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 also writes 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.
I have been sorely out of tocuh with the craft cocktail scene as of late. Before COVID, I was on top of it, even leading cocktail tours. Boy, I miss those days! Well, when we had a night out for my birthday without our well-under 21 year old son, a cocktail bar was in order. …
For my recent birthday dinner, deciding on a special sushi meal was easy. The hard part was deciding which of the moderately priced sushi restaurants to visit. I feel like there has been an overwhelming number of them in the last few years. It came down to two – a more traditional Japanese omakase or …
I imagine I am a real pain in the ass. I never like to play by the rules set down by restaurants. I was very excited to try Pop Up Bagels, which is a Connecticut-based bagel company that has expanded form a backyard “pop-up” where people could buy fresh homemade bagels to having six locations …
We first tried to visit Dishoom on our quick layover in London the night before, but the laughably long line rivaled anything I have seen in NYC. And that says a lot. I could not believe how long the line was for an Indian restaurant that has been opened and popular in London for over …
When I started this blog, the whole point was to search for iconic foods from New York. Mostly because that is what I do when I travel, so I figured I should have a sense of the most traditional dishes from my own town. I have strayed a bit. In addition to reviewing bagels and …
As you can guess, I take my choice of restaurants when I’m on vacation very seriously. Could you imagine if we just randomly walked into a spot on a touristy street and had one less-than-memorable meal? When we’ve travelled so far? Well, Othonas Taverna was not where I planned to have dinner one night in …
We just returned from a huge odyssey to Greece. When I say odyssey it’s because to get to Crete (where we spent most of our time), we flew to London, caught a second flight to Santorini, where we spent one night, before taking a delayed ferry to Heraklion. But Odysseus didn’t get an extra night …
I hope this doesn’t come out wrong, but while COVID was a horrific tragic time for so many, I also look back to the time of the lockdown with a bit of nostalgia. There were so many exciting innovations happening – especially among the food and drink world. One business that started during the pandemic …
Shortly after we filmed this video, Sam and I took a family vacation to Costa Rica. It had been on my bucket list for a long time and the time was right. So this was a rare example of where we filmed the video first and then actually took a visit to the country. I …
A few weeks ago, I got together with two old friends from the New York food blogging world. We all wrote and documented food stories for the long gone but not forgotten Midtown Lunch. This was before Tik Tok and Instagram – in simpler times when you could find a meal for $10 or less. …
It seems like with Tik Tok and food blogs, there is nothing new to discover in the New York City food scene. That is why I get super excited when I try something absolutely amazing that nobody else seems to know about. Raffetto’s Pasta Shop is certainly no secret. This fourth generation Italian shop in …
It’s hard when visiting Arthur Avenue not to order a red sauce classic – maybe eggplant parmigiana or linguini con vongole or, of course, lasagna. But on my last visit I was craving something a bit different and I knew I’d find it at Zero Otto Nove. This beautiful Salerno-inspired restaurant specializes in wood-fired pizza …
In the last few years, there are lots of new little cafés in the city that give the sense and vibe of Mexico City. It seems like this is a new trend or perhaps I just started noticing them now that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting CDMX shortly before the pandemic. Café Miguel is …
I have fond memories of doing an impromptu restaurant week lunch at Aquavit a few years back before Marcus Samuelsson was on every commercial and cooking show this side of the Food Network. I was less impressed years later at Red Rooster. But now I was excited to try a brand new restaurant of his …
Peter Shelsky, the man behind the appetizing revolution in Brooklyn, moved to Paris with his family during the pandemic. His staff is keeping the shop running without missing a beat and everything is always great. However, it’s always nice to catch Peter himself in the store from time to time when he comes back every …
Growing up in South Florida, we went to Disney World a lot. Although my family were not terribly adventurous eaters, you would have thought I would have fully explored the food options at the Disney theme parks. Sure, I remember eating at Epcot’s Morocco and Germany when I was a kid, but my other Disney …
It used to be BBQ ribs and then for a while it was chicken wings, but now it’s mushrooms. If these items are on a restaurant menu, it will be very difficult for me to not order them. So when I checked out the online menu from the recently opened vegetable-forward The Wesley and saw …
The first time I visited Kjun it was in a hidden little take-out spot in the East Village. I called the chef (who I later discovered was a competitor on Top Chef) who took my order and ran my food up to me out of an unmarked door. This was during the heart of the …
This corner space in Fort Greene right outside the subway space is prime real estate. Pretty awesome and amazing that it now hosts its second hip vegan fast food chain. I do miss Broccoli Bar quite a bit, but no doubt the Atlanta-based Slutty Vegan has garnered more of a cult following with Tik Tok …
I often visit one of Lady Wong’s two locations to pick up a sweet sensation known as kuih, the bite-sized Singaporean treats usually made from rice flour and anything from brown sugar to pandan to coconut milk. They are a nice treat which I will write about on this blog one day, no doubt. But …