Devour The City

Nothing fascinates me more than a chef that cooks outside of his cultural backgrounds. The Alex Stupaks and Andy Rickers is what makes the New York food scene so interesting. One person in particular that happened to catch my eye was Ivan "Ramen" Orkin. I learned about Ivan after a 2 day eating/The Mind of a Chef marathon. A Jew with not one, but two highly popular Ramen shops in Tokyo. There are three things the Japanese take seriously, sushi, ramen, and bukkake porno movies.

Ivan was to open up shop on the lower east side but somehow ended up in the new Gotham market located on the West Bumblefuck side of Manhattan 11th Ave & 45th. Slurp shop has a fast casual concept, you place your order at the cash register, wait for your name to be called, and poach your own seat. Here's what I ordered:

Tokyo Shio Ramen ($13): Sea salt, dashi + chicken broth, pork chashu, rye noodle - a really flavorful ramen broth, but a hint more towards the salty side. The noodles had a nice dense, al dente texture to them - maybe the best I've had to date. But that doesn't chalk one up for slurp shop because I hear the noodles come from Sun Noodle.

Roasted Garlic Mazemen ($13): Nori, dashi + chicken broth, pork chashu, rye noodle + egg ($2): You would think at the price point for a bowl of soup, the egg would be included. The broth was thick and extra garlicky. Which was cool the first few bites, but after that it started to become too much. This felt more like a noodle dish than an actual soup.

After everything I've read about this guy, I figured I would be raving about this place for months - but at best the Ramen was decent, though not decent enough for another 40 minute subway ride and a 20 minute walk to the Twilight Zone section of Manhattan.

Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop
600 11th Avenue - New York, NY 10036
http://www.ivanramen.com

http://a816-restaurantinspection.nyc.gov/RestaurantInspection/SearchDetails.do

I've had a bug up my ass for a local red sauce joint called Randazzo's for the past ten or twelve years. I'm not really sure as to who, what, where, when, or why, but this place just rubbed me the wrong way. Anytime the name of Randazzo's would come up, people would praise and smile, while I snickered and call it names that Webster's Dictionary has not yet defined.

One person in particular that would praise the food at Randazzos is a good friend of mine who also doubles as my proofreader. He would go on and on about how great their food is, how unique in flavor their red sauce is, and that I am a complete asshole for not liking the place. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. I would take my friend to Randazzo's for dinner to show my gratitude for thoroughly reading through my awful grammar and spelling mistakes, while seeing exactly why I stayed away for so long and then writing about it.

Randazzos started out as a small clam shack located along Sheepshead Bay on Emmons Avenue in the early 1940's. In the 1980's the small clam shack was transformed into a full blown restaurant and would serve up fish dishes in their signature red sauce. As I walked into the space it felt like déjà vu. After being heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy, the place appeared to be untouched. It was exactly how I remembered it. A no frills design, with a long counter that overlooked the fry station. A large room with black tables and red and white stripped paper place mats with pictures of regional areas in Italy. We grabbed a seat at a table and started to scan the the menu. This is what we ordered:

Seafood Fra Diavolo ($23.95): Shrimp, clams, and mussels in a spicy house red sauce, served atop a bed of pasta. Not to sound like a broken record, but this dish was fucking good.

Fried Calamari ($13.95): A portion the size of some food writers egos had hit our table. Plump rings of perfectly battered squid, deep fried to a textbook definition. Served with Randazzo's signature red sauce - the culprit. Now a lot older and somewhat wiser, I understand why this sauce is raved about among the Brooklyn natives. It has this certain taste that you really don't get with other housemade red sauces. I had a hard time deconstructing the actual flavors in the sauce because there was too much going on, oh and I was also to busy stuffing my face with it.

Shrimp in Medium Sauce ($12.95): Doused in flour, fried for 3 minutes, and served with a piece of bread that has an almost stale consistency, topped with the house made read sauce. This is actually one dish I've always liked, not really for the shrimp but for the bread. As the sauce sets into the bread it gives it a little sogginess. When eaten, you have the texture and consistency of both crunchy and soggy. It's a weird combination that makes for a "you have to eat it to understand it" type of dish.

I have to confess, I am a fucking moron. I spent the last ten years or more neglecting one of the originators of Brooklyn red sauce joints out of stupidity and stubbornness. Luckily my eyes have been opened. If you will excuse me, I have ten plus years of eating at Randazzo's to do.

Randazzo's Clam Bar

2017 Emmons Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11235

www.randazzosclambar.com/
‎

http://a816-restaurantinspection.nyc.gov/RestaurantInspection/SearchResults.do

I have suffered many disappointments in my life. Like the time I didn’t make the Harlem Globetrotters, and when I lost my collection of potato chips that resembled movie stars from the 80’s. My most recent disappointment came from Dale Talde and his latest project Pork Slope. After a panty dropping meal at Talde, I was excited to see what he was going to do with everyday bar food. I like nachos, I like pulled pork, I like tater tots, how could I lose? What I don't like is waiting hours on end for a table, so I waited almost a year for all the culinary hypebeasts and Yelpers to find another craze to follow.

Pork Slope is supposed to simulate a honky-tonk or a dive bar. Funny, I don't ever remember seeing any baby strollers in any of those places... welcome to the new Brooklyn. We grabbed a seat closest to the front of the restaurant, and as I looked around I noticed that the place was half empty on a Saturday night. Was I missing something? As I looked around I noticed the bar's impressive selection of whiskeys including a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle and a selection of more than twenty beers on tap. My friend and I took a quick skim through the menu and this is what we got.

Nachos ($8/$11): You have an option for a small or large size. Tortilla chips topped with chili, jalapenos, cheddar, tomatoes, onions. Crowned the best nacho’s in NYC, and I could see why. The chips were super fresh and had a nice crispy, toasty warmth to them. I could eat these all day and all night.

Pulled Pork Sandwich ($13): BBQ sauce, pickles, sesame potato roll. The sandwich was the most pedestrian piece of pork I've eaten in a while. Not really juicy, not really messy, barely any flavor. You would think a place with the word "pork" in it would have the pulled pork sandwich game on lock.

Brisket Sandwich ($14): BBQ sauce, pickles, Texas toast. You call this Brisket? Now, don't let the picture fool you, this monstrosity of a sandwich tasted like an old catcher’s mitt sitting out in the desert sun. The meat was so dry that I had to drink water as I chewed on the sandwich. The Texas toast was hard as a rock, I was going to keep a slice with me just in case any Park Slope parents got out of hand.

Tater Tots ($5): These were actually good. Really crispy in texture, not overly greasy, and with right amount of salt to give it a little flavor.

The food at Pork Slope was really unimpressive. One thing Pork Slope got right was their extremely bad service. My friend and I waited well over 30 minutes for our nachos in a half empty restaurant. After our Nacho's finally hit the table, so did our sandwiches two minutes later. No apologizes, no “let me take something off your bill,” nothing. Where’s the hospitality? I can make a pulled pork sandwich and nachos in the comfort of my own home in boxers and bumping Action Bronson. I go out to eat because I am looking to enjoy myself and not have to constantly wonder “where the fuck are my nachos?"

Pork Slope

247 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215

www.porkslopebrooklyn.com

As a blogger, I get invited to a lot of cool events. My most recent event was dinner at the NoMad rooftop hosted by Buick. With this being my first event hosted solely by a car company, I was very interested to hear how Buick would be incorporating themselves into the food world. Dinner at the NoMad was a great start. With a quick presentation from Buick, which is known to be a entry level luxury American sedan lineup, I started to understand exactly how they are integrating themselves into the food world. Whether you're going out for a nice dinner or to the farmers market to pick up a few things for dinner, you need transpiration. Why not get there in luxury and comfort and still have a little extra cash in your pocket for that midnight snack.

Another great way that Buick is integrating themselves into the food world is as a sponsor of the 2013 New York City Food and Wine Festival - a four day food festival with proceeds benefiting No Kid Hungry and The Food Bank For New York City. Buick was also nice enough to give me a pair of tickets to the Grand Tasting. A warehouse that once held machinery and army supplies was now filled with seventy-five plus food and drink vendors catering to thousands of food lovers. Here's my quick recap of the food filled afternoon.

Pork Taco from Vitae

Crudo from Esca

Stewed short beef with pesto mash

Buick giving away artisan honey

Pisatchio honey ricotta on a sugar Brioche from high road craft

The New York City Wine & Food Festival

www.nycwff.org/‎

Buick

www.Buick.com

The burger game in New York City is a saturated one. Every week another burger joint opens with their dicks swinging, claiming that their grass fed burgers are the best in town. Six months later they close down and another burger joint or a fucking fro-yo shop opens in their place. So when picking a burger joint, I tend to do my homework and chose wisely, or I will end up at shit holes like Corner Burger. I do in fact make a pretty mean burger myself, and for me to travel from one end of Brooklyn to the other end of Brooklyn to get a burger, it better be fucking good.

I have this ongoing list burger joints that I need to visit, not a bucket list, those are for assholes. This time I wound up at Dumont Burger in Williamsburg. After spending a week of rummaging the internet and when I mean by internet, I mean stalking hash tags on Instagram for pictures of what I was getting myself into. This is a great method, it's like online dating, except there is only a 50% chance of you having to call the cops. Dumont's menu is small, this is what I had:

DuMont Burger ($14): Grass fed beef laid onto a grilled Brioche bun, Boston bibb lettuce, tomato, red onion, house pickles, and your choice of onion rings or french fries. Dumont only offers one type of burger, with your choice of cheeses, bacon, caramelized onions, etc. I had my burger with bacon and cheddar cheese. Not many burgers can rival my all time favorite burger at Ox Cart, and Dumont's burger is a very close competitor. The patty was perfectly seasoned with no need for ketchup or any other condiment, and cooked to a perfect medium rare. If I had to explain Dumont's house made pickles, out-fucking-rageuos, ask for extras!

Besides word of mouth, another way I pick restaurants to write about is through my Twitter feed. Dumont once followed me, but unfollowed me sometime ago. I pretty much wrote them off, well, because I am a 5 year old boy trapped in a 32 year old man's body. Good food is good food, Twitter or not. Dumont Burger is just good food and with only 2 months left in the year, I have to say Dumont Burger maybe the best burger I've had for 2013.

DuMont Burger

314 Bedford Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.DumontBurger.com

Sometimes you have a better shot of finding a cab at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, on a rainy day, in Manhattan than finding a good old school Italian red sauce restaurant in the city. Yeah, little Italy is flooded with old school spots, but over the past 20 years the quality of the food has become so bad that only a tourist with a fanny pack in tote can appreciate. Besides, I'm from Brooklyn, so there is a better chance of me joining Yelp than stepping foot into any of those places. There's also places like Carbone, where you have to wait weeks for a reservation or you end up eating dinner at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night at a small cramped table located near the bathroom. Then there are places like Galli in Soho. Galli is a little bit off the radar, but with food good enough to roll with the heavy hitters of the red sauce game.

Nestled on Mercer, between Grand and Broome street, Galli is adorned with huge sign that says "Restaurant." As we swung open two huge glass doors, we were greeted by a hostess who took us past a long white marble top bar, and past large leather booths to our seats in the back of the restaurant. Two menus were placed on our table along with thinly sliced Italian bread and a dish filled with olive oil and balsamic - official. The menu was simple, just straight up red sauce dishes. This is what we ordered:

Gamberi ($17) Rigatoni, broccoli, fresh mozzarella and shrimp served up in a creamy pink sauce. The Crunchy brocoli and perfectly cooked shrimp made me shovel every inch of this dish into my mouth. I've had this plenty of times in other restaurants and only a handful have nailed it, add Galli to that list.

Fried Calamari ($13) Your standard fried calamari with a few plump fried shrimp thrown into the mix, served with a chipotle mayo and Galli's house tomato sauce. Tender in texture, but a little bland. A few spoonfuls of the house red sauce and everything started to make sense. I left the chipotle mayo sauce on the side because my Brooklyn card would be revoked if anyone found out I was dipping calamari into chipotle mayo.

Chicken Parm ($17) A thin cutlet, breaded and fried, topped with Galli's house red sauce and served with a side of penne in sauce. I knew I was about to eat something good when I saw the burn spots on the cheese. It amazes me how many places can fuck up a simple dish like this but Galli got it right. Thin, crispy and a portion big enough to feed a small group of newly fired model. Galli's house sauce had me reaching for more bread to soak up all the red sauce goodness.

Red sauce spots are a dime a dozen in Manhattan, but finding a good one is nearly impossible. Either they're over-hyped, or some assbag from Ohio who grew up eating Totino's pizza rolls tries to reinvent the wheel. Galli just gets it right - bringing the old school into the new school without fucking it up.

Galli

45 Mercer St, New York, NY

‎(212) 966-9288 ‎

gallirestaurant.com

The summer wind came blowing in and with a blink of an eye the summer wind blew right out, But not without one last day of indulgence in hog heaven, also known as Pig island. Twenty five chefs from all five boroughs serve up 80 locally sourced pigs which are paired along with locally crafted Sixpoint beer, cider from Hudson valley and wine from the finger lakes region of new york.

Pig Island is usually held on governors island but this year the host and founder of the event Jimmy Carbone decided to bring hog heaven to the Red Hook water front to boost the morale of the area after it was destroyed by hurricane Sandy in 2012. Also proceeds of the event will go towards add value farm, a small community farm that was destroyed from hurricane Sandy. Here's a quick recap of what went down during Pig Island.