Spicy Food in NYC

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Spicy Grilled Pork Tonsoku from Hakata Tonton

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶

A few years back, Fergus Henderson of London's St. John restaurant introduced the glory of sticky, rich, pig's foot broth to the masses. Chef/owner Himi Okajima of Hakata Tonton in the West Village agrees with Henderson's unbridled love of trotters—so much so that he's built an entire restaurant out of it. Nearly every item on the menu (save for dessert) features tonsoku broth, or collagen-rich nuggets of braised foot.

The signature dish of the house, Grilled Pork Tonsoku, is unforgivingly porky with a rich, gelatinous texture. Charring gives it a crisp, blistered surface great for smearing with yuzu-kosho.

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Location: 61 Grove St, New York, NY 10014

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hakata-tonton-new-york-3

Menu: http://www.tontonnyc.com/our-menu/

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Spicy Roast Fish from Zest Szechuan

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶

Spicy roast fish is from Chongqing, a city in the southwest of China. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, here are a few facts you should know about this city. The city is famous for its hot pot, the super hyper spicy kind. For most other food in the city, people add more chili pepper than other seasonings combined. Chongqing has a humid subtropical climate, with four distinct seasons. According to traditional Chinese medicine, humidity is bad for the health, but spicy food will solve the problems caused by it. The city is also famous for having particularly hot girls (Sorry, I don’t have a picture for this…). Food in Chongqing is spicy, but is a different kind of spicy as compared to Szechuan food.

If you are a spicy lover who loves fish, you should try this spicy roast fish from Zest Szechuan!

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Location: 45 W 39th St, New York, NY 10018

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/zest-szechuan-new-york

Menu: http://zestszechuan.com/menu/

Monday, November 14, 2016

Hot Pot from Lion Pavilion

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶

The main reason why I recommend this hot pot is that this restaurant provides customers with beef tallow. This is really rare in the US. In China, two places, Chongqing and Sichuan, are famous for spicy food, especially spicy hot pot. Hot pot from these two places are better than any other places because it contain beef tallow, which makes the flavor better than just being spicy. It is a kind of butter that is not making pastry cream, but with the fat of cattle brewed out of butter for spicy hot pot adding flavor. In the picture shown below, the white part is the beef tallow (before melting into oil).

Hotpot with Beef Tallow from Sichuan

It is not easy to get the beef tallow here. Lion Pavilion should be the only hotpot restaurant in New York that provides beef tallow, so I strongly recommend spicy hot pot lovers to try the beef tallow hot pot there.

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Location: 136-76 39th Ave, Flushing, NY 11354

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lion-pavilion-hot-pot-flushing

Friday, November 11, 2016

Mentai Ika Shishito from Izakaya MEW

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶

Mentai Ika Shishito is made of squid and shishito peppers sauteed with mentai, butter, soy sause and black pepper. Japanese food normally won't be spicy. Even though this dish with shishito peppers tastes just a little bit spicy, the flavor is extremely good! Sometimes, the peppers are not spicy, but sometimes they are so spicy, so it's kinda like an "adventure" to eat this.

Tucked into a basement on 35th Street in bustling K-Town, Izakaya MEW attracts young professionals, businesspeople and students looking for a real izakaya experience. This place always needs to wait to be seated. I went there four times and I always waited at least an hour.

Take the narrow steps down to the basement, and you will find yourself in a huge, brick-walled dining space designed with both the essences of a traditional izakaya in Tokyo and a chic bar in Brooklyn. The rustic yet modern décor is one of the charms of the restaurant/bar, but their reasonably priced, small dishes are also a great appeal to their clientele.

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Location: 53 W 35th St (Basement), New York, NY, 10016

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/izakaya-mew-new-york-3

Menu: http://mewnyc.com/dinner-menu/

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Spicy Chicken Feet Stew from Yupdduk

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

Yupdduk should be the Korean restaurant in New York's K-Town that is most good at making spicy food! This spicy chicken feet stew is my favorite in Yupdduk. I also tried the stir fried spicy chicken feet there, but this stew is much more spicy and better.

Yupdduk in K-Town

Yupdduk doesn't have high rate on Yelp, but spicy food lovers should not agree with this rate. This is a small restaurant with simple logo of 🌶 on the top. I believe many people would just pass by. Don't ever miss this great restaurant if you love spicy food!

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Location: 2 W 32nd St, New York, NY 10001

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yupdduk-new-york

Menu: http://yupdduknyc.com/menu/

Monday, November 7, 2016

Spicy Dry Pot from Mala Project

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶🌶 for "Spicy"

🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 for "Super Spicy"

Spicy dry pot is a kind of traditional spicy food from Sichuan.Such is the enduring power of mala that it has, of late, been transubstantiated from its renowned liquid form—hot pot, a bubbly soup—to its newer, hipper cousin, the dry pot. Mala Project is doing great on this!

From a menu of sixty or so meats and vegetables, you choose ingredients (three to six are suggested per person) and, more important, the preferred level of spiciness. (Of the four levels, the lowest is non-spicy, and the highest, super-spicy, might require a fire extinguisher.) Traditional Chinese favorites like beef tendon, tongue, intestine, and artery (a must-try for the uninitiated) merrily jostle with more conventional choices, like wakame, tofu skin, lotus root, and king oyster mushrooms. When an adventurous first-timer pointed to the unfamiliar item rooster’s XXX, the handsome Uighur waiter deadpanned, “Chicken testicles, ma’am. One order?”

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Location: 122 1st Ave. New York, NY 10009

Yelp Link: https://www.yelp.com/biz/m%C3%A1l%C3%A0-project-new-york

Menu: http://malaproject.nyc/MalaProject_Menu_Dinner.pdf

Friday, November 4, 2016

Wok Basil Dish from Pure Thai Cookhouse

Spicy Level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶

The first time I went to this restaurant, I asked for something spicy and they recommended this Wok Basil Dish to me. There are different spicy levels, mild, medium, and spicy. I insisted to choose the spicy level the first time, even though the waiter strongly suggested me not to do that. Then, it turned out my mouth and my throat were on FIRE!! But it was still good. The second time I went there, I asked for medium level of spicy. The level is just right. Yummy and spicy!

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