I’ll just come out and state, right off the top, which places to focus on here. Obviously there are good items at all the vendors, but these are my highlights:
Delaney Chicken might be the best fried chicken sandwich in NYC. It’s big, juicy, crispy, with great toppings that set it apart from some of the other joints that are gaining traction in the city these days. I liked it better than Fuku+.
Hard Times Sundaes puts up a great roadside burger, and they even serve bacon-wrapped, deep fried hot dogs as well. Fantastic!
Kuro-Obi is an offshoot of Ippudo, so it’s a legit spot for good ramen. I had it at City Kitchen and liked it alot.
Finally, Red Hook Lobster Pound is always a solid choice for a lobster roll, as is Roberta’s for pizza.
When mighty roast beef was the English man’s food,
It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood,
Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good.
Oh! The roast beef of old England!
This past weekend my wife and I were invited to a “food influencer” event to help promote the new brunch menu at The Shakespeare. I feel like British food gets a bad rep, and isn’t very well represented in NYC (with the exception of a few places like The Spotted Pig and Jones Wood Foundry). That said, I was excited to give this place a try.
The interior is beautiful, and it’s set up like an old timey British tavern downstairs, with a nice elegant dining room and outdoor courtyard upstairs.
My wife had been here about a year ago and spoke highly of the burger, scotch egg and fish and chips.
She’s absolutely right about those fuckers; they’re great. But we sampled a whole bunch of different items this time around, to highlight the brunch menu.
Starting on September 11, 2016, for $19, you get to choose from three types of roasted meats; pork, chicken and beef.
This beef is easily 9/10 for flavor, and when you add the horseradish sauce to it, it is fucking insane. I highly recommend it. The pork comes with an apple-based sauce, and the chicken comes with a “bread sauce” that’s similar to a bechamel. I’d say that my ranking, in order of awesomeness, was the beef, the chicken and then the pork.
But that’s not all you get for the $19. You also get some potato sides, popovers and seasonal veggies.
Make sure you try a Bloody Mary, too. They’re peppery and chock full of horseradish.
This chilled gazpacho soup was really nice on such a hot day too.
And for dessert, we tried the chocolate hazelnut mousse and sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream.
Both were great, but I think my favorite between the two was the toffee pudding pie/cake on the bottom. The flake salt on top really made the flavors pop.
Me, my wife, and my buddy Ben (@stuffbeneats) came in here to beat the insane summer heat with some sesame and green tea flavored soft serve swirl ice cream.
Pretty good, I must say. I think I liked the sesame flavor better, since green tea, to me, is generally a flavorless endeavor (with the exception of cakes that rely on frosting to deliver the sweetness).
Okay. That’s all. Go get some if you want to try something a little bit outside the box in the flavor department.
Savour Sichuan serves up some authentic, spicy-as-hell Chinese food in the heart of midtown.
Executive Chef Zhong Qing Wang masterfully put together about 14 dishes for a press meal, showcasing not only his skills as a chef but the difficult-to-come-by and truly authentic cuisine of China’s Sichuan province.
The Lazy Susan in the center of the table displayed an array of about a dozen styles of pepper, including pickled peppers, dried peppers, fresh peppers, pepper powders and peppercorns.
Let me get right down to business, since there are a lot of dishes to discuss here.
APPETIZERS
Cold Chicken with Sesame Sauce
This was tender, sliced white meat chicken that was served in a somewhat sweet and savory sesame sauce.
Pork Belly with Garlic Sauce (aka “meat curtains”)
These thin slices of pork belly were also served cold, but with a hot (spicy) chili oil and garlic sauce for dipping. Really nice. I took to calling it “meat curtains” because, well, that’s what it looked like, and I have a weird sense of humor. It isn’t the official name on the menu.
Szechuan Country Smoked Pork Ribs (aka “pork wheelbarrow”)
I gave this the “pork wheelbarrow” name as well, because it looks like a little ox cart filled with small pork ribs. The meat was sweet yet spicy, and also dry yet succulent. A conundrum.
Baby Shrimp with Red Pickled Pepper
This was a spicy dish. The sliced up green fresh peppers packed heat, but the shrimp were cooked perfectly and retained a great seafood flavor with good texture.
Dumplings
These were classic, with a great pop of spice from the chili oil.
Crispy Cucumber (no photos)
Very simple: just raw sliced cukes with a dipping sauce.
ENTREES
Fish Filets with Spicy Green Peppers
Widely hailed as one of the best dishes of the night, this large, family style platter was filled with green peppers (not too spicy) and perfectly cooked medallions of fish.
Sliced Beef
As a beef guy, you know I was liking this spicy dish made from slices of tender beef that were lightly breaded and stir fried with hot peppers and served on a bed of cooked scallions.
Yellow Millets and Pork Ribs
This tasted like a broken sticky rice type of grain with small bones of pork that had tender meat still clinging to them. Very tasty.
Szechuan Pepper Chicken/Pork and Crispy Noodles
Another favorite of the night was this dish made of tender morsels of baby pork rib (our platter didn’t have chicken but it can be made with either) and fried noodle twists. This was almost like eating a bagged corn chip type of snack. I loved it.
Okra with Garlic and Pepper
I hate to say it, but I loved the okra. Yep. I loved the veggie dish. It’s a rare thing to get okra that isn’t slimy after being cooked. This was nice and fresh, even had a little crisp to it, absolutely no slime, lots of bright flavors and a good amount of heat.
Seafood with Tofu in Spicy Sauce
This was essentially shrimp in a spicy broth with fried tofu pillows, onions and bell peppers. It was herby and fresh, and it was presented with a glowing candle beneath the bowl.
Fried Soft Shell Crab
I’ve never really been a big soft shell crab fan, but these were excellent. My experience is always that the shells aren’t really that soft. They still retain a “shrimp shell” quality to them, which I don’t want to eat. These were soft through and through, and beautifully fried with a delicious batter that was reminiscent of fried chicken.
Fresh Frog Pot with Pickled Peppers (no photos)
Although I didn’t take photos, this was a nice dish as well. I would have liked more lumps of leg meat as opposed to the other bits, but the sauce was very nice for putting on top of a bed of rice.
DESSERT
Brown Sugar and Steamed Sticky Rice Doughnuts
These had the texture and consistency of a rice or tapioca cake, but with a crisped outer edge and some sugar on top. Very simple and mildly sweet.
Fried Yellow Bean and Rice Ball with Black Sesame Paste
We all loved these. The sesame paste inside reminded me of the red bean breakfast and dessert pastries I sometimes get from Asian bakeries downtown, only the outside was soft and powdered instead of crispy.
Here’s a 360 shot of the table, and then the dudes all together.
If you have any interest in who everyone is, check out their Instagram accounts:
I’ll definitely be back here again, and probably soon, since I’d really like to get more than just a taste of some of the dishes that I liked most. If you like spicy Chinese food, this is the place for you!
My wife and I came here to use a Groupon that we purchased, which gave us a five-course steak dinner for two for just $99.
Flavor: 7
We had the options to choose a filet and a strip as our entrees, so that’s how we rolled. Both came in at 7/10 for flavor. They were cooked properly to medium rare, they had a good crust and sear on the outside, and they were seasoned properly.
Filet:
Strip:
I think they just lacked flavor due to the fact that they were such lean cuts. As a steak man, I tend to always go with a rib eye, which generally has more marbling, more fat, and therefore more flavor. For this reason, when cooking cuts like tenderloin and strip loin, many steakhouses will be quite liberal in their use of butter. Butter adds fat flavor back into the beef, and it triggers all sorts of cum-inducing sensations that start at your taste buds and end at the tip of your rock-hard cock. I didn’t taste too much butter at all, so my dick remained pretty flaccid throughout the meal. I did taste soy, which was nice, but ultimately it competed with the steaks natural earthy and aged flavor qualities. As a result, the steaks were just a little flat, and lacked flavor depth. Most of the score here is for good execution on the cook temperature and sear.
Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 10
Uncle Jack’s has a really great selection of USDA Prime and dry-aged beef. Top notch stuff. There’s an elephant’s shitload of variety in terms of sizing, bones, cuts and even some specialty stuff like wagyu and kobe. An elephant shits large loads. That’s why I used that analogy there.
Portion Size & Plating: 10
The filet comes in three styles: puss-bag 8oz, 12oz, or manly 20oz bone-in tenderloin. I must say, ordering the big tenderloin here is not a pussy move. A little kid had one next to us and I felt like a rimmed out gaping asshole for sharing two steaks between me and my wife that, when combined in weight, added up to his one cut. That kid is going to grow up to crush so much pussy that he will STILL be crushing pussy while he rests between bouts of crushing pussy. The ribeye is 24oz (bone-in), the strips are 12oz or 16oz boneless, and the porterhouses start at 44oz (22oz pp). They also offer a cote de boeuf 44oz rib eye for two. Everything is pretty much on the large side here, which is good, and similar to Lex Steele’s penis. They even offer some wagyu and kobe selections as well. TONS of variety.
Price: 9
Since we had that great Groupon, this was a bargain. While it wasn’t the best steak we’ve had, I still feel that we got a good bang for our buck here.
Bar: 8
The bar is perpendicular to the windows on the right as you walk in, but there are a few high tops along the windows for people watching. The location, 9th avenue and 34th/35th street, is not the best for hanging out, as it is close to what I call “the armpit of the city” (the Penn Station and Port Authority areas), but the bar does mix up some nice cocktails. Although the waiter or bartender got my martini order wrong (see service section below), it still tasted great.
Specials and Other Meats: 8
There were no specials read to us that I can recall (probably because they knew we were eating from the Groupon menu), but they do offer pork, lamb and chicken for people who have too much estrogen in their bodies to properly enjoy beef like real men with dicks between their legs.
Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8
We had baked clams and a crab cake to start.
I like that they give you eight clams per order (they split the clams up between us when they served them). The spicy butter and lemon breadcrumb stuffing was good, and the clams were whole, quality Little Necks, not chopped up cherrystones or bait clams that were then re-inserted into a clam shell that wasn’t its own. As for the crab cake, we loved the sauce in which it was served. It was like a reduced crab bisque soup mixed with vodka sauce. Very flavorful, and the top of the cake had a great crispy crust.
Our salads were next. My wife went with the farmers mixed greens. Some of the greens were soggy, wilted and probably rotten, so that was a bummer. Otherwise the salad had great flavor from the cranberries and pine nuts, and it was well dressed, so that’s a plus. My caesar was pretty standard.
On the side we had creamed spinach and mashed potatoes.
That pic is just a combined plate that I was eating from, not the full size portions. These were both pretty good, but nothing too stand out. I liked the potatoes better, which is reverse from my usual preference when it comes to these sides.
Seafood Selection: 8
There’s tuna, salmon, “day boat fresh catch” and surf & turf (lobster tail, shrimp or crab oscar with either a filet or strip). That’s a decent amount of shit in addition to the standard shellfish on the app menu. But if you’re ordering seafood for your main course at a steakhouse, you better have tits and a vagina, otherwise you are pretty much an asshole. Go home.
Service: 7
Unfortunately we had some slow service here. The staff was all nice, pleasant and courteous, but we found ourselves waiting a while to get drinks and order food. It picked up a bit after that, but it was slow to start. This was a little odd since the place wasn’t too crowded when we went at 6pm. A few other things I found to be odd or a bit off: (1) The steak sauce doesn’t come out to the table with the steak. You have to ask for it. We didn’t get sauce (not a problem, but I always like to taste it), and I overheard another table asking for it since they didn’t get it either. (2) Also there was no bread basket. Finally, (3) this time I ordered my martini on the rocks instead of up. They made it up instead. Not that big of a deal, but figured I’d mention it. I didn’t send it back, and it still tasted great.
Ambiance: 8
This joint is old school, where waiters wear bow ties, tables are covered in white cloth, and the decor consists of wood paneling, large mirrors, exposed brick, ornate chandeliers and a patterned tin ceiling. It’s a warm and inviting atmosphere, yet classy and elegant, without being pretentious. It’s a classic steakhouse look and feel.
UNCLE JACK’S (WEST SIDE)
440 9th Ave
New York, NY 10001
I haven’t written up a product review in a while. I suppose this shit falls more into the “service” category than the product category, but fuck it. It works, I guess, and I’m not about to make another goddamn separate page of reviews on my website that’s dedicated to “services” in the food world.
Any-fucking-way, a food buddy of mine, @NYCFoodFOMO, won an Instagram contest for a free private dinner prepared by a chef through CookUnity, a service that provides a chef that comes to peoples’ apartments and cooks a meal for them and their guests.
My buddy picked a crew of five more food fanatics, which included me, to eat the CookUnity contest prize meal. As you can see from the Boomerang clip below, this was right after I had just gazed into Medusa’s eyes.
Our chef, Isaac Friedman, did a great job with the meal, and we noticed that he even did the dishes before he left! Pretty sweet.
So we started with a Spanish mac and cheese, which was filled with chorizo, roasted piquillo peppers, caramelized vidalia onions and smoked paprika.
This shit was pretty killer. It was so good that I considered lathering my balls with the warm leftovers toward the end of the meal, but I thought that might be weird for Isaac to experience. The other guys probably would have been okay with it, though. Especially since they were totally comfortable taking pictures at weird, semi-erotic angles and in sexually suggestive positions.
Speaking of the other guys (@StuffBenEats, @FoodAndCity, @FoodMento, and my cousin PJ), I think we all found this mac to be our favorite course of the meal. With those ingredients, I half expected it to be too salty, but it wasn’t. The flavors were nice and smoky from the chorizo and paprika, with a pop of heat and great creamy cheese (several styles involved, including cheddar and jack).
For the main course we had Israeli style chicken schnitzel. This was served with a pilaf of mujaddara rice, beluga lentils and caramelized onions. There was also a marinated heirloom tomato salad and a delicious green herb tahini sauce.
The chicken stayed very tender, and the outer breading was perfectly crisp. The sweet and savory sauce added an interesting flavor element that tied the chicken in nicely with the sides. If you’re a man who loves chicken, then this dish is for you. And if you’re a man who loves making love to chicken, then all-star news anchor Ernie Anastos will tell you what to do:
Dessert was a cardamom spiced rice pudding, topped with toasted pistachios and a pomegranate-cherry reduction.
I was never a big fan of rice pudding, but I think now I’m a changed man. This was really fucking good! The cardamom and pistachio combo gave it a distinctly near-eastern flavor profile, and we were all raving about the sweet and tart cherry-pomegranate reduction sauce that was drizzled on top.
In sum, this is a pretty cool service. If this is in your budget (I have no idea what the pricing is like), and you don’t really have time to cook at home for your family, then this seems like a good solution.
Mouth is alive With juices like wine, And I’m hungry like the wolf. -Duran Duran
New York City and its surrounding ‘burbs are well known havens for killer sandwiches and all things tasty that get slapped on or between some kind of bread item. The subs of Long Island, the American heroes of the city proper, and the wedges, hoagies and grinders of Westchester and New Jersey… we have it all here.
In fact, over the centuries this glorious city has taken very kindly to the sandwiches of our rich and diverse immigrant communities, whether it’s Italian sausage and pepper sandwiches, Grecian lamb gyros, near-eastern falafel-stuffed pita, Vietnamese banh mi (with a touch of French colonial influence, of course), or tomato-, cream cheese- and lox-crammed bagels from the Jewish community. We truly are a melting pot that embraces different food cultures. Shit, even just a few weeks ago I had some nice Brazilian sandwiches and burgers in Astoria. The international sandwich community here just keeps expanding.
So what’s left? Which other cultures’ sandwiches are missing from the NYC foodscape? Enter Eastern Europe: Austria, to be precise. At least at first.
Duran Sandwiches was started by the Duran brothers, Tomas and Vladimir, in Vienna, 1969. From there, the family began operating bakeries and restaurants in the city. They later expanded to Hungary, Turkey and the Czech Republic in the 90’s. This joint on 27th and Madison is the first franchise to hit the USA. It’s operated by Hungarian-turned-American Tom Szebeni, who was a TV producer in Hungary, where he used to eat sandwiches at Duran during breaks from work.
It’s been open since October, and in my opinion the timing couldn’t have been better. “Elevated Toast” has been crushing the food world lately, trending hard, and the concept of Duran Sandwiches is to deliver light, open-faced, cold sandwiches that are clean and easy to eat, don’t fall apart or drip, and focus on high quality, delicious, natural ingredients that happen to be presented beautifully.
There are three different styles of bread: rye, pumpernickel and whole wheat. Vegan options are available, but the bulk of the menu showcases classic Austrian fare like sausages, salamis, sliced meats, cheeses and cream-based salads.
The sandwiches range from about $2.50 to $3.50 each, and there are nearly 40 different sandwiches you can choose from.
I was invited in for a press tasting by my friend Jay at The Dishelin Guide and Duran’s PR folks, Benvenuti. You guys know I’m brutally honest in my reviews. If something bugs me, I say it! And that’s regardless of whether it was free or for the press. I must say: I was really happy with this place. My first instinct was “I’m not going to get full, these sandwiches are too small.” But after about five I was stuffed. That’s only about $13-$15. Not bad at all! But then Tom kept feeding us more and more, and since they were so good we couldn’t stop! I think we ended up trying eight or nine in the store, and then Tom packed up a box of nine for each of us to go.
All in, I tried about 15 different sandwiches. They break down into three categories: meat, fish and vegetarian.
My favorite vegetarian sandwich was probably the the sun dried tomato and date sandwich. The fresh tomato and sun dried tomato had just the right amount of sweetness added in from the dates, and that struck a perfect balance. Pretty funny: The steak guy ended up loving the vegan option!
Sun Dried Tomato & Date: fresh tomato, sun dried tomato and dates.
As for the fish, I liked the salmon sandwich. Resting beneath the smoked salmon was a scoop of celery root salad that was really unique and flavorful. To me, this made for a much better cream element for the smoked salmon than the more familiar cream cheese. And, in fact, you can get just that celery root cream salad by itself, on its on sandwich, if you want.
Salmon: smoked salmon with celery cream, lettuce and dill.
My favorite of the meat sandwiches was the spicy Hungarian salami. It had great fat flavor content, it was super soft and tender, and had a really nice spice level to it. In fact I might have to find out where Tom gets the salami, so I can keep some stocked in my fridge at all times. If not I’ll just have to keep coming back here! I even got to sample the slices of salami by themselves back in the kitchen.
Spicy Hungarian Salami (left): spicy salami with Duran spread, boiled egg, cucumber and carrot.
Here are the others I tried:
Turkey Breast: carved turkey breast with horseradish cream, Duran spread, carrot and cucumber.
Roast Beef: carved roast beef with Duran spread, onion and chives.
Traditional Hungarian Salami (center): salami with Duran spread, boiled egg, cucumber, and carrot.
A salami sample from the kitchen:
Traditional Hungarian Sausage: paprika sausage with Duran spread, pickles, carrot, boiled egg and cucumber.
Salmon Caviar: salmon caviar with Duran spread, lettuce, boiled egg, tomato, cucumber and lemon.
Tuna Salad (right): tuna in water mixed with tuna in oil (makes for a very creamy tuna salad), with tomato, onion and lemon.
Lobster Salad (left): lobster salad, tomato and lemon.
Asparagus: pickled asparagus with farmer’s cheese, cucumber, boiled egg and tomato.
This place is a lot of fun, and it’s perfect for summer eating, since it’s cold, not messy, and easy to eat. In fact, if my wife and I ever throw another scotch party at our place, I’m going to cater it with Duran Sandwiches instead of busting my ass cooking for it! A large chunk of their business, both here and overseas, revolves around external catering, providing food for corporate functions, private parties, etc. The full-sized sandwiches lend themselves well to hors d’oeuvres or tapas, but Duran also caters bite-sized, circular versions of every sandwich for even easier, mess-free eating.
DURAN SANDWICHES
62 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10016
Here’s another restaurant week review for your asses.
For $42, my wife had a three course meal. The first course? A fucking salmon rillette.
This was pretty good. I apologize in advance, though. My pictures don’t look too good this time around. I had competing light color values from outside along the windows (blue) and inside from the overhead lighting (yellow/orange/red, with dark shadows). As a result, my photos look like dog diarrhea smeared onto a piss and blood-ridden diaper/maxi pad, but only the kind of diaper/maxi pad you see in commercials that use blue colored liquid to simulate blood and piss for some ridiculous reason.
But anyway that salmon rillette had a nice base of hard rye, topped with minced salmon and pickle, and some frisee and sliced beets. It had a good flavor and texture.
The main course was a bavette steak. If you don’t know what the fuck a bavette is, click the link I just provided and read up on it, asshole. It’s a cut of beef.
This was roasted to a nice medium rare, but I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of char on the outside. It was buttery and garlicky, which was good for flavor. However, the slices that I had were slightly under seasoned. I think it still gets 8/10, so there’s some room for improvement. It was served on a bed of potato puree with a side of green beans.
For dessert, there was this blackberry financier with brown butter ice cream.
The cake itself was a bit dry, but all the toppings served well to moisten it the hell up. Corn? And popcorn? Interesting! But the brown butter ice cream blob way the fuck on the right was the real star of the dish. I would have preferred a bowl of that instead.
Overall this is a pretty good deal for restaurant week. Lunch is always the better buy ($29), but you aren’t getting raped here for a $42 three-course dinner.
The couple we were with let us try a bit of their dessert as well, a chocolate ganache pie of sorts:
This was very rich and tasty. If chocolate is your vice, then this dessert is nice. That was a rhyme.
For my meal, I went with the “Frenchie” burger. If you’re in the area for a burger, you can go with PJ Clarke’s for a standard style American burger, or pop in here for something unique and different… and French.
This mother fucker is topped with raclette cheese and a thick goddamn slab of soft, confit pork belly! Bitches know what’s up! I think. I don’t know, actually… Do they know what’s up?
That’s arugula underneath, incase you were wondering. The patty was perfectly seasoned, and the bun was soft yet pliable and strong. Toppings, as you can imagine, were on point. The confit pork was like having a fast food burger patty made of belly (in terms of size) right on top of your already-delicious burger. Good move. This burger was pretty damn good, but it doesn’t quite make it into my top 10.
For $23, the burger also came with fries, which were some crispy-ass, natural cut, shoestring mother fuckers. I liked them.
Honorable mention: bread selection. We had three styles of table bread. First were small cheese bread things that reminded me of pop-overs in muffin form. They were warm too, like the pair of underwear that you just peeled off your sweaty, NYC-in-the-summer ass cheeks and tossed into the laundry pile. The other bread basket had slices of a sunflower seed sourdough bread of some kind, and a few slices of standard French baguette. All good quality, just like the writing in this review.
JWF is a dynamite place on the upper east side that serves up some really nice traditional British style pub fare. I’m talking everything from scotch eggs, to bangers and mash, to bubble and squeak, to toads in the holes (get your minds out of the gutter).
Me and two “mates” of mine (see how I used the language of the Brits there?) popped in for a quick look-around, and to try the burger. Here’s what we stumbled upon.
A beautifully renovated lower level:
A warm, friendly bar atmosphere:
And a fantastic fucking burger:
I’ll definitely be back up this way to try out some of their other menu items. But let me tell you: this burger comes in as one of the best I’ve had in the city so far. Really juicy. Bun could use a slight upgrade, but otherwise this shit is legit.
SECOND TRIP UPDATE – 8/1/16
The bun certainly got an upgrade in quality, but unfortunately the burger itself was a bit overcooked. It was a bit more like medium well than medium rare.
Fries were pretty great.
JONES WOOD FOUNDRY
401 E. 76th St.
New York, NY 10021
My cousins and I popped in here for a quick lunch yesterday, and I have to say, I was really impressed with the burger here.
It’s topped with melty raclette cheese, charred onions, fresh pickles and remoulade, and served on a potato onion roll. This thing was juicy, well seasoned, just the right thickness with toppings, and just all-around well put together.
It’s definitely a top ten burger, for sure. I later learned that this joint is also owned by the same folks that run Bar Sardine, so they clearly know their way around a burger. For $18, this baby comes with nice golden, crisp, natural cut French fries too.
They have tons of fresh shellfish on the menu, and particularly large variety of oysters. Those would actually pair perfectly with the drink I had, the michelada, which is beer, tomato juice, hot sauces, lime juice and pepper. It may not sound great, but I assure you, it is.
I’ll be back here for sure.
JEFFREY’S GROCERY
172 Wavery Pl
New York, NY 10014
