The Butcher's Daughter Visited 10/11/2013 2.5 Forks

The Butcher's Daughter 19 Kenmare St., (between Bowery & Elizabeth St), New York, NY 10012

I had passed The Butcher's Daughter before while walking in Chinatown/Nolita and commented on how cute it was, so when Amy and Anuja mentioned they were going to dinner there last night, I couldn't help but crash their "Rabbit Habbit" dinner.  The theme here is all vegetarian and organic - most of it is actually vegan and gluten-free.  While I'm primarily a meat and seafood happy girl, I'm always willing to try new things and honestly I've been to some fantastic vegetarian only places (I'm looking at you Dirt Candy) so I know it can be good food.  Sadly, that wasn't really the case here. 

What I mainly liked about this place was the decor.  It's really clean and beautiful and it really draws you in.  The menu has potential and I wasn't turned off by how any of the dishes were described.  I had read in Yelp that the service was awful and while I've had worse, I can say it was severely lacking.  It took forever to place our order and I had to ask 3 times what the soup of the day was.  Granted, it looked like there was 1 poor waiter for the entire outside section but it just didn't make for a pleasant experience when you have to chase down your waiter 3 or 4 times to get an answer to something.  We decided to share a bunch of stuff for the table:  smashed avocado toast bites ($8), mushroom-walnut pate, white bean fennel sausage, and beet tartare (3 for $16) and the raw pesto linguine ($14).  They also have a long list of juices and elixir shots if you're into that kind of stuff.  The avocado toast came out and it was really guacamole without the tomato and cilantro.  It was mashed up avocado with curry, mustard seeds, and lime served with very soft pieces of 7-grain bread.  I love anything avocado, so there wasn't anything really to dislike about this dish, although it could have probably used a bit more salt.  Next I tried the white bean fennel sausage - which in case you haven't guessed, isn't really made out of meat.  It looked exactly like a sausage and had a similar taste to it but you could tell it was missing the fat and moisture of meat to it.  It was a bit dry but it was an adequate enough meat substitute in a pinch.  Just a warning that it is incredibly spicy.  The mushroom-walnut pate was also decent in taste if not a bit unmemorable.  It was just like a paste or spread put on a crostini and it seemed like a fine snack I would eat at home but not something I would necessarily want to eat out at a restaurant.  Next I tried the raw pesto linguine - this was made from ribbons of raw zucchini, walnut-basil pesto and topped with cashew ricotta and served with marinated mushrooms and tomato slices on the slide.  I was most excited for this dish but it just didn't really taste that good.  Maybe its because I'm not a huge raw food fan, but you could just taste the rawness of the dish and I don't mean that in a good way.  It was too earthy for me and this is where I draw the line and would want my food cooked - at least the zucchini ribbons.  The same can be said about the beet tartare.  It was thinly sliced strings of beets but it kind of tasted like it was just dug out of the ground.  I prefer my beets steamed or a bit softer in texture. 

In the end, I appreciate what they are trying to do here and I'm all for promoting a healthy lifestyle.  But at the same time there has got to be flavor in your food as well.  All the dishes really lacked some element of seasoning.  Even though I loved the decor and outdoor seating, I probably won't be back unless they did an overhaul of the menu and improved the service.  It's food like this that makes me want to go home and fire up a burger on the grill at home and top it with cheese.   Total bill:  $27/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

David Burke Kitchen Visited 10/6/2013 3.5 Forks

David Burke Kitchen 23 Grand St., (between Thompson St & Avenue Of The Americas), New York, NY 10013

I had walked past David Burke Kitchen a few times but never been, so it was a nice treat to head over there for my friend Kristin's birthday this past weekend.  David Burke Kitchen is located inside the James Hotel in the basement area for what's kind of no man's land of not quite Tribeca but not quite Soho either.  I'm guessing they are banking on the allure of David's celebrity chef persona to draw people in?  Meanwhile, the space itself was really nice, spacious and perfect for a group dinner. 

While I will admit that it's hard to be a waiter to a slightly rowdy group of 11 people, the service really seemed off the mark.  We all started the afternoon with a round of drinks and it just took forever to get them served, even though there wasn't really anyone else in the restaurant.  Then a different waiter came to take our order, but when we asked for additional items like ketchup, we were directed to another person.  On top of that, the pace was just incredibly slow and disorganized.  So that was kind of a bummer.  But on to the food instead.  The menu is split between more brunch-y items like benedicts, omelets, and chicken and grits and lunch items such as burgers, crab cakes, and grilled salmon.  Having a split personality menu always makes for a difficult decision for me, but I finally opted for the Kitchen Eggs Benedict ($17) and a side of homefries ($7) - mostly because the menu didn't list any additional items that came with my eggs (although this turned out to be a mistake).  Other people at the table got a variety of other things such as the pretzel crab cake, legs and eggs, and kitchen omelet.  I did like the way they present the food in that they wheel out a cart with all our dishes and then distribute them that way.  I don't know what it is, but there's something about food that gets wheeled out in a fancy cart that I find fascinating.   My benedict came with Italian sausage polenta, spinach and tomato hollandaise AND unbeknownst to me, a side of homefries!  If I had known that, I would have totally ordered a different side like bacon (which Jill actually got, so I probably wouldn't have ordered it).  Instead, I was faced with 2 helpings of homefries.  Although I will say that they were well cooked and seasoned and let's be honest, there are definitely worst things in life than having too many potatoes and peppers.  The benedict itself was tasty, if not a bit mushy with the polenta and spinach.  The eggs were poached well with a super super runny yolk but at one point everything on my plate became a mixed mess with the yolk, polenta, spinach, and sauce.  The muffin at the bottom had no chance in holding it all together.  While it wasn't a traditional benedict, the flavor profile was good and the sauce was tart and sweet at the same time.  I must have really liked it because I cleaned my entire plate, including the two helpings of homefries that I had.  I nibbled on a piece of Jill's maple glazed bacon and it was awesome.  It's pretty heavy on the fat and it was on the less crispy side, but I didn't mind that at all.  I also had a sliver of the sticky bun, but wasn't too impressed with that.  By the time it got to me, it was pretty much destroyed and I didn't get much of the sweetness, more of the breaded part, which wasn't too impressive. 

All in all, most of us liked our food and the space was great.  They also have a great cocktail list to make for a nice afternoon boozy brunch.  My one gripe was the service.  It was sporadic, slow and disorganized.  Plus when we went to pay, we each put in our cards and only after 15 minutes did the waiter tell us that they only took 8 cards.  That just would have been something nice to know in the beginning.  There's not much else in the immediate area and the James Hotel does seem like a nice less "scene-y" hotel than The Standard or NoMad, so it's worth a look if you're down around that 'hood.  Total bill:  $63/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Serafina Osteria Visited 10/4/2013 3 Forks.

Serafina Osteria 38 E 58th St., (between Madison Ave & Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

I normally don't hang out in Midtown East ever except to go to Bloomingdales, but it is a convenient area to meet a friend of mine who lived in Roosevelt Island so I made an exception to have dinner up there.  I generally find this area too corporate, soul-less and not very interesting.  My opinion didn't change too much after visiting this area on Friday.  Serafina is located next to Tao and across the street from Lavo, if that gives you any indication of the types of restaurants and places in the area.  Luckily, Serafina is not one of these painfully trendy loud restaurants.  It's actually pretty small and has a cute, mom and pop feel to it.  The menu here is straight up traditional Italian ranging from a variety of antipasti to pasta to secondi dishes. 

Since we were with my friend's energetic 1-year old daughter, we kind of had to eat quickly and get in and out of there in record time.  If you've ever eaten with a toddler, you know what I mean.  While I would have loved to get an appetizer and have a leisurely meal, it wasn't really in the cards for us.  So we each ordered a pasta, I got the fettuccine casareccie alla bolognese ($16.75) and Lily got the bucatini alla matriciana ($16) and that was it (although I did have to indulge and get a glass of wine).  The pasta came our rather quickly and smelled delicious.  My pasta was a pretty standard fettuccine pasta with a hearty beef ragout.  The noodles were al dente and the sauce was pretty meaty and the right amount for the pasta size.  I wasn't overly impressed with the dish but it was pretty solid and hit the spot at the moment.  I didn't try the bucatini but it also looked quite tasty.  

While the food prices were fine, I found the prices for the wine to be rather expensive for the type of place it was.  Most of them were over $12, which is a bit high for the ambience and type of restaurant this is.  The service was also a bit slow and I got this feeling that they were kind of annoyed that we had a toddler with us.  They did try to be nice and had a high chair to accommodate us, but I think they picked up on the vibe that we weren't there to really hang out and order tons of food so they didn't really engage with us.  While I did find the food to be pretty decent, it wasn't enough to really overcome the awful location of it.  I would say that if you happen to be in the neighborhood, it's worth having a meal there but it's definitely not a place that you should go out of your way for as there are just too many other amazing Italian places around the city in much better locations.  Total bill:  $30/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The NoMad Restaurant Visited 9/30/2013 4 Forks

The NoMad Restaurant 1170 Broadway (between 27th St &28th St), New York, NY 10001

The NoMad was THE hot restaurant about a year ago but it hasn't really seemed to die down by the looks of my visit last night.  It was still super crowded with a mix of tourists and beautiful people and Amy and I were only able to get a 6pm reservation.  In all honesty, I was ready to hate this place because I'm so not a fan of uber trendy places.  But I gotta say that this place really surprised me and I quite enjoyed my meal and even the scene there. 

