Breakfast items from El Quinto Pino
I feel like when it comes to food blog writing, there's only a few major camps you can fall into. You could be the straight forward info supplier. Very useful, and highly visible when you're already successful. Then there are the comedic writers, who're able to conjure a laugh by slinging words. That's probably the toughest. Or you could be a memoir-ish type of writer, where every recipe reminds you of cooking with mom or grandma, and aromas invoke something out of Lifetime Original Television. Not really capable of any one of those three methods, I'll just say that arranging for new living quarters with just two weeks is kinda tough... and that progressing from a roommate living situation to living as a couple is a momentous step in one's life. And with all the stress that comes with these things, at least I can count on eating breakfast for lunch, because as we all know, breakfast is warm and comforting. Sometimes... And it's with that notion in mind, that I hit up El Quinto Pino for their new breakfast offerings, which extend to 2pm (so you can eat it for lunch).
The woman who was working there that day told me about a pressed sandwich they had with cheese and Spanish ham. They call it, the bikini. A name that might have something to do with the shape of the sandwich when they cut it in half diagonally. The bread they use is thin and well buttered, and kind of is like a thin grilled cheese with ham. It's something that I could eat for breakfast everyday. It's $6 dollars so maybe not for breakfast everyday, but it's certainly delicious.
They also had this thing called a tortilla even though it's more an omelet than a tortilla. It's a potato omelet that they cut up for you as a pie wedge. It's pretty hefty and filling, but unfortunately this was a miss for me. Maybe it's the whole thing of enjoying a warm item and then moving onto a room temperature item... but the tortilla isn't for me. I really wonder what that's like straight out of the oven though. But when you're eating breakfast food for lunch, it's kind of hard to get it piping hot.
So getting to the thing that I forgot to do last Friday... so I've been trying to create a new section on the site and the only idea that I came up with was a restaurant listing. Yea, you're probably saying, with yelp, nytimes, and google, you could find just about any single info you want about a restaurant. One of the main complaints of yelp is that we never know who's leaving those comments. Yea sure, you could see how long that person has been a member, but the star rating is essentially voted on by everyone... and there's been stories out there about how something like two-thirds of people rate 4 or 5 stars. So if you could fix that... how would you do it? Well, I think what you need is something like yelp, except where all the ratings are from people you can trust... so what if you had a restaurant listing where you can click into reviews by bloggers? So I'm trying to do that for NY and for the bloggers that I follow. Sure, it's a slow process, and it's always going to be a work in progress... but this lets you filter restaurants by neighborhoods or cuisine types. So for El Quinto Pino, you can click into reviews by Fork in the Road (Village Voice) and Serious Eats New York and The Wandering Eater. I'm sure at some point yelp or google can outdo my ass on this, so consider this project with a short life-span, but there it is.
El Quinto Pino
401 W 24th St.
New York, NY 10011
212-206-6900
I looooove your directory idea. Are you taking self-suggestions? 'Cause, um, not to toot my own horn, but I have fairly in-depth reviews with proper grammar and hopefully-awesome photos. There's a list of restaurants I've reviewed in my sidebar.
And, if you are, I'd love to tell other bloggers I love to come find you, 'cause there are lots of lesser-knowns writing super reviews, and I haven't seem them mention this.
donuts4dinner
April 24, 2010 8:08 pm
Outstanding idea with the new index! I read a decent amount of food blogs, but very few of them are what I would consider excellent resources. You're on your way to something here!
James
April 5, 2010 6:41 pm
Linking to blog reviews is super helpful. Maybe add personal best/worst lists based on your archive of posts (i.e. best ramen/worst ramen)?
Dennis
April 5, 2010 10:26 pm
you didn't know what a tortilla espanola is?
Ang
April 6, 2010 6:46 pm
@FN,
Awesome, I'm glad you like the new feature. I have to find ways to make it more user friendly for people though.
@Janice,
Yea spammers... doh! Gotta erase their ass
@James,
Yea that's the thing, if I could just combine all this time spent on reading food blogs into something useful...
@Dennis,
Thanks for that idea, I'll try to do some roundup posts in the future. It always feels more definitive when it's a top five, even if it's not.
@Ang,
I've been trapped in Brooklyn for 6 years. Well, not any more...
Danny
April 7, 2010 11:27 am
Danny, you've made it to the big time! Your site is getting spammed! Woo-hoo!
Janice
April 5, 2010 6:10 pm
Yeah, tortillas are often eaten room temperature, which I don't mind, but hot is better of course.
And I'm loving the new feature. Very helpful! I can never trust Yelp because Yelpers seem to be more focused on being witty than on the food. Seems like a lot of work, but keep up the good work!
bionicgrrrl
April 5, 2010 10:47 am
@kathryn,
Oooh ok. Thank you :) Clearly I'm not a world traveler and need to brush up on my food knowledge before commenting on it :P
@Tia,
Nice, glad you like the new feature! I really have to haul ass and learn how to do some UI design if it's to be any more useful in the future though. If you have any feedback, I'm always open to listening to them!
Danny
April 5, 2010 11:27 am
Hey, you are definitely in the "make it funny" camp. That's what keeps bringing me back. I like your new feature.
FN
April 5, 2010 11:55 am
In Spain, that's exactly what they refer to as a "tortilla." Nothing much in common with the Mexican kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortilla_de_patatas
kathryn
April 5, 2010 10:40 am