Sugar Beets Thai Visited 4/1/2011 3.25 Forks

Sugar Beets Thai 227 Roebling St., (between 2nd St & 3rd St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 I was craving cheap Thai food but didn't want to go to Cheers Thai, which is the only barely respectable Thai place within walking distance to my apt.  There were a few other slightly further options that I was willing to try and Sugar Beets Thai was one of them (the other being Siam Orchard). 


It's really South Williamsburg and there is not near much it. When you walk in, you get this feeling that used to be some storefront and the current owners didn't really make good use of the space.  It's actually a pretty large space but there's only 10 tables at most and a completely unused upstairs.  The entire right hand side of the front part of the restaurant is totally empty, which was weird.  Ever since I've been back from Thailand I've been on this fried rice kick, although I have yet to find a good fried rice place here at home.  I usually feel like a loser for ordering fried rice, but this one had crab ($10), so I figured I would give it a go. Dan got the glass noodles with tofu ($8) and we split the steamed Thai dumplings ($5).  The dumplings came out and they looked like shumai on steroids  They were huge and while there were only 4 on the plate, it was the same amount of food as 6 dumplings.  Taste-wise it was actually pretty similar to a shumai and it had some good flavors to it.  The noodles and rice dishes were equally enormous in portion size (which did not stop me and Dan from completely over-eating and finishing our dishes).  My fried rice was good and there was definitely visible pieces of real crab meat, so that was refreshing.  But I was disappointed that it didn't have a fried egg on top of it and they added these huge slices of cold tomatoes and cucumbers which didn't really add anything to the dish. My other gripe was that the slices of onion were too big too, but I finished my entire meal, so clearly I must have liked it on some level.  It was pretty light tasting and not oily like some fried rice dishes you get in Chinese places.  I didn't try Dan's dish but it looked like your standard glass noodle fare and the tofu was fried, not steamed.

The service there was a bit touch and go.  I know that waitresses at many Asian places have a very quiet and soft spoken waitstaff, but this was beyond ridiculous.  I could barely hear her and I have super sonic hearing!  This is one of those typical, decent, cheap, neighborhood Thai joints and if it were closer I would definitely consider going here more often, but since it requires me to drive here I'm not sure how often I will be back.  Total bill was $15/pp.    

Ajisen Noodle Restaurant Visited 2/21/2011 3.25 Forks

Ajisen Noodle Restaurant 14 Mott St., (between Chatham Sq & Worth St), New York, NY 10013

 Ramen places in NYC are becoming a dime a dozen.  Most of them are in the East Village but Aarti and I decided to try one out in Chinatown (there is another location in Queens and several hundred around the world).  This place is a slightly off the beaten path in Chinatown and is one of those places that has plastic food in a showcase outside.  To be clear here this place is not run by Japanese people but Chinese instead. Not sure if that really makes a difference in the food or not, but usually I tend to prefer ethnic restaurants run by people of the same ethnicity although I have definitely been to good places run by outsiders.

The menu is has a mish-mosh of ramen, rice bowls, appetizers and sushi.  I typically steer away from sushi at places like this so I stuck with the miso ramen ($9) and an order of gyoza ($5) and Aarti got the veggie curry ramen ($8) and seaweed salad ($5).  The prices are slightly higher than what I would expect from a Chinatown place where bowls of noodles can be as low as $4-7 a bowl.  The decor of the restaurant is slightly nicer than your typical grungy Chinatown place with nice wooden wall paneling and tables similar to a Japanese place, so that was a nice touch.  The food comes out relatively quickly and the service was attentive but not pushy. 

When I typically think of ramen I think of salt, lots of it...either in the college packaged form or the upscale nice place like Rai Rai Ken or Ippudo.  So when I tried this ramen I was shocked that it was actually a bit bland.  It was a bit low on the flavor level and I had to actually add salt to it. I mean what?!  My ramen came with half a hard boiled egg and several pieces of tender pork.  The meat and noodles were plentiful and cooked well, it just needed more flavor in the broth.  The gyzoa and seaweed salad were fine and frankly pretty standard.  Aarti's ramen had corn in it which you typically don't see in ramen and she liked the curry broth although she also said it needed more salt and flavoring.  I never ever thought that I would ever say that I needed more salt in a ramen dish, but maybe that's a good thing? Total bill was $28 for two without tip, which is a bit more than what I think a lunch meal in Chinatown should be but the good thing was that there wasn't a two hour wait like at Ippudo.     

Ako Visited 10/16/10 3.25 Forks

Ako  205 Bedford Ave, (between 6th St & 5th St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 I'm not sure why I haven't been to Ako before since there are not that many sushi places in Williamsburg.  The place is actually nothing amazing, but it gets the job done and is a pretty decent neighborhood joint.  The decor is actually quite home-y and nicely done and the waitstaff was quite friendly and quick with everything. 


We started with the rock shrimp tempura ($9), which was pretty good.  It was fried well and had a nice light coat for mayo on top of it.  There was surprisingly a good number of shrimp, granted they are not huge pieces but they were the right size for this type of appetizer.  For our main meal, we split the spicy roll combo ($14) and a tuna love roll ($12).  I liked that instead of asking for soup or salad, you actually get both!  The spicy roll combo came with spicy tuna, salmon, and yellowtail and there were 6 pieces of each.  They were good....kind of your basic, standard spicy rolls.  The tuna love roll was a peppercorn crusted white tuna, avocado, topped with red tuna crunch.  You could definitely taste the smokiness of the seared peppercorn white tuna and definitely gave the roll a different twist.  

A few things to know about this place:  there is no beer/liquor and even though they have AmEx card holders they claim they don't take it (one of my pet peeves).  The total bill was $45 with tax and tip.  While this place is no Nobu or Sushi of Gari, it's does fine as a regular standard joint.

