Ruchi Visited 10/28/2013 3.5 Forks

Ruchi 120 Cedar St., (between Greenwich St & Trinity Pl), New York, NY 10006

My fellow food loving friend Lisa had recommended that we try this place for lunch since it's 50% during lunch time.  Perfect.  While I do love Indian food, it's usually not a cuisine I eat for lunch during the work week because it's so heavy and would basically put me to sleep.  But I was up for taking a risk and lord knows that I needed to have something besides the cafeteria food.  The restaurant is tucked away behind the Freedom Tower, so if you don't work in the area it's pretty hard to find.  

The menu is pretty expansive and since everything was half off my mind was exploding with options.  They have curries, dosas, tandoori dishes, and even idlis!  I seriously could have spent all day trying out all the different foods, but since we only had an hour I opted for the chicken madras (regularly $12.95), Lisa got her usual crab curry (regularly $15.95) and we split a side of garlic naan (regularly $3.95) and rice (regularly $2.95).  When the food came out, it smelled delicious and I was ready to dive in.  The chicken madras is chunks of chicken in a coconut curry.  The chicken was very tender and the sauce was jammed packed with Indian spices.  My only gripe was that there wasn't enough chicken because by the time I had eaten all the chicken, I still had TONS of curry sauce leftover.  I did my best to sop it all up with the garlic naan (which was fantastic - soft but with the right amount of charred crunch) and the rice but it was really just way too much sauce for one person to deal with.  It looked like I hadn't even touched the sauce.  I had a bite of Lisa's curry and it was great since it was made with fresh crabmeat.  They did a good job of getting us in and out of the restaurant quickly as I'm assuming that most people here during lunch work in the neighborhood and they know the drill.  

You really can't beat a 50% off deal - especially in a neighborhood surrounded by Goldman Sachs loving places like Beans and Greens (which I love but I'm consistently spending $13-15 on a salad) or North End Grill.  While I really did enjoy by lunch, it's hard to eat like this on a regular basis because I was really full and sleepy afterwards.  It's definitely a good lunch option if you're in the mood for it, although I'm not sure I would trek all the way down here on a non-work day due to its really out of the way location downtown.  Total bill:  $10/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Champs Visited 10/27/2013 4.5 Forks

Champs 176 Ainslie St., (between Lorimer St & Manhattan Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11211

Who would have thought that I would be in love with a total hipster vegan diner in the middle of Williamsburg?  But I am.  I found this place randomly while I was walking around the neighborhood and it totally reminded me of a place that I would find in Chicago.  It's got this great low-key neighborhood vibe and even though it's full of hipster vegans, it didn't bother me at all.  The menu here is typical diner type food - a giant menu full of salads, sandwiches, burgers, and breakfast bowls.  It was so overwhelming and I didn't know what to order because I wanted to order everything under the sun.  All the ingredients on the menu sounded fresh, organic and very healthy (lots of kale, quinoa, and tofu).  They take a lot of diner favorites like benedicts, buffalo chicken, reuben and cheesesteaks and made them vegan friendly which is really hard to do. 

Since it was brunch time, I opted for the breakfast burrito ($12) and we split an order of pancakes for the table ($5).  Aarti got the banh mi ($9) and Louise got the tofu rancheros ($10) and a kale salad side dish ($5).  As you can see from the prices, they are all super reasonable and affordable for the area.  We all ordered coffee and it was crazy strong and pretty bitter, so if you like sweet or weak coffee, definitely watch out here.  On to the food, usually what scares me about vegan places is the lack of flavor and seasoning (I'm looking at you Butcher's Daughter), but that was not the case here.  The food here definitely made me forget that it didn't have meat or fat in it.  The burrito was gigantic and came with tons of vegan chorizo (it tasted exactly like real chorizo and the texture wasn't too far off), tofu scramble, mixed bell peppers, garlic, rosemary potatoes, "cheese" in a whole wheat organic tortilla and drizzled with chipotle dressing.  It was a fantastic breakfast burrito, vegan or not.  It was flavorful, filling and the perfect diner food.  I didn't try Aarti or Louise's dish, but I don't think Aarti loved her banh mi too much because it was pretty heavy on the bread part and she left half of it on her plate untouched.  But we all did love the pancake stack - it was sweet, fluffy and served with a tasty berry compote.  I could have eaten the whole stack myself.   

The staff was really friendly and nice with a slight hipster edge to it.  The only downside is that it's cash only but luckily the prices aren't too high that you might be able to scrap together your bills together to pay the bill.  I'm so glad that I found this place and it really gives vegan food a good name.  I would totally come back here anytime and might even come on my own for lunch or dinner.  If you're coming here for brunch, definitely be prepared to wait.  We waited about 45 minutes on a Sunday but they do have chairs outside and you can order coffee to drink while you wait . Total bill:  $21/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Baoburg Visited 10/24/2013 2.5 Forks

Baoburg 126 N 6th St., Brooklyn, NY 11249

It's been a week since I ate here and while I originally wasn't sure about what I was going to rate it, I was thinking in the 3 range when we first left the restaurant.  But after having a few days to stew on it, it's made realize how unmemorable the meal was.  It wasn't bad but nothing about it stuck out in my mind.  The one thing that did stick out was how incredibly tiny the place is.  In fact there are no tables in the entire place, instead there are only high tops and stools which were really uncomfortable to sit if you're planning on staying for more than 30 minutes.  What's really weird about this place is the menu.  It's not really clear what the vision is of the menu:  is it Thai? Is it French? Is it Japanese? Or is it American? The menu has mussels, octopus, hanger steak, ramen, french fries, roasted beets and guacamole.  Waa? 

Nancy and I decided to try a bunch of things, so we started with the gambas ($12), we wanted the roasted octopus legs but they didn't have any octopus that night and instead had it as a calamari dish ($14), the seared duck breast noodle ($16) and then topped off the meal with cheesy truffle fries ($7).  Yea - kind of a hodgepodge of food.  The fries came out first and they were the skinny salty kind covered in cheese, drizzled with truffle oil and then sprinkled with bites of bacon.   Obviously you can't have those kind of ingredients without it being delicious - it was good but the fries were kind of cold when they got to our table.  Then came the gambas dish - which was a lot like the Spanish tapas style dish of garlic shrimp poached in olive oil, chili, garlic with some lemongrass and kir limes and served with slices of bread.  The shrimp was poached really well and had this nice bite to it.  The garlic oil leftover was great for dipping the bread in (not that I needed to be eating more food).  Next came the calamari dish which was roasted calamari served with charred tomatoes, edamame, spiced pecans, and a bearnaise sauce.  The calamari was small in size and more of the body part of the squid vs. the legs/tentacles.  I don't know what it was, but I just didn't get this dish.  It totally tasted fine but I wasn't wow'd by it or really thought it was craveable.  It just seemed like a bunch of ingredients thrown together randomly.  The last dish of the night was the seared duck breast noodle which was basically a ramen dish with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, in a duck broth.  I loved that they pre-divided the dish into 2 separate bowls for us vs. having to share 1 bowl between the two of us, very nice touch.  Nancy and I both thought that this was the best dish of the night.  The duck breast was seared nicely with just enough pink on the inside and the ramen was the right texture.  The broth was a bit too salty but that's kind of expected in a dish like ramen. 

All in all, the meal was ok, just not something that really had that wow factor.  The space is incredibly uncomfortable for parties bigger than 2, so be aware of that if you have a big party.  The menu needs to have more of a consistent theme to it - it just felt like it was all over the place.  The service was kind of hilarious with a really nice and enthusiastic guy but he kind of reminded me of Matthew McConaughey with his slow drawl and reaction to things.  Not sure how long this place will last given the plethora of restaurants on that drag but stranger things have happened.  Also another total pain, they are cash only.  Total bill:  $40/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken Visited 10/22/2013 3 Forks

Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken 28 E 1st St., (between Extra Pl & 2nd St), New York, NY 10003

I had been wanting to try this place since it opened this past summer but there were always such crazy long lines, but finally now that it's been about 3 months, the lines have died down and I figured it was worth a try.  Along with Jenn Y., I'm a big fan of fried chicken and there aren't a ton of places to get really good juicy crispy friend chicken but it's definitely starting to become more of a trend these days.  Blue Ribbon was always famous for its fried chicken at their regular spots, so it seems like they finally took all the glowing customer feedback and created a place focused around their famous chicken. 

I should caveat that the place isn't really a restaurant, but you order at the counter, they give you a number and you pick it up and seat yourself.  But they do have beer and wine, so you can make kind it out to be similar to a sit down meal experience.  The menu is full of exactly what you think: fried chicken dinner combos, individual fried chicken pieces, chicken burgers, chicken wings, and sides of fries, cole slaw, etc.  The weird thing was that they did not have any chicken nuggets/tenders/strips on the menu.  Even though they are for kids most of the time, I do like a good solid set of chicken nuggets from time to time.  Jenn, Krush and I started the night with a set of 10 wings (BBQ and hot) for $13.50.  They were pretty flavorful, although I thought there may have been a bit too much batter on the outside and I wished I tasted more of the actual chicken.  The hot version isn't very hot at all, so if you're looking for spicy wings, then I would recommend getting the fire version.  After our snack of wings, we went back for the main attraction.  We ended up splitting various pieces of chicken from the breast, thigh and drumstick and the dinner plates come with a side of fries already and then we ordered a separate order of griddled corn and bacon ($8).  The skin of the fried chicken isn't the kind of golden brown you find at a Popeye's or even at The Cardinal.  It looked and tasted like it had some curry powder or some kind of brown spice to it.  While the actual meat was juicy, there was something about the extra "dry rub" on the skin that I just wasn't a huge fan of.  It wasn't bad or un-flavorful, but I guess I am still used the the basic fried golden skin with not much else on it.  The skin didn't have that extra crunchy outside that I love most about fried chicken.   I did enjoy the corn side, which seemed less griddled and more like sauteed with LOTS of butter in it.  The fries were also your solid skinny salty variety and at this point, I was just ingesting so much fried food that I  just didn't even care anymore what I was eating.   

I liked the fact that you can order a bunch of individual pieces of chicken in addition to the dinner plates, to make your own plate but for some reason the fact that they didn't have tenders/strips really annoyed me for some reason  - sometimes you just want a good old fashion set of chicken nuggets.  While I would come back here if I was in the 'hood and hungry, I do think places like The Cardinal,  Bob White's Lunch Counter, and even the fried chicken at The Commodore bar have slightly better chicken because of the crispiness of the skin.  Total bill with 2 rounds of beers:  $33/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Abriya Raku Visited 10/23/2013 4 Forks

Abriya Raku 5030 W Spring Mountain Road, Las Vegas, NV

This is a Fun With Eating first...our first a guest blogger! My good friend Allison was in Las Vegas for work and I had lamented how last time I went to Vegas, I didn't get to try Raku, which came highly recommended, so she was totally up for trying it out on my behalf.  I didn't actually think she would do a full write up but she did, which was so sweet of her.  So without further adieu - please welcome my first guest blog entry from Allison - she did a great job!  PS.  if anyone else is up for a guest entry, I'm totally open to it.  Let me know.  

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This review is an homage to Jenny and her food blog.  Thanks to Jenny I had a good tip where to have dinner on my evening dining solo in Vegas.  I took a cab 10 minutes from the strip and headed out to “China Town”.  In Vegas, as you might expect, China Town is less of a bustling neighborhood and more of a series of strip malls with lots of different Asian restaurants and stores.   Among one of the non-descript strip malls is Raku, a Japanese Robata restaurant.  Since I was dining alone, I requested to sit at the sushi bar.  The hostess  was happy to seat me at the bar, which already had a few other customers, but she informed me that they didn’t serve sushi (oops).

The restaurant has 5-6 places at the bar, where you can watch food being prepared, and about 40 seats.  When I arrived at 6pm shortly after it opened, there were about 10 people total already there and as Jenny would note I was the only non-Asian which would be a good sign.  The menu consists of house made tofus, salads, cold items, grilled (robata) items and desserts.  I thought I’d sample one of each although I am not as adventurous an eater as Jenny.

I started with a half portion of the Raku Tofu, which was served cold with bonito, scallions and ginger.  There are several condiments options the bar including Raku’s green tea salt, soy sauce and custom made mixes of spicy sauce and flakes, which originate in Japan.  I was instructed to salt my tofu and use soy sauce if I liked.  Oh boy was this tofu good – it melted in your mouth.  The menu describes the tofu as “the freshest you will ever taste” which is a big claim but hard to debate after trying it. Next I had the sashimi salad which came with 9 slices of sashimi (3 salmon, 3 tuna, 3 yellowtail) on top of a bed of spinach finished with a soy dressing and a dollop of spicy sauce.  It was huge, which is not often something that describes Japanese portions, fresh and delicious.  I was excited for what was next although I was already pretty full.  I got the yellowtail with glazed soy based sauce.  It came from the grill on skewers and with a small ball of shaved daikon.  The fish was so light and flaky it was easy to eat off the skewer and was perfectly complimented by the sauce.  Also from the robata grill I ordered the flame grilled eggplant, which was a small skinned Japanese eggplant covered in bonito flakes.  It was certainly tasty, with the smokiness of the grill but not mind blowing.  To top it all off I had the sorbet of the day which was Asian pear.  It came in out in a small cup and was the consistency of a snow cone - small chunks of ice covered in pear syrup.  It was a perfect surprising, ending for someone like me, who is a huge fan of shave ice, and palate cleansing.  The service was quick and friendly, as I asked for recommendations and happily took any suggestions that they had for how to accessorize the items I’d ordered and endlessly refilled my green tea. There was a friendly welcome “irashaimase”  and  “arigatou gozaimasu” shouted to each person that left the restaurant 

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and was thrilled to leave the Strip with its large, noisy, chain restaurants.  Raku is authentic and reasonably priced - 2 words not usually used to describe Las Vegas.  I can only hope some day Jenny and I will be back to experience it together.

Total with tax and tip: $48

Photo Credit:  Allison Simon

Grano Trattoria Visited 10/19/2013 3 Forks

Grano Trattoria 21 Greenwich Ave., (between Charles St & 10th St), New York, NY 10014

I'm guessing that the majority of Grano's clientele comes from people who were not willing to wait the crazy wait at Rosemary's because that it what happened to us.  Rosemary quoted us a 2 hour wait on a Friday night and while I've totally waited that long before for a table, Aarti, Bharat and I were starving, so we immediately looked to see what our other options were on the block.  Grano is kitty corner to Rosemary and when we popped in to ask what the wait was, they told us 10 minutes.  Perfect.  Then all of a sudden it became 45 minutes, but we were able to sit at the bar and order drinks and snacks.  While Rosemary's also has a bar in the back, it's super super crowded and very loud.  We saddled up to the bar and got a baked eggplant ($9.50) appetizer and the pizza grano ($16.50) to nibble on while we waited for our table.  The eggplant was essentially a small portion of an eggplant parm.  It was small but tasty and covered in a nice tomato base and cheese.  We all agreed that we could have eaten the entire thing ourselves vs. splitting it 3 ways.  The Grano pizza consisted of bufala mozzarella, fresh tomato, and topped with arugula.  While I love all of these individual ingredients on their own and combined, this pizza didn't have enough cheese and had too much of the arugula.  As Aarti mentioned, it kind of felt like we were eating a pizza salad - heavy emphasis on the salad.  The crust had a nice chewy texture to it but it didn't really overcome the fact that there wasn't any sauce, not enough cheese and covered in a leafy green for my personal pizza taste. 

You'd think after eating that pizza and eggplant parm that we wouldn't have room for an actual meal, but you would be wrong.  Once we sat down we opted for the roasted artichoke ($12) appetizer and I got the special pasta of the day which came with pork belly ragu - but I learned that they were out of the actual pasta this dish was made with and instead the waitress recommended I go with the casarecci style pasta on it instead.  The artichoke dish originally had bacon in it, so we asked if they could make it vegetarian and they said they could substitute with brussels sprouts instead.  Perfect.  Except when the dish came out it was literally a plate of shredded brussels sprouts.  You could barely tell there were any artichokes in there.  We mentioned this to the waitress and she as like "oh, it's in there.  It's just really small."  umm, ok, I kind of didn't believe her, but she was so nice overall and the dish tasted fine, we didn't put up a stink.  Next came my pasta.  I had never heard of a casarecci pasta and honestly now when I look it up, I think I got a different kind of pasta - one that looks more like a celetani pasta in that it's kind of squiggly looking.  While the ragu sauce was good, it wasn't midblowing.  I couldn't actually tell that it was pork belly based (tasted like any other salty meat product) and it was a very rich and heavy pasta, so I had to take half of it home (which is something I rarely do).  The dish was satisfying and I had an enjoyable time with the company I was with, but the food here seemed more like your basic standard Italian vs. anything really special.  It was nice to not have to wait (about an hour and a half into our meal Rosemary's finally calls to say our table was ready) and I really appreciated how kind and warm the staff was.  They were seriously some of the nicest waitstaff I've encountered in a while.  

If you're dead set on having Italian in that 'hood, I'd still recommend Rosemary's (just be prepared to wait) and if you're not dead set on it, there are also other nice options such as Kingswood and Whitehall.  I wouldn't eliminate Grano Trattoria as an option but just know that it's not the only table on the block.  Total bill $56/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp  

Lotus Blue Visited 10/17/2013 4 Forks

Lotus Blue 110 Reade St., (between Broadway & Church St), New York, NY 10013

While I was researching for places to go for my work lunch the other day, I had come across Lotus Blue and seriously thought about going.  Even though I opted for Landmarc, I had bookmarked this place in my head as a place to try soon because of the great reviews it got on Yelp and the fact that it seemed like a legit Chinese place in Tribeca.  Funnily enough, I had drinks with Virginia that night and she had mentioned walking by this place.  Since she's one of my go-to Asian food partners, I figured why not?  

This is definitely not your Chinatown-like Chinese place.  Of course, since it's Tribeca, it's got a bit of an upscale feel, but it's not too snotty or high brow.  The menu here is Yunnan style so similar to that of Yunnan Kitchen.  I was a bit overwhelmed with all the options, but ended up ordering the crispy scallion pancakes ($6), pork chive potstickers ($8), three delight cross-bridge noodles ($18) and the steamed whole sea bass with black bean sauce ($23).  Yes, it was a lot of food but we somehow managed to eat everything.  We actually started with the cross-bridge noodles first.  I'll be honest, I didn't read the description of the dish so when it came out, it was totally not what I expected.  For some reason I thought it would be a pan fried noodle, but it says directly on the menu that there is broth to it.  So it was a giant steaming bowl of noodle soup.  They give you a bowl of rice noodles, pork, chicken, and shrimp in a bowl and then a separate plate of vegetables and a raw quail egg.  Then the waiter comes over and pours the steaming hot pork bone broth into the noodle bowl.   Pretty unique.  It was fragrant (probably due to this large flower floating in it) and is the kind of dish that would be really soothing on a cold night.  It was definitely large enough to be an entree for 1 person.  The noodles were tender and hot broth cooked all the meat, egg and vegetables well.  There were some chili flakes floating around in there that gave it a kick, but it actually could have used just a bit more salt to it.  But overall, it was a solid noodle soup dish.  Next came the scallion pancake and dumplings.  These were also both great standard staple dishes.  The pancake was fried nicely and came with a honey or lime soy dipping sauce.  I could have used a bit more scallion in them, but overall it was your typical delicious crispy pancake.  The dumplings were also tasty.  They were pan seared and had a giant thin layer of dough crust on top of it.  I've seen other places do this too and I'm not sure why because that's really not that part that people want to eat.  They want to get to the juicy pork filling.  In any case, the dumplings were nicely filled and executed.  The dough wasn't too thick and the pork was flavored well.  Lastly came the whole steamed sea bass.  For those of you who have read my blog long enough, you'll know that I am obsessed with whole steamed fish.  I wish I ate it more often here and it's one of the dishes that I always make my mom make for me when I go home.  Not only is it good for you, but it's just plain delicious.  The sea bass here was steamed with ginger, scallion, and house made black bean sauce.  We (well mostly me!) pretty much destroyed it and left no piece of meat unturned.  It was a bit bonier than I would have liked it and I think it was due to it's slightly smaller size.  Even though I don't find steamed fish to be super filling, combined with all the other food we had, I was definitely full at the end.  I loved that the waiter automatically knew to bring a bowl of white rice for the fish.  One of my biggest pet peeves if having to order rice at a Asian restaurant.  It should always come with a meal and I shouldn't have to ask for it!

The waitstaff here was really nice, very enthusiastic and genuinely seemed happy that we were happy.  I was really glad that we tried this place and I noticed that they have some affordable lunch specials that I would totally be willing to try during the work week.  I was surprised at how much I liked this place since I traditionally favor more whole in the wall ethnic places, but sometimes you do want to be in a slightly nicer setting.  I'm just glad it's not too uber trendy like the rest of the neighborhood.  But yes, the prices to reflect where it is (I think everything was about $3-7 more than they needed to be) but I guess they have to make money somehow.  Total bill:  $44/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp