Scarpetta Las Vegas Visited 6/26/2013 5 Forks

Scarpetta Cosmopolitan Hotel, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Full disclosure - this was a work meal and we got the total hook up because they knew we were coming in advance with some well respected chefs that we are planning on working with, so I know we were treated way better than if I had just walked into the restaurant as a regular person.  I'm going to keep this review short and sweet, mainly because I reviewed the NYC location before and the menu is exactly the same.  Plus given the special treatment we got here, I don't think it's exactly a fair and unbiased opinion but regardless it was an amazing meal that merits at least a short review.

You know a meal is going to be outrageous when they basically tell you that you don't have to order anything.  They literally started bringing food out at a constant stream as soon as we sat down.  We ended up getting a sampling of almost everything on the menu - for appetizers we got softshell crab, polenta, and raw tuna - all delicious -  and then we were served a ridiculous amount of pasta.  We got a sampling of almost every single pasta on the menu:  we each got our own serving of Scarpetta's famous spaghetti and then out came plates of sheep milk ricotta agnolotti with shaved truffles, duck and foie gras ravioli, short rib agnolotti, and pici with lobster to share.  Every dish was simply divine and I loved the fact that we could try a sampling of all of them without having a full serving of each.  The last time I was at Scarpetta in NYC, we ended up choosing our pasta dishes and eating an entire plate of duck and foie gras ravioli or short rib agnolotti, while delicious, was a bit too much to deal with.  Those type of heavy pasta really only require 2-3 bites before you feel overwhelmed.  I know I've gripped before out paying a lot of money for what seems like a basic pasta like spaghetti but the spaghetti here was definitely beyond anything I could ever make at home - totally worth it.  At this point, I was so full I needed to be wheeled out in a chair.  I thought we were done but then the waiter comes out and then asks to take our entree order.  Oh my.  I just couldn't bring myself to order anything heavy so I opted for the black cod and for one of the first times I can remember, I couldn't finish a dish that I loved.  The cod was perfectly cooked - flaky and moist - so it really killed me that I couldn't finish the dish.  Just when I thought dinner was over, they then wheeled out 5 different desserts.  I was so deliriously full that I can barely remember what we had but our table polished off almost every plate totally clean.

This was one of the most decadent meals I've had in a long time and the quality of each dish was superb.  I definitely think a lot of it had to do with telling them in advance of our arrival and who was at our table but this is not to say that we wouldn't have experienced great food and service if we didn't have such special treatment.  So this 5 forks rating is slightly biased but I did want to highlight what has been one of the most killer meals I've had in a while. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Carnevino Visited 6/25/2013 2 Forks

Carnevino  Palazzo Hotel, 3325 Las Vegas Blvd So, Las Vegas

Ahh, Vegas.  It's just one of those cities that you have to check out at least once in your life and that's probably all you need.  I was actually there for work, but I was strangely excited because I hadn't been in there in probably 10 years and I was curious to see how it's changed.  From a food perspective, I know that most people outside of NYC, LA, SF, and Chicago would probably salivate at all the celebrity driven restaurants there but I would say that almost every restaurant there you can find in NYC or another big city (i.e. Scarpetta, Blue Ribbon, Craft, etc). 

Usually before a trip I scout out where the good places are to eat but I didn't have time to do it this time.  I had gotten off the 5 hour flight and gone straight to the lounge to work for another 7 hours, so by the time I got back to my hotel to shower and rest a bit, I was totally exhausted.  I knew that for a great affordable eating experience I should have gone off the Strip, but at 8:30 Vegas time (11:30pm EST) I just couldn't muster up the energy to stray too far from the hotel.  So I ended up suggesting Carnevino because that was the one restaurant that didn't exist in NYC (even though it's a Mario Batali restaurant and he owns several places in NYC) and I was going to go there back in December when I was supposed to have come for work so I figured if I was going to go before there must have been a good reason why I chose it in the first place.  It's located inside the Palazzo Hotel which is attached to the Venetian.  Luckily, we were able to walk right in without a reservation but then Neel and I got seated in this weird area of the restaurant that was kind of like a hallway and away from the main area. 

