Tag Archives: roast pork

Casa Adela

Casa Adela is a local Alphabet City Puerto Rican joint that serves up some really delicious and wallet-friendly food.

It’s been recommended to me by several people, and my wife and I finally made it over to try it out. Here’s a quick Ride & Review video of the experience:

We started with the chicken chicharrones, which were AWESOME, especially with that West Indian scotch bonnet and papaya hot sauce.

Next up was the oxtail stew. This was really flavorful, and the oxtail itself was incredibly tender without being dried out. It was legitimately perfect.

The pernil was juicy as well, with a nice strip of crispy, sticky, fatty skin on top. Amazing! That was my favorite bite of the meal, with the oxtail just behind it.

This, too, went nicely with the hot sauce.

Lastly, we had a half roast chicken. The same red spice used on the fried chicken skin is also used on the roasted skin. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful and delicious.

This place is cash only and they do not offer delivery, so I think I’ll be making many more trips here with the bike to pick up food in the future.

CASA ADELA
66 Avenue C
New York, NY 10009

Olde City

First, check out my Ride and Review video of this joint.

Aight, let’s get into it.

Rumor has it, a former partner from Shorty’s struck out on his own after some creative differences. Behold, the birth of Olde City – in fact, Olde City has taken over this former Shorty’s space on Madison Avenue. While it may seem redundant, it isn’t. Shorty’s has gone downhill lately, and Olde City is better than Shorty’s ever was.

Here’s what we tried:

Authentic Philly Cheese – wiz wit. Absolutely delicious. I was almost going to add some American cheese to this, but I think the move for me next time will be “extra wiz.”

Roast Pork – my favorite item of the meal.

Slow cooked to perfection and thinly sliced, the pork is melt-in-your-mouth. Best paired with provolone cheese to contrast with the brightness of the broccoli rabe. I went for many dips into the au jus.

Mango Habanero Chicken Philly Cheese, with ghost pepper jack cheese. I was dead set on trying something different. This was really nice.

Contrary to what you might expect, I actually love chicken Philly cheesesteaks. Nevertheless, this one came in third behind the other two sandwiches.

We also had the Old Bay dry rub wings – a crispy hit!

Italian fries and beer battered onion rings rounded out the sides.

And, of course, great beer selection.

I’m a huge fan of this place, so I hope to be back to try their burgers and other sandwiches as well.

OLDE CITY
66 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

The Shakespeare

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.

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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.

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My wife had been here about a year ago and spoke highly of the burger, scotch egg and fish and chips.

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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.

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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.

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Make sure you try a Bloody Mary, too. They’re peppery and chock full of horseradish.

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This chilled gazpacho soup was really nice on such a hot day too.

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And for dessert, we tried the chocolate hazelnut mousse and sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream.

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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.

THE SHAKESPEARE
24 E 39th St
New York, NY 10016