February 8 2010
Category: Deals
Well, it’s the second Monday of the month, folks. Know what that means? Usually, nothing. But, starting tonight, it means that much-loved Chelsea pizza joint Co. will be hosting the very best kind of movie night: the kind where pizza experts craft a special pie catered to the entertainment.
This month, the movie is entitled “Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers.” It’s a fantastic movie to start the series with, considering most people with at least one taste bud would wholeheartedly agree with that statement, and so their first movie-themed pie is sure to be a hit. During regular dinner service, the movie will be shown silently, but there will be a screening with sound at 9:30. All night long, proceeds from the one-night-only garlicky specialty pie will go to the West 50th Street Campus’s High School of Hospitality Management and the Food and Finance High School. Eating garlic pizza, watching a garlic-themed movie, and being a good citizen? Sign me up!
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $$
Location: 230 9th Avenue (at 24th St.)
Type of Food: Pizza
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.co-pane.com
Tags: Chelsea, Foodie Events, Pizza
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February 5 2010
Category: Deals, Reviews
Restaurant Week is a wonderful opportunity to try restaurants that might normally be out of your reach, and Kim and I certainly took advantage of that this year. What’s even more heartening is that, even though RW officially ends this coming Sunday, so many restaurants are extending their menus, or offering comparable deals well into the spring. Periyali is one such establishment, and their $35 prix fixe is not to be missed.
Be sure to dress up to visit this intimate Greek eatery in the Flatiron District; anything less than your finest will feel lackluster in this stunningly appointed restaurant. And the menu’s no slouch either. Your server will likely speak lovingly of the favorite octopus and the famous lamb chop. I promise you, he’s not exaggerating. The octopus is marinated in red wine, charcoal grilled, and served with a lemon wedge. It’s not the least bit rubbery thanks to the marinade and has a wonderfully smokey aftertaste. The lamb chop is equally impressive, served with rosemary roast potatoes and green beans. In less polite company, I might have gnawed on the bone to get every last bit of juicy meat off my plate. And luckily, no one will make you choose when it comes to dessert. The combination plate includes an almond cookie covered in powdered sugar, orange cake, and walnut cake, the perfect conclusion to a wonderfully fresh and simple meal.
Be sure to check out my pictures and some other meal options after the jump.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: oktapodi sharas (octopus), paidakia thedrolivano (lamb chops), walnut cake, orange cake, Greek cookies
Price: $$$$
Location: 35 W. 20th St. (between 5th Ave. and 6th Ave.)
Type of Food: Greek
Veggie Friendly? N
www.periyali.com
continue »
Tags: Flatiron, Greek
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February 4 2010
Category: Deals
Just in time for the arrival of most miserable of winter months, this week kicked off City Bakery’s annual Hot Chocolate Festival, which will continue throughout the month of February. Every day, they’ll feature a new, innovative hot chocolate flavor to warm your shivering insides. Today’s flavor, espresso, might sound a bit been-there-done-that, but a majority of the rest of the list will certainly make it difficult to settle for that powdered gunk in the comfort of your own home. Upcoming flavors range from the mouthwatering: banana peel, Earl Grey tea, creamy stout, and ginger, to the truly puzzling: Moulin Rouge, Shangri-La, and Ode to the Polar Bear.
If you’re a knitter as well as a chocolate lover, be sure to mark your calendar for February 18th when, for $30, you’ll receive a full meal, dessert, a knitting party, and of course all the hot chocolate your heart desires. For the record, the flavor that night is darkest dark chocolate, so while I’m not a knitter, you might catch me crashing that party!
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $
Location: 3 West 18th Street (between 5th and 6th Aves.)
Type of Food: Dessert
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.thecitybakery.com
For a complete list of upcoming hot chocolate flavors, visit www.hot-chocolate-festival.com.
Tags: Chocolate, Dessert, Flatiron, Foodie Events
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February 3 2010
Category: Deals
You’ll need to bust out your elastic waistband for this deal. Even though Ed’s Chowder House is in close proximity to Lincoln Center, it will be hard for theatergoers and other UWS types to stay classy when they’re devouring two pounds of lobster plus fixings. We’re big fans of Gael Greene’s twitterfeed, and just this week we spotted a tweet about an exclusive deal offered to readers of her Insatiable Critic blog. Just visit her blog and check out the ads on the right-hand side, and you’ll see a phenomenal deal from Ed’s Chowder House, which is offering a two-pound lobster plus sides for only $29. (You might have to refresh a few times. It doesn’t always pop up right away.) We already love Ed’s, so it won’t be hard to convince us to go back. Lobster feast, here we come!
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $$$
Location: 44 W. 63rd St. (between Broadway and Columbus Ave.)
Type of Food: Seafood
Veggie Friendly? N
www.chinagrillmgt.com
Tags: Seafood, Upper West Side
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February 2 2010
Category: Deals, Reviews
Sure, classics like French toast, pancakes, or eggs benedict are delicious, but at some point you start to wonder why they’re worth spending so much money on just to eat out on a Sunday afternoon, especially when you’re stuck waiting for an hour in the cold thinking you could easily have whipped up the same breakfast yourself by now. (Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.) Enter Kittichai, the Thai fusion cure for the ordinary brunch. They’ve got the standard keywords on the menu, but with modifiers you’d never expect (think pancake souffle, duck egg omelette, panang curry hollandaise). With a menu that intriguing, we just had to try it ourselves.
Not surprisingly, getting a table at this chic SoHo eatery can be even more difficult than deciding on an entree. The first feat accomplished, I finally settled on the Asian five spice French toast, accompanied by a fruit and basil compote. It arrived griddled to perfection, slightly gooey on the inside with just a hint of burnt crisp on the outside. The “five spice” part didn’t come through quite as much as I might have hoped, but that hint of savory still added a nice, unexpected layer of flavor to this breakfast standard. Granted, it’s possible I may have spread a little more of the fantastic fruit and basil compote than was completely necessary. Nicole opted for the equally intriguing lime leaf pancake souffle with lemongrass butter. To call this a “pancake” almost does it a disservice, because the incredibly light and fluffy texture of this semi-savory dish elevates it far beyond the elementary hotcake. The lemongrass butter pairs so nicely with the pancake that you have no need for that customary side of maple syrup (though it is provided, for you traditionalists out there).
A la carte, brunch entrees range from $9-18, but most of them are available on the brunch prix fixe menu ($20), which also includes unlimited specialty brunch cocktails. (The blood orange mimosa was a huge hit at our table!) If you’re looking for a great brunch spot for this Super Bowl weekend, look no further - but you’d better hop on those reservations!
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: Asian five spice French toast, blood orange mimosa
Price: $$
Location: 60 Thompson Street (between Spring and Broome)
Type of Food: Thai
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.kittichairestaurant.com
Tags: Brunch, SoHo, Thai
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February 1 2010
Category: Deals
Can’t make it down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year? You’re in luck. Two Boots Brooklyn is hosting a gumbo cook-off tomorrow evening. For just $15, you get all the gumbo you can eat, along with a buffet of sides including cornbread, biscuits, rice and beans, fried okra, hushpuppies, and bread pudding. There will also be Carnivale-inspired drink specials to quench the spicy dishes. Get there around 7 p.m. to participate in the people’s choice voting and get your Fat Tuesday on!
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $$
Location: 514 2nd St. (at 7th Ave.)
Type of Food: Southern
Veggie Friendly? N
www.twobootsbrooklyn.com
Tags: Park Slope, Southern
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January 29 2010
Category: Deals
With the Super Bowl just a week away, why not start training your appetite early? This Sunday, Hell’s Kitchen wine bar Artesia will host its second weekly $30 Mangalitsa feast. What, Mangalista isn’t the top item on your grocery list? Well, it’s a curly-haired pig that Artesia’s chefs are crafting into a prix fixe meal that will make you forget all about those Restaurant Week reservations you didn’t quite get this year. On the menu? You’ll whet your palate with a charcuterie plate featuring blood sausage, blood head cheese and country pate, then feast on a roast pork loin with cumin-scented baby carrots, and then perhaps most intriguingly, delve into a Mangalitsa-infused apple crumble. Sure, pork and apple are paired together almost as often as peanut butter and jelly, but hardly ever so brazenly as in a dessert. Specialized wine pairings are available for an additional $15, and I certainly wish the sommelier luck pairing a wine with a pork-infused dessert!
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $$$$
Location: 510 West 52nd Street (between 10th and 11th Aves.)
Type of Food: American
Veggie Friendly? N
www.ardesia-ny.com
Tags: American, Foodie Events, Hell's Kitchen
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January 28 2010
Category: Reviews
Walking into this Midtown East hole-in-the-wall, you’d hardly imagine it to have such a posh big brother as Boi, but of course if there’s anything predictable about the city’s food scene, it’s that appearance is nothing to judge by. It’s a shop hardly big enough to hold the customers eagerly awaiting their lunches, but that doesn’t stop Midtown’s horde of workers from lining up outside the door because they know their sandwich, bowl, wrap, or salad is going to be nowhere near as bland as the interior.
Sure, they’ve got the traditional banh mi, but they’re hardly banking on this trendy staple. Along with the standard, they’ve got chicken, BBQ pork, albacore tuna, and even meatballs (spicy pork or curry chicken, to be exact), among other things. On my recent visit, I opted for the curry chicken meatball “banh mi,” which also includes cilantro and pickled vetetables, and like the rest of Boi’s sandwiches, is served on a hefty, delicious baguette. While the distribution of the curry and hot sauces could have been more even, that’s about the only complaint I can offer. The meatballs were tender and flavorful, and when combined with the sauces created a wonderfully complete curry flavor. That coupled with the sweetness of the pickled vegetables made for a complex, satisfying bite I won’t soon forget.
The great thing about Boi Sandwich Shop, though, is that the possibilities extend far beyond the sandwich. If you’re trying to stick to a New Year’s resolution, or hey, maybe you just have a hankering to eat with a fork, you can opt for one of their salads or rice bowls. You just choose any of their sandwich fillings and choose additional add-ons (at no additional charge) to accompany it along with the lettuce or rice. Each sandwich is also available as a wrap. With so many combinations, the curry chicken meatballs will certainly not be my last lunchtime adventure here!
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: curry chicken meatball sandwich
Price: $
Location: 708 3rd Avenue (between 44th & 45th Sts.)
Type of Food: Vietnamese
Veggie Friendly? Y
Tags: Midtown East, Vietnamese
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January 26 2010
Category: Uncategorized
Last August, tragedy struck the burgeoning mobile food scene when one of its pioneers was inexplicably shuttered, never to roam the streets again. Thanks to its persistent co-conspirators, French Culinary Institute grad Jerome Chang and Columbia-educated business guru Chris Chen, this did not spell the end of Nutella-filled brioche doughnut holes, Madagascar vanilla creme brulee, nor their fantastic warm chocolate bread pudding. The higher rent at their first shop with an address, “DT Works,” does mean that these familiar and much-missed delights have inflated $1 to $6 each, but Dessert Truck’s considerable loyal following will hardly mind, we think. For half that price, you can sample their hot chocolate or milk chocolate bark with pretzels and hazelnuts. Plus, there’s ample seating at the new location, which means that patrons no longer have to decide if their scrumptious dessert is worth a few numb fingers. (For the record, it is.)
Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $
Location: 6 Clinton Street (between Houston and Stanton)
Type of Food: Dessert
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.desserttruck.com
Tags: Dessert, Lower East Side
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January 25 2010
Category: Deals, Reviews
Much ado has been made over Fatty Crab’s Monday all-you-can-eat chili crab deal, and for good reason. While $39 might seem a bit steep, the value you’re getting for your money is pretty incredible. No one knows how much the chili crabs cost at Fatty Crab (they’re listed at market price), but the day I chose to visit, it was $41 per crab. So, right off the bat, there’s $2 in savings. Now, if you think I stopped at one crab, you’d be quite mistaken. Let’s just say my dining companion and I managed to put away more than $200 worth of chili crab and lived to tell the tale.
Be sure you only go to Fatty Crab with your closest of friends, because the scene is not going to be pretty. When they place the first bowl on your table they also drop off an egg timer that alerts you to how far you are into your allotted all-you-can-eat hour. (Yep, you only get an hour to go to town.) Those crabs are work-intensive and insanely messy. They’re slathered with this amazing sweet and spicy chili sauce, but it will get everywhere, guaranteed. You won’t care though, because you’ll be gorging on the most divine dish and praying that your stomach will allow room for more. The chili crab comes with several options for sides including coconut rice and “chicken rice” (prepared in chicken stock), but those are merely an afterthought for when you can’t stomach another bite of seafood goodness. You might be too stuffed to eat for the next 24 hours, but you won’t soon forget the wonder that is Fatty Crab’s chili crab.
Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: chili crab, coconut rice
Price: $$$$
Locations: 643 Hudson Street (between Horatio St. and Gansevoort St.), 2170 Broadway (between 76th St. and 77th St.)
Type of Food: Asian
Veggie Friendly? N
www.fattycrab.com
Tags: Asian, Upper West Side, West Village
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