Steve R.

Really? I've never had pizza anywhere quite like Ray's on 6th & 11th. One may or may ot like it, but it is or at least was unique. It was NY style steel deck pizza by the slice on cheesified steroids. For this pie, the cheese came first with every thing else support. Fundamentally I don't think it breaks any stylistic boundaries, no. You go to pretty much any place and tell them to put quadruple extra cheese on the pizza, and you'll get something similar. One can quibble about the spicing of the sauce or whatever, but its nothing genre-defining. All we're talking about is stainless steel deck oven pizza with a sh!tload of extra cheese. No big deal. ← I'm not saying that it was not something that couldn't be duplicated, but it wasn't - at least noty in my experience. It doesn't work to go in and ask for extra cheese on a slice. either it was on from the beginning and served fresh or it didn't work. It may not have been a big deal in terms of its level of simplicity, but I've never seen anyone else pull it off the way they did. Their hay day was before your time in NYC and before Steven's coming of age. By the mid 80's when I was in Med School it wasn't the same anymore. ← I'll go with docsconz on this one.... Ray's on 6th Ave/W.11th was special in the late '60s. As a 56 year old Bklyn raised pizza eater, I can say a couple of things (at length of course): Rays was very good pizza and not just because of the 10 lbs of cheese on each slice, DiFara's (where I grew up & ate since age 14) was mediocre, as Dom (& his brother, who made the pizzas too in the 60s) didnt do anything special till the late '80s, and Queen (on Court St) made one of the best slices anywhere (this, by the way, was where Dom worked before opening DiFara's with his brother and another partner... both others left within years). Queen's pizza, made in the type of steel oven that I do think defines NYC pizza more than anything else, was in a freestanding place 2 doors from the restaurant (old location, a block from the current one) & they had it down just right. And, by the way, it was voted #2 in NYC by whatever mag (NY Mag??) existed that did these polls before Zagat or Time Out. The #1?.... Goldberg's on the upper East Side!! I'm still laughing about that. But, cut to the present. If you can withstand the lines, the periodic inconsistancy and the indifference, Dom's pizza is the best to ever come out of these type ovens and the by the slice approach is Brooklyn's best, both for "round" and "square". Grimaldi changed hands since its legit. heyday and the folks that own it for the past 10 (15?) or so years (the same family that owns/runs Bamonti's restaurant?? (another shell of it's former self)) have made it a tourist attraction without merit. Yes, if you go when the moon is full and the breeze is blowing just right, you can get a decent pie. But these conditions exist 10% of the time, as opposed to the 80-90% certainty at DiFara's, & coal and wood fired ovens are now plentiful in NYC and the competion at many places, like Lucali (whose owner watched Dom for months to learn how to get going), Fornino's (the original owner of Cucina, a Park Slope legend), and Frannie's beat it by far. Just my (not so) humble opinions, of course

We were in Miami a month or two ago and really liked Michy's. Half orders of a lot of interesting food, although I thought it wasnt really so non-NY'ish. Our favorite, hands down, was Talula and we ate there twice. Very impressive.

Cute. Last night at Henry's End, both Ginny and I had the turtle soup, then I had the loin of antelope and she the honey/ginger duck. A bottle of Thomas Coyne Mourvedre rounded this out nicely, as did espresso. It's a tough life, doing research for you. eta: forgot to mention that this cost us $120 plus tip. Nothing was comp'ed.

Not that you asked, but if you need any local advice, I'm in Brooklyn Heights (for the last 27 years or so) & we eat out 8 nights/week, much of it in the surrounding area. Send me a pm or e-mail. If you're in the area late morning or lunch (not sure why you would be but if...), then walk to Atlantic Ave and stop into Sahadi's (betw. Henry/Clinton). Lebanese store with everything from prepared foods to nuts/fruits/cheeses/breads... dont miss this, you dont have one on the West Coast. Inexpensive decent Polish breakfast (perogis, blintzes, egg dishes...) at Teresa's on Montegue St. off Hicks. If your friends try to convince you to have dinner anywhere on Montegue St., dont. Instead recommend local dining at Henry's End (game menu... think turtle soup, elk chops, buffalo rib eye) or Noodle Pudding (Italian)...both on Henry, off Cranberry... or to go to Smith St. Or call me and I'll tell them. From Bklyn Heights you can walk over the Brooklyn Bridge right into Manhattan's Chinatown. Great walk, lots of food at the end of it. Nice in the morning. And in the afternoon. Not bad in the evening either. Dont do it at night. eta: did I mention that I grew up at DiFara's and started going over 40 years ago? (food board folks from around here are sick of hearing this so I'll spare them any more )

Has anyone had the fried chicken here? ← Yes, several times. Nicely done, worth eating. Similar style, but not as good as Redhead's.

