Recent Eats IV

Baba's Pierogies
I'm basically a sucker for any kind of filling in any kind of dough. Dumplings, ravioli, bao, pelmeni, burek, whatever. And these were solid pierogies, and I'd like to go back and try the blueberry. But seriously: You want to charge almost a dollar extra for a few caramelized onions? Get over it; and bring me some applesauce while you're at it.

Sweetleaf
Once a month or so, I work a day in Long Island City (instead of Harlem). By far the best part of this experience is the morning bike ride, which takes me up through Brooklyn, over the Pulaski Bridge, and -- almost -- straight to Sweetleaf. Rocket Fuel and Voodoo Child are both [kisses fingers]. Perfect start to the day. Why they have a giant painting of Kristen Bell on the wall, I don't know.

Jacques Torres
City Bakery is of course my hot chocolate gold standard, but I certainly won't kick the stuff from JT out of bed. Nor their chocolate-covered cornflakes either.

Pizza
Living in NY means you are absolutely obligated to have strong opinions about pizza. Personally, I find it important also to distinguish between "slice joint" pizza, and "fancy" pizza. For the former, still and always, I count on Joe's. For the latter, I'm generally pretty good now with my new local, Parkside. There may technically be better fancy places out there, but there are certainly none closer. In any event, Roberta's has too long of a wait, Lucali doesn't cook their shallots, the Parkside chef used to work at Franny's anyway, etc. But life happens, and a few weeks ago I found myself at Baby Grand and in need of sustenance, so we ordered from Motorino. I gather they've built a nice little hipster business, so anticip.ation was high. But the thing is, if you're going to charge that much for a pie that doesn't really feed two not-very-hungry people, you need that pie to be great, and Motorino's wasn't even close. We had two, one with mushrooms and one with sprouts, and the toppings were sort of tasty enough, although not revelatory, but my real gripe is with the dough. It was so... doughy. Pillowy, in fact. So if that's your pizza style, vaya con dios, but it ain't mine.

Chikalicious Dessert Club
One of my many problems with living in Japan was that they weren't, as a culture, very good at dessert. I like red beans just fine, but that has to be balanced with chocolate cake from time to time, you know? In general, it always seemed to me that they were way more concerned with how desserts looked than how they tasted, and the Age of Instagram has not helped matters. So while I wouldn't say the churro ice cream cone situation is a bad one, it's definitely a Made for IG one, and if you just want good ice cream and a good churro, you're probably better off eating them separately.

The Bonnie
We recently spent a day biking around Queens, hitting up the Socrates Sculpture Park, the Noguchi Museum, and the Museum of the Moving Image. Sustenance was required throughout. And if all you need, as we did, is an airy backyard, a beer, and some fries, The Bonnie is not a bad option. ...If you can discount a certain amount of soullessness and a full-on Best of the 80s soundtrack.

Mimi Cheng's
I like dumplings. And these are good dumplings. But. I have a hard time feeling a need to bother with anything fancier than, say, $0.50 per dumpling. Just say no to gentrification, and go to Shu Jiao instead.

MAP

RECIPE: Lentil Minestrone, because ultimately, who doesn't like soup?

The Stroll

Last week, R and I walked the length of Manhattan, top to bottom, 17.4 miles. It's possible to be a bit more direct -- Google puts the straight shot at 12.2 -- but I will always choose food and views over convenience. Besides, the whole point was to spend the day doing the things we do best: wandering, eating, and taking pictures.

First stop, of course, was breakfast. We took the A as far up the island as we could, and headed straight to Cachapas y Mas for a chicharron cachapa and some passion fruit juice. I'd already forced R to skip his usual muesli, so I relented and didn't force him to walk to the very very tip top of Manhattan first. We'd tacked on some extra mileage by walking from the Times Square Q to the Port Authority A anyway, so starting the real trek from 207th St seemed... fine.

Trinity Cemetery

First thing after breakfast was our biggest elevation of the day -- straight up Fort George Hill. NY doesn't have much in the way of hills, if you don't count bridges, but those few up in Washington Heights, the Bronx, and Yonkers make up for the lack elsewhere. (We got lost trying to find the South County Trailway out of Van Cortlandt Park once, and it was brutal.)

Washington Heights is really all about the food. I wanted to keep us lean and mean (ie able to make lots of food stops along the way), so we went pretty straight through, but you could easily have a full batido-empanada-mofongo-patacon-etc-tour day up there.

Grant's Tomb

Our first real landmark was Grant's Tomb. I have a lingering fondness for this area, from when my college roommate, who's lived on Claremont for the last 15 years, let me crash on her futon the summer I came back from Japan, but I've rarely had occasion to go back since. It has just that perfect snootiness to mark the beginning of the UWS proper.

We crossed through Columbia, so I could point out where Joseph Gordon-Levitt parked his burrito in Premium Rush, then down past St John the Divine. (It's not a great movie, but there are silly bikey things, and it was New Year's Eve and I was high on officially prescribed oxycodone when we watched it.) I can't be in this neighborhood without visiting my favorite statue, of St Michael with some giraffes and a crab, lopping off Satan's head, so we sat in the garden there for a minute while we figured out our next move.

The Cannibal

We'd only split the cachapa, so lunch seemed, as it so often does, like a good next step. Also I thought a little iced coffee wouldn't go amiss, especially if we could get it with condensed milk -- like at Saiguette. I'd been there once before, and got something fancy, but this time we opted for the Classic sandwich. It did not disappoint. I'm a little sad that I'm not still getting my banh mi for $4 from the back of a jewelry store in Chinatown, but... this was really good, and we ate it on a bench in Central Park. Sometimes I can't hate gentrification.

That fueled us through the park and, after The Classiest Bathroom Break at Lincoln Center, on to Gotham West Market. My intention was to just do a quick walk-through and check the place out, but then it was mid-afternoon, it was mostly empty, and I saw a blackboard advertising slushie cocktails. Sold. One icy negroni later and I was ready for anything -- including the High Line. (We did maybe 30 blocks of Central Park, plus the High Line, but I refused to do any other non-street walking. The whole point was Manhattan, after all. Walking down the West Side Greenway, for instance, only shows you the West Side Greenway, and I've seen it plenty on my bike.)

By the time we hit ground again in the West Village, we were starting to flag a bit. It was time to bring out the big guns, aka Taiwanese shaved ice. Green tea and black sesame drizzled with condensed milk and topped with strawberries. Oh, and we got a Double Decker at Myers of Keswick, because for some reason we'd stayed up two hours late the previous weekend talking about chocolate bars. Next three miles were nuthin'.

We ended down by the water a bit after 6, not much the worse for wear. I'd done this walk once before, with 20ish other people, and that was much harder than doing it with just the two of us. Going at our own pace, deciding where we wanted to stop as we went, made the whole thing a lot easier.

I debated finishing things off with a beer on The World's Best Free Boat Ride (ie the Staten Island Ferry), and if there'd been good food next door to the terminal on the other side... Well, it still might have been nice, but we opted instead to just use the bathroom and go home. Which is to say, home to our shiny new local delicious pizza place. And beer.

MAP

RECIPE: Pasta alla Norma, furthering the Mark Bittman obsession that began when I picked up a free copy of How To Cook Everything Vegetarian on a stoop in Park Slope.

Recent Eats III

Some of these eats are not really "recent" anymore. But that's the way it goes. If I posted them in a timely fashion, I'd never have room to post anything else. (Which could be a good thing? We'll take a poll later.)

Chez Oskar
Nice local bistro. Hard to give a real review, since we were there for a set menu -- didn't get the full experience. Still, had a very tasty lamb shank and the atmosphere was pleasantly romantic.

Gaonnuri
I'd say it's all about the view, but frankly the meat was pretty good too. I mean, why have Korean BBQ on ground level when you can do it on the 39th floor, all things being equal?

Lobster Joint
I sometimes say that if I won the lottery, the only thing that would really change would be that I would eat more lobster rolls. That may not be strictly true, but the point stands. In any event, since I'm unlikely to either win the lottery or move to Maine, I do the best I can with what I have. The $12 slider special at Lobster Joint helps.

Midwood Flats
This is a recent eat in the sense that it is always a recent eat, since this place is directly across the street from our apartment. We were suspicious of it at first, I don't know why, but the switch flipped as soon as we went in. A duck torta with a fried egg on top may not be the only path to my heart, but it'll certainly get you there. The great beer selection can certainly come along for the ride.

Parkside Pizza
Lamb sausage pizza, olive pizza. Promising-looking cocktails.

Oaxaca Taqueria
This place fills a very particular need: Close enough to swing into before BAM and pick up food that we can eat while we see a movie. There isn't a lot of competition in this category, but I'm satisfied with Oaxaca for now. Their flavors are good, but as is so often the case they suffer a bit with layout. People eat their burritos from one side or the other, so ingredients need to be layered, like in a proper paté. You can't have one end be sausage and the other end potato. Take pride in your burritos! This is especially an issue when you're sharing burritos back and forth, as R and I tend to do.

Grindhaus
This place was on my "to try" list for a while. Sadly, it did not make the jump to any kind of recommended list. It's not that the food was bad, but it wasn't mind-blowing, and I am extremely unwilling to pay, for example, $23 for a teacup-sized portion of non-mind-blowing gnocchi.

Brooklyn Bell's The Local
It's 60F; it's February; it's ice cream time. Prospect Heights has no shortage of ice cream, with Ample Hills on Vanderbilt, Blue Marble on Underhill, and now The Local on Classon. I'll make an argument for any of them, but this latest addition may currently have the largest portion of my heart. They make only very small batches -- a tub or two at a time, and then it's on to something else. When we showed up the options were: vanilla, black lava caramel, banana bread, bananas foster (an unplanned bananza, apparently), some kind of pecan brittle with pretzels and rice krispies (I don't remember the exact name, but I had it, and it was good)... and three other things. Sorry, not great reportage here. But the owner/ice cream creator served us -- I think it's basically just him and his wife running the place -- and we came away with an impression of a very short supply chain and deep attention to detail.

And a special shoutout to Trader Joe's peanut-butter-filled pretzels, the ones with salt: my constant office companion.

MAP

RECIPE: Mushroom Moussaka. A misleading name, because only some of the lamb is replaced with mushrooms, yielding a slightly lighter, cheaper, healthier dish.

If You Want to Sing Out

I have two friends, known for our purposes here as K and F, who do karaoke on the order of at least once a week. Every month or so, I join them.

Before I moved back to NY, ten years ago now, I'd only ever done karaoke in Tokyo, in private rooms. And it wasn't so much that we all wanted to sing, as we needed a place to crash until the trains started running again. For ¥2,000 you'd get a room big enough for all your friends, and unlimited, watered-down beer and chu hai until 6am. There was almost always more than one person singing at once, and we always kicked things off with Anarchy in the UK.

My NY karaoke experiences have been much more civilized. It helps that the trains never stop running here. Also that I'm not 23 anymore.

Baby Grand
If I had to choose just one, this would be it. Baby Grand was the first bar karaoke I ever did, and -- despite some questionable decisions by management (long story that's really K's, not mine) -- it remains my favorite. It's tiny -- about the same size as a private room, actually. So you get the feeling that everyone's sort of your friend, and if you go there as often as K and F, they end up that way.

Frank's
A recent discovery. Frank's is just down the block from BAM. Walking home after a movie one night, I noticed they had a sign out front advertising karaoke on Wednesdays at 8. K and F, always up for it, joined me to check it out soon thereafter. Unlike our other usual spots, Frank's has a stage. Early in the evening, the atmosphere is pretty relaxed, and I'll get up and do a song or two. Later on... it gets real. Like, people are crazy good and they get up on that stage like they mean it. It's fun, but not so conducive to performing if you are not also crazy good.

Hope & Anchor
My second-favorite. Hope & Anchor is a restaurant with a karaoke setup every Friday and Saturday at 9pm. Frankly, I'd skip dinner here, but the karaoke, hosted by a drag queen (they're currently hiring!) is pretty great. (Also, come back for brunch; it's solid.)

Soda Bar
Karaoke isn't bad here -- we approve of the KJ -- but the very sparse crowd tends toward oddness. Like The Mansplainer, his mail-order wife, and the Russian Barmaid Bitch (her word). Also odd is how you're basically standing in the middle of a living room in front of a giant screen. It's hard to know what to do with yourself. Helpfully, happy hour draught beers are $3.

Karaoke Killed the Cat at Union Hall
Look: If you want to start your night at midnight, up on stage in a low, packed basement... More power and all that. F and I tried it once, and it was alright because we arrived early and got our songs in and then left, but I wouldn't do it again. I like to be tucked in by 10.

Winnie's
In memoriam. I'm not sure the closure of Winnie's left the NY karaoke scene much poorer, but the place did fill a niche. It was down on Bayard St in Chinatown, just around the corner from the Tombs. It's lamps were held together with duck tape and the system hiccuped in the middle of songs more often than not, but there was a cat and it was convenient for takeaway noodle dinners. Not much point in mentioning it now, but RIP I suppose.

Montero
Thursdays and Fridays at 9. With Winnie's gone, this is easily the diviest place on the list. The kind of place I would drink in, but without ever shaking the feeling that I really don't belong. Anyway, aside from the time my friend H got yelled at by the KJ for swinging the mike like a rock star, Montero's has been good to us. The song books smell funky; sometimes there's free hot dogs; and I have fond memories of a "Feed Me" duet with K.

MAP

RECIPE: Dutch Baby. It's a shade too much food for two people, but so delicious you'll probably manage it. Try experimenting with a bit of orange or lemon zest, or different extracts.

Recent Eats II

Tooker Alley
I love Tooker Alley. Perfect cocktails, cozy atmosphere, breezy backyard, convenient location... This is the place that finally convinced my father that Brooklyn wasn't such a backwater after all.

Hot Bird
If Tooker is my cocktail bar, Hot Bird is my beer bar. Like Tooker, there's great seating both inside and out-, though Hot Bird ups the ante by offering a firepit in winter. I went with a few friends last week and, ignoring the taco stand in the yard, we ordered in from Nacho Macho Taco, then capped things off with a few fork-toasted s'mores.

White Tiger
Trying to get into Chuko? Long line and you're not sure it's worth it? Frankly, you're probably right. I am uninspired by Chuko's noodles. Luckily there's this new Korean place just up the block that serves similar soups, in addition to bibimbap and all that. I was quite satisfied with my ramyun.

Jin Ramen
Currently my favourite traditional ramen place (not to be confused with my favourite un-traditional ramen place, Bassanova -- get the green curry). I couldn't stop myself, several times during the meal, from commenting on how fucking good it was.

Bar Corvo
I used to rate Bar Corvo fairly high. This was maybe the fourth or fifth time I've been, and I'm not sure if we got an off night or if they're slipping. I had the lasagna, which I've had before, but it seemed underseasoned. Still a nice atmosphere and all that, and it certainly wasn't bad, but I'd gotten used to having this fantastic Italian bistro in my back pocket, and now maybe I don't anymore.

Butter & Scotch
Trekked up here with some friends after building up an appetite ice skating in the park. The more traditional cocktails weren't up to nearby Tooker Alley standards, though the existence of hot and milkshaked options makes up for it. The s'mores pie is definitely as good as it should be.

Luigi's Pizza
I don't know if I don't like grandma pie, despite continually thinking that I will, or if theirs isn't great. That said, their regular slices are great. I've eaten a lot of pizza in Park Slope, and this place is the hands-down the best for your standard New York Slice.

Russ & Daughters Cafe
This was our annual mother-daughter birthday (mine) lunch. I had the break-fast martini, and we shared plates of herring, sable, and latkes, all excellent. There's always a wait, I gather, but my mom put our names down and we wandered the neighborhood until they texted us. Painless, and certainly worth it.

Saiguette
Desperate lunch times on 135 St and Malcolm X Blvd lead to desperate measures. Yes, I am willing to walk this far if it gets me a decent sandwich. And I did. And it was.

Dizzy's
As much as I can, I try to give R the full American experience. Essential to that is: the diner. Growing up in suburbia, going to the diner is what we did. Driving anywhere, diners are where I'll head. No place does perfect rye toast with melting butter and sunny-side-up eggs like a diner. Find me a diner that serves real (not from a can) corned beef hash with that, and I will never leave. (My other go-to order is a tuna melt on rye with a chocolate egg cream.) In Brooklyn, our diner options are limited; it's pretty much Tom's or Dizzy's. I took R to Tom's on his first visit to NY, for the atmosphere. Unfortunately the pancakes & etc didn't live up to the hype, so thence forth I take all my diner needs to Dizzy's. It's still got the greasy spoon thing going on, but with quality food to back it up. Also our waiter was extremely informed about James Bond, and would have stood their talking to us about the finer points all afternoon, if we hadn't had to leave to actually get to our showtime.

MAP

RECIPE: Eggplant Dirty Rice, an easy, flavourful weeknight meal.

City Bakery

In this life, there are a few perfect combinations. Me & R. Blueberries & Corn Chex. Avocados & salt. Chocolate & peanut butter. Chocolate & pretzels. Chocolate &... a lot of things, actually; specifically, for our purposes today: City Bakery's hot chocolate and pretzel croissant.

Now, I'm a big fan of pretzels generally. Everyone has their defining snack food, and pretzels are mine. I also believe that there is something sacred about a really, really good croissant. So combine those two things in all their buttery, flaky, salty glory, and pair the result with the thickest, richest, most chocolatiest hot chocolate in the world, and it's pretty hard to beat.

I should note that City Bakery also has a very decent savoury food buffet, not to mention some excellent cookies and other pastries. Or so I'm told. The pretzel croissant-hot chocolate combo has always inoculated me against all other temptations. If you're in the neighborhood (of City Bakery or any of its Birdbath offshoots), it's hard to go wrong.

I should further note that this is one of the only things -- actually the only food thing I can think of -- where R and I differ. He claims their hot chocolate is too thick and sweet. I counter that he is insane, and it is everything anyone could ever want from hot chocolate. If you're looking for cocoa, open a packet of Swiss Miss.

February is the perfect time to visit because it's the Hot Chocolate Festival. Every day, in addition to the standard, they offer another, different flavor. Some are more tempting than others. I'd recommend going with a friend, and getting one of each so you don't feel you're missing out.

City Bakery gets crowded, but if one person waits in line and the other scouts around upstairs, there's usually enough turnover to find a seat by the time your hot chocolate arrives. Oh, and do say yes to the marshmallow.

MAP

RECIPE: Cacio e Pepe, because it sounds basic, but this is one of those times when the ingredients add up to way more than the sum of their parts.

Dumplings

Disclaimer: This is a Manhattan post. There is no shortage of great dumplings in Brooklyn and Queens, but for right now let's assume you're in Chinatown and hungry.

When I moved back to NY in 2006, after a few years of living in Japan and wandering Southeast- and Austral-asia, there were a few things that made me very, very happy. Pizza and bread topped the list, but five-for-a-dollar dumplings were not far behind.

Back then there were two standard-bearers: Prosperity Dumpling and Tasty Dumpling. There were plenty of other contenders, but those two were consistently plump, juicy, and hot. Unfortunately, both have long since been discovered by the foodies. Tasty Dumpling fell victim to its own popularity by cleaning up their act, renovating, putting in shiny menu screens... and forgetting to focus on the quality of their product. Prosperity Dumpling went the opposite route, sticking to their quintessential hole-in-the-wall guns, and eventually getting shut down by the health department.

(About which: Look, they're cheap-ass dumplings. They're delicious. It's Chinatown. I'd be suspicious if they weren't being assembled in a rat-infested back alley. Save your A ratings for sushi or spend your dollar elsewhere but leave my dumplings alone!)

So what do we do now? Surprisingly, one of your best options for classic pan-fried dumplings is actually a mini chain, Vanessa's. The price has gone up -- it's now only four-for-a-dollar, but it's still hard to complain when you can feed two hungry people with a fiver. Actually, half the time I don't get the dumplings at all, because Vanessa's is also pretty good at their sesame pancake sandwiches. Crispy and oily on the outside, pillowy on the inside, and stuffed with veggies, an egg, or some roast pork, it's hard to go wrong. My only caution is: if you're in a hurry, stick to those two options. All the other dumplings are cooked to order, and I've seen other people wait upwards of 10-15 minutes for the more obscure boiled varieties.

If you have difficulty with the number of non-Chinese people in Vanessa's, you don't have to look far for more "authentic" experience. Four doors up is Shu Jiao Fu Zhou. Dumplings are the same price here, though phrased differently at eight-for-two-dollars, and they are excellent -- boiled, and much herbier and more sophisticated than their pan-fried cousins. For another two bucks you can get a plate of peanut noodles, and be very happy.

Both Vanessa's and Fu Zhou offer bags of fifty frozen dumplings to take home. And let me tell you, it is a wonderful thing to remember those in your freezer when you get home at 1am a little worse for wear. In any event, neither of these locations offers much in the way of ambient seating. If you're looking for a nicer dine-in experience, swing around west to Shanghai Asian Manor. They're soup dumplings are solid, and the Szechuan wontons some of the best. This has become my go-to brunch spots because yes, dim sum made to order is so, so much better than coagulating hollandaise.

MAP
RECIPE: Baked Risotto. I make this, on average, every few weeks. Sometimes as-written, sometimes totally stripped down and with different ingredients all together.

Halloween

This is going to be one of my rare pictureless posts. Why? Because the best part of Halloween in NY is just living it. Plus there are plenty of other picture sources out there.

I don't care if you don't like dressing up. I don't care if you hate candy. I happen to love both, but regardless, I stand by this advice: Go to the Village Halloween Parade. You don't have to walk in it. You don't even have to see the parade itself. It's enough just to be in the area, soaking it in. Because man, there is a lot to soak in. And it's awesome.

Do yourself a favor, too, and ride the subway there and back. It may be crowded and crazy, but when else will you find yourself on the same car, as my coworker did this weekend, with "war boys, Travis Bickle, Marty McFly, and both a black and a white Jesus."

(For the curious, my past costumes include: Seven of Nine, Delerium, Annie Lennox, Grammar Nazi, Two-Face, Peter Pan, Charlie Chaplin, Scuba Diver, Santa Claus, and The Crow.)

RECIPE: Mushroom Soup. Once you know how to make this soup, you know how to make all soups.