Hwa Yuan Visited 8/4/2018 4.5 Forks

Hwa Yuan  42 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002

I'm usually not a huge fan of "nice" Chinese restaurants - I've always had a soft spot of the mom and pop places where they scream at you and there is like a bed in the bathroom.  But I'll admit, that sometimes they are kind of dirty and can gross me out.  So when I read about this luxurious Chinatown legend making a comeback earlier this year, I had to try it out. 

When you step in, you can automatically tell that it's different from most of the Chinatown places.  First, it's super clean, quiet and has fancy white tablecloths.  It's got a very elegant Western feel to it with a few Asian influences injected in the decor.  The crowd was mostly non-Asians and the GM is an older white guy, so you know it's fancy.  All of that made me a bit nervous that the food wasn't going to be great or that it was going to be Americanized and with the exception of one dish, the food was outstanding.   We started with a whole Peking Duck ($65), sautéed pea shoots ($18), jellyfish ($18), baked black cod ($38) and soup dumplings ($10).  As you can tell from the prices, it's definitely much more expensive than your typical Chinatown joint but the quality and cleanliness is so much higher.

The duck was delicious and they carve it at your table.  They bring the whole duck (head on) to show you, which is honestly a bit much, even for me.  It looked a bit skinny when they first brought it out but it was lean with the right amount of fat to it and the skin was really good.  The best part of the meal was actually when my dad asked if they could turn the bones and left overs into a soup.  They just combined it with some broth, veggie and tofu but it was really fantastic.  The sautéed pea shoots and soup dumplings were both tasty and delicious - standard Chinese fare but so damn good.  But the star of the night for me was the jellyfish dish.  It was so good - fresh with the right amount of crunch and tang of vinegar.   I could have ordered 3 more of them and eaten it on my own.  Sadly the one let down of the night was the black cod.  Usually I get a whole fish when I'm at Chinese restaurants (and with people who would eat it with me) but we decided to go cod filet and it was such bad dish, especially for the price.  It was like a total Westernized dish - a small piece of cod fillet marinated in soy and mirin.  It was overcooked and under-marinated - terrible combination. 

Overall, it was such a pleasant surprise and definitely reminded me that you don't have to settle for gross restaurants to get good authentic food - but you will have to pay up for it.  The staff was super nice and I know I kind of gave crap about it being a bit stuffy but it was a nice change of pace.  I wouldn't say I would come here everyday because of the prices but I can definitely seem myself taking my parents here when they are in town. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Amazing 66 Visited 5/27/2018 3 Forks

Amazing 66  66 Mott St., New York, NY 10013

I've got to learn to stop coming to Chinatown and expecting great Chinese food - it's just so easy and trekking to Flushing is such a pain in my butt.  It's not to say all the food in Chinatown is bad, it's really a crapshoot on what you'll get.   Again, the decor here is typical of a place in Chinatown, which means there is none but at least it was slightly cleaner than Joy Luck Palace.  

My mom and I came to Chinatown in search of whole steamed fish - I love it but it's hard to find friends who will eat it with me because the head kind of freaks people out and it's not something I would order on my own (although, let's be honest, I probably could eat the whole thing myself).  When my mom is in town, she goes off menu and just asks the waiters in Chinese what's good.  They told us the usual fish we like (tilapia) wasn't good here and instead recommended the steamed flounder.  I haven't had this dish in years and it's usually pretty good but the only downside is that it's not as meaty as other fishes.  What's nice about this fish is that the bones are very easily removed but again the meat isn't as tender.  There's also no real meat around the head area which is disappointing because anyone who is a seasoned eater knows that the fish's head is the the best part.  If you've seen this fish in the wild, it's essentially a very skinny flat fish and that's exactly what you get texture wise.  But the meat that you do get is tasty, just don't expect to get full off of it.  

We also ordered jellyfish with sliced pig knuckles and sautéed Chinese greens (I don't know what it is in English but it's one of my favorite greens that I rarely see anymore).  The jelly fish was great - if you haven't had it before, if it's done right, it's cold, crunchy and tangy and I love it.  It's usually paired with braised sliced pig knuckle which I used to have reservations about eating it as it reminds me of eating headcheese, but once you get over that, it's actually quite good.  

Unfortunately, my favorite greens were the most disappointing part of the meal.  They were clearly not in season and the best part are the leaves but instead they served it up with a ton of stem.  The stem is much tougher and not as tasty and the whole thing was this sad light green color instead of a dark green.  Even with a ton of garlic, the dish still couldn't really be salvaged.  

Overall the meal was satisfying and very filling but the bad greens and not being able to get a whole steamed tilapia kind of bummed me out.  The other bummer was that most of the restaurant was filled with tourists eating giant plates of pan fried noodles.  Now don't get me wrong, I freaking love pan fried noodles and frankly they looked pretty good here but it was a bit unsettling to not see another Asian person there besides the waitstaff - it made me feel like I was in a tourist trap.  Oh well, they can't all be winners, next time I'll come here and just eat a plate of freaking noodles instead.  Total bill:  $71 for 2 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Joy Luck Palace Visited 5/27/2018 2 Forks

Joy Luck Palace  

98 Mott St., 

New York, NY 10013

As much as I love dim sum, there are few really consistently solid places in the city that I love.  When my mom was in town, I was willing to try some place that was different than my usual place (Golden Unicorn).  I'm not gonna lie, part of me was also drawn to this place based on their cute pig baos - I mean who can resist such an adorable thing?  Only thing is that I forgot that I actually don't like baos and schtick like this usually means that the food isn't that great.  I should have listened to myself. 

The space is typical of a dim sum place in Chinatown:  it's enormous, it's loud and the waiting process is painful.  When we finally sit down, I was less than underwhelmed.  I've shared tables in Chinese places before and I've turned a blind eye to some of the cleanliness issues but I couldn't get over either here.  The tablecloths were pretty dirty and it just felt like the place hadn't been cleaned in a while. 

Usually in places like this, I can get over stuff like that if the food is good, but it just wasn't here.  The carts were slow and I felt like the variety wasn't as great as other dim sum places I've been to.  As I mentioned I don't really like baos, so we didn't get the cute pig buns but I did see a few people get them.  Everything was super unmemorable, unimpressive and I left feeling that it was a wasted meal.  Even though places like Golden Unicorn can be hit or miss, they're generally a hit and there are so many other options in Chinatown than here.  Unfortunately I can't remember the total bill but either way, not really worth it unless you want an Instagram pix of the pig bun which is why I'm giving it 2 forks for their marketing effort. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Baz Bagel and Restaurant Visited 5/19/2018 3.5 Forks

Baz Bagel and Restaurant  181 Grand St., New York, NY 10013

Who knew that a bagel restaurant could actually be so hipster?  I guess you can make anything hipster these days.  The place is in the weird area that's not quite Soho or Chinatown but it's a small cute and funky space that I would have never found on my own if Aarti hadn't. It was super crowded and it only has a few small tables in the back, otherwise you can just order at the counter to go.  

The menu is quite overwhelming with every kind of bagel and breakfast variety you can think of and there is a slight Jewish deli slant to it with lots of lox and whitefish options. They also have latkes and salads if you really don't want a bagel.  On top of everything else on the menu, you can just make your own bagel dish like you would at any other deli in NYC.  After hemming and hawing for 20 mins, I finally landed on the Bunny Breakfast ($14) - eggs your way (I asked for a soft scramble), avocado, nova salmon, and served with a bagel with cream cheese (I got everything bagel with scallion cream cheese).   This is everything I love in a breakfast dish but slightly deconstructed.  The eggs were nice and softly scrambled, the lox nicely smoked and as for the avocado, it's hard to f*ck up ripe avocado slices.  My one complaint actually was the bagel.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad but it also wasn't mind blowing and it could have been a bit more chewy for me.  I still have visions of a sausage, egg and cheese on an everything bagel La Bagel Delight - my all time favorite bagel place and no bagel place has really stood up to that for me.  I know bagels are a touchy subject in New York and I do truly believe that NYC has the best bagel anywhere, you just need to find your own place.  This is definitely a cute place and I like all the variety they have, I'm just not sure if I would actually go specifically for the bagel.  Total bill:  $17/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Hometown Hotpot and BBQ Visited 4/4/2018 3.5 Forks

Hometown Hotpot & BBQ  194 Grand St., New York, NY 10013

There's nothing I love more than a good hotpot.  I've tried the All You Can Eat and the more fancy a la carte places and I've found that generally they are pretty much the same experience.  Yes the fancy places do generally have better quality products but it's not really by much.  

I had passed Hometown Hotpot a few times and it always seemed crowded so I figured it had to be worth a try.  It's one of the AYCE places and they don't take reservations for small parties - so I would recommend that you get there early.  Even though I got there at 6:30, I was told a bit snootily that we had to share a table, which honestly was fine.  The only thing that wasn't fine was that the burner that was assigned to me was broken so I had to sit at a diagonal to Janet, which was annoying.  As with any other hotpot places, you pick a broth and then you go to town and pick all your ingredients.  I got the Chinese herbal broth and then we picked our usual line up of beef, fish balls, fish tofu, bok choy, clear noodles, enoki mushrooms, corn and fish fillet.   Like every other place, they have a sauce station with all the appropriate sauces and toppings.   

The overall quality was fine, although Janet was not a fan of the beef and felt that it was too frozen for her taste.  I could see her point, although I generally feel like at most of these AYCE places the meat is always frozen and then defrosted.  But I've definitely had fresh beef before at other places. The veggies and noodles were good, plentiful and pretty par for the course. 

While the waiters were nice enough, we did have to chase them down a few times for more water for the broth.  It was an totally fine experience overall, but the combination of a slightly rude hostess, having to share a table (when you don't have to do that at many other hotpot places) and having a broken burner, put this place a notch below the other hotpot places I've been to.  I would say if you do come here, you're better off coming with a large group so that you can have a table to yourself.  The plus side of this place is that it was very affordable, so for that I would definitely come again.  Total bill:  $36/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Rice and Gold Visited 11/20/2017 3 Forks

Rice and Gold  50 Bowery, New York, NY 10013

One of the very few perks of my job is that sometimes get invited to hotel parties and openings as they are trying to win my client's corporate business.  I had been to the 50 Bowery Hotel before and it's actually a really cool and funky hotel in the heart of Chinatown.  It's got a fantastic rooftop bar but the last time I was there, the restaurant hadn't opened yet.  When it did open, the hotel's GM invited me and my team for a private dinner there. 

I didn't know at the time but the restaurant is run by Dale Talde and unfortunately I just haven't had any good luck with any of his previous restaurants before.  There was just something off about all of them and while this was one better than both of them, I'm not sure I would come screaming back here again.  Part of it was probably because our hotel partners really ordered way too much food and I was so full before the main dishes arrived that it kind of ruined the entire experience. 

Our hotel partners kindly created a custom menu just for us - it turned out to be an 12 course meal.  Most of it were dishes I probably would have wanted to try to so I can't complain about the choices - it was just the quantity of food.  Since there were 11 of us they brought out 3 of everything on the menu, so that was 33 dishes that came past our table.  Way too much food.  As with every other Dale Talde restaurant, the menu here is Asian fusion (you know my feeling about Asian fusion).   The menu started with candied pork buns, lobster and shrimp hargow and pho soup dumplings.  For entrees, we had the crispy papaya salad, octopus skewer, thai fried chicken rice, whole smoke branzino and pork sisig.  For sides, they brought out fried Brussels sprouts and charred eggplant.  On paper they all sounded delicious and if I wasn't a picky eater about Asian food, I probably would have really enjoyed everything.  But for me, I believe you should stick with the traditional ways for some of these dishes - like the hargow.  No need for the lobster and the soup dumplings plus pho soup base didn't really go together in my opinion.  They weren't necessarily bad dishes but I just prefer the traditional versions of each.  The pork buns were more like the char siu bao type and not the pork belly type that I was envisioning in my head.  They were tasty and small, so it was really easy to pop like 3 or 4 in your mouth easily.

The crispy papaya salad would have been good if it didn't have all the fried component to it.  The octopus skewer was nice and tender but not particularly Asian for me.  But this point I was so full and nothing I really ate after this point tasted good because my stomach was so full.  The fried rice was eh - I mean, it was a chicken fried rice so there wasn't much that was super impressive about it.  I did regret not having more room for the branzino.  I love a whole fish and the few bites I had of this were pretty tasty with the caper ginger relish and citrus ponzu.  I didn't try the pork sisig but unfortunately not many of us did.  It came on a bed of broad noodles but since no one really touched it, the noodles ended up all sticking together.   I didn't try any of the sides but apparently they were a huge hit with everyone else.   For dessert they brought out some kind of citrus dish and ice cream - it was a nice way to cleanse the palate from an otherwise very heavy meal.

Overall, it wasn't a terrible experience but just very overwhelming with the sheer amount of food put in front of us.  We ended up having a ton of leftovers and Susanne took some home but she mentioned that it smelled really bad the next day, so she ended up throwing it all out, which is a shame.  I will say that the space and design is really funky and cool - it matches the aesthetic of the rest of the hotel.  Given that this hotel is in the heart of Chinatown, it would be a mistake to come here to eat Asian food when you're literally surrounded by tons of more authentic options.  True, they may look a bit more sketchy but food wise, you would be getting a more traditional meal for a lot less money too.  I would come here for a few cocktails and appetizers and definitely hit the rooftop bar before heading out into the city for a real meal. 

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

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

Forlini's Restaurant Visited 4/22/2017 4.5 Forks

Forlini's Restaurant  93 Baxter St., New York, NY 10013

New York is filled with tons of great Italian restaurants but most people generally avoid the Little Italy area as it's mostly geared towards tourists.  But Forlini's is tucked away closer to Chinatown, so maybe that's what makes it an exception.  Will and Aarti were going through a list of NYC's top old school red sauce joints in the city and came across this place and I decided to crash their party. Usually when I think of traditional old school Italian places I think of Brooklyn, but this place was exactly the same kind of place you would find right in my neighborhood.  

First, it's dark with no real windows and gives you the feeling that it could be run by the mob (I'm not saying that in a bad way at all).  It's clearly run by passionate Italians and when we went there on a random Saturday for lunch the place was practically empty but the waiter was still incredibly engaging, warm, and inviting.  Like all other red sauce Italian places, the menu is huge and expansive and you have no idea where to start.  Our waiter was a great guide through the menu and we landed on the caprese salad, veal shank, linguini with broccoli rabe, rigatoni vodka sauce (because we're obsessed with the at Carbone), 2 meatballs, and a small mushroom saute.  As we were starting on the caprese salad, the owner (?) came out and asked us how we were doing and what we ordered - we told him all excitedly because we thought we made some excellent choices and he said "no, you need to get the panserolli piacelina instead - that is our best dish!" so then we switched out the vodka sauce dish and got that instead.   It turned out to be a great swap although I'm sure the other dish would have been delicious too.  The panserolli dish was mancotti stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a delicious red sauce.  it wasn't anything fancy (nothing here was) but it was comforting, homey and hit the spot.  That's how I felt about everything here - none of it was luxurious or over the top but it was all served with what you would expect from a traditional Italian family joint - huge family style portions and no muss no fuss food. The linguini with broccoli rabe was cooked perfectly al dente and with the right amount of garlic and olive oil.  But what really stole the show was the veal shank. Holy shit.  It was a enormous shank served with the bone marrow and the meat fell completely off the bone and was amazing.  I always feel a bit guilty eating veal but when you do eat it, it's so god damn delicious that it's hard not to love every bite of it. 

Everything else there was inviting and tasty from the homemade meatballs to the mushrooms to even the house red wine.  We were totally stuffed but somehow got suckered into a spumoni ice cream dessert - this was a my least favorite part of the meal but I was so full at that point that even if we got a really amazing dessert, I probably wouldn't have appreciated it either.  

What made the difference here was the kind waitstaff and the relaxed feel to this place.  We sat there for quite a while and even though there wasn't a crowd, it was just nice to be able to sit there with no pressure of being forced to leave.  I've always loved Italian food but hated paying these crazy NYC prices of $30 for pasta (even though some times its totally warranted).  Of course there are more than your fair share of authentic, traditional places in NYC, I just never thought I'd actually find one outside of BK or the Bronx.  What's even better is that we got all this amazing food for an incredibly affordable price -  that would never happen at a L'Artusi or I Sodi (both of which I enjoyed, so don't get me wrong).  I don't know which list Will and Aarti used to find this place but now I'm incredibly intrigued and want to try everything else on that list!  Total bill:  $60/pp with tax, tip and drinks 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Nha Trang Centre Visited 4/1/2017 2.5 Forks

Nha Trang Centre  148 Centre St., New York, NY 10013

As most of you know by now, I am a pho addict.  It is probably one of my top 5 favorite foods but sadly, I have yet to really find a go-to place in NYC.  How this city is so lacking in quality pho places is frankly still a mystery to me.  I had just completed my first pilates class at Wundabar (super fun class if anyone is looking for a new work out class) and since the studio was in spitting distance of Chinatown, I felt like I deserved a big bowl of pho as as reward.  Unfortunately, I was exhausted from class, so I wasn't really in the mood to run around town and I settled on this place right across from the Canal street subway stop.  I had seen it before several times, but never been so I figured it was worth a shot. 

In classic Chinatown fashion, there is no decor to speak of and they usher you into a seat and ask you for your order within 10 seconds of stepping into the place.  The menu had your typical line up of Vietnamese food but I was here for the pho and I got the #1 - it had a little bit of everything (tendon, tripe, brisket and rib eye)  in it plus an Vietnamese iced coffee.  I noticed that the place is run by Chinese people instead of Vietnamese people (I mean it is Chinatown) but I usually find that ethnic restaurants run by people not of that ethnicity just aren't nearly as good.  This place was no exception. I got my food in about 5 mins and upon first glance I could tell that it wasn't going to be my favorite pho.  It had huge chunks of red onion which I had never seen in pho.  I know that the broth usually requires onion in it, but I've never really seen a pho with giant stir fry sized sliced of onion in it.  The meat in it wasn't as rare or tender as I would have liked but the kicker was really that the broth just wasn't doing it for me.  It was greasy and missing some key pho flavorings like clove, star anise, and cinnamon.  The noodles were fine but that's not saying much when the star of the show was lacking. In good news, the iced coffee was lovely and came in a traditional press which I love. 

Luckily the price was right for such a mediocre bowl of pho.  I came here purely out of connivence and laziness so I guess this is what I get for not putting much effort into things.  If you're desperate for cheap pho, I can see this working in a pinch but I can't really endorse it knowing how much better pho there is out there in the world.  Total bill:  $13 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Chikarashi Visited 7/18/2016 3 Forks

Chikarashi  227 Canal St., New York, NY 10013

This review makes me super sad because I had really really high hopes for this place.  Poke has become the "it" food of the year in NYC and new poke places are popping up left and right these days.  But none has gotten more love that Chikarashi - the chef has experience working at high end sushi places like Neta and Masa and the quality of the fish has been praised as being some of the best around (I mean, he uses fucking toro in some of the bowls - that is crazy!). The location of this place is a bit random as it's smack in the middle of the bustling streets of Chinatown and the shop is pretty small - only a small take out counter and some counter space along the walls. 

The bowls here not your typical Hawaiian version - it's got a bit of a twist to them.  Given that this was my first go (and I was expecting to come back again), I played it safe and got the Ponzu Salmon, which came with Scottish Salmon, Wasabi Ponzu, Shisho, Avocado, Tobiko and Shichimi.  I was super excited and couldn't wait to eat it as soon as I got home.  But when I opened it, I was a bit disappointed based on my first glance.  It was super heavy on the rice and the fish didn't have that translucent color you see when it's raw and marinated in soy and sesame oil.  While it wasn't necessarily cooked, I didn't feel like I was eating raw fish but a lightly seared fish dish instead.   While you can tell that all the ingredients were of high quality (even the rice tasted like it was on a higher level), there was a slight dryness to the entire dish that I didn't love about it.  Maybe it was because it had too much shichimi (Japanese spice)?  I don't know - something was just off about it and I finished it feeling like I was missing out on a real poke meal.  I guess when it comes to poke, I'm more of a traditional gal and I'm definitely not opposed to coming back and trying the toro bowl but for now, I'll stick with the Blue Ribbon one I usually get at work. Total bill:  $16

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Egg Shop Visited 3/26/2016 3.5 Forks