When we first got seated, Amy and I were seating in their weird dark alcove of a room, away from the main atrium space.  We kindly asked to move and they were really nice about accommodating.  So I was immediately pleased with the service.  The menu is broken out into snacks (1 or 2 bites), appetizers and entrees.  Luckily, the menu had a lot of great veggie options which worked great for Amy.  There are so many great sounding options that we eventually just handed the reigns over to our waitress for her suggestions.  For appetizers, she recommended the snow peas ($15) and the egg ($17) and for the entree she convinced Amy of the eggplant ($24) and I opted for the scallops ($28).  Unfortunately, what The NoMad is famous for their whole roasted chicken for two but that'll have to wait until next time since there was no way I was going to eat it by myself!

The snow peas were cut into long thin strips and tossed with lemon juice and served with a sprinkle of pancetta, mint and pecorino cheese.  It was just barely cooked, so it had this great crunch to it.  I loved the simpleness of it.  Despite it being fall, it reminded me of a perfect spring dish.  I really enjoyed this dish a whole lot.  The egg dish was what the waitress said was a must have.  It was a poached egg with asparagus, brown butter, quinoa and enoki-like mushrooms.  The egg had this amazing almost raw yolk center and mixed with the brown butter, it was pretty delicious.  On to the entrees.  I usually don't get scallops at restaurants since you usually only get 3 if you're lucky and it never seems like a filling meal.  But I just had a craving for it and went for it.  The dish here had 5 giant scallops served with thin slices of green tomatoes, thin rolls and bits of cucumber and sprinkled with borage.  Like every scallop dish, these scallops were seared which is really the only way to cook scallops.  These were seared perfectly with just the right amount of give to each bite.  I love the pairing of it with the green tomatoes and cucumbers and for the first time in my life, I was actually full from a scallop dish.  I had a bite of Amy's eggplant and it was delicious as well.  It was roasted with soy beans, madeira, and black truffle.  It was a very meaty and hearty dish that was ideal for a vegetarian.  At this point, I was super full but I'm always a sucker for a good dessert.  Again, we asked our waitress to pick something for us and she was really enthusiastic about the milk and honey dessert ($13).  True to it's name, it tasted exactly like milk and honey. It was 3 scoops of milk ice cream drizzled with honey and served with shortbread and brittle.  While our waitress did a great job with all of the other recommendations, I wasn't a huge fan of this dessert.  It might of been because I was already full but I don't really associate milk and honey with dessert.  

In the end, I was really pleased with my experience at The NoMad.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the crowd and vibe isn't something that I would opt for normally, but since I live in New York, every now and then, I've got to indulge in the high maintenance scene every once in a while.  This would be a great place for a client dinner and if everyone wants to go and try the chicken for two with me, let me know!  Total bill:  $80/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Mayanoki Supper Club Visited 9/24/2013 5 Forks

Mayanoki Supper Club  Location Varies

I know that I had designated 5 Forks as a perfect and flawless meal, but I've come to realize in my old age that nothing in life is perfect.  But what I will say that is my meal at Mayanoki Supper Club was one of the best, unique, and really enjoyable meals I've had in a while and because of that (and the fact that I haven't given out 5 forks in a while), I think I'm ready to hand out 5 forks to this place.

A friend of mine from work had told me about this concept a while ago.  He had mentioned that there was this chef (the adorable Albert) who made these amazing omakase meals for him and his friends at this sushi place, Zutto, in Tribeca and that they would literally go there 3-4 times a week because that's how good and addicting it was.  But soon, Albert and Zutto parted ways and my friend's friends couldn't let his talents go to waste and asked if he would do private supper clubs with them.  The result is Mayanoki Supper Club  - which is essentially Albert making 8 course of deliciousness inside of a Williamsburg wine bar.  Fast forward to today and Anuja had forwarded me this link and asked if I wanted to go and I figured it was time to check it out.  At first, the price seems kind of steep at $110 per person.  But it covers 8 course and 5 wine pairings, which when you think about is cheaper than what you would pay at a sushi restaurant for good omakase and wine.  I mean, it's not cheap but it's definitely worth a try in my book.

Brooklyn Oenology is a wine bar that specializes in locally produced wine, so that was a pretty neat feature to the meal.  They set up tables in the back (the dinner has a max capacity of 16 but there were only 8 of us that night) and Albert has a station in the back corner to make all his amazing creations.  The first course was a kani salad which consisted of crab, cucumber, caviar and Japanese mayo.  While a kani salad isn't usually something I would order at a regular sushi place, this one was delicious with the right proportion of crab to mayo.  It was paired with a sparkling white wine, which was a nice way to start off the meal.  This dish was followed by the lobster and shiso wrapped in fluke and paired with 2012 white wine.  This was where I was starting to see the brilliance of the food to come.  The fluke was incredibly fresh, thinly sliced and paired deliciously with lobster (what doesn't go well with lobster?!).  The 3rd dish, though, was my favorite of the night.  It was tuna - poke style marinated in sesame oil, onion, garlic, and served with peanuts on top.  I almost died at how f'ing amazing this dish was.  Ever since I came back from Hawaii, I have become obsessed with poke and honestly there just isn't any good poke in NYC. But this was heavenly.  The tuna was so fresh, I was convinced it had just come out of the water.  It was bright red and melts in your mouth.  Amazing.  I would come back again just for this dish.  In fact, if I could substitute everything else on the menu for this dish, I would be fine. But we had 5 more courses to go.  Next was Albert's version of the rainbow roll - which had no rice but instead had layers of tuna, wrapped with salmon, with a lump of crab in the middle with a drizzling of sashimi sauce.  Delicious.  Again, I can't stress how fresh and high quality the fish was and it was really showcased here with the 3 different types of seafood.   The 5th course was a white tuna with balls of spicy salmon belly.  Amazing.  It was a very generous dollop of spicy salmon belly and it's fire was paired nicely with the mild white tuna.  This was probably my 2nd favorite dish of the night.  The 6th course was a Spanish mackerel served with a tons of shaved spring onion and soy sauce in a martini glass.  Spanish mackerel is not my favorite cut of fish because it's usually very fishy tasting but somehow here, it tasted wonderful.  I'm not sure if it was because I was starting to get drunk or what, but everything I ate here was just one amazing thing after another.   The very thinly sliced of spring onion was the perfect topping to this fish to offset the heavier fish taste.  By this point, I was definitely starting to get full and tipsy at the same time.  But there was no way I was going to stop eating.  The 7th course was several very large pieces of pressed sushi with salmon, crab and tuna.  This was the course that put me over the edge in terms of fullness, mostly because there was a lot of rice to these pieces. It's not like a sushi you find in most restaurants.  These pieces require 3-4 bites and I get why they were presented at the end of the meal, but I could tell that a lot of us were struggling to finish by this point.  Luckily, the lovely meal ended with a green tea mochi (really, it's like the one you can find at Trader Joe's - this isn't an insult at all).

By the end of the 2 1/2 hour meal, I was full, slightly drunk and very happy.  The hosts, David and Josh were super nice and you could tell that they were incredibly passionate about what they were trying to do. Albert was adorable and despite creating such wonderful dishes, hung around in the back, letting his food do most of the talking.  My one issue with the meal is that, while I totally get why they served white wine, I'm just not a huge white wine lover.  What would have been better was if they had been a sake pairing or had a version without the wine.  Not that the wine's weren't good (they were and I very much loved their philosophy and concept of local wine) but it just didn't really add any extra value to the meal for me.  But don't let that deter you at all.  It's a great chef, great concept and most importantly, great food.  Total bill:  $110/pp with service fee on Brownpaper tickets

Photo Credit:  Gothamist. com

Umami Burger Visited 9/25/2013 2.5 Forks

Umami Burger 432 6th Ave., New York, NY 1001

This is my 500th review and I wish I could say it was a winner.  Unfortunately, all I can about Umami Burger is this:  Overhyped.  The level of excitement for this L.A. based burger chain has been totally out of control - with lines of upwards of 3 hours when it first opened.  Luckily, the hype has died down because when Janet and I went it was practically empty.  I actually didn't realize that it was a sit down restaurant with waitstaff.  The burgers here have been compared to Shake Shack and In and Out, so I thought it was a fast food joint so I was surprised to find a host and waiter when I walked in.  Janet had ordered the truffle fries while she was waiting for me, so I dove right in since I was starving.  The fries are the skinny salty kind and covered in a creamy truffle glaze and served with 4 different dipping sauces: ketchup, creamy garlic, spicy aioli and some other sauce that I can't remember.  The fries were nice and crunchy without being overly dried out.  So it was a decent start to the meal.  The menu obviously is all burger based, but they do have a good variety of different types of burgers from beef burgers, to turkey burgers, to to veggie burgers, to an ahi tuna burger.  I do love myself a good tuna burger but I felt like I couldn't come here and not order a beef burger.  So Janet and I split the truffle burger and the manly burger and an order of the smash potatoes.  What I didn't realize until later was that they had a secret menu here (a la In and Out) and I wish I had asked about it!

