Email Author Robert Sietsema

Awards

• 2011 - Association of Food Journalists Awards, published June 23, 2010

  "An Open Letter to Josh Ozersky"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 23, 2010

  "An Open Letter to Josh Ozersky"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 1, 2010

  "May We Interest You in Some Egg Fetus?"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 8, 2010

  "Siam I Am"

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2005 Stories by Robert Sietsema

• Downloading Doner

  published December 27, 2005

  It's a rare restaurant that undergoes such a trial and passes with flying colors. On a recent Sunday afternoon, 10 of us charged into... More >>

• Supersize Me

  published December 20, 2005

  Is it my imagination, or have restaurants been getting bigger and bigger lately? Increasingly, many joints seat 100, 200, or even more. No chef... More >>

• Thanks, Cattle

  published December 13, 2005

  Weekend afternoons—or weekdays after a van disgorges a gang of exhausted day laborers in front of the temp employment agencies down the... More >>

• Shibam!

  published December 6, 2005

  Hadramawt is a narrow wadi—or valley—that snakes its way through the craggy mountains of Yemen near the Empty Quarter desert. Snuggling... More >>

• Daruma Bums

  published November 29, 2005

  While other cuisines are licensed to innovate freely, Japanese often remains hidebound. Ninety-eight percent of Japanese restaurants have menus... More >>

• Letter From Chicago

  published November 22, 2005

  Hey Jonathan: A zillion thanks for your recommendation! We New Yorkers like to think of ourselves as one jump ahead of everybody,... More >>

• Santa's Top 10 Cookbooks

  published November 15, 2005

  No reliable scientific study has yet demonstrated that people who get cookbooks for Christmas actually cook anything with them. But think of all... More >>

• Beef Unbound

  published November 15, 2005

  The Vietnamese admiration for beef is boundless. It's partly a legacy of French colonialism, as you'll discover when the giggling waitress wheels... More >>

• Death and Sausages

  published November 8, 2005

  Long ago the East Village was known as Kleindeutschland, or "Little Germany." Peer at the terra-cotta lintel over the door of Second Avenue's... More >>

• Yakety-Yak

  published November 1, 2005

  Among our handful of restaurants from the ceiling of the world, Tibetan Yak was considered the most authentic. The doughy steamed bread called... More >>

• Shipshape

  published October 25, 2005

  Like an ocean liner, the two-story restaurant thrusts its prow into Seventh Avenue's lapping waves of traffic. Indeed, the downstairs dining room... More >>

• Kill the Sauce

  published October 18, 2005

  Not to be confused with the sainted Roberto's up in the Bronx, Roberto is a new Hell's Kitchen restaurant founded by Roberto Passon. He's the guy... More >>

• A Tale of Two Tubs

  published October 11, 2005

  While propelling south on Flatbush Avenue past hair salons, roti parlors, and colorful fruit stands spilling breadfruit and bananas onto the... More >>

• Marc-Down

  published October 4, 2005

  With his cleft chin, square jaw, and thatch of dark hair, the waiter might have been Ben Affleck's brother, as he leaned over our table, asking in... More >>

• Amazin' Meze

  published September 27, 2005

  Among the hulking warehouses and sunken railroad tracks of northern Dyker Heights, near a mental health facility emblazoned "Serenity... More >>

• Snacker's Paradise

  published September 20, 2005

  Who'd have thought a pile of grayish ground pork could taste so good? Yet that seemingly unpalatable substance is the heart of yum nam sod... More >>

• Grease Is Good!

  published September 13, 2005

  It's easy to be cynical about nutrition. After all, the rules keep changing on us. Not long ago butter was the devil, and we were told to eat... More >>

• Wrights and Wrongs

  published September 13, 2005

  Though Lodge qualifies as a theme restaurant, I'm not quite sure what the theme is. The business card pictures a red Adirondack lodge, while the... More >>

• Soap Ogling

  published September 6, 2005

  Kennedy Boulevard zigzags south of Journal Square through a zone of elegant brick apartment buildings, wood-frame houses with rambling porches, a... More >>

• Ride 'Em Cowboy!

  published August 30, 2005

  In day eight of The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio describes a town called Bengodi ("enjoyment"). Perched beside a mountain of grated... More >>

• Nip and Squirt

  published August 23, 2005

  A few years back, New Yorkers often returned from Chinatown with chins glistening and grease splattered on their shirts. They'd fallen in love... More >>

• Capture the Flag

  published August 16, 2005

  With its low-rise mix of used-car lots, small manufacturers, storefront churches, and especially Ecuadorian, Colombian, Dominican, and Mexican... More >>

• Date Spot

  published August 9, 2005

  Decades ago, every New Yorker had his or her own Greenwich Village hideaway, a secret place on a hard-to-find street where the red sauce flowed... More >>

• Magnificent Morsels

  published August 2, 2005

  For the past few years, New York has been in a dim sum slump. A decade ago, Chinatown palaces like Triple Eight and Golden Unicorn were churning... More >>

• Leapin' Lepinja!

  published July 26, 2005

  Once upon a time, there was a wee hamburger stand hidden beneath the Forest Avenue M station in Ridgewood, Queens. Looking like a giant in a... More >>