AlwaysInformed: August’s Best RUB Burger

Arthur Bovino — September 01, 2010

The Donut Burger, a special Monday night burger at RUB BBQ (August 2nd).

Those who know, eat RUB BBQ’s special Monday night burger. Those who don’t, rhapsodize about Five Guys. Seriously, don’t take our word for it, as weekly Monday night burger regulars, Jonathan Burr and Andrew “Goose” Gussman will tell you, Scott Smith and Andrew Fischel’s weekly special is more than a shtick. The afternoon announcement is a great what’s-the-special-gonna-be-today moment almost powerful enough to make you think Monday’s closer to Friday than it is. Rather than a weekly update, here’s a month’s roundup of the Monday burgers, including our pick for August’s blue ribbon winner.

More Monday night burgers at RUB BBQ >>

Featured Dish: RUB BBQ’s Donut Burger

Arthur Bovino — August 03, 2010

RUB BBQ’s Donut Burger.

At the risk of writing about all things RUB BBQ, all the time, we bring you last night’s regional burger special: the Donut Burger. That’s right. They went there. A classic RUB Burger featuring cheese, pickles, and onions, but on a donut. As it was sans bacon, it wasn’t quite a Luther Burger (named for the late Luther Vandross), but it was damn tasty.

The last Krispy Kreme donut shop in New York City, the Penn Station branch, has a sign up that says, “Temporarily Closed,” so RUB’s owner, Andrew Fischel, went with Glazed Donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts. It started us thinking about the next step, a double Luther Burger: donut half, burger, bacon, donut half, burger, bacon, donut half. What? Why are you looking at me funny?

AlwaysTraveling: Randy’s Donuts (Los Angeles, CA)

Arthur Bovino — July 12, 2010

Fresh donuts at Randy’s Donuts in Los Angeles.

Restaurant: Randy’s Donuts
Address: 805 West Manchester Ave, Inglewood, CA
Contact: (310) 645-4707
Hours: “Open All Night.”
Grade: A-
Notes: Accepts credit cards. Lines can be long.
Recommended: Apple Fritters, Coconut Raised, Cake and Raised Donuts.

After driving around Los Angeles, it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn there are more donut stores there (1,182) than in New York (1,121). That’s 3,256 donuterias per Angeleno compared to 7,327 per New Yorker. Consider this map. Play punchbuggy while driving, subbing donuts for VWs and you will crash.

L.A. also seems to have more independent stores (remember, they don’t have Dunkin’ Donuts), and aside from Doughnut Plant, more good ones. To boot, is there anything in New York that equals the cool factor of the leftover architecture from the defunct Big Donut Drive-In chain? No. So, with it’s most recent star turn— Iron Man 2— it’s time to feature one of L.A.‘s most iconic stores.

Any discussion of L.A.‘s best donuts (and even some of the country’s best) inevitably brings up many of the same characters, among others: Stan’s, Bob’s, Fritelli’s, Donut Man, Tang’s, and…Randy’s Donuts.

More at Randy's >>

Featured Dessert: Bomboloni on Columbus

GutterGourmet — April 27, 2010

Top: Plate of Crème Brûlée, Sicilian Pistachio Cream and Valrhona Chocolate Bomboloni.

Sometimes a dessert trend just overtakes the City. So it goes with bomboloni, little round balls of fried dough coated with sugar, and filled with custard. You’ve seen them at Perilla, Belcourt, A Voce, Alto, al di la, Gusto, Falai, and even the Dessert Truck. It was just a matter of time before a shop specialized in them. David Ruggerio’s Bomboloni on Columbus and 69th Street resembles any Italian café— they have panini, pasta salad, gelato, and espresso drinks. But the focus is, of course, bomboloni.

Bomb-Bomb-Bomboloni >>

AlwaysInformed: Missy Robbins a Best New Chef of 2010

Maryse Chevrière — April 06, 2010

Bomboloni alla Toscana with Chocolate Sauce.

Congratulations are in order for A Voce chef Missy Robbins on being named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs 2010. No question, this chef has a lot to be proud of. Lest you forget, the restaurant’s Bomboloni alla Toscana ranked number one on our list of Top 5: Dessert Doughnuts.

