AlwaysPartying: National Pig Day
Maryse Chevrière — March 01, 2010
Whole Roast Pig from the Second Annual Pig Roast and Dance Party.
What better way to kickoff a month than to celebrate the almighty pig? Today, March 1st is National Pig Day, and in its honor we have compiled pictures of some of our favorite dishes celebrating this glorious animal in all of its delicious forms. Feast your eyes of the Pig-apalooza.
Best of 2009: AlwaysHungry’s Top Stories
December 17, 2009
Clockwise from top left, AlwaysHungry’s most popular posts in 2009.
From bacon to doubles, Anne Burrell to Kenny Shopsin, AlwaysHungry has been all over your New York City food radar. So while you’ve probably already seen these awesome articles, in the spirit of the end of the year and all that is the December-holy-round-up (just in case you’ve had too many eggnogs and have forgotten), we present the top ten most popular posts for AlwaysHungry’s inaugural year.
Click Here for the Top Ten Most Popular Posts on AlwaysHungryNY.com during 2009 >>
AlwaysInformed: Cabrito’s Border Dogs
The Gluttoness — October 23, 2009
From top left, clockwise, Cabrito’s Border Dogs: Sonora Dog, Danger Dog and Lucha Libre Dog.
Cabrito (view) really knows how to use the flat-screen TVs they recently installed. No NY1 on these bad boys— they’re reserved for specialty events like Mexican Lucha Libre, the World Cup, and for now, football. Given Chef David Schuttenberg’s new promotional menu for his football parties, the combination of food and flat-screens may make this your new favorite Sunday hangout, especially if you enjoy eating while watching the game, but are tired of snacking on junk while surrounded by drunken frat boys at sports bars. Schuttenberg’s line of “Border Dogs” coincides with the ongoing hot dog craze, but it was his time in Tucson, Arizona (and a recent NPR article, The Sonoran Hotdog Crosses The Border), which inspired him to recreate the “Mexicanized” Sonora-style dogs.
Schuttenberg balances the Cabrito/Fatty profile (read: spicy/funky) with the regional flavors of Mexico. As per Sonoran custom, the dogs are wrapped in bacon. At Cabrito, Nathan’s (“because they’re New York”) are wrapped in bacon, Fatty ‘Cue’s smoked coriander bacon. Then they’re deep-fried. Rather than the dense, traditional bolio, Schuttenberg uses Martin’s Long Potato Rolls, which he coats in lardo then griddles. Each of the three border dogs ($8.00/each) are distinct. For him, the “Sonora Dog” represents home, the “Danger Dog” is about being a badass, and “Lucha Libre” is pure, artery-clogging gluttony.
FirstLook: MARK Burger
The Hungry Goat — October 20, 2009
MARK Burger’s Beef Slider, $2.00.
With everyone obsessing over Bill’s Bar & Burger there is a sleeper that is going under the radar that may just be serving the best sliders in New York. It was hard to imagine that something could have been missing from the already cramped restaurant row that is St. Mark’s Place. But with last week’s opening of MARK Burger (view), it became alarmingly clear that what it was missing—craving, even—was a good, cheap burger (or in this case slider) joint.
AlwaysNYCWFF: Thrillist’s Bacon & The Blues
Arthur Bovino — October 09, 2009
Bacon-Wrapped Quail Dog with Smoked Mustard Sauce by Braeburn. Tyler Florence. The Crooners.
Bacon. Man, Thrillist doesn’t mess around. Their Bacon & The Blues event in The High Line Room at The Standard for the New York City Wine & Food Festival (site) featured bacon with oysters, bacon with potatoes, candied bacon, hazelnut crusted bacon, bacon donuts and wait for it, wait for it, chocolate-dipped bacon.
Tyler Florence’s brief introduction let everyone get down to the matter at hand, drinking Canadian Club Whiskey with soda, listening to The Crooners play their rendition of “Johnny B. Goode,” and eating lots and lots of bacon and bacon-laced dishes provided by chefs from six restaurants.
With all the different textures and takes on such an epic ingredient, it was hard to play favorites. We particularly enjoyed Chef Brian Murphy’s use of bacon with oysters because he fried them instead of going with what might have first come to mind, bacon-wrapped oysters. The maple-glazed sour cream donuts also deserved our love. But it’s hard not to give B.R. Guest’s executive pastry chef, Elizabeth Katz the most props for her skewered, baked, brown sugar-sprinkled, chocolate-dipped bacon. Not only did they taste great, but they were portable, easy to eat and embodied an over-the-top expression of all that we love about bacon.
Other great dishes by Christopher Lee, Brian Bistrong, Jacqueline Lombard and Jeremy Strubel follow.
AlwaysTraveling: Frank Pepe’s “The Spot” Pie-by-Pie (New Haven, CT)
Arthur Bovino — October 02, 2009
One of the fifty-odd trained pizzaiolos, at his craft at Frank Pepe’s “The Spot” in New Haven.
Restaurant: Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (site)
Address: 157 Wooster Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (map)
Hours: Pizzeria Napoletana, Mon-Sat 11:30am-10pm, Sun 12pm-10pm. The Spot, Mon-Tue closed, Wed-Sat 4pm-10pm, Sun 2pm-8pm.
AlwaysHungry Grade: A
AlwaysHungry Recommends: Clam Pizza, Clam Pizza with Bacon, Tomato Pie, Sausage Pie
You’ve heard the clamor: the line, The Guardian’s declaration that it’s the best place in the world to eat pizza, and claims about them having the world’s best clam pie. The following recent five-pizza pie-by-pie meal is to honor the scheduled November 2nd opening in Yonkers (1955 Central Avenue) of New York’s first Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana.
Click here for pictures of Frank Pepe's beautiful "apizzas" at The Spot >>
Featured Brunch: Spina’s Lox & Pasta
The Gluttoness — September 25, 2009
Farfalle with Smoked Salmon and Cream, $12.
It’s becoming more and more common for carbonara to appear on brunch menus. Since bacon and eggs are commonplace for breakfast anyway, it makes sense to skip the toast and serve them with pasta instead. Prune was one of the first restaurants to serve this traditional Roman dish in the morning, and innumerable restaurants have since followed suit.
Spina (restaurant page), the East Village’s new (and fantastic) fresh pasta house, is the latest to offer carbonara for brunch. Between Blanca’s (formerly of I Trulli) impeccable pastas and Chef Roberto Patriarca’s (right) sensational sauces, it’s no surprise that their Orecchiette Carbonara is spot-on. The al dente ears cup the creamy sauce and thin, crisp slabs of salty guanciale. Subtly seasoned with pepper and nutmeg, the decadent flavors deepen in intensity as the sauce settles, making each bite more delicious as you get to the bottom.
While the carbonara is a success, and a surefire hangover cure, the real star of the brunch pastas is the Farfalle with Smoked Salmon and Cream, Spina’s clever twist on two other classic breakfast ingredients: lox and cream cheese. Not only is the presentation incredibly beautiful, but it’s revelatory in other ways. First, the farfalle, a pasta that’s hardly ever handcrafted, is like twisted shards of velvety pappardelle. The silken cream sauce lusciously lacquers the delicate, unstructured bowties. It’s heavy in taste yet remarkably airy on the palate, accented by the meaty bits of smoked salmon that saunter amongst the pasta. The sumptuous execution of this classic flavor is reminiscent of Sarabeth’s Goldie Lox omelette, a favorite here at AlwaysHungryNY.com, although Sarabeth’s eggs can’t really hold a candle to Blanca’s farfalle. If you’re looking for something familiar but different, Spina’s lox and pasta beats a bagel any day.
AlwaysInformed: Burger Poppin’
The Gluttoness — August 17, 2009
Champagne bottles from the ‘Quarter’ to the ‘Balthazar’ (courtesy nicks.com.au) & burger counterparts.
A recent nightclub outing brought us face-to-face with the Methuselah, an awesome and incredibly heavy bottle of champagne, equivalent to eight ordinary bottles. Bottles larger than magnums are generally filled with champagne that has been fermented in standard bottles or magnums, and are named after biblical figures. In terms of these epically-sized bottles, the Methuselah, a biblical patriarch said to have lived to the age of 969, only ranks as the seventh largest.
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why champagne bottles are named thusly. There is speculation that the names were selected “to evoke importance and even a certain extravagance.” One site, uncork.biz, claims the earliest recorded use of these names is 1725 when Bordeaux winemakers were using the name Jeroboam for the four-bottle size, “It’s presumed they selected Jeroboam, the biblical founder of Israel…because he is referred to as ‘a man of great worth.’” There are larger sizes: Melchior (24 bottles), Solomon (33 bottles), Primat (36 bottles), and the Melchizedek (40 bottles), but as you might imagine, seeing one of these is a pretty rare occasion.
