It was supposed to be date night last night, but after getting off to a late start after work, that quickly turned into an hour together at the gym, massive indecisiveness about what we wanted to eat, then me watching boyfriend eat two blue cheese wedges after realizing it was too late to be hungry. We made up for it today, though, starting with a two-scoop ice cream cone at Ben & Jerry’s: 1 scoop Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, 1 scoop Late Night Snack, in a chocolate-dipped sugar cone with sprinkles. (Many tasting spoons were sacrificed on Chocolate Therapy, Coconut Seven Layer Bar, What a Cluster [miraculously too peanut buttery even for me!] and the impressive new Bonarroo Buzz.)

Then we headed to a Hoboken sports bar we’d been wanting to check out, mostly because of a long-ignored wings craving. These were worth the wait: half buffalo and half root beer BBQ, with really excellent blue cheese. The root beer was too sweet for me; boyfriend ate all but one of them.

After debating main course choices for literally about half an hour, he settled on a classic burger (medium, no cheese, ew, BORING) with onion rings and I got the 1Republik special: sherry roquefort fondue, ale-battered thick-cut bacon, caramelized onions and mushrooms.

Their handcut fries are absolutely fantastic: salty and golden on the outside, fluffy and creamy on the inside, like the very best of fast-food french fries. The combination of the roquefort fondue and the caramelized onions and mushrooms was superb. It was an amazing burger. So, I did something I never, ever do at restaurants. 

I sent it back. I’d asked for medium rare, like actually, really, on the pink side of medium rare. I know it’s bad to order burgers that way. I know I’m being a jerk. I don’t care. I don’t see the point of eating them gray and flaccid all the way through, as this one was when it arrived.

Ten minutes and one apologetic waitress later, I had my burger just the way I wanted it. Having helped myself to the onion rings while I was waiting, I ditched the top bun, cut the burger in half, and made a giant double-stacked burger sandwich. Yum.

the californian: medium-well burger with spinach, onion, tomato, and guac (the saddest incarnation of man food ever.)

turkey club with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on white toast.

half an hour later at a different restaurant: onion rings

not pictured: coffee & a bloody mary with copious blue cheese olives.

Xi’an Famous Foods has been on my to-eat list for months. In my mind, incredibly cheap, unique and fantastically good food is what eating in New York is supposed to be about, and besides, Anthony Bourdain loves it. But for the past few weeks, every time we’d meant to go to Xi’an, we’d ended up somewhere else instead - Takahachi, or DBGB, or Arturo’s. Yesterday we finally made it to Xi’an on St. Mark’s, where I was expecting excellent, delicious, greasy noodles for under ten bucks. I got all of those things. But I couldn’t have predicted just how much of all of those things Xi’an is.

The hand-ripped spicy cumin lamb noodles are the item to order and have reached a certain celebrity status, for good reason. “OHMAGAPHNFHDJ,” I said through my first giant mouthful. “Have you ever walked into a place you’ve never been before and felt like you’re coming home?” That’s how this dish tastes. Entirely familiar and entirely unlike anything I’ve eaten in New York or anywhere. The noodles are steaming hot and fresh and tender, not at all mushy, and the sauteed lamb is incredibly flavorful and generously portioned (I hate to say it, but it tastes like the best taco meat you could possibly imagine). But it was the crunchy cabbage, which holds the majority of the heat, that I really fell for.

I expected the savory cumin lamb burger to be pretty much the same thing, just minus the noodles, but it wasn’t. The meat is sweeter, almost reminiscent of a sloppy Joe, sauteed with onions and jalapenos and scallions. The flatbread “bun” tastes accurately homemade, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, perfect to soak up any remaining sauce from the noodle dishes. We ordered one burger to go with each plate of noodles, and the varying flavor profiles couldn’t have meshed better.

I loved the Liang Pi vegetarian cold skin noodles just as much, for different reasons. Full of lime and cilantro, bean sprouts and strips of sauce-absorbent zucchini, the chewy wheat noodles are topped with cubes of wheat gluten that are lighter and more delightfully textured than I’ve eaten at any vegan restaurant.

Writing this, I want to go back again today. I want to eat the hand-pulled beef noodles and the pork burger and the lamb spine and the spicy soft tofu. I want to eat tingly lamb face and lamb treasures soup (“”what is a lamb treasure?” that is one of the most frequently asked questions. our general response is: “it is mr. lamb’s treasures,” or, “mr. lamb only has two of these treasures.)

I haven’t been this excited about a restaurant in a while. My only regret is having taken so long to get there.

Dinner on Saturday at DBGB, Daniel Boulud’s bar/restaurant on Bowery & Houston:

This is a fantastic burger. It has the smokiness of a backyard barbecue and the juiciness of really great beef. Medium means it’s actually cooked medium, not medium-well, and the sesame bun is not mindblowing, but more than adequate. The fries are addictive and crusty with salt and beef tallow.

The DBGB dog left as many questions unanswered as the Lost finale. Why would a signature hot dog here include radishes and frisee? Why did the ‘ketchup mustard’ taste so much like mayo? How did the sauteed onions manage to be overpowered so badly? Why didn’t the sausage itself taste like pure beef or have char marks from grilling? In true picky-child fashion, we DIY’d it, scraping off the existing toppings and bathing it instead in spicy dijon and stoneground mustards and DBGB’s really fantastic ketchup. An improvement, but still not at all worth the $9 price tag.

I did not order or try this matzoh ball soup, but I hear it’s as good as grandma’s. 

Salmon croquettes (or salmon patties, or salmon burgers, or some variety of reconstituted canned salmon product) have been on my things-to-make list since I read my friend Sylvie’s post on making salmon burgers from canned salmon. Aha! I thought. So that’s what it’s for. My boyfriend, a serious canned fish enthusiast, has had a mysterious can of Bumble Bee red Alaskan sockeye in the back of a cabinet since before I moved here, and as our moving-out date is in the foreseeable future, I’ve taken it upon myself to try to use up as much of our food stores as possible instead of going grocery shopping twice a week or more. I’ll be honest, I was also intrigued by Sylvie’s description of the science-experiment shock value of opening a can and finding a whole salmon, skin, bones, and all, squooshed inside. While I wouldn’t serve it whole and dressed with slices of lemon and rosemary leaves, I figured the canned stuff has to be suitable for throwing in the food processor and pan-frying. 

After a little research, I decided this morning to make salmon croquettes for brunch, using some leftover veggies from last night, some good Italian breadcrumbs, and the notorious can o’salmon. On a last-minute whim, I threw in a few pistachios before I set the food processor’s motor running.

Salmon croquettes:

• 1 15-oz can of salmon
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs + 1/2 cup for dredging
• 3/4 cup cooked veggies (I used carrots and broccoli from last night, already steamed with herbs de provence)
• 10 pistachios, salted
• 1 tbsp stoneground mustard
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp herbs de provence
• 3 tbsp olive oil

1. Open the can of salmon. Hold your breath, preparing yourself for the disturbing contents.
2. Realize it isn’t that bad. Drain the can, then transfer the salmon to the food processor: skin, bones, and all, or however you prefer. (It genuinely doesn’t look that bad, but this was definitely a moment where I was grateful for owning a food processor rather than have to dissect the can’s contents with a fork).
3. Add veggies, mustard, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, herbs & spices, and pistachios, and pulse to combine.
4. Adjust seasonings to taste, and adjust consistency by adding breadcrumbs (or, if needed, more mustard) until the mixture can be shaped into small patties (about two inches across and a half-inch thick - this recipe made nine croquettes).
5. Pour remaining bread crumbs into a saucer and dredge patties.
6. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil. Fry croquettes on both sides until golden brown.

Funny, the reaction in my household was similar to that in Sylvie’s: my boyfriend gamely ate the croquettes, which turned out just fine, (with ketchup, apparently how he grew up eating them) but I was a little too grossed out by the process to really enjoy the flavor: my review was that they “tasted like something that had been sitting in a can for a couple of years,” which, you know, makes sense, because they were.