Madame Vo Visited 7/11/2017 4 Forks

Madame Vo  212 E 10th St., New York, NY 10003

Despite all the heat and humidity, I always crave pho even in the summer time.  So when the wait at Tim Wo Han was still over an hour on a random Tuesday, Virginia and I decided to check out Madame Vo instead.  It was also jammed packed but the host said it would only be a 15 minute wait, which was great.  My first impression is that it's definitely not your mom and pop Vietnamese restaurant - it's catered much more to the hipster East Village crowd but the host and wait staff were all Asian so I figured it still had some authentic qualities to it. 

The menu has a similar vibe to Hanoi House, which is of a highly curated greatest hits menu from a more traditional mom and pop place.  You'll find your typical spring rolls, summer rolls, banh xeo, pho, bun bo hue, and bo luc lac type dishes here.  Unlike my favorite pho places, there is only 1 kind here but luckily it's a pretty damn good kind.  VA and I split the fried spring rolls ($12) and I obviously had to get the pho ($16) while she got the vermicelli bowl ($14).  

The spring rolls came 4 to an order and were nicely fried and filled with shrimp, crab and pork.   It came with the usual fixings of the lettuce wrap and fish sauce to dip into.  It was a solid order, although with anything fried, it is hard to go wrong with that format but the filling was fresh and tasty.   Now that I'm writing this, I realized that we got another fried spring roll dish as well and frankly that was totally unnecessary order, especially for 2 people, I would recommend just 1 appetizer or if you are going to get two, don't get two spring rolls.   

The pho came out and it was a fairly large bowl but at $16 I would expect nothing less.  The smell and flavor was immediately intoxicating.  I could tell that it was at the very least going to be a tasty dish.  The broth was excellent and it was served with all the "best of" meats for the dish - brisket, eye round, bone marrow and meatballs.  For $5 extra, you could have also added short rib or $3 for oxtail but the idea of spending almost $20 for pho just didn't sit right with me.  And you know what?  The pho was excellent without them.  I would have liked less meatballs (or no meatballs) and more eye round instead.  Unlike some of the broths I've had in Chinatown, this one was not too oily and it had the right flavor combination.  The noodles were soft and the right texture for the broth.  I'm not sure if it was the heat or not but saldy I couldn't finish my meal - this is by no means a reflection on the quality of the pho but more on how much food there was and how freakin hot it was.  While I know leftover pho isn't as good as it is when it's served fresh, I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind (and yes, I can confirm that leftover pho is not good).  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed my meal here as I was expecting to be lukewarm on it.  It's pretty on par with the fancy pants pho at Hanoi House and I would say that they are both a step up from some of the bleh places in Chinatown but it still doesn't match up to my all time favorite place at home, Pho 75.  

While I generally am not a huge fan of "gentrified" Asian places, I am starting to warm up to them when the food is executed well.  I will always prefer hole in the wall, mom and pop places, but some of these "nicer" places are still able to deliver on the the authenticity of the food without dumbing the food down.  My biggest complaint thought with places like this is the price.  Paying $16 for a pho (while delicious) is completely outrageous in my book but I guess that's the price you pay to live in NYC.  Total bill:  $41/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

De Maria Visited 7/8/2017 3 Forks

De Maria  19 Kenmare St., New York, NY 10012

De Maria is one of the most Instagram'd places in the city right now as it's got this funky California hippie vibe and all its food is bright and super colorful.  Plus the food also quite healthy - think avocado toast, grains, flax seeds, and turmeric.  The first person I thought of when I saw this menu was my friend Laura and in true cliched fashion, we both meet up here after going to our morning pilates class.  

The place was packed on a Saturday morning - mostly full of gals like us who just came from pilates or yoga, sigh.  I'll give them credit and say that the menu was quite unique and full of dishes that you haven't really seen or heard of else where but not in a weird gross way but in a "hmm, that sounds interesting" way.  My one big gripe about the menu is that nothing sounded really hearty or very filling.  Everything sounded like a dish that would leave you hungry within 10 mins of leaving the restaurant.  I got a grain bowl where the name escapes me as it wasn't their famous Dragon Bowl but it had a similar name since it had similar ingredients like a grain mix, heirloom beans, and avocado except mine had raw salmon and was served with a leche de tigre sauce instead of a poached egg and tahini sauce.  Laura got the actual Dragon bowl and a bone broth as well. 

