I finally got to try the burger at Boilermaker this week. I had heard great things about this for a while.
I went with the single patty with American cheese. Each burger comes pre-dressed with thin sliced tomato and red onion, as well as a special sauce and slaw. The slaw and sauce are what really make this burger pop. Despite the unmelted cheese, I really liked this one.
BOILERMAKER
13 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10003
My wife and I came here to use some of her Blackboard Eats credit. I think we got something like 30% off the bill thanks to her. Anyway, let’s get down to business.
We started with a mixed charcuterie plate. We chose mortadella, finocchiona and bresaola. This was great, but slightly pricey at $21.
Next up was wagyu carpaccio with arugula, shaved parmigiana and pistachios. I loved this. A little squirt of lemon really made this pop.
Next up was the calamari. This was served in a tomato broth of sorts, with raisins. It was too sweet, and the squid itself was really bland and flavorless, despite being nicely cooked and tender. If you go here, skip this one.
For our entrees, we tried a pair of pasta dishes. First was this “pappardelle buttera” dish with peas and sweet and hot sausage. While I didn’t get much kick from the hot sausage, the sauce and all components – including the pasta itself – were perfect. Get this one.
We also tried the tagliatelle spinachi, which was a green spinach pasta served with roasted cherry tomatoes, shrimp and Calabrian chilis. This had no heat – maybe one single chili was in the dish. Like the squid, the shrimp was also bland as well. Weak flavors for such bold ingredients. Pass on this one.
That about does it. We skipped dessert because we were pretty full. Over all this place was mediocre. Some hits, some misses. But I think if you stick with the carpaccio and the pappardelle you’ll be happy.
PAPPARDELLA
316 Columbus Ave
New York, NY 10023
It’s that time of year!!! One of my favorite meat events is coming to Flushing Town Hall again next week on February 23rd. That’s right: Charcuterie Masters is BACK, hosted again by NY Epicurian Events.
They are a Catskill Mountains-based producer of premiere farm-to-table food and wine festivals and educational programs. They pair the agricultural bounty (including grass-finished beef, organic produce, artisan cheeses, smoked fish, and wines from the region’s lush mountain valleys and fresh water streams) with New York City’s most innovative chefs and the culinary community.
Their goals include creating jobs, driving economic development by assisting family farmers and local artisans, and fostering culinary and agricultural tourism in the Catskill-Delaware New York City Watershed. This exposes everyone – from chefs to culinary professionals to foodies to gourmets – to delicious, fresh, sustainable and healthful foods.
From the ticketing page:
“Sink your teeth into the best of the best charcuterie as artisans—makers of sausages, patés, hams, salumi, and more—gather once again to vie for top honors at the fourth annual Charcuterie Masters. Enjoy unlimited tasting of more than 60 varieties of charcuterie, including sumptuous Portuguese Alentejano ham from Rodrigo Duarte who will also be doing a butchery demonstration of this forerunner to the pig that produces Spain’s famed jamon de pata negra. Like what you taste? You can also purchase charcuterie on site.
In honor of the Year of the Pig Chef Stephen Yen of Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill will be roasting a pig in La Caja China and preparing sumptuous roast pork bao with garlic hoisin, scallions, and cucumber.
Meet the charcutiers and taste exquisite dishes prepared by top NYC chefs, including Pitmaster Josh Bowen of Queens’ very own John Brown Smokehouse and Alfonso Zhicay of Casa del Chef Bistro. Savor pairings, including beer from Queens’ Mikkeller NYC as well as cider as well as cider and top-rated wines from Rooftop Reds.
VIP guests will have access to the entire festival one hour earlier and exclusive access to the Charcuterie Masters VIP Experience, which includes exclusive charcuterie selections from Muncan Food Corp., top-shelf spirits, and a charcuterie surprise prepared by New York Epicurean Events president Chef David Noeth, as well as an exclusive charcuterie demonstration.
In addition to the prestigious Charcuterie Masters Awards there will be a People’s Choice Awards where attendees will be able to vote for their favorite charcuterie booth and restaurant!”
A $70 general admission ticket entitles guests to explore unlimited tasting and sampling of all food and beverages. Additionally, there will be $150 VIP tickets sold, which will allow access to a special hour with early access to the entire festival. You can get your ticket HERE.
Maybe I’ll see some of you meat maniacs there!!!
I came to Hunan Slurp with a group of friends, so we were able to sample a bunch of shit. Here’s what we tried:
The “Mala Beef” noodle dish was nice. It was slow cooked shank meat that was really tender. The egg noodles were perfectly cooked.
This dish contained pork and beef, and was served with rice noodles that were similarly perfectly cooked. Also shank meat, cooked very nicely.
This noodle soup was the spiciest on the menu, a pepper beef dish, which was really intense and flavorful. I wish this also contained the shank cut beef, as the stuff in this dish wasn’t as tender as the above dishes.
This next dish was cold “Hunan Charcuterie.” It contained bits of pig ear and tripe, among other nice off-cuts. This was my favorite dish of the day, and easily a contender for top dishes of 2019.
The smoked sausage plate was nice, but I wish it had more crisped texture to it.
This eggplant with “thousand year egg” filling was delicious. I’m generally not a big fan of eggplant, but I loved this. A must try here.
The beef skewer dish had a great cumin aroma, but ultimately the majority of the beef in the dish was chewy and tough. Pass on this one.
Most of the dishes were pretty spicy, so these sweet riblets were a great way to cool down and cut the heat.
We also tried stewed fish noodles, and a potato and duck egg dish (both not pictured) which were also very nice. But the last item I have here for you is winter melon, served warm and savory with ground pork. Very interesting.
Give this place a shot. I liked it.
HUNAN SLURP
112 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10009
I recently had a meal here when celebrating a friends birthday party. Here’s a quick rundown of everything I tried:
This chicken with peanuts dish was really tasty. Nicely fried morsels of dark meat.
These fried beef dumplings were better still. I could have eaten a dozen.
While I’m not a huge tofu guy, these fried cubes were pretty tasty. I’d eat them again, but definitely not over the other two apps above.
Next up, beef noodles. These were ultimately pretty middle-of-the-road. Nothing stand-out about them.
The star of the show, however, was this pork belly dish. So much nice quality belly, with some chiccharones and a great spicy bean curd dip to boot. Awesome.
The octopus was perfectly cooked and had a great crunchy texture on the outside, but there was just something about it that bugged me. It had a flavor that reminded me of the smell of dried fish food. Perhaps it was something added on top for seasoning.
Lastly, their pickles and kimchi items are superb here. Some of the best I’ve had.
I would definitely go back here again.
BARN JOO
35 Union Square W
New York, NY 10003
My wife and I recently got involved with the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen – located at the Church of the Holy Apostles on 9th avenue and 28th Street. This is the largest soup kitchen in New York City. It provides over 1,000 meals each weekday at a time when over a million New Yorkers struggle to put food on their tables. To date, the soup kitchen has served over nine million meals.
Founded in 1982, the soup kitchen also offers its guests clothing and hygiene distributions, shelter and medical referrals, and a computer lab, all of which help them navigate toward improved health, housing and jobs.
My wife and I got involved with this awesome charity because our friends help set up the Farm to Tray fundraiser at the church every year. Farm to Tray is an event that features well-known culinary figures from across the city and culminates in what I can only describe as the ultimate foodie party. There are lots of drinks, tons of amazing food, and a bunch of silent auctions to help raise money for the soup kitchen.
You can get tickets to the event HERE. It’ll be held on May 16th at the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Since its inception in 2013, the Farm to Tray event has raised nearly $2,000,000 in cash and in-kind support. The goal of this year’s event is to raise $300,000 – which is $50,000 more than last year – to help ensure that the soup kitchen’s shelves are stocked for months to come.
My wife and I will be donating some packages to the event’s silent auctions this year; credit in my butcher shop, and my wife’s baking services. I’ll be donating some good old fashioned green and promoting ticket sales, but I’ll also be trying to add some steak dinners to the silent auction docket as well as the “butcher and baker” items.
So what do you say? Want to donate to the cause or come hang out with me and The Cake Dealer at the event? If so, CLICK HERE! And thank you for reading.
Tambour Bistro and Wine Bar is a cool spot that serves up some great Mediterranean style eats in Brooklyn. They have a great deal going on: for $120 you get an appetizer, a dry-aged porterhouse steak from Romeo Brothers (Bensonhurst meat shop), a side and a dessert.
My wife and I came in to try this stuff out. Here’s what we had.
First, some nice wines. I had a Rioja and my wife had a white that I can’t pronounce.
The mussels here are incredible. Make sure you ask for a spoon to slurp up the sauce at the bottom of the bowl. There’s white wine, roasted chili peppers and herbs in that crack sauce.
This arugula salad was simple and refreshing, with kalamata olives, feta cheese, pickled shallots, English cukes and marinated baby tomatoes.
Next up was the main event: a 70-day dry-aged porterhouse, served Florentine style, with charred lemons and rosemary.
This thing was a real beauty. Perfectly cooked with that great brown Maillard crust on it.
There was a lot of earthy funk on this from the aging process, so wiping an occasional bite across the charred lemon was a great way to cut the fat and funk with a pop of brightness.
We finished every bite. I highly recommend this steak. 9/10.
On the side we had the asparagus with crumbled parmesan cheese. That’s an Italian chimichurri sauce in the back. Basil, oregano, lemon, etc. Great with the steak actually.
For dessert, we had this perfectly executed creme brûlée.
This baby was big, creamy and flavorful.
I will definitely be back here to try their bacon as well as some other cuts of steak. I suggest you give it a shot too, especially if you live in the area.
TAMBOUR BISTRO & WINE BAR
652 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Il Tinello is an old school NYC Italian joint that’s been open for nearly 40 years. My wife and I finally got around to trying it last night. Here’s what we had:
My wife started with some fresh bluepoints, and I had this delicious seafood salad made with scallops, calamari and shrimp.
Next, we had a trio of pastas as a mid-course sampler dish. Penne with pesto, beef and ricotta ravioli, and pappardelle with a truffle and mushroom cream sauce. All were delicious, but I liked the pappardelle the best.
