Taqueria Lower East Side Visited 9/17/2013 3.5 Forks

Taqueria Lower East Side 198 Orchard St., (between Stanton St & Houston St), New York, NY 10002

My review here will be a bit limited because, well frankly, I was drunk when I got here and it was really used as a place to continue the night and absorb the alcohol at the same time.  A bunch of us ended up here after seeing our friend Jill play a show at Rockwood Music Hall and we were all starving.  This place was around the corner and Mexican food really is the perfect food to have after a few drinks. 

Fair warning about this place, it's about the size of my bathroom.  It probably didn't help that we were a group of 6 people, so that made it doubly hard to get a seat.  We shoved our selves at the "bar" and ordered some guacamole and margaritas while we waited for our table.  The place is your classic Lower East Side joint with really loud music and really loud people, so don't come here thinking that you're going to have a nice quiet night out.  We finally got a table and the menu here is perfect for a night out:  lots of different kinds of cheap tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, and platos.  We ordered more margaritas and guacamole (solid guacamole) and split the mushroom quesadilla ($5) and the ham and cheese quesadilla ($5.95) among the group.  For myself, I ordered the barbacoa tacos ($3) and the carnitas tacos ($3).  The ham and cheese quesadilla was your classic gooey cheese and ham in between a warm flour tortilla.  It was a good start to whet the palate.  But the mushroom one was not what we thought it was going to be.  It's on a corn tortilla but instead of it being flat, it was deep fried and served like an puffy empanadas.  Totally not what we expected and honestly I wasn't a huge fan of it.  As for my tacos, they were the ideal food for the night.  They are served with two soft shells and really jammed packed with ingredients.  It seemed like there was almost a pound of shredded pork inside, topped with salsa, onion and cilantro - it was my favorite of the two tacos.  The barbacoa (lamb) taco seemed a bit dry and didn't have the same flavor and juiciness of the pork one.   By the end of the night, I was stuffed and the total bill was only $134 for 6 people!  Love it!  This is a great place if you're looking to sop up the alcohol or just getting started and need to coat your stomach with some great cheap food. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Distilled Visited 9/14/2013 4 Forks

Distilled 211 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013

Distilled was the perfect place to end an impromptu pub crawl with some friends on a chilly Saturday afternoon.  When we got to Distilled the first thing I realized was that it used to be Centrico, which I thought as decent but I hoped that it would be a slightly better experience there.   And the minute we walked in, the service already exceed my expectation.  We had made a reservation at 8pm and when our table wasn't ready on time they brought out 8 glasses of prosecco for us.  Amazing.  I have never experienced that level of generosity when our table wasn't ready.  In fact, most places kind of give you that "too bad" attitude, so the fact that they were so kind and gracious was definitely appreciated.  

Honestly, we didn't have to wait that long for our table but who I am to complain with free booze?  The menu here is similar to high end pub/bar food with items like onion rings, roasted chicken, burger, wings, and a variety of vegetable side dishes.   They do start the night off right with complimentary popcorn for the table which was flavored with garlic and cumin and it was super addicting to pop in your mouth while you deciding what to order.  We ordered 2 large orders of chicken wings to start ($22/order) and I got their signature Franklin burger for an entree ($18) - as did 4 other people at dinner.  Some other dishes ordered at dinner were the country fried duck and waffles ($21) and the seared diver scallops ($29).  The wings were much more closer to the Korean fried chicken vs. your usual bar wings.   The wings were covered in this delicious Gochuiang sauce and it had this thick crunchy outside finish.  The wings and drumsticks were meaty and definitely worth the effort.  But while I was eating it, I was reminded of why I don't eat wings that often because they were SO messy.  I must have used 10 napkins but I guess that doesn't bother some people.  Luckily I wasn't on a date and just with friends, otherwise I would have been paranoid about having tons of sauce on my face.  But they were definitely some of the best wings I've had in a while.  As for my burger, it was incredibly decadent - it came with American Cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and a side of tatar tots (how awesome is that?!).  It was one serious classic American burger.  Incredibly juicy but not so much that the bun couldn't hold on to the juices that came out of it.  It also had good meat to bun ratio.  As with any large restaurant burger, I could barely finish it and I opted to go Atkins style after a while and ditched the bun.  The tater tots were clearly homemade and not the kind you remember from elementary school but combined with the hefty burger I barely had any room for it.  I wish I had more space of them because who doesn't love a good tater tot?  For me test of a good burger is not only the juiciness and beef to bun ratio but how it makes me feel a few hours later.  A lot of the times, a burger is over salted but you can only feel that level of dehydration until you're home.  The burger here did give me a slightly salty dehydrated feeling later on (I was drinking 4-5 pints of water before bed) but it didn't really deter me from liking the burger overall.  I didn't get a chance to try any of the other dishes but the girls did mention that they loved the fried duck and scallops.  

