Ben Cohen

Eating in New York

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:05:00 -0400

I was recently challenged to follow the lead of Kottke, following the lead of Serious Eats, and answer the question of our time, which is where one should eat while in New York. But I was hesitant at first. There are lots of places to eat in New York! And discovering a place on your own is one of the most delicious parts of eating in New York. ”It would be good Google bait for your site,” the person said. So that was very convincing.

One thing you should know is that I’m only including places where I have eaten more than once. This means that the next time I trick someone into taking me to Torrisi Italian Specialties, I’ll add it to the list, since Torrisi served the best meal I’ve eaten in New York, and if I ever write a romantic comedy, Torrisi will be the location of my couple’s first date. That’s my equivalent of four stars. And yet Torrisi is not on this list, because this list is very official, with rules and stuff. Also, if you’re wondering where you should eat in New York, and for some reason you’re asking me, you should know that all of these restaurants are very close to each other, and most of them are pretty cheap. Where should you eat in New York? You should eat at a lot of places! And any restaurant, shack, truck, stoop or window associated with names like Danny Meyer, David Chang, Keith McNally, etc.

But if you want to know where I like to eat in New York — in which case, sorry? — then here you go: Café Habana, Dos Toros Taqueria, Frankie’s (which is now Francesca’s but will always be Frankie’s to me), Lil’ Frankies, Mark, The Meatball Shop, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Parm (which I’m also counting as Torrisi’s lunch), Russ & Daughters, Schiller’s Liquor Bar, Souvlaki GR, Tacombi, Taqueria Lower East Side and Zucco: Le French Diner.

(Updated May 2012)

The best part of the bootleg draft of “Fuckbuddies,”...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:11:29 -0400

The best part of the bootleg draft of “Fuckbuddies,” the screenplay that would become “No Strings Attached.”

I spent the week in New Orleans.

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:30:00 -0400

Cats on Cats on Cats.

I spent the week in New Orleans.

A little profile of a former college volleyball player who the...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:27:00 -0400

A little profile of a former college volleyball player who the Kansas Jayhawks call their secret weapon. She’s their strength and conditioning coach—the only woman in all of college basketball to hold this position—and has authority in the one place on any college campus where testosterone flows more freely than a fraternity house: the weight room. Her methods include massage, yoga, boxing, mountain-biking, juggling and Dance Dance Revolution, part of the reason why the 25 players she’s sent to the NBA can’t stop raving about her.

Who says there’s no crying in college basketball?...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:48:10 -0400

Who says there’s no crying in college basketball? Here’s my A-hed in today’s Journal about the boohooing bawlers of this NCAA tournament. Everyone’s crying! It’s the best.

Then there’s the seminal bit of sobbing that took place 20 years ago to the day (if the day is yesterday). You might remember Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beating shot. You also might remember Thomas Hill crying on the sidelines afterward. Except you’re remembering wrong! Because Hill says now that he wasn’t actually crying. “Absolutely not! Not even close,” he said. He later added: “That was just an expression I’ve made my entire life when amazing things happen and especially if I’m apart of them.”

New Orleans

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:16:29 -0400

You can hop on a streetcar on St. Charles at Lee (yes, that Lee, and yes, he does have his back to the North for a reason) Circle, maybe ten minutes’ walk beyond the Dome. This will take you through crap, then the Garden District, then real uptown and Tulane and Audubon Park, and then the Riverbend and La Madelaine and the levy. This is an absolutely great route. Just take it and get out when it looks like the getting is good, which should start around the Garden District, but Audubon Park is probably the best. As to eating along the way, if you really knew what you were doing, which I suppose now you do, you’d make a reservation at Clancy’s in uptown. This is on my old block ([REDACTED] Annunciation—my old house—looks just as it did) and is without question the best neighborhood restaurant in the city. The oysters with brie for appetizer and the lemon icebox pie for dessert are out of the world. Seriously, you might want to do this, in which case I can give you more specific instructions. Also, though, closer to the Quarter, but still in uptown, are Casamento’s restaurant, Magazine Street as a whole, Tee-Eva’s pralines and pies, NEWMAN FUCKING SCHOOL (just across from the JCC, you’ll feel at home), the Frostop, Domilise’s (best po-boys, even better than Guy’s Po-Boys), and at the far other end, on Carrollton, are some great eating and music places around Maple Street (also, Maple Street books).

This was one small excerpt from a long email from John, the rest of which the world is just not ready to see, after I asked him where I’m going and what I’m doing from Friday through Tuesday between Final Four stuff on my first trip to New Orleans. So, help?

Don Draper And The Mirror

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:23:18 -0400

Don Draper And The Mirror:

I once wrote this insane philosophical analysis of Don Draper. I have no idea what it means, either!

"It's not as if coaches will fail to find other ways to be charmingly irrational."

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:16:47 -0400

"It's not as if coaches will fail to find other ways to be charmingly irrational."

I wrote about the latest in haute college hoops couture:...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:43:34 -0400

I wrote about the latest in haute college hoops couture: socks! Socks actually play an outsize role in the history of the sport. (Hold on, let me type that again.) You might have heard of a late, great basketball coach who was once known for lecturing his players every season on how to put on their socks. He instructed them to smooth out the wrinkles around their heels and little toes, then hold the sock in place while slipping on the shoe, all so they would avoid blisters. This guy might sound kooky. I mean, who instructs his players on how to wear their socks? But of course his name was John Wooden, and he won more national championships than any coach, socks enthusiast or not. Anyway! Socks. They are the best.

"Doing the NIT suggests a level of lunacy that's just hard to comprehend."

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:55:00 -0500

"Doing the NIT suggests a level of lunacy that's just hard to comprehend.":

With Selection Sunday just around the corner, I wrote about the ugly stepsister of NCAA tournament prediction: NIT bracketology. Sports!

I profiled the Baryshnikov of the Big East—a man in a woman's world even more than the rest of us.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:53:19 -0500

I profiled the Baryshnikov of the Big East—a man in a woman's world even more than the rest of us. :

Mostly I’m just jealous of any guy who can actually dance.

Very local hero says 21 words on NPR.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:35:07 -0500

Very local hero says 21 words on NPR.

In my first real contribution to Linfatuation, here’s a...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:05:00 -0500

In my first real contribution to Linfatuation, here’s a Journal story about New Yorkers stuck without MSG access who are instead following the Knicks the old-fashioned way: by listening on the radio. I also went on Lunch Break to talk about radio’s revenge and Linsanity turning back time.

More than anything, though, this story reminded me of that great little Mad Men scene from “The Suitcase,” one of my favorite episodes, when Don and Peggy visit a dark and dingy bar and experience Ali knocking out Liston by hearing it. As it turns out, the radio call actually exists on YouTube. Of course it does.

I found my spirit animal at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:59:08 -0500

I found my spirit animal at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show today. Also, I profiled a show dog named Oscar the Grouch, chatted with a Vegas oddsmaker about handicapping puppies and walked with Oscar from Murray Hill to the Garden early this morning for his Westminster debut. But mostly I just took pictures of wacky pooches. What a life!

Correspondence

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:43:36 -0500

Dear Ben: You are a gem if not a sacred messenger helping ski areas get the word about this No Cost Zero Carbon Snowdance Solution so some can avoid bank foreclosures apparently! So Snow Blessings to you! Thank your Creator, Mother Earth and Ben!

All black (and white) everything.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:10:28 -0500

All black (and white) everything.

I wrote about why Super Bowl L might be more like Super Bowl LOL.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:51:35 -0500

I wrote about why Super Bowl L might be more like Super Bowl LOL.

Some poor intern was kind enough to highlight parts of my story...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:18:00 -0500

Some poor intern was kind enough to highlight parts of my story for Dana Carvey, a temporary Regis replacement on “Live With Kelly”—and he still thought it was about a rain dance in San Francisco. Oh, well. Party time!

Not long ago, my flight into Vail was diverted to Denver, as the...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:51:00 -0500

Not long ago, my flight into Vail was diverted to Denver, as the conditions were so snowy that the plane couldn’t dip into the mountains and land safely. As it turned out, this had not been a problem for many weeks, and it was only a problem that day because of what had occurred a few hours earlier: a snow dance.

My front-page story for the Journal today details that very ceremony at Vail’s base and also mentions a few more recent snow dances in Park City and Lake Tahoe. In other words, even the most powerful ski resorts in the world are sometimes desperate enough to use that same tired-and-true method you used in middle school, when a blizzard was forecasted and you had a quiz the next day. Also, here’s some audio of me yapping about the snow dance on a podcast, some video of the snow dance, and more video of me talking about the snow dance, though not me snow dancing while talking about the snow dance.

You might ask if Eddie Box Jr., the Southern Ute who led the Vail snow dance, stuck around the mountain to shred himself. Actually, he wasn’t too interested in the white stuff. He hasn’t skied since he was a twentysomething and visited a mountain known as Purgatory. His last run is now named Lower Hades.

This weekend, thousands of Louisiana State fans will swarm New...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:29:12 -0500

This weekend, thousands of Louisiana State fans will swarm New Orleans to watch the Tigers in Monday’s BCS Championship game and generally enjoy the closest thing to Mardi Gras outside February. But before, possibly after and most certainly during the contest, these celebrants will gather in the French Quarter and indulge in the one thing they’re better at than perhaps any other group of American sports fans: boozing. In other words, LSU fans make most other tailgating troupes look like traveling Baptist choirs. Put it this way: When LSU visited West Virginia, one of the only college stadiums that sells beer, Tigers fans were responsible for over $120,000 in beer sales that day. In no other game this season did Mountaineer Field even break $90,000. The tab might have been higher, too, if the venue didn’t run out of cold Bud Light at halftime.

So here’s my story about all this in the Journal, naturally.

Plus, a deleted scene! In 2003, LSU traveled to Tucson for a matchup with Arizona, and it was followed by parties in purple and gold. One business-school executive organized a trip for 40 couples with the concierge-like assistance of his counterpart at Arizona. About a month after the game—an LSU win, of course—the Arizona professor received a call with a bit of surprising news. He was being honored by the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau for ushering in so much commerce to the area. He still keeps the plaque in his office to this day.