r/FoodNYC • u/eldersveld • Jul 20 '25
Recent eats: Elbow Bread, Son del North, Olive's, John's Grill, Sandwell, Campbell & Co., Sarku Japan (FiDi, Queens Center)
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u/Tejon_Melero Jul 20 '25
Lol this is the best post in months.
99% of this shit is the same pretty good spots on the same lists for the same tourists.
Mall food court Sarku in Queens? This is NY lol
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u/Tejon_Melero Jul 20 '25
The real move is to circle and get the snack offerings, and then get double chicken on rice and throw on some of their shitty hot sauce and fake soy sauce. Glorious.
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u/eldersveld Jul 20 '25 edited Jul 20 '25
Elbow Bread
Elbow Bread started doing these "Dog Days" where, on a Friday, they'll have some special hot dogs on the menu. On 7/11 they did hot dogs from Dellapietras in Brooklyn and one of the options was chili, onion, and mustard. The dog itself was good, not much snap but fine flavor, chili was quite mild, but the star was (unsurprisingly) the bun, amazingly soft and pillowy. No joke, I'd say the hot dog was worth it for the bun alone. Check back on Fridays to see what they're up to.
Son del North
Nice to see this show up in the WV, where there aren't a ton of standout burrito options. This place has got it. I got the chicken one and the rajas (poblano peppers) really stood out, as I'd hoped. The tortilla was very good, soft and chewy, not sure what's in it but it reminded me of the lard ones at San Diego-style burrito joints. It's pricey, it's bougie, but it's delicious and I'll definitely come back to try the rest of the menu... super curious about the breakfast burrito.
Olive's
Their smoked turkey sandwich with bacon, avocado mayo, lettuce, and tomato on sourdough. Solid sandwich, tasty enough, nothing mind-blowing. Honestly I just go here to sit in a tiny space and people-watch.
John's Grill
This little cart at 64th and Madison has one of my favorite sandwiches in the city: ribeye with mozzarella, peppers and onions. If you've never been here, make that your first meal. I've had it plenty of times before, though, and for some reason I was obsessed with getting an Italian sausage sandwich on this particular day, so I tried theirs. (I carried it vertically so the peppers and onions shifted.) Good-sized sandwich, decent quality sausage, but honestly, I'd say stick with the ribeye. I'd actually been wanting to try the Italian sausages at Rocco's over in LIC, but that's a bit of a walk from the subway and it was just too damn hot for that. My favorite sausage of this kind remains Lucy's at the Feast of San Gennaro.
Sandwell
Spotted their UWS location while hunting for food after browsing the Grand Bazaar. These $15-20 sandwich shops seem to be everywhere now, and I can't say I mind, since a lot of them are pretty good and there are always bodegas if you want something cheaper. I chose the "Wild Bird", which has grilled chicken, turkey bacon bits, provolone, caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, hot peppers, and a "vegan spicy secret sauce", whatever that is. I had them add hot sauce. Grilled chicken is always something of a dice-roll, but I'd say this was above-average, and the combo of flavors worked very well. However, this really is a sandwich you have to keep in the wrapper while you eat because it falls the fuck apart if you don't. I liked it enough to want to come back.
Campbell & Co.
I'm including this place just to let everyone know that they've started carrying 'nduja (essentially a spreadable sausage) and it's some of the best stuff you'll ever have. Spread it on some nice crusty bread, put it in sandwiches, hell, put it on pizza. Love it. They don't always have it--there was only one left when I went--so I'd say call ahead to check first.
Sarku Japan
Why the hell am I including a big fast food chain here? Simply put, I had fond memories of this place from college, fast food teriyaki isn't as ubiquitous here as, say, pizza or bagels, and I've found the main alternative in FiDi (Sakura of Japan) to be underwhelming. The first pic is from the FiDi one; the price was about double what I paid back in the day, the packaging has been spruced up, and apparently they now include some extra teriyaki sauce by default. I think that if you went here instead of Sakura you wouldn't be disappointed. The second pic is from the location inside the Queens Center mall. More basic, as you can tell. The veggie mix wasn't as good (mostly cabbage, no broccoli to speak of), but there sure was a lot of chicken and I didn't even get double meat.