How to take a restaurant road trip to New York, Chicago and beyond, without leaving the kitchen

“I miss the snow,” he says, looking out the window on a beautiful sunny day as we scroll through images of friends on Instagram playing in the snow in New York. 

“Me, too,” I say. “But I’m not squeezing into an airplane filled with recirculated virus droplets just yet.” 

My partner and I typically fly away somewhere this time of year. Travel is a shared passion and indulgence. It’s what keeps us sane. We ski almost every winter but sometimes we satisfy our need for cold weather somewhere else, like Chicago or New York. We often design trips around food, routinely booking dinner reservations weeks before securing a flight or hotel.

Like everyone else, though, we’ve been grounded because of the pandemic, and we’re getting restless. We need to go somewhere, get out of our rut, eat something different.

“How about we cook?” I ask, knowing full well that I will be the one who does most (all) of the cooking. I don’t mind, though. This would be a welcome break from our normal routine, which for months on end has been focused on takeout and delivery. “It’s been awhile since we cooked anything truly memorable. We could try Momofuku’s pork butt.” 

That gets his attention. We loved the bossam at chef David Chang’s Momofuku’s Ssäm Bar in the East Village the last time we were in New York. Although the restaurant recently closed — set to reopen in a fancier location on the Seaport later this year — that pork butt is available online as a meal kit, shipped overnight through a service called Goldbelly.com.

Forty-eight hours later, our house is cloaked in the heady musk of pork fat and brown sugar caramelizing in the oven. It almost feels like winter. The table is set with fried rice, kimchi, Korean chili sauce, steamed potato buns and a heap of lettuce and fresh herbs for making wraps. And I haven’t even broken a sweat.

The first eight hours of prepping and cooking were done by Momofuku. After curing the pork butt in sugar and salt and giving it a long, slow roast, they froze it, wrapped it and shipped it cross-country with most of the remaining ingredients. Essentially all I have to do is provide the lettuce and herbs, reheat the pork, stir-fry the rice and pour some wine. 

I reach across the table and pluck a hunk of pork from the skillet. Dripping with fat, it smells like molasses and black pepper. With sticky fingers I slather it with chili sauce and wrap it with a handful of mint and basil in a leaf of lettuce. “To New York,” I say. 

It’s not quite the same as traveling to the East Village, but “OK, that was fun. Where should we eat next?” 

“Let’s try Scarpetta,” I say, scrolling through Goldbelly’s long list of New York restaurants. I fondly remember an incredible spaghetti dish at Scarpetta. While the restaurant’s original chef quit years ago, Scarpetta remains an institution for New York power lunches. 

A few days later we’re sipping wine and lunching on remarkable agnolotti stuffed with beef short rib and bone marrow, which I’ve quickly and easily tossed in a velvety butter sauce. It’s almost enough to make me forget that we’re still in a pandemic. 

In the days that follow, our kitchen is abuzz with unfamiliar activity. One night, we’re dining virtually at En Japanese Brasserie, a sultry, jazzy restaurant in the West Village, a regular hangout for our friend Cindy who lives around the corner. Although we can’t be there in person, we’re listening to Billie Holiday and enjoying chef Taishi Yamaguchi’s miso-marinated black cod served with Japanese yams, maitake mushrooms and dashi rice, which takes all of 30 minutes to prep and cook. Sadly my attempt at making tofu fails. They sent the soy milk and nigari (a coagulating agent), and I’ve mixed it up according to the directions, but nothing’s happening. It’s just a puddle of separated milk. I suspect some of the nigari must have leaked out of its bottle in transit (the bottle was almost empty when it arrived), so the ratios must be way off. Oh, well. Everything else is delicious. 

Before the week’s over, the oven is cranked up again and our kitchen smells like fried chicken and waffles. We’re now in Harlem, eating at chef Marcus Samuelsson’s soul-food diner Red Rooster. Samuelsson’s fried chicken and waffles at Red Rooster became so famous, he launched a separate restaurant, Streetbird Rotisserie, dedicated to the dish. Although Streetbird closed, the chicken and waffles are still available online. And I’m genuinely astonished at just how good fried chicken and waffles can be when shipped across the country and reheated. 

“Let’s go to Chicago,” I say, belatedly realizing this virtual trip doesn’t need to be limited to New York. The last time we were in Chicago, it was snowing cats and dogs and our dining schedule was too jam-packed to include Stephanie Izard’s Girl & The Goat. 

And it’s snowing now in Chicago when I place the order, yet our package arrives right on schedule. I open it to find a crate of produce that looks like someone just came back from the farmer’s market: fresh eggplants, two heads of bok choy, an onion, a pint of grape tomatoes, a bouquet of mint and basil, a bag of Persian cucumbers, plus sesame seeds, pickled fresno chilies, wonton wrappers, noodle dough, cookie dough and several packets of sauce and condiments. Oh, no. I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one, but at least the shopping is done.

Four hours in, my apron is properly soiled and the kitchen counter is cluttered with dirty pots and pans. But the table is set, and I’m starting to relax, sipping a five-spice pear cocktail with mezcal. (The pear mixer is included, but customers have to provide their own alcohol, mezcal recommended.)

It’s a Chinese-inspired spread that Izard calls Duck Duck Goat, which involves neither duck nor goat. We’re eating smashed cucumber salad, hand-stretched “slap noodles” (mine look more like dumplings than noodles) with eggplant and tomatoes, fried potstickers with bone marrow and short rib, plus freshly baked almond cookies.  

For one final stop, we make a last-minute detour through … “Nebraska?” While I would probably never vacation in Omaha, I recently learned that this is where the original Reuben sandwich was created, at the Crescent Moon pub inside the old Blackstone Hotel. I love Reubens. I have tasted and written about many over the years. I’ve sampled Reubens at Jewish delis, five-star hotels, roadside diners … 

Strangely, I never thought much about the origins of this sandwich. I always assumed it was created someplace like Katz’s Deli in New York or The Berghoff in Chicago or a neighborhood where corned beef and pastrami play an important role in the local cuisine. But Omaha? I would never have guessed. Could the original formula actually be better than all the great versions I’ve enjoyed over the years? I have serious doubts.  

The box of ingredients arrives, and I’m surprised by the pastrami. It’s not sliced but rather chopped into large, meaty chunks, like chopped brisket. I’m also surprised by the instructions. They’re telling me to cook the sandwich open-faced on a baking sheet in the oven rather than on the stove. I do as they say.

Oh. My. God. This changes everything. This is seriously the best Reuben sandwich I’ve ever eaten. With the pastrami in chunks, the sauerkraut, cheese and dressing seep deeply into the meat instead of just layering on top. So this is how Reubens are supposed to be made? I’ll never look at a Reuben the same way again. I’m so glad we made the virtual detour to Omaha. 

“Thank you for cooking,” my partner says. “I still miss the snow.”

Me, too. This was a fun. Maybe it’s not as fun as actually eating our way through New York and Chicago. But it’s the most fun we’ve had in our own kitchen in a while. I hope this pandemic goes away soon, though, because I’m still itching for a real vacation.

Everything I ate and how to order:

Momofuku: Bo ssäm dinner for 4-6, $169

Streetbird: Hot honey chicken and cornbread waffles kit for 4, $99

En Japanese Brasserie: Saikyo miso black cod dinner kit for 2, $84

Scarpetta: Beef short rib and marrow agnolotti kit for 2, $99

Girl & The Goat: Duck duck goat dinner and drinks kit for 2, $119

Crescent Moon: Original Blackstone Reuben sandwich kit for 4, $99

Shipping is included with any of these orders. Online: goldbelly.com

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