My Favorite Burger of 2025, So Far
Review: Frita Batidos in Williamsburg serves great burgers and Cuban shakes. Plus: The turkey-bacon sandwich at Hometown!
I’m getting closer on those year-end guides, which I have slated for mid-December! In the meantime, here’s a review of the turkey sandwich at Hometown and the tasty burgers at the brand-new Frita Batidos.
Frita serves my favorite new burger of 2025, so far, and it’s just $15 with fries.
But first…
Four quick things!!!
First thing…
On Saturday, I was supposed to hit up [redacted] in Manhattan for a review dinner, but I had a super long week — food poisoning sidelined me on Thanksgiving — and I just wanted some grilled fish and white wine.
So we went to Theodora!
It was my first time hitting up the Mexican-ish Mediterranean spot since my (somewhat trippy) review process last year. No surprises here: Theodora is still great.
There are some new items on the menu — including a dry-aged tuna steak special — but we went with the stalwart trout alla talla ($45). It’s a brilliant riff on Contramar’s famed pescado divorciado, where a grilled snapper gets painted in red and green salsas. Except here, chef de cuisine Vitor Mendes uses warming harissa on one half of the charcoal-singed fish, and a verdant chermoula on the other. Honestly, it was so cussing good I started smiling and chuckling involuntarily. That’s my tell.
We paired it with a bottle of Eno-Trio “Iddu,” a cloudy Sicilian white. I need to get back to Theodora more often.
Second thing…
New York is currently undergoing a mini-boom in kaiseki, hyper-seasonal tastings that function as a corrective to the louder luxuries of our bromakase era. And this week, we have a serious review on this front. New York Times chief critic Ligaya Mishan published her Yamada column today; she awarded four-stars. It’s Mishan’s first time issuing that rating, the paper’s highest.
Do read the whole review, but here are a few lines that capture the understated indulgences of the Chinatown destination:
“Note that Mr. Yamada makes the bottarga himself, curing then drying it for months on the roof above his apartment in Brooklyn, hurrying to bring it inside when the sky threatens rain. I learned this only in passing, after asking questions. There is no bragging here, no bid for admiration.”
Third thing…
In the mood for a dosa? Here’s Robert Sietsema who writes about an absolutely mammoth king dosa, “dwarfing the human hand destined to pull it apart and eat it.” Check out that line and more in his review of Annapurna Bhavan in Hell’s Kitchen.
Fourth thing…
In observance of “Shop Small Saturday,” Mia Winston has a great list of local bakers and micro-bakeries over at The Sweethearts, while Charlotte Druckman has a fun collection of sweets and cookbooks in a guide that she points out isn’t a true gift guide! Click through for notes on salted Danish butter cookies!
Why I’m excited about the burgers and shakes at Frita Batidos!
Plus: Some good fries, a great milkshake, and a really good sandwich at Hometown!
Here are two aspects of the New York burger scene that could use some beefing up: