As I did when I left my job in Murray Hill, I am bidding farewell to Midtown East with a few lunchtime and after-work favorites. Midtown East certainly works to deserve its unfortunate dining reputation: There are plenty of overpriced, sub-par eateries vying for your lunchtime dollar. But if you’re discerning, and a little adventurous, there are plenty of great and affordable lunches to be had.
Check out some of my favorites after the jump.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
I’m always happy to support a good cause, but when it involves good food, that bit of philanthropy is extra sweet. That’s why I’m looking forward to this weekend’s America Scores fundraiser at Prospect Heights soccer bar, Woodwork. For a mere $10 at the door, you’ll be able to enjoy pulled pork sliders on mini brioche buns with barbecue, garlic, chipotle, and root beer sauce, and the bar’s award-winning five-cheese truffle mac-and-cheese, plus other nibbles, a raffle, silent auction, and door prizes. And, if you’re feeling extra generous, shell out an extra $6 to try the event’s signature cocktail, the America Scores, made with Wild Turkey honey bourbon and cream soda. $3 of every drink purchase goes straight to the charity.
The event runs from 2-5pm this coming Sunday (Feb. 27). America Scores works to promote literacy along with physical fitness by pairing with city public schools in low-income communities to provide a five day-per-week after-school program combining soccer, performance poetry, and community service. To find out more, be sure to check out their site, www.AmericaSCORESNewYork.org. See you at Woodwork for good food and a great time!
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $
Location: 583 Vanderbilt Ave. (at Dean St.)
Type of Food: American
www.woodworkbk.com
It’s kind of amazing how many restaurants are taking part in the first Restaurant Week of 2011. I’ve never seen so many options in all my years of RW dining. And I have to say, going through all those menus was exhausting. I can’t tell you how many organic chicken breasts, market salads, and cheesecakes I saw. So many of the menus were plagued with sameness, and I’m hoping many of the new participants will learn to innovate in the future. If you don’t have a big name, a unique menu can set your establishment apart. That said, the menus that did interest me, got me really excited to try a bunch of intriguing new places this year.
For me, the menus that stood out this time fell into a few different categories. The first were notable for the sheer breadth of options. On that account, Nuela takes the cake with a whopping 31 menu items including what would appear to be a ceviche course. Dishes include smoked brisket arepas, roasted suckling pig in a guava-pink peppercorn glaze over toasted cumin-lime rice, and hamachi ceviche with tiradito, aji amarillo leche de tigre, and fermented black garlic. Other great options include Hatsuhana’s generous bento box (incorporating everything from Tazmanian ocean trout sushi to snow crab and seaweed vinaigrette salad), Craftbar’s extensive menu of bar bites (like pecorino-stuffed risotto balls and veal-ricotta meatballs), and City Lobster & Steak’s breadth of seafood offerings (hello, lobster bake!).
I was really excited about the second group of menus. They represented places I’ve been dying to try - new establishments and oldies but goodies - that have never participated in Restaurant Week before. I’ve read so much about the National, and I’m terribly curious to try their eclectic and inventive menu, ranging from pear and parsnip soup to roasted apple cheesecake served with hard cider sorbet, fennel toffee, and cranberries. Picholine too offers an intriguing menu, with items like skate wing pastrami and beef cheeks with polenta. I already have my reservation set to check out new-ish Tom Colicchio joint Riverpark (which I so enjoyed eating at the bar of a few months ago), and I wish I could try everything on the menu; all the offerings sound fantastic from the squid ink chitarra to the cauliflower fettucine with pecorino. And of course there’s Tanuki Tavern with a surprising menu ranging from kara age (fried chicken with Thai chili honey) to warm chocolate and red miso cake. (On a side note, if you can’t make it to Tanuki Tavern before Restaurant Week is over, they’ve already taken the liberty of extending their dinner deal through the end of February.)
Last but not least comes the category of just plain cool menus. Here are my favorite picks and their most intriguing menu items (in no particular order):
Bar Boulud - For the fancy Francophile, veloute de poisson (creamy shellfish veloute, saffron tapioca, carolina shrimp).
Betel - I can’t say I’ve ever had cuttlefish (salt and pepper cuttlefish with Vietnamese dipping sauce) or monkfish (jungle curry of monkfish cheek with baby corn, spring onion, snake bean, and fried garlic). Lots of cool options in this four-course meal.
A Voce Madison and Columbus - The menus here are pretty similar, and they offer plenty of interesting Italian-inflected dishes, like Cornish hen with lentils, cotecchino, and juniper, and cavatelli with mussels, garlic, saffron, and orange.
L’ecole - I spent a summer working above the French Culinary Institute and I never managed to make it downstairs to try the restaurant. Too bad. I missed out on lots of cool-sounding dishes like chestnut gnocchi with oxtail ragu and tomato jam, and tilefish in a coconut milk veloute with baby fennel.
Norma’s - I’ve been to Norma’s a number of times, so I was really excited to see some of my favorites, like the chocolate decadence French toast and hot chestnut pancakes, along with some great dishes I haven’t had the chance to try yet.
So, as usual, I end up completely overwhelmed at the start of Restaurant Week, but that’s a good thing. I guess I just have to hope that the special gets extended again; there are so many amazing restaurants I have yet to try!
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Sure, anyone can whip up a batch of simple gingerbread cookies, but if you want your baking skills to truly shine this season, give this recipe I created last weekend a whirl. The pumpkin and nutmeg give this classic a wonderful holiday feel.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Dough
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour + 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Filling
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons pumpkin butter
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, with mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; gradually beat in flour mixture until just blended.
Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Flatten each piece into a disk; wrap each disk with plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough 4 hours or overnight, until firm enough to roll.
Learn how to make the filling after the jump.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
continue »
While I love checking out a new restaurant as much as the next blogger, I usually wait a little while to let a place work out the kinks or at least until the crowds die down. Recently, however, I made an exception for City Sandwich. I was in Hell’s Kitchen for a late dinner Friday and I gave them a call to see how late they would be open. The guy who answered the phone wouldn’t give me a closing time, merely asking, when will you be by? Lucky for him, I was only a couple blocks away, but everyone at City Sandwich was unfailingly accomodating from the minute I walked in the door.
The menu at this little hole-in-the-wall on 9th Avenue is posted up on the wall, and nothing on it is more than $10. As it was a slow night, one of the employees started chatting with us about what we like in a sandwich and advising us on which to try. They even happily accomodated my friend’s dairy allergy.
On his recommendation, we ordered the Todd, and I also selected the Franco. While the latter was delicious, it was the Todd that will keep me coming back. It was basically a fancy BLT, with smoked Portuguese pancetta, arugula, tomato, and a honey-dijon-yogurt sauce. The pancetta was like the most delicious, smoky, crispy bacon I’ve ever had, and the other ingredients were wonderfully fresh. I’m not even a bit fan of yogurt sauces and I loved the flavor combination. But the real star of the show, no question, is the amazing light, crusty bread. The bread was a big selling point for me: It’s baked to order in New Jersey per the specifications of owner Michael Guerrieri, who was chilling in the shop with his laptop when we visited. We actually got a third sandwich on our visit. Normally, I’d eat out the filling if I couldn’t finish it, leaving the bread, but this time, I found myself leaving the prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and arugula behind, and just eating that wonderfully delicious bread, lightly coated in olive oil and garlic.
The shop was a little quiet when we first showed up — it was after 9pm after all, a little late for a Friday dinner — but we saw a steady stream of phone orders and pickups come through as we sat and enjoyed our sandwiches. I can only hope that more people discover this cheery little sandwich shop and experience the wonder of its fantastic sandwiches.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: Todd, Franco
Price: $
Location: 649 9th Ave. (between 45th St. and 46th St.)
Type of Food: Sandwiches, Portuguese
www.citysandwichnyc.com
left: shrimp on the barbie, right: balinese spiced chicken skewers
Nope, those glorious words printed atop your menu are no mirage in the Australian desert. The folks at Sunburnt Calf are totally serious: $25 for any appetizer, any entree, and any dessert. Yes, that means every single enticing item on the menu is part of this great deal. And this is not only for lucky weeknight diners; even if you drop in on a crowded Friday or Saturday, this sweet deal of a “counter meal” can still be yours.
So of course, I had to try it. Appetizer-wise, my friend and I went for the shrimp on the barbie and the balinese spiced chicken skewers. The skewers were rich, both hot and a bit sweet, with a sauce that begged to be soaked up by a slice of bread. The shrimp appetizer was also a hit, accompanied with a thoroughly refreshing mango-salsa-fruit salad hybrid. You should be aware that the Sunburnt Calf is hardly stingy when it comes to portion size, so if you’re planning on a steak for dinner, make sure you don’t ruin your appetite!
barramundi on the left, shark rigatoni on the right
Entree-wise, we went with the barramundi fillet and shark pesto rigatoni, both of which would have made me want to lick my plate were I not saving myself for the dessert course as well. The rigatoni, especially, was the star of the show. The pesto went surprisingly well with the tasty shark, an all too infrequent menu item in NYC. The desserts were great if not a huge departure from what you might find elsewhere, but hey, the fact that it’s included in a $25 prix fixe is sure a plus as far as this diner is concerned.
Additionally, Sunburnt Calf also offers Bondi Road’s popular $20 all-you-can-drink deal, so they’ve given you pretty much everything you need for an epic night on the Upper West. OK, maybe a kangaroo or two wouldn’t hurt.
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: shrimp on the barbie, balinese spiced chicken skewers, wild barramundi fillet, shark pesto rigatoni, sundae
Price: $$$
Location: 226 West 79th Street (between Amsterdam and Broadway)
Type of Food: Australian
www.thesunburntcow.com
It’s hard to believe October’s more than halfway over and we’re in the downhill slide to the holidays already. For those of us who measure time by food, this means the waning days of apple cider doughnuts and pumpkin treats, but it also signifies the start of holiday market season! Last year we discover the Mad. Sq. Mark’t, a precursor to the winter markets, but a fantastic specimen of it’s own right, thanks to the extra attention paid to its food offerings.
Same as last year, the Mad. Sq. Mark’t offers a separate marketplace for food vendors, ranging from mainstays Wafels & Dinges, Fatty Crab, and Breezy Hill Orchard (with their apple cider doughnuts!) to newcomers Stuffed Artisan Cannolis, Resto, and Roberta’s. It’s best to go with fellow diners willing to share, because selecting one item is a nearly impossible task.
My dining companion went straight for the wraps at ilili and came back with a delicious lamb and eggplant combination cloaked in a light egg-washed flatbread. I opted for Almond’s take on the lamb meatball sandwich, with the aforementioned meatballs cooked in wonderfully spicy Moroccan harissa and covered in a generous portion of freshly grated ricotta and salsa verde.
You really can’t go wrong with any of the options there. Check out the Mark’t’s site for more offerings. The Mad Sq. Mark’t is open daily from 11am to 8pm through this coming Saturday.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: meatball hero
Price: $-$$
Location: Worth Square, 5th Ave. between 24th St. and 26th St.
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.madsqmarkt.com
our complete set of delicacies courtesy of Odd Duck Farm to Table
Sure, we’ve got a healthy set of great mobile food purveyors here in NYC, but Austin’s food trucks have something not many in this metropolis can boast: a wide open space! In a vacant lot in South Austin, two food trailers have teamed up to create a truly special (and delicious) dining destination, which, by the way, is also BYOB. The lot has been furnished with several long picnic tables, with rows of Christmas lights strung above them for nighttime noshing.
Beyond the romantic look of the place, it’s the food that’s the really important part, right? You’ll want to start your meal with a bevy of savory tapas-sized items from the wonderfully-named Odd Duck Farm to Trailer. They recommend 2-3 items per person, so obviously our group of three needed to order everything on the menu. Real standouts were the marinated tomato and melon salad with goat feta, chipotle and basil, as well as the pork belly slider. OK, it would be pretty hard to screw up a pork belly slider, but this one came scrumptiously seasoned on a buttery brioche bun with arugula and goat feta. Truly, there were no missteps on the six-item menu (which, be warned, can vary daily) so you really can’t lose no matter what you’re in the mood for.
the mother clucker (left) and baby rattler
Don’t fill up too much on dinner, though, because right next door is the Gourdough’s Doughnuts trailer, whose slogan is nothing short of epic: “Big. Fat. Doughnuts.” And let me tell you, they are in no way kidding. Exhibit A: the mother clucker, a doughnut slathered in honey butter and, of all things, fried chicken! Salty and sweet is always a wonderful combination, but never have I tasted it in such an indulgent fashion, and the slight kick of spice in the chicken only enhanced each bite. We also sampled the baby rattler, a chocolate doughnut topped with fudge icing, fudge oreos, and a giant gummy worm. While not as insane as the mother clucker, it was an utterly indulgent, tasty, fun treat at the end of a great meal.
So next time you’re in Austin, make sure that in addition to the token barbecue and Tex-Mex you consume, you head down to South Austin to experience these truly one-of-a-kind food experiences.
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $
Location: 1219 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX
Type of Food: American, Dessert
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.austinfarmtotable.com
www.gourdoughs.com
We here at City Dish love checking out new restaurants as much as any foodies, but that first taste is extra sweet when it’s accompanied by a preview discount. Such is the case at the newly opened Riverpark, Tom Colicchio’s new joint in the Alexandria Center on 29th St. It’s a bit hidden which makes it all the more fun. Walk as far as you can on 29th, and then keep going. If you feel like you’re going to fall into the river, then you’re finally there. Riverpark is all dark wood and glass, perched over the FDR with sweeping views of the East River.
My dining companion and I perched at the bar for sligthly less expensive small plates and lovely cocktails. I started with a prosecco-house-made grenadine-rosewater concoction called the scarlet rose, before diving into a half-dozen deliciously briny west coast oysterys, a plate of wonderfully decadent “pata negra” or Iberian ham served on fantastic toast, and an octopus roll. The octopus roll was the most pleasant surprise. Anyone who’s had bad calamari, knows how tough and chewy octopus can be when not prepared well. This octopus was as tender as any I’ve had, and coupled well with the crunch of the spicy cucumber relish served on top. We could have stopped there, but I couldn’t resist tasting the glazed pork belly served with pickled vegetables and jalapenos. It wasn’t to fatty and wonderfully tender in a sweet glaze. For dessert, we only planned to get the beignets with rum chocolate sauce, but the bartended insisted we try the goat cheesecake, promising to treat us if we weren’t satisfied. The goat cheesecake was absolutely worth the splurge. It tasted distinctly of goat cheese, but the flavor wasn’t too overpowering and paired amazingly well with the pistachios and figs served on the plate with it.
If you’re in the mood for a decadent dinner, be sure to make your way out to Riverpark while it’s still in previews. That 20 percent discount only lasts through next Tuesday. And check out the pictures of my meal after the jump.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: oysters, Iberico pata negra ham, octopus roll, glazed pork belly, goat cheesecake, beignets
Price: $-$$$
Location: Alexandria Center, 450 E. 29th St. (between 1st Ave. and FDR Dr.)
Type of Food: American
Veggie Friendly? N
www.riverparknyc.com
It may the borough’s best-kept secret: Atlantic Antic is one of New York’s largest street fairs, but ask anyone outside of Brooklyn and they probably haven’t even heard of it. Drawing as many as a million visitors and spanning 10 blocks on Atlantic Ave., the Atlantic Antic offers plenty of fun for all from local bands, vendors, and crafts, to the best cuisine the thoroughfare has to offer. Past participants have included Building on Bond (with their phenomenal chorizo burgers), the dearly departed Stan’s Place, and Blue Marble Ice Cream. Verified vendors this year include Red Hook Lobster Pound, Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies (hello swingle!), and treats seller Whimsy and Spice.
The festivities go from 10am to 6pm, but it gets more crowded as the day goes on of course. Lace up your walking shoes and prepare for a day of delicious food and fun, Brooklyn-style.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Location: Atlantic Ave. from 4th Ave. to Hicks St., Brooklyn
www.atlanticave.org