Egg Shop  151 Elizabeth St., New York, NY 10012

The Egg Shop is the epitome of hipster cuteness.  It's located at the cross section of Soho/Nolita/Chinatown so it brings in the artists, models and for some reason a lot of Asians.  The wait at on Saturday morning was 45 mins so be prepared to wait.  The place is pretty small with tight counter space and a handful of small tables.  As you can imagine, the menu is egg focused - so if you are a vegan, you're shit out of luck. The concept is pure marketing genius - who doesn't love an egg on everything or want an egg sandwich for breakfast (if you're more health conscious they have egg bowls).  They are super creative with their egg creations and everything sounded amazing.  You can also make your own sandwich as well as order fried chicken as a side dish - amazing!! I was trying to be healthy, so I went for a bowl instead but of course I picked the one that had pulled pork in it, so there goes that.  If I were to go full hog, I probably would have made my own sandwich with soft scramble eggs, cheddar cheese on a buttermilk biscuit with maple sausage and an avocado and maybe even throw in some heirloom tomatoes in there.  Ugh - I'm drooling just thinking about this.  Instead I got the El Camino ($13) which was a bowl with 1 poached egg, avocado, pulled pork, tomato, and cilantro topped with tortilla strips.  The food came out super fast but I guess the cooks literally do nothing all morning but have poached eggs ready and throwing the other ingredients in a bowl doesn't take much time.  I was a bit bummed that it was only 1 egg but they did compensate by putting a lot of pork in there but when you're called the Egg Shop, I would assume that the focus would be on the egg instead.  The egg was poached well enough although it could have been a bit runnier for me.  It was totally a fine dish but it didn't really scream breakfast to me with such little egg.  

In retrospect, I should have stuck with going balls the the wall and gotten a yummy sandwich on buttermilk biscuits as well as gotten a side of fried chicken - everyone who got it, looked very happy. While I was full, I left feeling like I waited way too long for a meal that lasted less than 35 mins that I ultimately could have made at home that cost less than <$10 to make.  Total bill:  $23/pp with tax, tip and juice

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Cai Visited 1/30/2016 4 Forks

Cai  2100 S Archer Ave., Ste 2F, Chicago, IL 60616

I've been to Chicago so many times in the past 15 years that there are hardly any neighborhood or touristy things left to do.  But somehow, Chinatown has alluded me all these years (although Deanna did remind me that apparently we did go together once in college with our moms - clearly I blocked that out of my head). 

So finally we decided to cross this off both of our Chicago to-do lists on a nice Saturday afternoon. The Chinatown in Chicago is kind of out of the way and not near much - it's also waaay smaller than most urban Chinatowns but it's kind of nice to not have it be an overflowing chaotic mess like it is in NYC (although I do have a soft spot for the craziness of it all).  The Chinatown here is very manageable and you can probably get through all of it in an hour if you aren't doing too much window shopping.   But of course, no trip to Chinatown is complete without a dim sum outing.  Cai has been a few Chicago Chinatown lists, so this was our first stop. 

Like any typical dim sum restaurant, this one is a large, tacky, banquet hall with large tables.  Usually I would expect a dim sum place at noon on Saturday to be a complete mob scene, but it wasn't too bad here with only about a 15 minute wait.  It was nice that we didn't have to share a large communal table with others.  What's different about the service here is that instead of the usual push carts that come around most traditional dim sum places, here you order from a picture menu and then they bring it out to you.  While it kind of diminishes the fun and feel of dim sum, it's also kind of genius too.  There's no fighting over carts, you can get exactly what you want without waiting around for it and since it's not circling around on a cart for hours, the food comes out pipping hot.  The menu here was typical, it has everything you would normally get at a dim sum place.  Small dishes are $2.99, Medium $3.79,  Large $3.99, XL $4.00 and Special $5.25.  Most items on the menu are in the medium to large range. We ordered the har-gow, sticky rice in lotus leaf, pork and shrimp shumai, tapioca custard, pan fried bean curd with mixed vegetable, vegetable with tofu, golden corn pie, baked green chive puffs, and turnip cake.  Obviously the first 3 items were for me since they all had either pork or shrimp in it.  I gotta say, they were all quite delicious and tasted like they were just made in the kitchen.  I was very impressed with the quality of the food - none of it was anything particularly unique or sophisticated but just really solid.  Unfortunately a few of the dishes that we got that we thought were veggie friendly (corn pie and green chive puff) turned out to have shrimp in them.  The restaurant was very nice in taking them back and not charging us for it - which I greatly appreciated.   Of the veggie dishes, the vegetable with tofu was most definitely the best because it was wrapped in large broad rice noodles. It's the veggie version of my all time favorite dim sum dish: the shrimp roll (I didn't order it here because this one apparently had celery in it which I hate). 

Since we had to send 2 of the veggie dishes back, Deanna also ordered the mushroom and corn congee.  I should have known that the serving was be huge.  Unfortunately, by the time we got it, we were so full with our other dishes that we didn't really need to order it at all so we ended up taking home a lot of food.  The one dish that was kind of weird was the tapioca custard.  Neither of us have had it before and it was basically a giant gelatinous ball with a sweet custard center - it was kind of like eating a giant bland clear mochi ball.  It wasn't terrible but not particularly great either. 

Overall, I was fairly impressed with my experience here.  I can't say the service was super attentive but that's to be expected.  It was definitely a very pleasant and calm dim sum experience - which I know is a bit of the opposite of what you might actually want from dim sum - but the food was quality and worth the trek.  Total bill:  $21/pp with tax and tip

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

   

Pho Vietnam 87 Visited 4/16/2015 4 Forks

Pho Vietnam 87  87 Chrystie St., New York, NY 10002

As many of you know by now, I've had a life long obsession with pho and if I could, I would probably eat it every day of my life (if done right).  I have constantly been on the hunt for a good place in the city but have never really found my go to place.  While I still think the place at home is still the best, Pho Vietnam 87 is a pretty good substitute and definitely filled my craving for pho that day. 

Van and I went on a random Thursday night and it was fairly empty but we noticed that there were a few people speaking Vietnamese in the restaurant, which is always a good sign.  While I had been on a Americanize/fusion Vietnamese kick lately, there's no good substitute for a supremely authentic divey, mom and pop place that's located usually in Chinatown.  This place is the stuff of what I'm talking about - no fusion bs, it's straight up pure ethnic eats.  Van and I were totally overwhelmed with what to get but I had to get a pho (although the bahn mi looked good and it was only $4.25!!).  I opted for the #1 ($7.25) which was the large pho that had pretty much a little bit of everything, we split the banh cuon ($6.95) to start and Van got a pork rice plate ($6.50).  Another thing I love about eating at places like this is that the prices are crazy cheap.  It was music to my ears.   I also got a Vietnamese coffee and was so happy that it was served with the stainless steel single serving coffee maker and not pre-mixed.   We started off with the banh cuon which is a steamed rice rolls/crepe dish stuffed with ground pork and mushroom in it.  It's been a really long time since I've had this dish before but it was great. Our only complaint was that the rice crepe was a bit thick for both of us but it didn't stop us from eating the entire dish.  Next came my pho and it was a huge bowl of yumminess. It smelled great and was definitely very full of everything - broth, meat, and noodles.   The broth was tasty, flavorful and not too oily.  My only complaint would be that it might have had a bit too much star anise or clove for my liking but it wasn't so overwhelming that I didn't like the dish.  The meat was thinly sliced  and rate and like I said early, plentiful.  The noodles were the right consistency - soft and delicious.   Usually when I have pho, I clean house and can finish the whole thing but this one was just too much to handle and I had to call it quits about 3/4 of the way through.  I had a small bite of Van's dish and it was also quite well done and delicious. 

All in all, it was a great experience and it brought me back to my first love of eating which is cheap local ethnic eats.  While I still doesn't match the Pho 75 back home, it was a very filling and affordable addition and Van and I are already making plans to go back and try out the other half of the menu (although we really just barely scratched the surface!).  Total bill with tax and tip:  $16/pp 

Photo Credit:  Yelp  

Dimes Visited 2/7/2015 3.5 Forks

Dimes 143 Division St., New York, NY 10002

The cross section of Chinatown/Lower East Side seems to be the new hipster hot spot these days. There are tons of new restaurants popping up these days and Dimes is one that has gotten a lot of press these days.  I had actually tried to go to Dimes last year with my friend Nicole since she lives around the corner, but the place is literally the size of my kitchen and the wait was awful, so we left but I had bookmarked it as some place to return.

The appeal of Dimes is that it's like being in California - it's all healthy, clean, crunchy, granola type food but all in a good way.  The menu is full of salads and entrees with things like farro, quinoa, bulgar wheat, kale, and acai bowls (it's the only place I've seen acai outside of Brazil).   So you get the idea. I opted for the Summer Tacos ($8) because it was one of the rare items that had egg in it and it was brunch time, so I had to go with something that was more egg-y.  We also got the Love Toast ($6) for the table and I got a hot chai tea ($3.50).  The toast was essentially 2 pieces of wheat toast with housemade tahini, mint, honey and topped with raspberries.  I liked the combination of the tahini and honey - it was really filling and rich - it was kind of like having peanut butter and honey but slightly different with the tahini.  It's definitely something to think about as a substitute for my breads in the future.  Next came the summer tacos - luckily there were 2 of them but it didn't come with anything else on the plate.  Although I guess for $8, it makes sense that that's all you're going to get. At least they were some damn delicious tacos.  They are made with perfectly soft scrambled eggs, spicy mango salsa, tomatillo, cheddar cheese, avocado, hot sauce and cilantro.  The taco shell is a nice soft flour tortilla and all the flavors blend really well for each other.  It was a nice "healthy" breakfast - no meat, no carbs (except for the tortillas obviously) and not a lot of grease or oil to it. They were really quite fantastic and it made me think that I could go straight home and make my own breakfast tacos but I'm sure they wouldn't be as good.

The reason I don't give this place a higher rating is that it's really just a shitshow waiting for a table and then when you do sit down, it's a bit uncomfortably tight.  Luckily we had gotten one of the corner tables because we were a group of 3 but otherwise, everyone else seemed to be piled on top of each other.  It's just too small of the space to keep up with the demand.  The clientele is also a bit too hipster/model/too cool for school kind of vibe but I really can't complain when I do live in the epi-center of hipsterville.  I would definitely come back, maybe during an off hour when it's not so crowded.  If you're looking for some healthy, clean eating, Dimes is worth the trek and even if you're too lazy to wait, at least you can still walk around and grab some great food nearby in Chinatown. Total bill:  $20/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Skal Visited 8/29/2014 2.5 Forks

Skal 37 Canal St., New York, NY 10002

I was actually pretty excited when my friend Nicole mentioned that she wanted to try out this Icelandic restaurant near her apartment.  Ever since I visited Iceland last year, I have a soft spot for anything related to that area - ponies, sweaters, and even their food.  It's definitely not a cuisine that's very popular even in a diverse city like New York, but it has slowly started to make its way to America. 

We got a seat at one of the tables outside on a lovely Friday night.  The menu, as you can imagine, is fairly limited with about 6 appetizer dishes and and 6 entrees.  Based on my experience from visiting the country there last year, none of the dishes were particularly Icelandic - only the Arctic Char sounded remotely like it would be something you could find in Iceland.  Nicole had warned me before hand that a friend had told her that the portions would be very small and expensive, so I was bracing myself for a somewhat typical high brow NYC experience.  Based on that kind of feedback, you'd think this place would offer something like bread or something else to start the meal but we got none of that.  We were debating what to get as a starter and we were feeling a bit adventurous and decided on the raw beef appetizer ($15) - which is really just a bad name for beef tartare.  I was hemming and hawing between getting a fish or meat dish and resolved the dilemma by getting the diver scallops and pork belly ($25) dish while Nicole got the Char ($24).  Our raw beef came out and it was your standard beef tartare but without a raw egg on top.  It was served pretty finely chopped with littleneck clams and trout roe with toasted bread.  For those of you who get grossed out by raw meat, I get it, but this really didn't taste like what you would think.  It was a nicely done tartare albeit a pretty small serving for $15.

Then this is where things start to fall apart.  We waited over 45 minutes for our food with no apologies from our waitress or the owner who had been milling around the front of the house.  We chased down our waitress several times and instead of taking responsibility for it,  she looked like a scared little mouse and would mumble something and then run away from us.  To me, good customer service would be for her to say "I'm sorry this is taking so long, let me go and check on it for you" and then possibly offering up a free dessert or even going as far as comping one of our entrees for the long wait.  Tables who clearly came after us were getting served left and right and by the time we got our entrees, it was past 10:30 (we sat down at about 9pm) and we were both about to offer up the table $50 for their food.  Luckily when the food finally came, it was actually good but we were still pretty frustrated by the whole experience.  I will say that my dish was plated beautifully.  The diver scallops were a nice firm texture and were a pretty decent size.  The pork belly was a bit on the fatty side but the combination of the pork, scallop and sweet corn was a surprisingly balanced profile.  But as Nicole said, neither of our dishes seemed very Icelandic - more new American.  Since we were so hungry, we had finished our dishes in less than 15 minutes.  When the waitress came out and asked if we wanted dessert but without comping any of it, we took a pass.

It's not that I necessarily wanted free food, but more of a recognition that we were experiencing some poor customer service.  I expect a good restaurant, whether high end or a small shop, to do the right thing by their customers and we didn't get it here.   Total bill:  $41/pp with tip and tax

Photo Credit:  Yelp