Top 5 New York Sandwiches?

Lobster Roll @ Luke's Lobster
The ricotta special @ Defonte's
Turkey sandwich @ Torrisi
Smoked lox and green onion cream cheese on a bagel from Russ and Daughters
hot pastrami at 2nd Ave Deli

-----
Russ & Daughters
179 E Houston St, New York, NY 10002

Second Avenue Deli
162 E 33rd St, New York, NY 10016

Defonte's Sandwich Shop
261 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10010

Luke's Lobster
93 E 7th St, New York, NY 10009

Torrisi Italian Specialties
250 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10012

windycity in Manhattan

Sifton leaving [moved from Manhattan]

Agreed. Sifton's an entertaining writer but I don't really like his taste in food. I'd rather have someone whose tastes I can trust when I go out to eat.

windycity in Food Media & News

My report on EV cheap eats

I've actually never had chicken curry banh mi, I was recommending the bbq chicken banh mi which is pretty common at a lot of shops. I'm trying to wrap my head around chicken curry banh mi. . .Would that be like a chicken tikka masala on a baguette? It sounds good, I just have a hard time thinking about a very liquidy banh mi. The same way I never got the sloppy bao at baoguette.

windycity in Manhattan

BCN review - Alkimia, Berri Taktika, Sagardi, Taller de Tapas, Bar Lobo, etc.

Thanks for all of your advice. If I had known that the best restaurants were closed in Aug, we might have gone somewhere else and saved Spain for another time but we had a good experience overall.

I will say, the Euro-dollar conversion slayed us. We should have done more menu del dias to save money. Is it terrible to hope that Spain goes off the Euro? 8oz of soda for 3 Euro/4.5 USD is pretty bad. I am glad I can fulfill my new-found love of Fanta lemon in the US for lots cheaper.

Would definitely go back on a second visit to BERRI TAKTIKA and ALKIMIA.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

tapas itinerary...help.

It's pretty hard to move around with 7 people at the tapas bars in the Barri Gothic area. Sagardi is standing room only (no chairs). My partner didn't enjoy eating while standing so on our tapas crawls we tended toward the larger places with ample seating. Taller de Tapas was one of our favorites and had lots of seating for larger parties. We actually went there 2 nights in a row because there are so many pinxtos/tapas bars in that area that we wanted to try that we wouldn't have been able to sample everything in one night.

I thought Alkimia was the highlight of our trip, and we did the lunch prix fixe there before heading over to Sagrada Familia a few blocks away. It also allowed us to avoid the insane lines in the morning, and we didn't have to worry about being hungry while waiting or visiting.

We visited in August when most of the high end restaurants were closed, so you're lucky you have your pick of places - I would have loved to go to Cinc Sentis!

windycity in Spain/Portugal

Madrid in 2 days

I ate at La Barraca and it was the best paella that I've ever had. We had the rabbit paella, and it was brothy and the rice was rounded and creamy. Also had the flan for dessert, that flan has the perfect texture and consistency.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

Panera Bread -- I like what I've seen. What do you think?

Lols. I enjoy the cinnamon crunch bagel and the crunchy sugar bits. Although perhaps it would be better with poppyseeds or sesame.

I actually am in the pro-Panera camp, and have been since I knew it in the Midwest as East St. Louis Bread & Bakery. I used to eat a soup and sandwich there every week - fast, reasonably delicious, fairly priced.

I do think the sandwiches used to have better bread and chips, however. And I believe the sandwiches are getting smaller as well. But it's still a safer bet for me than a random shop or restaurant.

windycity in Chains

Disappointing Balthazar Bakery experience; strong canele alternative?

I am not a canele aficionado, but the ones at Market Day Canele in Philly are pretty good. Bit of travel though.

windycity in Manhattan

My report on EV cheap eats

Sorry you didn't enjoy your experience at the Redhead. I'm surprised the fried chicken didn't come with a side salad - I've been a couple of times, but not in months as the lines are too long and the restaurant too crowded.

On Bisous Ciao, I thought the macarons were fine, but not as good as Madeleine. I am looking forward to trying Laduree.

In terms of bahn mi, you should try the ones at Nicky's on 3rd St. They are fresh and cheap, and the beef and chicken ones are especially good. They stop making the sandwiches when they run out of bread for the day, which has happened as early as 7p in my experience. I don't like the pork pate banh mi in general either. But I would hate for you to give up on banh mi so easily just because you didn't like the pork ones at Baoguette. Other Chowhounders also like bahn mi at Banh Mi So 1.

