Some Like it Hot

Jess loves spicy food. And I love Chinese food. Which puts Sichuan cuisine in perfect Venn diagram overlap between the two of us.

And though I’ll occasionally make it myself at home, it’s definitely a bit of an undertaking. The dry pot I made last week had no fewer than 15 ingredients in the spice oil alone, and a similar number in the chili paste, even before getting to the main ingredients. As I noted at the time, some dishes are worth cooking from scratch just so you’ll never begrudge money spent ordering them at a restaurant instead.

To that end, I’m extremely lucky to work just a few blocks from Mala Project, which makes perhaps the best dry pot in Manhattan. While hot pot is Sichuan’s signature dish – essentially, a spicy broth fondue – dry pot is, instead, pretty much what it sounds like it would be: all the spices and ingredients of hot pot, but without the broth, stir-fried instead.

It’s an amazingly flavorful dish, albeit an atomically hot one. So, even if you might end up paying for it on the way out the day after, if you’re looking for a quick, delicious, and relatively cheap lunch or dinner in Midtown, I can’t recommend Mala Project (41 W 46th St) highly enough.

In fact, I’m wrapping this post, so I can head there right now, for some take-out to satisfy Jess’ days-long craving. As the Chinese proverb goes, talk doesn’t cook rice.

Restaurants

By the Book

One of the craziest things about fast-changing technology is how quickly we take it for granted. For example, with Apple Maps on my phone, I’ve almost forgotten how much of traveling someplace new previously consisted of getting lost along the way. A couple months back, I went apple picking with Jess, an hour or so upstate. And, en route, I missed a turn-off from one country road to another. Armed with GPS, we rerouted, and still made it to the orchard just five minutes past the initially estimated time. But, without it, we easily could have just never found the place. In fact, even after mobile maps first became a thing, smartphones weren’t GPS enabled for a few more years, and it was still possible to get completely lost if you botched a turn. I vividly remember sitting pulled over on the side of a New Jersey highway one afternoon, scrolling endlessly around a zoomed-in map, trying to figure out where I was, so I could drop a pin and navigate the rest of the way to my destination.

Similarly, when I first moved to NYC, finding a restaurant while out and about in the city was inevitably a crap shoot. Dropped into a random neighborhood, and without Foursquare or The Infatuation (my now go-to restaurant reconnaissance pair), I had no way of figuring out what good options existed nearby. I’d simply look for places that looked crowded, or whose signage seemed somehow appealing, and hope for the best.

But, at least, when I was back in my apartment, and planning meals in advance, I had one trusty resource: the Zagat restaurant guide. As a budding foodie, I spent endless time pouring over its pages, and (as this was pre Resy and OpenTable) dialing for reservations. At one point, I even hit on the idea of cycling through the guide alphabetically, eating at a restaurant whose name began with ‘A’ one week, then with ‘B’ the next.

Still, I had pretty much forgotten about Zagat entirely, until I saw, about a year and a half ago, that the aforementioned The Infatuation had just acquired the Zagat brand. So when I got an email last spring with an invitation to submit reviews for the new 2020 New York City guide, I couldn’t resist.

By way of thanks for my additions, Zagat just sent along a copy of the finished guide:

And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

I won’t be toting it along with me day-to-day, nor honestly even consulting it regularly as my go-to for restaurant planning,

But I’m nonetheless enjoying picking it up from time to time to thumb my way through. It’s still an excellent resource. And it’s a great reminder of how lucky we are to have a web full of resources, any time we want, right there in the palms of our hands.

Che Avventura

I love Manhattan, but our Little Italy is touristy garbage. For the real deal, you’ll need to head up to Arthur Ave in the Bronx.

Head to Tino’s Deli, Casa Della Mozzarella, or Mike’s in the Arthur Ave Retail Market for a sandwich that will change your life:

Buy handmade pasta at Borgatti’s, the city’s best cannoli at Artuso’s, and fresh bread at Madonia:

Or eat dinner at Zero Otto Nove for truly excellent pizza and red-sauce standbys, paired with always delicious and much more interesting nightly specials:

It’s a short walk from Fordham station on the Metro North, or a slightly longer (but still totally manageable) one from the Fordham stops on the D or 4 subways.

However you get there, it’s worth the trip. Vi auguro buon appetito!

Hotel Delmano

While I was still an undergrad at Yale, coming down regularly to NYC for my startup, I was thrilled to discover the then newly-opened Campbell Apartment. When the current Grand Central Station was built in 1913, John Campbell, who chaired the board of the New York Central Railroad, had the space built in as a private office. After his death a few decades later, the apartment was abandoned, eventually repurposed into a little-used storage closet. Then, in 1999, the architects upgrading Grand Central rediscovered the space, with its 1910’s decor, stained glass windows, etc., still intact. With a few million dollars in renovations to return it to its previous opulence, The Campbell Apartment opened as a semi-secret speakeasy. It was, in a word, perfect.

This past year, that version of the bar closed, soon to reopen as a cheesy, DJ-centric nightclub. But a slew of great, semi-secret speakeasies remain – places like Bathtub Gin, Raine’s Law Room, Angel’s Share, Employees Only, and Please Don’t Tell.

But I’m always thrilled to discover another addition to that list. So, this weekend, while out in Williamsburg, I was particularly happy to stumble across Hotel Delmano.

As my go-to restaurant review site The Infatuation put it, “Hotel Delmano is probably the best date spot in Williamsburg. It's dark, cozy, and feels like an ocean liner that sank a long time ago.” Which is precisely right:

It seems like a place where Hemingway would have been thrilled to enjoy five or six daiquiris. Though, in the picture above, we’re instead testing out the Junebug (dill-infused gin, lemon, sugar snap peas, fino sherry, suze) and the San Francisco Handshake (thyme-infused gin, st germain, lemon, fernet branca).

If you’re in Williamsburg, or even if you’re not, consider heading their way to enjoy it yourself.

Down on the Corner

Jess’ online dating profile included the phrase “mostly vegetarian,” so when I met her for dinner on one of our early dates, I pointed out a handful of vegetable-based entrees we might share.

“Actually,” she responded, “maybe the steak?”

Apparently, ‘mostly’ is a relative term.

We’ve since been touring through NYC’s essential burger joints, with stops at places like Burger Joint (my perennial favorite), The Spotted Pig (never quite as good as I’d like it to be), P.J. Clarke’s (good burgers, even better martinis), Bill’s Burger Bar (get the Fat Cat), Salvation Burger (though it’s a Spotted Pig spinoff, I prefer it to the original), Shake Shack (kind of like the band you used to see in a dive bar that then became a Top 50 radio act), Union Square Cafe (fancy!), etc.

Today, with beach-minded Memorial Day Weekend plans thwarted by inclement weather, we instead headed down to the West Village’s iconic Corner Bistro. Because, as New York magazine once put it, “if you call yourself a New Yorker, consider it your civic duty to have a beer and a burger here at least once.”

Admittedly, I’d already responded to that call of duty countless times over the past two decades, in part because Corner Bistro serves beer for under $5 (an NYC rarity), and in even larger part because they serve hamburgers into the wee hours of the night in a neighborhood the younger me often ended up in while totally blitzed.

Jess, however, had never been. And, though I frequented it more in the past, it had been a few years since I had returned (and a few more since I had while sober.) It seemed like an excellent adventure. Away we went.

The restaurant itself is essentially a dive bar, with about a dozen seats around an old mahogany bar in the front, and about a dozen small tables in the brick-walled, tin-roofed back.

The real draw is the food, despite a fairly minimalist menu:

And, honestly, even that’s more info than you need. You just want the cheeseburger with a side of fries. Or maybe two cheeseburgers and a side of fries.

Usually, there’s a line out the door. But today, despite (or perhaps because of?) it being Memorial Day Weekend, we breezed in and were seated immediately.

We ordered beer (still miraculously sub-$5) while we waited, Jess the Brooklyn Lager, and me a McSorley’s Ale (the house brew from NYC’s oldest continuously operated saloon):

Next arrived our fries, served (like everything at Corner Bistro) on paper plates. They were delightfully crispy, though a bit short on flavor – the texture of a McDonald’s fry (which, even for food snobs, is kind of the platonic ideal of skinny french fry), yet somehow without that much taste.

Nonetheless, as we were coming to lunch after a morning run along the Hudson River bike path, we were starved, and I polished off half my plate before Jess reminded me that I had intended to photograph the meal. (On the plus side, that’s definitive proof that, though I’m just months outside the 1980 birthdate cutoff, I’m most certainly not a Millennial.)

The burger itself is a half-pound of beef, layered between an onion slice below and dill pickle, tomato, and iceberg lettuce on top, all packed onto a not-terribly-large, possibly-from-a-bag bun:

Or, as seen intact and from above (on Jess’ plate, as the following picture was actually taken after the above one, given that I generally eat like a starving feral animal, and had polished off half of my half-pound burger while she was still genteelly applying mustard):

Regardless, despite the slow start, Jess eventually caught up.

Me:

Her:

At that point, I was still strongly considering a second burger, as I usually had in the past. But, in my age and wisdom, and with a greater appreciation for the law of diminishing returns, I decided I probably didn’t need to eat a full pound of hamburger for lunch, especially if my plans for the balance of the day included anything besides lying on the floor, digesting.

So, adventure complete, and Jess’ Corner Bistro NYC civic duty fulfilled. Though, honestly, I don’t think we’ll be headed back any time soon. It’s a very good burger, and in decades past it held a much-deserved spot on pretty much any ‘Five Best Burgers in NYC’ list. But, in today’s culinary world, there are just a whole lot of great hamburgers, and even a whole lot of better hamburgers, in the city.

Final verdict: if you’ve never been, go. If you have, don’t rush back.

Spill the Beans

I admit it: I’m a coffee snob. As I write this, I’m drinking a cup I just made using a Chemex pour-over, from freshly-ground, overpriced Ethiopian beans, like a total douchebag.

But my love of coffee isn’t without reservation. In particular, coffee culture, and the whole third-wave coffee movement, always rubs me the wrong way. As Anthony Bourdain put it, “I don’t want to wait for my coffee. I don’t want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherfucker to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don’t want to wait for it, and I don’t want it with the cast of Friends. It’s a beverage; it’s not a lifestyle.”

So I couldn’t help but love this McDonalds ad, which takes a playful swipe at the hipster cafe:

Touché.

Keep it Short

About a decade back, I was in a downtown Starbucks, waiting to pick up my drink, when a pair of middle-aged Italian women retrieved their cappuccinos (or, rather, cappuccini) from the counter. One took a sip, and then promptly spat it back out.

“They burned the beans,” she told her friend in Italian.

“Mine too,” the friend agreed.

So they informed the baristas, and asked them to pull their drinks again. A second time through, the first woman took a sip and made a face.

“Still burnt!” she exclaimed.

At which point, I jumped in with the remnants of my college Italian, to try and explain that all Starbucks coffee was going to taste burnt, because, for whatever reasons, they’ve built their entire brand around roasting their beans to a tasteless crisp.

This was before the wide spread of ‘third wave’ coffee, so I couldn’t offer those women much in the way of alternate suggestion. But, even today, with many better coffee options all around NYC, I still sometimes end up in a Starbucks, whether because I’m on the road or just lazily settling for the closest option that has ample seating and reliable wi-fi.

And, when I do, I always order the same thing: a short cappuccino.

The short cappuccino isn’t on the menu, but they serve it at pretty much every location (barring some airport and mini-store setups). It’s a remnant of the early days of Starbucks, when they served drinks in two sizes: an 8oz Short and a 12oz Tall.

In the years since, keeping up with the general increase in American portion sizes, Starbucks added the Grande (16oz), then the Venti (20oz), and eventually the utterly ridiculous Trenta (31oz).

Somewhere along the way, they dropped the original 8oz Short from the menu, picking up flack for their smallest size therefore being called ‘tall’, but pushing up the price of the average ticket; a good trade-off. But, secretly, they kept the Short cups around. And, it turns out, a short cappuccino remains the best drink Starbucks makes.

According to the World Barista Championship rules, a cappuccino is a “five- to six-ounce beverage,” the same size served in Italian cafes. That’s because a cappuccino ideally has roughly equal parts espresso, milk, and foam. Given the physical chemistry of milk, there’s a limit to the volume of micro-foam that will hold before it collapses back on itself. So as you move to larger sizes, you end up with roughly the same amount of foam as in the Short size, and a drink that’s basically burnt-coffee-flavored milk.

Hence the short cappuccino. It’s the closest thing Starbucks sells to what you might find at a real Italian coffee bar, and it’s also one of the cheapest options on (or, rather, not on) the menu. Bevi!

Le Relais de Venise

Back in 1959, winemaker Paul Gineste de Saurs opened a restaurant in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The menu was simple, with only one choice: steak frites.

In the years since, the restaurant has grown wildly in popularity, opening several London locations which also reliably draw long lines.

About five years ago, they opened a location in East Midtown. Here, based on the many times I’ve walked past the half-empty dining room in the years since, it appears to have been a more modest success.

The New York location, still called Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote, recreates the original in perfect kitschy detail, down to the pleather banquettes and waitresses in frilly black skirts and white aprons.

In search of adventure, Jessie and I headed there for lunch. It was an experience I’d highly recommend, yet will be unlikely to repeat.

Once seated, you’re presented with a single option: black-and-blue, rare, medium or well-done. Medium-rare isn’t on the list.

Shortly thereafter, out comes a salad: plain lettuce with vinaigrette, topped with walnuts.

And then, a few minutes later, a small serving of sliced strip steak and fries, liberally doused with their secret sauce. By most accounts, the secret boils down to lots of butter, some mustard and thyme, and blanched chicken liver. While the steakhouse draws loyal regulars based largely on the strength of that sauce, we both found it a somewhat acquired taste.

Le Relais

Finish your portion, and the waitress returns, to dole out the next course: another round of exactly the same thing. More sliced steak, more fries, more sauce on top of it all.

Given the culinary merits of the first three courses, we decided to skip dessert.

On the one hand, Peter Luger need not worry. But, on the other, there’s something remarkably charming about a place that seems like the regular hangout of a French Don Draper. And for $28 a pop for dinner, with bottles of wine priced similarly, it’s a hell of a deal for steak in Midtown.

As I said, I don’t think I’ll be back. But if you’re in the East 50’s and looking for a unique adventure, it’s probably worth the visit. Bon appetit!

Restaurants

Over-Caffeinated

Though the city has long been littered with Starbucks (I previously lived across the street from one location, which was around the corner from a second location less than 100 feet away), coffee shops have continued to open around NYC with ever-increasing speed over the last ten years.

In some ways, that’s been a boon for me, as I often do my best writing while holed up in one. I regularly head down to Fika Tower on 54th and 10th, which has a secret back garden and ample indoor skylit seating, a perfect spot for cranking out work.

It’s a bit corporate (though in a very Swedish way). But I can’t quite bring myself to stop at the far trendier hipster-hotspot Rex, which I pass along the way.

Looking back, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I reached my limit of coffee cool. Last year, I headed across the street from my office to Blue Bottle to buy an afternoon cup. On my way out the door, a colleague asked if I’d bring back one for him, too.

The place was completely empty; I was literally the only one there besides the barista. I ordered two coffees. He placed a single pour-over dripper on the rail.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have mis-ordered; I’d actually like two coffees.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied.

And then he proceeded to spend four minutes lovingly making a first cup, put it aside, and then made the second, for another four minutes, with equally rapt attention.

So I was a bit pleased to find this great rant in Bon Appetit‘s interview with the inimitable Anthony Bourdain:

There are few things I care about less than coffee. I have two big cups every morning: light and sweet, preferably in cardboard cup. Any bodega will do. I don’t want to wait for my coffee. I don’t want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherfucker to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don’t want to wait for it, and I don’t want it with the cast of Friends. It’s a beverage; it’s not a lifestyle.

Indeed.

Squared and Infatuated

For years, whenever I traveled around NYC (or the rest of the world), I depended on Yelp to pull up quick hit-lists of places to eat, drink, grab coffee, etc. But in the more recent past, the taste level and discourse of Yelp reviewers seems to have swung down to YouTube-commenter levels. (Relatedly illustrative piece of techno-art: this mashup of the most recent comments from YouTube alongside the most recent comments from Metafilter’s faithfully erudite community.)

Over the same time, however, I started seeing Google search results for bars’ and restaurants’ Foursquare pages. While Foursquare initially launched as a way for people to ‘check in’ at venues (and thereby see if friends might be checked in somewhere nearby), over a decade of use, the app developed an impressive database of reviews and venue-specific tips. About two years ago, Foursquare spun out the check-in functionality to an entirely separate app, Swarm. Foursquare, in turn, became simply a search-engine for places. Based on the quality of the search results I’d been stumbling across, I re-downloaded Foursquare on my phone, and it’s now become my first-pass go-to when trying to pull up a list of spots nearby, whether to find a new restaurant, or to jog my memory about bars I’d visited drunkenly years back and since forgot.

In parallel to Yelp-ing, I’d also long depended on Zagat for more focused restaurant reviews. But once the company was acquired by Google, the whole thing seemed to sort of fall apart. So, instead, I switched over to LocalEats, whose listings of restaurants beloved by local professional reviewers would invariably align with the stuff I already liked in areas I knew well. Because LocalEats skewed towards well-established spots, I also regularly checked in on Eater, to keep up with the cool and new.

A few months ago, however, I discovered the Infatuation. As they put it:

You know the trusted friends you turn to when you need a restaurant suggestion? That’s us. We aren’t “professional” food critics, meaning you won’t hear any pretentious foodie hobnob from us. We also aren’t restaurant industry insiders, nor do we accept invites, comped meals, or solicited reservations. Ever. What we are is a website and mobile app [started] by two guys who wanted to help their friends find not only great restaurants, but the right restaurant to suit their needs on a particular evening. That’s still what The Infatuation is built on today.

With a great new app, The Infatuation has become the second half of my one-two punch (alongside Foursquare) when trying to figure out where to head off to eat.

I highly recommend downloading both apps – The Infatuation and Foursquare – and using them to do the same.