Steak 'n Shake

Steak 'n Shake recently opened up to much fanfare outside the Letterman studio in Midtown, offering free burgers for a year for the first 150 customers. David Letterman announced that his show staff would camp out early to ensure free burgers for the entire Letterman crew. When I first heard about this, I thought Letterman should have to camp out in the cold himself to get free burgers for a year. Instead, he was going to make some intern stand outside for hours on end in the 30 degree weather, only to hand over his hard-earned burgers-for-a-year golden ticket to Mr. Letterman. The injustice.

Later, my husband informed me that Steak 'n Shake was wisely handing out 52 weekly coupons for steakburger/fries/shake combos to each person, and these could be divided between people if was so desired. Still, if I ever see Letterman show up at Steak 'n Shake wielding one of those free coupons, I will have to continue my cries of injustice. Wait, Letterman would never have to show up in person and stand in line to wait for a burger; he would just send one of his pages to do that. The injustice!!

Here we are, the proletariat, standing in a long line in cramped quarters with no seating, waiting for our gruel.

Here is the amazing soda dispenser, where, for example, after you click on Diet Coke, another swirl of icons appears displaying another 10 different flavors of Diet Coke. Amazing.

And here is my long-awaited burger. You can see the beautifully crisped burger, along with nicely toasted buns, and generous amounts of pickles, onions, tomatoes and lettuce.

The husband and I got 2 burgers, 2 fries and 1 vanilla shake. One original steakburger plus fries = the lovely suburban price of $3.99! As you can see, we were greedy and super-sized one of our fries.

After devouring our delicious burgers, fries and shake, my husband asked why I hadn't super-sized both fries. To which I responded, "I wasn't thinking right!"

Tepito

Tepito is a new Mexican restaurant & bar in the East Village. It's perhaps on the pricier side ($9 guac and tacos in the $12-$16 range), but sometimes you're not quite in the mood for $3 tacos and are hoping for something a bit more elegant.

Husband and I initially weren't fully settled on eating at Tepito when we walked by because it was basically empty at 7:15pm on a Tuesday. It looked extra empty because the space is gigantic, with a cavernous area with bar + seating, plus another entirely separate room with just tables. But we decided to give it a go, with the understanding that "new" is sometimes synonymous with "unknown", and were seated in the tables-only room. Having not eaten Mexican food in a long time, we were basically craving some typical Mexican fare: chips with guacamole, some decent meat tacos and maybe some decent fish tacos.

The fresh guacamole definitely hit the spot. The chips were incredibly fresh and crispy and the homemade roasted tomatillo salsa gave us an additional happy kick with each avocado-filled bite. The husband was quite pleased because he got to eat chips, which are his favorite thing in the world.

The carne asada tacos were good, but nothing too special.

These tacos, however, were something to write home about. These were the dinner special of the evening: pistachio-crusted tilapia tacos served with pico de gallo, avocado fritters, arugula and spicy guava aioli. Those long fried things you see in the picture are the avocado fritters - delicious, perfectly fried, buttery slabs of avocado oozing into your mouth with the nicely seasoned and crunchy tilapia. Husband and I were quite happy with the fried-ness of the whole thing. Avocados are now on the list of things that should absolutely be deep fried. And I hope Tepito manages to find a way to put those avocado fritters on the regular menu.

Pie Face

This blog post is guest written by my dearest friend, Jacqui. Jacqui is Australian and lives in NYC and has fittingly written her inaugural guest blog review on whatsnewny.com in review of the new Australian meat pie shop in NYC, Pie Face. Thanks for the review, Jacs!

Pie Face
Guest written by Jacqui

Pie Face is the New York outpost of an Australian bakery café chain. The NYC store occupies a tiny corner space just outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, home to the Late Show with David Letterman. While the place offers the usual variety of soups, sandwiches, pastries, and coffee, its real specialty is the Aussie meat pie. In fact, the first thing you notice when you walk up to the counter is the rows of pies smiling at you.

I ordered four pies (chunky steak, mince beef & tomato, chicken & mushroom, and Thai chicken curry) and two sausage rolls (beef & pork, veggie). My friend, A, who I had enlisted to help me taste test, was waiting for me back at home. This is what we ate:

Our favorite pie was the chunky steak. The rich and beefy filling went perfectly with the buttery pie crust. (Side note: For an extra $2, Pie Face will “upgrade” your pie with a dollop of mash potatoes, gravy, and mushy peas. This would be the perfect pie to upgrade. )

Our next favorite was the chicken & mushroom pie, which was also buttery, rich and creamy.

The mince beef (translation: ground beef) & tomato pie was a bit of an oddity: my friend A thought it tasted like spaghetti sauce encased in a pie; I thought it tasted like spaghetti sauce laced with something else (maybe curry powder?) encased in a pie. Needless to say, it was not our favorite and we were disappointed to find out that we had been given two of these and were missing the Thai chicken curry pie we had ordered.

It’s hard to describe to the uninitiated what a sausage roll is. It’s not a pig in a blanket. It’s better. The relationship between sausage and pastry is more complex and the taste is much more rewarding. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of the Pie Face beef & pork sausage roll. The combination of beef and pork strikes me as a bit unnatural (why not just stick with the traditional pork sausage?). It was also a little dry. The veggie roll proved to be a good alternative and I think I’ll stick to that one next time.

All up, this little place is a great addition to the midtown West neighborhood – especially for those meat pie-loving folks who want their fix without having to trek to the Australian and British food shops downtown. Welcome to NYC, Pie Face!