Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

Guys, listen up: I have had the best pretzel in my life.  Not in any German bierhall, not from a dirty water hot dog street cart.  The title of Prize Pretzel belongs to Pier A Harbor House down in Battery Park. Pier A is a revamped old pier jutting out into the Hudson River.  There is a spacious beer hall on the first floor and a fine dining room upstairs. We grabbed a seat by the huge open windows overlooking the water (and I got the scare of my life when a big wave crashed into the dock below us and nearly sprayed water through the open window!).  First, we ordered a big pretzel and I was dismayed at the price: $12!? This had better be some good pretzel.  We also got some beer, fish and chips (for Alex), and a truffle chicken salad sandwich (for me).  Needless to say, the food was delicious and I'd gladly go back to Pier A to eat, drink, and be merry. Let's talk about this blue-ribbon pretzel.  It's probably...

Are you recovering from a very indulgent Valentine's Day/President's Day Weekend?  I sure am. This weekend, we tried out a restaurant right under Alex's office building called Le Relais de Venise: L'Entrecote.  I've always walked by, seeing a chic French bistro and thinking it'd be completely over our budget.  I was quite wrong! This restaurant's schtick is that they serve only one thing: steak frites.  You get a salad, sliced steak, and french fries for a fixed price of $28.75.  The salad of mixed greens and walnuts has a quirky, unusual, and very delicious mustard dressing.  For the main course, you can choose your steak blue, rare, medium, or well-done.  The first serving comes with a heaping pile of shoestring fries and the steak covered in a secret sauce.  Once you finish your plate, they bring you a second serving of both.   Funnily enough, the reason this blog post has no photos is that...the steak sauce is extremely not ...

I've never appreciated - and I mean deeply appreciated - a good french fry until now.  Thank you, Sir Kensington, for reaffirming my love of fries. This weekend, we checked out the Fries of New York exhibit.  A small gallery space was decked out with glass domes, like a Victorian museum exhibit. Each dome housed a metal prong that propped up a luscious lacquered french fry from the 80 or so restaurants featured. In terms of shape, many were a simple classic cut fry of varying length and width.  Then, there were some chunkier steak fries, like the ones from Katz's Delicatessen.  One beautiful specimen was an entire potato, cut into a spiral, from Twist & Smash'd in Astoria.  A few were made from different starches like sweet potato and yam.  Many were covered in different seasonings like sea salt, rosemary, parmesan, and truffle. I would have suffered a lot of tummy growling had there not been Home Frites fries with Sir Ken...

An exhibit of New York's varied and Veritasty french fries. Umm, are you hungry yet?!?! Sir Kensington, a catsup and condiment company (ketchup, but I wanted to alliterate), is hosting an exhibit of french fries from November 7-8 at 168 Bowery.  I am a french fry fanatic and you will definitely catch me there, gazing wistfully at shellacked spuds on display, originating from restaurants all across the city. Happy Fry Day tomorrow, everyone! http://fries.sirkensingtons.com/

One of my favorite Greek restaurants is on the periphery of Brooklyn's Chinatown, oddly enough (8th Avenue and 69th Street).  The food is great, the prices are decent, and it's within walking distance of my office.  What more could you ask for! I've been to Spartan Souvlaki a few times.  Previously, I've had the hamburger and cheese pie (a flaky shell filled with ricotta-like cheese; delicious and creamy).  This time, I had spanakopita and Greek salad.  The Greek salad had large chunks of tomato, slivers of raw red onion, and crumbled feta cheese, all swimming in a pool of olive oil.  For some reason, Spartan Souvlaki does everything big and their side salad portion is enormous, though you won't hear me complain about it. The spanakopita is, similarly, in the shape of a Hot Pocket, with the flaky phyllo dough wrapped around a rectangle of chopped spinach and mild cheese.  The spanakopita is more on the side of "spinachy" instead o...

In the continuing series of "Sandra and the Jagendorfs Have Lunch," we bring you Katz's Delicatessen.  Twenty-two years of life and I haven't yet been to Katz's.  Heck, twenty-two years of life and I haven't even had real deli-styled cold cut sandwiches (see our disastrous experience ordering food at Lansky's ).  I have once stopped by the outside of Katz's to gaze adoringly at their neatly hung salami and hilarious old-school neon signs, but I've always heard it was quite expensive. Expensive, but as I found out, so worth it.  It wasn't very crowded on the day we went, so we got a nice table to stretch out and walked around the different stations to look at hunks of meat being carved and tubes of meat being roasted. The counters that lined the wall had buckets of sour and not-that-sour pickles.  All the walls were heavily adorned with framed photos of celebrities, old ads, and other pieces of New York history. Our food came pret...

From eggs to bacon to sour cream to ... I've finally tried New York City's best hot dog!  We had a Groupon for Crif Dogs, but I reckon the food there is sufficiently "cheap eats" that you don't need a coupon to get a dog. This place is something of a local institution.  I hear people pre-game and post-game at this hole-in-the-wall greasy food joint.  It's almost like a cave: go down a few steps and the door opens up to a small exposed-brick  restaurant with a couple of arcade games, graffiti, and rock music memorabilia.  I would have expected people who worked there to be stiff, unfriendly punk rockers but happily that was not the case. We ordered two dogs, tater tots, chili cheese fries, and coleslaw.  At first I thought a single hot dog and a measly side of fries would leave me hungry...but that was before I saw the mountain of tater tots and chili cheese waffle fries. My Crif Dog was called the Spicy Redneck: a bacon-wrapped hot dog with chil...

You'll never be board here... In my freshman year at NYU (almost a whole four years ago...time's flying!), there was a street fair where local vendors came to hawk their goods.  Here, I heard Pommes Frites was practically an NYU institution, and there was a table where they were giving away their goodies.  I don't remember it being remarkable at all, but now, four years later, when we passed by their store on the Lower East Side, we thought it warranted a second chance.  I was thoroughly pleased!  And, really, why would you not be pleased...? Sauciness! Pommes Frites sells not French fries but Belgian fries.  I'm not really sure if there really is a difference, but let's say Belgian fries are almost like potato wedges: thick-cut and chunky.  These fat sticks of golden-brown oily goodness are piled into conical paper holders and you get a little container of sauce on the side.  There are many sauce options available, and surprisin...