‘New York’
Michael Bloomberg, or should I say, Mayor Bloomberg of New York hasn’t exactly been much of a meat man in the past. As one of the richest men in the world, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to public service in 2001. In truth, I know little to nothing of his politics, but I do know the man loves his steak.
While Artichoke represents the new trendy side of New York pizza, it wasn’t really quite New York style pizza. You know, the kind you have to fold a bit to eat and everyone says tastes better because of the water. Yeah, Artichoke wasn’t that type of place, but Lombardi’s sure was. Apparently Lombardi’s is a pretty big deal and they claim to be the first American pizzeria. It is quite a boast, and apparently it does a good job of filling the seats, but we got there around 3:00 (on the way to Uniqlo of course) and only had to wait about 10 minuted for a table to open up.
On stop two of our late-night food binge (after Pommes Frites), we headed to a little pizza shop called Artichoke. Here they specialized in, wait for it, artichoke pizza. Apparently therseI felt uncomfortable just being there, but I was told that this was some of the best pizza in New York. That it quite a claim, and after a stern talking-to, I was convinced to try some of the artichoke pizza, even against my better unvegan instincts.
After a few drinks, our tour guide (aka the girlfriend’s bro) took us to a little hole in the wall called Pommes Frites. Here, they specialized in cones of Belgian fries served with some crazy sauces like Pomegranate Teriyaki Mayo, Irish Curry and more. These seemed all good and well, but I saw something on the menu that tickled my fancy even more: Poutine.
For the uninitiated and un-Canadian, poutine (pronounced pooh-teen) is a gloriously unvegan treat consisting of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. This combination creates something spectacular, yet rarely found south of the Great White North. It had been a long time since I was in Canada and I was with a couple poutine virgins, so we ordered a large one to split for six bucks.
For a fancy little evening on the town in Manhattan, we took a trip to Bowery Street to eat at a swanky place called DBGB. I’m not sure what the entire acronym stands for, but I’m pretty sure the D and one of the Bs are the initials of Daniel Boulud, some big time chef in NYC. We had a big party, so we made reservations beforehand, yet still had to wait a good 15 minutes before our table was ready. In that time, we headed over to the bar, which had a huge mirror on it and a ton of beers listed. One would think that these mirror beers would be the available beers, however, we were told that the mirror was out of date and handed a menu. Too bad, because one of my life goals is to order beer from a mirror and that will have to wait.
After recovering from my lunch at Shake Shack, I headed to Great Neck on Long Island to see some family. The meal was set for an Italian place called Cafe Rustica. Although the menu was limited for the event, there were plenty of options, including a few different veal dishes. Although I’m not the biggest veal fan for flavor and loosely moral reasons, I still felt like this would be a good way to go after eating every other cow product for lunch. I chose their veal parmigiani since it didn’t come with any vegetables.
On a rainy Friday morning, I arrived in New York City for the first time as a meat blogger with one goal: to eat. Most importantly, I had to eat at the Shake Shack. I had heard much about the Shake Shack from the New York-centric food blog known as Serious Eats, yet there are plenty of good burgers in LA, so I never felt an overriding desire to get a burger at Shake Shack. Then I heard that Shake Shack was run by none other than Danny Meyer, the famous New York restaurateur. More importantly, though, is that Meyer is a fellow alum of Camp Nebagamon, the greatest place in the world (if you don’t believe me, read this). No doubt, his restaurant skills draw upon his experience at Nebagamon and I made sure to get to Shake Shack as early as possible to see what those skills had created.