Xi'an Famous Food will blow your mind

This place called Xi'an (i cant pronounce it, can you?) Famous Foods takes Western Chinese food to the next level.  They have a few locations; queens, chinatown(takeout only), but I always hit up the one in the east village. This location is always crowded (thanks Anthony Bourdain) and super cramped, but sorry, who's going to Flushing?  The guy who runs the east village spot is alittle militant too, but fair. OK, now that I scared you off, here is the reason why its actually worth going there...

So the special thing about this place is that they hand pull all their noodles.  They are springy, soft, with a bite to them. The other special thing about this spot is they use alot of lamb and cumin, not typical ingredients in Chinese cuisine, but this is Western China, hence the Middle Eastern influence.  My absolute fav dish here is D1, aka Savory Cumin Lamb Hand-Pulled Noodles. They are a tad spicy ( you can ask for non-spicy), but in an addicting way. The lamb chunks are savory, the bean sprouts crisp, and the noodles are to die for.
All this for $6 bucks.  They also have a killer lamb or pork "burger" for $2.50 that is one of the best deals in the city.

Forget your generic Chinese take out, Xi'an Famous Foods will smash your impressions of what Chinese food is supposed to taste like.

-J

Porchetta makes a mean Pork Sandwich in the East Village

Let us eat as the Romans did, let it be glorious, let it be gluttonous, let it be porky. In the East Village of New York City you can find a small sandwich shop called Porchetta. It's known for roman style roasted pork sandwiches. It only has about 5 stools inside and a small bench outside which is nice for sunny days.

Check out this massive piece of pork shoulder, the skin is crisscrossed and becomes super crusty and salty.


I went with the roasted crispy potatoes which included burnt ends. They could have included a few more ends, but they were still utterly addicting.

So here is the traditional sangwich, super simple, super good. Its just a really fresh ciabatta baguette topped with the succulent sliced roasted pork. They also throw a few pieces of that super hard and crusty pork skin in the mix. Watch out, this crunch is not for those with a faint of heart, so if your not sporting dentures, this shockingly hard bite is unbelievability tasty.


So special thanks to the Romans for conjuring up such a tasty way to make something so simple, taste so grub.

-j

Pink Berry is yummy yummy

Pink Berry is a frozen yogurt spot that originated in LA and has made its way to NYC over the last 2 years. They are known for a natural tart flavor that I really dig. This one is from their location in the East Village on St. Marks street. My favorite topping is usually a combination of raspberries, kiwi and mango. But on this outing I went for the mango overload.


Everybody loves the pinkberry.


So if you are in LA, NYC, Dallas, or Kuwait(!?!) make sure you spot by the pink. There are plenty of imitators these days, but only one original...STAY PINK.

-J

Koreans do it well...

...fried chicken that is. I've been fiending for some really good fried chicken lately. I set off on a journey to find some that would satisfy my need for crunchy, salty, chickeny goodness. I stumbled upon BBQ Chicken in the east village after doing alittle online research. When you see the words BBQ you automatically think bar-b-q, but this is not the case with this joint. I don't know if it was some sort of unfortunate language translation mishap, but in this case BBQ Chicken actually stands for, Best of the Best Quality Chicken. Weird huh? This Korean fast food transplant has recently opened shop in NYC and are franchising quickly, so stay tuned for the fried chicken expert invading your town soon.

Regardless of the funky name, this place did chicken justice. Here is the kicker, they fry the chicken in extra virgin olive oil! Yea that's right, EVOO (someone please kill Rachael Ray). This technique made the chicken very crispy, crunchy, surprisingly moist but not super greasy. I would best describe it as a Popeye's style fried chicken with sophistication.

I went for the 3 piece combo ($8.95), 2 legs, 1 thigh, waffle fries, coleslaw and a biscuit. The sides were garbage.

As you can see the leg was super juicy.

And since I'm a fatty, I went for an extra order of chicken wings (just to try a few and then to be consumed late night in a drunken stupor). No sauce, just slightly spicy with the same crunch and flavor. Fabulously good. They had other flavors such as garlic and super duper spicy.

Funny thing is I ate both legs, the thigh and a few wings and didn't feel sick at all. Normally consuming a meal like would have left me feeling gross and coated in chickeny fattiness. But because of the olive oil, I felt surprising like light and extremely satisfied.

So thanks to the mysterious Korean Corporation that came up with this wonderful idea. I wish you nothing but luck in your quest for complete fried chicken world domination.

-J