The Continental Miami Visited 11/17/2015 4.5 Forks

The Continental Miami   2360 Collins Ave, Miami, FL 33139

I have a love/hate relationship with Stephen Starr restaurants.  He's definitely a prolific restaurateur with awesome places like Upland but then he's got terrible places like El Vez and painful trendy places like Buddakan.  But I was curious as to what he had going on in the Miami scene, so I decided to check out The Continental while in town.  The Continental has a very retro 70's upscale diner feel to it.  It's kind of kitschy with a tikki cocktail menu but then the food is weirdly Asian and slightly Caribbean.

I went with Laura and one of her trade association colleagues.  We sat outside which is one of the best things about Miami - you can always sit outside and enjoy a good meal.  Our waiter was super friendly and nice and recommended a bunch of things for us to share.  We started with a basic organic green salad ($10) which was nice since Laura and I had been eating a lot of hotel conference food all week.  Based on the rec of our waiter, we got the lettuce wrap ($29), Jamaican Jerk Chicken ($24) and the Pastrami Fried Rice ($16).   The salad was very standard - basic fresh mixed greens with a lemon vinaigrette.  Next came the fried rice which the waiter raved about - he said it was super unique and different because of the pastrami element and heavy black cracked pepper on it.  In all honesty, I've totally had some similar to this somewhere else and I just don't get the trend of using pastrami.  But the actual fried rice part was quite tasty in that salty fried rice way.  Next we had the lettuce wraps and this was an amazing dish.  Incredibly tender and juicy Korean marinated skirt steak with kimchi, pickles and a spicy (sambal?) garnish with very large and fresh pieces of Bibb lettuce. It was fantastic and jam packed with lots of flavor and heat.   The other main dish of jerk chicken was equally as tasty (see what I mean about a totally random menu?).  The chicken was super moist and tender and served with traditional rice and peas.  Awesome dish even if it was kind of a random item. The waiter definitely steered us in the right direction.  

Of course, we had to get dessert and got the millionaire's chocolate cake ($11) because any dessert with that name is just begging for you to order it, even if you don't like chocolate.  To offset it, we also got the Strawberry Shortcake ($11) because that's one of my favorite desserts.  As expected, I loved the shortcake much more.  It was the perfect blend of shortcake, creme fraiche and sweet sugar soaked strawberries.  This is totally my kind of dessert - still sweet but not rot your tooth sweet.  You can find that kind of sweetness with the chocolate cake - it was waaay too much for me.  I took one bite and while I fully appreciated it for what it was, I couldn't eat more than 1 bite. 

While I didn't love this place as much as I did Upland, it was a very solid Stephen Starr representation.  Even though the decor is kind of cheesy and the menu may not make a lot of sense, you'll have a great time and leave with a happy and full stomach.  Total bill:  $250 for 3 people 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Bazaar Visited 11/17/2015 4 Forks

The Bazaar  1701 Collins Ave., Miami Beach, FL 33139

I hadn't been to Miami in years so I was excited to spend some time down there for a few days for work in December.  Unfortunately the conference I was at was in Hollywood, FL which is about 40 minutes away from South Beach but it's a super cheap Uber ride away, so it was definitely worth the hassle to to head down there.  Laura, Jen and I decided to head out of Hollywood since there's nothing to do there and opted for dinner at The Bazaar, a Jose Andres establishment.  Funnily enough, he's a huge name in the DC food scene yet I've never actually been to any of his restaurants before, so I was glad to check this place out. 

It's located in the ever so chic SLS Hotel - a typical South Beach hotel right off the beach with a modern and trendy interior and equally modern and trendy clientele.  The menu here is split up into 3 sections of tapas:  Miami Meets the World which is a fusion of Miami and Asian food; Spain Yesterday which is more traditional Spanish food; and Spain Today which is Spanish food with a more modern slant.  Our waiter suggested about 8-9 dishes so we tried to pick something from each section:  from the Miami Meets World section we got the Bao Con Leche ($18), Dragon Fruit Ceviche ($17), and Brussels Sprouts ($10); from the Spain of Yesterday and Today we got the Fish en Papillote ($22),  Seared Scallops ($16) and Croquetas de Jamon ($13).  There were a bunch of other great sounding dishes but we were also saving room for dessert.  Our waiter was super nice and very helpful in navigating us through the super extensive menu. 

The Bao Con Leche is their version of steamed pork belly buns and it was quite tasty and satisfying. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the fusion part of this dish was as it seemed like a pretty straight forward pork bun to me.  Next we tried the croquetas de jamon - they were small bite size fritters made with delicious Iberico ham on the inside.  I would have preferred a bit more cheesey goodness on the inside but it was a great snack to pop in your mouth.  The 3rd dish was the Dragon Fruit Ceviche, which is one of their signature dishes.  It's super unique - they carved out half of a dragon fruit and served it with raw tuna, lemon, hibiscus and some dragon fruit foam on top.  I was a bit unsure of this dish at first but after a few bites I found it to be super refreshing and definitely something I've never had before.  The dragon fruit is light, mild and crunchy which was a good pairing with the tuna.  The brussels sprouts were your typical roasted version - tasty but definitely something that I could make on my own at home.  The main dishes were the fish en papillote (basically steamed fish wrapped in paper) and the seared scallops.  The fish was presented in dramatic fashion with 2 waiters coming to "unwrap" the fish but taste wise it was pretty mild and kind of boring - it was a nice and tender white fish.  The scallops were served with toasted pine nuts and while they were seared nicely and large in size, there were only 2 of them which was disappointing. 

We saved room for dessert and went for the s'mores chocolate cake ($12) and the key lime pie ($12). As many of you know, chocolate is not my favorite dessert but when it's described as chocolate cake served with toasted marshmallow, caramelized bananas, and peanut butter ice cream, it's hard to say no to that.  As delicious sounding as it was, it was just too rich and decadent for me, especially after having snacked on a bunch of rich and heavy dishes earlier.  As for the key lime pie (we had to order it since we are in Florida after all), it was a deconstructed version with all the different components splayed out on the plate separately.  It was sour, delicious and definitely reaffirmed that I'm much more of a fruity non-chocolate dessert gal. 

Overall, this was a fun Miami style dinner.  It's great people watching, lovely service and unique food.  It is a bit pricey given the amount of food served but it is South Beach, it's right on the main drag of Collins Ave, and tapas style, so it's to be expected that you'll pay a bit more.  Total bill: $102/pp with tax, tip and drinks 

Posto Visited 11/15/2105 3.5 Forks

Posto 

310 2nd Ave, 

New York, NY 10003

So the good news about Posto is that they have a KILLER happy hour deal that runs everyday (weekends included) from 3:30-6:30 where you get a free large pizza when you buy a bottle of wine or pitcher of beer.  It's a great deal especially on the weekend.  Krush, Amy, Tanya and I decided to stop by after hanging out all day at Jill's and we snuck in 10 minutes before 6:30, so we were so excited to take advantage of the happy hour deal. 

But then mysteriously no one came to take our order until 6:32pm to which the waitress then said "Sorry, happy hour is over".  We all found that incredibly shady and being the assertive B-school ladies that we were, we pushed back and said that we had been sitting here waiting for someone to take our order for over 10 minutes and we wanted to speak to a manager.  Our waitress finally relented and said she could put it in the system as 1 bottle of wine and comp us for the pizza. I've never been here before but Krush and Tanya were veterans of this place and said that we should probably get a smaller pizza in addition to the large cheese one we were getting.  So we got the small shroomtown pizza ($13) and the hummus to start ($8) along with a bottle of red and white wine.  

We got the hummus because Jill had mentioned that is was the best hummus she's had and it was pretty damn good.  It was very heavy on the tahini sauce and garlic and the toasted bruchetta bread it was served with was perfect for it.   As for the pizza, this place is famous for thin crust pizza but I wasn't ready for how thin is really was.  It was paper thin to the point where I wasn't even sure if there was a crust going on.  I like thin crust but this was a bit too thin for me -  this level of thinness easily lends to burned pizza which is what I felt like our pizza tasted like.  It was good but it had this element of burntness to it that I didn't really love and it was also some of the saltiness pizza I've had had in my life.  I was chugged pints of water when I got home.  That all being said,  it was a a hell of a deal.  For 2 bottles of wine, hummus, 1 large pizza and 1 small pizza with mushrooms on it the total with tax and tip per person was only $24.  For that alone, I'd have to recommend it as a great place to go as long as you get get in before 6:30 but on the basis of the food alone, I've definitely had better pizza elsewhere.  

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Ten Twenty Post Visited 11/13/2015 4 Forks

Ten Twenty Post  1020 Post Rd., Darien, CT 06820

I picked up a new client this year for work and unfortunately for me, they are based out of Norwalk, CT.  It's close enough that I can obviously make a day trip out of it which is nice, but it kind of sucks when your clients aren't in an exciting or fun place to visit and Norwalk is most definitely not a fun place to visit.  Norwalk/Darien lives up to all the stereotypes of what a typical CT town is like - it's cute, adorable and super super WASP-y.  I felt very out of sorts there.  Even though it's not that far from the city, none of my clients were willing to come down to NYC, so I have to make the trek up there.  We scheduled a lunch meeting and sadly there is nothing in the immediate vicinity of their office that wasn't a chain restaurant so we had to branch out a bit and go to Darien, which is only a 10 minute drive away. 

