Prime Meats Visited 2/20/10 3 Forks

Prime Meats 465 Court St
(between 3rd Pl & 4th Pl), Brooklyn, NY 11231


Prime Meats has been very hyped due to the fact that it's owned by the same people as Frankie's. I tried to go a month ago and was told it was a 2 hour wait on a Friday at 9:30pm. This time, I went on a Saturday night @ 8pm, which obviously was no better. The host told me it was about a 2 hour wait and I just gave in. I gave him my cell # and Dan and I went and grabbed drinks at the Irish pub next door.

The wait ended up being a little over an hour instead. After sitting down, I totally understand why the wait is so long. The place is tiny! There must be about 10-15 seats total in the entire restaurant. It doesn't help that the bar is in the front and takes up half the restaurant, which makes the place overly crowded. I don't know what is up with this hipster, old school, Prohibition look, but Prime Meats also had it. Everyone wore vests, had many tattoos and had ironic mustaches. I'm so over that look.

I ordered the Apple Sazerac ($10) after finding out that the punch of the day was a Mai Thai. I was torn over what to order for my main meal. I was partial to the burger but I kind of feel like that's a cop out. So instead, I ordered the Sürkrüt Garnie (chouchrote garnie, slow cooked pork belly, Thuringian bratwurst, calf tongue & knackwurst served with house made sauerkraut ($16) and Dan ordered the burger with cheese and thick cut bacon ($13 for the burger and $4 extra for the cheese and bacon) and a pint of Oatmeal stout ($7). I was a bit hesitant about my meal but when I came out I was overwhelmed. There was so much food and lots of meat! I wish they had told me what was what on my plate b/c they all looked like meat to me and I was particularly curious as to which one was the calf tongue. But I was able to pick out the pork belly immediately and it was amazing. I think it's really really hard to get pork belly wrong. I also surprisingly loved the sauerkraut, it cut the fattiness of the meat well. But I could barely finish my plate and I am even regretting eating as much as I did. One of the meats just tasted like a hot dog and what I think was the calf tongue really just tasted like meat.

Dan's burger came out super rare, which is the way he actually like it and I had a bite and it was super delicious, but I'm not sure if it was worth $17. My drink turned out to be much stronger than I thought it was not very cocktail like. Instead it came out looking like straight whiskey in a small glass.

I was super curious about the meat plate that everyone was eating but I definitely could not have eaten more than I did. The name definitely speaks to how incredibly meat focused it is there, but I did see some veggie items. The host was very nice and apologetic for making us wait, and although I liked it, I'm not sure how worth the 1+ hour wait it was. Maybe 30-40 mins max. But definitely a great place if you are craving meat.

Okeanos Visited 2/20/10 1.5 Forks

Okeanos 314 7th Ave
(between 4th Ave & 8th St) Brooklyn, NY 11215


I had originally been excited that a new restaurant was opening up on 7th Ave, but yet again, I feel like the quality of restaurants on this street is pretty disappointing. Dan and I mainly went b/c he had seen the menu when walking by one day and they had Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine on their brunch menu. We were starving when we went b/c I had waited an hour to get my taxes done, so were were very excited to sit down and eat. The place was pretty empty when we went at 1pm, which generally isn't a great sign. Dan and I really miss 2nd Street Cafe which had amazing brunchy egg products and have been dying to find a proper substitute. He ordered the eggs benedict ($10) and I order the eggs florentine ($10) and each got coffee ($2/each).

One minor complaint is that when we ordered our coffee they didn't bring any cream or milk out and after I asked for it, they brought a little thing of milk, which was fine, but then they brought a little bowl of empty creamer! WTF? The food came out and Dan's meal looked pretty standard but mine looked pretty different. I was expecting basically eggs benedict but with spinach instead of ham. But mine was baked in a baking dish and had 2 pieces of bread covered with cheesy spinach and 2 "poached" eggs. I don't understand how any restaurant, especially one that is practically empty, can't get poached eggs correctly. The eggs were completely over cooked. I like my poached eggs runny and these were almost cooked all the way through. The other bad part of my meal was that the bread was completely hard and I could barely cut through it. I ended up just not eating it.

The potatoes were flavorful but Dan's main complaint was that they were too big and that hash potatoes shouldn't require so much cutting. We agreed that the highlight of our meal was the side salad, which is never a good sign.

Geido Sushi Visited 2/19/10 3 Forks

Geido 331 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217


I have heard great things about Geido for many years but just could never bring myself to cross Flatbush to make it there. After we walked past it on the way to Franny's, I decided that I had to make the effort to go.

The walk from my apt wasn't as bad as I had thought. It's literally right on the corner for Flatbush and 7th Ave, so it was about a 15 min. walk. When I entered the restaurant, I was taken aback at how bright and airy it was. The entire waitstaff immediately greets you in Japanese when you enter. The place just really struck me as a place I would love, I can't explain why. I think what I like is that it's not just sushi but that it has a bunch of other Japanese speciality foods. The environment is very much an izakaya meets sushi bar.

Dan and I split a sashimi platter ($15), an Obama roll ($9.90), a miss pepper roll ($6.50) and a small bottle of cold sake ($10). I was tempted to order the omakase, which looked amazing in the menu but Dan and I weren't sure if we needed that much food, but I will definitely order it the next time I go. The sake was sweet and very pleasant on the tongue. The Obama roll was tuna, salmon, yellowtail covered with crunch. It was pretty good and the miss pepper roll which was just a yellowtail and jalapeno roll. Usually this type of roll has the crunch green jalapeno pepper but was a sweet soft pepper. They had many many other rolls that sounded delicious but we just couldn't fit it in. I wasn't overly impressed with the miss pepper roll but the sashimi was pretty fresh and delicious. It came with 4 pieces of tuna, 2 pieces of salmon, 4 pieces of white fish wrapped around scallion, 3 pieces of mackerel and 4 other pieces of some other kind of fish that I couldn't figure out but was pretty good b/c it came topped with ginger. I usually hate mackerel but this one was pretty fresh tasting, although it was still pretty fishy in general.

despite the walk, I will most definitely be back to this restaurant and order the omakase and maybe some different rolls.

Beet Visited 2/18/10 3 Forks

Beet Thai 344 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn NY

Beet is one of those typical cheap but good thai places, but I have a particular soft spot for this place. I feel like it's really good and what I particularly like is that the tofu in their pad thai and other noodle dishes is steamed and not fried, which makes it taste and feel much healthier.

VA and I split the crab avocado salad ($8), which was half an avocado split open filled with spicy crab meat and mayo. I was surprised that they used real blue crab meat and it was really quite good. The one disappointment was that the avocado was really hard and inedible. We also split the veggie spring rolls ($4), which was pretty standard. I ordered glass noodles with tofu ($7) and an x-rated french martini ($8). For a basic thai place they had a nice list of fancy martinis that were pretty good. VA got a lychee martini and my french martini had chambord in it. The glass noodles were really good and full for veggie and large chunks of steamed tofu. VA got the spicy broad noodle ($7) which was said was good but she did find some strange hard pieces in it.

The wait staff was very accommodating and when I ordered the noodles with no celery and VA ordered her dish with extra baby corn. It's definitely becoming one of my go-to thai restaurants in the 'hood.

Franny's, Visited 2/14/10, 2.75 Forks

Franny's 295 Flatbush Ave
(between Prospect Pl & St Marks Ave) Brooklyn, NY 11217

I had heard and read about Franny's for a long time as being one of the better restaurants in the 'hood, but never been. It took about 15-20 minutes to walk there from our apt but it was a really interesting walk since there were tons of great looking places to eat on Flatbush. It's definitely a street worth checking out when the weather gets nicer.

The wait was about 15 minutes, which wasn't bad considering it was Valentine's Day. I appreciated that they didn't have a prix-fixe menu like many restaurants. We all started with a round of drinks ($10-13 for cocktails, $7 for beer). I had a ketel one and fresh grapefruit juice, aarti had a bloody mary, will a glass of red wine and dan had a pint of kelso pilsner. My drink was pretty good and a decent size.

The menu at Franny's is mostly wood-oven thin crust pizza and they have a real focus on using seasonal ingredients. The seasonal ingredients were mainly used on the appetizers. We ordered the beet salad with peccorino cheese, roast fennel and a cristino with proccuito and egg and bean. You could definitely tell that they used fresh ingredients and took care in preparing the food. I was a bit disappointed that the cristino was only 1 piece...for $9, I would expect at least 2 pieces, but the 1 piece was pretty tasty. The egg was used as a spread on the bottom. Dan and I ordered the tomato, buff mozz and sausage pizza ($17) and aarti and will ordered the same thing with no sausage ($16). I was a bit annoyed that the waitress was trying to up sell us by saying "well, you ordered kind of light for 4 people. The pizzas are really for 1." I had seen the pizzas before ordering and they are definitely enough for 2 if you had apps before hand.

In general, I'm not a huge pizza lover. I mean, I like pizza and would never be adverse to eating it but to me, it's really hard to make a bad pizza if you use the right ingredients. Our pizza was good, light and fluffy. I even ate the crust, which I normally don't do. We had left room for dessert but when we looked at the dessert menu, it was pretty disappointing. There was nothing any of us really wanted, which is pretty hard to do and I think a bad sign for a restaurant when people actually left room in their stomach for dessert. The total bill for the 4 of us was $132. While I don't think there was anything wrong with the food, I think it's a bit expensive for what you get.

Congee Village, Visited 2/14/10 3.5 Forks

Congee Village 100 Allen St, New York, NY 10002

Happy Chinese New Year! Instead of trying to maneuver the masses in Chinatown, we decided to go to Congee Village, which is in the LES. We had been there before for Will's birthday and had enjoyed the food. Even though it's a bit out of the way from Chinatown, it was still pretty crowded. Luckily, we were seated in about 15-20 minutes and sat in the room to the left and squeezed all the way in the corner. The menu is definitely a bit overwhelming but they do a really good job of taking pictures of the food and having english translations.

We ordered pea shoot tops, some sort of pork patty with fish sauce, sizzling beef plate, tofu and eggplant, and flounder. I had tried to speak to the waitress in mandarin but they mostly speak Cantonese there and she wouldn't really work with me. I had wanted to order a whole steamed fish but she told me that all they had was a 3 lb sea bass, which seemed too big for 3 people. She said they had a flounder "with meat", which I didn't understand. But when it came out, they had basically cut all the fish meat out, fried the rest of the fish, and sauteed the fish with veggies and put it on the fried fish body. It was pretty good but I would have still liked a whole fish. Everything was pretty tasty. Pea shoot tops are always great, how can you not like garlic sauteed veggies? The sizzling beef platter was cooked well with great seasoning. The tofu and eggplant came on a weird sterno lit dish and the tofu was the soft version but deep fried on the outside. The eggplant was cooked to the point it was mushy but i like it that way b/c otherwise it's too tough to eat. Dan and Will picked the pork patties based on the photo in the menu and they looked exactly like they did in the menu. I had never had these before and they basically tasted like a sausage patty with some fish sauce in it. I was pretty full but not stuffed to the point of pain. The best part of eating chinese food, family style is that it all cost $20/pp!

Pagoda, Visited 2/12/10 1.5 Forks

Pagoda 333 Graham Avenue
(between Devoe St & Metropolitan Ave)

This place is very close to Dan's house and with us being lazy, we decided this was the easiest choice. There are so many good cheap Thai places in New York/Brooklyn, but this isn't really one of them. First, the menu is pretty basic and just had your standard thai fare, nothing exotic or different. We ordered the pad see yu ($8.50) and some kind of noodle in curry dish ($8.50) and 2 thai ice teas. They then told us that they only had enough ingredients for 1 thai ice tea...it was only 8:30pm on a Friday. What kind of thai place only has ingredients for 1 thai ice tea during rush hour? But oh well. The food was pretty basic, nothing to write home about. I thought there weren't enough noodles in my pad see yu, I left still feeling hungry. But at least the bill only came out to $21. If I had to have thai in this part of Williamsburg, I would pick Cheers Thai over this place.

