ForbesLife has a fantastic new look in its March issue, thanks to new editor-in-chief Richard Nalley. My favorite part of the March issue? It would have to be the Bookmarks: Tips from Local Insiders section (page 55). This month’s column focuses on New York City, and the restaurant tip in the column comes from…Salmaland. The magazine excerpts a Salmaland writeup on one of my favorite spots for a delicious, no-brainer meal —if you consider buttery steak, perfect salty-crisp fries, and the absence of a menu to be pretty damn near close to heaven.

My second favorite part of the issue: the cowboy boot beauty shot on page 27. The Spanish Sendra boots in the photo look a little like the vintage brown cowboy boots I bought in Houston many years ago, and that I’m still wearing despite the fact that they’re hanging on by barely a thread. The chocolate-brown Sendras in the shot are luscious enough to eat, and if I can resist doing that, I may soon be taking them out for a test-drive on the brutal NYC sidewalks.

There’s something delightfully anachronistic about Torrisi Italian Specialties on Mulberry Street. The tiny new 16-seat cafe, with antique wooden furniture and cured meats hanging in the window and antipasti displayed in small bowls on the counter, looks like a place that would’ve existed in Nolita some years back when I first moved to the neighborhood. The area was still teetering on the brink of Little Italy-ness, and only slowly starting to get mowed down by precious little shoe shops and stores selling pricey and useless odds and ends. Mind you, I like some of those shops—and was sad when a few, like Jane Mayle’s gorgeous boutique, closed last year. But point is, t’aint Little Italy here no more. This comes as news to no one.

So it’s lovely to come across a Little Italy flashback on Mulberry, and so far I’m thrilled to have Torrisi around. I’ve already been in for sandwiches (various combos of mortadella, prosciutto, soppressata, fresh mozz, and  Lioni’s ricotta on Parisi Bakery seeded rolls) and antipasti like the intriguingly named “cauliflower with Progresso” (roasted cauliflower, breadcrumbs, rosemary). Never ate as much cauliflower as I have this winter; am lately enamored of it. Chef-owners Richard Torrisi and Mario Carbone, vets of A Voce and Del Posto, are onto an original hook here: The “Italian” ingredients are all American-made, hence that Progresso name-check. Torrisi opens for dinner this week, so I’ll be back for that.

In the meantime: Points for the vintage Billy Joel poster on the wall. Before he was marrying and divorcing models and tiny TV chefs and driving his cars into… (wait, am I about to say something libelous here?). Anyway, before the onslaught of douchiness, the man was writing some pretty tuneful, infectious (cheesy, yes, but deliciously cheesy) pop songs. His face in the room somehow warms it, gives it splash of old-New York history. Strange, but why fight it.

Confession: Yesterday I shamelessly stood in the long line at K! Pizzacone on its first official day of business. Around me in line were hordes of midtown office workers, curious passersby, and people who seem to receive their daily eating instructions from Eater/Grub Street/Feast/et al. And of course there were the obligatory food bloggers. God we’re annoying. Think I’ll just call myself a websiter instead of blogger, if that’s ok—at least for today. Onward:

The argument implied by K! Pizzacone’s existence—and by the flashing words on the LCD screen in the tiny takeout shop on Fifth Ave at 33rd St—is that a cone is a better vehicle than a crust for consuming pizza. Based on today’s visit, I’ve concluded the following:

1) Eating a mix of tomato sauce, mozzarella, and various optional toppings—your basic mushrooms, onions, sausage, pepperoni, prosciutto, and the like—when they’re all hot and melted together and sitting inside a crunchy bread-like shell, is never going to be a terrible thing. The pizzacone is potentially a perfect fast-food snack. Especially if you’re sitting in a movie theater or at a baseball game, where a pizza slice can be awkward to hold and eat without making a mess. But it’s just really not pizza. Can it replace the pizza slice someday? See #2 and #3.

2) A cone can only replace a real pizza crust if it’s even remotely as flavorful, crisp, pliant, fresh-baked-tasting, and delicious as an actual pizza crust. In other words, it needs to pull its weight as part of the entire package. But at K!, read more The Metaphysics of the Pizzacone »

Choptank pic via Metromix.com

“Surprise” is a slippery word. When you’re 10 years old, “surprise!” means a happy circumstance—say, a visit from a cash-dispensing grandparent—is about to enter your life. By the time you hit adulthood, “surprise” tends to mean something ominous is about to rock your day, your week, your life. Unless you’re that rare fan of surprise parties, in which case the word once again takes on, ever so briefly, the wondrous magic of toddlerhood.

All that to say: This week I had three small restaurant surprises—and they were all good ones. Go figure.

First: A last-minute, reservationless visit to Maialino at the Gramercy Hotel yielded, within seconds, a great table in the bar area. My friend got there first, and I expected to find him milling around waiting for a table. But when I arrived he was already seated and being attended to by a central-casting Danny Meyer employee: smiley, well-versed, efficient (without being cloying, smug, nasty). Among our dinner picks that night: melty, meaty lasagna Bolognese, addictive pork-cheek arancini (risotto balls), and all manner of salumi and cheeses, including a young, fresh sheep’s-milk Crema di Lopez from Lazio, which I’d never had before. It’s a little annoying that Maialino doesn’t serve the full dinner menu at the bar—but for a soothing, spot-on meal in a rustic, country-licious room, it’s hard to do better. UPDATE: Maialino is now serving the entire dining room menu (except for the roasted suckling pig) at the bar.

Second: Met a friend at Choptank, the new Chesapeake Bay-inspired West Village restaurant. We walked in at 9pm (again, reservation-less) and immediately found two free stools at the hopping raw bar. But the surprise wasn’t just read more The Week in Strange Surprises »

I’m a bit of a wuss in blizzards. This morning, on realizing I’d run out of my Stumptown Yirgacheffe coffee beans—which I buy religiously because it’s killer coffee, not because Stumptown is an ad-nauseumly It brew —I couldn’t really talk myself into walking out in the freezing slush. But I was in luck: I opened my fridge to find that a bag of Duane Reade’s new line of “Delish” coffee was sitting there, awaiting precisely such a snowy moment as this. I’d bought the coffee as an experiment last week—though never opened it—so it wasn’t at optimal freshness, if a term like “optimal freshness” can even be applied to convenience-store coffee. But I have to say, this stuff wasn’t half-bad. By which I mean, it was more than half-good. I had the dark-roast Fire Fighter’s Joe, made with Guatemalan beans—and brewed it in a French press.

Is it as good as Stumptown, Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, Four Barrel—and insert other obsessively sourced and roasted boutique coffee name here? No. Starting your day with DR coffee means missing the intense flavor nuances, the strong but immaculate finish, and if we must, the self-congratulatory glee  that comes from seeking out and drinking cult coffees. But ignore that last part—really, please do—and you’ll find Duane Reade’s decision to step quietly into the premium coffee scene, tinged as it is with WTF-ness, isn’t all that stupid. With the slightest extra dollop of half-and-half, my cup of Fire Fighter had a pleasing roundness and grip.

Next time I’m at DR buying paper towels, dishwashing liquid, chewing gum, and dubious eco-friendly cleaning products, I’ll pick up a bag of Fire Fighter to keep in the fridge for the next blizzard—or maybe to spring a blind coffee taste-test on friends, à la those ’80s Folgers coffee ads. ”Here we are at (upscale restaurant X), where we’ve secretly replaced the fine coffee they usually serve with Folgers Crystals. Let’s see if anyone can taste the difference!”

They might. But if there’s a massive snowstorm outside—or if they know you paid only about $6 for the bag—they won’t be complaining.

So far Salmaland covers only NYC restaurants—but I’ll soon be adding my picks for other cities here too. How do I define “soon”? Excellent question. But do stay tuned.

One of those cities will be Houston, where I spent years 9-18 and where my parents live. In the meantime, I’m linking to my New York Times story on Houston restaurants, which ran in the Travel section this past Sunday, February 7.

Houston now has a pulsing, vital food scene—and every time I go there’s an increasingly long list of  spots I want to hit, from high-end to low-end to everything in between, including lots of outstanding ethnic restaurants: Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, and much more. A while back Frank Bruni did an excellent NYT story on Feast, one of my favorites. And this season brought some promising new openings to the city: Branch Water Tavern, Haven, and others. More and more, all I really want to do when I’m in Houston is eat—and drag my family and friends there on endless food missions.

Very quick early assessment of Carteles, the tiny, retro Cuban sandwich shop that just opened on East 6th Street: It’s not quite ready for prime time. Give it another couple of weeks. Overheard a loud argument going on between the front-of-house (such as it is) and the kitchen. Took about 30 minutes to get my Cubano Christo, a house spin on the Cubano—a pressed sandwich of roast pork, ham, cheese, and pickles on a crunchy loaf that, in this version, gets dipped in sweetened egg batter and deep-fried. It’s sort of like a classic media noche (a Cubano made with sweeter bread) but battered and fried Monte Cristo-style. Sounds ingenious, but read on.

I’m not usually one to quibble when a sandwich goes heavy on garlic or mustard—I have an unreasonable love for both, and for the Cubano in general—but something about the mustardy aioli in my Cubano Christo gave an off-note to the entire sandwich. And somehow the deep-fried bread, the ham, the roast pork, the Swiss and provolone cheese, and the pickle added up to less than the sum of the parts. Mysteriously, they added up to a muddled-tasting, soppy sandwich. The plaintain chips were deadly boring: dry, flavorless, and in desperate need of hot sauce, which wasn’t there for the taking. On the semi-upside: The counter guys were trying out some chamomile tea for the drinks menu, and having no idea I’m one of those dreaded stealth-bloggers, they poured me a big hot mug of it for free, just for road-testing it. Ok, not quite as cool a buy-back at a bar, but I wasn’t complaining.

I’ll go back to eat through more of the menu. But for now, frankly, I’ll still be getting my quick-service Cubanos at Margon.  Spotted Pig if I have time to wait and want a cheffed-up $17 version, and Cafe Habana only in a pinch—but Margon, no question, if I’m anywhere near midtown at lunchtime.

Still, Carteles gets serious style points: vintage comic strips on the walls, a counter that brings to mind a 50s soda shop or a spiffed-up Cuban cafe in Miami, and a sunny blue-and-yellow scheme that obliterates the winter blues.

East Side Social Club is the rare East 50s spot that would make me go out of my way—not just for the Italian-American comfort food, which is ably, if not 100% consistently, pulled off by chef Devon Gilroy (owner Billy Gilroy’s son and an alum of A Voce). But for the vibe too. Rollicking, Rat-Packy, and seemingly—emphasis on seemingly—unprecious. Definitely something the neighborhood needs more of. But, and here’s the rub, it’s a pain in the butt to get into. A friend who conveniently happened to be a regular at Raoul’s and Employees Only (the East Side Social Club group’s alma maters) made reservations for a table of five last night. That turned out to be crucial, since one of the guys in our group would’ve gotten bounced at the door without it. Not sure what’s up with the nightclub-bouncer-at-a-restaurant situation, and it’s not exactly a models/hipsters scene in there.  Nonetheless.

A pasta special of straccetti with lamb ragu, mint, and sheep’s milk ricotta was a fetching mix of meaty/minty/tangy, and a dish I’d definitely come back for. Cocktailwise, the fierce Snake Eyes (Flor de Cana extra-dry rum, ginger liqueur, lime juice, Campari) went down like a box of Sweet Tarts, and so seemed just right for a night of kicking back and watching: to see who was there (no celebs spotted last night) and to plot my gate-crashing strategy next time I’m up around East 51st.

A little while back I wrote about the manakeesh—hot, tangy, zaatar-topped pies—at Gazala Place in Hell’s Kitchen and at Bread and Olive in Midtown. Manakeesh are still a bit too hard to find in NYC, but signs of improvement are trickling in: Last night at the new East Village Lebanese restaurant Balade’s opening party, Beirut-born owners Roland Semaan and Joseph Said served small versions of the pies, fresh out of the oven and slathered in zaatar. (In all honesty, I thought the manakeesh last night were a little too crisp and crunchy when they should be moist and doughy, but for now I’d chalk that up to the mass quantities the kitchen had to churn out for the party.) What I loved most: the strips of chargrilled lamb and pinenuts served over a mound of buttery rice; and the laid-back, warmly lit, narrow brick-and-wood dining room.

I left with the best party favor in recent memory: a jar of Balade’s signature zaatar—made by blending sesame seeds with dried wild thyme and sumac. NB: To make easy at-home manakeesh, you can buy zaatar at places like Kalustyan’s and Sahadi’s; then drizzle some olive oil into a couple of tablespoons of the zaatar, until the mixture is thick but still runny; then smear it over the top of an English muffin half and toast it up. Better yet: Serve it with a dollop of labneh (strained yogurt) on top.

I’m looking forward to checking out Balade on a regular, non-party night; am very happy to finally see more Lebanese restaurants opening up in Manhattan.

On that note, Philippe Massoud, chef at the terrific three-year-old Ilili, is spearheading the Dine Out for Haiti campaign to get restaurants to contribute to the Haiti relief effort. On January 24 and 25, NYC restaurants including Ilili, Aldea, Bar Breton, Lupa, Fatty Crab, and about a dozen others will contribute at least 10 percent of their proceeds to Haiti relief organizations. A full list of participating restaurants, and more info, here.