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Tag Archives: burgers
Best Outdoor Dining 2011
As much as we complain about the heat, it’s so nice to be able to dine al fresco when summer finally comes to New York. But what we’re looking for isn’t any old table plunked on a sidewalk next to a major truck route, but a nice setting, fun scene and preferably some good food. Here is an opinionated guide to the best outdoor dining in town. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged American food, Asian food, bars, BBQ, burgers, fireplaces, French food, German food, guides, Italian food, New York, outdoor dining, pizza, restaurants
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Recipe: Special Sauce
One of the best things about going to Burger King as a kid – other than those gold paper crowns – was the “special sauce” on the burgers. It probably wasn’t anything more special than a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard, but it was still more exotic than what Mom made.
At a recent barbecue, we decided to make Pat La Frieda burgers more special with our own grown-up version of special sauce, a chipotle mayonnaise recipe cobbled together from several similar ones. But this version includes all the key secret ingredients – chipotle, adobo, lime and garlic – in particularly spicy, smoky proportions. It’s ridiculously easy to make and adds an extra layer of deliciousness to burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs or grilled fish. Added bonus: the resulting sauce has the same peculiar orange color as your childhood favorite “special sauce.” (more…)
Burger and Barrel
There’s a common misconception that a restaurant has to focus on things like fish, tofu and radishes to attract a female clientele. But what New York women want is often defined by what they don’t want: multiple TVs over the bar, the smell of bleach masking the smell of stale beer, and guys in backwards white baseball caps. But red meat? Most of us are actually fine with that.
Burger and Barrel proves that a restaurant doesn’t have to go on a diet to appeal to women, since we appreciate a good burger just as much as the guys do. We just don’t want to eat one in a crap place. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged American food, bars, burgers, crab, gastropubs, iceberg wedge salad, New York, restaurants, Soho
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Vandaag
Vandaag may not be a German restaurant per se – the name is Dutch for “today,” and the staff will only categorize the food as “Northern European-inspired” – but Germans would probably be surprised at how popular this type of cuisine has become in New York now. During a recent trip to Berlin, our Danish and German friends pled with us after we took them to the third German restaurant in a row: Please, no more German food! In Berlin, it seems they’d much rather go out for Italian.
Not here. New restaurants Edi & the Wolf, Heartbreak and Vandaag are all serving variations on German food within a six block radius of one another – and generating a lot of buzz. Fortunately, there’s substance behind the fad at Vandaag, which brings real craftsmanship to the idea of a modern Northern European restaurant. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged bars, beer, burgers, East Village, German food, New York, restaurants, Scandinavian food
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Fish Tag
Sometimes it feels like there are two parallel New Yorks: the men’s New York, consisting of sports bars and barbecue joints, and the women’s New York, with its wine bars and California-light restaurants. Any guy walking into Fish Tag, the new Upper West Side seafood restaurant helmed by bad-boy chef Ryan Skeen, would find lots of single, attractive women with newly blown out hair, drinking white wine and sharing plates. But alas, all the guys seem to be next door at the grittier, meatier Sunburnt Cow. Boys: will they ever learn?
Which is too bad, because despite the inconsistencies at this new hot spot, there’s plenty to recommend Fish Tag to both genders. There are 10 craft beers on tap and even more by the bottle, rare bourbons and even more scotch. In addition to that smoked salmon, Fish Tag has a whole charcuterie board of meat, an impressive selection of cheese and a kick-ass burger.
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Tagged bars, burgers, New York, restaurants, seafood, Upper West Side
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La Maison Mère
When you think Parisian food, do you think filet mignon or pastrami? Tarte au chocolat or cheesecake? If the answer is the former, it’s time to revisit Paris, because the latest dining trend sweeping the city is cuisine new yorkais.
Traveling across the Atlantic to patronize ever-encroaching American chains like Starbucks is not recommended, but new Parisian places like Marcel and La Maison Mère are worth a visit to experience the French take on delicatessen classics. Basically imagine a Cordon Bleu student interning at Katz’s, and you’ve got the picture. (more…)
Posted in food, travel
Tagged American food, burgers, Paris, Paris restaurants, restaurants
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Brindle Room
Though it’s a noble goal, authenticity isn’t always what you want when seeking out imported regional specialties. Take saucissons bourguignons. Few New Yorkers would likely complain that there isn’t enough tripe in French sausages here. Just pork and beef is fine, thanks.
Likewise, though authentic poutine has its devotees in Quebec, you might not want to recreate it exactly. Fast food fries slathered in mystery-meat gravy and piled with heaps of cheese that’s a cross between regular and cottage cheese is an acquired taste, even in a drunken state at 1am – which is generally when poutine is consumed in Montreal, under the fluorescent lights of a take-out shop. (more…)
The New “It” Food in Paris? Le Cheeseburger
Food fads look even stranger when viewed through the eyes of a foreigner. Like the as-yet-unexplained gin and tonic craze last year in Barcelona (one bar’s sign read: “17 Different Kinds of Gin & Tonic!”), the cheeseburger fad is taking Paris by storm. Though it has gotten the most press because of Ralph Lauren’s new gourmet cheeseburger restaurant on Boulevard Saint-Germain, “Le Ralph’s,” the cheeseburger craze started with young, hip kids in Paris before a big name designer usurped it.
We decided not go to “Le Ralph’s” after one look at the fancy brass-framed menu outside. Le Cheeseburger: 27€. Le Hot dog: 15€. Le Club sandwich (a runner-up for most faddish American food in Paris): 20€. If I’m going to spend more than $30 for a beef dish in Paris, it had better be a steak. (more…)
Henry Public
If you didn’t know this Cobble Hill space was an old TV repair store until just a couple months ago, you would think new gastro pub Henry Public had been here forever. Past an antique bar, refurbished gas lamps and black and white photos of Frederick Douglass and the old Brooklyn Eagle headquarters hang in the dining room, where the wood paneling and marble fireplace date the room to sometime around the turn of the last century. But this carefully curated mix is actually the result of years of scavenging by owners Jen Albano and Matt Dawson, also the team behind the Brooklyn Social Club, who’ve created an old-timey bar and restaurant that actually feels authentic.
Though it opened just a couple weeks ago, the place was already packed with a mostly local crowd on a recent weekend night. Many were there for the drinks: pre-Prohibition cocktails involving things like egg whites and obscure liqueurs. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged bars, beer, Brooklyn, burgers, fireplaces, gastropubs, New York, restaurants
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The West Branch
When an upscale chef embarks on a downscale restaurant, does the place get elevated or the chef get knocked down a notch? Tom Valenti is the latest of a number of respected New York chefs to go the casual route, opening the West Branch, a gastro pub to complement his successful Upper West Side restaurant Ouest a few blocks away.
The interior feels like a sophisticated sports bar, with a flat screen TV in the bar room and two separate dining rooms paneled in antiqued mirrors. The owners didn’t take too many risks on the décor, which is homey but sleek, with standard wooden chairs and simple drop lighting overhead. And the crowd that filled the bar that night was decidedly un-fratty, a big relief on the Upper West Side.
Unfortunately, the front of the house did not make as good an impression as the atmosphere. (more…)
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