What started out as a botched morning turned into the best one of the week. I was planning to meet a friend for breakfast at Joseph Leonard, but she called at the last minute unable to get out of bed (sounded sick, but I hope her real reasons were more scintillating). I needed to be [...]

Tortas at Xoco

A supernaturally gorgeous week in NYC, and where was I? In Chicago. But it was outrageously sunny and springy there too, totally unseasonal and not at all what I’d envisioned in my midwestern-winter-fearing wimpiness. In lieu of the usual news and notes on NYC restaurants, I offer here a quick rundown of [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]