Choice Eats

The Choice Eats event, put on by the Village Voice, brought more than 50 restaurants under one roof in the interest of providing a snapshot of New York dining right now. There with our friend Howard, we were able to try a fair number of places, but, unfortunately, there's only so much eating you can do, elastic pants or no.

Some of our favorites included a hearty lamb roll from the unpronounceable Cheburechnaya, an Uzbeki place in Queens, and the rich and satisfying mini-porchetta sandwich from Porchetta:




But we honestly had a hard time keeping everything straight. (Hey, when you're balancing three plates while trying to fight through a sea of people that only Moses could part, you tend to forget where your samosas came from.)


One name that was seared into our brains, however, was Mumbai Xpress, a vegetarian place in Queens specializing in the food of, well, Mumbai. The vada pav, a two-bite sandwich of spicy potato, was a knockout.


We did manage to save room for dessert. We had some bombolini from Motorino (not pictured) and a sampling from the mobbed cookie table at the Momofuku Milk Bar stand, but our favorite --- we went back for seconds --- was a vanilla pudding with miso bananas from the new Fort Greene restaurant No. 7. It was a little cup of heaven.