I am only going to say this once: Social Eatz is a terrible restaurant name. Nothing about it says “American-Asian” and everything about it says “Food-related mobile app” or “random sports bar.” At least to me.

But the food is good. I’ve seen a thousand of my friends check in on @foursquare and say how good the Bibimbap Burger is (mini version above) and I got some positive comments myself when it was my turn to check in. So people obviously like it. It probably helps that the chef was on Top Chef and is very nice to look at. Also, he appeared to be extremely friendly.

So let me back up. My dear friend Missy Kayko, who is awesome at living in NYC, won this photo and caption contest with Taste of Korea, a company promoting Korean food in New York. She was then invited to “Angelo Sosa goes Korean Party” at Social Eatz with a plus one and I was lucky enough to be it.

(Sidenote: I recently won a food-related item in a contest that I’m pretty sure I DID NOT ENTER. And Missy was my plus one for that. Ha.)

So we went to Social Eatz and tried some drinks featuring Soju (a Korean liquor similar to vodka) and those were delicious. We also got to try some sweet and spicy tomato soup, some meatballs, some pork belly, and of course the mini Bibimbap Burger above. It’s ground beef with a slow cooked egg, lettuce and pickled carrot and cucumber. It’s good. I think I had one or five.

The best part of the event though was they blew up Missy’s winning picture and gave it to her to take home. And the picture was of herself. So there I was standing in this restaurant holding an almost life-size picture of my friend while I was standing next to her in the flesh, too. I also took it upon myself to make the Missy picture “dance” to the music that was playing and then get a picture of Missy feeding a meatball to herself in photograph form. It was hysterical. To us anyway.

So thanks, Missy for taking me to Social Eatz and letting me dance with the picture of you!

Ha. This event was like a month ago and I never got around to writing about it but I’m glad I did now.

I apologize, but you’re going to gain one hundred pounds just reading this entry. To justify myself, this was the only meal I went out for this past weekend. So I might as well make it count, right?

5 Napkin Burger has for some reason been on my list of restaurants to try for awhile. It reminded me a LOT of BLT Burger, but they had their milkshakes listed on the dessert menu only, which I thought was a big mistake because I would have had a shake WITH my burger (split with KP, of course). Speaking of – we split this mac and their 5 Napkin burger that comes with melty cheese and onions. I’m sparing you the picture, actually.

SO the mac and cheese was good, if a bit on the soupy side (get your act together, NYC restaurants!) It had a bit of an alfredo flavor, not gonna lie. But I love macaroni and cheese made with shell noodles, probably cause my mom makes this awesome pasta dish with elbow noodles that I love.

AND since it was the Upper West Side at approximately 4p.m. they must have assumed we were having dinner like the rest of the families with small children present, because they handed us a dessert menu and Chloe, KP, and I did not resist:

Chocolate brownie, espresso ice cream, salted peanuts. I told you I made it count.

The other thing I liked about 5 Napkin Burger is first, the walls are subway tiles, and secondly they had two really cool chalkboards covered in cartoons. You can sorta see in this picture:

So I would say go to 5 Napkin if you’re in the hood, but I think I still prefer BLT.

Also: today I’m eating a salad. Maybe.

If you’re a Michigan State Spartan, as I am, The Breslin means something very specific to you: basketball. But in New York City, it’s a newish restaurant in the Ace Hotel that everyone has been talking about. And so we meet the lamb burger.

Above is Nora who came to town for New Year’s Eve. We started with a seafood sausage which is whaaat seafood made into sausage. I don’t even remember all the seafood involved, definitely some lobster but it was phe-nom-e-nal. You must try it. Sounds strange, yes, but SO GOOD.

And here is the lamb burger which is so good it is now tied for favorite burger ever with The Spotted Pig. This burger is lamb (duh) and there’s a block of feta on it which is AWESOME. I always order my burgers plain, no cheese, but feta is the exception as feta can do no wrong. So there’s that.

For dessert we had the doughnuts which were warm and covered in sugar. The sauces were sea salt caramel (I think), maple, and something cranberry. The caramel was the best, naturally. While eating this I thought I really need to take my mom there.

So The Breslin is cute, it’s kind of decorated like the Spotted Pig now that I think about it. But the Ace Hotel is trendy, trendy and there’s usually a wait, ours was only 20 minutes on a Thursday night – so not too bad.

So yes, I would definitely recommend The Breslin to anyone – Spartan or not.

Also, a sidenote – I think it’s funny when people complain about limited menus. The Breslin doesn’t have a lot of entree options but I personally think that’s one of it’s strengths. What’s wrong with just focusing on some really great dishes and who needs a thousand choices anyway? So I dig it.

Another sidenote – my rent just went up crazy huge this week (16%!) so yay for that! I may have to resort to eating cereal for dinner a few nights a week because I am not ready to move out yet. Moving sucks! Am I right or am I right?

Dan’s not going to like this. He’s very particular about his photographs (as are many guys I know… hmm) but as he said, there’s not much he can do if I put a picture of him on my blog. Hehe. You people know what you’re getting into when you go out to dinner with me. Let’s be real.

So there is Dan and myself at The Spotted Pig, aka my new favorite restaurant! I’ve said this to a few people since dining there last week, and pretty much everyone’s reaction to me has been, “What?! You’ve never been there before?!” Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. I have not yet been to every single good restaurant in NYC. And I probably won’t!

But The Spotted Pig. It is cuuuuute. There’s a downstairs and an upstairs, and the upstairs has a bar too. We had to wait maybe 25 minutes so we had a drink upstairs by the bar before they found us and gave us a table downstairs. There are pictures everywhere and it just has so much character! I remember pointing out that they had strings of lights in the shape of pigs. Pigs! Who makes those!? Anyway, they are famous for not only being cool, but also for their fabulous burgers, which we both ordered.

And here is a picture of Dan’s cheeseburger with a flash (funny because he scoffed at me taking pictures originally and then was all, “Now, you’ve got to take a picture of THIS” when he looked at the inside of his burger).

Oh yeah, those fries are crazy too. HEAPS OF FRIES!

We also had devils on horseback which were figs with pear wrapped in bacon? I think? Delicious. And we also had the sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi with basil pesto which was CaRazy. Flavor!

The only thing I wasn’t as thrilled with was this:

Flourless chocolate cake. Now, I have tried many flourless chocolate cakes and I’ve never really understood why it matters if there is flour or not, but this wasn’t really like a cake at all. It was more of a slice of frosting/fudge if you can imagine. Extremely chocolatey and a good flavor, just not what I expected. For the record, Dan doesn’t really care about chocolate and he thought it was great. He wanted you to know that.

So there you have it. The Spotted Pig is the ISH and the service was impeccable and I would glady, glady return.

Hello. Do you miss me? I miss you.

There I am back at the Frying Pan. On one of the hottest days ever, September 1st. How about that. It was nice and cool being on the water, but when we left and walked for a few blocks to the nearest Pinkberry, we melted a little bit.

This time at the Frying Pan we got some food:

Um…. I was really looking forward to my burger (if you couldn’t tell from yesterday’s post) and it fell below par. Dry and bland. Definitely no Shake Shack and definitely no BLT Burger. Sad day.

But the Frying Pan is still a great, great spot. I have a feeling Kelly got better pictures than I did:

Gorgeous night.

Today my friend Leah comes to town and she’s never been to NYC before so it’s going to be all kinds of excitement. Not sure where we’re going to get dinner tonight, but I’m sure you’ll find out tomorrow. :)

Oh, BLT Burger, I miss you. Basically, I miss all the same restaurants I used to complain about that were sort of near Union Square and were available to me for lunch every week day for the past three years of my life. Now my office is in the middle of deadzville in Soho, and I wasn’t even aware there was a deadzville in Soho. I’ve started to actually bring my own lunch, which used to be a foreign concept to me.

Actually, there are some decent lunch spots nearby my new office, but I don’t exactly have an hour for leisurely lunch every day anymore, so I gotta make some changes.

ANYWAY, this was supposed to show how much I miss BLT Burger, and I do, because I used to go there with my girl Lisa when we could get away with taking lunch at the same time. And it was legit. Do you see that juicy burger in front of you? And those fries so plentiful, you can’t even get through five? And we haven’t even mentioned the best part!

Milkshakes! This was the mocha mudslide, O. M. G. Oreo cookies, O. M. G. coffee ice cream, and O. M. G. chocolate syrup. I am actually mad at myself for posting this picture right now because it looks so delicious because it is so delicious and I will never have it for lunch again in my life. Seriously, one time the only thing I had for lunch was that shake. Somebody has PROBlems! Oh and they make *spiked* milkshakes, too! DANGEROUS!

These photos are actually from my Union Square lunch days, which have passed unfortunately. And because I can’t remember for the life of me the last time I actually had a burger, I have a feeling that’s what tonight’s dinner will be. Especially since we’re going to the Frying Pan.

Toodles!

I have a new favorite restaurant. Isn’t that how I start a lot of these posts? Well, what can I say? Eating in NYC is nothing but impressive and fun all the time. Except not all of the time. 95% of the time. So here I bring you to my new favorite restaurant in Park Slope: Alchemy. I also bring you my sister, Alexandra, for the upteenth time, but that’s what happens when I have a visitor as fabulous as she. Plus I love her hair. So I’ll keep posting pictures of it.

Anyway, Alchemy. I went there for the first time last week with my friend Mara and had their amazing, amazing shells and cheese. Mara had the burger which was also fabulous since, like me, likes to share. We sat outside in this beautiful backyard and I had just charged my camera and somehow forgotten my memory card! Bummer!

