quick weekend trip review

[woofer]

former jersey girl finally visits the city after a six year hiatus. great time and great eats.

friday lunch: katz's. long been my favorite. the sandwiches don't seem to be as big as they used to be but they ARE good. especially for someone who has been suffering on los angeles deli. i don't remember the rye being so soft, almost flimsy. the meat though (pastrami) was just perfection.

friday dinner: crispo. loved this place. sat in the back enclosed garden room. just a beautiful room with a warm atmosphere. great service and most importantly, delicious food. everything was spot on and reasonably priced.

sat. brunch: freeman's. loved this place tucked away in a an alley. it has such a wonderful historic feel and food was great. even though we were having breakfast, my friend said we had to have the artichoke dip and she was right. totally addictive.

sat. dinner: peter luger. i had never been here all my years living on the east coast. glad i did go this weekend. it was nice to have the whole luger's experience and we lucked out with a great waiter, but for my money i would stick with the old homestead. just not MY pick for best steak. do love their steak sauce. gonna buy some online.

sun. brunch.: the smith. the place is bustling. probably some of the best cheese grits i've had outside charleston, sc. they give you a free cocktail with brucnh but they were lame.

snacks: levain bakery cookies. we saw this place on food network booby flay throwdown. they were over the top but in a good way. we got one of each of their signature cookies.

jaques torres frozen hot chocolate: spicy and decandent.

ray's chocolate egg cream. perfect.

yonah schimmel: kasha kinish. they were always my favorites but it seemed a little bland and was a little let down.

[RGR]

woofer,

Thanks for the report. Sounds as though you did a few stops on my (in)famous self-guided LES noshing tour. :-)

I, too, find the rye bread at Katz's so flimsy that it is not capable of withstanding the juicy pastrami and always ends up pretty much disintegrating.

While Yonah Schimmel's is a LES insitutution, the problem is the knishes are hit and miss. Get a good one, and it makes going there totally worth it; a bad one, not so much.

Glad you liked the egg cream at Ray's. Next time, try the one at Gem Spa.

[woofer]

thanks rgr. i did take a tip from your post. really helpful.

[thew]

i guess i'm very unlucky then. my batting average at yonah schimmel is .000

[bobjbkln]

For as long as I have been eating at Katz's (60 years-ouch!) the Rye bread has sucked. I don't understand why people don't get their pastrami on Club. Yes, it's rather chewy, but it certainly holds up a lot better to the meat.

[RGR]

For me, club bread is the opposite of the too-flimsy rye, i.e., too bread-y. Since it's all about the pastrami anyway, I'd rather just eat the meat off the plate.

[woofer]

i just realized i spelled bobby flay's name as booby.

[Pan]

Yeah, I noticed that and briefly wondered if that had been intentional. :-)

[Pan]

Yeah, I used to like Yonah Schimmel in the early 70s - not sure whether that was because I was a little kid or whether they were actually better then.

You did well on your trip. Thanks for giving us the rundown, and enjoy all that great Mexican, East and Southeast Asian, and California-style food in LA!