King of Meat

High end meat is a craze. This sounds like an obvious statement, since when have people ever not liked good meat? But look at the popularity of places like Shake Shack, Good Burger, and the Spotted Pig and you can see that more an more New Yorkers are caring about the quality of their meet. High end burgers alone have created their own micro craze within the wider meat craze, driven partially by the success of places like Shake Shack, and partially by the availability of high end meat for relatively cheap prices. These two things (at least in New York) are largely a product of one wholesale meat company, LaFrieda Wholesale Meat Purveyors. Owned by brothers Pat and Mark, LaFrieda supplies, to name only a few, Shake Shack, Union Square Cafe, The Spotted Pig, Bluesmoke, and Five Napkin Burger. As described in their recent NY mag write up the brothers cornered the market by understanding the base desire of all high end restaurants, to give the customer something they can't get anywhere else. In line with this understanding is the LaFrieda's practice of giving each restaurant a specialized blend. So while the meat going to shake shack and the spotted pig comes from the same cows, and is made in the same machines, the differing rations of chuck, skirt steak, and rib create unique ground beef for each restaurant. As much credit as we give to chefs like Danny Meyers for bringing the burger into the limelight, these two have been quietly building up the burger from behind the scenes by throwing better and better meats into the grinder. The newest blend from the LaFrieda's in the Black Label Buger, which is made of ground dry aged rib eye. Grinding up this cut is the food equivalent of melting down a Ferrari because you need steel, at least to the traditional chef. But LaFrieda's willingness to experiment with blends could just be what is driving the latest New York food fad. If you look at LaFrieda's client list almost every restaurant is new, Pat LaFrieda even snubbed the old guard Peter Lugar's due to work ethic issues. It's not too far fetched to say that these brothers are the driving force behind the patties at most of New York new and notable restaurants.

Five Guys

INC magazine recently ran an interview with five guys creator and owner Jerry Murrell regarding his fast food burger philosophy. Interesting piece on fast food done responsibly.

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ODR's Best April Fools Joke Award

Despite the large number's of food related April fools jokes, including a rumored mustache hair net requirement for NYC bartenders, the Award for the best (and cruelest) joke has to go to the jerks who rumored the opening of an NYC In and out Burger. Apparently those semi funny dudes over at college humor put up "coming soon" signs all over Union square and hired fake In and Out employees to pass out pamphlets. According to an In and Out rep the brand will most likely never make the trip out to the east because their beef comes from Southern California, like there are no cows on the east coast or something.

I got 40$ on it whose with me?

Hot dog truck for sale

Finally a bar for wall street types

Plenty of restaurants have tried to court finance types by “speaking their language” — take Maloney & Porcelli’s expense-report generator and Smith & Wollensky’s stocks-for-steak offer. But I don't think anywhere has gone as far as this. A couple of suits ,one of them a former trader at Deutsche Bank and stock broker at Prime Charter LTD, and the other an econ major who has lately been a GM at some restaurants around Murray Hill, will open a stock exchange–themed lounge called Exchange Bar & Grill in Gramercy. The gimmick: The prices of drinks and bar food will fluctuate in 25-cent increments according to demand — meaning your wings could be $2 to $3 cheaper or more expensive depending on who else is ordering them. So it’s like the exchange floor but with drunk chicks! Will the place manage to lure away Stern school’s brightest from Tonic East? Ladies if your looking for the wall street type head on over to Gramercy, at end of your meal George Bush shows up and pays your bill then adds it to your taxes.

Brooklyn Restaurant week

This week is restaurant week in BK. This means at participating restaurants a 3 course dinner will cost you a cool 25$. There are a ton of places on the list but I'm going to shout out some of my favorites.

River Cafe (Dumbo): Food is iiiigght, but the view is unbeatable, right on the water looking out at downtown Manhattan. Ate here a long time ago and remember it being not worth the ridiculous price, but restaurant week should knock a good 30$ off what you would normally pay.

Applewood (Park Slope): A place which really takes the whole "seasonal" thing to heart. Applewood sources all it's ingredients to local (and some New England) farmers, and while the dishes are not particularly inventive their execution is top notch. I recommend anything with seafood, considering the restaurant goes to crazy lengths to ensure the freshness of their fish (lobsters shipped daily from maine).

Stone Park Cafe (Park Slope): My favorite on the list, Stone Park simply does everything well. The menu is inventive enough without trying too hard, and this is one of the places where your restaurant week discounts will go the farthest. Get the pan seared scallops.

for a complete list of participating restaurants go to visitbrooklyn.org

NY Mag best of New York

I generally respect NY mag's food opinions so I'm passing on their best of New York section. Be sure to check out the breakfast section featuring Breslin, which I talked about a few posts back.

Best of NY