Boston vs. New York Food Super Bowl: Breaking It Down Food by Food
Wow, it turns out that people are as passionate about their local food as they are about their sports teams. There were many claims and counterclaims being made by Boston and New York food advocates on yesterday's post, so I thought it might clarify things if I broke down the comparison food group by food group, much the same way newspapers, magazines, sports radio shows, and talking heads on television break down a football team: offensive line vs. offensive line, linebackers vs. linebackers, quarterback vs. quarterback, coach vs coach, and so on.
But for our purposes today, we are going to compare the quality of the two cities' three major food groups: sandwiches, pizza, and ice cream. Let's see how the cities fare when we break down their food cultures in this organized, vaguely scientific fashion. One methodology note: I am limiting my Giants purview to the five boroughs of New York City: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Staten Island. I am limiting my Patriots purview to Boston and its immediate surrounding areas, including Cambridge, Walpole, Arlington, Newton, and even Ipswich. If I extend the Giant food area to New Jersey and southern Connecticut, it gets too unwieldy and complicated. Ditto for the Patriot area if I extend it to all of New England.
Sandwiches
New York has amazing Italian sandwiches (Salumeria Biellese, Alidoro, Leo's Latticini), terrific Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi), and incomparable pastrami sandwiches from the likes of Katz's, Second Avenue Deli, and Ben's Best in Queens.
Boston has solid roast beef sandwiches from Kelly's, great sandwiches at Chris Schlesinger's All-Star Sandwich Bar, and excellent lobster rolls (both hot and cold) and fried clam rolls. But Boston delis have been known to spell pastrami with two 'o's, like this: postromi. I have seen this with my own eyes, and this, my friends, is just plain wrong.
Edge: New York (but it's a lot closer than most New Yorkers think)
Pizza
New York is home to superb pizza of every variety imaginable: coal-fired brick oven pizza from Totonno's, paradigmatic slices made with buffalo mozzarella and grana padana from Di Fara, cloud-light Neapolitan-style pizza at Una Pizza Napoletana which is better than any pizza I've had in Naples, and the best clam pizza in the land at Franny's in Brooklyn.
Boston is home to Todd English's fine designer pies at Figs, thick-crusted old-school pizza at Santarpio's, very cheesy slices at Pizzeria Regina's, overrated designer pies at Emma's, and solid Neapolitan pies at Picco Pizza and Ice Cream.
Edge: New York
Ice Cream
New York is home to Il Laboratio Gelato, Ciao Bella, Otto's extraordinary gelato, Shake Shack frozen custard, and is the ancestral home of Haagen Dazs.
Boston is the home of Toscanini's (which I hope is only temporarily closed in a taxation dispute with the state), Christina's, Brigham's, and Herrell's. It is the ancestral home of Steve's (where mix-ins were popularized) and I will make an exception to my Boston surrounding area limitation to include Ben & Jerry's.
Edge: Boston (but it's a lot closer than Bostonians might think)
Standings after one day
New York: 2-1
Boston: 1-2
In the following days we will compare other equally important food groups: bread. barbecue, hot dogs, hamburgers, and soup. Stay tuned.
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19 Comments:
Beg to differ on your proclamation on Emma's pizza in Cambridge, MA. IMHO, excellent cutting edge pizza...love their house smoked bacon topping!
CambridgeFoodie at 10:10AM on 01/22/08
Yeah, I'm with CambridgeFoodie. Emma's is consistently terrific.
And I'd like to suggest, although it's going to get me killed, that the sheer quantity of bad pizza in New York should count against it, a little. The overall win still goes to New York, but they get a wag of the finger.
Lauren Krueger at 11:36AM on 01/22/08
It's too bad, at least as far as sandwiches go, you aren't including the whole of New England. Then you'd have to include Big G's of Winslow, Maine. And then New England would win.
Amandarama at 11:50AM on 01/22/08
No such thing as bad pizza in New York, Lauren ;-)
DanielJ at 12:29PM on 01/22/08
There is no contest on ice cream, and you didn't even mention the best ice cream in the Boston area - Meletharb's in Wakefield, MA (only about 10 miles north).
And bad spellers are not necessarily bad cooks. ;)
wellred at 12:35PM on 01/22/08
I used to live on Prince St. in the North End, my windows facing Thatcher St. and I could see the glowing neon Regina's sign from my couch. The smell would waft up and into my apartment. Needless to say I was a regular. Their pizza is the only thing I can think of in Boston worth visiting for. Everything else is mediocre.
I love Todd English's food, Olives is a great restaurant, but found Figs to be very disappointing. All the elements are good but they don't come together to make a good pizza.
While I am a staunch advocate of NY pizza, I agree that there are too many bad pizza places in NYC. But I would rather have bad pizza than no pizza at all. One of the biggest problems in Boston is that everything except for the VILE Buzzy's Roast Beef, and a few places in Chinatown like Ginza shut down really early. And there is just not as much to choose from in general. It seems that here in NY, there is a deli or a pizza place on every block, so even if they are crappy, you do have somewhere to go get something to eat. No the case in Boston. Since this is an Ed post and we are talking about fast/junk/convenience food (hot dogs, pizza, sandwiches, burgers etc), availability is definitely almost as relevant as quality. Boston fails miserably at availability.
seyo at 1:11PM on 01/22/08
Though I'm protective of my New England roots, I can't argue that New York has the edge...by far. But, on the side of Boston, I'm glad you had the good sense to include Kelly's Roast Beef. If you're adding a seafood category, B&G Oysters is heavenly, and, chain restaurant or not, the chowder at Legal Seafoods still rocks!
KDK08 at 2:45PM on 01/22/08
As a Die-Hard Patriot fan, but a huge fan of NY Eats. I have to throw my 2 cents in here. 1st Hands down The Patriots have this game by at least 10 points. 19-0 just deal with it.
In terms of Restaurants there is no comparison NY stomps Boston like a bug.
When you get down to individual items though it gets a little tighter.
Sandwiches - NY for Deli you just cant find anything that even resembles a good Pastrami or Corned Beef Sandwich in Boston. And the sandwiches at places like Alidoro and 'ino just cant be found in Boston.
Ice Cream - I know we love Ice Cream up here and I think Christiana's is best.. but I have never had anything as good as the gelato at Otto or Grom and I love the Taro Ice Cream at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.
Pizza - Here is the one place I find NY to be a bit over-rated. Totonos , Johns on Bleeker, Una Pizza Napoletana, DiFara are all great but I never felt they were that much better than a great Pizza at Reginas or as flavorful as Santarpios. Its not that Boston Pizza is so much better I just find that it is just as good and sometimes surpasses the Pizza Ive had in NY. Pizza is the one thing in NY that every time I go out of the way for its never as good as I had hoped.....always good but never that much better than at home.
Dont even get into Hot Dogs because that is not even a discussion worth having. NY hands down.
jc1234 at 2:48PM on 01/22/08
I'm interested in the bbq standoff -- it's sort of like a Jets - Dolphins game. Also, for sandwiches, don't forget Darwin's in Cambridge, just a great shop for 20% less than your neighborhood Pax Gourmet.
mdp at 3:41PM on 01/22/08
mdp, I'll wait for the bbq thread to officially open, but methinks you are wrong about NY's bbq offerings...
seyo at 4:46PM on 01/22/08
Come on man. Boston is over 3 hours by car from Burlington, VT. But as a former resident of Boston, current resident of NYC (and actually raised in Burlington) I will give Boston the edge on Ice Cream. There is good ice cream to be had in NYC, but nothing has ever blown my mind like the burnt sugar ice cream at christinas in Inman Square.
toddself at 4:49PM on 01/22/08
Isn't it the New England Patriots? I think you have to include the entire region this team represents. You made the exception for Ice Cream, so the floodgates are open.
No discussion of pizza in New England should forget Al Forno.
pancookery at 4:56PM on 01/22/08
Herrell's is nasty. I was there once and was mobbed by flys. For pizza Boston has a home grown chain called Upper Crust. Solid pseudo-Neopolitan pies w/ a mighty good crushed tomato 'sauce.' Deffinatly my favorite pizza chain.
But seriously, how can you compare NY to anything. Boston's population is a tiny fraction. Maybe Boston to Philly, or Cleveland to Cincinati or whatever. NY is singular in the country and in a very small group world wide.
Food aside, 'The Hub' certainly has a sports edge.
coolname at 10:44PM on 01/22/08
I was also going to bring up The Upper Crust. A branch just opened down the street from me. Awesome pizza. We eat there or get delivery at least once a week.
Also, for ice cream, in the town I'm in (about 10 miles outside Boston) we have Lizzy's. Fabulous ice cream. Just fabulous.
If we get into the hot dog discussion, how much will just plain "sausage" rolls get into it? Because if they don't count in that discussion, then they need to be considered in the sandwich discussion. The first thing my boyfriend and I did when we got back from New York last May was hit up a sausage vendor in Fanueil Hall. Not only were we hungry, but we needed to counter the memory of a particularly craptastic "hot dog" we'd been served from a cart near Madison Square Garden late night on our way back to our hotel. Overpriced and underwhelming. All hail The Sausage Guy!
Amandarama at 7:58AM on 01/23/08
As a Red Sox, and Patriots fan, currently living in NYC, I spent 7 wonderful years in Boston, after growing up in Maine. You missed two great Boston Institutions for food. Emack & Bolio's for great Ice Cream, and the Union Oyster House for some of the best Seafood in New England! I wish I could be at the U.O.H. for the Super Bowl, downing multiple plates of their great oysters!!! New York may have pizza, but Boston has the whole Italian North End, which FAR surpasses what is left of NYC's "VERY" Little Italy. I can't even scratch the surface here of what Boston has to offer, not only for the football fan, but for everyone's taste for the great food Boston has to offer! Boston Wins!!!
rstanley at 5:32PM on 01/23/08
papa ginos! a pizza chain that is TOTALLY awesome. papa ginos is the best boston pizza, ok- it's not gourmet but it tastes GREAT. I also like sweet tomatoes and the upper crust...for more upscale pizza moods.
ice cream: toscaninis is my favorite, but i also like christina's quite a bit. herrell's is ok. not a huge fan of emack.
traderjanki at 6:19PM on 01/24/08
I'm a NJ/NY person who went to school in Boston for 2 years, and I love the city as well as NY.
But aren't we being a bit unfair to B-town, judging it on a NYC food group basis? Things might stack up differently, with say, who has the best lobster, or even linguini with clam sauce from the North End? Plus, does New Haven count in the New England pizza sweepstakes--if so, Pepe's might throw a wrench in the voting...plus, what about lobster rolls?
Ice cream seems really unfair, too, given that eating ice cream on a Boston street in the middle of winter seems more like a health hazard than a treat!
HeartofGlass at 7:44PM on 01/24/08
I am a New Yorker who has been living in Boston for some 25 years. New York has always been a world-class food town. Who could really argue. When I was growing up in New York in mid-20th century, New York was the capital of the world, and where food was concerned there were some truly great things I simply took for granted.
Many of these are as unobtainable now in New York as they are elsewhere. Is New York pastrami still great at Katz's? - yes but it's not like it used to be, and it's made in Albany. Is New York cheesecake wonderful? - not like it used to be when Leonard's of 2nd Avenue was still supplying the best to restaurants and hotels so anonymously. Today you can barely find any mention of the place or its extraordinary product anywhere on the web. You'll notice my name here: "noshstalgic" - I've been blogging about this stuff for a while now at noshstalgia.blogspot.com.
After a while, ranting into the blogosphere didn't seem a sufficient response. So I began an effort at culinary archeology to recreate the things I so missed. And even though I still love many of New York's signature items, I am here to make a claim. The best pastrami in the land is now hand-made in Boston, MA - to my specifications. My recent blog postings at Noshstalgia extolled the virtues of pastrami as the ideal Super Bowl food. Not nachos, not chicken wings. Quoting now:
"Nothing else so distills the essentials of football sustenance - Beef, Spice, Warmth, Smoke, and Beer Affinity."
So who's wrong here - Ed or Sheryl?
Both...
Sheryl because pastrami is perfect for football.
And Ed because the best is actually to be found here in Boston. If you don't believe me, (and please pardon the commercial plug) stop on by to Savenor's or John Dewar's (Boston's two premier meat purveyors) and ask for some of Boston's best - Deli Arts brand pastrami. Take it home, steam it up. It's like a time machine. You'll smile.
noshstalgic at 4:17PM on 02/07/08
I am a New Yorker who has been living in Boston for some 25 years. New York has always been a world-class food town. Who could really argue. When I was growing up in New York in mid-20th century, New York was the capital of the world, and where food was concerned there were some truly great things I simply took for granted.
Many of these are as unobtainable now in New York as they are elsewhere. Is New York pastrami still great at Katz's? - yes but it's not like it used to be, and it's made in Albany. Is New York cheesecake wonderful? - not like it used to be when Leonard's of 2nd Avenue was still supplying the best to restaurants and hotels so anonymously. Today you can barely find any mention of the place or its extraordinary product anywhere on the web. You'll notice my name here: "noshstalgic" - I've been blogging about this stuff for a while now at noshstalgia.blogspot.com.
After a while, ranting into the blogosphere didn't seem a sufficient response. So I began an effort at culinary archeology to recreate the things I so missed. And even though I still love many of New York's signature items, I am here to make a claim. The best pastrami in the land is now hand-made in Boston, MA - to my specifications. My recent blog postings at Noshstalgia extolled the virtues of pastrami as the ideal Super Bowl food. Not nachos, not chicken wings. Quoting now:
"Nothing else so distills the essentials of football sustenance - Beef, Spice, Warmth, Smoke, and Beer Affinity."
So - confining ourselves to the dual questions of pastrami as football food - and as quintessential New York food - who's wrong here - Ed or Sheryl?
Both...
Sheryl because pastrami is perfect for football.
And Ed because the best is actually to be found here in Boston. If you don't believe me, (and please pardon the commercial plug) stop on by to Savenor's or John Dewar's (Boston's two premier meat purveyors) and ask for some of Boston's Deli Arts brand pastrami. Take it home, steam it up as directed, and slice it down. It's like a time machine. You'll smile.
noshstalgic at 6:25PM on 02/07/08