Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

I have a coworker who has, for the last two years, been telling me about this sushi spot with which he's absolutely obsessed.  I've heard its name uttered in many conversations with many different people.  It often starts with a bunch of people sitting in the kitchen at lunch and someone asks, "what's the best sushi in New York?" I've been sworn to secrecy about this sushi spot.  But after my coworker brought me there last night, I can actually attest that it's probably the best sushi spot in New York.  Either that, or I have a lot of expensive omakases ahead of me. It really helps that this restaurant is about three blocks from my apartment.  My coworker lives around the corner from me, which probably also explains why he frequents so frequently.  We decided on a whim to dine there last night, after listening to him brag about how many of his friends he's converted, how he knows the chefs and waiters and owners like best buddies.  A large part o...

Back in November, we had an upcoming long weekend and were debating where to go. Amsterdam?  Lisbon?  Edinburgh?  Athens? Flights to all these places were actually ridiculously expensive since we were booking so last-minute, so after much Expedia and Travelocity searching, we finally settled on Barcelona.  I hate to say "settled" but that's how I kind of felt returning to Spain after a mediocre trip to Madrid back in 2010...however I am absolutely eating my words now as we had some of the most amazing eating experiences in Barcelona.  If you have not eaten Catalonian cuisine, you are missing out on life. After the flight and travel from the airport, we finally arrived in the center of Barcelona around 2pm.  Guess who was on the path to hangry?  Me!  One of the hardest things for me about traveling to an unfamiliar place is getting hangry and not knowing where to get food immediately.  Luckily, we had a list of recommendations from...

Hot off the tails of our last foray into the food festivals at Beer, Bourbon & BBQ , we visited the New York Oyster & Beer Festival this weekend and had a shucking good time! I wasn't sure what to expect, since a lot of the food festivals we've been to have been, shall we say, meatier.  They typically drew crowds of people looking to get wasted and fill their stomachs from time to time with food.  In fact, I spoke to a woman pouring Crabbie's ginger beer who also worked a previous food festival and she mentioned how at the more meat-centric or alcohol-centric ones, people wind up puking in the corner or passing out drunk on the tables.  So I imagined at an oyster festival, we'd see a few more khahis and polo shirts and boat shoes.  The crowd was actually pretty diverse, so it was interesting to see that people from all walks of life enjoy oysters, probably like a condensed cross section of the history of oysters (plentiful and c...

Another year , another awesome trip to Beer, Bourbon & BBQ!  I was really excited to try all sorts of beers at this event, since during our winter vacation in Eastern Europe, we had loads of amazing beer every single day (blog post to come!) and I've finally become a beer drinker.  However, because I wanted to sample lots of beer, I kept in mind the adage "beer before liquor, never sicker"...so I abstained from the "bourbon" third of the equation. One of the most unique beers we tried early on was the Sarnac S'more Porter.  You read right, s'mores!  This beer was a little cinnamon-y, a little vanilla-y, and leaves you with a marshmallow-tasting finish.  It was so wild sipping s'mores in beer form! I tried a few different variations of familiar beer brands, including a more crisp and dry Angry Orchard cider, Smuttynose, and Wells Banana Bread.  Possibly a bad idea to have so much beer in such a short amount of time...so food break! ...

Cheerio, dear readers! My bad for the very long hiatus this time.  The thing is, your Veritasty friends had been cavorting (also working full time jobs, etc. etc.) around London and other faraway locales from late September last year to right after the new year.  We're back home in New York now and swamped with work and life, but finally decided to carve out some time to share our absolutely delightful journey, both food-related and otherwise, for the last few months.  Here's our series that I'm going to call...The Great British Partake-Off!!  Part one of many... London A little backstory: Alex got an opportunity to work abroad in his company's London office, and they were going to put him in corporate housing for free.  So, Sandra decided to take full advantage of this opportunity and move there as well. Practically everyone in my family thought I was taking a sabbatical and going to London for vacation, but on the contrary I actually worked harder...

Happy 5th birthday to us!  Another year, another brilliant trip to Pig Island.  As always, we're very grateful to Jimmy Carbone and his team at Food Karma for organizing this event and being gracious hosts.  I would have loved for it to be about twenty degrees cooler and a bit more overcast; it was sweltering and I came home with a pretty gnarly tan!  But no matter, the plentiful food and drink were still enjoyable. In past years , I've tried to pinpoint a recurring theme or motif that inspired the chefs: last year we saw a lot of chicharrones and pork rinds, whereas past years there were lots of tacos or sliders.  I think this year's theme was a little broader and more international: fusion pork dishes. One of the standouts was a sandwich from Hudson & Charles of pickled pork shoulder in a banana calamansi BBQ sauce.  We spoke to the chefs, who told us calamansi is a citrus fruit like a cross between lime and orange, commonly...