Bareli's By the Sea Visited 8/12/2017 2.5 Forks

Bareli's By the Sea  1505 Ocean Ave., Spring Lake, NJ 07762

Every summer, a good friend from B-school invites a few of us down to Spring Lake for a weekend of relaxation and unwinding.  It's such a nice reprieve from the city and while it's definitely got its fair share of giant homes, it has a much more relaxed feel than the Hamptons. 

This summer the weekend that my friends and I all went coincided with my friend Richelle's birthday, so Kristin booked a reservation at Bareli's on Saturday night.  The view is great as it's literally right by the water and the set-up is open and spacious.  We were running a bit late from our 7:30 reservation, so we called to let them know and the guy on the other end said it was no problem at all. Great!  We head over as fast as we can and get there by 7:50pm and the hostess there was clearly not the same person who answered the phone.  She looked at us with this deadpan look and told us our reservation was at 7:30, which we said we knew and that's why we called.  After a bit of discussion, she walked us to the back room and asked if we could wait at the bar while they cleared a table for us.  We had actually reserved a table outside but, hey we were late, so we couldn't really argue with that.  The table that was supposed to be ours was already cleared, they just needed to put silverware on it, which literally took them 20 minutes to do.  I know it's a busy Saturday night but it shouldn't take that long to set a table.  

We finally did sit down and it kind of all went downhill from there.  One caveat is that I will say our waiter was very nice and attentive.  I don't think any of the service issues were his fault but I'll get to that in a second.  The menu here is pretty standard sea-side Italian food.  Kind of what you would expect from and for a Jersey crowd.  We started with an order of the calamari ($13), watermelon salad and a penne ala grappa ($18) and then most of us ended up getting the scallops ($35) for our entree.  The starters were totally fine - nothing mind blowing but satisfying starters none the less.  I personally find watermelon feta salad to be really weird combination and this one seemed like a salad that someone threw together for a backyard BBQ.  There was just something missing from it.  Then we waited and waited and waited for our food.  We must have waited over 40 minutes for our food that even our waiter was embarrassed by it.  While he was very apologetic, in my opinion a good restaurant would offer something in return for the wait, either a round of drinks or some kind of appetizer because we were all ready to keel over in hunger.  Mind you, scallops should be one of THE fastest dishes to cook because they taken no more than 5-10 mins to sear on each side.  At this point, half the restaurant had cleared out and it was close to 10pm.  We finally got our food and it was one of those moments where you were like "this took 45 mins to make?".  I know the restaurant was busy and I can empathize but any wait past 30 mins for your food is quite ridiculous.  I'll give credit and say the dish had about 5 very large and firm pieces of scallop which was great but the side of veggies with it was a bit underwhelming considering the wait.

Since it was a birthday, we had to get a dessert (especially since they put giant sparklers in them).  We ended up getting a chocolate lava type cake which was fine but we were all really tired and slightly drunk by that point that we didn't really enjoy it all that much.

Part of me feels bad giving this place a low rating because the food wasn't terrible and our waiter was truly very apologetic but one of my biggest pet peeves is an egregious wait for food with no reparation.  Unless the food is truly outstanding, bad service always leaves a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended).   If we had gotten our food on time, I probably would have netted out at a 3.5 fork rating anyways.  Total bill with drinks:  $100/pp with tax and tip

Decoy Visited 8/13/2017 4 Forks

Decoy  529 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014

I've always loved Peking Duck but it's definitely not something you eat everyday.  I've only always had it in traditional Chinese restaurants but when I saw pictures of the whole duck prixe fixe situation at Decoy, I felt like I had to try it out.  Decoy is part of the Red Farm empire and is located downstairs in a small basement space.  You must make a reservation in advance if you want to guarantee yourself a whole duck but you can roll in and try your luck if you want (especially if you want to eat things besides duck).

With the whole duck prixe fixe, you get your choice of an assortment of appetizers, sides and another main course - for $69/pp.  For our assortment of extras,  we got the shrimp and snow pea dumplings, oxtail dumplings, sautéed snow peas, vegetable fried rice, and the sautéed dice lamb.  Yes, all of that food along with an entire whole duck - obviously you'll be taking a lot of food home afterwards.  The dumplings were great - steamed and fresh although the oxtail one was a bit heavy for me.  We got the snow peas because we felt like we needed a green and as usual, it was fantastic.  Like most greens in a Chinese restaurant, it's got a ton of garlic and oil which makes it delicious.  The fried rice was a nice carb supplement - it wasn't super greasy like the kind of fried rice you would get in take out joint but in the end it is just a basic rice dish.  The star of the show is obviously the duck which comes with 10 pancakes and 3 different sauces.  Before you get into the duck, you are served a shot of duck consomme to get you primed for the whole experience.  The skin was perfectly crispy and the meat was juicy with the right amount of fat on it - combined with the scallion and sauces it's a heavenly bite.  There really is nothing like a perfect Peking Duck bite wrapped in a thin pancake.  Then after all this food, they served the lamb dish.  It was complete overkill but we had to try it.  It was served with Chinese broccoli and pickled shallots and I was kind of expecting it to be like a spicy cumin lamb dish but it wasn't really like it at all.  It didn't have the heat or spice level to it but combined with a bite of fried rice and snow peas, it was pretty damn tasty too.

Despite our best efforts, we couldn't finish all the food.  The wait staff was nice enough to split all the food equally into take home bags for us and it made for a decent lunch the next day - the lamb was better than the duck since the crispiness of the skin doesn't hold up at all overnight.  Overall, it was a great experience and the amount of food is crazy.  While I really enjoyed the quality and taste of all the food, I wished they offered a prixe fixe that was smaller and cheaper.  Let's be honest, you can get a whole duck in Chinatown for half the price and it'll be just as good.  If you order a la carte, it's way more expensive ($85 for just the duck and main dishes are $32+) so technically you are getting a great deal - it's just unnecessary.  If they offered a prixe fixe "light" version,  I could definitely see myself coming here more but at the current price point, I probably won't come back often unless someone is visiting from out of town because it is quite the experience.  Total bill with lots of wine:  $133/pp with tax and tip

Hattie B's Hot Chicken Visited 8/10/2017 4 Forks

Hattie B's Hot Chicken    112 19th Ave S., Nashville, TN 37203

When I asked a few friends what's the one place I should go to if I had only 24 hours in Nashville, almost everyone said Hattie B's.  So I guess that settles it.  Nashville is legendary for its hot chicken and this is really the only place anyone ever talks about.  Yes, it's a tourist trap but there were also plenty of locals there too.

I stupidly thought there would be no line when I went at 2pm on a random Thursday but it was about a 30-40 mins wait in the blistering hot sun.  According to my driver, there is always a wait.  You order at the counter and they give you a number to put on your table.  The menu is really quite simple - hot chicken in either a plate or sandwich format and you pick your spice level (no heat to shut the cluck up).   They also have a yummy line up of Southern side dishes and if you get a plate, you get a choice of 2 sides.  Since it was just me, I opted for the small dark meat plate ($8.50) hot (which is the 3rd hottest level) with collard greens and pimento mac and cheese along with a banana pudding ($3) and a large ice tea ($2.25).  God damn, I love the prices here.

I was ready to sweat my face off with the heat of the spice but either I've gotten better with my spice tolerance or it wasn't really as spicy as everyone made it out to be.  It definitely had heat to it but I didn't feel like my face was going to fall off or anything like that.  But the chicken was juicy and tender and not greasy or oily on the outside.  It was also the right amount of crispiness on the outside. The mac and cheese was gooey in the most unhealthiest of ways but that's what makes it so good. It's not some fancy pants mac and cheese made with gouda or gruyere but it's good old fashion yellow oozey cheese.  I got the collard greens to be "healthy" but in all honesty I think it had pork in it as well but that's what gives it its salty, smokey flavor.  By this point, I was stuffed and had to run to the airport but I took my banana pudding with me and you know what?  It was just as good in the cab too.  It was probably even better since the wafers were soft and melted into the pudding.  Banana pudding is one of my favorite unsung dessert heroes and this one at $3, really hit the spot.

It would have been sacrilege if I visited Nashville and didn't try out this place.  It was worth the wait even with the slightly annoying tourist population but the staff is super sweet, the food at it's Southern best and cheap as hell - what more could a girl ask for?  Total bill: $17 with tax and tip

Husk Visited 8/9/2017 4 Forks

Husk  7 Rutledge St., Nashville, TN 37210

Several years ago I visited Charleston, SC and I was so excited to to check out Husk.  But unfortunately I ended up having to cancel my reservation so I always had this place in the back of my mind as a place to come back to. While I never ended up back in Charleston, I did get the pleasure of traveling to Nashville for 24 hours and luckily I was able to squeeze this meal in before some work outings. 

While the location is kind of in a random area of Nashville, the decor was lovely - pure Southern charm.  It is an old Victorian House that they transformed into a restaurant but they still kept a lot of the finishes and character of it inside and out.  They have a great lunch menu where you can choose a la carte or also a Nashville Plate Lunch for $14 which includes a choice of 1 of 2 entrees and 2 sides.  I was all set to get the fried chicken plate lunch but then the waitress started describing the BBQ chicken sandwich ($14) in a mouth watering way that I got totally swayed into choosing that instead. For appetizers, we started with smoked trout deviled eggs ($8) and both Holly and Susanne got the cornmeal crusted catfish plate lunch.  

As a starter they bring out these pipping warm Parker House rolls and Jesus Christ are they delicious. The butter has pork fat in it, so you know it's good.  I could have eaten all 3 rolls but I was good and only ate 1 but don't say I didn't warn you when you try to inhale the whole basket.  I was excited for the appetizer as I'm always a sucker for deviled eggs and these were pretty damn good.  I originally thought the trout part was going to be in a roe topping but it was mixed in with the yolk instead. Either way, it was smokey and delicious and I was surprised that we got 5 pieces - I guess this is Nashville and not New York where you would have literally gotten 1 egg cut in half for that price.  It was beautifully presented and that was the case with the rest of our meal.  The catfish came out in this beautiful large mini tree stump-like plate.  I had a small bite of the catfish with the sweet onion relish and it was nice and tender.  My BBQ chicken sandwich wasn't plated quite a nicely but that wasn't a deal breaker at all.  I was expecting it to be kind of like a pulled pork sandwich and piled high on some kind of fluffy Texas toast but it was more like regular bread and cut up chicken instead.  The chicken was tender dark meat and was nicely sauced but I was kind of regretting not getting the fried chicken after all   Apparently they are also famous for their burger but after seeing it (it was a double cheese patty), I just couldn't bring myself to order it if I wanted to not fall asleep right away.

If our meal had ended here, I probably would have given it 3.5 forks - really solid but I was a bit let down by the chicken.  However, the dessert totally made up for it.  We got the brown butter soft serve ($9) which came with cocoa nips, caramel, and pecan.  I was a bit doubtful of this dessert and wanted a more traditional Southern dessert like peach or blueberry pie but this was out of this world.  It was sweet but not overly icky and it was just perfect.  This dish, the parker rolls and the deviled eggs definitely made it worth 4 forks.  The service was also fantastic - we had a super sweet and nice waitress who made the whole meal incredibly pleasant.  It was a great way to kick off my introduction to Nashville!  Total bill:  ~$80 for 3 people including drinks, tax and tip

Faro Visited 8/8/2017 3.5 Forks

Faro  436 Jefferson St., Brooklyn, NY 11237

For the last few years, the hot Brooklyn neighborhood has been Bushwick and despite living not too far from it, I rarely go there.  So when my friend Vince emailed and said he made a random reservation at the latest hot spot in Bushwick called Faro, I was game.  The immediate area surrounding Faro is exactly what you would think of when you hear Bushwick - tons of graffiti, murals and industrial space.  We hit up a fun beer garden/gastropub called The Rookery for a quick drink, so if you need a place to meet up with friends before dinner, I would highly recommend that place. 

As for Faro itself, the space seemed to fit the neighborhood.  It was very industrial, spacious and airy. It had kind of a cold feel to it but not in a super uninviting way.  The menu is actually Italian, which is something I wouldn't have guessed by the look of the place.  They specialize in pasta but we also got a few appetizers and entrees as well.  We started with the tuna tartarte ($16), beets ($14) and a mackerel crudo ($15) as well as the whole wheat bread ($6).  Of these starters, the bread was my favorite.  There is really nothing like freshly baked warm soft bread with salty butter.  Carbs and gluten be damned, I am willing to risk getting fat for this kind of bread.  Unfortunately I wasn't as jazzed about the other appetizers.  To be fair, they were all good because they are all really standard dishes that are generally good tasting but none of them set my palate on fire.

Luckily the pasta was much better.  We got basic spaghetti alla chitara ($20), the special pasta of the day which was pasta with truffle and the mafalde ($22).  The texture and consistency of all the pastas were all excellent and the mafalde came with crab and uni cream which was delicious and my favorite of the night.  The truffle pasta was a bit disappointing in that it didn't taste super truffle-y but then again I would probably complain if it was too heavy on the truffle flavor.

Since we were all gluttons for punishment, we also ordered the scallops ($26) and the duck ($27). The good news is that the scallops (all 2 of them) were amazing.  They were huge, plumb and just the right texture.  I just wish that for almost $30 you got more than 2.  The bad news was that the duck wasn't all that.  It was a bit on the dry side even thought it was cooked medium rare.  It was just missing the moist tenderness that a good duck should have.  At roughly the same price, I would have rather gotten 2 orders of the scallops instead.

We left room for dessert and got the chocolate olive oil cake and the panna cotta with hazelnut.  I'll be honest, I was kind of drunk at this point so I don't really remember eating them but if I had to take a drunken guess, I'll say I liked the olive oil cake more than the panna cotta.

One thing to note was that Anuja and my aperol spritzs were definitely not good.  It's such a typical fun Italian drink that any good Italian restaurant should do well but something was off about it - it was almost like they substituted the aperol with something else.

The waitstaff was really nice and friendly and I think if my meal didn't have the aperol spritz or the duck, I would have been willing to go up to 4 forks.  Although this isn't to say you shouldn't spend time in Bushwick and check out this place out.  If you are making a day of it, I'd say go to Rookery for drinks and games and then come here for some pasta.

Photo Credit:  Yelp

7 Days in the South of France - Part 2 2.5 - 4 Forks Visited 7/19-7/20/2017

Le Crillon 15 place Crillon, 84000 Avignon, France   2.5 Forks

Another French bistro, another order of beef tartare please!  Only unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of this one at all.  We had taken a lovely 1/2 day tour of Avignon, which is the closest big town from where we were staying.  There is an interesting papal palace and a few other cute sights around the city that made it worth a day trip.  We ended our tour in the middle of town where there were several traditional looking outdoor French cafes.  Since there were so many of us, we ended up picking Le Crillon since it could seats us outside and it had some semblance of an outdoor misting system since it was pretty hot outside.  It honestly looked exactly like the two other cafes right next to each other and all of them looked like they catered to the busy tourist crowds with roughly the same kind of menu.  

As expected the menu is typical French cafe food and since we were still binging on cheese and other heavy foods at the house, I went with the healthier meal of beef tartare again.  Sadly this one was not as good as the other one A la Maison.  Right off the bat you could see that the consistency of it was more on the mushy side.  I like my tartare to be more chopped or cubed in texture but this one just reminded me more of ground beef, which one I associated it with that, was a real turn off to me.  Plus it was missing the all important raw yolk!!  Who serves a beef tartare without the egg?!?  The overall flavor was kind of bland and boring as well.  Luckily it was served with fries and a salad that helped to fill my appetite.  

Given the craziness of the trip,  none of us really took the time to research where to eat after our tour so maybe this could have been avoided if we had planned in advance.  But it's really hard to plan with so many people involved and so many last minute changes.  While I didn't think my meal was awful, I was definitely not impressed by it, especially given how local of a dish it is.  

Nez   Place du Rouvis, 84190 Gigondas, France    4 Forks

If you ever have the chance to go to the South of France, I'm begging you to spend some time in Gigondas.  It is seriously the cutest town I've ever seen.  It's a tiny wine city that oozes charm.  One of the people there had mentioned that there are more wine stores and restaurants than there are people there.  It's like Napa or Sonoma but way cuter with their stone houses and blue shutters.  We had the great pleasure of getting a private wine cellar tour which was super fun.  Luckily the guide had asked us if we had any lunch plans and we stupidly said we'll just figure it out when we're done with our tour.  She looked at us like we were completely insane.  Apparently every place here is packed all the time, so you have to make a reservation.  The first place we wanted to try was all full, but their sister wine bar called Nez was free so we snagged a reservation there. 

I should caveat that it's really less of a restaurant but more of a wine bar that happens to serve some food.  The menu is tiny, so be prepared to only choose from 1-2 options.  Aside from that, the outdoor atmosphere is lovely.  It's a great place to relax and enjoy some wine and take in the sights.  They start you off with some small appetizers - one was a tabouleh plate, another was pig snout salad (it was very good and crunchy) and then a small serving of cheese.  It was a good light starter to the meal.  For my main I got the special of the day which was lemon risotto with chanterelle mushroom. Amazing!  It had an excellent consistency - firm but with a hint of softness to it.  It was very heavy on the lemon flavor - it almost tasted like they zested an entire lemon but that didn't really bother me too much.  The mushrooms were fabulous and a nice salty combination with the risotto.  It was definitely a heavy dish but not so heavy that you felt gross afterwards. It was also plated beautifully which was expected in such a lovely city.  

Although tiny, I was simply enamored with this city.  It screams cute European feel - it's almost a page out of Beauty and the Beast.    Obviously if you want to eat at some of the larger restaurants in town, its crucial to make a reservation in advance, although I have read that some places aren't even open for lunch.  While I thoroughly enjoyed my experience here, I will say that the limited menu was a bit of a turn off in the beginning but it all worked itself out.  Besides, if you can't find anything you like to eat you can always just order wine and cheese all day and still be a happy camper too. 

7 Days in the South of France - Part 1 4-4.5 Forks 7/18/2017

A la Maison  4 place des Cordeliers, 84100 Orange, France        4 Forks

I know I'm writing this entry way late but it's honestly taken me this long to get over and recover from such an amazing vacation.  I won't go into all the details but a close friend of mine decided to celebrate his birthday in the South of France in a beautiful area 45 mins outside of Avingon.  I haven't been to France in really long time, partially because I've always held a soft spot for Italy in my heart but this trip has really opened my eyes to how lovely France is as well.

One would think that I would have a ton of food entries for this trip since France is also well known for its food and wine scene but we spent a lot of time cooking at home, so we ended up only going to 4 restaurants during the whole week.  Sorry guys!

One of the places we did go was this cute little bistro in the town of Orange - 30 mins from where we were staying in Sablet.  We chose this place because it's right across the street from the Roman Theatre where we were going to later.  It's your typical adorable French style bistro with outdoor seating and chalkboard menus. The waiters were super cute as an added benefit for your viewing pleasure.  As expected the menu has typical French bistro food - all of the menu is in French but it's easy enough to figure out and the waiters all speak English.

As many of you know, one of my favorite dishes is beef tartare.  But it's not often on menus in the States (unless it's a French restaurant) so I rarely eat. it  So I was beyond thrilled to be in France and see it on practically every menu here.  When in Rome (or France...) I guess.  I didn't even bother reading the description of it and excitedly ordered the tartare de boeuf.  On paper, the dish is pretty simple.  I mean it's cut up raw beef but in reality it's a dish that requires a lot of finesse and this one hit the spot. It was this beautiful dish with raw beef, capers, garlic, parsley, pesto flavoring (I think?), chopped red onion, chives, shallots and most importantly a gorgeous raw yolk.  After spending the last few days eating nothing but stinky soft  cheese and croissants, this dish was light and clean tasting.  It was bit unique in that it came with sprouts on top but I love sprouts so that was totally ok with me.  It could have been even cleaner tasting as it was a bit heavy on the parsley and pesto flavor but overall I was really happy with the dish.  It came with a side of fries which was great because this dish alone won't get you very full.  Everyone else's food, which ranged from salads to burgers, looked great too and everyone was really happy with their food.   They have a cute fountain outside where they keep giant bottles of rose chilled in buckets, which is a nice touch when it's 100 degrees outside.

This was a perfect easy introduction back into French food and if you ever find yourself in the town of Orange, this is a great place to enjoy a casual lunch overlooking the Roman Theatre.

Coteaux & Fourchettes   3340 Route de Carpentras Croisemement de la Courançonne (D8/D975), 84290 CAIRANNE, France      4.5 Forks

This was the main event of the trip - Kevin's actual 40th birthday.  Matt had spent a good amount of time looking for a place that wasn't too far from our house, could accommodate 16 people and was also a great restaurant.  Despite it being wine country, it's hard to find something that will hit all of these requirements but we finally settled on this place.  

I will say food wise it's not necessarily 4.5 forks (it's closer to a 4 or 4.25) but the overall ambience and presentation of everything gave it a few notches up.  The view is the lovely - it's completely surrounded by vineyards and they gave us a giant table underneath a beautiful pergola.  Since there were so many of us, the menu was already set in advance.  It was 10 courses (really 11 because there were 2 desserts) and each was paired with a wine.  I won't go into each dish in detail but the meal went like this (1) amuse bouche of olives, mini roquefort popovers and a salmon mousse bellini; (2) cold broccoli gazpacho with blue potato chips; (3) beet sorbet with poached lobster in a cold zucchini soup; (4) beef carpaccio with cauliflower gratin inside, topped with shaved parm; (5) duck froie gras, apricot jam and pink salt; (6) raspberry champagne; (7) pigeon with ratatouille; (8)  lamb with English peas and gravy; (9) cheese plate; (10) cherry tiramisu; (11) chocolate mouse with strawberry filling and raspberry sorbet. 

As you can see, it's a LOT of food.  In generally everything was tasty and well done with the beef carpaccio and pigeon being my two favorites.  I could have done without the lamb, not because it wasn't good but because I was so full at that point and it was hard to really enjoy such a heavy dish at the end.  The cheese plate was also quite aggressive as there were 6 pieces and some of them were super super stinky, even for me.  Lately having 2 desserts was also too much - one is more than enough.  The wine pairings were all great although to be honest at this point, I can't remember any of them but the very nice sommelier came out and explained all of them to us.  The pacing of it could have been a bit quicker although to be fair, she had no idea she was serving 15 alcoholics who needed a full glass every 10 mins.  The chef came out afterwards which was a nice touch.  You could tell he was very tired but proud of the meal.  The restaurant was nice to let us just be loud selves (we did try to keep ourselves in check as much as possible) and stay at the restaurant until it pretty much closed down. 

Matt had mentioned that only a few restaurants even bothered to get back to him and another place gave us kind of a lame menu but we were going to go with it because we didn't seem to have much of a choice being so far away.  I'm glad this came through because if nothing else, it was a lovely way to get out of the house and be surrounded by beauty.  The total bill wasn't too bad - it was around 150 euros per person.  If you are looking to do a set menu, I'd recommend working with the chef to pair it down a bit from what we got but overall, it was a really special moment and great place to celebrate a 40th!