Q & A with Four and Twenty Blackbirds’ Melissa and Emily Elsen
The sisters behind Brooklyn’s favorite pie shop, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, have baking in their genes. While growing up in South Dakota, Melissa and Emily Elsen learned the craft from their Grandma Liz, who baked all the pies for their family’s restaurant in South Dakota. She taught the Elsen sisters the importance of using seasonal, fresh fruit and the secrets to a phenomenal crust. Our favorites are the caramel apple pie with a thick, sea-salt studded crust and pear ginger pie. Brooklyn may be thousands of miles from South Dakota, but the Elsen sisters kept their grandmother’s lessons close when they began running a pie business out of their Crown Heights apartment. They opened their shop this past year and got immediate praise from the New York Times for their take on this classic American dessert. Melissa and Emily’s pies feature the freshest fruits of each season...
Read MoreSouth Street Seaport Eats
Most New Yorkers think of the South Street Seaport as a crowded tourist destination, best left to out of towners. But just behind the seaport are some often, overlooked restaurants worth discovering. This part of the Seaport is where the real downtown hustle happens. Suteishi Address: 24 Peck Slip Phone: (212)766-2344 Suteishi doesn’t look or taste like your average sushi restaurant. For starters, it’s outfitted with floor to ceiling windows, futuristic walls, and a sleek, red and gold sushi bar. But if the sushi weren’t so fresh, the romantic decor wouldn’t matter, at least not to us. Look past the usual, sushi suspects and take advantage of more unusual offerings, like yellowtail toro, salmon toro and King crab. We highly recommend the red snapper sushi, crowned with yuzu gelatin, squid with uni, and the sea scallop with spicy tobiko. ...
Read MoreSimply Peeled – A Whole New Brand of Soft-Serve
This is one of those times I wish I lived on the Upper East Side. Ever since Simply Peeled opened a few weeks ago, I want to move. (I’m only half-kidding.) The Upper East Side has just become home to a unique, new frozen dessert so delicious it may have the downtown set breaking their “no traveling north of 14th street rule.” Now, I’ve been smitten with Mister Softee and his vanilla soft serve since I was a kid. If there’s no truck in sight, I’ll cop to ducking into Pinkberry for tart frozen yogurt on occasion. But I really never thought frozen fruit could be so downright addictive. Simply Peeled serves soft-serve frozen fruit with the silky, smooth texture of soft ice cream and the clean, crisp flavor of fruit. It’s called Fruizo and it’s creamy, light and...
Read MoreDIY Ice Cream Sandwiches
Last week’s sleek popsicle molds inspired a search for other inventive gadgets for making frozen treats. There’s only one frozen dessert we love as much as popsicles and that’s ice cream sandwiches. And apparently, we’re not the only ones who feel this way. The mix-and-match ice cream sandwiches at The Meatball Shop, located in the East Village, are just as popular as their meatballs, With this ice cream sandwich maker (pictured right), you can make your own ice cream sandwiches whenever the craving strikes. The possibilities are limitless. You can make a peanut butter and strawberry ice cream sandwich, a chocolate chip mint, or snickerdoodles with moosetracks. Just bake a freshly baked batch of cookies and use the cookie cutter to create equally sized triangles for the two cookie layers. Use the mold to combine the cookies...
Read MoreQ & A with Annisa's Anita Lo
Opening your own restaurant is a daunting task in and of itself, but Anita Lo had to open Annisa twice. Last year, a fire destroyed her thriving West Village eatery. And just a few months earlier, she closed Bar-Q, another one of her restaurants. Instead of calling it a day, she started over again and rebuilt Annisa from the ground up. She and her partner even hired a feng shui consultant to clear the “bad energy” in the space. Second time around, Annisa’s just as successful and beloved by New Yorkers. She’s revived her now-classic, foie gras soup dumplings and miso-marinated sable in a bonito broth and added seasonal newcomers, like softshell crabs with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin. Following her appearance on Top Chef Masters, she says she’s still suffering from “Post-Traumatic Top Chef disorder” and next...
Read MoreFried Pickles on The Rise
You always hear about pregnant woman craving strange food combinations, like pickles and ice cream. We ‘ve been craving fried pickles and we’ve discovered quite a few places to get our fix. Mara’s Homemade342 East 6th St., btwn. First & Second Aves.(212)598-1110One of our favorites are the fried pickles at Mara’s Homemade, a small, southern spot in the East Village. Mara’s pickles are dusted in cornmeal and served with a creamy remoulade dipping sauce. The fried green tomatoes rank pretty high on our greasy fix list, too. Whiskey Tavern 79 Baxter St., Bayard & Walker Sts. (212)374-9119 An unexpected find in Chinatown, Whiskey Tavern is known as much for its vast whiskey selection as for its pickle offerings. Supplied by The Pickle Guys,...
Read MoreIl Matto's Clamato Mary
Ingredients 1 1/2 ounce of gin 3 ounces of clam juice 1/2 ounce of worcestisher sauce a splash of lemon juice salt pepper fresh thyme PreparationIn a mixing bar glass, add all of the ingredients, ice, and stir. Garnish with thyme. Il MattoAddress: 281 Church St., btwn. Frankln & Avenue of the AmericasPhone:...
Read MoreDIY Popsicles
You never really grow out of popsicles. I love them just as much today as I did when I held my first popsicle, though I do eat them more gracefully these days. And this sleek, stainless steel mold (pictured right) is practically made for grown ups. It’s also BPA free, dishwasher safe and comes with stainless steel lids and silicone rings, which makes for easy clean up and worry-free licking. The best part is that whatever you can dream up, you can create. You can layer different fillings and flavors to make a colorful, multi-flavored creation or blend a few of your favorite ingredients together and pour it into the molds. You can freeze your own creamsiclea with vanilla cream and orange juice or a healthy afternoon snack of Greek yogurt whipped up with greenmarket berries. And you don’t...
Read MoreBest of – New York's Summer Eats
What’s not to love about summer? Of course, there’s the beach and the sun, and more importantly, all of the season’s fruits and vegetables. Summer is practically synonymous with grilled corn, lobster rolls, citrusy ceviches and soft shell crab and the city’s filled with great ways to seize the last few weeks of summer. Red Hook Lobster Pound – Lobster roll Address: 284 Van Brunt St., nr. Verona St. (Brooklyn) Phone: (646) 326-7650It’s hard to imagine that just a few years ago lobster rolls weren’t easy to come by in New York. Lucky for us, there’s plenty of places serving terrific renditions of this choice seafood sandwich. Our favorite is made by the Red Hook Lobster Pound, which uses fresh-caught lobster, literally right off the boat. And it happens to be a bargain at $15, compared to some of the other...
Read MoreThe Local Store's Spicy Corn on the Cob
Corn on the Cob with Spicy Lime ButterBy Richele Ingredients 4 good sized firm ears of corn from the greenmarket. (Don’t husk them when you buy them as this will make them taste starchy sooner. It’s better to take your chances with a few undevoloped kernels.) 1/4 cup of butter 1 lime cayenne pepper salt PreparationHusk your corn at home and put all four cobs in salted boiling water for 5 minutes. For the butter, mix about 1/4 cup butter with the juice and zest of 1 lime and 1/2 teaspoon cayenne. Get some good sea salt and sprinkle it over the cob to your preference. The Local StoreAddress: 316 49th Street, btwn 1st & 2nd Aves.Phone:...
Read MoreDual BBQ Grill Pan
It’s the height of BBQ season and we’ve been taking full advantage of cooking on the grill. Really, there isn’t much that doesn’t taste better grilled – our recent favorites are peaches and octopus. The only complain we have is that smaller ingredients, like local stone fruits or shellfish, fall through the grates of the grill and are lost forever. So we did a little digging and found the Dual Grill Pan, (pictured right) that prevents anything from falling into the flames. The pan lays flat across the top of any grill, so there’s no chance of losing food. The perforated side of the pan is perfect for cooking vegetables and shellfish, while the ridged side is made for big cuts of meat, like steak or chicken. It’s also nonstick, which makes for easy clean up. That something...
Read MoreNYC's Gourmet Picnic Baskets
The dog days of summer are upon us, so we might as well take full advantage of them. While everyone else is picnicking in the Central Park, why not throw a picnic on the High Line or even Lincoln Center? Several of the city’s best restaurants and chefs have packed a basket full of homemade treats for you, some of which even include Frisbees or corkscrews to guarantee a fun afternoon outdoors. RG writer – Sam Dangremond Blue Ribbon Bakery Market Address: 14 Bedford Street, nr. Downing Street Phone: 212-647-0408 This Greenwich Village shop has packed up picnic feasts, designed to feed four. There are two feasts to choose from, including the Westsider ($175,) filled with an assortment of country pate, pork rillette, aged manchego, a choice of house-smoked red trout or smoked salmon, honey banana bread, maple-flavored sheep’s...
Read MoreWine Tote
When summer arrives, we’ve got to milk it for all its worth. Really, it doesn’t get better than dining in the great outdoors, whether that be al fresco sidewalk seating in the city, a picnic in the park or a day at the beach. The only problem is that by the time we make it to our destination, our bottle of rose has gotten warm. That’s why we fell in love with this wine tote (pictured right.) This isn’t your average insulated bag. It includes 2 wine glasses, checkered picnic napkins, a corkscrew, and an insulated compartment to keep wine at its optimal temperature. All you have to do is add your favorite bottle of champagne or wine, throw the tote over your shoulder and seize summer before fall sets in. $30,...
Read MoreQ & A with The Local Store's Richele Benway
How often do you stumble upon a local store in the middle of midtown Manhattan? This just might be the first. Chef-owner Richele Benway has brought a quaint sensibility to midtown east with The Local Store, a new restaurant & wine bar, that serves creative sandwiches and small plates made from locally sourced, farm-fresh ingredients. The menu changes three times a day, and features simple, but elegant dishes, like roasted tomatoes with garlic scape and goat cheese, corn chowder and gazpacho. Benway earned her culinary chops working for some of New York’s best chefs, including Gotham Bar & Grill’s Alfred Portale, whom she credits as one of her mentors. So why open a local store in New York City? “I knew there would be no other place like it,” she says. You can’t argue with that, and the neighborhood...
Read More2010 Great Chefs Dinner
Calling all beachbound foodies: Some of the city’s most celebrated chefs will be on hand to celebrate the 2010 Great Chefs Dinner this Sunday, August 8th in Bridgehampton, New York. The evening will begin at 5 pm with a cocktail party where Craft’s Tom Colicchio, Surf Lodge’s Sam Talbot, Lure’s Josh Capon, Nick & Toni’s Joseph Realmuto will be serving hors d’oeuvres. At 7pm, there will be a more formal, sit-down dinner prepared by such luminaries as Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert, Laurent Tourondel & Marc Meyer. All proceeds will benefit Hayground School’s Jeff’s Kitchen and the Jeff Salaway Scholarship Fund. When: Sunday, August 8thWhere: Hayground School151 Mitchells Lane, Bridgehampton, NYTickets: Cocktails at 5-7 pm for $150; Cocktails & Dinner 7-9 pm for $750 Info: (631)537-7068 or...
Read More
Best Spots to Eat Oysters in NYC
There’s something enchanting about oysters: They’re elegant, sexy and undeniably summery. Nothing embodies summer, like oysters and a glass of Chablis or rose. And just like wine, no two oysters taste alike: The flavors vary depending on season and which waters they’re from. Fortunately, New Yorkers have their pick of oysters from all over the world, including our own backyard. With last year’s fish shack trend, there’s never been more places to sample this year’s crop — everywhere from old school spots, like Grand Central Oyster Bar and excellent newcomers, like Marea and Marlow & Sons, serving up their own unique twist on the oyster. Mermaid Oyster Bar Address: 79 MacDougal St. btwm. Bleecker & Houston streets Phone: (212) 260-0100 We’re fans of the first two Mermaid outposts, so we were excited when Mermaid Oyster Bar opened in the...
Read MoreCheck out My Book – Try This
