New York: Peter Luger

I think foodie meccas fall into two categories: food that is hard to obtain because of geographic and logistical constraints; and food that is prohibitively expensive. Peter Luger falls into both categories. A veritable institution in New York, Peter Luger is a no-frills steakhouse tucked in a commanding building in Brooklyn. Service is sharp, but the waiters are gruff. They ask you how you want your steak cooked, but they only do so out of custom. Why would they ask you, when they’re the experts?

Steak, oh glorious steak.

Peter Luger means business. There’s no fancy array of sauces to choose from. You order steak based on the number of people in your party. (A rule of thumb is #of people in your group minus one. So if there are 5 people in your group, you order Steak for Four.) The steak cuts are huge, probably 12 inches in diameter, and are served on giant platter. One end of the platter is placed on an overturned small plate, so that the juices and oil drips down on an inclined plane.

Yep, that’s bacon.
Peter Luger is not a place where you skip the appetizers. Well, at least do not skip the bacon. If this is not thick cut bacon, I don’t know what is. It is a beautiful thing: half a centimeter of perfectly cured bacon with layers of fat like a sedimentary rock. It’s like liempo cut bacon. It is insane.

Though the server’s demeanor are about as stiff as their immaculately clean and starched white button-down shirts, they live up to their name and really serve you. Pre-sliced parts of the steak magically appear on your plate, as well as scoops of the side dish. We ordered creamed spinach; and as if it wasn’t rich enough, my cousin and I stirred in pats of butter to make it more tasty.

Heart attack!
We love our fat, so we took turns scooping up the oil with the bread. Plus it really tastes great with their signature sauce. (Their famous sauce is tomato based with lots of onions. You can buy it at the restaurant, but it’s also available in local groceries like Stop&Shop.)

Schlag!
Don’t forget to leave room for dessert! Peter Luger is also famous for their schlag, a homemade whipped cream that’s very rich but as light air. I was so happy that they gave us a whole saucer of it for our desserts. You can even mix it with coffee.

The server also gave us some chocolate gold coins with the logo emblazoned on them. My cousin told me that it’s probably the most expensive chocolate gold coins ever, haha! It makes for a pretty cool edible souvenir.

Apple streudel

Hot fudge sundae
We got two desserts, which were both seemingly simple but really yummy. I guess that’s the whole ethos of Peter Luger, taking simple food but elevating it to a whole new level of quality and taste. Just as they have been doing for over a hundred years.

I usually try to put prices on the food I blog about. But I will suspend that requirement for this entry. Because I still haven’t come to terms with how much it costs to eat in Peter Luger. A quick google would give you a ballpark estimate, if you’re really curious. Given their prices, it’s a little peculiar that they accept only cash (or their own Peter Luger credit card). If you don’t have cash, they direct you towards the ATM across the street.

Peter Luger is worth it, but some people find it a bit overrated. For me, this is one of those restaurants that I’d try once in this lifetime. Just once, because I don’t want to pay that much for steak again.

New York favorites

New York. Where do I start. There is so much New York has to offer, you just have to go back to experience it all. This year’s trip was much, much shorter than the one two years ago, so I had to really come up with an itinerary. It was hard to condense all the things I wanted to do, and of course, but I had to come up with a shortlist of must-eats. Which basically had me flitting from one resto/food stand to another. At one point my cousin and his friend started chanting “baboy, baboy, baboy”. Yeah, sometimes I wonder why I’m not 250 pounds with swollen ankles.

New York pretty much looks the same, I guess, save for some rather drastic changes. Times Square is now pedestrian friendly! I swear I just read about this online, I had no idea that they were actually able to implement the no-vehicle scheme in such a busy intersection. Amazing.

Chairs! And tables! In the middle of Times Square!

There were three places I wanted to go back to: Shake Shack for the burgers, Artichoke for the artichoke pizza and Levain Bakery for the cookies.

Shake Shack
First up on my list was a visit to Shake Shack. This time I went to the newer branch located in the Upper West Side. There was no line (compared to their branch in Madison Square Park) and this time we got to eat indoors.

I seriously believe that Shake Shack should be part of any visitor’s New York trip. I practically dream of the burgers in Shake Shack. The perfect blend of meat parts freshly churned into patties… fresh vegetables… the sauuuce… the light, potato bun. The warm, gooey cheese that oozes out of the deep-fried portobello mushroom when you bite into its crispy encasing. So good. I’m so in love with Shake Shack burgers.

Shake Shack attack

So for three people who walked from the Guggenheim Museum (Near the Upper East Side) to Upper West, having cut across the entire expanse of Central Park, we ordered two Shack Stacks, one double shack burger, cheese fries, Upper West Slide frozen custard and a black and white milkshake.

Shack Stack!

Of course I would get the Shack Stack, which is like two burgers combined (a cheeseburger and the shroom deep-fried, cheese-stuffed portobello burger). And this time I was able to finish all of it. Along with half of the shake.

Artichoke

Artichoke pizza was such a disappointment. I guess they’re cost-cutting now because the crust was too thick and there were less toppings. This used to be such a gooey, creamy mess that you had to devour in seconds, as a reward for waiting in line for 15 minutes. Now it tastes like breadsticks.

This made me cancel my trip to Levain Bakery. Levain Bakery has these amazing, puck-sized cookies that were chewy and bursting with chocolate (or whatever toppings the flavor had). I was too afraid to be disappointed again so I ditched it altogether.

Di Mare’s Carrot Cake
Technically this can’t be found in New York, but I had to include it in this entry. This is probably the best carrot cake I’ve tasted, and I’m glad to report that it still tastes as good as it did two years ago. You’ve got to hand it to the Italians and bakeries. They always have the best pastries and cakes.

Di Mare is in Stamford, Connecticut. (You can take the train from New York to Stamford, get down at Springdale and walk for about 200m from the station to Di Mare pastry shop. So good! And the ladies are the sweetest! Gotta love these mom and pop shops.)

Travel checklist: Vietnam

Whenever I find myself in another country I make it a point to:

Buy street food
I’m a firm believer that there are hidden culinary gems cooking in those pushcarts and hole-in-the-wall places. So even though my dad sternly warned me that there would be a good chance that I’d get cholera or some other food-borne bacterial illness, I still bought food from this lady.

I noticed that most of the street food vendors had a set up like hers. She had a small stove powered by a tiny lpg tank (set up inside a contraption like a taho vendor’s). Then a few steps away people would be crouched over steaming bowls of food, balancing small plates on stools and makeshift tables. Hygiene be damned, but it must be damn good food.

The lady was selling some sort of dish that involved glutinous rice cake pieces (sort of like ddeokbokki) sauteed with some spring onion and finished off with egg. And the sauce that came with it… was amazing. It was spicy, sweet, smoky… it was a dream. I wasn’t even able to take a picture of it properly because I was too busy devouring it. Haha! I wanted to go back to that lady (she was on the right side of Ben Thanh market, near Pho 24) the next day, but our itinerary got in the way.

Try the local beer

For some reason, all the beers I’ve tried seem to taste better than San Mig Light. It always seemed to go down smoother, taste a little sweeter and not really taste as macho as the beer here.

Not think twice about trying food

I’m not really a fan of souvenirs (as in I buy only if people request something as pasalubong) and I don’t really go all-out shopping except when there’s a crazy sale (or so I’d like to think), but when it comes to food I go all out. I don’t really feel buyer’s remorse when it comes to food, maybe because no one gets grumpy on a full tummy. So I tend to impulsively buy food that seems funky or interesting. Like this one, which I saw randomly as we were going up the escalator in Diamond Plaza.

Whole bananas encased in coconut milk, with a few peanuts for an added crunch. It’s a pretty simple frozen delight. What amazed me was how fresh the banana pieces were, very minimal browning! Very yummy. And I like the packaging, it’s so neat! It really makes eating a “popsicle” a less messy ordeal, because you can set it down on the tray between bites.

Spring Rolls on Vermicelli

Some people travel to be able to see the places they’ve only read about or heard about. I, on the other hand, get stoked whenever I’m able to eat food in places where they originated from. When I was younger I made it a point to eat French fries while in Paris, a danish in Denmark and a hamburger in Hamburg, Germany. HAHA. How juvenile.

When I was in Vietnam I wanted to try spring rolls on vermicelli, just to see if what I ordered in local restaurants tasted like the real thing.

Spring rolls on vermicelli from Pho 2000

Spring rolls on vermicelli from a stall in Diamond Plaza

Spring rolls on vermicelli is a pretty simple dish whose strength lies on few very important factors: crispy spring rolls, fresh vegetable accoutrement and the right blend of sauces. I love the contrast in textures that this dish has: smooth, chewy vermicelli… crispy spring rolls… crunchy bean sprouts and peanuts. It’s actually a pretty refreshing meal.

Glad to say that yup, the spring rolls on vermicelli that I order in Pho Bac do taste like the ones I’ve tried in Vietnam.