Looking for an Egyptian Sandwich and More Reader Questions
Welcome back to Ask Becky, my hyperspecific restaurant recommendation support line. This month I’m addressing three issues that are always evergreen to me: festive birthday dinners, cravings that can’t be ignored and meals that involve eating absolutely appalling amounts of sushi. Shall we?
Oh, and if you’ve got a prompt for me, send it over by email wheretoeat@nytimes.com or as a submission to this form.
A craving sorted … and a mystery outstanding
I am desperately searching for Egyptian hawawshi. I was pregnant most of 2025 and had an insane craving for this little delicious pocket sandwich. I had said precious baby and thought my craving would go away, but it has only grown stronger! — Whitney W.
For you, Whitney, I found myself desperately searching for hawawshi on a Saturday night, walking down Steinway Street in Astoria with my colleague Luke, asking every Egyptian restaurant if they had the sandwich. A few shop owners told me that, despite having it listed on their menu, they’d stopped serving hawawshi, for reasons I couldn’t get to the bottom of.
Luckily for all of us, I struck gold, just in time for the sky to open up dramatically and bucket rain: Watany Grill, the food truck outside of the butcher shop and store Watany Food Market, with a charcoal fire ripping smoke down the street. On the grates, next to amber half-chickens and fat rib-eyes, were hawawshi charring away, gripped tightly in flat grill baskets. What happens over that flame is remarkable: The pita gets a hard toast from the high heat as it’s soaked through and charred by the seasoned beef fat, leaving it rich and crackery crisp on the edges. It’s served piping hot, straight into a tin foil bundle, alongside thick tahini for dipping and a container of olives and pickles to cut through it all. Your craving is contagious: Luke texted the next morning, “I woke up thinking about the hawawshi.”
Money talks, wealth whispers?
My husband and I will be celebrating my birthday in Manhattan in a few weeks. As gentlemen of a certain age, we prefer quiet, understated elegance to flashy, noisy environments. Of course, we love good food — particularly French and Italian. And excellent desserts are always welcome. Any recommendations? — Robert N.
“Understated elegance” and “excellent desserts” lead my mind directly to one place: Chez Fifi. It’s the Upper East Side’s answer to the sexy, downtown French restaurant, maybe a love child between the swanky, intimate Chateau Royale and the precise, dignified Le Coucou, stacked over two floors of a townhouse on East 74th Street.
You and your husband will love not having to raise your voices over a bracing salad and a lovely filet au poivre beneath a fistful of crispy fries. Peppered through the menu are opportunities to celebrate, even enthusiastically, with a pile of Osetra caviar added to the aioli for the fries, or foie gras and truffles with the chicken. But I think you should save the festivities for dessert: chocolate mousse, intensely rich but with a French-girl-in-just-a-red-lip casualness, and baba au rhum with a towering swirl of crème diplomat, already saturated but served tipsily with a side of rum for drizzling.
140 East 74th Street (Lexington Avenue), Upper East Side, Manhattan
And now, as promised, the truth about Tao
Since Kumo, on Bleecker Street off Seventh Avenue South, closed, where does one go for all-you-can-eat sushi? — Deborah L
“All-you-can-eat sushi” is the most beautiful string of words in human history. And it’s having a bit of a moment right now in New York. New “all-you-can-eat omakase” spots that shall not be named will bring you as many pieces as you want after the omakase … but charge you for any you don’t eat. (And, in my experience, those pieces at the end are lower quality, so you don’t want to eat them. It’s a trap!)
The best no-catch, no-limits deal I’ve found in the city is at, buckle up, Tao. That’s the one, the 2013-era clubstaurant in the meatpacking district that’s still kicking. Since last year, they’ve been serving a $75 buffet at brunch and, to be frank, it’s a blast. There are about a thousand stations dedicated to plussed-up dim sum (bao stamped with “TAO,” bacon egg and cheese spring rolls, Wagyu sliders), but you can skip most of them and go straight for the fish. The spread of maki, sushi and nigiri is all surprisingly high-quality, given that it’s on a table the size of a motorboat with dry ice fog pouring out from every corner. I hope you see the appeal here. And for dessert, you won’t be surprised to learn there’s a chocolate fountain.
92 Ninth Avenue (West 17th Street), meatpacking district, Manhattan
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