Despite being on a quiet street in Tribeca, this place was definitely hopping with tons of beautiful looking people when we left.  It's also super loud inside, so it kind of gave me this club-y feeling while we were there but it wasn't overwhelming or too pretentious.   Our waitress was super nice and our cocktails were also spot on, so even though it sounds like a place I wouldn't really like, I did enjoy my meal and time at Distilled.  Total bill:  $48/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Cafe China Visited 9/13/2013 4.5 Forks

Cafe China 13 E 37th St (between 5th Ave & Park Ave), New York, NY 10016

Solid.  This is just a real solid Chinese place and it's so surprising that it's in this totally random street in the middle of nowhere.  I would have never found this place if it wasn't for my friend Neel, who is also a fellow food lover.  He was a huge fan of this place and I trust his judgement, so I was totally up for going there after work one day. 

If you didn't know about it in advance, you could literally walk past it and never know.  My initial impression when I walked in was that it's got this old world feel to it and as well as a slight mom and pop feel to it.  But it's also much cleaner than your usual Chinatown haunt, which is always much appreciated.  Despite it's non-Chinatown/Flushing location, it was teeming with Chinese customers which is always a great sign.  The menu is quite traditional with tons of yummy options that I wished that we had more people with us so that we could try a bunch of different things.  Neel and I started with the cold noodles Szechuan style ($6) and then got the steamed whole fish with ginger and scallion ($22) and the kung pao chicken ($12) for kicks.  If this were one of those slightly gross Chinese take-out places, I would never order kung pao chicken because they are usually overly breaded and barely has any chicken in it.  But Neel mentioned that this one was actually pretty good, so I thought what the heck?  The cold noodles were a great appetizer - a perfect small bowl of cold dan dan noodles with the perfect amount of chili oil.   I was super excited for the whole fish because it's made my absolute favorite way - steamed tilapia with ginger and scallion.  It's incredibly healthy and tasty at the same time.  Similar to the fish at Khe-yo, it's served with the head on and bones in.  But they do a great job of deboning it as much as possible so that you can focus on the tender meat.  Unlike the one at Khe-Yo this one was very light and simple.  I was in heaven because this like how my mom makes fish for me at home.  I loved spending hours picking this fish apart.  I was also pleasantly surprised about the kung pao chicken.  It was pure chicken with just a hint of spicy sauce layered on top of it.  It wasn't breaded or greasy but a focus on tender cubes of chicken.  The dish reminded me of how much a good Chinese chicken dish can be if done correctly.  

All in all I was incredibly surprised and pleased with my experience at Cafe China (apparently it also has one MIchelin star?!).  It's a fantastic menu, tons of variety, quality ingredients, and super reasonable prices.  The main downside is the location but that's a small price to pay for a clean and solid Chinese place.  Total bill:  $27/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Khe-Yo Visited 9/11/2013 3.5 Forks

Khe-Yo 157 Duane St., (between Broadway & Hudson St), New York, NY 10013

Khe-Yo tauts itself as a Laotian restaurant and that was pretty exciting to me because I can't think of any other Laotian restaurant in all of NYC.  Considering how many restaurants there are in NYC, it's shocking to think that I can't name one other place focusing on food from Laos.  There are tons of SE Asian restaurants, but they are all focused on Vietnamese, Thai, Fillipino and occasionally Malaysian food.  To be honest, the menu here wasn't so wildly different than most of those places.   The menu is pretty small compared to most Asian places with only 5 appetizers, 3 salads and 6 entrees.   There were 3 of us and we opted to get the fluke salad ($13), coconut rice ($10), chili prawns ($25), grilled whole sea bass ($33) and the grilled half chicken ($22).  Yes, those prices were pretty horrifying, especially when you know that you can get similar Asian inspired food for 1/2 the price in Chinatown or Flushing.  But hey, you're in Tribeca and it's a Marc Forgione restaurant, so that's what you're really paying for.  

We started with a complementary plate of sticky rice and a spicy/mild chili sauce - this was their version of serving a bread basket and told us to eat it with our hands.  I do love a good bowl of sticky rice, but honestly it just didn't make sense to me for it to be served as an appetizer.  I would have preferred it to be served with my entrees because there didn't seem to be any side of rice option.  Next came the fluke and banana flower "salad".  It was really thinly sliced fluke served with fresh mint, kaffir lime leaf, and galangal chips.  This dish didn't really impress me very much and was pretty forgettable.  Next they brought out the coconut rice.  I had visions of this being similar to the amazing coconut rice at Pig and Khao, but this turned out to be more like crunchy rice balls.  I didn't taste a whole lot of coconut flavor to it but it was a nice bite before the main dishes.  I was just a bit bummed that we ended up getting our main dishes without any actual rice - that's so against any traditional Asian experience.  The grilled shrimp came out next and they were soaking in a chili/curry-like sauce and came with ginger scallion toast.  Since Anuja couldn't eat the chicken, we let her eat most of this dish and so I can't vouch for the taste but there was a lot of them and it was served with the shells still on them.  Next they brought out the sea bass and half chicken.  The half chicken was delicious juicy dark meat cut off the bone.  It was a bit on the salty side but it was oozing with juice and it was made even better with the refreshing honey/cucumber vinaigrette that came on the side.  This dish was pretty freakin huge, so it would definitely fill up 1-2 or even 3 people.   I'm usually not super impressed with chicken dishes in restaurants, but this one was an exception.  On to the main attraction of the night, the whole grilled black bass.  My preferred way to eat fish is whole, on the bone with the head on but you rarely get that unless you are in an Asian restaurant, so I was thrilled to be trying this dish (even though paying $33 gave me great pain).  It was grilled really well with the meat inside pretty flakey and tender.  We literally picked the entire thing apart, leaving nothing left on the plate.  I was super full by this point and did feel a bit bloated from the salt but it wasn't as bad as my favorite food blog, Immaculate Infatuation, made it seem.  I was a bit concerned because they had literally just put out their review that morning and it was not so favorable.  While I didn't think it was innovative or jaw-dropping, I did enjoy what we had.  

By the time we left, this place was packed to the gills, mostly with what looked like Citi and Goldman folk (i.e. lots of banker/trader guys in button down shirts).  I would recommend making reservations early, especially if you want to eat between 6:15-9pm.  When I made our reservation the only thing they had open was 6pm or 9:45pm, even on a random Wednesday night.  The host was kind enough to let us sit at our table while we waited for our 3rd person to join without any fuss.  My main gripe with this place is the cost.  As an Asian, it offends me to be paying that much for Asian food, but it's worth a trip at least once if you're really interested.  Total bill:  $50/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Musket Room Visited 9/10/2013 4 Forks

The Musket Room 265 Elizabeth Street (between Houston St & Prince St), New York, NY 10012

I had heard great things about The Musket Room, but the main reason I went was because it was described as New Zealand cuisine, which I thought was interesting.  I don't know much about New Zealand cuisine except for their giant and delicious green mussels.  I was hoping that they would have that on their menu, but the menu here is really much more high end than that. 

Allison and I went to dinner there at 6:30 and we were the only ones in there for a while.  We sat in the back room (which I would recommend if you had to pick either the front or back room) because it faces this lovely outdoor mini-garden/farm where they pick their own ingredients.  It's very soothing and beautiful.  As I mentioned the menu here is much more sophisticated than I expected and actually pretty limiting (there are only about 12 total items on the menu).   We decided to split the cold smoked scallops for an appetizer ($15) and since we were both indecisive on which entree to choose, we decided to split the octopus ($24) and cod ($29).   The meal started with our waiter asking us what kind of bread we wanted (instead of putting an entire bread basket down in front of us) and I opted for the bacon and cheddar brioche.  The bread was nice and warm and combined with the sweet butter, incredibly comforting.  I'm glad they didn't put a bread basket in front of us because I probably would have literally eaten my weight in bread before I even got my food. 

The scallops came out first and were definitely not what I expected at all.  It was served with cucumbers, black garlic, pears and sea beans.  But the scallops were cut and almost diced in texture.  I expected them to be served whole and if I didn't know what they were beforehand, I wouldn't really recognize them.   The cold smoked concept was unique and the flavors combined were actually quite good.  It was well balanced and a nice palate cleanser.  Next came our 2 entrees, which were pretty decent sized plates.  I tried the cod first - it was served lightly battered and fried on a bed of green pea puree blended with crab meat and topped with pickled oyster.  Oh my.  This dish was just stunning in taste and presentation.  Seriously one of the best fish dishes I've had in a while.   The pea puree was the perfect pairing with the fish and I wished that I could finished the whole dish.  Luckily, the octopus dish was also fantastic as well.  It was nice and tender and had the right amount of chew and give to it without being overly done.  By the end of my meal, I was pleasantly full which is a bit unusual with these more complex, high brow dishes.  While I still don't know if I would categorize this as strictly New Zealand cuisine, it's still a lovely restaurant with solid seafood offerings.  Total bill:  $65/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Bia Visited 9/8/2013 2.5 Forks

Bia 7 S 6th St., (between Wythe Ave & Berry St), New York, NY 11211

So Bia is really less of a restaurant and more like a bar that happens to serve Vietnamese food.   I appreciate that they are trying to do something different than having regular bar food, but it just didn't resonate with me.  I did like the bar itself and would come here on a nice summer/spring day, grab a beer and chill out on the rooftop. 

If you want to eat your food on the rooftop, you have to first order your food at the bar and then they call you on your cell phone.  They won't bring the food upstairs to you, instead you have to go all the way back downstairs and pick up the food in a take out bag and come back upstairs.   The menu is a pretty decent line up of Vietnamese food: dumplings, spring rolls, steamed buns, pho, curry, and bahn mi sandwiches.  Aarti and I split the papaya salad ($8) and the grilled corn with scallion oil ($3).  I got the bahn mi sandwich ($8) and Aarti got the eggplant and tofu curry ($9).  We sat around with our drinks and lo and behold they call my cell phone about 15 minutes later.  We go downstairs to pick up our food and ask if there is sirracha in the bag, to which they said that everything we need is in the bag.  Of course, it wasn't.  We get up to the roof deck and there is no sirracha or a spoon for the curry, so we had to go back down and up again.   The papaya salad was a little spicy but not overwhelming spicy and was totally fine but nothing special.  The grilled corn was a bit overcooked and didn't have the fresh corn crunch you get with a fresh ear of corn.  It wasn't a very sweet either and the scallion oil didn't add much flavor to it.  The bahn mi was made with all the classic ingredients: pork, ham, pate, cucumber, pickled carrot and cilantro on a french baguette.  The inside of the sandwich was fine but what makes or breaks a bahn mi is the bread - it should have a nice crunch to it but without being dry and stale tasting.  The bread wasn't stale but it was overly crunchy to the point where I kept cutting the roof of my mouth.   It a filling sandwich but I've definitely much better bahn mi sandwiches in the city.  I had a bite of the curry and again it was fine but not mind blowing. 

All in all, I love the idea of what they were trying to do here.  It's nice to have some fun Asian options instead of regular bar food, but if it can't be done right, then I would still prefer a burger and fries instead.  Price wise it's very reasonable which is why I didn't give this place a lower rating.  Go for the view and maybe a snack if you're hungry, but I wouldn't make this a restaurant destination.  Total bill:  $43 for 2 people including tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp 

Range by Bryan Voltaggio Visited 8/31/13 4 Forks

Range by Bryan Voltaggio 5335 Wisconsin Ave NW, Ste 201, Washington, DC 20015

So while I am obsessed with Top Chef and the Voltaggio brothers, the main reason I came here was because while I was working with Jim Meehan (mixologist at PDT) on a project at work, he mentioned that this places makes a mean cocktail.  I couldn't believe that a place that was 5 minutes from where I grew up could make a cocktail that a NYC-based James Beard Award Winning mixologist would approval of, so it was on my list of places to check out on my next visit home.

I didn't realize that Range is inside this weird hybrid mall/hotel inside the Chevy Chase Pavillion.  It's literally across the way from an H&M inside a mall.  While it's definitely in a ritzy/yuppie part of town, the actual physical location is kind of hidden and hard to find because of its interior location.  The restaurant is pretty huge with several open kitchen stations that each specialize in different cuisines.  The waitress was one of the most well spoken/refined wait staff that I've experienced in the MD/DC area.  They are very well trained here.  The whole concept and vibe of the place just blew my mind because it's not what I've come to expect in a restaurant when I come home.  The menu here is all American tapas style (SIGH) and the waitress advised us to order about 3 plates per person.  I really don't mind tapas, family style sharing but what really irritates me is when a restaurant has that concept but still charges entree prices for these small plates.  So I digress.