For ramen, you might also want to try Men kui tei across from Cooper Union. I find their broth to be less dense/ more drinkable than Minca's but I like the Minca noodles better.

Thanks for the helpful roundup!

-----
Saigon Banh Mi 1
369 Broome St, New York, NY 10013

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches
150 E 2nd St, New York, NY 10009

Minca
536 E 5th St, New York, NY 10009

Men Kui Tei
63 Cooper Sq, New York, NY 10003

Baoguette Cafe
37 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10003

Bisous Ciao
101 Stanton St, New York, NY 10002

Laduree
864 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021

windycity in Manhattan

Chelsea for tired people

The cute Argentinian place is called El Cocotero and has good food particularly the sandwiches but slow service (the place is pretty tiny.) I took an out of town group there and they were really happy with the drinks and food.

-----
El Cocotero
228 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011

windycity in Manhattan

Soup Downtown

I am looking for good, hearty, soul-warming soups for this week especially in light of the constant showers. Places that deliver downtown would be ideal, although I could be convinced to venture out into the rain for a really good bowl of soup.

I like the gumbo at DC Coast, and am looking for other places - either high end or low end that have soup (either clear as day broth or thick, rich stews). Help a sick chowhounder out, will ya?

-----
DC Coast Restaurant
1401 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005

windycity in Washington DC & Baltimore Area

Mini-review: Ping's Seafood still pretty solid

We went back about a month or more ago when Dim Sum Go Go was having problems with their steamer and we found that it was better than we remembered it. My hope is that they've decided to turn things around.

-----
Dim Sum Go Go
5 E Broadway, New York, NY 10038

windycity in Manhattan

Madrid in 2 days

Please critique my eating schedule:

Juana la loca - really looking forward to the tortilla espanola.

Need a good recommendation for a restaurant specializing in paella. I wasted my Barcelona chance to eat paella. I have Barrera and La Reina, need help picking between the two.

Casa Lastra for Asturian.

1 day will be spent in Segovia eating luscious luscious cochinillo so I don't want asador in Madrid.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

BCN review - Alkimia, Berri Taktika, Sagardi, Taller de Tapas, Bar Lobo, etc.

thanks for the recommendations. I feel like we wasted a few meals, but all together, had a great food experience.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

BCN review - Alkimia, Berri Taktika, Sagardi, Taller de Tapas, Bar Lobo, etc.

These restaurants were the highlight of my trip in Barcelona. I just ate at these places, so the menus should be current.

ALKIMIA - an intimate restaurant that has a 6 course lunch menu for 38 euro where you can pick betwen 2 options for the apps and main (the menu makes it look like it is only 3 courses. Do not be fooled, this place ia an excellent value.) It is ideally situated a few blocks from Sagrada Familia and has a nice wine menu. The meal started with a shooter of tomato water with chorizo, then progressed to an amuse bouche of octopus with sour cream. Then a choice of two salads with fresh greens, small flowers, and a choice of dried tuna or sardines.

For the 1st main, you get a choice of very very tender octopus that is somewhat barbequed with this incredibly slightly sweet, smoky flavor or an almondine chicken roll. Then it is on to a choice of flaky John Dory with baby corn or spicy steak tartare.

For dessert, there is coconut ice cream with rich chocolate cake with dried coconut on top, and then as a final surprise, the restaurant brings out a petit fours tray. There is a hazelnut dome, an almond tart with fig, a lovely refresher of ginger, lemon verbena and melon, and finally, the perfect last bite - an explosion of passion fruit ice cream that's vibrantly tangy and sweet with a good touch of sour. I ate two of these. The restaurant is very accommodating of nut allergies but if you have really really severe nut allergies, you should know that the sourdough bread and the frutos secos (dried fruit and nut) bread are on the same bread platter that goes around. Their bread is delicious, btw. And most of the petit fours have nuts of some sort except the refresher.

My apologies if the descriptions of the food are crude, the menu doesn't list the dishes for the lunch special so all descriptions are mine. So far, this is my favorite place - not a note out of place.

BAR LOBO - a tapas bar by Le Meridian hotel, it has straight-forward and tasty food. The best was the fried artichoke and their lime granita.

SAGARDI - This is a Basque pinxtos place and it's slightly confusing if you haven't been to the tapas places where you grab a plate and load up your plate with bites of food on bread, then the waitstaff counts the toothpicks to tally up your total. We had a bite of sardine on some purple mash, the tuna filled red pepper, a large ham croquette, and a fried fish fritter plus a coke and a cider for 12 euro. A good price for what we got, but my partner was unimpressed.

So we went to TALLER DE LAS TAPAS (2nd night in a row). Over the two visits, highlights included the sauteed spinach with chickpeas and iberian pork cheeks, the bacalao (salt cod)) fritters, the minty salad, and the gazpacho. Avoid the sardines - too salty.

BERRI TAKTIKA - This is supposed to be the finest example of Basque cuisine in Barcelona. Per PBSF, we went to the rear room. Well, it is delicious and hearty. The star was the long bean and white bean soup. It comes in a tureen, and I didn't realize how much I missed warm soup until we had it. Honestly I could have just had a whole tureen myself. We also had an omelette of mushrooms and cheese, which was tasty but nothing special. Then it was onto the main courses of fried pork with red peppers (yes, my partner really picked this) and a duck confit, which I was kinda hoping would be small since duck confit in the US usually is and I was pretty full by then. Nopes, a very generous portion of fall off the bone duck confit with a quince jelly and what I'm pretty sure was Thai sweet chili sauce. Interesting combo that worked. The duck skin could have been crispier but as full as I was, my partner and i ate every last bit.

BOPON - this bakery is really delicious. They have great chocolate croissants, and in addition to having chocolate on the inside, they dip the two horns in chocolate as well. Also had a very refreshing cold honeydew melon soup.

LA FONDA DE PORT OLIMPIC - this is a terrible and overpriced restaurant on the waterfront. The hake with clams was mildly edible, though the clams were disgusting. Like overly fishy and metallic. And the fisherman's paella had way overcooked seafood (dry to the point of stringy) as well as rice that seemed to be liberally doused with ketchup. Lesson here folks: don't ask hotel concierge for a romantic dinner, and plan out your meals well in advance using chowhounder advice. This was a ripoff and not romantic at all, though it was Sunday and most places are closed, and we didn't have internet.

So much more that I wanted to see and eat, and not enough time. Main wish was to go back to Boqueria while the stalls were open (we went on a Monday at 6.) But i did pick up some delicious jellies and jamon iberico.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

Does anybody go to Chinatown anymore?

I go to Chinatown every chance I get. Am still sad about the closing of New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, but there's lots of other great, cheap eats - Shanghai Cafe, Dim Sum Go Go, all the 5 dumplings/$1 places, Pho Bang, Tearrific (bubble tea), and a bunch of places still left to discover and try.

In addition to that, cheap cheap produce and meats plus Hong Kong Grocery store for snacks, and other Asian staples like rice, noodles, and sauces.

-----
Dim Sum Go Go
5 E Broadway, New York, NY 10038

Shanghai Cafe
100 Mott St, New York, NY 10013

Pho Bang
157 Mott St, New York, NY 10013

Teariffic
51 Mott St, New York, NY 10013

Hong Kong Supermarket
157 Hester St, New York, NY 10013

windycity in Manhattan

Malaga, Madrid, BCN - last 2 wks of Aug

Thank you for the detailed reply. So far, here are the places that I have wanted to eat at which are closed (this might be helpful for other chowhounders in the future):

Moo
Cinq Sentis

Alkimia reopens Aug 21.

Inquiries in at Gresca.

Am interested in Espai Sucre and the following Granjas: Granja La Pallaresa, Granja Dulcinea, Granja M. Viader,

And at La Boqueria: Bar Central

Everyday eats: Cervesaria Catalana, Cafe de l'Academia

-----
Espai Sucre
Carrer de la Princesa, 53, Barcelona, CT 08003, ES

windycity in Spain/Portugal

Jose Andres' American Eats review

So I want to preface this by saying I am a huge fan of Jose Andres and the Bethesda Jaleo was my favorite restaurant and we would go weekly or biweekly when we lived near there.

But sadly, American Eats misses the mark. Sure, it's a popup, but it's still pretty pricey, and the flavors are off. We started with the bread bowl with 3 pieces of bread and blackberry butter (butter in blackberry sauce, and I couldn't taste the blackberry) for $6. Then I had the she crab soup, which was tepid, greyish brown soup loaded with so much salt that you couldn't taste the crab. This was not worth $11.

The fried chicken that my friend had were tender and the homemade ketchup that accompanied it was quite good. The highlight of the meal was the pickled watermelon salad with crabcakes. I thought the flavors played off of each other nicely, even without eating the bleu cheese that came crumbled over the watermelon.

For dessert, we split the pineapple upside down cake, which was solid, not life changing. I can't say that I wuold rush to go back since the bill was quite high for what we ordered, and I wound up with indigestion right afterward. Leaving that aside, most of the food was unexceptional. The service was good, if stilted. I've been to popups that are better run and tastier. Not sure why Andres closed Cafe Atlantico to open up this experiment.

-----
Cafe Atlantico
405 8th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004

windycity in Washington DC & Baltimore Area

Malaga, Madrid, BCN - last 2 wks of Aug

Similar to the previous poster, I was really sad to find out that most of the restaurant recommendations that I have are closed in August, or closed the last two weeks of August. Now, I'm certain that I won't starve, but I'm also sad that I won't be able to check out some greatest hits.

Do folks have other suggestions for Malaga, Madrid or BCN? I'm looking for one upscale restaurant in each city, 1 breakfast nook, and the rest can be more along the lines of inexpensive eats. In particular, I'm looking for at least one restaurant that specializes in Basque cuisine, and a place where I can pick up lots of jamon serrano to bring back to the States.

We're also doing a day trip to the Alhambra, so any recommendations near there would be helpful.

windycity in Spain/Portugal

Anyone been to Ouest (Quest) Recently?

I went in March and it was not terribly memorable.

windycity in Manhattan

Greek Restaurants

I was pretty disappointed in Kellari Taverna to be honest, I wouldn't go back. I ordered the octopus which was lauded and I didn't like the flavor.

-----
Kellari Taverna
19 W. 44th Street, New York, NY 10036

windycity in Manhattan

Critique my selections please.

Ditto on swapping out Red Egg for Dim Sum Go Go and on going to lobster roll at Luke's. Although if you want to check out Chelsea Market for other reasons, there's L'Arte de Gelato with great shakes and gelato.

-----
L'Arte del Gelato
75 9th Ave, New York, NY 10011

Dim Sum Go Go
5 E Broadway, New York, NY 10038

Red Egg
202 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013

windycity in Manhattan

STEER CLEAR LIST - Worst Meal You've Had in the Last Six Months

I am going to ditto A-Wah. I had really high hopes for it based upon chowhound and NYTimes reviews. It was, as you say, a mix of undercooked and overcooked rice with not much flavor. I was really puzzled by the hype.

-----
A-Wah
5 Catherine St, New York, NY 10038

windycity in Manhattan

Zaab-Elee, new Thai in the east village, now the best Thai in NYC, perhaps.

I don't get the love for Zabb City. Went there was was quite underwhelmed, didn't even finish my leftovers.

-----
Zabb City
244 E 13th St, New York, NY 10003

windycity in Manhattan

obscure picks for West Coast hound

Hi Windy, from Windycity! I like Kefi and Snack Taverna (lunch) for Greek.

Essa Bagel is tops, and if you're in a carb-loading mood, check out Birdbath Bakery at 223 First Ave. They have a pretzel croissant which is pretty killer.

Macarons - go for Madeleine Patisserie on W 23rd or Kee's Chocolates on Thompson in W Village. Bisous isn't that special to me.

I find Milk Bar way overrated. For delis and pastrami, I like 2nd Ave Deli best.

For Italian sandwiches, I like the turkey at Torrisi, and Defonte's has a broccoli rabe, sausage, and ricotta sandwich called the ricotta special that is indeed. Enjoy your visit!

-----
Kee's Chocolates
80 Thompson St, New York, NY 10012

Ess-a-Bagel
359 1st Ave, New York, NY 10010

Ess-a-Bagel
831 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10022

Birdbath
223 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

La Maison du Macaron
132 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011

Snack Taverna
63 Bedford St, New York, NY 10014

Kefi
505 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10024

Momofuku Milk Bar
251 E 13th St, New York, NY 10003

windycity in Manhattan

Ice Cream Cake

I've gotten ice cream cakes from Chinatown Ice Cream factory before. You'll be fine if you take a cab, plus you get unconventional flavor choices like peach, mango, lychee, green tea, red bean, black sesame.

windycity in Manhattan

Best lobster roll in NYC?

Lukes and then Red Hook Lobster Pound.

-----
Red Hook Lobster Pound Truck
New York, New York, NY 10001

windycity in Manhattan

Songs about Food and Sex

"Sex and Candy" - Marcy Playground
"Caramel" - Suzanne Vega
"Raspberry Swirl" - Tori Amos

windycity in Not About Food

Jaded California food snob seeks like-minded fusspots to recommend good DC restaurants

Everytime I'm in Philly I go to Capogiro and Lan Zhou noodles in Chinatown. I've had some excellent meals at Distrito as well. But yes, overall Philly is probably worse than DC foodwise. Amazing salted caramels at the Market.

windycity in Washington DC & Baltimore Area