As some of you know, I’m in New York for the holidays. Although I love so many things about California, there are a few things I miss about NY. On my way from JFK to my parents’ house, my brother and I stopped by for some pizza. This was entirely necessary. The pizza in California is…kind of a joke. A slice of sausage and a spinach/ricotta slice totally hit the spot after a cross-country flight.
Whether you’re visiting family or staying home, let me know what holiday food you’re enjoying. Later on this week I plan on challenging Carnegie Deli’s mountain of a reuben. It’s so awesome. Until then, here’s a bonus shot of an awesome chicken parmigiana hero!
I ate my share of sausage balls over the weekend. Should be getting some more made for me soon.
I really miss good NY style pizza living out here on the west coast. I found a decent Chicago style place at least, but the one good NY style place closed down.
I had some good eats this holiday. For starters I had Merliton casserole. So good. Probably an exclusive NOLA dish though. Oyster dressing! Yum. We had alligator sausage, grilled redfish, fried turkey and lots of other dishes. I made some boudin rolls. I have boudin (minus the casing) wrapped in bread dough and baked until golden. That is perhaps the best football food of all time….well…tied with Jambalaya.
Bananas Foster for dessert and for a change we had bread pudding at one get together.
If and when and I visit NY, I will have to get some pizza to see what the fuss is about.
We partook in the ancient Jewish tradition of ordering Chinese takeout on X-mas for lunch. We basically just didn't feel like cooking and my wife was making steak for dinner. The name of the chinese place was "Iron Chef." I told the guy, "I like your TV show. I'm not sure he got it…..
i saw this on your facebook account rpad, goddamn, im impressed. its just mouth watering. but that doesn't mean we had bad food for christmas though. i loved my christmas this year, despite everything that happend. :)
@Nightshade – Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra Ra-ra-ra-ra!
Our family tradition – Joe's Crab Shack on Christmas Eve. Waitress had a Joe's T-shirt on that said "My Waitress gave me crabs."
@Smartguy
Dang that sounds like my kind of eats there. I always wanted to try boudin. You ever watch Bizarre Foods on the Food Network? He went to LA and had turduckin and boudin and nutria.
@slicky
I like turduckin. Pretty good. As long as the stuffing is good, the turduckin is good eating. Never had the gumption to try nutria. I assume it tastes like squirrel though.
I like this thread. Food is such a huge thing down here.
Today's menu: Red Beans and rice with andouille or catfish strips. Haven't decided between the two yet.
After seeing the pics of pizza, I have a feeling that's what's on my lunch menu for the day….
I am having chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and chuck wagon beans today. My father owns a country style restaurant (so its 'free' food). We have been in the restaurant business for as long as I can remember. I have personally owned and sold 2.
That NY style pizza looks heavenly. I want to go to NY just to hit the street vendors, just always sounded good.
Favorite types of food: Mexican, Cajun, Chinese.
called the place i'm heading to for lunch: it will be fried catfish strips with the red beans today and cornbread. lunch will be good today.
@Smartguy
I don't like local catfish at all, I guess its called mud cat. Its to brown, slimy and fishy for me. At my dad's restaurant we do Catfish and froglegs on Fridays, but our catfish is raised in streams in Vietnam. Its really white and flaky, but still catfishy.
@slicky
Yeah, those are mudcats. I don't like that either.
I like my catfish sliced very thin (Look up Middendorfs in Manchac for reference) rather than thick.
Oh, so jealous. The words "Chicken Parm hero" means something totally different on the west coast.
@ SoCal Pizza
I've mentioned before my disenchantment with west coast pizza. However, I found 2 places that were ok. One was in Mission Beach (I think) and the guy who ran it was from Brooklyn. I could smell that place from across the street on a windy day and knew that the pizza had to be good.
The other was in West Hollywood about a block up from the Whisky A Go Go. It had all kinds of autographs on the wall. It wasn't great… but passable.
@Smartguy
That looks good. It looks like Catfish chips. Do y'all use pure cornmeal as breading? We use a combo of cornmeal and flour seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper at our place.
I think that one of the worst contributions California gave to society was California Pizza Kitchen. They finally opened one up here in Coral Gables (a suburb of Miami) and I couldn't believe how unbelievably nasty it was. I even went there twice because I figured that the first time was a fluke. It wasn't. The bread is all wrong. The toppings are mediocre at best and it's… just bad all around. How the hell did these people ever make it this far?!
Forget Gray Davis, recall CPK and get them out of our backyards!
-M
Mr. Padilla visits NY and then I read this story:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/…
Coincidence? Or is Raymond Padilla simply an alter ego for NY's most fearsome crime fighter? The Fantastic Filipino!
Quick! Somebody trademark that. I don't want Joe Quesada stealing the rug from under me.
-M
@slicky
it’s a combination of spices with the cornmeal/flour mix. It’s dipped in egg wash, then the mix. The mix they use at Middendorf’s is their own concoction.
I personally use flour/cornmeal mixed with Tony’s Chachere’s, and lemon rind. I throw my filets in an egg wash then into my breading. Sometimes I do it twice depending on the quality of the fish. if it didn’t come from a seafood market or if I didn’t catch it, i do it twice.
I dip my hush puppies in beer before I fry them. That’s really good.
I was just in Chicago with my fiancé (I just proposed tonight) and we had some pretty amazing pizza earlier. I haven't had NY pizza but I still think Chicago takes the pie.
@bsukenyan
congratulations! that's awesome!
@ bsukenyan
Congratulations dude. I'd say it's all downhill from here… but I'd be lying.
@ Pizza
I'm from Pittsburgh. I've had pizza everywhere I've ever been in America including Chi-town and NY. Chicago is a little harder to seek out whereas in NY, there's absolutely awesome pizza on every corner by the slice.
I vote for NY… but that might just be because it's VERY similar to how they do it in Pittsburgh (in fact we kind of copied both NY and Chicago depending on where you go, but mostly it's NY style).
@SlickyFats I LOVE chicken-fried steak. That's always one of my favorite "drunk in Vegas" meals.
@Iceman Completely agreed. CPK is dreadful.
@bsukenyan Congrats! That's awesome!!! Hopefully she'll teach you that NY has superior pizza and is generally superior to Chicago.
@Iceman Crap. I'm going to have to do that Clark Kent thing with the glasses and the slouching and the wearing suits two sizes too big.
@bsukenyan – Ooooh congratulations ^^
@food – Great now I crave catfish. Good Mississippi mud catfish :P
Thanks everyone!!
@Ray. She loves Chicago so I don't know how well she will do at persuading me towards NY pizza. But I would love to visit NY someday to try a lot of different foods. My personal favorite to try in new places are hotdogs.
@ bsukenyen
Dude… Coney Island… home of the original Nathan's hotdogs.
It really doesn't get much better than that.
@N8R. Yeah I really wanna go to Nathans and to Papaya King whenever I can go to NY.
Both are excellent. Nathan's brings bacl childhood memories of going to CI when it was safe. Papaya King was SO good when I was poor in the city.
Still, I love a Sabrette dog from a street cart.