Sugarfish Visited 11/20/2016 4 Forks

Sugarfish   33 E 20th St., New York, NY 10003

Oh, where do I begin with this review?  Amy, Anuja and I tried to go last Tuesday at 6:30pm and got promptly and kind of rudely turned away.  The hostess informed us that they were no longer accepting names on the waitlist.  WTF?  At 6:30pm on a Tuesday?? I knew this place was hot and super buzzed about, but that was just infuriating.   When we asked her what would be the best way to get on the waitlist, she said it was no longer possible and we should come around 4pm next time to put our names on the list.  Umm, sorry but we have jobs and can't leave in the middle of the day to put our names on a sushi list.  While I get it that they were booked and super popular, they really should find a way to better manage their operations and/or train their hostesses to deliver the news in a more palatable way. 

So instead, we came back on Sunday at 11:30am for lunch.  We thought we'd play it safe and come 30 mins before it opened and lo and behold, there were already 20 people in line when we got there. Craziness.  Luckily, we were able to get a seat in the first seating.  Unfortunately, Anuja spilled the entire bottle of soy sauce on herself when she sat down and not a single person came to help her.  We had to flag multiple people down to get her napkins and no one got her any water or other things to take care of it.  That was kind of disappointing and a sign of things to come. 

The menu here is a smidge confusing - they have a bunch of set/omakase options up top (Trust Me, Trust Me Lite and the Nozawa)  and then a handful of a la carte sushi options below.  At first, we were going to split a Nozawa and then add a few rolls but the waiter told us that typically the sets entrees are for 1 person each, not to share.  Um, ok, then that should have been made a bit clearer but I guess it made sense when you broke down how much was in each set.  So we each got a Trust Me ($33) and then added the daily special of the large bay scallop sushi ($7 for 2 pieces).  The Trust Me started with the edamame, which was your typical edamame served cold.  It was followed by tuna sashimi which was fantastic fresh red tuna served with a bit of soy sauce and scallions on top. Excellent quality and this was starting to make me forget about the lukewarm service.  Next came the albacore sushi and salmon sushi - both excellent.  What makes their sushi fantastic isn't just the high quality of the fish but the rice was the perfect temperature and texture.  Next came the yellowtail and halibut sushi - again both were melt in your mouth.   The set ended with a toro hand roll and a crab hand roll.  Both were warm and had the right ratio of rice to fish in it.  I could have eaten 5 of those hand rolls.   The bay scallop sushi was also amazing - a large raw scallop sitting perfectly on a bed of warm sushi rice.  Yum!  

And that was kind of the problem.  After all of those pieces, we were still hungry!  So we ordered the toro hand cut roll and the scallop roll.  Both were very simple rolls  - nothing more nothing less than high quality fish with a bit of rice and seaweed.  I liked the simplicity of the rolls and it really highlighted the quality of the fish.  On a service note,  during this ordering process Anuja had asked for some hot tea and it never came.  We finally flagged down a waitress and she said "oh, yeah we ran out of mugs.  Sorry!"  WTF?? how does a Japanese place run out of hot tea mugs an hour after they open?? And even so, it would have been nice of them to tell us that so that we were sitting around waiting for it.  

At the end of the day the food was great - absolutely no complaints at all and for the price point, very very reasonable and delicious.  Where they need to tightened things up is around service and logistics.  There is just no way a restaurant is run optimally by turning people away at 6:30pm.  Also the waitstaff, while very nice when you actually go their attention, needs to do a better job of actually providing quality hospitality to justify their no tipping policy.   That being said, I would still definitely come back again when things have died down a bit.  Total bill:  $57/pp tip was included

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches Visited 11/18/2016 3 Forks

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches   554 Lorimer St., Brooklyn, NY 11211

Who knew that there was yet another Vietnamese place in Williamsburg?  This place is literally right across the street from Brooklyn Banh Mi on Lorimer Street, so it's easy enough to get your casual Vietnamese fill in on this one block.  The main difference is that Nicky's has actual seating and they offer a slightly bigger menu which includes pho. 

I vaguely remember there being a Nicky's in Park Slope when I lived there but I don't recall them offering pho there, only banh mi.  Given that there is such a dearth of nearby pho options, I was willing to try anything that vaguely resembles this dish.  It's definitely not an authentic place as they only offer beef, chicken or a veggie option - a more traditional pho place will offer 20 different kinds of strictly beef pho.  I went with the beef option and an ice coffee.  The "kitchen" is open and right next to the cash register and you can hear them microwaving and heating things up, which I'm sure other places do as well but somehow I didnt' want to actually hear or see it.  The pho comes out and it's in this cheap plastic bowl and flimsy plastic spoon.  So that was kind of a turn off.  But the noodles were actually pretty good and cooked well.  The broth was only ok and was missing that simmered beef bone flavor that a true pho base has.  I put a bunch of hoisin sauce to give it some more umph.  I did end up slurping up most of the broth, so I guess it couldn't have been that bad.  The cuts of meat were nice and thin but they were cooked all the way through and not as rare as I would like in my pho.  They do give you a nice side of bean sprouts, cilantro and peppers if you want to add more than what's in the bowl.

The place is run by loud Chinese people and I could hear and understand everything they were arguing about while I was eating there.  Funnily enough, it entertained me more than annoyed me but I could see how it could be distracting for some people.  Overall, the pho wasn't anything I would be excited by but the fact that it's a 10 minute walk from my house and the only real pho option, I could see myself coming here every now and then when I'm really desperate but not willing to trek into the city for it.   I am open to trying their banhi mi as that could be a nice take-out lunch option.  Total bill: $13 with tax and ice coffee

Photo Credit:  Yelp

TsuruTonTan Udon Noodle Brasserie Visited 11/12/2016 3.5 Forks

TsuruTonTan Udon Noodle Brasserie   21 E 16th St., New York, NY 10003

This is one of the rare 3.5 Fork reviews where I am actually really interested in coming back to.  My mediocre review doesn't have much to do with the quality of the food but with a mis-communication and annoying policy they have.  But now that I know what I'm getting myself into, I would gladly come back again.

While I've always liked ramen, I've actually secretly loved udon more.  It's chewier, heartier and just tastier to me than thin ramen noodles.  But there just has never really been as much of an udon craze as there has been with ramen.  Hopefully the introduction of this place will change things.  Mabel and I went on a Saturday night at 7pm fully expecting to wait for a bit.  When we got there, this nasty guy was screaming at the hostess and eventually called her a bitch several times while we all watched in horror.  I will never understand people who have to be that rude to someone.  I get it, the New York restaurant scene can be brutal and annoying but there is no need to be an asshole.   The wait was about 30 mins for us, which was totally fine.

The menu is extremely overwhelming.  In typical, izakaya fashion it's huge with lots of pictures and everything looked amazing.  They had hot udon, cold udon, donburi, appetizers, sushi, tempura, fried chicken, ribeye steak, and much much more.  It's sensory overload.  I got super excited and ordered the salmon sashimi and mushroom salad ($15) and the shrimp and vegetable tempura udon ($17) and Mabel got the uni udon ($24) and we shared an eel sushi roll.  When my salmon and mushroom salad came out, I was shocked at how large the portion was and then I was shocked even more to discover it wasn't a salad at all but a cold udon dish - there was an entire heaping of udon noodles underneath.

The waitress came over and was like "I probably should have warned you that the salad isn't really a salad but I thought you knew because it was under the cold udon section."  Umm, yeah, you should never assume and doesn't it seem weird that I would order 2 udon dishes?  Regardless I was going to chalk it up to me being careless and not reading the menu carefully.  The salmon and cold enoki and shiitake mushrooms on top were delicious and the noodles were thick, chewy and very fresh tasting. You could tell that they were hand made - I only wished I could have focused on the dish more but knowing I had a whole other udon dish coming made it hard.   I was only 1/2 done when my shrimp tempura udon came out - so I asked the busboy if he could pack up my cold udon since I clearly couldn't finish both dishes.  So he took my barely eaten dish away while I focused on the hot udon.  It was only after he took my food away did the waitress come out and say "oh sorry, we don't allow people to take their food home because the noodles aren't good afterwards.  Sorry!"  This is when I got pissed off. Had I known that in the beginning, I wouldn't have given it to the busboy and I would have forced myself to stay at the restaurant longer to finish as much as I could of both dishes.  Now, not only did I lose out of my cold dish, but I still had to pay for both of them! The right thing to do would have been for them to comp me  for the cold udon or just make an exception for me to take my cold noodles home.  After all, if they had warned me that it may be no good,  the onus is on me if I don't enjoy it as they told me in advance.

