Brooklyn Beef N' Cheese (New York, NY)

The pigeons agree as they veer closer and closer to the bench, squabbling for crumbs.

Contrarianism is in my nature. Though it’s faded over the years, there’s some small part of me that twitches when confronted with something that has widespread acclaim. Taylor Swift. Cake pops. John Belushi’s performance in Animal House. For most of my life, that included New York City.

Worse than the incessant praise from its denizens and devotees alike is the Big Apple’s ubiquity in the media ecosystem. Countless television shows, both good (30 Rock, Futurama) and bad (Friends, How I Met Your Mother), are set within confines of the five boroughs, along with innumerable films, plays, musicals, and middling novels. Each time I think of New York, that one song in Hamilton (another popular thing I despise) flashes through my head like venom. So many truly believe it to be “the greatest city in the world,” and they will tell you so at every opportunity.

Beyond its pervasive grip on the American imagination, New York City seemed, on the outside, to be a place that fundamentally disagrees with me. It is dense, loud, crowded, and expensive. Its municipal government combines all the worst aspects of nanny state (like banning pop over an arbitrary serving size) and police state (like choking a man to death for selling loose cigarettes in violation of tax law).

For all that, I never deigned to visit the city until last November. As I always do whenever I visit somewhere new, I had one thing on my mind that would surely be capable of judging the home of millions of people, billions of dollars, and centuries of history: onion rings.

Here is a review of onion rings from Brooklyn Beef n’ Cheese in New York City, New York.

Presentation and Appearance: (4.5/5)

As I sit on the banks of the East River, surrounded by a teeming flock of pigeons as inquisitive as they are aggressive, I hunch over the red and white cardboard box of onion rings, in a fairly standard shape and pattern. There are just enough onion rings in the box to fill it to an acceptable level, neither stingy nor heaping. They are breaded craggily and on the darker side of brown, but seem to be fairly evenly coated and intact.

The smell coming off the onion rings rings is delightful, a heady admixture of grease, fresh salt and pepper, and soft, sweet onion within, almost steaming in the cold November air. Though not entirely flawless, they look appealing and seem to be freshly made.

Taste: (3/5)

The pigeons circle me warily as I prepare to take the first bite, coos masked by the sounds of the city behind me. The breading is packed with flavor, a point in favor of the hand-breaded theory. The seasoning twists in every nook and cranny of the textured ring, much like the city’s rat population of 2 million writhes beneath my feet. There’s surprisingly little grease and abundant seasoning, though the strongest taste is a well-executed blend of salt and pepper.

Unfortunately, the glitz and the glamor of the breading does not match the cruel and harsh reality of the onion beneath. Though cooked for an appropriate amount of time, the slightly sweet taste is weak and easily overpowered by the breading, style winning out over substance.

Texture: (2.5/5)

Like so many tourists, business travelers, and immigrants alike, I am almost on the verge of being swayed by the intoxicating glow and bright lights of Manhattan. Like the city, the breading looks so enticing at first glance, but there is a troubling lack of depth and onion flavor beneath. The disappointment continues with the texture, which has hints of greatness muddled by haphazard execution.

There is still plenty to admire. The breading delivers a truly excellent crunch, cooked to an elegant crispiness, at least on the outside. The inside tells another story, with several rings being cakey, soft, and undercooked, a mysterious third layer between breading and onion. This confused rigidity, combined with a soft onion, leads to excessive slippage

Still, for a few rare bites, the texture is on par with the highest heights of breaded onion rings. Alas, the lack of consistency makes its departure all the worse.

Value: (4/5)

Mentally, I tend to adjust my scale of value relative to the general price index of wherever I am. For one of the wealthiest and largest cities on earth, I think $6.25 for a good sized side portion of hand-breaded onion rings is a downright steal. The pigeons agree as they veer closer and closer to the bench, squabbling for crumbs.

The onion rings from Brooklyn Beef N’ Cheese suitably sum of my feelings on the city from which they spring: better than I thought, but far from the best.

Total: (14/20)