Tag Archives: food hall

Japanese, Korean, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

DDO Bar

March 18, 2023 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

First, check out the Ride & Review video of this joint!

Okay, now on to the written.

I heard about this place through a food friend, and it sounded enticing. I love tofu skin, for some weird reason, and this Korean style omakase features a majority of the pieces served upon fried tofu pockets called yubu tarts.

$75 gets you 13 high-quality pieces. See them all below, with my highlights for favorites.

Cacio e pepe.

Citrus cured bass.

Scallop.

Squid was swapped out for my wife, since she can’t do scallops.

Hiramasa.

Smoked duck breast pastrami – a top piece.

Shrimp – a top piece.

Ponzu salmon, everything spice with horseradish – my favorite.

Poached lobster – a top piece.

Beef tartare – a top piece.

Pork belly “ssamjang” – a top piece.

Tuna tataki hand roll – a top piece.

Crispy chicken on a stick.

Sea salt + earl grey tea ice cream.

I would definitely do this omakase again. It was good!

DDO BAR
Olly Olly Market
601 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Food Halls, Japanese, Restaurant Reviews

Gouie

August 16, 2022 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This new sushi counter at Essex Market / The Market Line offers a fairly reasonable sushi dinner that consists of 8 pieces, a hand roll, ikura with rice and uni with rice – all for $85.

I usually love hand rolls, but I didn’t really enjoy this one. I think it was a mix of the Japanese pickle and a too thick/chewy seaweed wrapper.

The sushi pieces were great though, as was the ride. But the real star of the show was this salad that we ordered as a special. It was basically sashimi with some nice veggies.

Pass on the cauliflower, crab, uni and okra cold “soup” that they have on special as well. It was slimy and not soup-like at all. It also needed seasoning.

The light cocktails are a hit. There’s no hard liquor, but they’re made with apertifs, liqueurs and digestifs.

GOUIE
115 Delancey St.
New York, NY 10002

Chinese, Food Halls, Fusion, Japanese, Korean, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Other, Restaurant Reviews, Thai, Vietnamese

Essex Pearl

July 17, 2022 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This place is incredible!

My wife and I have been dying to come here ever since we saw them setting up shop at Market Line soon after we moved in. It’s a beautiful seafood bar, done up really fancy as a place you’d love to just sit and have a cocktail, but also with open view to the kitchen and prep stations for all the delicious food.

We tried a lot of shit, so let me get right into it.

Raw littleneck clams topped with crispy shallots and a fish sauce mignonette. Perfect way to open up the meal. Pair this with their pickled ginger, shochu and gin martini.

Dry aged rib eye tartare, coarse cut. So tender and flavorful! The shrimp chips make for a perfect vehicle for mouth entry, and they add a great textural crunch.

Cumin lamb belly skewers. I really loved these. If you love cumin lamb noodles at places like Xian Famous, you need to try this. It’s LAMB BACON!

Tiger prawns. You’ll want to drink the sauce! This item was the whole reason my wife wanted to go, and it really delivered. It was her favorite dish (along with the hamachi collar).

Crispy baby octopus with Thai lemongrass curry and fried Thai basil. Ask for a small bowl of rice so none of that curry goes to waste!

The grilled pork jowls were next. This was probably my favorite of the meal. It comes with a lime pepper sauce that acts like a Carolina style vinegar BBQ sauce, almost, but Asian style as lime and pepper are common in places like Vietnam and Cambodia. It cuts the fat of the jowls so perfectly I can’t even describe it properly!

Turmeric dill hamachi collar. This is so delicious and large, it’s enough to share among two people. Light, flavorful, and amazingly aromatic.

Laotian ginger pork sausage over garlic noodles. WOW! The sausage is made in house and it’s so fucking good!

We washed it all down with this watermelon and lychee slushee. So refreshing and just the right amount of natural sweetness.

I can’t wait to go back and try the rest of the menu, especially their surf and turf!

ESSEX PEARL
88 Essex Street
Cellar Level
New York, NY 10002

Commentary, Food Halls, Midtown West

Turn-Style

November 21, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I’ve been a little bit bummed out about the kiosks available at TurnStyle, the semi-new food hall located underground at the Columbus Circle subway station. It seems to be mostly coffee, candy and merchandise. I had high hopes for a Chinese noodle joint, but that spot turned out to be pre-packaged sushi and poke bowl counter.

Doughnuttery was a failure for me, as most of the toppings taste similar and the very small doughnuts are a buck each.

A photo posted by Johnny Prime (@johnnyprimecc) on Jun 3, 2016 at 7:29am PDT

Bolivian Llama Party is a different story. This place is serving real food; not some pre-packaged bullshit.

Saltenas, in particular, are their specialty. They’re similar in form to empanadas but they differ in style. They typically consist of a soupy filling and a slice of hard boiled egg inside of a baked outer crust.

They also offer sliders, sandwiches and interesting drinks.

Their Triple Pork sandwich is amazing!

Another spot I tried out is MeltKraft. This is also definitely worth a trip to Turn-Style.

The kiosks and stores will turn over every so often, making way for more restaurants and shops. Overall this place has a few great spots to eat and shop, but hopefully there will be more soon.

TURNSTYLE FOOD HALL
1000S 8th Ave
New York, NY 10019

Chinese, Downtown, Food Halls, Restaurant Reviews

Northern Tiger

October 4, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This stand at Hudson Eats slings some decent dumplings and noodles.

My wife, a friend and I came here after a crazy chocolate event at ICE to get something a little savory to balance the palate.

We tried an order of their special kung pao chicken dumplings.

These were chock full of good quality chicken, but they were a bit over-sauced and dense. Good flavors though.

The next dumplings we tried were some pan seared pork and chive fuckers.

These were much better. They had great texture and contained the right balance of juices and meat inside. Very nice.

Finally, we tried an order of sour and spicy chicken noodles.

This contained two types of noodles: spaghetti-like clear “glass noodles,” and wide, flat noodles.

I think they could have used a hit of spice to them, but the chicken meat was high quality and the flavors worked. This place is worth a shot if you’re in the area, especially for the pan seared pork dumps.

NORTHERN TIGER
At Hudson Eats
225 Liberty St
New York, NY 10281

Commentary, Food Halls, Midtown East

UrbanSpace Vanderbilt

August 17, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I’ll just come out and state, right off the top, which places to focus on here. Obviously there are good items at all the vendors, but these are my highlights:

Delaney Chicken might be the best fried chicken sandwich in NYC. It’s big, juicy, crispy, with great toppings that set it apart from some of the other joints that are gaining traction in the city these days. I liked it better than Fuku+.

Hard Times Sundaes puts up a great roadside burger, and they even serve bacon-wrapped, deep fried hot dogs as well. Fantastic!

Kuro-Obi is an offshoot of Ippudo, so it’s a legit spot for good ramen. I had it at City Kitchen and liked it alot.

Finally, Red Hook Lobster Pound is always a solid choice for a lobster roll, as is Roberta’s for pizza.

Food Halls, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Midtown West, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Bolivian Llama Party

July 14, 2016 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

I’ve been a little bit bummed out about the kiosks available at TurnStyle, the semi-new food hall located underground at the Columbus Circle subway station. It seems to be mostly coffee, candy and merchandise; but Bolivian Llama Party is a different story. This place is serving real food; not some pre-packaged bullshit.

Bolivian Llama Party also offers slider sandwiches and interesting drinks. We tried three different saltenas; Beni (beef), Toco (pork) and Chimba (chicken). We also tried two different sliders (triple pork and beef brisket).

Two of the saltenas were a bit too sweet for my liking. One was beef, and I’m not sure if the other sweet one was pork or chicken. We got them mixed up in the bag, and when you bite into these things the filling in one is largely indistinguishable from another. The third, which was either Toco or Chimba (I’m leaning toward Toco), was delicious and packed with great savory goodness. Both sliders were excellent as well, but I preferred the pork slightly over the beef. You can’t go wrong with either of those sliders, though.

Triple Pork full sandwich is amazing!

Roast pork, bacon and pork belly cracklings.

BOLIVIAN LLAMA PARTY
TurnStyle Food Hall
1000S 8th Ave,
New York, NY 10019

Education

Guide to NYC Food Halls

December 23, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Food halls are becoming a big thing in NYC. At these places, you’ll find tons of small booths or kiosks, typically inhabited by some of NYC’s top restaurants or food merchants. In the last few years there has been an explosion of these joints popping up all over, with big-named chefs and celebs like Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali throwing their weight behind the idea (yes, that’s a fat joke about Mario). This page is your resource for exploring them. Essentially it’s just a list, with an occasional link for the ones that I’ve visited and decided to write about in the past:

Berg’n
Broadway Bites (seasonal)
Chelsea Market
City Kitchen
Columbus Circle Holiday Market (seasonal)
Eataly
Eataly Downtown
Essex Street Market
Flushing Underground Food Mall
Food Hall Industry City
Gansevoort Market
Grand Central Terminal
Gotham West Market
Hester Street Fair
Hudson Eats
K-Town Food hall
Le District
Madison Square Eats (semi-annual)
Nordic Food Hall Grand Central
Penn Plates (seasonal)
The Pennsy
The Plaza Food Hall
Reading Terminal Market (Philadelphia)
Smorgasburg
Todd English Food Hall
TurnStyle
Union Square Greenmarket
Union Square Holiday Market (seasonal)
Urban Space Vanderbilt
Urban Space Garment District

COMING SOON:

Anthony Bourdain’s food market at Pier 57 (August 2016)
Danny Meyer’s food hall at Hudson Yards
Dekalb Market Hall (currently closed)

Commentary, Food Halls, West Village

Gansevoort Market

April 19, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Below is a quick and dirty photo dump of some of the cool joints in Gansevoort Market. My wife and I strolled through after eating lunch so we didn’t really partake in anything here. When I get back down here I will update this post accordingly.

Bruffin:

Luzzo’s Pizza:

Some other interesting shops, like gelato, tacos, sushi, etc.

MEAT! Cappone’s and Macelleria:

Some signage:

This little crepe joint was cool too – I nabbed some video:

Greek yogurt being made, teste bag format:

Bangkok Bar looked delicious:

Donostia has some interesting looking sandwiches:

This was probably the coolest thing to behold. Bacon on a stick for $5, and it was HUGE:

Would love to try a chorizo dog too.

Essentially I need to go here with the intention of eating, vomiting to make room, and repeating. Fuck yeah, Bulimia!

Commentary, Downtown, Food Halls, French

Le District

April 12, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Le District is a pretty cool French food hall type of joint down in Battery Park City, beneath Hudson Eats. The place is broken down by what they sell in each area, such as cheeses, meats, crepes, etc. Check it out: