Tag Archives: manhattan

A small Bar crawl in NYC & a late night burger (at a bar!)

A few weeks back, I went on a light binge and tried out a few new places…new to me anyway. Warren 77 is a great hockey joint with great food and your standard beers on tap. The Standard Beer Garden is packed to the rafters with amazing, albeit small, beer list and is a great place to go if you just want to blend in. Corner Bistro still holds strong with an epic burger.

The Standard Beer Garden

Pretzels at The Standard Beer Garden

The Standard Hotel

Beer Menu at The Standard Beer Garden

Ayinger Weiss (Wheat Beer) & Köstritzer Dunkel (Black Beer)

The tastiest onion rings ever at Warren 77

The iconic Bistro Burger at Corner Bistro

The bar at The Corner Bistro

The Corner Bistro
331 West 4th Street
New York, NY 10014-1901
(212) 242-9502

The Standard Beer Garden
848 Washington St
New York, NY 10014

Warren 77
77 Warren Street
New York, NY 10007-1014
(212) 227-8994

Pomme Frites – East Village, NYC

French Fries are a staple of American food, but where did they come from? They were invented in the area known as Belgium in 1680. Pommes Frites, in the East Village has been serving this snack for many years and has become a neighborhood institution. In addition to the french fries, they serve a large variety of sauces, including War Sauce (in dutch: patatje oorlog) and Poutine.

Pommes Frites
123 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003-8319
(212) 674-1234

Pommes Frites

The Standard Grill – Meatpacking District – NYC

The Standard Grill
848 Washington Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 645-4100

4 things you should know about the Standard Hotel:

1.) They have an awesome Beer Garden
2.) Wander into the hotel and head straight back to the elevators, hang a left, enter an elevator and just watch the video in the elevator – its pretty amazing (note: you cannot ride up the elevator without a room key, but you don’t need one to get in the elevator)
3.) There are a million things to see outside the hotel: Bellman skating on their Luggage Carts, people watching and sex shows in the rooms that are visible from the highline
4.) The Standard Grill, is almost insanely expensive, but so worth the price.

Here are the pics:

Roasted Beet salad with Goat Cheese

The Standard Grill
Cauliflower Soup poached farm egg, toasted almonds, trout roe

The Standard Grill
Iceberg Wedge kentucky bacon & blue cheese

The Standard Grill
Haricots Verts Salad yogurt, cinnamon, crispy shallots

The Standard Grill
Housemade Saffron Pappardelle braised rabbit, shiitake mushrooms

The Standard Grill
Sunburst Farm Rainbow Trout currant & pine nut relish

Flea Market Cafe – East Village, NYC

In the East Village lies a little french restaurant with its dimly lit spacious interior, that serves some really wholesome rustic french food. I have to say this is one of my favorite french spots in NYC and can’t wait to go back for brunch. I wrapped a shoot a few weeks ago and The Flea Market Cafe was the clients choice of where to eat for dinner that night. It was a great choice.

Here are the pics!

Flea Market Cafe

Flea Market Cafe
Fried Calamari with garlic & cocktail sauce

Flea Market Cafe
Homemade Duck Paté with cornichons & dijon mustard

Flea Market Cafe
Moules Thailandaise with coconut milk & curry sauce

Flea Market Cafe
Roasted Duck Breast with string beans, tomato provencale & port sauce

Flea Market Cafe
Apple Tarte Tatin served with vanilla ice cream

Serendipity 3 – Midtown, NYC

While my little brother was in town we had the opportunity to celebrate our birthdays together, although two days early – my little brother wanted to be back in Ohio for his birthday, who knows why. My brothers and I have a very strange and unique thing – all three of us are born on the same day. Now for my twin and I, thats not so strange. the strange part is that our younger brother is born on the same day 7 years later. I’ve only met one other person who shares a similar story and I only met her just recently.

So for our birthday we decided to dine at Serendipity 3 and then see Kick-Ass. Serendipity 3 is a restaurant known for its desserts and as such, should ONLY be dined there for desserts. We made the mistake of having the whole meal there. People would be leaving very unhappy if they didn’t finish with dessert. The meals suck here!

Anyways, here they are, including the really awesome dessert sundae’s:

Entrance to Serendipity 3

Serendipity 3
Chandelier at the restaurant

Serendipity 3
Some really bad oily, tasteless pasta

Serendipity 3
Chicken Alfredo or something of that nature – bland and oily and bad

Serendipity 3
Seafood Pasta – it wasn’t that bad, but still a bit oily.

Serendipity 3
Hot Fudge Cake Sundae

Serendipity 3
Peanut Butter and Hot Fudge Sundae

Five Ninth – Meatpacking District, NYC

Getting into a restaurant in the Meatpacking district on a Friday night with very little notice is next to impossible. We found this place which is mediocre at best. I’ll pay a million bucks for something that tastes like a million bucks, but I get really bitter when a restaurant charges astronomical amounts of money for mediocre food.

That said, Five Ninth serves a mean bone marrow as an appetizer. Everything else is crap! Also, after midnight the place turns into a meat-market night club so if you go for dinner too late you end up in the middle of a rave. Kind of annoying, unless you are looking for that sort of thing.

Interior of Five/Ninth

Five-Ninth Restaurant
Bone Marrow

Five-Ninth Restaurant
Bone Marrow on Toast

Five-Ninth Restaurant
Suckling Pig

La Bella Ferrara – Little Italy, NYC

The tourist spot in Little italy for dessert is Ferraras. However, there is another spot around the corner called La Bella Ferrara which can give you a much better cannoli fix as well as some of the other italian desserts like Tartufo.

I am certain this place can get equally as crowded as Ferrara’s but I also feel that the food and service is much better than the touristy spot.

Chocolate Tartufo

La Bella Ferrara
They call this the Chocolate bomb, and it is!

La Bella Ferrara
Chocolate Cannoli

Interior of La Bella Ferrara

New Malaysia Restaurant – China Town, NYC

To break the italian cycle, I bring you New Malaysia restaurant in manhattan’s china town. Malaysian food, done right, is pretty amazing and can be similar to Indonesian food. This restaurant does a good job and they are pretty cheap comapred to other NYC Malaysia restaurants.

Shrimp dumpling

New Malaysia Restaurant
Broccoli with spicy sauce and mushrooms

New Malaysia Restaurant
indonesian fried rice (not so good this one)

New Malaysia Restaurant
Hainese chicken – a room temp chicken served with rice and a light sauce. Very tasty and very malay

New Malaysia Restaurant
Nasi Lemak – Another Malay dish – this one is Halal and is a favorite among Muslim Malay’s

New Malaysia Restaurant
Seafood Delight with prawn, scallop, flounder

Barbuto – West Village

This week feels like italian week on snap food. There is this photo studio in the west village called Industria. And from what i understand their clients were demanding a nice little restaurant for the area as it was lacking something close. So the owner of Industria, Fabrizio Ferri, started Barbuto an Italian restaurant in the building of industria. The food here is pretty amazing and the service, impeccable.

Olives

Barbuto

Barbuto
Insalata Manzo – grilled skirt steak, roasted cipollini, chilies & arugula

Barbuto
Gnocchi Primavera potato dumplings, sugar snap peas, ramps & thumbelina carrots

Barbuto
Pizza Asparagi asparagus, pancetta, salsa verde, parmesan & eggs

Barbuto
Panino Del Giorno prosciutto cotto, frisee, arugula & aioli

Barbuto
Garganelli Alla Bolognese traditional pork & veal ragu

More Catering: Noz Caterering

A few weeks back I did a week long job that had some pretty good catering. Catering can be hit or miss these days, with a lot of miss but these guys, Noz Catering, did a pretty excellent job of keeping us fed well for lunch. Their salads were fresh and full of color and flavor, their desserts were rich, but not too rich and the main courses were also equally amazing.

One thing to note about on-set catering, we typically don’t eat until the food is cold. Why this isn’t planned better, who knows, but we’ve become accustomed to eating fast and eating cold food.
http://www.nozcatering.com/