Ten Things I Ate About You

What a year (of eating) it’s been. In order to reflect on it in the way I know best, I’ve narrowed down my top ten eats in New York, as well as some honourable mentions from elsewhere in the US. And so, in no particular order…

1. Lobster roll and fries - The Mermaid Inn

I had my first bite of a lobster roll in a ramshackle place by Boston’s harbour on our first weekend out of New York, and it was one of those eyes-wide moments. There is something completely unique in the combination of the heavily buttered roll with the fresh acidity of the dressed lobster meat. I think part of the secret is in the contrast of temperatures as much as flavours: the best lobster rolls I’ve had are served with the grilled bun still warm and oozing buttery juices, while the freshness of the seafood is emphasised by it being served cold. The lobster is mixed with either mayonnaise (in the Maine style) or butter (Connecticut-style). As these preparations suggest, this dish is more associated with New England than New York, but – while I’ve enjoyed them in Maine and Massachusetts – it’s the version from The Mermaid Inn that stands out for me. Their justifiably self-styled “nearly famous” lobster roll has a brioche bun that is beautifully soft and sweet and warm, and stuffed with generous chunks of lobster. They add a sprinkling of old bay seasoning, which adds depth and complexity of flavour, and it all comes with a huge (even by American standards) pile of crispy fries on the side. While I tended to eat each meal only once in New York (to have stood a chance of ticking off all the places on my list) I ended up having this three times… which I think says it all.

2. Spicy cumin lamb hand-ripped noodles - Xi’an Famous Foods  

I have a love-hate relationship with this dish. Each time I ordered it I splattered the hot, spicy oil all over the counter. I always forgot to order a cold drink and found my mouth beginning to burn halfway through. And I don’t think I ever managed to finish my plateful, they’re that filling. Each time I left and thought “okay, that was pretty amazing, but that’s probably my last visit”… and then I spent the rest of the day thinking about those noodles... Xi’an refers to a city in Shaanxi, a province in China where the cuisine is characterised by strong flavours and a preference for noodles over rice. And these are no ordinary noodles. These are biang biang noodles that are hand-pulled to order in wide, flat strips that never seem to end. They’re all about the texture, cooked so they maintain an unctuous and chewy bite that provides the perfect surface for all the other flavours to cling to. The sauce includes onions, peppers, freshly ground cumin and a generous smothering of their house-made chilli oil (a secret recipe that includes a staggering thirty different spices). While you can order the noodles dressed simply in this way - and it’s delicious if you do - the balance in this dish for me comes with the lamb option: fatty, juicy chunks of chuck and shoulder meat that provide a melting richness that contrasts so well with the al dente textures of the noodles and the vegetables. The overall flavour is complex and delicious; a lip-tingling combination of heady spices, and perfectly-balanced flavours and textures.

3. Spätzle and lemon ricotta - Diner

If one thing is for certain in ever-changing New York City it is gentrification. And that is certainly true in Williamsburg, a once-poor neighbourhood in Brooklyn that is increasingly the very embodiment of hipsterism … something that Diner encapsulates perfectly. The restaurant is housed in a genuine old-school dining car but is a world away from filter coffee refills, and cheap and cheerful menus. Instead, the menu changes daily depending on what’s locally available, and the server scrawls the options on butchers paper on the table in front of you. A little pretentious? Meh. Only if the food doesn’t live up to it. And it did. I must admit that – given the lack of fixed menu – I’m a little fuzzy on ingredient details, the main memory being its deliciousness. But the essential components were spätzle, a German pasta-like dumpling that rather wonderfully translates as “little sparrows”. I *think* these were whole wheat, giving them a lovely textured bite and brown colour. They were served in a buttery sauce with broccoli and soft curls of baby onion. The genius came in the cloudy mounds of whipped lemon ricotta that the spätzle were jumbled over, the acidity and light texture providing the perfect contrast to the rich, chewy dumplings. Part of the wow-factor here was how innocuous the dish looked. So when I took the first mouthful and it exploded with unusual textures and a fresh zing of lemon… memories were made.

