Just a quick note about an awesome event I went to yesterday: the NYC Craft Beer Festival.
It was held at the Lexington Avenue Armory, which is an awesome old slice of NYC history:
There were upwards of 70 brewers giving out tastes of their stuff, free with the cost of admission ($50).
Some favorites were Gun Hill, Abita, Atlantic, Ballast Point, Perennial, Kuka and Oskar Blues.
This place has a huge selection of beer, including one of my favorites: a 15%ABV Goose Island Bourbon County stout that will fuck you up in no time. Tonight, however, my buddy and I sampled some stuff from this brewer, who was offering free pints to patrons that were interested in their shit (the Imperial Stout was legit):
The main reason for our visit was burgers. Of course my puss-bag friend went with a turkey burger because he’s watching his girlish figure, but I took down the Brew Burger with American cheese and jalapeños.
It stacked up nice: not too tall, and easy to wrap your mouth around. Kinda like Peter North, for all you ladies out there.
It was cooked to a perfect medium, and the bun held up under strict scrutiny. No soggy bottom, and, despite the toasted under-portion of the top bun, there was no flaking or crumbling.
Fries were pretty solid too. Nice and crispy. I’ve had better at several places, but for a $12 base burger (served WITH fries) this is a steal.
Wednesday night happy hour has 2-for-1 Bluepoints and $5 select drafts to boot. Not too shabby.
HOUSE OF BREWS
302 W. 51st St.
New York, NY 10019
NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!
It was PACKED when we arrived at around 1pm on a Saturday, even after all these years of being in business. Good for them! We were looking at roughly an hour wait unless we grabbed a seat at the bar. So we put our name down on the list to be seated, and headed upstairs to the second bar in hopes of scoring a seat a little faster. To our great fortune, a group of four people were getting up from the bar to be seated at their table. When I went to grab a pair of stools for my wife and I, a woman slid over one seat and was claiming the two bar stools in the middle of the four. I asked her politely if she could move over in one direction so that my wife and I could sit, but the loser wouldn’t move.
Four spots open up and she jumped into the center two, by herself, while waiting for her guest, who wasn’t even there yet? That’s just bad social etiquette. She was nasty, too, and had horrible breath. When I explained that there are four available seats and four people who want to sit, she started to argue “but we are getting lunch.” Newsflash: so are we! And she was getting aggressive and loud! So I alerted the manager. He politely asked her and her guest, “Ken,” who had lightly shoved me at one point after his date called me “scary,” to move. They wouldn’t move . The manager kindly sat us right away when they wouldn’t shift, I assume effectively jumping us ahead in the wait line. We ended up with a much better seat anyway, downstairs, with plenty of elbow room.
My wife had one of the $14 cocktails called “Novo Mundo,” made with a Brazilian rum type booze (cachaca), egg white, sugar and lemon.
I had a pair of Naragansett beers, which I like to call Manhattan’s new PBR, because it’s cheap, in a can and because I’ve been enjoying it way before it made it onto the Hipsters’ radar. They always seem take what I like and fuck it up. Whether it is gentleman’s caps, twisty butcher mustaches, vintage graphic t-shirts, bacon, beards or beers. Fucking animals.
We ordered some starters. The pickles were WAY the fuck overpriced, at $6 for what is typically a free amount at a place like Keens. The deviled egg was a little pricey at $4. Both items were tasty. The pickles were bright and tart, and consisted of carrots, gherkins, radish and green beans.
For the entrees, my wife ordered sisig pork. It had some bits of pig ear and other nice things, topped with a runny fried egg. Essentially this is their English “bubble and squeak” dish, but with Filipino spices and herbs like cilantro. It was good, lots of pork meat, but too salty, and a little greasy as well.
The burger I ordered was good, perfectly cooked. The bun was great, durable and grilled. The negatives: the Roquefort cheese was a little overpowering of the burger meat, and it definitely could have used a slice of tomato and some lettuce. I’ve had this burger in the past, about 10 years ago. I think it may have cost around $16 back then. It’s $21 now, but since it comes with “fries” the cost is very fair.
The shoestring potatoes had fried garlic slices and fried rosemary mixed throughout, and tasted and felt, crisp/texture-wise, like the old school potato sticks snacks.
The banoffee dessert was very good – not too sweet; just right. Essentially this English dessert pie is made from bananas, cream and toffee made from boiled sweetened condensed milk.
THE SPOTTED PIG
314 W. 11th St.
New York, NY 10014
My wife’s credit card gives us all sorts of perks, like being able to attend Top Chef Duels and Masters premiere parties, or to dine on a billboard above Times Square. The perk we took advantage of yesterday was a special Oktoberfest beer tasting and food pairing event hosted by several breweries around New York, right next door to our apartment at the bar in Whole Foods. Yes – there is a bar in Whole Foods, and it is actually a pretty good bar!
I won’t go through all 12 beers that we got to try, but I will highlight some of the better choices.
My absolute favorite of the night came from local Oceanside brewery Barrier Brewing Company. It was a briny, salt-of-the-sea Belgian style wheat beer that had hints of toasted peat, called Le Pete. It was fucking perfect. The only thing that would possibly make this beer better is if it were served with an ice cold place of oysters on the half shell.
My next favorite was Original Sin’s Hard Apple Cider. It was crisp, light, flavorful, and not too sweet. Most cider’s hurt my teeth because of the sweetness. This was naturally sweet without being overbearing. Boozy, bubbly apple water. Awesome.
My third favorite was the Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout. It was a beastly 10.2% ABV with notes of chocolate and molasses for sweetness and toasted coffee for a little bitterness at the end. This was paired with our dessert (see below).
Okay now onto the food and pairings.
We entered the bar to a nice set-up of bench tables with an assortment of snacks already set out for us:
The best was by far the hummus with toasted, herb pretzel bread pieces (immediately above).
The first course was a barley risotto with aged cheddar. This was pretty nice. Good texture to the barley, great flavor from the aged cheddar, and a little bit of sauteed apple in there for a kick. Naturally this was paired with one of the Original Sin ciders.
Next was quail with a butternut squash bread pudding and some sliced root veggies. This dish was great. The sauce was a little bitter, but when you mopped it up with the bread pudding it was a great balance. This was served with a Barrier beer made from butternut squash. Pretty nice.
Dessert was chocolate cheesecake made with the Narwhal beer I mentioned above. A whipped cream was made from the beer as well, and it was garnished with cocoa nibs and sat atop a nice graham cracker crust. Top marks for presentation here though – dessert in a mini beer mug for Oktoberfest:
We closed with a really cool presentation of a home brew kit product from Brooklyn Brew Shop. Looks pretty simple, and tastes pretty great. We were served their chestnut brown ale from the kit, which was my fourth favorite beer of the night, alongside the Barrier cream ale.
This place is a massive German / Bavarian beer hall in midtown that serves up massive brews in massive mugs (and boots).
I came here soon after it opened with a lot of excitement in my heart, because I absolutely LOVE German beer halls. There’s just something about the fun group atmosphere that makes it unique.
Anyway, it was here that I discovered a really amazing grapefruit beer (Schoffenhofer). After drinking it, I was on the hunt, and even found some at a local distributor on Long Island. Needless to say, the fridge remained stocked with them until we moved back to the city.
Aside from the great beer selection, they have a nice fun menu too. We tried the pate, the HUGE pretzels, the wieners, and some sausage.
I sincerely hope this place becomes a bigger draw with bar folks. It has the potential for being one of the city’s best places for drinks.
UPDATE – SCHNITZEL WAS AWESOME!!!
REICHENBACH HALL
5 W. 37th St.
New York, NY 10018
My first day out shooting with my new camera brought my wife and I over to 9th Avenue, where we stopped in for lunch here at Bar Bacon. We had walked by a few times and were excited by the menu, so we finally gave it a shot.
We started with a flight of four 5oz beers and four types of bacon.
The beer & the bacon:
Left Hand milk stout paired with jalapeno bacon
Blue Moon paired with applewood smoked bacon
Empire amber ale paired with apple cider bacon
Six Point Sweet Action paired with pepper bacon
My wife had a bloody Mary that was pretty solid, garnished with a piece of thick cut bacon.
Next came the bacon banh mi sandwich. More like steamed pork buns as opposed to a Vietnamese sandwich. The two bites were tasty, but it was extremely small in portion size, and there was not much bacon in it. The BBQ flavored chips and coleslaw were great though.
Then we had the ever-increasing-in-popularity “pig wings” item that was covered with sri-racha BBQ sauce. These were good, but also small in portion size for the price. I like the pig wings over at Iron Bar a little better so far, but these held up nice.
Some atmosphere pics:
In sum: very yummy, but a bit over-priced and very small portions.
BARBACON
836 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10019
TJ Finley’s is a bar in Bayshore, Long Island. It is actually my favorite bar on Long Island, by far. I’ve been coming here for quite some time now; I’m somewhat of a regular. They have a really amazing beer selection – both on tap and in bottles/cans – I’m talking hundreds to choose from, and many obscure and interesting. But not only that… This place has some of the best pub food I’ve ever had. My all-time favorite sandwich is here: a brisket sandwich with thick bacon, cheddar and BB! sauce. It’s fucking mint. The burgers are pretty amazing too, with my favorite being the breakfast burger.
A little over a year ago I joined their beer club, which essentially means you have to drink 100 different beers from various regions of the world: 50 US, 10 German, 15 Belgian, and 25 other. I currently have something like 11 left. Toward the end it gets harder to find stuff that you want to try to plug in the holes, but the great part is that I get to keep going back and eating the delicious food.
Do yourself a fucking solid and go here. Get a burger, or the beer & cheese fondue, or the smoked BBQ and ribs on Saturdays. You won’t be disappointed. They also throw some great parties for Oktoberfest and St. Pats, and they even have a pour your own beer thing going on at certain booth tables. Yup – you just pour yourself and they keep track of the ounces for you. pretty sweet.
UPDATE!!! On 11/28/14 I finally finished my beer club. I went out with a brisket sandwich, nachos, and a truffled french fry poutine as well. FUCK YEAH!!!
TJ FINLEY’S
42 E. Main St.
Bay Shore, NY 11706
Last night Tabelog hosted another incredible event for their elite team of prized food bloggers. They’ve set out to choose some of the more secret spots around NYC to host these things, as evidenced by their selection of Jukai, a very small, discrete Japanese joint on 53rd Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. My wife and I were blown away by how great the food was. To top it off, the event was sponsored by Asahi beer, so we got to sample some of their very popular super dry (goes nice with seafood) and dark (pairs well with beef) varietals. If the tasting/sampling is any indication of what an actual sit-down meal is like here, then I highly recommend that you reserve a table ASAP. You won’t be disappointed.
Okay so here’s the Food Pr0n in picture form:
First, the assorted starter. Pickled mushroom and onion, egg omelette with spinach, squid with sea urchin, smoked duck, and Jamon Iberico on top of persimmon. As you might have guessed the Iberico was my favorite portion of this plate, followed closely by the duck.
Then came my absolute favorite of the night – beef carpaccio. But not your ordinary beef. It was smokey, aged, and incredibly unique in flavor. And look at that fucking marbling…
Next, the mains. Salmon marinated in sake and then broiled, served with a grilled Shishito pepper. Very tasty. I usually dislike cooked salmon, but the experts at Jukai managed to keep the meat orange/pink inside for a beautiful rare temperature inside with a nice crisp on the outside…
Followed by Spanish mackerel with ground radish…
Then my wife’s favorite – a gigantic pacific oyster with all sorts of good toppings (I took this down in one bite)…
And a steaming bowl of garlicky shabu shabu with beef and cabbage.
For dessert we had a sampling of four delicious items: black tea panna cotta (my wife’s favorite), white sesame blancmange (almost like a pudding), creme brulee (my favorite), and chocolate truffles.
JUKAI
237 E. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10022
