Years ago Maco Trading Company was one of the hottest restaurants in Tribeca, so I was really surprised to see it still packed to the brim on a random Wednesday night in 2016. To their credit, it is quite beautiful inside and it definitely transports you out of NYC....it actually kind of reminds me of Vegas, but not in a terrible way, just that it doesn't have any windows inside, so you definitely can lose track of time easily.
I met up with the B-school gals because April was in town and while 4 out of the 5 of us were there, the hostess refused to seat us. While I understand that they like to seat full parties and put in food orders together, this one was being particularly difficult and not helpful. In the end, we had told her that it would only be 4 of us (even though we knew our friend was going to join much later) and she finally seated us. Luckily, we got a booth so squeezing in a 5th was no problem at all.
The food here is Pan Asian, which I usually don't like, but sometimes it's the company and setting that matter more than having a 5 star meal. Everything is served family style and for lack of a better way of saying it, the menu seemed like Asian food that white people would make. The appetizers range from kale salads (Asian people do not really eat salads) to steamed dumplings and the main entrees steamed cod and pork chops. We decided to share everything: kale salad ($13), charred octopus ($17), chicken and pork belly dumplings ($11), vegetable dumplings ($10), African chicken ($25), shrimp noodles, bacon and shrimp fried rice ($12), brussels sprouts ($8) and steamed jasmine rice ($5). The kale salad was served chopped with sheep's milk cheese and a smoked paprika vinaigrette. It was a good salad but there was definitely nothing Asian about it. The dumplings, while good, didn't taste any better or different than the ones I can find at the supermarket in Chinatown for 1/8 of the price. Interestingly enough, I actually found the vegetable one to be better than the chicken and pork belly one (gasp!). As for the main dishes, the African chicken was similar to a masaman curry since it was served with a peanut curry sauce. The meat was tender and juicy since they did leave a bit of it on the bone. The shrimp noodle and fried rice were also totally fine but nothing mind blowing. The portions were a bit on the small side given their price point, so we opted for 2 desserts, the donuts ($8) and the dark chocolate diablo ($10). The donut was your typical fried ball coated with sugar on it and it came with this very lovely creme anglaise which was the perfect dipping sauce for the donut. The chocolate was too chocolate-y for me but I did like that it had some heat since it had a thai chili flavor to it.
Overall, the food was totally fine but definitely not worthy to be called a destination restaurant. However, their cocktail list is quite fun and kitchy, so I could see this being a fun place to bring out-of-towners or in our case, just having a fun night out with the girls where the company and ambience is more important than the actual food. Total bill: $86/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment