Forking Tasty

Bravo, Bravo!

Jay and I headed out to Huntington Long Island to meet our family on the night of the past big storm. Driving was not the safest that night. The wind was blowing the truck all over the place and the rain was coming from all directions. However, we knew when we finally made it to Huntington we were in for a treat. Bravo Nader is a small restaurant that our family loves to go to. The food is always outstanding. We never order our entrée’s off the menu, EVER. Their specials are just that, special. We call ahead usually to make sure they have the Ossobuco special, seen above, because someone at the table has to have one so we can all try it. It’s Killer!! This table had the entire special list that night including two gigantic Prime Rib’s that Mr. Nader himself told us about on the down low. Here is a rundown of the special specials. There are so many I had to put them in a slideshow.

Special apps, dinner, and dessert

After we left the rain was still coming from all directions. Long Island was starting to flood and was loosing their power left and right. We spent the rest of the night in the dark playing a board game. No, I didn’t win but had fun playing one of the games I haven’t played since I was a kid. I wasn’t on my game. My mind was probably still focused on the delicious meal we ate at Bravo Nader.

Breakfast at URL’s

Sometimes you eat in a place because you like it. Sometimes you eat in a place because you are forced to. And, sometimes you eat in a place for both of those reasons. Silicon Valley is a sea of tech complexes and campuses that do not promote leaving once you arrive. Because of this, many of the cafeterias are like visiting Epcot Center. You can eat Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican or American all at the same meal. In the many years that I have been visiting one very special spot in the valley, I have found several staples that keep me excited about my next meal. Above is the grand winner and it is not what you expect.

P.I.E. WITH Chris and Andrew

With in the first five minutes of meeting Chris and Andrew I felt I’d known them for three hours. Three solid, carnivorous, men-hanging-out-talking-food-smack hours. And, that is precisely what followed. Let’s back up a bit.

NYC sees a new restaurant open ever day. In this mid-recession restaurant boom, which defies rational economics, these newbies try everything from a celeb chef to locally grown everything just to occupy a little mind share and influence choice. This has left my mind scrambled when it is time to actual choose a restaurant. What happened to the simply days when we would thumb through a slim, burgundy book and reserve a table for 2 with a telephone call? Enter the internet and everybody-is-a-foodie craze. You can’t open a magazine, a browser or a television without some new, hip joint claiming to be BETTER than the best meal you ever had.

Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal have brought me back to the days of Zagat bliss by giving me one stop for all my NYC restaurant needs. Through their fairly new site, Immaculate Infatuation, they give me the non-foodie run down on such over hyped spots as The Spotted Pig and Char No. 4. Chris and Andrew come from the music biz. The site was born from the sheer number of restaurants they ate in while entertaining clients and bands. Deciding to put this experience to use, they started writing basic, human, reviews of the places and foods they consumed setting the “Infatuation” on fire.

A few weeks ago I met up with them at Tom Colicchio’s refurbished Craft Steak spot, Colicchio and Sons for a prix fix throw down. In those first five minutes I mentioned above, one of us dropped an F-Bomb, we jumped through four different conversation topics and it was determined one of us would NEED to order a diet coke. (a test to Tom’s very public endorsement deal for the beverage) Quick friends are made from those with similar passions. In this case talking to people and eating. After the meal it was clear that we had the same opinion of each other and of Tom’s NEW restaurant so we decided that more Immaculate Infatuation/Forking Tasty chow downs were in the near future. Until then I will simple pick from their ever expanding list of reviews and block out the hundreds of PR, money driven, in the know, swank, green, sustainable, celebrity-hyped reviews that give me more A.D.D. then an ex-vegetarian at a hipster butcher shop.

Thanks guys for simplifying at least part of my life. Now if I could just figure out my overstuffed inbox problem.

What we ate: But trust me, the guys tell the story better.
Gnocchi with Chestnuts
Squid with Cavalo Nero
White Bean Agnolotti
Spice Roasted Lola Duck
Pancetta-Wrapped Monkfish
Braised Loup De Mer
Roasted Sirloin
Coconut Cream Doughnuts
Beignets with bourbon panna cotta
Banana-Pecan Upside-Down

The Burrito and the Bull

Here is a closer look at my 10pm burrito from San Francisco last week. Eating a super burrito and then going to bed is not the smartest thing in the world but I am a real SUCKER for NorCal taquerias. I’d do it again in a heart beat.

Eatin’ SF

View SF March eat tour in a larger map
Follow the food with this map

Not surprisingly I was in San Francisco a week ago. If there is a place on earth that is my home away from home it is SF. Shhh, but I secretly hope to make it my “real” home again one day. My short, two year stint definitely left me with a bug to move back. This trip was a fast paced barrage of work, research, catching up with friends and eating that started with a 7am Saturday flt and ended with a Thurs redeye. I thought I swore those off last year?

Rather than dive deep into the stories, friends, reasons and circumstances which placed the food shown below in front of me, I thought I would “food porn” out by simply sharing the day and time these tasty morsels were consumed. Let’s jump right in with…

Freshipes: Rick Bayless

This book was send to me by my friend Allen. I met Allen in LA for the first time. I was behind the wheel of a rented black, Chevy Yukon and he was standing in front of the Roosevelt Hotel on his way to the Yahoo! Grammy party. Our short drive up the Sunset Strip solidified a few quick lessons. We were both creative guys and we both expressed it through cooking. Arguably, the single most important thing he taught me came years later as we both stood in my Brooklyn kitchen after yet another one of our Yahoo! projects wrapped. Now that might seem shallow but it’s not. The trick he showed me was how to heat up a tortilla. Put the stove top flame on med heat. Throw the tortilla directly on the flame. Flip in 5 seconds. Pull it. Stuff it. Eat it.

I had always heated my tortillas in a large hot pan. Not only did this dirty another pan in the cooking process but it took longer to heat the tortillas. So, why was this lesson so important? It is not about the tortillas as much it is about understanding a new or different way to do something. So often we look to solve problems from the perspective of what we have learned or how we were taught. Sometimes this is not the best or most logical way to do something. In this case, remove the middle man (the pan) and go directly to the source is more efficient in every way, not to mention it looks really cool. Apply this to creative thinking (in my case advertising) and watch out.

A few months back Allen took a trip to Mexico and happened upon a cooking class from famed Mexican chef Rick Bayless (Mexcian via Oklahoma). With our tortilla bond in mind, he picked up a copy of Rick’s latest book and sent it over to my BK kitchen. Inside are…

P.I.E. WITH John D.

I have known John as long as I have been alive. Over the last 35 years he has been many things to me. In precise order here is the list.

1. The first barrier of defense when my other cousin Joe would use me as a barbell
2. The person with the most number of comic books I have ever seen
3. A rock star DJ who apparently knows every single person on campus
4. Technical wizard on all things video
5. Super fun, caring father

Over that time we have ate hundreds of meals together. Many of them large. Like, Thanksgiving large. During the earlier meals I usually was wearing his retired clothing. Quick side note, for a long time i thought they were called Ham-y-downs. I never can get food off the brain. This meal was no exception in size. Although, I was NOT wearing any of his clothes.

What we ate:
beef ribs, pork ribs, pork chop, hot link, cole slaw, deviled eggs, corn bread mash

Bathing and Eating

That headline may leave some of you a bit grossed out. Let me clear this up quickly. These two activities were not done simultaneously. Last Friday night started out with my first trip to the Russian and Turkish baths in the east village. It seems ridiculous that I had not visited this ancient neighborhood hot spot for the for six years I lived just four blocks away. Never-the-less, I was being taken by a veteran so I had little worry other than; “How hungry do you get during this ritual?

I will forgo the full description of what took place in the bowels of this dank, decrepit, building and get straight to the food. For those who have never gone, let’s just say it is an attraction. Communal steam baths, ice plunge pools and really tiny towels make for a sweaty, medieval, journey into a masochistic, voyeuristic and narcissistic land of multi, age, shade and gender new yorkers. The point here is when you are done bathing you are really hungry. Like, eat a horse hungry. We didn’t do that but we did…

Freshipes: Cathy Erway

I met Cathy last year at SXSW in Austin. She was speaking on a panel about how to be a successful food blogger. Interestingly enough, this was before Forking Tasty had launched. After the session I went up to introduce myself because I loved her blog, we had a mutual friend and we called the same borough home. Since that moment last March I have competed against her, cooked with her and ate next to her on various occasions.

Last week…

A Double Date With The Brothers Tasty

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 84 | Post-meal (1 hour): 95 | Insulin: 5 Units

It was an impromptu double date. Jay and I took our women to a Brazilian restaurant called Rice and Beans. This may be the first time in years that this has happened. We both have to great girlfriends and lucky for us they love food and trying new things. It’s always a good time when you eat with the Brothers Tasty and you know a good meal is about to be eaten…