Bin 14 Visited 7/21/2015 3.5 Forks

Bin 14 1314 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ 07030

Despite having a several good friends who live in Hoboken, I rarely venture over that way.  Even though I discovered that it can take only 30 mins (on a really good day) to get there, I always seem to meet up with my friends in the city or BK.  But what lured me here on a random Tuesday night was that the movie theater offers $6 movies on Tuesdays all day!  So Allison, Steve and I went to go check out Trainwreck (I heart Amy Schumer and you should definitely go see it) but first Allison and I had dinner at Bin 14.  While the south part of Hoboken is what most people think of when they think of Hoboken (busy bars, right out of college kids, etc, etc), the North part is much nicer, a bit calmer and more adult. 

Bin 14 brings a bit of that maturity to the hood since it's a quiet wine bar which serves tapas food. Allison mentioned that they can be a bit snotty at times but they were pretty well behaved when we were there.  I wasn't starving but since we were going to a 2 hour movie, it was probably better to eat some non-popcorn/candy food first.  Like I mentioned, the menu is a bunch of small plates and then a few entree sized dishes.  We decided to split the tomato, basil and balsamic mozzarella ($9), beet salad ($9), rock shrimp with polenta ($10), and charred octopus ($10).  They actually have a whole section on mozzarella and they all sounded great.  This one was closer to your basic order but it was solid and delicious.   It's pretty hard to mess up a great piece of cheese with tomato and basil.   Next I tried the beet salad and it was also a nice hard to mess up dish. It came with blood orange, pistachio, pickled fennel and mint - so all the right accents to a beet dish. Next I tried the shrimp dish which was the one I was most excited by.  It was described as rock shrimp with polenta, pecorino and chili. Unfortunately, it really tasted more like a very heavy grit dish with bits of cut up slightly over cooked shrimp.   Usually when I hear rock shrimp, I envision it in it's whole form (I mean it's not very big to begin with) that's' either fried or lightly tempura style, so I wasn't used to in this form.  But the dish overall was too oily and greasy for me and the polenta was too runny - I generally like polenta to be a bit firmer in texture.  Lastly I tried the charred octopus and this made up for the not to great shrimp dish.  It was one long tentacle but charred very well - it wasn't too rubbery or dry.  It was nicely done. Given that these were all small plates, we were still a little bit hungry so we split the roasted cauliflower with garlic and chickpeas ($8).  Nothing really special about it but it felt like a nice healthy way to round out the meal. 

I can see how if you lived in the area, this would be a nice, low key place to grab a glass of wine and hang out.  They definitely had a lot of variety on the menu and if I did come back, I would have loved to have tried some of their pizzas or pastas but in an effort to cut down on carbs, I didn't try them this time around.  If you're going to the movie theater down the block, this could make for a cute dinner/movie combo - plus I will say that it's definitely a more reasonably priced tapas place compared to the city.  Total bill:  $60 for 2 people with tax and tip 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Dirty French Visited 7/11/2015 3.5 Forks

Dirty French  Ludlow Hotel, 180 Ludlow St., New York, NY 10002

Dirty French is the latest in the slew of restaurants from the Major Food Group - they also produced Carbone, Torrisi (RIP), Parm, Santina and ZZ's Clam bar.  Clearly you can see that I've been a fan of theirs since I've visited about every single one of them and for the most part, loved them all.  So of course I had to try their latest opening, Dirty French.  It's located in the Ludlow Hotel and if you've lived in NYC long enough, you're kind of sad at how much this part of the LES has changed.  When I first moved here, it was still gritty and seedy but now it's full of luxury condos and now a super expensive hipster hotel.  I'm generally not a fan of hotel restaurants and I actually didn't know that this was in a hotel until we showed up but it was too late to back out. 

Despite having an 8pm reservation on a Saturday, the place wasn't super packed yet but since it's the LES, the restaurant was fully hopping until almost 11pm when we left.  The vibe is most definitely edgy and trendy and since I was in jeans, tank top and flip flops, I didn't really felt like I fit in too much but luckily no one made me feel weird about it.  At first glance of the menu, my initial reaction was that it was overpriced for what it was.  Most entrees were over $30 which is seriously ridiculous. Random funny story, my menu had different prices than Kristen's and the waiter told me that I had an "older" menu, which I thought was very weird. 

I ordered the beet salad to start and then Mark and I split the hanger steak and country ribs together. They brought out this amazingly delicious warm bread that was more like a naan or flat bread with this creamy herb flavored butter.  It was heaven and might have actually been my favorite part of the meal.  I was trying to restrain from eating the entire plate of it.  The beet salad was actually a very substantial portion complete with red and golden beets and paired with cashews and super strong stinky roquefort cheese.  There was so much of it that I was having a hard time finishing it but I really enjoyed it.  Krush had ordered the mussels for the table and I had a bite of it and the broth was delicious with bites of crab in it.  As for the main entrees, the hanger steak was perfectly cooked, for me means it was practically black and blue.  It was super medium rare and melt in your mouth.  Mark and I both loved it but my only compliant was that the pepper coating on the outside was too heavy and salty.  The same can be said for the country ribs (pork).  There were 3 giant pieces and they were also covered in a heavy handed pepper spice blend.  It was a bit overwhelming for me to eat both kinds of meat with this much seasoning on it.  Luckily the quality of both meats were excellent and the rib, while not 100% fall off the bone, did easily pull away with a few cuts of the knife.   There were also some side dishes for the table:  pomme frites and haricot verts but they were so far from me and I was so full that I didn't even try them.  Given how full everyone was at dinner, I'm not sure how or why we ended up ordering dessert.  We got an order of beignets and a lemon tarte.  The lemon tarte was more like a key lime pie but in a good way.  It was super sour and tart which is how I prefer my desserts.  The beignet was nice and fluffy and served with a giant helping of caramel sauce.  

After a long day of eating and drinking and then more eating and drinking, I was totally ready to go home even though this place was hopping by the time we finished our meal at 11pm.  We also had a celeb sighting while eating - Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade showed up around 10pm for dinner.  They are an incredibly stylish looking couple.  Overall this is a super fun place to go if you're looking for a girls night out and really want to do it up.  If it wasn't for the high prices and heavy handed seasoning, I probably would have given it 4 forks or higher but it's hard to justify that when I'm not 100% sure I would run back to this place any time soon - not because I had a bad time, but because there are lots of other Major Food Group places that I would go back to first before coming here.  Total bill:  $108/pp with tax, tip and lots of drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Mezetto Visited 7/5/2015 2.5 Forks

Mezetto  161 E Houston St., New York, NY 10002

This place used to be a cute tapas place called Olivia and I was bummed to see it go.  But this Mezetto got relatively decent reviews on Yelp and I've always been a bit fan of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food,  so Aarti and I figured it was worth a shot.  I will say though,  I'm generally weary of places that have bottomless/boozy brunches because usually the food in those type of restaurants aren't very good, so I did go in with a fair amount of skepticism. 

I got there early on a Sunday and they asked if we had a reservation, which we didn't.  The place was half empty but they told us that we could sit at a table but that they would need back by 1pm - which was 1 1/2 hours from now.  I guess I could see that if you were going to do a boozy brunch,  you'd stay longer than 1 1/2 hours, but Aarti and I were going to Core Fusion later, so there wasn't going to be any drinking going on. 

The menu had a nice line up for egg-y brunch type food and lunch/sandwich type dishes as well. Aarti and I started with the chopped Greek salad ($15) because we're both obsessed with Greek salad and I opted for the pork belly benedict ($15) and Aarti got the green benedict ($13).  Even though we ordered the salad, I had forgotten that it was chopped because it was super chopped and not the kind of Greek Salad I'm used to where it's got chunks of juicy tomatoes and large pieces of feta.  It was particularly heavy on the cucumber which is my 2nd least favorite (2nd to olives) part of a Greek Salad.  It was a nice refreshing salad for sure, but just not not as good as the one at Taverna Kyclades. My benedict was served with crispy pork belly and scallion yogurt sauce - which sounds delicious. But the whole dish was a bit underwhelming.  I will give them props that the egg was poached correctly but the pork was on the small side and a bit dry and the English muffin it was sitting on was way over toasted.  There wasn't really enough yogurt sauce on there to moisten up the whole dish. The side salad was way overdressed - it looked too shiny and over coated which is not how I like my salad and it makes me feel like it's a waste of a salad.  The potatoes were your standard roasted potatoes but they were pretty good compared to everything else. 

