Lowcountry Bistro Visited 9/21/2012 3.5 Forks

Lowcountry Bistro 49 S Market St., Charleston, SC 29401

A good friend of mine organized a fabulous trip to Charleston, SC and I was so excited to go because it's slowly becoming one of the top culinary destinations in the US.  I had a list of restaurants about 20+ deep that I had wanted to try but sicne we were actually staying on Isle of Palm, which is about 30 minutes away from Charleston, we didn't really get to try most of the restaurants on my list.  We ended up staying in and cooking dinner a lot at home, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  Oh well, who's up for another trip to Charleston to check off the rest of the places on my list?  The one restaurant we were able to try was Lowcountry Bistro right after the carriage ride downtown.  The carriage ride was beautiful and exactly what I thought of when I pictured the South.  Since we had a 2 year old with us, we couldn't really go anywhere fancy.  We had asked our tour guide where to go and he had suggested Lowcountry as some good Southern grub.

The great thing about this place was its location.  It was right off the main drag downtown so it was very convenient to get to.  The menu here was lots of fried Southern goodness.  I was so torn as to what to get: shrimp and grits, fried green tomatoes, pulled pork, mac and cheese, etc.  I finally settled on a grilled chicken sandwich with a carolina crab cake topped with a fried green tomato and aioli mayo and served with a side of sweet potato salad ($16).  A combination of almost everything I was looking for (if only the chicken was fried and not grilled - but probably better for my health) And of course since I was in the South, I had to order a side of grits ($4) with cheddar cheese and ham.  The rest of the table got a variety of Southern food such as shrimp and grits, pulled pork tacos, cornbead, fried okra, and stuffed mahi mahi.  My sandwich was pretty delicious.  The combination of the chicken, crab cake and fried green tomato was great and the texture of all 3 ingredients seemed to work well together.  My one complaint was that there was too much bread for the 3 patties and that's one of my biggest pet peeves when there's extra bread hanging off a sandwich.  The sweet potato salad, strangely, tasted exactly how it sounds.  While it didn't have mayo (thank god because I think it would have been weird), it was pieces of slightly undercooked sweet potatoes, served with spring onions and lots of sweet spices (such as cinnamon).  It wasn't really my thing but it was an interesting alternative to your usual mayo based white potato salad.  As for the grits, I did really like them, although they were a bit grainy and just a little bit dry.  But I did love the fact that it wasn't boring and flavorless like a lot of grits I've had in NYC but that it wasn't doused in butter to give it flavor either.

All in all, Lowcountry perfectly suited for what we needed for the group: big space, convenient location and good ole Southern food.  This doesn't mean that I wouldn't have loved to try all the other restaurants that were talked about (Husk, Fig, Hank's seafood, etc).  I will just have to make another trip back down South to fit them all in.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Bubby's Pie Company Visited 9/16/2012 3 Forks

Bubby's Pie Company 120 Hudson St., (between Franklin St & Moore St), New York, NY 10013

Bubby's is mostly well known for being a brunch place and pretty kid friendly.  My one experience with Bubby's was many years ago at the location in DUMBO and I remember being so appalled at all the kids screaming and running around that I just couldn't bring myself to ever go back.  Plus I didn't think the brunch food was all that great.  Fast forward to this week and a good friend of mine's husband was in town and wanted to go Bubby's for dinner, so I figured it was worth a try for dinner instead of brunch.

The crowd is definitely more tame (but there were 1-2 screaming kids there) and the dinner menu is mostly comfort food such as meatloaf, mac and cheese, burgers, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, etc.  For some reason, they weren't serving the dinner portion of the mac and cheese (which was probably a good thing for me), and I was feeling particularly hungry so I went for the house made burger with American cheese ($17.50) and it came with 1 side (I got the mashed potatoes).  Aarti and I split the side of mac and cheese ($7) and she was pretty healthy and got the market salad ($9) and a side of broccoli ($7).  Karsten got the BBQ plate with pulled pork ($27) and 2 sides.  I wasn't expecting much from the burger, but it was actually pretty home-y looking and tasting and I mean that in a good sense.  You could tell that it was made in house because the patty had that look of not being processed or frozen and kind of cobbled together that only a in house ground patty could have.  The cheese was melted directly on there so it was nice and gooey and the size of the burger was enough to feed 2 people (so of course I had to eat the whole thing).  The bread was soft enough to make the meal complete but strong enough to hold the juices of the meat.  But one huge downside of the burger was that it was super salty.  I could not get enough water during and after dinner.  The mashed potatoes were your standard mom mashed potatoes (meaning lots of butter) and I ate the entire scoop of it.  Despite my excitement for the mac and cheese, I was so full that I only took a few bites of it but along with the comfort food theme, it was simple yet tasty.  Although Bubby's is also famous for pie, none of us could muster up the appetite to eat anything else.

If I lived in Tribeca or just happened to be near by, I would consider hopping in here again when I have a comfort food craving (which is really all that often) but it's not some place that I would commute into the city for very often unless asked to.  Total bill:  $$90 for 3 people with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Snack Taverna Visited 9/14/2012 4 Forks

Snack Taverna 63 Bedford St., (between Commerce St & Morton St), New York, NY 10014

It was nights like last night that make me hate New York.  Aarti and I decided to get dinner on a beautiful Friday night around 9pm.  In any other city, that's pretty late enough that it shouldn't be an issue to find a place to eat.  Except for the fact that I live in NYC, it's literally the city that never sleeps.  Every place that we tried to go had either a line what spilled out on to the street (Rosemary's), over an hour wait (Yerrba Buena), or an hour and 30 minutes (Commerce).  Of course then the places that did look like they had seating made us wonder why no one was there.  In the end, we said that we would try one more place before just calling it a night and getting something sad like Chipotle or Subway.  We ended up at Snack Taverna and we literally got the last table in the place.

Now I'm not giving them 4 forks simply because it was the one place that had seating but because the food is legitimately delicious there.  Greek food is one of those types of food that I rarely think of but when I do have it, I remember how much I love it (see my review for Pylos).  By the time we got our menu it was almost 10pm, so Aarti and I went to town and ordered everything our stomachs could handle.  Seriously, I kept rattling off dishes and the waitress looked at us like there should be more people.  We got the tzatziki ($8), saganaki ($11), lamb stifado ($14), spinach triangles ($12), zucchini fritters ($10), and a small greek salad ($12).   The saganaki (pan seared kefalotyri cheese with lemon and tomato) came out first and while I would have liked it set on fire in front of me (like how they do it in Greece), you just can't go wrong with a square of fried cheese.  Next came the greek salad and tzatziki (yogurt, cucumber and garlic).  Oh my, the tzatziki was amazing.  I wish that it came in a bigger size than the small dish we got.  I wanted to put it on everything else we ate and the pita that came with it was super soft and the perfect combination for it.  The greek salad was also fabulous.  It had bright red juicy chunks of tomato, a huge block of aged feta cheese, red onions and cucumber with a perfect olive oil/herb dressing.  I always think I can make a greek salad at home but it just never tastes as good as it does in restaurants.  I also thought the zucchini fritters were great too.  They were these 3 fried fritters that came stuffed with feta, kefalotyri cheese, garlic and tomato sauce.  It was pretty rich with all the different cheeses but at least there were only 3 of them.  By the time I got to the lamb stifado, I was pretty stuffed but I always have room for a good meat dish. Unfortunately, I wasn't super impressed with this dish.  It was braised lamb in a tomato and pearl onion sauce.  It was a bit too salty and the lamb could have been cut smaller and more tender.  It was actually my least favorite dish of the night.  Funny that the one meat dish was my least favorite.  The spinach triangles was you typical spanakopita with spinach wrapped in phyllo dough.  It was totally fine but by the time I got it, I was ready to keel over with fullness.

I am totally thankful that we were able to avoid a Friday night dinner at Chipotle and Snack totally came through in a big way.  I would definitely come here again on a random dinner outing again and it has reinvigorated my interest in Greek food.  Total bill: $120 with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Bunna Cafe Visited 9/8/2012 3.5 Forks

Bunna Cafe -  Location Varies

I am pretty big fan of Ethiopian food but there generally aren't a lot of them around. There's  Ghenet, Meskerem, and Awash just to name a few but there's probably not that many more.  I had been reading about this vegan Ethiopian place that pops up around Williamsburg and Bushwick and I was totally intrigued.  Luckily this past Saturday, they popped up near my apartment at a bar called The West on Union Ave and Hope Street (haha, the corner of Hope and Union - I'm not sure if that is some kind of sign for me).

I wasn't sure what to expect...I kind of thought that they would actually take over the entire place and cook the food there like they did at Yuji Ramen.  But instead here it's still primarily a bar/cafe and Bunna Cafe just had a table set-up in the back of the bar with containers and bags of food.  You walk up to the table and order what you want and they plate it right there.  You have a choice of 4 dishes ($8) or all 7 for $12.  Of course I had to get all 7 and boy is it a lot of food on one small plate.  When you get all 7 you get gomen (steamed kale with carrots, red onion, ginger, garlic and herbs), misir wot (red lentils), yeter kik alicha (yellow split peas with yellow curry), keysir (beets, carrots and potatoes), yesuf fit fit (sunflower milk and peppers), yetimatim selata (raw tomatoes with lime juice and oil) and chuny selata (kale, tomato raisin and avocaod in olive oil).  And of course you get 3 helpings of the spongy bread, injera. 

All of the food was super fresh and healthy tasting (I mean, it is vegan after all).  The problem with Ethiopian food is that it's usually served all on 1 plate and it's hard to decipher what's what as everything gets mixed together.  So I had a hard time telling what I was eating and what I liked the most.  I do know that I found myself going back to the yellow split pea section and the split red lentils multiple times.  I did manage to try all of the dishes (I think) but could barely finish half of the plate.  There wasn't any one dish that I didn't enjoy eating.   The food was all flavorful without being overwhelming.  I also really loved their injera.  It was super soft and spongey but strong enough to hold all your food with each bite.  While I don't mind vegan food at all, the dishes that I do usually like with Ethiopian food include egg and lamb and it was sorely missed here.  Aarti also made a comment about how it was also a bit different (not necessarily good or bad) that all of the food was served cold.  By the nature of their set-up, they had to cook all the food first and then serve it on beds of ice.  Usually when the food comes from a restaurant, some of the dishes are warm, so it did kind of feel like we were eating at a picnic instead of a restaurant.  My one small pet peeve is that when I am eating at a place that serves food that requires you to eat with your hands, you should get wet naps in addition to just napkins.  Yes, I know, you can always go to the bathroom to wash your hands, but it would just be a nice touch.  I do love the idea of pop-up shops and I would try Bunna if it pops up at other places nearby, but I would definitely get the 4 dishes for $8 instead. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Sushi Damo Visited 9/1/2012 3 Forks

Sushi Damo 36-G Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD 20850

Every time I come home to Rockville/Bethesda, I am always amazed at how much has changed.  Growing up, there were no super fancy restaurants and definitely no trendy sushi places.  But now in the Rockville Town Center, there are tons of restaurants such a sports bar/breweries, Thai, Middle Eastern, Spanish and fancy pants sushi.  Sushi Damo reminds me of a few sushi places in New York that have hip decor but overpriced ok food inside.  The decor here is large and cavernous with sleek paintings and lighting.  But because this is Rockville, the clientele is still a bit suburban.  

The menu is pretty extensive and about $5 more than it should be for Maryland.  The specialty rolls were all north of $14, which to me is pretty ridiculous.  Plus I'm not a huge fan of places that have special rolls that just try to cram in everything but the kitchen sink in them.  Who wants to have a sushi roll that has strawberry sauce and mint or a roll topped with corn flakes? I mean, I completely appreciate places that try to be creative and different but sometimes when it comes to sushi, less is more.  I wasn't really in the mood to drop $30+ on dinner (contemplated getting the sashimi or chirashi but both were almost $30 each) , so I settled for the boring Spicy Roll Combo ($17) which came with spicy tuna, spicy salmon and spicy yellowtail and a salad.  Jeana and I split an order of edamame ($5) to start.  I usually bitch about how an entire bag of edamame for $2 but at least here, they do almost give you an entire bags worth of edamame for your money.  It was so much that it took us almost the entire dinner to finish the order.  The salad that came with the combo was fine, your usual Japanese side salad with mixed greens and ginger dressing.  Although I would have liked for them to mix the vegetables up some more, since it looked like they plunked down the mixed greens on one side of the plate, some chopped cucumber on the other side of the plate and then cherry tomatoes on the bottom corner.  The actual roll combo itself was totally fine, nothing special.  I usually prefer the spicy rolls that have the larger chunks of fish in the roll and then topped with a spicy mayo, but these spicy rolls were the kind that were chopped up fish mixture with no spicy mayo.  There were about 6 rolls of each kind, so after 18 rolls total, I was pretty full.  For $17, this was totally a fine meal but I wasn't wow'd over by the quality of the rolls.  If I had closed my eyes, I probably wouldn't really be able to decipher which roll was which.  But I did appreciate that there wasn't a ton of rice on the outside of the roll.  I hate places that serve rolls with almost a pound of rice on the outside to the point where you can't taste the fish.  All in all, it's nice that there is a place like this nearby and it's not so wildly expensive that you couldn't afford it every once and a while.  But I still prefer Tachibana in Virgina for my hometown sushi visits.  The quality there is amazing and much more affordable.  Total bill: $53 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp   

East Pearl Visited 8/31/2012 3.5 Forks

East Pearl 838 B Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852

Even though I am Chinese, I actually rarely have authentic Chinese food often because I rely on my mom to order the good stuff "off-menu".  Yes, it's true.  In most Chinese restaurants, if you're Chinese, you can order and get things that are not on the English menu.  Or if you're my mom, you just ask what's good and have them bring it out.  While I generally mock strip mall restaurants, I gotta say, the food at East Pearl was pretty good and is the kind of Chinese food that I crave when I'm in New York (tasty but not fancy).

As usual, it's always a good sign when the ethnic restaurant you want to try is full of people of that race.  So when we walked into East Pearl, it was jammed packed with lots of Chinese people, so I knew it had to be at least decent.  And as usual, I just sit back and let my mom ask a ton of questions and order for the table.  The best way to eat food like this is with a huge group (4+ people), but since it was just the 3 of us, we had to dial it back a bit.  We ordered the fried cod fish ($21.95), water spinach, clams in black bean sauce, and assorted meats, seafood and bean curd casserole ($14) - the reason I don't have the prices down for all of these dishes is because they aren't listed on their webpage - see what I mean by "off-menu"?.  The fried cod fish was delicious.  It was 2 large cod steaks lightly battered and fried like tempura and covered with a light soy sauce.  Despite being fried, it didn't taste oily or unhealthy and the fish inside was nice and tender.  I actually really love cod as it's one of the lighter non-fishy tasting fishes.  Next came the "casserole" dish - I'm not sure why they call it a casserole except for the fact that it comes in a casserole like pot.  The pot came with tons of scallops, squid, shrimp, mushrooms,  and bean curd in a thick brown sauce.  Yum.  The one disappointment was that there was almost no meat in it.  The type of Chinese food this place is known for is its BBQ meats and we were told that this dish would have BBQ'd pork in it.  For this reason alone, we did not order a separate order of BBQ'd meats.  But this casserole dish had literally 1 teeny tiny piece of pork in it.  I mean, it looked like a scrap of meat that had fallen off the cutting board by accident.  So that was a big bummer. 

The water spinach was served with about 10 cloves are garlic and it was by far the largest bowl of veggies I've ever seen.  You know how spinach usually shrinks to about 1/2 it's size when cooked?  They must have used about 25 lbs of spinach here because the bowl that came out could have served 10 people.  I kept eating the greens but felt like it wasn't making a dent at all.  But you can never really go wrong with sauteed greens with garlic in a Chinese restaurant.  The bummer of the meal was the clams in black bean sauce.  This is a dish that I typically love love love.  The problem with this dish was that the clams weren't all that plump and the black bean sauce was super salty and overwhelming. 

As I sat there at dinner, I was noticing tons of other great looking dishes go past us, but it's just too damn hard to eat family style with less than 4 people.  My mom and Mike did mention that they came a few weeks ago and the food was just eh, but that the restaurant was only a few months old.  So it sounds like they are still getting their sea legs going, but I wouldn't hesitate to go back and give it another try, especially since it's about 5 minutes from my mom's place.  Total bill: $68 with tax

Photo Credit: Yelp

Mussel Bar Visited 8/31/2012 3 Forks

Mussel Bar 7262 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814

Usually when I am back home in MD, I go to the same old places to eat: Pho 75, New Fortune, and Tachibana.  I'm usually not home long enough to stray and try something new.  But this time, I was home in MD for a week and since I was meeting Elissa in Bethesda, it was time to try something new.  Downtown Bethesda has exploded in recent years and there are so many new, yuppie-looking, and trendy restaurants that I hardly recognize it as the town I grew up in.

Downtown Bethesda is usually a mad house but since Elissa and I met on the Friday before Labor Day weekend, things were pretty quiet.  In fact, when we walked into Mussel Bar there was only 1 table occupied, which was great because this let little Max run around a bit without getting in people's way.  As the name of the restaurant indicates, its primary feature is a variety of mussels.  While I generally love mussels, I felt that since I was in MD, I should try to get things that New York doesn't really offer (which isn't too much but there are a few things that I can't usually find there).  So I got the crab cake sandwich ($16) and Elissa got the Wild Mushroom Mussels ($20).  Yes, you can definitely find crab cakes in New York, but I find that they are usually more filler than crabmeat.  I was super excited for the sandwich and when it came out, it looked like it had a lot of promise.  It was on a brioche-type bun and I could see the crab meat oozing out on the edges.  However, my one complaint with the sandwich was that there was too much damn cole slaw on top of the crab cake that at points I felt like I was eating a cole slaw sandwich instead.  I understand that the cole slaw was there to add some mayo and moisture to the sandwich but it was too overpowering.  But when I did get to taste the crab cake, it was great and very crabby with not a ton of filler. I just wished that the sandwich was more focused on the crab cake itself.  The sandwich also came with fries that were nicely cooked and were more on the thin side but crispy on the outside.  I didn't get a chance to try Elissa's mussels but they were swimming in a cream sauce and she did mention that it was a bit too heavy for a lunch time meal.  I prefer my mussels to be in a white wine broth or something lighter than what I was seeing in her dish.  But I will say that her order was huge and you could also split that order with two people.  I would like to give a shout out to the waitstaff.  Granted there was almost no one in the restaurant, but they were super attentive and friendly and very accommodating about Max.  I am glad that I did try a new and different place to eat in MD and it gives me some slight hope that not everything in the suburbs are bland and awful.  Total bill: $50 with tax.

Photo Credit: Yelp