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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Butera’s (above)

Crumbled veal sausage and sweet peas in a tomato cream sauce topped with Grana Padano

Quinto Quarto

Bombolotti alla gricia-Half rigatoni with caramelized onions, guanciale, pecorino, chili flakes

Frank Restaurant

Orecchiette with butter sauce and broccoli Rabe

Malatesta Trattoria

Spaghetti Alla Chitarra with fresh chop tomato, basil, mozzarella

The List

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

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.

It’s a cozy atmosphere at butcher bar and they even have a back patio. Although the day the southerner and I decided to try them out it was super hot and the AC inside was much nicer. Everything we saw for the BBQ was all ketchup based. So if your from the south your going to notice no mustard or vinegar based BBQ. I’m from the north so ketchup is what I’m used to.

I had the Philly Cheese Brisket Sandwich. It was the perfect combo of a philly cheese steak and brisket sandwich. Loads of melted cheese, now who doesn’t like that??

The southerner had a pulled pork sandwich. Great bun and a good mix of pork and sauce.

They have a nice menu at Butcher Bar. Things are a little pricy for Astoria but the meat is organic so you get what you pay for.

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.