Katz’s Delicatessen

For lunch on the Saturday of our NYC trip, David, Veronica, and I hit up Katz’s Delicatessen in the Lower East Side.  This was definitely an experience.  It was 1:30 pm and we promptly got in line where there were about 30 people ahead of us.  Here are some snippets of what some people said when seeing the line: “Oh my God!”; “Are you kidding me??”; “Is this the line?!”  Luckily, the line went by pretty fast due to the restaurant’s cafeteria style.  As you enter, someone hands you a blue ticket and from there it’s pretty much a free-for-all.

This place is classic NYC where everyone’s so busy and they don’t really have time to be nice or explain what to do.  I headed over to the sandwich line where the butcher made me a brisket on rye bread sandwich, which came with a classic cucumber pickle and a garlicky pickle.  The butcher took my ticket and wrote the price of my sandwich on it.  You pay as you leave (cash only), so it’s nice if you want to go back and get something else if for some reason the pounds of meat didn’t fill you up.

My brisket was ok for what it was, but I think I would have liked a little sauce with it.  I felt awkward asking for anything other than meat and bread.   David and Veronica both got pastrami, which they’re famous for, and they both really liked it.  The potato latkes were really good!

Overall, this was a nice experience but I wouldn’t really come here on a regular basis if I lived in NYC.  I don’t need to be spending $19.75 for slightly dry meat on regular sandwich bread and a drink.  I lugged around my bag of leftovers on our entire day of sightseeing, and at the end of the day didn’t really want to eat it but felt I had to justify the decision of carrying it around all day.  I hate to say it, but this made me think that Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor as a steal.  I’m glad I can say I’ve been here, though!

New York City!

I’ve been on a project in the Bronx for the last two weeks but it’s ending today!  So when I heard that a couple of my friends were visiting the city for a weekend, I promptly invited myself to their trip… many thanks to David and Veronica for letting me crash with them!

David and I planned a late dinner on Thursday night, but had no specific place in mind… but when I passed Shake Shack on my way to our hotel, I knew I wanted to go there.  Even though it was about 9:30 pm when we made it there, there was still a huge line that snaked out the door.  The line moved pretty quickly and they handed out menus for the wait, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked.

I got a single ShackBurger, cheese fries, and an Arnold Palmer.  The ShackBurger is just a single patty, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and ShackSauce… it is pretty delicious.  I’m not really sure what the ShackSauce is but the burger had a really nice salty taste to it.  My only complaint is that the burger is on the small side – I definitely could have eaten two.  The cheese fries were just okay; the cheese tasted (and looked) like extremely processed cheese, but at least the fries were good.  My Arnold Palmer was delicious!

David got the Shack-cago Dog, which has relish, onion, cucumber, pickle, tomato, sport pepper, celery salt, and mustard.  David mentioned that the hot dog was pretty crunchy due to the abundance of cucumber, relish, and onion.  He was also really surprised at how spicy it was – we thought it was jalepeno but I guess it was the sport pepper.  What’s a sport pepper?!

I didn’t get to go to Ess-a-Bagel, but David went there in the morning to pick us up some bagels in the morning.  While I was too scared to branch out of my usual plain bagel + plain cream cheese combination, David got a nova bagel sandwich and Veronica got a belly lox bagel sandwich.  Here’s the nova bagel:

I tasted some of it… it just tasted like sushi on a bagel.  Not really what I want to be eating in the morning, but I guess it works for some people.  My plain bagel was really good though, and I hear there are tons of different flavors of cream cheese you can get.

For dinner we ate at John’s Pizzeria to get our fix of traditional NYC thin-crust pizza.  We split a margherita pizza… I have no idea what to say about it other than it was just your normal thin-crust pizza.  So it could’ve been better, also could’ve been a lot worse.

Stay tuned for another NYC post!

Zingerman’s Deli

For one last Ann Arbor dinner before I left for Chicago, my friend Jessica let me pick anywhere to eat in Ann Arbor.  I didn’t really want to go to Main Street… too expensive.  Jessica and my roommate Jill aren’t really the biggest meat eaters either, so I wanted somewhere with a bigger variety.  I also wanted something “special”.  Then it hit me… Zingerman’s Deli.  Zingerman’s is the total Ann Arbor experience and is known around the country.  Even though I went to school at Michigan, I didn’t really know about Zingerman’s until Oprah named the Lisa C’s Boisterous Brisket one of the best sandwiches in America.  If there’s a celebrity in town?  They’ll be seen at Zingerman’s.

Walking into Zingerman’s is awesome because it immediately smells like a deli. There are tons of cheeses and other deli foods like olives and smoked trout that they’ll let you try.  The menu is broken up into sandwiches with corned beef, chicken, turkey, pork, fish, beef, pastrami, or vegetarian, so it’s easy to have a starting point to work with since their menu is so huge.

While you wait for your food to be delivered to you, you can go into the Zingerman’s creamery next door to fill up your soda… I’m not sure if this is new, but they were all old school sodas from Boylan!  You can get different flavors of soda like cream, black cherry, orange, and root beer.  The creamery also has its famous gelato. I’ve never tried it because I’m always spending enough on my sandwich, but they look delicious!  I’ve heard good things about the ginger flavor.

I got the #23, Mary’s Commute, which is chicken salad with bacon on challah bread.  I really like the bread – it’s almost a little buttery and it’s easy to eat (I hate breads that are extremely hard and almost break your teeth).  And I love the bacon in this!  It’s thick and I even saved a little bit of it to eat by itself when I was done with my sandwich.  All the sandwiches come with a pickle, either traditional (more garlicky) or new (more cucumbery).  I’m not a pickle fan so I gave mine away, but I think the consensus is that the traditional one is definitely better.

Max and Jessica both got a #77, Jimmy Wants Rosemary’s Baby, which is ham, fresh mozzarella, and tomato.  I talked to Max about it the next day and he said it was good, but it was kind of a lot of mozzarella and not enough meat.

Jill got a Peter’s Peppered Pick, which is a BLT + turkey + ranch dressing.

The bad thing about Zingerman’s, and all of the Zingerman’s businesses, is that it is so expensive.  My sandwich + drink was $16.42 and I didn’t even get any leftovers to take home.  Once, I won a $50 gift certificate to Zingerman’s, and it lasted me one sandwich at the deli and one meal at the Roadhouse.  It’s also little more off campus than other places to eat, so that plus the cost makes coming to Zingerman’s a special occasion.  But everyone should visit at least once… it is definitely the #1 food related thing to do if you’re ever in Ann Arbor.

Blue Tractor BBQ

I didn’t really know where to bring my parents for the one dinner they’d be in Ann Arbor for, so I just decided to bring them to Main Street to let them pick out something.  We parked right in front of the Jolly Pumpkin near Main & E William and I started pointing out things – Italian (Palio, Gratzi), Chinese (Middle Kingdom), seafood (Real Seafood Company), Indian (Shalimar), stir-fry (Mongolian BBQ), brewery food (Grizzly Peak, Jolly Pumpkin), and on and on.  My dad finally decided that he wanted barbeque, so we headed up to the Blue Tractor on Washington St.

I’ve only been to the Blue Tractor once before with my old roommates, and after we were done, one of them said, “Why haven’t we been going here all the time!?” After that, he’s been to the Blue Tractor with his family a lot and, on separate occasions, saw Tim Hardaway Sr. and had a beer with Shane Battier!

My dad decided to get the pulled pork sandwich, while I got the pulled pork sliders and a basket of fries.  My plate was huge!  I was expecting 5 tiny little burgers, but each one was a pretty decent size; I also got a big helping of fries.  I’m not the biggest french fry eater, but these fries were really good.  The pulled pork was a little bit dry, but this was remedied by the barbeque sauces that came with the meal.  They came in four different varieties, described as vinegar BBQ, smoky and sweet, tomato BBQ, and mustard BBQ.  My favorite was definitely the smoky and sweet!  In addition to the taste, a big reason I thought this meal was great was because of the price.  $10 for this whole basket!

My mom got a half rack of baby back ribs and upgraded her fries to sweet potato fries for an extra dollar.  She really liked the sweet potato fries!

The one bad – and really bad – thing about this place was the service.  I think the bartender was the only one taking care of the bar AND a large number of tables.  Getting our food took a long time and it took forever to pay.  So I wouldn’t go here if you’re in a rush… but it’s a great place to get your barbeque fix without breaking the bank!

Le Dog (Part 2)

I think the thing with Le Dog is that if it sounds good, it’s really good, but if it sounds normal, it’s pretty ordinary.  I’ve had a pretty ordinary chicken noodle soup here.  The best soup I’ve ever had here was a ribollita, an Italian soup made of veggies, sausage, and potatoes.  I’ve only seen it once though!

Monday:

Monday I decided to get the cheesy chicken tortilla soup, which is one of the most popular soups Le Dog offers.  As I was waiting for my soup, the woman behind me in line went up to order and said to the worker, “I just realized I don’t have enough cash… would it be possible for you to spot me?”  The worker said “yeah, no problem, that’s fine,” with a big smile.  Not sure if she was a regular or something, but it was still nice regardless.

When my friend Max had this soup on Friday, he took one taste and said, “This is by far the best chicken tortilla soup I’ve ever had.”  As I was eating it outside on Monday, this woman passed by and stopped and said, “Where did you get that soup!?  It looks really good!”  It definitely is really good.  The cheese makes it thicker than normal chicken tortilla soup, but it isn’t an overwhelming amount of cheese.  It’s also a little bit on the spicy side, as I spotted a few jalepeno pieces in my soup.

Today’s Michigan Celebrity Spotting: I’m pretty sure I saw Meryl Davis walking by Angell Hall on State Street.

Tuesday:

I was really excited to go to Le Dog on Tuesday!  On Monday’s menu, it said that it would be offering a cassoulet on Tuesday, and they only have it once a year.  I had to get it!

It was more of a stew, not a soup, which might be why it was labeled the “best item today” and not the “best soup today”.  I was actually a little disappointed with this.  It was advertised as “duck, pork, lamb, sausage, beans, tomatoes + spicy herbs”.  So you’d think there’d be a lot of meat in it, right!?  However, I’d say it was 70% beans and 30% meat.  And even with the meat, it had way more sausage than it had duck, pork, or lamb.  I think it had one chunk of lamb in it… that one chunk was very good though.  This was extremely filling and I didn’t even finish half of it, I saved it and ate the rest for dinner.

Today’s Michigan Celebrity Spotting:  Mary Sue Coleman crossing Ann Arbor’s most annoying intersection (if you’re driving) at South U and State St.  Denard Robinson and Kevin Koger chillin’ on a friend’s porch at State and McKinley.

Wednesday:

I realized I had spent $28.50 on SOUP in the last four days and decided to take Max up on his offer of bringing over food… which was soup.  Hahaha.  Thanks Rachael!

Le Dog (Part 1)

It’s definitely NOT soup weather here in Ann Arbor, where it’s been 70 and sunny – there are a million runners on the streets and girls wearing short shorts to class as if we’re in South Beach.  However, this did not deter me from visiting my favorite lunch spot in AA – Le Dog.  While they do have hot dogs as its name suggests, they’re most known for their delicious soups.

Le Dog is based out of an extremely small, bright red booth on the corner of Thompson and E Liberty (there’s also an indoor location on Main St.).  It’s only open from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm Monday – Friday and takes cash only, so it’s not the most convenient place in the world.  Every weekday, there’s a rotating selection of around 7 to 8 soups so you never know what they’ll be offering, but there’s always something that sounds pretty good.  The soups are $6 or $7 and you can get a Zingerman’s pretzel roll or bread for another $1.

Thursday:

I wanted to try the Irish stew, but the pozole with hominy, pork, tortilla strips, avocado, lettuce, salsa, radish, and lime sounded delicious!  AND it’s only offered about 10 times a year?  I couldn’t pass that up!

This soup was actually a lot spicier than I had expected, but it was still really good.  It kind of tasted like a more spicy chicken tortilla soup.  The avocado was a nice touch, and I’m glad I didn’t wait very long to start eating the soup because the tortilla strips were still pretty crispy.  My only complaint was, of course, that there should have been a lot more pork.  At first I thought there was a lot of corn in it, and then I thought they were chickpeas,  but then I figured out that it was the hominy.  Hominy doesn’t really taste like anything, so it didn’t really bother me.

Friday:

On Friday, I went with my friend Max, who had never been to Le Dog before.  In addition to his cheesy chicken tortilla soup, he got one of the jumbo hot dogs… I’ve never gotten a hot dog here before.  Upon opening it up, he said, “Whoa, this really is a jumbo hot dog.”  He also said that “hot dogs are either really bad or normal, and this one’s normal,” so I guess that’s a good thing.

Lobster bisque is only offered on Thursdays and Fridays at Le Dog, so I knew I wanted to get the lobster bisque on Friday.  I was actually really pleased with the batch I got.  I’ve had it before where it’s had a little too much sherry, but this one had the right amount.  It also had a more than usual amount of lobster meat in it, which I was pretty happy about.

Stay tuned for the rest of my Le Dog adventures!

Portland Food Trucks

Earlier this month, I went to Portland, Oregon to visit my sister and her husband!  Portland is a pretty cool little big city (it kind of reminds me of a more hipster Pittsburgh) and is known for its rose gardens, the Trail Blazers, and most importantly, its food trucks!  Portland has over 400 food carts in bunches around the city, and I was pretty excited to try a few.

My brother-in-law and I explored the cluster at SW 10th and Alder Ave. which had over 20 food carts in a small 2 block area.  There were tons of ethnic options here – Chinese, Thai, Indian, Korean, Mexican, you name it.  Everything is around the $5-10 range for a lunch, and I’m somewhat glad they don’t have something like this where I’ll be working in Chicago… I would be too lazy to ever make my own lunch if I had this as my backup plan!

My bro-in-law was craving Indian, so he got a lunch meal at New Taste of India.  This consisted of basmati rice, naan, tandoori chicken, chicken curry, and turnip masala for $6.

I got a pulled pork sandwich from A Little Bit of Smoke for $6.  You can choose what kind of sauce you want – vinegar, red, or mustard.  I got red, which the worker there described as “vinegar-based with a little cayenne pepper, but not enough to burn your mouth off.”

But the food cart highlight of the trip was definitely when I went to Nong’s Khao Man Gai a few days later.  Nong’s Khao Man Gai definitely follows the rule of doing one thing and doing it really well, since its only dish is the chicken and rice.  For $6.50, you can get poached chicken with jasmine rice that’s cooked with ginger, garlic, shallots, and chicken broth.  What really makes it is the Khao Man Gai sauce that comes on the side – “fermented soybeans, ginger, garlic, Thai chilies, vinegar, house made syrup, and soy sauce.”  The whole meal sounds really simple, and it is!  It also comes with a light kale soup.

I will definitely have to check out some more food carts when I visit Portland again!  I’ve heard good things about The Whole Bowl, Koi Fusion, Tabor, and Solar Waffle Works, and many more.  I also wanted to try Savor Soup House, but on the days I went they never had soups I wanted to try according to their twitter!