Forking Tasty

The New Cool Ranch is a Bust

Taco Bell – Doritos from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Doritos Taco Bell has been a getting great reviews for a while now but I have never tried it. Taco Bell is not my choice typically for a quick snack or meal. They just came out with the Cool Ranch Taco so I figured I have to try this. Is it really that good? Check the the short video and you’ll see.

Above Standard

A very good choice for a burger would be at Clarke Standard. One of the things that makes them a little different is the grilled buttered bun. I’m a huge fan of that and it is starting to catch on at other burger shops. The other great thing about Clarke Standard is around the block from my job. I have a feeling this will be on my list whenever I head out for lunch. This burger is in the same burger class as a Shake Shack burger. Clarke Standard use only 100% USDA verified, hormone and antibiotic free Natural Angus ground every day using a wide-gauge plate for a loose-textured patty and a juicier, more flavorful burger. Check out the juices for yourself.

Bread and Water

Sometimes bread and water is all you need. Ok, perform the water-to-wine trick and now we’re set. The simple things are often the most rewarding. At a recent trip to Flour+Water (which I will post about in more detail later) I was reminded of this simple fact. It inspires my personal cooking style and satiates my craving for anything too complex. This fresh bread dipped simply into the accompanying olive oil was so fresh and pure I didn’t need to move through the 5 courses that awaited me. A crusty exterior and a light but soft interior gave me texture and oil absorption perfecting every delectable bite.

The New And The Old

The best burger in New York is a huge debate. It fluctuates from year to year and their are different classes when it comes to burgers. There are the tasty burgers that are small and a leap up from fast food restaurants like Shack Shack or the Burger Joint in the Parker Meridian. Both are top in it’s class. Another class of burger are the thicker burger that are cooked to order. This post is about an old best of the best and a new burger that is top 5 in the city.

The Festival Combo

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.

Sauce Makes Me Happy

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.

Pasta Touring

I realized I’ve had quite a few great bowls of pasta lately. I thought I’d take a moment and share some of the best in this quickie food porn post. I’ll try and do more of these as I turn my Instagram obsession back towards this blog. That damn app is like candy rigatoni. You just can’t stop at one. I thought I’d been staying away from pasta but obviously, based on the below, this is the farthest thing from the truth. My suggestion for the best way to explore the morsels below is to find a string of nice Sunday afternoons and indulge in these dishes week by week. For some reason eating pasta on Sunday is much easier forgiven than during the rest of the week. I’ll chalk it up to being a “product of your environment”. You can chalk it up to us telling you to do this. Win win right? The map at the bottom will link you right over to foursquare so you can add these to your hit list…

Bed-Stuy Brisket

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…

BBQ Brunch

It is not that easy to find BBQ in Astoria but there is one place that I know of that serves only BBQ in this area, Butcher Bar. This BBQ restaurant is not only a good place to get your BBQ but it also sells meat like a butcher. They have a display case showing all there organic grass fed meats, sausage, and beef patties that are raised locally.

What’s in YOUR Sandwich?

This is exciting.

Some smart food friendly friends of ours gave us a call last week to tell us about a project they are working on. We loved it so much that we persuaded them to let us try it out before the rest of the world (it just launched this week!). What does this have to do with sandwiches? Hang tight for a second I’m getting there. First off, it’s called Capture and it’s an iPhone app that lets us collaborate on stuff we eat with the best submissions being featured on Forking Tasty. There’s tons more that’s cool about it too but let’s get to the sandwich part first.

You may have noticed we’re obsessed with sandwiches lately. You may have even watched a few of our ‘WichHunting episodes. With that in mind we want you to show us your favorite sammie, hoagie, hero, sub, grinder, dagwood or torpedo. The top 5 will be featured in our upcoming “Sandwiches Rule” post. Our favorite will become the focus of our next ’WichHunting episode and the FT reader who submits it even gets to cameo in the video.

Sound fun? It is.

Now, in order for this to work there are a few small steps you need to take. (Sorry to those readers without an iPhone. Android and Win Phone coming soon.)
1. Download the Capture App
2. Open the app. You’ll see our request front and center.
3. Click on the request and send in the photo of your favorite, current, last, next or friends sandwich. (shoot it cross section like the above image)
4. Eat, digest and wait to hear from us.

We’d love as many of you in on this one as possible but we’ll be doing this again. Hopefully a lot. So if you take the bench on this one we’ll get in on a future story soon. Just remember to keep peeking at your Capture app.