When you look up “banh mi” in the Midtown East MenuPages listings, you find Num Pang, a tiny Cambodian sandwich shop started by two friends that’s distinctly not-banh-mi yet nonetheless satisfies every spicy sandwich desire I have.

The menu is about fifteen sandwiches long and four side dishes deep (plus a bunch of soups and salads that I barely notice the existence of due to their health benefits), and my boyfriend and I haven’t tried anything yet that hasn’t left us wishing for one more sandwich to eat and one more side to hold onto like a little family pet that we bathe and take on a walk from time to time.

Here’s a sampling of one of our many orders:

boneless spare ribs

vanity shot

five-spice glazed pork belly

grilled corn on the cob

tropical fruit salad

It begins with the bread from NYC’s Parisi Bakery, which has that perfect crusty exterior yet doesn’t flake away all over your best shirt like a traditional banh mi does. Even when the first bite doesn’t yield any meat, the spicy-sweet chili mayo on the bread is a treat on its own. But the meat–whether it’s the spare ribs or the pork belly or the veal meatballs or the sausage–is always seared on the outside and tender on the inside and made all the more spicy and mouth-watering by the complimentary Sriracha sauce. And if you love a banh mi like I do, you’ll appreciate the familiar cucumber, carrots, and cilantro on every sandwich. Every bite is rich but also bright, familiar yet also distinctly Asian-influenced.

The corn was a complete shock to us, because we were expecting the flavors of Mexican corn-on-the-cob: lime, chili, and cotija cheese. The lime is there, and the chili mayo, but what looks like shredded cheese is actually shredded coconut. Shenanigans! I love cheese, but the sweet with the spicy and the tart is enough goodness to make me change factions.

The fruit salad is whole lychees, slices of pineapple, papaya, and mango, and cubes of young coconut in a lemongrass and mint juice. A few bites of this and a few sips of the blood orange lemonade is the perfect sweet-sour way to counteract the spiciness of the sandwiches. My boyfriend thinks the watermelon juice is better, but don’t listen to him.

I originally planned to give Num Pang 4.5 donuts out of 5 but started to reconsider it once I accidentally saw that both locations get 4 stars when you search for them on Google Maps. I thought through the menu and the meals I’ve had, trying to convince myself of a reason to drop its rating. Is too expensive? No, it’s exactly what I’m used to paying for banh mi. Is it not as flavorful as I expect? No, it’s actually more flavorful than most (if not all) comparable sandwiches. Can I think of anything that would make it better? More meat!, but that’s just me being greedy. I asked my boyfriend for his opinion, and he said, “One word: corn.” And then it became clear that I’m right and Google is wrong. 4.5 donuts it is.

I know it’s awful to talk about dieting on a gluttonous food blog, but the truth is that when I’m not shoveling sweets into my piehole at fancy restaurants, I’m trying to avoid carbs at home. Not being much of a cook, it can be rough trying to find anything for lunch, so I was pumped to randomly type “low-carb” into Seamless.com‘s search function and find Muscle Maker Grill. With a menu full of items made from lean meats and low-fat cheeses and served on low-carb and whole wheat wraps, this is the kind of place that makes me feel guilty about the food I’m eating until I remember that it actually fits into my diet.

Rocky Balboa wrap

With grilled chicken breast, turkey meatballs, reduced-fat mozzarella, and marinara, this is like a pizza in a wrap. And pizza is the thing I miss most while low-carbing, so this is one of my favourite items. I would never guess that the cheese is low-fat, and the marinara is present enough to flavor the wrap but not so obvious that I feel like I’m eating a bunch of sugary tomatoes.

Turkey Meatball Parmesan wrap

I ordered this on my friend Ash‘s recommendation and found it to be a great substitution for the bready meatball parm sandwiches I love so much. It was so gooey-cheesy and well-seasoned, and they didn’t skimp on the meat at all. I actually didn’t like this as much as the Rocky Balboa nor the XXL Cheeseburger wrap, though, because both of those have two different kinds of meat, so every bite is diverse. (The XXL Cheeseburger with its turkey bacon and BBQ-esque sauce is my very favourite thing to order.)

turkey meatball side item

All of the wraps come with a side of baked potato, brown rice, cucumber salad (cucumbers with herbs, Ash says), steamed broccoli, pasta salad, rice & beans ($1 extra), turkey meatballs ($1 extra), or turkey bacon ($1 extra). I love the option of broccoli but sometimes don’t feel like being quite so healthy, so the meatballs are a favourite. They’re well-seasoned, a little spicy, and a lot better than most of the meatballs I’ve had from non-healthy restaurants downtown.

Muscle Maker Grill is one of those places where you eat the food and think, “Why am I paying $10 for this? I could make it at home for much cheaper!” But you can’t, and you won’t. All of the ingredients are much more flavorful than you’d make them, and you’d never know that the cheese is low-fat nor the bacon is turkey here. On a scale with every restaurant everywhere, I’d obviously want to eat at the places with more butter and more sugar, but I have to give this place four donuts for making healthy food craveable.

My only problems with it are that they charge extra for low-carb wraps ($.79) and delivery ($1.50). I know that neither of those amounts is significant, but I find it pretty audacious to charge for delivery when I can only name one other restaurant in the city that does. It bothers me enough that I only let myself order from Muscle Maker once a week; I wouldn’t order from them at all on principle usually, but the food is just too good.

After our 1 hour, 42 minute wait for a souvlaki earlier this year at a similar event, I was understandably a little hesitant about last weekend’s Great Hot Dog Cookoff. Not only do New Yorkers notoriously flock to food happenings like that, but it was also supposed to be the second-hottest day of the year. Luckily, there were a few factors working in my favor:

1) Only 600 tickets were being sold.
2) There were 23 different hot dog concoctions to choose from.
3) It was the best-organized food function I’ve ever been to in NYC.

After showing our IDs to a first line of volunteers, we were then shown to a series of tables where we could check in by last name. We donned our wristbands, grabbed our souvenir cups, met up with our friends Eric and Christine, and went to town. The entire block was filled with tented tables, two kinds of hot dogs to a table, with the respective chefs doing all of the dirty work–from grilling to bunning to dressing–right there:

We picked a table at random to start, and wouldn’t you know it–it ended up being my second-favourite dog of the day: the Snap, Crackle, Dog!, which was mole poblano with “a super-special bun” that turned out to be a Rice Krispies treat! Of course the one that doubles as dessert would be tops for me:

Next to that was Crepes! Doggie Style that used a crepe instead of a bun:

The Early Riser, with cheese and bacon on a muffin:

Dr. Boyfriend clearly has no idea what to do with this thing, which is how we felt about most of the well-appointed dogs. But we weren’t complaining!:

The Conquistadog on Portuguese sweet bread with manchego and a cherry and port wine reduction:

The Cracker Jack Daniel’s Dog, with whiskey caramel peanuts on a pretzel bun:

The Hot Dog Experiment, a chili cheese dog with a side of melon juice:

The Panuchos Perros, with pickled onions wrapped in a tortilla with black beans and avocado:

The Frat Boy Dog, with potato chips, onions, jalapenos, and . . . Easy Cheese?:

The Soul Slider, with baked beans, collard greens, pulled pork, and a pickle:

The Fat Hog, with pulled pork, relish, and Fritos:

Corn Dog Mini Jack Muffins with Sweet Heat, with shredded jack and sweet/spicy mustard:

This is the one I actually voted for to win the whole shebang. The 8 Fat Fat 8 Lucky Dog, with garlic, ginger, onion, cilantro, hoisin, and daikon:

Perros Banditos, with cheesy Frito pie (although mine only had one Frito chunk):

There was also a table making Sodastream beverages on demand in ginger, hibiscus, cream soda, and lime. They saw a lot of me, but it was their fault for using the tiniest plastic cups instead of letting us fill the large cups we got with our wristbands at the entrance. It was also their fault for being delicious:

There were shockingly tiny samples of ice cream from SoCo Creamery (It was 100 degrees, SoCo! Give me at least a spoonful!):

and raffle prizes that these hopefuls didn’t even come close to winning:

Mostly, it was like a giant block party with way better food, and a DJ, and a totally-famous host we recognized but couldn’t name, and a sprinkler:

Since it was held at the Kelso of Brooklyn brewing company, unlimited beer was also included, and they were more than happy to fill our big plastic cups aaaaall the way full of pilsner or ale, yet there was so much to do that somehow, I never saw more than a handful of people waiting in line:

The line for the two portable toilets was always just as short, and at the end of the day, there were still plenty of hot dogs to be had (Except, of course for the one that ultimately won, the hot dog with lobster on top! Learn from our mistake and show up right when the event starts.):

See what a good time this young Ph.D. was having?

Overall, and despite the heat that made me just want to gobble up a bunch of dogs and leave, it was an awesome experience. I tried 13 different dogs, two kinds of beer, four kinds of soda, and one pitiful spoonful of ice cream and never had to wait for any of it. I had thought the $45 price tag might be a little steep at first, but just the sheer joy of being able to walk up to a tent and have a full tray of hot dogs waiting for me was well worth that. I’ll definitely be returning next year, and in fact, I wish there was another round this year!

My friend Meredith and I live mere blocks from each other in Brooklyn, but since my dining is done almost exclusively in Manhattan, I rely on her to tell me what’s good in the neighborhood. She recently recommended the sandwich shop Saltie, saying, “I had their Scuttlebutt sandwich 2 weeks ago and CAN’T stop thinking about it.”

I don’t do olives, so instead I tried the Clean Slate, and OMG, you guys, I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.

It’s hummus, quinoa, pickles, and yogurt on naan, and the memories of its craveable sourness just keeps invading my brain. $8 seemed a little steep to me until I got the thing and saw that the amount of filling they put on the bread makes it more like a sandwich and its own side dishes. It’s sweet, it’s crunchy, it’s oozy, it’s messy, and IT WILL BE MINE again.

The shop itself is quintessential New Williamsburg, a tiny little storefront with benches enough to seat 10 normal-sized people or 20 hipsters. Just take a look at their contact info or click on the picture of the menu on their site, and you’ll get a great idea of the cute atmosphere of the place.