Customer Reviews

The Chowhound's Guide to the New York Tristate Area

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

www.chowhound.com is a grass-roots website where anyone can post about the most delicious food they can find. I've been lurking and posting on chowhound for some years now, and the culinary pleasures this website has reaped for me over the years are priceless, certainly more than any other food guide or restaurant critic I've ever seen. Not only have I enjoyed delicious food that I otherwise would have never found (often in places it wouldn't otherwise occur to me to go to), but the site has inspired me to "chowhound" as well, seeking out cuisines and neighborhoods that are yet unknown on the site.

This book, a compendium of the best tips from chowhound for the New York City area, is a dream come true. (Full disclosure: a couple of my tips are there, which I didn't know until I bought it). While it's been reassuring to see a lot of my favorite places to eat reviewed, it's surprising how much even a food geek like me hasn't tried yet that the book recommends.

The laserbeam focus on deliciousness as an end in itself make this book and the site tremendously rewarding. The biggets downside is that it will ratchet your standards up so high that your friends will start to think that you're a food snob. They'll forgive you, though, when you share the fruits of the chowhound community's searches.

There is restaurant life beyond a certain popular guide that starts with a Z -- and it's pretty darn tasty! This witty reference guide captures some of the best of the chowhound.com message board, THE web resource for passionate and intelligent discourse on navigating NYC-metro's vast culinary landscape.

But please, do check the hype at the door. Style may be nice, but as the website states, chowhounds "blaze trails, combing gleefully through neighborhoods for hidden culinary treasure. They despise hype, and while they appreciate refined ambiance and service, they can't be fooled by mere flash." From debating the best five-for-a-buck dumplings south of Delancey Street, to discussions on what to order at New York's finest dining establishments, to helping someone find a restaurant that serves Katsu but can also accomodate two Kosher guys and Vegan, the web chowhounds cover it all. Kudos to Jim Leff for capturing the spirit and passion of the chowhounds in this book.

Like with many of the restaurants discussed, the book may initially appear disorganized, but dig a little deeper and you'll find something special. Leisurely read it front to back for inspiration, or jump to the handy cuisine and neighborhood indexes in the back for quick access to what you want or where you want it.

Overall, I highly recommend this guide for anyone in the NYC metro area who is passionate about dining or simply wants a little help in being more adventurous.

I've been a happy user of the Chowhound.com web site since the summer of 2000. It has not only ensured that I eat well here at home in New York City, it has virtually guaranteed that I eat well when I travel, too.

As you can imagine, I was delighted to learn that Chowhound was publishing printed guides to New York and San Francisco area food-exploring. I bought copies of both books (I travel to the SF area as often as I can) but as I live in New York, that's the book I immediately devoured, and the one that I'm reviewing.

Food lovers with adventurous spirits would be well-advised to get their hands on a copy. It's a delight to browse (you can literally open it at random and start reading, as the individual articles are short and to the point) but the editors helpfully provided detailed indexes--by restaurant name, by NYC neighborhood, and even by cuisine--when time is short and you need to do focused research.

The tips come from the user community of the Chowhound site, who post thousands of messages a week to the busy discussion boards. This guidebook represents the "best of the best," and I guarantee you that no matter how hip a Chowhound you think you are, you'll find undiscovered treasures between these covers.

This guide makes for a more interesting read than Zagats. I have discovered new dining options that I wouldn't have tried as a result of reading it.

The coverage of the five boroughs of NY City is excellent, however referencing and classification of restaurants could be more helpful.

The major flaw with this guide is it's claim to cover the tri-state area. The coverage of NJ, CT and NY State is more limited. Although the guide does venture as far as the Berkshires (Ma). The sparsity of reviews outside of NYC gives the impression the reviews for the rest of the "Tri" state resulted from wrong turns off of I95 or I80.

Superb coverage of NYC, scant coverage of the rest for the Tri State area.

Unbeknownst by my employers, I have been addictively surfing the Chowhound.com web site daily and repeatedly within a given day (workday or not) for years and am a satisfied, although un-sated subscriber of the weekly ChowNews. The Chowhound Guide is ChowNews on steroids. This is not a typical restaurant guide book, it is a series of narrative dining descriptions and listings (both short and long) of where a hungry `hound can find deliciousness of every kind. It is written not by professionals who are paid to eat, but by lusty, full of life food lovers who live to eat all that is delicious.

I love that I can read this book just for the pleasure of it and plan to use it as bed-time reading material, like a chocolate left on the coverlet of a bed, it will end my day with a smile in my heart and dreams of meals to come. Lastly, the indexing of this book is fantastic, when my left brain kicks in I have a useful, portable chow-resource. I have already sent copies of the book as gifts to business colleagues, who all have to eat, and who have all benefited and appreciated the chow tips gleaned from Chowhound.com that I have passed along to them in the past. Now they will have a copy of the chow treasure map for themselves.

This is a great guide for anyone visiting New York, New Jersey or Connecticut and wants to know where to find the good grub. A lot of hidden gems and out of the way places that you'd never know about from other sources are listed here.

It's like a portable version of the Chowhound Web site.

This book is one of two restaurant guides I use to find new eating experiences around NYC -- the other is the Slow Food Guide. Although the format can be frustrating, I find more out-of-the way deliciousness and random food encounters through this book than any other.

I live in Columbia County. There are dozens of good restaurants in Albany County, Columbia County, and Dutchess County. Yet none are mentioned. I found this book a wasted of money and time.

Just open the book at random and you will be almost sure to find helpful information that you can use -- the book is packed to bursting with it. If you would rather seek out a specific craving, the indexing and cross-referencing is top-notch. A true joy -- I just got the book this afternoon and already I have 3 new places on my list to try for lunch.

What a mess! Well, the Chowhound board on the internet is a mess but that's part of the fun - the digging, hunting, and eureka, finding!! But in a book, it's annoying. In a GUIDE BOOK, it's extra heartburn aggravating. Hello, editor, major revision next time. It's fun to read but that's because Chowhound's users are fun and interesting. Chowhound should give everyone t-shirts or a percentage because without them this book is as confused as Paris Hilton's autobiography.