NYC Tastes

After the gut busting dinner that was the Momofuku Bo Ssam you would think I wouldn’t even look at another food item for at least a couple hours. However I have an uncanny ability to shove more food down my throat than most young women, and when it comes to dessert I go all out. So after the pigout, I hauled my full bloated stomach over next door to the Milk bar. I was planning on ordering my usual Chocolate Malt Cake but then I spotted something even better. The banana cake! Oh my goodness! Layers upon layers of wonderfully moist banana cake, rich gianduja fudge, sweet banana cream and a wonderfully crunchy hazelnut center make this cake one of the best desserts I’ve had in a long time. The cake itself probably has about 10 sticks of butter inside but its creamy banana goodness is worth all of the fatty calories. There was something so satisfying about the hazelnut crunch that I literally could not put my fork down. I’m so glad I got this cake. Am I happy I picked this over th...

Ever have a hankering to just sit down and pig out on a big, fatty, salty hunk of pork butt? Come on…who hasn’t? Friday I was able to fulfill my dreams of utter pork deliciousness by getting the Bo Ssam at Momofuku Ssam bar. The Bo Ssam is not for the faint of heart. This truly is one enormous hunk of meat that needs to be ordered well in advance and serves anywhere from 6 to 10 people. We had the minimum six and I think we did pretty well (we ate the shit out of that butt!), but let’s start at the beginning.   We got to Momofuku right around 5:45 and started out with a couple of beers. I went for the Korean classic OB. I’m not gonna lie- this is not a very good beer. It doesn’t have much taste and the carbonation is kind of flat. Hover I didn’t want anything to detract from the glorious porky goodness I was about to inhale so it was just fine with me. Before the butt arrived we had started out with the one dish you must always have at Momofuku the pork buns. Thes...

Is it just me or are the Duane Reade’s taking over this city even more than Starbuck’s did in the late 90’s? I mean there have always been a lot of Duane Reade’s out there but it seems every time I look around there is a newer one that’s even bigger and better than the last. Back in early fall I started noticing a lot of changes at my local DR. One of the biggest changes was the decrease in brand name items and the increase in DR goods with the name deLish. Brownies, chips, trail mix, even sushi started rolling out at some pharmacies with this new label. Each time I’m in a store I think about trying one of these deLish items but up until last week I never had. Now I’m not bold enough (or maybe my stomach is just too scared) to try the DR sushi. However store made cookies I figured would be a good starting point. So I picked up a box of deLish Chocolate Chip cookies for a test run. I also got a box of the factory cookie favorite Chips Ahoy for a flavor comparison. Here’s a...

I was absolutely shocked last week when walking home from work I saw a new bar had opened up in the old Pete’s Saloon space on 3rd avenue. I never even saw them doing work on the building. It was called Exchange bar and looked to have a pretty sleek space and large open windows in the front. So on Sunday Mr. T and I swung by to check out the food and drink. Exchange has a narrow interior with a long bar up front and smaller candlelit tables in the back. Three big flat screen TV’s sit behind the bar giving us prime viewing of the basketball games. I thought the space was nice in every way except for the running red beer prices above the bar. I guess that is supposed to look like the stock exchange maybe? I don’t know- I found it very distracting. They had a decent selection of beers on tap- Blue Moon, Stella, Guinness and Magners were some of the options. I was in a wine mood so I got a glass of Chardonnay instead. Now since they had only been open about 2 weeks I was a little sca...

It’s that time of year again. The time of year where I leave the stresses of work behind so I can stress out on college basketball instead. This year we started off the tournament Thursday at Landsdowne Road in Hell’s Kitchen. Landsdowne is known for a couple of things- lots of televisions, a decent beer selection and Scruffy Duffy wings. Ah yes…Scruffy Duffy wings. Although the bar has long since closed the wings are still around. I believe the owners of Landsdowne used to own Scruffy Duffy’s as well and just brought the recipe over here. They had quite a cult following back in the day so I was excited to see how they compared to my beloved Buffalo wings. I had just eaten lunch so I tried to hold off until dinnertime but it seemed like everyone around me was eating them! The smell of wing sauce was everywhere and like some sick drug I couldn’t get them out of my head. I finally broke down and placed an order. Within minutes my order of 12 medium wings arrived. I was ex...

I wasn’t exactly hungry the other day- just having a serious craving for a spicy tuna roll. I didn’t feel like going out to get any so I looked up on Seamlessweb for sushi places with a minimum delivery below $20. To be honest there aren’t a whole lot but Amber Sushi on 3rd avenue showed up for $10 so I decided to give it a shot. I ordered one spicy tuna roll and a piece of eel. I had never tried Amber before but it got some decent reviews and I was excited they had a brown rice sushi option. My meal was surprisingly quite awesome. The rice to tuna ratio was spot on, the tuna itself was very tasty and the eel was a nice big piece with a little caramelized top. I had low expectations going in and this meal pleasantly surprised me.

It’s restaurant week until March 28th in both Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley. Now being that I work in Brooklyn Heights, live about a 5 minute train ride from Williamsburg and have multiple friends in Park Slope- you would think I’d hit up some restaurants there. But no- I decided to head upstate and try out something new Harvest on Hudson. Harvest on Hudson is a huge restaurant located right on the water in Hastings on Hudson. The interior of the place immediately reminded me of Blue Hill Stone Barns with its large wooden ceilings and black shiny beams. We had a cocktail at the bar and were seated at a table overlooking the beautiful Hudson River.   For my appetizer I ordered the Crisp Calamari Caesar Salad. For some reason I was expecting the calamari to be a fried mess on my greens but they actually executed this dish perfect. The calamari was very lightly breaded with no grease at all and went wonderfully with the creamy anchovy dressing. Along with our appetizer...

When I woke up Sunday and saw that the rain had finally stopped outside I was so excited. I am one of those people that constantly needs to be doing something. I can’t just lay around all day. I had been battling a really bad cold all week and with the treacherous rain I was forced to stay inside doing nothing even longer. Now with the rain gone I was excited for a great day walking around the city, so I jumped into the shower. About 20 minutes later I came out dressed and ready to go. I grabbed my coat, took one more look out my window and…SHIT!!! It started raining AGAIN!!! You have got to be kidding me! I had a moment of deep contemplation. My body was still filled with sickness, my runny nose, throbbing coughs and wheezy congestion were not going to get any better outside in the rain. However a moment more stuck inside my small apartment with nothing to do but watch Mr. T play Final Fantasy was about as close to hell as I could imagine. I needed to get outside. So I forced my...

I love working at my West Village office for one solid reason- lunch! There are so many great food options in this area and I got to visit one of my favorites on Friday the Spotted Pig. The Spotted Pig is well known for its great gastro pub feel, amazing food and two to three hour waits for dinner. Luckily lunchtime is much calmer and quite frankly the best time to visit in my opinion. I got there right around 12:30 and got seated at a table upstairs overlooking the beautiful trees outside. I was going to try out one of their new menu items but old habits die hard. I had to get the burger. Have you ever seen a prettier looking burger in your life? It's like a work of art! Spotted Pig makes its enormous burger from three cuts of meat- brisket, rump and chuck. These cuts combined make this burger so moist meat juice literally runs out only to get sopped up by the fluffy brioche bun. Mmmmmmm...meat juice. Then they top it off with a generous helping of creamy Roquefort cheese....

I just did my mini Terminal 5 guide last week forgetting that I was going to be there again just 3 days later! I was trying to be so good at keeping my Mom’s 70th Birthday surprise party in Florida a secret I kind of hid it from myself. All of a sudden the big weekend had arrived and I was off to the airport again, this time jetting out to West Palm Beach where my Mom’s cousins reside. Once again Mr. T and I got to the airport with just barely enough time to get some lunch. We really want to see if our bad showing a 5ivesteak over Christmas was just a fluke. The first time it had been so good! So we ordered the same exact dishes as the first time. I got the Caesar Salad. I had forgotten to ask for no anchovies but I just took the little buggers off. This is a huge and tasty salad for $10 and I barley got halfway through it before I was too full to continue. I was probably so full because I kept grabbing some of Mr. T’s dish the Crispy Chicken. Two big pieces of fried chicken ...

I am always on the lookout for some decent wings in this city. I’ve come to terms with the fact that no place will ever have wings as good as Buffalo and that’s fine. Just give me some decent sized wings with a tasty sauce and that’ll tide me over till my next trip home. 1849 is one of those “tide me over” places. Located among the slew of crappy bars on Bleeker street, 1849 is definitely not a place I recommend coming to late at night. I was only here once past 8:00 and it was filled to the brim with groups of loud, obnoxious drunk people.  However during the day, 1849 just may be one of my favorite places to stop for a quick bite to eat and to catch some sports. They have a decent amount of televisions and have 20 cent wings every day from 3:00-6:00.  Mr. T and I swung by just last week and got a couple of Hefeweizens and shared an order of their hot wings. Now being a purist I am not a big fan of breaded wings. I actually hate them but for 1849 I make an exception bec...

So even though I was extremely full from my enormous Croque at lunch, I found myself chowing down on some ribs late night at Union Square’s Wildwood. The night started at Shoolbreds, where we met up with some friends who were also enjoying the snow day. After many happy hour beers, we decided some food was in order. My friend was craving BBQ but of course all the best places- Rub, Blue Smoke, etc. were packed. Obviously on a Friday night you need a reservation for most any good restaurant in the city. Luckily we were able to snag a last minute Open Table reservation at Wildwood. We got seated at a large table in the back and started out with an order of the Double Cut Bacon trio and the Jalapeño Bottle Caps. (The lighting in here is really strange so the pictures came out a little weird) I thought the Jalapeño Bottle Caps were absolutely disgusting. Beer battered and fried jalapeño slices? I guess if you love jalapeños you might enjoy this dish but I found it to be pretty revolti...

I flew back to NYC on Thursday and barely made it in. I had the last flight out of Buffalo before Jetblue cancelled everything due to the snow storm. I got home and was absolutely exhausted. I considered calling in sick to work the next day so I could sleep in but my darn work ethic got the better of me. I went to bed early and hoped for a quick and easy day. I woke up at about 5:00 am and looked out the window…There was snow! Not just a little snow- a LOT of snow!!! I grabbed my phone and brought it back to bed in hopes of some good news. Literally within minutes I got the news I was hoping for. Snow Day!! No work for me! I can’t even explain how happy and relieved I was! I jumped back into bed under my big fluffy comforter and went right back to sleep. A few hours later I woke up well rested and completely refreshed. I did a nice long stretch in my bed, kind of like a cat would do, and hopped out ready to play in the winter wonderland. I threw on my heaviest winter coat, a warm h...

Going back to Buffalo this past week was kind of like a whirlwind. I guess these things always are like that. Thankfully the service for my Grandmother was beautiful and it was wonderful to see all of the extended family again. I even got a chance to see my friends on Wednesday night a little. I ended up at the Bar Bill for the best wings in Buffalo and I swear it may have been the best wing showing I’ve ever had! I woke up Thursday wanting to get one more wing fix before flying home. Unfortunately we had an early appointment and needed somewhere closer to the airport. I put wings in my Google Maps and came up with Duff’s. Duff’s always get lauded as one of the top wing places in Buffalo. I remember having it once years and years ago but it didn’t seem to make much of an impression on me. I figured I would try it again and see what all the hype was about. We went to the location on Sheridan Drive and we walked into what looked more like a fast food/take out kind of place. ...

I spend so much time eating at Jetblue’s new Terminal 5 at JFK I figured I'd write a mini guide for you to help during travels. First of all the new terminal is awesome! I think I’ve written about the cool touch screen where you can order food and beer right to your gate? Pretty awesome. But they also have a ton of places to eat- everything from your standard fast food burger and sandwiches to more upscale sushi and steak joints. My first visit to the Terminal I had a sushi roll from Deep Blue Sushi. It was a pretty decent roll but way to expensive to ever justify going back. My second time I ate next door to Deep Blue at a little French café place La Vie. I had a fantastic Goat Cheese Arugula salad and washed it down with a bottle of Duvel. The space is a little cramped but if the terminal’s not busy this is a good food and drink option. Across from La Vie is the center of the terminal restaurant conglomerate. On our way to Florida over Thanksgiving we stopped into 5ive Steak ...