Sweet Chick Chicken & Waffles

164 Bedford Ave. Williamsburg.
www.sweetchicknyc.com

Full bar with local finds

Sweet Chick, the hip new comfort food joint in Williamsburg is moving far beyond their reputation of bacon and cheddar waffles and old-timey picnic tables salvaged from Bed-Stuy.  

The cocktail experience at Sweet Chick fully stands on its own, or at the very least, has gotten people to talk about the menu which is full of droll names like the “Tiger Woods Y’all” and “Purple Drank.” But bar manager Cinthia Rooney’s concoctions pack a serious punch balanced with the right finesse. Bartending since she was 18, Rooney has made the rounds in the mixology world and all drinks served at the restaurant are her creations. The house special, which Rooney describes as the perfect prelude to summer, is the Sweet Chick Martini made with watermelon-infused vodka laced with a rim of spiced brown sugar. The Tiger Woods Y’all acts as the grown-up Arnold Palmer, served chilled in a highball glass while the Purple Drank is a modern gin fizz that gets its purple hue from Welch’s Grape Soda. (Yes, the kind from the plastic bottle).

To say the ingredients are local is an understatement. Beverages are sourced from Brooklyn Soda Works, Brooklyn breweries and whiskey distilleries like Hudson Whiskey and Widow Jane. Owner John Seymour (who also runs the burger shop Pop’s of Brooklyn) hopes to not only serve stellar dishes but give memorable experiences to keep people coming back to the neighborhood. “We’re literally a group of friends who got together and opened up a restaurant. And when people say they want to be best friends with the staff, that’s the ultimate compliment.”

Sweet Chick will be in full swing with brunch service starting in April. Until then, join them for dinner and stay late at the bar on Fridays and Saturdays until 2 am.

Portalia

35-03 Broadway. Queens

www.portalianyc.com

Tagillini y Gamberetto

When Saturday breakfast is so laid back that it has conveniently into dinner, you're probably at Portalia. When you're this close to asking the owner to adopt you so you can eat freshly baked molten lava cakes all the live long day, you're probably at Portalia. And when you pay $13 for an all you can drink brunch with Prosecco, you're definitely in Astoria. Italian by cuisine and Portuguese by ownership, Portalia in Queens boasts a straightforward menu of simple, hearty dishes. But what you should go for is tranquility of affordable quality service that you're hard pressed to find nowadays.

The dining room is elegant, if perhaps formal. Decorated with dark wooden tables and indoor greenery to offset the sultry mood, Portalia gets a dash of casual neighborhood vibe from the flat screen at the bar with plenty of beers on tap. The bartender isn't afraid to tell me that the food is "very Italian." Why does she know this? She's only moved to New York from Italy two weeks ago and already she misses the food.

If pasta, pollo paninis or unlimited boozy brunches aren't your thing then perhaps dessert is. One generous bite of their decadent chocolate molten lava cake with pistachio ice cream will knock your diet socks off.  It's just rich enough to satisfy and small enough to indulge in the thick chocolate ganache oozing from the middle. Everything is baked on the premises and great care go into the dishes. Round out your entire Portalia experience and get some small talk in with Antonio, the bustling owner who carries his reading glasses in one hand and a plate of eggs benedict in the other. He's got such a kind face that you'd like to be invited into his home for a long talk on the meaning of life.

Sometime between our glasses of prosecco with pomegranate juice and bellinis, he shares some inspiring advice. The reason he'll do anything from clean the bathroom to take out the trash is because he never feels like he's working--running a restaurant and feeding people is truly his passion. Find the thing you love to do and the world will naturally work around your aspiration.

Duly noted. So now, how do I make eating out everyday my life's work?

Runner and Stone

285 Third Avenue. Brooklyn.
 www.runnerandstone.com

assorted pastries and croissants

What's that you say? You're gluten free? Ah, well in the words of Fats Domino, ain't that a shame...

But in the off chance you take a break from your sudden outbreak of Celiac disease, make your first carbohydrate indulgence a good one. And that, my skinny friend, would mean taking a worthwhile trek out to Gowanus, where you will stumble upon a cozy restaurant, still yet to be discovered by hordes of ravenous Manhattan foodies, that just so happens to serve the best bread, pastries and coffee, all packaged in a sleek, modern ambiance of touch of warmth and classic accents.

Runner & Stone has come a long way since their days of selling at the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg and lucky for us, we can get their baked goods any day of the week without having to wait for the illustrious Saturday. By far their stellar fortes are the traditional rolls and bread, but they do make a mean poppyseed loaf and a rich, airy brownie. Service is great, with a knowledgeable team behind the bar.

If you go for brunch, be smart and order the thing that sells out (at least in the case when I was there): the Butternut Squash Fritter on Roll with house-made ricotta. Fortunately, I ordered it in the nick of time without knowing the mystical addictive properties embedded within. The roll is slightly hollowed out inside to encompass the big squash fritter, which mind you, is fried to absolute perfection. But if you really needed a reason to eat your vegetables, the fritter will burst upon the first bite with delectably soft ricotta, which plays oh so nicely with the crispness of the squash. The sandwich gets an earthy taste and pop of color with layers of dark leafy spinach, and by three mouthfuls in, you're convinced this is the best damn sandwich you've ever had.

