Bucking, a trend

Percy's is the best dollar slice in NYC.

There -- I said it.

I actually said it more than a week ago in the Post (but for some reason didn't blog about it until now.)

Of course, just because Percy's is the best, doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of pretty good single dollar options.

Two Bros., which has been popping up all around the city is pretty excellent, when you consider that it's only a dollar. (My main criticism of 2 Bros. is that it's a little doughy, for me.)

Likewise, 99 Cent Fresh Pizza isn't bad -- which also has multiple locations. (That slice is a touch greasy, but also not bad.)

The owner of Percy's (Jim McGown) said something interesting though:

He thinks that all pizza is either going to become $1 slices, or $4 slices, within the next couple of years.

The market can't really sustain the middle-range slice. If $1 slices are decent, that's what people will eat. If they want something truly spectacular, they'll shell out $3 or $4. (Particularly in NYC where people will pay for the cachet of getting a great slice.) But where is the market for the $2 or $2.50 slice?

It might be lights out for them.

In the meantime, check out Percy's.

Happy new year!

Here's wishing you a (slightly late) Happy Year of the Dragon!

I actually wrote an account of a food crawl I took in Chinatown a couple of weekends ago here.

Of the places I went to, Peking Duck House was my favorite.

...But as a Chinese-American friend of mine said when she heard the list of places I had visited: "Ah... you had Chinese food for white people."

It's sort of true. To get a really good Chinese meal, I almost think Manhattan Chinatown is over. You have to go to Flushing. (There are, of course, great and authentic Chinese restaurants in Manhattan -- but very few of them are in Chinatown.) But if you're looking for a place to celebrate, check out Legend for some seriously good Sichuan food.

Humm dinger!

Daniel Humm, the great chef at Eleven Madison Park, spoke to me about his favorite dining spots in New York -- you can read it here.

If you don't know Mr. Humm and his cooking, he's pretty hot right now. Adam Platt recently declared 11 Mad the best restaurant in the city. (Better than Per Se, better than Masa, better than Jean-Georges, better than Daniel... although, according to the Plattmeister not a 5 star restaurant. Huh?)

He also got his third Michelin star, and has the Eleven Madison Park cookbook out. (Which is a very gorgeous book -- even if the recipes are really a little too hard to try out at home. But that's the case with most celebrity chef cookbooks.)

I went to 11 Mad last year -- for my fiancee's birthday. It was pretty delish. (Not the single greatest meal I've ever had, but unquestionably excellent.) I have the feeling that he's entering the celeb chef realm -- so you might hear a lot more about him over the next couple of years.

And Humm's food picks around the city were good ones. Very little was haute or chichi -- a lot of them were hidden and secret. Enjoy!

Do do that fondue that you do so well...

My little history of fondue and its recent revival can be read here.

I don't see the sidebar part online -- which is all about the etiquette of eating fondue -- but there are essentially four rules:

1) Don't double dip. (Who are you, George Costanza?)

2) Stir the pot.

The one criticism one of my experts made of the finished story was that I made it sound a little too easy... the truth is, that if you don't stir the pot when you dip, you'll create a giant cheese cinderblock at the bottom. Definite no-no.

3) One piece of bread at a time.

4) If you drop your bread in the pot you have to buy the next round of drinks. (Or, if you're female, you have to kiss the chef.)

Enjoy!

Would you pay $19 for a grilled cheese sandwich?

This is the question I asked in last week's New York Post.

I was surprised at how many people said, "Hell yes!"

Indeed, Terrance Brennan of Artisanal makes a pretty good case for why the grilled cheese is underpriced:

Cheese is damned expensive!

Yes, gourmet cheese is a fortune. But I always felt that the glory of the grilled cheese is that a downscale version (i.e. the Kraft single) is perfectly delicious, and therefore, there's no need to blow big money on a chichi version. (One publicist sent an email to the Post saying that the restaurant she reps does NOT serve a grilled cheese. The relevant item was a croque monsier... What a crock!)

But, I must admit, a lot of these fancy grilled cheeses were delish.

Fry and see

In their continued efforts to kill me, The New York Post sent me to report on the third annual Latke Festival at BAM on Monday night.

It was delicious. (If extremely fattening. And I'm not sure if I ever want to eat another latke again.)

One can read my brief account of it here, along with the winning recipe and a really nice photo gallery of some of the prettier looking latkes.

Of course, I was not the only reporter there. The Forward was there, as was the Wall Street Journal. (And I'm sure a few other places I missed.)

I thought the judges picked well for the winner -- Jason Weiner's (of the restaurant Almond) bluefish, goat yogurt and dill latke. Weiner did an excellent job. I'm only a little disappointed I didn't have the space to talk about a few others that I really liked.

My three other favorites (aside from Jason's) was Mae Mae Cafe's latke, which was made like a Reuben sandwich on a "rye" latke. (The chef told me it was her first time making a latke -- but she did an excellent job.)

I also liked the duck confit latke (pictured), and The Plaza's foie gras latke.

Happy Hanukkah!

Thonx for coming!

Last week, in honor of Bronx Restaurant Week (happening right now! Check it out here) Baron Ambrosia led me to several of his favorite spots in the borough.

If you don't know the great Baron Ambrosia, he is the Odysseus of the Bronx food scene. He wanders the borough, samples its wares, and films it all for his show Bronx Flavor.

He's also an extremely sweet and hilarious guy.

I wrote up his picks for Restaurant Week here.

My favorite was Coconut Palm. If you've never had chicken gizzards, this is your chance to try them. (Chewy, but not in a bad way. And in this delicious curry sauce. It really smacked one out of the park.) Also on the menu: black pudding (which is made in-house), duck fried rice (perhaps the best fried rice I've ever tasted) and fried shark. (That was the only thing that was slightly disappointing. But not bad, by any means.)

But, in any event, this week is a great excuse to visit some Bronx restaurants -- go out there and try 'em!

Back to the grinder

Hey schlubfans!

I know it's been a long time. They're keeping me busy at the old newspaper mill.

Like, for example, this big round-up I did of new (or newish, in some cases) sandwiches.

Almost all of these sandwiches are worth trying. Although some are certainly more worth trying than others.

If you had asked me yesterday which my favorite was, I would have said BaoHaus. BaoHaus, for those of you who follow my musings closely, is the domain of one Eddie Huang. (I wrote about this young man exactly a year ago. Go figure!)

But I should also add: I did check out the place this afternoon to see if they had gotten any traction from my article, and the wait was far, far nastier than anything I had experienced in the past. And the frenzy of people made the food suffer, slightly. (If I had to write the thing over I definitely would have adjusted the waiting time. Which was very good the first time I was in. But a good 15 minutes today.)

My runners up were City Sandwich and Num Pang.

But I definitely got a new lunchtime sandwich shop to replace Subway, and that's Potbelly.

Mmm...mmm... UN

Big news week for the UN:

Palestinians ask for a state!

Iran continues to act douchey!

And, of course, there's my story in Wednesday's NY Post about where the diplomats at the little countries go when they want some home cookin.

We picked five countries with under a million people.

The most interesting story was probably the Bhutan restaurant. It's a sushi restaurant... but the owners are from Bhutan. And, if you call in advance, they'll make you some authentic Bhutanese food. (It was almost like going into a speakeasy.) I got a dish of dry and spicy cured pork and beef -- which was terrific! (A little chewy. But good.)

Unfortunately, a lot of the story wound up on the cutting room floor. But here are some of the juicy details.

My favorite of the restaurants (that I visited) in terms of taste was probably the Cypriot restaurant -- seriously delicious.

Marc Weydert, an attache for the Luxembourg mission to the UN told me that Lea Linster is the only female chef who has won the Bocuse d’Or competition -- and she's from Luxembourg.

That being said, there’s no straight Luxembourg restaurant in New York City. (Café Luxembourg on the Upper West Side was named after the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.) And trying to find some of the more rustic Luxembourg dishes such as "Wäinzoossiss" (a special Luxembourg-style sausage made with spices and wine) or "Kuddelfleck" (tripe or cow’s stomach, coated in breadcrumbs and fried in oil) is a hopeless cause. However, "Gromperekichelcher", which is the Luxembourg equivalent of potato pancakes, are not too difficult to find an approximation of.

And, Weydert adds, Luxembourg wines are making an appearance in New York, too. La Cave, a wine shop in Mamaroneck, NY, is about to start carrying some of the best Luxembourg wines: Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewurztraminer.

Finally, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to get into more detail about the Icelandic food at Scandinavia House. According to Morten Sohlberg, the owner, the lamb "is lamb which we raise on our own farm upstate. It’s a specific breed that comes from Iceland."

Ne'er do Wells

Quite the controversy is a brewin' in the food world.

In the right corner is M. Wells, beloved Long Island City diner which is closing shop this month after less than a year, after the landlord jacked the rent up.

And in the opposite corner is GQ food columnist, Alan Richman.

The controversy goes like this: He went to the diner once and had a great meal. He went twice and also had a great meal. He went for a third time and had a terrible meal.

The food (usually terrific) was middling, and the service was horrible.

The next day he got an email from the owner saying that he had apparently pinched one of the waitresses on the tush.

Holy shit!

It's quite an accusation. And not having any extra knowledge other than what appeared in the article, I probably shouldn't weigh in on it. But I will say that the accusation sounds phony to me for several reasons.

1) If it was true, I would be surprised if Richman would draw attention to it by actually publishing a column about it. (After all, he had a perfect excuse for killing the article: M. Wells was closing. It's not really the actions of a guilty person.)

2) The motive for a phony accusation is there, as Richman points out in the column.

3) If this ever comes to a head, Richman has witnesses (three people at his table) to back him up.

4) Sarah Obraitis (the M. Wells owner who was in email contact with him) seemed, by the end of their exchange, to be backing off the accusation. (The accusation moved from "hardy pat on the ass" to "tapped one of our female servers inappropriately.")

5) For all the press this article has received, I have yet to see Obraitis -- or anyone else at M. Wells -- publicly challenge the review, bring forth the accuser, or issue any kind of rebuttal. (Part of me is scratching his head wondering why a reporter hasn't called her and asked for her side of this? Where are you, Eater and Grub Street?)

6) If Richman did this, it would soil his reputation. It seems such a weird, gratutious thing to do.

All that being said, I'd like to hear more details from the other side. But I'm inclined to think this accusation was bogus.

Day tripping

Speaking of summer food stories, yesterday I also came up with a round-up of good food excursions.

Lots of farm-to-table dinners, the Hudson Valley food festival, and you should definitely check out Patrick Connolly's pop up dinner series. (I went to the one in East Hampton with my gf -- and it was awesome.)

I was particularly proud of the headline ("Off the eaten path") which caused a stir in the features section (there were "All right!"s and high fives) ... that is, until I told my parents.

"Yeah, I've run that before," my mother said.

This is the reason you should never go into your parents profession....

Chug-a-schlub

Hey schlubs!

Being that we're smack in the middle of summer, here's mine and Christina Amoroso's guide to the new beer gardens of NYC.

I think Spritzenhaus was my favorite.

I also liked Bier International in Harlem. (Not a bad burger.)

Queens flush

I'm a little late in posting this, but here's my round-up of the secret restaurants of Jackson Heights, Flushing and Elmhurst from last month's New York Post. (My colleague --and fellow Queens inhabitant -- Kirsten Matthew did L.I.C., Astoria and Woodside.)

I went on this high caloric expedition with Vikas Khanna (of Junoon), Danielle Chang (of Lucky Rice) and Zak Pelaccio (of Fatty 'Cue, Fatty Crab -- and many other Fatty enterprises.)

My fellow Queens readers will notice that a number of the classic Chinese restaurants of Flushing were sort of ignored. I told Danielle that we could not go to either Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan or Spicy and Tasty. (Once a restaurant has been reviewed by the Times food critic -- as both of those great restaurants have -- it's no longer such a secret, in my view.) But nevertheless, she picked some excellent spots. (You should definitely try the Taiwanese shaved ice spot.)

But my favorites had to be the Elmhurst restaurants (if for no other reason that they were the biggest surprise.)

In fact, we didn't even have space for all the places we visited. We went with Joe DiStefano, author of any serious Queens' resident's go-to blog, World's Fare. (Joe's recent coverage of the new Flushing mall might have made my "secret restaurants of Flushing" list had I been choosing instead of Danielle.) One of the restaurants that we visited (which didn't make the cut) was Java Village -- an Indonisian place that Joe thinks is the best restaurant in Elmhurst.

I was sorry we weren't able to include it. It was awesome.

Happy hunting.

Pal Joey

My visit to Joey Campanaro's roof deck can be read here.

Two things:

1) Yes, the Fire Department did come.

2) The steak that he made was frickin' fabulous. (I mean, seriously, seriously great stuff.)

I'd met Joey a couple of other times -- most memorably at burger bash in Summit, NJ, where he whipped up with what was maybe the best burger I'd ever tasted. Joey is (as my grandmother would put it) quite a character.

A Flea Grows in Brooklyn

Brooklyn Flea (that big Fort Greene-based street fair) has fled -- to Williamsburg.

Well, "expanded" is probably the better word. (But then I wouldn't be able to use that lede!) But, in any event, its new incarnation along N. 6th Street and Kent Avenue is called Smorgasburg. (Get it?)

I went this Saturday for the Post and it really is a foodie bonanza. It's crazy! There were more than 90 different vendors -- and they're expecting to have more than 100 by June.

Plus, there was a ton of things that I tried that I couldn't even get into the piece. (Maine lobster roll from Red Hook Lobster Pound, anyone?)

My three faves, though were definitely:

The Landhaus BLT.

The "Hot Griddle Mess" from SCRATCHbread.

The cold noodles from Shorty Tang.

High times

I'm a little late posting this, but here's my big story about the next phase of the High Line.

One of the interesting questions: Will Part Two of the High Line be better than Part One?

Leonard Steinberg, one of Elliman's super-brokers, seems to think so. As do a couple of others that I spoke to.

I don't know yet, but I'll certainly be visiting when part two opens for business in June.

(And while you're visiting the HL, there are a lot of great --and super-expensive -- restaurants to visit that are worth a splurge: Mario Batali's Del Posto and Scott Conant's Scarpetta. Scarpetta is probably the cheaper of the two. And it's only opened for dinner. But if you go for an early, 5 pm-ish dinner, the spaghetti with tomato sauce -- very simple, but so perfectly done -- is worth the outrageous $24 price tag.)

Forward Marche!

Yours truly went on a press trip to the Marche region of Italy last month -- these are my adventures!

And, for the record, Uliassi and Antico Furlo were two of the best meals I've ever eaten.

Family jewels

Half way through my "At Home With" Francois Latapie I started getting very nervous...

The stuff that Francois (of the new restaurant Lyon) was telling me was so damn good that I started to get very worried he'd start trying to tell me not to use the stories.

Francois and Suzanne Latapie's apartment is a real treasure trove of amazing goodies -- some illicit, some not. Francois' grandfather is Louis Latapie, and the grandson has at least three or four of his grandfather's works up on the walls. Francois also has a few stolen paintings (read the article), skulls from crypts, and much, much more. It was one of the most fascinating tours I've ever taken of an apartment.

But like most reporters who are not on deadline, I always like to double-check my notes, and I decided to bite the bullet, make sure that I got everything right and risk a confrontation in which he'd say something along the lines of "You can't print that!" (Which leads to an argument where you say, "You never said that before!")

I called Francois up and asked him a few questions about a painting that his grandfather had lifted from a cathedral in Alsace that was firebombed during World War I. "That painting that your grandfather got from the cathedral in Alsace..."

"Yes," Francois said, "it was in Colmar. C-O-L-M-A-R."

I loved this guy. (And his utterly charming wife, Suzanne, and daughter Sophie!) I only hope the French government doesn't read the piece and make him give his art work back!

The most expensive burger?

According to the Wall Street Journal this burger (pictured) at Hubert Keller's new Vegas restaurant goes for a staggering $5,000.

The good news: You get a bottle of 1995 Petrus with it. (But, as the Journal points out, you can buy one sans burger for $2,500.)

Straight Flushing

Learn all about the condo wave hitting Flushing, Queens in my story in yesterday's NY Post Home section.

This was one of those stories where I couldn't justify doing a massive food roundup video along the way (maybe I could have, but the holidays interfered) but, of course, a fresser like me has much to talk about in the Flushing Chinese food scene.

There are at least two restaurants on Robert Sietsema's favorite-Chinese-restaurants-in-NYC in Flushing that I'm dying to try.

Unfortunately, I rarely try out new places, 'cause I'm wedded to the old ones.

My favorite will always be Spicy and Tasty. But there are many, many other places to get one's Szechuan or Hunan fix on. Definitely try Hunan House. For dumplings, I like White Bear (just make sure that they're open -- I've been shit out of luck plenty of times). And, of course, one shouldn't leave Flushing without getting at least one $1 Peking Duck sandwich at Corner 28. And one shouldn't miss Xi'an Famous Food for noodles -- although it's less essential than the others. (Not because you shouldn't try it, but Xi'an got so popular that they opened another branch in Manhattan. But a Flushing Xi'an expedition is worthwhile, because it is in a sort of seedy food mall with all sorts of delicious spots nearby.)