Lauren Shockey

The classic fancy grilled cheese

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The humble grilled cheese has gone gourmet at Little Muenster, the tiny Lower East Side sandwich shop. Indeed, you won't find Kraft on Wonder Bread, but rather combos like Asiago, Parmesan, butternut squash puree and brown butter, or Oaxaca cheese with jalapeño-corn puree and cojita. It's not a place for purists, nor for those who think a grilled cheese should cost less than a fiver. But if you're into gourmet sammies (somewhat overpriced, that is) and don't feel like venturing uptown to the tastier Earl's Beer & Cheese, it's worth checking out. The menu offers eight different types of grilled cheese, which led us to wonder what's better: "super-fancy" classic grilled cheese or "super-fancy" newfangled grilled cheese. We put two to the test in a Battle of the Dishes.

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Hello!

My name is Bob, and I'm a chocoholic.

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Lauren Shockey

Calling all chocoholics

​If you're going to spend $10 on a chocolate bar, it had better be a damn good one. Or so you'd hope. But what do you do when the market becomes flooded with overpriced chocolate bars? How can you know how to best blow your weekly paycheck on cacao? Well, kids, that's what Battle of the Dishes is for. This week, we paid a visit to the just opened Ladurée (864 Madison Avenue, 646-558-3157) hoping they'd be selling delicious patisseries like at the original in Paris, but alas, only macarons and chocolates (and, oddly, sweet-scented perfumes and candles) could be had. And since we've already done a macaron smackdown, chocolate it was. And who better to battle Ladurée than La Maison du Chocolat, its equally Francophilic neighbor, located just eight blocks north. Behold the battle of the fancy Madison Avenue chocolate bars. Plus some pics of Ladurée's macarons because clearly we weren't going to go and not buy any. What kind of person would torture herself like that?

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​The contestants: Old Jamaica Ginger Beer and Idris Fiery Ginger Beer

There are lots of reasons to drink ginger beverages. For one thing, they're one of the few drinks that use an actual natural flavor rather than artificial flavor. That's because no one has synthesized a convincing ginger flavor yet. Raw ginger is relatively cheap, and so potent that a little goes a long way.

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Lauren Shockey

Momofuku Noodle Bar on the left, Baohaus 2 on the right

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Oh, fancy pork buns. How did you do it? Getting us to swoon over slabs of porcine goodness while paying ridiculous markups for a product that can be purchased so cheaply in Chinatown, that is. The exact reason remains a mystery, though the cult of Momofuku is undeniable. And while the food fad might have reached an apogee two years ago, the trend remains strong. Just recently, Eddie Huang opened a second outpost of Baohaus, his shop devoted to Taiwanese-style gua bao. While Chang's and Huang's pork buns feature different toppings, at their core they are quite similar: fatty pork, fluffy bun, Asian flavors. Which means one thing: We had to prepare for a Battle of the Bougie Pork Belly Buns.

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Rebecca Marx

Untitled's tuna salad sandwich

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As the eye of the storm approaches, we naturally turn our thoughts to upscale tuna sandwiches. As is their wont these days, certain restaurateurs have taken what was once a humble staple of brown-bag lunches and Automats and submitted it to a process of historical revisionism. No less than Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud have put their own imprint on the sandwich, at Untitled and Épicerie Boulud, respectively. And so earlier this week we took ourselves uptown to compare their respective merits.

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​On the left, weighing in at 2.5 ounces, medieval prelate St. Anselm! On the right, tipping the scales at two ounces, barnyard bully Fatty 'Cue!

I've been seeing lots of bacon apps on menus lately. It probably goes back 100 years -- Peter Luger's bill of fare was the first time I remember seeing bacon all by itself as a dish.

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Lauren Shockey

Fight night!!!

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When coming up with this week's Battle of the Dishes, we thought, let's take this battle beyond the same old taste test and make it a bona fide battle. As in, let's FIGHT. It was Breaking Bread Week here at Fork in the Road, so obviously what better tool for jousting than a baguette, no? Just like a sword, only blunt and filled with carbs! We happened to be near Bleecker Street, home to many bakeries, so we stepped into Amy's Bread for a loaf, then made our way to the nearby Blue Ribbon Bakery's market on Bedford Street and scooped up one of theirs. Both are known as tasty specimens, but which would you be rather carrying if a mugger approached you and you had to defend yourself?

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Lauren Shockey

Currywurst Bros. on the left, Wechler's on the right

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Yes, franks and ketchup have been bedfellows since the dawn of hot-dog invention, but the Germanic staple of currywurst really takes things to the next level. For those who haven't sampled the dish, sausages or hot dogs are chopped into bite-sized pieces, then doused in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. While ubiquitous in Berlin, the dish hasn't really caught on here. Maybe New Yorkers can't get beyond the true matchmaking that couples hot dogs and tropical fruity drinks (thanks, Gray's Papaya). There aren't many places to sample the dish, but you can find it at both Currywurst Bros. in Greenwich Village and at Wechsler's in the East Village. Which only meant one thing: We'd have to battle for the best of the wurst.

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Rebecca Marx

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This is one of our favorite times of the year, simply because corn is in season. And while we often do nothing more to it than cut it off the cob and eat it raw with a little bit of salt, we'll never pass up the opportunity to eat elote, or Mexican grilled corn on the cob. It's probably the best thing to happen to corn since melted butter, and we're fortunate enough to work within a short distance of two restaurants that know how to do it justice. So earlier this week we went to La Esquina and Café Habana to see how they fared against one another.

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