Tag Archives: fries

Satan’s Fried Chicken Sandwich

June 16, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Satan’s Fried Chicken Sandwich is a recipe I concocted for usage of Saint Lucifer Spice during my review of their product. If you can’t get your hands on their delicious shit, then substitute for some other pepper like cayenne powder. But I highly recommend their habanero garlic blend. It just works better.

What do you need, and how do you do it?

1) Grab a pack of thinly sliced chicken breast from the grocery store.

2) Crack a few eggs into a bowl and mix/scramble.

3) Create a breading mixture using a combination of Italian breadcrumbs, panko and a teaspoon of Saint Lucifer Spice.

4) Drag your chicken filets through the egg dredge and batter them with the spicy breadcrumbs.

5) Fry your chicken to golden brown in hot oil.

6) Hit your still-hot chicken with some more Saint Lucifer spice to lock in the seasoning after they come out of the fryer/hot oil.

7) As the chicken cools, quickly prep some lettuce, tomato, onion and sliced apple. Maybe some cooling cucumber as well, if you feel like it. As an alternative, you can do this step before you start cooking, but then the apples may bruise up and oxidize – unless you know to hit them with some lime juice to prevent that brown bullshit from happening.

Note: This step is for adding additional crunch and a little sweet juiciness to cut the spice. If you happen to have coleslaw laying around, you could simply use that. And if buying an apple is too much work for your lazy fucking ass, you can also use the pickles that have been sitting in your fridge, floating around in murky water like a shit that never got flushed.

8) Mix a few shakes of Saint Lucifer spice into some mayonnaise.

9) Apply some of that spiced mayonnaise onto each half of a potato bun. A soft, sweet bun is key, like Martin’s or King’s Hawaiian.

10) Assemble sandwich and eat.

If you’re ambitions, you can make some “conundrum fries” to go with this sandwich on the side: sweet potato french fries spiced with a few shakes of Saint Lucifer, once they come out of the oil. Do it, and then eat them with the remainder of your spicy mayo mixture from above. Why? Because fuck ketchup, that’s why.

Burgers, Flash Deals, Harlem, Upper West Side

Mel’s Burger Bar

June 13, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This upper west side/Harlem joint serves up some really great fucking burgers.

I was browsing Groupon last week because they hit me with a whopping $10 off coupon. I picked up this deal that normally would have cost $25: two burgers and a 64oz growler of beer. I applied my Groupon and nabbed it for a mere $15. That’s amazing. Essentially that’s four pints of beer and two burgers for the price of one burger. Here’s how it shakes out.

The growler was nice. We ordered an Ithaca Flower Power, which packed a whopping 8% ABV on us without being disgustingly hoppy.

Ignoring my buddy’s tasty looking California burger, I ordered a Cadillac burger, which had American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and bacon on a potato bun. That’s pretty much the perfect burger. Take a look at this piece of art:

Gorgeous, and it tasted as good as it looked, cooked to a perfect medium, juicy, crispy patty, crunchy toppings…

I’ll definitely be back here again. I really enjoyed this place, and I think it’s probably in my top 10 burgers.

The fries were $4, separate and apart from the burger, but they were really nicely cooked and seasoned with salt and pepper. One order was enough to share between two people, in my opinion, especially with two beers each.

MEL’S BURGER BAR
2850 Broadway
New York, NY 10025

American, Burgers, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, West Village

Minetta Tavern

April 27, 2015 Johnny Prime 4 Comments

After coming here a few times for drinks back in the day, the place has taken on new ownership. Now there is a massive buzz about their amazing “Black Label Burger,” so I had to give it a try.

My wife and I decided to sit at the bar for our meal.

We started with a pair of cocktails. For me, it was the Bull Shot, which was made with vodka, oxtail broth, lemon, and worcestershire sauce. It was really great, and super manly.

My wife had a spicy bloody Mary with jalapeños, southwest spices, pickled okra, celery, and pickled green bean. It tasted very fresh.

We ordered the Black Label Burger, which, for $28, comes with a shit load of fries. I didn’t realize, though, that it didn’t have any cheese. That sucked.

Anyway the burger meat was perfectly cooked to medium rare (even though I ordered medium), and the sear on the outer crust was crispy and packed with crunchy meat flavor. It was topped with sautéed onions and I also put the lettuce and tomato on top as well.

The fries are the best I’ve ever had. For real. And they give you enough to feed three people with ease. These are so perfectly seasoned and so crispy, that you may be tempted to run to the bathroom quick and jerk off thinking about how good that first fry was before going back for more.

Speaking of jerk-sauce, they are served up with a really nice house made mayonnaise. Very nice. Contrast with the hellishly disgusting pickle they serve alongside the burger. Thank God it wasn’t already ON the burger. It was a sweet pickle, but flavored with cinnamon or some nonsense. Eww. All in all, a great meal. The Minetta Burger is served with cheese and costs over $10 less. Maybe next time I will try that. Cheese is absolutely necessary on a burger. Anyone who tells you otherwise can go fuck themselves.

