Tchau Brasil

The 2014 World Cup (and our challenge) has been over for almost 2 weeks now and it was an intense ride! We tried to make it to as many countries as we could for our eating challenge, and we watched a very high percentage of the games themselves, so the past month was pretty much overtaken by the World Cup. (Fairly sure we're not the only ones.) It was exciting and thrilling. Congratulations to Germany!

If you haven't been following along with our status post or generally reading the blog, we visited 20 out of 32 countries, for a 62.5% showing. Not too bad, considering our World Cup eating time was fairly limited. There's an alphabetical list of the countries we hit on our journey in the status post, but if you want to read them in the order we traveled, here's the list of countries we visited in order:

Italy

South Korea

Chile

Australia

Japan

France

Spain

Netherlands

Uruguay

Argentina

Portugal

Belgium

Germany

Mexico

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Colombia

Brazil

England

USA

Greece

We did fairly well with our challenge, but just ran out of time to hit up more spots. We had places picked out for every country (other than Algeria and Cameroon), but when we had to start doing food crawls or only had limited travel time, that eliminated a bunch of the more interesting cuisines we had never tried before. Our biggest disappointments in our performance were that we never made it to an African restaurant (and therefore didn't go to one country from each confederation) and didn't make it to all the nations of any particular confederation (we got close with CONMEBOL and AFC, only missing one country for each). Maybe next time.

We have no idea where we'll be in life during the next World Cup in 2018, but we always look forward to this event every 4 years. We love the World Cup!

Poseidon Bakery

The last stop on our 2014 World Cup eating journey was for Greek food at Poseidon Greek Bakery. This is one of our absolute favorite places in Hell's Kitchen and we love stopping in there for sweet and (mostly) savory treats. They've been there for generations, and it's a good thing they own the building because otherwise I bet they'd already be pushed out of the space with the crazy rents these days.

To celebrate Greece in the World Cup, we picked up one of each of their savory pies to split for lunch. We love Greek pies, even if they're not really the healthiest things to eat. We still dream about the pies we had at Ariston in Athens.

We think we've had all of the savory pies before (except for maybe the cheese) but we've never had them all at the same time to see which one was our favorite. I cut them all for us to split and heated them up a little bit in the microwave before we delved into our lunch.

The four pies were:

Kreatopita (meat pie with ground beef, leek, onion and scallion)

The meat filling was very flavorful and tasty. The leek, onion, and scallion additions livened up the ground meat, and they offered a fresh spring flavor to the whole pie.

Tiropita (cheese pie with feta, ricotta, cream cheese and mint)

As with many Greek cheeses we've tried, this was a touch on the salty side. The overall flavor of the pie was very good though. The mint really came through nicely as an accent to the cheese which helped temper the salt a bit, and it also added a refreshing coolness to the flavor.

Menina Mash (vegetable pie with spinach, potato, leek, dill and onion)

We've written about the menina mash before, and I had this as part of my Greek journey at the last World Cup. We loved the rich flavors of the vegetables in the mash and this was probably the pie that tasted the healthiest to us.

Spanakopita (spinach pie with feta cheese, leek, dill, onion, scallion)

Like with the tiropita, the cheese added a nice saltiness and richness to the pie. The spinach was full and hearty, and the dill was a nice addition, but the amount of spinach made this a little more bitter than the menina mash pie.

If we had to rank the pies in order from the one we liked best to least, A's order would be tiropita, kreatopita, menina mash, and spanakopita, and mine would probably be kreatopita, menina mash, tiropita, and spanakopita. Although we ranked the spanakopita in last place, I should probably note that it's still quite a good pie. All the savory pies at Poseidon are good. We just liked the other ones more that day at lunch.

If you find yourself in the area, definitely stop in for a pie. They're a great snack and a few would make a great meal!

Poseidon Bakery is located at 629 9th Ave (between 44th and 45th) in Hell's Kitchen.

USA! USA! USA!

Last time for the World Cup we bundled USA in with Slovakia. This time we did better about splitting up all of the countries. For this summer's tournament we opted to do a BBQ run to celebrate America. I had been to Daisy May's before with some coworkers for a pork butt extravaganza, but M had never been. So it was decided!

Daisy May's is a BBQ joint that draws from multiple regions of the US for all of its fairly authentic BBQ styles. You can get the Texas pit-style brisket and beef ribs, Carolina pulled pork, Memphis dry and St. Louis wet ribs, Cajun dirty rice, collard greens, and many other variations of smoked, grilled, and sauced meat products and sides.

M opted for the pulled pork platter with a side of burnt ends baked beans and mac and cheese (we shared all the sides). She thought the pork was pretty good. The sauce was mixed pretty well throughout the portion of pork, and she really liked the flavor of the BBQ sauce. (To be fair, BBQ sauce is one of her favorite condiments, and she likes most of them.) I found the pork to be a touch on the overcooked and dry side especially compared to the really moist pork butt I had before. (M didn't find it dry but she also didn't have that comparison to make.) The sauce they use isn't the Carolina Gold style of sauce that's common in South Carolina. It's more of a mustardy North Carolina type of sauce. It's a little sweet, a little spicy, and even a touch sour from a bit of vinegar.

The baked beans were really good. The burnt ends added smoky flavor to it all, and the beans were hearty and sweet. The mac and cheese was creamy and cheesy. It didn't have that baked top crust that we both enjoy so much, but sometimes you just want this type of mac and cheese. That being said, the pasta was cooked well, and the cheesy flavors were good.

I opted for the combo platter which was apparently some sort of special. You get to choose 2 of the meats to pair and two sides like every other platter. I chose the beef brisket and the Memphis dry rub ribs. I also got the creamy, cheesy corn and the collard greens as my sides. The collard greens were good, but nothing special. We did need some sort of vegetable matter, though, and these definitely fit the bill. The creamy, cheesy corn was delicious as always. It's like creamed corn but jazzed up with cheese. How can you go wrong? 

But the star of the show? Obviously the meat. The brisket was nice and moist, and the BBQ sauce was sweet and tangy. It had a nice smoky and salty flavor on the meat itself from the rub and smoking, but it's not the best brisket I've ever had. The ribs, though? Wow. They take these ribs, double rub them with their special spice blend, and then smoke them as is proper in Memphis style BBQ. They were tender and juicy and fell right off the bone when you bit into them. M doesn't usually like ribs but she really liked these. She had never had dry ribs before but really preferred them to the kind you can more easily get, which are sticky and messy.

BBQ isn't the most affordable cuisine, and because of its red meat heavy menus, it's not something we plan on eating that often. It's really nice to have so many amazing options in NYC, though, for whenever we do get the urge, and it's even nicer to have such a great option so close to our apartment. If you're not looking for a particular style of BBQ and you just want something awesome, definitely head out to Daisy May's.

Daisy May's, 623 11th Avenue, Hell's Kitchen.

Cock and Bull

When you hear English food, what do you think? Fish and chips? Bangers and mash? Shepherd's pie? Yeah, us too. For our English World Cup visit, we headed over to Cock & Bull, a British pub in Midtown that opened sometime in the past year or so, to indulge in some British favorites.

A got a pint, and he opted for a Young's London Ale ($8) to celebrate the English theme. He really enjoys the Young's Double Chocolate Stout so he thought he'd see what one of their other brews was like.  He wasn't all that impressed by it. It was a lighter flavored beer, but it was crisp and refreshing. In the future he would get something else instead.

I decided to get a sandwich called the "British Bulldog" ($12.95). The menu said this was a "grilled banger, bubble & squeak, whole grain mustard on a toasted bread roll" and would be served with a side of hand-cut fries. My bubble & squeak experiment didn't turn out so well, so I wanted to see how the professionals did it. We also are big fans of bangers and mash, so I thought I would try this out to see how they went together in a sandwich.

The plate that I got seemed more like a plate of hand-cut fries with a side of a banger sandwich. Perhaps the menu should have mentioned that it was the size of a half sandwich, as it certainly seemed like half a bread roll. Crazy small portion size aside, the sandwich was pretty good. The banger had good flavor, whole grain mustard matched it well, and potatoes on a sandwich usually work in whatever form (mashed, fried, etc). I was expecting a mashed potato patty like the type I tried to make for bubble and squeak but these were more like loosely griddled potatoes. It tasted good. The fries were nice and crispy too. I liked them and the fries were the reason I walked out of lunch stuffed. It certainly wasn't from the banger sandwich.

A got the fish and chips ($19.95). The menu said this would be "ale battered cod, thick hand cut chips, and tartar sauce, served on a bed of mushy peas with bacon." Often, fish and chips comes with more than one piece of fish, but not here. We had seen a photo online of this dish with only one piece of fish and thought the person had eaten the rest before taking the picture. Not the case. 

The fish was fairly standard - white and flaky in a thick batter. But the real star there was the tartar sauce that accompanied the fish. We're not sure but it tasted like it was freshly made in-house. We really liked the tartar sauce. The chips weren't bad, but they were less like skinny fried potatoes (like the standard fast food kind) and more like steak fries. They had no distinct crisp to them, and they were soft and full of potato. Also, this must be the World Cup challenge of mushy peas after this and our Australian adventure. That said, the mushy peas were really, really good. They were very fresh and clean tasting.

The food at Cock & Bull was good, and it seems like the type of place where you could go, hang out with some friends, have a beer, and catch the game. It wasn't overrun with tourists and we were grateful for that break. But while the quality is good, the food is a bit pricey for the amount you get. We didn't leave hungry like after our Japanese excursion, but what we were really full on was just potatoes.

Cock & Bull, 23 W. 45th Street (between 5th and 6th Aves), in Midtown.

Pão de Queijo

During our research for the World Cup challenge, we noticed that it was actually a little difficult to find a casual Brazilian spot. Most of them weren't really a place we could stop for a quick snack or a casual lunch, but would have been more of a full meal with entrees over $15. Thankfully we were able to find one - New York Pão de Queijo in Astoria - which seemed like it had been around for quite a few years. We were really excited to visit them as we like pão de queijo a lot. We've mostly had small sized ones, like the Brazi Bites ones, which were cheesy and easy to eat.

We got our cheesy rolls to go since we were running short on time. They gave us the option of a big cheese roll for $2, or 7 small rolls for $3. We decided to get one large roll each. They were about the size of your palm.

This was a solid block of cheese wrapped in dough before being baked. It was, in all sense of the word, a gut bomb. After our mini-crawl throughout the day, I'm not sure how A actually finished his whole one as we went to the train. I could only finish half during our food crawl, and saved the rest for a late night snack.

We had hoped to get more than pão de queijo when we were originally looking at our World Cup options, so we would definitely go back and see what this hamburger and snack joint is all about. It looked like the type of casual "cheap eats" place that we really enjoy, and the pão de queijo was so good.

New York Pão de Queijo is located at 3190 30th Street in Astoria, Queens.

La Sabrosura

Colombia was one of our favorite teams in this year's World Cup and we were sad they didn't make it further in the competition. We were hoping to honor them with a nice dinner with some of our favorite Colombian foods, like rotisserie chicken and arepas, but we just didn't have time to fit that into our schedule. If Farmers were still around, Colombia would have probably been the first country we crossed off the challenge list. But since they're not and since we only had time to hit Colombia in a food crawl, we decided to stop at the La Sabrosura Bakery since we were already in Astoria for Bosnian food.

We ordered one buñuelo and one Colombian empanada with hot sauce on the side. It cost $3 total.

They had a bunch of empanadas in the window at the bakery and they seemed to be popular with all the people stopping in that afternoon. I originally asked for the Colombian empanada in chicken, since that was an option on the menu, but she said I could either get the chicken or the Colombian one. Since we were at a Colombian bakery, I, of course, opted for the Colombian empanada. I have no idea what type of meat was inside it but the combination was tasty. It was even better with the hot sauce.

A buñuelo is a fried dough ball which, in Colombian cuisine, often has cheese mixed in before it's fried, making it even richer and giving it a unique texture. This buñuelo was a little on the sweet side, but the texture was nice. A liked the buñuelo better than the empanada, and I was the opposite.

We thought our snack at La Sabrosura was okay, but there are so many Colombian restaurants and bakeries throughout Queens that I'm not sure we'll be back here. If you're in the neighborhood and want a quick pastry or empanada, it wouldn't be a bad choice but it's not so much of a destination place in our opinion.

La Sabrosura Bakery is located at 3802 Broadway, in Astoria, Queens.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo

Our favorite thing about the World Cup eating challenge (and also WorldEats) is that it can introduce us to a cuisine and a culture that we've always wanted to learn more about but just never tried. In 2010, that was Paraguay. This time around, the one new cuisine we tried and loved was from Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

We were rooting for Bosnia during their games, mostly because this was their first time in the tournament, they were huge underdogs, and it would've been so amazing for their nation if they were to progress in their first chance. Unfortunately (and probably unfairly), things didn't go their way but we were really looking forward to when we could try out Bosnian food to honor them.

The day after our Independence Day food crawl, we decided to undertake another mini-crawl, this time in Astoria. Our first stop and the one we were most excited about was Cevabdzinica Sarajevo, a spot that specializes in cevapi, a grilled minced meat sausage. Walking down the block, we spotted the Bosnian flag proudly flying outside and knew we were in the right place.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo is a small and casual spot. They had a TV set up for the World Cup (but we were there between games) and lots of football paraphernalia around, including jerseys for Dzeko and Ibisevic. Lots of Bosnian pride. We took a seat, scanned the menu (even though we knew we were just going to split a plate of cevapi), and placed our order.

The first thing to arrive was a basket of bread called lepinja, a traditional bread in the Balkan region. It was warm, soft, and chewy. We couldn't wait to eat it with our cevapi.

The drinks at the restaurant all come out of a self-service refrigerator. They had the usual stuff you could get anywhere, like sodas and teas, but they also had two drinks that appeared to be imported from Slovenia. We went with the Jupi orange soda, mostly because they had an article on the wall about celebrating the World Cup and how they were all going to be drinking orange soda during the Bosnian games. This was pretty good. Unlike some orange sodas, the orange flavor was natural and none of that artificial stuff.

We went with the larger plate of cevapi, which came with 10 sausages. The accompaniments on the side were chopped raw onions and ajvar, a type of spread (or sauce or relish) mostly made with red peppers. The sausages are made in-house and grilled after you order them, so everything is very fresh and you can taste the difference.

The cevapi was incredible. We joked that this was like the best breakfast sausage we've ever had. The meat was grilled perfectly. It wasn't hard or chewy or tough, but just right so that it was a little bit pink inside. The spices mixed in with the meat aren't overpowering at all, but very complementary. The sausages were good on their own, but even better when mixed with the onions and ajvar.

We were so happy with the cevapi that we briefly considered ditching the rest of the food crawl and getting another plate of cevapi. (We didn't do that but it was so good that we thought about it.) Even though we hadn't yet finished our World Cup journey, we knew that, without a doubt, this was going to be a contender for our favorite meal of the challenge.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo is located at 3718 34th Ave in Astoria, Queens.

Otto's Tacos

Since we were food crawling through the East Village, we decided to make our last World Cup stop of the night at Otto's Tacos, part of the wave of excellent new taquerias in the city. We've been to Otto's before, but of course, have never blogged about it before (since that seems to be more common than actually recording our memories on time).

We were starting to get full after indulging in waffles and currywurst, so we just got 2 tacos ($3 each) and a side of chips and guacamole ($3.75).

The chips tasted like they were fried in-house and not pre-made, which gave them a nice crispness. The guacamole wasn't bad, but we liked the one A makes at home better. This one was mostly avocado with some cilantro and onion, but not much else. I think in the future we would skip this and get another taco instead, since we enjoyed the tacos more than the guacamole.

The two tacos we picked were the chicken and mushroom tacos. We had the chicken one before (although last time we got it the chicken was in bigger pieces, less marinated and more grilled). It was a little salty this time, probably because of how much marinade and sauce there was, but it was still good. The mushrooms in the taco were really buttery and rich (sort of like the way A thought the mushroom tacos I made at home would be back in May). The chicken taco had a green salsa and the mushroom one had red. I'm not sure how they choose which salsa goes with which taco, but the red one has a little bit more kick. Both were topped with plentiful amounts of onion and cilantro, which we like to see.

One of the other interesting things that Otto's serves is masa fries ($3). We didn't get these on this visit since we definitely didn't have the stomach space for that, but we got them another time. These weren't exactly what we were expecting. I thought they would be more like the chickpea fries we've had elsewhere - thick and soft - but they were thin and crispy. We do love the taste of masa though. These are quite interesting if you've never had them before and are worth a try.

