This is a great addition to your fried food rotation. I walked by Jimmy’s Diner before a filming gig and had to try the joint based on looks alone.
Turned out to be a great choice. This “Lucky Schmidt” sandwich was awesome. Fried chicken fingers, melted swiss, bacon, jalapenos, chipotle mayo and pickles on a potato bun. Great crispy fries too. Go give it a shot!
JIMMY’S DINER
577 Union Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
This local diner is in the vein of the American classic in feel, but with a bit less traditional menu items.
They have a great selection of cocktails, which are part of their happy hour menu as well.
I was impressed with the food. I tried a lot of stuff so here it goes:
Mac & Cheese
Great flavor on this and a nice blend of cheeses.
Asian Grilled Chicken Salad
Loved the sesame balsamic flavors on this.
Korean Wings
These are not batter fried in the traditional Korean style, but they are still sticky, sweet, spicy and crisp.
Fish & Chips
These are perfect. The best I’ve had, actually. The cod is juicy and flakey, and the batter is perfectly golden brown and crisp. They get hit with a dusting of curry too so the flavors are great.
Burger
This 10oz monster is great. Classic style, cheddar, LTO. Comes with fries for $15.
Crab Cake
This was nice and meaty. Also comes with fries and coleslaw.
Flatiron Steak
Lean and flavorful, this baby can be eaten with just a good sear on the outside. 6/10.
Coca-Cola Cake
Wow. They re-reduce the Coke back into a syrup and that gets mixed into a chocolate sponge and topped with crispy chocolate cookie bits, and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Really nice.
Give this place a shot! I know I will be back.
CHAT N CHEW
10 E 16th St
New York, NY 10003
I ate a burger at Denny’s this past week for the first time in my life. I was actually kind of impressed with it. The burger meat needed a punch in the flavor department, and the sauce on the burger was too plentiful and too sweet (bourbon sauce), but over all it was pretty decent.
The burger patty itself was loosely packed (a good thing), and it had a great crisp all over. It wasn’t overcooked either. The toppings were layered on in just the right amounts, and there was good cheese coverage.
The cheddar bun was a big surprise. I was expecting it to flake apart and crumble under pressure, but it was fresh, pliable yet soft, and held up to scrutiny.
I’d eat here again, though maybe I’d opt for a standard cheeseburger instead of the bacon bourbon burger, so as to avoid the overly sweet sauce.
DENNY’S
60 Nott Terrace
Schenectady, NY 12308
When I first went to New Orleans in 2009, my wife and I walked by this little dive diner joint a bunch of times and kept contemplating going in to try a burger. It looks like just the kind of place where you might find something fantastic. A hidden gem, so to speak.
They even claim to have the best burger in the world.
The menu is actually funny to read. Check it out.
You can actually see the hubcaps they use.
So we had to get it.
But look at the menu description for the hot dog.
So we had to get it.
Well, despite all the excitement, these two items didn’t quite deliver. They were just okay. But I do love the atmosphere here – a very small old style diner, open 24 hours.
Even complete with slices of pie. Here’s the ice box key lime pie, which was actually great.
CLOVER GRILL
900 Bourbon St
New Orleans, LA 70116
A college friend of mine, Harry Georgiou, owns and runs the Mt. Kisco Diner, which has been in his family for years. He’s taken a bold initiative while at the helm, renovating the space to look more like a beautiful restaurant than a typical diner.
It has a fully stocked wrap-around bar, a spacious and beautiful dining room, and comfortable seating. There’s even an outdoor garden area if you want to eat outside.
But that’s not where his initiative stops. Harry and his staff have gotten really creative with their extensive menu. They’ve taken the quality and craftsmanship of the food up several notches from what you might expect at even a really great diner.
Let’s look a few examples right off the bat.
The Gastro Burger is a 9oz proprietary blend of always fresh, never frozen beef (ground daily in-house), and topped with smoked gouda, bacon onion jam, grilled apple, and roasted garlic aioli, all on a nice pretzel bun.
And that’s not the only great burger that they offer. There are 15 different burgers on their menu, including non-beef options and classic beef styles like this Big Top Burger (melted American and Swiss, and caramelized onions and mushrooms on a brioche bun).
These things are gourmet quality at diner prices ($12-$15). They all come with a pickle, and either mixed greens or fries.
Speaking of French fries, the menu has an entire “frites bar” that features six different styles of French fry. I went with the Herbed Truffle Fries. These things were absolutely perfect! Amazing crisp on the outside, nice and soft inside. Not too overpowering with the truffle, and just the right amount of salt and seasoning from the parmesan cheese. Also really fucking beautiful!
I also got a taste of my forte: Steak! I was skeptical at first, as I would typically never order a steak at a diner. But this is not a typical diner, and Harry insisted that I try their skirt steak. I’m glad I listened.
Not only was this plating beautiful and unique, but it had some awesome looking grill marks on it to boot.
As you can see it came with crispy fried union strings and sautéed garlic spinach.
The interior was cooked to a perfect medium rare. It’s been a while since I had a great skirt steak. This baby really hit the spot!
It doesn’t end there. Nope. I had to try one more of Harry’s menu upgrades: the Grown-Up Grilled Cheese. There are a few of these, but I went with the “Alpine” grilled cheese.
As you can see it comes with a cup of creamy roasted tomato soup, but in-between the thick, toasty, country white bread is where the sandwich starts kicking some serious ass.
That’s crispy pancetta, gruyere, caramelized onions, baby arugula, and tomato with white balsamic vinaigrette. Amazing!
I also sampled some or the more normal menu items as well, like bruschetta and chicken quesadillas.
The execution is still on point. No one in the bustling kitchen is cutting any corners. Everything is made very nicely.
I mean they even have a baker on site, making all the desserts in-house, fresh. And they’re all really beautiful.
I tried a delicious slice of lemon meringue pie that I brought home with me (not pictured), but while I was at the diner, I was anxious to drink one of Harry’s mega-shakes.
These are very popular with the kids these days. This Chocolate Chip Cookie Shake is made with vanilla ice cream, a chocolate swirl, and chocolate chips. Then it’s topped with a nice thick whipped cream and a mini ice cream cookie sandwich. I swapped my chocolate chips out for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.
I’m glad I was somehow able to save room for that tasty and refreshing shake. It was just the right amount of crazy. I know some places are going way over the top with their shakes these days, and I can’t stand it. This was just right.
I really can’t wait to get back up here to try the breakfast selections. You guys should check out their Instagram account to get your juices flowing.
MT KISCO DINER
252 E Main St
Mt Kisco, NY 10549
For years I joked about this place going out of business, because as soon as it opened, the City of New York decided to rip up the sidewalk in front of their establishment while simultaneously renovating the stairway down into the subway on the northwest corner of 57th & 7th.
The whole spot was a shit show, and unless you l knew to maneuver the construction walkway to get to a particular establishment (bar, cleaners, bodega), then you’d be walking by the joint without ever looking. So I used to say “9Ten is going to close on 11Twelve.”
I imagine all businesses along that stretch suffered, but 9Ten must have felt it the hardest since they just opened as the construction began.
It was a diner before, and it’s a diner now. Three years later, and with countless millions of city contract dollars completely milked dry, the sidewalk and subway stairs are open. Business is booming.
It’s very nice inside and the menu prices are extremely fair considering the location.
My wife and I popped in for a quickie before flying out to the Azores for vacation. Here’s what we had:
The Reuben sandwich with French fries.
Not sure why it’s not listed on the menu without the fries, like everything else is, but at $14 this is a great deal. It’s more like a pumped up grilled cheese than a Reuben but I really loved it.
Next up was the roast beef sandwich.
This has melted cheese and horseradish sauce but it is otherwise a cold cut style sandwich. Very nice. Slightly pricey for $11.50 but my wife and I were full between this and the Rueben that came with enough fries to share.
I’ll definitely be back – if not for another Rueben, then to try out the burgers.
9Ten
910 7th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
Demetri Kontakos, the owner of Bonnie’s Grill for the last two years, recently invited me into his establishment for a press review. Bonnie’s has been a Brooklyn staple for about 15 years and running. I had heard great things about Bonnie’s wings, so I was excited to hoof it out into Brooklyn and give them a shot.
I love a simple countertop style joint. No fuss, no glitz and glamour: just really good fucking food. Bonnie’s is exactly that kind of place.
Some people get excited about a fancy joint with buttoned up waiters, candle light and white tablecloths. Not me. I get excited when I can see people working on my ticket right in front of me.
And somehow I was a big Bills fan when I was a kid. Probably because they had an awesome looking bovine as their logo. And Bonnie’s is a proud Buffalo style establishment.
Speaking of Buffalo: the wings. They get fried up to a really nice crisp here – none of that rubbery skin bullshit that you get from other places. And the sauce is really flavorful: you can get mild, medium, hot or hotter. I can take a lot of heat; in fact I enjoy it. So next time I will be trying the hotter wings. This time we went with hot, and it didn’t have us tearing up and sucking down water.
We did suck down a cream ale, though.
These are a great bargain at just $3.50, but if canned beer isn’t your thing, every weekday from 4pm-7pm is happy hour, where drafts are just $4, and they run three or four pretty good handles.
But back to all things Buffalo… Check out this gem: beef on weck!
I love regional food quirks. Beef on weck is one of those quirks that hails from Buffalo, or western New York, generally. Essentially, what you have here is sliced roast beef with horseradish and some meat juice on a kimmelweck roll (kaiser style, with caraway seeds and coarse grain salt on top).
Anyway this fucker was pure and simple. You can mess with it a little if you want, and add jalapeños and cheddar, but then you’re screwing with the integrity of a traditional sandwich.
And speaking of traditional, by now most of you know how I like my burgers: simple, nothing fancy. The classic American cheeseburger reigns supreme. So that’s what I got here.
The patty is 80/20 lean/fat, so the masters at Bonnie’s develop a really great crisp on the outside of the burger. The cheese melts down so nicely and surrounds the patty with even more crisp.
There’s a ton of free toppings you can go with. I went with lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles and jalapeños. By the way: cheese is even a free topping here. But the kicker for me was that these guys kinda read my mind when it comes to the toppings. Notice how thin the tomato and onion slices are? I hate when the toppings end up making a burger eight inches tall. This was perfect.
And speaking of perfect… the fries!
Golden and crisp, and deftly seasoned with salt. And the chipotle mayo is a great way to enjoy them.
Another side I tried was the soup of the day, which was lentil and sweet corn. Very hearty and soulful.
I can’t say enough positive things about this place. I just wish it was closer to my apartment! I’m near Central Park and this is near Prospect Park. But I highly recommend this place. So freaking good, and the staff are all really nice – ask for Alex and Rick when you go.
BONNIE’S KITCHEN
278 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215
My wife signed up for some crazy credit card that rewarded her with a free five day stay at Atlantis in the Bahamas. Then she used some of her frequent flyer points to secure us our flights. It was just a matter of paying for food at that point.
I’m sure you have no interest whatsoever in seeing my amazing vacation photos, so I’ll share with you, instead, some pics of the food we ate at the resort.
This resort is known for having very expensive food. We tried to avoid that a bit by hitting some of the cheaper joints for lunch, and supplementing hunger pangs with the assortment of snacks that we packed into our suitcases. This place is indeed expensive, with some joints even costing more than what we are accustomed to, even as NYC food lunatics.
This is a classic NYC style Jewish deli. We had a massive loaded baked potato and a pastrami/corned beef open faced sandwich. We just couldn’t get enough in New York, so we had to eat some while in the Bahamas.
Oh and the pickles…
This place was pretty good.
Classic American style diner with burgers, dogs, fries and other comfort foods.
We actually ate here twice because the place we intended to visit prior to our second trip (Bimini Road – Bahamian food) was closed.
First Meal:
The burgers were pretty good. I can tell they use more fat in their patties than we do here in the states. That made for a more robust flavor but with a slightly less desirable texture. Either way a satisfying burger.
The banana nutella shake was on point, by the way.
And I’m sure you saw those fries creeping into the frame in the shots above. We actually ordered the combo of onion rings and fries.
Fries were solid. Onions rings, not so much.
Second Meal:
Goombay Punch, essentially fruit soda (pineapple, mainly), is big down here. And sweet. We tried two varieties during the course of our vacation, and this one was superior (the other was called a “fruit champagne” and it sucked balls).
Hot dogs are split and grilled, which I consider to be the best method for grilling dogs. We covered ours with mustard, ketchup, mayo and Tabasco sauce.
Say hello to the Vitamin B: mac and cheese with blue cheese, chopped up hot dog, BBQ pork, and bacon. Insanity.
We had some free sake and sushi sampler platter to use at Nobu, so we figured we would eat a meat there.
The sampler platter kinda sucked. I can’t believe they normally charge $40 for that. But we did redeem the meal a bit with this conch sashimi:
And this crispy pork belly dish:
This small bowl of spicy seafood soup cost $19, which was a total rip off, but it was in fact tasty.
Unfortunately I was still hungry, so I ordered a noodle dish in hopes that the starch aspect would fill me up. Green tea soba noodles:
These were actually pretty good. And of course Katherine lifted them for my Instagram feed.
This was probably the best meal of the trip. We went for lunch, so kept it relatively light, but everything was excellent.
Good cocktails for the ambiance – not too sweet, just right.
Probably one of the best tuna tartare dishes we’ve ever had; served in a spicy coconut curry style broth that really popped.
And why not have another burger? This was much better than the ones at Burger Shack, and it came with fries or a salad for the same price, pretty much.
I kept it light with a salad instead of fries, and that was a good move. The salad was actually really great and fresh.
Of course we had to try a steakhouse. We pretty much shared a meal for one, since we didn’t want to break the bank.
We tried two cocktails (since we had credit for two free drinks): one was too strong and lacked finesse (the 1888 Rum Old Fashioned), but the other was perfect – a bourbon lemonade.
We started with this horrible crab cake. I’ve had better out of the freezer section of Shop Rite.
After dining at over 100 steakhouses, some of which are not NYC-based, I’ve learned my lesson: If there is no prime or aged beef on the menu, I should probably stick with a filet. You’re rolling the dice on quality with any other cuts – especially when you’re outside of the USA. Additionally, since a filet had very little fat content to begin with, you don’t have to concern yourself with marbling quality or things like prime and choice. Furthermore, I also took a peek at the butcher shop area of this restaurant (you can buy steaks to grill on your yacht at the marina), and I was not impressed with the strip and rib eye offerings. Filet was the way to go.
It was decent. I’d say 7/10. It was super tender. It lacked some juiciness and outer crust, but it was cooked perfectly medium rare from end to end. If I weren’t such a steak snob, being spoiled by the selections in NYC, this would have been an outstanding cut.
But at $58 for 10oz, however, this was incredibly overpriced. In NYC it’d be maybe $50, and that’s already pricey since its fucking NYC.
On the side we had some asparagus with Bernaise sauce. These were perfectly cooked, and they even shaved down the woody bottom part with a peeler.
As always, I have to talk about the table bread in some way. Here, it was lame. A little mushy, kinda like tan Wonder Bread. Not warm.
The ambiance and the bar were nice though, and it reminded me of something like Capital Grille in midtown. Rich and dark wood tones. If this joint were in NYC I’d probably score it in the high 60s or low 70s. Let’s just go with a 70, for the sake of ease, and because we really only tried three items.
Olives is a Todd English joint and it is directly connected to the casino at Atlantis, so the place has some standards to live up to. We weren’t planning on dining here, but when the entirety of Paradise Island lost power, we were unable to dine at the only Bahamian restaurant at the resort, Bimini Road, yet again. First time it was closed (peeve about the resort – random closures of restaurants on random days for random reasons), and the second time, which was our last night there, it was shut down because of the power outage.
Anyway, we ended up having a really nice meal at Olives. We had credit for two free cocktails (which we actually used after eating at Nobu earlier in the week).
That same day we tried the tiramisu flan, which was really delicious and unique, since Nobu was insanely overpriced and the dessert menu looked dumb there.
We split the rigatoni bolognese, which was really nicely cooked with sausage and ground meat.
Since we were intending to eat Bahamian food but got denied, we tried the conch ceviche, thinking it would be stellar, made from a local catch. It was just okay. The conch sashimi at Nobu was better.
On the side we had some of the free focaccia bread (which was nice) and this bland, flavorless broccolini.
This place is a chain that lets you cook your own pancakes at the table on a skillet.
You order your batter – we chose lemon poppy, their seasonal batter – and then you start making shit.
Some people get very creative. Check out this design!
We also tried a funky item – chicken fried bacon. Thick cut bacon that has been battered and deep fried like chicken. What could go wrong? Well, it was a bit heavy. I’m not used to taking on breakfast too often anymore – I usually skip – so this was a bit much for me. I was full until dinner.
I should also mention the cool drinks we had here. These were non-alcoholic, though they do offer alcohol drinks here as well. Really good lemon and fizz type drinks. All very fresh.
My wife and I squeezed in a quick breakfast at Zippy’s before the long and treacherous drive to Hana.
I had saimin, which is similar to ramen and Chinese soups. It consists of broth, wavy egg noodles, fish cake slices, some pork meat and veggies. The flavor profile was decidedly Chinese but the presentation was Japanese, if that makes sense. I’d say it was a chicken based shio/salt broth, like you’d expect in wanton soup. Pretty good!
My wife had a breakfast bento box that came with rice, scrambled egg, Portuguese sausage and corned beef hash. Pretty basic. I have to say that the sausage and corned beef here were not as amazing as the sausage at Kula Lodge.
