Food Adventuring Around NYC
Brian Hoffman is a classically trained actor who is now a full-time tour guide, blogger, and food obsessive. He leads food and drink tours around New York City, which not only introduce tour-goers to delicious food, but gives them a historical context. He has written food articles for Gothamist and Midtown Lunch in addition to overseeing this blog and a few food video series, including Eat This, Locals Know, and Around the World in One City. His latest series is an international cooking show with his son which can be found on this site.
Back in 2000, Sasha Petraske opened up a very unusual bar. It was called Milk & Honey and in order to go there for drinks, you had to have a secret phone number, make a last minute reservation, then have the inside scoop to know exactly where the unmarked door is in the Lower East …
Well, here’s a special occasion where I can check another item off my list AND continue my search for NY’s best pizza. I was eventually going to make my way out to Salvatore of Soho in Staten Island to try their coal-oven style pizza, but after the clam pie appeared on the list, it happened …
Raw Shrimp? Seriously? Even in sushi restaurants, shrimp is generally served cooked and chilled. I had it served to me raw once in a sushi restaurant in midtown and since every other dish had been fresh, I closed my nose and ate the damn thing. So here I was faced with the problem once again. …
SADLY, MAYAHUEL IS NOW CLOSED. Tequila is one of those spirits I’ve been trying to get into lately. Besides margaritas, when I think of tequila, I think of one too many body shots at a college party. But I enjoy tasting my liquor rather than trying to get it down as fast as possible. So the …
SADLY, DESNUDA IS NOW CLOSED. I love New York! Where else can you find an entire bar or restaurant dedicated to a specific dish? Sure, we’ve all heard of pizzerias and taquerias but how often do you come across a cevicheria? Desnuda is a narrow bar in the East Village specializing in the citrus-marinated seafood …
SADLY, KYO YA IS NOW CLOSED. I officially fell in love with Kyo Ya. It’s more refined than the izakayas (Japanese pubs that serve traditional bar food), but much more approachable and interesting than the big expensive Japanese restaurants (Megu and Nobu, I’m talking to you guys!) The second Kyo Ya dish on the list is …
SADLY, KYO YA IS NOW CLOSED. Let me just say up front that I love Japanese food. Which is weird because the one really bad food experience I remember from childhood was eating at the casual Japan restaurant at EPCOT. There was some brewed flavor (soy perhaps?) in their soup that really turned me off to …
I thought for New Year’s Eve I’d try to get as many of the drinks on my list as possible. And if I got wasted, it was all for a good cause. Well, I made it to a number of restaurants and had many drinks, but only two cocktails from the list were conquered that …
SADLY, NUNZIO’S IS NOW CLOSED. There are so many pizzerias in this city and there’s just no way I can get to them all. Unless I plan on eating nothing but pizza for the next few years. And as tempting as that sounds, I’ve got other plans. But I can hit up all five boroughs and …
Most people think curry and they think of spicy Indian food or rich Thai dishes. But curry can refer to many different ethnic spiced dishes. And the words bratwurst, schnitzel, and pretzel that appear on Wechsler’s menu make it clear that we are not anywhere near Asia. No, Weschsler’s in the East Village serves German …
I have recently been referred to as “the pizza guy” among my friends. I have absolutely no idea why. And everybody seems to have a suggestion for what the pizza guy should try next. I love everybody’s enthusiasm. I’ll just feel bad if I go to somebody’s favorite pizza place and then give it a …
I love being able to cross off two list items with only one meal. Locanda Verde is one of a few restaurants that received two spots on Time Out’s list. Last year, Momofuko was the only place to hold that distinction. And where are you this year, David Chang? I mostly enjoyed the meal at …
The number one item on last year’s Time Out list was the porchetta sandwich at Porchetta. And it was well-deserving. Porchetta is a hole-in-the-wall spot that serves delicious pork sandwiches in the East Village. The word porchetta refers to an Italian boneless pork roast. At Porchetta, they use the loin, the belly, and lots of …
In previous posts, I’ve called Ray’s the McDonald’s of NY pizza chains and Patsy’s the Starbucks. And now I come to another visible NY pizza empire and the question arises, what recognizable corporation can I compare Two Boots to? And after much consideration, I guess they’d have to be the Urban Outfitters – they’re hip, …
I’m doing my best to strategize with the list. Last year I missed out on certain dishes because the restaurant’s menu changed. I’m trying to get all the possible seasonal dishes first to make sure I don’t miss out again. The most obvious one is the chestnut cake doughnut at Doughnut Plant. I figured they …
If there’s a battleground for the pizza wars in New York, it might be on Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. In the middle of the street, you can find the old standby John’s of Bleecker, which has been there since 1929. And directly across the street is the new favorite Neapolitan style …
Kombucha is a fermented tea that is purported to aid in digestion, detoxing, and hipsterness. It’s one of the latest health crazes in the urban areas of this country. I’ve been drinking it for a while in bottle form from my local health food store. The intense effervescence takes a while to get used to, …
And the list nostalgia continues. I first discovered french dip sandwiches at T.G.I. Friday’s. And even though I’m not terribly proud of it, Friday’s was a huge part of my adolescence. It was in the same shopping center as the local mall so I spent many social hours being waited on by servers with flair. …
So this list keeps making me feel young again. First, fried chicken and now these little cookies known as snickerdoodles. Snickerdoodles are basically sugar cookies that have been rolled in or sprinkled with cinnamon. They’re not my favorite cookie (give me chocolate chip over anything else), but how can the name snickerdoodle not bring you …
New York is a big city for sure, but not so big that a sense of community is lost. In Brooklyn, there is a huge community of artists and musicians and most of them never leave the borough, unless they have a gig or a David Byrne lecture to attend somewhere. And many of the …