Food Adventuring Around NYC
If Time Out New York can do it, so can I. I’ve been inspired and satiated by Time Out’s 2009 Top 100 list and look forward to conquering their 2010 list very soon. But from now until the end of the year, I present my own Top 100 Dishes of the year in reverse order. …
If Time Out New York can do it, so can I. I’ve been inspired and satiated by Time Out’s 2009 Top 100 list and look forward to conquering their 2010 list very soon. But from now until the end of the year, I present my own Top 100 Dishes of the year in reverse order. …
There’s a whole underbelly of pizza experts in New York. I can pretend to be an aficionado, but when it comes down to it, I’m just a pizza snob who happens to have his own blog. And web series. Don’t forget the videos, people! So when Jason Feirman of I Dream of Pizza picked Sac’s …
SADLY, GOLDEN MALL IS NOW CLOSED. Ah, the Golden Mall! It’s a food adventure in itself. For those more timid eaters or the ones with a fear of the 7 train, let me tell you about it. The Golden Mall is in Flushing, Queens (the other Chinatown) and it’s more a basement crammed with food …
I’ve spent the last nine months searching for authentic New York food. In case you’re just joining me now, I’ve done pizza, corned beef/pastrami, and now ice cream. So what about that other quintessential NY dish – the cheap turkey and swiss sandwiches from the corner deli? When I first moved to the city this …
What the hell is an aloo and why would I want to eat its balls? That was sort of my running joke with this list item. Aloo actually translates to potato and I was more than relieved to discover there were not animal parts involved. You never know with these little spots out in Queens. …
Some dishes are conversation pieces more than culinary masterpieces. I have a feeling that’s why The Bomb sandwich made it onto TONY’s Top 100 list. Because besides the ginormity and novelty of making a sandwich like The Bomb, there’s not much else to talk about. But I’ll manage to talk about it. The Bomb is …
Little Pepper (or Xiao La Jiao) is a misnomer. They might be small tiny particles of crushed peppers and spices, but they don’t just put a little on their Szechuan dishes. They load them with lots and lots of pepper. I speak of one dishe in particular, but this cuisine as a whole is not …
The relatively new Flushing restaurant M & T is a total dive that specializes in Qingdao cuisine. If my Chinese (which is limited to the back of fortune cookies and Internet research) serves me correctly, Qingdao is pronounced Tsing Tao, just like the region’s famous beer. Even with the three Chinatowns in NYC, it is …
It’s very exciting to have a secret over everybody else. Whenever I bring a date or an out of town friend to a little bar in the back of a hot dog stand or a garage or a cemetery or wherever, I feel like the coolest, most “in the know” guy in the world. For …
You have pre-conceived notions about certain things (we all do) and then when it turns out that your expectations are completely wrong, it takes a little while to adjust. That was the case when we walked into Katsuno, a little Japanese restaurant in the middle of suburban Forest Hills. I sort of expected this place …
SADLY, SINGAS PIZZA IS NOW CLOSED. When I walk into a restaurant and it smells like Subway (the sandwich shop – not the transit system), the only menu appears in a big bright marquee above, and the cashier gives me a number when I order, I expect the food to be fast food. And I think …
I went out to the very diverse and colorful Jackson Heights to track down one of the list items with the hopes of having a fun food adventure in Queens. Well, it turned out to be more adventurous than I had anticipated. Now, as usual, I had a limited time frame since I had to …
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. …
“Here try this slice while you’re waiting.” “You only ordered one slice? Have this one too.” “Since you’ve never been here before, I wanted you to try this.” These are not statements you hear at a New York pizzeria. Free pizza? Generous employees? These would make sense if I was in some Italian grandmother’s dining …
One of the most fascinating new food trends is the molecular gastronomy movement. Chefs have begun playing with science and chemicals to change our traditional ideas of food. It’s a neat concept. That’s how you get such unexpected flavor combinations as peanut butter vodka and fried mayonnaise. Basically, it’s food magic. Molecular gastronomy, as far …