Neal Ungerleider

The Info

My name is Neal Ungerleider. I’m a 29-year-old writer, journalist and social media consultant based in New York City. From August 2009-July 2010, I was True/Slant’s former Middle East editor. Before that, I blogged for Menupages.com, Mediabistro.com’s FishbowlNY and Gawker Media’s Gridskipper. My articles have shown up in publications including Slate, Wired and Foreign Policy. 

A CV is available upon request. I also maintain an active Twitter feed and can be contacted via e-mail here.

92nd Street Y Blog

• Talking Primates with Dr. Frans de Waal: An extended discussion with one of the world’s most well known primatologists about bonobos, “anthropodenial” and the difference between a capuchin monkey and a CEO.
• An Interview with Neil Gaiman: Two guys named Nea(i)l talk over the phone about punk rock, tattoos and Star Trek. The ironic twist? One of them is a bestselling author and pop culture icon.
• The Samosa Diaspora: A massive, Wikipedia-approved exploration of everything you need to know about the samosa. Food history = goodness.

Budget Travel

• Where It’s At (and When): A layperson’s guide to finding warehouse parties in Barcelona and Indian-style pizza in Oakland.

FishbowlNY

• Ex-ABC Analyst Faked Obama Interview?: Of lying Frenchmen and scandal allegations.
• Philly TV Anchor’s Wild, Cop-Attacking Night: In your average journalism career, you come across a few stories that are solid gold. This is one of them.
• The New York Times Gets Rickrolled: Sometimes an internet meme can take a well-respected newspaper by surprise. This was one of those occasions.

BlackBook

• Porcetta, Haggis and Padma: 16 hours spent at the Fancy Food Show, the world’s largest gourmet food tradecon. Celebrity photo-ops, haggis potato chips and 2500 kinds of cheese… what’s not to love?

Forbes Traveler

• 11 Classic American Dishes: If you needed even more reasons to be patriotic, here are 11 of them.
• America’s Most Expensive Hamburgers: Where the (expensive) beef is at.
• Awesome July Fourth Meals: From sea to shining sea, a guide to the best holiday dining around.
• America’s Classic Bars: Whether it’s a beer-and-a-shot in Brooklyn or Capitol Hill’s favored spot for politico martinis, these bars are worth your while.
• The World’s Best Steakhouses: A lovingly written guide to steakhouses and the many cultural variations thereof.
• The World’s Best New Casinos: From Macao to Singapore to… Windsor, Ontario? Si.
• Amusement Parks: VIP Style: How to beat the crowds and ride a Segway through Walt Disney World… or just climb a massive roller coaster, loops and all.

Foreign Policy

• The Way To America’s Heart Is Through Its Stomach: How the gourmet food industry is offering a chance for some of the world’s smallest states to enhance their brand profile in the USA.

Gridskipper

• Fareed Zakaria’s Fantasy Island: Once upon a time, a cultured media icon and a fabulously rich rock star decided to create a beach resort for the culturati. It failed.
• Deconstructing Wagamama: A look inside the rabidly popular London-based restaurant chain written before their Stateside launch.
• Havana’s Chinatown: Havana’s Cuban-Chinese community, restaurants under communism and Fidel Castro being caught with a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Mediabistro

• So What Do You Do, Michael Calderone? An interview with ex-New York Observer reporter/current Politico media maven Michael Calderone.
• So What Do You Do, Tony Ortega? Village Voice EIC Tony Ortega has a yen for Flight of the Conchords. We approve of this hobby.

Jewcy.com

• When Rockets Hit Your Home: When you go to grad school abroad, you assume you’ll have good stories when you return. Unfortunately, sometimes you’re right.
• Life in the Tel Aviv Bubble: A guide to waiting out geopolitical conflicts via coffee, Cuban sandwiches and cognitive dissonance.
• We Are All Converts: Reviewing Shlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’: One history- and anthropology- obsessed journalist vs. one controversial book that made the New York Times and the Israeli press freak out. Check.

MenuPages

• Baghdad’s Chinese Restaurant:When the city around you is a warzone, sometimes you just need comfort food.
• Fight For Your Right To Foie Gras: It’s animal rights activists vs. restaurant owners in a battle royale.
• Sasha Issenberg Interview: A chat with author Sasha Issenberg of The Sushi Economy, one of the best books we’ve seen in a while.

Philadelphia City Paper

• New Year’s in Beersheva: The best way to learn about the difference between Grad rockets and Katyushas is to have both of them fired at you.
• Witout Borders: In which your humble correspondent tracks the cheesesteak to the furthest reaches of China and Eastern Europe.

Slate

• Who’s who in the Middle East rap game: Hip-hop, politics and the live music jones in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• War is Gaga: A history of military humor from Iraq and Afghanistan on the internet.
• Real Princes, Real Persians: A look at Iran’s surprisingly vibrant video game industry and at the young developers who are fighting the Mullahs, piracy and western sanctions… at once.

True/Slant

• CIA Suicide Bomber Was… A Blogger: Not only that, but this particular jihadist also wrote Caliphate fanfic.
• Dubai Debt 101: A Beginner’s Guide: A simple explanation of how years of limitless construction compounded by unusual accounting and planning put the brakes on the City of Tomorrow.
• The United States’ Secret War in Yemen: Before an African terrorist with overstuffed underwear made everyone’s Christmas a bit more interesting, the US military was involved in covert Yemeni operations. Here is a short guide to them.
• Kentucky Fried Chicken Infiltrates the United Nations: A story so strange it has to be true. An actor playing the fast food chain’s beloved spokesperson is waved past multiple layers of security at the United Nations’ New York headquarters. Was it faulty security procedures? Was it a lucky break? One thing is sure - the chicken was delicious.
• Dubai Assassination 101: A Short Guide to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh: A spycraft primer involving Israel, Hamas, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates and plenty of others.

Wired/Wired.com

• Hard Science, With a Twist: A guide to the best science-themed bar nights in the United States. Yes, science-themed bar nights.
• The Rocky History of Rockers in Videogames: Since those halcyon days of Pong, video games have come out starring everyone from Michael Jackson to Aerosmith to the Thompson Twins. Here’s a screenshot-filled look back at the classics.