Pho Grand Visited 6/20/10 3.75 Forks

One of my most favorite foods in the world is pho.  I will eat it any day, time or place.  So on one of the hottest days in NYC I had a craving for pho, which seemed pretty crazy.  I actually had another pho place in mind when Dan and I went to eat but this address was what stuck in my mind.  When we got there it actually was this place that I had been to with my mom a few years ago and I remembered she had read about it in Travel and Leisure. 

I will say that this is one of the cleaner places in Chinatown that I have been to.  And even though I generally am not a huge fan of ethnic restaurants not being run by people of the same ethnicity (this place was run by Chinese people), you can't really get away from it.  I got the large #9 pho ($5.95) which was round eye and brisket and Dan got the regular #6 ($4.95) which just came with round eye.  The bean sprouts and basil that came out were extremely fresh looking and tasting.  I knew that there were other things on the menu but I was on a mission and quite frankly, I didn't really have room to eat much more than a bowl of noodles.  The food came out quickly (but not as quickly as it does in other pho places) and I was very pleased by it.  The broth was flavorful with the right amount of onion and cilantro in it.  I would have liked a bit more noodle and for my meat to be a bit more raw, but I should have probably asked for that.  Total bill with 1 iced coffee was $14.  You really just can't beat that deal anywhere!

Flatbush Farm Visited 6/20/10 2.5 Forks

Flatbush Farm  76 St Marks Ave, 6th Ave and Flatbush Ave, (between 4th Ave & 5th Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11217

I've been to Flatbush Farm before for my birthday last year and I thought that the food was pretty solid.  So when it came time to think of a place to go for brunch in Park Slope (there is almost no good places really in the 'hood for basic brunch), it seemed like it would be a good choice.  But it was probably not the best idea to go on one of the hottest days of the summer.  

First the walk there was just brutal.  We got there and we were already sweating like crazy.  They were able to seat us outside which originally sounded like a good idea but after sitting there for as long as we did, it wasn't the best idea in the end.  But I will say that the outside atmosphere is really beautiful and bigger than most backyard patios in Brooklyn.  The theme of Flatbush Farm is the ever-so trendy farm to table concept and the menu is often different from season to season.  All I want usually is your basic egg and pancake like dishes...they did have an omelet and 1 pancake dish on the menu but I wasn't overwhelmed by what was offered.  I got the omelet with ricotta and herbs, which came with a side salad and 7-grain toast ($10) and then a side order of sausage ($6).  Dan and Will both ordered the Barn Burger ($16) which was a burger with 2 huge pieces of bacon, a fried egg, and telggio cheese and a side of plantain hash.  Aarti got the Farmer's Breakfast (scrambled eggs, kale and plantain hash for $12).  My first gripe with this place was the service.  It was just super slow and our waitress just looked like she was not all with it.  Another pet peeve I have is if the table orders drinks, they should come out pretty quickly.  Instead, the drinks took a long time to come out (15 mins after ordering) and the food came out another 20-25 mins after that. At one point, I just stopped talking b/c I was so hungry.

When the food did come out, it was fine.  No fireworks, but good enough.  I will say that my eggs were very wet, which is exactly the way I like it but I thought that the herbs were very overpowering.  The sausages were also very salty and you could taste the casing, which I don't really like.  But I will say that the bite I had of Dan's burger was very good.  However, I think after he and Will both finished their burger, they instantly felt like they couldn't eat for the next week.  The total bill was around $77 (without tax and tip) which I thought was a bit high for brunch.  Oh and they also do not take AmEx, which was annoying.

Mercat Visited 6/19/10 4.5 Forks

I cannot say enough how much I love Blackboard Eats.  It's a great service and they really pick quality restaurants.  I had actually never heard of Mercat but when I saw it on their list I thought What the heck?

I had looked up the reviews on Yelp and everyone had nothing but amazing things to say, so I was pretty excited to go there with my friend Lav, who was in town from London.  Luckily, the food there is very veggie friendly, so we had no problems ordering enough food to satisfy both of us. 

