Daisy May’s BBQ USA

I’ve been working in midtown Manhattan recently, meaning there are a ton of food carts that come out around lunchtime for me to go to. One place that I was really excited to visit – Daisy May’s BBQ, is known for their barbecue, so obviously, I had to check it out the first chance I had. I went there last Thursday, when there were torrential downpours and it was extremely windy and cold (the things I do for food). The cart is located on 49th and 6th, and comes around Monday – Friday:

The menu is pretty limited compared to the restaurant, but they had a pork sandwich, which I ordered:

Everything is pre-packaged, which is a lot less messy than if the sandwiches were prepared at the lunch cart. My friend, Ryan, ordered the “Texas Chili,” which is all meat, no beans:

The food is pretty expensive for what you get – my pork sandwich cost $8 and came with a small side and Ryan’s was $7.50 and didn’t come with any sides.

Ryan enjoying his Texas chili:

I sampled the Texas chili (I’m a huge fan of chili and used to eat it a lot) and this chili did NOT smell appetizing. At all. If I could describe it for you, I would have you imagine the smell of …. New York restaurant garbage after a hot summer night. No joke. I decided to put the chili in my mouth even though the smell was pretty foul, and the taste wasn’t bad, but there just wasn’t any layers of flavor. There was just no taste, really. I think they just put a lot of steak and hot sauce with some A-1 or something in the soup because that’s what it could’ve tasted like. I wasn’t a fan.

My pork sandwich:

My pork sandwich was on the sweet side and didn’t have enough vinegar in the sauce. I wasn’t a huge fan of it and probably won’t order it again from the cart. The bun, on the other hand, was really delicious and almost tasted like brioche bread (I’m not sure what kind of bun it was).

Overall, I don’t think I’ll be going to Daisy May’s BBQ anytime soon. Maybe it was built up too much by my friend, Ryan, but I was really disappointed with the food and the only way I’d go back is if I tried the food at the restaurant – I hear their ribs are pretty good.

Schiller’s Liquor Bar

I took my brother out to Schiller’s Liquor Bar for lunch one Saturday afternoon after walking around the city looking for a place to take us without a reservation. Clinton St. Baking Company said we’d have to wait TWO HOURS, so we walked over to Schiller’s on the LES for brunch. We were seated pretty quickly and got right to ordering. My brother order eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce and hash browns:

Schiller’s hollandaise sauce was really creamy and delicious and tasted so good with the potatoes, the eggs, and the bread. It was AMAZING!

I ordered waffles with berries. Last time we went to Schiller’s, I ordered the same thing and they came with grapes….I HATE warm grapes! This time, I specifically asked the waiter if there were only berries with the waffles or if it came with other fruit…he told me it was only berries and this is what I got:

WHY DID HE LIE?! This time, I actually didn’t really enjoy my waffles. 1. because there were so many freaking grapes and 2. because the syrup tasted like there was too much liquor mixed with it. BOO! They did taste very fresh – like they were just pressed in the kitchen.

Chris ordered cheeseburger with fries:

Good, nothing memorable though. The service was okay (a bunch of out of work actors/models/artists) and my brother enjoyed his stay in the city, so overall, it was a good backup place to go for lunch. Not a place I’d look forward to all week like Pearl Oyster Bar or Balthazar, but a solid restaurant to take friends.

Making the World’s Best Sandwich

If you’ve seen the movie Spanglish, you must remember the scene where Adam Sandler makes a late night sandwich with a side of beer. If you don’t remember, you can view the scene here (it’s around 0:54). The director of the film, James L. Brooks, commissioned Thomas Keller, one of America’s most famous chefs, to make a mouth-watering sandwich that would be easy enough to re-create at home. Thomas Keller came up with a glorified BLT, which I recreated the other day. It’s quite an simple recipe and fun and easy to make.

First, the ingredients:

I sliced one whole tomato, washed some boston lettuce, bought 1/3 lb of Monterey jack cheese, bought some mayonnaise, and fried some turkey bacon (regular bacon is just too fatty!) Other important ingredients are bread (either a sourdough or or a rustic bread – I bought whole wheat from Whole Foods), and eggs over easy (probably the most important part of the sandwich!).

First, I wanted to put the bread in the oven to get it toasted with the Monterey jack cheese:

It only takes 3 – 4 minutes, so watch the oven closely! (You don’t want to burn the bread or the cheese) While the bread was baking, I fried the bacon (you’re supposed to get thick cut bacon for the sandwich, but you can go with any kind):

While the bacon is frying, clean the lettuce, cut up the tomato, and get the bread out of the oven!

Now that all of the ingredients are basically made, you can start putting the sandwich together. I put mayo on the piece of bread that didn’t have the Monterey jack cheese and started layering the other ingredients (tomato, lettuce, then bacon). After the sandwich was layered, I made the egg, which brings the sandwich together. One important thing to remember about making the egg is to leave the yolk runny. If you overcook your egg, you should start over (the sandwich is good because the egg drips from the top of the sandwich all through the ingredients). Here’s the sandwich put together with the egg on top:

I had to fry two eggs because my first egg I left on the stove too long. Here’s the final product, runny egg and all:

The sandwich was REALLY delicious – if I would change anything for next time I make the sandwich, I’d probably try to use the rustic bread that was recommended because the bread might have been a little too tough (and not crunchy enough).

Hope you guys have fun recreating the recipe!

Tomoe Sushi

After reading numerous positive reviews about Tomoe Sushi, Chris, my brother, and I decided to wait in line for some of their delicious fish. Their restaurant is even mentioned in my book, Eat New York, but since it’s in Chinese, I don’t know whether it’s a positive review or not (some of the reviews aren’t that favorable, yet they’re still mentioned in the book, so, you never know). The place is right next to Lupa in Noho and always has lines out the door (the space is really small in general). We waited about 15 minutes before we were seated and I was really eager to order since I hadn’t eaten since lunch in Philadelphia. The prices were a little steep (actually, they might have been the same as Sushi Yasuda and Morimoto, but there was no ambiance and we were seated so close to the other tables that we could hear what people two tables down were talking about. Since we already waited for a table, there was no use in backing out, so we decided to go all out and order the Sushi Deluxe (10 pieces of sushi, half a tuna roll, and half of a yellowtail roll):

The fish was definitely fresh (and the pieces were really long), and I thought all of the fish was very tasty. No complaints from my side!

My brother ordered Spicy tuna and regular tuna rolls:

One problem with some sushi restaurants here is that when they make spicy tuna with this weird spice that tastes more like something that belongs at a Korean restaurant than a Japanese restaurant. Does anyone think that, too? The tuna rolls at Tomoe, however, were really tasty and the spiciness didn’t taste like the Korean red paste.

We also ordered Yaki soba noodles:

Chris likes Yaki soba noodles a lot, so we decided to order the noodles as well. I wasn’t a huge fan of them at first (maybe it was the cabbage?) but the taste grew on me.

The meal was about $70 for the three of us, which isn’t expensive when you go to a sushi restaurant, but we also ordered one noodle dish, which is a lot cheaper than ordering sushi. The decor was really shabby and the place actually looks really crappy inside, so if you’re looking for somewhere with ambiance, go elsewhere. I wouldn’t put Tomoe Sushi on my short list of favorite sushi places, but I’d probably go back again.

Doc Magrogen’s Oyster House

I spent the past week in Philadelphia doing client work (I’m headed back tomorrow morning and will stay until Thursday night). We didn’t get to go out to elaborate meals every night since we were working late hours, but we did go to Doc Magrogen’s Oyster House last Tuesday night for some drinks and dinner:

It’s located in West Chester, Pennsylvania (about 12 miles out side of Philadelphia) and there’s outdoor dining, which was perfect for my work team since it was a cool and breezy night. We started off with oysters (4 different kinds):

The oysters weren’t bad, but they didn’t taste incredibly fresh, either, so I didn’t finish them all. A while back, I went to New Orleans with my family and we ate so many oysters that I got really sick, so now I’m really careful when I eat oysters that don’t taste fresh (yes, I know it’s odd that I still eat them even though I thought I was going to die when I was sick in New Orleans). I still think the Pearl Oyster bar in NYC has great oysters (and basically EVERYTHING).

Next, we moved onto cheese fries:

No ordinary cheese fries…NOPE…these were fries doused with fondue (well, Doc Magrogen’s take on fondue). The cheese had bits of scallops, crab, and lobster (supposedly) although all I tasted was scallop. They weren’t bad, considering I had been sitting at my desk for 9 hours without food (shocking, I know!).

For my main entree, I ordered a medium rare filet with crab:

I’d have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with the steak. Usually, when you order a medium rare, it’s still red/pink in the center, right? Well, mine was completely cooked through and very tough, too. The waitress forgot about all of our orders and all of our steaks were overcooked. I was so hungry though, so I ended up eating most of the steak (doused with A-1 sauce since the crab sauce was too creamy).

Overall, not a great restaurant, but I suppose there aren’t that many offerings in West Chester, Pennsylvania after 9PM (although, I have to admit, I absolutely LOVE the grocery store Genuardi’s, where I end up going for lunch everyday. They have a large salad bar (and it seems fresher than most grocery stores) and also lots of hot food options.