Italian Café Makes My Day
With my kids home from camp for an endless summer, I’ve spent lunchtimes over a hot griddle assembling grilled cheese sandwiches to share between us. I have become expert in my technique—just enough Vermont cheddar, with a squirt of mustard or daub of chutney. I stack six sandwiches, cut them neatly in half, pop them into a warm oven and yell “Luuuuunch.”
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The Root Causes of Great Taste
By Josh Perilo
Who makes the best root beer?
Halfway into my second trip to Kalustyan’s, the amazing Curry Hill spice superstore, my wife looked at me and totally nailed it:
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Pinxtos that Pinch Your Senses
Tapas have come to seem like a dining cliché—our love affair with them has brought on a small plate revolution (and a well hidden uptick in the cost of entrées). But when done right, they are a revelation.
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Köfte and Ezme: Love at First Bite
Bi Lokma means “one bite” in Turkish, and it is the newest venue of restaurant owner/cook Orhan Yegen. A strange hybrid of self-serve cafeteria and restaurant, the combo works in Midtown East, where office goers often spend their lunchtimes in nondescript food courts. A few steps above the street and many steps up in quality, Bi Lokma is another product of Yegen’s passion for Turkish food; he’s so passionate, he claims not to care that he makes no money selling it (but don’t get him started on the evils of sharing plates!).
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Good Reviews for Druze
Pita bread can be as innocuous as Wonder Bread or, if you have it at the only Druze restaurant in New York City, it becomes something else entirely. The homemade whole-wheat pita at Gazala’s is stretchy, thin and could be mistaken for a napkin if you drop a folded sheet of it in your lap. However, you won’t if you order the Labneh cheease and z’atar wrap ($6). The pita and spiced cheese, less chalky and thinner than goat cheese, is folded into a neat rectangle of simple goodness.
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FAIRWAY COMES TO UES
The popular grocery store franchise Fairway Market will open its first Upper East Side location Wednesday, July 20. The food purveyor is moving into 25,000 square feet on two floors in the former site of Circuit City and Barnes & Noble at 240 E. 86th St. The new location will have a “Fairway To Go” express cafe, as well as organic, local, kosher and specialty foods.
Taiwanese To Go
If New York City is, indeed, a melting pot, then Korea Town’s Food Gallery 32 is evidence that the stew in it hasn’t completely melted. This “International Food Emporium” sells only Asian (mainly Korean) fare. You bring your items upstairs where food quotes from Anglophone authors line the walls—“Kissing don’t last, cookery do”*—and you chew to the beat of thumping American pop tunes while watching Crepe Monster dish out Tokyo versions of a French staple.
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An Underrated Wine Steps into the Spotlight
Moscato d’Asti finally gets the respect it deserves
By Josh Perilo
A couple weeks ago, I went off on a tangent about the many Italian sparkling wines that I love. I left out one type on purpose. I love this wine so much, and find it both so delicious and so underrated, that I felt it deserved its own 700-word devotional.
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FOOD LOVERS’ TOUR OF ISRAEL
The 92nd Street Y presents an evening of culinary history and tasting with Naama Shefi of the Consulate General of Israel. Food historian and author Francine Segan discusses what cutting-edge chefs are creating in Israel, while audience members try samples of new and unusual Irsaeli cuisine. Thursday, June 23, 7 p.m., 1395 Lexington Ave., 92y.org; $40.
Where Cheesy Meets Over Easy
At lunch time, this grilled cheese mecca has lines snaking around the atrium of the Citicorp Center, so use my strategy: breakfast. There are no lines at the small takeout window, and your sandwich might cost $3 less than some of the lunchtime offerings—like three cheese melt ($7.95) or beef ‘n’blue ($8.95). Order the roasted tomato and Monterey jack frittata with pork sausage on a buttermilk biscuit ($5.50). I’m fussy about biscuits, and this one is made from scratch and tastes it, fluffy and dotted with herbs. The combo of a fat spicy breakfast sausage patty with lacy frittata is like a tough-talking road worker dating an elegant damsel. The pair has chemistry.
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