Another season, another collection of pro tips from the Real Cheap Eats crew! This Spring, we’re focused on New York’s chinatowns, with 22 highlights in Manhattan and Flushing. Recommendations range from a porchetta Sandwich on the Chinatown border to one of Queens’ top slices (and all manner of Chinese food in between). Click here to [...]
What exactly makes a meal memorable? The New York restaurant scene is full of concepts, plates and experiences that are mostly devoid of personality. Going on my fourth year in the city, I still have the gnawing feeling that New York restaurants are often more brand than food – a name to an investment that [...]
Dear readers, A while back, Layne Mosler of Taxi Gourmet approached J.O. and me with her newest project: a series of self-guided food tours, written by local experts and sold through a mobile app used to explore good food throughout the world. I signed on because Layne’s approach to food is very much like my [...]
The first honest-to-goodness Philadelphian I ever met greeted me from behind a plainly planted table at 30th St. Station. Girlfriend and I had just gotten off the bus and circled the terminal in search of assurance. Spotting the phrase “Travelers Assistance,” I approached the man, who nursed a stack of unfolded maps and a nonchalant [...]
Hours after a recent trip to Flushing’s newest destination food court, J.O. and I exchanged the following over SMS: “These food malls are like chucky cheeses for us.” “You are right. I definitely peed in the ball pit at Savor Fusion.” “Omg” Who said what isn’t nearly as important as the analogy. I’ve been to [...]
It took me five years to get over a brick of bread that yielded thick slices of breakfast while I was an exchange student in St. Petersburg. I said goodbye to those distant morning meals when I first stepped into Brighton Bazaar. A bustling Russian supermarket wrapped around a smorgasbord of prepared foods, the Bazaar [...]
The egg tart is perhaps not as lionized as the soup dumpling, but it can be just as much the subject of fantasy. Praises have been sung. Lists have been compiled. At least one film has been made. A good egg tart – not too sweet, barely savory and held together by a tender, flaky [...]
To recap my recent work for Serious Eats, in case you haven’t kept up with us on Facebook: Serious Barbecue and Birria in Chicago After writing about Uncle John’s and the style of barbecue on Chicago’s South Side, I devoted an entire column to the smoky miracle of the Chicago-style rib tip. A feature on [...]
New York’s ramen rage has finally gotten to the point where an East Village spot can sustain itself on miso ramen alone – and I couldn’t be more grateful. Ramen Misoya, a Japanese brand that pulls strands of miso ramen from their Japanese locales, opened a New York branch at the peak of last Autumn. [...]
My first conversation on xiaolongbao was one-way. As I recall, it consisted of Boykji explaining to me: “You’ve never had xiaolongbao? They’re the bomb.” Typically, when “the bomb” is used is a predicate, I expect disproportionate amounts of irony or gravity. Not so in this instance: When Boykji drops “the bomb,” the delivery mechanism tends [...]
