09/24/12

Tips Are Getting Larger, Enjoy Rare Bourbons with Pappy & Friends at Pour, We’re in Search of Westchester’s Great Burgers, and New Rochelle’s Armory Food Hall Project Is a Go

This is a cringe-inducing fact about my father, who was a generous man and lifelong champion of The Worker (God rest his soul). To his dying day, he felt that it was perfectly okay to drop a couple of coins in the hatcheck’s dish, and, when a valet pulled up with his car, he’d probably palm that guy a dollar. As I say, my father was a lifelong proponent of the working class, but he was also of the generation that, to modern eyes, left meager tips. The expected restaurant tip when my father was a young man was...

Posted at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

09/17/12

First Taste: Gleason’s Brings Great Pizza to Peekskill, Oktoberfest at Harper’s with All-You-Can-Drink Captain Lawrence Beer and, to Recover, Whole Corn Chaat at Little Spice Bazaar

First Taste: Gleason’s Brings Great Pizza (Sort of) to Peekskill

One of many vintage movie posters that set the style at Gleason’s

In spring, when I was compiling my exhaustive Westchester Magazine pizza cover, I was nagged by a serious geographical problem. While we in Southern Westchester are tripping over great pizzerias, above I-287, they’re thin on the...

Posted at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

09/10/12

What Two Local Chefs Ate on Their Summer Vacations; Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards at Crabtree’s Kittle House; and Briny, Hammy Capricciosa Pie at Tarry Lodge

What I Ate on My Summer Vacation

What do restaurant critics eat on their summer vacations? Well, none of your damn business—I’m off the clock. But, just because I like you (each and every one of you), I’ll let you in on my secret. When I sneak off to my hemp ‘n’ dred beach community of Truro, Massachusetts, every year, I cook way more than I eat out. Come August, you’ll find me barefoot, braining lobsters on the picnic table before slapping them on the grill, and sipping drinks as I shuck Wellfleet oysters until my fingers are bloody.

But enough about me....

Posted at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

09/04/12

Summer Is Over! (So Look Out for These Great New Fall Openings.) Wining and Swining at Barcelona Wine Bar and First Wave Mexican at Mr. Taco

Blam! Labor Day Weekend slams down on summer like a safety gate. But the good news is that Westchester has returned from its vacations (and put away its bikinis); that means it’s time for serious eating and drinking. Here are the big fall openings of 2012.

Posted at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0