tomfodw’s Profile
Recent Comments
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
I once held at party at which I served nothing but 5 different cheesecakes I had baked myself (mostly out of "The Joy of Cheesecake").
My favorite, though, is the dark incredibly rich chocolate cheesecake from "Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts." Yummmmm.
Coffee Chronicles: Growing Up Jersey With Diner Coffee
The best diner in New Jersey is the Americana in East Windsor, although it has gone sufficiently upscale that it's almost no longer a diner. Almost, but not quite. However, I cannot comment on its coffee, since I'm not a coffee drinker. My girlfriend seems to like it, however.
Top Five Fancy-Pants Doughnuts in New York City
You should mention who the pastry chefs are at these places - they don't get the recognition they deserve.
See more comments by tomfodw »
Recent Posts
tomfodw hasn't written a post yet.
Recent Favorites
tomfodw hasn't favorited a post yet.
Recent Polls
tomfodw hasn't answered any polls yet.
Recent Quizzes
tomfodw hasn't taken any quizzes yet.
Recent Comments | Response to Comments
Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship: The Uptown Edition
I have this recent fetish for a type of chocolate chip cookie I know exists but can't find - it's slightly dome-shaped with a rather crisp top and not very chewy inside. I think they must be rather gourmet-ish instead of intended for the supermarket crowd. Anyone know where I can find some of these? Thanks!
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
I once held at party at which I served nothing but 5 different cheesecakes I had baked myself (mostly out of "The Joy of Cheesecake").
My favorite, though, is the dark incredibly rich chocolate cheesecake from "Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts." Yummmmm.
Coffee Chronicles: Growing Up Jersey With Diner Coffee
The best diner in New Jersey is the Americana in East Windsor, although it has gone sufficiently upscale that it's almost no longer a diner. Almost, but not quite. However, I cannot comment on its coffee, since I'm not a coffee drinker. My girlfriend seems to like it, however.
Top Five Fancy-Pants Doughnuts in New York City
You should mention who the pastry chefs are at these places - they don't get the recognition they deserve.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
Oh, and one other thing. I may be wrong - I may be crucified and permanently banned from this blog - but I love Bubba Burgers. Yes, they're frozen, but I think they're delicious.
Don't everyone rush me with torches and pitchforks all at once.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
Nathan Hale's in lower Manhattan has or had a terrific pub burger and excellent thick greasy fries. Haven't been there in years (used to go there to watch soccer matches) so I don't know if it's still there or if the quality of the food has changed. Boy, I miss that burger.
Seriously Meatless: Caramelized Onion, Potato, and Blue Cheese Tart
I don't like blue cheese - can I substitute, say, Gruyere or Gouda or something else? Thanks.
What one food mag should I get?
I like either Cooks Illustrated or Fine Cooking.
The Joys of Unnaturally Flavored Sodas
I love Barq's diet root beer - but they've stopped making it! (At least in the 2-liter bottle - I can still find the 12-packs of cans occasionally.) Everything I love eventually disappears. Companies should pay me not to like their fringe products so they won't fail.
The New Breed of NYC Hot Dogs: Are They Really Better?
My favorite hot dog is still Nathan's. Snap, spice, and some of the best fries on the planet.
'Top Chef Masters,' Episode 2: The 'Lost' Dinner
I loved this episode, much more than the first one. I thought the "Lost" theme worked very well, and the food seemed amazing. The chefs all hated the constraints - welcome to the Top Chef universe, guys! - but they are all geniuses of cuisine, and proved it. The "rivalry" between Dufresne and Bowles seemed genuine to me, not forced or artificial - they're friends but they're also pros in a very competitive world.
To be honest, part of the joy of regular Top Chef to me is to see the tension build up from week to week, as a favorite screws up and is PYKAG'd or an underdog suddenly starts to shine. We can't get that here; although since these are all culinary superstars, there are no favorites or underdogs. But still, that's a big part of Top Chef. Still, seeing established names struggle with limited time and resources is a lot of fun. I'd love to see Colicchio have to cope with the same limitations of the people he judges week to week.
Van Nuys, Calif.: All Nostalgia at Beeps Fast Food
I love Beeps. The breakfasts are outstanding. I think the burgers are pretty good, as are the hot dogs and the fries.
McDonald’s Angus Burger, Nearing National Rollout
It's not a bad burger. My problem with McDonald's is, their french fries have become inedible. I'm sure it's the oil in which the frozen fries are cooked, but they have this nasty unpleasant aftertaste. I can't order them anymore.
Ah well. My favorite fast food french fries are still Nathan's. Followed by Boardwalk Fries.
I Ate L.A.
There's a wonderful little diner in Van Nuys called Beeps - great burgers, hot dogs, french fries, milkshakes, and terrific breakfasts. It's tiny and not near anything other than the Van Nuys Airport, but it's a great place for a quick meal.
