Eataly Visited 12/9/10 2.75 Forks

Eataly  200 5th Ave, New York, NY 10010

Ah, Eataly.  It has probably been one of the most talked and blogged about openings this year.  I decided to wait a while before going since I had heard that it gets pretty crowded.  Nancy and I decided to get there early so that we could avoid standing and get a seat at one of the restaurants.  There are 4 restaurants in the complex: a seafood restaurant, a veggie restaurant, a pizza and pasta restaurant.  But the confusing thing is there are a bunch of other standing room only eating places.  This place tries to do too much in the space it's given, even though the space is pretty huge.  It's got a market, coffee bar, dessert area, and then shove in a bunch of restaurants and stands and you are really at a loss of where to go. 

We had originally decided to go to the seafood restaurant, but after reading the menu I wasn't really feeling it.  So we went to the veggie place, Le Verdure instead.  The menu was a bunch of cold and hot dishes that were entirely made of vegetables.  We split the special bruchetta (it had king, oyster and other types of mushrooms for $15), the eggplant salad ($14) and the acorn squash ($17).  The bruchetta were pretty large pieces and it came topped with the mushroom mix and sauteed onions.  The was pretty good, but I thought some of the mushrooms were a bit overcooked and could have been more tender.  The eggplant salad came with a arugula salad and capers.  The eggplant was pretty skinny and not very meaty.  I've had much better and fattier eggplant in thai restaurants.  But I did really like the arugula salad, it was seasoned and dressed very well.  Next came the warm acorn squash with black lentils and balsamic vinegar. This dish was described as hearty and I would agreed.  I've never had acorn squash and it while it tasted like squash, it did have a very meaty fall feel to it.  The lentils were small and looked exactly like the capers on the other dish, but they were a good compliment to the squash.  All in all, the meal was fine but when you think about how I spent $30 on 3 dishes of vegetables.  We then stopped to get some dessert and split a run/chocolate cake ($5.80).  It was good, but could have used more rum and for $6, should have been much bigger.  Eataly is definitely a beautiful space and I'm sure if I was a connoisseur of specialty Italian produce, I might like it more but in general I got the feeling that it's all about being unnecessarily expensive.  I'm glad to cross it off my list, but will unlikely come back to the sit down restaurants.  Some of the standing only places looked fun, but if the prices are as outrageous as the sit down restaurants, I'd rather get my Italian food in old school Williamsburg.  

Bombay Talkie Visited 12/7/10 3.75 Forks

Bombay Talkie  189 9th Ave, (between 21st St & 22nd St), New York, NY 10011

I really love Indian food but never seem to have it too often.  I had been holding on to this BBE coupon for a while, so when my friend Swaroopa and I decided to have dinner, we thought it would be a good time to try it out.  It's in a super cute part of Chelsea that I don't go to that often, but as I was walking there I realized how nice of a neighborhood is it.  Most of the Indian places that I've been to are a bit on the "edgy" side (i.e. not fancy), so this place was a real change.  It's quite trendy inside complete with a mural, fine plating and fancy cocktails.  The front page of the meal is "street food" or appetizer type foods and then the 2nd and 3rd page are entrees (one side for vegetarians and another side of non-vegetarians, which is a nice touch when you are eating out with a vegetarian).  The prices were a bit higher than I normally pay for Indian food, but I guess that's what you get when you're in a slightly more upscale area.  I got the Biryani with lamb ($18) and Swaroopa got the vegetarian kati roll ($10) and Dosa ($10).  Typically I would share a bunch of dishes with who I am with, but this time it just made more sense to do our separate things, but there were a bunch of dishes that did sound delicious.  

The Biryani was listed as the Bombay Talkie special, so how could I not get it?  I've never had it before and this was described as lightly spiced lamb (or chicken) with mint, coriander, coconut milk, basmati rice, and cashews.  In all honestly, it tasted really good but I didn't get a feel for all of these different ingredients.  I usually have a pretty sharp palate, but I didn't taste any coconut milk and the only mint seemed to have been in the yogurt-like cooling agent that came on the side.  It was almost more like a Indian fried rice with lamb.  Despite not tasting like what it said, I did really enjoy it.  While I didn't have any of Swaroopa's food, she seemed to like the Dosa but wasn't a huge fan of the kati roll, thus the slightly lower rating.  The total was originally $41 (which seems a bit high for only 2 appetizers and 1 entree), but with the BBE discount it was only $28!  I would come back but maybe order a few more smaller dishes to share.  It's definitely a nice change from the dive-y Indian places on 6th street (although those places always have a place in my heart).        

Bozu Visited 11/29/10 3 Forks

Bozu  296 Grand St, (between Roebling St & Havemeyer St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

Ever since I came back from Thailand and Cambodia I was having a serious hankering for sushi.  So when Dan had suggested sushi I was thrilled.  Honestly, I would have been perfectly content with a neighborhood divey place, but Dan suggested something nicer, so I was fine with that.  I had taken him to Bozu for his birthday a few years ago and remember really liking it, so I was excited to go back.
 
We get there around 7pm on a Monday and it was pretty empty.  I have always like the decor of this place, even the outside (which is pretty hidden).  The inside is very dark looking with exposed brick on one side and a large sit down square sushi bar in the middle and then all these cool looking red maskes hanging from the ceiling.    The menu is not your traditional sushi place.  They have a bunch of small plates, hot dishes, and other tapas and then they have a small variety of sushi "bombs" and sushi rolls in the back, but it's not a huge long list and it's kind of different from your typical "spicy tuna roll" - although they do have a version of their own.  One of the first things we notice is that all the sake there was pretty expensive.  The cheapest bottle was $26, so we both ended up just getting a glass ($8 for mine and $12 for Dan's, so I guess in retrospect spending an additional $6 for more sake wouldn't have been so bad).  We started with the seaweed salad  ($5) which was fine, kind of your standard salad.  We orderd 4 differnt bombs/rolls: the salmon/sea urchin special ($9), the hotate bomb ($6), the mexican bomb ($6), and a guacamole tuna roll ($6).  I loved the salmon/sea urchin special.  I have been wanting to try sea urchin for a while and this totally melted in your mouth and it was a nice combination with the fresh tasting salmon.  I thought the the two bombs we got were fine, but they were a bit heavy on the rice and for $6, we only got 3 bombs each, which I thought was too little.  For $6, they should at least offer you 6 pieces! I mean, that's usually standard and in some places they even offer you 8 pieces.  The mexican bomb did have a nice kick with the green tomoato sauce, but I'm not sure I really loved it on my food.  The tuna roll was good but frankly it just tasted like a giant piece of tuna in a roll.  They don't have giner with their sushi, instead they have a homemade pickled cabbage/beet (?) side.  The cutest part of the meal was the soy sauce: they had 3 options, 1 without wasabi, 1 with a little bit and one that was basically wasbi with a little bit of soy sauce.  Of course Dan and I go straight for the strongest one and it did not disappoint.
 
I'm can't remember why I lliked it so much the first time, maybe it was because we ordered a lot more food because it was Dan's birthday, but this time we definitely left feeling hungry.  We actually planned what our snack would be while we were still at the table.  For $68 (with tip and tax), I definitely don't feel like I got my money's worth, but it's still a cute place to check out if you're not starving.

Viet Royale Visited 11/27/10 3.75 Forks

Viet Royale 6767 Wilson Blvd, Falls Church, VA 22044

In the same vein for trying new restaurants when I am home, I had wanted to go to Eden Center for a while.  It's a very well known Vietnamese shopping complex in Virginia and as a lover of all Vietnamese food (not just pho), I had really wanted to try this place out.  The problem was that there are so many places that I didn't know which specific restaurant to try.  By the time we got to Eden, it was 2pm and I as so hungry that I could have cared less where we went.

Viet Royale was one of the first places we saw and it had a bunch of Washingtonian awards in its window, so how bad could it be? It was in fact very good.  There's not much decor to speak of but I never really expect that in Asian restaurants.  Of course, instead of picking dishes, my mom just asks the waitress what she recommends.  So we ended up getting fried spring rolls, a seafood pancake/crepe, bun with pork wrapped around a sugarcane, and a fish dish with a camarlized sauce in a claypot (sorry that I can't remember the actual names or number of the dishes).  The waitress was extremely friendly and I thought that the overall service was really good.  The food came out quickly and the waitress was attentive and asked us if we liked her selections. 

