EaterAt Tashkent Supermarket in Brighton Beach, where the screech of the elevated subway echoes through the aisles, one will encounter what might be the city’s longest and largest buffet, a collection of prepared foods fit for an oligarch’s wedding. Sauteed Russian potatoes smell of garlic. Georgian peppers glisten in their Twizzlers-red sheen. Samsa pastries hide fistfuls of lamb beneath their oven-burnished exteriors. And bright red oil pools around ropy strands of Lagman noodles.
EaterCao lầu, a noodle soup from Vietnam’s coastal city of Hội An, is a rare find anywhere outside of its region of origin. Topped with braised pork, pickled vegetables, and a ladleful of broth, cao lầu shares some similarities with other Vietnamese soups, but here, it’s the noodles that set the dish apart.
EaterIf you were strolling through Tribeca on Saturday, you may have noticed a flurry of people streaming in and out of the event space at 30 Vandam Street perching pizza boxes on outstretched arms high above their heads like servers navigating a crowded dining room.
There’s always a bit of an eye roll when out-of-staters reduce Marylanders to crabs, Old Bay, and our perhaps inordinate love of the state’s flag. The thing is, they’re not wrong. Picking crabs is a coveted tradition where I come from, one that every family big or small, acquired or chosen, looks forward to when summer rolls around. As for the flag — in a sea of state seals-on-blue, can you blame us?
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EaterWhen I was little, I loved to group things. Categorizing helped me make sense of the world — I would feel exhilarated by the vastness of what was out there, and relieved the moment I could figure out where it all belonged. An errand run to the specialty food store was a thrill ride. Scanning the cheese case, I’d confirm: The orange- and pink-hued washed rinds (“the smelly ones,” to eight-year-old me) go here.
The next time you’re at the grocery store, scan the spice aisle and take note of how many jars contain powder compared to those that don’t. Yes, bay leaves, star anise, cloves, and even cinnamon often appear in their whole form. But ginger? Or lemongrass? These are harder to find unpulverized when dried or preserved. Even various chiles, unless they’re sold at a specialty grocer, often come in their ground-up form.
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Foraging, to most New Yorkers, prompts thoughts of farmers market tasting menus, and that one friend you might know that goes upstate every year for mushroom season. Few of us think it’s something we can readily do right in our own backyard. Marie Viljoen, one of New York’s most prominent foragers, knows it can be done anytime, anywhere, here in our city.
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One of my favorite questions to ask people is to name their desert island hot sauce.
While I commiserate with my fellow capsaicin lovers over our masochistic tendencies, I’m not that interested in the level of heat that your answer indicates you’re capable of enduring. I’m more interested in what your answer says about the kind of balance your palate finds ideal.
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Eater A few years ago, Annapolitans in the know flocked to a special seafood spot and happily honored its hour plus-long waits, drinks in tow, to sit and savor glistening crudo, fresh oysters, and local produce.
When temperatures drop as winter arrives, New Yorkers seek comfort in big bowls of hot things, whether it’s jjigae in Flushing or ramen noodles sonorously slurped somewhere in the East Village. There’s another bowl that belongs in this lexicon: Consider bathuk, the Bhutanese relative of Tibet’s thick, deeply nourishing stew known as thentuk.
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EaterThere’s an urban legend surrounding the Five College Consortium that each school — Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire Colleges, as well as the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — inspired one of the five characters in Scooby-Doo. And though the myth has been debunked, there’s some truth behind it: Each institution is unique, but in many ways, they’re better together.
EaterEvery time I go back home to Baltimore, one of my first stops is a no-brainer: Locust Point, the peninsular neighborhood just south of the city, houses a number of hidden treasures.