June

Becco – Italian – Hell’s Kitchen

Finding restaurants that can hold a group as big as my office’s monthly dinner club of co-workers past and present can sometimes be a major challenge, so super-touristy places like Becco are sometimes our only choice. Luckily, super-touristy doesn’t have to mean super-might-as-well-have-gone-to-McDonald’s.

antipasto misto

I know the last picture is awful, but that carrot was so crazy soft and delicious that I had to publicly preserve its memory.

osso bucco

My friend Ash ordered the osso bucco, and everyone was amazed as she went to town on it, scooping the marrow out of the bone with a tiny fork first so she could be sure she didn’t fill up on anything else.

But Becco’s main draw is its unlimited pasta special. For a stupidly low price, you get the three house pastas of the day brought to your table in heaping piles until you beg your server to stop. That night, ours were:

mushroom ravioli

(Even with my usual distrust of mushrooms, the ravioli was easily my favourite of the three.)

spaghetti

veal bolognese

Now, I have to admit that pasta never exactly blows me out of the water (unless it’s gnocchi). A lot of it is way too bland for me after growing up with a mother who must have used half a gallon of oregano in her spaghetti. But this was really, really good pasta. My boyfriend couldn’t stop talking about it for days, actually. And even the Brooklyn-born Italian in our group didn’t complain.

apple strudel with house-made cinnamon gelato

This dessert was the hugest disappointment of my life, but I don’t think it was Becco’s fault. When I ordered it, I guess I was thinking of streusel or an apple brown betty or something, because I expected apple pie filling with a crumbly brown sugar topping. Instead I got apple pie filling and a flaky crust. NOT THE SAME. Very light and not overly sweet, but these are not the things I look for in a dessert.

Funnily enough, I chastised my boyfriend and the Italian for ordering the zabaglione with seasonal fruit, thinking it was the equivalent to a stupid fruit cup with some whipped cream. But dude, zabaglione is great. The custard was suuuuuuuper-intensely flavorful and much more dense than I would’ve imagined. GET THE ZABAGLIONE. You’re welcome.

Some glamour shots of my friends, because they’re vain.

I kind of get a kick out of going to places like this from time to time, because they’re so unlike most NYC restaurants. Meaning huge and bright and full of people who actually eat. I definitely recommend Becco for big groups and anyone who wants to feel like he’s at a huge family dinner for a night.

Becco 355 West 46th Street

New York, NY 10036 (map)

A Crunch Bar Without Any Crunch

I love crushing things with my fingers. I also love chocolate that has been melted and then resolidified.

One day, I found a mini Crunch bar in my pocket. I have a particular affinity for Crunch bars, because in high school, my best friend would bring a Crunch bar in her lunch every day, and she’d bite off the C and the H so it just said RUN. And then we’d sing Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” in as exaggerated a manner as possible. No one considered us normal.

Anyway, this Crunch bar had melted in my pocket, so I spent a good 10 minutes of my lunch hour pulverizing every last little crunchy bit inside of it (with the wrapper still on, of course). Then I waited an hour while it cooled off and reformed into a bar. Then I greedily unwrapped it and excitedly tasted it.

Weirdly, it was not delicious.

Why My Boyfriend Won’t Take Me to One of NYC’s Best Restaurants (and Why It’s Not My Fault)

Sometimes I feel bad about reviewing food when I have such a huge bias against some major dish components:

• seafood (except crab that I don’t have to pull out of the shell myself)
• mushrooms (except when I can’t tell what they are–like their essence in a foam(!) or tiny pieces of them concealed in a ravioli–because I don’t hate the taste but the appearance)
• tomatoes (except when they’re heavily cooked)

Mostly I feel this way because Dr. Boyfriend refuses to take me to Per Se until I can not only stomach but actually enjoy all of the foods they’re going to serve me there. He’s withheld the place from me for so long now that no matter how good it is, it’ll never be as good as I’ve made it out to be.

But my best friend sent me a link today to an article on The Kitchn asking what foods people have tried to like but can’t.

And I rejoiced! It turns out that everyone hates seafood and mushrooms and tomatoes! And I love the distinction the post draws between not liking something and trying to like something but failing. No one wants to hate certain foods! My life would be a thousand times easier if I could just eat and enjoy everything. But I haven’t been able to yet, and I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore, and Dr. Boyfriend can suck it!

(But please suck it after you’ve taken me to Per Se, Kamran. Thank you.)

Sundaes and Cones – Sweets – East Village

I like ice cream more than any other dessert. I rarely order it in restaurants, because it’s usually not being made in-house, but I lovelovelove to visit ice cream parlors. I wanted to try Sundaes and Cones, I’ll admit, because I read a review that described their scoops as “too big“, and I thought that was idiotic.

I tried the corn and the chocolate-peanut butter flavor and would happily go back for both. I thought the corn could use some of the berry swirl you usually see at other gourmet parlors to sweeten it up a bit more, but someone who likes less-sweet desserts would love this one. And, well, the picture pretty much tells you how chocolatey that chocolate scoop is. Not an ice cream for those afraid of flavor. Not one for those afraid of gluttony, either.

Sundaes and Cones 95 East 10th Street

New York, NY 10003 (map)

Proud to Be Part of the Food Paparazzi

A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a journalist who was working on a piece for NPR about food bloggers–or “food paparazzi”–and whether their photos and reviews were helpful or hurtful to restaurants, if their shots are “sleek and beautiful” or “harmful and amateur”. And then she asked if she could use some of my pictures from Colicchio & Sons.

I wrote back and said, “I have to laugh, knowing that you’re asking because those photos in particular are the exact opposite of sleek and beautiful.” She replied, “We do want to show a range of photos, of all qualities, so I’m glad that my request seems transparent.”

I bragged to everyone that NPR was going to make fun of my photos, because like they say, all press is good press. And in actuality, I was excited about the piece, because I have no idea why food bloggers are getting such a bad rap lately. Suddenly, I see articles everywhere about diners setting up tripods and lights, standing on their chairs to get better angles, and letting their food get cold while they take the perfect shot. Obviously my boyfriend and I eat out a lot–literally more than anyone else I know–and I’ve never EVER seen someone use a tripod, extra lights, or their chairs as stepstools.

Anyway, despite showcasing two of my photos, the the NPR article totally disappointed me. I guess the author wanted to take an unbiased stance, but I know I couldn’t have helped but rip into her when the VP of Operations and New Projects at Craft Restaurants said “she doesn’t want amateur food writers influencing people’s dining decisions”.

The same woman also said, “When you feel like they’re having that influence without really knowing what they’re talking about, it’s very frustrating.” Sorry, not really knowing what we’re talking about? Because to enjoy or not enjoy food, you must have endured hours of classical training? Well, I’ve endured years of classical eating, bitch.

I’m sort of just kidding about that, but the thing is: my photos show what the food REALLY looks like under the ACTUAL restaurant lighting. In fact, if I’ve Photoshopped my pictures, then the food looks BETTER than it did in the restaurant.

When it comes to reviewing, I don’t order things I don’t expect to like, and I have a very open mind. If your dish doesn’t delight me, there’s something wrong with it. I’m aware of my biases against seafood, tomatoes, mushrooms, and desserts that don’t fill me up to the point of puking, and I make sure my readers are aware of that bias, too, so they can tailor my reviews to their needs accordingly.

And the idea that restaurants could possibly hate being written about blows my mind. How many times have I gone somewhere (Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant, The Mark, most recently) just because I wanted to argue with someone else’s (the New York Times) negative review of it?

Restaurants should be taking advantage of food bloggers, not poo-pooing us.