e a t e r y R O W

VAN LEEUWEN ICE CREAM
corner of 23rd Street and 5th Avenue
Flatiron Building
New York, NY

For most New Yorkers who grew up here between the steel and brick canyons that is New York City, there's only one ice cream truck worth mentioning: the Mr. Softee truck (Good Humor used carts). Yes Mr. Softee. It was a simpler time. You got either chocolate or vanilla or a swirl. There were umpteen toppings but everyone ordered sprinkles. These days, New York is somewhat more refined. Sure, Mr. Softee's still around, in fact, they even expanded into China (finally, we exported something), but our palate has evolved, and the ice cream truck is no exception. Enter, the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream truck.

I discovered Van Leeuwen purely by accident after picking up the pizza for my Pizza 33 review. I had questioned whether I wanted to add more calories to my already body-conscious self, but "screw it" I said, and got in line behind that woman in black with the red bag. "Pizza and ice cream?" the girl inside asked with a beaming smile when I got to the window. "Going to a party?" Oh, if only.

As you can see from the menu, Van Leeuwen has quite a selection of high end ice cream standards as well as rare if not unique flavors of its own. Vanilla, chocolate and pistachio on the one hand, Earl Grey tea, Currant & Cream and Ginger on the other. I ordered two small cups: Earl Grey Tea (described as "rich black tea from antique tea trees with bergomot citrus") and Gianduja ("Michel Cluizel chocolate blended with Tonda La Gentile hazelnuts"). Sickeningly good ice creams. They were so soft, so rich, so creamy, so flavorful that I was actually in shock. I was honestly expecting generic ice cream with a fancy name, but there's so much more here than a marketing gimmick. The Earl Grey tea ice cream tasted like rich, creamy earl grey tea with all the citrus and smoke that one would find if they brewed up a cup themselves and got a wizard to wave a wand over it until it became cold and relatively solid. The gianduja was likewise fantastic. The chocolate ice cream was rich, but not heavy and underscored with a light, but noticeable hazelnut background. It was like eating two ice creams folded into one, each balancing the other in a perfectly even, almost un-noticeable way. I'd have ordered more if the pizza hadn't been getting cold.

TWO BOOTS
201 W. 11th Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 633-9096

PIZZA 33
489 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10016
(212) 545-9191

Is there a micro-chain pizza war brewing in Manhattan? No. But I remember dating this girl a few years back who, upon learning I was a huge foodie insisted that she take me to get the best pizza she'd ever had. Pizza 33. Then I went out with someone else who insisted that Two Boots was simply the most amazing thing ever cut into eight equisized pieces. Both are known for having pretty wacky slices, both charge about $4 a slice, both are pretty popular (with Two Boots expanding beyond Manhattan into Connecticut, LA, and even distant exotic Brooklyn) and both are where people like me stop at 2am on the way to the subway.

Two Boots is the hipster of the micro-chains. Its walls are covered in bright colors, its signage is pop-arty, its pizzas are named after pop-culture characters like Newman from Seinfeld and The Dude from The Big Lebowski. When Seth was last here, before hooching it up at Little Branch, we decided to eat on the cheap at Two Boots, a few blocks away. We split five different slices.

The Mild: marinara and mozzarella. This is their standard slice. It had too crispy crust and oily cheese. The marinara was sweet, but they love their oregano. It's drenched in herbs. In fact, when I mentioned going here to Speeds, her immediate unprompted response was "they over-spice their sauce." And they do.

The Dude: with ground beef, cajun spices, cheddar, mozzarella , tasso, andouille, they describe it as their bacon cheeseburger pie. This was a very oily pie and heavy heavy heavy on the Cajun seasoning. You'll like it if bacon cheeseburger gumbo is your cup of tea or if you're a huge fan of The Big Lebowski and can overlook the fact that the movie took place in LA and not New Orleans.

The Mr. Pink: marinated chicken, plum tomatoes, garlic and mozzarella. For starters, the marinated chicken was way too dry and the garlic was... missing. Furthermore, the chicken marinade was so strong, that it almost completely overpowered anything else you could taste.

The Mel Cooley: a white pie with pesto, sundried tomato, ricotta and roast pepper. Of the specialty slices, this was easily the best. The vegetables worked well together, it wasn't buried in quasi-culinary pretension and it was just pleasant to bite into. It was comfortable. With The Dude and Mr. Pink, it almost felt like the pizza was arguing with you.

The Sicilian: spicy sauce, mozzarella, thick crust. This was far better than their regular "mild" slice. It used the same over-spiced sauce, but the cheese was heavier and the thick crust made it less like biting into a cracker.

So five slices. Five ultimately mediocre slices. That's the thing. The pizza simply wasn't that good. It's not like we were spitting it out, but given the hype, given the expansion the chain's seen, it just wasn't that good. They played with the sauce too much, the cheese felt cheap and, while I didn't care much, Seth felt that the crust was somewhat... poor.

Prior to my writing this post, the most recent time I'd been to Pizza 33 was about six months ago. It was late, I was desperate for food and they were open. There wasn't much left so I ordered something triangular and cheesy. When the guy told me that I had to pay over $5 for a single slice, I nearly laughed in his face. "Seriously?" I said. "Is it made with gold?" And yes, I bought the goddamn pizza. And no, no gold.

Well, maybe there was a night surcharge, because when I returned to write this up, the slices weren't quite that high, though I do think that almost $4 for a pepperoni slice is absurd. Where Pizza 33 differs from Two Boots is easy. Pizza 33 sells pizza. Two Boots sells "pizza".

Plain: This is what normal good ol' New York pizza is. Good crust, good sauce, good cheese. It's thoroughly unmemorable, but it does it's job well.

Pepperoni: This is what normal good ol' New York pepperoni pizza is. Good crust, good sauce, good cheese. It's thoroughly unmemorable, but it does it's job well. Wait. Did I just say that?

Sicilian: Unlike the Two Boots Sicilian slice, this Sicilian was the worst of the bunch I ordered. The crust was thick, but overcooked and too crispy. Both the sauce and the cheese was too thin, leaving you with basically a pizza-flavored biscotti.

Margarita: Very good. Sweet sauce, nice clumps of cheese, crisp but not cracker-like crust. My only complaint regards the basil leaves, which had been dried to a crisp.

Penne Pasta: Good, but standard penne pizza. What else is there to say?

Zucchini, Broccoli and Mushroom: Maybe the best of the slices, if only because it had more imagination than any of them. Having lots of zucchini, lots of mushroom, and lots of broccoli is good because it means lots of roughage... which you'll need after that much white-flour dough and cheese.

Pizza 33 isn't fancy and doesn't pretend to be. Okay, maybe it pretends a little. But at the end of the day, it's regular pizza. No one can really differentiate Pizza 33 from some local no-namer without marketing. Maybe this is why Two Boots will always win, at least in the hearts and minds and wallets of NYC. See, Pizza 33 doesn't do anything different at all. It doesn't try. At least Two Boots goes out of its way to be different. Sure, the pizza they sell really isn't very good. But it sure ain't boring either. Pizza 33 was good in that it wasn't bad. But there is simply no reason to go out of your way to eat there over any other, closer pizza joint.

Unless they start selling gold-topped pizza after all.

LITTLE BRANCH
22 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10014
(212) 929-4360

Little Branch is the little sister of the far more famous, far more exclusive, and far more hyped Milk & Honey. Little sister status aside, at being solidly twice the size of White Star, twice the size of Dutch Kills, and three times the size of the aforementioned Milk & Honey, Little Branch is the biggest of the Sasha Petraske cocktail lounges. That still doesn't mean it's big though.

Little Branch carries on the tradition of hiding from the malingering crowd, sheltered away behind an innocuous door under an apartment building in the West Village. When it opens at 7pm, you and your fellow imbibers-in-wait cross the threshold to descend a steep staircase into the bowels of the building. Little Branch has that distinct cocktail lounge smell of wood and leather, orange bitters and gin and, tucked darkly away under the sidewalk, and close enough to the subway lines to feel the trains massage you as they pass, it's immediately relaxing. You can't help but take the first few seconds in your seat just absorbing the aura, even if you've been here a dozen times.

Anyone who's ever been clubbing or gone to a trendy TriBeCa hotel bar has already been exposed the joy of shelling out $15 for a simple, bottom-shelf GnT made by a guy whose only exposure to mixing drinks comes from popping open a can of Red Bull and ruining a perfectly good glass of Grey Goose with it. And so, when my college friend, Seth, was in town recently, I decided to introduce him to the world of the (admittedly expensive) quality cocktail, in contrast to the aforementioned clud drink du jour piece o' shyte.

Little Branch offers everyone the "Bartender's Choice". The hostess made sure to explain that if we weren't sure what we wanted but knew what we wanted the drink to feel like (citrusy or sweet or minty or mild or classic or...), then the bartender could crank out something to fit that craving. It didn't have to be on the menu. But we went with menus anyway. Ostensibly, this was so I could write down the ingredients for you. And I did. But then I lost my notes. Bollocks!

Seth started off with a one of the classics of classics, the Mint Julep, a southern invention mixed from Bourbon, sugar, muddled mint leaves and a refrigerator's worth of crushed ice. "Damn" he said taking a breath after the first sip. "I drink too much of this and I'll be lucky to be able stand up and walk out of here. No wonder the south hasn't risen again." It was strong, lightly sweet and mostly bourbon. My drink, the one not in the metal cup above, was also a nice, classic whiskey cocktail, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Damn lost notes. Round two: We got sweeter drinks this time. Seth got the Stone Fence, a simple combination of Applejack (apple brandy) and hard apple cider. The drink's sweet and fruity, without an overwhelming apple flavor. If you want an appletini, go to Fridays. You won't get it here. I chose the Butterflies Cocktail, gin, grenadine, lime and applejack, which was far sweeter than Seth's, thanks to the grenadine, but not such that you'd get wired from the sugar. Neither of these drinks were nearly as strong as the drinks we ordered for round one.

Little Branch is one of my absolutely favorite places to get a high end cocktail. It's classy but not pretentious and, with its varietous menu (there's also a beer list, wine list, and hot drink list) there's something for just about everyone. Although, unlike Death & Company, there is no food. They do have live jazz at 10pm on weekdays, however.

Drinks are $13 each, plus tip. Cash only. No reservations.

1314 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn, NY 11226
(718) 940-8188

Flinker Fairy's roots recently took hold in a one-bedroom walkup in Ditmas Park, two blocks away from where she had been rootlessly living two weeks ago. And so, with the smell of fresh paint in the air, Ikea dust peppered across the floor like flour and glasses of cheap Irish whiskey in our hands, we sat on the sofa that literally had to be sawed in half to get through the door and debated dinner plans.

"You want possibly really good French? Or a Filipino place I can guarantee is good?" I thought, took a sip of my whiskey, rolled it on my tongue, and said, well you haven't steered me wrong yet babe. And this time, I brought a camera. Purple Yam, as FF promised, was fantastic. It's interior is simple, and borders just this side of boring. The exposed brick saves it. But you're not going to hop on an F train just to stair at a wall... unless that's your thing, I guess. No, we turned our attention away from the walls and the floors and focused our energies on food and its consumption therein.

FF ordered the Korean Meatballs, basically a small meatball hero with kimchi. She thought it was fantastic, and it wasn't bad. But I won't lie, it was a meatball sub, and I'll always swear allegiance to the cheapo footlong meatball sub I get at subway, coated in mozzarella and drenched in sauce. However, my appetizer, the Duck Leg Betutu with Taro Leaves, served beside some baby bok choy and under a coconut peanut sauce on top of a banana leaf, was insanely good. Give me three of these, call it dinner, and I'd be in heaven. The duck wasn't crispy-skinned, but it also wasn't fatty. The sauce was fantastic. The meat was eat-with-a-spoon tender, and the bok choy was... well it was steamed bok choy, but I love bok choi.

We shared our dinners, but FF and I ordered different dishes. FF's entree, the Goat Curry came with fried plantains and rice/scallion pancakes. The plantains, great. The curry, beyond great. Seriously the curry was amazing. My only, and I mean only, complaint about the curry was its size. They dole out a miniscule portion. The pancakes were mediocre. They were sort of tasteless, soggy and doughy. In theory you were supposed to wrap the curry and a plantain in the curry like a taco, but I didn't bother. I let FF indulge in the doughyness and I ate my half of the curry straight up. I ordered the Oxtail Kare Kare with Bagoong, an oxtail stew in a peanut broth. Oxtail is a pretty bony meat, so once you de-boned it, you were left with a stew that was heavy on the veggies, but unless you have some aversion to non-potato vegetables (in which case may I recommend the dining establishments of Cracker Barrel and Denny's) this shouldn't bother you. The meat accompanied the dish. It didn't own it. So, having de-boned my oxtail, I was left with yet another fantasticredible plate of food. I'd recommend both of these dishes here in a heartbeat.

Even though the curry was somewhat small, we were pretty stuffed. Still, the menu's Strawberry Rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream was daring us to indulge, so we did with coffee and gusto. The pie was also amazing.

I returned with Bro to White Star the other day, got there before they even opened, got served anyway, and left feeling pretty damn good.

MAD FOR CHICKEN
157-18 Northern Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 321-3818

Bro and I both had off for Passover, so we used the opportunity to shoot over to Flushing for lunch at a Korean wing place that's been on my radar ever since winter. We've never been the most Kosher of New Yorkers. I tell you, Koreatown in Manhattan has nothing on Flushing for sheer volume of Korean restaurants.

Mad For Chicken is nothing if not tacky. The garish interior with its brick-a-brak laden walls, high-backed leatherette vinyl chairs and flat-screen televisions at every table that alternate a display of fine art (Van Gogh, Klimt) and food you can order from the menu. The menu, which is paper, graphically intense and takes as much physical space on the table as a newspaper, touts the health values of their organic chicken. It's low in calories, high in protein, and high in nutrients. Also, they skin their chicken, so it's low fat too! Of course, then they deep fry these suckers... so... Plus the music is just awful. I never thought anyone would make, let alone dare to play for public consumption, technopop muzak. It was garish, but at least I was able to distract myself by watching the menu on TV...

Okay, so the roll-your-eyes factor is high. The food was very very good. Mad For Chicken clearly wants to tout its ability to make a good chicken wing, but the menu is actually rather diverse. Wings aside, they also have salads, rice dishes, noodle dishes and Korean entrees like Nak Gee (stir fried octopus). We started with Fried Dumplings, which we ordered spicy (and which came spicy, even by my standards). The menu doesn't say what was in them (I'm guessing vegetables and pork), but they were crispy and great. When I say crispy, I mean almost like with a cracker shell, but still malleable.

Bro and I came, of course, for the chicken. Interestingly, they only offer two flavors: Soy Garlic and Hot & Spicy. For an additional buck twenty five you can choose from their half dozen dipping sauces. We skipped them though when we ordered the Mad Combo for Two, which we got half soy garlic and half hot and spicy. It was, in a word, amazing. Great goddamn wings. Crispy shelled, skinless, intensely moist. The batter isn't greasy and the sauce isn't gloppy like it was added at the last second as an afterthought. The spicy was hot, but not such that it shears off tastebuds leaving you panting for water and blue cheese. The real gem though was the soy garlic, which was flat out insanely good. Sweet with a bit of garlic tang. Watch out when you bite in. They're steamy hot inside that batter-fried shell. The only downside to these wings are the wait. 25 minutes. So get an appetizer and have a lot to talk about (or bring a Gameboy).

Bro and I didn't order any drinks, but you can get wine and sake, soda and tea, or beer, which they serve by cubic centimeter, up to 5000cc. Just for comparison, the motorcycle on my Christmas list that accelerates from zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds uses a 900cc engine.

One appetizer, one chicken combo for two people and two sodas cost $36 with tax and tip.

No delivery.