NYC Tastes

It's that wonderful, fun, scary day again! I love Halloween. It gets no better than leaves on the ground, a crisp scent in the air and chocolate. I've already told you about the new Bespoke Chocolate so I'll let my pictures to the rest of the delicious talking. Milk Chocolate pumpkin pie crunchy shell. Luscious creamy pumpkin bourbon puree innards. Worth every delicious last drop!! Happy Halloween!!!

Mr. T had the day off Friday so he met me for a late lunch around 3:00. I was working in Greenwich Village about 4 blocks from the newly opened Bill’s Burger Bar so it seemed like a no brainer. Bill’s Burger Bar is the new BR restaurant group place that moved into the old Hog’s Pit space. We used to frequent the Hog’s Pit a decent amount back in the day. Mr. T’s brother was on a foosball kick for a while and this was one of the places that always seemed to have some exciting foosball action. It was always a fun place to hang out but a little dirty and divey. Walking into Bill’s on Friday I noticed the room was actually bright! I tried to recall if there were shades on the windows at the Hog’s Pit or if it was just really dirty. Here the windows let in a ton of sunlight and the place had a cheery diner like feel to it. The tables were covered in picnic style checkered cloths and some good rock and roll music playing in the background. We got a seat in the back room and plac...

It was a beautiful day last Wednesday so Mr. T and I went for an al fresco dinner at the Madison Square Market again. This time we went straight to the Hill Country stand for some meat sandwiches.   Here is the Jalapeño Kreutz Sausage. For those of you that don’t know- Hill Country gets this sausage shipped directly from Kreutz BBQ which is among the top five best BBQ places in Texas. These sausages have a great snappy casing and pack in a serious amount of spice.   Here is our other sandwich the BBQ Beef. Is there anything better than a big old shreddy beef sandwich? Okay Shreddy may not be a word but I’m using it anyway- shreddy sandwich. Yum. To wash it all down we stopped over at Fatty Crab/Cabrito stand and got a Mexican Coke. The average American Coke is made with high-fructose corn syrup while the Mexican Coke is made with real cane sugar. The Mexican Coke really tastes different from a regular one with a lighter, cleaner flavor. For dessert we sto...

I absolutely love Fika. You’ve heard me sing its praises many times here on this blog. Recently I have enjoyed my espressos at Abraco and Stumptown a little more than Fika but it still has a big place in my heart. I stopped by the 28th street location the other day for a quick morning pick-me up and noticed some muffins in the display case. The blueberry one looked absolutely amazing with some kind of creamy, custard like substance actually dripping from the top. I had to try it out so I took one home for breakfast. I was so excited to give this muffin a taste and see what that luscious cream was like. It had such a thick beautiful shine to it I had never seen on a muffin before. Mr. T and I each took a bite and then simply looked at each other slightly bewildered. It was batter. I mean the actually muffin batter used to make the muffin. Now how does this happen? I’ve had undercooked baked goods before where the inside was a little runny but the top? The rest of the...

I decided to walk home from work the other day through SOHO and stumbled across Baked by Melissa on Spring Street. I had heard about this little cupcake stop before from a friend so I decided to sample some of its offerings. Baked is basically just a pick-up window that sells about ten different varieties of frosted miniature cupcakes. You pick out the flavors you want, pay the woman and then find some place discreet nearby to enjoy your treats. Or you can just pay the woman, walk two steps and devour the goodies before you reach the end of the block- it’s up to you. I choose to do the latter :) Baked sells it’s cupcakes for $1 a piece, which is pretty expensive considering they are just slightly larger then the size of a quarter. However I love the fact that they are so small you can try out a bunch of different flavors without feeling super guilty about all that sugar. Today I sampled the Peanut Butter Cup and the Cookie Dough. First up was the Cookie Dough. On first bite I...

To kick off the start of College Football Super Saturday Funday we decided to head down to Luke’s and check out the lobster rolls. Luke’s is a really tiny place on 7th street right near some of my other favorite food spots like Caracas Arepas, Porchetta, Wechsler’s and Abraco. The small store only has about two tables and a couple seats up front for dining. We decided to place our order to go so we could find a more spacious place to eat our food. Luke’s has a chalkboard menu up front listing their items and the specials for the day. I was surprised to see some of the big meals they advertised like“A Taste of Maine”. It came with three different rolls, a pair of empress claws, chips and a drink all for $20. That’s a pretty good deal. I wasn’t feeling like a huge meal however so I stuck with the standard lobster roll. Luke’s lobster roll is smaller than Pearl’s but also less money at only $14 a roll. They use the standard buttery toasted hot dog bun and fill the roll wit...

