AlwaysPartying: Superbowl Edition
Jeff Zalaznick — February 05, 2010
The spread.
Throwing a Superbowl party is something that must be done in style. Always Hungry style. The goal is to put together such an epic combination of food that your friends at the game wish they had stayed home. Normally this takes great meditation and planning, but if you stick with us, we will put it together for you. Follow these instructions and we guarantee that you will have the best Superbowl spread that any of your guests have ever seen.
Here is the move:
- New York’s best Buffalo Wings from Cercle Rouge
- Sloppy Joe Sandwiches from the Town Hall Deli
- A Bo Ssäm to-go from Momofuku Ssäm Bar
- And cook a Bacon Explosion just to ice the cake, and give the apartment that signature smell.
SEARCH: Flatscreens for Your Football
September 11, 2009
Cercle Rouge’s “Cercle Wings,” house special chicken wings.
Last night, the defending Superbowl champs, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Tennessee Titans 13-10, marking the 2009 debut of NFL football. It also marked the beginning of an eating season filled with AlwaysHungryNY.com favorites like nachos, wings, and jalapeño poppers. There are plenty of places in New York City to eat great food and watch the game, including as we noted today about Tenzan, surprisingly enough, one where you can simultaneously eat good sushi. But when we think football season, we think Buffalo wings, and when we think wings, one restaurant in particular comes to mind: Cercle Rouge (restaurant page).
Hard as it may be to believe, this TriBeCa-based, classic French bistro scores a touchdown with their Cercle Wings. As we previously reported, Executive Chef Pierre Landet tweaks the traditional recipe by adding a few upscale touches, like “Frenching” the bone, but a final coating of Frank’s Red Hot harkens the original enough to satisfy purists.
While the wings at Cercle Rouge are certainly top-notch game day fare, the setting is probably not the rowdy bar space that you’re looking for. Not to worry, if a place with pitcher specials and a room with 14 HD TV’s (like at Southern Hospitality) is more your speed, we’ve got you covered.
Just go to AlwaysHungryNY.com’s Very Advanced Search Engine and select “Guys’ Night Out” from the What Occasion field and “Flat Screens Included” in the What Features field, to get a list of restaurants where you can take in the game.
AlwaysLateNight: The Candlelight Inn (Scarsdale, NY)
Katie Reisert — August 11, 2009
Restaurant: The Candlelight Inn (view map)
Address: 519 Central Park Avenue, Scarsdale NY
AlwaysHungry Grade: A-
AlwaysHungry Recommends: Buffalo Wings, Seasoned Waffle Fries
For more than fifty years, the tiny red house with a green roof on Scarsdale’s hectic Central Ave., has been home to one of Westchester’s most beloved resaurants.
The Candlelight Inn is infamous for a “no reservations” policy and long lines. But don’t let the name fool you, it’s little more than a biker bar with a small dinning room, a full bar and a dozen tables. The maître d’ is a clipboard nailed to the wall.
If you don’t order a basket of the famed wings, you’ve missed the point. They’re moist and meaty inside and are served swimming in sauce, but still have crispy exteriors. Instead of a pile of wings and drumsticks, The Candlelight’s wings remain connected— the joint broken, skin intact, supposedly to seal in moisture. Customers can choose between three sauces: teriyaki, barbecue and buffalo.
Buffalo wings at The Candlelight Inn, in Scarsdale, NY.
Barbecue sauce is sweet and mild, but with a tangy quality appropriate for wings. The buffalo sauce varies in intensity of heat. Options include: mild, hot, extra hot or the feared “Chernobyl.” Extra hot, while a delicious balance of flavor and heat, leaves many diners icing their lips. Customers are encouraged to mix the sauces as they please, take the recommended “hotiyaki,” a combination of hot buffalo and teriyaki sauces. It’s a good compromise. The Asian element makes the heat more bearable by delaying its onset, and the heat lends a spicy spin on the traditionally mild sweet and sour sauce.
SEARCH: Good, Downtown Ramen for a Rainy Night
June 05, 2009
It’s miserable outside— perfect soup weather. A bowl of Ramen should do the trick. Just select, cuisine type: Ramen, neighborhood: Downtown, and Grade: B+ or above in our Very Advanced Search and you’ll be warming up your belly with AlwaysHungry approved noodle goodness in no time.
1. Ramen Setagaya 141 1st Avenue
Recommended Dishes: Shiso Ramen, Salt Eggs
2. Ippudo NY 65 4th Avenue
Recommended Dishes: Akamaru Modern Ramen (pictured), Chicken Wings, Pork Buns
3. Men Kui Tei 63 Cooper Square
Recommended Dishes: Gyoza, Edamame, Tonkotsu Shoyu Ramen
4. Momofuku Noodle Bar 171 1st Avenue
Recommended Dishes: Pork Buns, Momofuku Ramen, Smoked Chicken Wings, Rice Cakes
5. Rai Rai Ken 214 E. 10th Street
Recommended Dishes: Gyoza, Pork Fried Rice, Roast Pork with Scallions, Miso Ramen with Pork
AlwaysInvestigating: Ippudo’s Buns
The Hungry Goat — April 17, 2009
Whoever said that steamed buns are the new banh mi was definitely on to something. Now that the wildly popular Vietnamese sandwich has had its glamorous New York Times Dining cover story, the New York City gastrosphere is hungry for its next Asian snack obsession.
Of course, David Chang’s Momofuku team deserves credit for getting the ball rolling on this Asian open-faced bun craze, with Fatty Crab later adding fuel to the fire. And now, it seems that imitations of this signature open style are popping up on menus all over town. As we reported earlier this week, Rickshaw Dumpling Bar has hopped on the bandwagon with their new Braised Pork Belly and Bulgogi Beef Buns, and Macao Trading Co. started featuring a version on their Late Night Menu last week.
Ippudo’s buns are another example of this trend. Buns are sold two per order ($8), either pork belly (above left) or chicken (above right). Both are served on thick, doughy steamed buns (larger than Rickshaw or Momofuku), and are dressed with fresh lettuce and a squirt of mayo. While not as interesting as Momofuku’s crunchy pickled cucumbers, the crisp iceberg lettuce provides a welcome textural contrast, particularly to the pork. The pork belly, while tender, could benefit from a thicker slice, but the nutty, savory sauce adds depth and a generous dose of heat.
The lettuce/mayo favor combination is reminiscent of the flavor of a McDonald’s McChicken sandwich in the best way possible. As expected, the pork bun is far superior to the chicken. This pork bun is without a doubt a Top 5 contender, and a fine accompaniment to a bowl of the city’s best ramen. As a side note, though the chicken bun is lackluster, if you are in the mood for chicken, the peppery sesame seed-coated crispy Chicken Wings (shown right) are absolutely outstanding.
SEARCH: Flat Screens & BBQ for March Madness?
March 19, 2009
Use our Very Advanced Search Engine to always find the perfect place. March Madness is coming! Just search for Flat Screens Included and BBQ, to find the best places to watch the games and chow down with your boys. Here’s what’s AlwaysHungry Approved:
1. Blue Smoke 116 E. 27th Street
Recommended Dishes: Deviled Eggs, Chipotle Chicken Wings, Memphis Baby Back Ribs, Macaroni & Cheese
2. Daisy May’s BBQ USA 623 11th Avenue
Recommended Dishes: Big Pig Gig (48 Hours Notice), Rack of Lamb (24 Hours Notice), Oklahoma Jumbo Beef Rib, Carolina Pulled Pork, Creamed Spinach, Mashed Potatoes, Creamy Corn
3. Hill Country 30 W. 26th Street
Recommended Dishes: Beef Ribs, Pork Spare Ribs, Regular Kreuz Sausage, Moist Brisket, Bone-In Pork Chop, Beef Shoulder, Beer Can Game Hen, Smokey Chipotle Deviled Eggs, German Potato Salad, Corn Souffle, Baked Beans with Burnt Ends, PB&J Cupcakes, Pecan Pie
4. Southern Hospitality 1460 2nd Avenue
Recommended Dishes: Baby Back Ribs, Pulled Pork Platter (pictured), Classic Macaroni & Cheese
5. Spanky’s BBQ 127 W. 43rd Street
Recommended Dishes: St. Louis Style Pork Ribs, Pulled Pork, Mac & Cheese, Warm Tollhouse Cookie Pie
6. Wildwood Barbecue 225 Park Avenue South
Recommended Dishes: Bottle Caps, Kicked-Up Caesar Salad, Beef Short Ribs, Dry-Rubbed Pork Spare Ribs, Jailhouse Chili
Dish of the Week: Cercle Rouge’s Chicken Wings
February 23, 2009
It meant mustering all our self-restraint, but we needed to make sure we could get our Superbowl party catered—so for selfish reasons we couldn’t drop this bombshell on you earlier: Cercle Rouge, a classic French bistro in TriBeCa, makes New York City’s best Buffalo wings.
“A French bistro?”
We know, we hear you. It sounds like heresy. But it’s true. Here’s why.
You know how it is when you’re eating the average wing, you get that first good bite from the center then you immediately face two problems: 1) getting at those strings of meat between the two bones in the middle of the wing, and 2) distinguishing the meat at the tip of the wing from that unpleasant bit of cartilage you inevitably bite into.
Cercle Rouge’s wings eliminate both of these problems. Executive Chef Pierre Landet starts with the same center portion of the chicken wing traditionally used. He removes one of the two center bones and pulls up all the meat towards one end. He then “Frenches” the bone—scraping all the meat from the bone so that it’s clean.
The result is genius—classic French technique applied to barfood. You get all the meat in one or two bites and there’s no cartilage to worry about.
It is important to note a few things. There are a few additional touches like the dainty celery shavings that adorn the wings. Traditional Buffalo wings aren’t dressed in egg-wash and breadcrumbs before being fried. Chef Landet does apply this classic, French “a l’anglaise” technique because it adds a perfectly delicate crispy-crunch that you don’t get with most wings. Because the meat is broken apart in preparation, the breadcrumb-coating keeps the meat together when it’s fried.
Traditional ingredients for the dipping sauce are also tweaked. Customary dipping sauces include mayonnaise, milk and onion powder, while Chef Landet uses a luscious combination of blue cheese, sour cream, sherry vinegar, salt, pepper and chives. But they don’t make the mistake of trying to make it taste too fancy – the wings are coated in Frank’s Red Hot, offering that conventional Buffalo flavor.
The result is a chicken wing that has received all of the TLC that it deserves and is better for it in every way. The extra work, however, is reflected in the price: $10 for 4 wings, but for the best of the best, it’s undoubtedly worth it.
You’re welcome.
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