4. Cheeseburger - Island Oyster [title photo]

I love American burgers. There’s nothing worse than those fancy burgers you get in British pubs which have airy bread that falls apart in your hands, mature cheddar slices, and an overly dense puck of meat inside. Give me an American-style burger any day. And there are some brilliant ones to be had in New York. From cheap but delicious versions from Shake Shack and JG Melon … to decadent dry-aged beef versions from Minetta Tavern ($33) and Emily ($28), I don’t think I had a bad burger in New York. But in the end, the one from Island Oyster *just* edges it. This is a seasonal, outdoor restaurant on Governors Island. And while the oysters were fairly average, the burger was perfect: a griddled soft potato bun that had a hint of sweetness, and squished down between my hands without tearing apart. The meat was a combination of hanger and brisket, perfectly ground and seasoned, and cooked so it was still faintly pink in the middle while still perfectly tender. Add plasticky American muenster cheese, tomato, lettuce and spicy aioli… and you have the perfect burger.

5. Cronut - Dominique Ansel Bakery

Some foods in New York haven’t lived up to their hype. And I had similar concerns about the Cronut®, a croissant-doughnut hybrid that was named one of TIME Magazine’s best inventions of 2013 (yes, really). The bakery is filled with fantastical-sounding treats including “zero gravity” cakes served inside inflated balloons, and warm chocolate cookies that are shaped liked shot glasses and filled with vanilla milk. It all seemed a bit too good to be true and I sceptically avoided the never-ending queues until the last month I was in New York, when I decided I should probably pre-order two Cronuts (one was for my husband, I promise), and humbly went to pick them up a few weeks later. Oh … my … word. So much more than a sum of each inspiration, the texture was to die for: slightly crisp outside with soft, chewy, buttery layers inside. They create a new version each month and never repeat them, so I tried March 2020’s flavour combo of strawberry, honey and walnut. It was crammed with homemade strawberry jam and a honey walnut ganache, topped with zesty icing and a caramelised walnut. It’s a combination of flavours I’ve never had before but it worked beautifully; the strawberry was vibrant and fresh, while the honey-walnut combo provided a mellow, rich and sweet contrast. Some things do live up to the hype.

6. Lasagne – Enoteca Maria (feat. Nonnas Around the World)

I’m very sorry to anyone from Staten Island who may be reading this (which I think is unlikely), but there’s a reason most tourists who take the Staten Island ferry do so only for the harbour views, and get straight back on the return trip to Manhattan. My exception to that rule would be that you can find some excellent Italian food there. Hence a trip to a fairly nondescript street on the island to find Enoteca Maria, an Italian restaurant with a lovely quirk: they feature a rotating guest “nonna” or grandma to showcase cooking from their home countries. And so it was that I ordered the most comforting of Italian home cooking: lasagne. And this was no ordinary lasagne. This was a slab of layers and layers of pasta, hidden beneath a heavy pool of vibrant tomato sauce. When I think of lasagne I think of heaviness: thick pasta and rich cheese sauce… but this one was light as a feather. The tomato sauce was vibrantly fresh and scented throughout with basil, the cheese was delicate and light, and the pasta layers were incredibly thin. Sometimes the most surprising foods are those done simply, and excellently. Worth travelling to Staten Island for.

7. Margherita pizza - Totonno’s

Ahhh pizza in New York… it has ruined me for pizza anywhere else. There are some wonderful slices to be had and this slot was a close one for me between Totonno’s and the “spicy spring” slice from Prince St Pizza (a thick-crusted, Sicilian style pizza with spicy tomato sauce and pepperoni). In the end I wonder whether I was influenced by the fact that I had to wait for about ninety minutes for the pizza from Totonno’s … which feels more worth it if I convince myself that it was the best pizza I’ve ever had. Either way, it was exceptional. A New York institution, Totonno’s has survived two fires and Hurricane Sandy to continue serving proper old-school, Neapolitan-style pizza in the same way for nearly one hundred years. It’s all in the details. They make their dough fresh every day. They use handmade mozzarella and imported Italian ingredients. They are in no rush, carefully making each pizza to order while you wait … And you will wait. But then at the end of it, you can taste all of this care in each slice. The crust was yeasty and fresh, perfectly chewy and flavoursome. You get a whiff of smoke and a slightly charred edge from the wood-fired oven. The tomato sauce was intensely fragrant, and the cheese was so fresh that it tasted almost milky. Trust me: it’s worth the wait.