Le Barricou Visited 7/25/10 3.25 Forks

Le Barricou  533 Grand St, (between Union Ave & Lorimer St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

In my continued quest for more brunch options, I decided to try Le Barricou after hearing about it from Paige.  The walk was a bit further than what I would like to walk in the morning. 
 
It's a super cute restaurant in the middle of an "up-and-coming" road, Grand Street.  The decor is designed to be like a Parisian bistro and it is indeed super cute inside.  The best thing was that they had the A/C and fans on full blast during the heat wave, so I give them high marks for keeping their customers happy.  Our waitress was full-on French, even lapsing into French during our ordering.
 
They offer you a basked of croissants before our meal and in all honesty, I kind of wished it was warm and right out of the oven, but instead they were cold and tasted like they had been sitting out for a bit.  The menu has classic brunch items (lots of omelets, benedicts, etc).  I was on the verge of ordering the eggs benedict when the waitress mentioned the specials, which all sounded great.  I got the "free range omelet" with mozzeralla, asparagus, and heirloom tomoatoes ($12) and a side of bacon ($4).  Dan got the Norweigen benedict, which just had smoked salmon instead of ham ($11) and some weird fancy drink that ended up being pink ($10).  The waitress actually gave me the drink first b/c she thought it was for me, ha! 
 
The omlete came out and it was HUGE, it must have been a 5 egg omelet.  It came with a side of potatoes and a side salad.  I loved that the waitress gave us ketchup and mustard without asking b/c I hate asking for ketchup for my omelet makes me feel a bit low class sometimes.  The omelet had so much potential with the ingredients they used.  The eggs definitely tasted good and they were quite fluffy, but I would have liked a bit more seasoning.  The tomoatoes were good but I didn't feel like they were heirloom quality.  The asparagus used was just the stems, which was disappointing b/c the stems are the best part of the vegetable and I didn't think the mozz worked too well...it wasn't gooey enough. 
 
The best part of the meal was the bacon.  Oh my.  It was perfectly cook..they were huge fatty pieces.  I can't explain how amazing they were, they definitely weren't the dry shrivled pieces you get from other places.  Dan mentioned that the eggs for his benedict were poached well and they looked runny and good.  Unfortunately, I had too much food going on that I barely ate the potatoes and salad...from what I did have, they were also quite good.  The other good part of the meal was the service.  It was almost borderline too attentive.  They must have re-filled our water and coffee 15 times. 
 
After I came home and thought about my meal, I wasn't as satisfied as I would have liked with a meal like that, but I would definitely go back and try other things on the menu.  By the time we left the place, it was totally crowded and backed with hipsters.  Our total bill was $50 with tax and tip.

Jimmy's Diner Visited 7/24/10 3.25 Forks

Jimmy's Diner  577 Union Ave, (between Frost St & Richardson St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

For my first weekend living with Dan, I wanted to try something that wasn't one of the usual places we always go to in the 'hood.  It would be nice to expand our breakfast/brunch options.  I found Jimmy's on Yelp and I thought that it was a pretty good choice. 


It's a pretty small diner (there's probably no more than 10-12 seats and then there is a counter you can eat at).  The menu is just good creative American food.  For breakfast they had these things called Breakfast Bowls, which is a lot of breakfast like food crammed into a bowl, lots of different breakfast sandwiches, egg scrambles and pancake options.  They also had a few tasty specials.  I got the grits and eggs ($6) which was a medium bowl full of grits, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and sausage.  I would not recommend eating it on a hot day, which is what I did.  I literally sweated through my whole meal.  But grits were good (not as good as the ones I had in New Orleans) but I thought the sausage was a bit too seasoned and it had a lot of caraway seeds in them, which I am not really a huge fan of.  I ate probably 1/2 of the bowl and couldn't eat anymore. Dan got a scramble with sour cream, beans, cheese, and tomato with a side of grits and corn bread.  He mentioned that the corn bread was pretty tasty and the eggs were fine but not out of this world. 


The rest of the dinner/lunch menu sounded pretty good...lots of different types of burgers (10+), big salads, and other good ole american diner type of food.  Our waiter was super peppy and friendly and he seemed to know a lot of the locals there.  The only draw back is that it's cash only but our total bill was $22, so that's not too bad. 

JPan Sushi - Ordered in 1/29/10 - 3.25 Forks

Jpan 287 5th ave.  Brooklyn, NY 11215

JPan is another in a long line of reasonably priced, decent quality sushi joints in Park Slope. I generally like this place as I think it's good value for what you are getting and they take AmEx. Dan and I had remembered that the last time we ordered, it was a lot of food, but for some reason, we did not learn from our mistake this time. We ordered the Japanese Veggie Spring rolls (standard fried spring roll fare) $4.50, a Spicy Roll Combo with miso soup ($15) and an additional Yellow River Roll ($12). When we got the food, it looked like it was enough for 3-4 people. The Spicy roll combo came with spicy tuna, salmon, and crunchy triple fish roll. The triple fish roll was enormous and too big to fit in one bite. The other 2 rolls were slightly more normal sized, but I thought it had a bit too much rice on the outside. Then there was the Yellow River Roll...normally, rolls come in 6 or 8, this one came in 12 pieces! And they were also huge and difficult to eat in 1 bite. I was a bit disappointed in this roll as I think there wasn't enough fish and in fact one of the pieces had no fish at all! It was just a bunch of rice..I think it's probably the end piece, but they shouldn't have put it in there if there's nothing in it! All in all the total bill was $34.30 and we were completely stuffed at the end. It's definitely more "American" style, big pieces of sushi, but not a bad value in the end.