I will say that the tempura udon was delicious.  Great chewy noodles and the tempura was also fresh and not greasy tasting.  I really enjoyed the broth as well but I was still fuming from them taking away my previous dish.  Mabel's uni dish looked tasty but of course there is never enough uni to really make someone happy.

I left with mixed feelings - I loved my food and would definitely come back to try out the rest of the menu but I was pissed about this particular experience because of the inflexible policy.   But knowing is half the battle right?  Total bill:  $80/2 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bar Centrale Visited 11/11/2016 4 Forks

Bar Centrale  324 W 46th St., New York, NY 10036

I've strangely been on a Broadway kick this year, seeing almost 5 shows this year which is x5 more than what I've seen in the past 5 years combined.  The only downside with going to Broadway shows is the terrible food options in Times Square.  But I forget that if you just walk one avenue block over towards Hells' Kitchen, there are so many better and classier options than the TGI Fridays and Bubba Gump Shrimp places. 

Bar Centrale is tucked away on 46th street in the entrance of a brownstone - there is no sign or any visible notices outside, so you really have to keep an eye out for it.  When you walk in, it's like being in someone's living room.  It's dark and cozy and very inviting.  Apparently a lot of Broadway folks come here, but I'm so not in the know with stuff like that but if you are a theater buff, keep an eye out.  Paige and I stopped by here on a Friday night before seeing Oh Hello!  We started off with some excellent cocktails - whatever drink you order, get it neat because it'll come in a cute beaker container.

Their menu is a bunch of small plates, so we shared the curried deviled eggs ($12), the lobster quesadilla ($22), cauliflower wings ($13), and the skirt steak ($21).  The devil eggs were delicious - there were 5 of them and they were perfectly scooped out and had a nice creamy curry flavored mixture in it.  I could have eaten a whole other order.  Usually I hate ordering lobster dishes because there usually isn't a ton of lobster in it and you're paying up for it.  But this one actually had a decent helping of lobster and you could actually tell that it was inside.  I could have actually used a bit more cheese in it but otherwise it was a nice snack dish.  The big buzz this year seems to be around the re-emergence of cauliflower and one of the most popular ways to make it is a la buffalo chicken wings.   They were fine here but I've had better in other places.  They weren't tempura/fried, so it was basically roasted cauliflower with buffalo sauce covered on top and then it was served with blue cheese dressing.  While it wasn't a 100% substitute to chicken, it did feel like a slightly healthier way to get blue cheese dressing in my mouth.   Lastly came the skirt steak (6 oz).  It was sliced in a bunch of small thin pieces, cooked perfectly medium rare and served with salsa verde.  I was pleasantly surprised at this dish - you don't really see skirt steak in a small plate menu but luckily this one was plentiful and well done.

The place does clear out around show time but it was a lovely way to spend a pre-show cocktail with some nibbles.  It's nice to get away from the crowds and throng of tourists and have a quiet evening before heading into the madness that's known as Times Square.  I wouldn't necessarily come here for a stand alone dinner but for a pre-theater outing, it's a great place to go.  Definitely call and make a reservation in advance.  Total bill:  $160/for 2 people with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

City Vineyard Visited 11/9/2016 3 Forks

City Vineyard   233 W St., New York, NY 10013

If I could rank City Vineyard just on ambiance, I would give it a 4 or 4.5 review.  It's located right on the water with gorgeous views of the river and Jersey.   While it was a cold rainy fall night the day we were there, I could see how this place could be overrun in the summer time with its rooftop bar and prime outdoor seating. 

We were there on a sad somber post-election night, so it was pretty empty.  The one downside of being located by the water is that it's all the way on the West side, so it's a bit of a haul from any subway stop.  Despite there being very few people in the restaurant, the service was a bit spotty and slow.  We had to ask the waiter a few times for more bread and it just felt like a non-attentive crew (granted, it was the day after the election so I was probably not all there either). 

The menu here is what you would expect from a place that's primarily a wine bar - standard new American fare, except there was no meat/cheese board which should be a staple at any wine restaurant.  We all split the pumpkin spaetzle ($10) to start because it sounded like a fun fall thing to order and then I ended up getting the burger  ($18 + $3 for cheese) because well frankly, it was the day after the horrible election and I was still eating my feelings.  Plus the description of the burger sounded amazing - hanger steak, beef cheek and oxtail mix from Pat Lafrieda.  How can you say no to that?  The girls got a variety of other seafood dishes like the scallop, tuna steak and the tuna crudo. 

The pumpkin spaetzle was as expected - brown buttery and sweet.  I can't say I think spaetzle is the most amazing food concept in the world but anything pumpkin is always worth trying.   Next came my burger and I was super excited given all the deliciousness made with the meat mixture.  Sadly, it was just eh.  The bun couldn't hold all the juices in so I was kind of left with a mess on my hands after a few bites.  I had ordered cheddar cheese on mine but it wasn't sharp enough for me, so it kind of got lost in the mix of all the meat.  While it had a lot of potential, the burger wasn't something that was uber memorable for me.  Was it good? Sure, but was it mouth wateringly crazy good?  Meh.  The fries were the skinny kind and sprinkled with herbs.  I didn't try anyone else's dish but Kristin's scallop dish looked pretty skimpy - it was a large dish with only 2 scallops on it (granted, the menu did say that there are only 2 scallops and it's an appetizer dish but still, they could have found a better way to present it).  Amy's tuna steak looked pretty amazing as it was very rare but it had a sweet pinot noir demi-glace on it that didn't really taste like it was the right combination for it.  

Overall, it's a lovely space and I can see how it would be a fun after work place to go in the summer. But in terms of it being a dinner destination in the winter, it's not one of my top tier choices given the distance from the subway and better choices closer in.  Total bill:  $85/pp with tax, tip and wine

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Numero 28 Pizzeria Visited 11/6/2016 4 Forks

Numero 28 Pizzeria   28 Carmine St., New York, NY 10014

What better way to end a long day of marathon watching then to stuff your face with pizza, right? Granted I did zero running that day but trekking up to 110th street was enough activity for me to be tired by 5pm.  I have walked by this pizza place probably 1,000 times yet have somehow never been (this is why I love NYC - you can live here for years and still not even hit 25% of all the restaurants in the city).

It's a pretty small-ish mom and pop type place in the West Village and their pizzas are known for being huge but thin.  They are authentic Neapolitan pizza which means it's made in a brick oven pizza.  The classic type has buffalo mozzarella, basil and a sprinkle of olive oil on it.  We got a regular classic, regular veggie and one with sausage on it.  We also started with arugula salad which was simple yet delicious with shaved parm and cherry tomatoes on it.

The pizzas are a sight when they first come out because they are so long and take up the entire width of the table.  While it seems like a lot of food in the beginning, once you start eating the pizza you realize that you can easily house 3-4 slices because they are so thin and light.  The classic one was actually the best but the ingredients on the veggie one were great too - I love a good artichoke pizza. The meat was also great - I believe it was a soppressata meat and it wasn't too salty or greasy.

The only 2 things there were a bummer were (1) it's cash only and the ATM is in the bathroom (literally) and (2) the service is a bit eh.  They were nice enough but it wasn't a super warm and fuzzy feeling.  Also strangely enough for a fairly authentic Italian place, the wine selection wasn't all that. But overall, it's a nice casual, informal Italian joint and it's a nice reprieve from a classic New York slice or some of the crazy crowded hipster pizza places in BK.  Total bill:  it was kindly taken care of by someone else

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Seamstress Visited 11/5/2016 3.5 Forks

Seamstress  339 E 75th St., New York, NY 10021

One of the things I love about living in NYC is that on any given night you can end up at a totally fun and new place that you've never been to before.  So on a random Saturday, Aarti asked if I wanted to see her co-worker's wife (aka Ana Gasteyer) to a show at The Caryle Hotel.   I normally wouldn't have thought about it but why wouldn't I go?  The show was at 10:45pm on the UES, so we met up with a few of her friends for a late dinner right before hand.  I've been in NYC a long time now but the UES is still a totally new place for me.  Luckily I didn't have to pick a place and her friends made a reservation at Seamstress for us at 9pm.  Phew.

The place has a bit of a confusing identify - it can't figure out if it's a bar or restaurant.  It's too loud, dark and packed to be a restaurant but you do have to be seated unlike a bar.  The menu is kind of a mish mosh of appetizers and entrees - we got the crispy potato wedges ($7) to start because we were starving and then also ordered the fried cauliflower ($10), butternut squash risotto ($16), cheese board ($17), roasted garlic and tarragon flatbread ($6) and chicken breast ($18).  The potato wedges were huge, it's like all they did was cut the potato in half and threw some spices on it.  It was good at that moment because I was starving but it wasn't anything much more than satisfying bar food.   Next came the cheese board, which had a nice combination of cheeses, apples and crackers.  I wished they had told us what kind of cheese was on there but it was a mix of hard and soft cheeses - it's so hard to get a cheese board wrong.  I had envisioned the flatbread to be a long piece of flatbread but instead it was cut up into thin plain strips - I almost mistook it for free restaurant bread, so that's never a good sign but taste wise it was covered in garlic so that's always a winner.

It seems like the new kale of the season is fried cauliflower and here it was served with sage and a cheese dip - so sort of like a chicken wing but made out of cauliflower which is a much healthier version.  Lastly came the risotto and chicken - both larger entree sized dishes.  The risotto had a tomato base and was mixed in with lots of veggies - it was quite filling and comforting but it's not a traditional Italian risotto dish.  The presentation of the chicken was pretty disappointing except that the waitress did warn us that it was served plain with no sides which is exactly how it looked.  I feel like if you're going to serve an entree with no sides, then don't put this one small piece of chicken on a huge plate to make it look sad.  But the good news was that the chicken was actually really delicious.  It was covered in herbs and it was a breast but it had part of the bone in to make it super juicy. If you paired it with the risotto, it made of a lovely bite of food.  The menu felt like a laundry list of bar food versus a restaurant with a theme or vision.

Overall, it was a great place to kick back and have a few cocktails and snacks before the show.  It's a fun environment and I liked the cutting/scissor visuals decorating the place.  I just wished it wasn't suffering from an identity crisis.   Oh well,  at least I'm diversifying my blog and adding another restaurant to the UES category! Total bill:  $33/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

King Visited 11/4/2016 2.5 Forks

King  18 King St., New York, NY 10014

My experience at King was an imbalanced one - on one hand, for my veggie friend, it was a terrible experience but on the other hand, for me as an omnivore, it was perfectly fine.   So it kind of nets out to a mediocre rating food wise but when I factored in how much I spent in total, I had to take it down a notch.

The restaurant has gotten a lot of buzz lately for being an all-female run kitchen from 2 women from London.  With that background, you can't help but want it to to be a success story.   While I love that story line, the food and overall experience still needs to be great for me to really get behind it.  The menu changes daily based on what they get at the farmer's market,  so don't rely on the online menu being super accurate.  For someone who eats anything, the menu shouldn't be an issue because you will be able to find something to eat but if you have any sort of dietary restrictions, you might have a tough time dining here.  The menu is small with maybe 4 appetizers and then 3-4 main entrees.  At first glance, none of the dishes sounded particularly inspiring.  Unfortunately for Lav there weren't really any good veggie options on the menu, so the waiter said that they could put together a vegetable plate for her, which honestly at this point was her only option.  I got the onglet ($32) which is basically hanger steak.

Whenever I hear the phrase vegetable plate I weep for my vegetarian friends because you know it's just going to be an uninspired plate of grilled vegetables, which is exactly what Lav got.  The dish had some pumpkin and other fall veggies but there wasn't anything hearty to it.  I felt bad for her because you just knew at a place like this it wasn't going to be cheap either.  But the good news is that my onglet was actually really tasty.  It was beautifully cooked and very tender on the inside.   The flavor and juices of the meat were spot on - but at $32 I wished there was more than 3-4 small cuts of it.  Lav and I pretty much finished our meal in record time and were still starving.  So we ended up ordering 2 desserts - the chocolate tart and the date tart ($9 each).  Surprisingly the date tart was the better dessert.  It had a sweetness that wasn't overpowering and it was paired well with the warm crust on the outside.  Despite the dessert, we were still hungry but there wasn't much else left on the menu for us to eat, so we made a stop at Kati Roll on the way home - waaay yummier and cheaper!

While I enjoyed my part of dinner, I can't say that I left here feeling really warm and fuzzy about the overall experience.  I'm not saying that every place should bend over backwards to cater to vegetarians but if you're going to try to offer something off menu to accommodate them, at least make it a good one, otherwise just don't bother.  I wouldn't have been offended if they said they didn't have anything, that is totally their choice but it's not worth doing something if it's not going to done right. However, if you eat meat the onglet is an excellent choice - I just wish the portions were bigger because for that price I should be leaving dinner full and happy and not stopping at another place on the way home for more food.  Total bill:  $77/pp with tax, tip and wine

Photo Credit:  Yelp

City Kitchen Visited 11/2/2016 4 Forks

City Kitchen  700 8th Ave., New York, NY 10036

I am a total sucker for food courts - I know they are kind of touristy and cheesy but I just love them. So I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Amy suggested that we meet up at City Kitchen before seeing our Broadway show and I discovered that it wasn't some terrible Times Square deli but an adorable food court with really solid food stalls.  Of course since it's in Times Square it's on the smaller side - there are about 7 food stalls:  Dough, a Mexican place, a Mediterranean place, a burger place, Luke's Lobster, a ramen place and a sushi joint.  All foods that I love so I was so confused as to what to get.  I really had a hard time deciding but this girl was eating this really good looking chicken and rice bowl, so it swayed me to try Ilili Box.

The menu consists of shawarma and falafel in either wrap or rice form.  They have a really great combo deal of a wrap or rice box, brussels sprout or fries and a lemonade for $18.  When you see how much food you get, you'll realize what a great deal it is.   I got the lamb rice with brussels sprouts.  The dishes were huge - like Chipotle size.  It was so much food that I had to take it with me to the theater and let's just say that I was horribly paranoid that my brussels sprouts stunk up the joint. The lamb and rice was great - it came with a ton of shredded spiced lamb and tahini sauce.  It was very filling and I kind of wish it had some more veggie in it like cucumbers or tomatoes just to cut some of the heaviness of the dish.  I was so full that I didn't even get to the brussels sprouts until the next day at home.  I'm sure they were probably better when they were warm but brussels sprouts probably aren't the best veggies to save as left overs.  They were slightly overcooked and sauced and mixed with grapes and walnuts.  I took a couple of bites and they were ok but again, not the best left overs.  

Amy went with the Mexican place and got the shrimp tacos which looked pretty good too.   I could have spent so much more time eating my face off  (I was this close to getting a donut and Amy was eyeing the shaved ice/ice cream stall) but we had a show to get to.  The one big downside is that the place is tiny and we couldn't find a place to sit down, so we had to eat standing up, which was kind of annoying.  It's tough finding a good place to eat in the area, especially one that isn't a sit down place or one that offers expensive mediocre food.  City Kitchen is a great option since it gives you lots of variety and it's cheap and fast - we met at 7pm, ordered and ate our food and were in our seats by 7:40pm.  Total bill:  $18

Photo Credit:  Yelp