I'm wondering if I had ordered a more traditional dish like a lamb burger or trio spread if the food would have been better.  This kind of re-affirms my thinking that places with boozy brunches don't have great food as they are just trying to get your drunk off cheap mimosas and not really focusing on the food so much.  Total bill:  $28/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Untitled at The Whitney Visited 7/4/2015 2 Forks

Untitled at The Whitney 99 Gansevoort St., New York, NY 10014

I'm disappointed to have to write such a negative review of this place for a variety of reasons:  my good friend kindly picked this place out for a belated birthday dinner, it's a Danny Meyer restaurant, and it's gotten some fairly good buzz.  But it was a definite let down.   It's located in the lobby of the brand new Whitney Museum (which is a fun place to check out if you are looking for something to do in the city) and it's quite sleek with its floor to ceiling windows and minimalist decor.  While it reeks of a pretentious Meat Packing vibe, I was ready for it to surprise me, like Santina did. 

The menu is seasonal but lacks any real theme or concept.  I guess you can call it new American and I got the vibe that it was one of those places where the dishes were sparse and not very filling (picture a white plate with like 2 things on it).  We started with the cherry tomatoes and chickpea small plate ($6) and the smashed cucumbers ($12) while Lav got the artichoke fettuccine ($25) and I got the tilefish ($26).   The cherry tomato dish came out first and it was actually cut up cherry tomatoes and hummus served with fried wonton strips.  While the dish was fine, there was absolutely nothing interesting about it at all.  It seemed like something I could have made at home by cutting up fresh cherry tomatoes and served it with store bought hummus and drizzled with olive oil.   The waiter came by and asked us how the dish was because it was a new item on the menu and he could tell that Lav and I were both lukewarm about it.  It just didn't seem like a dish worthy of being served in a high end restaurant.  Luckily the smashed cucumber dish was a bit better.  It thinly sliced cucumber with scallion oil and soba noodles.  I thought there was going to be more soba noodles to make it a heartier dish but it wasn't a very big dish to begin with and there were about 5 strands of soba noodles in there.  But overall it was a clean taste and had it been a bigger dish, it would have been quite good. Then came our main dishes.  My fish was served with corn, sweet peppers and curried squash.  The broth base was actually quite good and tasty.  I was told by the waiter that the fish was cooked medium rare, which is totally fine by me, but it came out seriously undercooked.  To the point where, when I put my fork through it, it just stopped at some point because it wasn't cooked all the way through.  A well cooked fish should be flakey and easy to cut through, even if medium rare.  I didn't send it back but I really should have.  Luckily, I survived and I'm fine but it was pretty shocking how poorly cooked the fish was.  If it wasn't swimming in a curried broth, it probably would have looked quite clear as being too rare.  Lav mentioned that she wasn't too impressed with her pasta either.  It was supposed to come with crab in it but they were able to serve it to her without it but then it looked like a regular pasta with some swiss chard and tomato on it. 

At this point, we were both pretty underwhelmed but hoped that dessert would bring everything up a notch.  We ordered the peanut butter blueberry crunch cake ($10) and the chocolate hot fudge cake ($10) based on the recommendation of the waiter.  The blueberry crunch cake was super bland and not sweet at all.  The peanut butter frosting was a bit overwhelming but the cake part didn't have any flavor to it at all.  The crunch part was a bunch of peanut brittle on top of it - which isn't really my thing.  While the blueberry cake was boring, the chocolate cake was on the other extreme end and super super chocolate-ly.  It was too intense for me, especially given that I don't like chocolate all that much. 

Overall, this place was a total bummer.  I expected more from Danny Meyer and while I'm glad I tried it out, if I am ever in the area, I would stick to Santina or some other place in the Meat Packing district than recommend this place.  Total bill:  very generous birthday treat

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Brooklyn Crab Visited 7/3/2015 3 Forks

Brooklyn Crab 24 Reed St., Brooklyn, NY 11231

I have been hesitant to try Brooklyn Crab for a while because I had heard that the prices were crazy expensive and the lines were super long.  Plus as someone from Maryland, I have extremely particular tastes about my seafood - especially crabs.  But after having taken a walk past this place the other day and seeing how fun it looked, I figured it was worth a try.   

Holly and I got there around 4:30 and it was packed with tons of people just hanging out at the downstairs bar drinking and playing cornhole.  If I lived closer, I could see this as being a fun place to just hang out and grab a couple of drinks with friends but it's really in a pretty hard to get spot without a car or bike.  They quoted us a wait of over an hour, but that was expected so we grabbed some beers and just walked around the venue.  After only 40 minutes they called us and we luckily got seated at the upstairs level where there is a fantastic view of the water.  They did a great job with the decor and open design of the place - it really makes you feel like you are not in NYC.  As expected the menu is all seafood with a focus on crabs - blue crabs, snow crabs, and Alaskan crab legs.  I was shocked that they were charged $35 for 6 blue crabs - that's almost $6/crab!!  Insanity - I could easily polish off 6 crabs in my sleep and without seeing what size they were, there was no way I was going to order it.  We had wanted to get the lobster potato salad but they said they sold out of it a few hours ago - waa waa.  But they sold lobster and potato salad separately so I'm not sure why they could just mix the two together and make more. Regardless, we started with the popcorn shrimp ($11) and fries ($3.50) to start.  Holly got the Atlantic King Crab roll ($24) and I got the steam pot of the day ($28) which came with 8 mussels, 8 shrimp, 1 cluster of king crab legs, corn and sausage. The popcorn shrimp was small pieces of shrimp tossed in a spicy black pepper batter - they were sweet and salty although a bit too peppery for me.  But combined with the fries - it was a good way to start the meal while we waited for our food. The steamed pot was served in a spicy cajun mix which was fine for the shrimp part but I didn't really want the mixture on my crab or mussels.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how delicious the mussels were - they were the large New Zealand kind and they were super plumb and meaty.  If I had known that, I might have ordered an entire order of them instead.  The shrimp came with the head on, which I love, but they were on the small side so that was disappointing.  The cluster of crabs came with about 4 legs and they were ok, there wasn't as much meat in them as I would have liked.  The actual meat was sweet and good but there just wasn't enough of it and I was still pretty hungry after polishing off all the seafood in the pot.  Luckily they had 2 pieces of corn to help fill me up and I had a couple pieces of sausage as well.   I didn't try Holly's crab roll but she mentioned that it was tasty and it looked like a fairly decent sized crab roll.  

They were quite strict about the 2 hour time limit without actually kicking you out.  They would come by every 5 mins and "clean" our table or drop off the check without us asking for it.  I mean, I get it, it's a busy holiday weekend but if this was any other day, I might have been annoyed by it but the waiter was generally pretty nice overall (and also a dead ringer for Landry on Friday Night Lights). Brooklyn Crab is a fun place to hang out and it has great views but if you are looking for really good seafood in Red Hook, I would say you will have better luck at the revamped Red Hook Lobster Pound down the street.  They turned it into a full blown spacious restaurant with a fantastic menu (if I had to re-review it, I would give it at least 4 forks) and really great lobster at fairly affordable prices.  I would go there for food first and come here for drinks.  Total bill:  $110 for 2 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Best Pizza 7/1/2015 3.5 Forks

Best Pizza 33 Havemeyer St., Brooklyn, NY 11211

Like it's name, Best Pizza has frequently been mentioned to me as a top pizza destination in NYC and despite being 10 mins from my house, I've still never been.  But that all changed after a rare late night work happy hour last week.  In this tight T&E environment, gone are the days of a full spread of food at happy hour, instead there are a few nibbles of fries and maybe calamari, but at my age, if I'm going to drink more than 1-2 drinks, I need a full on meal. 

So when happy hour was done, Aaron and I decided we absolutely had to get food and since we both live in Williamsburg, it was better to go there for food.  And what better drunk food is there than pizza?  I was glad that Aaron mentioned Best Pizza because otherwise, I would have just gone to some not to good random pizza place on Bedford.   While Best has a few sit down tables, it's not really a full blown restaurant.  You need to order at the counter and they will bring you your pizza, so it's not a nice sit down restaurant with waitstaff but it's definitely a notch above a sketchy local pizza joint.  Aaron and I were starving so we got a cheese pizza pie ($20) with mushroom (+$4.50) and onion (+$2.50) - which in hindsight was a bit aggressive, at least for me because I only ate 2 slices total and the pie serves about 8 slices.   You can also get a white pie, pizza by the slice or a variety of heros there as well.  I was a bit annoyed that the toppings cost an extra $7 but given the state I was in, I didn't really care or think about it much. 