We sat down and as soon as we got the menu I knew that the food here was going to be too much for what I wanted.  The menu was twice the size of my head.  Whenever a menu is that large, you know the portions are going to be large with huge prices to match.  The menu is largely focused on different cuts of meat but there were also several relatively affordable pasta dishes to be had as well.  We were starving so we started with the Big Eye Tuna Crudo ($25) and I got the 16 oz bone-in New York Strip ($61) and Neel got the lamb chops ($63) and we also got a side of beets ($9) just so there was some vegetable on the table.  Yes, you are reading those prices correctly and luckily I was traveling for work, otherwise I probably would have totally freaked out at those prices.  The meal started with some warm bread that was quite good and it was served with unsalted butter and whipped lardo - so literally a bowl of fat.  It was delicious but with every bite you could feel your cholesterol going up 10 points.  After a bit of a wait, our tuna came out.  The waiter apologized for the wait because the chef didn't like the 1st batch he made and re-made another one.  Umm, he probably should have tasted this one because it wasn't that great either.  It was 5 slices of raw tuna with a chopped cucumber celery  salad on top.   The tuna was way over salted and tasted a bit fishy (yes, I know it's fish but super fresh tuna has a very clean taste to it).  Compared to the tuna I had at sushi the other night, this didn't seem that great, especially for $25.  Plus the fact that I hate celery, so the "refreshing" salad on top didn't really do it for me either.  Then meat dishes came out.  The waiter had told us before that the plating was just the meat - nothing else (no sides).  So even though I knew it, to have a gigantic piece of meat on a white plate with nothing else was so underwhelming.  The presentation was just sad.  But I was willing to overlook it for the perfect cut of meat.  The waiter had also told us that their meats run more on the rare side, so I was super excited to cut into my strip and see lots of red.  Unfortunately I only saw a bit of red as it was definitely more of the medium than rare side.  The meat itself was fine, nothing mind blowing.  It was a bit too salty for me and when I added the steak sauce to it, it just made it even saltier.  For $61, I expect tears of joy with each bite but instead it was just meh.  Meanwhile Neel's lamb chops were a sight to be seen.  It was 3 gigantic chops that were the size of a house.  The waiter had said that they keep the fat on (or they could cut it off if we like) and boy did they keep the fat on.  One chop must have been 80% fat.  I know Neel was digging into that chop like it was his job but every time I looked over it looked like he hadn't eaten anything.  I only took a few bites of the beets because I felt like I had to and it was fine, again nothing to write home about.

All in all, the food here was way over seasoned and too big.  I felt like they didn't let the natural flavors of the food come out.  Everything tasted much heavier than it needed to be.  Yes I know that steak is a rich heavy dish, but to me a good steak should still melt in your mouth and have a clean taste to it.  Another reason for the low rating was the price.  I know it's Vegas and everything is big, shiny and expensive but good lord for $100/pp I could have had a larger than life meal in NYC and have been x10 happier.  Lesson learned for dinner next time I'm in Vegas for work: eat off the Strip!
Total bill:  $200 for 2 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Ushiwakamaru Visited 6/25/2013 4.5 Forks

Ushiwakamaru 136 W Houston St., (between Sullivan St & Mac Dougal St), New York, NY 10012

I was so so close to giving Ushiwakamaru the coveted 5 Forks except that it wasn't exactly a perfect experience and the one thing that annoyed me happened at the end of my meal which kind of ends up tainting your whole thinking.  But I will say in terms of quality of food, totally 5 Forks.  AMAZING sushi for fairly reasonable prices (it's not cheap but not insanely expensive).

I had been wanting to try this place for a while, so when VA wanted to take me somewhere for my b-day, I had to jump on the sushi band wagon because it's been a while since I've been to a proper sushi place and I knew she would also really appreciate it.  We didn't have reservations, but we were there on random Tuesday night around 7pm.  The host told us that she would need the table back at 8:30pm, which was fine.  The decor here is simple and clean; it's one floor below ground level and it's basically a small room with a sushi bar and several tables.  It wasn't exactly no frills, but there were very few frills.  The menu is classic Japanese - you won't find any crazy rolls with mango or cream cheese or other things I never understood why people wanted with their raw fish.  We started with the miso black cod to share and then also shared the fatty tuna and scallion roll, amberjack and scallion roll, and spicy tuna roll.  VA got the softshell crab for an entree and I got the nigiri entree.  Even though we told the waitress that we wanted to share the black cod to start and that VA would have the softshell crab as an entree the softshell crab still came out first along with my garden salad.  No biggie, but it's the small things like this that eat away at a 5 fork rating.  I didn't try the softshell crab but it looked great.  The garden salad was nice in that it had some mixed greens in there and wasn't your usual bowl of iceberg lettuce that you usually get with a garden salad in sushi places.  The only thing was that it didn't come with the delicious ginger carrot dressing I usually love with sushi garden salads, instead it was a regular kind of balsamic type dressing.   I mean I'm not complaining about it, but ginger dressing is damn good and you rarely get it outside of a sushi joint.

Then we waited and waited a bit and after a while our black cod finally came out.  Oh my gosh, it was literally melting in my mouth.  So incredibly soft and flaky with that delicious miso glaze on top of it.  Since it was an appetizer, there wasn't much of it but we polished that dish off fairly quickly.  Then we waited and waited again.  I understand that it was busy but given that we were under a somewhat short timeframe, it would have been nice if our food didn't take such a long time.  But again, when the sushi came out, it was totally worth the wait.  They brought out the spicy tuna and fatty tuna with scallion roll and the 1st part of my nigiri sushi which had salmon, medium fatty tuna, spot shrimp, fluke, and a soy cured tuna - the waitress told me not to put the 3 last in soy sauce (which I of course totally forgot to do).  The quality of the fish was simply amazing.  It tasted just like it had some straight out of the water or from one of the sushi bars I ate at in Tokyo by the fish market.  Simply perfection.  If you think you had good sushi before, I urge you to try the fish here and compare.  For me, even if there's a fish that I don't love (I'm looking at you Spanish Mackerel), but if it's incredibly fresh, I will manage to still like it because of its high quality.  Since our table was pretty small, we had to finish a few things before they could bring the amberjack and scallion roll and the 2nd part of my nigiri which was an egg custard, uni, salmon roe, eel and a half roll of tuna and scallion.  Again, delicious and amazing.  The uni was soft and creamy and the roe was nice and salty.  While it didn't feel like I ate a ton of food, I was pretty full at the end of our meal and when we asked for the check we looked at our watch and it was 8:28pm, perfect timing!  But then as we were literally signing the check the hostess comes over and says "Excuse me, but I need your table at 8:30.  Are you done eating?".  Now one of my biggest pet peeves ever in the restaurant world is when a host gives you a table knowing that there is a reservation right after it and then bugging you to leave your table.  I don't mind being told in the beginning that someone has our table and I try to be very conscious about it because I know what it feels like to make a reservation and then have to wait for it, but we were literally signing the check.  It just felt like in bad taste.  If that hadn't happened, I probably could have written off the long wait in between dishes and given this place 5 forks, but the service in the end added up and I had to knock half a fork.  But please don't let that stop you from giving this place your full attention.  Total bill:  I'm not really sure since it was VA's treat but I think it was around $90 without tip - which is a pretty reasonable meal for high end sushi.

Photo Credit: Yelp   

Red Rooster Visited 6/23/2013 3.5 Forks

Red Rooster  310 Lenox Ave., (between 126th St & 125th St), New York, NY 10027 

Red Rooster had been on my list of places to try for a while and even more so after I read his Memoir, Yes Chef.  But since it's was up on 125th street, it's kind of a tough sell for lots of my downtown or Brooklyn living friends.  Holly and I thought that it would be a fun Sunday afternoon activity and it looked like on their website they had a Gospel Brunch which sounded neat.  Honestly, the trek up there really wasn't that bad, only about 35 minutes from the 2/3 stop at 14th street and it's right off the 125th stop.  I had read that Gospel Brunch was some $40 extravaganza and was usually very crowded, so I was totally ready to shell out some big bucks and wait in line.  So much to my surprise, we got seated immediately and the menu was a regular a la carte menu.  The only gospel part to the meal was that there was a live band in corner singing blues/soul music.  Not sure when they changed the format, but I was a bit relieved and disappointed at the same time. 

My first impression of the space was that it was really beautiful.  It was spacious, bright and a bit more formal than I expected but overall it was a really pleasant place to eat.  The crowd was pretty diverse with a mix of locals, families and tourists.  The menu was a combination of typical brunch items such as omelettes and more soul food like mac and cheese and fried chicken.  I was tempted to order an egg dish but I figured I came all the way up here and I should go for something that they were more well known for.  So I opted for the mac and greens ($16), Holly got the shrimp po'boy ($16) and we split the corn bread ($4) and the shrimp and grits ($8).  I suspected that I was going to have a super high calorie meal but once I saw the food, my fears were confirmed.  The cornbread came out and it looked much more like thick pound cake than cornbread.  It was sweet and good but it didn't have that kind of grainy texture (and I say that positively) that you usually get with cornbread.  It tasted like it already had butter on it, but of course I had to put more butter on it.  I think my heart may have stopped beating at some point.  Very shortly there after, our entrees came out.  The mac and greens was a hot skillet of shell pasta with gouda, gruyere, and NY white cheddar cheese mixed with some sauteed collard greens and then served with a side bowl of arugula topped with what looked like okra and pickled cauliflower.  It's really hard to go wrong with mac and cheese and this one didn't disappoint.  It didn't have that super gooey consistency look and feel but that as actually fine.  It was a solid dish and I really liked the shell pasta as it made it seem more hearty.  It was just incredibly heavy and rich that I could only finish about 1/4 of the dish and had to stop.  I tried to be healthy and eat as much of the salad as possible but honestly it wasn't dressed at all and an entire bowl of arugula topped with pickled vegetables was too bitter for me.   Of course ordering a side of creamy grits didn't help my health cause.  The grits were extremely creamy and rich and heavy as well.  There were only a few bites of small shrimp, so that was a bit disappointing.  I didn't try Holly's dish but she said she really enjoyed her sandwich and commented that the bread tasted like it was on a buttery roll which add more to the deliciousness.  She also noticed that her salad (which was mostly spinach) had little to no dressing as well.  Weird, usually most restaurants have a problem with over dressing their salads, but it seemed like here they don't like dressing their greens at all. 

All in all, it was a pleasant brunch at Red Rooster and it was made even more pleasant by the super nice and friendly waitstaff.  While I can't fault them for the richness of the food (I mean, I did order mac and cheese and grits - so what was I thinking?) but it would have been nice if my salad tasted better to help cut all the fat I was eating.  Total bill with tax, tip and drinks:  $42/pp 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Xixa Visited 6/22/2013 4 Forks

Xixa 241 S 4th St., (between Driggs Ave & Roebling St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

I had heard about Xixa from a friend at work and she had said that it was by the same people as Traif which I LOVE, so I was totally excited to see how Xixa would stack up.  It's a similar format to Traif in that it's lots of small plates but the theme here is more towards Mexican fusion vs. American cretive.  There are so many options that being here with just one other person made it a bit overwhelming.  Our waitress recommended roughly 5-6 dishes for the two of us, which I would tend to agree (although I think we honestly could have done without one of our dishes and would have been fine).  Aarti and I ordered the stuffed squash blossoms, fundido, steak tacos, scallop ceviche, and the Thai esquites.  We figured we could always order more if we were still hungry and we wanted to leave room for dessert.

Since it was tapas style there wasn't a real logical order to the dishes come out, but Aarti and I did comment later how they probably should have started with the fundido first since that typically is like an appetizer in many restaurants.  Instead the first dish that came out was the lightly fried squash blossoms.  They were stuffed with goat cheese and served with butternut squash and squash seed-cascabel pipian.  It was a wonderful dish that had a perfect blend of goat cheese and fried squash blossom.  Delicious.  Next came the Thai esquites which was sweet corn kernels in a spicy tom yum broth, red curry aioli and topped with cotija cheese.   It was like a deconstructed Mexican corn on the cob with a spicy Thai twist which I thought seemed very unique.  I always love a good corn dish in the summer time but I honestly could have done without the tom yum broth, it was a bit too watery.  Next came the scallop ceviche and of the main entrees this was probably my favorite dish.   It was a classically clean raw scallop dish and I could have had another 3 dishes and not gotten sick of it.  Perfect summer dish.  Next came the steak tacos - it wasn't really a steak taco how you and I know it.  Instead it is served with recado negro tortillas, a huge bone marrow, and a side of steak tartare and then you had to put your "taco" together.  I didn't find the tortilla very soft - in fact it was a bit too tough for me but the rest of the dish was quite interesting.  The marrow was very fatty, as it should be, and while I usually am not a huge fan of steak tartare, I rather enjoyed it here when it was mixed in with the bone marrow.  A very unique dish that I totally appreciated for its complexity.   Lastly, we got the fundido, which is usually just a vat of yummy hot melted cheese, but the cheese here seemed to have coagulated by the time it got to our table.  I wasn't sure if the dish had been sitting out and that's why it had that texture or if they just used cheese that didn't melt well, but I've definitely had much better fundido elsewhere.  I will say that I loved the fact that they acknowledged that Aarti was a vegetarian and put mushrooms in there instead of the chorizo it usually comes with.  The dish was just too heavy and oily and only had about 4-5 bites of it.  Luckily, since we couldn't finish it we had plenty of room for dessert and I was so glad we did.  All of the desserts sounded great but I am a sucker for really good churros and they had a salty churros served with passion fruit and a strawberry-jalapeno sorbet.  OMG, amazing.  The churros was perfectly fried and the sorbet was sweet and refreshing with just the right amount of heat from the jalapeno.  Aarti and I agreed that this was the winner of the night.

All in all, I loved what Xixa had to offer and given the tapas format, I think it's much better for larger groups to enjoy.  But they do have a chef's choice for $40/pp and they bring out 9 different dishes for you and your table to enjoy.  It sounded like a great idea and I would totally do that next time but it was still fun to be able to choose our own adventure the first time around.  Since it was a belated birthday dinner fro Aarti, I don't know the exact bill but I think it was around $100 including tax, tip and drinks. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Speedy Romeo Visited 6/21/2013 3.5 Forks

Speedy Romeo 376 Classon Ave., (between Greene Ave & Lafayette Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11238

I would have never put Speedy Romeo on my list if it wasn't for a major shout out by  one of my favorite food blogs, Immaculate Infatuation.  It's definitely not in a part of Brooklyn that I would normally think of and had a buddy who was game to give it a try.  Cicily and I were looking for something low key that was close to both of us...ok, this place isn't really near me at all, but it was easy to get to from work, close to Fort Greene and I was curious about it.  It is right next to the G train, so in reality it wasn't that hard to get home afterwards.

Speedy Romeo is on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy and to be honest there weren't a ton of other restaurants near it.  In fact, this place was definitely hopping and seemed like one of the few neighborhood joints in the area.  They don't have a liquor license, but they do serve wine, so the only summer cocktail they had was a strawberry puree with white wine ($10).  It was tasty and sweet, but it didn't really feel like there was much booze in it.  Just something to think about if you want a nice cocktail/beer at dinner.   As for the menu, it's got a ton of specialty thin crust pizzas (similar to Roberta's) and then they also have what I heard was a killer steak, burger, pork chop and whole fish.  We started with the crab cake appetizer ($16) which was served with a celery root remoulade and citrus salad.  It was a pretty decent size crab cake but the best part about it was that it was almost all crab meat, no filler - that impressed both me and Cicily (we're both tough to please when it comes to seafood).  At $16, it is a bit pricey but I would have been a lot more pissed off if it was more filler than crabmeat, so I wasn't so upset.  I was torn between ordering a pizza or a burger.  I figured a pizza was only slightly healthier, so I went for The Kind Brother ($16) and Cicily got The Saint Louie ($16).  The Kind Brother consists of large whole wild mushrooms, smoked mozzarella, sage and an almost-raw egg cracked on top.  Although it was a very thin wood oven crust, I was surprised at how well all the ingredients held up on it.  It was a solid pizza but the crust was a bit too wood oven flavored and hard for me and after 2 slices the flavor of the smoked mozzarella made the dish seem a bit heavy too.  I loved the raw egg touch, it's something you don't really see much in pizzas.  The Saint Louie was provel cheese, italian sausage, pepperoni, and pickled chilis.  Cicily commented that she also liked all the ingredients and inside parts of the pizza but wasn't a huge fan of the crust either.  Somehow, we managed to leave room for dessert and we got the chocolate cake ($9) which was actually more of a deconstructed s'more.  It was a very thick cake (seemed like it was a flourless base) covered in a melted marshmallow topping that had been nicely brunt on top and then had a bunch of chopped up grammar cracker crust surrounding it.  It was super decadent and rich in flavor.  As someone who doesn't love chocolate, I was strangely drawn to it.   While it may sound like we didn't enjoy our pizzas, it's quite contrary, we did, but given the location, neither of us were really sure if we would go super out of our way again.  But If I lived nearby, I would put it on rotation.   Total bill: $62/pp with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

GRK Visited 6/18/2013 3 Forks

GRK 111 Fulton St., (between William St & Dutch St), New York, NY 10038

As I stated before recently, I am a huge fan of Greek food and luckily so is my friend Allison.  So she kindly took me out to GRK for a belated birthday lunch after I came back from all my travels.  I was totally excited to try it out and plus it was a beautiful day outside, so it was nice to get out of the building for lunch.

We got there a bit before noon, which was the perfect time because by the time we got our order the line was literally out the door.  So definitely try to go early if you can.  GRK is more of a fast food/lunch place vs. a real restaurant.  They have a short menu but it hits the Greek classics:  gyro sandwiches (chicken, pork or beef/lamb), platters, salads, and  tzatziki samplers.  What's also neat is that they also serve greek yogurt.  How on trend.  They have either regular yogurt or frozen yogurt.  We didn't really have time or space in our stomachs to get yogurt on top of our lunch, but if I worked closer to here, I could definitely see myself coming here for yogurt runs often.  Back to the food, I opted for the Greek Salad ($9.64) and Allison got the Chicken platter ($9.78) and we split a tzatziki sampler ($4.59).  I was super excited for the salad because I had been eating all this rich Chinese food lately and even though the menu accurately described the salad (Vine ripened tomatoes, red onions, green peppers, cucumbers and Kalamata olives. Tossed lightly with extra virgin olive oil, Kalamata vinegar and garnished with authentic Greek feta cheese) I was surprised that there was no lettuce in it.  The bowl was mainly huge chunks of tomatoes and cucumbers, which would have normally been fine but they were a bit poorly cut and I had re-cut them into smaller pieces.  The dressing and feta cheese were fine but it just didn't have that fresh Greek taste to it.  It was totally fine for a work time lunch meal but if I had that for dinner at a sit down place I would have been disappointed.  Allison's food looked like a winner with lots of gyro style chicken (I tried a bite and it was pretty tasty), aegean slaw (which was basically cabbage, carrots, onions in a vinaigrette) and rice with a tzatziki.  Considering it's almost the same price the salad, I would recommend getting the platter as it has more flavor and food to it.  The tzatziki sampler is a trio of dips (GRK - which is scallion, cucumber, mint and lemon; kaftero - which is habanero peppers, herbs, and sprices; and prassino - which is basil, cucumber and garlic) and a huge bag of warm pita.  I love the idea of the sampler and since we finished every single dip, clearly we enjoyed them, but similar to my Greek Salad, I've had better dips before in my life.  They all needed a bit more garlic and seasoning to them as they seemed a bit too mild.

Although this place is no Boukies, I don't think that's what it set out to be.  It's caters to a working lunch crowd and for that purpose, it gets the job done.  It's not super far from the Towers, but it's probably not a place that I would run to on a regular work day, more so on a lazy Thursday or Friday.  Total bill with 2 soda:  $30

Photo Credit: Yelp