The burgers came out pretty quickly and I wasn't super impressed with the size and presentation of it.  It was kind of a small, flattish burger with a pretty heft bun.  The bun is quite soft (there is a trademark U burned on the top of it) and tasted great but there was a bit too much bun to actual meat for me.  The truffle burger was essentially the same truffle cream from the fries on top of a burger.  It was juicy but it was too rich and salty and just seemed like not hearty enough of a burger.  Meanwhile, I thought the manly burger would resolve that issue since it had onion rings and bits of bacon lardon in it.  It was definitely also a rich burger, but again, I wasn't overly impressed by it.  The onion rings were small and didn't seem that crispy and it just didn't have that manly feel to it...more like a pre-pubescent teenager.  I didn't really care too much for the smashed potatoes either, which were exactly how it sounded - small potatoes that have beens smashed flat and served with more spicy garlic dressing.  The burgers were super messy and the bun could have been a bit stronger to hold in the juices and other mess that resulted from eating the burger.  With all the carbs and truffles I ate, I was so full yet somehow managed to finish off the night with a piece of key lime pie ($8) for dessert.  It tasted just like Steve's Key Lime pie from Red Hook and honestly it was probably the best thing I ate there all night. 

The service was a bit slow with them forgetting my water and something else a few times, but they were nice about it and apologized when they realized they forgot it.  This isn't to say that I hated it there, it's just that it was so overhyped that I couldn't really enjoy myself.  Maybe it's an East Coast vs. West Coast thing but I still like Shake Shack better and if you want a seriously manly burger, the one I had at Distilled really took the cake.  Total bill:  $28/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Choshi Visited 9/22/2013 3 Forks

Choshi  77 Irving Pl, (between 19th St & 18th St), New York, NY 10003 

I usually end up at Choshi when my favorite sushi place in Union Square, Yama, has too long of a line or in this past Sunday's case, is closed.  Choshi is similar to one of those typical standard sushi places that I used to go to in Park Slope.  It's definitely not going to offer the top quality sushi you would find at a Sushi of Gari or Ushiwaka Maru but it's gets the job done if you just have a hankering for some decent quality sushi that isn't deli sushi.

I stopped by on a beautiful Sunday afternoon after spending the weekend in the Hamptons and I just had a strong craving for a few spicy rolls.  Sadly, Yama was closed and this place is only 2 blocks away and was open.  Given the lack of people who want to have sushi at 1pm on a Sunday, I was surprised that even they were open for business.  Meanwhile, next door, Friend of a Farmer had a line down the block.  I guess it's no surprise that most people go for the eggs/brunchy thing on a Sunday.  There was one other guy who was eating alone at Choshi, so I didn't feel too weird eating by myself there.  As I mentioned the menu is your standard neighborhood sushi joint: the usual suspect of appetizers and sushi/roll/sashimi combos.  While I do love treating myself to a high end sushi dinner every now and then, sometimes I just want a good spicy roll combo and luckily they had one here for $17.   You get your choice of 3 different spicy rolls and either a soup or salad - a pretty good deal.  What I do like about this place is that they have a whole entire section dedicated to spicy rolls and for the combo you can choose from any of them at the same price, even the spicy scallop roll!  I got the spicy salmon, yellowtail and scallop roll with the salad.  I usually love a good green salad with ginger carrot dressing but I didn't find the ginger dressing here very good.  It was too water-y and was kind of heavy on the pepper.  The sushi rolls themselves were totally fine and hit the spot.  The yellowtail and salmon roll had red pepper and mayo to make the spice and the scallop roll had spicy fish roe for spice.  They were all pretty typical rolls, although at 3 rolls, I was starting to get a bit full on all the rice and it would have been great to have had one of them been an inside out roll to minimize rice intake.

All in all, I wasn't blown away by the sushi here but I wasn't expecting that here anyways.  It fit a craving and that was good enough for me.  But as long as Yama is open, it's still going to be a back-up option and not the star attraction.  Total bill:  $21 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp