Tag: nyc

Norm

At Norm’s, it’s all about the cheeses. There are 4 of them — ricotta, of course, as well as Grana Padano, and both low-moisture and fresh mozzarella — as well as garlic, lemon zest, and Franks’ Green Gold olive oil. The only real outlier on the regular menu is the spicy vodka, given heat by Calabrian chilies.

Fiaschetteria Pistoia

Bugiani serves a traditional 3-course Tuscan meal in the cozy 11th street location. Among the antipasti, the pappa col pomodoro—a bread and tomato “soup” with the pleasingly spongy consistency of porridge or haggis—is decidedly not photogenic but still worth ordering. Also enticing: sformatino di zucchine (a buttery, slightly nutty zucchini flan). The house-made pasta fresca, though, is the star attraction. Diners can watch the restorative sight of dough unfurling from the pasta machine at the back of the restaurant. There’s a smaller selection of third course secondi options, rounded off a dessert menu of Italian classics (tiramisu, mousse al cioccolato, etc.), and, of course, espresso.

Sixpoint Gowanus

Sixpoint Brewery announced plans for a 2K m2 brewery and taproom in Gowanus, Brooklyn today, their first significant expansion in the city in their 15-year history. The space, which will be at the intersection of 9th Street and 2nd Avenue in the shadow of the MTA’s Culver Viaduct that carries the F and G Train from Carroll Gardens into Park Slope. The space is planned to open in Spring 2020.

Tomato Ramen

E.A.K. Ramen’s chef Kiyoyuki Miyashita will debut an idea he first began to consider 5 years ago. At his Hell’s Kitchen location, he’ll serve noodles in a cabbage broth — with some garlic and ginger for kick — that includes with a surprising ingredient: homemade tomato paste. “I love tradition. But what good is tradition without fun?”

Jackson Heights eats

In the last 10 years, the Jackson Heights dining scene has exploded. With an emphasis on South Asian, South American, Southeast Asian, and Mexican, it has one of the most interesting mix of reasonably priced restaurants in the city. And within each category, there is stunning diversity. You can get food from a restaurant representing a specific state in Nepal, or from a shop and beer bar that seeks to reproduce the sandwich culture of Lima, Peru. Meanwhile, the menu of a Filipino newcomer centers on the Bicol region of the archipelago. 1 area to watch lies along Northern Boulevard, where the growth in South American restaurants during this period has been amazing. Now there are many cocktail bars that mount happy hours from 16-20:00. (walk east from 80th Street and check the chalkboards), where a mixed drink can cost a mere $5, with cheap snacks galore. 3 restaurants specialize in elaborately topped hot dogs washed down with fruit drinks. So come with us now and enjoy the remarkable dining and drinking neighborhood of Jackson Heights.

Rezdôra

Times critic Pete Wells just awarded Gramercy Italian restaurant Rezdôra a glowing 3 stars, commending chef Stefano Secchi’s “excellent” pasta tasting menu. Wells writes that the 5-course tasting was as if the chef had laid down a straight flush. He especially digs the maccheroni al pettine, served in a “smooth, almost fluffy” tomato-basil sauce, as well as the tortelloni filled with “plush fresh ricotta.”

Focaccia di Recco

Just when you thought you knew everything there is to know about the current craze for focaccia and all its pizzalike variants, along comes focaccia di Recco: a bubbly ooze of tart and fruity stracchino cheese barely contained by 2 supersize rounds of paper-thin dough. To make focaccia di Recco, you take a simple ball of unleavened dough larded with olive oil, divide it in 2, then roll and stretch the doughballs until you can read a newspaper through them. Then you line a pan with one of the dough rounds, top it with scoops of cheese, cover and seal it with the second round of dough like an apple pie, drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake for ~10 minutes.

NYPD kills cyclists

Mayor de Blasio has previously defended the practice of ticketing cyclists in the days after a driver runs over someone. But poorly designed streets in New York—especially the wide avenues that run north and south in Manhattan like the one where Hightman was run over—often physically push cyclists out of the bike lane, or make it a less safe option than simply riding in the road. While the New York Department of Transportation has added 10s of km of bike lanes throughout the city in recent years, they are often unusable for more than 1 block or 2 at a time because of obstructions.