Kingswood Visited 8/4/2012 3.5 Forks

Kingswood 121 W 10th St., (between 17th St & 18th St), New York, NY 10011

I've walked past Kingswood a few times before but it never really crossed my mind to try it.  I thought it would be your typical cute West Village bar/restaurant.  But apparently it's some uber trendy hot spot because when I was there for dinner last night, the place was packed to the gills with people you would think should be in the Hamptons (sprinkled with a few hipsters).  A bunch of us were seated at a long communal table and really when you have a group larger than 4 people, it's just really hard to talk to be able to talk to anyone who isn't the person directly in front or next to you.  So that was a bit annoying but otherwise I loved the simple farm-like decor of the restaurant.

The menu is a bunch of American farm-to-table style small plates and a few large plates.  The waitress had suggested that we order a bunch of plates to try but everyone kind of had their own thing that they wanted to try, so most of us did order 1 appetizer and 1 main and we did all nibble on each others appetizers.  I had just spent the day helping to bag up and lug around a ton of vegetables at the farmer's market, so I was starving and decided that I deserved a burger.  The burger came with cheddar cheese, sweet chili and arugula ($17) and I decided to get avocado for $2 extra.  Other dishes that people got were the lobster roll ($15 - it's a small sized roll), roasted beets $8), roasted carrots ($7), zucchini flowers ($12), buttermilk sandwich ($12), shaved fennel ($10) and lamb crumble ($16).  I tried the zucchini flowers which were lightly battered and stuffed with goat cheese.  It was pretty delicious, although I might even say that there was too much goat cheese inside (I know, I know, how how there possibly be too much goat cheese but it did overpower the zucchini flower a bit?!).  I also tried the roasted beets and they were served warm and to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of warm beets.  I like them served chilled so that just took some getting used to.  I also nibbled on the fennel and it re-affirmed my dislike for fennel (tastes too much like black liquorish).  When the burger came out, it looked juicy and overwhelming at the same time.  I usually don't like cutting my burger in half but I just had to do it here because it just looked like it was too much to handle on its own.  The burger was most definitely medium rare - closer on the rare side.  I really did love the taste of the burger, the mix of the sweet chili, cheese and avocado was fantastic.  My only issue was that everything inside the bun at some point just couldn't stay inside and the whole thing kind of fell apart on me.  Usually that's because the bun to burger ratio isn't right and the bun can't hold everything and the burger starts to slide out.  It was a shame because the bread looked really tasty, but I ended up eating the burger Atkins style (sans bun) because it was just too hard to deal with.   I should note that the burger was served with truffle fries and they were delicious although just a tad bit on the salty side.  We ended the meal with the blood orange sorbet and the pot de chocolate.  The sorbet was great and super refreshing with the right touch of blood orange flavoring.  The chocolate was fine, I guess as someone who isn't a huge chocolate lover, I could have done without it, but it did taste like your average chocolate pudding.

I do want to note that I didn't love the cocktail I got (Kingswood No. 3).  To be honest, I don't remember what was in it but it was pretty bland and not refreshing or frankly enjoyable.   I had to switch to the rose later which was actually quite good.  The waitress there was super nice and friendly and helped move the dinner along without being too pushy or overbearing.  I would be interested in checking this place out for brunch and it definitely seems like the place to be for a drink/date.

Photo Credit: Yelp