The first time my boyfriend and I dined at Eleven Madison Park, I gave the tasting menu a four-star rating. I went in with the expectation that it might be the best meal I’d ever have and came out feeling underwhelmed. The food we had was five-star, but it was the food we didn’t have […]
My mysterious food blogger friend The Pretender planned this large-format nose-to-tail dinner for us at Resto after much debate about whether we should do: 1) this version, which involves several courses made from parts of the animal, or 2) the similar dinner at the sister restaurant next door, Cannibal, where they serve charcuterie made from […]
After our 1 hour, 42 minute wait for a souvlaki earlier this year at a similar event, I was understandably a little hesitant about last weekend’s Great Hot Dog Cookoff. Not only do New Yorkers notoriously flock to food happenings like that, but it was also supposed to be the second-hottest day of the year. […]
The first reviews of San Franciso’s Mission Chinese Food outpost here in NYC were written by professional critics and were, by my estimation, universally adoring. The New York Times said James Beard Rising Star Chef award-winner Danny Bowien “does to Chinese food what Led Zeppelin did to the blues. His cooking both pays respectful homage […]
Kamran and I arrived at last year’s Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park just as it was closing down. We got free leftover Snapple and ate cheeseburgers at Shake Shack. It was a lovely time but sadly barbequeless. This year, we planned a little better and decided to go on Sunday when there was […]
I still remember the subtle delights from my first trip to Kajitsu back in 2010: the juxtaposition of grilled mochi on raw, flaky layers of lotus root cake, an osechi box full of foods I’d never heard of, let alone tasted. With chef Masato Nishihara’s departure from the restaurant looming, my group of dining pals […]
Degustation is designed entirely to facilitate a relationship between the chef and the diner. With only 16 seats arranged in a half-rectangle around a bar that encompasses the prep area, you don’t miss a moment of your dinner being made. For better or worse. Do you want to see the plastic storage bowl your rabbit […]
I have a hard time explaining Mile End to people. I’m inevitably hanging out with hungry friends in my neighborhood, and when I call it a deli, they inevitably say, “Oh.” So then I have to explain that it’s a hipster deli, but no one likes that, either. So then I have to explain that […]
I have basically a nonstop craving for the Quesadilla Enorme from Baby Bo’s Cantina in Murray Hill. There’s always a crazy wait to get into the place, so discovering that they deliver to my boyfriend’s apartment is the best/worst thing to happen to my midsection in a long time. The Quesadilla Enorme is a giant […]
Dinner last night at Boutros, which we passed on our way to another restaurant but couldn’t resist once we read the menu! The first photo is of their version of a tiramisu, but I started with the Thistle and Smoke cocktail with mezcal, Cynar, lemon, and honey. Then we had the house bread with za’atar […]
The moment the four-star, accolade-laden reviews started rolling in for Atera–not all of them from people who had actually been to the restaurant, naturally–I called for a reservation. And then freed up every Saturday for a month in case the waitlist paid off and my boyfriend and I could get a spot. It was being […]
You wouldn’t know it from reading my blog, but Momofuku Ko is the restaurant I’ve been to most in NYC. I only ever reviewed my first meal there, because their no-photo policy meant that my reviews would just be words, and my dearest friends have let me know that no one cares about my writing. […]
My boyfriend noticed that the latest Eater.com Heatmap included newcomer Tenpenny, which has been getting rave reviews for its pretzel bread, lobster gnocchi, and giant rack of pork. The only problem is that all of the reviews we saw were filled with terrible dark, grainy photos where the bread could’ve been barf and the pork […]
So I forgot to charge my camera battery before we went to One if by Land, Two if by Sea for Restaurant Week, and I was reminded that what photographers always say about great pictures coming not from great cameras but from great photographic eyes is entirely untrue. I had to use this seven-megapixel Sony […]