecker

    Dr. Boyfriend and I both have birthdays this month, and we want to eat delicious foodz on our special days. For mine, I made us a reservation at The Wright, which is the restaurant inside the Guggenheim Museum. (Click on the link and look at how beautiful it is! I don’t care how good the food is, ’cause I’m going solely for the decor.) For his birthday, he was thinking about going for an elaborate sushi dinner at the best place in town, but it just so happens that I saw a Momofuku Ko reservation open for that day and decided to snatch it up and try to convince him…

  • 4,  burgers,  cheap eats,  restaurant reviews,  sweets,  theater district

    The Shackenstein and Doughnut-Custard at Shake Shack – Theater District – American

    I went to Shake Shack twice on Sunday. And not, like, for lunch and dinner, which would be totally acceptable. No, I went for dinner and then for a midnight snack. Except that it wasn’t actually midnight yet; it was more like 10:30. Anyway. The first time around, I had a cheeseburger with mayo and a vanilla custard with a Doughnut Plant doughnut mixed in. (My friend Sylvan added her fries to the photo to make me look at it later and think about how dumb I was not to have ordered some myself.) For me, the burger was decidedly less-good than the ones from the Shake Shack in Madison…

  • i am a country bumpkin,  sometimes i wish i actually cooked

    Look Hotter and Get a Better Table

    I saw a great Q&A on Chow.com today entitled “Too Frumpy for the Good Seats?” in which a woman asked if she and her friend were relegated to the old people’s section of a restaurant’s dining room because she wasn’t dressed like a tramp. This is something I wonder to myself allllllllllllll of the time, because while my boyfriend always pairs snazzy blazers with cute t-shirts and sweater vests and looks better than anyone else everywhere we go, you’ll never see me in a cocktail dress and stilettos. I would hope I still look nice, but my style trends more toward granny-in-pearls than hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. So when we got seated in…

  • 4.5,  cheap eats,  pure carbs,  restaurant reviews,  sandwiches,  vegetarian-friendly,  williamsburg

    Saltie – Sandwiches – Williamsburg

    My friend Meredith and I live mere blocks from each other in Brooklyn, but since my dining is done almost exclusively in Manhattan, I rely on her to tell me what’s good in the neighborhood. She recently recommended the sandwich shop Saltie, saying, “I had their Scuttlebutt sandwich 2 weeks ago and CAN’T stop thinking about it.” I don’t do olives, so instead I tried the Clean Slate, and OMG, you guys, I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. It’s hummus, quinoa, pickles, and yogurt on naan, and the memories of its craveable sourness just keeps invading my brain. $8 seemed a little steep to me until I got the thing…

  • a taste for tv

    Dessert Crazy (with Emphasis on the “Crazy”)

    I know not everyone’s into desserts like I am (FOOLS!), but “Top Chef: Just Desserts” is undeniably watchable thanks to the antics of 34-year-old Seth Caro from NYC. Whether you think he just has emotional problems or believe, like Dr. Boyfriend and I do, that he may actually be mentally handicapped, you have to appreciate the WTF-ness he brings to the show. Case in point: You got that? He’s gonna be a dick, he’s gonna cook, he’s gonna win this whole fucking shit, and you can suck it, okay?

  • 4,  celebrity chef,  french,  great for dates,  restaurant reviews,  upper west side

    Nougatine at Jean-Georges – French – Upper West Side

    Dr. Boyfriend and I were convinced that we hadn’t gotten the true Jean-Georges experience at The Mark back in July and decided to try again with the tasting menu at the more established Nougatine. homemade ginger-lemon ale and passion-fruit-lime sodas Easily the best part of our last Jean-Georges meal, these proved to be a highlight at Nougatine, too. I cannot urge you enough to go to one of the Jean-Georges restaurants just to drink. I am so serious about it that I am not contracting the words cannot and I am. See the way the bottoms of the glasses are all dark? That is PURE FLAVOR, people. poblano and corn…

  • chain restaurant,  steak

    Loving Chain Restaurants Does Not Make You a Bad Person

    Last weekend, Dr. Boyfriend and I went to The Modern at MoMA for a tasting menu that included grilled foie gras with champagne-vinegar-preserved strawberries and a harissa tuile: This weekend, we’re going to Outback for a Bloomin’ Onion: The funny thing is that Dr. Boyfriend, I think, is waaaaaay more excited about Outback than he was about The Modern. He’s never been there and is under the impression that it’s just the chain version of Peter Luger. This is going to be awesome.