A few years ago I fell in love with the Bistro Burger at Big Nicks. Its been a few years and many burgers in between, and the Bistro Burger is still a ridiculously good burger. I’m not going to get into what makes it so go because we covered it in the “Ant’s Last Supper” post. Here is my recent Bistro Burger

Still as delicious as always. The waitress was really nice and gave us a couple balaclava’s for dessert on the house.

Now lets talk about a new burger that has hit the city and is making a statement and a push for BEST BURGER IN THE CITY. It’s at the Brindle Room in the East Village. A little birdie told me about this burger and made the statement that it is his favorite burger in the city right now and may be the best in the city overall. That little birdie was non other that Jay.

Friday night I was deciding to either get on a packed subway and take it home to queens or I could solve my starvation and see what the fuss is about at the Brindle Room. It was an easy choice even though it was a cold and wet night out. When I sat down at the bar in the back I got the menu and started to panic. I walked all the way there in the cold rain and the burger was not on the menu. I almost walked out but I asked the bartender if it was possible to get it. She said it was not on the menu because so many people love this burger and they want to get people to order other things that are on the menu. She still hooked me up.

Let me tell you what makes this burger so special. All I told the bartender was I wanted a medium burger with american cheese. It comes with caramelized onion on it automatically and when you bite into it there is so much burger juice that pours out of it. I also liked that each bit had a crunch to it. They grill the bun so it is perfectly toasted almost like how a grill cheese sandwich is toasted with butter. Delicious! Next time I need to go with Jay.

I also got a desert on the house. Funny how this weekend I got 2 burgers and 2 complementary deserts.

Many small towns have festivals throughout the year. When you think of fair foods you think of sausage, gyros, hotdogs, burgers, popcorn, fried chicken, zeppolies, candied apples, etc. This year I went to my hometown’s Oyster Feast in Oyster Bay Long Island. They have a HUGE food section that seems to grow every year and they go a little beyond the typical fair food. After all it is the Oyster fest, there is a ton of sea food, raw and cooked, and contests for eating the most oysters. There was so much good food and I usually will eat something then go to the next booth and then to the next booth. I usually eat the same thing each year. The past two years I have discovered something. Combining two stands could make something glorious.

The next time you go to a fair take these steps and enjoy. Find the sausage pepper and onion guy and get one. It will probably run you about 8-10 bucks. Dig out the bread and make some room. The bread they use at fairs is usually really thick and the bread takes up so much space of your sandwich. If they have cheese sprinkle some on the sausage with the peppers and onions. Oh, and tell them light on the pepper and onions or they will load it on. Next, find the pulled pork guy. Ask them if they can slap some pulled pork on top of the sausage filling the dug out bread. Top it with their crunchy cole slaw. If your lucky they may charge you half price for the pulled pork because you didn’t get a full sandwich.

Then, enjoy. One day I want to recreate this at home and bring it to a tailgate. This is the ultimate tailgating cuisine. However, I need to learn how to make pulled pork first.

I have been working a lot of long hours lately promoting the New Windows 8 in Times Square and toward the end of the event the southerner and I found some time to go to an Italian restaurant in Astoria called Via Trenta. We have passed by it a hundred times and always say “We need to go there”. We finally did it. I was starving, I mean starving. I think I had a bowel of cheerios that morning and it was about 8pm when we sat in the restaurant. After looking over the menu I wanted 2 mains. The Gnocchi di BarBaBietola al GorGonzola which is handmade potato-beet gnocchi, in a gorgonzola- walnut sauce (I’m a sucker for walnut sauce) and the Veal in a a truffle cream sauce. On a typical day I’d get both and over eat myself into a food coma but something told me to just get one so I ordered the Veal.

Before the Veal we had a a lobster salad with hearts of palm and avocado. It was really good and looked cool in the lobster half shell. The southerner got the p.e.i. Mussels steamed in a tomato, white wine and garlic broth and the blue point oysters baked with spinach and four cheese béchamel. I am not an oyster guy even though I grew up in Oyster Bay but these were delicious.

So earlier I mentioned I was starving and I ended up settling on the Veal. Well, here is the Veal:

It was so thin it felt like I ate nothing, but it tasted good. It is a good thing they kept bringing bread to the table because what made up for not ordering the Gnocchi earlier was the sauces from the Veal and the Mussels. By the end of the meal there was no more sauce on the plates.

I love sauce

A buddy of mine and I had not seen each other in a long time and wanted to catch up with some lunch. We hopped in the car and headed from Greenpoint Brooklyn to Bed-Stuy. We had a few choice on our list of places to go but we ended up at Dave’s Brisket House Deli. The name alone sounded like some good eats. The shop was a typical deli. You can get all kinds of sandwiches but they specialize in corned beef, pastrami and brisket sandwiches. We got one of each, what else is new. The Pastrami was the best of them all (see above). Really good taste and the perfect amount of mustard. The corned beef was all right but I have never been a huge fan of corned beef. I’d rather go pastrami.

However, the name on the sign is Dave’s BRISKET House. The brisket was good and tasty. The sandwich came with a dipping sauce. I was not expecting this with the brisket. It was a watery sauce almost like a beef broth.

You can find Dave’s Brisket House at:
533 Nostrand Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11216