Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya Visited 7/30/2012 4 Forks

Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya 187 Orchard St., (between Houston St & Stanton St), New York

I have been to most of the Blue Ribbon restaurants in New York, so it just made sense for me to try their newest outpost.  The restaurant is located inside the Thompson Hotel in the LES but it's apparently not related to the hotel, they just lease the space from them.  The restaurant is fairly large with an dark, more cozy area to the left, a bar area with booths to the right and a lovely outdoor garden in the back (we didn't notice this until after we finished our dinner and I totally wished we ate out there instead).  Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya is a mixture of sushi and Japanese small plates, making the menu gigantic and 6+ pages long.  Jenn and I basically had to enlist the help of our server because the menu was just so overwhelming.  Ultimately we decided on:  beef short rib skewer ($4), pork meatball skewer ($3), rock shrimp tempura ($18), shishito peppers ($10), half order of the squid, squid ink and uni fried rice ($15), and 4 pieces of the pork ribs ($13).  If it sounds like a lot of food, well it is.  

The two skewers were small (each skewer has 3 small pieces of each meat) but really packed with a lot of flavor and I actually thought the best dishes of the meal.  The beef short rib melted in my mouth and it had a bit of a buttery taste to it.  The meatball was served with a sesame glaze and was juicy and a perfect bite size of meat.  Next time I'm here, I would just order a bunch of skewers, especially since they are so much more affordable than the rest of the menu.  Next came the peppers, which I've had in other places before.  These were cooked just right and served with a nice heaping of salt on them. I've had these peppers in some other places where they weren't cooked all the way through and the seeds were still really hot (hot as in spicy not in temperature).  But these were all pretty mild in terms of heat but still held on to the green pepper flavor.  I've had the shrimp tempura before at the regular Blue Ribbon and it's always a winner.  But I do wish for $18, there was more shrimp.  The shrimp are lightly battered and served with aioli mayo and with each bite, you can actually taste the shrimp underneath.  I was actually pretty surprised by the pork ribs.  I thought that for sure they would be small and while they were small in length they definitely made up for it in thickness.  The ribs were covered in black vinegar and crispy rice and while they weren't fall of the bone immediately, once you figured out where to cut into the rib, the meat did fall off the bone easily.  To me, the best indicator of a good rib is if the bone is clean as a whistle at the end (ideally it should come off in one bite but I'll give some leeway if the meat needs a bit of help).   It was super fatty and meaty and they were incredibly filling.  I wish that they had an order with only 2 pieces because even though it was good, it was kind of hard to put down so much fatty meat with all the other food we were eating.  Sadly the dish I was most looking forward to was the most disappointing one.  I love love squid ink pasta and uni, so when I saw that they had a fried rice that both of these ingredients, I was thrilled.  But this dish was just so underwhelming.  There wasn't a lot of flavor and mixing the uni in with the rest of the dish.  It was just blah, so I'm glad we got just the half size.

Like Spanish tapas places, going to a restaurant like this is really best suited for larger groups than just 2 people.  There are so many dishes to try and it's just so hard when there's only 2 people.  I would most definitely come back and try more skewers, other small plates and some sushi to make it healthier.  The prices are $3-5 more than I would prefer to pay.  Total bill with 2 glasses of wine each: $70/pp with tax and tip.

Photo Credit:Yelp 

Turks and Caicos July 2012

I've been to many islands in the Caribbean over the past few years St. John, Aruba, Jamaica, and Barbados just to name a few.  The two things that most of them have in common are gorgeous turquoise blue waters and awful, expensive food.  Sadly, Turks and Cacios falls into that category as well.  The beaches were stunning and beautiful but the food was just eh and bloody expensive.  I don't want this to be a deterrent for anyone to go there.  Definitely go because you'll never see more clear water and white sand! Just don't have high expectations for your food.


Hemmingway's at The Sands at Grace Bay Resort - 3 Forks for breakfast, 2.5 forks for lunch

This is actually in the hotel that I stayed at, so I spent a lot of time at this restaurant because it was so convenient and the only one on the property.  I only had breakfast and lunch there, no dinner.  Of the two meals, I thought that breakfast was actually pretty decent and very filling.  They have the usual line up of omelettes, french toast, pancakes, and eggs benedict type dishes.  I got the huevos rancheros the first time we got breakfast there.  While it wasn't a bad dish, it clearly was not a huevos rancheros dish.  It was scrambled eggs covered with mild salsa served on 2 tortillas.  They do serve it with black beans, roasted potatoes and a choice of bacon or sausage (I got bacon).  They called the potatoes hash browns, but they were really just cut up potatoes wedges, seasoned with herbs and roasted in an oven and they totally hit the spot.   One of the pluses to breakfast here was that they give out very generous portions, so I was always super stuffed after breakfast.  The other 2 days, I got the omelette both times.  It's a seriously hefty dish (at least 3-4 eggs) and filled with cheddar cheese, ham, green peppers, onions, mushroom and tomato.  It also comes with the roasted potatoes and choice of bacon or sausage.  I got the sausage these times and good lord.  They were giant links that looked the ones you get out of a Jimmy Dean box.  But hey, those links were good enough for me as a kid and I still devoured them as an adult.  Lav got the pancakes one day, french toast another day and eggs on the last day of breakfast.  The pancakes and french toast were nicely sweeten and served with fresh fruit and whipped cream.  Really hard to get these yummy sweet breakfast staples wrong.  Most of the breakfast dishes were reasonably priced in the $12 range.  As for lunch, it was much more of the casual sandwich/salad route.  The first day I got the mango shrimp salad ($13) which came with 5-6 shrimp on a bed of mixed greens, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and mango chutney.  It was served with a side of soy cream sauce...the weird thing was that the dressing came out warm.  It was a bit off putting to get warm salad dressing, but I put it on there anyways.  Overall, the salad was totally fine and similar to a lot of salads I get here in the US.  For my other lunch I got the jerked chicken sandwich and that was a bit of a disappointment.  The chicken was a bit dry and shoved into a equally dry hero with no mayo or anything to moisten up the dish.  I ended up just pulling the chicken out and eating it by itself.  Lav had asked for the club but instead of meat, to put in onions and peppers.  The waitress nodded like she heard us, but when the sandwich came out, it was just American cheese with lettuce and tomato on wheat toast.  It was just kind of sad looking.  However, the nice thing about Hemminway's is its location.  It's right on the beach, so if you're a lazy beach bum like me, it's super easy to just crawl away from your beach chair and saddle up to Hemmingway's for some reasonably priced food within 5 minutes.

Lemon Cafe - 3 Forks

Funny story about our way to Lemon Cafe.  We took a cab there and it was one of those situations where the cab turns left and then right and then drops you off.  Lav and I literally laughed out loud because Lemon Cafe was less than a 5 min walk from our hotel.  When I got to Lemon Cafe, I was taken by how beautiful it was.  It's a Moroccan/Middle Eastern themed restaurant and because it's the islands, the main part of the restaurant was an outdoor garden with gorgeous colored lamps and other Middle Eastern themed decor.  I loved the fact that the menu was different than you usual island fare of fish and pasta.  This was authentic Middle Eastern food with a range of tapas such as roasted eggplant, stuffed peppers, chickpea corn fritters and main entrees including a lamb burger, moussaka, and kabob platters.  This was also a great place for vegetarians because there was more than 2 options on the menu.  Lav and I started with the hummus ($9) and then we split the corn fritters ($10) and she had the stuffed pepper with rice, pine nuts, goat cheese, and cucumber yogurt ($12) as an entree.  I had the grilled chicken kabob platter served with basmati rice, cucumber salad and mint yogurt ($22).  The hummus tasted like your usual hummus but I did love that the pita that came with it was super soft and warm.  The chickpea corn fritters were like little corn cakes patties but the chickpea did make it a bit mealy in texture.  My chicken kabob platter was quite tasty....the chicken was cooked well but my one main complaint would be that the chicken was pretty stuck to the stick and it made it hard to pull the meat off the stick.  I found the mint yogurt and cucumber salad very refreshing with the grilled chicken.  The rice was steamed perfectly and it really rounded out the whole meal.  I didn't try the stuffed pepper, but Lav mentioned that it was just ok.  Of course, we left room for dessert and got the chili brownie ($10) which was super super decadent.  While I don't love chocolate, I do prefer dark chocolate and this was the darkest of chocolates.  This dish felt more like a frozen piece of mousse than a brownie.  It was rock hard and very very hard to cut through.  The knife barely cut through it, so that made the eating experience a bit not fun.  But when I did get a bite in, I got a sweet mix of dark cold chocolate with a hint of the chili at the end of the bite.  It would have been a much better dish if it actually was a brownie and softer.  Overall, this was a surprising ethnic treat in an island that's full of basic, boring food.  Do be aware that if you go during the off season like we did, the service will probably be pretty slow (I know, it is the islands and everything is slow) but there was literally 1 waitress for the entire restaurant, so I can't really dock too many points for this as I did empathize with her.   Total bill: $50/pp including tax and tip.

Coco Bistro - 3 Forks

This is apparently THE place to eat in Turks and Caicos.  My friend who had been to Turks earlier this year tried to get a reservation here for at least a week and couldn't get it, so I was pretty pleased that I was able to get a table for two on Saturday at 9:30pm.  Even our cab driver told us it was the best place on the island.  Similar to Lemon Cafe, it's a beautiful outdoor garden setting with lovely trees and Christmas like lights.  We thought that since it was the off season, we could try to waltz in early and be seated but no dice.  We were promptly seated at 9:30, so we were starving by the time the we sat down.  The first thing I got when I opened the menu was sticker shock.   Appetizers were in the $15-20 range and entrees were in the $30-40 range.  I may live in NYC but it still doesn't stop my inner middle class self from being in shock when food costs that much.  We started with the fried conch appetizer and the fresh mozzarella and tomato salad.  I've had conch before and don't think much about it, but hey, when in Rome, right? It basically tasted like fried calamari and the dish came with 3 dipping sauces: an aioli mayo, sweet and sour sauce and a honey mustard.  All perfectly fine and went well with the fried conch.  The best part of the dish was the papaya salad that came with it.  It was amazing.  So refreshing and the combination of papaya with red onion and peanut was delicious (very similar to a thai papaya salad).  The tomato salad appetizer came with the usual suspect of tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil and aged balsamic reduction and as usual it was delicious.   Super super fresh ingredients and the balsamic had a great tangy bite to it.  For my main dish, I got the rare ahi tuna with wasbi mashed potatoes and asparagus served with a hoisin sauce.  All things I love right, so how could it go wrong?  While the base of the dish was good, overall it was just too salty.  I prefer my fish natural and fresh tasting without a whole lot of pomp and circumstance to it.  The hoisin sauce (while it was just drizzled over the fish) made the dish way too salty for me.  The wasbi mashed potatoes were also too strong on the wasbi and this is coming from someone who loves wasbi to death.  But there is something to be said about keeping your food as clean/simple as possible to really highlight it's natural flavors.  I also would have liked my tuna to be even a bit rarer as some of the corners of the tuna were cooked all the way through.  Sadly for Lav the only real veggie entree option was a penne pasta with vegetables and Asiago cheese shavings.  But the good news was that they didn't skimp on the vegetables and made the dish as robust as they possibly could given what it was.  For dessert we ordered the "famous coconut pie" with fresh cream.   As someone who loves coconut, this was an amazing light and fluffy dessert.  Unlike the dessert the night before, there was nothing heavy or rich about it.  It was seriously like eating a cloud laced with sugar.  While I can see why this is easily the best restaurant in Turks and Caicos, the reason why I can't give it a higher rating was the price of the food.  Now I get it, that almost all restaurants import their ingredients and thus have to charge a lot to make any profit, but given that our bill was almost $90/pp, I just can't bring myself to give it a 4 fork rating because the prices are just way to high for the food you are getting.  But as long as you are prepared, it's still probably the best place on the island.

Stelle at the Gansevoort Hotel - 2 Forks

I am usually not a fancy/trendy hotel person but for some reason I was mildly excited to check out the Gansevoort on the island.  While I loved our hotel a lot and would totally recommend it, there weren't a whole lot of young people there, so I was expecting that kind of crowd here.  I don't know if it was because it was low season or what, but there was almost nobody here.  We made a reservation and it was almost embarrassing how unnecessary it was.  I guess one of the signs should have been when we got in the cab, we asked the driver how the restaurant was and his response "well, they just changed owners, re-named the restaurant and I heard the service kind of sucks".  Great.  We decided to give it a go anyways.  The hotel is pretty but in a very Miami kind of way.  It's all white, very modern and just doesn't have any kind of local, Island feel to it.  I get that the brand needs to adhere to a certain look but it would be nice if they tried just a little bit to incorporate some local feel to it.  Again the prices at this place are ridiculous, here with some entrees even going above $50 (the veal chop was $52).  We started with the special of the day which was a chilled tomato compote served in a martini glass ($12) and the mozzarella and fresh tomato salad ($22) - thank god for cheese and tomatoes!  For some reason, when I saw tomato compote I was expecting some kind gazpacho type dish - dark, red and cold soup.  Instead, we got a clear liquid in a martini glass with some tomato seeds floating in it.  Honestly, it tasted like a cold deconstructed tomato soup, which in itself is fine but just seeing it as a clear liquid was just really unappealing to me.  It made me wonder what the hell I was drinking since tomatoes and their juices aren't clear.  Next came the mozzarella and tomato salad and unlike the one at coco bistro, this was was pretty underwhelming and not that great.  The tomatoes were cut into wedges which gave it a slightly less sophisticated look to the dish and there wasn't basalmic vinegar on it, which is a shame.  The pine nuts that were served with it were overcooked and didn't have much crunch to it.  I can't believe I paid $22 for it, it was more like a $8 dish in my book.  For my main, I ordered the linguine, stone crab, white wine, garlic, lemon and tomato ($31).  I was expecting this dish to come in a light white wine sauce with fresh tomato tossed in but instead it was very heavy on the tomatoes - it was pretty much a red tomato sauce and it totally overpowered the taste of the dish.  I couldn't really see the crab (although I did taste it) and the pasta was drowning in tomato sauce which made it hard to taste much of anything else.  If I wanted a more heavily sauced dish, I would have gotten the braised beef and pappardelle pasta.  So that was kind of a bummer and at $31, I expect to see larger chunks of crab in there then just the small stringy bits tossed in the sauce.  For dessert we got the Key Lime Pie ($12) which was your standard key lime pie fare...I will give props to the graham cracker crust on it.  For what we paid ($87/pp), I expected to have my mind blown at dinner and I didn't even really come close to that. 

When I travel, I usually love to go more street food, local style and eat where the locals eat, but I feel like that's not that easy to come by in the Caribbean.  You're kind of trapped in an area of expensive restaurants with not a lot of options to choose from.  Plus Lav and I were only there for 2 full days without a car, so with that lens, I'm actually quite pleased with where we ended up eating.  There were for sure many more places that were on my list and recommended by friends and staff there, so I don't want to write off food in Turks and Caicos completely, but just be warned to stuff your wallet with cash if you want a decent meal.

East of 8th Visited 7/17/2012 2.5 Forks

East of 8th 254 W 23rd St., (between 7th Ave & 8th Ave), New York, NY 10011

So my big plan for Tuesday was to go see Ted the movie for free.  A friend of mine has this crazy cable package where you can go see movies for free on Tuesdays and she nicely offered me the free tickets because she couldn't go.  Unfortunately, the Clearview Chelsea is in a restaurant dead zone area, which is weird because in the other parts of Chelsea has great food options.  East of 8th is literally right next to the theater so it was a super convenient option.


The downstairs is a casual bar and the upstairs is more of a restaurant setting.  The menu is your standard American bistro fare and they even cater to the movie crowd with a "pre-theater" 3 course prix fixe menu for $19.95 until 6:45pm.  They also had an all-you-can-eat BBQ ribs special...yeah, it was that kind of place.  I wasn't really in a mood for a 3 course meal or unlimited BBQ at 6:30pm.  But strangely I was in the mood for a burger ($13) so that's what I ordered and Kristin got the pan roasted shrimp with fresh corn salad ($19).  When the burger came out, it was almost the size of the entire plate and I proclaimed that I would never be able to finish the whole thing (famous last words).  I asked for the burger to be medium rare and it was closer to the medium than the rare and I would have preferred it the other way around.   The burger wasn't anything really special or awful about it, it tasted like something I would get in my office cafeteria.  Eventually I had to take the bun off and went atkins style and finished the actual patty (mostly because it was covered in cheddar cheese).   The burger was a bit dry and salty, which just forced me to down 2 glasses of red wine during dinner.  I didn't try Kristin's shrimp but she did finish the shrimp and the corn salad and mentioned that it was tasty.  So maybe I should have gotten something besides the burger.  All in all, in an area where there's not much besides a Dallas BBQ and Lucky Burger, East of 8th is a totally acceptable option if you're going to the movies next door, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it a destination restaurant.  Total bill: $40/pp including tax, tip and 2 glasses wine

Photo Credit: Yelp

Yunnan Kitchen Visited 7/14/2012 4.5 Forks

Yunnan Kitchen 79 Clinton St., (between Rivington St & Delancey St), New York, NY 10002

The current trend in New York City dining seems to be, as New York Magazine calls it, "hipster Asian".  Along with Mission Chinese, Yunnan Kitchen has been at the top of this trend.  I tried to go to Mission Chinese on Thursday and they quoted me a 2 1/2 hour wait (it ended up being 3 hours from when I put my name down and when they actually called me) and on Saturday, Aarti, Will and I put our names down at Yunnan Kitchen and they called us 1 hour and 15 minutes later.   We ended up at a bar down the street to kill time, but an hour and 15 minutes is about as long as I can bear to wait for a table. But I'm glad I did.

To be clear, Yunnan Kitchen is not like the kind of Chinese restaurant you would find in Chinatown.  It's much sleeker, cleaner and more modern and not run by Asians.  Most Chinese places have you order family style with giant plates of food.  But the opposite is true here.  It's tapas style Chinese food.  Everything is small plates and our waiter suggested 2-3 plates per person.  We went to town and ordered:  charred eggplant ($9), tofu ribbon salad ($8), chilled wax beans ($8), wood Ear mushrooms ($9),  crispy whole shrimp ($13), lamb meatballs ($8) and scallion fried rice ($8).  There were so many other plates we wanted to try but felt like 7 plates was a good starter.  The one dish I id really want was the potato balls but they were out of it.  We started with the charred eggplant which was served with sawtooth herbs, crushed peanuts, and chilies.  It was super soft and but not too mushy.  I love a good eggplant dish and this was a winner.  Next came with chilled wax beans and it was served with LOTS of ginger.  Since it was chilled, I found the dish refreshing.  The beans were cooked but just barely and had a great raw crunch to them.  The tofu ribbon salad is actually tofu skin (it's like a slightly tougher version of firm tofu) with mint, cilantro, and chilies.  While I generally like soft tofu better, I do like the crunch of tofu skin and it reminds me of the more old school Chinese dishes I had in my childhood.  Next came with crispy whole shrimp and they were served with the shell and head on and lightly fried in salt and pepper.  I took the shell off, but the shell was so thin and there was so much flavor on it, that I could see someone like my mom just eating the whole thing with the shell.  There was tremendous flavor, it was one of those type of dishes where you were left licking your fingers.  But be aware, the dish was super hot and it was really hard to peel the shells off without feeling like you were burning your finger, but it was worth the effort.  Apparently the Yunnan region is well known of their mushrooms, so we were originally torn between the king trumpet mushrooms and the wood ear mushrooms.  Our waiter suggested the wood ear, so we went for it.  I had heard of wood ear mushrooms before but I couldn't quite remember what it was.  But when I saw the dish, I knew that I had had them before.  They are these very thin black mushrooms, that unlike traditional button mushrooms, aren't very meaty or thick in texture.  It's almost got this jelly/rubbery like texture (I know it sounds kind of gross but I swear they taste good).  The mushrooms came with celery (eww), gingko (it looked like a bulb of garlic but tasted like a mild nut) and lily bulbs (light and crispy).  It was a pretty unique dish that I haven't seen anywhere except in authentic Chinese restaurants.   For our meat dish, we opted for the lamb meatballs which was sprinkled with spices on top.  I was a big fan of this dish because the lamb was incredibly tender and juicy and the spices packed a lot of punch with each bite.  The one dish that wasn't a small portion was the fried rice.  There wasn't anything mind blowing about it, but given that I've started to limit my white rice intake, having a giant bowl of white rice with egg and scallion was a special treat.  It was a good base for all the dishes we ordered.  How can you not eat Chinese food without it?!? 

We all commented that the food was fabulous and not very greasy/oily.  While I'm sure they did use lots of oil to cook the food, it just didn't have that overly gross feeling to the food.  This place re-invigorated my love for Chinese food.  Yes, it's not the "authentic" feel you're going to get in a place like Flushing and I generally have a disdain for Asian restaurants not run by people of the same ethnicity, but sometimes there are exceptions to the rule.  Aarti and I have already earmarked what we want to get next time we go: marinated tofu, king trumpet mushrooms, fingerling potatoes and shishito peppers, and potato balls.  Another plus about our meal was that our total bill was $27/pp.  So freaking affordable and when I think about how much more money I've spent on unsatisfying dinners, it makes me appreciate places like this more.  Just be prepared to wait at least an hour for dinner.  

Photo Credit: Yelp   

Tipsy Paron Visited 7/14/2012 3.5 Forks

Tipsy Parson 156 9th Ave., (between 19th St & 20th St), New York, NY 10011

Holly and I were originally thinking of getting brunch at the Superdupermarket (a pop-up artisanal farmers market in Chelsea) but after ducking in and taking a quick look, there weren't any stalls that had big enough portions to sustain a full meal.  So instead we opted to go somewhere for a real brunch and then come back to the market (which I highly recommend - but it's only around until Sunday 7/15, so go check it out now!). 

Luckily, Holly had done some research on brunch places nearby and when she mentioned Tipsy Parson, I immediately said yes since it was one of those places that had been on my list but I just never really had a reason to go.  The concept of the menu seems to be cozy, comfort food.  All of their brunch egg dishes sounded great and I was super torn and ultimately decided on the Migas which was soft-scrambled eggs, chorizo, cotija, crispy corn tortillas, onions, cilantro, avocado with pico de gallo & black bean salad ($15) and Holly got the baked crab cake which are two eggs any style, arugula with chow chow relish & old bay aioli ($14).  For some reason I had envisioned my dish to look like a huevos rancheros and to come with tortillas even though it clearly did not mention any.  It was essentially a huge serving of scrambled eggs with all the ingredients above mixed in.  It was pretty tasty and filling.  I haven't had a Mexican-like breakfast in a while and this reminded me how much I do like eggs with guacamole and pico de gallo.  It's a great combination and I realized that this meal was pretty healthy since there wasn't any sour cream or cheese in it and I didn't even miss it.  I didn't try Holly's dish but she did mention that she wished she had something like toast to sop up the yolk of the poached egg.  I did notice that the egg was nicely poached and runny, but I agree that what's the point of having a runny egg if you don't have anything to soak up the excess?  She also only had 1 crab cake and it might have been just a better dish if it was structured more like an eggs benedict.

All in all, it was a cute place, perfectly filled our need for brunch food in Chelsea and had an appealing menu that would lend me to come back.  The woman next to me got a giant order of mac and cheese and it looked amazing.  It looked like it would be the perfect skillet dish on a cold night.   It would definitely pick a place like this over the more trendy restaurants in the Meat Packing district when I'm in the area.  Total bill: $40 with tax

Photo Credit: Yelp

Extra Fancy Visited 7/13/2012 2.5 Forks

Extra Fancy 302 Metropolitan Ave., (between Driggs Ave & Roebling St), New York, NY 11211

I was so excited to try Extra Fancy because it's been written up in so many blogs as a great seafood joint only 15 minutes away from my apartment.  When I get to the restaurant, I realize that I had been there when it was another restaurant, Sui Ren a few years back.  I guess when you live in one city long enough, you start to see the same place turn over into different restaurants constantly. 


Despite the name, Extra Fancy is very casual and low-key, as a seafood restaurant should be.  I had read right before I left the house that they had recently changed chefs, which wasn't a good sign but it was too late to change venues now and I was still willing to give it a try.  I took a look at the menu and I was a bit disappointed.  I was expecting tons of great seafood options but this menu was pretty limiting to a few starters, salads, 3-4 rolls and 2 dinner entrees.  I was curious about the cape cod clam bake ($37) which was mussels, clams, shrimp, corn and kelbasa for 2 people but it seemed like a bit too much food for Cicily and I so we opted to just get individual dishes.  We both love shrimp and were excited to see peel and eat shrimp on the menu, but at $3 per shrimp we were a bit appalled by price.  We asked how big they were and the waitress said that they were large cocktail shrimp, so we decided to try 6 of them.  But when I hear peel and eat shrimp, I imagine a huge bucket of steamed shrimp with old bay seasoning for less than $20.  For my main meal, I opted to try to clam belly roll ($14) which came with potato salad and a pickle and Cicily got the kelbasa roll ($14).  It didn't look like any of the dishes that people mentioned on Yelp were on the menu, so I guess the chef did leave?


When the shrimp came out, I wouldn't necessarily call them "large".  They were more medium and served cold on a bed of ice.  They were good but 3 shrimp per person at $3 each is barely a starter in my book and I wish we had a lot more.  Then the rolls came out and we took one look at them and it didn't seem like a real "dinner" sized portion.  My clam roll was a few pieces of salt and peppered clams (they were nicely fried I will say) in a very buttery hot dog roll and stuffed with some red cabbage as well.  It was a fine seafood roll but just not very filling.  The potato salad portion was enough for a small child, not a grown adult.  Cicily's roll was the same size with 2 sausages cut in half the long way and stuffed in the roll.  The whole meal felt much more appropriate for lunch than a satisfying dinner.  We both agreed that we needed more food and at first we were going to go to Fette Sau next door but the line was almost wrapped around the corner, so we decided to go to Spuyten Duyvil instead to gorge on some cheese and bread and wine and beer.  I really love the idea of Extra Fancy but it really needs to step up its menu if it expects to not go down the same path as Sui Ren.  Total bill: $45/pp with tax and tip


Photo Credit: Yelp

Maharlika Visited 7/12/2012 3.5 Forks

Maharlika 111 1st Ave., New York, NY 10003

The original plan for the night was for Nancy and I to go to Mission Chinese but when I got there at 7:10pm they told me it would be a 2 1/2 hour wait!  Even if half of the people in front of us didn't show up, there was still 2+ pages of names of people in front of us.  So we had to go to plan B and decided to go to Maharlika, a Filipino restaurant in the East Village.  Of all the different kinds of Asian restaurants in New York, you really don't see a lot of Filipino cuisine.  So I was excited to try something new.  

We ordered a bunch of things to share; we started with the bangus ($9) and the lechon kawali ($12) and then split the chicken adobo ($16) and the puqui puqui ($7).  Before we got our main food, they did give us 2 pieces of chicharon or deep fried chicken skin on the house.  They gave us this vinegar like dipping sauce to go with it and well, what can I say? It's deep friend chicken skin and that's basically what it was.  It was good but definitely a very deep fried dish that you felt was clogging your arteries as you ate it.  Next came the bangus which was deep fried, crispy milkfish and it was a very typical fried Asian fish dish.   I wasn't a huge fan of this dish because it was a pretty skinny fish fillet and all you could really taste was the fried part of the fish.  I prefer my fish steamed and more meaty and this was the complete opposite.  The lechon kawali consisted of cured, crispy pork belly with sautéed seasonal asian greens and of the two appetizers, this was my preferred dish.  The skin of the pork belly was very very crispy and hard on the teeth...almost too dry and tough. But once you got to the meat of the dish it was pretty juicy and tender but it was some tough work to get to it.  They gave us a liver dipping sauce and I know it sounds super gross but for some reason, it worked.  They then brought out a bowl of steamed white rice (I usually eat brown rice now, so when white rice is available it's a special treat for me), the chicken adobo (chicken braised in adobo sauce with soy sauce, garlic, coconut vinegar) and the puqui puqui which was roasted, puréed eggplant, tomato -- it tasted like a babaghanoush.  I really like the puqui puqui, it had a great smokey taste to it.  The chicken came with 1 drumstick and 1 breast and they were both very juicy and the adobo sauce was thick and garlicky and was a great topping to the white rice. 

While I did like all the food, it wasn't like it blew my mind.  But what pushed this to a 3.5 forks was the great customer service.  They had asked us if we would mind moving to the table next to us because they needed our current table to combine with the other 2 top to make a 4 seater.  They said in exchange for moving, they would give us free dessert.  Sweet!  But instead of just 1 dessert they gave us 3 free desserts.  That was beyond unnecessary but delicious.  We got the 3 scoops of ice cream (avocaod, ube, and cheddar cheese), the coconut pudding with jack fruit and coconut flakes and the flan.  I personally love the flat the most but the coconut pudding was quite refreshing and a great summer time dish. The three very off beat ice creams were definitely interesting. The avocado was a thick ice cream consistency and had a definite avocado taste to it.  The ube was more like a ice than an ice cream and the cheddar cheese (I know, it sounds gross) didn't really taste like anything.  But it was really nice of them to give us 3 free desserts for just moving over 5 inches.

Right as we were paying our bill Mission Chinese finally called me back, 3 hours after I gave them my name.  It probably would have been a better meal but I am still glad that I tried out this place as it's not everyday that you eat at a Filipino restaurant.  One small reason I did deduct a 1/4-1/2 fork was the fact that it was cash only.  I don't mind really small restaurants where I will pay less than $20 for dinner as cash only but since it was $37/pp, that's enough for me to want to use my credit card.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Jacks' Wife Freda Visited 7/7/2012 4 Forks

Jack's Wife Freda 224 Lafayette St., (between Kenmare St & Cleveland Pl), NY 10012

I'm not really sure where the name of this restaurant came from (besides the obvious) but it's an interesting name for a restaurant for sure.  I took Aarti here for her birthday brunch on one of the hottest days of the year and luckily for us they seated us right underneath the A/C.  I thought I had picked a new place for both of us, but turns out that Aarti had actually been here for dinner before  and had a so-so experience because there weren't a lot of veggie friendly options.  That made me worried but the brunch menu looked pretty great with lots of options for veggie and non-veggie eaters. 


I normally stick with an egg dish for brunch but was torn because they had a lot of great sounding sandwiches like goat cheese baguette with eggplant and roasted tomato and a mashed avocado sandwich with cherry tomato jam.  But I stuck with my egg guns and got the poached eggs with grilled tomato and haloumi and sour dough toast ($10) and the birthday girl got the green shakshuka ($10) and we split the greek salad ($11).  Not only are we both obsessed with greek salads but this one was made with kale which is another current favorite.   While I know the veggies in a salad are supposed to be raw, I would have preferred the kale to be a wee bit cooked.  Raw kale can be a bit too tough and grassy tasting for me.  Otherwise, the one thing that the salad was missing were some nice ripe red juicy tomatoes.  When our main dishes came out, I was a bit disappointed at the size of the food.  It was definitely on the small side and lord knows a salad does nothing to fill me up.  But on the plus side the eggs were poached perfectly and were very runny.  The tomatoes were roasted nicely and the haloumi cheese was firm and tangy - so  great combination all together.  But again, everything was just too damn small including the pieces of bread.  I really tried to pace myself so I wouldn't eat the entire dish in 5 minutes.  I also tried Aarti's dish and it was also really good.  The shakshuka was made from green tomatillo and you could really taste that powerful flavor in the dish.  But the real kicker and highlight of the whole meal was once Aarti asked for hot sauce  and they brought out this small container of green hot sauce.  At first I stayed away from it because I thought it would be really hot but after Aarti said that it wasn't too bad, I dipped right in.  And I'm so glad I did because it was AMAZING.  It's not quite like the crack addictive green sauce at Sophie's Cuban but it's a close 2nd.  I wish we had asked for it earlier so that we could have smothered all our food in it.  I thought it was like a cilantro puree but the waitress said it was made from habenero chiles!  Look at me.  I've come such a long way from being a total pussy when it comes to hot sauce. We basically licked that container clean of any sauce because it was that yummy.

The one downside was the service.  While we were seated very quickly, we had to hail down a waitress to order our meal after waiting about 15-20 minutes with no acknowledgement that we had been sitting with our menus for a while.  Plus the waitress did not read us the specials which as a bummer because we saw some people seating great looking dishes that weren't on the menu.  Other than that, the waitresses were friendly and gave us good recommendations (she was the one who suggested the green shakshuka dish).  I would totally come back to try the sandwiches that I had my eye on.  Total bill: $48 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp     

Chai Visited 7/6/2012 2.5 Forks

Chai 124 N 6th St., (between Bedford Ave & Berry St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 

I'll keep this review pretty short and sweet.  Chai is like any typical local Thai place in the city. It's not like Pok Pok NY or any of the places in Queens that offer real authentic Thai food.  This is your standard pad thai, pad see ew kind of place.  And that's totally fine by me because sometimes you just need a quick, cheap, go-to place in the neighborhood.  

The one thing I did like about this place was the ambiance.  It's got this super cute mini pond with floating lights and floor to ceiling windows and it's just a very calming place to have dinner (unlike SEA next door, which is a loud cavernous trendy restaurant).  Lav and I split the corn fritters ($6) to start and I got the Lad Na Ta Lay which was sauteed flat noodle with seafood and chinese broccoli in brown gravy sauce ($12).  The corn fritters were sweet corn kernels mixed in a batter with Thai curry paste and served with cucumber relish.  I liked this dish enough,  although I don't really think the corn was fresh...it probably came out of a frozen bag.  But it was a good starter dish and I found the cucumber relish to be very refreshing and added some tang to each bite.  My seafood flat noodle was just ok.  I was expected it to be more like a pad see ew with seafood instead of chicken.  But this was much more soupy (in fact it was served with a spoon) which was not what I was expecting.  I would have liked more noodles because I am a huge fan of broad flat noodles, but all I could taste really was brown gravy sauce.  The seafood was as expected in place like this.  Heavy on the squid, about 4 pieces of small-medium shrimp and 1 scallop.  The chinese broccoli was actually all stem which is the part I don't really like, so that was a bummer.  All in all, the dish was fine but I probably would have been better served just getting my usual pad thai dish at a place like this.  Again the place was totally fine for what it was as long as your not expecting mind blowing authentic Thai food.   Total bill: $40 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Barcibo Enoteca Visited 7/4/2012 4 Forks

Barcibo Enoteca 2020 Broadway, (between 69th St & 70th St), New York, NY 10023

While this is not the first time I've eaten on the UWS, this is the first time in over a year that I have ventured up there.  As much as I bitch and moan to other people when they complain about coming to Brooklyn, I've often done as much complaining when people mention the UWS or UES.  But in all honesty, getting up to the UWS only took 30-35 minutes.  I can't believe how easy it was.  The reason I went up there was to see the 4th of July fireworks at a friend's place, so we decided it would be easiest to grab dinner up there too. 


Julie recommend Barcibo which was right across the street from her place.  It was a super cute wine and Italian small plates restaurant and luckily it was also open on the holiday.  We ordered a bunch of small plates and split them, which is a lot of fun when you have a group of 3.  3 is small enough to comfortably share but big enough to order a lot of different dishes.  We got 3 different kinds of crostinis: the soppressata, gorgonzola and honey, the proscuitto buffalo mozzarella and pesto, and the burrata, roasted tomato and basil ($15 for 3).  We also ordered the risotti with wild mushroom, parmigiana, and olio di tartufo ($18), and the meatball crositini with fontina ($16).    The crositinis were all delicious: the bread was thin, toasty on the outside (so that it was strong enough to hold all the food but it did make it a bit difficult to cut 3 ways) but soft enough that it didn't cut the roof of your mouth.   At first it didn't seem like the soppressata one had honey or gorgonzola but after you bit into it, you could taste all of the ingredients in one bite.  I guess they were just hidden under the large pieces of soppressata.  The proscuitto one was also great, I mean how can you go wrong with thinly sliced proscuitto and soft buffalo mozzarella?  The same can be said for burrata.  I don't think I've ever had anything bad when burrata is involved.  This crostini had 1 large wet piece of burrata and then it was covered with a few slices of really well roasted tomatoes (they were super sweet) and basil.  My one complaint is that there was only 1 of each crostini.  For $5/crostini, it would have been nice to have at least 2 pieces.  Next came the risotti and the meatball crostini.  Unlike the other crostinis we had, the star here really was the meatball.  It was 1 HUGE meatball cut in half served on top of a crostini that frankly was totally unnecessary.  I'm not really sure why it was even on the plate.  The actual meatball was fabulous and had great flavor and spices to it.  The tomato sauce on top of it was also delicious and I kept pouring the sauce on my third of the meatball.  The risotti (it's the same thing as a risotto) was super super rich and creamy but what I really loved were the mushrooms in it.  They were so meaty, firm and were almost raw, which I love.  There's nothing worse than soft old mushrooms in a dish.  You could really taste the parmigiana in the dish also.  I'm super glad we split this dish because it would have been just way too much  (and super unhealthy) for 1 person to consume. 


You'd think after all this food that we would be full.  But no, so we ordered the sweet sausage, broccoli rabe and gigante beans ($18) as well.  This was not what I thought.  When I think sweet sausage I imagine huge Chicago style sausages, but these were pretty thin and small sausages.  But don't like the size fool you!  They were great and it was probably better that it wasn't some huge meat platter because by the end of this dish, we were definitely all overly full.  The gigante beans were indeed gigantic.  I have never seen beans like this.  They are like lima beans on steroids.  But they had a nice soft texture and the flavor tasted a bit like it had been simmering in chicken broth.  


The service here was great, our waitress was super friendly and really helpful in picking dishes and drinks for us.  While I still don't see myself going to the UWS a lot, I can now definitely see why people like living up there and I see lots more restaurants reasons to come back up here!  Total bill: $52 with tip and tax and drinks


Photo Credit: Yelp

Dtich Plains Visited 6/30/2012 3 Forks

Ditch Plains 29 Bedford St., (between Carmine St & Downing St), New York, NY 10014

The nice thing about staying in the city during the summer is that almost every place that's nomrally crowded during the year is pretty empty.  I've never been to Trader Joe's on a Saturday with less than 100 people or having to go to a restaurant on a Saturday night without having to wait for a table.  But now that everyone goes away from the weekends, everything in the city is quieter and frankly, more relaxing.  Holly and I met up for dinner at Ditch Plains, got a table immediately and it was quiet and peaceful, which was really nice. 


The menu at Ditch Plains is mostly seafood based with a few comfort foods like mac and cheese, burgers and hot dogs.  I am a huge sucker for lobster rolls, so without even reading most of the menu, I ordered the lobster roll ($28) as did Holly.  We also split the crab dip ($16) to start.  The crab dip was served with thin bagel chips and despite the no so flattering picture above, the dip was actually very good.  It's served nice and warm and you can actually see and taste real pieces of crab.  It was heavy on the cream cheese and definitely awful for my health, but hey, sometimes you've got to splurge.  I really liked the bagel chips that came with it because they were thin enough that you didn't feel like you were carbo loading but thick enough to hold a lot of dip on the chip.  Next came the lobster rolls.  One thing I didn't love about it before I even saw it was the fact that it was served with sweet potato chips.  For $28, I would have preferred at least fries instead of chips.  Of course as I was eating the roll I was mentally comparing it to Mary's Fish Camp, Pearl Oyster Bar, Ed's Lobster, Luke's Lobster and Red Hook Lobster Pound.  I will say that the thing this roll has going for it is that it was overflowing with lobster...lots of fairly big chunks of lobster, which is very appreciated when you're paying $25+ for a sandwich.  The hot dog roll was also very soft and more like a potato roll which I love.  The thing I didn't love about it was that there wasn't enough mayo. I know, some people hate mayo and prefer their rolls as simple as possible.  But I personally prefer a bit more mayo on my lobster roll (not too much where it's swimming in mayo but enough to moisten it up a bit).  It also had a bit too much seasoning/herbs and something about it gave it a kind of un-describable sour/tangy after taste (Holly also commented on how there was some kind of after taste too).  It wasn't bad but I still prefer Pearl Oyster and Mary's Fish Camp's rolls. 

But since Pearl and Mary's always has a ridiculous wait, I would come back to Ditch Plains as a back up if I was in dire need of a quick lobster roll.  The wait staff was super nice and friendly and I enjoyed the casual laid-back atmosphere of it all.  Total bill: $56/pp without tip 

Photo Credit: Yelp