I used to live on the corner of E 3rd St and Avenue A, and I loved the neighborhood. This was before this blog existed, but I still was excited about the many food options available to me: Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches, Mama’s, and a 24-hour Key Food, among others. I was not, however, aware of the existence of Perbacco, an Italian restaurant that blends tradition and the avant-garde. Lucky for me my friends Jess & Garrett knew about it, and the three of us met there for dinner last week. Lucky for you also, because their photos came out much better than mine (click the link to their blog if you don’t believe me).

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Sometimes you get so caught up in going to the newest, hippest, most happening restaurants in town — What’s got great buzz? What’s been reviewed recently? What’s the newest trend? — that you forget that there are plenty of restaurants that have been around for a while. It takes a visit to a real veteran restaurant to make you realize what it takes to run a successful restaurant in New York City. At a recent dinner at Po (after a few drinks at Vol de Nuit) with my friends Jeff & Eva, we had just such a revelation.

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I have seen photos of how the citizens of Cincinnati eat their chili. I have seen it on the Anthony Bourdain show and I have had friends described it to me when they went to Cincinnati for a long weekend but it wasn’t until last Monday that I finally came face-to-face with it.

Every last Monday of each month, Edward’s in Tribeca does a Cincinnati Night where you’ll get to eat some of the popular Cincinnati food items. Of course the one thing everybody goes for is chili from Skyline Chili. Chili from Cincinnati isn’t as thick as regular chili and they add cocoa powder into it to give it a bit of sweetness. Besides Skyline you can also get ribs from Montgomery Inn, pizza from Larosa and ice cream from Graeter’s.

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2009 isn’t just about the food truck craze, it’s also about eating organic and buying locally. Farmer’s market are sprouting everywhere now, even on a small parking lot behind a bar, the Dresden Bar to be exact. On Sundays, the Gastrobus parks at the Los Feliz Village Farmer’s Market. The menu changes according to whatever Antonio can find at the farmer’s market. What this ensure is the superb quality of the food and also challenges the chef on the spot.
While trying to find the Dresden Bar, I wished I had an iPhone. My Blackberry wasn’t much help. Finally after circling around I saw a sign that said farmer’s market behind Dresden Bar so I knew I was close. I parked and realized I parked a bit far from the place. I had to call my friend, who was already there, for directions. I arrived finally and it was time to get some food!
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So I love burgers but I also love anything Japanese. As some of you may know I like to decorate many food items with Japanese mayo and nori flakes, french fries, bacon wrapped dog and even scrambled eggs. So I was super excited when I first heard about Marked5. Combining Japanese flavors with burgers, gimme gimme. While going through their website and tweets, I found that sometimes they offer special sandwiches. Lucky for me, on the day that I went to Marked5 they had both their specials, a salmon burger with wasabi sauce and a spam and egg sandwich. Tran, from Marked5, was nice to enough to chat with us and explained the menu to us. I wanted to try everything because I wanted to, well you know for research. I ordered the torakku beef, katsu pork and the special spam and egg.
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Let’s Be Frank was much easier to locate since it’s not a truck it’s a trailer, which means it doesn’t really go anywhere. It was situated inside a plaza right across from Father’s Office, a pretty popular restaurant. Since they’re not a truck, they don’t get the same problems as food trucks do. But it’s street food nonetheless. Just when I arrived, my friends called me to tell me that they were standing in front of the Marked5 in Eagle Rock. I was still so far away from Eagle Rock but I told them I’ll try and get there soon. So we basically had to get the hot dogs and hopped back into the car.
When we got to the window, there was only 1 other person in front of us. There were few other people sitting on the benches eating their dogs already. Let’s Be Frank uses grass-fed beef hot dogs. I’m not quite sure what that does to the taste of the hot dogs though. When it was our turn to order, I went for the frank dog topped with sauteed onions.
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