Jon Hochstat

Now to many of you when you hear the words Sloppy Joe you have visions of ground meat in a tomato-ish sauce served on a plain hamburger bun.

Good food for sure but not the Sloppy Joe I am talking about. In Millburn, NJ on Millburn Avenue is a sandwich shop called The Millburn Deli. Their version of the Sloppy Joe is made on fresh, sliced to order rye (yes I said the bread was sliced to order) and your choice/combination of deli meats. There is also a “Friday Joe” created for Lent which is Tuna and Egg Salad. The sandwiches come in two sizes, the regular Sloppy Joe and the Monster Joe. Above is my favorite Monster Joe, Corned Beef Pastrami, Swiss, Cole Slaw and Russian dressing (and butter on the bread).

The Millburn Deli has been open since 1946 and owned by the current owners since 1991. It is one of those places where there is someone who owns the business, but the place is really the community’s. Anyone who grew up in the West Orange, South Orange, Short Hills and Millburn area can recall memories of going to events, etc growing up and seeing Millburn deli Sloppy Joes being served. Just this past weekend my cousin and I rented a zip car and drove from NYC to Millburn just to have Sloppy Joes. This is a very special sandwich and so worth the trip to New Jersey if you have never been.

328 Millburn Ave
Millburn NJ 07041
973.379.5800
Open Monday-Sunday 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Every Day

READ ON for other stuff from the foodie-verse this week…

Last Sunday, I took the F train to Dumbo to check out Bridge Flea, the new flea market started by the same people behind Brooklyn Flea in Ft Greene. My visit was not bargain shopping orientated, it was food motivated. I went to try the lobster roll that the Red Hook Lobster Pound was selling.

The Red Hook Lobster Pound has only been open a short while but their lobster roll is as good as Brooklyn Fish Camp’s which usually is my one lobster roll per summer (at $26 can only afford one/summer). According to their website the lobster rolls are made from their homemade mayo, and JJ Nissen Top Split Rolls (the original lobster roll bread that they truck down from Maine). Even though the line was long (the lobster rolls were $13.00, half the price of what you would find anywhere else) it moved fast. It was great to see the rolls brushed with butter and placed on the flat top grill. The lobster salad was extremely fresh and each sandwich was made to order. This is one fine lobster roll.

I need to make it out to their store in Red Hook at some point.

Red Hook Lobster Pound
284 Van Brunt Street
Brooklyn
646.326.7650

Oh if you want another reason to go, the booth around the corner had made to order fish tacos as well. Take the trip to Brooklyn this Sunday, have some lobster and fish tacos. You’ll wonder why you haven’t done so already.

Other goings on in the foodie-verse this week:

Terroir announced on their twitter feed that Pig Roasts are taking over Hearth on these Tuesdays: 7/21, 7/28. 8/4, 8/18 http://bit.ly/cyJHI Pig stuffed w pork sausage/3 course menu/$42 pp +$18bev. (I already called for reservations.)

READ ON for the rest of this week’s goings on in the foodie-verse…

Every now and again, you come across a food product that is so good, somewhat unique, yet very simple in concept. Most recently that product for me has been the corn cookie at Momofuko Milk Bar.

Yes, Christina Tossi is extremely creative and a strong new presence on the city’s culinary scene. What she’s done with the soft serve at Milk Bar has been amazing. She recently ditched the sweets inspired flavors for fruit and herb inspired ones. The new flavors are lemon verbena, rosemary, blackberry, and apricot. I tasted all four last weekend and have to say the lemon verbana and rosemary are outstanding.

The one thing about the corn cookies is that are not made every day and sometimes sell out when they are in stock. If you can get there on a day they have them, get one. I haven’t let you down yet have I?

Other news from the foodieverse this week:

Yet another new food truck, the La Cense Beef Burger Truck. (via A Hamburger Today). READ ON for more…

What better way is there to spend a summer day then to take the F train out to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, grab a table at a restaurant on the boardwalk and proceed to nosh, drink and people watch. If you do go, the place I suggest you do it at is The Winter Garden at 3162 Brighton 6TH St.

I had the chance to head out there recently and enjoyed fresh herring, home fried potatoes with rosemary and garlic and Russian lager. It was a beautiful late spring day and I snagged a table on the outer edge closest to the boardwalk. The lunch was simple, tasty and brought my back to the foods of my childhood (except the beer of course). READ ON…

Way back on April 10th, I told you I had gotten an email in my inbox from Theodore Peck, winner of many of the recent “Food Throwdowns” stating that he was partnering with another competition mainstay Nick Suarez and that they were planning something big in the near future.

Well that something big is the 1st Annual Brooklyn Beer Experiment taking place this Sunday at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

You probably have seen postings recently on all of the major food blogs like Grub Street, Ed Levine Eats & The Village Voice’s Fork in the Road. In case you were not aware of all of the competitions that Mr Suarez and Mr Peck have won, here is the list. I did manage this week to get a hold of Theo for a couple of quick minutes on the phone. He told me that he has “an amazing prize that he can’t share more about.” Also I heard through the grapevine that some of the teams entered are from some well known NYC eateries. I bought my ticket already as a portion of the ticket sales are going to ovarian cancer research, a very worthy cause. This should be one of the coolest food events to hit the city in a long time. Plus Theo and Nick lined up some great celebrity judges. Hope to see you there on Sunday!

Other goings on around the foodieverse this week:

Looking for some great bar food that won’t break your bank? Check out the posting Cheap eats: Eight bars with free food that Time Out NY’s The Feed put up yesterday.

READ ON for more Foodieverse happenings…

Years ago, when I was working for Legal Seafoods in Boston, Mass there was – and still is – a great restaurant in Cambridge named The East Coast Grill. The Chef/Owner, Chris Schlesinger, created an amazing hot sauce there called Inner Beauty Real Hot Sauce that was bottled and sold outside the restaurant in stores. Regrettably, that sauce is no longer made for retail sale, although legend has it you can go to East Coast Grill and ask Chris for some and he will provide it to you.

Anyhow, forward to the present. I recently attended the Hot Dog Hootenany at The Astor Center and had the chance to meet the guys behind Wheelhouse Pickles. I was talking to John, one of the guys behind Wheelhouse, when we got on the subject of hot sauces. He told me I had to try his Minor Threat Sauce.

These guys have come oh so close to duplicating one of my favorite all time hot sauces (except I thought It could be a little bit hotter, but that’s me). If you like flavorful spicy sauces rather than just really hot sauces, check out Minor Threat, it will make everything you eat taste that much better. I know, I have already gone through several jars since I was given my first bottle by the Wheelhouse crew.

READ ON for more about Minor Threat sauce and this week’s links…

Bonjour mes amis, I have returned from my vacation to the Paris, the City of Lights. One of my new discoveries my first week back is a new ice cream truck that I came across on University Place called Van Leeuwen Artisanal Ice Cream. I was on my way back from dinner with my brother and his kids the other night when we stumbled on the bright yellow truck…

We tried the vanilla bean which was very rich and full of flavor. After doing some research, I found out the the trucks have been out and about for almost a year in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. According to an article written on the Farm Fresh Creative blog, which published an excerpt from the creative brief written by Ben Van Leewen, the Van Leeuwen trucks uses quality products for everything (read below):

“To give you an idea of the product, we use hormone free milk and cream from small family farms in New York State, cane sugar and egg yolks. We never use milk powder, corn syrup, stabilizers, or preservatives. We age organic Bourbon and Tahitian Vanilla Beans in oak barrels with vodka for 4 months to extract them. We use pure Sicilian Pistachios, hand picked by small family farmers on the slopes of Mount Etna in Bronte. We use Tonda La gentile origin certified Hazelnuts from Piedmont. We source our chocolate from Michel Cluizel in France( they use no Soya Lechitin!). We use Quinn Farms Hudson Valley red currants. We have set out to make the best readily available super-premium ice cream while also educating consumers on why slow food produced ingredients taste better.”

READ ON for this week’s links and more on Van Leeuwen’s…

Well my friends, I am leaving today to head to Paris, France for a much deserved and long overdue vacation. It is a foodie trip all the way. I am meeting up with some old friends and generally just checking out all of the cool foodie stuff to see, taste and explore in Paris. When I knew I was definitely taking this trip, I emailed a few chefs I know and said “I am heading to Paris for the first time since I lived there 17 years ago, where do all of the chefs go nowadays when they visit Paris?” One of the places that came up repeatedly in replies from my chef friends was E Dehillerin.

What I was told is that this place is the real deal! Not some fancy shmancy cookware store. E Dehillerin has been serving chefs from France and around the world since 1820. READ ON for this week’s links…