We enjoyed our snack at Otto's Tacos and along with Taqueria Diana a block away, there are some great options for tacos down in the East Village. Mexican food on the West Coast may still be better, but at least you can't say anymore that there are no good tacos in Manhattan!

Otto's Tacos, 141 Second Ave (between St. Marks and E. 9th), East Village.

Chivito d'Oro Again!

Just like in the last World Cup, we headed out to Queens for Uruguayan food at Chivito d'Oro. We knew that this time wouldn't be the same experience as Uruguay had been eliminated the day before so there would be no ultra-festive and nationalistic pride atmosphere. In fact, there was no singing at all. The only plus to this was that there was much, much less of a wait to get a table this time.

The meal started out with a basket of grilled bread and their version of chimichurri sauce. The sauce was loaded with parsley, garlic, and finished off with olive oil and some form of vinegar. Despite the charred looking exterior, the bread was perfectly soft on the inside with the right amount of crispness on the crust. The grill also added a smoky flavor to the bread which was really nice. M and I both agreed that the "burnt" part was the best part of the bread. We don't know if it's supposed to be eaten this way, but we really like putting the sauce on the bread and eating it together. We know it's supposed to go with the meat, but, to be honest, the meat tastes just fine on its own. On that note...

I, on the recommendation from one of our front desk staff with whom we chat with all the time, got the Parrillada para 1 (Grill dish for 1). The platter is loaded with beef steak, sweet bread, chorizo, morcilla, and veal steak. I dug into my pile of meat upon meat upon meat with gusto. Everything on the grill is seasoned mildly with salt and pepper to allow the flavor of the meat to come through, and everything is brilliant. The first thing I tried was the sweet bread as that and the morcilla intrigued me the most. They were soft and mineral-y, and they were beautifully grilled up to have a bit of bite right at the onset. The morcilla was also a bit mineral-y, but it was spiced wonderfully. The only issue I had with it was that the casing is a little tough to cut through, and because of the texture of the filling, it falls apart a bit every time you try. The beef steak was really tender and juicy even as it was cooked to medium since it's so thin. The chorizo is a touch salty, but it's chorizo. It's flavorful, spiced nicely, and has a bit of snap to the casing. The short ribs are really really nice. They're cooked well, and the meat around the bones pulls off easily enough if you know what you're doing. The only disappointing thing on the plate would be what I can only assume is the veal. It's thick and a bit tough, and it has a rather large fat cap on top. The flavors are good just like everything else, but the texture just isn't quite right. That, and you really can't (shouldn't) eat about a third of it.

So in case I wasn't full from the giant platter of grilled meat, my order comes with a side as well. I always opt for the potato salad (ensalada rusa) since it's really tasty. It's creamy and loaded with carrot pieces and peas. The minor issue is that, on top of all of that meat (and under, around, intermixed, etc.), the potato salad can be really heavy. It's a very tasty side, though, and one that I wholeheartedly recommend.

M got two chorizo and one morcilla (blood sausage). She admitted later that, she perhaps ordered one too many chorizo, but she was more than happy with what she got. She also found the morcilla to be very rich. It was tasty but she preferred the chorizo. It was just too much meat though and she couldn't bear to eat any meat for days.

We love the flavors from all of the food you can get from Chivito d'Oro, but it's not something we could eat on a consistent basis. The one thing I was really worried about after plowing through a lot of my endless platter of meat was that the waitress misunderstood me and gave me the order for 2 by mistake. When the bill came we thankfully saw that it was just the order for 1. However, that opened up another question of "how can one person eat all of that food?" We took home a good amount of leftovers that I was able to use for lunch for a couple days following our feast.

Wechsler's

One German snack we really enjoy (and which we hope to get someday in Berlin) is currywurst. So we continued our food crawl into the East Village and made a stop at Wechsler's to get some!

A started out with a beer - the Köstritzer dark pils ($5), which is brewed at one of Germany's oldest breweries in Bad Köstritz (back to 1543!). It had a lovely malty flavor, and had a nice bit of sweetness to go along with the subtle bitterness of the hops. A had never had a schwartzbier before, but if this is what they're supposed to taste like, he might have to get more of them.

Wechsler's has all sorts of sausages on the menu - lots of German style brats, as well as some from "around the world." But we were there for their signature dish, the currywurst, sliced up bratwurst with their homemade curry ketchup and hand-cut fries.

This dish was everything we hoped it would be. The thinly cut and salted fries and the sausage were tasty, but the star was that curry ketchup. We dipped everything in it. Curry ketchup is great with sausage, but it's also fantastic with fries (which we discovered a few years ago in Amsterdam).

We only got the small size of the currywurst (for $7), and decided to also get a pretzel as a side dish ($4). This was a Bavarian style pretzel with sweet mustard on the side. The mustard to us tasted more spicy than sweet, not quite horseradish mustard but not really that sweet. It also had a bit of a vinegar hit to it. The pretzel was more hard and salty and less soft and buttery like the ones we had on our PA trip. This was a good side, but the currywurst was better.

We really liked the currywurst at Wechsler's and would definitely go back for some more. Maybe next time we'll also try some other brats or maybe the sauerkraut or potato salad!

Wechsler's is located at 120 1st Avenue (between 7th and St Marks) in the East Village.

Kotmadam

After the Argentinian and Portuguese stops on our Independence Day food crawl, we took a break and watched the (infuriatingly frustrating) Brazil-Colombia quarterfinal game, which allowed us a few hours to digest our lunch. Then we biked down to Union Square, hoping to get some Persian food but we were a little too late for the place we were going to hit up. We noticed one of the Wafels & Dinges carts near the bike station, and we hadn't yet done Belgium for the World Cup challenge, so wafel time it was!

Our visit to the Kotmadam cart was definitely not our first Wafels & Dinges experience. (See here, here and here, and those are only the visits we got around to blogging about.) We love their soft and chewy liege wafels with various dinges (toppings). If you've never had a liege wafel before, they're a little denser and chewier than the waffles you normally get here in the States and they are delicious.

Although I love the Nutella and strawberries combo I often get, I am always up for trying something different. A suggested topping our liege wafel with Belgian chocolate fudge to try to relive our experience from the yellow waffle vans in Brussels (which we still haven't blogged about, but that's what we got), and that's exactly what we did.

The wafel was nice and crunchy on the exterior but soft and chewy on the inside, and the chocolate was incredibly rich. This was a great snack to continue our World Cup food crawl!

City Sandwich

M and I continued our World Cup 2014 eating challenge by visiting City Sandwich in Hell's Kitchen for a Portuguese sandwich. Our original idea was to go to Newark, NJ as there was a Portuguese restaurant we wanted to try, but our idea was squashed when Hurricane/Tropical Storm Arthur blew through and washed out pretty much the entire night.

It wasn't our first visit to City Sandwich, but we saw some new stuff on the menu. We opted for the LGBT sandwich as it not only sounded like a really good sandwich, but some of the profits for the sandwich went towards care and research for people affected by AIDS and HIV. 

The LGBT stands for Linguiça (spread), Goat Cheese, Bacon (Portuguese Pancetta), and Tomato. Sadly, they had run out of goat cheese so we ended up having to substitute in mozzarella. Even with that change, the sandwich was delicious. The bread was a nice crusty roll with a perfectly chewy interior. The linguiça was smoky and a touch salty, but it was tempered by the lettuce and tomato. The pancetta wasn't as salty as I thought it would be, but it added a nice crispy texture to the sandwich.

We really liked this sandwich, and it's something we'd certainly try again in hopes of getting one with the goat cheese to see how it's supposed to taste. We also really want to go back to try some of their other sandwiches.

Nieuwe Haring

It's always puzzled us why NYC doesn't have or can't sustain a Dutch restaurant. We've had so many great Dutch foods that we think people would embrace, like pannekoeken, frites, herring, ossenworst, poffertjes, croquettes. (Seriously, a FEBO in the East Village makes perfect sense to us.) For a while, we thought we might have to do a rijsttafel for the Dutch portion of the World Cup challenge, but even though that's a hallmark of cuisine in the Netherlands, that's really more Indonesian cuisine, so we were hoping for something else. Luckily, before the World Cup started, the perfect idea hit me - we could go to the Grand Central Oyster Bar and get some of the herring that they specially fly in from the Netherlands every summer!

We visited Amsterdam back in 2010 and it was there that we had our first taste of Dutch herring. We went in the fall so it wasn't the season for "new herring" (nieuwe haring in Dutch). New herring is the first catch of the season, the newly matured fish, and we've been going to the Grand Central Oyster Bar every year for the past few years to get our herring fix. Although the Oyster Bar has lots of varieties of seafood, this definitely counts as Dutch for us since they fly the herring in daily from Scheveningen in the Netherlands (a seaside area near the Hague that we thought about visiting except the day we visited the Hague we were running late and it was raining).

Source

We prefer sitting at the counters at the Oyster Bar (instead of the dining room), so we headed over there and placed our order for some Dutch herring. After ordering, they gave us our complimentary plates of bread and butter. Those flatbreads are crisp and tasty.

We each got an appetizer of nieuwe maatjes herring filet ($7), which comes with one piece of herring (split), some egg crumbles, grated raw onion and chopped chives.

Before our first visit for nieuwe herring, we had only really had it in sandwiches in Amsterdam. It's quite good on a plate like this, very refreshing and light. The fish is so fresh and doesn't have an overpowering fishy flavor at all. Eggs, chives and raw onions are a great accompaniment. The traditional way to consume this is to lift it by the tail and eat it. A tried that method one year, but we usually just eat it piece by piece with fork and knife. Lasts longer and we can savor every bite.

We didn't want to get main courses after our herring plates so we decided to split another appetizer. We got the grilled Spanish cuttlefish (sepia) with lemon oil and French gray sea salt ($11.95). That was really good. It had a delicate flavor and the cuttlefish was grilled just to the point of tenderness. It was almost like being back in Barcelona with their amazing grilled seafood tapas (other than the price tag).

We initially decided to go to the Oyster Bar for our World Cup visit, but we're also going to count this visit towards our WorldEats challenge. We've been talking a lot about WorldEats and our slow journey through the Caribbean, and we've decided yet again to evolve the challenge a little bit. Instead of attempting to do it geographically (but allowing ourselves to go out of order), we can jump around freely, but we'll still try to do each country we pick as a single unit so we can really get a taste for the cuisine. Since the new herring is the only thing we know of at the moment for the Netherlands, I guess WorldEats for the Netherlands is done for now. We would definitely go back and visit more places if any should come up in our journey. We'd love to have a FEBO here!

100 Montaditos

When we were in Barcelona a couple of years ago, we saw a bunch of 100 Montaditos restaurants around. We never had time to try them when we were out there, but they looked popular and affordable. They opened a branch in NYC late last year, and A suggested we try that out for the Spanish stop on our World Cup eating challenge which was a great idea.

100 Montaditos offers literally 100 different varieties of montaditos, which is what they call a mini-sandwich throughout Spain. They range from the original montaditos with meatballs or shrimp, to "premium" montaditos which include tuna and serrano, as well as special gourmet combinations and sweet dessert montaditos. Since choice can be overwhelming, they also have preset selections with 5 montaditos each (meat lovers, veggie, Mediterranean, chocolate, and "black label"). The menu also has non-montadito options like variations of fries and potatoes, meat and cheese plates, and even paella.

We arrived for a late lunch in the middle of the first half of the Korea-Algeria game, and got a table in the brightly lit back room which was equipped with multiple TVs. We decided to go with two of the pre-designed combinations - the meat lovers ($7) and the Mediterranean ($9) - and an order of fries ($3).

For the fries, we chose the fries with cheese sauce and Serrano bites. These came out first and were a great snack during the game. The fries were really crispy on the outside, like they were double-fried, but the insides were still nice and soft. The cheese sauce was well-distributed and melted. The pieces of Serrano ham were also fried up and crumbled, and were a nice replacement for bacon. Although the montaditos ended up being way more filling than we expected by the end of our meal, so much so that we didn't really need the fries, these fries were our favorite part of the meal!

We both split all of the sandwiches so we could try them all. After we ate them all, we ranked them and then averaged our scores. Although our exact rankings weren't the same, the averages sorted them out into roughly four tiers. In order of least favorite to favorite, here's what we tried (with the montadito menu number listed since there are a lot of similar sounding ones).

10. Smoked salmon and blue cheese with crispy onion and honey mustard (#75, from the Mediterranean set).

This was the sandwich we both liked least. You could taste the salmon, the blue cheese, the onions and the honey mustard. But they didn't go well together at all in our opinion. The mustard and salmon weren't too bad together, but the blue cheese was just weird with it.

8 (tie). Garlic pork loin with fresh tomato, lettuce and mayo (#52, from the Meat Lovers set).

This was the first montadito that M tried and all she could think was that it tasted like a boring turkey sandwich with mayo. A found it bland and boring and perhaps put it best as, "what's the point?"

8 (tie). Smoked salmon and hardboiled egg with lettuce and mayo (#72, from the Mediterranean set).

M thought this was okay. She could taste the salmon, mayo, and egg but there was a bit too much mayo in her opinion. A thought the smoked salmon didn't come through at all, and it tasted just like mayo, egg, and lettuce.

6 (tie). Chicken with green pepper, fresh tomato and ali oli (#45, from the Meat Lovers set).

Ali oli is basically Spanish garlic mayonnaise (aioli). It's hard to go wrong with garlic mayo. A thought this was nothing special and that all the flavor came from the ali oli. M thought this was going to be green bell pepper when we ordered it but it seemed more like poblano peppers. She liked that the chicken wasn't dry and thought the garlic mayo was a good match for it.

6 (tie). Philly steak with cheddar cheese, piquillo pepper (roasted red pepper) and crispy onion (#29, from the Meat Lovers set).

The main thought we both had about this one was that it was incredibly salty. The beef didn't have much flavor on its own, but M liked that the texture was chipped meat like an actual cheesesteak and not larger pieces. The cheese was the same as the one in the fries - like a salty cheez whiz type of sauce - but it all just seemed too salty.

2 (tie). BBQ pulled pork with cream cheese, bacon and ali oli (#47, from the Meat Lovers set).

This sandwich had a good BBQ sauce flavor. A found the ali oli here to be an odd addition and kind of weird with the sweet pulled pork, but M really liked it here mixed with the BBQ sauce. Probably why M ranked it 3rd on her list but A had it a few spots lower on his. The bacon was also a strange addition and not really necessary. We didn't notice any cream cheese.

2 (tie). Anchovies with fresh tomato, mayo and pepinillo (pickles from Spain) (#77, from the Mediterranean set).

We both agreed that the anchovies were a bit fishy, but in the end they're anchovies. The mayo added a bit of cool richness, and the pickles were great. They weren't overly tart, but they offered a really mild, balanced flavor. In the end, it reminded A of a slightly salty herring sandwich from Amsterdam. M didn't quite get the same flavor connection when she ate it, but also thought it was good.

2 (tie). Tuna and hardboiled egg with piparra (mild Spanish pepper) and mayo (#22, from the Mediterranean set).

We both really enjoyed this sandwich. The tuna wasn't fishy at all since it was cooked, and we both thought the mayo paired really nicely. M thought the egg added some creaminess, and A thought that the piparra acted like relish even if M didn't remember it being there. A described it fairly aptly as something of a deconstructed tuna salad sandwich.

2 (tie). Tuna and piquillo pepper with crispy onion and ali oli (#23, from the Mediterranean set).

The piquillo peppers were both sweet and sour and were really good with the crispy onions and tuna. A didn't think the onions added any flavor, but they added a lot of crunch. M liked it more than A, but he still thought it was good.

1. Meatballs with bacon (#11, from the Meat Lovers set).

Three meatballs in tomato sauce with a piece of bacon underneath them. The meatballs had a lot of flavor to them, which made this our favorite sandwich. The tomato sauce gave it a bit of an Italian taste as well as Spanish. The bacon was probably unnecessary. It didn't really add much to the sandwich. A thought maybe if the bacon were like Serrano ham, it was just added to make the sandwich taste more Spanish. There are some other meatball montaditos with manchego cheese and other stuff that we think sound really interesting for next time. At least we know the meatballs themselves are tasty!

The food at 100 Montaditos doesn't scream Spanish since some of these sandwiches could be found in other cuisines, but we know it's definitely Spanish since we saw the chain while we were there. It's a solid and relatively inexpensive option that we were glad we took advantage of for the challenge. We both agreed that the fries topped with cheese and crispy Serrano ham were our favorite thing to eat, but we'd certainly go back to try other sandwiches and their other food.

100 Montaditos is at 176 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village.