First Look at Citi Field Stadium Food
Are you going to have the decency to review the food at Yankee Stadium, too? At least half your readers are Yankee fans, you know (probably well more than half).
What are your strange, secret and personal cooking tips?
My tip is, mise en place - have everything ready to hand before you actually start cooking. If you're making breakfast, get out the eggs, bread, bacon, etc., before heating anything. Measure the flour, sugar, water, etc., before beginning to mix any of the ingredients. Take out the spices, have the mixing bowl(s) ready. Chop the onions. Read the recipe and make sure you have everything you need in the proper quantities - and only then actually start to cook. Makes the whole process much smoother and simpler.
Sugar Rush: Migliorelli Farm Cider Doughnuts at the Union Square Greenmarket
Terhune Orchards in Princeton, NJ, makes these, too - they are the yummiest! They sell them both with and without the cinnamon sugar. I always get them with the sugar. They're too good - I can go through a bag of 6 in no time flat.
Stop, I'm making myself hungry!
Gordon Ramsay to Open His First Australian Restaurant
World domination, huh? In that case, he has to go up against Dogbert in a Texas Steel Cage Death Match.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship: The Uptown Edition
Don't miss either the Fluer de Sel or creme fraiche choc. chip cookies at Marlow and Sons!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship: The Uptown Edition
For downtown, I urge you to try Chikalicious Dessert Club. If you don't, you will be sorry, in that I will eat all of their cookies. If you do, I may be sorry when you tell everyone how great they are and I have to share.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
I know you were looking for the best cheesecake in NY, but to find the best cheesecake in the world take the GW across to Clifton, NJ for Marc's Cheesecake! It is much more than worth the trip!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship: The Uptown Edition
too bad tastecookies.com wasn;t in the contest. The BEST chocolate chip cookies!!
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
I'd love to see a set of Ricotta cheesecakes done - they are very hard to find compared to NY Style, but I grew up with my dad (Cuban) making a bunch of these as Christmas gifts for friends from a recipe a very generous Italian neighbor gave him.
The friends always raved, and when I made one myself about a year ago for a family gathering of my wife's relatives, by the time I got around to trying a slice... I actually never got a slice - it was all gone! :)
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
I don't think we're arguing what cheesecake is the most authentic. The people who claim that the only authentic cheesecakes are made from cream cheese are sorely mistaken. There are several traditional recipes: New York/Jewish (Cream Cheese), Italian (Ricotta), and some cheesecakes use a mixture of cheeses, such as mascarpone and chevre. These cheeses are very popular in French cuisine. The best cheesecake I've ever tasted was made in France. It was actually a chevre and cream cheese combination with a walnut crust; a wonderful cheesecake that I make to this day. Plain cream cheese and graham cracker crust is just too boring for me and most people who like to have their taste buds excited. It's like traditional apple pie...very boring. If you're palate is satisfied with plain jane cheesecake then opt for New York style.
Coffee Chronicles: Growing Up Jersey With Diner Coffee
There's still tons of diners around here (Central NJ), at least a dozen within a 15 min. drive of my home.
The Skylark Diner on Rte. 1 in Edison is pretty good, however, I never drink diner coffee, so I can't speak to that.
Does anyone here know of Gilley's Lunch Wagon, Portsmouth, NH? An obscure reference, no doubt, but the best night owl diner of all time.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
The French have a dish hey call cassoulet. Every time I'm in the region, I see places that swear they have le vrai - the true cassoulet, . As I learned, there is no such thing as the real cassoulet, or the real cheesecake. The roots go way back into history, and depend on who's doing the cooking.
Do we really need this bickering?
If you love whatever you have on your fork, then that's the one.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
There's nothing wrong with sour cream in a cheesecake. At my restaurant we used some butter milk in the mix, to lend a mildly tart taste. It worked perfectly. A bit of grated lemon rind supported the richness. We never used a graham cracker crust.. Our pastry guy James Shupe got raves for his work, people asked for seconds. Of course we used the best cream cheese -- Philly.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
My cheesecake is authentic NY Cheesecake. I use a graham cracker crust. I also use other ground cookies depending on the flavor of cake I'm making. i.e. Crushed Chocolate Grahams for chocolate cheesecake and crushed animal crackers for Key Lime cheesecake.
I do agree on the "no sour cream" etc. I have used other brands of cream cheese - high quality, sold in bulk to restaurants - and had fabulous results. A "blanket slur" cannot be launched against any other brand except Philadelphia. Restaurant suppliers carry many extremely good brands of cream cheese .
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
@polly302 - Carnegie Deli has the best cheesecake I have eaten also. I have no idea where they get the cheesecake from, but it is tops in my book. I have eaten Eileens and Juniors but CD is my favorite.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
What no Veniero's? http://www.venierospastry.com/
It's a mystery to me how a bakery where everything else is borderline inedible makes such a great NY cheesecake.
I do not claim that this is "the best", just that you cannot award the title without having tried this one.
Serious Eats Finds New York's Best Cheesecake
There are many "secrets" to cheesecake, depending on what
you're used to. If you're used to the original Lindy's (not the modern
restaurant of the same name) or Turf cheesecake in NY, the
"secrets" are:
1. Never use any cheese but Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese.
That's ANY cheese. No cheeses other than cream cheese. No
cream cheese other than Philly. Especially, no "baker's
cheese"--an abomination for this recipe. The NY Times Cook
book used to have the "right" recipe. But the latest
edition adds extra ingredients. The latest edition of the
NY Times International Cookbook has the right recipe, except
they use a graham cracker crust, which isn't quite authentic.
2. No sour cream. None. Zero.
3. Cake crust, not a graham cracker crust.
Molly Lukens' "New York Cookbook" has two recipes that are almost
right--the Lindy's and the Junior's. What I would do for the
absolute, true taam is make the crust from the Lindy's recipe
in Lukens' book, and the filling from the NY Times International
Cookbook.
Note that I'm of a certain age such that I've eaten both originals,
at Lindy's and Turf's--both long gone.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
The pastrami burger that Lexalpha mentioned has been refined to perfection in the Salt Lake City area, where one-off restaurants and local chains started by Greek immigrants have made it their signature specialty. No hamburger aficionado has truly lived until he/she has experienced a Crown Burger.
Coffee Chronicles: Growing Up Jersey With Diner Coffee
In the eight years I've been living in New Jersey, I've been hoping to find the sort of diner that so many people pine for, but when I'm there, I just don't get it.
In any case, when I went from Edison to Princeton for some shopping this morning, I passed three diners and eight or nine Indian vegetarian places.
The diners are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
What about the "cheese skirt" burger? There are several places doing this, one notable is the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento:
http://www.eatingtheroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/squeeze-inn/
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
Now that was by far one of my favorite burger posts I've seen! Way to get them all in one blog.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
What a collection!!! I'm partial to steakhouse, kobe and fast food. Quite the variety, I know. :)
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
@everyone: Thanks for the kudos! This was a lot of fun to put together, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm sorry if it made you hungry, but dems da breaks!
@KingT: What would you say makes a '30s-style burger? Given what I've read about burger history, I'd guess it would either be a slider (since White Castle all but revolutionized burgerdom in the late '20s and up to WWII) or a slider-style burger (a little larger but cooked in a similar fashion).
@shanella: I'm only responsible for the first photo; the rest are Flickr Creative Commons–licensed or used with permission of the photographer. I know that any of Nick Solares's or Robyn Lee's are dSLRs (Nikon D300 and Canon 20D, respectively). For any of the others that link to Flickr, you can click through and look to see if the photographer has EXIF data for the photo. That should tell you camera make/model.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
@Adam what type of camera are you using??? These pics are awesome!
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
What about the 30's style? did I miss that?
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
This may be its own category...or all of the above.
From my experience it was very difficult to finish both the pint and the burger.
A culinary experience indeed.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
Very educational for us foodies Adam. Thanks for pointing out the difference between a slider and a mini burger...i always thought they were the same. I like the part about the fast food burger! lol! I think you're right about the kobe burger cause i enjoy the slight rubberiness of the minced meat against the soft bread in a regular burger...the kobe has enough brilliance to stand on it's own! What they call pimento cheese in the U.S. is what we call cheese paste in caribbean, and is often a combination of grated cheddar, mayo, grated onion, diced peppers and hot sauce, and is usually slathered between sandwich slices, cut into cute bite size triangles and served at parties.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
Noosh: I was starting an entry on them, but got so pooped out by that time (it was about 4 a.m.) that I just ended at bean burgers. Will look for a good photo of an Aussie burger and include it.
The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles
I realise that this is about American burgers, but just for interest: in Australia it's an "Aussie" burger if it has sliced beetroot on it (and probably onions too, though possibly raw). However, the essential ingredient to make a pizza an "Aussie pizza" is egg cracked over the top just before it's put in the oven.
We're a weird bunch.
Recent Posts
tomfodw hasn't written a post yet.
Recent Favorites
tomfodw hasn't favorited a post yet.
Polls
tomfodw hasn't answered any polls yet.
Quizzes
tomfodw hasn't taken any quizzes yet.
I have this recent fetish for a type of chocolate chip cookie I know exists but can't find - it's slightly dome-shaped with a rather crisp top and not very chewy inside. I think they must be rather gourmet-ish instead of intended for the supermarket crowd. Anyone know where I can find some of these? Thanks!