The first sign that things weren't going to be great was that we waited forever for our drinks which was a simple coffee and grapefruit juice.  I could tell that the waitstaff was busy and seemed a bit overwhelmed but to me, your drinks should come out quickly so that you can buy some time with the food in a crazy busy setting.  Of course, we waited a while for our food to come out too and I'll  be the first to admit that the bowls were beautiful - colorful and nicely presented.  Taste-wise, it was exactly as advertised, a super clean and healthy tasting dish.  The mixture of the leche de tigre, raw salmon, avocado and 5 grain was creative and well balanced.  I just wished it was 3 times of the size of what it was.  I also sipped Laura's bone broth and honestly I wasn't all that impressed with it.  It had spicy chili-turmeric to it that I honestly didn't care for.  When I drink bone broth, I want it to be focused on the salty broth flavor and not be distracted by a spicy flavor to it.  If you're into bone broth, I had a very salty but good one at Dickson's Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market. 

One of the main reasons I gave this place 3 forks was that I just wasn't feeling the crowd around us either, even though on the outside we clearly looked like everyone else in their work out clothes.  It felt like a really pretentious snotty crowd, bordering on basic bitches - even the girl next to us was super rude - Laura accidentally flung a bit of grain in her direction and she looked at us like you thought we killed her puppy or something even after Laura apologized profusely.  The service was super slow and not apologetic about it at all.  As expected, I walked out ready to eat pizza within a few hours of my meal (I actually did go and eat pizza 2 hours later).  If you're into all the hippe dippie, health food craze, by all means go and try it out.  I'd just recommend avoiding it during brunch hours and don't got if you're really hungry.  Total bill: $30/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

4 Charles Prime Rib Visited 7/6/2017 5 Forks

4 Charles Prime Rib  4 Charles St., New York, NY 10014

Yes,  this place lives up to all the hype.  Do yourself a favor - stay up an until midnight and log on to Resy 30 days out to snag a reservation at one of the 10 tables there.  If you try to make a reservation during normal human hours, the only things left are the ones after 11pm and if you're like me, I just can't be dining that late anymore, so I opted for the 5:15pm reservation.

Everything about this place reeks of old school dining.  It's located on Charles Street (duh) in a townhouse and has a speak-easy feel as it is pretty tucked away and hard to find.  Once you enter, it's like being transported to something of the Godfather era - it's dark, leathery and the waitstaff are all impeccably dressed. As expected the clientele veers towards the douchy banker bros but hey, I can't fault them at all for enjoying a good piece of meat.

This place comes for the same team as perennial meat favorites, Au Cheval in Chicago.  The menu here is a bit more expanded with a raw bar, chicken, pasta, side dishes and most importantly prime rib.  They also have a fantastic cocktail/wine list with some seriously outstanding old fashion cocktails - they're huge and viciously strong.  Vince is my go-to overeater partner and we obviously couldn't help ourselves when we were here.  We started with the shrimp cocktail ($21) because the Alaskan crab legs were offensively priced at $75/lb and got the prime rib Chicago cut ($66), cheeseburger with farm egg ($19 for the burger + $2.50 for the egg), mashed potato side ($13) and the creamed spinach side ($13).  And yes, it was just the two of us eating dinner.  The waiter had told us that there are a french dip special and don't think that we didn't seriously consider throwing that in the mix too but we exercised some mild form of self-control.

The shrimp cocktail came out first with 6 large shrimp served with cocktail sauce and dijonnaise sauce.  They were plumb and crisp with the right texture to it.  The cocktail sauce was served with horseradish on top of it which made it even more delicious.  It was an excellent start to the meal. Everything else came out fast and furious right after.  The prime rib was 16 oz of pink rare heaven - it was pre-sliced but you still had to cut them into smaller bite sized pieces and it was so tender that you could have cut through it with a dull butter knife.  It was one of the juiciest pieces of meat I've had in a really long time.  They only later brought out the au jus sauce to go with it, which only made it even more amazing but the first couple of "naked" bites were just as good.   But what's even better than the au jus was the horseradish cream - there's just something about rare meat and horseradish that's so perfect.  Just when you think you've had your fill of meat, they roll out the cheeseburger.  This is not just any cheeseburger but a double decker with a runny egg - many people opt to get bacon on top of it too but we decided it was just too much.  It's a fantastic heart attack inducing burger with pickles, chopped red onion and a mayo like sauce.  I'm glad we split it so that we could try a bunch of other dishes here but lots of people were totally just making the burger their main dish, which I can understand.  The super runny egg was just the cherry on top.  A runny egg makes everything better. On top of everything else the sides were not to be forgotten.  The mashed potatoes came with probably 2 tons of butter in it but also it was made with roasted garlic and chicken jus.  AMAZING.  The creamed spinach was also great but it was more along the lines of a standard creamed spinach but it's one of those dishes that I feel like you have to get with meat.

At this point, you'd think we would be comatose and ready to leave but no.  We ordered dessert too because we're fat f*cks.  We got the chocolate cream pie ($18) which for even a non-chocolate lover like me was simply fantastic - it was pretty much chocolate pudding in an oreo crust with a huge dollop of creme fraiche on top.  My heart was pretty much broken when we couldn't finish it and I had to watch half of it go to waste.

At this point, it was only 7pm but it felt like midnight.  We walked out definitely feeling like we had been hit by a mack truck food wise - I was honestly a tad uncomfortable by how much we ate and I had only had a salad earlier in the day.

I've read a few reviews of people gripping about how annoying the reservation system is (I get it, it's annoying) and it is quite pricey (although no more than many other high end restaurants in NYC) but really if you enjoy meat, this is a place you absolutely need to experience.  Just do it - you won't regret and even if you do, who the hell cares? Total bill: Unknown since I didn't pay but I'm guessing somewhere in the ballpark of $375 for 2 with tax/tip/drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Hometown BBQ Visited 7/1/2017 5 Forks

Hometown BBQ  454 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY 11231

Dear Fette Sau - you know I love you very much but I may have found another lover and his name is Hometown BBQ.  I've had this place on my radar screen for a while but since it's in Red Hook, it's a bit of a trek to get to.  Plus so many of my friends are vegetarians that it's a bit difficult to convince them to haul ass all the way out there just so that they can only eat like 2 things on the menu.  But now that I've been there, I don't know how I can not not go to this place ever again. 

Red Hook has always been one of my favorite neighborhoods in Brooklyn because of its isolation and un-gentrified feel.  But because of that, it's  also a huge pain the ass to get to if you don't have a car.  Luckily there is a cool new ferry line you can take and it drops you off not too far from Hometown BBQ. The main upside for being in Red Hook is the space.  This place is huge and easily twice the size of Fett Sau, which has to deal with the constraints of Williamsburg real estate.  Dan and I strolled in at 4pm thinking it would be totally empty.  Umm - we were totally wrong.  The line was out the door and we waited 45 minutes to get to the front of the line.  Similar to Fette Sau, it's meat by the pound and you order at the counter where they slice and weight everything for you.  Luckily, with all the time you spend waiting in line, you have plenty of time to read the menu and plan over and over again what you're going to order.  I think we changed our minds about 10 times because EVERYTHING and I do mean everything sounded amazing.  Everyone around us clearly over ordered and I can totally understand why.  There was one guy who order a dozen ribs and like 2 pounds of meat all by himself - my kindred spirit.  They have it all here - brisket, pulled pork, pork and beef ribs, turkey, chicken, lamb, bacon, amazing sounding sandwiches, and even tastier sounding sides.   What Hometown has over Fette Sau are the sandwich options and better sides with mac and cheese and collard greens.  After changing our minds 50 times, we netted out on 1/2 lb turkey (for Dan), 1/2 pound brisket (for me), pork spare rib, 1/2 a chicken, 1/2 lb pulled pork and a small potato salad.   I really really wanted to Korean sticky ribs and mac and cheese but there was absolutely no way in hell we could have eaten all that food without needing an ambulance afterwards.

Most of the meat is non-sauced but they have 2 kinds of sauces at the table for you.  My first bite was of the brisket and it was heavenly.  Moist, fatty and meaty all at the same time.  The pulled pork was my next bite and it was also super delicious, especially with a bit of sweet BBQ sauce on it.  The pork rib was also fantastic with the meat easily falling off the bone.  The chicken was a juicy wood fired chicken with a Oaxacian marinade and a tangy salsa verde - this was Dan's favorite.  We really should have gotten a 1/4 chicken instead but hell, when in Rome....I was so full at this point that I actually never even got to the turkey sadly.  I want to give a shout out to the potato salad too - it was pretty much mashed up red potatoes with a hint of mayo - super addictive but I'm glad we only got a small.

There is also a killer Southern style bar with lots of beer and brown liquor options.  There's also a back room where apparently they have live music and other events.  In short, this place is perfect.  I regret that we didn't just over order (especially the Korean ribs which everyone seemed to have ordered) and bring food back but left over BBQ is generally not as good as when it's served fresh. Due to its location, I probably wont' be going there as often as I like, but that's probably a good thing because I might die of a premature heart attack if I went there as often as I would like.  Total bill:  $45/pp with tax

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Freemans Visited 7/1/2017 3.5 Forks

Freemans  Freeman Alley, New York, NY 10002

Back in the day, Freemans was THE cool place to eat in the city.  It's tucked away in this random alley way in the LES and it just oozed funky, cool, hipness to it.  Fast forward, 13 years later (yes, it's been that long) and it's still adorable but now there are so many places like it in the city but with much better food.  Don't get me wrong, my food was fine but that was just it - it was fine. 

Despite Resy telling me they only had an 11:30am opening, when Dan and I got there, there were still lots of tables available throughout our meal and they say that they happily accept walk-ins, so I would roll the dice and try to walk-in instead.  Like I said, the decor is still rustic chic with a hipster taxidermy vibe.  The menu also remains cozy, hearty comfort food - with a bunch of egg dishes, including a full English breakfast option.  I was trying to be healthy and opted for the egg white omelet ($14) but then threw it all away by also getting a side of sausage ($8). Dan got the baked eggs skillet shakshuka ($14).  The food came out relatively quickly which was kind of surprising.  My omelet came with roasted broccoli, cheddar cheese and a side salad.  Everything about it was totally fine - it tasted exactly like an egg white omelet that I can make at home myself. One of my biggest pet peeves is eating or paying for food in a restaurant that I could easily prepare at home.  The sausage links were also fine - honestly it didn't taste homemade and again I could have just gotten some links at a high end grocery store and had just as good of an experience.  I had a bite of the shakshuka and it was good but unlike an omelet it's a bit harder to make baked eggs at home, so I'll give this dish a bit more props.

We were literally done with our entire meal in less than 40 mins from sit down to getting the check.  I know that shouldn't be a deal breaker but when I'm eating at a place like this, I would prefer it to be a more drawn out enjoyable experience.  Luckily we had a pretty packed day in front of us, so it wasn't a big deal but my memory of this place was a lot higher than what it turned out to be this time around. That being said, it was still a cute place to take out of towners but hopefully they will step up their food because there is way too much competition in the NYC brunch space to stay mediocre.  Total bill:  $30/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot Visited 6/27/2017 4.5 Forks

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot  105 Bowery, New York, NY 10002

Hot pot is one of my favorite things to eat - even in 90 degree heat.  Janet and I usually go to 99 Favor Taste on our birthdays because you get to eat free there on your birthday but we decided to try out a new place for our joint birthday - even if it wasn't free.

Little Sheep is actually a large chain with locations in China, Japan, Canada and the US but there is only one location in the city (although there is one in Flushing, Queens).  My first impression of this place is that it was super clean and fairly quiet - although this was at 6:30pm on a Tuesday and by the time we left at 8:30pm the place was packed with a fairly long line.  Similar to every other hot pot place, you pick your broth and then pick your ingredients.  Unlike 99 Favor Taste, it is NOT an all you can eat situation, so don't go too crazy with the ordering.  Luckily, if you come Monday-Thursday, for $15 you have the option of an all-you-can-eat meat special (choice of 4 different quality meats ranging from beef to lamb to pork).  You make you order on a check list and hand it to your waiter.  Our waiter was really nice and looked at our list and immediately told us we ordered way too much food - especially since we were getting the all-you-can-eat meat option.  He recommended 2-3 veggies and maybe a noodle, which we had pared down from the 8 veggie options we had checked off.  I guess old habits are hard to break since we were so accustomed to just ordering everything from the menu in an all-you-can-eat place and we still ended up ordering 4 veggies and a noodle.

For our broth, we chose the the regular non-spicy version, although you can get a split pot with different broths.  My only complaint here is that I didn't love the broth as much as I love the pig bone broth at 99 Favor Taste.  This one was good but it was just missing that salty bone flavor.  As for the ingredients, we were so happy we listened to the waiter because the size of the orders here were quite large, especially the meat options.  I definitely left at the end feeling like we overdid it with the ordering.  The plus here is that the ingredients were noticeably fresher with most of them seemingly to be non-frozen unlike other hot pot places.  The meat was especially high quality - it had a great bright red color which any fresh meat should.  They are famous for their lamb, which was exellent, but I still preferred the fatty beef slices more.  The vegetables and noodles were also great - fresh and prepared and cut well.

We tried really really hard to finish everything we ordered and we did a fairly good job of it but we definitely had some left overs.  Luckily, they aren't super strict here and didn't charge us extra for it. We were a bit nervous at first that by ordering per ingredient it was going to end up being really expensive but it actually turned out to be the exact same price as the all-you-can eat experience at 99 Favor Taste but with way better quality and a calmer, less crazed vibe.  While there will always a place in my heart for the loud crazy all-you-can-eat places, Little Sheep is definitely going to be my new go-to hot pot place.  They don't take reservations for parties less than 6, so definitely go early and go on a weekday to take advantage of the meat special!  Total bill:  $30/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Perry Street Visited 6/25/2017 4.5 Forks

Perry Street  176 Perry St., New York, NY 10014

Years ago, I worked on a cool project at work that allowed me to meet Cedric Vongerichten, son of the famous Jean George.  At the time, he was the chef de cuisine at Perry Street (and still is) and he was one of the nicest, sweetest people ever.  You would think that someone of his background would be a bit up on himself but he was very quiet and humble.  I had filed away in my head that I should visit Perry Street at some point, but there just wasn't ever the right time for it.  It's definitely not your everyday dinner kind of place - in fact, it's the type of place I generally steer away from because it's got this air of hoity toity-ness to it (the average age of the diners there seemed like it was about 65 yrs old).  But Lav was kind enough to book us a reservation for a belated birthday dinner and I'm so glad she did. 

One note to those reading this, if you are going to dine at Perry Street, DO NOT go on the day of the Pride Parade.  It was a nightmare to get there with all the streets being closed and it was mayhem everywhere but it was worth the walk.  The decor is clean, white and very modern but it's not overly pretentious.  The waitstaff was nice and informative but not too pushy either.  The menu was high end but not stuffy - in fact, everything sounded great.  If you haven't gotten my drift already, its the kind of place where it just pushes the edge but doesn't go overboard. 

We started with the heirloom tomato salad ($16) and crispy artichokes ($20) and I got the duck entree ($36) while Lav got the sweet pea soup ($15) and market peaches ($16) as her entrees.  It's been a while since I've had an heirloom tomato salad but when they are ripe and in season there really is nothing better in the world.  This one was completely on point - juicy, ripe, sweet and plain heavenly. It was served with a sesame dressing, avocado and basil-serrano puree.  It was so simple yet so god damn delicious.  I could have had 10 of those for dinner and been super happy with my meal. The crispy artichokes were also fantastic - they were the meatier parts of the artichoke and not greasy at all.  It came with fava beans, roasted garlic and manchego cheese which was an interesting but excellent combination.  So far everything during the meal was really spot on.  

I got the duck because it's not something I would ordinarily make at home and when done right, it is mind blowing.  That was exactly the case here.  It was 2 good size pieces of duck breast cooked to perfection - I mean seriously, incredibly tender and melted in your mouth.  It was served with bok choy, chanterelle mushrooms and an incredible herbal duck jus.  It was really one of the best duck dishes I've had in a really long time.  Lav mentioned that her spring pea soup was fantastic while the market peaches were good but not on par with the rest of the dishes at dinner. 

Of course we saved room for dessert and opted for the molten chocolate cake immediately but then hemmed and hawed over our 2nd choice...it was a toss up between the blueberry pie or strawberry pavlova.  The waitress highly recommended the blueberry pie so we went for it.  I was so glad we did because it was one of the best desserts I've had in a while.  I'm normally not a blueberry person but I've definitely come around to it in the last few years and I would encourage anyone who is on the fence about blueberries to give this one a try.  It's the perfect combination of fruit and crust and it's not overly sweet or gooey like some blueberry desserts.  It's fresh blueberries in as natural of a state as you can get in a pie form.  Delicious. 

My visit here is definitely been 4 years too late and I wished I had come here sooner.  It's much more of a special occasion restaurant but there's always a reason to celebrate in New York.  I heard that Cedric will be opening up a new restaurant this year and it's not clear if he'll still be at the helm here so I'd definitely recommend a visit here sooner rather than later.  Total bill:  Unclear as it was paid for as a generous birthday gift!

Photo Credit:  Yelp