As evidenced by my Serbian stuffed burgers post, I really like the idea of cheese as burger entrails rather than burger beanie. Even though you’re probably consuming the same amount of dairy and meat either way, there’s something so satisfyingly savage about biting into a patty and encountering oozing, orange gobs.  Whitmans in the East Village offers such a rugged experience with its Minneapolis-based Juicy Lucy burger.  The grass-fed beef is encased by thick layers of char (a little less blackening would have been preferable) and a squishy, seed-studded bun. I liked the old school bun choice because it was able to house its corpulent tenant with ease.  Like a tootsie pop, three bites led me to the core — which was gushing with a pliant but melty pool of spicy cheese.  Fresh new pickles and caramelized onions also garnished the burger for added tang, sweetness, and freshness. I actually would have liked a little more of where that came from.

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I like the esoteric playfulness behind Traif, the new pork-centric, small plates-only eatery situated near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. Despite its stone’s throw proximity to the neighborhood’s Hasidic enclave, it seems the restaurant’s Semitic inside joke is still fairly exclusionary — our waitress’s wide blue eyes, fair hair, and button nose were a pretty clear indication that she’d never been hoisted in a rickety chair in her sweet, Midwestern life.  And from the looks of the other apple pie faces crowding the establishment, bacon’s current hipness in the foodie world, rather than its blasphemous role in the Kosher one, is Traif’s primary lure.

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Today’s weather did not make the long-holiday-weekend-to-work transition any smoother. This morning’s stifling heat made me uncharacteristically angry at a cute baby who mistook my turquoise headphones for playthings.  I’m usually angry during my morning commute to work, though this indignation is almost never directed at babies.

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Can anybody get a slice of rhubarb pie in this town?

A couple weeks ago I went to Pies ‘n’  Thighs in Williamsburg, the fried chicken and pie establishment whose name also functions as a suitable porno title. The menu’s rhubarb pie option was my main reason for going, not only because I love the tangy fruit (a classification that Wikipedia just confirmed for me), but I suppose I’ve succumbed to the crimson deluge of rhubarb crisps, pies, and crumbles on food blogs lately.  The fried chicken platter I ordered for dinner, priced at a fair $11, consisted of 3 generous hunks of chicken (I believe I got 2 breasts and a thigh) and a side of cheese-and-tabasco-covered elbow noodles that encompassed half the plate. The chicken was a pleasant surprise — it was crisp and juicy (especially that fattier dark meat that I prefer), and infinitely more satisfying than the overpriced ($25!) fried chicken dinner at the lauded Blue Ribbon.

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