Ayza Wine and Chocolate Bar Visited 3/30/2012 2.5 Forks

Ayza Wine and Chocolate Bar 11 W 31st St., (between 5th Ave & Broadway), New York, NY 10001

Ayza is in this really weird part of the city.  It's not quite K-town and not quite Midtown.  But despite its random location it was pretty crowded on a late Friday night (maybe because it's near MSG).  This place is really mostly a dessert/martini bar but a bunch of us ended up there after drinking already, so we were starving for actual food.  Luckily they do have a selection of appetizers, salads, tartines, paninis and other entrees.  We ordered the artichoke dip ($7), angry chicken lollipops ($8) and white truffle pizza ($10) for the table and I got the smoked chicken panini ($11). 

The waitstaff was a little surly at first (forcing us to move tables when we just wanted to add one more person, repeatedly asking to take our menus when we hadn't finished ordering yet, and not giving us plates or utensils after repeated asks) but they ended up being sweet and nice at the end.  Of all the appetizers, I actually really did like the chicken lollipops.  They were these cute little chicken drum-stick like bites and the meat perfectly came off the bone.  Unlike chicken wings, there was a good amount of meat on the bones and you didn't have to work for your food.  I actually didn't try the dip but it seemed to do well with the other gals and the pizza was fine, nothing great.  The panini was also just ok, it tasted like something I probably could have made at home.  I will say that it was actually a pretty hefty-thick sandwich which was very filling, not something that you would think of when you order a panini at a wine bar.  The salad that came with the panini was too salty for me and had an overwhelming olive taste to it.

We then moved on to dessert and got chocolate covered strawberries ($9), the 20 layer creme cake brulee ($12) and the warm molten chocolate cake ($9).  For $9, I thought that there would be more than 2 strawberries, but that's all we got (although I will say that they were 2 very large strawberries) and that was pretty disappointing.  I'll be honest and say that I don't love chocolate covered strawberries in general but I did try a piece and the chocolate was just too thick and all I could taste was the chocolate and not the strawberry.  I was actually excited for the 20 layer cake and somehow envisioned it to be this giant extravagant dessert.  But it ended up tasting like a giant cream puff.  The 20 layers consisted of crepe batter and whipped cream, but they were very thin and the actual cake wasn't any thicker than a regular piece of cake.  Boo.  The molten cake was also very eh but then again I'm not really a chocolate cake person.  All in all, the place would be good for just the wine and martinis (there were tons of different kinds of chocolate martinis which was unique and interesting) but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it if you're looking for a real sit-down meal.  Total bill: $26/pp for food.

Photo Credit: Yelp