These Spots Around NYC Scream ‘Summer’ to Eater Editors
As summer winds down and nights turn cooler, there is a bittersweet pleasure to recalling the best parts of the season. Summer technically ends September 22, but as the new school year arrives, for all intents and purposes, the season is on the wane.
El Jalapeño: Coming home late from a concert or a visit with friends is often the time I’m hungriest — and also the time I’m most likely to visit a food truck, since most fast-service restaurants are closed at that hour. My favorite has long been the El Jalapeño truck that parks every evening until 4 a.m. at Sheridan Square, where tacos cost about $3 apiece. Ask for pickled jalapeños and red salsa, the hotter of the two, and pick chorizo or carne enchilada. 204 W. Fourth Street, at Sheridan Square, West Village — Robert Sietsema, senior critic.
Matilda at the Henson: In July, my friends and I escaped the city for a one-night stay at The Henson, a new boutique hotel run in part by the team behind Contra and Wildair. The hotel itself was lovely, with well-decorated rooms and extremely comfortable beds, but Matilda, the main restaurant, is the biggest draw. The dishes were deceptively simple sounding but absolutely delicious, like prawns wrapped in perilla and tomatoes and lentils with tete de cochon. The showstopper for me was the ingenious wood ice cream sundae, flavored with charcoal, cherry, maple and oat, then smoked and strained. The team behind the hotel runs Day June Luncheonette down the street (with complimentary breakfast for hotel guests), so you could reasonably have multiple excellent meals in the same town, or venture a little further out to explore the rest of Hudson Valley, including the fabulous new Mel the Bakery. 39 Goshen Road, at Maplecrest Road, Hensonville — Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief.
Biddrina Gelato: When Locanda Vini e Olii opened a gelato cart outside of its Clinton Hill restaurant last summer, I was skeptical at first. The flavors skewed creative, and while I don’t have a problem with creativity, my gelato preferences tend towards the simple: stracciatella or a nice gianduja. A year and countless visits later, I can say that my first impression was silly. Biddrina is now the standard by which I judge all other gelato in the city. The creative flavors are the best possible versions of themselves — the cantaloupe tastes like a better version of cantaloupe; the lemon crema contains small chunks of bright citrus. Plus, in its second summer, Biddrina has added some more standard options (the pistachio is an all-time favorite). Not knowing which flavors will be available is part of what keeps me coming back, multiple times a week some weeks, and I count myself extremely lucky to be within a five minute walk. The gelato cart around the corner has become one of the things I love most about living in New York. 129 Gates Avenue, at Cambridge Place, Clinton Hill — Monica Burton, Eater.com deputy editor.
Houseman: A recent visit to Tribeca mainstay Houseman from Ned Baldwin led me to a packed dining room, with diners here for the super fresh local fish, terrific quality vegetables, and, for our purposes, stellar desserts from pastry chef Nicole Sheets. In addition to simple summer pleasures like ice cream cones with flavors like salted caramel and dark chocolate ($8), she makes peach and lemon verbena panna cotta with honeycomb candy ($15), a cherry stracciatella semifreddo ($17), and a knockout sungold tomato sundae with ricotta ice cream. Grab a seat at the bar with friends and order all the desserts. 508 Greenwich Street, at Spring Street, Tribeca — Melissa McCart, Eater NY editor.
Top Thai Vintage: Hidden away on Carmine Street, this is one of the city’s few halal Thai restaurants. Colorfully decorated like a Bangkok market, it attracts a crowd that appreciates the pork-free menu and relishes the restaurant’s eclectic recipes (some from far southern Thailand, with lots of seafood). I found it different enough from other Thai restaurants that I sought it out, both for its excellent and relatively inexpensive food, cocktail specials, and an international crowd. 55 Carmine Street, at Bedford Street, Greenwich Village — Robert Sietsema, senior critic.
Dun Huang: I’m of the mindset that spicy foods are helpful for cooling off in the summer and one of my go-tos has been Dun Huang in Jersey City, where I live. It’s basically an (always crowded) retro-designed Chinese diner with multiple locations. This one tucks next the ground floor of a Miami-looking building called the Beach. It’s a stone’s throw from Newport’s Water’s Soul sculpture, a woman’s face that looks across the Hudson, adjacent to an esplanade that’s as lovely as the High Line, with Manhattan skyline views and fewer crowds. Many a weekday I’d visit for eggplant salad, a collection of skewers, beef noodle soup, hand-ripped noodles, or a spicy numbing stir-fry. After dinner, I’d take a walk along the path to catch the sunset or the moonrise for a casual weekday summer evening. 180 River Drive North, at Park Lane North, Jersey City — Melissa McCart, NY editor.
