From a Filipino food truck to an upstate ‘eating house,’ all of this week’s recommendations are places we’ve visited in the past ten days and are a good barometer of how we like to eat.
One day we were sitting on camp chairs along Queens Boulevard waiting for beef pares; the next, we were tasting uni toast in the same French dining room where a movie star would be dining just hours later.
This range of recommendations will continue to be the theme for these newsletters but we’ve had a little feedback — you guys want our restaurant world intel more often than in the current once-a-month rundowns. So, don’t be surprised if you see this newsletter evolve a bit in the coming weeks.
It will still primarily feature places we’ve personally tried and recommend, like today’s list, but will more than likely include intel on new openings, events and happenings that we’ve heard through the grapevine, so that you can keep updated on the NYC food scene and get ahead on booking those reservations at spots that will soon be high in demand.
Will keep you posted on that but here’s this week’s selection of must eats.
Bong
This was in some ways a bitter-sweet meal; bitter because it was the first time we had caught up with Chef Luis Herrera from Ensenada since he announced his restaurant was closing but sweet and celebratory because we shared a meal with him at his friend’s exciting new Cambodian restaurant, Bong.
He had described it as a place ‘cooking dishes you won’t find anywhere else in NYC’ and it certainly lived up to that. There were unique, sweet, sour, spicy, fermented and herbaceous flavors happening in every dish. Salted duck egg fried squid with scallion oil and curry leaves, crispy head on shrimp to be eaten whole with mango sauce and Mama Kim’s lobster, a fan favorite from Chef Chakriya ‘Cha’ Un’s pop up when she was operating as Kreung Cambodia.
Le Chêne
Now, I’m not big on celebrity hot spots but it was cool to see Kate Hudson dining at Le Chêne last week, right after we interviewed Chef Alexia Duchêne for Eating with Experts about some of her favorite restaurants in NYC.
Her restaurant, which she runs with her husband, Ronan, is a little bit of luxury without straying into stuffiness and pretension. Fancy little bites like shrimp tartlets and cod cheeks with caviar to start then indulgent entrees like spiced duck and their famous pork and eel pithivier.
If you want to hear more about Le Chêne, I wrote about my visit for BROKEN PALATE here.
Quique Crudo x Alma Fonda Fina
This is where that feedback and getting you more regular intel comes in. We got the scoop on this dinner way before it was public knowledge, hearing from Chef Johnny Curiel at North America’s 50 Best Restaurants that he was coming from Denver to do a pop up with New York’s Quique Crudo.
They’re joining forces for a one night only, six course tasting menu with mezcal pairings. Tickets are all sold out but special dinners like this will be going into our weekly intel from now on, for this one though your best bet is turning on resy notify.
Swabe Food Truck
Our first few years living in NY together as a couple were spent right on the border of Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, so we always love venturing back over that way to explore new places.
One we saw recently pop up was Swabe Food Truck, who are serving home style Filipino food to diners sitting on camp chairs just off of Queens Boulevard. Think comforting noodle dishes and rice bowls, where beef tapa bowl was a personal highlight. This is a solid spot if you live nearby or want to tie it into a food crawl of the area.
Paolina
When a place focuses on just one dish, you know it’s got to be special — and that’s exactly the case at Paolina in Williamsburg, where they’re serving up some fantastic falafel sandwiches.
Open for just under three months, they’re warming each pita to order and filling it what seems to be the perfect ratio of ingredients. They’re not just chucking everything in and letting the diner work for a balanced bite, they’re layering the ingredients so each one is as good as the next.
At $14 a sandwich, it’s not the cheapest option in the neighborhood, but it’s one that keeps us coming back. If you’re after something a little easier on the wallet, there’s Oasis just down the street or our longtime go-to Bis Bas — though we’ve been going less often since they switched from those soft, fluffy pitas to a thinner wrap-style one.
Brushland Eating House & Shandaken Inn
I hesitate to use the word simple to describe people’s cooking in case it is misconstrued but the dishes at Brushland Eating House were perfectly so.
Having spent a couple of nights in the Catkills staying at Shandaken Inn, who have the some of the comfiest and coziest rooms we’ve ever stayed in (with fire places in some of them!), we took the 40 minute or so drive over to Brushland Eating House for a meal perfectly suited to the setting.
Local ingredients and a familial, community feel are integral to the menu and the restaurant as a whole with incredible roasted carrots on top of garlic, almonds and honey, hand rolled pasta with ‘grandma sauce’ and a pork dish with collard greens that was so good that if it wasn’t just slightly overcooked, I would have been talking about it for days.
The night we decided to eat at Shandaken Inn turned out to be burger night, so we didn’t get to work our way through the menu however the burger, along with a barrel-aged old fashioned then a card game in front of their fire place made for a perfect evening.