There is a main drag next to the train station that has a bunch of boutique and restaurants which is very cute and Main Street USA.   I found Ten Twenty Post after scouring Yelp and other sites to find a place that wasn't a Chipotle or casual dining place.  This place definitely fits the bill for a nice client meal - it's sit down with white table clothes but still casual enough that it didn't feel too stuffy or formal.  The menu is fairly traditional New England fare - it's got a fairly strong seafood slant with a nice line of sandwiches and salads for lunch.  I would have loved to have gotten something from the raw bar but since we were on a time crunch, I opted to go for the Greek Salad with Pesto Rubbed Shrimp ($22).  A bunch of other people at the table got the lobster mac and cheese, steamed mussels and other pretty good sounding seafood dishes.  Since we had almost 20 people at the table, the service was understandably slow but they were very nice about it.  I had originally made the reservation for 6, then changed it to 8 and then changed it to 13 and then we ultimately ended up with 18 and they were super nice about it which was great. 

While the salad was listed as a Greek Salad it's not the typical or traditional Greek type that I'm used to at a real Greek restaurant - one with super juicy red tomatoes, large fresh chunks of feta and cucumbers (and they usually don't actually come with any lettuce or mixed greens).  Instead it was more of a mixed green salad with small bits of feta, a handful of cucumbers and small tomatoes served with pita - which actually is a pet peeve of mine as I find nothing more irritating than having some kind of breaded product with my salad (like croutons).  I should have told them to leave off the pita because it was taking up too much space on my plate. But the ingredients used were fresh and the pieces of shrimp were fairly substantial, plentiful, and quite tasty with the pesto rub on it.  I would have just called it a shrimp salad instead.  I had a handful of their fries which were sprinkled with truffle oil and parmesan cheese - so what's not to love about that??

Overall, it was a nice and respectable place for a client lunch.  Luckily they had the back section that can hold a fair amount of people, so it's good for groups and it looked like they also had outdoor space but it was a bit too cold to sit outside.  While I wouldn't ever voluntarily come up here to eat for any other reason except for client meetings, I do recommend Ten Twenty Post as a nice place to pass the time and chow down on some seafood.

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Four Horsemen Visited 11/11/2015 4 Forks

The Four Horsemen   295 Grand St., Williamsburg, NY 11211

This place has been on a lot of different food blog Hot Lists for its natural wine list and ties to James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame.  The place is a very minimalist, chilled out scene (it's got a Scandinavian feel to it although I think James Murphy is from NJ) compared many of the other loud booming restaurant/wine bars in the neighborhood.   The menu is more bar food/small plates vs. a full menu but you can definitely find enough to nosh on here to make yourself fairly full for the night. 

I met up with Neel, Caitlin and Sarah as part of a tradition of trying to keep in touch and catch up over wine since we all parted ways from our old work team.  We got here fairly early (6pm) and it was pretty empty but I would still recommend making a reservation because there aren't a lot of seats and it can get crowded fairly quickly.  As I mentioned, the place is known of its natural organic wine list - in addition to red and wine wines, they also have a nice selection of rose and orange wines from across Europe and the US.  If you're a wine junkie, you'll have a great time here and even if you're not, you'll definitely be able to find a great tasting wine here. 

The menu has a meat and cheese section, snacks, small plates, large plates and dessert.  We ordered the fried potatoes ($10), warm house bread and cultured butter ($6), roasted sunchokes ($14), beef tartare ($15) and the tajarin pasta ($18).   This actually turned out to be enough food that I was pretty full by the time I got home.  The fried potatoes were thrice cooked and served with aioli and tomato chipotle sauce - this dish was like crack cocaine.  Super super addictive, salty and delicious.  The potato was perfectly crispy and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.  I could have easily housed the entire dish myself but I'm glad that I didn't.   The warm house bread was also pretty delicious - there really seems to be this huge movement towards warm housemade sourdough bread served with cultured butter (I saw it at Wassail and Semilla) - despite trying to avoid carbs, there really isn't anything more god damn delicious than soft warm bread and salty creamy butter spread on top of it.  The sunchokes were served with a salsa verde and capers - solid dish but nothing mind blowing.

Neel and I had very high expectations for the beef tartare because we had had an overwhelmingly perfect version at Wildair.  This one was good but not as good as that one.  I didn't really love the buttermilk and seeds on top of it or the sesame crackers served with it.  I think if I didn't have such a high bar for it, I would have enjoyed it more because the beef was chopped up well and was the right texture and flavor but the one at Wildair just sheer perfection in my book.  Lastly we had the tajarin pasta which is a very thin version of tagliatelle pasta and it was served with rock shrimp and chili.  It was superb - the pasta was the perfect consistency and the combination of it with the rock shrimp and chili was spot on.  This was another dish that I could have eaten all on my own as well.

Overall, this is a lovely, if not slightly hipster-ish (I mean, it is Williamsburg) wine bar with really solid food.  I like how it's not some dark dank wine bar with only a menu of olives and hummus - it's bright, airy and got enough wine and food options that will make you happy you came.  Total bill:  $50/pp with tax, tip and 2 glasses of wine

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Cafe Clover Visited 11/7/2015 2.5 Forks

Cafe Clover  10 Downing St., New York, NY 10014

I'll try to keep this review brief because frankly there's not much to really say about this place.  The place is cute and it's in a prime but seemingly cursed location in the West Village near the W. 4th stop.  I feel like this place is constantly changing ownership every other month.   Not sure why since it's so centrally located and must get a lot of foot traffic...perhaps it's the food?  

The menu here is very veggie friendly - in fact, there's only 1 entree on the brunch menu that's meat related (the burger) but they do offer bacon and sausage as side orders.  Everything on the menu sounded healthy and organic:  chia granola, avocado toast, market vegetable scramble and lots of big salads.  I was torn between the poached eggs and the market vegetable scramble but I thought I'd be healthy so I got the scramble (which was really a $17 omelette not a scramble) with egg whites.  The veggies in it were broccoli, brussels sprouts and beet root - not really very inspiring or exciting but I went with it.  You get a choice of 1 side and obviously I got the applewood smoked bacon although for $17 I'd think you'd get the standard toast and potato side as well but not here.   Mabel also got the scramble and Aarti got a heirloom grain salad with an egg ($21 - $5 of which was extra for the egg.  WTF?!).  The scramble came out and it was so uninspiring.  It looked like a basic omelette that I make at home myself and it was on the small side.  It just looked sad without any of the other usual sides that go with a brunch dish.  I knew there wasn't cheese in it but it's just really disappointing and not tasty to have an omelette sans cheese.  It was a totally ok dish, just super boring and not filling. Even though the bacon was supposed to be smoked, it was a bit over smoked for my taste.  Mabel and Aarti both commented that their food was just ok - I do find it incredibly offensive that they would charge $5 extra for a fried egg on a salad - talk about an insane mark up!

With so many other adorable brunch options in the West Village that serve delicious food, it's hard to really give this place much props.  Although, I did like that they pretty much let us sit at the table for 2+ hours to talk without giving us crap but when we wanted to go pay our bill that ended up taking forever.  Oh well, I'm sure in a few months this place will be something else completely different anyways.  Total bill:  $23/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bond St. Visited 11/4/2015 4 Forks

Bond St.   6 Bond St., New York, NY 10012

It's been years since I have been to Bond St.  so when Richelle mentioned it for Kristin's birthday I was excited to go back.  It's a perennial favorite fancy pants sushi place in the city that has a quiet and respected reputation.  One quick shout out - I'm not someone who gets starstruck often, but it was kind of fun to see Cuba Gooding Jr.  and Maxwell at the bar while we were waiting for our table.   Despite being super busy and slightly high brow, the hostesses were remarkable flexible with our table as we were not all at the restaurant until 20 minutes after our reservation, so it was nice that they didn't give us crap for being late. 

The menu here is more modern high end sushi - I don't really want to use the word "fusion" here because it's not but it's also not super traditional either.  It's very much in line with a place like Koi in terms of ambience and menu.  When ever my B-school friends and I meet for sushi we just go to town and order a bunch of food for all of us to share:  big eye tuna tart ($24), red snapper tacos ($18), yellowtail sashimi ($18), spicy crispy shrimp ($18), braised short ribs ($18), chilean sea bass ($36), jalapeño scallop roll ($15), tuna crispy rice ($18) and the sesame crusted shrimp roll ($15).   Everything was fantastic although my favorites were the spicy crispy shrimp and the chilean sea bass. The shrimp had a great tempura crunch on the outside and a delicious chipotle aioli to go with it. Deliciously addictive.  It's also hard to not all in love with sea bass - this was a fairly large piece that was flaky, moist and nicely paired with the miso glaze on the side.   As for the dishes I wasn't too impressed with:  the red snapper tacos - it was a bit underseasoned as red snapper is generally a more mild fish and I felt like it could have used more garnishes with it.  The braised short ribs were tasty but given all the focus on fish and seafood at our table, it felt a bit out of place and overly heavy.  

Overall, dinner here reminded me of what's it's like to have a fun girls night out in NYC.  The restaurant is sleek, sexy but not overwhelming or over the top.  It's a great place to order a bunch of stuff, enjoy some cocktails and people watch.  The one caveat is that it is a bit pricey, so it's not someplace that I would necessarily go to on a regular basis but it's definitely on the list for a fun night out.  Total bill:  $137/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp