This Week's Eating Highlights

It's been a long time, so here's a quick highlight reel from the past week:

Tuesday - Lunch at Tom's Restaurant with Sudmann and Betten in the midst of apartment hunting. Sudmann and I shared the crabcakes and eggs (over easy) and the chicken cutlet platter. Everything was delicious at this old school Brooklyn haunt, but the crabcakes were especially tasty. The only sucky thing about this place is that it is not open on Sunday, despite serving the most Sundayish food ever! Sudmann and I treated Betten to lunch, but now we sort of want our money back.

Thursday - Lunch with Mike W. at Green Bo. This is one of my two Chinatown staples (the other being Great Neck). They have tasty soup dumplings, though not as good as Joe's, and really inexpensive 'over rice' dishes for about $4.00 a pop. M and I shared an order of crab and pork soup dumplings, stewed beef over rice and pork chops over rice. The pork chops come with spinach and a really yummy diced up bean curd sauce. Oh, and Mike also got the spring rolls, which were surprisingly HORRIBLE.

Friday - After signing our new lease, Sudmann and I strolled over to Cafe Steinhof for lunch. I've only been once before, but I really like this place. Youthlarge, Guido Gonzalez and I came here a couple of years ago for my birthday and we saw Steve Buscemi a few tables over from us eating $5.00 gulash! I ended up ordering two eggs over easy with smoked pork loin, roasted potatoes and salad. Not only was it delicious, but I was in combo-bite Heaven...

For dinner I met up with Youthlarge for some more soup dumpling action at Joe's Shanghai. We were both starving, so YL let me be in charge of ordering. Naturally, we started with an order of crab and pork soup dumplings (the best in the City, though often the topic of many heated debates in my circle of friends). Let me just say that soup dumplings are not only explosively delectable, but they are also great hangover food. For any poor souls out there who have yet to experience the amazingness that is the soup dumpling, you are really missing out. If you want, I will eat some with you, but please, NO touching! Anyway, after we gobbled down our little steamed friends, we moved on to salt and pepper shrimp with the shells off (always perfectly crispy with just the right hint of jalapeno spice) and Shanghai pan-fried noodles. These noodles are divine. They're basically super thick homemade lo mein noodles with strips of pork and some sort of green vegetable. I'm never sure if it's spinach or shredded bok choy, despite the fact that they don't really taste the same at all. Regardless, it's seriously tasty!