To take a break from all our recipe posts lately, we’re coming back to you with some more local restaurant recommendations, based on places we’ve tried and enjoyed recently.  Today we’re featuring two places in Midtown Manhattan – which isn’t typically known for it’s culinary scene, because many of the restaurants in the area rely on their convenience of being close to a lot of tourist destinations and get comfortable with that rather than trying to put out an interesting menu.  But we found two places we really like and we’re going to share them here, but be warned that there is an image of meat in this post.

First we got to visit L’Adresse, which has two locations in Midtown:  one at 28th and Broadway, and the one we went to near Bryant Park.  To start off our meal we tried this mushroom flatbread, made with mushrooms plus a truffle mushroom pâté, paired with Asiago cheese, all piled on top of naan.

Then Miriam had more truffles!  This is the tagliardi pasta in a parmesan-asiago sauce, with truffle shavings on top.

And Cyril tried the house burger, topped with Gruyere cheese and some fries on the side.

Next, if you head a few blocks up to the southeast corner of Central Park, you’ll come across a new restaurant called Aperitivo, serving up some really interesting Italian food.  Our first bite once we got there was a pizza:  here’s the margherita, made with just fresh mozzarella, basil, and a tomato sauce.

We also split this arugula salad, topped with pine nuts, shaved fennel and Parmesan, and red onions, all in a charred tomato dressing.

Then Cyril had one of the house specials that day – a butternut squash ravioli in brown butter and sage sauce.

And Miriam tried the penne alla vodka, which is slightly different than what you might be used to because it’s topped with breadcrumbs seasoned with Calabrian chiles.

These two restaurants were nice places to go when we were looking for interesting sit-down spots in Midtown.  It can be hard in that area to figure out what’s good and what’s just a middling place coasting on its proximity to lots of foot traffic, but we’d recommend either of these places.  At L’Adresse we got to try truffles in two different dishes, plus an elevated burger, giving us a chance to splurge a little.  And at Aperitivo, we were able to sample two delicious pasta dishes, and we especially liked the penne alla vodka because the Calabrian chiles gave it a spiciness that we don’t typically see in vodka sauce.  So keep these places in mind if you’re wandering around the middle of Manhattan, hungry and wondering what’s truly worthwhile – these two restaurants rise above the rest and give you some really interesting food.

Where We Ate: Pad Thaimee, 7th Street Burgers & Grilled!

Over the summer we had plenty of weekends where we were out of town, exploring new places around the East Coast, but now that cooler weather is settling in we’re sticking closer to home – and that means we’re checking out all kinds of new and interesting foods around New York!  Today we’d like to present to you a few places we’ve discovered recently that serve up some quick, tasty meals.  We stopped by all these spots for easy weekend lunches, but you can really check them out at any time.  Here’s our recommendations, but just be warned that there’s one image of meat in this post.

The first place we liked was Pad Thaimee, which is the takeout arm of Chef Hong Thaimee’s cluster of restaurants (she also has the sit-down spot Thaimee Love and the upcoming Thaimee Blossom).  Pad Thaimee only has five things on its menu, but you can customize each dish with your choice of protein – so Cyril got this pad thai with tofu, made with rice noodles, turnips, cabbage, chives, and bean sprouts.

And Miriam had the nicely spicy pad kee mao, also with tofu – it’s flavored with garlic, chili jam, lime leaves, basil, and Chef Thaimee’s in-house sauce.

Next up, and only a mile away, is a new spot in the East Village called 7th Street Burger.  As you might be able to guess, it’s nothing but burgers (plus fries) on the menu, but they make this American staple unique by serving their patties up as smash burgers – meaning, they get crushed down on the grill as they cook, letting them brown evenly and retain their inner flavor.  Believe it or not, this is a technique that not’s confined to regular beef burgers:  at 7th Street Burger, you can get an Impossible Burger cooked this way, topped with the standard American cheese, pickles, and their own secret sauce.

And here’s the regular double cheeseburger, for Cyril.

Plus we also split a side of fries.

But if you’re looking for something entirely vegetarian – vegan, even – you can head over to Bushwick and check out Grilled!, a tiny spot with a window and a few sidewalk tables.  There they serve up an impressively wide range of food that’s 100% plant based.  We decided to try two things there:  first, one of their newest items, a fried faux-chicken sandwich topped with their dairy-free special sauce and pickles …

… and also the arepa burger, made with a Beyond Meat patty, slices of vegan ham and provolone, and house sauce, all sandwiched between two arepas.

So there you go:  three different options for a tasty lunch in this city, all of which serve up some great vegetarian choices.  You’ve got one place that’s nothing but burgers and fries, one place with a more expansive but entirely vegan menu, and one spot for a few popular takeout Thai dishes.  That’s a lot of different things to try!  And it’s a good representation of the many types of food you can find in New York:  simple burgers, a wealth of vegan options, or some delicious cuisine from halfway around the world.

Where We Ate: Veeray da Dhaba & Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles

We promised that we’d show you some of the delicious food we’ve been eating all around New York now that the city is opening up, and so we’re here today to show you two really cool places we visited recently.  They’re both places in the lower part of Manhattan, and they represent two different cuisines that serve up some tasty and interesting foods.  There’s one image of meat here, so be warmed, but otherwise everything else we got was vegetarian.  So read ahead to see some excellent meat-free dishes in New York!

First up was Veeray da Dhaba, an Indian restaurant that serves up street food-style dishes from the Punjab region.  We started our meal there with two appetizers:  first, this veeray di gobhi, which is fried cauliflower in a garlic and tomato sauce.

And we also got a samosa chaat, made with potatoes and chickpeas buried under a dressing made of onions, tomatoes, yogurt, mint, and tamarind.

For entrees, Miriam had saag paneer – paneer cheese cubes cooked in a greens sauce – and Cyril had the chicken korma, in a saffron sauce.  And of course we got some basmati rice on the side …

… and also some chili garlic naan.

And for dessert, we tried the gulab jamun, which is fried dough balls in a honey sauce.

Now if you walk a little further south towards the bottom of Manhattan, in the heart of Chinatown you’ll come across Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles at the very end of an old, curving street.  As you might be able to guess from the name, they specialize in Chinese dishes made with your choice of homemade noodles.  For example, here’s the pan fried noodles with fried tofu, made with the restaurant’s wide noodles.

This one is the vegetable dumpling noodle soup, made with hand-peeled noodles.

And we also got an order of these vegetable dumplings.

We really liked the fact that within the same area of Manhattan, we could find two different restaurants serving two different cuisines, both of which offered up some great vegetarian options.  Veeray da Dhaba let us try some Indian dishes that were new to us, and some that were familiar, while Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles served up noodles and dumplings in lots of interesting ways.  We truly love all the many kinds of food that we can get in New York, and now that things are reopening we plan on trying as much as we can – so stay tuned to see some other great food!

Where We Ate: New York Pizzas

It’s been a while since we took a break from our recipes to show you some of the good food we’ve been eating in New York (and beyond!), but in the past month or so, as things open up more and more, we’ve been checking out a lot of cool places.  We’re going to spend the next few posts showcasing some of these great spots, starting with today – today we’re focusing on pizza!  A bunch of new and interesting pizza places have opened up recently and we’ve gone all over the city to track them down.  We’ll show you four places today where you can get some interesting and tasty pies – just be warned that a few of the pizzas we’ll show here have meat on them.

The first three places we got to check out are pizza pop-ups operating out of larger, existing restaurants.  For example, Stretch Pizza makes pies out of the Breads Bakery location near Union Square.  Chef Wylie Dufresne, who’s also the man behind Du’s Donuts – which we visited a few years ago – is using this opportunity to make some really creative pizzas.  The catch is that they’re only available for pick up, and only from 5pm to 8pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  As you can imagine, with such limited hours you need to reserve your pizza several weeks in advance, so we put in an order well ahead of time for this pizza:  the Couch Potato, topped with fingerling potatoes, mozzarella, Parmesan, rosemary, scallions, and a sour cream sauce.

Then a few blocks away we got to check out Black Seed Pizza, a spinoff of Black Seed Bagels, which we’ve also been to before.  A few months ago they were operating out of the 1st Avenue location in the East Village (they’re now on hiatus so you can check back in the fall) and serving up individual-sized pizzas.  Miriam got the Green Pie, which is made with four cheeses – mozzarella, grana padano, pecorino and scamorza – plus kale, artichoke, banana peppers, and a pesto sauce.

And Cyril had Bob’s Pie, which pairs sopressata, olives, banana peppers and a chimichurri sauce with mozzarella, grana padano and pecorino cheeses.

And just a few blocks away is Washington Squares, operating out of Loring Place – which, you guessed it, we went to a while back.  As you might be able to guess from the name, they’re serving up square grandma-style pizzas, so we got one to go:  this is the Plain Jane, with mushrooms added on top.

And finally, we went to a pizza spot that was 100% new to us, and also way down at the bottom of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  There, at Wheated, we decided to try two pizzas:  for Miriam it was the Bay Ridge, made with a vodka sauce and topped with basil and fresh mozzarella.

And Cyril had the Supreme Pizza, topped with pepperoni, fennel sausage, olives, onions, mushrooms, and basil.

As you can see, our spring involved a lot of pizza.  It was interesting seeing restaurants and chefs that we’re familiar with trying their hand at pizza and seeing what inventive pies they could come up with.  And we also enjoyed making a trip farther south into Brooklyn to check out Wheated’s storefront – that Bay Ridge pizza was one of the best we’ve tried recently.  Some of these places might not be around for much longer, since they’re pop-ups, so you should try them out now.  Black Seed Pizza is taking a break at the moment, so you can visit them again in a few months.  And Wheated seems to be here to stay, so grab a pizza any time and take it to Prospect Park for a delicious picnic.  We’re a pretty big fan of New York’s classic pizza places, but we’re always down to try something new and these spots are a great example of the pizza innovation in this city.

Where We Ate: Lhasa Tibetan Restaurant & The Tyger

If you’re still down to brave the cold for outdoor dining, and you want to get out of your apartment and explore some food around New York while also supporting great local businesses, we want to give you a few suggestions of where to eat!  Today we’re featuring two new Asian restaurants in Manhattan that we got to try out recently, which are only about a mile from each other.  We thought the food at each of these places was excellent, and both allow you to try out some new things while safely dining.  We are going to show some images of meat here, so be warned, and let’s delve in!

Lhasa Tibetan Restaurant started out as a small space in Jackson Heights, Queens, which is home to the largest expatriate community of Tibetans in the world.  This year they opened a second restaurant in the East Village in order to increase their reach, and that’s where we decided to visit recently.  Of course we had to get some momos – the dumplings that are most well known among Tibetan food.  We got the vegetarian combo, with a selection of chive, potato, and mushroom momos.

We also shared an order of shoko khatsa:  potatoes in a very spicy sauce.

Then Miriam had ngoethuk, made with vegetables and two kinds of noodles all stir-fried together (you can also get it with your choice of meat).

And Cyril tried the mokthuk, made with beef and chive dumplings in a soup.

If you’re looking for something a little less defined and more broad in terms of cuisine, you can head south to Chinatown to The Tyger, which also opened up in the past few months.  The Tyger bills itself as pan-Asian, so you get tastes from places like China and Thailand but also India and Pakistan.  We started our meal there with another potato dish:  the fried fingerling potatoes, in a sweet and slightly spicy sauce.

We also shared the baby gem salad, topped with fried shallots, herbs, and a peppered dressing.

For entrees, Miriam went with the Baingan Masala, featuring eggplant in a curry sauce.

And Cyril had both the beef short ribs, in a red curry sauce …

… and the Singaporean fried rice, with crab in a chili sauce.

So there you go – two places you can visit in Manhattan that serve up some delicious food!  Lhasa Tibetan Restaurant lets you get a deep dive into Tibetan cuisine, and it’s likely a lot more convenient to try now that they have a East Village outpost, rather than having to squeeze into a small storefront out in Queens.  And if you’re looking for a wider palate of flavors and tastes, you can head to The Tyger and try some inventive food from all around Asia.  So if you’re a hearty soul and don’t mind eating outside even as the weather gets cooler, you should consider supporting one of these two tasty places.