The weather is getting cold which means that grilling is no longer a viable option anymore (also, the fact that my landlord ordered me to take down the Weber charcoal grill perched on the fire escape didn’t help).  Thus, I am incapable of grilling or barbecuing, two of my favorite things.  My roommate mentioned to me last week a place in Williamsburg called Fette Sau or “Fat Pig” in German.  It piqued my interest and we trekked over the chilly Greenpoint/Williamsburg tundra to this barbecue joint.  I was so impressed with our meal that Sunday night that I knew I had to write about it in the blog.  So excited, that I grabbed my camera and went the very next day.

What you notice about the place when you first come in is the very mellow vibe of the room.  The building was once an auto shop that the owners (same owners of Spuyten Duyvil, a great beer bar across the street) knew they needed to have to make their ideal barbecue joint.  Benches are outside for the warmer weather, a large garage door dwarves the tiny entrance next to it and the walls have all the cuts of the animals painted on them.  Very cool stuff.  

Once you know what you want on the menu (which changes daily), you wait your turn on the line and order it in front of this lovely viewing window.  Our agenda for the evening was 1/2 pound beef brisket, 1/2 pound pulled pork, large burnt baked beans and potato salad.  My accomplice and I of course knew we were biting off more than we could chew but just like a kid at a candy store my eyes were larger than my stomach.

The brisket was extremely moist.  I usually cater more towards lean but the fat on these pieces was so flavorful, I didn’t mind the slightest.  The pulled pork was a little greasy but tasted great.  The potato salad I wasn’t a huge fan of since it was a bit on the dull side but the baked beans are quite delicious and are easily the side of choice here.  The free cornbread is a nice touch.

Barbecue fans or bar fans take note: this place has one of the coolest bars I’ve ever seen.  Besides the option of ordering over 20 kinds of whiskey flights, beers can be ordered by the 1/2 pint, pint, quart, 1/2 gallon or GALLON.  I kid you not.  The beers are served in mason jars and their selection of local beers is quite unique.  The best part of the bar besides the friendly bartender though?  I think the picture speaks for itself.

I don’t really mention my actual job too often around here but I’ll make the exception today. Late last night we launched the completely redesigned FoodNetwork.com!  I’m quite pleased with the results and proud of the entire FN team who helped create it.  So click on over, check it out and whip up some recipes!

The Green Table in Chelsea Market announced this week that it would be ending it’s very pricey ($13) but awesome lunchboxes in place of a bar and seating extension in their restaurant. The lunchbox includes 1 protein and 2 sides with each day offering a choice between 2 proteins and 4 sides. I’ve snapped my occasional lunch from there and decided to collect them into one post since they are ending these healthy lunch specials. Think of this post as me paying my respects to all their delicious organic and sustainable food.

The first image of this post is meatloaf, butternut squash with honey and eggplant. The second is barbecue chicken, sauteed broccoli and red skinned potato salad and the last plastic container houses pork loin, bok choy and eggplant. Deliciousness.

Hello there, dearest reader. My dad’s birthday past and I decided to treat him to lunch around where I work. I recommended Thai, something he normally doesn’t try too often and we trekked on over to Highline Thai. I’ve always loved their lunch deal. You get a main dish and a complimentary appetizer for as little as $9! That’s cheaper than a cocktail around the Meatpacking District. I ordered the Chicken Pad Thai and my dad ordered the Peanut Crusted Salmon with coconut sour cream. Our appetizers were the Green Village Dumplings with sweet soy vinaigrette and Signature Pad Thai Spring Rolls.

The Green Dumplings I pretty much order everytime I come to Highline. They are absolutely delicious and the sweet soy is so good I could put it on almost anything. My dad’s spring rolls were also an excellent way to kick off this nice casual lunch.

You can see my dad’s salmon at the top of this post and directly above is the pad thai. This healthy mountain of noodle, chicken and peanut left me extremely satisfied and full by the end. My dad absolutely loved his salmon and as an avid salmon eater, declared it one of the finer salmon he has had. For work I’ve taken clients to this place (in this particular case it was my pops) and with it’s modern interior and excellent dishes, you should consider doing the same yourself.

These were the words I found myself saying after I sipped (gulped? slurped? what does one do with soup anyways?) my meal at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar on W 23rd Street.  My accomplice was my friend Sarah who happened to be in the neighborhood and I happened to be in the mood for these dumplings all day.

You’re met with a long walkway upon entering which is usually quite packed. Surprisingly this evening there was practically no one there. Score! we thought. We were wrong. Oh so wrong.

I ordered the Szechuan chicken dumplings with chili & white soy bean. I ordered the soup version so the chili-soy would be a part of the broth. The lady asked whether I wanted to dumplings steamed or pan-fried to which I replied “Pan-fried, of course.” Then the lady uttered the five words I never wanted to hear from any employee who ever works at Rickshaw. Those words you ask? We are out of noodles.

I let the words pour slowly out of her mouth, hang in the air for a few minutes, then slowly trickle down to the floor until they shatter my perception of reality. Out you say? Out??? Not wanting my pan-fried dumplings on a salad I accepted this noodleless soup, essentially transforming my dumpling soup into a dumpling broth. Sarah ordered the Peking Duck dumplings with shredded cabbage & scallion in a hoisin soup, er…broth. We also ordered sake because we party down like that.

My soup was spicy. So very spicy. The dumplings were splendid but without noodles to absorb the broth, I found myself abandoning my soup with half of it still remaining. Sarah’s duck was just as delicious as I remember ordering it the last time I was there and her choice of soup was much easier on her palette. She enjoyed it immensely.

The lighting was a little off in the place so the pictures aren’t their best and in case you didn’t know, soup isn’t really the most attractive thing to photograph. All in all though, Rickshaw is an AWESOME place to get some dumplings. Just make sure they have some noodles in supply before you feast there.
 

What you see there is an organic bacon peanut butter chocolate cupcake.  It’s truly wonderful that the creator of this cupcake would go out of their way to make sure the bacon is organic and all, but it’s on top of freakin’ peanut butter and chocolate.  I of course am guilty of combining chocolate and bacon previously, but I found this grouping slightly perturbing.  I would much rather go for some meatloaf cupcakes.

Sometimes I don’t have words for things.  Like the image my friend sent to me yesterday.  My favorite part of the pic is the other sign in the window in the back.  As if this large mural of beef and sundae wasn’t appetizing enough.

Anyone else stumble across any pics of meat that just should not be?

I’m sorry.  I haven’t posted in a great while.  It’s not because I haven’t eaten anything in 2 weeks (I have!), it’s just that I have been quite busy at work and haven’t had a chance to hone in on places worthy of this here blog.  Yesterday that all changed.  Alas!  My family met me at work and we trekked on over to Cookshop, located on the corner of 20th St. and 10th Ave.

After squeezing ourselves into the chairs situated outside and one of our glasses shattering on the concrete during our hostess’ efforts while fidgeting with our table, we opened our menus to peruse the constantly changing menu.  I ordered the Hudson Valley rabbit duo, complimented with vine beans, pioppino mushrooms and apricot relish.  My pop ordered Atlantic black bass with sauteed spinach, grilled lemon, pickled red onion and parsley salsa.  Not pictured in this post were my sis and mom’s orders, which were the Vermont roasted leg of lamb (sun gold tomatoes, wild arugula and salsa verde) and the Globe eggplant lasagna (three cheeses and five minute tomato sauce), respectively.

The rabbit was prepared with a grilled rabbit leg and a poached rabbit loin, the loin of which contained a pesto-like sauce inside of it.  I deemed it delicious.  The apricot relish on the side was outstanding and had a sweet flavor to compliment the rabbit.

My dad had the whole Atlantic black bass. I sampled it from him and the moistness of the fish was unparalleled. He was finished with his dish before anyone else so I think he enjoyed it. My sis loved her lamb and while I enjoyed my mom’s eggplant lasagna (the mascarpone gave the lasagna a lemony taste), my mother was not as great of a fan of it due to the eggplant skin remaining on it.

Dessert rolled around, something my family always has room for, and we pulled no punches. I had the lemon ricotta with fresh berries on poppy seed shortbread. It was tart but a nice way to conclude my meal.

My mom and dad had the Summer Fruit Streusel. The fruits inside were blueberries, blackberries, nectarines and plums. It was tart as well, but the vanilla bean ice cream sweetened the streusel fine enough.

My sis had the chocolate cake with caramelized bananas, salty caramel ice cream and topped with caramel sauce for good measure. This one went over quite well with the ladies in the family.

Overall, having gone to Cookshop previously only for lunch I was extremely satisfied with their dinner menu. For some nice local ingredients and a satisfying meal, I recommend Cookshop to anyone around the lower west side of Manhattan.

“This blog is starting to take its toll on me.” Those were the first words that popped into my head when this rounded mountain of meat and luscious Vermont Cheddar rolled out in front of me during my lunch trip to Prime Burger at The Old Homestead Steakhouse.  On a casual side note, if you visit their website and find yourself marveling at their awesome Flash website, I won’t blame you.  I totally worked on that page at my old job.  Anywhose, back to the food…

My veggie headed work friends ordered the Crab Cakes (or cake if properly titled), which came accompanied with that cole slaw/salad type thing right above….um, yeah.  They said the portion was a bit too tiny for lunch though they said it tasted reasonably good.

Coworker Shauna ordered the Artisanal Burger with Blue Stilton cheese. This burger was so colossal that they had to jam a thick stick straight through it to keep it from teetering over. As one could assume, these titans of meat were very messy but the bun was extremely soft.  I’d prefer a thicker bun so the meat isn’t all you tasted but the choices of cheese balance the seasoned beef nicely.

Interior view of the carnage.  I was tempted to pull the trigger on Old Homestead’s $40 Kobe Wagyu beef burger, but instead decided to save that for another future date.  I was also surprised to find out Old Homestead now has an $81 burger that actually has a 4 ounce sirloin steak INSIDE of it’s already hefty 14 ounces of 100% “Grade Five” Kobe Wagyu.  Intense to say the least.  Way intense.

My friend Eli threw a 365 party in honor of living in his apartment for a year. I brought the cheese I bought from the Bedford Cheese Shoppe in Williamsburg. I provided a sharp cheddar and a bleu cheese. Veggie burgers and veggie sausages were made for the hippies, while I grilled up some good ol’ burgers. Even some corn was tossed on the grill.

As the party winded down, a couple of us trekked over to Creperie to enjoy some fantastic crepes on Ludlow. They scolded me for taking pictures of the crepe making process (for some reason), but I was able to snap off a couple of drunken shots first.

I got the apple, brie and walnut one. It was delightful. Picture was never taken because I possibly devoured it too quickly.

Yes. Finally got around to make my way to Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. As part of my birthday celebration, some coworkers took me over there to enjoy some wonderful Shake burgers for lunch. The place is notorious for it’s long wait (they even have a camera on their website to monitor it 24/7) and today was no exception. We waited an entire HOUR on line to place our order. The group was in high spirits though and were equally psyched to receive their dogs, burgers, fries and shakes…eventually.

I ordered a Shake Burger, Double Shack Burger, fries and a Black & White Shake. The shake tastes EXACTLY like the cookie it gets it’s name from and is super rich and thick. After scarfing all this food, I felt quite ill. Not gonna lie, it’s totally worth it. The line makes you think the food won’t live up to the hype, but it does. The special sauce and fluffy potato bun make for a great balance to the burger. My compadres got the Bird Dog, Shake Shack’s chicken hot dog and Julia reported that one of the casings was rather difficult to break through for her dog. Disappointing, seeing as you shouldn’t have to battle with your hot dog to eat it.

Overall, I love the burgers at the Shack and if you’ve never gone, I highly recommend. If you have gone and hate the line, try going later at night or sometime when the weather gets cooler. This place is not designed for quick lunch breaks.