New York Restaurants

oh yeah, also really like L'Antagoniste in Bed Stuy

little bistro in sunnyside: https://cotesoleilnyc.com/

and they just opened another in jackson heights: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bistro-eloise-queens

same weird strip mall as the french bakery

so many queens restaurants have that same long/narrow shape like they used to be phone card stores or something

I've heard good things about L'Antagoniste, I have to go there. I like Chez Oskar and it's very close to me but some of their dishes are hit or miss. The time I ordered garlic mashed potatoes and they were not garlicky and also cold was a bummer. But other things there are great.

go when it's warm, the backyard is nice

le garage in bushwick is very good, probably the most consistently pleasant/satisfying nice-ish restaurant in that neighborhood

For something easy/walk-in/dine by yourself, I like Bar Six and L'Express still.
If you are in Tribeca, I would grab a drink at Frenchette, nicely curated natural wine selection and cocktails. It's kind of a scene (loud, hard to get reservations for dining in) but the interior is beautiful, I want to steal so much of the furniture.

Amelie also has a good happy hour but it gets packed.

Actually, maybe skip Amelie for eating, I had some bad octopus there.

nice ! lots to check out

Chez Moi is a more consistent version of bar tabac, which is also good (DT Atlantic area)

xp I was finally able to get into Frenchette a month ago and it was awesome. It is definitely a little more scene-y than I like, but the food was excellent though rich. I had a beef and carrot main with oxtail and spaetzel that was delicious. The sauce had so much gelatin it just coated your mouth. Drank a 1997 Morgon that was fun.

Great food and drinks, but a little expensive for more than once in a while.

Yeah, that is why I was saying to just get drinks there for a stop. The food is excellent (i've had blowfish, sweetbreads, duck and lamb dishes and everything has been great) but it's on the pricey side. Frenchette and Le Coucou I think are worth it for every so often splurges. Heh, I think I also ordered a beaujolais there last.

Still haven’t gotten to Le Coucou, but I want to go. I’ve gotten a little lazy about having to jump through hoops to get reservations at the hot places.

Gotten gotten. My English is terrible.

Le coucou is relatively easy but it's more formal, it also has a beautiful dining room. I have a friend that has the private reservation number for frenchette so it is easy for us to go. I don't go out that much for food in ny because I cook a lot but when I do go out it's usually french or japanese or has an interesting wine list.

If there was consistently great and easy ethiopian or indian around I would probably eat that more regularly.

Just went to Prune. think my butter quota's finished for the year but it was terrific.

last night a bit of a Ft Greene crawl: Walter's, to Mo's, to The Alibi for late-nite. *mwah* chef's fingers

had a cocktail at Walter's made with Root liqueur that tasted like a rootbeer float. the young woman who bartends there is an ingredients maniac with a photographic memory for drinks she's made.

Gonna be on the border of Bushwick and Williamsburg with the whole family in a couple of weeks. (East Williamsburg? Is that a thing?) Got any recommendations, besides Roberta's?

win son is slightly fancy but very good taiwanese

frost is excellent old school italian, almost as good a scene as nearby bamonte's but way more chill

Which stop are you near? If it's Graham there is the Bagel Store that has really excellent bagels. Their other location on Bedford is the one they usually showcase about the famous rainbow bagels but the Graham one has it as well. Those are fine (kind of sweet) but I usually prefer the french toast and bacon egg and cheese ones (the bacon egg and cheese is *in* the bagel). I used to bring them into work once a month and people went mad for them.

But if you are staying near Roberta's I would just eat there every day. I think they have a takeout window now too. Plus momo sushi beside it.

roberta's takeout is fantastic. they deliver too, if the roberta's experience seems to exhausting

closer to williamsburg proper, but i love okonomi on ainslie st for their set menu japanese breakfast/ lunch. you get fish, rice, soup and vegetables and it is simple but so good.

Anyone tried Bozu?

Bozu is our favorite restaurant in williamsburg. I am sure there is better japanese/pricier that has opened since but we used to go there once a week. I haven't been in awhile so I don't know if that's nostalgia that makes us like it so much.

This was the core stuff we galways got: Tofu salad, pork betty ( I would have to eat this all since my spouse doesn't eat meat), miso salmon, party bomb, yellowtail bomb, shiro bomb, stinky roll, white and red roll.

I think we'll be by ... the Montrose Ave stop of the L?

There's tons around, more near Bedford. It's a really good neighborhood for food. I do get DUMPLINGS! from Vanessa's on Bedford a lot. I could eat there every day. I am half taiwanese so I prefer the thick skin DUMPLINGS! and theirs are totally good and the food is really inexpensive. When my brothers' families came to visit and people were too tired, I would just get a ton of random food from there for all the kids. They still talk about Vanessa's.

the vanessa's on 14th is kinda near my office, i get takeout from there occasionally. love the sesame pancake sandwiches in particular.

t's kind of funny how all the Vanessa's have slightly different menus and prices.

We really enjoyed Win Son, thanks. It was only 5 minutes walk from where we were staying, and even though they said there was a 2-hour wait, they had take out at the bar, which only took 10 or 15 minutes, and allowed us to have an excellent cocktail while we waited.

Roberta's was really good, too, but really no different or any better than similar styled pizza places in Chicago. Juliana's, on the other hand, next to Grimaldi's and from the former matriarch of that family, I found a big disappointment.

Had good Israeli food elsewhere, and good Chinese, and excellent Korean in Brooklyn at Insa. Grossest food was probably the cookie dough scoops my kids got. Pasteurized or no, nobody needs a softball sized chunk of cookie dough. Barf.

Spent the last day visiting friends in Montclair, New Jersey by the way, which has a pretty vibrant suburban food scene. But my kids got to see Stephen Colbert driving around, and I learned that Richard Thompson and Patrick Wilson are both local residents. Oh, and both Warren and Dan Zanes from the Del Fuegos, a former drummer from Guided by Voices, Christian McBride, and the brother of Camilla Parker Bowles. The latter is apparently, and probably not surprisingly, some kind of dandy. But I bet he eats pretty well.

Did you get anything else besides pizza at Roberta's? I think Roberta's kind of were one of the first to make pizza like that with those combos of ingredients at the time ( just had to look up to see when they opened, 2008). Because yeah, I definitely see a lot more of that style everywhere else now. I miss their hot oil and olives.

Best sit down pizza I’ve had is Lucali but haven’t been in years.

For Israeli food I must plug my friends’ excellent (and now quite successful) cafe, Reunion.

(In Williamsburg)

I like Lucali a lot, I like the simplicity of their menu.

I think 60% of a pizza's favorability ranking is based on how hungry I am and who I am eating with.

Roberta's we also had ...'Nduja and grilled bread?

That style is just Neopolitan, no? Spacca Napoli in Chicago does the same style, and opened in 2006. When I looked up that info one of the first things I saw was a piece mentioning Roberta's, and saying, yeah, it's good, but we have pizza this good at home. Lucky both of us! There are a few more in that mode in this city.

I don't think they consider themselves neopolitan. Or at least not strict neopolitan. I remember their garden being a big talking point when their ingredients would come up. Even though I lived close by when they opened I didn't go for several/many years, even though my bread and chef friends often talked about it. It's so weird that I barely ate pizza like half the time I lived in NY.

Ha, I think most people just assume Chicago only has that casserole pizza. which I am kind of into sometimes.

Anyway, I shouldn't talk. I just ate supermarket brand pizza today for breakfast.

Roberta pizza is good but they’re I own for the other stuff as well/in addition to.

What crazy people think Chicago has only one type of pizza!? Chicago style is for tourists, or special occasions, like when you want to be very full or feel kinda cheese-sick.

Now I am looking up pizza wedding cakes.

Josh nice to hear you were in Montclair. Funny I knew Richard Thompson was playing there recently but didn’t realize he actually lived there.

Yeah, I guess he played a literary festival? I think he only recently moved there, or relatively recently. I knew he got divorced (again) not long ago, and he had been in Santa Monica for years. Anyway, Montclair was really nice! Sort of reminded me of where I grew up in SE PA.

BTW, the Chicago "style" (as such) is the so-called "party cut," which is a pie sliced into a bunch of small squares. It is to Chicago what a single large slice is to New York, just kind of the serving style. Though of course we have by the slice as well, just not in the NY "where to get the best slice" sense. I'm starting to see more Detroit style around, too (and saw some in New York, like at Emmy Squared). Detroit has slightly different cheese, I want to say, and a really crisp carmelized crust. And it's served square, too.

We've thought about Montclair a lot but my commute would kind of suck since I work in Westchester. I can't really justify moving to a suburb and working in another suburb far from that one.

What's worse, from what I understand vindictive Trump bullshit has lead to recalled funding for post-Sandy train fixes, so they are always canceling departures. So, for example, yesterday we were told to be sure to grab an earlier train from Penn Station, and indeed one or two of the later departures were cancelled. We asked our friends what that means, and they said basically you'd be stuck in Manhattan for at least another couple of hours.

Oh, and back to pizza, I guess strict Neapolitan DOC standards are what gives that type of pizza its trademark floppy crust. Roberta's specializes in what they've apparently termed "NEOpolitan," which sticks to many of the rules but messes with flour type and cooking time to give it a firmer crust.