The new Norman Foster designed courtyard/food court at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. It’s art fair week in New York. Time to highlight the biggest museum addition of 2010. The MFA’s American art wing opened this fall at a cost of $300 million.
A Hopper from the new American art wing at the MFA.
That dude is sculpted on a Merritt Parkway bridge.
Schooners at dawn in Gloucester, MA, by Winslow Homer.
Murray Hill condos and the Midwtown tunnel vent, East 30s.
Best bar to take shrooms at: Max Fish.
Coney Island cliche.
DJ AP in the backyard of my favorite New York restaurant, Roberta’s in Bushwick.
View from the second best bar to take shrooms at: Le Bain, Standard Hotel, New York.
Four Loko and a painkiller, aka the white trash speedball.
The Lower East Side, looking south down Ludlow St.
(Nan Goldin shot.) One summer afternoon, I started fighting an East Village after being overcharged and called a “faggot.” When the bartender’s two friends came at me, I wielded a stool, jousting. It didn’t end well. Knocked out, my overall fight record went to 17 wins and 687 losses. Slightly annoyed at having a wrecked face, the next morning I headed north to the Greek Festival in Ipswich, MA, for a shellfish lunch.
Then I drove a few miles to Essex and ate more shellfish at Woodman’s, inventor of the fried clam.
Then I got hammered at the best bar in Ipswich, the lounge at the Whittier Motel. Below, a Jack on the rocks, served in a full size glass for $6.
After five drinks and Red Sox win, I got more clams at Farnham’s.
Not about to stop this bender, it was off to Gloucester House for a seafood tower.
And then we crashed the Gloucester High Class of 89 Reunion. The DJs played a lot of hard rock, Godsmack, Def Lep, GNR, and everyone was on the verge of hooking up, despite being married.
Is Blue Hill at Stone Barns America’s best restaurant? It’s certainly the best meal I’ve had in years, and one of the most unique concepts, but will they ever get a four-star Times review? It is also the exact opposite of Bowery Beef. Still, their staff were our first customers, so a shout out is required.
The bar is a less formal place to sit but they serve the full menu. Easier to get wine drunk and act like a moron there too. There’s no point in going all the way upstate for anything less than a full tasting menu. If you’re not blackout drunk by the last few courses you did something wrong. With a wine pairing, the servers never stop refilling your glass. My colleague doesn’t remember the last two hours of our five hour fiesta.
After spending a grand on a meal, I’d recommend the $60 a night TURN RIGHT OVER BRIDGE MOTEL, two exits down the parkway from Stone Barns.
After a night gorging on ten courses at Stone Barns and post-meal coitus at the TURN LEFT OVER THE BRIDGE MOTEL, nothing is more relaxing than a trip to Minnewaska Lake atop the Shawangunk Range. The ridge trail offers splendid views of the Hudson Valley:
My dream house and boat. Gloucester, MA.
In the past decade there’s been like two good shows on the Bowery. This was one of them. Guns N Roses played at 130am during last year’s February Fashion Week at the former CB’s space (now a sex-rocker spot).
I got kicked out right after this, during Paradise City, for being to #whiteboywasted
People hate the OC. Say it’s full of fakeness, plastic surgery and arrogance. I spent a lot of summers hanging on this beach, and some of the coolest people I’ve ever met are from here, kids who took me around the world when I was 19. Lesson: Don’t believe the hype. On winter days like today all I think about is summer sun.
Take this dude Rusty. This is us in October, kicking it at A Street, the beach of our youth. How can you fuck with that style?
Chick’s in Ipswich. John Updike once had an office down the block. Many of his books, including the swinger-manifesto Couples, were set in a fictional Ipswich.
Chick’s in Haverhill, MA. I don’t think these two Chicks have any ties, they just share an awesome name. Andre Dubus III just published a memoir about growing up in 70s Haverhill, aptly called Townie. From reading excerpts, Dubus is a much cooler, tougher Masshole than Updike (who was from Pennsylvania anyways).
A friend just stopped by the shop and said that 90s indie legends Archers of Loaf are doing a reunion tour and will play New York in May. Tonight, Archers’ former frontman Erc Bachmann is playing with his current band Crooked Fingers at the Bell House in Brooklyn. It’s bad luck to listen to the band you’re going to see on the day of the show. So we’ll be playing Archers all day. Anyone who names the song that’s on eats free.
Look at that hair. Perfection.
Gorilla Biscuits at CBGB’s in 1988—one of the best hardcore punk pics, taken across the street from Bowery Beef at what is now a sexy rocker men’s clothing shop.
Cool old GB flyer:
It’s fucking hot outside. Native American summer. Anyone else thinking about the beach? Unfortunately, few of us will ever achieve the beach-style perfection of my hero above. This was taken on Plum Island, a sandbar that protects the Mass roast beef heartland, the summer after the Celtics won their 17th championship (suck it, Kobe). Every person at the beach had something green on.
Behind Plum Island are epic salt marshes that are home to the famed Ipswich mud clam. Someday we hope to sell mud clams, both fried and steamed.
Speaking of big dudes and Ipswich clams, here’s the late, great R.W. Apple on the subject:
New England fried clams — fried soft clams, that is — were supposedly invented on July 3, 1916, by a restaurateur named Lawrence Woodman, known as Chubby. Woodman’s, in Essex, Mass., north of Boston, still serves the genuine article. In the city, Mr. White, of whom more in a moment, is considered the fried-clam king. But New Englanders often call soft clams ”Ipswich clams,” because the best ones come from the mud flats near that town, so my wife, Betsey, and I went right to the source.
A 30-minute drive northeast of Boston, the Clam Box is a gray wooden shack shaped like the cardboard container in which fried clams are traditionally served. The sign on the way into town tells you Ipswich was founded in 1634, and many of the clapboard houses look as if they were built soon afterward. In a setting like this, no one would dare to violate tradition, and Marina Aggelakis doesn’t. Known as Chickie, she has run the Clam Box for the last 20 years, lately with her son, Dimitri.
Betsey, who spent some of her childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard, knew we had the right place the minute we got out of the car. She breathed in the soft, briny smell emanating from the Friolators inside and exclaimed, ”My youth!”
Sometimes the Clam Box, like all of its competitors, is forced by local shortages to serve clams from Maine. But we were in luck. Ours were authentic natives, dipped in evaporated milk, dredged in finely ground corn meal, fried twice in a mixture of ”animal fat” (lard?) and vegetable oil, and thoroughly drained. They emerged exactly crunchy enough, and so greaseless that after we seasoned them with some extra salt and pepper and wolfed them down, there was no oil and no smell left on our fingers.
We could have eaten a ton.
Our neighbors up the street, the Village Voice, gave Bowery Beef its first review. Critic Robert Sietsema called the sandwich “excellent.“ And he compared our staff to the movie Slackers. This is our equivalent to a 4-star review, a Zagat 29-29-29. Norman Mailer, The White Negro, started the Voice in the 50s. This crappy company New Times, based in—where else—Arizona (worst state these days) bought them out last decade. A lot of their best writers have quit or been forced out. But thankfully they still have Sietsema and Rebecca Flint Marx covering food, and Zach Baron on culture. White Negros, all.
Jeff Neumann took this pic and wrote for Gawker about Cam’s show at our preview party.
Seattle has long-been an idea town. Take this concrete storefront that sells nothing. Brilliant.
Right after Patrick Sweetra finished calibrating the oven, Cam’ron performed. Picture by Kevin Cullin, 2:30am last Friday.
Kelly’s invented the sandwich back in 1951, starting on the beach in Revere with a small stand. Today, they have six locations. As of 2007 they grossed $40 million a year (assume that figure is higher now, given recent expansion).
This shitty map shows the North Shore, where every town has at least one beef shop.
Bill and Bob’s make a great sandwich and have been around almost as long as Kelly’s.
Salem has five or so shops, including Sammy’s. (Wiccan voice.)
Nick’s in Beverly is one of the best too. Every shop makes the sandwich in a similar way: sliced rare-ish beef, BBQ sauce and options for bun, cheese etc.
Awesome interior—Supreme Roast Beef in Gloucester, MA.
Supreme’s exterior.
After a sandwich you can jump off a pier…be sure to wait thirty minutes before swimming!
We are located at 308 Bowery, between Houston and Bleeker, and will be serving roast beef sandwiches (soon, possibly today or tomorrow), coffee, drinks and more.
