Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

On a recent visit upstate to my friend Julia's, we crossed over into Connecticut and went to the Danbury Mall.  I thought all suburban malls were equally sprawling, but Danbury's was massive .  Of course, walking through and shopping left us exhausted and starving, so we popped into nearby Korean/Japanese restaurant, Edo II.  Julia and her mom had just been there a couple days prior, so the fact that she insisted we go back must have been a good sign. It was definitely a good sign. The restaurant is tiny - maybe 6 small tables - and is sort of like a hole-in-the-wall that you could completely miss if you didn't know about it.  The whole place was very endearing since it seemed like a very family-oriented/family-run establishment with dad as the sushi chef, mom in the back kitchen, and son (young, handsome, and ever so gracious, mind you) serving. Julia had this beautiful Naruto roll: paper-thin cucumber wrapped around crabmeat, tobiko, and avocado, like...

Today, Alex and I got to shmooze with a bunch of fellow food writers at a preview party for next weekend's Cook Out NYC.  Who would have thought we'd be hanging out at a dark basement bar/restaurant on a weeknight?  The event was a lot of fun and I am pumped for Cook Out NYC!!  Boy, do we have a treat in store for you, dear readers of Veritasty! The evening began with people trying to ply us with alcohol: fancy Belgian beers and the like.  I'm not so much a beer person (and I didn't want to start glowing) but Alex had a strong, smoky-flavored ale that he enjoyed very much.  To me...it tasted like bitter liquid bread (which is what beer is, I suppose!). Not my cup of tea.  To accompany the free-flowing booze, we had little noshes like a meatball slider and a chorizo hot dog.  The meatball was very successful and delicious.  It was just like a hamburger patty, just chubbier and ball-shaped.  It was impressively juicy and topped with a ...