In order to best comprehend the disparity between the smallest bottle, the ‘Quarter,’ and the granddaddy, the Nebuchadnezzar (a 20 bottle monster, not pictured above), we thought it best to relate the increase in bottle sizes to one of the things AlwaysHungryNY.com knows best: burgers. In this case, as with the bottles of champagne, the larger and more extravagant the hamburger, the higher the price-tag The beef and bun Nebuchadnezzar is as monumental and seldom-ordered as its bubbly brother.
AlwaysQuestioning: Flying Pigs Farm
Michelle Kiefer — August 13, 2009
Boston Butt Roast from Flying Pigs Farm.
You may have come across the pork from Flying Pigs Farm (view site) at the Union Square or Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets, or on the menus of restaurants like Gramercy Tavern or Savoy. The exceptional flavor of their pork belly, bacon, and sausage results from their use of rare, heritage-breed pigs. It’s easy to see why this small family farm in Shushan, NY has developed a market for its products.
Our interest in Flying Pigs Farm was piqued by their liverwurst (right), a taste experience our senior editor best described as “like meeting an old friend,” and leaf lard, which adds flakiness to pie crust. Following is an interview with the farm’s owner, Mike Yezzi.
AHNY: How long have you been doing this? Did you farm before Flying Pigs?
MY: About 5½ years. No, I have a law degree and a Masters in Public Health, and I was working for a not-for-profit. My wife and I were both in grad school when we bought the farm to keep it from being developed. We needed to do something so that the land would help pay for itself. We started out with three pigs that we got from neighbors. Eventually we had 130 pigs that we would take care of before and after work. We would have 19 or 20- hour days. We realized someone’s got to do this full time.
AHNY: How did you get into raising heritage breed pigs?
MY: As I read and did research my interest in the subject kept developing. Mary Cleever (Cleever Co., Green Table) and Peter Hoffman (Savoy, Back Forty) were some of our first customers. When they tasted the pork from the heritage breeds they were blown away by the flavor. After the first year we had 57 pigs, all rare breeds.
Click here for more Q&A with Mike Yezzi >>
AlwaysPartying: Oyster Odyssey
Arthur Bovino — August 05, 2009
The John Dory’s Hangtown Fry ($17) is served during brunch.
New York City is a great place for raw bar and fried oysters (see AHNY’s National Oyster Day post). As delicious as these oyster preparations are, other classic and interesting preparations shouldn’t be missed. Take the Hangtown Fry, an oyster and bacon omelette made famous in California during the Gold Rush. Its origin is one of those epic food myths.
It starts in a place forty miles east of Sacramento that was called Dry Diggins until three desperadoes were hanged from the town’s giant oak tree, after which it became Hangtown. Supposedly, in 1849 a miner who had found gold walked into the El Dorado Hotel across the street from the tree and asked the bartender for the most expensive meal possible. The result was a combination of bacon from the East, eggs from the coast and oysters that had been packed on ice and brought in from the San Francisco Bay.
The dish outlasted the town’s name and the hotel. Today, Hangtown is known as Placerville, and the El Dorado was replaced in 1857 after burning down a year before, by the The Cary House Hotel, which still stands. Allegedly one of the only places in town to regularly serves the Hangtown Fry is Chuck’s Restaurant. But that’s okay because you don’t have to go to California to strike culinary gold.
The John Dory’s rendition has to rank up there with the city’s best egg dishes. Eggs are creamy. Bacon is substituted with a thick prosciutto that has the texture of tender corned beef. Slices of pickled jalapeño add bursts of a light vinegary flavor and heat also spread throughout the dish. The oysters are only slightly cooked. The pooled flavors lining the plate’s bottom when you finish are worth wiping up with the delicious Parker House rolls.
The Hangtown Fry is just one of New York City’s many notable oyster dishes on the following Oyster Odyssey that a true bivalve-lover should try to check off their list.
Click to see AHNY's checklist of New York City's notable oyster dishes. >>
AlwaysInformed: Pork Toys and Bacon Candy
Arthur Bovino — June 15, 2009
When it comes to bacon and pork-themed condiments, toiletries, weapons, apparel and candy, it seems there is no jumping the shark. Online recipes for bacon-inspired foods (bacon ice cream and frosting) and sundries (this recipe might make that age-old threat of having your mouth washed out with soap a little more palatable), but when it comes to products, we thought we’d seen everything.