For my main course, I had this gorgeous boneless veal parm.
This was really nice. The sauce and cheese were top notch quality, and the veal beneath was super tender.
My wife had the veal chop, which was a nice, thick rib chop.
It was a perfect light pink inside, cooked just right.
For dessert, we had the fruit tart and the creme brûlée. Both were well executed and tasty. They pleased The Cake Dealer, so that’s always a good sign.
This place is a gem. It’s cozy and fancy inside, really classy. And the service is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. The staff are professionals, not some young hipster chumps who wait tables on the side while they try to get their crowd-funded artisanal kombucha brand up and running in Williamsburg.
IL TINELLO
16 W 56th St
New York, NY 10019
Lincoln Ristorante is now part of the Patina Group of restaurants. These guys are awesome, because if you sign up to their newsletter, they send you $50 off for your birthday. You can use the discount pretty much any time within a month of your birthday. So my wife and I decided to check this place out since it was just her birthday the other day. This joint offers a four-course meal for $94, which I thought was pretty awesome, especially considering how great the food is.
I was impressed with the cocktail menu, which sports a prosecco bar and an entire menu of negronis. We tried the caffe negroni, which, later on, was perfect with our desserts. Here’s a pic of it (I kinda made it look like a pussy on purpose):
The meal begins with some complimentary bread sticks and house made focaccia bread with whipped ricotta. This shit is addictive. If you eat a few rows of this stuff (they will bring out more), then you can just get the three course meal for $78.
Then a small dish of smoked trout came out for us, compliments of the chef. This was great.
I started with an escarole salad, and my wife had the octopus. The salad was awesome. I love escarole, and I loved seeing it used raw rather than the usual sautéed or braised. This salad had shaved, truffled sun chokes, sliced apples, radishes and grated cheese. It was delicious, and very large.
The octopus was nice. It came in a spicy tomato ragu with some perfectly cooked beans. I was happy to see more than one tentacle given. As far as portion sizes go, this place is way above average.
For my pasta course, I had conch pasta with octopus and guanciale. This was really nice, and the toasted breadcrumbs gave it a great texture.
My wife had lobster risotto with an arugula pesto. This was herbaceous and fresh, and contained lots of lobster meat. It ate a bit more like a thick soup than a traditional risotto though.
My wife went with the lamb shank for her main course. This was tremendous, and really tender. We couldn’t finish. It had pancetta, roasted chic peas, and other goodies underneath.
I had the venison loin, which was probably one of the best meat dishes I’ve eaten in a while. Certainly the best rendition of venison I’ve ever had.
I highly recommend giving this a try if you can. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, and it had none of that typical iron flavor that you normally associate with game meats. It was mild yet full of flavor. I loved it!
Dessert was incredible. My wife had a trio of gelati. Pistachio stracciatella, toasted faro, and prune. The toasted faro (middle) was our favorite of the three, and tasted like the flavor of the cone of an ice cream cone. The prune was like an elevated rum raison, and the pistachio stracciatella was creamy and rich.
I had the creme fraiche coffee cake, which came with anisette gelato, crumble, bitter lemon coulis and ricotta pasticcera. This shit is crack! I fucking loved it.
Then, a pair of tasty marzipan coconut bites came out with the bill.
We can’t wait to go back. I think we will do the three course meal next time, since we were really full after four courses.
LINCOLN RISTORANTE
142 W 65th St
New York, NY 10023
OWYN (Only What You Need) is a plant-based line of protein products. I recently picked up a shitload of their items because I was looking to try something new for high protein, low sugar and high fiber drinks, snacks and coffees. I know, I know… What the fuck is Johnny Prime doing with plant-based shit? Clearly I don’t give a fuck about ANY of that shit. But if it tastes good, I’m in! I DO eat vegetables, you know… Anyway here’s what I got:
Protein snack bars, protein coffee, protein drinks, and protein powder. Let’s start with the protein coffee.
I love this shit. This is now part of my morning routine.
The flavor is great, it gives me a little caffeine boost without being all jittery.
Next up, the snack bars:
As you can see, I got a shitload. These, in combination with a protein drink, are meant to be my lunch at work (since I eat like an unhinged maniac during most dinners) or an occasional snack after dinner if I’m still hungry. Here is a closer look at the flavors:
They’re mainly made up of seeds and natural plant protein isolates, like pea powder, pumpkin seeds, chia, etc. But they don’t taste like rabbit food, and the flavors aren’t too sweet or overwhelming. They’re just right.
The ready-to-drink protein shakes are awesome.
Vanilla is my least favorite of the three, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad flavor by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just that the chocolate and strawberry/banana are better, in my opinion.
I’ve tried the powder once before; it was a coffee flavor. The vanilla and chocolate are better. They taste just like the pre-made shakes.
I totally stand behind these products. I think you’ll like them if you’re into this sort of stuff, regardless of the plant-based marketing. Give this shit a shot. If they can satisfy a rabid carnivore like me, I’m fairly certain they have an excellent product on their hands.
