I don’t have to tell you that it has been VERY cold in New York, especially mid-January. The heater was running pretty much any time I was home — my apartment doesn’t have the best insulation — but after seeing my power bill for January… I’m now wearing three layers. That said, I’m very happy that we had a proper snowstorm for the first time since 2021. One night I took the long way to the subway station so I could once again experience a magical trudge through a minor blizzard.
Here’s a report of some good things I ate and drank over the past couple months, mostly focused on January. On the cooking front, nothing too crazy going on, but this is the best time to be eating oysters and clams! I’m also starting research and development for my annual Oscars dinner. Shaping up to be a good one, but nowhere near as inspired as last year’s menu. (One could say the same for the Best Picture nominees themselves. Can’t believe it’s only been a week since noms were announced.)
And speaking of movies, if you’re looking for something to watch in a New York cinema this weekend, might I recommend two titles. I’ll publish a full consideration of both films tomorrow.
No Other Land, a powerful documentary made by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian activists about the systemic dismantling of a village in the West Bank. Its self-distributed theatrical run launches at the Film Forum this week; expands to other markets next weekend.
Film at Lincoln Center begins a monthlong retrospective of the great American documentarian Frederick Wiseman, and tonight you can see a new 4K restoration of The Store (1983), which chronicles the ongoings at the Neiman Marcus headquarters in Dallas.
Listening and Learning
If you wanna put some music on while you read this, my main artist discovery of the month was the amusingly named Asian Glow. It’s the stage name for “slack rocker” Shin Gyeongwon, whom I first heard on a live session on NTS Radio. Recommend if you dig a washed out, reverb-filled sound that’s kind of like Elliot Smith, if he was in a shoegaze band.
Also a big big fan of Ethel Cain’s ambient drone album Perverts but you can’t casually put that one on lol; to listen to it is to enter the realm of a horror movie.
Eating In
All Is Quiet on New Year’s Day
I have an “open house” tradition on the first day of the year, where anyone I know can come over and hang out. For good luck, I make a big pot of black eyed peas from the Rancho Gordo Bean Club. This year’s recipe was a Mediterranean/Ikarian stew, where the peas are braised with oranges, tomato, and anise. Although we’re a month into the new year, these peas can be eaten on any cold day.


Also served: an assortment of amazing Amish meats and cheeses that Ben brought straight from rural Pennsylvania, a loaf of my sourdough (as always), leftover cassoulet from Christmas, and a chocolate pecan pie brought by Snow. With 15 friends and family popping in throughout various parts of the day, it was a cozy (and boozy) way to ring in the new year.
Farmers Market Finds
Every few weeks I’ll trek up to the Union Square Farmers Market to drop off my food scraps1. Schlepping twenty pounds of frozen vegetable cuttings and lime husks is an easy excuse to shop at the city’s best far mar.
Winter is a tough time for eating seasonally, but here are three fun things you can get there now:
Water buffalo young manchego (Riverine Ranch) — not normally a cheese-snacking person but oh my god. It’s got that light yet kinda pungent flavor of buffalo cheeses, but with a bit of an edge thanks to a few months of aging.
Chestnut mushrooms (various vendors) — they look very cool and retains their crunch after cooking. Great when seared in ghee and placed in a grilled cheese.



Colorful potatoes (various vendors) — made pommes fondantes one night (seared then simmered in chicken stock) to go with some lion’s mane shrooms. Oh my days!
Eating Out
While I dined out very sparingly towards the end of last year, I picked things up a bit more this month. Fortunately, everywhere I went was really good! Two restaurants were new to me, three I had been to a long time ago, and there was one pop-up.
Note that all prices quoted throughout are “all-in,” so they include tax and tip!
Hamburger America
Reports of long lines at Hamburger America put me off for a while, but on two separate occasions, I popped in on a weekday afternoon and was immediately seated at the counter. This was the ideal experience, given the casual nature of the burger joint. I was in and out in thirty minutes, and a typical lunch will set you back $20.


On my first visit, I skipped the fried onion burger on the advice of Ryan Sutton and got the Classic Smash. It was great! I believe there’s a pretty low ceiling on cheeseburgers; they can only be so good. If I had to wait more than fifteen minutes to get into the restaurant, I’d be upset, but as a quick walk-in this was perfect. They don’t put ketchup in the burgers, which is certainly a point of view! Saw a lot of people squirt some onto every bite.
The fries are super tasty, with that perfect McDonald’s style texture. Every month, the restaurant does a burger special… but in December they offered a chili dog, which was excellent, and had a natural casing, which should be mandatory. (Remember when the Nathan’s at Coney Island would serve natural casing hot dogs? Another unfortunate COVID victim.)


January’s special was a New Mexican-style green chile cheeseburger. Have to say it was a disappointment. The diced, sautéed chiles were placed on top of the pattie post-smash, which were then covered with a slice of cheese. The result is a very soggy burger where the peppers were not well integrated into the sandwich, despite what seemed like a generous portion. A lot of the peppers spilled out of the sandwich (might have been because I ordered a double pattie), and the oddly mild spice levels meant that you could barely taste them. A five napkin burger is the opposite of my ideal sandwich experience!

My advice: stick with the Classic burger, or a hot dog. (I’ll try the fried onion burger next time around.) For vegetarians, I hear the grilled cheese is terrific. But I won’t order it because that’s something I often make at home. I once had a friend who would be vegan unless I was making grilled cheese. One time he came over and I didn’t have any sliced cheese in the fridge, so he went to the bodega to get some muenster. (Last I heard, he slipped back into vegetarianism.)
L’Artusi
The always popular West Village standby had been on my to-go list ever since I moved here. Never actually made it until now. (One of my buddies works for their sister bar, which made securing a reservation very easy.) Our group of five did an ad-hoc tasting of five pastas, accompanied by a flotilla of antipasti. Appetizer highlight: roasted mushrooms topped with a fried egg and shaved ricotta salata. Best of the pastas I sampled: the famous tagliatelle with bolognese bianco and bucatini nero with crab. Nothing beats fresh pasta! But the normal bucatini all'Amatriciana? I can make it better at home, especially because the restaurant used pancetta instead of the superior, unctuous guanciale.
Including two bottles of wine, a very big meal was $138 (we got some dishes comped so don’t trust that figure). Had a light Nerello Mascalese from Sicily and an excellent Aglianico del Vulture from the Basilicata region of Italy, a hearty, tannic wine to go with the hearty, fatty pasta.
Bé Bếp Pop-Up at Rhodora Wine Bar


For two nights, Phoebe Tran, the chef behind Bé Bếp (Baby Kitchen), took over the kitchen at cozy Fort Greene wine bar Rhodora. Definitely keeping an eye out for her next pop-up, because I loved this focus on lesser-known Vietnamese dishes. Particularly enjoyed a Xôi Chiên (fried sticky rice cake) topped with pan-fried oyster mushrooms and chives. Underneath the crispy rice cake was a wonderfully gelatinous maitake gravy. My other fave was Mực Nhồi Thịt, which is squid stuffed with pork and wood ear mushroom, cooked and sliced. Served with a delicious tomato sauce, fried basil leaves, and a glob of rice, it was fancy comfort food at its best.


Not as enamored with the Miến xào cua (Dungeness Crab Glass Noodles), which was beautifully presented with an entire crab on the plate. The presence of celery gave off the feeling of a New England fusion, but celery root would have been a better choice. But I’m not a trustworthy opinion here; I hate picking the meat out of crustaceans. Maybe this is a hot take but I go to restaurants so that someone will do it for me! (Goes without saying that you’ll never see me at The Boiling Crab.) I’m sure the dish itself was good, but I was over it after picking all the meat out of every nook and cranny of this stupid crab.
Herbal duck soup, scallop crudo, the xôi, squid, and crab noodles, split three ways, was $67. This being a wine bar, Eric and I split a bottle of an excellent skin-contact Xarel·lo — 2022 Celler La Salada 'La Bufarella' — for $51 apiece.
Falansai
I hadn’t been to this Bushwick restaurant in a couple years. I’d been twice before and always admired chef Eric Tran’s bold blend of Vietnamese and Mexican cuisines, though I found that his ambitions yielded an uneven dining experience. Third time’s the charm, though, because everything on this night was terrific. It was a good occasion, my brother was celebrating his birthday. The pre-fixe “Dac Biet” menu ($75) is a good way to go. Dad’s Egg Rolls are certainly better than what my dad could make (we bought them from the store), and the classic papaya-vermicelli salad was thoroughly dressed with nước chấm. For the mains, we had lemongrass beef skewers and honey-glazed pork shoulder, which weren’t particularly novel but perfectly executed.





We were thrown in a couple bonuses, and they give me reason to recommend the larger “Super Dac Biet” ($113) if you want to get more of the invigorating dishes. One was a crazy good chicken tamale, wrapped in banana leaf instead of corn husks, and served with a fiery salsa macha. The other was a littleneck clam and mushroom soup with some bok choy for fiber. It was quite salty on its own, as it’s meant to be eaten with rice.
No matter which menu you get, make sure you order the confit duck necks. That’s always been on the menu since I first went here in 2021, and rightfully so. Also a great way to make use of meat that usually just gets tossed into a stockpot.
Because it’s located very close to a church, Falansai has been unable to secure a full liquor license, but the wine offerings are very good, and pair well with the food.
Dhamaka


Had been here a couple times when they first opened up, but this was my first meal here since the menu flip in 2023. For the adventurous, the gurda kapoora is still available and same as I remember it: super spicy minced goat kidneys and testicles. The dining group — myself, Vickie, and Daniel — decided to be equally intrepid with the rest of our order, skipping past the surely comforting lamb shank biryani in favor of dishes we’d never had. Kolambi ani Kekda Bhaath, a prawn and crab pilaf, was incredibly tasty, as was the Dahi Waali Bhindi, a spicy okra curry. But the latter came with like… six pieces of okra. That’s $7 per okra.
My share of two large dishes, three appetizers, and a round of bread (no drinks) was $72, which is when I remembered why I hadn’t been here in years. That subway ride to Jackson Heights doesn’t seem so long anymore…
Nudibranch
Visited once before, when the Korean-Spanish restaurant offered a value-priced tasting menu and seemed to have Michelin aspirations. They had since made a pivot to a slightly more casual, small-plates joint. It reminded me a lot of two excellent upscale tapas bars in Barcelona, Bar But and La Mundana, that lace East Asian flavors into Spanish cuisine. But at Nudibranch, it’s a more balanced combination, and much more American (read: heavier and fattier).






While everything is offered à la carte, if you want a full meal they make it easy with a $83 per person prix-fixe that can include, depending on your choices, excellent fried frog legs, a refreshing celery salad topped with manchego, a tangy cornichon-laced steak tartare, and a sweet and sour ibérico pork collar. I was here with a party of six which allowed us to basically eat the entire menu, and I would suggest ordering the three-roe uni soba that comes with ikura and bottarga, plus the truly amazing cod with golden coconut curry.
The wine menu currently boasts a “Winter 2025 Bottle Special,” where your choice of five bottles can be had for $58, basically a steal in the era of pricey wine bars. Fitting with the concept, the wine list skews Iberian. Don’t count out the cocktails, either: the gilda martini and balsamic negroni had food-friendly acidic notes. I don’t see why you couldn’t pop in for a drink and a couple bites, but somewhat like Rosella, the full menu is good enough that you might as well make a meal of it.
Transit Museum Update
How it started:
Some things I wish I had done before turning 30: visit Asia (Vietnam and Japan specifically), go to the NY Transit Museum, seriously study French, listen more.
How it got going:
How it ended up:
I can’t believe I lived in New York for six years before going to the Transit Museum. It was fun to interact with history by walking through all the old train cars and laughing at the vintage ads. (I really think they should bring back the hand-painted aesthetic, I think people would pay more attention to them.) Thanks to Robin for texting me minutes after publishing that newsletter to get the ball rolling, and Eric & Diana for coming along with us!
(As for the other “wish I hads,” that Asia trip might be happening this year! Studying French and listening more, probably not.)
Drinking Up
Send My Paycheck to Astor Wine & Spirits
Astor had a 10% sale on gift cards at the end of the year so I got one valued at $500… and promptly spent all of it within the first two weeks of the month. They had a sale on all Languedoc/Provence/Rhône wines, then a week later, all natural/organic wines were discounted, so I could not resist buying 12+ bottles from each sale. (There was some liquor that needed restocking as well.) But at least I should be good on wine for the foreseeable future… it’ll all even out… right?
Bar Contra
Up until 2020, my favorite cocktail bar was Existing Conditions, which sadly did not survive the COVID pandemic. One of the owners of that bar was Dave Arnold, a legendary drink maker who helmed Booker & Dax and literally wrote the book on molecular mixology. The Lower East Side hotspot, a relaunch of the ever-popular restaurant Contra, lives up to the hype. I would give some notes about the drinks I had, but I left way too drunk to take proper notes. The Saltair will come with a Modelo sidecar if you ask for it. Dollar per alcohol unit, it’s the best deal on a drink menu that is sadly the new standard in Manhattan: $25 a pop. My friends and I also really loved the Purple Cab, a low-ABV wine cocktail that was so good we ordered several.
53AD
Empirical Spirits makes some of the most unclassifiable, most adventurous booze out there. The Danish company recently opened a production facility in Bushwick, with a corresponding cocktail bar to go along with it. I highly recommend paying a visit to 53AD, where the fancy yet approachable drinks are $20 and the Old Bay-spiced popcorn is free. Fave drinks: Aging Desire and Always Deceptive, which is way way way too crushable. (My hangover the next day can attest.)
Perhaps the most notorious thing made by Empirical is their Doritos Nacho Cheese spirit, which is vacuum distilled with the chips. It’s… not very good unless you shoot it absolutely quickly. But our bartender had been playing around with a Tommy’s Margarita that replaced the tequila with 1.5oz of Empirical Cilantro and .5oz of the Doritos drink. That was pretty good!!


Also really loved their Àta, a manioc distillate aged in Amazonian wood. Unfortunately, it’s a limited release and retail bottles were no longer available when I came back a second time.
December Grog Log
For all of 2024, I recorded the first alcoholic drink I had each day, if I had one. What I have learned is that I drink pretty much every day lol
Salvatore Marino Turi Rosso 2022 at Olivia’s
Nothing
Nothing
Saltair at Bar Contra
Some vodka cocktail at Insa
Donum Pinot Noir 2020 at Julia's
Apple cider, warm, spiked with bourbon at home
"Taurus" at Grand Army
Nothing
Nothing
Brooklyn Kura Occidental at home
"Flying Tiger" at Hart Bar
Fat Tire at The Trestle
Mulled wine at Dan's
Figenza fig vodka at Steven's
Nothing
Kubota Senju Sake at Sake Bar Hagi
Guinness at home
Bourgogne Blanc "Le Clos du Château", Domde Montille 2021 at home
Daiquiri at Sour Mouse
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Wild East Radiance Nitro ESB at DBA
Brooklyn Kura number 14 at home
Leftover mulled wine at home
Mulled wine at Cal's
Wild East Decadent and Depraved at Owl Farm
KCBC Morbid Hour at KCBC
Nothing
Cranberry Margarita at home
Wet January Grog Log
I continued my “Wet January” tradition where I have at least one drink every day. (If I was 22 years old, I’d consider upping the ante and getting buzzed every single day too.) The ten days where I normally would not have consumed alcohol are italicized, which is in line with normal months.
Paper Plane at home
Brooklyn brewery brown ale at home
Bubbles at L'Artusi
Tommy's Margarita at home
Red Stripe at Dan's
Vinho Verde, Broadbent at home
Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc 2023 at Olivia's
Vinho Verde, Broadbent at home
Celler la Salada, La Bufarrella 2022 at Rhodora Wine Bar
Leon Manbach, Auxerrois 2023 at Olivia's
Fifth Hammer - Artifact Engine Schwarzbier at Fifth Hammer
Foxglove Chardonnay 2019 at home
Day old Barbera, Fratelli Arditi 2023 at home
IJwit - Brouwerij'tIJ at home
Old Pal at home
2022 Mas Gomà L'Alba al Turó Blanc at Falansai
"Avanti Popolo", Le Temps des Cerises at home
"Premiers Pas" Vin de France, Dom. des Deux Ânes 2022 at home
Left Hand Milk Stout at The Stand
Trebbiano Spoletino "Farandola", Di Filippo 2022 at Olivia's
Rye & Sons Whiskey at home
Tripel d'Anvers at home
Snake Bite at Orion Bar
Enzoni cocktail at home
Constantina Sotelo "Porco Bravo" Albariño 2021 at Nudibranch
Florèz Kind of Orange Viognier at Catina's
Brooklyn Kura Grand Prairie, at home
Couple Goals, Sebastien David 2022, at home
A shot of Luzhou Laojiao at Aeron and Erika's
Zatte, Brouwerij 't lJ, Belgian Tripel at home
Tuber Negroni at home
Don’t get me started on the shortcomings of the citywide compost program and the Eric Adams defunding of Big Reuse.