We didn't have to wait too long for our pizza and when it came out, it smelled and looked delicious. Like most New York pizzas, it's thin crust and served with fresh ingredients and topped with some fresh basil leaves.  It wasn't overly gooey and it was definitely higher quality than your usual slice.  It was most definitely great food after a few beers/glasses of wine.  So why didn't I give it 4 forks or higher?  I think it was because I had just gone to Juliana's not that long ago and was so blown away by their pizza that in comparison, Best was definitely a runner up.  Don't get me wrong,  they serve a great slice and I would most definitely come back but there was just something about the pizza at Juliana's that really got to me more than the pizza here.   You know when I eat the crust at a pizza place like I did at Juliana's, that there's something magical about their food.  So when I didn't finish the crust here, I knew that it wasn't going to beat out the pizza at Juliana's.  I'm still glad I came and now I won't be embarrassed when people ask how I haven't been here yet despite it being in my neighborhood.  Total bill:  $31 with tax and soda

Photo Credit:  Yelp  

Sauce Visited 6/27/2015 3 Forks

Sauce 78-84 Rivington St., New York, NY 10002

Sauce is one of those places that I have passed a million times in the LES but it has somehow never topped my list of places to try even though it's by the same owners of Frank, Supper and Lil' Frankies - all very solid legacy Italian places in the East Village.  I ended up here on a pouring Saturday night to celebrate Will's 40th birthday party with some friends, although I did notice that the overall crowd was definitely much younger than 40 (it's probably because of it's location).  

I liked that we had a sort-of private space in the back room (it wasn't totally closed off but we were able to get a large table in the back corner) and that it was a prix-fixe family style meal complete with a 2 hour all-you-can drink beer and wine concept (game on!).  The menu started off with garlic bread and roasted stuffed peppers with farro, mushroom and sage.  I was trying to limit my intake of carbs, so I didn't try the garlic bread (I know, sacrilege!) but I had a bite of the stuff peppers and honestly, I'm not a huge fan of farro because I think it can be pretty bland.  But it is a very healthy and filling grain dish, so I get why they added it here.  Next we had a stacked salad which came with arugula, endive, radicchio, beefsteak tomatos and buffalo mozzarella.  It was a pretty tasty salad but mostly because it was heavy dressed with lots and lots of lemon and olive oil.   We then had 6 different main dishes to share:  filette with handmade ricotta cavatelli, bolognese pappardelle, meatballs, egg poached in gravy with peas, broccoli rabe with toasted garlic and soft parmigiano polenta.  We also got served something off menu of hot italian sausage which was a nice surprise.  It was a lot of food and it was super overwhelming because they just brought all of it out at once and shoved the plates where ever they could find room on the table.   It would have been nice if they could have paced the dishes out more but I think we were only allowed to stay for a few hours, so I get why they kind served everything at once.   I went straight for the meatballs and they were quite good and very saucy which was great.  I must have had at least 2 or 3 of them.  Next I tried the bolognese pasta which is usually my go-to pasta in any Italian place if there's nothing else that speaks to me.  It was fine but it reminded me of the type of pasta I probably could have made on my own at home - which has always been my gripe about mediocre Italian food in the city.  I simply don't like paying for simple pasta dishes that anyone can cook up in their kitchen - it's gotta really wow me in order for me to want to pay good  money for it.   It was the same thing that i felt about the cavatelli pasta - there wasn't a wow factor and it needed a bit more seasoning.  None of us were really sure what to make of the egg dish - I had never had a random egg dish with sauce and peas before and I wasn't really sure how to eat it.  With all the carbs on the table, it was a nice change up to have the broccoli rabe which was super garlic-y and tasty.   Overall, most of the pasta dishes were good but seemed closer to the kind of decent Italian food you can make on your own.  

Since it was a birthday, we had to have dessert and this is where I thought Sauce redeemed itself a bit.  The tiramisu was great - nice and sweet and as usual, always a crowd pleaser at dinner. There was also a heavy chocolate cake that I didn't really try because by this point, I was so stuffed that I couldn't try anymore things but it looked like a very rich heavy dark cake. 

Overall,  the sep up and overall idea of this family style prix-fixe dinner is a great one for large groups.  It makes it easy to not have to decide what to order and there was definitely something for everyone at the table whether you are a meat lover or vegetarian.  This place isn't on the level of a I Sodi or Perla but then again you're also paying a much bigger premium at those places and they have a much more up scale vibe to it.  I would say go here if you're looking for a fun low key outing with friends (or just looking to mingle with a younger crowd) but don't go in expecting Babbo type food. Total bill:  unknown since it was pre-arranged

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Race Lane Visited 6/26/2015 3.5 Forks

Race Lane 31 Race Ln, East Hampton, NY 11937

Ah, the Hamptons.  Love it or hate it, plenty of New Yorkers end up here at least once during the summer and I'm very lucky and grateful to have a friend who has a place out in East Hampton. Normally, we are very laid back and grill and stay in but we like to go out at least one night we're there.  This time since Marc was coming from the bus stop, we chose a restaurant that was close enough for him to walk over. 

Surprisingly, the restaurant was pretty empty for a Friday night and the clientele that was there was more on the older/family side than the wild and crazy stereotypical Hamptons crowd - which was totally fine with me.  The menu here is full on American - so your classic fish dishes, roasted chicken, burger and filet mignon type dishes.  We split the lobster mac and cheese ($13) for the table as well as the shishito peppers ($11) while Julie and I split the buffala mozzarella ($19) appetizer and for my main meal, I got the special red snapper of the day.  

I didn't really go into this restaurant with high hopes - I kind of thought it would be your typical overpriced Hamptons restaurant and while on one hand it is expensive, the food was surprisingly good too.  The mozzarella was delicious - there were quite a few chunks of it and it was served with prosciutto, cantaloupe, basil, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.  Very basic, clean dish but tasty as well. I didn't actually get to try the peppers but the rest of the table seemed to like it.  The lobster mac and cheese was - well, how can lobster mac and cheese be bad?  Not surprisingly there wasn't an overwhelming amount of lobster but at least everyone was able to get some bite of lobster.  On to the red snapper.  This was quite possibly the biggest and most elegant filet I have ever seen.  It was served beautifully with the skin on and it was enough food for two people.  I had a really hard time finishing it but it was flakey, well cooked and tender to the touch.   They also had a whole branzino fish that Marc got that was stuffed with fennel and lemon that looked fantastic.  Virginia and John got the scallops and they also looked well prepared.  Everyone who got some kind of seafood dish looked very happy with their meal.   Of course, we all saved room for dessert and we got the warm dark chocolate bread pudding ($11) and the caramel creme ($11).  Both were out of this world.   The bread pudding was sweet but not too sweet and soft on the inside.  But the perfect combination was a spoonful of the caramel creme mixed with the bread pudding.  Yum! 

Overall,  it was a great meal with great friends.  It was just a bit too expensive for what it was and honestly, I did find the crowd and decor to be a little bit lacking but in general it didn't matter too much because I enjoyed the company I was with.   Race Lane is an nice reprise from the uber trendy places in the Hamptons crawling with annoying drunk 20 somethings but I still have love for the simpler places like Bostwick's when I'm in town.  Total bill:  $102/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Haile Bistro Visited 6/23/2015 3.5 Forks

Haile Bistro 182 Ave B, New York, NY 10009

With our fearless social leader off to London, my B-school friends and I vowed to try to keep things going with what's left of us here in NYC.  We thought it would be fun to do a Global dinner rotation each month with one person picking an ethnic restaurant to try.  I took the first stab at it and decided to go with Ethiopian food since most people hadn't tried it before. 

I will say that New York is one of the greatest food capitals of the world, but there are a few cuisines where we probably fall behind some other cities.  I would say Ethiopian food is much better and more prevalent in DC than it is here.  None the less, I thought it would be fun to get the girls together to have some Ethiopian food - plus it's a good cuisine for groups. 

Normally I would have chosen to go to the good ole stand by of Meskerem in the West Village but I figured it was worth trying something new.  This place seemed to get good enough reviews on Yelp, so I made a reservation here for a Tuesday night.  So it turns out this place isn't the kind of restaurant where you really need a reservation.  It's quite homey and cute, much more of a local joint that anything else.  I'm not sure if it's because of it's location or what but it was very low key and low maintenance.  Since it was pouring rain that day, most of us were pretty late but that didn't really matter here.   Since we were all starving, we started off the meal with an order of aambusa ($7) which was kind of like their version of a samosa.  It was a savory pastry filled with green pepper, jalapeño, onion and beef.  There was nothing amazing about this appetizer, but it was just something to fill our stomachs with while we waited for our main dish.  With any Ethiopian meal, I usually just go for the combo dishes since it gives you a little bit of everything.  Amy got the vegetarian ($15) one for herself and Richelle, Kristin and I split 1 meat and 2 meat and veggie combos together ($16 and $17). To be honest, I never really know what I'm eating with Ethiopian food, I just love the inerja and eating a bunch of random food with my hands with it.

The meat and veggie combo came with doro wat (chicken), ye siga wat (beef), some kind of lamb dish, collard greens, chick peas, green beans, lentils, and cabbage and carrots.  I never really know what is what on the plate but I just go for it with the injera and everything always tastes good.  I loved their inerja here - very soft, warm and spongy - I couldn't stop eating it.  All of the meat and veggies were tasty and had a nice mix of spices - although I felt like it could have used more spices in the meat parts.  I did miss the combo not having a hard boiled egg but there was more than enough food to keep me full.

My only real issue was that the service was super slow.  Granted there was only 2 people working the entire place and one of them was super pregnant so I do feel a bit bad saying it as they were very nice.  I miss Ghenet in Park Slope a lot as it had nice ambience and good food but this place was good enough for a low key casual outing with the girls.  Total bill:  $39/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

BCD Tofu House Visited 6/22/2015 4 Forks

BCD Tofu House  5W 32nd St., New York, NY 10001

After I had posted about Mandoo Bar, lots of my friends had mentioned that they also loved BCD Tofu House, so I put it on the list of places to try the next time I was going to be in K-town.  Since my mom was leaving from Penn Station on a Monday afternoon, grabbing something to eat in K-town was the perfect daytime lunch plan.  BCD Tofu House is actually a pretty big chain in California with a few locations in Jersey and Washington state.  As my friend Neel called it, "It's the Denny's of Korean food in Cali" - which I don't actually think was meant to be an insult.

My mom and I roll in around 11:30am on Monday and it was fairly empty but it definitely picked up by the time noon rolled around.  As I've said before, a good sign of any good ethnic restaurant is when its customers are all ethnic and this place was no different.  I don't think I saw any non-Koreans (except for us) the whole time I was there.  They have a nice lunch menu to choose from - who doesn't love a good lunch special?!?  They have all the classic kinds of Korean food available but what they specialize in is their tofu stew.  After all, all their tofu is 100% organic and fresh.  We started with the steam shumai ($9), my mom got the seafood tofu stew ($12) and I got the Neng Myun ($13).

What I love about Korean food is all the yummy small plates that they serve you before the main meal.  Here they give you a whole excellent line up of kimchi, bean sprouts, cucumber, radish, anchovies, lotus root, and they also give you an entire fried fish to start with as well.  I couldn't figure out what kind of fish it was but it was salted and fried on the outside so it almost didn't really matter what kind of fish it was but for the record it was some kind of mild white fish - although it did have small bones in it.  The shumai were your typical steamed dumplings and a nice way to start the meal. Although I did think $9 for 5 small dumplings was a smidge overpriced.  On to the main courses - honestly I didn't know what made me choose my dish because it had no tofu in it at all and was probably the mildest Korean food I've ever had in my life but it was something I had never heard of before, so I figured I'd try it.  Plus it said it was seasonal, so nothing gets me more than knowing that something may not be there later on (food FOMO!).  It was essentially a giant pot of ice cold vermicelli noodles (literally ice cold because it came on an ice bath of beef broth complete with ice cubes), 1 slice of beef and then a bunch of thinly sliced vegetables in it.  It was different to say the least.  While I didn't love it because it didn't have any of the heat or spice I normally associate with Korean food, I'm glad I tried something different.  Meanwhile, I had a bite of my mom's tofu stew and that was what I should have gotten.  It was boiling hot, spicy and the tofu was indeed delicious. Mix that stuff with white rice and it's heavenly.  The only complaint I would have is that the picture on the menu made it look like it was chock full of seafood and shrimp but it was definitely more heavy on the tofu and there weren't any shrimp with heads on in our dish.

Overall,  this is a very solid place in Korea town.  The service was great and the place was a nice mix of traditional food and a slightly modern decor.  This is a great place to go if you need to catch a bus/train at Penn Station.   I would love to come back again and this time I will stick with a more classic tofu stew.  Total bill:  $44 for 2 with tip and tax

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Great NY Noodletown Visited 6/20/2105 3.5 Forks

Great NY Noodletown  8 Bowery, New York, NY 10013

Ahhh, Chinatown.  I have such a love/hate relationship with it.  One one hand, it's part of my culture and I love the food there.  On the other hand, it can be dirty, crazy and overwhelming.  Luckily when my mom is in town, I milk it for all it's worth and have her come along so that she can order for the two of us.  I had been to Great NY Noodletown years and years ago, but it's probably been over 5 years since I had been back.  It's one of those places that people like Anthony Bourdain used to visit back in the day and hasn't really changed much since. 

The place is pretty small and in typical Chinatown fashion, not the most sparkling clean of places and the waitstaff can be kind of sourly.  But it somehow feels homey to me.  The menu is extensive and cheap as hell.  It's a great place to go with lots of people because the portions are enormous and there's so much to choose from.  My mom and I split the shrimp wonton soup, 1/2 soy sauce chicken, and seafood chow fun noodles.  Despite it being 90+ degrees outside, the shrimp wonton soup really hit the spot.  It was super plumb and the wrapper was nice and thin.  I loved how the entire bite consisted of all shrimp and no filler or extra thick skin.  It was served in a very basic clean chicken broth with sesame oil and scallion base.  Fantastic.  Next I tried the soy sauce chicken and it was just like what I used to get as a kid.  The key with eating this chicken is that you've got to eat it fresh because that's when it's juiciest.   The meat is sweet and moist and the skin has got a slick deliciousness to it that only a roasted chicken hanging from a Chinese restaurant front can have. Lastly we had the seafood chow fun - now I love a good chow fun (broad noodle) and this one had a lot of potential but it was kind of all stuck together which was disappointing.  Also, there wasn't a great variety of seafood in it.  I think there was only like 1-2 pieces of shrimp and scallops in it.  It was more heavy on the squid and these giant uncut pieces of Chinese broccoli which they desperately needed to cut.   The dish was so large that we were able to take the rest of it home and have a complete dinner with it, so we essentially got 2 meals out of it.  I would say that anything you order here should be shared otherwise you will have a very hard time finishing it on your own.

Overall, I have a soft spot for places like this.  It's nothing fancy, in fact it's the complete opposite of fancy, the staff can be rude and loud, the decor slightly dirty and concerning but there's just something about it that screams comfort.  It doesn't hurt that the food is pretty solid (especially if you've had a few drinks in you) and very cheap.  If you haven't been to Chinatown before, it's definitely worth a spot at some point in your time in NYC.  Total bill:  $30 for two people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

   

The Loop Visited 6/16/2015 3 Forks

The Loop 173 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10003

I'll keep this review short and sweet since I'm about 7 reviews behind, but The Loop is your typical local sushi joint that has those crazy rolls with a millions ingredients so it isn't your super traditional or authentic sushi joint.  But sometimes you just want a giant roll with spicy mayo and 3 different kinds of fishes in it, right? 

Mabel and I strolled in on a random Tuesday and it was actually fairly crowded.  Unlike my last sushi meal at Hasaki where it's got a very traditional quiet decor with a sleek sushi bar as the focus point, this place was kind of like a loud messy frat house with no decor or ambience to speak of.  But if you're in the mood for something less serious and more casual, then places like The Loop work just fine. 

We started with sashimi salad ($13) and then got a bunch of rolls, which I sadly can't remember now except for the spicy scallop roll and a Bob Marley roll.  The sashimi salad is closer to a green salad with pieces of sashimi mixed in there - I enjoyed it as a way to eat both salad and veggie but Mabel thought it was a bit too fishy.  As for the rolls, they were all fine and your standard mom and pop sushi rolls.  Except for the spicy scallop, they were the kind of rolls that were "fusion-y" and had a bunch of different fish cuts shoved into a roll but they were still tasty enough. 

This is definitely the kind of place that one would go to if you were looking for something low key. The clientele definitely skews towards the younger like just out of college crowd but I could see if I lived nearby that I would do take out from here.  If you're looking for something more refined and traditional, take a walk further down towards 9th street to find the more "adult" sushi places.  Total bill:  $38/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp