Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

We came, we saw, we conquered some grilled cheese sandwiches at The Big Cheesy.   The event was held in a really cool gallery space in SoHo.  Five competitors offered some creative and scrumptious grilled cheese sandwiches, and Goose Island poured three different IPAs.  We were given orange ping pong balls to put into tall plexiglass columns to cast our vote for The Big Cheese of The Big Cheesy 2015. First up was Mrs. Dorsey's Kitchen representing Brooklyn.  Their grilled cheese had: mushrooms sauteed in truffle oil, onion bacon jam, arugula, and grape tomatoes.  Oh, and mozzarella cheese!  It was a solid sandwich to start, with lots of my favorite flavors (truffle!  mushrooms!  arugula!!!).  The only thing I could nitpick on was that there may have been too much going on at once, and I forgot I was eating a primarily grilled cheese sandwich. Next was Hudson Common with a french toast grilled cheese.  This sandwich had...

Who doesn't love a good grilled cheese sandwich?  Two slices of Wonder Bread with a Kraft Singles melted in the middle...mmm, talk about #throwbacktuesday!  Of course nowadays, you can get much more creative with grilled cheese sandwiches, as we've seen at outdoor BBQs , The Melt Shop , and even Beauty & Essex .   The pinnacle of delectable grilled cheese sandwiches is The Big Cheesy, a friendly neighborhood grilled cheese competition happening this weekend.  The contenders include Songs of Essex, Hudson Common, Eggs Travaganza, Twist and Smash'd, Mrs. Dorsey's Kitch, and Fame by Alex Mitow.  Undoubtedly, we're going to be seeing some unique and mouth-watering combinations of bread + cheese + miscellany + beer.  Yes, importantly, beer by Goose Island will be flowing too. Here are the deets! Who: you and me What: The Big Cheesy Where: Openhouse Gallery, 201 Mulberry Street When: Saturday, January 24 and Sunday, January 25 from 12:00pm...

What do you say when a live musician at a German restaurant arrives after the 8:00 p.m. set-up time? She was later -hosen! Joke credit to Alex Jagendorf Last weekend, we went to dinner at Schnitzel Haus in Bay Ridge.  Funnily enough, I was craving a beer hall kind of atmosphere, but we neither had beer nor was it the ambiance of a beer hall.  Instead, Schnitzel Haus is a family-friendly eatery, sort of like the German pavilion at Epcot Center.  There were a lot of tables of guests who seemed like regulars by the way the staff interacted with them.  As we were sitting down to eat, a musician was setting up a complicated stereo system, later joined by his slightly tardy colleague.  She definitely wasn't wearing lederhosen (rather, stiletto boots and leather leggings) but had quite a good voice.  There's something pretty cool about stumbling upon a restaurant with a live music night and having a front row seat to the performance. In terms of füd...

Happy New Year! I couldn't have thought of a better way to end 2014 than with a delicious meal and with the company of wonderful friends.  We dined at Pylos, a restaurant specializing in rustic Greek home cooking in the East Village.  When you first enter Pylos and venture beyond the mysteriously draped curtains, you see a ceiling littered with terra cotta pots staring down at you like a many-eyed creature.  Besides the warm orange tones of the terra cotta glowing in candlelight, the blue and white decor remind you of the buildings on a Greek isle.  Thought I have not traveled to one of these island destinations, I have visited Greece with my best friend Jackie, who was a dining companion that night, and I reminisced fondly of our Grecian adventures. To start, we tried a trio of spreads: tzatziki ,  melitzanosalata , and  taramosalata .  Tzatziki is a thick yogurt sauce typically with cucumber or dill.  I'm a little obsessed with it of late, p...