At Tufino Pizzeria Napoletana, each pie has its own personal story. One is inspired by chef and owner Stephen Menna’s grandmother’s meatballs, another by his favorite festival as a kid and yet another by his neighbor, who suggested adding raisins to a prosciutto pie. Naturally leavened dough is gently hand-stretched and falls loosely down the [...]
It is only a spring roll, but I have somehow rapidly devoured three of these crispy golden fingers before realizing I have yet to dunk one into the accompanying chili sauce. The delicate wrapper crackles and gives way to a steaming center of al dente glass noodles, tiny slivers of carrot and sweet lumps of [...]
“Oh, that’s probably too much food,” the server warns in a refreshing moment of honesty. “Most dishes are intended to serve three to four.” He then reaches under the table for an invisible switch, and flames appear. The restaurant is Sik Gaek, and the booths are tucked under tin awnings reminiscent of a back alley [...]
“I like to add a twist, a touch of new, modern ingredients to make regular sushi become more fun,” explains Philip Chen, the executive chef of JJ’s Asian Fusion, as he personally delivers the appetizer to the table. “Sushi of such high quality and flavor doesn’t need any soy sauce.” Chen went on to detail [...]
“Now this is the real fusilli, not like the spiral stuff… this is so much better…” smiled Giuseppe Viterale as he proudly placed the masterpiece on the white linen before me. His deep, melodic voice is as thick and comforting as the Bolognese sauce blanketing the long coils of fresh pasta. Half the joy of [...]
Opening a new restaurant in New York City can pose countless unforeseen bumps in the road, but the worst is when someone mistakes your new restaurant for an actual speed bump. Last week, a hit-and-run motorist did precisely that, driving his truck directly into The Shady Lady, which recently opened on the corner of 30th [...]
BY BRADLEY HAWKS It arrives at the table resembling a toddler’s attempt at a sandcastle. A simple prodding with a fork and a cautious bite later, however, yields sensations—textures and flavors simultaneously familiar and exotic. Those grey pieces of down are actually shaved Hudson Valley foie gras, rendered light and feathery, cloaking a heaping mound [...]
BY BRADLEY HAWKS When 9-year-old Samuel Lu’s family moved from China next door to the family of 10-year-old Ben Lam in Flushing, a lifelong friendship was started over some good old-fashioned rounds of hoops after school. Lu’s father had been a chef at a five star restaurant in the Guanzhong region of China, and while [...]
BY BRADLEY HAWKS The Thirsty Koala, Astoria’s new Australian restaurant, brings Queensland to Queens. Adorned with indigenous artifacts like boomerangs and didgeridoo (a long woodwind instrument) among vibrantly lit blonde onyx and pinewood-planked walls, the new menu reads like a comestible glossary of Australian terms, from jaffles and crosti to kakadu, kumara, and even kangaroo [...]
BY BRADLEY HAWKS “The pizza was invented in Naples, and then we developed it in the north,” grins Daniele Barbos, executive chef and pizza maker at Basil Brick Oven Pizza, who first began cooking in 1986 for the Alpini, Italy’s elite brigade of mountain soldiers. The wood-fired oven is kept blazing between 850 and 900˚F, [...]
