Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

It's not every day that you have lobster and caviar for breakfast. Unless you drop some serious cash at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Midtown for the Peacock Alley breakfast/brunch buffet. Brunch is held next to the sumptuous check in area.  The theme of the cavernous room seems to be elegance in darkness: the walls are rich dark wood, the carpet underfoot is dark, and there's minimal spotlight lighting on some of the food.  In one way, I guess it makes it fun since you feel like you're in an 19th century rich person's Victorian library.  In another sense, I would have loved for it to be a brighter, more minimalist and modern experience. Darkness aside, the spread was spectacular.  From the entrance of this delightful food maze, we have huge silver vats of soups, a veritable mountain range of bread rolls and pastries, and charcuterie plates with tons of meats and cheeses. Next door is a towering rack of little glass tumblers filled with none other than the ...

When we recently went to a Bay Ridge restaurant called Mussels & More, you may be surprised to hear we opted for no mussels, just whatever "more" entails.  We find ourselves walking around this stretch of Bay Ridge a lot - between 5th and 3rd Avenues and from 86th Street to however far north our legs take us - and have seen Mussels & More frequently, but never thought to try it until now.  Big mistake, because the food turns out to be pretty spectacular! We shared an order of fried calamari and fish & chips, with sweet potato fries instead of regular chips.  The food came out quickly and was really fresh and tasty.  First, our compliments to the chef for frying up some of the best calamari we've ever had: light, flavorful batter with squid rings fried to perfection.  I've had lots of good calamari from a variety of places, but I think the ones at Mussels & More will be most memorable, honestly, because it was unexpected.  The fish ...

So many delicious-sounding places in the Upper West Side, so little time! On this 70-degree Christmas Eve, we explored the UWS to get some fresh air, exercise, and warmth before any potential winter weather in our future.  After a bit of Yelping, we found Bustan, a Mediterranean restaurant with some awesome signature dishes.  Bustan was a great find, and we left so full we were bustan a gut!  (Forgive me, everything I could think of to write about this restaurant is a pun) We got a few dippables and a lamb entree to share.  Though our waiter was the most nonchalant person I'd ever encountered, I appreciated his honesty when he told us 5 dips would be too much for two people to eat.  We narrowed it down to: tzatziki, taromasalata, and spicy feta (nixed the hummus and roasted eggplant).  The schmears came on a three-welled plate, each a huge mound from an ice cream scooper.  The true highlight of the appetizer, however, was the bread that acco...

Veritasty is back from hiatus! We've had undoubtedly a busy couple of months, which started shortly after our last post from Pig Island... :cue flashback montage: We went on a cruise to Bermuda with my family (surprisingly good food!), traveled to Europe with our good friends, and Alex went to London and Florida for work.  Sadly, the two of us have barely had a nice stretch of time together to explore and eat around New York, nor have we had the chance to give our little blog any love lately, but hopefully we'll get a little more time now that it's close to the holidays and a little more chill at both our jobs. In the meantime, we did have an incredible trip to Europe and ate some deliciously memorable meals, so let me tell you about them! Alex and I went to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam with my best friend Jackie and our good friend Harry.  I couldn't have picked better travel buddies, and our whole trip was nothing short of amazing.  I also learne...

Happy 4th birthday to Veritasty!  We are eternally grateful to Jimmy Carbone and the folks at Food Karma not only for inviting us to our first food event four years ago, but also for throwing this wonderful celebration of pig every year!  The weather held up, the lines were not too long, and there was delicious food to be had at Pig Island. I have found some years that there are trendy pork preparations (one year, I recall there being a lot of pork tacos, another had a lot of pulled pork sliders) and this year was all about crunch - and by that, I mean chicharrones! Many chefs chose to accompany their pig dishes with either a small sprinkling of crunchy pig skin on top; some fried up whole huge chunks for us to break up and eat at our leisure!  Alex is immune to the pleasures of chicharrones, but I'm kind of obsessed for some reason....  I think growing up in an Asian household eating these things: (prawn crackers, in case you didn't grow up in an...

This weekend was a very successful celebration of hard ciders and grilled eats at Ciderfeast.  The event, hosted by Food Karma Projects, The Good Beer Seal, and Beer Sessions Radio, took place in a nondescript lot right on the East River, with beautiful views of Brooklyn across the river and of Manhattan buildings towering behind us.  We arrived just as people were setting up, and slowly the air begin to smell of delicious roasting meats and we heard strumming of guitars accompanied by lovely voices.  I was reminded of Austin, Texas (from where I had just returned the day before) with their world-famous barbecue and music scene.  We were super excited to try some food and drink! We saw some familiar faces at the Copenhagen Street Dog team, serving the same fantastic hot dogs as we had at their launch party last week.  Ciderfeast was a much less crowded and more intimate event, so we got the chance to chat with some of the Revolving Dansk team (hello M...