The Best Bites Our Editors Ate in May

Some standouts include a tableside Caesar salad and a dreamy fried chicken.

With the flowers blooming and the sun shining, May invited our editors to enjoy the most out of fresh seasonal produce and embrace the joy of warm-weather eating. From brunch to dinner, appetizers to desserts, we tried it all and we're still thinking about all the delicious things we tasted this month. That’s why we’re sharing our editor's favorite meals from the month of May from a dish that takes advantage of in-season spring mushrooms, a stellar tuna hand roll, and dreamy eggplant dressed with a caramelized miso glaze, tahini, and peanuts.

Tofu Chow Udon from Needle (Los Angeles, CA)

“The tofu chow udon from Needle in Los Angeles is the platonic ideal of a stir-fried noodle dish. It’s a textural wonderland: chewy, bouncy udon noodles, silky shimeji mushrooms, bell pepper strips cooked until just tender, sugar snap peas that retain plenty of crunch, and just the right amount of spongy yet tender tofu pieces. It also has incredible flavor: all the ingredients are gently charred, tossed with a sauce that is heavy on the black pepper, and kissed with a squeeze of lime juice. The result? A noodle dish that is equal parts memorable and satisfying (and just so happens to be vegetarian). Have I moved meetings to Needle just to eat these noodles? Yes. Could I eat these every day? Also yes.” – Khushbu Shah, restaurant editor

Tableside Caesar Salad at La Dolce Vita (Los Angeles, CA)

“Everyone in LA can’t stop talking about La Dolce Vita, the old school red sauce restaurant (once owned by Frank Sinatra!) that recently reopened in Beverly Hills. It’s everything you want out of a place with old Hollywood vibes: a dark cozy room, plush red leather booths, incredible service, and a giant veal parm. My favorite part though was the table side caesar. I love anything theatrical and this salad requires a server to crack fresh pepper from a comically large pepper grinder that is at least three feet tall. It’s also one of the better Caesar salads in the city. The lettuce is crisp and cut into bite-size pieces, the house-made croutons are delightfully buttery, and the dressing has the zippiness you want without it tasting like you licked a tin of anchovies. A+ salad experience. Will be back for more (and a bowl of spaghetti.)” – Khushbu Shah, restaurant editor

Oysters with Lime and Sansho Flower from Farmoon (Japan)

“I had almost too many spectacular bites on a recent press trip to Japan, but surprisingly, this was the most memorable. The starting course at Farmoon, a cozy restaurant and tea house in Kyoto, expertly designed and furnished by chef Masayo Funakoshi, was absolute perfection. The ice cold oysters were simple and clean, seasoned with fresh lime juice and slightly tongue-numbing sansho pepper flowers. It's how I want to eat oysters from now on, but I know they will probably never hit as hard as Farmoon's.” – Amelia Schwartz, associate editor

Al Pastor Yaki tacos from Superbueno (New York, NY)

“Superbueno is, at its core, a Mexican cocktail bar. The drinks are phenomenal (don't sleep on the Green Mango Martini), but the food can also hold its own, especially the al pastor yaki tacos, which feature beautifully grilled pineapple and spring onions that melt in your mouth when paired with fatty spiced pork shoulder.” - Oset Babür-Winter, senior drinks editor

Spicy Tuna Hand Roll from Mari (New York, NY)

“If you are a fine dining skeptic I promise a meal at Mari will change your mind. Mari serves meticulously crafted handrolls and small bites that pull from traditional Korean flavors and techniques. I enjoyed the 18-course tasting menu which included playful bites like beef tartare wrapped in a shatteringly thin chip of ice fish — the whole thing was about the size of a quarter but packed so much flavor. The handrolls at Mari are truly destination-worthy, though. The 18-course menu includes 12 handrolls that are about 2 bites each. There's a fantastic mushroom hand roll which features three varieties of mushroom, a sweet scallop with chimichurri, and a sweet-and-spicy braised pork belly, but my personal favorite has to be the spicy tuna. Chopped tuna belly gets topped with crispy shards of potato which results in a magical play in texture. Pro Tip: snag a spot at the counter where chefs place the hand rolls on your plate the moment they are assembled.” – Lucy Simon, assistant editor

Calabrian Chili Pappardelle from Ever Andalo (Charlotte, NC)

“Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, this relatively new restaurant is a must-visit, offering a menu inspired by the village of Andalo in the Dolomite region of Northern Italy. All of their menu items are stellar but the real star of the restaurant is the fresh pasta. The Calabrian Chili Pappardelle featured a slightly heat-driven Calabrian chili beef ragu and was paired with a dreamy house-made ricotta. To truly make a great dish even better, be sure to get the cheese cloud—a flawlessly fluffy parmesan that tops the pasta like a dream.” – Alexandra Domrongchai, editorial fellow

Fried Chicken from Jūn (Houston, TX)

“This was the best fried chicken I've had in a minute; it's the kind of dish that left me thinking about it the day after. The meat was falling-off-the-bone-tender, the breading was super crunchy and well adhered to the meat, and there was a spicy honey for drizzling on top. The most striking thing about this chicken was the depth of flavor, and I'm still not completely certain how they achieved it. The chicken was so moist, did they steam it before frying? There was a deeply savory and funky flavor from shrimp paste, but was it in the breading or the hot honey mixture? Sesame seeds and other seasonings that I can't quite put my finger on made the crunchy coating so delicious that I scraped up every last bit I could—sorry I can't provide more detail, guess you'll just have to go try it for yourself.” – Merlyn Miller, social media editor

Eggplant with Caramelized Miso Glaze, Tahini, and Peanuts from 204 Main (Sharon Springs, NY)

“Lately it feels like the culture at large is in its eggplant era, Maybe the ubiquity of the saucy emoji has it tickling at folks' brains in some subconscious ways, but I swear it's been popping up on menus a whole lot more — most significantly for me at my favorite restaurant in New York's Mohawk Valley, 204 Main. There's no menu description, just the ingredients, and nothing readied me for this sense-bending textural feat of succulent, supple eggplant flesh served in crisp-shelled slices to be dragged through a pool of creamy, savory, nut-studded miso sauce. Restaurant co-owner Jim Grinchis told me that the chef, his husband, Norm Phenix became fixated after a restaurant-centric trip to London and spent so many days and iterations of his process that Jim may be put off aubergine for the rest of time. One person's glut is another's excuse for gluttony, and you can find me back there soon with a double portion and one of the restaurant's exquisite Paper Plane cocktails.” – Kat Kinsman, executive features editor

Ricotta Gnudi from Press (Saint Helena, CA)

“Press is a Napa institution, serving up delicious bites that highlight the best products from purveyors in the Bay Area, as well as the world's largest selection of Napa Valley wines. Their Ricotta Gnudi is a standout and they have a variation of the dish on every menu. This version, with a mushroom consommé, is both light and hearty and utterly perfect. So much that I ordered another round after dessert,” Sean Flynn, senior editorial director

Everything from Virginia’s (New York, NY)

“Working in this job, and being as devoted to food as I am, you often get to enjoy incredible meals with over-the-top components, often multiple courses, and some jelly, foam, or form of “deconstructed.” And while I do indeed love the pomp and circumstance of fine dining, sometimes I crave simplicity in the form of a small menu with a few recognizable dishes done right. That’s exactly what I found on a recent visit to Virginia’s. The Debbie Gibson, featuring a splash of Spanish vermouth and house purple brine, was bright and fun and paired perfectly with the most fresh and punchy Hamachi Crudo I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a lot of hamachi crudo). The Roasted Carrot Salad — studded with an almond romesco for a bit of kick and texture and dotted with goat cheese to cut through the delicious creamy sauce — was so good I was close to licking the remnants off the plate. For the main event I had Steak Frites that were juicy, flavorful, perfectly cooked with a nice crust and pink center and came with an enormous portion of fries in addition to a huge dish of herbed butter. At $40 for such a sizable and lean cut of meat it felt like a real bargain. The only problem with Virginia’s is that it is not anywhere near my neighborhood because if it was, it would surely become my regular haunt.” – Sam Gutierrez, senior social media editor

Beech Mushroom "mac & cheese” from & Beer (New York, NY)

“Was I slightly skeptical when I first heard about &Beer's current "all mushroom" menu? Absolutely. But, it turned out to be one the most exciting meals I've eaten in a long time. While every dish was great, the beech mushroom "mac & cheese" is a dish I would happily eat again and again. This (to my surprise) no-noodle, all-mushroom dish did not only visually, but also texturally, really resemble classic mac and cheese. While no dairy was used, the mixture of cauliflower "cheese," nori butter, and breadcrumbs, mixed with the noodle-like beech mushrooms, was truly a fun and delicious meal!” – Elsa Saatela, senior digital producer

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