First off, I must have walked down this street many times before in my life but never have seen this restaurant.  The inside is super cute with a sleek modern feel.  The style of food is Catalan Spanish Tapas and to be honest I would have had a hard time understanding the menu if it did not have english descriptions below.  We started the meal with a nice bottle of Blanco Tempranillo($39)...I had only had red tempranillo and this one pretty good...it wasn't too sweet, which is what I generally think of white wines.  We started with some manchengo cheese ($5).  Cheese is always a good addition to any meal and the bread that they served with it was perfectly soft and good on its own.  Next we ordered the mushrooms with fried egg and truffle oil ($13), which was amazing! The truffle oil was very present but not completely overpowering.  Then I got the short noodles with sepia in its own ink ($18)...I have to say it was one of the most amazing dishes I've had all year. Seriously.  I can't explain how freakin good it was and it just looks like a basic noodle dish but the ink and the cream fresh like topping was just perfect.  Then Lav and I also split the beet salad ($11), which was pretty good considering beets are not my favorite veggie and the special pepper dish of the night (~$13).  The peppers are green jalapeno peppers grilled to the point where they are no longer spicy but then they are covered in olive oil and salted with kosher salt.  Delicious!  I usually am not a fan jalapeno peppers b/c I can't really take the heat but this was just biting into complete saltiness, but in a good way.  And of course, no meal with Lav could be complete without dessert.  We got the churros with chocolate sauce and like I said in my previous post, anything fried is just hard to get wrong.

I was really surprised by Mercat. I had never heard of it but now I will tell many people about it.  It's in a pretty good location and by the time we left dinner at 9pm, it was definitely hoping.  The service was also really good there, attentive but not completely overbearing.  The total original bill was $110 but with my Blackboard Eats 30% discount it was a very reasonable $77 total.  The one thing that was a major bummer was that they don't take AmEx.  How does a hip and not super cheap restaurant in NYC not take AmEx?!

Pies N Thighs Visited 6/18/10 4 Forks

Pies N Thighs  166 S. 4th Street (between Bedford Ave and Driggs Ave), Brooklyn, NY

Pies N Thighs is probably one of the most talked about restaurants in Williamsburg these days.  It's been on the Today Show and in the NY Times recently, so I felt like I HAD to check it out, but sometimes you're just not in the mood for fried fatty food. 

I finally made it last Friday and I was expecting a long line, but the restaurant is actually pretty large with an indoor restaurant and then it extends into the back garden and then another room in behind that.  We were seated immediately with our choice of any available seat.  The menu is pretty limited in terms of entrees, you're choices are basically the fried chicken box or the pulled pork sandwich box ($11 and $10 with a choice 1 side).  Of course I had to get the fried chicken box since that is what they are famous for and I got a side of mac and cheese.  Dan got the pulled pork sandwich and side of potato salad and that day they had a fried green tomato appetizer special ($6). 

I've never had fried green tomato before and it was really really good.  It was covered in corn meal and then fried and it came with a side of green salsa, which was perfect.  The salsa was not very spicy at all but it was a great garnish to the dish since I think it needed something to go with it.  There were actually 5-6 pieces of big sized tomatoes so it was definitely well worth the $6.  In fact, I heard that after we got our fried green tomato to our table, they had just run out of it and it was only 7:45pm.  Now to the main dish, the fried chicken.  I feel like it's pretty hard to get anything fried wrong and this chicken was no exception.  It was pretty juicy and you get 3 pretty filling pieces.  I had overheard a man at the other table speaking and he had said that it wasn't up to the usual crack-addictive taste and the waiter had said that the normal Friday night cook wasn't there, so I wonder how different the "other" version would have been, but I still thought it was pretty good. The mac and cheese and potato salad (they used red potatoes which was light on the mayo and topped with fresh dill) were also very well done and the portions were fairly large.  By the time we were done with our meal (we had both completely cleaned our plates) we had no room for the pie portion of Pies and Thighs.  But the pie menu looked quite good ($4.50-$5.50 depending on the type) and maybe next time we will skimp on the sides and leave room for pie.

Edwards Visited 6/17/10 2.5 Forks

Edwards  136 W Broadway, (between Duane St & Thomas St)

My team at work took me out to Edwards for my last day at work.  I had originally wanted to go to Locanda Verde for lunch but instead my analyst made us a reservation at Edwards, which was fine since it was close enough to work and had outdoor seating.

The food there is basic American and the lunch menu had your traditional salad, sandwich, and soup type of foods on the menu.  They had a "Maryland" crab cake sandwich ($14) on the menu and as a Maryland-er I felt compelled to try it.  The sandwich came out and the crab cake was really tall and I had to smash it in between the english muffins to the point where the cake fell apart.  I guess I am a snob when it comes to anything that's called "Maryland" crab cake b/c I think crab cake should be comprised of mainly crab and with very little filler.  This one was ok, it didn't have a lot of big pieces of crab but it didn't taste like tons of filler either...just overall not 100% impressive.

The environment and location of this restaurant is what I would give high marks on and I think for a quick work lunch it's fine, but I would not go here on my own.

Yama Sushi Visited 6/15/10 3.75 Forks

Yama122 E 17th Street, (between Irving Pl & S Park Ave)

I will be the first to admit that Yama isn't the most authentic sushi joint and it does have its faults (pieces are waaay to big for 1 bite and too much rice for the sushi and rolls) but it has a soft spot in my heart. It was one of the first sushi places I went to when I first came to New York and despite the ridiculously large pieces, they still taste really good.

I'm always shocked at how long the wait is at this place despite being around for so long.  And we even went early (7:20pm) on a Tuesday, but alas, it was still a 15-20 minute wait.  We started with a nice bottle of cold sake ($11) and opted for the sushi/sashimi combo ($23.75) and the special roll # 5 (salmon, scallion, and spicy mayo $8.75), special roll #7 (spicy scallop roll, $8.75) and the yellowtail jalapeno roll $9.75).  I had wanted to get the sushi/sashimi for 2 ($65) but I've had that before and it's really a LOT of food and I wanted to try a variety of rolls instead.

As I said before, the rolls are gigantic and definitely "Americanized".  The pieces are not fit for 1 bite but it's hard to not to finish it in 1 bite without ruining the roll and having it fall apart.  The yellowtail jalapeno roll really packs a punch.  They must have chopped up an entire jalapeno b/c Dan and I were on the verge of tears with each bite. We ended up taking some of the pieces out b/c it was too much.  The spicy salmon and scallop rolls were great. I am addicted to their spicy mayo..it's not even spicy, it's just delicious.  The sushi/sashimi combo was a bit of a disappointment given that I've seen the combo for 2 before. This one had 3 pieces of tuna, 3 pieces of red snapper, then 1 piece salmon sushi, 1 piece tuna sushi, 1 piece yellowtail sushi, 1 piece of another type of white fish, 1 piece shrimp sushi and a California roll.  The sushi pieces had a lot of rice on the bottom and a lot of wasabi underneath the fish.  I would have preferred a bit more sashimi in the combo or at least more than 2 kinds.  The service is pretty fast and nice there, so no complaints in that department. They have another location in the West Village that has a nice garden and is a more open feel than this basement restaurant, but the last time I went the food quality wasn't great.  Despite what I've said, I still do love this place and would come back here anytime. 

Total bill $79 with tax and tip.

Lantern Thai Visited 6/14/10 3 Forks

Lantern Thai  311 2nd Ave, (between 18th St & 19th St), New York, NY 10003

Lantern is one of those good decent standard fare Thai places in New York.  Nothing amazing but nothing terrible about it either. I will give the props for their website though, it's quite nicely designed. 


I met my friend Swaroopa there for dinner b/c for some reason we always pick Asian/Thai places around Union Square and I was all out of ideas, so I just randomly picked Lantern after reading about it on Yelp.  They do open up the floor to ceiling windows to give the restaurant a bigger/breezier feel.  The menu is what you would expect at a decent Thai place and the prices were right in-line with what you would expect ($9 for noodle dishes and $12+ for entrees).  I would have given this place a slightly higher rating except that in the beginning everyone ignored us except for the fact that the restaurant was almost empty.  I had to flag someone down twice which was kind of annoying. 


But after we ordered the service picked up and the wait staff seemed really nice.  I started with a green salad ($4) which was fine in taste but I was annoyed with the presentation.  They put it all in a small shallow bowl so it was hard to mix the dressing together (it ended up all at the bottom) and I could only eat one veggie at a time b/c they were all just piled on top of each other instead of being served in a slightly wider bowl for dispersion.  Swaroopa had ordered a coke but it turned out to just be flat Pepsi from the bar.  She tried to return it for canned soda, which they claim they did, but she still thought it tasted different.  For my main meal, I ordered the Drunken Noodle with Chicken ($9) - medium spicy.  The dish was very wet and covered in sauce which probably made it taste great but add about 1,000 calories to it. They spice level was actually quite balanced, I got a ting of heat but not too much that I couldn't finish my meal.  Swaroopa got the standard shrimp pad Thai and didn't seem to have any complaints about it.  


I didn't get to see the bill since Swaroopa treated me for my b-day but I'm guessing it couldn't have been much more than $30 total with tax and tip.  The one nice thing was that we stayed there talking for about an hour after we finished our meal without having anyone try to shoo us away.  If I was in the 'hood, I would go again, but there are just too many similar Thai places to really go out of my way for this place.

Big Apple BBQ Visited 6/13/10 4 Forks

Big Apple BBQ  by Madison Square Park (23rd street up to 26th street between Broadway and Madison)

 Is this place a complete shit show every year? Absolutely.  Are the lines maddeningly long? Yes.  Is it worth it? Definitely.  The way to tackle the Big Apple BBQ is to go early and know which vendors you want to tackle before hand or before you enter the park.  There will undoubtedly be tons and tons of people, but if you go with the expectation that you will have to wait in line, it will make waiting in line much more bearable.  I would also suggest going EARLY - before noon preferably.  In the past we made the mistake of eating breakfast/brunch first and then going around 2-3 pm.  Big mistake.  First, that is the peak time and you're just going to eat lots of meat, so you should go hungry, not on a full stomach.  So this year, Dan and I got there at 11:30AM and while there were already lots of people, the lines were much faster/shorter than in years past.  I was bummed that favorites like The Salt Lick weren't there and there seemed to be too many New York/local BBQ vendors (I'm looking at you WildWood and Blue Smoke), but overall, if you stick with 3-4 vendors, you will leave happy and full. 

I had read that Bob Gibson's pulled pork sandwich was a must, so that was our first stop.  The line was long but we probably got to the front in about 20 mins.  Everything at the BBQ is $8 (which I think is in increase from last year?) and I think that is just about the most I would pay for these single serving meals, anything more seems like it would be not worth it.  On my way to saucing my sandwich I was yelled at my one of the BBQ people. I was intrigued by this "white sauce" and I started putting it on my sandwich and he was like "No!! Put it on the side and in fact you really shouldn't even eat it with this. It should really be used with chicken".  Well then why did you put it out?!?  Instead, I used the traditional BBQ sauce and that turned out to a good choice.  The pork was very moist and seasoned very well and surprisingly, I also enjoyed the coleslaw.  It wasn't too mayo-heavy and it had large pieces of cabbage.  Next, we wanted to try some St. Louis-style ribs, so we headed to Pappy's.  The ribs were not too wet and sauced well.  The meat did fall off pretty easily and I enjoyed it although I'm still not really sure the difference between Memphis, St. Louis, North Carolina style ribs.  We decided our last meal would be beef brisket.  The line for Jack's Old Smith was right in front of us, so we went with that vendor.  Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with it.  First of all, we got the smallest serving. Everyone else seemed to have gotten 3 decent sized pieces but our cashier happened to pick up the one with the 3 smallest cuts, so that already put me in a bad mood.  Then the meat had this weird greenish - shiny look.  But I will say that the meat was cooked perfectly, no cutting was really needed. It broke up very easily but I thought there was no real taste to it. No seasoning or BBQ taste.  The beans were mixed with peach, which was an interesting addition.  

I felt a bit bad for the New York based vendors as I think most people had the same mentality as me in that it made no sense to go to them since you can go whenever you want.  I think the BBQ can be improved by having more non-local vendors and spreading the lines out even more, although I think they did do a pretty decent job with crowd control given how many people were there.  

Back Forty Visited 6/12/10 3.75 Forks

Back Forty  190 Avenue B (@ 12th Street), New York, NY

For my birthday, we went to the Back Forty for dinner on a post-World Cup Saturday night.  Since they don't take reservations, we told our party of 6 to show up around 7:30pm, hoping to beat the post-8pm rush.  When we got there, it was surprisingly already pretty crowded and full of children, which I found slight annoying.  But luckily, they were able to seat all of us in the backyard garden (which is where I secretly wanted to sit all along) within 20-25 mins.  We sat in this nice communal picnic table in the back and while I generally hate communal tables b/c you're all up in everyone else's business, this one was big enough that we weren't completely on top of our neighbor's conversations.  The menu has a lot more yummy sounding appetizers and starters than main course.  Many of us got a bunch of different apps to start. Aarti and I got the cold pea soup ($9)...it was exactly how it sounded and even though it clearly said it was a COLD soup, I was weirded out that it was totally cold.  But I thought it was pretty good, although Aarti had mentioned that she thought it was a bit too salty for her.  Next, Dan and I shared the Pork Jowl Nuggets ($4), which for me was the most disappointing part of the meal.  It was 3 tiny pieces and it seemed to be more breaded/fried stuff than actual pork.  The pork nuggets at Char. 4 is much meatier and juicier but just as deep fried.  The other apps on the table were the grilled asparagus ($10), mushroom croquettes ($9) which I thought were really really delicious, and Virginia got the Butterhead Lettuce Salad ($9), which was surprisingly also really tasty.  The salad was huge and dressed perfectly with a white balsamic dressing. For main dishes, I got the poached cod ($20), which was cooked perfectly (very flaky) and it was a pretty hefty piece of cod.  Dan got the lamb sausage ($18) which came with 2 large pieces of sausage on a bed of chickpea ragout.  I had 1 bite of it and it was good but I think eating two of them would have been too much.  Aarti and Lav both got the Japanese Eggplant ($18) which was the only vegetarian entree, but there were a lot of veggie side dish items that you could pair together to make an adequate meal. Virginia got the swiss chard gratin ($9), which she said was delicious and the special pork terrine...I've never seen or heard of this type of dish before but it basically looked like a large square piece of pork mashed up with some other stuff served with a rye-looking bread.  Will got the grass-fed burger with cheese and bacon and fries ($11), which looked super tasty especially the fries.  Lav also made a game time order of onion rings ($6) which were lightly battered and not too greasy and served with a really tasty paprika mayo. 

The one down side of sitting outside was the fact that many of us were getting bitten by bugs while we were outside.  So that was starting to get really annoying b/c I was starting to focus on my bug bites and not my food.  Of course, no birthday meal would be complete without dessert.  I must say that the dessert was the best part of the meal.  We ordered 2 chocolate bread puddings with vanilla ice cream ($7 each), 1 cheesecake (that was the special of the night), and 2 root beer floats ($7 each).  One would think that the bread pudding would be the crowd pleaser but it was actually the cheesecake.  It wasn't really firm or hard, it was almost kind of melty in texture, but it just worked really well with the fresh strawberries and crust.  The root beer floats were a nice retro touch but personally I think we could have gotten away with just 1 of them.  I liked the bread pudding although it didn't seem like the everyone was overly impressed with it. 

Total cost of the meal (with everyone paying for my portion, thanks!!) + tip and tax: $62/pp.  Not too bad for a large variety of drinks, apps, entrees and desserts.  I think this place is the type of restaurant that has a rotating type of menu based on what's fresh and in season, so I would definitely try it out again.   

Mesa Coyoacan Visited 6/7/10 3.5 Forks

Mesa Coyoacan  372 Graham Ave, (between Conselyea St & Skillman Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 I have been to Mesa many many times and I'm not sure why I haven't written about it before.  If you ask me to go to Mesa with you, chances are I'll probably roll my eyes.  And it's not because I don't like it, I do, but it's because it was the first decent/nice restaurant that opened on Dan's street in a long time and we would go constantly when it first opened about a year ago. 

It's amazing how one restaurant can be so different from another.  The previous restaurant here never had any customers and it always made me sad b/c I thought it was such a great space. I think the reason it didn't do very well was because it was a steakhouse and prices started in the low $20s and for most of the hipsters that live here, that's not really a viable dinner option.  Enter Mesa.  The space inside is really nice with those trendy Edison filament only light bulbs and a large communal table in the middle.  The food here is fancy Mexican without being too expensive.  Everything is in the $7-13 range.  I usually get the Enchiladas Verde with steak ($12) and a red sangria ($6).  At first it may seem like the enchiladas are pretty small, but after you finish all 3 of them, it actually does fill you up.  The green sauce is spicy but not knock your socks off spicy.  They sprinkle some tasty Oaxaca cheese and layer it with a small piece of avocado and red onion. The sangria is fine...it comes with strawberries instead of the usual assortment of fruit... I'm not in love with it but I'm also not a huge tequila drinker either.  Dan usually gets the fish tacos ($9 for 3) and I never really understood how 3 tiny tacos is enough but he swears it usually gets the job done. 


In the past, I got the ceviche, which I really didn't like there. It's tomato based and doesn't have the clean but tart taste I like with Peruvian ceviche.  Also, in the past, I've gotten their dessert there and they are all really really good.  I've had the churros ($4.50), which were baked really light and fluffy and comes with a nice warm side of chocolate.  But the best dessert is the Taquitos de fresa ($5)...it's like small taco like bites filled with strawberries, mango and other fruit with some warm caramel and other delightful sauces.  


I've also been here for brunch and honestly was not impressed.  It's a limiting brunch menu with your typical huevos rancheros, etc but there aren't a lot of other egg-based dishes and what I did have seemed small and not all that impressive compared to other brunch places. 

Ghenet Brooklyn Visited 6/5/10 4 Forks

Ghenet Brooklyn  348 Douglass St, (between 4th Ave & 5th Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11217

One of the first Ethiopian places I went to was Ghenet in Soho, so I was really excited when they opened a branch in my 'hood.  If you've never had Ethiopian food, it's basically lots of spiced meat or veggies on top of a squishy/bread-like product.  I usually get one of the versions of the combinations, meat or veggie combos, b/c it offers a best variety of the different dishes. Otherwise, I think getting the individual dishes isn't really worth it b/c they range from $12-17 for each dish.  I think it would be pretty boring to just get 1 dish for a meal. 

Aarti and I split the veggie combo for 2 ($32.95 total).  This was huge and came with every veggie option on the menu (total of 8 dishes): it was mostly different versions of lentils and beans, a collard green dish, a green bean/carrot dish, cabbage and potato, and a spicy mushroom dish.  They all kind of look the same and in some cases, taste the same, but they are all really good.  The mushroom dish was very spicy but the other dishes were fairly mild.  The bread is the right consistency to sop up all the food and you can even use the bread base if you run out of the extra bread they give you. We ended up having a lot of leftovers, but we didn't think it would keep very well if we took it home.  I do wish that they would offer smaller/cheaper combos b/c it's really too much food for 2 people.  One way we were thinking was doing 1 meat combo and 1 veggie combo, which I might think about next time b/c the meat dishes are also quite tasty.  All in the all it was a great meal and relatively affordable, the only thing that bothers me is that they use the AmEx card holder but won't take AmEx.  Total bill (food+soda+tax+tip): $48