So sometimes people ask me for food advice, which makes me very happy. So I'll just get a list going here, and if you're ever near these places, check 'em out. Though I don't know why they're almost all Asian. I'll make another less skewed list soon.
Num Pang - 12th and University
This is an awesome Cambodian sandwich spot. They're similar to Vietnamese sandwiches, with the same base of spicy mayo, pickled carrots, cucumber and cilantro, but it's the meats that really make this place stand out. My favorite is the veal meatballs. The tiger shrimp is the close second. Or maybe the pork belly with Asian pear... It's a toss up. Their sister restaurant, Kampuchea, is sort of Cambodian street food. If you go there, get the lemongrass honey glazed pork belly. Juicy, perfect little cubes of sweet, fatty meat.
In the summer, I like to wash down my spicy sandwich with the fattiest drink ever created. And it's right across the street! I admit that I've never had the burgers there since I always want a Num Pang sandwich, but its the milkshakes that keep me coming back. Well one specifically. Its the Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake. I think that title deserves capitalization. It's roasted (toasted?) marshmallows blended into vanilla ice cream, topped with two hot freshly toasted ones on top. Its thick and rich and at $6 bucks a pop, definitely big and fatty enough to split with a friend. This image is from someone's Flickr.
Pretty cheap, super fresh and very fast dim sum. These duck dumplings have big chunks of meat and vegetables in them, encased in the most delicate dumpling skin. The shrimp balls are also great, if you like a big deep-fried orb of sweet dense shrimp. Another favorite are the egg custards, which would make more sense on the dessert menu. The flaky little pie cups are filled with a firm and subtly sweet egg pudding. Whatever you get, just go with all dim sum. The main dishes are good, but dim sum is the main attraction.
Food Shing Noodles - 2 East Broadway
Directly across from Dim Sum Go Go is this loud and chaotic noodle place. Perfect for a quick and filling lunch. The noodles are handpulled. You can see the cooks in the back pulling the strands between their fingers like taffy, then folding all the strands over and pulling again, repeating until the noodles are thin and perfect, with little finger indentations still in the dough. The noodles with duck is what I always get. It comes with huge chunks of duck breast with a leg usually thrown in also. Lots of meat, noodles, broth, and greens, all for about $5. This image from NYT.
Jumping many price points up the scale is Momofuku Noodle. Initially famous for their amazing ramen, the rest of the menu is great enough now that I usually skip them (also, Ippudo ramen a few blocks west might be winning out in that category now anyway). The menu is seasonal and sometimes I don’t always catch them in time, but the roasted rice cakes is what I scan the list for most often. Little logs of rice dough are roasted in a pan with a sweet and spicy sauce, scallions, and crispy onions. Their surfaces get a little crunchy but give way to dense and chewy middles. It’s a side dish, but heavy and filling for sure. Get them with a beer, because the heat sneaks up on you. This image from someone's Flickr.
Momofuku Milk Bar - 207 2nd Avenue
Also an old-news favorite, but you'd be surprised. Sometimes I meet people who still haven't been there. While they're known for the compost cookie (chocolate chip with pretzels, potato chips, and coffee grounds) the cornflake marshmallow is even better. The marshmallows melt into the cookie and get caramelized and gooey at the same time and the cornflakes give them a little extra crunch. I tried to make these myself and failed miserably. Sometimes you just have to give in and pay $2 for the world's best cookie. Again, this image from someone's Flickr. Why do I feel the need to say this? I just think it would be false advertiing if I didn't. I did take some of the other ones though!
Donut Plant - 379 Grand Street
They used to close by 3 or 4 because they would run out of donuts by midday. In the last few years they’ve been featured on so many Food Network shows that it’s become a food tourist spot and they now have donuts all day long, thankfully. It’s a little out of the way so I never get just one (easy excuse, right?). There are two kinds of donuts- cake donuts, which are the flakier, crumbly, break-in-half-able kind, and there are yeast donuts, which are chewy and a little doughier. As for the favorites, when people call to ask what they have to try there, I give them this shopping list, in order. The top number one is the tres leches, a cake donut with little pockets of cream all along the ring. Simple and easy and wonderful. A very, very close runner up is the coconut cream filled yeast donut. The glaze is sticky and sweet with little flakes of coconut in it, but the cream inside is barely sweet at all and tastes like pure coconut milk. The last, but keep in mind, still in the top three of all the donuts I’ve ever had, is the peanut butter and jelly donut. It’s another yeast donut, this one filled with homemade jam of different flavors in different seasons. Coating the whole donut is a thick peanut butter glaze with chunks of nuts in it. Like the world’s best peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That’s it. Okay, this entry was way too long.