For a reminder of what makes chef Robbins’ food so great (think a fabulous Brick Chicken and Pork Chop with Roasted Abalone Mushrooms), check out Always Hungry’s First Look at A Voce Columbus from last September.

AlwaysInformed: Bacon Donuts Now at Wildwood BBQ

Maryse Chevrière — March 30, 2010

Wildwood BBQ’s new Glazed Cinnamon Donuts topped with Candied Bacon.

At last Saturday’s Grillin’ on the Bay cook-off, Wildwood Barbecue’s chef “Big Lou” Elrose lamented that dessert entries weren’t permitted in the “chef’s choice” category. Wait— barbecue for dessert?

Well, it’s not exactly barbecue, but the chef revealed that he does get to exercise his sweet tooth back at Wildwood, with a new addition to the restaurant’s dessert menu: Cinnamon Donuts topped with Candied Bacon. The dish debuted last Friday and features two airy, cinnamon-rich cake donuts, that are good (though not Doughnut Plant good).

Donuts arrive top-coated in a frosting-like glaze that is sprinkled with chewy, salty-sweet bacon bits. If you’re sharing, be prepared to fight for these bites. Of course, the real move is to dunk a bacon-studded nub in the excellent accompanying homemade coffee ice cream.

AlwaysHolidays: Eight Crazy Deep Fried Nights

December 11, 2009

From Sammy’s Roumanian, Latkes.

Tonight marks the beginning of Hannukah. Celebrating the oil that burned for eight days while the Maccabees rededicated the holy Temple in Jerusalem, this wonderful holiday conveniently calls for oil soaked, deep fried delicacies. When else is there such a good excuse to eat foods soaked in oil? For us, almost everyday, for the rest of you, maybe not as often. While it is American tradition to celebrate with Potato Pancakes (Latkes) and Jelly Dougnuts (Sufganiyot), anything that is soaked in oil will do. So to help celebrate these Eight Crazy Nights, we give you eight of New York City’s great oil soaked, deep fried treats (including a few beloved latkes and donuts) that you can devour while you light your menorah, have a party, and dance the hora.

HAPPY HANNUKAH!

Click Here for Our Eight Crazy Deep Fried Treats >>

Featured Dessert: Doughnut Plant’s Crème Brûlée Doughnut

Maryse Chevrière — November 19, 2009

Doughnut Plant’s Crème Brûlée Doughnut.

It has almost been a year since the Crème Brûlée Doughnut debuted at the Doughnut Plant, but a recent visit reminded us why this revelatory cream-filled pastry is still worth rhapsodizing about.

Doughnut Plant (site) doesn’t want for endorsements— it’s easily the best doughnut shop in New York City and arguably the country (no, Stan’s and Coffee an’ Donuts fans, we haven’t forgotten you, they are awesome). But there’s a valid case for why everyone (including too cool LES hipsters) freaks out over Doughnut Plant. One answer is in every delectable bite of their Crème Brûlée Doughnut, which you no longer have to request.

The first mouthful of vanilla bean-flecked cream, caramelized sugar crust, and light yeasty dough leaves you wondering how this blissful combination wasn’t conceived sooner. It’s every reason why people love Crème Brûlée, but in doughnut form. A second bite and the palm-sized pastry disappears. It’s guaranteed you’ll be reaching for your wallet to order a half-dozen more.

FirstLook: Sigmund Pretzel Shop

Arthur Bovino — November 03, 2009

Left row, Salt Pretzels (front) and Poppy Pretzels (back). 2nd row: Jalapeño Cheddar Pretzels (front) and Sesame Pretzels (back). 3rd row: Caraway Pretzels. Right, Lina Kulchinsky.

For a city with so many pretzel stands, New York has some horrible pretzels. The dry, mass-produced street variety are good for filling the chilly fall air with the appealing scent of hot charcoals and warm bread, that’s about it. Not to say Auntie Anne’s are bad (that smell was chemically engineered for world domination), but when a chain makes New York’s best it’s a sad state of affairs. Beer gardens like Radegast Hall & Biergarten and Zum Schneider are helping to remedy this, and now there’s new hope with Sigmund Pretzel Shop on the Lower East Side (map).

Click Here for Pictures of Sigmund's Pretzels and Donuts. >>

AlwaysInvestigating: Dunkin’ Donuts’ Toffee For Your Coffee

The Gluttoness — September 02, 2009

Dunkin’ Donuts’ Create Your Own Donut Contest winner: Toffee For Your Coffee Donut.

The 2009 winner of the Dunkin’ Donuts Create Your Own Donut contest has been unleashed for public consumption and appraisal. Toffee For Your Coffee was one of 130,000 entries. It was dreamt up by Jeff Hager, an accountant from Hoover, Alabama, who combined his favorite donut and his favorite candy bar, topping glazed sour cream cake with chopped bits of Heath Bar.

Hager’s donut doesn’t sound as tasty as some of the those created by other finalists. Consider, as Grub Street reported, the “Sm’OREO,” a marshmallow-filled donut with chocolate icing topped with OREO cookie pieces and graham cracker crunch. But he did have the wherewithal to intertwine the name of his donut creation with Dunkin’s signature product—“coffee”:http://www.alwayshungryny.com/thought-for-food/tag/Coffee/!

Toffee For Your Coffee isn’t available everywhere— we found this limited edition confection at a Dunkin’ Donuts near the corner of Murray and Church Streets (view map) in TriBeCa. The donut was moist, chewy and reminiscent of pound cake with the crushed Heath Bar adding a balanced crunch. Most of us enjoyed it, although it’s hard to wax too poetic, since anything covered with chocolate-coated toffee should be pretty damn delicious. The dense cake held its own against a topping that could have been overpowering. But its simple glaze would have been better with an additional toffee twinge.

Some of us enjoyed the sweetness, others found the combination too decadent for the morning. Perhaps, Hager’s donut would just be better paired with coffee as an after-dinner sweet.

AlwaysTraveling: Stan’s Donuts & Coffee An’ Donut Shop

Arthur Bovino — June 05, 2009

Above, the donuts on display inside Stan’s Donuts in Los Angeles, California.

National Donut Day, now today is a food holiday we can really get behind. And there’s even some explanation as to why today is donut day. Supposedly, the tradition of celebrating donuts on the first Friday in June started as far back as 1917, when female volunteers for The Salvation Army prepared donuts for homesick soldiers who served in World War I. The day was officially established in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation Army to raise funds during the Great Depression.

Thinking about donuts reminds us of two legendary donut places on opposite sides of the country: Stan’s Donuts in Los Angeles and the Coffee An’ Donut Shop in Westport, Connecticut. Before showing you some great pictures, we should note a few things:

1. There are reports of free donuts today.
2. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out AlwaysHungry’s Top 5 Dessert Donuts.
3. If you’re looking for more local restaurants that serve great donuts, use our Very Advanced Search. We’ve got great recommendations, whether the restaurants spell them Donuts or Doughnuts.

Now, on to the good stuff.

Continue Reading >>

AlwaysInvestigating: “Hole Foods” on the LES

The Gluttoness — April 28, 2009

I was admiring the proximity of Kossar’s Bialys to Doughnut Plant, when I wondered what other “hole foods” could be found nearby on the Lower East Side. I decided on five food items. Camera in hand, I set out for Grand Street with a whole lot of hunger to find them.

Though Kossar’s is famous for it’s virtually hole-less Bialys, I began my mission with their old school bagels. This wasn’t as easy as expected. The bagels expand so much in the oven that the holes practically disappear from most of them. Thankfully, the people at Kossar’s looked kindly on my mission, and after searching the metal bins they located a Sesame Bagel with a hole-some (for our purposes) center.

Click here to read our whole quest for hole-filled foods >>

AlwaysTraveling: Boon Fly Café (Napa, CA)

Jeff Zalaznick & Arthur Bovino — April 15, 2009

Located in a strikingly red barn/farmhouse, porch swings hanging from a covered porch, the Boon Fly Café serves comfort cuisine Napa Valley style. Boon Fly is one of three restaurants on the 27-acre Carneros Inn Complex (the best place in Napa to stay for value and location) between Sonoma and Napa. The most easygoing of the three restaurants, it’s an idealized version of a place you’d see on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It maintains the feel of an old roadside diner while serving high-quality food.

Boon Fly is the breakfast place in Napa (in fact, it has to be considered when discussing the best in the country) and not just for the inn’s guests—this is a local spot. And you’ve got to get there early, say 7 a.m. when it opens because by 9 a.m. there’s already a 30-minute line. Inside are high ceilings, corrugated iron and wood, bar and table seating and an open kitchen that churns out their famed cinnamon-sugar dusted donuts. There are several “not to be missed” dishes. The first is their toad-in-the-hole known as Poppa Joe’s Eggs In a Hole: griddled sourdough bread with two fried eggs in the center accompanied by breakfast potatoes and either ham, sausage or bacon. The second is the Breakfast Flatbread: two fried eggs, bacon, caramelized onions and mozzarella. They also do “Hilltop” Eggs Benedict three impressive ways: pesto and smoked salmon, prosciutto and Meyer lemon hollandaise and filet mignon with béarnaise.

Sure, they do dinner but after such a terrific morning meal it kind of seems beside the point.

Restaurant: Boon Fly Café
AlwaysHungry Grade: A
Signature Dishes: Cinnamon-Sugar Dusted Donuts, Hilltop Benedicts
AlwaysHungry Recommends: Poppa Joe’s Eggs In a Hole

Poppa Joe’s Eggs in a Hole
Griddled Sourdough Bread with Two Fried Eggs in the center with Hash Browns & Sausage

Baker’s Dozen
Housemade Boon Fly Donuts

Click Here for Full Dish by Dish >>

Featured Restaurant: Flex Mussels

March 18, 2009

Luckily for owners Bobby and Laura Shapiro, their Prince Edward Island import has been packed since opening day. The instant buzz over their cutesy moniker garnered serious press and sent people flocking to “82nd and Flex”. You can barely move in the bar area where the seats are first-come, first-serve and entertainment is provided by the quick hands of oyster-shucking champion, Robert Daffin. The spacious back dining room features an open kitchen where Chef Micheal Bicocchi executes the seafood-heavy menu. While the Upper East Side is a far cry from Canada, the beauty of P.E.I is portrayed through nailed-up paintings of the sea that adorn every wall. The specialty of the house is obviously mussels, but on this particular Friday evening, the bar menu became noteworthy as they featured a take on the infamous “Fatty Melt” (a hamburger sandwiched between two grilled cheeses, which we at AlwaysHungryNY experiment with on a regular basis).

Specials aside, Flex Mussels is all about elevating this namesake dish beyond the typical red and white preparations, and the Classic (white wine, herbs, and garlic) is pretty anticlimactic considering the alternatives. While an obvious reference to physical muscles, the name’s double entrendre also reflects how the couple has flexed their creative muscle to amass outrageous flavor combinations. P.E.I mussels are offered in 23 different sauces such as the Thai (curry coconut broth, lemongrass, coriander, lime, garlic, ginger), San Daniele (prosciutto, caramelized onions, white wine, garlic), and Maine (lobser, corn, white chowder, parsely) variations. When the lids to each iron pot are first opened, fragrant wafts of steam allow you to smell the flavor before digging in, and the best bites force you to utilize your mussels shells in order to scoop up all the goodness on the bottom. Perfect french fries and crusty bread sop up all the savory juices, and simple desserts like meyer lemon-stuffed donut holes offer a sweet finish to every meal.

Great Moments in Food History: Donut Gets Hole

September 11, 2008

What do you get when you combine a man, a lot of free time, and a pastry?

That’s right, the first ‘holed’ Donut!!

1847 – The first ‘holed’ Donut was the brilliant and totally happenstance discovery of Hanson Gregory. Remember, there was no internet porn back then. I mean, let’s be honest, if it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. All jokes aside, Gregory claims that he felt the ring shape would result in a lighter, more uniformly cooked pastry.

In celebration of this historic moment that changed the course of history, here are 3 of the best ‘holed’ Donuts in NY that we have consumed in recent memory:

1. Peanut Butter & Jelly Donut, Doughnut Plant
2. Blueberry Donut, The Donut Pub
3. Pistachio Donut, Balthazar (Bakery)