Keste

We eat a lot of pizza, especially neo-Neopolitan, but Keste remains our favorite / one of our favorites (there's some disagreement in our house about just how amazingly excellent this West Village restaurant is). Nevertheless, this is the pizza we daydream about when we're stuck on the side of a road in India, waiting for a flat to get fixed, or hiking up a hill in El Salvador, wishing for AC and a cool pool of water in which to stick our aching dogs. True story! In other words, regardless of where this restaurant appears on our personal pizza pantheon, it matters.

So we were ecstatic to learn that Keste recently debuted an expanded menu. The topsy-turvy night and day calzone (top) --- a calzone stuffed with fresh ricotta, homemade mozzarella, and ham and topped with tomato sauce, homemade mozzarella, pecorino romano, basil, and extra virgin olive oil --- probably won't make our regular rotation of pizza-related fantasies. But the pistacchio e salsiccia certainly will, thanks to the sweet-tang of the pistachio pesto and spicy-bitter sausage, not to mention a crust we could happily chew on, or think about chewing on, for hours.

CBS New York: NYC's 6 Best Double Duty Spots

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for CBS New York. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there. 

In a hurry? Here are six fun spots that let you do two things at once, like get a haircut while picking out luggage or have a drink while getting into downward-facing dog [read more].
 

Kalustyan's

Justly famed as the city's best spice store, Kalustyan's also boasts an excellent dessert counter featuring sweets from all over the eastern Mediterranean and south Asia. Baklava, jalebi, and pistachio rolls filled our basket and bellies on our most recent visit. 

Jay Shells Mural on Troutman

Serious Eats: Chote Nawab

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for Serious Eats. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

 
This week's Date Night finds us at Chote Nawab, a great choice for a date in today's Curry Hill [read more].
 

Icy and Sot at Openhouse Gallery

Iranian brothers Icy and Sot have been an internet phenomenon for a while, but New York finally got to see them in the flesh and in the paint this summer. In town for the opening of their show at Openhouse Gallery (the first exhibit outside Iran they've been able to attend), Icy and Sot have been contributing their distinctive stencil pieces to the city's street art scene. Like their public work, their gallery paintings are sharply political but not without moments of playfulness and compassionate humanity. 

Eat the City

Robin Shulman's Eat the City: A Tale of the Fishers, Foragers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Bee Keepers, Wine Makers, and Brewers Who Built New York juxtaposes stories about contemporary people doing such things with their counterparts in the past. It's full of interesting facts, such as:

•  NYC boasts 250 types of bees
• Brooklyn and Queens produced more vegetables than any other county in the United States into the 1880s
• Captain Kidd lived at what is today 7 Hanover Square

It revises a commonly held narrative about New York, and cities in general, showing that cities are in fact places where things grow, things that nourish us, things that feed us, things that sate us to our very soul.

Photo: thanks
   

Roa on North 9th

Saluggi's

These photos can't convey the sheer size of the pizza at Saluggi's. Once again, we misjudged our capacity for meat- and veggie-loaded starch, and once again we were forced to admit defeat, though we tried to eat as much of our sausage, garlic, basil, and mozzarella (made fresh in house) pie as possible. The heft of the cheese alone made our wrists hurt. The last time we ordered a pizza we enjoyed this much but couldn't finish, a critic devitalized the place. Coincidence? Oh, no doubt. Still, we're hoping that Pete Wells isn't prepping for a takedown of this charmingly low-key restaurant in Tribeca. We couldn't face a repeat of that as well.

CBS New York: Street Art Walk in Chelsea

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for CBS New York. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there. 

Not all the art in Chelsea is for sale. Here are seven mural worth seeking out as you make your way from gallery to gallery [read more].

Molasses Books

A bookstore grows in Brooklyn! After selling books on the street for many years, Matthew Winn decided to open a brick-and-mortar establishment in Bushwick this summer. In addition to a fine selection of used fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art books, Molasses Books sells coffee, beer, and wine. You can also trade your books for other books or the aforementioned beverages. Does it carry A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Why don't you stop by and find out? 
 

Serious Eats: Nights and Weekends

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for Serious Eats. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

 
This week's Date Night finds us at Nights and Weekends, a Mexican/Caribbean bar/restaurant in Greenpoint that inspires us to write a song [read more].
  

Tony and Orazio's

At the corner of Knickerbocker and Dekalb in Bushwick sits the sort of cheap pizzeria every neighborhood deserves. Its name? Well, it's sort of hard to tell. Yelp calls it Tony's. Urbanspoon calls it Tony Oravio. We call it Tony and Orazio's because that's what it says the little neon sign in the window, but if it was called Mitt Romney's Tax Evasion Pizza Paradise we'd probably still go. There's nothing fancy or ambitious here --- we doubt the decor has been updated while we've been alive --- but they serve great utility pizza, the thin, cheesy, saucy, slightly crispy slices New Yorkers depend on. 

CBS New York: NYC's 7 Best Tours

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for CBS New York. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there. 

Great tours do more than show you landmarks. They help you understand a city by providing context, detailing history, and sharing insider secrets. Here are seven to check out [read more].
 

Concrete Jungle Mural on Troutman

Serious Eats: Rocket Pig

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for Serious Eats. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

Our latest contribution to A Sandwich a Day highlights Rocket Pig, which makes only one dish and even has a pig on a rocket as its logo [read more].
 

Pulp Shakespeare at Fringe NYC

We've seen some truly horrid stuff at the New York International Fringe Festival, most of it involving unitards and monologues about yearning. Pulp Shakespeare is a mash-up of Pulp Fiction and the words of William, and it is awesome. In fact, we're pretty sure it's the only play we've ever been to at which the audience clapped after every single scene.

Yes, the play really does retell most of Pulp Fiction using Shakespeare's language and times, swapping opium for heroin, ambrosia for Mia's milkshake, a stallion for Butch's motorcycle. The dance scene and monologue about a pocketwatch remain unchanged, amazingly. It all works, partly because Pulp Fiction is a really good movie, and partly because Her Majesty's Secret Players, the theater group that originated the production in LA, doesn't take itself too seriously. With the exception of a flaccid interpretation of Marsellus' "medieval" line, the dialogue moves as briskly and as floridly as Shakespeare's real verse. It's engaging, clever, and very, very funny.

There are still several shows to be had. Go see it!

Photo: thanks
  

CBS New York: NYC's Six Best Dog Runs

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for CBS New York. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

Where else to spend the dog days of summer than at one of the city’s best dog runs? A bad pun, perhaps, but watching canines frolic, fetch, meet, greet, sniff, pant, conk, and just generally revel in their animal nature will take your mind off the heat, at least for a little while [read more].
  

Museum

Enclosed in an old freight elevator, Museum specializes in found objects --- wacky, weird, deteriorating stuff that somehow made their way out of their owners' hands and into this Tribeca alley. On view are such things as a UN sign, a collection of toothpaste from around the world, moldy credit cards fished up from the Pacific, misspelled food labels, Argentine photos of a man and his chimp, Chinatown sex aids, and knock-off Sharpies. It's a strange little place. 

As you contemplate the movement of these things from elsewhere to here, you can't help but consider your own path. Where were you before you went to Museum? Whatever happened to your lucky pen / childhood playmate / favorite socks? However did you wind up here?