Author: Site Adminstrator

Let us be frank, we kind of love this new sculpture in Times Square: a 65-foot-long hot dog in a bun drenched in mustard that launches confetti in the air every day at noon. When it comes to outdoor art, this is by far the oddest sculpture we’ve seen around town in the last few months.

Called “Hot Dog in the City,” the giant addition to the Times Square landscape comes courtesy of Brooklyn-based artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw, who were commissioned by Times Square Arts.

The work “paints a unique portrait of America,” reads an official press release. Specifically, the duo of artists hopes the sculpture will entice folks to talk about “the patriarchy of meat-eating,” what meat production in the U.S. entails, the politics of street vending, capitalism, immigration and more.

To drive the point home further, the debut of the hot dog will be accompanied by a slew of public programs from now through June 13, including a “hot dog wrestling match” (we’re not sure what that means, but it sure sounds fun), debates about condiments, a very odd-sounding beauty pageant involving dogs and a qualifier for Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest among others. You can learn more about the roster of events right here.

In case you were wondering how the idea for such a unique art piece even came about, you should know that Catron and Outlaw’s work has been dealing in similar matters for years now. According to the press release, the two once produced a dinner party on hydraulics, a fish fry truck that made its way around NYC and giant mechanized ice cream sundaes. The huge hot dog suddenly sounds so… on brand?

Every day at noon, hydraulics will propel the hot dog straight up and a built-in confetti canon will shoot the paper scraps up in the air. Woohoo!

You’ve got until June 13 to see the enormous wiener live, so get to Times Square ASAP.

* This article was originally published here

New Yorkers love a good speakeasy—our list of the 20 best speakeasy-inspired bars in NYC is spirited proof.

The clandestine cocktail-bar genre is getting a new entry in the form of Koi Bā, a Japanese-accented drinking den coming to Williamsburg ( 80 North 6th Street) on Wednesday, May 15.

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Owned and curated by Nem’s Japandi Bistro’s creator Supranee “Nem” Phramdang, the new Brooklyn bar will pay homage to Japanese flavors and “seasonal narratives,” with a 12-drink menu overseen by Beverage Director Ricky Dolinsky. (There will also be Japanese craft beers, a thoughtfully curated sake repertoire and tasting flights of house whiskeys.)

On the cocktail list, you’ll find creations like the “Paper Crane,” a Paper Plane that took a trip to Tokyo (Japanese aged rum, Interboro amaro, yellow chartreuse and lime); the tiki-inspired “Blue Forest” (coconut-infused whiskey, pineapple, Kare spice, amontillado sherry, nutty sesame orgeat and egg white); and the Bellini-esque “Hana Akiri,” perfect for cherry blossom season with hibiscus-infused gin, fresh cucumber, lychee, nigori sake and a Pet Nat rosé. A “Smokey Toki” has some theatrical bartender flair: the duck fat-infused cognac cocktail with absinthe, fennel and mizuna syrup is smoked with a mix of wood chips and matcha, echoing the flavors of a classic green-tea smoked duck. 

Speaking of food, there will be plenty of drinking snacks on offer, from fried chicken Karaage (with Sancho pepper honey, house hot sauce and Szechuan peppercorn) to “French Onion” Agedashi Tofu (served with broiled gruyere cheese) to a tartare (choice of tuna or salmon) topped with charred Negi, cured egg and yuzu kosho. 

Japanese touches abound in the décor as well: an oversized Koi fish is the statement piece above the bar, and moody dim lighting pepped with pops of red neon makes it feel like you’ve stumbled into the alleys of Golden Gai. 

Check out photos of Koi Bā’s cocktails and bar bites below: 

* This article was originally published here

We love some cheap tacos as much as any New Yorker, but there’s an added thrill when those deliciously filling, low-budget bites come from a lofty source. In Esse Taco‘s case, that source is Enrique Olvera, the chef-restaurateur known for his acclaimed, high-minded Mexican cooking at the three-Michelin-starred Pujol in Mexico City as well as at Cosme and Atla in Manhattan. 

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At his vibrant new Brooklyn taqueria with Santiago Pérez (of Casamata hospitality group)—which opens at 219 Bedford Avenue and North 5th Street on Thursday, May 2—the standing-only digs are leagues more casual than at Olvera’s other World’s 50 Best dining rooms, but the menu is thoughtfully focused.

The tortillas are made with heirloom corn, nixtamalized and hand-pressed on-premises. And tacos hover around the five-buck mark: rib-eye steak with salsa guacachile ($5.95), citrus-marinated grilled chicken with spicy Xnipec-style pickled onions ($4.95), al pastor pork loin with pineapple butter ($4.95), and a mesquite-smoked oyster mushroom option with salsa tatemada ($5.45). There’s the option to make any one of the above “Gringa” with a flour tortilla in place of the traditional masa round, with added chihuahua cheese for a dollar extra. 

Rounding out the taco-focused menu are sides like totopos with guacamole or a salsa trio, a range of beverages including tequila and mezcal margaritas, beer and refreshing agua frescas, and a fast-casual take on Olvera’s famed corn husk meringue from Cosme, one of the best desserts in New York City. Here, the dessert—which is made crunchy, ash-dusted meringue topped with a velvety corn mousse and vanilla cream—is smartly transformed into a mini ice cream sundae, just the thing to soothe after all those chile-fired tacos.

Check out photos of Esse Taco’s delicioso-looking offerings below, including those meaty tacos and that corn husk sundae:

* This article was originally published here

Sure, we all lived off a very healthy diet comprised of nothing but Cup Noodles and bagels throughout our college years, but does slurpy-ready instant ramen and those boiled-and-baked rounds actually go together? One of New York’s most viral bagel spots, PopUp Bagels, is exploring the oddball combination by partnering with Cup Noodles on a limited-edition cream cheese. 

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Inspired by the Cup Noodles brand’s recently released Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese flavor—which “blends ramen with a saucy mix of caraway seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic, onion, and cream cheese flavor for the ultimate everything bagel experience” and is available to purchase exclusively at Walmart stores and Walmart.com—PopUp Bagels has created a limited-edition everything bagel cream cheese with actual noodles in it.

“We know this flavor got you thinking: but what if the noodles were IN a cream cheese and we can actually schmear on an everything bagel?” Cup Noodles posted on Instagram on April 30. “We partnered up with the iconic @popupbagels to create a limited edition Cup Noodles everything bagel cream cheese. Available 5/1-5/7 at all PopUp bagels locations and limited mail orders.” Even bolder, the ramen brand instructs “bagel and ramen enthusiasts looking for an extra creamy eating experience” to add a dollop of the new cream cheese directly into the Cup Noodles Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese cup. 

From today, May 1 through Tuesday, May 7, the limited-edition cream cheese will be available exclusively at PopUp Bagels locations, including the 177 Thompson St storefront, as well as online for national shipment. The bagel bakery is set to open several other locations in New York City, including in the Upper West Side (at 338 Columbus Ave) and Upper East Side (1457 Third Ave). 

It’s not the only wild-sounding bagel collaboration that PopUp has participated in lately—just last month, the bakery collabed with Dominique Ansel on a limited-time Parmesan Gruyère Bagel schmeared with confit garlic cream cheese and topped with actual escargot. 

* This article was originally published here

If there’s anything that’s constant in New York City, it’s change, and most New Yorkers have become hardened to the tragedy of seeing their favorite small businesses shutter. Since COVID, the trend has only gotten worse: Places like China Chalet and Coogan’s, which once defined their respective neighborhoods and the city at large, practically disappeared overnight. 

When I think of small New York businesses that have held out, Ollin, the small, orange Mexican restaurant in East Harlem, instantly comes to mind. Located on the corner of 108th Street between First and Second Avenues, they’ve survived multiple recessions and a pandemic, a testament to the power that their community—as well as their undeniably bomb food—continues to hold in the face of gentrification.

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Ollin’s story began in 1997, when Juan Perez immigrated from a small town in the Mexican state of Puebla and opened a deli called Rosas de Tepeyac. It was a place where other Mexican immigrants could buy ingredients that were hard to find elsewhere at that time, like jalapeños and tortillas. In addition to those ingredients, Juan also sold food he made himself, like tortas, tacos, and most notably, cemitas, a subgenre of torta that’s local to Puebla and that you can’t find in most Mexican restaurants. 

The deli blossomed, and it got so busy that Juan had to recruit his wife, Leticia, to help him out. Soon, their three sons got involved in the business, too. On weekends, Jonathan, the family’s middle child, worked closely with his parents at the register and mopped the floors. In 2008, Juan decided to close the deli and try his luck opening a restaurant just a few blocks away. That’s how Ollin—the Aztec term that means “to act with one’s heart”—was born. 

Shortly after Ollin began its operations, though, there was a rupture in the family: Jonathan realized he was queer and began to distance himself from the family business. He tells me that during this time he barely saw his parents. Instead, he found jobs at restaurants throughout Manhattan and found a chosen family among the Latino queer community in Jackson Heights. 

Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit and restaurants began to close en masse. Even though his relationship with his family was shaky at times, Jonathan worried for his parents. “I thought there’s no way Ollin was going to survive COVID if they already had a hard time when there was no pandemic,” he tells Time Out. He quit his job at the Japanese restaurant where he worked and decided to try and help his family’s restaurant survive.

The first thing he did was get on TikTok. Jonathan began making videos of himself talking about his family’s story, how they’d been in the neighborhood for several decades, and, of course, all their food offerings, including their iconic cemitas and homemade churros. Those videos resonated at a time when we were seeing small businesses close en masse, and Ollin quickly gained a following (today, the restaurant has 83k followers on TikTok). For several months throughout 2021, you could see a line out of Ollin’s door, and people would drive from Long Island and beyond just to see what the hype was about. 

Pretty soon, Ollin became a hub for the local community. They held sip and paint sessions and organized screenings of Coco for children in the neighborhood. They also set up an altar for Dia de los Muertos where neighbors could put pictures of their deceased loved ones and honor them. “Ollin has become a beacon for so many different communities,” Jonathan tells Time Out. “We’re so proud that beyond our food, we built a place of community and care.”

The family’s compelling story is the reason many people go to Ollin. But let’s be real, the food is the reason they keep coming back. For first timers, Jonathan recommends ordering their sope with chorizo, since the dough is made in house. For a main course, he recommends the cemitas, which are made with fresh papalo, an herb popular among Indigenous cuisines throughout Latin America, homemade chipotle, and quesillo, a type of cheese they source from Mexico (it’s also commonly referred to as Oaxaca cheese). 

Another very popular dish from the restaurant is their birria, the quesadilla-like dish that you dip into a beef broth. Ollin uses the dried chilis required in traditional recipes, as opposed to tomatoes, which some restaurants use as a substitute to cut costs. If you’re lucky, you’ll also get a chance to try their mole, which is made and shipped by the family’s grandma back in Mexico—which also means it’s not always in stock.

Another favorite is the Plato Juancho, named after Juan, which is a hearty plate that includes grilled potatoes, a whole cactus, onions, jalapeños, cheese and the meat of your choice. It’s the plate that the patriarch of the family would eat to keep him going after long days of work, and a dish that says a lot about the family’s origins.

Ollin is a restaurant that has survived out of a family’s grit, but has thrived out of the love of the surrounding community. Ultimately, Jonathan sees Ollin as a vessel that will propel his family into a more gentle era, an era where they can rest. He wants Ollin to be successful enough so that his family can build their house in Mexico, where Juan and Leticia eventually want to return and retire. “Once I see my parents’ house fully built, I can think more about my future,” Jonathan says. “I want my parents, who are in their 60s, to have somewhere comfortable to go once they are older.”

You can visit Ollin at 339 E 108th Street Monday through Thursday from 11am until 9:30pm.

* This article was originally published here