short rib | Johnny Prime

Type 2 Creative and Be Fat Be Happy threw an awesome holiday bash at Tortaria to help promote the restaurant. But it ended up being the sort of unofficial holiday gathering for all of us foodporn slingers on Instagram.

Everyone slapped on hats and ugly sweaters to crank up the “festive” levels. This one, worn by @StuffBenEats, was by far the clear winner:

And he was even sporting some nice Mexican corn there, which looked like yellow Christmas trees covered with cheese-snow.

Here’s my sweater, in an awesome guac photo that Ben took:

A photo posted by Ben Hon (@stuffbeneats) on Dec 20, 2016 at 7:29pm PST

The guacamole here is tight, speaking of. Lots of flavor, and good restaurant quality chips and salsa to go with.

And the pitchers of margaritas? Slammable!

A few interesting new menu items were trotted out for us; the tortas (sandwiches). This one is made with thinly sliced fried eggplant, and topped with chipotle sauce, bacon and avocado. Really nice.

The one I was drawn to most, however, was this short rib torta:

This, too, is topped with avocado. There’s also lettuce, fried onion and jalapeno peppers on there as well.

And of course, tacos!

I’ll definitely be back here. This is a great place to just get blasted and eat your face off. Nothing pretentious about it!

TORTARIA
94 University Pl
New York, NY 10003

The Tang is a great little noodle bar on 1st Avenue at 7th Street. I was invited here for a PR event showcasing some of their current and forthcoming dishes. Everything I tasted was really fucking good, and, in fact, the noodle quality is probably the best I’ve had in town so far. They’re strong, thick, have a really nice texture and snap to them, and they’re really nicely flavored in all the dishes I tried.

The meats in all of these noodle dishes are outstanding, by the way. One had braised pork belly, one had sliced beef, and the other had ground meats.

Some of the soup noodle bowls are excellent too.

But this place is more than just noodles. One standout item was the sliced beef short rib. These babies are packed with a ton of flavor, and cooked so perfectly. You don’t see short rib presented like this too often, like a real cut of steak on a plate, so I am featuring it here for my steak reviews as well. Short rib can be fatty, and that’s why it is usually either grilled hard with tons of sauce, or braised. But here, it was leaner and notably excellent at medium rare temps, because it was cooked sous vide style for 20 hours. 8/10.

This place is really my speed, especially given this large format pork knuckle/shank dish that will be rolling out on the menu soon. It’s super soft and tender.