Bar Primi Visited 10/3/2014 3 Forks

Bar Primi 325 Bowery, New York, NY 10003

Bar Primi is brought to you by the same people of The Dutch and Locanda Verde which means that it comes from a pretty good lineage of popular and much loved restaurants.  It occupies the space of what used to be Peels but honestly they didn't do much to change the space.  Lav and I met up here early on a Friday night (around 6:30pm) and it was pretty empty and easy to get a seat.  By the time we left around 8, it was definitely jam packed with people.  They don't take reservations, so definitely get there early. 

The menu here is a very manageable Italian line up of about 6 different kinds of appetizers, antipasti dishes, pastas and then 1-2 specials of the day.   I was very appreciative of the fact that the price point for the pastas was fairly reasonable - all under $20, which is crazy that I even have to say that but in the world of $25-30 pasta dishes, I did notice that right away and was very pleased with that.  We were both starving and based on the waiter's recommendation, we landed on the ricotta bruschetta ($8) and the rice balls ($7) to start and I got the bucatini ($18) and Lav got the linguini ($14).  I was dying to get the meatballs since it was apparently stuffed with cheese, but I didn't think that I could finish it on my own so I didn't order it. 

The ricotta bruschetta was served with honey drizzled on top and pieces of fig.  It was delicious - I've always loved the combination of ricotta and honey and it reminded me very much of the other fabulous ricotta dish at Andrew Carminelli's other restaurant but it wasn't quite as good as that one. The rice balls were also fabulous, probably my favorite dish of the night.  There were 4 fairly good sized pieces served with tomato mixed into rice mixture and then it came on a bed of basil pesto sauce.  It was a very addictive dish and if the rice balls were this good, I can only imagine what the meatballs were like.  Then we moved on to the pasta course.  My bucatini came with a lamb ragu sauce and while the pasta and sauce were done well I wasn't wow'd over by the dish.  The pasta was a smidge too al dente for me and the serving size was a bit on the smaller size (I guess that's why it's $18!).   While it wasn't a bad pasta dish, I was bit underwhelmed by the whole experience given all the buzz around the place.  Lav had also mentioned that her pasta that came with 4 cloves of garlic and breadcumbs was ok but not a wow dish.  So I think we were both a bit let down by the overall pasta experience. 

Luckily the restaurant did redeem itself a bit with dessert.  We got the tiramisu ($7) and it was heavenly.  Very light and fluffy -  the piece looked huge but we quickly finished rather quickly.  You could really taste the coffee flavor in the lady fingers and the mascarpone cheese was creamy and delicious.  Lav had mentioned that it was better than some of the tiramisu dishes she had in Italy.  

Overall, it wasn't a bad meal but the main dishes were just not as impressive as their pedigree lends. If you stick to a meal of a bunch of appetizers, antipasti and desserts, you'll most likely have a much more satisfying meal.   Total bill with tip, tax and wine:  $50/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Sao Mai Visited 10/2/2014 2 Forks

Sao Mai   203 1st Ave., New York, NY 10003

It actually pains me to write a bad review for this place because it came so highly recommended by two of my favorite and most trusted food blogs:  Eater.com and theinfatuation.com.  They both raved about how much they loved this place and how great the pho is.  As someone who has been constantly in search of the best pho, I jumped at the opportunity to check this place out.  I mean how can both of my favorite sites be wrong about a place? 

Uh - so apparently they can.  I can't say how some of the other food tastes but the pho itself was no winner in my book and I've had plenty of other better experiences in Chinatown (i.e. Pho Grand). Aarti and I met up here on a Thursday night and I did appreciate that they let me actually sit at a table while waiting for her.  I immediately went for the Sao Mai house pho ($9.50) which came with brisket, beef eye round and beef balls and Aarti got the vegetarian version ($8.50) and we split the vegetarian summer roll ($5.50).  The summer roll came out first and the main reason we ordered it was because it came with peanut sauce.  But this peanut sauce was very thin and seemed to have more soy sauce than peanut flavoring.  The roll itself was basic and totally fine - stuffed with tofu instead of shrimp or pork - but for me it's always the sauce that makes the roll and this one just didn't hit the mark. 

The pho came out quickly and it looked pretty promising.  I will give credit in that there was lots of meat in it and the noodles were nice and soft.  But what MAKES an entire pho dish is the broth and this one was just severely lacking.  It tasted bland and it was just missing that punch of seasoning and meat bones flavor that makes pho so wonderful.  When I go to Pho 75 at home, I not only polish off the entire bowl of noodles and meat, but I slurp up every ounce of broth I can because it's just that good.  Here - I actually left behind a few pieces of meat and drank none of the broth.  You know you have a sad pho when that happens. Apparently, Aarti had the opposite experience where she said she enjoyed the broth but didn't really care for the noodles or vegetables.

Another bummer was my Vietnamese Ice Coffee ($3).  I like it when it's served to me in the drip form and into a cup of sweetened condensed milk and then I stir it up and pour it into a cup of ice. This was pre-made already and just didn't have that same feel to it and was a bit over sweet to me.

All in all, I was really disappointed by my experience here.  I'm usually very in sync and in agreement with my other fellow food bloggers, but this one left my head scratching.  Not sure if we just had two totally different experiences or they just don't know Vietnamese food very well, but the only good thing was the bill:  Total cost with tax and tip:  $17/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Greenpoint Fish and Lobster Co. Visited 9/27/2014 4 Forks

Greenpoint Fish and Lobster Co.  114 Nassau Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11222

I always suspected that after Williamsburg, Greenpoint would be the next area to blow up and places like the Greenpoint Fish and Lobster Co. re-affirm that belief and it also makes me feel like I could live in Greenpoint despite its location.  There are actually a bunch of great places that are within a fairly reasonable walking distance from the Bedford stop on the L train including this place.  First thing you should know is that Greenpoint Fish and Lobster is part retail fish market and raw bar.  It's pretty small so don't go thinking it's a full fledged restaurant - it's pretty much a few bar stools and then 3 small two top tables.

The menu is reflective of what's fresh and available that day - so it's not a huge menu but there are good staple items of crudo, fish tacos, whole lobster and a variety of oysters.  Holly and I split the fluke crudo and we both got the fish tacos (you can ask for them grilled or battered).  The fluke crudo came thinly sliced and drizzled with a ton of olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  While the presentation could have used some work, the taste was fantastic.  It was extremely fresh and Holly and I both couldn't get enough of it.  I guess these are the perks of having a fish market literally inside your restaurant.  I'm usually a little weary of taco orders that only come out with two servings but these tacos were very filling and hefty.  They were served on two small soft flour tortillas, several pieces of grilled fish and then covered with a red cabbage slaw, chiptole mayo and sprigs of cilantro.   They were very solid fish tacos and while I did wish that I tried another dish where the freshness of the fish wasn't masked by a lot of other stuff on the plate, I definitely enjoyed my meal and would recommend it to others.  We finished off the meal with an order of both the key lime pie and the chocolate mousse pie - apparently they are both homemade by a friend of the owners.  I was a fan of the key lime - it had a nice hint of tartness and paired nicely with the graham cracker crust.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with my most recent foray into Greenpoint.  Our waitress was incredibly sweet and nice and even though the place was packed and there was a line forming, they never pressured us to leave, even when we had finished our food and were just sipping on our wine (did I mention that they have rose on tap?!).   If I lived a bit closer, I could definitely seem myself stopping by more often to satisfy my seafood craving.   I'm totally on a Greenpoint kick now, who's with me? Total bill with tip, tax and wine:  $50/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Sakagura Visited 9/26/2014 5 Forks

Sakagura 211 E 43rd St., New York, NY 10017

It's been a while since I have been overwhelmingly in love with a place but Sakagura has me totally enamored with it.  Normally I find Midtown East to be super gross - a place that has nothing of note besides being a office building hub.  But there are surprisingly a lot of Japanese restaurants nearby and I had stumbled upon this place when glancing through Yelp on the day I had to drop off my passport at the Brazilian consulate on 41st street.  My appointment was right around lunch time, so I figured it would be fun to grab lunch in a part of town that I normally don't hang out in.

I would have never found this place if it wasn't for the internet.  It's literally in the basement of an unmarked office building and you have to go down the stairs and through a scary concrete hallway before entering this oasis.  I felt like I was on Law and Order: SVU and could have been attacked at any moment. It's truly a speakeasy in every sense for the word.  I got there exactly when they opened at 11:30 - despite it's ultra secret location, I had read that this place can get very crowded during lunch time.  Everything on the menu sounded drool worthy.  It's not a sushi place, more like a classic izakaya but they do have several sashimi and raw fish options.  If I had the money and time, I would have sat there for hours gorging on the different soba noodle options (hot and cold), donburi bowls (the set comes with an order of soba noodles) and other assorted goodies.  But I had read about the famous sea urchin soba ($20).  They only have 7 servings of it per day and being that I was the 1st person in the restaurant  I felt obligated to order it - plus I love sea urchin!  I also got the sashimi appetizer (3 kinds for $18) to start my meal.

I have to give a major shout out to the decor of this place.  You'll feel like you were transplanted to Japan - it's got this magical and very authentic feel to it.  It's beautifully decorated with lots of wood paneling and large sake kegs.  I could sit there all day staring at the surroundings.  The sashimi came out first and it was a trio of salmon, tuna and fluke.  It was melt in your mouth delicious.  If I felt comfortable spending tons of money on lunch, I would have gotten the 5 kind for $28.  But every piece was fantastic and perfectly cut.  Next the sea urchin soba came out and it was gorgeous.  It's a bowl of handmade cold soba noodles topped with 3-4 pieces of fresh sea urchin sashimi, soaking in a cold sea urchin soup.  Yum!  I felt bad because I slurped up the whole thing less than 10 minutes.  I didn't really give myself a lot of time to really savory each bite.  Of course I would have loved more sea urchin and I will say that I've had creamier and tastier sea urchin before but the fact that it was sitting in a sea urchin soup base really sealed the deal for me.  As I was finishing up my meal, I did notice a lot of people coming in for lunch and most of them were Japanese (always a good sign).   This would be a fantastic place for a date or even with a group so that you can split of bunch of stuff. I should note that they have a fantastic sake line up, so I could see this place being really fun at night after a bunch of bottles of sake.  I'm completely obsessed with this place and would even make that special trip to Midtown East just to eat here.   I was really sad to leave after only having 2 dishes but it wasn't a very cheap lunch and I did have to get back to work.  Total bill:  $48 with tax and tip

Star Confectionery Visited 9/19/2014 3.5 Forks

Star Confectionery 4 East Main Street, Riverhead, NY 11901

The girls and I decided that we wanted to grab some lunch before we checked in to our rental home for the long weekend and Riverhead seemed like the "biggest" town in the North Fork area that wold give us the most options.  We drove past this cute luncheonette/diner and thought that it would be the perfect place to grab a quick bite to eat.

First off, it's adorable.  You feel like you are transported into the 50's because there really isn't a single modern thing about this place (including the fact that they don't take credit cards).  As you can imagine the menu is pretty bare bones, it's pretty much sandwiches, burgers and a few random sides (like cottage cheese and fruit).   I went a decidedly standard route and got the grilled cheese with tomato ($6) and a side of fries ($4).  The other girls got a variety of sandwiches and soups and Jill got the chicken fingers - so it was all very basic diner food.  The waitress was very nice and the whole place just had a very cute, quaint and local feel to it.  The grilled cheese was nicely done - with just the right amount of cheese in it and the outside of the bread had a nice toast to it but it wasn't burnt or overdone.  The fries were the crinkle cut variety and it reminded me of my childhood.  They were probably frozen fries that came from an Oreida bag but you know what? They were still crunchy, tasty and seriously addictive.

It was a pretty quick meal but it was a nice pit stop in a small but lovely town.  There are obviously other more upscale restaurants in other nearby towns in the North Fork, but this one was quite adorable and just got the job done for what we needed.  It wasn't a culinary show stopper but sometimes all you want is a nice grilled cheese sandwich and french fries to sooth your hunger pangs. I really do love the North Fork and encourage everyone to check out that area before it becomes overrun like the Hamptons.  I wasn't sure what the total bill was because all I had on me was $15 in cash but I'm fairly certain the total bill was not too high given the prices.

Photo Credit:  retroroadmap.com

Barbounia Visited 9/18/2014 4 Forks

Barbounia 250 Park Ave S., New York, NY 10003

Barbounia is one of those places in the city that you've probably walked past a million times and say to yourself that you should check it out but then never do.   At least that was my thinking.  Luckily, Lav and I finally decided to check it out on her birthday.  We were originally going to go to Casa Mono but it was going to be a 30 minute wait (which really isn't that bad for Casa Mono) but we were both starving and luckily Barbounia was able to seat us in 15 minutes.  My first impression is that this place is HUGE.   And it's surprisingly trendy - less in the Meatpacking sense but more in the sense that it seems like a place a lot of people in their 20's would go to "pre-party" before they went out for the night.  

As for the food, it's Mediterranean/Greek and the menu was huge.  I actually think Greek food is one of the more easily sharable cuisines because there are a lot of spreads and really delicious appetizers and sides that can be made into a solid meal.  Lav and I decided to split a bunch of dishes:  spicy feta ($9.50), hierloom tomato salad ($17.95), saganaki ($14.95), flash fried cauliflower ($9.95) and the okra stew ($8).   That was plenty of food but I really missed not ordering my usual Greek staples of a greek salad, grilled octopus and a lamb type dish.  The food all came out very quickly.  The spicy feta came out first and it was amazing.  It was an incredibly addictive spread - made more so by the warm, delicious, and olive oil soak bread that came with it.   It was a pretty big helping but if I had enough time, I probably could have eaten the whole thing by myself.  It's not to be missed.  Next I tried the hierloom tomato salad and that was also a winning dish.  It was served with beautiful giant chunks of colorful tomatoes, red onions, pita crisps and most importantly crispy haloumi cheese. Although it wasn't a mozzarella or burrata cheese, the haloumi was a great pairing with the fresh tomatoes.  Next I tried the saganaki and I always go into trying it with an open mind because who doesn't love fried cheese with alcohol? But every time I try it, it's a disappointment.  You've got to eat it when it just comes out, otherwise once it starts to gel and coagulate, it's just really gross and inedible.  I had one bite but since I was more into the tomato salad and feta, I just never got into the cheese and it just dried out.  The cauliflower was a solid dish as it was lightly fried and served with tahini, pine nuts, parsley and lemon juice.  The okra was in a mini pot and was kind of like a Middle Eastern stew with tomatoes in it - it was a fine okra dish but compared to the other dishes it wasn't a huge stand out.  If I could do it over, I probably could have gotten get the selection of all 5 dips and a Greek salad and been the happiest person ever. 

Since it was Lav's birthday, we had to celebrate with some chocolate cake ($10.95).   This was a flourless cake with a praline crust, brandied cherries, caramel sauce and a walnut gelato.  The cake was pretty rich and I actually enjoyed the crunchy praline crust but it was too heavy of a cake for us to finish. Overall, food-wise I really enjoyed my meal and while I wouldn't say that Barbounia is some kind of darling of the NYC restaurant scene, it's definitely worth a visit and it'll probably surprise you.  Total bill with wine:  $120

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Blue Water Grill Visited 9/8/2014 3.5 Forks

Blue Water Grill 31 Union Sq W, New York, NY 10003

Ahh, Blue Water Grill, it's an oldie but a goodie.  It's been a Union Square staple for a long time and it's been a really long time since I had been there, so I was excited to give it another whirl a few weeks ago.  Although I'm generally weary of BR Guest type restaurants, I have a soft spot for this place since it seems to have weathered the NYC restaurant curse.   

One of the reasons for Blue Water Grill's long running success is its super convenient location right in the middle of Union Square and it doesn't hurt that the food is pretty decent, although a bit on the overpriced side.  I met up with VA and the girls for dinner and with a group of 5 of us, we thought it was more fun to order a bunch of plates to share instead of ordering entrees - even though this place isn't really a tapas like place.  We really went to town and ordered half a dozen raw clams ($10), 4 pieces of salmon sashimi ($3/each), 4 pieces of tuna sashimi ($4/each), spicy tuna roll ($11), Union Square roll ($14), lobster roll ($14), baked scallop roll ($14), shrimp dumplings ($10), pork belly sliders ($10), kale caesar salad ($12), heirloom tomato salad ($13), crispy skin salmon ($26), charred broccoli ($7),  warm grain salad ($10) and the crab meat and sweet potato hash ($10).   Yes - clearly this is a group that likes to eat and I love that!  The raw littleneck clams were sweet and delicious.  I know that raw oysters generally steal the  raw bar show but I think raw clams are also a fantastic choice too.  Next they brought out a bunch of the side dishes like the dumplings, pork belly sliders and the salads.  They were all pretty solid dishes - especially the salads where they get the vegetables directly from the farmer's market across the street.  Where they really shined was surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) in the sushi rolls hat came out.  The pieces of sashimi melted in my mouth and were as tasty as what I would have expected from a sushi bar.  Of all the rolls we had, I really enjoyed the Union Square roll which was crab, avocado, hamachi, mango and yuzu.  It had a great flavor profile to it and although I generally don't like my sushi with mango, this one actually worked well with the pairings.  Sadly, the one roll that I really wanted the most, the baked scallop, was my least favorite one of the night.  It was baked scallop, avocado, cucumber and kalamansi sauce.  It was lacking in seasoning and the fact that the scallop was cooked and then served on top of the sushi just didn't do it for me.  I knew it wasn't going to be like a spicy scallop roll but I just didn't think it would be this lacking in taste either.  The one main dish of the might was crispy skin salmon which came on a bed of baby bok choy and for me it was good standard salmon dish but that's kind of why I generally don't order salmon at restaurants - I can make a really good salmon dish by myself at home that isn't going to cost $26+.

It was a bummer that our crab and sweet potato side dish never came because I was curious to try that out but we were so full that when we found out that it hadn't arrived, we just told them to cancel the order.  The waiter was incredibly nice and friendly and really knew how to work the table.  I would say that besides a couple of misses dish wise, my only gripe is that I do think it's a bit overpriced for what they are serving but given its great location and otherwise solid food, it's definitely a place that is and should still be on most people's Union Square rotation.   Total bill with 2 bottles of wine and tax and tip:  $85/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp