Tonight I was invited to the opening of Betel – a new asian fusion restaurant in the West Village. Why I’m so excited about this is because its the sister restaurant to Jimmy Liks in Sydney – One of my favourite restaurants. I love that the menu is pretty similar with some of my favourite dishes on there. If you’re into food that’s made with fresh produce and rich in flavour with divinely concocted sauces then you must try Betel out.
< day 374: Lower East Side Snow
Our Special 21 Pound Guest of Honour and its Carver
The Amazing Cook
The Buffet
The Thanksgivers
The Aftermath
< day 281: the people of class struggle social club
I was talking to this guy once and we got on the topic of fried chicken (you know how it is). He told me the best fried chicken hands down was Korean Fried chicken as they have a special method of cooking where the chicken is fried twice resulting it being cruchier and less greasy. He then went on to recommend the best place to try this dish – Bonchon. I was definitely not disappointed and second that it was some of the best fried chick I’ve ever tasted.
< day 268: chrysler y grand central
Today I attended the NYC dumpling festival where there was pretty much every type of dumpling under the sun on offer. There was also a dumpling competition. The dumpling competitive eating contenders had nothing on these hot dog eating champs though. Below is the largest wheat dumpling ever produced – 786 pounds in weight, 4.5 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft in diameters and it has the equivalent of 945 dumpling fillings inside.
Tonight I caught up with my old mate Phil who was in town. We went to DBGB – Renowned French Chef Daniel Boulud’s newest restaurant in Downtown Manhattan. With 14 types of sausages (ingredients included: pigs head, trotter and tripe), hot dogs and escargots the menu was pretty interesting to say the least. We had ‘The Frenchie’ which was a burger made from confit pork belly – simply scrumptious. Although I don’t think it beats my local favourite, the short rib burger at Spitzers.
< day 212: 9th st station, brooklyn.
I visited a friend in Brooklyn last night and we popped into Cafe Moto for dinner. This place is a small Brooklyn hideaway. The creative direction and attention to detail of the nostalgic decor, circa 1938, is enough for anyone to cross the Williamsburg bridge. Not to mention the fantastic French fare on offer.
I was compelled to write about this place when Sasha Dobson set up shop and performed live for the dinner guests. Her soulful music coupled with the atmospheric lighting really created a certain romantic ambiance. Even after half a year in NYC, it’s still a nice surprise for me to chance encounter a place like this on a Monday night in the quiet outskirts of Williamsburg where I can eat great food listening to beautiful music in a charming environment.
< day 174: girls on the street – west village
Arepa is a Venezuelan corn muffin, crisp on the outside and steamy-soft in the middle, stuffed with fillings like mashed chicken and avocado, perhaps, or sweet plantains and cheese, or shredded beef and shavings of Cheddar. I never knew these things existed until I walked passed this Arepa bar today. Caracas Arepa Bar is decorated in an kitchy Brazilian like fashion and serves these large snacks in baskets.
< day 158: bike polo at The Pit lower East Side
There’s a real Banh Mi craze in NYC at the moment. Banh Mis are popping up on menus all over the place. I have to say though the best Banh Mi experience indisputably is at Saigon Bakery. What makes it so good?
1. The taste is amazing and totally authentic – large roll (1 foot) choc full of yummy ingredients, crunchy outside and soft inside.
2. It costs $3.75
3. You order and buy it at the back of a Jewelry store!
Today is Fourth of July aka Independence Day. We kicked off the day in true American style by attending the annual event: Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. This tradition began in 1916 when 4 immigrants had a hot dog eating competition to see who was the most patriotic. Today there are over 30,000 spectators and broadcasted live on ESPN with over 1.5 million viewers. This year’s contest was particular heated as it was supposed to be six-time champion Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi’s come back against two-time defending champion Joey Chestnut. To the crowd’s dismay, Kobayashi lost to Joey Chestnut by 3.5 hot dogs. To you and me that is a fair few hot dogs – not when Joey Chestnut ate 68 hot dogs in 10 mins. A world record. This is what they call Major League Eating at its best. Ahh only in America, you gotta love it.
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest - The countdown.
Patriot
Weirdo.
The contestants hoarded by fans as they come off the bus.
The contestants hoarded by fans as they come off the bus.
Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas breaks her own female record with 41 hot dogs.
Tim “Eater X” Janus. 3rd Place.
The multi-talented Eric “Badlands” Booker who raps when he's not eating hot dogs.
The police entourage - cos you never know who's out to get these guys.
Joey Chestnut - three times defending champion. Has his own police escot.
Fans entourage.
Hot dog fanatical patriots.
Guy jumping on trampoline with Skies was part of the day's entertainment.
The judges swear in.
Coney Island Strongman gets hammered on top of a bed of nails and gets a crowbar bend around his neck by his sons.
Badlands performs before eating his guts out.
The giant hot dog and midget mr. sam. Why not!
Barracking Fans from the roof.
Tim “Eater X” Janus.
Six-time champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi.
Three -time defending champion Joey Chestnut
The contestants prepare themselves....
And it begins. 13 hot dogs in a matter of seconds. Geezuz!
36 hot dogs....
1m 16s to go. 61 vs 59 hot dogs. Its tight. Tension is think, crowd is in an uproar.
Joey Chestnut wins again. 68 Hot Dogs in 10 mins. A world record.
Georgia’s Eastside BBQ is a little southern BBQ restaurant gem in LES. I have tasted a lot of fried chicken in my 30 years – enough to consider myself a connoisseur of the fried delicious treat and I have to say hands down this place’s fried chicken is the best I’ve tasted. Big call I know (and probably most of you are in disgust of the thought) but its all true. The fall of the bone, tender, moist ribs are pretty damn good too. The interior follows the kitsch southern red neck theme nicely with rifles, Bud & PBR cans and bogan Americana photography to boot. The staff are super friendly too. Highly recommended.
Tonight I met up with some friends at Macao Trading Co. in Tribeca. The top level of this place is a restaurant decorated like an old warehouse filled with antiques behind caged displays, running around the back perimeter, accessible only by ladder. The food is really interesting – because Macao was colonized by the Portuguese, everything on the menu had a Chinese version and a Portuguese version. Then descend downstairs and you walk into a bar situated in what was an old opium den. The bar was filled with very interesting erotic Chinese artworks and paraphernalia, to say the least…
Roast Duck at Big Wongs, Chinatown, New York.
Meet Josephine owner of Snack Dragon – a hole in the wall taco stand in East Village. The tacos are made fresh in front of you and cheaply priced at $3-4.
Today I went to Katz’s Deli. This Jewish kosher style delicatessen was established in 1888. This is where Meg Ryan had the fake orgasm, ‘I’ll have what she’s having’, scene in ‘When Harry met Sally’. This place is also famous for its hot dogs and pastrami sandwiches. Each week, Katz’s serves 5,000 pounds of corned beef, 2,000 pounds of salami and 12,000 hot dogs. I had the American institutional dish – Philly cheesesteak which is so bad for you but so so delicious.
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