Some things never sound all that good, no matter how you try to describe them. Take, for example, pickled herring (gooey but oddly delicious), goat meat (stringy, but I swear that it’s a good sort of stringy), or Korean gelatinous fish skins. Or codfish patties, which sound like something you might find while cleaning the […]

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You really only need to know two things about Le Soleil Restaurant in the gentrified neighborhood formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen: 1) Wyclef Jean is supposedly a regular customer, and 2) they specialize in fried pork. Fried pork and Wyclef? What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, really, unless you count the (thoroughly non-Wyclefian) music—we heard […]

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In my food-obsessed little head, Grenadian oildown is absolutely legendary. The dish is made from breadfruit, meat, and vegetables, simmered in coconut milk until the liquid evaporates and nothing remains besides a coating of coconut oil on the meat and vegetables. Sounds insanely delicious, right? Maybe even delicious enough to fill me with joy and […]

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On a ferry from Trinidad to Venezuela a few years ago, I met a twentysomething Venezuelan soccer coach who had just returned from a yearlong stint in Cuba.  As soon as we started talking about Cuba, I (of course) mentioned how much I love Cuban food, especially ropa vieja (“old clothes”, beef simmered with onions, […]

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If you’re going to eat assloads of international food in NYC, you have to embrace the magic of the steam table. As a Midwest native, I’ll admit that steam tables bring back unpleasant memories of school cafeteria mystery meat (my graffiti of choice on high school bathroom walls: “flush twice, it’s a long way to […]

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