Only in America -

by BS

Pop Quiz: Would You Eat Breast Cheese?

Sorry about our recent transition to all-baby, all-the-time, but this story is too good to pass up. The NY Post reports:

Chef Daniel Angerer is letting diners at Klee Brasserie munch on cheese made from his wife’s breast milk.

“It tastes like cow’s-milk cheese, kind of sweet,” he told The Post. The flavor depends on what the cheese is served with — Angerer recommends a Riesling — and “what the mother eats,” said Angerer, who once bested Bobby Flay on TV’s “Iron Chef.”

After blogging about his efforts with the human cheese, customers started demanding a sample, he said. “The phone was ringing off the hook,” the chef said. “So I prepared a little canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper.”

The response has been generally positive from those who’ve tried the cheese, although many customers are too squeamish to attempt it.

Well this is definitely not cheating. But is it an amazing idea or is this chef just amazingly disturbed? Cast your vote and feed us back in the comments.
Read the full story here.

in Cheese 8 comments

by BS

Hott Links: Best BBQ in America

So Budget Travel recently asked me to complete the very difficult assignment of writing about The Best Barbecue Joints in America. Tough life, I know. Unfortunately they didn’t pay me to go to every one of these places, just to research them and get really, really obscenely hungry. So take a read if you’re a meat eater and feel like getting your drool on. Don’t forget to do that thing where you tell me what an idiot I am for missing ______.

The Best Barbecue Joints in America [Budget Travel]

And just to piss off all you Southern-fried traditionalists, here are four more stops for BBQ fans who aren’t up for actually leaving NYC:

New York’s Best Barbecue [Oyster Locals]

(Photo: Southern Foodways Alliance/Flickr)

in Drinks 0 comments

by BS

ES Local: New York’s Four-Figure Dishes

We all know that eating out in New York can often be a ridiculously expensive proposition. But what about the times when you want to make that really ridiculous? Recession or not, there are still a good few places around town where you can drop $1,000 on just one dish. Worth it? Umm…we’ll probably never know. The ES accounting department wouldn’t shell out expenses for this story. Anyone out there want to sponsor a $4,000 restaurant crawl?

The $1,000 Dish: Bagel and cream cheese
Where: The Westin New York at Times Square, 270 West 43rd St., but only during the fall truffle season.
Why: Alba white truffle cream cheese, goji berry infused Riesling jelly and specks of golden leaves.
$1 alternative: A schmear to go from H&H’s midtown outpost. 629 West 46th St.

The $1,000 Dish: Omelet
Where: Norma’s restaurant at Le Parker Meridien Hotel, 119 West 56th St.
Why: Six eggs whipped up with lobster and 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar (that’s a lot).
$1 alternative: Sausage McMuffin, now a buck at the McDonald’s around the corner.

Artsy Photo of the Day

“We lost a couple of hot dogs this week and need to play a little ketchup.” — Lumberg

(The Purple Cow / Kingsport, TN)

in Photos / Red Meat 2 comments

by gansie

Honky Tonk Princess

Fuck. So I’m back at work now. But at least I have these so-so photos from my iPhone to remember my looooong road trip from Atlanta to Hartsville to Nashville to Knoxville to Kingsport and back to DC. Let me walk you through my trip, via food, of course.

Toured World of Coca-Cola. (Atlanta)

I learned a few things. Sex in different language sells. Coke’s secret formula has nothing to do with taste. Chile’s Lift is the best soft drink in South America. I paid $45 for 80P, 80P’s Mom and me to be brainwashed into drinking Coke for the rest of our lives. And it was worth it.

Met a top chef. (Atlanta)

Met another top chef. (Atlanta)

Ate Sonic for the first time. (Somewhere off the highway in Monteagle, Tennessee)

Don’t worry. I didn’t eat that enormous chili cheese dog pictured above (80 did!). I try to avoid meat and fast food. Shockingly, though, the mozzarella sticks were awesome. And the black and white shake, even better. Actually, get this.

We all know what a black and white shake is, right? So I wake up drunk on New Years Day, giggle my ass off for an hour, start to feel crappy, head to a diner and try to order a milkshake on my way out. And my fucking server looks at me like I’m insane. She took a triple take. And she goes, “Um, like put them on top of each other?”

What the fuck? What would that even mean? I clearly did not order a milkshake from that establishment.

The Ultimate NYC Hot Dog Crawl

Wherever you live, you’re surely familiar with the lure of The New York Hot Dog. And if you consume any kind of food media, you’re also probably aware that there’s no longer any reason to limit your NYC hot dog intake to those slimy wieners sold from carts in Central Park – or even to the recession special at Gray’s Papaya. Hot dogs are this year’s comfort food gone gourmet, and every hot NYC chef seems to be adding the once humble frankfurter to their repertoire, usually topping it with something new and more outrageous than the last guy.

Over at Oyster Local this week, I took a look at four of the best new high-end hot-dog shops in Greenwich Village, which inspired me to dig a little deeper and come up with this list of NYC’s best new gourmet hot dogs (along with a few classic stops) for the ultimate, 20-link New York Hot Dog Crawl. No, I have not actually completed this crawl, at least not all in one day, but if anyone’s up for the challenge I think I have a few free Sundays coming up. Let’s all just make sure our health insurance is up-to-date first.

1. Nathan’s Famous

Duh! The basic classic, just for starters. 1310 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn (Photo: Meg Zimbeck)

2. Willie’s Dawgs

Park Slope gets a little crazy with Niman Ranch beef dogs (or tofu ones — this is Park Slope, after all) stuffed in challah or rye rolls and finished with some inspired toppings like baked beans and salsa. 351 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn (Photo: Stumptown Panda)

3. Bark Hot Dogs

Gourmet hot dogs get the brownstone Brooklyn treatment, sourced from locally-raised meats, doused in a classed-up cheese sauce, served in an eco-friendly environ, and paired with Six Point ales. 474 Bergen St., Brooklyn (Photo: Cherrypatter)

4. Smoke Joint

Fort Greene’s favorite BBQ spot brings the hot meat-on-meat action by topping a Black Angus dog with pulled pork, beef or chicken (and some homemade coleslaw). I know you can’t see much of the dog, but trust me, it’s worth the mouth-work to get there. 87 S. Eliott Place, Brooklyn (Photo: Senorjerome)

5. Asia Dog

New York’s hippest hot doggery is, of course, not one restaurant but a rotating curated party for those in the know. These bahn mi dogs are found at Williamsburg’s Trophy Bar, but only on Tuesday nights. They also pop up elsewhere in Brooklyn and LES throughout the week. 351 Broadway, Brooklyn, On Tuesdays. (Photo: LadyDucayne)

6. San Antonio Bakery 2

Slip into Queens for the Chilean take on hot dogs: slathered with avocado puree, mayo, onions, tomato, and just a little bit of hot salsa, on a crusty homemade bun. 3620 Astoria Blvd., Queens (Photo: Pabo76)

7. Frankie’s Franks

Like the marathon, we’ll dip into the Bronx for a moment just to say we did. At FF’s, you get two fried hot dogs stuffed in one roll, topped with onions, peppers, AND potatoes. They actually call this a Jersey-style dog; I’m not sure if that’s authentic Jerz, but that’s a whole ‘nother post!) 2330 Arthur Ave., The Bronx (Photo: Kay::Snyder)

8. Fatty Crab

Hotshot chef Zak Pelaccio makes the case for the $13 hot dog: homemade pork sausage topped with pickled chilies, cucumber, radish and cilantro, then laced with a spicy Asian aioli and stuffed in a toasted potato bun. 2170 Broadway (Photo: Scaredy_kat)

9. Brooklyn Diner

When size matters, it’s hard to beat the foot-plus-long frank served at this midtown Manhattan (confusingly, not Brooklyn) institution. The 15-inch dawg comes on a comically small but beautifully buttery bun, along with onion rings, relish, mustard and kraut. 212 W. 57th St. (Photo: Jeffery and Rachel Vanneste)

Continue Reading: the next ten hot dogs

in Bacon / Cheese / Eggs / Featured / Fowl / Pig / Red Meat / Restaurants 14 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– If you were impressed by LC’s lamb roast, you’ll want to hear from Shannon, who writes in to one-up her:

Your lamb on a spit post reminded me of this photo. We’ll be trying to roast our own gator on a homemade contraption this weekend for the Florida/LSU game. FYI, you can buy gator from farms down here. They mostly raise them for the skins, so the meat is really cheap. A four foot gator runs $30-$40.

HOT DAMN. All ES readers should feel free to keep writing in with any new roast-animals-on-a-stick discoveries.

– Fine, so no one agrees with my high-minded call for better bread at Jewish delis. Adam says the sub-par bread is the whole point:

I would agree that the bread at delis like Katz’s is sub-par, but I think the reasoning is because it’s meant to be as unobtrusive as possible. With other sandwiches, the bread is important. When it’s surrounding a pound of pastrami, it’s job is to make the pastrami go into my mouth, while slightly lowering the amount of grease and mustard I get on myself.

And Mike B will have none of it:

Pastrami on *toast*? A baguette? An everything bagel?! I’m… I’m speechless….

But Karen from French’s Mustard writes in with a novel idea I can’t believe I hadn’t previously considered:

Next time you go into a Jewish deli (I do loves me some Katz’s), demand they put it on a nice, thick and toasted piece of challah. They’ll charge you more, wayyy more, but I promise it’ll revolutionize your sandwich. And as far as where to put your mustard? I have an idea for that too…but, you have to make your own first.

Challah-pastrami, that’s it! I am on board. It will probably cost $30 at 2nd Ave, though.

So we don’t often post PR requests here, but since Karen wrapped hers up with a sweet ‘strami suggestion, we’ll make an exception. Go and enter French’s homemade mustard contest and win some big $$$! Deets after the jump…