The fried spring rolls were quite food and flavorful with pork inside.  It was fried just long enough to be crispy on the outside but the skin wasn't so thick that you felt like you were just eating fried dough.  I loved the side of fish sauce and pickled veggies they give you.  It really brings out the flavor of the rolls.  Next came the seafood/bean sprout pancake.  It's basically a giant crepe filled with some shrimp/pork and beansrpouts.  While this was good, it was a bit disappointing to not have more seafood in it and the thiness of the crepe made it a bit difficult to eat.  It did have a slight coconut flavor to it which was a nice twist.  Then the bun with pork sugarcane came out.  Bun is basically vermicelli noodles with some greens/sliced cucumber and then usually a meat.  I had never really had bun before but had heard that it's a popular Vietnamese dish.  While the pork was good, I wasn't too sure what to do with the noodles.  They didn't really have any taste to it.  Maybe I should have wrapped it in the lettuce, but that was a bit unclear. The fish was dish was my favorite.  The pieces of fish were tender and tasty (no bones) and the sauce was sweet but not overpowering.  It went really well with the rice and filled me up perfectly.  The meal ended with complementary "dessert" which was a tapioca,corn,pea cold soup.  It was nice of them to give it to us and it was fine, but as I have said many times before, Asians just don't do desserts very well.  The only reason I'm not giving it 4 Forks is because the bill ended up being a bit more than I would usually like for this type of food.  It was $55 with tip and tax for 3, which in theory isn't a lot, but when you're used to paying $6/dish usually, this seemed a bit much.  But with the American Express Small Business Saturday promo, I ended up getting $25 back on my statement!

Silver Fountain Visited 11/25/10 3.75 Forks

Silver Fountain  13533 Connecticut Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20906

Everytime I go home there is a set list of restaurants that I go to, so this time I thought I would shake it up and try places where I have never been to before.  My mom had been to Silver Fountain before and said that many people considered it the best dim sum in town.  So of course I had to try it. 

It's located in the Aspen Hill strip mall and a bit hard to find.  Once inside, it's your typical chinese restaurant.  Huge dining room jam packed with thousands of tables.  We went on Thanksgiving morning a(leave it to Chinese people to be open on a holiday) and it was totally full.  We had to wait about 30 minutes to get a table.  We were seated in the corner, which I generally don't like because sometimes the carts forget to come to your table, which was exactly what happened.  Actually, I'm not sure if it was more the fact that no carts were coming than they were forgetting about us.  A good 15-20 minutes went by before the first cart came and for a while it was the same dishes being circulated around.  We had heard that the steamer was broken, which is a big deal since most of the dumplings need to be steamed.  But once the carts were back in action, the food came quickly.  We got the usual line up of suspects: shrimp crepe, shumai, shrimp dumplings, shrimp balls with a crab claw, sticky rice in a leaf, turnip cake, chicken's feet and a few other veggie and meat dumplings.  I will say that I thought that the shumai and steamed dumplings were much better and fresher tasting than the usual place I go to in Gaithersburg while some other stuff like the shrimp crepe tasted the same.

The problem with usual place that I go to is that the food is hit or miss. Sometimes it's fine but there have been times where the food is lukewarm to a bit cold.  I could definitely tell the difference here and while it's a bit further away, I would not hesitate to come back here again, especially when the prices were about the same.  Total bill for tons of food was around $45 for 3 people.

Thailand and Cambodia Trip Nov 2010

I know I have been MIA for a bit but I recently went on vacation to Thailand and Cambodia and am only now getting back in to gear.  While the food in SE Asia is amazing everywhere, I will just highlight where I stayed and a few places I went to:

Bangkok

LeBua at State Tower  1055 Silom Road, Bangkok, 10500, Thailand, 02-624 9999

I can not say enough about LeBua.  It is simply the most fantastic hotel I have ever stayed at.  The rooms are spacious, with amazingly comfortable beds and huge marble bathrooms.  The service is impeccable.  When I told them we had an early flight out and would miss the breakfast buffet, they packed us each boxed breakfasts complete with sandwiches with the crust cut off, a bunch of pastries, yogurt, hard boiled egg, and juice.  But the actual breakfast there is AMAZ-BALLS.  It's got anything you can think of: omelet station, 100 different pastries, various dim sum, sushi, 6 different fresh juices, deviled eggs, meats and cheeses, carving station, thai food, indian food, lots of different kinds of yogurt parafaits, and salad bar.  I could have stayed there all day.  We also ordered room service the night we got there late.  I will say that it's definitely more expensive than in regular restaurants and definitely much more expensive than street food.  But the food was quite tasty and one of the better room service meals I've had.  The top floor of the hotel is also known as the Skybar and the views are quite breathtaking.  You can see almost all of the city and their bright lights.  The drinks at the bar are very expensive ($15) and it's quite a scene, but worth visiting.

We also went to the Chatuchuck market which is this amazing outdoor street market 30 outside of Bangkok.  Inside there is a small "food court" with a bunch of street food.  I had a stir fried noodles, which were basically wide noodles with some veggies and chicken in a basic brown sauce.  It was pretty good and cost about $3.  I would have loved to explore and eaten more street food, maybe next time.

Siem Reap

This was my favorite city by favorite city on this trip.  We stayed at the beautiful Pavillon D'Orient.   The food there is much more mild and less spicy than Thai food.  Our hotel was also great and they had free breakfast every morning.  They had various fruit and croissants and then offered your choice of egg, fried rice, or noodle soup.  I started off getting eggs and I should have known that you shouldn't usually get something that a country is not known for.  The omelet was ok, but not great and the scrambled eggs were a bit dry.  So my last day there I got the chicken fried rice and Aarti got the noodle soup and they were both AMAZING.  The fried egg on my fried rice was just perfectly done and Aarti's noodle soup was a clear broth but still flavorful.  We also ate at a restaurant called Cafe Indochine (44 Sivatha Street) which is this cute kind of bungalow style restaurant.  It did have a lot of tourists, which is kind of a bad sign, but the food was decent.  I had the fish amok, which is a local dish. It's basically pieces of white fish in a coconut style curry like sauce.  We also had stir fried morning glory, which is really just a stemmy green and it was pretty tasty.  We also ate at Chamkar (The Passage, mid way along, Old Market) which is a vegetarian restaurant.  We had mushroom with beansprout,eggplant, and a mango salad.  The mango salad was by far my favorite.  It had the right level of citrus and sweetness from the mango.  The eggplant was a bit too smoky tasting for me and I liked the mushroom/beansprout dish although it was kind of hard to tell it was actually mushroom for some reason.  The restaurant was in the middle of a million other restaurants in the Old Market, so it might be hard to find and is probably a bit pricey (our total meal was $16) compared to other real local places.  The other place we ate at was this Khmer Family restaurant (?), it's right outside the outskirts of Angkor Wat and our driver (who I loved and would recommend to anyone!!) took us there twice.  It's a cute local restaurant with very basic food.  There's nothing amazing about the place and it's probably a bit more than it needs to be ($5-6 a dish), but I had a really healthy tasting noodle soup, which I would have again.

Krabi, Thailand

We ended our travels at the Sheraton in Krabi.  It's a bit far from everything, which is kind of nice because it's quiet and not chaotic.  While the hotel itself is beautiful, the food was the biggest disappointment there.  We used cash and points, so it didn't include breakfast which was a bit annoying.  We also had lunch there and it was pretty expensive ($15) and it wasn't that great.  There are two places within 2 minutes from the hotel that are pretty good.  One is to the right of the hotel when you're on the beach.  I don't know the name of the restaurant, but I thought the food was really good.  The seafood pad thai was $3 and very moist and flavorful and better than what I've had at home.  The other restaurant called The Terrace is right across the street.  I ordered the green curry fried rice, which was a big mistake! Not because the food is bad but because it was so spicy!!

This dish seriously almost took my face off.  It looks so unassuming, but it really packs a punch.  I literally had tears streaming down my face.  The food in general in Thailand is extremely spicy.  You have to say no spice and then even then it'll still be spicy.  We also at the Indian restaurant next door called Royal Clay Oven, and it was surprisingly very good.  We had a lentil dish and paneer dish which we demolished.  The only thing I didn't like was the naan, it was too dry and brittle.  I usually like my naan a bit moist so that I can sop up the rest of my food, this was too hard to really help collect the food. Another place we went to was in town (Ao Nang) at the seafood place.  I was really excited to eat some fresh seafood, but instead the dish I ordered was overcooked (granted I ordered the seafood hot plate and it was literally on fire before being served to me) and there wasn't enough variety in the type of seafood.  Maybe if I had ordered a whole fish or non hot plate it would have had more flavor instead of just a burnt taste.

All in all the food in SE Asia is amazing.  I would have liked to have been a bit more adventurous and had more local street food, but there's also a slightly danger in that.  The food is so cheap and good that it hurts to pay so much for food in the US that's half as good.  Even though the food scene may not always look sterile, the food always seemed "untainted" (locally grown and purchased daily from the markets), I don't recall ever seeing any canned or preserved food used.  There is so much more to Asia that I would love to see and I can't wait to go back again.

Spice Market Visited 11/2/10 3.75 Forks

Spice Market  403 W 13th St, (between 9th Ave & Washington St), New York, NY 10014

 Spice Market is one of those ultra trendy, New York scene type of restaurants.  Despite that, I was pretty excited to go for a client dinner this week, after all it is a Jean-George restaurant.  


My first impression is that the decor was gorgeous.  It's got a rustic Asian theme with beautiful wood work and giant paper lanterns.  The waitstaff was also dressed in "asian" wear, which for the women were these shirts that were completely held together by ties in the back. 

It says on the menu that the food should be ordered family style, so you would think that the portions would be slightly larger.  But as we started to order the waitress informed us that the appetizers were pretty small and that we should order 2 of everything.  I don't know if that was a sales ploy or not, but it worked.  We ordered double orders of the crab dumplings, lobster summer roll, chicken samosa, chicken skewers, and spring rolls.  Entree wise we had ordered the seafood laksa, halibut, red snapper, char grilled chicken, strip steak, short ribs, and grilled eggplant.  Clearly after a few ginger martinis, we were ordering like there was no tomorrow. I think we ordered so much food they brought us a complimentary shrimp and pineapple dish.  I'm not sure what the rub/sauce was on it, but it was a very thick brown spicy sauce, but the shrimp was cooked really well and I actually enjoyed the grilled pineapple.

When our appetizers started coming it was very clear that we went overboard with the ordering.  The problem with ordering a bunch of small plates with lots of people at the table is that you don't really get to appreciate or taste the food. I got one or two bites of each dish so it was hard to me to really decide if I liked or didn't like a dish (and the fact that I was on my 3rd drink).  I do know that I did like everything I ate.  Everything was seasoned well and it definitely had that "asian" twist. Most of the dishes came with very tasty sauces like spicy mayo for the rolls, cilantro yogurt for the samosa, and lime dipping sauce for the chicken skewers.  The chicken was cooked to a nice juicy level, none of it was dry which is key.  The crab dumplings were also done well but were a bit flat in texture.  I thought that the aromatic spice sauce was a bit too smokey and thick and the snow peas were overly cooked and not crunchy.  In all honesty, we could have and should have just ended dinner there.  I was so full, but then the entrees came out.  At this point, I could really barely remember the entrees.  There were just too many flavors running around my belly from all the appetizers.  I manage to try all of them except for the grill chicken.  At that point I just really thought I was going to explode.  I think the laksa was a bit thin, but all the fishes were cooked pretty well.  The steak was pretty well done but they warned us that was how they would do it in advance. 

Shockingly, some people were still up for dessert at the end.  Two people ordered the sorbert and it came out in these chinese take-out boxes filled the the brim with sorbet.  But they said that it was too hard and we had to practically hold it over the candle to defrost it.  

The reason I am not giving it 4 forks is that the prices there are pretty outrageous.  I mean they are pretty in line with typical trendy New York restaurants, but I just can never justify prices like these unless the meal truly blows my mind (a la Blue Hill at Stone Barns), which this place didn't.  The appetizers ranged in the $12-15 and the entrees were all over $20.  I don't think I would go here on my own, but I think it's a great place for client dinners or for out of town guests as it really is a beautiful restaurant.  I will say the waitstaff was super attentive.  One person at our table had a celery allergy and the waitstaff went in and asked the chef for the ingredients in all the dishes we ordered and made it very clear which dishes had celery or not. I have no idea how much the bill was, I'm just glad I wasn't the one paying!