Ramen Yebisu Visited 9/7/2014 2.5 Forks

Ramen Yebisu 126 N 6th St., New York, NY 11211

After a long day of football watching and roaming the streets of Williamsburg, Aarti and I were ready to finish the afternoon off with some ramen.  Even though I have lived in this 'hood for over 4 years and seen Ramen Yebisu a bunch of times, I've actually never been there so I was up for trying it out. It's pretty tiny inside, which is not too different from most ramen joints, but luckily we were able to get two stools at the bar and we got a nice view of the open kitchen. 

The menu is a pretty standard ramen menu:  miso, shoyu, and shio ramen and they also had a chicken, seafood and veggie option as well as two non-soup based ramens.  I usually get miso since it's a bit of a lighter broth and this one was describe as having a soybean paste broth with ground pork, beansprouts, onion, garlic, bamboo shoots, scallion, sesame seeds and crispy onion ($12) and I added an egg for $2 because really, you can't have ramen without an egg.  That actually kind of annoyed me that the egg was extra because to me that is a staple of any ramen dish.  In any case, I probably should have read the ingredients more carefully because it clearly said that it came with ground pork and not the sliced pork that I'm normally used to in ramen.  Obviously, Aarti got the veggie option ($12) which is a soybean soup with mushroom, scallion, onion, bamboos shoots, bean sprouts, and seaweed. 

Despite the place being tiny, we waited a long time for our food which was surprising considering they only have 8 dishes and they are frankly all the same thing with just 1-2 variations to it.  Once we got our ramen, I realized that I probably should have ordered the shoyu or the shio ramen because they had the sliced pork in it and not the ground pork.  It just didn't have the same texture or flavor profile to it using the ground pork.  The noodles themselves were nice and chewy, so I didn't really have a problem with them.  The broth was basic and standard for a ramen broth (read:  super salty) but I just really felt like it wasn't hearty enough without the sliced roast pork.  Instead, it felt heavy on a salty broth and noodles but not much else.   I was also missing the seaweed to the ramen which also did not come with my dish.  I really need to be more careful when I'm reading the menu.   Even though I finished my bowl of noodles, I left feeling kind of bummed out by my choice.  Plus the fact that it's cash only also annoyed me.  I'm not entirely sure I would come back and try another dish, but given the lack of other ramen places in the neighborhood, I'm not sure what other ramen options I really have.  Total bill:  $16/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Pickle Shack Visited 9/5/2014 3.5 Forks

The Pickle Shack 256 4th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215

Back when I livd in Park Slope, 4th Ave was a total dead zone.  It was full of tire shops and it was not a street that I would walk along by myself at night.  While it's still not totally gentrified, it's definitely come a long way.  There are now luxury apartment buildings and condos and lots of bars and restaurants popping up.  Amy and I were headed to Anuja's birthday party in the area and needed a veggie friendly place for dinner.  Luckily The Pickle Shack totally fit the bill.

It's a veggie/vegan friendly bar/restaurant with a fantastic outdoor patio.  It was packed to the gills when we got there but we luckily were able to still get a table outside.  The menu has a bunch of healthy sandwiches, salads, side dishes and of course pickles.  Even as a meat eater, all of the sandwiches sounded great and I was really having a hard time deciding what to get.  I ended up getting the cornmeal battered oyster mushrooms ($8) and the all green sandwich ($11).  The waitress had mentioned that particular sandwich was only a half size, so based on that  I got the side salad ($3) with my sandwich.  Amy got the tofu bahn mi ($11) and a side of hop pickles ($5).   While neither of us ended up getting anything to drink, this place surprisingly has an amazing beer (lots of Dogfish Head beer) and wine list.  Seriously, it was very impressive for a place that you think is more health conscious.  I would definitely come back and try out some of their craft beers.

On to the food.  So remember when the waitress said it was a half sandwich?! Well, if that is a half sandwich then I don't want to know what a whole one looks like.  It was more than enough for one person and not small at all.  I honestly didn't need to order that side salad or even the oyster mushrooms.  The all green sandwich was made with avocado, cucumbers, fresh herbs, arugula, sprouts, eggplant and tahini spread and miche all on a toasted multi-grain type bread.  All the ingredients were very fresh and it most definitely felt like a very healthy California style meal.  But the one major gripe I have about the sandwich was that the crust of the bread was so hard and overly toasted that I cut the roof of my mouth several times.  I resorted to trying to cut the crust off but then that promptly lead to the whole structure of the sandwich being destroyed.  As I continued to eat my sandwich the more it just started falling apart and it just became very messy to eat.  Luckily I was with Amy and not on a date, otherwise I would have been super paranoid about having food all over my face.  I didn't try Amy's sandwich but she said that she really enjoyed it.  I also really liked my cornmeal battered oyster mushrooms.  They were very hearty and with the cornmeal batter it tasted less greasy vs if it had actually been battered and fried up.   I kind of forced myself to eat my side salad - which was some mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing - because I was so full at that point but it was totally fine albeit a bit basic salad.

This place is an adorable place in the middle of a burgeoning neighborhood and despite having the roof of my mouth shredded, I would come back and try a sandwich with a softer bread.  The waitstaff is also really nice and it's just a really nice and pleasant place to spend an evening with friends.  Total bill:  $24/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Skal Visited 8/29/2014 2.5 Forks

Skal 37 Canal St., New York, NY 10002

I was actually pretty excited when my friend Nicole mentioned that she wanted to try out this Icelandic restaurant near her apartment.  Ever since I visited Iceland last year, I have a soft spot for anything related to that area - ponies, sweaters, and even their food.  It's definitely not a cuisine that's very popular even in a diverse city like New York, but it has slowly started to make its way to America. 

We got a seat at one of the tables outside on a lovely Friday night.  The menu, as you can imagine, is fairly limited with about 6 appetizer dishes and and 6 entrees.  Based on my experience from visiting the country there last year, none of the dishes were particularly Icelandic - only the Arctic Char sounded remotely like it would be something you could find in Iceland.  Nicole had warned me before hand that a friend had told her that the portions would be very small and expensive, so I was bracing myself for a somewhat typical high brow NYC experience.  Based on that kind of feedback, you'd think this place would offer something like bread or something else to start the meal but we got none of that.  We were debating what to get as a starter and we were feeling a bit adventurous and decided on the raw beef appetizer ($15) - which is really just a bad name for beef tartare.  I was hemming and hawing between getting a fish or meat dish and resolved the dilemma by getting the diver scallops and pork belly ($25) dish while Nicole got the Char ($24).  Our raw beef came out and it was your standard beef tartare but without a raw egg on top.  It was served pretty finely chopped with littleneck clams and trout roe with toasted bread.  For those of you who get grossed out by raw meat, I get it, but this really didn't taste like what you would think.  It was a nicely done tartare albeit a pretty small serving for $15.

Then this is where things start to fall apart.  We waited over 45 minutes for our food with no apologies from our waitress or the owner who had been milling around the front of the house.  We chased down our waitress several times and instead of taking responsibility for it,  she looked like a scared little mouse and would mumble something and then run away from us.  To me, good customer service would be for her to say "I'm sorry this is taking so long, let me go and check on it for you" and then possibly offering up a free dessert or even going as far as comping one of our entrees for the long wait.  Tables who clearly came after us were getting served left and right and by the time we got our entrees, it was past 10:30 (we sat down at about 9pm) and we were both about to offer up the table $50 for their food.  Luckily when the food finally came, it was actually good but we were still pretty frustrated by the whole experience.  I will say that my dish was plated beautifully.  The diver scallops were a nice firm texture and were a pretty decent size.  The pork belly was a bit on the fatty side but the combination of the pork, scallop and sweet corn was a surprisingly balanced profile.  But as Nicole said, neither of our dishes seemed very Icelandic - more new American.  Since we were so hungry, we had finished our dishes in less than 15 minutes.  When the waitress came out and asked if we wanted dessert but without comping any of it, we took a pass.

It's not that I necessarily wanted free food, but more of a recognition that we were experiencing some poor customer service.  I expect a good restaurant, whether high end or a small shop, to do the right thing by their customers and we didn't get it here.   Total bill:  $41/pp with tip and tax

Photo Credit:  Yelp

III Forks Visited 8/25/2014 4 Forks

III Forks 1201 San Jacinto St., Houston, TX 77002

So not to be super judgey but I don't there's much Texas does better foodwise than NYC except in two categories - Mexican and Steaks.  I was in Houston for a client meeting and the only type of restaurants downtown that were worth of a client dinner were all steak houses.  Luckily, everyone in our party ate meat so going to a steak house was not an issue.

I had to laugh that this place is called Three Forks and luckily for them they were better than 3 forks. Our waiter did an excellent job of describing all the dishes and told all of us that their 3 fork salad was "award winning".   Everyone at the table ended up ordering it but I bucked the trend and ordered the ahi tuna appetizer ($16) and went with the petite filet mignon ($36) with King's Butter toppping (essentially a giant pat of truffle butter for an extra $8).   The tuna appetizer was a about 5-6 thin slices of tuna, seasoned with a mix of spices and lightly grilled.   It wasn't quite as rare as I would have liked but it was a good start to the meal none the less.  In addition to the steaks we all ordered, we got a bunch of sides to go with our meal:  mashed potatoes, lobster mac and cheese, and sweet potato hash (all $10).  As you can see there wasn't a vegetable in sight.  When the steak first came out, I was a bit disappointed in the presentation of the steak just sitting by its lonesome self on a giant white plate.  But then the helpful waitstaff actually comes around and helps plate all the side dishes for you in addition to bringing out a plate of grilled tomatoes and spring onions to go with your meat.  As soon as I cut into my filet I knew it would be a good one.  It was perfectly rare in the center but not blue rare.  The king's butter was the perfect heart stopping topping to it although I did have to scrap off half of it for fear that I would actually end up with a heart attack at the table if I ate all of it.  I hadn't had steak in a long time and this made we remember why I love steak.  It was juicy, moist but with the right amount of sear on the outside.  Heavenly.  The lobster mac and cheese was good with the right amount of cheese - although obviously I always wish there is more lobster in everything.    I'm glad that I got the petite filet because I didn't finish it which made me super sad to leave that kind of meat on the plate to only be thrown away.

Of course, I left some small room for dessert and I split the bread pudding ($9) with someone else at the table.  It was very sweet - almost too sweet for me.  It was also a bit heavy on the sauce which is the fatal mistake most places make with bread pudding - a good bread pudding can still be delicious without being sauce heavy or dense like a rock (see Maialino).  Overall, it was still a very solid dinner and made ever better with several bottles of a great unfiltered California red wine.   I can't say I was a huge fan of Houston itself, but Texas does know how to do steak right.

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bodega Negra Visited 8/23/2014 3 Forks

Bodega Negra 355 W 16th St., New York, NY 10011

I'm usually very skeptical of hotel restaurants because they are either way overpriced or just serve mediocre food.  I'm even more skeptical of trendy hotel restaurants - so when we ended up at Bodega Negra for Jenn's bachelorette party I was a bit worried.  But it actually ended up being super fun and the food really surprisingly good (although I'll talk about the prices later).

The restaurant is in the uber trendy Dream Hotel near the Meat Packing District, so you can only imagine what the crowd is like.  Even at 7pm, you could see the crowd of young club goers trying to get into the rooftop bar of the hotel.  The entrance to the restaurant is pretty hidden and once you enter it almost felt like I was in a club in Vegas - it was almost dark I nearly tripped going down the stairs and it's very loud (yes, I know this makes me sound like an old lady). Since we were such a large party,  we had arranged to have a set menu for dinner.  When I first looked at the menu I thought I was going to choose from the different dishes but then I was told we were actually getting everything on the menu and sharing it family style.  Oh my - there were 12 dishes on the menu and apparently we got 2 of everything on the menu.

We started the meal with the guacamole which was nice and smooth and it was served with chips, jicama and radish.  It was a solid guacamole - no complaints here.  Next for the "first course" which was 4 different dishes:  quesadilla rustica, chopped salad, fish tacos and chicken tostaditas.  The quesadilla was more like a very thin crust pizza instead of an actual quesadilla in a flour tortilla and folded over.  It was served with four cheese, habanero, roasted tomato and chimichurri - it was a nice starter dish.  The chopped salad included avocado, queso fresco, pumpkin seeds and jalapeno cilantro.  It was a HUGE salad and actually very tasty.  It could definitely be a stand alone meal for someone if they were looking for something on the lighter side.  The pumpkin seeds were a nice touch and added a smokey crunch to it. The fish tacos  came with tomatillo orange salsa, chayote jicama slaw and crema and it was fantastic.  The fish was grilled and was cooked perfectly - very firm but still moist at the same time.   The combination of the all the ingredients made it quite a refreshing but satisfying taco.  At this point, I barely had any more room to try the chicken tostaditas but I managed to eat a few without the tortilla shell and the shredded chicken was quite tasty.

I could have totally be done with dinner at point and been really happy but we still had our main entrees to come.  They rolled out the Roasted Amish Chicken, Carne Asada and Chile Relleno along with sides of black beans, fried plantains and green rice and I thought I was going to burst.  There was literally no room on the table for everything so we ended up just laying some dishes on top of each other.  The plates were each gigantic and we could have gotten away with just one of each instead of 2 of everything. Of course I had to try a little bit of everything and I gotta say I was impressed with most of it.  The chicken still had the skin on it and the meat was very moist and juicy and it was served with grilled zucchini, squash and avocado tomatillio with chile chicken jus poured over it.  Next I tried the carne asada - which was cooked nicely medium rare and served with mole negro and roasted peppers.  It's hard to go wrong with grilled skirt steak - yum!  At this point I really just couldn't eat anymore, so I didn't try the chile relleno but it smelled great.

Of course I say I can't eat anymore but then they put the plate of dessert out in front of us and I couldn't resist but to dive into the Tres Leche cake.  Delicious!  It was was the epitome of a milk cake because it was incredibly moist and you could tell I had been soaking in all sorts of milks.

So why only the 3 fork rating if I enjoyed the food? Well, unless I'm totally missing something, I felt totally taken advantage of when the bill came.  We were told in advance that it was a $75/person prix fixe - which was totally fine by me and I would not have been bothered by it until I just looked the regular prices on their menu (which are pretty high for what the food costs - i.e. $16 for the guacamole).  I added up the price of all of the dishes and unless I am mis-calculating, if we had just ordered all the food on our own it would have come out to less than $50/person.  That to me is a pretty big difference and considering there were 10 of us, that's an increase of over $250 of what the bill should have been.  On top of that, gratuity was not included which is completely ridiculous. Our waitress was incredibly nice and I didn't mind giving her a good tip but when a place is marking up the already overprice prix fixe and then asking us to add another 20% on top of it, a meal that would probably only cost us $75-90 total ended up costing each person $140.  It's most definitely not the fault of anyone who planned the party and in the end it was fine because it's more about the people you are with and the fun times you have,  but I definitely felt a bit raked over the coals.  So lesson learned, prix fixe is not always the best deal -  don't assume that the restaurants will take care of you and always do the math first!

Photo Credit:  Yelp

House of Small Wonder Visited 8/23/2014 3.5 Forks

House of Small Wonder 77 N 6th St., Brooklyn, NY 11211

House of Small Wonder used to be a cute low key French cafe located not that far from my apartment. I had actually never been there but had always envisioned myself going, eating a croissant and reading the paper there.  Since then, it closed down and moved to this space next to this great Japanese place called Zenkichi.  

With this move to the new place, it's still an adorable cafe but the new space reminds me being in a tiny magical treehouse.  Seriously, you walk in and there are no real windows (so it's a bit claustrophobic) and there's a large tree trunk that runs through the middle of the restaurant.  The menu is a funky fusion of European cafe sandwiches like avocado goat cheese and croque madam sandwiches to Japanese influenced food like the sashimi don to the genuinely bizarre fusion food like taco rice.  I had really wanted the sashimi don (especially after seeing the table next to me get it) but they had JUST ran out.  Sad.  What I should have done was order another Japanese inspired dish but for some reason I blurbed out that I would get the grilled chicken sandwich ($12) while Paige got the Taco Rice dish ($13) and we split the banana cake ($4).  The chicken sandwich did sound really good on the menu:  grilled chicken (dark meat), arugula, tomato, yuzu pepper mayo, with melted gruyere cheese on a toasted brioche bun and served with a side salad (I got the Mediterranean version).  All the flavors and ingredients were great except for me the bun was too dry and crusty.  After having such an amazing sandwich yesterday with The Meat Hook shop, I was a bit let down by this one, mostly because of the overly toasted bread.  I did like that they used the dark meat of the chicken since it did make the chicken juicer.  The "mediterranean" salad was really just a bunch of chopped up red pepper, tomato and cucumber.  I guess I was expecting it to have feta cheese and was sad that it didn't.   I tried a bit of the taco rice and it was a really interesting combination of flavors.  It was ground pork with taco seasoning over a bed of sushi like rice, chopped vegetables, cheese and a fried egg.  I know it sounds weird but it all kind of worked together and seems like it would be a really good hang over food. 

But the real winner was the banana cake.  It was pretty tiny but it was served with the most amazingly fresh whip cream.  The bread was moist and had a nice touch of banana that wasn't overwhelming.  I wish it was bigger but I guess for my health, it's best that it wasn't. 

All in all, I would still recommend this place but I would say stick with some of the Japanese influenced food and get there early so that you can get the sashimi!  The table to the right of us also got the cold ramen dish and the vegetable udon dish which both looked great.   Also they got a small deduction because they are cash only and apparently the ATM in the back charges a $5 fee.   Total bill with tax, tip and drinks:  $27/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Meat Hook Sandwich Visited 8/22/2014 4 Forks

Meat Hook Sandwich 495 Lorimer St., Williamsburg, NY 11211

I usually don't write about take out places or sandwich places since they aren't really restaurants but my sandwich here was so freaking amazing that I had to have a entry for it.  It was possibly one of THE best sandwiches I've had in a really long time and the fact that it's a 10 minute walk from me is incredibly dangerous.  The only reason I may not gain 50 lbs and spend all my money there is that it's a pretty expensive sandwich.

First off, the place is from the owners of The Meat Hook which is a local butcher shop located inside The Brooklyn Kitchen.  I haven't actually bought anything from the shop before but only because I don't have a lot of reason to grill or cook a bunch of meat at home.  So the best way for me to experience their tasty product would be to get a sandwich from their sandwich shop.  It's a tiny shop with 2-3 high top tables.  They have about 5 sandwiches on the menu with one of them being a vegetarian option.  But you really need to come here for the meat based sandwiches.  Upon my first glance, I was a bit put off by the prices - $13 for a sandwich?!  But I figured I had to try one since I made the walk over here anyways.  I am a huge lover of roast beef so I got the roast beef sandwich which came with cheddar cheese, hash, lettuce, onion, and horseradish mayo all on a incredibly soft and delicious Italian sesame bread.  Holy Shit - it was one amazing sandwich.  For $13, you do get an incredibly large sandwich.  It could easily be split between two people and they really pile the sandwich high with roast beef.  The beef was mouth watering rare and moist and full of flavor.  The combination of it with the cheddar cheese and horseradish was perfect.  I also have to give a shout out to the bread which I read comes from the Sullivan Street Bakery.  It was the perfect hero/bread for a sandwich like this.  I don't like the bread that usually comes with hero like sandwiches because they tend to be crusty and too hard but this was pillowy and soft and a star on its own right.  I wanted to leave half of it for later but couldn't stop myself and ate the whole thing.  I was stuffed silly afterwards but yet still thinking about which sandwich I would try later. 

If it wasn't for the high price, I probably would have given this place a higher rating but foodwise, it was simply fantastic.  I can't speak highly enough about this place.  I can't wait to go back and try the roast pork or hot chicken sandwich.  Go hungry and go early as I hear that they do sometimes run out of certain sandwiches.  Total bill:  $13

Photo Credit:  Yelp