The First Annual Melt Awards!
The Melties aka the best things I ate in 2022
I wanted to do this right. I failed.
I’d been hoping to do some splashy deal for what I’d like to make an annual thing where I tell you, my dear readers, about the best things I ate that fall under the family of melts. Now, I know traditionally a melt is usually a sandwich with some sort of cheese melted on top of a protein, but I’ve never been one for semantics. In this case, there is one thing and one thing only that gets you on this list: You melt some cheese on top of something and you are in contention. If it involves bread then it can be in contention. Those are my rules.
With that in mind. The moment you’ve all been waiting for.
The Tuna Melt of the Year goes to…Golden Diner!
Huge last-second addition to this year’s field. I honestly had thought the competition was closed when a friend invited me to the spot that’s got one foot in Chinatown and another in the Lower East Side. The crazy thing was that I almost didn’t get the tuna melt, but something about it felt right even though everything about it screamed wrong. I am not usually a fan of potato chips on a tuna melt, but salt and vinegar chips are a conversation I’m willing to listen to. So I tried it and friends, here is how much I liked it: They charge extra for a pickle. I have a pretty serious rule about never paying for pickles, but the way the tuna salad and the chips left exactly the sort of taste in my mouth you’d imagine a concoction like that would leave, I felt it was necessary to ask for an upgrade and for the deluxe service with the gherkin and some fries. I’ve seen more than a few of these places that claim that they’re doing something “different” or “elevated” with diner staples like the tuna melt, but I didn’t catch that vibe at Golden Diner. Their take has just enough tuna salad with a nice consistency of smooth and just enough chunk. The other thing is they don’t overpower the tuna with cheese. Some places just go absolutely gorilla with cheese and if I wanted a damned grilled cheese, then I’d order a damned grilled cheese.
But the thing with Golden Diner is they just want to make awesome food and I was really blown away by not just the melt, but the vegan nachos, I sweat to holy Moses, just incredible. Would I ever tell you to get vegan nachos unless they were really good? That’s about as likely as me paying for a pickle.
Best Bagel Melt of the Year goes to…Baz Bagel Latke Hash Egg and Cheese!
I’m generally a little wary of beef anything when a place has bagel in the name. I just don’t feel like if you’ve got a name with bagels in it then you’d better concentrate on some great damn bagels and make sure you have good appetizing products. So your cream cheese had better not be some store-bought whatever, your lox and whitefish had better be banging, etc. Meat is a whole other thing. If you’re going to do meat, you have to pay a lot of attention to it. And since places that sell bagels tend to skew Eastern Euro Jewish, that means more often than not if there’s red meat on a menu at a bagel place then it’ll be brisket. And you basically have to treat brisket like somebody you’d sing a sexy 1990s RnB song to. You gotta take your time, love on that beef, get it juicy, slice it right. You know, the drill, baby.
Baz did something smart. They make killer bagels, and they put a lot of love into the corned beef hash. I’m not saying hash isn’t tough to make but to make it really good, that actually takes a little skill and I would for sure just go there to eat the hash because it’s that good. But the sandwich itself, it’s crazy. It is one of those things that deserves a special landmark status.
Favorite New Slice of Pizza (To Me) goes to…The Brown Oxtail Stew Slice at Cuts and Slices!
This one blew the lid off my dome. I’ve seen peeople try it and I’m usually like, listen, if I wanted a bread bowl of soup then I’d go to a Panera, but this is in Bed-Stuy, baby. People just do things right there. The crust has just enough firmness without being tough that it holds up the beef, but it also doesn’t get in the way or mask the oxtail. Instead, the topping is the star here and it has this insane tang that the crust serves more as a counterbalance. Just a lovely thing to eat.
Best New Burger Award goes to…As You Are's Short Rib Burger!
I’ve been worried about the state of the burger as of late. It felt like everybody just got too crazy putting bacon and shit on top of a hunk of beef and calling it a day. The lack of inspiration was really getting to me until I found myself at the restaurant at the Ace Hotel in Brooklyn and a friend said I had to try the burger. Basically, the short rib thing alone is enough to get me excited, and I love that they fit the patty perfectly with the house-made English muffin, but the thing that knocked me out here, friends, is the mustard. They make it in-house and they don’t coat it on there, but it’s impossible to ignore. The way it syncs up with the meat and cheese is something to behold.
Best Classic I Finally Tried This Year goes…The Chicken Parm at Dan Tana’s!
I finally got to spend a night at this little L.A. institution and the thing I love about L.A. is the institutions tend to hold up for the most part. Maybe it’s because I’m a tourist and I just like things in other cities, but going to the place where the Eagles stayed up all night doing shots of tequila and snorting blow before coming up with the lyrics for “Lyin' Eyes” is definitely a My Kinda Place place just to experience. I wasn’t going to be mad if the food wasn’t as great as the killer martini. And yet, a nice juicy piece of chicken, some tasty red sauce, melted cheese and great people watching made for a big impression. The thing about a nice plate of chicken parm is that it has to be good, but you truly have to enjoy yourself while eating it. This was one of the rare instances where I found myself at a red sauce place outside of NYC or Chicago and felt that way.
Best Wrap This Year goes to…Edith’s Sephardi Breakfast Wrap
The Ashkenazi flavor dominance of “Jewish food” in America is slowly fading away and people are starting to understand Jews have been all over this crazy globe and have amazing foods and flavors from other places besides the shtetl. I’ve eaten my way through the Edith’s menu since it opened a few years back, but this is now my go to order. It’s a breakfast wrap, but you can honestly eat it at any point throughout out the day and the mess of Alheira chicken sausage, cheesy eggs and harissa mayo hit just right.
Best DIY Tuna Melt This Year goes to…Smoked Tuna Salad from Sherry Herring!
Weird category, I know. The thing is that the sandwich at Sherry Herring are for sure worth trying, but unless there’s some secret menu I don’t know about, they don’t have melts on the menu. They also don’t have public bathrooms, which is a bit problematic to me and almost made me think about not putting them on this list. They have a lot of seats, they serve a lot of older Upper West Siders, you’d think maybe they’d have somewhere for them to do their business. That alone makes the schlep a little bit of a pain in the butt for me, but I digress. I think they make incredible sandwiches, so I decided to take home some of their smoked tuna salad with a little pinch of chipotle paste in there. I put it on some nice rye bread I bought, a couple of slices of American cheese on top of that, put it in the oven, and boy, it was nice.
UPDATE: The nice folks at Sherry Herring messaged to tell me they now have public bathrooms. Incredible! Support them! The sandwiches are all 100 percent good!
The Melt Hall of Fame 2022 Class!
And now, introducing the first group of all-time classics as voted on by me and me alone. Congrats to all the winners. Truly a massive honor.
The B&H Dairy Whitefish Melt! (New York)
The Frady's One Stop Food Store Roast Beef Po’ Boy With Cheese! (New Orleans)
The Spinning J Tuna Melt! (Chicago)
The Grandma Slice at Luigi’s! (Brooklyn)
the only award that matter
Golden Diner is my fave in NY