8. Edward’s Wigwam Country Ham - Momofuku Ssäm Bar

I’m normally suspicious of menus that veer around the globe too much. And Momofuku Ssäm Bar’s menu does just that: from Singaporean shrimp to Japanese furikake to American wedge salad, it’s an odd mix. But if there’s a unifying theme it seems to be a love of pork. While the menu changes regularly, there is always a section dedicated to American country hams, and so we ordered the Edward Wigwam option from Virginia (purely for the funny name, I seem to remember). It was the most intensely flavoured cured meat I’ve ever had: a strong, savoury pork flavour in a thin wisp of meat with a sweet, almost treacly aftertaste. It was perfectly cured, beautifully fatty, and impossible to stop eating. In fact, everything we ate at Ssäm Bar was superb, and a close second-best were the pork buns (note the pork focus again) … pillowy white bao buns stuffed with great big chunks of juicy, fatty pork and served with hoisin sauce and the crunch of cucumber and spring onions. Globe-hopping genius.

9. Brussel sprouts - Mokbar

I don’t particularly enjoy Brussel sprouts at the best of times so I wouldn’t have predicted that they’d end up on this list… I eat about two per year at Christmas for tradition’s sake and that’s it. But they’re much more common in America, and you’re therefore more likely to see them served in a variety of interesting ways. Enter the crispy Brussels from Mokbar, a Korean restaurant that puts its own twist on these innocuous veg: they fry them until they’re all charred and crispy, and drench them in a sauce of sweet soy and charred scallion sour cream, topped with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and fresh red chilli. The sauce is killer: an intensely savoury but sweet, creamy hit full of intense flavour. I can’t help but wonder if anything would taste incredible if this was on top of it. But the Brussels did provide a particularly good base: their bitterness balances out the creaminess, and their multiple leafy layers work perfectly as a surface to crisp up and carry all of that sauce. I won’t look at a sprout the same way again.

10. Mutton chop - Keen’s Steakhouse

While service in America is undoubtedly friendlier than in the UK, I sometimes found the relentless efficiency a bit much. If you say you don’t want dessert they tend to slap the bill on the table as soon as possible to ensure they can get to the next customers in (but what about another drink?!) When we first arrived at Keen’s Steakhouse it was clear this was not that type of restaurant. They gave us a huge pile of crudités with blue cheese dip, then left us for about ten minutes before even bringing over a menu. At first it was disconcerting, but after a couple of hours there… I could have (and would probably have been allowed to) stay forever. Opened in 1885, it has the vibe of a proper old-school New York steakhouse, with fancily-dressed waiters and flickering lamps on each table. And the meat. Ahhhh the meat. If something is described as “legendary” on a menu, it had better live up to it. But their legendary mutton chop really did that: it was the most tender, flavoursome cut of meat I’ve ever had. It was served medium rare with a beautifully pink centre and charred exterior. The plate was swimming in the juices and it was served with braised greens that soaked up all those flavours. Oh, we also had some chips and spinach and hash browns. They were great. But they all paled into significance next to that mutton.

And from further afield…

Roasted tuna cheek with teriyaki sauce - Zigu (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Good food was surprisingly hard to find in Hawaii. I was sure we’d be eating fresh fish and tropical fruit every day but local cuisine is surprisingly heavy on rice and beef and pork (and lacking in vegetables) which is all rather stodgy in year-round 30C heat. Luckily we found this gem of a Japanese restaurant in Honolulu, which is as local as anything else there, given the longstanding links between Japan and these islands. Particular favourites included a turmeric curry made with local ginger, and a fried Hawaiian tuna cutlet with kale and local onion tartare sauce. But the star of the show was the roasted tuna cheek. When I think of good tuna, I always think of a light sear on the outside so you can appreciate the raw, pink tuna inside. But this had been long-roasted, meaning the flesh was fall-apart tender, and doused in a rich and sweet savoury teriyaki sauce. All this stickiness was offset with a pile of sharp pickled onions. It was so good we actually passed our compliments on to the chef, which I’m usually too awkward to do. But this time it felt necessary.

Roasted oysters with chicken fat and pepper mash - Husk (Charleston, South Carolina)

Some of the most interesting food I had over the year was in the South, and the whole region around Charleston in particular is experiencing something of a food revival. Husk has played a key part in this, reimagining and reinventing traditional southern flavours and techniques into entirely unexpected dishes. And this in particular is a hard dish to describe (which is perhaps not a very useful thing to say in a food blog)… First came the deep savouriness of the chicken fat, sticky and caramelised from the roasting process, which was all pooling over the fresh, juicy oysters. Last came the taste of the “mash”, a sauce made from fermented chilli peppers that was a fiery drop at the end of the palate. It was one of the most incredible plates of food I’ve ever had. And that’s all the describing I can do.

Oyster shooter - Eventide Oyster Co. (Portland, Maine)

Maine is a seafood lover’s paradise, perhaps not surprising for a state that has over 4,600 islands off its coastline. We enjoyed some superb food there, from lobster rolls to lobster quesadillas to lobster stew (so, basically, a lot of lobster). But this oyster shooter was the best thing I tried. I suppose you could argue it’s technically a drink: a generous shot of gin with a dollop of bloody Mary mix, all topped off with a fresh, local oyster… Whatever it was, it was incredible. It would be hard to have a bad meal (or day) if this was how it started.

Redfish with Cajun seasoning - Cochon (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Every single bite of fish or seafood I had in New Orleans was the best-cooked I’ve had anywhere. The best crispy catfish, the best barbequed prawns, the best crawfish, the best seafood gumbo, etc etc. But the most surprising in its simplicity was a fillet of redfish (locally caught from the Gulf of Mexico) served “fisherman’s style” which was suitably ambiguous to be intriguing. It turns out this means it was sprinkled with Cajun seasoning - slightly warm and sweet - and then cooked to absolute perfection until the meat was tender and flaking to the touch of the fork. The rich meat and gentle spices were offset with a fresh squeeze of lemon, and a tangle of pickled onions with coriander. It was simply the best fish course I’ve had ever, anywhere.

Beignets - Café du Monde (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Yes, another one from New Orleans (I could have chosen more). Essentially French-style doughnuts, they’re served piping hot out of the deep fryer, a slight crispiness on the crust but all soft and fluffy inside. Served with an improbable amount of sweet powdered sugar on top, the joy is all about the contrast: sweet and slightly savoury, cold and hot. We had them about four times on our week-long trip there and I already regret not ordering them every night. They’re the sort of holiday food that wouldn’t taste the same anywhere else, only to be enjoyed with the buzz of good times and jazz in the humid air. Parfait.

Beef brisket - Salt Lick BBQ (Austin, Texas)

I resisted going to any BBQ places in New York on the assumption that the South would be the place to have it. Each state has its own favoured cut of meat and sauce, and we had some great pulled pork with vinegar-y sauces in South Carolina, so tender you could pull it apart with a spoon. But Texas BBQ clinched it for me. It’s all about the beef down there, and brisket is the most tender cut of all: a fatty meat that breaks down with long, slow cooking over flames until parts of it are almost like jelly. You can choose to ask for it lean if you want less fat… but why would anyone do that? The meat was meltingly tender with a lovely crisp char on the outside. All the brisket we had in Texas was superb, but Salt Lick was my favourite, a spot out in the Hill Country near Austin that was almost comical in its stereotypical Texan-ness, all cactuses and cowboy-hat-wearing patrons. Oh, and it had its own winery attached… Take me back, y’all.