I'm sure anything else on the menu would have been just as pleasurable. But I'll curse the day that I go all the way out to that dolphin-harboring canal and fail to order my butternut squash fritter roll. It is really that amazing.

Tiny Empire

142 N. 6th St. Brooklyn.
 www.tinyempire.com

anatomy of a juice cleanse

Nestled between busy restaurants on N. 6th Street and the beaten path of Bedford Avenue lies an organic health oasis called Tiny Empire.  Walk in and find yourself facing a rainbow assortment of fresh-pressed juices and healthy dessert options of acai bowls and chia seed pudding. Face the counter and get thoroughly confused on what to order as you decide between earthy, delicious blends like raw cacao, blueberries and maple syrup or kale, coconut meat and bee pollen smoothies.

NYC native and certified adrenaline junkie Anthony Spadaro brought Tiny Empire from his first store in mountainous Woodstock to quirky Williamsburg and as its founder, is as laid back as they come. His mission (and some might say, social experiment) in bringing high quality juice blends go far beyond health reasons: his focus is to build a community of people who find just as much passion in living for nutrition and organic quality as he does, or at the very least, to bring that option to the neighborhood.

It's easy to wax poetic here about the fresh kale growing out of a box inside the store, the bags of rustic Travelers Bark lining the shelves and the awesome team of juicers he’s assembled. If you feel so inclined to rejuvenate, partake in a five to seven day juice cleanse. The rules, if you may, are six juices a day drunk every two hours plus a bottle of organic almond milk for good measure. You'll find that on no other cleanse, and certainly not one that you try to concoct yourself, will leave you without the side effects of cranky. Trust me, I love to eat. And I handled it just fine. 

The Gingerbread Extravaganza at Le Parker Meridien

the (edible) lincoln memorial by baked ideas

If you want to check out some serious architectural feats that you’d love nothing more than to take a fork and knife to, bundle up and mosey on over to lobby of the luxurious Le Parker Meridien Hotel. From now until January 3rd you can gawk at their annual display of gingerbread creations featuring the creative talents of local bakeries and restaurants who were challenged with representing a global landmark. These displays are a far cry from the amateur project of assembling cracked sugar paste and melting gumdrops atop a lopsided roof. Instead you'll find an impeccably detailed Abe Lincoln donning blue cookie earmuffs and a NYC street scene called "Candy-Crane," which pays homage to the ominous 57th St. crane ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. Worthy of a visit is the Sphinx made by Rolling Pin Productions, upon which the iconic lion-pharaoh statue sits within a sandy desert of gingerbread crumbs. While the exhibit is free, visitors can vote for their favorite creation by buying one ticket for $1 or eight tickets for $5 and a chance to win a five night stay at Le Parker Meridien's hotel in Palm Springs. All proceeds benefit City Harvest.

The Holiday Markets

 Union Square, Bryant Park & Columbus Circle

edible ornaments from Rogue Confection

You’re braving the cold, maneuvering through the crowd and shopping for someone other than yourself (allegedly). The very least you can do is treat yourself to a little indulgence to keep your pace up amidst the holiday fever. From sweet snacks to comforting bowls of soup and crispy Italian rice balls, it’s no easy feat to narrow your culinary choices down at the three big holiday markets in Union Square, Bryant Park and Columbus Circle. But who said you can’t try them all? Though there are many, here’s a roundup of my favorite eats at the UrbanSpace markets.

Aracini Brothers: Union Square. One bite of this hefty Sicilian street food and you’re in cheesy, risotto heaven. I miraculously snagged one of the last two spinach & ricotta balls on a Saturday night. Filled with their famous arborio rice and melted with the ricotta, it’s a wonderful deep fried ball of happiness.

Fatty Sundays, Inc: Union Square. When two talented daughters turn their mom’s cherished snack tradition into a business, you get Fatty Sundays: simple chocolate covered pretzels rolled in anything from rainbow sprinkles to coconut to granola. Made from all natural ingredients, they were first crowdsourced and successfully funded through Kickstarter, making this a start-up worth trying.

Breezy Hill Orchards: Union Square & Columbus Circle. This is a familiar, affordable staple of the outdoor markets who are now notorious for their frisbee sized gingersnap and chocolate chip cookies for a mere $3 and bags of apple cider donuts for $4.

Max Brenner’s Chocolate: Bryant Park. It’s the chocolate giant that reigns over New York. The iconic “bald man” has set up shop in Bryant Park, offering “OMG Chocolate Chip” cookies, a chocolate syringe and a variety of chocolate bars and truffles.

The Spice Professor: Bryant Park. The “professor”, a friendly guy named Michael, provides shoppers with the most aromatic array of salts, sugars and spices that include diverse varieties of Southern spice rubs to curry powder and loose leaf teas that range in flavors from Strawberry Tingle to Pomegranate Hibiscus.

La Churreria: Bryant Park. No one can hardly resist a sugar stick like a churro and La Churreria sweetens the deal by offering even more: warmed cinnamon rolls, Bavarian Cranberry Cider and your dipping choice of chocolate, Nutella, or caramel.

Rogue Confections: Columbus Circle. They’re not ornaments, but beautifully crafted circles of chocolate with paper sugar patterns printed on top. Locally made and perfect for celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah, Rogue Confections make an elegantly authentic New York gift.

No Chewing Allowed: Columbus Circle. Nothing about the name screams “French truffles,” but that’s because you’re probably too busy letting the chocolate melt in your mouth, per the vendor’s insistent instructions. They graciously handout samples and highly encourage you not to gobble it up in one piece--savor the richness of flavor and texture and come back for more. 

Common Senses at the MoMa

11 W 53rd St. New York
www.moma.org

domestic integrity rug

An innovative exhibit from the MoMa (now concluded) offered an interestingly pre-modern sense of art, communal play and sustainability, making it hard to tell if you were in Midtown Manhattan or a trendy Brooklyn basement art gallery. But what Common Senses strove for, and overwhelmingly succeeded in, was a reinvigoration of our senses through purely naturalistic ways. It was a call to simplify and retreat to the essentials of family, community and sustainable consumption. What’s more, they let people actually touch the stuff on display.

But food lovers particularly were in for a special treat of community sharing and encouraged to take part in a sustainable feeding project. On top of a beautiful vibrant circle rug by Fritz Haeg, jars holding preserved jams, pickled vegetables and plates of herbs were on display. Each jar was tagged with the contents, the maker’s name and where they came from, many of which were from the MoMa’s Domestic Integrity Garden, personal gardens and rooftop farms in Brooklyn. The exhibit’s closing event on November 19th offered a potluck where the public was allowed to enjoy the handcrafted preservatives. Descriptions of this exhibit’s calming simplicity cannot do it justice--a picture is surely worth a thousand words here.

A Thanksgiving story about two people who were deeply in love.

Mountain View, CA

A classic holiday table prepped by my grandmother

This is about my grandparent's last Thanksgiving together. It's about the elaborate menu that was planned and the food they ate. But it's more so a tribute to two people who were separated too soon and the humility to know that being thankful, and showing it, should be something done far more frequently than most of us do.

My grandmother was an amazing gourmet chef. She helped run a catering business, managed the people who worked for the company and always did a bulk share of the cooking. She threw elaborate dinner parties for our family especially during the holidays; whipping up bacon wrapped watercress on toasted bread like she was making bowl of cereal--cooking came that easy for her.

When she was doing all this cooking, I was far too young and naive to appreciate it. When she passed away, I was still too young and naive to know what kind of artist our family had lost. She fell ill to pancreatic cancer and for anyone unfamiliar with this truly horrific disease, it leaves you with almost an unimaginably brief period of time. The exact time is fuzzy in my memory, but I seem to think we had about a year to prepare for her untimely passing.

In November of 1995, my grandparents knew that it would be their last Thanksgiving together. My grandmother was growing weak but not yet bed ridden, and the holiday offered a last chance to prepare something elegantly intimate for just the two of them. (By the way, they were married for over fifty years. How many couples do you know ever make it that far?) She designed a menu, "Bob and Virgina's Thanksgiving Day Dinner Menu," and paired the meal with two wines--'94 Pardacci white table wine and a '93 Chateau Michille champagne. What they ate was nothing short of mouth-watering, rustic elegance, of which apricot and fruit purees starred as key flavors:

• Apricot glazed turkey with roasted onion & shallot gravy
• New England sausage, apple & dried cranberry dressing
• Garlic mashed potatoes
• Pureed yams
• Mushrooms & chestnut in cream (Are you hungry yet? 'Cause there's more)
• Pepper relish
• Gingered pears with cherry hazelnuts
• Little biscuits with country ham & cranberry apple relish
• String beans with bacon & walnuts
• Golden pumpkin & apricot cake with apricot puree

And all this for two? What would surely end in a personal kitchen disaster for many (myself included), my grandmother pulled off a ten dish dinner, and many others like it, effortlessly. Everyone remains in awe of the labor intensive cooking Virginia pulled off with ease in a small kitchen with a tiny stove.

Their Thanksgiving dinner was not only a culinary specialty but remained one of my grandfather's most cherished memories as a couple. He saved the menu all these years and can vividly recall the tastes of each dish. He loved his wife with such depth and devotion that after she passed away the following summer, he would keep her purse next to him in the passenger's seat when he drove.

This soul mate connection is something for the rest of us to aspire to, or at the very least, to be thankful for what we've managed to find. It's nothing short of a miracle to love and be loved in return.