AlwaysPartying: A Shamrock Shake and a Whiskey Witch Walked into a Bar…

Maryse Chevrière — March 17, 2010

Clockwise from top: McDonald’s elusive Shamrock Shake, Fat Witch Bakery’s Whiskey Witch, and Baked by Melissa’s St. Patrick’s Day Cupcakes (image courtesy of Baked by Melissa).

Greensanity continues. This time with green sweets. As reported, the Union Square McDonald’s is serving the Shamrock Shake, a tasty minty green confection not normally found in New York. It’s good, get it while you can (though maybe not between stops on your bar crawl!).

If you’re in the Union Square neighborhood with a sweet tooth, make a pit stop at Baked by Melissa for their festive green cupcakes. Or if you’re by Chelsea Market, Fat Witch Bakery is offering some St. Patrick’s Day-themed brownies, like the Whiskey Witch: “a wee bit of whiskey in a Fat Witch.” It’s a sly, guilt-free way to booze at your desk if you can’t be out amongst all the drunken tomfoolery.

DishDoppelgänger: Sorella and McDonald’s

Arthur Bovino — November 16, 2009

Left, Sorella’s Crispy Veal Sweetbreads. Right, McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets (10 piece).

You know you’ve been caught looking at celebrity look-alike features in tabloids on the supermarket line or when surfing online. Well, we’re applying the concept to well-known dishes and others that resemble them. And why not, for those of us interested in food, Thomas Keller’s Oysters and Pearls dish is just as iconic as Jay Leno’s chin. As soon as a doppelgänger dish emerges, you better believe we’ll spot it.

Sorella’s Crispy Veal Sweetbreads with Quince Bacon Marmalade.

Just to be clear, Sorella (view) is wonderful. There’s the crisp, salted Grissini. The Pate de Fegato with its half inch spread of creamy chicken liver mousse. Another favorite are the perfectly seasoned, Crispy Veal Sweetbreads with Quince Bacon Marmalade ($11.00). They’re the ballpark rendition of sweetbreads. They feature a cornmeal-like crust that’s gritty in a good way. But someone has to say it: as unlikely a comparison as it may seem at first, Sorella’s sweetbreads and their sweet, musty sauce, trigger a taste recall of McDonald’s (view) Chicken McNuggets.

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AlwaysInvestigating: Burger Square-Off (Philly vs. New York)

The Gluttoness — October 06, 2009

SquareBurger’s Classic Hamburger.

Restaurant: SquareBurger
Address: 200 N 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (map)
Hours: Through October 31st, Mon-Fri, 11am-2pm; Sat-Sun 11am-7pm.
AlwaysHungry Grade: A
AlwaysHungry Recommends: SquareBurger, The Cake Shake, Classic French Fries

The proliferation of Philadelphia’s restaurant scene can be partly attributed to Stephen Starr. After tackling New York City and Atlantic City, he seems to have found himself back in the City of Brotherly Love. As his empire grows to encompass everything from soul food to steakhouses, he unabashedly draws inspiration from his most revered peers. His recent venture, Parc, a French bistro on Rittenhouse Square, is an obvious interpretation of Keith McNally’s Pastis or Balthazar. Starr openly toured the top pizzerias in New York and New Haven for his own Neapolitan pizza joint, Stella. This summer, in an obvious replication of Danny Meyer’s celebrated Shake Shack, he opened SquareBurger (view), a burger stand in Philadelphia’s Franklin Square just off I-95.

The small SquareBurger shack is nearby the Franklin Square Fountain.

SquareBurger is next to a beautiful fountain, but it’s in an area devoid of local foot traffic, which may explain why there were only five people there on a sunny Saturday. While there are differences between Shake Shack and SquareBurger, both pay their due to burgers and frozen sweets. Ultimately, it comes down to a direct comparison between Starr’s Classic Cheeseburger and Meyer’s ShackBurger, between a SquareBurger’s Classic Shake and Shake Shack’s Hand-Spun Shakes and Concretes. The question is, can Starr top Meyer?

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HungryChefs: Love Summer Dishes

Arthur Bovino & The Hungry Goat — June 29, 2009

Chef John Stage, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

At City Harvest’s Summer in the City fundraiser last week, we chatted (in between amuses) with some of the hot New York City chefs who were serving up food for a good cause. It was an opportunity to find out what these chefs are AlwaysHungry for, which restaurants chefs crave, and their favorite summer dishes to prepare.

Click to find out what chefs' crave, where, and the summer dishes they like to prepare >>

AlwaysHungryNY: “Gimme Back That Filet ‘o Fish”

March 30, 2009

It’s been a while since anyone on the Council enjoyed McDonald’s Filet ‘o Fish, but their latest ad campaign has us singing about this fried fish sandwich all day long. At one point, these wall-mounted fish were singing sensations in their own right, the stars of constantly running informercial blips. But, now the charismatic fish has moved up the food chain, hawking McDonald’s Filet ‘o Fish sandwich in this brand new commercial, pitifully begging the man in his garage to “gimme that fish.”

Traditionally, McDonald’s advertises their Filet ‘o Fish during Lent, and this year’s offbeat campaign features an awfully awkward situation set to an incredibly catchy techno beat. You can’t help but feel bad for the frightful fish, who makes his argument with:

“What if it were you hanging up on this wall?—If it were you in that sandwich you wouldn’t be laughing at all!”

Well the ad certainly has us all laughing at AlwaysHungryNY; it’s just not so funny when the entire office can’t stop singing the annoying ditty, in “fish” voices, no less.

Great Moments in Food History: Birth of the McWorld

July 07, 2008

1940: The first McDonald’s is opened in San Bernadino, California by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. However, the company now credits its inauguration as April 15, 1955, the day that Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois.