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...

On its own, few things are as recognizable as the Umami Burger.  I've seen my fair share of Umami Burger posts on Instagram, and you just know  from that "U" seared into the bun (side note: do you think they use the font Impact?).  I've also added to that trove of Instagram pictures, obviously.  This is mine: Veritasty finally got a chance to visit the New York Umami Burger after hearing much hype.  I had to wait for my dining companion/co-blogger for some time, so I sat at the bar and solo-drank.  Although my loneliness was killing me, it was assuaged by the Left Hand Milk Stout on tap.  I had first fell in love with Left Hand Milk Stout at Dinosaur BBQ  and was thrilled to see it at Umami Burger (side side note: I was so  thrilled to see my friends bring Left Hand Milk Stout for a recent Friendsgiving that I was literally jumping up and down and hugging them...my friends, not the beer).  I specially requested a half-pint, s...

Today, I had a beautiful lunch at Otto Enoteca Pizzeria and it made me realize and appreciate how life-changing good Italian food can be.   In pictures ripped from my Instagram: We had a few cheeses to start, accompanied by my favorite truffle honey .  Gladly, no one else in my dining party was such a fan, so I hogged the whole dish and proceeded to drizzle it on absolutely everything!  I had a delicious arugula prosciutto pizza, which oddly means I had pizza a grand total of four times this week (and lasagna twice more...YOLO).  In hindsight, I'm in awe of the fact that I had Italian food so frequently this week by some random coincidences, but it's all been delizioso . Posts from our other Italian eating adventures to come!

Shout out to my girls, Christie and Julia! When one of my girlfriends said we were going to have dinner at a place called Tommy Lasagna, the image I conjured in my mind was of a rustic stone chamber with a rickety wooden table and splintery chairs, a kindly portly grandma serving us pasta with her famous Sunday sauce and pouring wine from a jug of grape juice she fermented in the cellar, and the candlelight casting long shadows against the wall.  Y'know, something romantic and picturesque and smacking of Italia . Tommy Lasagna was sort of the exact opposite, but the food was equally as delicious and the whole experience was divine.  Tommy Lasagna is in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan.  Its decor is sleek, modern, and minimalist - nothing like the rustic, rural Olive Garden-esque wannabe I had in mind.  My dining companions were starving by the time I arrived, so we ordered quickly and we maaaaaay have experienced that "your eyes are bigger than your ...

Every time New York City's Restaurant Week rolls around, Alex and I try to visit at least one place (e.g. Le Cirque last summer and Smith & Wollensky earlier this year).  I've previously expressed a whole lotta love for Restaurant Week, but my thoughts have changed a bit as I've realized $90 on a meal for two people is kind of steep and in our chronicles of foodventures, we have had so many great meals for far less.  Still, it's a good excuse for us to dress up pretty for a night out! I've been wanting to dine at Fig & Olive for a while and tonight I finally got my wish.  It was a nice dinner, but there was room for improvement.  Fig & Olive, as you might gather from the eponymous foodstuffs, focuses on Mediterranean cuisines, a sort of hodgepodge of Greek-Turkish-Italian-Moroccan-style foods.  The decor in the restaurant is a modern take on natural earthy elements and is pretty inviting.  Sadly, once the dinner rush picked up, the dining ...