After all, we’d read about bacon wallets; bacon lunchboxes; bacon air fresheners; bacon toothpicks; bacon lip balm; Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages; bacon dental floss; bacon spray; and even a bacon bra. We’d seen bacon underwear, bacon infant one-pieces and T-shirts. And we’d wondered, after seeing the bacon alarm clock; the Bacon Torch and the BA-K-47, “America’s No. 1 bacon-based assault rifle,” if moms the world over hadn’t been right when they’d said “don’t play with your food.” For the record, Bacon Lube, intended originally as an April Fool’s joke, could soon be a real product due to overwhelming requests from people to be beta-testers.
As if those weren’t enough, we’d heard of Bacon Vodka; Baconnaise; Bacon Salt and Marini’s Chocolate Covered Bacon. We sampled the Gummy Bacon (strawberry-flavored gummy strips resembling uncooked bacon); Bacon Gumballs; Bacon Flavored Mints; lollipops; Bacon Beans and learned how to superimpose a piece of bacon on our computer screens by using the url featured at Bacolicio.us, (“Go Grease Your Friends!”). But we hadn’t seen the Porky Pooper until recently.
HungryChefs: Chefs Love Lupa, Mixed on Hot Dogs
The Gluttoness — June 11, 2009
Roasted Pork Shoulder “Gyro” with Pickled Cucumber & Yogurt from Anthos at Street & Savory
Some of the country’s best chefs attended Citymeals-on-Wheels’ Street & Savory Tasting Event. We’ve already brought you pictures of all the dishes and rounded up our favorite plates, but we were also able to speak with the chefs.
Our questions were obvious: What are you AlwaysHungry for? Which New York City restaurant do you crave? And in keeping with the night’s theme: what would you serve if you opened your own street cart? Some chefs took the easy route, promoting dishes they had prepared for the evening, others were quite creative with their responses.
AlwaysPartying: Food Trucks at the Brooklyn Yard
Arthur Bovino — May 27, 2009
Considering its environmental issues, the Gowanus Canal might not seem like the go-to spot for snacking, but last Saturday at the Brooklyn Yard in Carroll Gardens, it was. Van Leeuwen and the Green Pirate were the only actual trucks at Parked!: The Best Food Trucks in NYC, but plenty of good food could be had from Pizza Moto and Margarita of the Red Hook huaraches vendors.
Top 5: Tarte Flambée
May 27, 2009
.jpg)
Our quest for the city’s best Tarte Flambée was inspired by the Flambé Pizza, a version of the savory Alsatian appetizer at Co., and immediately hit a snag with a disappointing rendition at The Bar Room @ The Modern. Named “flambée,” because it was originally baked by flames in a wood-burning oven, the crust is typically charred and topped with bacon, onions and crème fraîche. Like most traditional dishes, there are countless preparation methods. Some recipes substitute fromage blanc for crème fraîche, some call for puff pastry, others use thin, pizza-like dough, and then there is the debate as to whether the onions should be added raw, lightly sautéed or totally caramelized.
For the sake of our Top 5, the overarching ranking factor considered by the CORE was flavor. Click here to see our Top 5 Tarte Flambée.
AlwaysQuestioning: Terrance Brennan & Bradford Thompson of Bar Artisanal
The Gluttoness — May 26, 2009
Together, Executive Chef, Terrance Brennan (of Artisanal and Picholine) and Consulting Chef, Bradford Thompson (formerly of Lever House) are delighting diners with their ““French”:http://www.alwayshungryny.com/thought-for-food/tag/French/ inspired” interpretation of Mediterranean small plates in an extension of the Artisanal brand, Bar Artisanal. AlwaysHungryNY recently sat down with these two chefs who have turned the failed Trigo space into a grand bistro in TriBeCa. When the kitchen at Bar Artisanal has settled into a routine, Brad hopes to open a restaurant with French and West Indian themes. In the meantime, the two are perfecting dishes, and eating plenty along the way.
AHNY: Are you Always Hungry?
BT: I’d say so, yeah…for adventure.
TB: No, because I nosh all day, especially with the new restaurant.
AHNY: So, what did you eat today?
BT: Two espressos and a cappuccino. We had a photo shoot all day. Oh, and granola.
TB: We had the photo shoot, so I tasted the Pizza, Chutney, Steak Tartare}thought-for-food/tag/Steak-Tartare/, Roquefort Parfait, Chickpea Frites, Oysters and Hangar Steak.
Brennan & Thompson on trends, snack foods and 'must-have' ingredients >>
<< Back to Thought For Food
"Unleash Your Inner Fat Kid."
Whet your appetite with a daily dose of AlwaysHungry's Thought for Food. We provide content that will improve your knowledge of food, and that will enhance your experiences with food. We do not write industry gossip.
Always Hungry Newsletter