So now you are getting indoor pictures instead, because it was hot as Hades. It was also brunch.

Yogurt, granola, and fruit for Val.

Eggs Bennie for me. And of course Alexandra had their brilliant burger. You know, I really like Park Slope. And I really like Alchemy.

Seeing as how, I am City Mitten… when I go to certain places, I make people do certain things. When I was in D.C. this past weekend, my one goal was to go to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, VA. There were a few grumbles from a few friends who wanted to keep napping (seriously) but I eventually got the clan together and forced our way over to Ray’s. I mean Obama ate there recently.

Here is a photo of two of my homeboys waiting in line to go inside Ray’s Hell Burger. The significance is this: Ray’s looks like absolutely nothing. I mean look at the sign, zero branding. This is a place you would just walk by if you hadn’t somehow heard of it or if you didn’t see the line. And you wait outside in line before they let you inside to wait in another line to place your order. But it works. Very efficient.

See inside: nothing much either. There is a fancy map to the right with push pins for where their guests are from. Once you order and pay, the cashier hands you a number card. In a few minutes, food runners come out shouting the numbers and you’d better respond fast cause they don’t have all day.

The burgers are huge:

I got mine Au Poivre, which I had no idea what that meant, but several @foursquare users recommended it and it was DANG GREAT and a little spicy! Kind of perfect! They have tons and tons of options, but I typically like my burgers old school: lettuce, tomato, pickle. And ketchup. That’s all you need, baby. Boy, were these burgers good. And juicy, which also means messy. Which also means I got burger juice everywhere. It somehow ended up on my left hip and my friend P was like, “Um, how did it get there?” because my hands had been above the table the whole time. Does that mean juice was dripping from my arm? Maybe? Does that sound disgusting? A little. Was it? Not at all.

Here’s P with his vanilla milkshake (and new tattoo, that you can sort of see on his wrist):

And here’s three more of my fabulous friends enjoying the fury of a Ray’s Hell Burger:

Now I know they were happy I got them out of bed.

Oh, I wanted to love you, Minetta Tavern, with your impossible reservations and your $26 hamburger. And you’re gorgeous. But I just don’t know if it’s meant to be. So let’s talk about it.

Minetta Tavern opened last year and has been all the rage. Everyone talks about the $26 Black Label Burger which is, yes, pricey, but this is New York and you can justify anything (It’s really good beef!). I’ve wanted it for 9 months. Tried to make a reservation a few times, but it never worked out until about three weeks ago when Kelly got us a reservation for 6 p.m. on a Thursday. 6 p.m. Like old people. But we’ll take it!

This is how light it was when we left dinner. Strange. Strange. Strange. It is summer. But it’s still strange.

Anyway, who wants to see this burger nonsense?

I was told to order mine medium rare. So I did. And now I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a medium rare burger in my life because I could NOT HANDLE IT. And I love my burgers juicy as can be. So I think I may be at fault there. And it was good. I think I was spoiled recently by having grass-fed burgers on an actual farm, because I was expecting/hoping to be blown away off my chair and it just wasn’t. I actually thought about how I’d rather be eating a burger at Paul’s. Yes I did. Or even the Shake Shack. The fries were delicious, that is true. The pickle, unfortunately, was sadness. Kelly and I think it kind of tasted like Tobasco. Sad. I could tell the beef was quality, but I think next time I should not listen to everyone and just get it medium. I also must report that I left some of the burger on my plate, uneaten. I’d say about three dollars worth. I just thought I was going to die, and not in the typical way that I use that phrase.

Now this was pretty good:

Chocolate souffle for two. I am sick of being served that tiniest baby size of chocolate cake at restaurants, so this was nice. Very warm and very gooey and we ordered a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side because how could you not? We liked this. But we’re still waiting for a restaurant to pry Diner out of our little hearts.

Missy and I made it back to DuMont! And she was actually able to stay this time! Fabulouso. I think DuMont is becoming one of my favorite restaurants in Brooklyn. I mean I LOVE their outdoor patio. So much fun. If I lived in Williamsburg, I would be there every weekend. And then some.

Here is the famous DuMont burger. People swear by it. It’s good, but I’m still partial to the Shake Shack and Paul’s. Mmm. I did enjoy that it came with a plethora of pickles. Hamburger dills already on the burger and regular dill slices on the side. Good to know DuMont respects the pickle. As you should.  I would probably recommend DuMont’s mac and cheese over their burger as I think it may be the best in NYC (or at least top three) but it’s not available on their brunch menu, which is when Missy and I went. They do give you these for brunch:

Mini donuts! They were warm, too! Cuteness.

Also I would highly recommend Missy’s sandwich:

There were artichokes and feta and that’s all you need to know.