Vinegar Hill House - Visited 2/13/10 4 Forks

Vinegar Hill House 72 Hudson Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11201 between Front & Water Streets

I have been to this restaurant many times before and have loved it every time. It's in a pretty random area near Dumbo called Vinegar Hill - it's very quaint and quiet with cobble stone streets and not much else. It's one of my dreams to be able to live there but it's a bit out of my price range and just a bit inconvenient to public transportation. But it really takes you back in time and is so different from the rest of nyc. The restaurant is from the same owners as Freemans's in the city and you can definitely tell. The entire waitstaff are hipsters with mustaches and the decor of the restaurant is mis-matched vintage furniture, which ordinarily would bother me, but for some reason it doesn't. The menu is generally pretty limited (6 or 7 items tops) but everything on it is good. We went for brunch this time around noon. Dan got the sourdough pancake ($10) topped with ricotta cheese, bananas and syrup. It's only 1 pancake but it is absolutely the most amazing thing you will eat. It's incredibly sweet and yummy. I had the special of the day, Steak and Eggs ($16). The steak was cooked perfectly and was the right size. Usually when you get steak and eggs at most places the steak is absurdly large, but it was perfectly cooked and just the right size here. It also came with 2 poached eggs (I would prefer it a bit more runny, it was too cooked in the middle) and potatoes. We also ordered a side of honey covered bacon ($5), which was good but not worth the $5 (only 4 slices). Dan got a coffee ($3.50) which was good as they use french press coffee and it's unlimited. Total bill $37, which is a bit pricey for brunch but the food and environment are great and totally original.

Veselka Visited 2/6/10 2.75 Forks

Veselka 144 2nd Ave New York, NY 10003

This is one of those restaurants that I have seen a million times while living in nyc, but never have eaten at. I had heard that it was a New York landmark of sorts, so I was curious as to what the food was actually like. Dan and I had originally decided to get ramen but Ippudo had an hour 1/2 wait at 10pm on a Saturday (only in New York folks). After walking around a bit, we settled on Veselka b/c it was close by. The inside was like a basic dinner with counter-top and table service. We were seated within 15 minutes. The menu was quite overwhelming with lots of Ukrainian and other ethnic choices. I figured, since I am in a Ukrainian restaurant, I should eat what they specialize in. While I was tempted to order pierogis, I opted for the meat stuffed cabbage ($12.95) which came with 2 sides (I chose mashed potato and a garden salad). Dan order the special pierogi of the day (short ribs - he got them fried with apple sauce. Personally, I like them boiled with a side of sour cream) ($11.95). The garden salad was actually really good. It came with this delicious sweet dill dressing.

When the meat stuffed cabbage came, i thought it could have fed 2. There were 2 big pieces covered in a very flavorful mushroom sauce (tasted very much like thanksgiving gravy). The potatoes could have used a bit more salt or butter, but it's probably better that they didn't. The meat was mixed with rice, which made the meal even more filling. I finished 1 1/2 pieces and had to call it a day. I thought Dan's pierogis were ok...making them fried was just too much, but they were definitely filled the the brim with meat. Next time I go, I would be interested in trying their goat cheese or cheddar pierogis. Total bill came out to $28 for the 2 of us. Not bad considering how random and last minute it was.

Holy Basil Visited 2/5/10 3 Forks

Holy Basil 149 2nd Ave, New York

When I first moved to New York, almost 10 years ago now (!), Holy Basil was one of the first thai restaurants that I had been to. I've been back only a handful of times, mostly because there are just too many cheap/good thai places in NYC. Randomly, Aarti and I decided to take her brother and sister-in-law there for dinner. It's on the 2nd floor of the building that now houses the defunct Telephone bar. The inside is actually quite nice and sleeker looking that your average loud, noisy, cheap thai place like Spice or Sea. While it was definitely packed to the rim on a Friday night, we were all still able to hear each other without having to yell. As soon as I started looking at the menu, I remembered why I don't come here as much. While the food is very good, the prices also reflect the slightly more upscale look to this place. I got a lychee martini ($11), that was extremely strong and my usual chicken pad thai ($11). The pad thai was pretty good; wet and saucy. We had split the veggie spring rolls to start and while they were fine, a few of the pieces were apparently very cold. I ended up spending $27 for my meal, which isn't too bad but when you think of how you can get the exact same meal somewhere else, it is a bit expensive. But at least the food is great and the ambiance is enjoyable.

Tokyo Bay Sushi - Visited 2/1/10 3 Forks

Tokyo Bay 183 Duane St (at Greenwich St)

This place is small and fairly boring looking, but I thought the food was pretty good. We went right after work, so that place was pretty empty. They didn't have a spicy roll combo so instead I had a spicy scallop roll, spicy tuna and spicy salmon (all around $5.50-$6). I liked that there was very little rice on the outside, which allowed for more of the fish to come through. There are usually 2 types of spicy rolls: 1 where they use large chunks of fish with spicy mayo/sauce and another where the fish is chopped up, almost like tar-tar style. I prefer the rolls the first way and that's how they were here. While they were pretty good, and actually pretty filling, considering how little rice there was, I did think $6 for a basic spicy roll was a bit much, especially considering the neighborhood. I think they would do well with having a spicy roll combo. All in all, I would go again if I was in the mood for sushi by work.

