Schnitzel Express ( 1410 Broadway, enter on 39th between Broadway and 6th ave.) looks like a chain, but I don’t think it is (neither does the interwebsites). Maybe because it’s got pretty solid branding and image with little orange logos all over the place. It’s also got an assembly line behind some glass, really official looking. Anyhow, it’s all very formal.
Here’s their pitch: fried chicken is delicious; even better with delicious sauces. Okay, that’s how I describe it, I have no idea what their pitch is. It says “Glatt Kosher” where the pitch should be. Maybe it’s something like “Jews love chicken!”? Regardless, it seems like a winner, after all, let’s not be dividers: everyone loves fried chicken! Aside from the kosher-tax-inflated prices, it was very tasty. I tried the Spanish Schnitzel sandwich ($10) which is their lingo for chicken that’s pounded flat, breaded with spicy peppers, deep fried and put into baguette sandwich. I got mine with a side of spicy sauce, though it was more mayo-y than spicy. All together, the sandwich was delicious. The chicken wasn’t overpowering, wasn’t greasy and the other ingredients tasted pretty good (like sauteed onions and pickles) together.
My mind wasn’t blown, but I’d go back. If only the prices were a few bucks cheaper.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Alidoro (105 Sullivan St, between spring and prince) is a little nook-and-cranny shop packed with delicious, lots and lots of delicious. It’s got tiny sandwich counter and the rest of the closet is decorated like an apartment (there are shelves of DVDs, music and who can forget the ceramic dogs and cats). How very adorable!
The sandwiches are phenomenal. It’s run as a human business, not a robot business (skynet?): when they run out of ingredients, they don’t serve those sandwiches that day. When you order something, it’s made fresh: you can see the huge chunks of cured meat being trimmed and sliced. To top it off the sandwiches are fantastic combinations of complementary flavors. The smoked turkey and the sweet peppers go perfectly together. The prosciutto and hot peppers and oil mix wonderfully. The bread is chewy and crusty without making you feel like an animal ripping through food with your teeth.
I had the Michelangelo (prosciutto, provolone cheese, hot peppers, arugula for $10.50) and tried my companion’s Marina (smoked chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, arugula, for $10.50).
Go to Alidoro, it is amazing.
So fresh (and so clean):
Prosciutto heaven:
Thank god there’s another half:
Fresh roasted Marina:
I’m lookin’ at you delicious turkey:
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Food journalist and chef Michael Ruhlman held a very intense BLT sandwich contest: all ingredients had to be home made. Straight from the contest post:
From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.
He judged the sandwiches based on best photo, best reinterpretation and best overall preparation. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to submit a recipe. Fortunately I have plenty of time to drool over the photos of mouth-watering BLTs.
In his commentary, Ruhlman hits the nail on the head. Most BLTs are too wimpy, the bacon is so slight that it feels more like a veggie sandwich topped with a little sprinkling of tasty pork. Instead he slightly refines the BLT as “[...] a pork belly sandwich, garnished with L, T and mayo.” Yes! It’s a bacon steak sandwich with some incidental accessories. I can’t wait for this bit of wisdom to percolate through the food industry and BLT’s arrive on plates heavy with pork-belly.
Did anyone here enter the contest? Have any other insights on the BLT?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Shorty’s aka “Tony Lukes” (576 9th Ave, NYC; between 41st and 42nd st) is another place I want to love. Cheap beer, decent selection and cheesesteaks. Cheesesteaks. Just the word makes me relax. I can almost feel the wiz and beef fat coating the inside of my mouth (okay, okay, “wiz in the mouth” sounds awful, but you know what I’m talking about!). If I focus on it enough, I’m almost full and almost dozing off. Yes, cheesesteak. Take a minute to try yourself, I’ll wait.
Where were we? Oh right, at Shorty’s! I tried their “Shorty’s Classic” ($10 for a whole, $7 for a Shorty): grilled tomatoes, Italian seasoning, oregano, provolone and steak. The bread was fresh and fantastic: a little mushy and a little crusty to keep all that grease contained. The sandwich was cheesy and very salty from the Italian seasoning. Unfortunately among all that seasoning the actual steak wasn’t too flavorful and the provolone was hard to taste. I had fun eating it and would return if I had a craving near by, but it’s not worth much of a journey. Maybe their regular steak has more of that greasy punch that just takes me away? I’m going to test drive the regular wiz wit’ later this week and see how it measures up to the big boys.
Update, 9.27.09: I went back and had the sandwich I should’ve gotten the first time: the regular cheesesteak with wiz and mushrooms ($10). It was a whole different experience. Where the “Shorty’s Classic” was too salty and not cheesy enough, the regular cheese steak was fantastic: gooey, steaky, cheesy with just a hint of onions and mushrooms. It was nearly perfect. This is what I was expecting an uptown competitor to Wogies! It’s a little sad to see a place that serves such a good steak sandwich dumb it down by going ‘upmarket’ and taking all the flavor out. When you come to Shorty’s, do me a favor, don’t read the menu. Stick with what you know: wiz ‘wit is all you need to try.
In this case, the lower strategy is better, KISS I suppose:
The classic freshly unwrapped:
Melty classic:
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sanpanino fancies itself some kind of religious sandwich icon and as much as I want to believe, as much as I have sandwich faith, it’s not quite worthy. It’s another adorable tiny sandwich shop (and honorably so). With barely enough standing room for more than a handful of customers, most of the place is taken up with a counter and prep area for their sandwiches. With a name like Sanpanino they’re setting expectations insanely high: how could a sandwich be better than a reminder of god?
The one I tried was quite good, but nothing to get TOO fanatical about. I tried the Prosciutto di Parma: prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, sliced plum tomatoes, fresh basil and olive oil, served on foccacia ($8.75). The sandwich was a pleasure to eat: the flavors were well balanced, not too salty not too sweet, the bread was soft and fluffy and the mozzarella was just a touch salty (and not cold!). Of course, you have to really like foccacia, because it was very thick; thankfully it was also very fluffy and didn’t overpower the other ingredients at all.
No need to start worshiping, just a good reason to swing by and pick up something tasty.
They’re made with love:
Fresh ‘wich (Kid Robot not included):
Sitting pretty:
Nom nom nom:
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
New York Hot Dog and Coffee (245 Bleecker St, NY, NY), a Korean chain, gave away 100 of their bulgogi and kimchi hamburgers today. Let me repeat that, 100 free kimchi and bulgogi hamburgers. Free. 100. Yup, that sounds like a good reason to take a lunch break. Thanks to A Hamburger Today for the heads up. I scored a spot in line around 12:20 when there were only 10 or so people in line. By 12:40 the line stretched down the block and passer-bys were asking what was going on. It’s amazing how a lot of people in line stirs up so much interest. Sandwiches are the original viral marketing (or OV for short).
Let’s savor the irony for a moment: a Korean hot dog chain named “New York Hot Dogs” opens in Korea offering New York-style dogs, does well, and finally opens a branch in New York and serves Korean-style hamburgers. Is it opposite day?! Do people always want what they don’t know? I’m lost. Enough cultural confusion, back to the sandwiches; I tried both the kimchi-bulgogi hamburger (free, usually $5) and the bulgogi hot dog ($6). Both were good, but the hamburger was fantastically spicy thanks to the kimchi. I love bulgogi as much as the next, but on top of a hot dog it was just savory meat overload. It was so heavy and meaty I could barely finish it (also I had just eaten the hamburger). The hamburger, by contrast, was fantastically cooked to medium-rare, topped with all kinds of delicious sauces and had an intriguing spicy, meaty, cabbage taste. It was wonderful and is quite a bargain for $5.
Go forth and savor the kimchi-burger!
Decently prepared ingredients and a slightly complex than usual:
Fresh Burger. I have no idea why they mix in regular lettuce or cabbage with the kimchi:
Bitten Burger:
Hotdog, boxed:
Meat overload:
