CO-OP Food and Drink Visited 8/18/2012 3 Forks

CO-OP Food and Drink 107 Rivington St., (between Ludlow St & Essex St), New York, NY 10002

You would think that I had learned my lesson after my dinner at Empellon Cucina on Monday and not eat to the point of wanting to puke.  But oh no.  I did it yet again.  I ended up at CO-OP on Saturday night to celebrate dinner for one of my friend's (Richelle) and since CO-OP is one of those places where  you share a bunch of plates, we ordered about 1,000 items from the menu and I felt awful later.  The menu here is a bit weird/eclectic.  It's got some Asian influence (duck buns, sushi, sashimi) and then some American style type food (sliders, scallops, mac and cheese) and then throw in some meatballs and poutine.  Since there were so many people, we ordered a bunch of different things for the table to share.  We started with the Mini Ceviche Tacos with Aji Amarillo Sauce, Mango-Avocado Salsa ($12), Chicken Satay ($14), and Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice ($14).   The tacos were soft tacos filled with pork and pretty tasty and a good starter bite.  The chicken satay was extremely heavy on the peanut sauce, which made it be bit too sweet for me but at least the chicken was moist and tender.  The spicy tuna was a nice little rectangle of tuna on top of a bed of crispy rice.  It was surprisingly delicious and I could have had 3-4 more of them.  We then followed up with CO-OP  roll ($18) and the Soft Shell crab roll.  The CO-OP roll had spicy tuna inside and then topped with rock shrimp tempura on top of it, which was a nice combination of fish and shrimp.  The soft shell crab was ok, it was one of those sushi rolls where the rolls were too big and hard to eat in one bite.  I thought the crab was a bit salty and I just generally prefer raw fish in my sushi rolls then cooked food or tempura.  After the sushi, the peking duck steamed buns ($15), the black cod in butter lettuce ($16) and spaghetti and meatballs ($17) rolled out.  This is the point in the meal where I started to feel super stuffed and hitting a wall.  But I kept chugging along.  The steamed buns were a disappointment.  They were definitely not worth $15 at all and compared to the Momofuku buns I just had the other day, it was light years different.  The buns totally stuck to the bottom of the steamer, to the point where I don't think anyone got an intact bun.  So it's hard to have the full steamed bun experience when the bread has totally disintegrated in front of you.  Then the one I got didn't have any hoisin sauce in it, just the duck and some pickled cucumber.  The duck itself was ok, there was no skin or fat to it, so without the sauce it was a bit dry.  Knowing that you can get much higher quality bun for 1/4 of the price in Chinatown definitely makes these buns even less appealing.  Luckily, the black cod wrapped in butter lettuce was a much more successful dish.  The cod was covered in a miso glaze and the fish was nice and tender but my one complaint would be that the pieces of lettuce were too big for the fish.  While I do love butter lettuce, when it's 3 times the size of the fish, it kind of overwhelms the cod which should be the star of the dish.  By the time I got to the spaghetti and meatballs I could barely move.  The noodles were made from lo mein and were in a sweet chili sauce with a chicken meatball.  I did like the meatball a lot and the noodles were fine but again, I had reached the point in the meal where I could have had the best dish ever and I probably wouldn't have noticed because I was too busy being full.  After these two dishes, out came the mac and cheese ($18) and the diver scallops ($28).  For me, it's really hard to get mac and cheese wrong, especially when it comes with truffle oil.  This dish was decadent and super super rich but yummy at the same time.  As with my meal at Empellon, I wished I had saved room for the scallops.  This one came with a black mushroom puree, which honestly made the dish look really unappetizing.  Unless it's squid ink, I'm not a huge fan of having my dish covered in black sauce.  The scallops were pretty huge and served with nicely cooked asparagus (they were cooked enough to not be raw but had a great crunch to them).   We finally finished the meal with a giant red velvet cupcake, which I thought was a bit on the dry side and should have had cream cheese frosting instead of plain vanilla.  To be honest, I went in to dinner thinking I would hate it based on a lot of negative Yelp reviews.  But I was actually ok with the place.  I totally see where most people are coming from in that it's overly trendy for no reason and the price most definitely are not justified.  But this is the type of place that's great for birthdays which was why I was there.  The total bill was $1,033 (so roughly $110/pp with tax and tip)!  

Photo Credit: Yelp