Wombat - Visited 1/30/10 - 3 Forks

Wombat 613 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY


Dan was craving some sort of meat/burger product and we had originally decided to go to Pop's until we heard that it was more of a late night, burger stand place. So we decided to check out the Wombat, which is on the part of Grand street that is still a bit "sketchy" but definitely up-and-coming. It's an Australian bar with a small restaurant in the back. Dan went with the Australian Burger ($8.50 + $2.00 for the fried egg), which was a lamb burger with beets. I had the turkey burger with cheese ($8.50 + $2.00 cheese). I gotta say, it was pretty tasty. They did not just pull out some frozen turkey burger patty and throw it on the grill. You can tel that it was formed from ground turkey with some seasonings in the meat. It was pretty big and very filling, but of course I ate the whole thing. The fries were delicious and crispy but a bit too salty, which I think they meant to do. The turkey burger came with a pretty good wasabi mayo that I dipped my fries in. They had a nice line-up of micro-brews, I got the Six Point Black Wheat ($6). My only complaint was that my hands and clothes kind of smelled of the food afterwards, which was kind of annoying.

Fort Defiance - Visited 1/30/10 - 2 Forks

Fort Defiance 365 Van Brunt Street (corner of Dikeman) Brooklyn, NY 1123

This place has been getting a lot of great press lately and I was eager to check it out. I love Red Hook and usually like places that are a bit off the beaten path. We went for brunch on a Saturday afternoon around 12:30pm. The place is cute from the outside and inside it's pretty small, maybe 8-10 tables, with some seating at the bar. The place claims to be New Orleans style food, so I was excited to try the Muffelatta sandwich, which is a New Orleans classic. I should have asked what was in the sandwich first and I painfully later learned that it was covered in olive paste, which I hate! The sandwich was decent sized ($10) but from what I heard, in New Orleans they are gigantic. The bread was nice and soft and the meats and cheeses were fine, but I just couldn't get over the olive taste. Dan got the Savannah ($11), which sounded great on paper: biscuits, eggs, gravy and small piece of fried chicken. I just had a small bite, so I couldn't really properly assess the meal, but Dan claimed it completely lacked flavor and was something that he could probably make at home. He also left feeling hungry, which usually doesn't happen with him. The coffee was individually ground and brewed ($2.50), so there were no re-fills, which I generally don't like when you're having breakfast/brunch. I'm not sure what all the hub-bub was about...although I think the cocktails get most of the buzz and they did sound good, but the food was a bit of a disappointment.

JPan Sushi - Ordered in 1/29/10 - 3.25 Forks

Jpan 287 5th ave.  Brooklyn, NY 11215

JPan is another in a long line of reasonably priced, decent quality sushi joints in Park Slope. I generally like this place as I think it's good value for what you are getting and they take AmEx. Dan and I had remembered that the last time we ordered, it was a lot of food, but for some reason, we did not learn from our mistake this time. We ordered the Japanese Veggie Spring rolls (standard fried spring roll fare) $4.50, a Spicy Roll Combo with miso soup ($15) and an additional Yellow River Roll ($12). When we got the food, it looked like it was enough for 3-4 people. The Spicy roll combo came with spicy tuna, salmon, and crunchy triple fish roll. The triple fish roll was enormous and too big to fit in one bite. The other 2 rolls were slightly more normal sized, but I thought it had a bit too much rice on the outside. Then there was the Yellow River Roll...normally, rolls come in 6 or 8, this one came in 12 pieces! And they were also huge and difficult to eat in 1 bite. I was a bit disappointed in this roll as I think there wasn't enough fish and in fact one of the pieces had no fish at all! It was just a bunch of rice..I think it's probably the end piece, but they shouldn't have put it in there if there's nothing in it! All in all the total bill was $34.30 and we were completely stuffed at the end. It's definitely more "American" style, big pieces of sushi, but not a bad value in the end.