Restaurants in Lower East Side
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Beauty & Essex
Chris Santos has always managed to walk a fine line between kitschy and cool, andBeauty & Essex is no exception. Just beyond the faux pawn shop is a super sexy, bi-level space with sixties decor, a two-story chandelier, and champagne flowing in the ladies room. A place this sexy ought to have sexy finger food. Santos rises to the occasion with grilled shisito peppers, roasted bone marrow and beet carpaccio. The Grilled Cheese, Smoked Bacon, and Tomato Soup Dumplings are a playful spin on the classic Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Combo. Except here everyone gets their own Chinese soup spoon, which comes with a crispy, cheesy dumpling, topped with bacon sprinkles, in a teeny pool of sweet tomato soup. Slurping is not only acceptable, it’s the most proper way to eat this comforting, sexy, and downright delicious...
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Blue Ribbon Izakaya – The Sexy Date
Tucked inside the Thompson Hotel on the Lower East Side, Blue Ribbon Izakaya is the newest addition to the Blue Ribbon empire. If you’ve never had the pleasure of dining in an izakaya — that’s Japanese for a pub — this is the perfect place to start. The room itself is sexy and sleek with a mix of communal tables, private tables and a long sushi bar at the center of it all. The menu is humongous, so there’s something for everyone to discover, and in true izakaya fashion, most dishes are small plates, best for sharing with your date. We strongly recommend you venture out of your comfort zone and try delectable nibbles, like Yellowtail Tartare, capped off with a quail egg, and a seasonal Crab Dish with Ponzu Butter. If your date is a fried rice fanatic,...
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The Best Frozen Cocktails in New York
What better way to escape the heat than with a frozen cocktail? Thankfully, the great bartenders of New York have found a way to elevate the standard, icy and oft saccharine sweet drinks to a new level. Gone are the days of simple mojitos, margaritas, and daiquiris. Instead, there’s a plethora of inventive libations, like…
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New York’s Best Ice Cream Sandwiches
New Yorkers have always been serious about their sandwiches. We’ve got everything from Katz’s legendary pastrami on rye to Sara Jenkin’s porchetta on a ciabatta roll. Recently, we’ve become just as serious about our ice cream sandwiches.
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The City’s Great Cheese Chase
The thing about cheese is that it just keeps getting better. Once upon a time you had to go to Italy if you wanted fresh, homemade mozzarella. Nowadays, restaurants and shops are spinning their own freshly mozzarella. They’re buying domestic and aging cheese in-house, not to mention the incredible selection of cheeses from all over the world.
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Dish Spotting: Little Muenster’s Oaxaca Grilled Cheese
Many food forecasters have said the grilled cheese is the “It” sandwich for 2012, and some even say it will overtake the burger. We’re not sure it could ever trump the burger trend, but we have noticed grilled cheese trucks, grilled cheese shops and food carts popping around New York. Chefs are dreaming up innovative and artisanal renditions with everything from 12-hour braised pulled pork to tuna on all sorts of bread, including biscuits. I don’t know about you, but grilled cheese is one of those dishes that we often find difficult to fork over 1o to 15 dollars for. After all, how hard is it to grill cheese between two slices of bread? But one bite of the Oaxaca Grilled Cheese at Little Muenster had us singing a different tune. While it’s still essentially cheese melted on bread,...
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Best of New York Pickles
Did you know cucumbers, grown just for pickling, once grew all over Brooklyn? Yep. And they were sold from market stalls on Fulton, Canal and Washington Street. Americans consume over 5 million pickles a year, and New York is known for its pickles. While pickles aren’t exactly glamorous, they’re no longer relinquished to delis, sandwich shops and greenmarkets. Pickles of all sorts have come into fashion with all kinds of pickles far beyond cucumbers. There’s McClure’s killer Bloody Mary mix dosed with pickle juice, fried pickles at Tipsy Parson, and even a pickle-inspired restaurant called Jacob’s Pickles. From a spicy brine margarita to pickled asparagus at Mile End, we’ve sampled the city for you and picked a few of our favorite spots that feature pickles in all their glory… Momofuku Ssam Bar – Seasonal Pickles Address: 207 2nd...
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Trendwatch – Eggs In Fashion
Not long ago, eggs weren’t exactly considered haute cuisine, nevermind a dish that chefs or diners got excited about. But those days are over and eggs are having their moment in the spotlight. Take the celebrated “Farmer Egg’s” at Acme: It’s not as simple as it sounds, of course.What arrive from the kitchen is are two hollow eggs teeming with steamed cauliflower, aged parmesan cheese and egg yolk, crowned with cauliflower foam and ingeniously served on chicken wire and hay. Floyd Cardoz devotes an entire section of the menu to eggs at North End Grill, his newest venture in Battery Park. Cardoz meditates on eggs every which way, including a standout coddled eggs with grits and a scotch egg in watercress soup. There’s duck eggs and quail eggs, free-range and organic, and they all come poached, scrambled, fried or...
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New York’s Best PB & J Dishes
In case you haven’t noticed, we have a serious peanut butter obsession, so we’re pretty excited to milk National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day for all its worth. This Monday, April 2nd, celebrates that iconic, brown bagged lunch most of us grew up on, but in New York, the humble sandwich has undergone a major makeover. Afterall, we’ve got bragging rights to the some of the most innovative chefs in the country. Take April Bloomfield for example. In her hands, the classic PB & J gets stuffed with bananas, dunked in bourbon and deep fried at the Breslin. Then, there’s killer PB&J doughnuts at the Doughnut Plant, peanut butter and jelly macarons at Bosie Tea Parlor to peanut butter & jelly pancakes at Lavo. Not to mention an entire restaurant exclusively devoted to peanut butter endeavors in the West...
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Easter Sweets
To us, holidays are opportunities to feast festively. Sure, seeing family is great (blah, blah blah), but the real joy of Easter is the chance to eat sweets you only get to have once a year. Who doesn’t love a bright yellow marshmallow peep or a Cadbury creme egg? And that’s just what’s available at your corner Duane Reade. Just imagine how creative chocolatiers and bakeries have gotten this season. We’ve heard rumors of peep pudding at Sugar Sweet Sunshine as well as black sesame eggs and green tea bunnies at Kyotofu. There’s a killer Easter basket with candy peas, carrots and a laughing bunny at Dean & Deluca and lots more. Here’s a few of our favorite finds for Easter. Bisous Ciao 101 Stanton St, btwn Orchard & Ludlow Sts. 212.260.3463www.bisousciao.com The owner of this shop took her...
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Trendwatch: Suddenly Sexy Salmon
For years, salmon got a bad rap as being, well, boring and mostly farm-raised. But with the rise of wild salmon and recent popularity of Jewish-American deli cuisine, we’ve noticed that salmon has come into fashion. Especially cured and smoked salmon, and not just at Russ & Daughters or just Jewish delis. There’s a killer salmon trio at Kutsher’s, standout Danish gravlax smørrebrød at Vandaag, smoked salmon sashimi at Alta and even vodka-cured salmon at Cafe Boulud. And there’s plenty more where that came from. Here’s a few of our favorites… Acme Address: 9 Great Jones St., near Lafayette St. Phone: (212) 203-2121 Website: acmenyc.com Nordic food is having its moment in New York right now and it’s about time. Perhaps the most exciting spot to sample it right now is Acme, where Noma’s co-founder Mads Refslund fortuitously turned...
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Valentine’s Day Dining
The holiday many love to hate is fast approaching. If you’re single, Valentine’s Day can be depressing. If you’re coupled, it can be a lot of pressure to buy roses at inflated prices or fancy chocolates. And, of course, you have to pick the perfect restaurant with a pricey prix fixe menu, a romantic setting, and aphrodisiacs of the oyster and fig sorts. Instead of giving into a “sucker’s night out” meal, we found a few great options we could actually get excited about. Valentine’s Day could be an excuse to sample sexy Austrian food at Edi & The Wolf or take a couple’s cooking class at DeGustibus. Here’s a few of our favorite options… Millesime 92 Madison Ave btwn 28th & 29th St 212.889.7100 www.millesimerestaurant.com Millesime has a reputation for being one of the most romantic date spots in...
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New York’s Top Noodles
Noodles mean different things to different people. For some, a deep bowl of ramen topped with a hard-boiled egg and pork belly comes to mind. For others, it’s a bowl of homemade fettuccine in brown butter sauce. Whether you like your noodles hand-pulled or knife-cut, hot or cold, wheat, rice or buckwheat, there’s oodles of fantastic noodle dishes to discover this winter. (Though you want to stick with the warm versions until spring rolls back around.) From Zabb Elee’s Thai spicy and sour Thai noodle soup to Viennese spaetzle at Café Sabarsky, to soba done right at Cocoron, noodles are our latest wintertime delight. Zabb Elee – Spicy-Sour Noodle Soup Address: 75 2nd Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets Phone: (212) 505-9533 Website: zabbelee.com “Authentic” pad thai? Yawn. Menus touting great pad thai seem to pile up like junk...
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Q & A With Anne Burrell
With her spiky blonde hair and signature cowgirl skirt, chef Anne Burrell doesn’t quite fit the part of supporting character. Yet, until 2007, that’s what she played as Mario Batali’s sous chef on Iron Chef America. Before that, she trained in Tuscany, then returning to New York, worked under Lidia Bastianich at Felidiaand taught at I.C.E. for three years.But 2007 has been a very good year for Burrell: She not only made an impressive debut at Centro Vinoteca, but also inherited Gusto’s kitchen. Amidst a new wave of Italian trattorias, Anne distinguished herself with her “piccolini,” featuring truffled devil eggs, fried cauliflower wedges and eggplant cakes dabbed with ricotta. She also delivers an excellent fennel pollen-crusted pork chop and rabbit involtino. Status: Single/Married/Divorced Very single What did you want to be when you grew up? Julia Child What was...
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Best of – NYC’s Healthful Haute Cooking
The holidays have officially come and gone, and as much as we love all of the festivities and food, we’re ready to come up for air. Just because we need a break from the holiday excess doesn’t mean we plan on staying in – and you shouldn’t have to either! There are plenty of ways to make the most of New York’s dining scene, while still sticking to healthful New Year’s resolutions. There’s a host of talented chefs all over town, serving imaginative dishes that will fill you up without filling you out. (We couldn’t resist the pun.) You can still sample newcomers, like the Meatpacking’s new, tri-level seafood spot, Catch or Japanese home cooking at Family Recipe on the Lower East Side. There’s the all-vegetable menu at Le Verdure in Eataly or buckwheat noodles and much more. Here’s...
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Our Favorite Comfort Foods 2012
Though it’s undoubtedly milder, winter is officially here, and with it comes cravings for comfort foods. Who doesn’t want to escape the cold outdoors and cozy up to a warm bowl of ramen, gooey grilled cheese or buttery biscuits.? We strongly suggest the flaky, fresh from the oven biscuits from Brooklyn Star or the shepherd’s pie empanadas at Sons of Essex. This year, there’s an impressive and hearty, new and old batch of creature comforts to get you through the winter months. Little Muenster Address: 100 Stanton St., btwn. Ludlow & Orchard Sts. Phone: (212) 203-7197 Website: littlemuenster.com Their slogan may be “super fancy grilled cheese,” but it’s more like super gooey, yummy, melted goodness. Little Muenster just opened its doors this fall, bringing a serious selection of grilled cheese to the New York dining scene. Forget plain old...
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Best of Christmas Day Dining Out
Christmas is just over a week away, and if the idea of whipping up a holiday feast in a New York kitchen has you feeling overwhelmed, you may want to keep reading. We’ve checked out what’s for dinner (and brunch, too) at the some of the city’s finest restaurants and compiled a list of our favorites. From braised Christmas goose at Wallse to a Chinese feast Fatty Crab-style, it’s just a reservation away. Lyon Address: 118 Greenwich Ave., btwn Horatio & Jane Sts. Phone: (212) 242-5966 Website: www.lyonnyc.com This year, this charming, West Village spot is hosting brunch and dinner. Take your pick. After you’ve worked up an appetite opening presents, consider brunch at Lyon for the “Double Pink: Salmon & Champagne,” a salmon en croute stuffed with spinach and aromatic rice, served with a beurre blanc sauce, and...
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New York's Best Bowls of Soup
We’re well into fall, and as the days get shorter and the temperature drops, we’re starting to crave something warm and comforting. New York has bragging rights to some of the most imaginative chefs in the country, many with a standout soup, using the season’s peak ingredients, like pumpkin and kale in innovative ways. From the spicy chicken ramen at Momofuku Noodle Bar to Kin Shop’s one-of-a-kind pork meatball soup or Boulud Sud’s Moroccan-spiced pumpkin soup, there’s a bowl for every appetite. Here’s our favorites for 2011 to see you through the season. Kin Shop – Steamed Pork Meatball Soup Address: 469 6th Ave., btwn. 11th & 12th Sts. Phone: (212) 675-4295 Website: www.kinshopnyc.com Harold Dieterle revealed his adoration of Southeast Asian cooking at his first restaurant, Perilla, but he’s taken it up a notch with Kin Shop. His...
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An Exciting New World of Sandwiches
These are good times for a change in your lunch routine. Besides, why eat another tuna sandwich or ham & cheese when you can choose from a world of sandwiches? In case you haven’t noticed, ethnic sandwiches are popping up all over the city. Eateries are serving up every imaginable global flavor between bread. And by bread, I mean everything from Indian roti to Mexican tortillas. Some sandwiches are traditional, while others are a representation of flavors and ingredients used in creative and delicious ways. There’s even a few mashups of several cultures at once, like Mexican burritos stuffed with Korean barbecue. If you’re not ready to commit to just one cuisine, No. 7 Sub is a good place to start. Tucked inside the Ace Hotel, No. 7 Sub turns out subs with an American, Asian, Latin or a...
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Dishpotting: Zoe's Grilled Octopus
It’s strange how some restaurants manage to remain under the radar these days. You’d think what with twitter, facebook, food magazines, newspapers, and a billion food blogs that it would be next to impossible. You can find a quick blurb about the opening of Zoe on Grub Street as well as a restaurant listing on Metromix, but there should be much more buzz around this newcomer. Zoe opened on the Lower East Side in August in the former Satsko space. The room is newly and minimally outfitted in modern Danish trimmings with unique accents, like a church pew (shipped from North Carolina) along the back wall of the dining room. Though the restaurant only opened recently, it seems like the kind of neighborhood spot that’s been around for years. That is, except for the food, which is...
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