Lawrence Weibman is the host of NYC Food Tour. In this video, he takes viewers around the East Village delighting them to a “truly memorable meal, ” highlighting three cuisines the average Joe has probably not tried but will undoubtedly love.
Category: Restaurants
Summer Happenings in NYC
Summertime and the livin’ is easy…at least in New York City it has the potential of being…
What’s better in the summer than ice-cream? Learning how to make it yourself from the experts and thanks to Sarah Lohman, historic gastronome and Laura Weiss, ice cream historian (who even knew such professions existed?) one can now learn about the history and mechanics and ice cream and making the yummy cold stuff first hand. Last week, Brooklynites were invited to the Brooklyn Historical Society, located at 128 Pierrepont Street from 7-9pm on July 28th to learn all about that.
And then tomorrow for food lovers who are looking for something on the savory side that is a bit hotter, the Brooklyn Historical Society hosted Scott Wiener, a pizza historian, together with a panel of Brooklyn pizza-makers on The Search for Authenticity will be discussing who makes the most authentic pizza in New York City. The event will boast a classic old-school slice shop, alongside an historic coal-fired pizza parlor, a traditional Neapolitan pizzeria, and a new-school pie innovator. What more could food connoisseurs ask for?
Staying cool and keeping hot in New York is what it’s all about this summer.
East Village Pizza Pie
Pizza, pizza and more pizza. You can never have too much pizza. Well that seems to be the sentiment in New York City at least. With the recent opening of Baker’s Pizza on Avenue A, there is something new happening in the world of NY pizza. It is hoped by owner-chef Jordan Baker-Jamie Cacace that “the power of the New York-style pie [will] become a destination stop of any pizza journeyman’s map.”
So what actually goes in to making these pizzas different? First, the pies are very filling with an extremely generous base and exploding with toppings. Second, there are funky toppings such as brussels sprouts, bacon and white truffle oil (the B&B) or speck, broccoli rabe, roasted red peppers and parmesan (the Speck-tacular). It is these ingredients which set the pizza place apart from Muzzarella Pizza which is just down the block.
New York City certainly has quite a history with pizza. According to a blog post referring to Ed Levine’s book, ‘Pizza – A Slice of Heaven,’ “The story of pizza in America starts in New York City, on Spring Street in lower Manhattan, in 1905 when Gennaro Lombardi, a baker and pizzaiolo from Naples is granted the first license in the United States to sell pizza. Lombardi had come to America at the age of 14. He was already a baker by trade, and soon found work in a Brooklyn bakery and a grocery store on Spring Street in Manhattan. He had the idea of baking pizzas at the bakery and selling them the next morning at the grocery. It was a very good idea. [and then it spread around America]… A year after Antonio Pero opened Totonno’s in Brooklyn, another Neapolitan immigrant pizzaiolo named Frank Pepe opened Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (1925), the first pizzeria in New Haven, CT.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Beetle House Bar
Three days ago Tim Burton got his own bar. Well, sort of. Beetle House took its inspiration from him and opened on May 6 as a gothic eatery on 308 E. Sixth Street. With its witchy interior, featuring medical equipment artwork, straitjackets and more based on Burton classics, it’s sure to be a popular address for diehard Burton fans.
However, punters can rest assured that real beetle juice will not be on the menu – just a cocktail with that name, alongside Alice’s Cup of Tea and The Headless Horseman. Some of the items on the dinner menu are: Chesire Mac and Cheese, Eggs Skellington and Edward Burger Hands.
And then of course there’s the guy (who’s not being paid by the owner) who just keeps coming dressed in a Beetlejuice costume. They might want to think of giving him a salary though since he seems to have been quite popular with the patrons until now!
Making Meals More Manageable
Lunchtime around New York can get a little crazy. It can be expensive, busy, and overwhelming. Perhaps though, MealPass will be the solution. This start-up is promising a cheaper lunch option and a ton of exciting restaurants. It’s also a great way to encourage people to eat lunch: if you use it every week day, you could end up paying a really small amount – less than $5 for each meal.
MealPass – that works very much like ClassPass – started business at the beginning of the year in Miami and Boston. It has completely taken off since then, with customers ordering lunch more than 25,000 times through the site.
Currently New York has around 130 participating restaurants, from which MealPass members can select a meal from the lunch menu from 7pm the night before. They have to put in their choice by 9.30am the day of delivery as restaurants need time to prepare. Then, members go to the restaurant to collect meals without having to line up or pay on the spot. While it is true there are other companies like UberEats doing this, the main goal of MealPass is affordability.
Upper East Side Goes Organic
Who eats healthily in New York’s Upper East Side? Which stores sell the most organic and nutritionally-dense food? Where can one get a great meal in a restaurant that has health as its focus?
A study recently published attempted to answer some of these questions. It was conducted by two researchers from the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, from NYU and a third from Clark University’s Department of Economics. They found that there is a “high concentration of organic food offerings on either side of Central Park and in Morningside Heights,” but that as soon as you move over to Central Park (except for an area by the far west side of Morningside Heights), finding organic food is not so easy.
However, for those living in the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, the story is quite different. And that might mean that residents in those areas end up eating healthier. Indeed, according to one of the researchers on this project – Associate Professor of Food Studies at NYU’s Steinhardt School Carolyn Dimitri – the results “support the notion that consumers with greater access to organic food are more likely to buy organic food.”
For those interested in accessing more healthy options in the neighborhood, nutritionist Kristy Rao studied the area and compiled her findings into an article entitled ‘The 10 Healthiest Eats on New York’s Upper East Side.’
GastroPub to Open in Upper West Side
Chef Rob McCue (of Chef Roble and Co. and Hell’s Kitchen Season 8 competitor) will be overseeing the menu at a gastropub to open near West 107th Street at 949 Columbus Avenue. This two-floor eatery will be in the location of where Lura – a Mediterranean restaurant – once was.
The idea behind this is, according to McCue create a “London-style gastropub and bring it to the Upper West Side, where one doesn’t really exist.” The goal is to offer “comfort food [in a] higher end more relaxed setting.” Craft beers sourced from New York State will also be available.
One local was reported to have said that this now, Columbus Avenue is “slowly starting to develop” adding that hopefully “this venture will be a nice enhancement to that area.”
Eating with a Difference in Tribeca
For those looking for a menu with a difference in the Tribeca neighborhood, they might be pleased to hear that Maman is opening a third restaurant at 211 West Broadway. Get something that is simultaneously delicious, aesthetically pleasing and healthy, such as the spaghetti-squash “à la carbonara.” This dish features a poached egg, roasted pastrami, pumpkin seeds and rosemary on top of gluten free corn spaghetti and spaghetti squash. Quite delicious and very pretty.
It is hoped that this restaurant will succeed since just over a year ago the first one opened on Centre Street. Next one opened in Toronto and this is the third one. It will be open seven days a week from 7am to midnight.
Tribeca these days is becoming quite well known for its alternative food fare. For example, A. B. Biagi with its organic milk based ice cream, featuring Brazilian flavors and tastes such as basil pine nut and acai berry. If you want a creamy soy milk panna cotta, check out Brushstroke and then for freshly ground Japanese buckwheat, kobe beef and more, Daruma-ya is perfect.
Tribeca certainly has a whole slew of new and veteran restaurants offering alternative food fare to its customers.
East Village Food
It used to be known for its smoke stores and tattoo parlors. But that seems to be changing in the East Village of New York as foodies start to take over. This is quite a recent phenomenon – just over the last few months in fact – as Noreetuh, Superiority Burger, Faku and Black Seed make their presence known.
Eateries are getting trendier in the east village too. A veggie burger joint, a monkfish liver torchon and veggie topped-pizza store are all the rage. There is also a place to get a fried-chicken sandwich, modern Korean food and more.
Indeed, according to Christina Tosi, chef, founder and owner of Milk Bar (who first opened an eater in the East Village nearly six years ago) the East village is perhaps “the perfect hotbed for trained, pedigreed cooks to raise a little money and bring their individual visions to life as up-and-coming, headlining chefs and restaurateurs.”
And of course, it’s not just food items that are becoming trendy in the area. Cocktails are a whole other story!
The Village Goes Vegan
The East Village is getting a vegan wine bar…whatever that may be. Just three days ago, the bar opened up on East 7th Street. It will also be serving food…vegan of course.
Named Avant Garden, it is being opened by Ravi DeRossi, who has become quite well-known for his cocktail inventions. In addition, DeRossi has just set up a non-profit organization to fundraise for charitable groups whose goal it is to end animal cruelty.
The restaurant aims to serve quality, upscale food and has been a dream of DeRossi for many years. Indeed, DeRossi himself refers to it as a “a ‘passion project’ … having grown up vegan himself, and stayed vegan most of his life.” His “biggest obstacle” – over the last decade or so since he has dreamed up this idea – has been finding a “good vegan chef” and now, with Andrew D’Ambrosi (who has been head chef at his seafood restaurant in Bergen Hill), has found the right guy.
DeRossi came to that discovery after tasting D’Ambrosi’s hen of the woods mushroom dish. Given that DeRossi has always hated mushrooms he was shocked at how much he loved this. He then discovered it was vegan so put D’Ambrossi to the challenge to make more vegan dishes. He completely rose to this challenge making a variety of dishes for that seafood restaurant to try them out and the rest, as they say, was history.