Everything on the menu sounded really good, but instead of ordering 9 dishes, we opted to go for 3 larger sized plates, 2 smaller plates and a bread basked hoping that would fill us up:  lobster mac and cheese ($18), scallops ($21), grilled octopus ($18), wild salmon crudo ($12), country pork and squab terrine ($16) and the cheddar and jalapeno biscuits ($4).  I thought this was enough food but our waitress was really pushing us to order more food, but since we had already ordered cocktails and I wanted dessert too, I didn't really want to have a $200 lunch bill and drew a line in the sand with our ordering.  The dishes come out as they are ready, so we got the biscuits first and they were delicious.  They was fluffy, soft and with the right hint of heat from the jalapeno.  But what really made it addictive was the pepper jelly that came with it.  Luckily for my waist line there was only 1 biscuit per person, but I could have easily eaten the entire basked myself.  Next came the country pork and squab terrine with a fantastic homemade dijon mustard.  Despite my penchant for adventurous eating, I will say that terrine still kind of freaks me out, mostly because of its texture.  But honestly, this one was pretty damn good.  It has that slightly funky chopped and then binded together look and feel with a layer of cold jelly.  But it just all worked together and I really enjoyed it with the mustard.  Next came the wild salmon which is basically 3 thinly sliced smoked pieces of salmon (similar to lox) topped with a potato-shallot tot.  It was a nice piece of salmon but honestly I think I'm biased and have had much better smoked salmon in NYC for less money.   Then came the lobster mac and cheese.  I mean, how in the world can you go wrong with a dish like this?  For $18, it was a pretty small portion but taste wise it was huge.  It was made with a rigati pasta with a hint of old bay seasoning and several large chunks of delicious lobster with a very light cheese sauce.  You would think a dish like this would be super heavy but it was actually pretty light for a pasta.  Again, I could have eaten this entire dish by myself instead of sharing it with the table.  Then we waited a bit for the next two dishes to come out.  I will take this moment to call out the cocktails here.  They are all hand crafted, single batched cocktails and they were definitely PDT caliber.  Even my mom got in on the cocktail action with the What's with all the tattoos? (how apropos)  drink and I ended up drinking the entire thing because it was so fantastic.   After a bit the scallop and grilled octopus dishes came out.  The scallop dish came with only 2 scallops (so they were $10.50 each!) but I will say that they were two very large scallops that we were able to cut up into 3 pieces.  They were served with a sweet and sour eggplant quinoa and a very strong miso paste.  The scallops themselves were cooked to perfection, not too dry and with the right amount of ever so slight rareness inside.  I just wished there were more than 2 of them.  The octopus dish was also a winner.  This dish was the hefty-ist of them all with 4 medium sized pieces.  Octopus is so easy to mess up and make super chewy and gross but this was just right and very tender. It almost didn't taste like octopus texture-wise and it might even be one of the best octopus dishes I've had in a while.

At this point, I was full but not overly full, so I wanted to see what the dessert cart was all about.  The waitress wheels over this cart with a bunch of chocolate petite fours, cookies, brownies, rich krispy treats, and cupcakes (kind of seemed a bit low brow for such a high concept place).  For all the overpricedness (is that even a word?!) the desserts were pretty cheap ranging from $2-4.  We got the apricot cupcake and a chocolate cookie brownie.  The cupcake was light and fluffy and it tasted amazing with the fresh piece of apricot on top of it.  The cookie brownie was exactly how it sounds - a heavy decadent piece of soft brownie like dessert in a cookie formation.

All in all, I was super impressed with the level of service, quality of food and presentation here. It rivals any restaurant in NYC I've been to and honestly doesn't seem like any hotel/mall restaurant I've ever been to.  My only gripe for not giving it a 4.5 Fork rating was the fact that the prices were a bit too high for what we got, I wasn't overly impressed with the salmon dish, and the sizes were a bit too small.  Total bill: $172 with tax, tip and cocktails for 3 people.

Photo Credit:  Yelp