In town for a visit?

Serious Eats offers a guide of where to eat in NYC. Nicely done.

[Photo Credit: Trippy]

Doughnuts and fried chicken. Three to One goes to Philly and brings us joy.

[Photo Credit: Jason Varney]

When in Albuquerque…

One of the best parts about visiting my relatives in Belgium when I was a kid was  eating Frites. They were served in a paper cone and were so much better than fries here in the States. These days you can get Belgium-style fried potatoes in New York, like at Pommes Frites in the East Village.

Serious Eats tries all of the dipping sauces.

Hells yeah.

Dinner with a friend last Friday night in the Bronx. Chicken, rice, black beans, sweet plantains.

Serious Eats looks at fast food fries.

[Photo Credit: Drugs not Hugs]

Over at the Times‘ food blog Diner’s Journal, Pete Wells compares seven burgers around town to the Shake Shack burger.

[Photo Credit: Todd Kellen]

Serious Eats reviews Jin Ramen in Harlem and reports that it is worth the trip. Sounds like a plan.

You want great Sichuan in Manhattan? Peep Legend on 7th Ave between 15th and 16th Street.

I’ve been four times in the past two weeks and can recommend almost everything that I tried. I especially liked:

Sichuan Cucumber

The Green Beans with Ground Pork

Sichuan Spicy Ma Pa Tofu

Dry Spicy, Tasty Diced Chicken with Ginger and Peanut.

Photo Credit: Serious Eats, from their fine slideshow of the place.

From the Serious Eats 10 Best Bites in NYC, 2011 gallery, comes this incredible-looking fat fuckness: Cookies and Cream Sundae at Dessert Club Chakalicious.

Oh, baby, Serious Eats gives us the best soup dumplings in Chinatown.

Peep, don’t sleep.

Saveur talks Sunday sauce.

We listen…with our stomach.

[Photo Credit: The Pioneer Woman Cooks! and  My Recipes]

I want. I need.

Still haven’t been out there. But I need. I want.

[Photo Credit: Three to One]

I’ve tuned into the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest a few times. I’d never consider joining an eating contest, but I like a good gross-out as much as the next guy.

Eating challenges, on the other hand, those intrigue me. The Old ’96er for instance. There’s a whole show dedicated to them on the Travel Channel. The few times I’ve been to places that offered a challenge, I was tempted to try it.

Up all night on Monday at a concert in Newark, I was empty this Tuesday at lunch. I ordered this:

That’s a Grand Slam from Go Go Curry. A chicken cutlet, a pork cutlet, an egg, two sausages, a fried shrimp all covered in a thick, brown curry. There’s a pile of shredded cabbage on the side. And underneath all that is a mountain of rice. With nothing on the line but my pride and my 12 bucks, I bid adieu to all but the rice. The rice just kept coming and I ended up leaving about a handful on the plate.

Maybe if I wasn’t headed back to work and if I didn’t have to play basketball that night, maybe I could have taken it down. But I was happy I left it there.

How about you guys – what was your biggest eating challenge?

Ever have “The Luther”?

That’s a burger with bacon on a doughnut. It’s named about Luther Vandross.

I have not tried one.  I gotta admit the truth: I ascared.

[Photo Credit: Scene by Laurie]

Serious Eats presents: 30 Sandwiches We Loved This Year in NYC.

Dig this fine-looking thing from Rubirosa.

For those of you who are knuts for the stuff, you can now have In-N-Out burgers shipped to you for $50. Eater has the story.

[Painting via Front Room Cinema]

How to make cereal milk.

[Photo Credit: ptitchef]

Saturday night, 9 PM reservations for four. Two in our group celebrating an anniversary, one of them pregnant. We show up a little early hoping a table is ready. “We’re running on schedule,” says the sleek hostess with dark hair so shiny we see our reflections.

We try the bar, but it’s just a trough at this point, crowded with diners who didn’t have reservations. I love the idea of being able to eat at the bar, but what about people who need to use it as a bar? I guess they need two bars. Our pregnant friend is a trooper but I see her look longingly at the seats.

Several tables look like they are going to leave at any moment, but then they never do. Nine PM approaches and the hostess walks over and assures us that we are going to be seated shortly. “In their laps?” I thought to ask but kept it to myself. Our pregnant friend is shifting weight from one foot to the other and smiling through it all. I learned that dance from my bad knees and bad back.

Nine fourteen. Now everybody is looking at me. Tension is filling our tight space in the walkway between the bar and the tables we long to occupy. I made the reservation, I should be the one to complain. But I’m staring at the hostess the whole time. She’s keeping track of us with an appropriate level of concern. Maybe it’s a relic of my bachelor days, but I can tell when someone is paying attention to me.

A terrible minute passes where my best friend, his pregnant wife and my wife all stare me down trying to get me to act on our growing unrest. But I wait. And yes, the manager gets a whisper from the hostess and he’s on his way.

“I’m so sorry about the wait. I thank you for your patience,” he says. “Can I help in any way?” I ask if he has an extra seat available for our pregnant friend. He does. Our friend sits and relaxes for the first time since we got there. “Now we can wait forever.”

We wait for fifteen more minutes, not exactly forever, and receive one more visit from another contrite manager. We finally sit down and enjoy a lovely meal. And when we talk about the wait, which we only do for about thirty seconds, we talk about how well they handled it and how they defused the tension.

Privately, I think they could have found that chair the second we walked in, but I can also chalk that up to not asking for it sooner. I don’t mention it though, because I don’t want to spoil the good mood.

I have never been to The Meatball Shop.

But that is something I aim to change.

[Photo Credit: truth.travel]