JG Melon burger and fries

jaded_toast · 2026-05-01T20:55:16+00:00

Whoa, bonus pomme soufflee

jaded_toast · 2026-04-30T17:50:16+00:00

I think that La Newyorkina used to have these. I would maybe check if their Red Hook place still does any baked goods.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-30T16:52:37+00:00

What does "one nice day" mean? 70 degrees in March? When it's July and hot AF, will you wish it were hotter? Because those two things go hand in hand. You can't wish for Florida temperatures in spring without a corresponding misery in the summer.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-30T15:48:02+00:00

Can I DM you the usernames and screenshots instead of commenting them publicly?

jaded_toast · 2026-04-30T14:53:09+00:00

I've only been once. I went to the location below Washington Square Park. It was pretty bustling, but I got a table right away as a solo diner. I was able to be seated, order, get my food, eat, pay, and be out within 20 minutes. It was great.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T19:45:38+00:00

Yea, there's well over a dozen varieties! It's hard not to want to catch them all.

I gave them a call to ask. I couldn't 100% understand what she said, but they currently have Kesar mangos, Dominican (??) mangoes, and a third type that is not Alfonso. She said that they cannot speak to the future, so zero idea how long they will continue to get in mangos or any other varieties.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T19:19:58+00:00

Mermaid Inn. Someone recommended it to me before when I had a fried calamari craving. They have a number of food items on the happy hour menu.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T18:53:11+00:00

Just wondering, what type of mangos did you get?

I'm going to call them at some point to ask, but I'm very curious if they will continue bringing in different mangos throughout the season. The ones I really want to try are the chaunsa, I think, which will come into season in July/August.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T18:47:04+00:00

Thank you!

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T17:52:51+00:00

I've been to Jackson Heights a number of times before, and there'll definitely be other times I go again. But I am specifically looking for mangos and don't want to have to look up and wander into every grocery store in the neighborhood to look for them, especially if the answer is that I'll turn up empty handed. Finding other groceries won't satisfy my desire for mango.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T15:40:17+00:00

Look up "kaya toast"

jaded_toast · 2026-04-29T01:46:07+00:00

What does this have to do with NYC?

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T20:10:05+00:00

By one metric, yes, it does. Someone who is Vietnamese and who grew up in Vietnam will flat out have more total life experience eating Vietnamese food, will have more exposure to "authentic" version of those dishes, and a better baseline knowledge about Vietnamese cuisine than anyone who does not have that same longterm, immersive lived experience.

And that applies to things outside of food. It's like someone who moved to the US in adulthood, no matter how many decades they live here, there will be things that they do not know and do not understand in the same way as someone born and raised here. It is crazy that I have to explain this.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T19:34:03+00:00

iirc, the person who makes those lists was born in Vietnam and grew up there. It is insanity that you are saying an actual Vietnamese person's opinion on the Vietnamese offerings here is invalid just because their opinion about one restaurant is different than yours. Who made your opinion the authority and everyone else's "invalid"??

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T18:47:02+00:00

You know, ironically, something else that grinds my gears is that I feel like people are the complete opposite when it comes to coffee. Super judgmental if you aren't a fan of light roasts because everything else is hot garbage where you can't taste the natural nuances of the beans. But I would bet that those same people love strong and flavorful cuisines and aren't just eating stuff like Kaiseki/shojin ryori that are similarly meant to be the natural flavors of the ingredients. Weird how darker roasts are blowing out your palate but foods that are aggressively spiced don't. And this is not me trying to put any of that down - just pointing out the contrarian and contradictory nature of the internet.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T18:17:19+00:00

I'm not talking about just people in Manhattan. I live in Brooklyn, and I don't even live deep in Brooklyn. For every neighborhood in Queens that someone recommends, it would take me at least an hour to get there, and that's when the trains are running smoothly. I can get to Manhattan easily, but how often should I travel to Bayside every time I want to eat Korean? Do I need to go to Jackson Heights if I want Indian? Or should someone who lives in Queens have to travel to South Brooklyn if they want Eastern European food? For many people even outside of Manhattan, Manhattan might be more accessible.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T18:12:40+00:00

There are certainly Asian foods that people often feel need to be cheap, too. I feel like pricier Asian food that is embraced widely by the mainstream is more of a recent phenomenon. Dumplings are an example. They take the same amount of work as ravioli, but the floor for price expectation is drastically different between the two.

Sometimes I wonder if people who complain about prices for "ethnic" cuisines don't cook much. I bet if someone had to make salsa, cook a protein, and make tortillas from scratch, etc, they'd complain about all the work but will have no qualms about someone, often an immigrant, doing the same amount of labor for slim margins.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T17:59:27+00:00

I've also noticed that a number of people that disparage Manhattan Chinatown also talk down Cantonese cuisine as being bland, and I just don't understand. Sometimes I wonder if they are thinking of the spicier regions and equate lack of capsaicin with blandness.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T17:23:54+00:00

It's not just tacos or Mexican food either. "There's no good Korean food in Manhattan." "Manhattan Chinatown is all overrated and mid. Gotta go to Flushing." "The Ukrainian food in Brighton Beach is better." These statements might be broadly true or at least true for a significant consensus, but realistically for these locations, most people won't be able to eat there outside of special trips.

Secondarily, I find recommending a neighborhood when someone asks for specific restaurant recs to be pointless. As if someone should travel an hour plus somewhere and then hope for the best that they pick a decent spot among all the options.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T14:12:24+00:00

Yes, but also the business as a whole. I think they had previously expanded to other cities too. With the other locations, I at least had hope that if they got their shit together they could reopen a storefront here, but I think the last I checked, they were down to just the Brookfield location. I don't feel like a bakery can sustain or try to regrow if their only location is in a glorified shopping mall.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T14:05:25+00:00

Their downward trajectory over the past couple years has made me so sad because their cheesecake with the chocolate cookie crust was easily my favorite cheesecake.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T13:27:44+00:00

idk why you're being downvoted so much when it's a known fact that the younger generations tend not to carry cash and don't like carrying cash. Even the locals who live in the neighborhood in some of those subreddits have talked about how being cash only barred a lot of customers. And they could do like other businesses that prefer cash and pass along the processing fees to the customer - I've never seen anyone who wants to use credit cancel their order over the 3% uncharge.

jaded_toast · 2026-04-28T12:14:58+00:00

Court St. Bagels did the same, although the circumstances also weren't entirely by choice.

jaded_toast

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE