Food Adventuring Around NYC
You may disagree with me, but I think a destination bakery is pretty rare nowadays in New York. Expert bakers with great pastries and sourdough loaves are seemingly everywhere. You don’t have to go far to find well-made croissants and cinnamon buns. Radio Bakery, however, which has been getting a ridiculous amount of hype in …
In their old space, I think I may have worked my way through Superiority Burger’s menu of inventive vegetarian fast food. I’m a bit ashamed that I hadn’t been able to visit them in their new location until now. This spring, they came back in a much larger space (with wait staff) in an old …
On the food cart tour I lead, I often talk about how many street vendors hope to one day transition into a brick-and-mortar location. Well, a few months ago that came true for Lai Sheng Zhang, who with his wife, operated a cart in Chinatown, and now has a small little takeout restaurant on one …
During a morning trip to Queens, I found Neapli Bhanchha Ghar open early and so I snuck in for some Himalayan pites. This place has been well-known in the borough for a number of years and in fact, I realized I too had been here but didn’t take good note of the name. That’s ok …
A Greek diner is all too common around the tri-state area. But a modern hipster Greek diner? That is something different. Baby Blues Luncheonette is a very cool local Williamsburg hang-out that opened in 2022 and has been a super fun hangout, especially for breakfast. I found the prices a bit high, but the food …
My yearly resolution for some time now has been to eat less meat. I’m not ready to go full vegan (but wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself there in the future), yet I am eager and more than willing to try as many of the plant-based New York food businesses as possible. I recently …
Even though they spell out how special they are in their name, I was late to the game when it came to Winner. Their original Park Slope location had been on my radar since they opened days before the pandemic became a pandemic. Since then the lines to get loaves of bread, sandwiches, and cookies …
I keep saying that the quality of Thai food all over the city has drastically improved in the last few years. And now we get one of the best restaurants yet. It’s not surprising that Untable has popped up on a few food critics’ best of the year lists (it may just be on mine …
There are certain dishes that get credit for being invented in New York. Baked Alaska, Waldorf salad, the Cronut, among many others. But on that often gets overlooked are those ubiquitous Cold Sesame Noodles. Found in most Chinese takeout restaurants, the story goes these were invented by Taiwanese chef Shorty Tang at his restaurant Hwa …
I’m not sure I really understand the difference between a finger and a nugget when it comes to chicken. The birds, of course, don’t have either. I’m sure the difference comes from the shape of the fritter. It wasn’t until I was ordering the house made versions at the local favorite Krupa Grocery that I …
Before I discovered the wonders of Elmhurst, for me, Hell’s Kitchen was the center of Thai food in New York. In fairness, it was the center of a lot for me since I had spent most of my time in the Theater District and I would wander west to discover as much interesting international food …
In the past, I would always try to match the Dish of the Week to the upcoming holiday. For Thanksgiving, it was always turkey, pumpkin something or other, mashed potatoes, or the like. I often forgot about the second half of the holiday – the giving part. Sea & Soil is an incredible new neighborhood …
Unlike Martin Short’s character on Only Murders in the Building, I have never been someone who could make a meal out of dips. It does make sense though – how are dips and bread much different than pizza or a deconstructed sandwich? I get it, but it’s just never seem to be my thing. That …
I have finally gotten over my PTSD with the restaurant formerly known as Eisenberg’s. Back when I started this blog, I wrote a less-than-stellar review of their corned beef/pastrami and chided the owner’s collection of “celebrity” photos. Well, the owner fired back contributing to my first expletive-filled comment section. Since then, Eisenberg’s was sold to …
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 …
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 …