I"m going to add a loud second for Talula. We were in South Beach a couple of weeks ago and wound up eating there twice, as it was that good. It's a very quick cab ride from the center of South Beach or a nice 20 minute walk. Either way, well worth it.

Good... I'd like to hear your take on it. Just remember when you read my opinions that I'm not generally an upper high end guy. For NYC, I'd say that Talula was a Hearth level place....approx. $100/person all in, with a $55 bottle of California Pinot Noir (hey, I like the fruity stuff... Decadence '05).

Realizing we'd be overlapping in Miami for one night, me and the missus got together with Rich and his missus for dinner at Michy's last week. We really loved the place and the 1/2 orders are definitely the way to go. Four of us getting 9 half plates more than sufficed and the sweetbreads order was excellent. The truffled polenta w/egg (see above post by Rich) was still (or back?) on the menu so we got 2 half orders of that and it was a major winner. Got to admit though... after a week in Miami, eating around, I thought the most outstanding place was Talula. We wound up going twice. But I'd go back to Michy's easily as well. Very nice.

We were there last week and I enjoyed our meal at "Seven Fish", a nice corner place a couple of blocks off Duval (Elizabeth and Olivia?). Pretty assertive flavors though, so it may not be for everyone. The use of mango in my penne worked well, as did thyme in with a seafood dish. Very nice room with a decent wine list and a New England charm to it. Reasonable prices and a quiet, reserved crowd.

I greatly prefer the room at Hearth as well. Even though the Insieme menu is more wide ranging, I also think that the food is a bit better at Hearth.

Well, you said "preferably" on the high end requirement, so I'll second EMP but add Hearth and Devi, which are both very nice but a notch or two under "high end" in NYC. In both cases, I'd advise having a little discussion with them and asking them to cook for you. At Hearth that'll mean a couple of extra courses of menu items (probably nothing off the menu). At Devi it can mean almost anything, especially if Suvir is around... some of it might be dishes not on the menu but that they're trying from his "American Masala" cookbook (or whatever he'll be working on by May).

This is quite true, but once you've taken into consideration the travel costs in time and money, the prices at CB just don't seem all that much higher. Lunch specials for assortments of dim sum (I think there's a large and a small one) are under $20, including soup...tea is expensive, however, at about $6 a pot. ← Agreed, if you live in Manhattan. Although, as Sneakeater said, it's more a time consideration than a $$ consideration since the N train gets to World Tong pretty easily. Of course, your (unwritten) assumption that most diners at CB's dim sum are from Manhattan may not be correct and World Tong may actually be closer to many of us from the farmlands. Or, more concisely, a lot of us live in Bklyn to begin with.

Well said. Although I'm with Pan in not being willing to pay CB's prices for dim sum, I really do appreciate that there are just about no places that manage inventive quality at reasonable prices and the alternative, especially in Manhattan's C-town, is low cost mediocre fare. However, they do pop up for brief periods and, over the years, I've been able to catch places as new chefs try to get a foothold in NYC by starting with a local C-town place. I remember Mandarin Court on Mott as being one such place a good 15 years ago and it lasted less than a year at that quality level. The one exception is World Tong in Brooklyn. It remains a solid quality (not so much in high end ingredients as in preparation and execution) at low end prices. Take your wife's family there & they'll be fine.

Welcome to egullet and thanks for a great first post. I can't believe you're only 16. (I'm jealous - I didn't realize my love for food until considerably later.) ← Hell, when I was 16, I would have gone just for the champagne. Another reason I focused on Japanese and Korean food, at that time in the city, they never carded.... ← At 16, I had similar emotions about a restaurant with a similarly short 5 letter, 2 word name: Wo Hop.

Entirely on purpose. The current owners bought Detour Bar to make a restaurant. The pace of doing so might seem slow to those that dont know them but there've been reasons. And now it's finally a restaurant. I'm not into cocktails (as Sneak and Jesikka know) but the Jala-pina that Rob designed for Centrico is still on my summer drinking list & I dont mind the Gotham at all for the winter. Eating there on the average of once/week for at least 6 months now (including last night), I think "bar" is the secondary aspect of the place, with cocktail lounge not really even on their minds for a close 3rd. But, if you want a well crafted cocktail, talk to Rob & ask him to make it. He can and will.

But, back in Brooklyn, Teresa's thrives.

A bunch of us spent noon-2pm on Sunday in the newish Roosevelt Mall (small, 8 stall place around the corner from Fu Ran aka Waterfront and 1/2 block from S&T) checking out the food. By and large, as interesting as Golden, but much more open & well lit. Posts on CH about it. I miss the J&L Mall but the food at Golden and now Roosevelt will fill the void. As an aside, I've grown to like Fu Ran better than just about all the other Flushing places, with Little Pepper right behind and S&T in third.

So far, the best cumin lamb that I've had, believe it or not, is at the Bay Ridge Bklyn place (on 5th between 87-88th Sts).

So, 4 of us went last night (sorry you couldnt join us, Daniel) and had a good meal. Probably a B, maybe B+. This was certainly better than a recent meal on 9th Ave in Chelsea, which I would have rated C. The lamb with cumin was well done... not dried out but certainly dry, meaning no grease or any liquid. Very nice taste to it. The dan dan noodles were the only thing I thought 9th Ave does better (as do most places)... they were not very silky &, while okay, nothing to write home about. Eh. The cold cucumbers were very good, cut into larger pieces than most others do. Refreshing, with good spicing. Pork belly was, as usual, well prepared and the fish with Napa cabbage was similarly good. Although it looked like it would be fire-y with a full crust of peppers, it wasnt. As a matter of fact, my major impression of this meal was that they managed very well to serve food that had spice that was integrated into the taste of the dish but wasnt the main aspect of the dish. This often isnt the case when heavily spiced food is ordered... the "hot" can easily outweigh the fish or the pork in too many places. We ordered the tea smoked duck as well & it was very smoked... I liked it but it was heavy on the smoke.... the opposite of what I liked about the other dishes. Overall, I continue to think that this place is someplace to keep on the rotation when in the mood for Szech. food and, overall, better than 9th Ave's food (which can be downright mediocre). But I've liked the place on 2nd Ave in the 50s better and certainly think that, if travel isnt a major concern, the Bay Ridge Szech. place (5th Ave and 88th St) is better as well, right up there with Flushing's Little Pepper and Spicy & Tasty.

We'll be in Orleans 9/8-16, probably around the same time as you're in P'town. Not that we're the masters of fine dining, spending most of our NYC dining out at moderately priced (Hearth, not Bouley) or lower (sometimes waaaay lower) places, but the Cape has just never been exceptional upscale dining experiences for us so we tend toward the pleasant moderately priced places with decent wine lists. That being said, I know it's a little far (ok, a lot far) for you, but we'll no doubt be eating at Red Pheasant once or twice, as we've always found it one of the Cape's most welcoming. Havent been in a couple of years, but it's been a steady go to place over the past 15 years for us. Just sayin'. Let me know if you strike gold. We'll be driving to P'town for a day or so... hopefully the Portuguese bakery is still there.

I'd second the recommendation that you dont dismiss going back to Flushing if you havent been to Spicy and Tasty, Little Pepper and Fu Run. Or the stalls in the remaining "Mall". However, if you're dead set on something else, there are other places close to the tennis. Last week (after going to the Quals.), I went down Roosevelt Ave to the 70s. This put me past all the Latin American trucks, taco places, fruit stands, juice places, etc. that are mostly great. Then it got me to some of the Phillipines places, a couple of Indian/Pakistanian places and finally to the Sripraphai neighborhood. Tonite I'm picking up my wife after tennis (she's not working & I am, damn it) and going to Seva, a nice, small Indian restaurant on 30th Ave (Astoria, but a ways from Ali's). Zabb Thai also has a branch around the corner and there are other Greek, Latin and even E.European places around. I'd also recommend going to the small Italian enclave in Corona, where you can find both The Lemon King ices place, some small groceries and Parkside Restaurant, an old school red sauce place.

Overall, the knock out room, view and general ambience goes a long way in overcoming what is now only good food, uninspired, from a competent kitchen. We still go a couple of times a year but made the mistake, last month, of going the week after an excellent meal at Eleven Madison Park. It paled in comparison, even at 2/3rds the price. Still has a very nice wine list and gracious service. They need a new, motivated up and coming chef to take over the kitchen.

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Ginny and I accidentally found a place 6 months or so ago that was brand new (then) and showed great promise. Lots of fresh seafood. However, as it's now 6 months later, I have no idea if this will still be good or a complete bust so let the buyer beware. East Market Restaurant, with an official address of 75-85 East Broadway, but its actually upstairs, with an entrance from an internal alleyway between E.Bdway and Henry, Market St and Forsyth St. A block away from the E. Broadway Mall. Soba: are those pictures from our dim sum together at World Tong? Nice shots. No durian.

I think Hemsin, at it's prime, was better than Taci's (in Bklyn, on Coney Island Ave off Ave P). However, Taci's is close enough that it may well be the best alternative now that Hemsin is gone. Sahara, a couple of blocks down Coney Is. Ave (off Ave T), is a much more festive, bustling place but is no longer worth much food-wise. I'd advise some exploration of this area, since there are quite a few small, new Turkish places around and even a couple of larger ones that I havent been and look interesting (on Emmons Ave by Loehman's and around Kings Hiway and Coney Is. Ave).

Unless something's changed in the last week or two, the folks at Eleven Madison Park told me that they intended to have Van Winkle bourbon drinks again in their courtyard. Last year, I spent as much time there as anywhere.