4food is all about “de-junking fast food” and their claim to fame is tasty food with nothing artificial with a sustainable touch. Let me just say they make a damn good burger.
When I walked into their Midtown East location, the first thing I noticed was the LED menu, since their selection is constantly changing. Customers have the option of building their own burgers, skewers, and meals with a huge variety of ingredients, but I went with one of the pre-selected meals: a Gotham (a salmon burger on a bagel with a scoop of spinach and pinenut, onion, tartar sauce, tomato) with a side of coconut rice and a white peach tea. Most of the meals are $12, and the posted prices include tax (how considerate).
4food prides themselves on being a super social media savvy restaurant and it shows. As I waited for my food to be prepared, I checked in on FourSquare, and my check-in popped up on the LED wall in the back of the restaurant. They also stream Tweets about the restaurant (and I had a reply from their Twitter account before I left the premises). One of the tables on the first floor hosts iPads for customer use near the entrance (not so great for cold, windy days, but good exposure for the restaurant, I’m sure) though the wifi fluctuated somewhere between annoyingly spotty and marginally functional.
My food arrived in the coolest recycled cardboard polyhedrons (see below) and tasted absolutely divine. The combination of flavors in my burger bordered perfection. Their burger patties feature a hole in the middle where they stuff the veggie scoop, turning the experience into flavor discovery with the second or third bite. The coconut rice unexpectedly delighted me. The tea tasted like heaven - it was very sweet and contained slices of peach (which make a guilt-free dessert). I reluctantly sipped the tea while I was eating the burger because I didn’t want to miss out on either flavor!
The restaurant itself has huge dining space and at least 5 one-person bathrooms and the communal seating fits the “counter culture” of the establishment (their pun, not mine). There are separate bins for rubbish and recyclables, and they compost their waste.
I think 4foods is the ultimate restaurant win, and others will do well to follow their model. They excel at the basics: good food at a decent price (for $12, I got the best meal I’ve ever not regretted having to pay for, and I was satisfied when I finished… which is a godsend in Midtown East). But more importantly, they put emphasis on the customer. In addition to the prices including tax, the receipt has a break-down of the nutritional values of each element of your meal! Plus, they use fresh, local ingredients, which will make a difference in your health in the long run. On top of that, their use of recycled products and other eco-friendly policies show that they’re a socially responsible organization! All signs point to yes for this one, and as I told Katharine (Executive Editor of NYCRD), “You’re not allowed to eat lunch out until you get 4food.”
And the fact that they’ll tweet a response to this within a couple of hours of it's being posted is icing on the (all-natural-and-still-delicious) cake!
4Food
286 Madison Ave (at 40th St)
212-810-452
4Food
286 Madison Ave (at 40th St)
212-810-452
Bonus: Check out the 4food website for awesome extras like fully-cusotmizable online delivery orders and their rewards program for designing your own burgers! You can even earn 4food cash if your burger become popular. Register your 4food profile and get $5 for your next purchase!
-- D. Kareem, NYCRD Contributor
-- D. Kareem, NYCRD Contributor
It’s been less than week, but I’m absolutely taken with the gym. While it owns the reputation of being like a club, I find it appealing since it makes me respect the space I’m in. It’s fascinating to look around and surprising that every nook boasts a wonderful new detail you may have never noticed before. And having an in-house DJ in the evening kicks ass.
What makes Winter Sun Farms super unique and applicable to NYC lifestyle is that they FREEZE the local produce in a way that when you thaw it, it tastes as fresh as it did when it actually was fresh. This solves the problem many CSA-lovers face: how do I eat all this food before it freakin' rots?! Another nice bonus is that the prep works (snipping / dicing) is done.
As a special introduction, Tasting Table orchestrated a three-month Winter share (February, March and April) to their readers for just $96. This breaks down to $32 a month, or about $8 a week. Totally worth it. 
