Little Serow Visited 11/29/2013 4 Forks

Little Serow 1511 17th St NW between P St and Church St., Washington, DC 20036

Do you like spicy food? I mean food so spicy that it smacks the sh*t out of you and your eyes are watering in 5 minutes?  Do you like Northern Thai style food (so no pad thai or papaya salad here)? Do you also like to wait in line for over an hour in the cold, just so you can put your name down and eat 2 hours later?  If you answered yes to all of those things, then Little Serow is for you.  I had been reading about it for months as THE place to go in DC, so I finally decided to forgo my usual MD/DC places to check this place out the day after Thanksgiving.  It's totally got this NYC vibe in that it's got this tucked away, basement level location and you have to get there by 4:15pm if you even want a chance to eat at the first seating of 5:30pm.  I got there at 4:30pm and the group in front of us literally got the last 2 seats in the whole place (it only seats 28 people).  So I would say that if you want to guarantee yourself a seat at 5:30, get in line by 4:15 at the latest.  If you don't make the 1st cut, they take your number and text you when your table is ready.  There isn't much else around it within a 5 block radius (great business idea would be to build a bar next door), so I just waited it out with a coffee at McDonald's down the street.  Luckily, they texted us at 6:35pm that our table was ready!  You need to respond within 10 minutes or they give your seat away.  

The inside is like this dark cave with no windows, but they do try to brighten it up with aquamarine blue walls.  The menu here is entirely prix fixe - 7 courses for $45, which in my book is a steal.  They do not accommodate with any substitutions, so if you have allergies or are a vegetarian, stay away from this place.  The first dish of the night was a duck liver/shrimp paste/garlic dip.  It's served with crispy pork chips (similar to the shrimp chips you sometimes get in Asian restaurants) and they also give you a nice big basket of delicious sticky rice and a variety of very fresh greens ranging from lettuce to radish to basil to cabbage to cucumber.  The paste looked very unassuming but as soon as I tasted it my mouth had a 5 alarm fire.  It was so spicy that honestly it was all that I could taste for a while.  The liver gave it an earthy taste to it but really the spice was very intense (at least it was for me).  I had to cut it with some rice and cucumber.  Next we had a mushroom "salad" and a dried squid soup.  The mushroom salad was served with salted duck egg and rice powder and a few sprinkles of cilantro as the greens.  This dish was way too salty.  I mean, I could barely taste anything else in it, so it wasn't a huge hit for me.  As for the soup, the lemongrass flavor really hits you in the face.  It's also got chili slivers in it for heat and fresh squid and dried fried squid in it to add some fishy taste to it. It wasn't bad but I'm not a huge fan of a lemongrass based soup.  I was concerned at this point that I wouldn't get full because these 3 dishes were pretty small but luckily the next 4 dishes really stepped it up.  The 4th dish was described as snakehead fish with lemongrass and spices.  Honestly, if it didn't know there was fish in it I would have thought it was pork.  It had a very similar taste and texture to a laarb dish.  We were advised to eat it with the cabbage leaves which was good advice as it gave it some crunch and was a good soothing ingredient for my mouth that was still on fire.  There was a lot of flavor jammed into this dish which I liked.  Next were the fried rice cake cubes with salted prawns and peanuts.  At first I thought these were fried tofu cubes but they were indeed made out of rice which made eating 5 of them super filling.  The small shrimp were served with fish sauce, red onion and peanuts which kind of reminded me of a papaya salad - only this did not have any spice to it.  Phew.  The next dish consisted of some sauteed greens similar to a bok choy with more salted fish and a fried egg on top.  The egg was over cooked and didn't have a nice runny yoke to it, which I think would have really helped the dish.  Again - lots of flavor and lots of salt to this dish.  I wish there were more greens to it since there only probably 4 bites of actual greens in it.  The last dish was pork ribs served with whiskey and dill.  The ribs were fantastically cooked and fell right off the bone cleanly.  I was really surprised by the dill flavoring because that's not something you normally see in Thai dishes, but it worked for me here.  The meat was tender and there was a nice layer of fat right underneath the skin.  I was so full at this point that I had to leave a small piece behind, which was upsetting.  I'm not sure if putting the heaviest dish at the end of a 7 course meal is the right order for it, but it was a nice note to end on.  They do also give you a small dessert of sticky coconut rice - it was a nice palate cleanser to the meal. 

The decor was super cute and minimalist and very unexpected for the DC area.  They don't do a great job of maximizing the space as there is almost half a wall that is totally empty - they could fit almost 6 more seats there if they wanted.  The staff was super friendly and very nice which always makes a 3 hour wait more bearable.  The entire meal will probably take you about 1 1/2 hours, which isn't so bad for 7 courses.  I totally love and appreciate what they are trying to do here and it was indeed a unique experience that I didn't expect from a restaurant in DC.  It's most definitely not your standard Thai restaurant but it's not such a stuffy experience that you would feel out of place in jeans and a t-shirt.  While I usually reserve 4 forks for food that I'm in love with, I felt like I had to give it something higher than 3.5 because of the concept and overall uniqueness of this in this area.  I'm not 100% sure I would go through the whole experience again, but I'm sure glad I tried it at least once.  Total bill:  $135 for 2 with tax, tip and a glass of wine. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Jinya Ramen Bar Visited 11/23/2013 3 Forks

Jinya Ramen Bar  24 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY 10011

I met up with Aarti late on a Saturday night and we thought that we'd have our pick of restaurants at 10:15pm.  But of course, this is New York and it's one of the few cities where it's still hard to get a seat at a restaurant this late in the night.  We thought we could easily get a table at Rosemary's but they quoted us a 45 min wait!  Yeah - I'm not waiting until 11pm to eat dinner, so we tried out Jinya which was right next door and had a 2 top open at the bar.  Perfect. 

The menu here is a mix of ramen, yakitori (skewers) and then a bunch of Japanese small plates like seaweed salad, dumplings and some random sushi rolls.  It was freezing outside, so I opted for the original ramen ($12) and Aarti got the vegetarian ramen ($11) - it was nice that they had a real vegetarian ramen option and not a fake option of pork ramen but just no pork in it (I'm looking at you Midtown Ippudo).   We were both starving and opted for a bunch of veggie skewers:  onion ($2), broccoli ($3), shiitake mushroom ($3), enoki mushroom ($3), and I got a chicken thigh skewer ($3).   You'd think that grilling a bunch of veggies on a grill wouldn't take that long especially this late at night, but for some reason it took a while for our order to come out and our waiter was very apologetic about it.  The veggies were all tasty and nicely seasoned but the portions were a bit small for the price. You can buy a whole head of broccoli for $2 at the grocery store while here they are charging you $3 for maybe 4 small bites of broccoli.  Yes - I get that you are always paying a major mark up when you eat out but the discrepancy was pretty huge here.  I did also thoroughly enjoy the chicken thigh skewer - very moist on the inside with a nice charcoal burn on the outside.  Aarti mentioned that if she were to come back here again she would just order a bunch of skewers and other small plates....which leads us to the ramen.  The original came with slices of pork, spinach, cabbage, scallion, and fried onion and I ordered an egg ($1 extra).  The flavor was pretty decent although I would have liked to have had some seaweed and less fried onion.  The egg comes on the side and is barely boiled, so they recommend you put it into the broth as soon as possible so that it cooks a bit more.  That was a good recommendation because the yolk was indeed undercooked but in a good way.  The pork broth was salty and flavorful but it was really cloudy and has this thickness to it that was kind of weird.  The noodles were tender and totally acceptable but there didn't seem to be enough of it (or maybe there was too much broth?).  Aarti mentioned that her veggie ramen was really lacking in flavor - which I am not surprised by because the centerpiece of any good ramen is usually the pork broth and a veggie broth is just never really the same no matter how hard you try.  Plus it came with their totally weird bed of mixed greens on top.  So bizarre and unnecessary. 

All in all, it was totally a fine meal and it's totally worth a stop if you're in the 'hood and have a sudden craving, but Ippudo is still my go-to for addictive ramen in the city.  I would go for the skewers but the problem is that the yakitori list isn't has comprehensive or adventurous as Takashi so you will have to order a few other small plates to really make it a full meal.  Total bill:  $24/pp with tax an tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Han Dynasty Visited 11/20/2013 2.5 Forks

Han Dynasty 90 3rd Ave., (between 13th St & 12th St), New York, NY 10003

This is probably one of the most mis-leading 2.5 fork rated reviews I'll do mostly because even though I didn't have the best time there, I would totally come back and try it again.  The low rating is a mixture of a bunch of things that just kept knocking the overall rating downwards. 

Let's start from the beginning.  It actually started with a 4.5 rating because they kindly let us sit down at a table without our whole party being present.  At the time, Van, Anuja and I had agreed to meet at 6:30, so when the hostess seated us at 6:20 Van and I were confident that all of us would be seated by 6:30 and we told her as such.  Unfortunately, Anuja got caught up at work (it happens) and was running late, so Van and I were sitting at the table for a good 30-40 mins before we showed up and the restaurant was totally getting full by this time.  I totally get this is annoying for the restaurant because they could have turned it over to another party and we felt really really bad about it.  So we decided to order some food while we waited.  Van and I had heard that the Dan Dan noodles ($7.95) and the Wontons in chili oil ($6.95) were a must order, so we got those while we waited for Anuja.  The wontons came out first and they were rated a 6 on the heat/spicy scale and maybe because it was my first bite, I thought the chili oil was way spicier than a 6.  My mouth was on fire and it's the lingering, back of your mouth kind of tingle.  The actual wontons were ok, my main problem was that you couldn't taste the filling at all - which I think is one of the most important parts of a wonton.  All you could taste was the wonton skin.  So that was kind of a bummer because there's nothing better than a nice plumb wonton full of pork and scallion.  I moved on to the dan dan which was rated a 8 in spiciness.  I think because my mouth was already numb from the chili oil, it didn't feel like much spicier than the wontons.  But the noodles were great.  It was a huge bowl of nice, cold, chewy noodles with bits of pork.  For $7.95, I wish we had ordered another round of it.  

Luckily, Anuja showed up right as we were getting our food, so we quickly ordered our next round of food to keep the table.  We opted for the spicy crispy cucumber ($6.95), the pea shoot leaves with garlic ($12.95) and based on the recommendation of the hostess the salt and pepper shrimp ($19.95).  I never thought I would say that the spicy crispy cucumber dish would be my favorite.  It was just cut up slices of cucumber in a sweet delicious chili sauce.  It was rated a 6 on the heat level, but it was more of a delicious sweet heat than a hit you in the face spiciness.  It was just a really great refreshing dish.  As for the pea shoot leaves, this dish was addictive.  It's my favorite Chinese vegetable and it's hard to really get sautéed vegetables in tons of garlic wrong and they didn't here.  Sadly, the main entree we got of the salt and pepper shrimp was not a winner for all 3 of us.  We all thought it was super bland (granted it was rated a 1 on the heat level but that does NOT mean it should also be flavorless) and the batter was too thick on the shrimp.  Also - the shrimp inside was a bit overcooked, so the whole thing was a pretty dry.  It's such a shame because I've had this dish in many other Chinese restaurants and it's fantastic.  The key is the salt and pepper seasoning and a very light batter on the shrimp.  All I could taste here was pepper, no salt.  We all ended up pouring the sweet chili oil from the cucumber dish on the shrimp to add flavor to it.  

If I stopped the review here, it would have been a 3 fork review, but what pushed it down another half fork was that they gave us the bill before we were even done eating!  We still a few pieces of shrimp left and some pea shoots and without even asking us if we were done, they put the check on the table. What?  Then within 5 minutes they came over and picked up the bill but we hadn't paid yet.  I mean I did feel bad about the fact that we sat down before we were all there but we tried to compensate by ordering as much as we could while we waiting.  It's just left a bad taste in my mouth and made all of us feel like they were trying to get rid of us when we in fact were still eating.  While I still had a better experience at Grand Sichuan, I'm not sure if we really ordered the right things here.  So, against my better judgement, I would come back here to be proven wrong.  Total bill: $24/pp with tax an tip 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Ki Sushi Visited 11/19/2013 3.5 Forks

Ki Sushi 122 Smith St., (between Dean St & Pacific St), Brooklyn, NY 11201

Even though I've been Smith Street a bunch of times, I've never actually been to Ki Sushi, so when a long time high school friend was in town, staying not too far from Smith Street and had a craving for sushi, Ki Sushi seemed like the perfect fit.  We met on a Tuesday night and I was surprised at how crowded it was for a random weekday night.  I had read about Ki in Eater as having one of the best omakase deals and when I looked at the menu, they indeed had an option for $45 - which is quite the steal!  But I wasn't quite in the mood for an omakase meal and was torn between getting a sashimi combo or a bunch of rolls.  This is one of the sushi places that had tons and tons of different kinds of fancy rolls (which I don't think always sound that good because you end up not tasting the fish at all) - so not really a purist high-end sushi place like Ushiwakamaru or Sushi of Gari, but I still love places like this because the fish is still good but you aren't paying crazy town prices.  I opted to go with the Sashimi Deluxe ($27) - which, if you are curious, has 3 more pieces compared to the Sashimi Deluxe ($25).  I figured for $2, why not get the 3 extra pieces?

Martha got the Volcano roll ($16) and a spicy tuna roll ($6).    We both had a side garden salad and while the ginger dressing was delicious, it felt like the salad had been sitting in the fridge for a while because the lettuce was super cold and it had a bit too much of iceberg rind for my liking - I prefer more of the leaf vs. the rind.  My sashimi came out and it was a good number of fish:  salmon, tuna, white tuna, yellowtail, whitefish, and mackerel (3 of each).  So basically your standard sashimi combo.  The fish was tasted fresh and it was a solid sashimi dish - no frills, but hits the spot.  Usually my standard of mind blowing sashimi is how the mackerel tastes - if it doesn't come off as fishy, then the fish is definitely on the higher end, if it's got a mild fish taste, then the fish is good and if it's super fishy, then I should run out of the place.  This was the passable version - which is how most places are.  I had one of the volcano rolls and it was tasty and it made me kind of wish I had gotten a bunch of rolls instead.  I figured the sashimi would be healthier without all the rice but of course I just ended up eating the entire bowl of white rice anyways.   

This is one of those basic but good sushi neighborhood joints that I wish I had near my apt, but don't. Yes, it's got a bunch of ridiculous rolls that have fruit in it (eww) and might have too many ingredients shoved into a roll, but if I had a place like this in my 'hood I would definitely go frequently to satisfy a sushi craving at an affordable price and I might even check out the omakase next time.  Total bill:  $45/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Mama Pho Visited 11/15/2013 2.5 Forks

Mama Pho 580 Grand St., (between Lorimer St & Leonard St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

My quest for the perfect pho in NYC continues...I had stumbled upon this place as I was meeting up with a friend for drinks on Grand Street and made a mental note to check this place out one day.   I decided to check it out for lunch when I was working from home one day.  It's your classic pho place in that it's run by a Vietnamese family and the decor is very simple - it's a step up from the run down places you'll find in Chinatown but very casual.  You order at the counter, they give you a number and they bring you your food when it's ready.  The menu has your line up of a variety of pho and bahn mi sandwiches - all under $10, which is great.  I opted for the classic pho ($9) and for $1 extra you can get a thai ice tea - yes please!  I had asked them if I could get the meat raw, which isn't an unusual request at most Vietnamese places, but this guy looked at me like I had 2 heads.  He asked if I wanted raw meat on the side and while I didn't really (I wanted it put in broth at the very last minute), I said sure.

The food comes out fairly quickly like it does in most pho places.  Everything looked good on the onset with a nice aroma from the both and a plate of fresh bean sprouts, basil and lime.  There wasn't as much meat as I would have normally liked and there wasn't a ton of raw meat on my side plate (but it was nicely thinly sliced).  I would have liked the broth to be a bit hotter as it seemed more on the lukewarm side but it was hot enough that when I put the raw meat in, it did start to cook.  The key to any pho is the broth - it's got to knock you in the face with herbs and flavors like cinnamon, cardamon, onion, and ginger.  This one was close but there was just something that was missing.  I can't put my finger on it but it was lacking some kind of herb.  The noodles were clumped together a bit which was annoying but that wasn't a deal breaker.  I did finish the entire thing, broth and all, so obviously it wasn't that bad but I just know that I've had better pho before.

All in all, the pho wasn't anything close to my favorite place at home, Pho 75, but it is the only Vietnamese place I've noticed within walking distance to my apt, so I would come back in a pinch if I really had a craving.  I might try to bahn mi this week since the prices here are very reasonable, but I'm not sure if I'm ready just yet to put this on any regular 'hood rotation.  Total price:  $12 with tax and tip

Photo credit:  Yelp

Pure Food and Wine Visited 11/11/2013 3.5 Forks

Pure Food and Wine 54 Irving Pl., (between 18th St & 17th St), New York, NY 10003

I know, you must be thinking "What? Another vegan review??"  Don't worry - I am still a meat loving eater but I'm always open to trying new and different cuisines and when Amy bought a Groupon for this place, I was down to try it.  It's long been a vegan/raw food staple in the New York restaurant scene and for that reason alone,  it's never really been high on my list of places to try.   Vegan is one thing but raw is a whole other ball game.  But people rave about this place, so I was willing to give it a shot.  I'm starting to wonder if I need to start a label for vegan/vegetarian only places on my blog!

They do a really good job of making the menu sound really good. Everything sounded really delicious and appetizing.  We opted to split the Philly Roll ($19) to start which was their take on a sushi roll.  It's avocado, kim chee, cashew cheese, tatsoi, hijiki, scallion and sweet chili sauce wrapped in seaweed.  It was a fairly hearty dish with all those different ingredients (and I'll be honest I have no idea what tatsoi or hijiki are).  Of course, it doesn't compare to a real sushi roll but it wasn't some sad flavorless roll either.  For our entrees, we decided to split all of our dishes.  We got the zucchini and heirloom tomato lasagna ($24), the hen of the woods tacos ($22), and the portabella mushroom with cauliflower and horseradish aioli ($23).  As you can see from the prices, they are all fairly expensive for food that is not even cooked!   Luckily, they all tasted pretty good otherwise I would have been really really upset.  My favorite was the zucchini and tomato lasagna.  It was served with a pesto pistachio pesto, sun-dried tomato marinara, and pumpkin seed ricotta.  Yes - it was cold and raw, but there was enough flavor from the tomato and pesto to carry the dish.  Of course I missed the pasta and warm gooey-ness of cheese, but I've made vegetarian lasagna before where I subbed out the pasta for strips of eggplant and zucchini, so it was kind of similar here.  It was a pretty meaty dish to the point where we didn't even finish it between the three of us because we were all getting so full.  The tacos were served with smoked guacamole, hearts of palm, fresh corn, guajillo crema fresca and pickled onions.  It was pretty good and I particularly enjoyed the corn concoction part of the dish.  Overall, it wasn't too much of a stretch to make this dish vegan, it was mostly like a regular vegetarian taco dish you would get at a Mexican place.  Lastly, the portabella mushroom dish came with kale chimichurri, peach salsa, barbecue sauce and a bunch of haricots verts.  Again, this dish didn't seem like too much of a stretch because the mushroom tasted like a regular roasted mushroom (ok, so I guess this place wasn't 100% raw but I don't think they cook things at a high temperature here) and the cauliflower was similar to a mashed potato consistency in that it was mashed up and mixed together with a horseradish and scooped out in a ball.  This was also a super filling and hearty dish - in fact everything here had this rich element without any oil or fats.  I was pretty impressed at how good the meal could be considering how many not so great savory vegan meals are out there.  

Since it's fall, we opted to get the pumpkin praline pie for dessert (an outrageous $16) which was delicious and served with a large frozen poached pear covered in chocolate.  It was so frozen that we could barely bite into it because it was so painful on the teeth.  The pie tasted just like a pumpkin pie should but $16 for 1 slice is really just highway robbery (even if it did include a sweet praline ice cream).  All in all, the food here was definitely the most fancy and high end of any vegan place I've been to and the prices reflect as such.  I left surprisingly full and impressed at the level of creativity and tastiness raw food can have, but it's definitely not going to sway me to change into a hippie anytime soon!  Total bill:  $47/pp with tax, tip and a Groupon. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Antique Taco Visited 11/9/2013 4 Forks

Antique Taco 1360 N Milwaukee Ave., (between Wood St & Wolcott Ave), Chicago, IL 60622

Antique Taco is a place that's right up my alley.  It's a little bit hipster, no frills but still serves good food. It seems like it's more of a late night eat place given it's location on Milwaukee and the type of food it serves.  But it's also a good place to grab a bite to eat before you head out for the night too.  The menu here is pretty simple:  tacos.  They have mushroom, pork, steak, fish, shrimp, and chicken.  They also do have some non-taco dishes like salads and cheese curds (random).  The cool thing about this place is that they also have alcoholic drinks like margaritas and agua fresca with vodka so you can easily get the night started here.  

Deanna and I had a pretty full and late lunch at one of my all-time favorite places in Chicago, Longman and Eagle, so we both went pretty light on dinner here.  It's one of those places where you order at the counter, they give you a number to put at your table and they then bring you your food.  Although all the tacos sounded great, I opted for the fish tacos.  I kind of trick myself into thinking they are healthy for me, even though they are usually battered and fried.  If you're here with a larger party, I would recommend that you order a bunch of different tacos and split them amongst yourself.  In a lot of fancy places in NYC, these kind of tacos will run you $15-20 but luckily I was in Chicago and these were only $8 for 2.  Deanna ended up getting the corn off the cob salad ($8) which sounded delicious also. We also split a pint (serves 3-4 glasses) of agua fresca vodka - yum!  I was a bit nervous that 2 tacos wouldn't be enough, but when these came out, they definitely looked like enough food.  It's not really stereotype, but everything in the Midwest is just bigger.  The fish was lightly tempura battered and then served with a lot of smoked cabbage, chives, sesame, and Sriacha tartar sauce.  The pieces of fish were ginormous and and battered well with a nice crispiness to it but not overly done so that you couldn't taste the flakiness of the fish inside.  My one complaint was that there was way to much cabbage.  I mean it was literally covering the taco and drowning the dish.  They could have used half the amount and been fine.  I loved the Sriacha tartar sauce because it had the nice balance of spiciness but kept with the tradition of tartar sauce in a fish taco.   I tried a bite of Deaana's corn salad and it was fantastic - it was served with corn, Parmesan, black beans, red peppers, avocado, onion, corn chips, and romaine lettuce. 

All in all, this is a great local joint.  A perfect bite before or after a late night in Bucktown.  While ABC Cocina still has my favorite fish taco, this place isn't too far and it's definitely much cheaper and easier to get into!  Total bill:  $14/pp with tax and tip

Photo:  Yelp