AlwaysStrong: Breadzilla (Wainscott, Long Island)

Arthur Bovino — January 11, 2010

Shrimp Salad Sandwich on Squishy Bread.

Location: Breadzilla (map)
Address: 84 Wainscott Northwest Road, Wainscott, NY
Hours: Mon, closed; Tues-Sat, 8am-4pm (lunch, 11:30am-2:30pm); Sun, 8am-3pm (lunch, 11:30am-1:30pm)
Contact: (631)537-0955
Always Hungry Grade: A-
Always Hungry Recommends: Shrimp Salad Sandwich on Squishy Bread

What possesses the Always Hungry Crew to go on a road trip to the Hamptons in a snowstorm at the crack of the new year? The answer is the good fortune that happenstance brings. Like when you eat something you would never order because you arrive at a place nine minutes after lunch ends and that’s what you’re given after begging the kitchen to make you something, anything. That’s what happened recently with a Shrimp Salad Sandwich at Breadzilla, the East Hampton sandwich shop.

For the uninitiated, Breadzilla the bakery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 8am to 4pm, but lunch is only served until 2:30pm (1:30pm, Sundays). A menu featuring about 20 to 25 options goes online about 11am (with photocopies at the counter). As noted on Serious Eats New York some of the sandwiches seem like “mad scientist creations.” The handwritten menu changes daily and has something Shopsin’s-like about it. The three or four items at the bottom are the ones you’ll find consistently. They are: Spicy Tuna Jade on 8 Grain ($8.95), the Zilla Melt ($8.95), and two sandwiches on “Squishy” Bread, Tuna Salad ($6.95) and Egg Salad ($5.95).

Given the more complicated, enticing options that were on the menu (Ribs and Potato Salad, Gooey Cheezy Roasty Beasty, Steadkadilla, and the Crispy Duck Wrap), Shrimp Salad Sandwich would normally be one of the last things selected. But it was incredible. Full of unchopped, tender shrimp with the texture of the amaebi you’d get at one of the City’s better sushi restaurants. Barely dressed with mayo and seasoned just enough, so the fresh flavor of the shrimp was the focus. Beautiful.

Click Here for More Pictures of Breadzilla Sandwiches >>

First Look: Lunch at The Breslin Bar & Dining Room

Arthur Bovino — November 13, 2009

Chargrilled Beef Tongue Sandwich with Lentil Soup.

The action in The Breslin’s dining room is impressive. It’s jumping, and with a good vibe. Feels as if you’ve been transported into a cool, cleaned up version of the Edmont Hotel in The Catcher in the Rye.

After several meals we’ve sampled most of the menu. Beef Tongue Sandwich. Bubble and Squeak. Onion and Bone Marrow Soup. This is what we envisioned when we heard April Bloomfield was opening her next restaurant, The Breslin Bar & Dining Room (view) in the ACE Hotel (site). These dishes mostly hit the mark. Others were uneven.

The Beef Tongue Sandwich may currently be the strongest dish. The accompanying lentil soup has the overly-flavorful profile associated with the chef. While good, it’s salty— helpful seasoning in which to dip the sandwich. The better soup is the Onion and Bone Marrow. Thick, rich and full of thin onions.

Click Here for a First Look at Pictures of Lunch at The Breslin Bar & Dining Room >>

AlwaysStrong: All American Drive-In (Massapequa)

Arthur Bovino — October 15, 2009

All American Drive-In, a classic fast-food joint on Merrick Road in Massapequa, Long Island.

Restaurant: All American Drive-In
Address: 4286 Merrick Road, Massapequa, NY 11758
Contact: (516) 798-9574
Hours: Mon-Sat, 10am-10pm; Sun, 11am-9:30pm.
Grade: B+
Recommended Dishes: Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Butterfly Shrimp, and Knish.

Ask someone on the South Shore of Long Island where to get a burger and they’ll ask if you’ve been to All American Drive-In. Like Bigelow’s in Rockville Center, and Bonanza in Oyster Bay, it’s a roadside institution— some Islanders have even called it their In-N-Out. These aren’t In-N-Out burgers, but they’re a fresh and tasty rite of passage.

Click here for more pictures of burgers at All American Drive-In. >>

OnlyLook: Mother Burger

Arthur Bovino — September 30, 2009

Mother Burger’s Bacon Cheeseburger w/Applegate Farms’ Organic Sunday Bacon $8.50.

You know you should be suspicious when servers at a restaurant with ‘burger’ in the name suggest everything except the burger. That happened at Mother Burger (view site) in the plaza behind One Worldwide Plaza in Midtown when we were recently invited for dinner.

The large, open courtyard should be an ideal setting for drawing office coworkers when the whistle blows. Blockheads Burritos co-owners (and brothers), Don and Ken Sofer, must have had a similar thought when they recently signed their 10-year lease. With outdoor seating, $2.00 beer specials, blue skies, recession-friendly prices and hormone-free and organic meats, there’s reason to be hopeful, albeit skeptical when sitting down to the free peanuts.

Continue Reading >>

AlwaysLearning: Welsh Rarebit

The Gluttoness — September 03, 2009

Welsh Rarebit from The ChipShop on Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn Heights.

Welsh Rarebit. If you just heard the name, you would probably expect a plate filled with some kind of rare meat. The reality couldn’t be farther from that. In honor of National Welsh Rarebit Day…

What it is: Welsh Rarebit consists of toasted bread topped with a savory sauce made with melted cheese. The sauce is typically made with Cheddar cheese, although some recipes call for the addition of dark beer, mustard, cayenne pepper and/or Worcestershire Sauce. The cheese-covered bread is then broiled and served very hot so that the cheese is bubbling and golden brown. There are many variations of the original dish. One, the Buck Rarebit, calls for topping Welsh Rarebit with a poached egg.

Where it’s from: This traditional British dish dates to the 18th century, perhaps as early as 1725. The name is thought to be a corruption of the word, ‘rabbit,’ the theory being that rabbit was the food of the poor and that the Welsh, who were notoriously poor, couldn’t even afford that. As such, instead of eating meat with bread, cheese became the ‘meat’ component of the dish. In 1785, by virtue of a misnomer in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the name of the dish evolved into “Welsh Rarebit.”

Where to eat it in New York City: Where better to enjoy a classic British dish than surrounded by maps of the Tube, Beatles posters, and plates commemorating Princess Diana in one of New York’s most traditional British gastropubs, The ChipShop (Brooklyn Heights restaurant page, Park Slope restaurant page). The restaurant is best known for a lengthy list of beers-on-tap and deep-fried treatments of pizza, Twinkies and Haddock (for a phenomenal Fish & Chips). But their “English Menu” is full of other British favorites like Scotch Eggs, Haggis, and of course, Welsh Rarebit.

The ChipShop’s glossary defines Welsh Rarebit as “cheddar cheese, heavy cream and mustard on bread and baked—served with tomato.” The folks there identified the mustard as Colman’s and noted that eggs are also used in the sauce. At the restaurant, the slice of thick, crisp white bread arrives browned and bubbling, adorned with a halved slice of tomato. It’s part open-faced grilled cheese, part Croque Monsieur (minus the ham). It’s like a savory, cheesy French Toast. The exterior crust has a hearty crunch, but the heavy dressing of cheese sauce soaks the bread’s innards and oozes from the sliced center.

Welsh Rarebit is comfort food at its finest. It’s no surprise that this decadent dish was a food staple eaten by the poor as it definitely helps you to escape from your financial burdens, at least momentarily, even longer when accompanied by a cool pint.

AlwaysInvestigating: Fried Bologna Sandwich

The Gluttoness — August 26, 2009

1 Dominick’s Fried Boloney Tramezzino ($8).

As FoodBeast recently noted, the latest example of the melding of fast food with prepackaged, processed meat can be found at Hardee’s, whose collaboration with Oscar Mayer resulted in the Hardee’s Mayer Fried Bologna Biscuit. The new breakfast sandwich is housed in Hardee’s Made from Scratch™ biscuit and filled with egg and cheese on top of a folded slice of fried Oscar Mayer Bologna.

Since the closest Hardee’s are in Pennsylvania and Delaware, we went ahead and found somewhere nearby where you can enjoy a similar sandwich. Jimmy Carbone’s small, colorful eatery, 1 Dominick (view site) is tucked away on Dominick Street in West SoHo. It’s not particularly worth seeking out unless you need somewhere nearby the newly-renovated Here Arts Center to grab a bite and a beer, but their small menu does include a Fried Boloney Tramezzino.

There’s no egg, but the $8 panini features thinly sliced, flash-fried mortadella and fontina on thick slices of organic white bread. A slathering of mayonnaise on the outer layers ensures a crisp exterior. After the sandwich is pressed and sliced, the result is like a bologna-laced grilled cheese. The meat is crisp around the edges, and its saltiness cuts the richness of the sharp, gooey fontina which gushes out when the sandwich is sliced in half. 1 Dominick may not use namebrand bologna or a “homemade” biscuit, but their sandwich is a greasy, cheesy mess, and it’s totally delectable because of it.

AlwaysInvestigating: Allegretti’s Focaccia Sandwiches

The Gluttoness — July 17, 2009

When it comes to grabbing a sandwich for lunch in the Flatiron District, Allegretti (restaurant page) isn’t the first place you’d think of. The casually elegant atmosphere doesn’t scream high-end, but Chef Alain Allegretti’s French cuisine is upscale and priced accordingly. For the summer, they wanted to offer something a little more casual: focaccia sandwiches.

The new lunch sandwiches give diners the chance to experience Allegretti as a place for a three-course meal or a quick bite. They’re made with golden-brown, well-salted, homemade focaccia and are served with a butter lettuce and herb salad tossed in a mustard-shallot vinaigrette. The focaccia’s lightly crisp exterior gives way to a moist, doughy inside— a substantial sandwich base.

Crescenza Cheese Roasted Tomato and Charred Scallion ($11). Warm confit slices of tomato (slow-cooked in olive oil and herbs) pepper the creamy Italian sheep’s milk cheese that oozes between two thick layers of bread. The herbs offset the crescenza’s decadent mouthfeel and its lasting tang. The flavor profile was reminiscent of a supreme slice of pizza, and was enhanced by charred scallions. The combination of flavors put the traditional pairing of mozzarella and tomato to shame.

Spicy Coppa, House Pickles, Arugula and Pecorino Toscano ($13). Where the intensity of crescenza was well-matched to the thick focaccia, the thin slices of Coppa and thick slices of pecorino Toscano couldn’t stand up to it. The imported Italian Coppa was relatively mild, as was the semi-soft nutty pecorino. Allegretti’s homemade pickles change depending on what is in season. This sandwich featured pickled ramps, green tomato and fennel. They were this sandwich’s best component— brightening the flavors and delivering a vivid crunch amongst tender textures. The one problem with them was you want more.

This is Allegretti’s second venture into sandwich territory, the first was a “Pan Bagnat,” a traditional Niçoise sandwich. Management says the sandwiches have been well-received, they may remain on the menu after the summer ends. While the Spicy Coppa sandwich needs improvement, the gooey grilled cheese is a definite keeper.

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.

Click Here to read all the chefs' answers >>

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.