Steak 'n Shake

Steak 'n Shake recently opened up to much fanfare outside the Letterman studio in Midtown, offering free burgers for a year for the first 150 customers. David Letterman announced that his show staff would camp out early to ensure free burgers for the entire Letterman crew. When I first heard about this, I thought Letterman should have to camp out in the cold himself to get free burgers for a year. Instead, he was going to make some intern stand outside for hours on end in the 30 degree weather, only to hand over his hard-earned burgers-for-a-year golden ticket to Mr. Letterman. The injustice.

Later, my husband informed me that Steak 'n Shake was wisely handing out 52 weekly coupons for steakburger/fries/shake combos to each person, and these could be divided between people if was so desired. Still, if I ever see Letterman show up at Steak 'n Shake wielding one of those free coupons, I will have to continue my cries of injustice. Wait, Letterman would never have to show up in person and stand in line to wait for a burger; he would just send one of his pages to do that. The injustice!!

Here we are, the proletariat, standing in a long line in cramped quarters with no seating, waiting for our gruel.

Here is the amazing soda dispenser, where, for example, after you click on Diet Coke, another swirl of icons appears displaying another 10 different flavors of Diet Coke. Amazing.

And here is my long-awaited burger. You can see the beautifully crisped burger, along with nicely toasted buns, and generous amounts of pickles, onions, tomatoes and lettuce.

The husband and I got 2 burgers, 2 fries and 1 vanilla shake. One original steakburger plus fries = the lovely suburban price of $3.99! As you can see, we were greedy and super-sized one of our fries.

After devouring our delicious burgers, fries and shake, my husband asked why I hadn't super-sized both fries. To which I responded, "I wasn't thinking right!"

Tepito

Tepito is a new Mexican restaurant & bar in the East Village. It's perhaps on the pricier side ($9 guac and tacos in the $12-$16 range), but sometimes you're not quite in the mood for $3 tacos and are hoping for something a bit more elegant.

Husband and I initially weren't fully settled on eating at Tepito when we walked by because it was basically empty at 7:15pm on a Tuesday. It looked extra empty because the space is gigantic, with a cavernous area with bar + seating, plus another entirely separate room with just tables. But we decided to give it a go, with the understanding that "new" is sometimes synonymous with "unknown", and were seated in the tables-only room. Having not eaten Mexican food in a long time, we were basically craving some typical Mexican fare: chips with guacamole, some decent meat tacos and maybe some decent fish tacos.

The fresh guacamole definitely hit the spot. The chips were incredibly fresh and crispy and the homemade roasted tomatillo salsa gave us an additional happy kick with each avocado-filled bite. The husband was quite pleased because he got to eat chips, which are his favorite thing in the world.

The carne asada tacos were good, but nothing too special.

These tacos, however, were something to write home about. These were the dinner special of the evening: pistachio-crusted tilapia tacos served with pico de gallo, avocado fritters, arugula and spicy guava aioli. Those long fried things you see in the picture are the avocado fritters - delicious, perfectly fried, buttery slabs of avocado oozing into your mouth with the nicely seasoned and crunchy tilapia. Husband and I were quite happy with the fried-ness of the whole thing. Avocados are now on the list of things that should absolutely be deep fried. And I hope Tepito manages to find a way to put those avocado fritters on the regular menu.

Pie Face

This blog post is guest written by my dearest friend, Jacqui. Jacqui is Australian and lives in NYC and has fittingly written her inaugural guest blog review on whatsnewny.com in review of the new Australian meat pie shop in NYC, Pie Face. Thanks for the review, Jacs!

Pie Face
Guest written by Jacqui

Pie Face is the New York outpost of an Australian bakery café chain. The NYC store occupies a tiny corner space just outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, home to the Late Show with David Letterman. While the place offers the usual variety of soups, sandwiches, pastries, and coffee, its real specialty is the Aussie meat pie. In fact, the first thing you notice when you walk up to the counter is the rows of pies smiling at you.

I ordered four pies (chunky steak, mince beef & tomato, chicken & mushroom, and Thai chicken curry) and two sausage rolls (beef & pork, veggie). My friend, A, who I had enlisted to help me taste test, was waiting for me back at home. This is what we ate:

Our favorite pie was the chunky steak. The rich and beefy filling went perfectly with the buttery pie crust. (Side note: For an extra $2, Pie Face will “upgrade” your pie with a dollop of mash potatoes, gravy, and mushy peas. This would be the perfect pie to upgrade. )

Our next favorite was the chicken & mushroom pie, which was also buttery, rich and creamy.

The mince beef (translation: ground beef) & tomato pie was a bit of an oddity: my friend A thought it tasted like spaghetti sauce encased in a pie; I thought it tasted like spaghetti sauce laced with something else (maybe curry powder?) encased in a pie. Needless to say, it was not our favorite and we were disappointed to find out that we had been given two of these and were missing the Thai chicken curry pie we had ordered.

It’s hard to describe to the uninitiated what a sausage roll is. It’s not a pig in a blanket. It’s better. The relationship between sausage and pastry is more complex and the taste is much more rewarding. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of the Pie Face beef & pork sausage roll. The combination of beef and pork strikes me as a bit unnatural (why not just stick with the traditional pork sausage?). It was also a little dry. The veggie roll proved to be a good alternative and I think I’ll stick to that one next time.

All up, this little place is a great addition to the midtown West neighborhood – especially for those meat pie-loving folks who want their fix without having to trek to the Australian and British food shops downtown. Welcome to NYC, Pie Face!

Choco Bolo

Choco Bolo
2058 Broadway (between 70th and 71st)

This new Upper West Side outpost of the shop previously named "The Best Chocolate Cake in the World", makes a new and much more demure promise of "Cake, Coffee and Conversation".

It's definitely a step in the right direction; the shop looks enticingly warm and elegant and the window display of cakes beckons you to step in for a comforting bite of chocolate-laden decadence.

Unable to resist the summoning of the pastries, I walked into Choco Bolo and proceeded to ask what every single pastry was, as there were no signs or descriptions. I settled on 2 of the pastel de nata (Portuguese egg custard pastry) and the house chocolate cake, which I believe was the self-proclaimed "Best Chocolate Cake in the World".

Being a new location with seemingly inexperienced staff, the woman who put together my order proceeded to drop my box of delicate pastries on the ground. She picked it up and triumphantly announced that it had fallen right side up, and handed it to me as I begrudgingly paid $11.66 for a box of damaged (albeit likely delicious) goods.

Notice in the picture above that the right side of the chocolate cake has a blurry chunk falling off the side. I felt as if I had captured that moment when an ice cap breaks off from its glacier and floats off to join its fellow broken pieces on the waves of the neglected sea. I was not particularly happy about my broken cake, as it actually had shattered from its impact with the ground because the cake is made not from your traditional spongy flour/butter/sugar/eggs combination but from light and crisp meringue, chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. The cake is definitely a departure from your typical expectation of a "chocolate cake", which is why I believe there was such backlash on the previous name of the store. And I have to admit that I succumbed to the power of expectations, as my hope for warm, moist, soft chocolate cake was met with crunchy, achingly-sweet, chunks of chocolate meringue.

But, I will return to Choco Bolo without hesitation. Why? The pastéis de nata. Strikingly similar to Chinese egg custard tarts (蛋撻), pastéis de nata contain a dense, sweet egg custard surrounded by a light, flaky and distinctly European shell. I put them in my toaster at home for a few minutes, devoured every last crumb and did not enjoy sharing with my husband.

NY Tofu House (East Village)

NY Tofu House
6 St. Marks Pl
Manhattan, NY 10003

The East Village has New York's most enviable diversity of reasonably priced cuisine, from Japenese yakitori and ramen joints to Latin American arepas to Polish diners to mac & cheese eateries to gastropubs to Moroccan food. And a large number of these restaurants have 500+ reviews on Yelp; they are highly trafficked and highly rated. So if I were looking to open a casual, populist-appealing, ethnic or single-item-focused restaurant, some quick market research would probably show the East Village to be the perfect spot. And a St. Mark's Place address would be an ideal location. Thus, NY Tofu House seems to have made some smart bets, and I predict it will fare well. Just look at this crowd outside on a random Wednesday evening:

NY Tofu House is still in "Grand Opening" mode, so they were handing out free samples to the eclectic cross-section of East Village evening roamers, all of whom seemed to be in the mood for some free Korean pancakes. Most seemed to move on after devouring their gratis goods, but I did notice a few people who seemed to be convinced by the sample to enter the restaurant. My husband and I had already planned on going in, but pathologically drawn to free things, we still snagged some pancake bites before entering.

The menu is very simple - appetizers, bibimbap, and tofu. Unable to resist goofy names, my husband ordered the Monkey Balls for our appetizer (deep fried stuffed mushrooms with tofu and veggies). Ratio of mushrooms to tofu/veggies to deep fried exterior was good; could still taste the mushroomy goodness inside the fried shell.

And of course the requisite (free) banchan that came with our entrees: salad with a lightly sweet sesame sauce, kimchi and mung bean squares. Nothing too special here, especially considering K-Town's BCD Tofu House has free banchan that includes an entire deep fried 8-inch mackerel-type fish, which is in itself a reason to eat there.

The bibimbap tasted fresh and healthy, with a generous proportion of meat.

The soondooboo broth had just the right amount of heat and density for a chilly winter evening.

Decent fare at decent prices with a great location. Nothing too special to report, but my warmed belly sure isn't complaining.