I noticed this new Dogfish Head in Whole Foods yesterday and something about it really caught my eye. One of the workers there saw me inspecting the label and bounded over to spew the wondrous virtues of this beer. His exact words at one point were “I drink this beer for breakfast.” Well that is a pretty strong recommendation. So I picked one up and brought it home for us to try out (at night time mind you) Apparently Dogfish makes this beer by using the same method for brewing a Finnish style beer Sahti. After mixing the grains they add juniper berries to flavor the beer instead of hops. Then they heat white hot rocks over a fire to use for boiling the wort. Dogfish adds a black chai tea to finish the brewing process which makes it a completely different kind of beer than the Finns brewed. Appearance- This beer poured a cloudy amber with a small head that quickly dissipated. Aroma- Wow! This smelled exactly like a Chai Tea from your local Coffee shop. I wouldn’t be ...

I was really excited when I noticed a new chocolate treat in trader Joes the other day- their PB & J bar. The label on the front said it contained milk chocolate, dark chocolate, peas nut butter, raspberry jelly and potato chip crunchies. What!!! Potato Chips! I had to try this out. I think this might be the first candy bar I’ve ever had that came inside a box rather than a wrapper. This bar is pretty enormous- kind of like a Hungry Man chocolate bar. Here’s an inside shot. As you can see there are varying layers of Peanut butter and Chocolate on the top with the raspberry jelly on the bottom. I was expecting to love this candy bar but I didn’t really enjoy it. First of all I never really tasted the potato chip crunchies. Here and there I got a crunch feeling but no salty crunch flavor. The bar was also a little bit too dense for its’ own good. The chocolate coating was very bitter and it seemed to overpower the taste of the other flavors. The peanut butter a...

We stopped into Blind Tiger Ale House again last Saturday. This is beginning to be a weekend tradition. It’s hard not to stop in when we know they rotate their list so frequently it almost always means trying out a new beer.   This day was no different. We looked at the board and saw Brooklyn Brewery’s new offering the Manhattan Project. This ale was designed by Brooklyn Brewery to taste like an old rye Manhattan cocktail. They aged the beer in 100 proof Rye barrels and then infused it with the flavors of red vermouth and bitters. Appearance- this beer poured almost black with a red hue on the bottom and no head whatsoever.   Smell- this smelled exactly like a super bready Manhattan with a strong whiskey and cherry scent. Taste- I was surprised the whiskey flavor of this beer was so smooth. The smell kind of scared me but the actual flavor was quite mellow with a slightly sweet cherry aftertaste. As the beer settled the cherry hue got stronger and the beer becam...

It was another great Food and Wine Festival weekend. I started it out with the Meatpacking Uncorked on Friday. This year they added some food stations to the event. The best two being the supple rich Wagyu Beef from Debragga paired with a fantastic Malbec and the pork tacos from Los Dados. OMG those pork tacos were amazing! They filled the tortilla with big chunks of smoked pork and then fried the shell so that it came out like a pork taco egg roll covered in sour cream, avocado and tomatoes. It had to be at least 1000 calories a taco but man it was so worth it. The best wine places of the night was the sparkling white from the Leo Kesting gallery and the multiple tastings I enjoyed from the clothing store Darling. I had a great time talking with the women there and they had a really cute shop. The Grand Tasting was Saturday and we once again took full advantage of the fabulous event. This year they had one of our favorite beers flowing- Palm and some of our favorite wineries inc...

OMG it’s the New York City Food and Wine Festival this weekend! I’m going to Meatpacking Uncorked tonight and then I’ll hit up the Grand Tasting tomorrow. I had a great time at both events last year so I’m very excited! Some SWEET updates for your weekend. I thought I would start with a picture of one of my favorite desserts in the city- the Gramercy Tavern German Chocolate cake. I was lucky enough to have this cake two nights in a row while my parents were visiting last month. Their pastry chef was just on the Martha Stewert show yesterday making a corn blueberry sundae. I may need to stop in for one of those. Bespoke has a new item out just for the fall season a Pumpkin Bourbon Chocolate. This is probably my favorite take ever on Pumpkin and Chocolate together. Bespoke only uses the purest ingredients and it shows in the quality of their product. I truly felt like I was biting into a wonderful pumpkin pie. This is even better than their Salted Pretzel Chocolate. Yo...

It was a rainy and overcast Saturday, the kind of day perfect for a big bowl of steamy rich ramen! Mr. T and I headed down to our favorite ramen place Ippudo to see if we could get a table. It was only about 1:00 when we arrived but already the line was out the door and the wait was over an hour. We were both starving so waiting around wasn’t an option. Instead we decided to keep walking down to Houston and check out Nolita House. Nolita House used to be one of our go-to restaurants for a couple of drinks or a casual dinner. I was surprised to see how crowded and lively it was for brunch. Every table was filled and there was a nice pleasant buzz of energy around the room. Each entrée comes with your choice of Mimosa, Sangria or juice. Of course I went for the best brunch drink in the world- the mimosa. For my entrée I stuck pretty traditional and got the Brunch plate. Two scrambled with bacon, French fries, an English muffin and salad. Everything was very tasty and...

Usually our Sundays in October are spent watching football and drinking a few beers on the couch. This past Sunday we did that as well, however on a much larger and fattier scale! Sunday was Epicurious Entertains Fatty Football Sunday Funday event hosted by Zak Pelaccio. Zak is expanding his empire of restaurants even further next month by opening up Fatty Cue in Brooklyn. This event showcased the Southeast Style of Asian BBQ he hopes to bring to the table and I have to say it was pretty awesome. The event started at 12:00 and we ended up being the first one up the stairs to check out the space. The second I opened up the stair door I was hit with the most intense smell of smoked meat I have ever had. It got stronger with each step and by the time we were at the top I thought I was going to be a little sick by the sheer meat intensity coming out of the room! A good kind of sick, mind you. I walked in and was greeted by non other than James Oliver Cury, Executive Editor of E...

Oktoberfest is back and fully in swing around the German spots in the city. I spent some time celebrating at Zum Schneider the other day with some liters of Spatan and a giant pretzel. This picture doesn't do justice for the mammoth snack specimen. It was easily the size of my head..and I have a big head! If your looking to celebrate Zum will be having their live Oompah bands playing the Monday,Tuesday night this week and Saturday and Sunday afternoon. It gets packed so show up early or be prepared to wait. The lederhosen is optional :)

Sorry my posting has been a little bit sporadic lately. This post is actually about a brunch we went to two weeks ago. Somehow this got lost in the shuffle of things that was the end of summer. The second week in September was the 2nd annual NYC Craft Beer week. This is a great time in NYC with tons of beer events, special cask ales and just a celebration of everything beer. I got an email Friday night from the Belgian restaurant Resto informing me of a Kegs and Eggs brunch they were hosting the next morning I’ve written about Resto a few times in this blog and I find it to be inconsistent. The dinners I’ve had there have run the gamut from being really good to almost inedible. However I have always enjoyed their brunch and this looked like a good deal so we decided to go. Here’s the deal as per their email “Resto will serve a traditional English Breakfast - Eggs, Blood Sausage, Heirloom Tomato, English Cheddar, English Muffin and Home Fries served with two draft beers fro...

We were at Blind Tiger a few weeks back and saw that they had Dogfish Heads new IPA on the menu. Unfortunately when we ordered it they had just run out. So imagine my surprise when I saw a couple bottles at the Bowery Whole Foods. I always forget that place has a ton of great beers. So I picked one up and brought it home to try out. The Squall is basically their classic IPA that instead has been unfiltered and bottle conditioned. They apparently made this beer in collaboration with a clothing store not to far from the brewery. They were inspired by the clothes they made and came up with this beer as an ode to them. The beer poured a dark brown with a decent sized head on the top (the Steam Whistle Glass seemed to fit). The smell is exactly like the regular 90 minute IPA- strong and hoppy. The difference between these two beers lies in the taste. While both have that extreme malty complex flavor, the Squall seems a bit more balanced. It has a slightly sweet finish to t...