SECOND VISIT

On a second visit, my wife and I had a psychotic meal with the man behind The Dishelin Guide and the Dish Envy app, which is soon to be released for public consumption. This was sort of a two-way celebration. First, it’s been four years to the day since I started this blog; and second, for our friend’s app.

Alright enough bullshit. Let’s get down to business on this fucking incredible food we had. As an appetizer, we shared the black label burger. Our food companion had never tried it before, and I was convinced that my last experience could be better. We added cheddar cheese to it, because every burger needs cheese. It isn’t steak – it’s a burger, people! With that addition, I was correct. This was WAY better than my last burger here. Juicy, perfectly cooked, and really great with the melted cheese. You could still easily pick up all the great beef flavors going on in the grind.

The three of us shared both the cote de boeuf and the pork shank. Take a look at this fucking delicious chunk of beef. It comes with two hulking marrow bones and a wedge of salad. Who cares about that bullshit? Not me, so I didn’t photograph the salad. Anyway they present it to you like this before they take it back to slice it up:

Here’s the slice job. Very beautifully plated:

The meat had a great crust all over and was still nice and pink throughout the eye of the meat. The fat cap was a bit underwhelming and gristled, but the flavor of the eye made up for that in spades. If this was a legit steakhouse review, the score would probably be a 9 for flavor. I’ve had better, but this is just a really impressive dish to pull off on a regular basis. We need to give credit where credit is due. Well done, Minetta Tavern. Delicious.

My wife took down most of the pork shank. Unfortunately the skin didn’t get crispy like we expected, but the meat was fork tender and really tasty.

On the side we had these really nice potatoes that were described as “punched.” Basically, baked, crisped and flavored with rosemary salt and garlic while being pressed. I absolutely loved them, but I was so focused on the meat that I didn’t get a chance to really savor my portion. I just kinda wolfed it between bites of meat.

For dessert we tried the cold nougat ice cream pie thingy. It was really nice, almost marshmallowy in texture on top, and with the flavor of a cold candy bar on the bottom. It was topped with a chocolate cherry sauce and some crushed pistachios.

Here’s the William:

Oh and I slammed one of these too. haven’t had one in years and it was fucking great. I will need to stock up the fridge at home now:

MINETTA TAVERN
113 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012

Burgers, Flash Deals, Other, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

La Frite

March 2, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

La Frite is a little french fry joint on Macdougal just above Bleecker. They have a great $8 special that gets you two sliders and an order of fries. Not too bad.

But my wife and I actually liked the veggie slider (the actual veggie one, not the black bean one) better than the beef slider! Go figure.

For the fries, you can cheese regular or thin cut, and you can also get them “signature” style, with bacon crisps on top, or truffle fries (sprinkled with parmesan cheese and fried with truffle oil involved in the process). We tried thin truffle fries, and regular classic cut fries. We liked the thin cut truffle fries better, though we didn’t try any of the special dipping sauces (just mayo and ketchup).

I don’t know that I’d go out of my way for these fries. There are better around the city, but I like the idea of a french fries only type of place.

LA FRITE
99 Macdougal St.
New York, NY 10014

Burgers, Flash Deals, Midtown East, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Nelly Spillane’s

January 25, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I snatched a Groupon for this joint. For about $20 we dug in on an app to share, two sandwiches/burgers, and a pitcher of beer. Pretty sweet deal, and the place has some good deals anyway for the daily specials. We started with a pitcher of Yuengling.

Here’s the app we shared – some standard wings. Nothing really bad or good to say about them. They were average.

The burger was ehh.

I feel like the meat may have been overworked. When mixing that chopped meat, one has to be careful not to over mix that shit, otherwise the resulting patty will be uniform in texture and sometimes can be tough. It wouldn’t surprise me if this joint uses frozen patties.

Fries were good and crisp, but not seasoned enough.

My wife’s grilled chicken sliders were excellent. Though a bit dry, they were generous in portion size and adequately cheesed up. The downside here was the salad that came with her trio of sliders. It was just sub par, at best.

To sum up: not bad if you’re in a bind and if you have that Groupon. If not, hop across to the west side of 33rd and hit Smashburger if you need that burger fix.

NELLY SPILLANE’S
18 E. 33rd St.
New York, NY 10016

American, Burgers, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

Corner Bistro

December 20, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Corner Bistro has long been hailed as one of the best places in NYC for a burger. About 12 years ago I sunk my teeth into a burger here, and only just recently had the chance to come back and try it again.

Most beers are under $4, and the bloody Mary was $7.

The hype is well placed. It IS a great burger and a very fair price (Bistro Burger for under $10). It was nicely cooked, but could benefit from slightly fewer raw onion circles and perhaps a second slice of cheese.

The fries were nicely golden, but lacked a little salt. Nearly perfect.

Better eating experience overall at Gotham West Market, despite the ambiance not being even close to the original. Also tots beat fries here.

CORNER BISTRO
331 W. 4th St.
New York, NY 10014

American, Burgers, Chelsea, French, Fusion, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Montmartre

December 8, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSING IN MARCH OF 2016!!!

A waiter named Jeremy over at Capital Grille (midtown west) recommended this place when we got to chatting about the city’s best burgers. He certainly knew his food shit, so I was excited to finally get here to try the burger. The same owners are involved with Bar Sardine, which also slings an excellent burger, so I knew I’d be in good hands at the very least.

Jeremy’s suggestion was a good one! This baby, although slapped between two buttery pieces of sourdough toast (as opposed to on a proper bun), was packed with great flavor. The meat is dry aged beef, and it was seared to a perfect temperature: pink center, good crust all around to lock in the juices, and well seasoned. Above and beneath the patty is a bernaise cheese spinach and pickled onions, respectively. Loved every bite. The bernaise cheese brought a little funk to the party (with a nice nod to steakhouse “creamed spinach,” I might add), and the pickled onion was a great twist on the much needed acid. The fried were natural cut, nice and crispy, and well seasoned with herbs and sea salt. Take a look at this shit:

UPDATE AS OF 8/25/15

My wife and I stopped in for a quick dinner after a Tabelog event nearby. We kept it pretty basic. First was a nice snack of fresh radishes with country bread, whipped butter and salt flakes. The radishes were actually pretty spicy and had a great pop to them.

My wife had the mussels. Many of them were pretty small inside the shell. I don’t like them too big, but I also don’t like them too small. The broth had some fresh herb notes to it, like maybe tarragon. I’ve had better mussels elsewhere, but that’s not to say that these were bad by any means.

I ordered the hanger steak frites. It was perfectly cooked to medium rare and had a good sear on the outside. The sauce with it was garlicky and gave it pop. The texture of the meat was slightly off. It reminded me of some of the odd meats my wife and I used to get in Mexico from the resorts. Almost like it was over tenderized using an MSG type of product. I’m sure that’s not what was done here, but it just had that feel to it. Otherwise I liked it. I’d say its about a 7 out of 10, possibly an 8.

MONTMARTRE
158 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10011

Burgers, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Pete’s Tavern

November 9, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Pete’s is the oldest continuously operating establishment in NYC. It opened in 1864 and has not closed or switched locations since.

What’s cool here is that the old cashier’s cage is still right there at the end of the bar. It used to be that the cashier would sit in the cage with the money/register to be protected from being robbed.

They even have this funny old sign for how to live on $15 a week:

The bartender Phil was awesome too; really friendly guy, easy to talk with, outgoing and generally just made the place a great spot to hang out. I hadn’t ever been in here before (shame on me), but he suggested coming back around Christmas time when the lights are up at the bar. Definitely. Thanks Phil!

Anyway we saw this burger on the menu and figured it had to be tried for our second burger of the night:

It turned out to be a bit of a let down. The meat was excellent, as to be expected, but there was not enough cheese. Also the tomato was sliced too thick – almost as thick as the burger patty. The waffle fries were done perfectly though.

A friend of mine met up with me and my buddy here while we were eating before he met with some broad for a date. He was hungry too, so he ordered the regular burger and we all shared:

This was much better eating: definitely better than the huntsman burger. Although my buddy was a little cranked about a pricing discrepancy (bar menu on the wall that he ordered from did not match the printed menu that he was charged from), and the burger was cooked a little under how he wanted it (I would have been fine with that temp – look at it – it looks perfect!), it was indeed a good burger. I think I would take the Old Town burger over this one though, but it was close.

In sum, this was an amazing bar to hang out in. It’s an absolutely amazing piece of NYC history, and it will definitely stay that way with staff like Phil at the bar, who make the place even better.

If burgers ain’t your thing, then try one of their extremely fair-priced brunch deals that range from $12-$15 for three courses, or maybe their delicious corned beef sandwich:

PETE’S TAVERN
129 E. 18th St.
New York, NY 10003

Burgers, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Old Town

November 9, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Old Town is one of NYC’s oldest and most awesome bars. It opened in 1892 and has remained relatively unchanged since.

Even the urinals are old, and big (for big cocks): the kind that used to be at the Village Idiot, Ear Inn, Gallagher’s and Pastis.

Anyway the burger here is supposed to be pretty good, as is the burger over at Pete’s down the block, so my buddy had the brilliant idea that we set out to try a few burgers in the area in one night. We ended up hitting three places, because we have massive balls swinging between our legs. Here is the Old Town burger:

This was easily the best burger of the night. Juicy, nicely cooked, a good amount of cheese. Nice and simple. The only down side was that the fries were a bit under-seasoned, and the bun was a little hard or crumbly after toasting. Stick with the potato bun!

OLD TOWN
45 E. 18th St.
New York, NY 10003

Burgers, Flash Deals, West Village

Joy Burger Bar

September 13, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

So I got this sweet ass Groupon deal for the west village location of Joy Burger Bar.

I paid under $10 for two burgers and two shakes or fries. My buddy and I mixed it up a bit. We got one shake, one fries, and added an order of o-rings. It was also two for one beers during happy hour so we nabbed a pair of fucking Blue Moons as well.

I had a “midi” (5oz) burger with American cheese, jalapeño peppers, lettuce, onion, tomato and spicy mayo. Shit was good, but the burger was a little beyond medium. Thank God for melty cheese. Fries were better than mediocre – good seasoning but not as crispy as I like. Onion rings were delicious, and the shake was killer (B&W, bitch).