We scored a sweet Gilt City deal for this place: $30 gets you a bucket of suds (six of either Bud, Bud Light, or Coors Light – you can also mix and match), and a pair of burger plates.
I went with the Proper Burger, which was topped with cheddar and bacon. It was cooked just right – a perfect medium. I’ve had better burgers, but for the price/deal, this was a great buy.
The fries were perfect – a nice crispy golden brown, but still soft inside, and well seasoned.
My buddy went with the black & blue burger on the bartender Kyle’s recommendation (great bartender, by the way), which is topped with blue cheese and caramelized onions. As you can see below, his was undercooked a bit (he ordered medium), but he still loved the flavors.
Decently decorated inside – slightly high end-esque, but comfortable. Also a good amount of TVs.
I’ve walked by this joint a million times and never thought twice about entering.
But a buddy and me decided to stroll in and try the burger. I thought it was going to be a fucking tourist trap shithole, but I was wrong. The inside is spacious, and actually nice.
The burger here is incredible.
Better than Rosie O’Grady’s nearby, better than P.J. Carney’s as well. In fact, I’d say it is one of the best burgers in midtown. The patty had a great crunchy crust on the outside edges. it was cooked properly to my “medium” specification. It was thick but not too thick that you can’t add toppings, and the cheese ratio was just right. Bun was strong and pliable as well. The only thing I didn’t like was the lettuce (garden mix as opposed to iceberg). I also swapped out cheddar for American cheese.
My buddy got a “chicken burger,” which was essentially some chicken breast pounded flat and breaded/fried, then topped with ham and swiss, and smeared with some thousand island dressing.
The fries were also excellent here as well. Crispy, natural cut, golden-brown twigs of awesome.
Those are a few of the things I hear pretty regularly from people who follow the blog.
“Are you Bulimic? Do you spit the food out?”
“What’s your dieting trick? Atkins?”
Those are some questions I get from people who have only met me in the past few years and have seen my loss of weight.
I figured it was time to post an official response to these sorts of questions here for all to see. I guess the best thing to do is start at the beginning:
I was always a skinny dude growing up. In fact my whole family is skinny. We are those people that everyone hates: we can pretty much eat whatever we want, not work out or exercise, and stay skinny (the women in my family might beg to differ, but that’s just how broads are). My dad, at his fattest, was 122lbs after he quit smoking and retired. I came out of high school at about 115lbs, maybe 120lbs. Coming out of college, I was the biggest in the family. I was the tallest at 5′ 10″ and heaviest at about 150lbs (I grew taller in college, by about 4 inches). At the peak of my youth, I looked like this:
Feel free to mock this photo all you want. I do.
Then it all went to shit. After I graduated law school things changed. My life became sedentary with the beginning of my career, sitting at a computer desk for 8-12 hours at a pop. No walking around, no fun with friends playing sports, and I was NOT the working out or running type.
My mid to late 20s hit and suddenly 150lbs became 175lbs. I wasn’t too concerned at the time. It actually felt good to have a little meat on my bones. I felt normal around people instead of being “holy shit I can see your ribs” skinny. I had just met and fallen in love with my future wife. I was comfortable, and not looking to impress anyone. Girlfriend became fiancé, and fiancé became wife (and wife became Cake Dealer). Meanwhile the steakhouse quest had started, so 175lbs became 180lbs, and 180lbs became 185lbs, then 190lbs and 195lbs… you get the picture… And I also started losing my hair! That sucked. A bald spot meant it was time to take it all down and accept being hairless. That made me bald and getting fat. Eww. A horrible double whammy. I was becoming George Costanza.
A random visit to the doctor revealed that I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and borderline diabetes. I was put onto some blood pressure meds for a few months while I tried to diet. The timing was good here (2008-2009) because my and my wife’s wedding was approaching. I was probably around 180-185lbs for the wedding, which was in April of 2009. I had lost 10-15lbs and was generally keeping it off.
The steakhouse quest was slowed if not halted. Until two things happened: (1) a trip to New Orleans, where all I wanted to do was eat and try everything in sight. Muffuletta sandwiches, beignets, gumbo, po’ boys and all that fantastic shit.
The diet was out the window at that point. Then, (2) we moved from NYC to Long Island after the wedding in the Summer of 2009. Three hours of my day had suddenly been sucked out of existence and lost to the horrors of the LIRR commute.
The first thing to go was home cooked meals. The last thing I wanted to do at 8:00pm when I got home from work was to cook a “sensible meal,” and then clean up afterward. By the time I finished eating and cleaning it would be close to 11:00pm, and my alarm was going off at 5:00am to catch a 6:09am train. Fuck that. Fuck ALL of it.
In my defiance of all things healthy, and with a raging middle finger held high to the LIRR, I re-started the quest for great steakhouses, all the while keeping notes and a list of places to go next. In April of 2011 I decided to put my notes into a blog format, and, eventually, here we are today.
But from mid-2009 to December 31, 2013 I was blowing up like a balloon. I never thought I could be a 200lb person, yet by the end of 2013 I was pushing fucking 220lbs! What a fat fucking bastard! I’d go up a flight or two of stairs and feel winded, my heart would race, and I felt weak. I was killing myself.
So I made a New Year’s resolution to lose some weight and get in shape. My target weight, at first, was 185lbs. At my heaviest I was 218lbs, so that meant a serious effort. I was looking at BMI (body mass index) calculators to see where someone my age, height, and activity level should be, and I was shocked. To get down to the high end of the acceptable BMI range for my frame, I needed to be about 175lbs. I didn’t think I’d get there, but I did. Here’s how:
I woke up early every morning to run on the treadmill. In the beginning I was going two miles in 20 minutes. Pathetic. Eventually I was doing three miles in 30 minutes, or switching off to do some stationary bike cycling to mix it up. Still a pretty bad pace, but at least I was going for longer. I did this every day, with the exception of weekends. Once the weather got nicer I was running outside. I liked this a shitload better than the treadmill. In fact, I found that my pace was quickening, and I was going for longer distances.
I also switched my diet up drastically. I was counting calories. In the beginning I was trying to keep it well under 2000 calories per day, that way I would get the ball rolling on the weight loss. I thought of the calories like money. I had $2000 in my wallet for each day. If a candy bar cost $300, was it worth it? Or would it be better to spend that $300 on fish and a veggie, getting more food for my dollar? Lunch was typically carrots and celery, raw, with hot sauce to dip. Or pre-portioned serving sizes of nuts, dried fruit, trail mix, etc. Other lunches included Greek yogurt, or simply cooked veggies (steamed with seasoning, or sautéed in garlic and oil).
For dinner, I tried to double the veggie portion and half the meat portion, and always tried to watch the number of calories and serving size. More chicken, fish, or lean meats. Less grains, fatty meats, sugars, breads and starch. High fiber, low calorie, low carbs. I was also eating slowly. Fiber tricks your body into thinking it’s full, and it takes 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach that it’s full. Eat slowly and get full before you gorge yourself. Otherwise, that’s how over-eating happens.
Portion control was key though. If I needed a snack, I was hitting on nuts, dried fruit, yogurt or an occasional Fiber One snack bar – ALWAYS in the proper portion size as per the nutritional labels, and keeping my daily intake under 2000 calories. I tried to limit myself to two snacks per day: one between lunch and dinner, and one after dinner if necessary.
It was fucking tough. I was irritable at first. But I banged it out, and lost a shitload of weight in the first month; something like 25lbs. I kept this diet and exercise routine up for three or four months without changing too much up. If I ate a larger dinner, sometimes I would double up on my running for the day to shave off some of the extra calories out of pure guilt. This is analogous to working overtime to earn a little extra calorie dollars to spend.
Suddenly I was down 40lbs in four months. That meant I could normalize my diet a bit and just focus on maintaining weight instead of losing. I had hit my initial target, pretty much, but part of me wanted to push it more, to get into that “BMI” range of health and fitness. I still kept my lunches light, but dinner was pretty much a free for all (yay for steaks!). I didn’t do much snacking, but when I did, I tried to make sure I don’t go overboard.
The final pounds were the slowest to come off. My wife and I moved back to the city in the summer of 2014, so I continued my running in Central Park. Eventually I upped the daily average to five miles a day, typically in about 37-40 minutes, and only taking one day off per week instead of two. I was burning more calories, and occasionally doing ten mile runs (once a week) or even half marathons (once a month). That meant I could eat more (more calorie $$$ to spend each day), yet I was still losing weight. PERFECT! I shed even more weight. I donated all of my fat-guy clothes to charity, and broke out some of my older, skinny-guy clothing, as well as picked up some new stuff. I went from a 37 inch waist to a 32.
LEFT: me on 12/21/13. RIGHT: me on 12/25/14.
I currently fluctuate in my daily weight between about 168lbs and 173lbs (generally we are lighter in the mornings). So I’m down about 50lbs from the start! I still weigh myself several times per day. Constantly knowing what I weigh is important to me, because it helps me manage my weight. I’m in the proper BMI range, and I’m in the best physical shape of my life. I place no restrictions on my dinner meals. I still keep to a light lunch, unless I plan on burning more calories with a longer run that day. Snacking is still generally kept to a minimum, but I am not afraid to partake. All I do now is run and watch my lunch and snack intake, and I can eat anything I want for dinner. If I can do it, anyone can.
So what do you call this “diet” that I followed? I don’t know. It’s part Atkins, part “paleo,” part portion control and lots of good old fashioned exercise.
As for my cholesterol, I don’t know. Back in my fat-guy days, it was 169 for LDL and 259 total. As of February of 2014, which was only two months into my diet, it was down to 126 for LDL and 205 total. Improvement. No idea what it is now; hopefully much better. But I couldn’t care less.
My first encounter with a Johnny Rocket’s was back in about 2000 in Hoboken, NJ. I liked the concept of a throwback, old school, all-American diner/burger and shake joint. Now that burgers and this restaurant concept is high on NYC foodie radar, I felt like it was time to give respect to a company that was ahead of its time.
My wife and I popped into the Third Avenue & 56th Street location with a special deal that my wife nabbed for $10 or something crazy. Basically we got to choose any two burgers, any two types of fries or onion rings, and any two shakes.
The place was booming with feel-good music from the 50s and early 60s. The decor was classic chrome and vinyl. As a fan of this era (cars, music, attire, etc), I was in a happy place.
I know this place is a chain, and it’s not Jean le Roquet or some French burger bistro. But let’s be honest here. If something tastes good, what the fuck does it matter?
Check out how delicious my classic double American cheeseburger looks, with jalapeños, shredded lettuce, sliced tomato and chopped onion looks. This place is so far the ONLY burger joint in NYC that knew to put a smear of mayonnaise on the bottom bun to prevent burger juice destruction. I was impressed.
The patties were just a shade overcooked for my liking, at medium-well instead of medium, but then again I was never even asked how I’d like my burger cooked. You may have noticed, I went with the onion rings. They had a nice crispy batter on them, they were well seasoned, not too big, and not mushy inside. Perfect for me.
My wife got the “12” burger, which I believe came with sliced onion and cheddar. She also opted for cheese fries, which were pretty nice as well.
Shakes are presented in the classic 50s/60s style, in old style Coke glasses with the metal glass holder, and a stainless mixer cup that contains some overflow extra shake. These were filling! But delicious. I went with a vanilla-chocolate mix, and my wife went with a chocolate-strawberry mix.
Overall I will just say this: the prices are extremely reasonable for NYC food, and if you’re a food elitist then you may be missing out on good food. They do a good job here so don’t walk on by just because the name is synonymous with the food court in the mall, ESPECIALLY if you score a sweet deal like my wife did.
My wife and I dropped into this joint on our way to Philly, so this isn’t a NYC joint. We were shocked to see an Asian market and two Vietnamese restaurants right in the same strip mall. We had to try the basics.
The soup was great, better than most NYC places for damn sure. Its unfortunate how bad NYC is with Viet food.
The sandwich was kickass too. The bread was correct, and they used a good ratio of the various meats inside.
And my favorite dessert of all time: the avocado shake. Delicious.
My wife and I came here with two other couples for a late night dinner tasting on New Year’s Eve. My overall impression was that the food was good, though there were definitely a few missteps along the way. I’d certainly eat here again from the regular menu. Perhaps the tasting menu was just a bit too ambitious, not to mention that it took a really long time to get through (the place was PACKED on NYE). I really liked the decor of this joint. It used to be a stationary store, from what I hear, that burned down and was later reopened as the restaurant. The space is wide open, has a European look and feel with a large rear wine bar, horizontally oriented subway tiles and exposed brick on the walls, and beamed, exposed wood ceilings.
Okay so on to the good shit, the shit that matters. The food. The joint is Italian, but there is definitely a more northern influence to the style, and even some American twists.
Here’s the menu we were served:
First I will show you the table breads. These assorted rolls came with a sweet honey butter that was likely mixed with ricotta.
The “assaggi” was essentially a fried rice ball made with faro grains instead of rice. It was really nicely executed. Juicy and earthy inside, crisp and light on the outside.
Next were the veggie offerings. I liked the beet dish. It was fresh and had a citrus pop to it.
The sunchoke soup was delicious, though I tasted more of a potato leek type of profile as opposed to the distinct, unique sunchoke that I love. A portion of the cup was crusted with pistachio nuts.
The rabbit/carrot/maple dish threw me for a loop. I couldn’t taste the rabbit or find a meat texture, although I definitely tasted something salty/savory. It was more of a foam or airy puree dish than something solid. The carrot was nice and the maple made it shine as the star of the plate. The stick looking thing coming out the left side is a dried crispy carrot shaving or slice.
The next plate contained both seafood selections; an oyster with a grapefruit foam, and some thinly sliced octopus atop a crisp, flatbread made from chic peas. I liked these both very much, though I may have preferred to taste JUST the oyster without any added citrus.
For the meat and cheese selections, we started with a burrata beggar’s purse filled with caramelized tomato jam and basil puree. This was pretty good, though I may have just rather had a blob of burrata with a little honey and olive oil. When people start taking that wonderful cheese and turning it into a vessel for holding other shit, they ruin the texture and deliciousness of the cheese.
The beef tartare with egg and caviar was more like a mini-burger with the bread involved. I would have liked it better if it was on a single, thin slice of toasted bread as opposed to being on a bun. Otherwise it was good.
The fois gras was excellent. The pomegranates probably were not needed. Perhaps maybe some caramelized onion jam or some pickled items would have been a better choice to pair with it.
The baby bow tie pasta with rock shrimp and lemon was good, but there was a bit of a bitter aftertaste due to the lemon. Otherwise it was a nice dish.
The gnudo (a pasta-less raviolo), however, was probably the best item of the night, and it came with a nice helping of shaved truffle to really give it that earthy depth. Awesome.
Next came a shot of chilled kale juice with blood orange to cleanse the palate.
The first of the main dishes was bay scallops with mushrooms and a sea urchin sauce. The urchin was a little overpowering, so I wasn’t too much of a fan. The scallops were cooked perfectly though. I just wish they used a sea scallop rather than bay scallops.
Another favorite of the night was the porchetta. While my wife had a few dry slices, mine was excellent, and the center piece was dark meat that had a real great crisp and flavor to it. Good fat content as well, and it was even served with what is one of the best pork rings I’ve ever had.
Desert was somewhat of a letdown, although it did have its moments. First was a chocolate ice cream soda with devil’s food and candied orange. I liked the soda/ice cream portion, but didn’t like the devil’s food and orange bit. When you live with The Cake Dealer, you get spoiled as far as baked items go.
The other dessert, which was intended to be creative and skillfully prepared, was pretty much a disaster as far as everyone at our table was concerned. The cake portion beneath would have been fine on its own, or with a more normal, natural topping. The blood orange item was a chemically induced film that had an awkward texture – like the skin that forms on top of jello. Ugh. It was sort of a shitty way to end the meal.
However, an even shittier way to end a meal is seeing this whopper at the end. Yikes! Too many bottles of wine (they don’t serve hard liquor).
In sum, I probably wouldn’t go back for a tasting menu, but I would certainly try some of the more traditionally prepared items. The stuff where they tried to be Richard Blaise just fell short.
Here’s a shameless photo-dump of some mouth watering scenery at Eataly, Flatiron’s legendary Italian food market. I suggest coming here for a long day. Get lunch, walk around, taste shit, walk around some more, taste more shit, and then sit for dinner. Enjoy the food porn, you bastards.
Front signage:
Hallway: like a department store for food.
Desserts:
Signage for what looks like a great roasted meats sandwich joint:
CHEESE!
Nice looking seafood:
“Meat: restaurant:
Shellfish:
Eaters:
Of course I managed to find the meat counter:
Pasta shelves. There are rows and rows of aisles like this.
In the annals of not-quite-ramen joints that use the word “ramen” in their name to draw in Ippudo and Totto overflow business in the midtown west area, Puff Cha has to be one of the best.
The place is small inside, with seating for a maximum of 18 guests, but it is very nicely and basically decorated. Colorful.
Like Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns “Ramen,” Puff Cha serves up a bunch of dry and soup noodle dishes, among other things like Thai curry puffs and bubble teas. These are essentially empanada-like puff pastry dough turnovers filled with all sorts of goodies. We tried the Korean BBQ varietal, which was okay but I imagine their signature Thai offerings are much better.
We also dabbled into their chicken wings, which, despite not being as crispy as I like, were definitely nice and flavorful, with a soy-based sticky sauce coating them.
We tried some lunch specials since we were both off from work and wandered in for the deal. I tried the roast pork noodle soup, which was really awesome.
The broth was packed with flavor, yet thin and clear. It was served with thinly sliced roast pork, fresh baby bok choy, scallions, cilantro, and a fried egg roll wrapper of some sort. The noodles were ramen style, and cooked just right.
My soup came with a spring roll too, which was decent. Not greasy, and very light.
My wife tried a “mock duck” in Thai peanut curry sauce, which was surprisingly delicious and very reminiscent of actual fatty duck skin. Nicely done! It was served with rice, baby bok choy, and a bowl of clear fish broth.
My wife’s dish came with a steamed dumpling, which was definitely more Thai or Vietnamese flavored as opposed to Chinese.
The greatest part of this meal was discovering that they have fresh, lightly pickled spicy jalapeño peppers and red onions in a dish for adding to your soups or rice/noodle dishes. Awesome!
In the back, they have a counter-top display case with some homemade desserts that looked simple and nice as well.
Very affordable – especially during the lunch deal times (until 4pm).
I’ll preface this little write-up by noting that I only came here to try this brilliantly conceived mash-up of Japanese and Italian – a fusion that was best made in Super Mario Bros. – only this time it was in the food world rather than the video game world. For a limited time Maialino was serving what they called Roman Ramen at the bar. I heard about it here. Now it’s gone! You’re all too late. I tried to warn you on FB.
Okay, so Maialino’s “Roman Ramen” uses farro noodles in a pork broth, with a thick slice of porchetta, black pepper oil, some shaved greens, and, of course, a soft-boiled egg to achieve the most perfect ramen fusion dish one could possibly imagine. Everything just fits well. The noodles reminded me a little bit of the rye style noodles from Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop. They had a nice bite and texture to them. The pork maybe could have been braised better, as there was a slight bit of chew to it, but I didn’t mind so much because the flavor was really outstanding. It was distinctly Italian in flavor but Japanese in delivery. Another ingredient suggestion would be some kind of fungus. Like the Japanese, Italians are quite fond of mushrooms (remember – they are all over Super Mario Bros.): So perhaps some thin sliced raw baby bellas or julienne cut cooked portobellos would fit nicely in this bowl. At only $10 it’s a good deal too. The black pepper oil really sets this bowl apart from the others. I need to locate this stuff ASAP because I can no longer live without it.
Year 2: pork was more thinly sliced, which I ended up liking even better, as it reminded me of prosciutto. Broth was a little more substantial and deep in flavor. Mo’ betta greens, like arugula and some herbs. Still no mushrooms, and this time was a little lighter on the pepper oil (I was a little bummed about that but it was still fucking great).
I washed this bitch down with some Italian brew too – pretty good:
As a side note, the regular menu for this place looked incredible. I’ll definitely be back.
On a second trip, my wife and I came for the lunch price fix menu. For $35 you get any app, any prime or second item for your entree, and biscotti.
For the apps, we chose fried artichokes and the octopus with beans. Both were excellent. The artichokes were crispy and lemony, and the octopus was charred nicely. I’ve had softer octo before, but this was definitely still good.
For the entrees, my wife went with the malfatti, which is a broad pasta noodle that was served in a lemony brown butter sauce with suckling pig. This was great. The pasta was perfectly cooked al dente and the pig was tender and flavorful.
Of course I chose the roasted sirloin for my dish. It was cooked perfectly to medium rare, and it still had a great charred crust on the edges. It was served with onions and potatoes: classic.
I also had to try the cavatelli with escarole and beans. Cavatelli is my favorite pasta, and escarole and beans is one of my favorite classical Italian peasant dishes. They did a great job here. It really reminded me of my mother’s cooking.
I sopped a lot of the nice juices up with the delicious table breads:
The only down side to the meal was the slowness in service. They were really busy, so it took very long to get each course. And they also nearly forgot to bring out the biscotti until I reminded them.
I’m generally not a huge fan of biscotti, or really any Italian cookies for that matter, but the flat, soft gingerbread cookie underneath was really delicious.
Not a bad bill for all we were able to try:
And in a really nice ambiance at that. I love the restaurant. It feels rustic yet elegant all at the same time.
UPDATE 6/5/17
THE BURGER IS BACK! Maialino is once again serving up their special burger, available at the bar from 12-2pm, and then from 10:30pm to close. It’s a delicious patty topped with gorgonzola and crispy pancetta, sitting on a rosemary brioche bun with lettuce and onion. Absurdly good.
MAIALINO
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10010
This is more of a pictorial of a psychotically awesome meal I made for my wife as opposed to an actual recipe.
I started by prepping the cold dishes. The first course was simple: slice up some red onion, take some capers out of the jar, unpack age the smoked salmon, and arrange.
COURSE 1: smoked salmon with capers and onions
As you can see from the detailed image, I added some cracked black pepper and some olive oil.
I popped that bitch in the fridge until it was go-time.
Then I blanched some asparagus tips and rendered some diced pancetta in a cast iron pan with some coarsely chopped garlic cloves. This will all come together in the end: I promise.
The majority of the pancetta was sprinkled over the chilled asparagus tips, which were then topped with crispy shallots and drizzled with a combo of oils (garlic oil, peppercorn oil, chive oil, onion oil, and olive oil).
COURSE 2: blanched asparagus tips with crispy pancetta and crispy fried shallots.
I popped THAT bitch into the fridge too. Both dishes were served chilled.
I saved the bacon-fried garlic and a few spoonfuls of the pancetta for another dish that will come up later.
I chopped off the top of a bundle of garlic and roasted it in the oven at 450º for nearly 40 minutes.
This is for spreading onto the next two courses.
My next task was to sear off some Mosner grass-fed rib eyes in the same cast-iron pan where all that nice pancetta fat was still hanging out. I threw in some more garlic, and some Greek oregano (since the grocery store didn’t have rosemary).
Flip:
COURSE 3: pork fat rib eyes with garlic and oregano.
As you can see, I started to overcook these.
There is almost no marbling in a grass-fed slab of meat, and the meat itself is tight-grained. The animals are lean, so intra-muscular fat is nearly nonexistent. Lesson learned. Next time I will cook for a much shorter amount of time on each side.
I opened a bottle of wine to let it breathe.
Right about now is when my wife got home from work, so I quickly set the table and put the cold items out. Then I sliced up some ciabatta bread and toasted it in the pan, which still had the steak drippings and garlicky bacon fat within:
What could this be for, you ask?
COURSE 4: truffle pate
I essentially just opened the package and added some olive oil and fresh cracked pepper. BUT… we spread that shit onto the pan-grilled bread, and then sprinkled some of the leftover pancetta and roasted garlic on top (which I had set aside above). Fucking delicious.
The meal was a hit, despite nearly overcooking the steaks. In any case, they turned out great, especially with the roasted garlic smeared onto each bite. Most satisfying, to me at least, was my planning and timing of everything. I think I nailed that more than anything in the food-execution realm (especially considering that three or four items were already half prepped for me – the pre-made truffle pate, the smoked salmon, the already-baked bread, and the pre-diced pancetta).
