Moti Mahal Delux Visited 2/3/2018 4 Forks

Moti Mahal Delux  149 1st Ave., New York, NY 10065

I very rarely go up to the UES for anything but the Michelangelo exhibit at the Met was winding down, so I figured it was worth the trek up there.  (Note, while the content of the exhibit was amazing it was so so crowded I couldn't enjoy myself at all.  Definitely go on a weekday or super early in the morning).  The area is definitely not my jam but Lav knew that Moti Mahal Delux wasn't too far away, so we cabbed it over there.  Location wise, 1st Ave is a dead zone.  Not to sound snotty but it's a reminder to me of how much I would never want to live in certain parts of NYC.  It's got no character or personality.   But if I ever did live up there, I would most definitely go to Moti Mahal.  Apparently it's a very well known chain in India, so I was excited to see what it was all about.

When I usually go to an Indian restaurant, it's likely either with Aarti or Lav and I just let them order whatever because it's always good.  Apologies that I can't remember everything Lav and I got there but rest assured, everything was extremely tasty.  We started with 2 different appetizers - one which was like a cold patty and another that was like a paneer kabob. The patty dish was just ok but it was a nice vehicle to scoop up the flavorful mint sauce with.  We got another warm paneer type dish which was buttery and amazing  but the true star of the show was the daal makhani ($17), which is black lentils also with lots of butter in it.  It was simply delicious and paired with the warm and soft garlic naan and onion kulcha that we ordered, I was in heaven.  Like any Indian dish, these are quite heavy and it feels like sometime you're eating forever and you haven't made a dent in the dish at all.  We had a lot of leftovers to take home even though the dishes looked small.

It was a pretty quiet experience since we at at like 6pm on a Saturday but in general it doesn't look like a place that would get super crowded or loud.  I imagine they probably do a really good take-out or carry out business.  The only gripe I had was that the waiter didn't really seem to know much about the menu - maybe he was new?  He was also not Indian, which I don't want to ding him for but generally when I go to ethnic restaurants I like the wait staff to be of the same ethnicity or at least be knowledgable about the cuisine or menu. 

While I love Indian food , it's also definitely not something that I should eat a lot of unless I want to put on 10 lbs quickly.  The location of this place leaves a lot to be desired but if you are ever up on the UES or visiting the Met, this should definitely be on your radar screen.  Total bill:  $42/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Seamstress Visited 11/5/2016 3.5 Forks

Seamstress  339 E 75th St., New York, NY 10021

One of the things I love about living in NYC is that on any given night you can end up at a totally fun and new place that you've never been to before.  So on a random Saturday, Aarti asked if I wanted to see her co-worker's wife (aka Ana Gasteyer) to a show at The Caryle Hotel.   I normally wouldn't have thought about it but why wouldn't I go?  The show was at 10:45pm on the UES, so we met up with a few of her friends for a late dinner right before hand.  I've been in NYC a long time now but the UES is still a totally new place for me.  Luckily I didn't have to pick a place and her friends made a reservation at Seamstress for us at 9pm.  Phew.

The place has a bit of a confusing identify - it can't figure out if it's a bar or restaurant.  It's too loud, dark and packed to be a restaurant but you do have to be seated unlike a bar.  The menu is kind of a mish mosh of appetizers and entrees - we got the crispy potato wedges ($7) to start because we were starving and then also ordered the fried cauliflower ($10), butternut squash risotto ($16), cheese board ($17), roasted garlic and tarragon flatbread ($6) and chicken breast ($18).  The potato wedges were huge, it's like all they did was cut the potato in half and threw some spices on it.  It was good at that moment because I was starving but it wasn't anything much more than satisfying bar food.   Next came the cheese board, which had a nice combination of cheeses, apples and crackers.  I wished they had told us what kind of cheese was on there but it was a mix of hard and soft cheeses - it's so hard to get a cheese board wrong.  I had envisioned the flatbread to be a long piece of flatbread but instead it was cut up into thin plain strips - I almost mistook it for free restaurant bread, so that's never a good sign but taste wise it was covered in garlic so that's always a winner.

It seems like the new kale of the season is fried cauliflower and here it was served with sage and a cheese dip - so sort of like a chicken wing but made out of cauliflower which is a much healthier version.  Lastly came the risotto and chicken - both larger entree sized dishes.  The risotto had a tomato base and was mixed in with lots of veggies - it was quite filling and comforting but it's not a traditional Italian risotto dish.  The presentation of the chicken was pretty disappointing except that the waitress did warn us that it was served plain with no sides which is exactly how it looked.  I feel like if you're going to serve an entree with no sides, then don't put this one small piece of chicken on a huge plate to make it look sad.  But the good news was that the chicken was actually really delicious.  It was covered in herbs and it was a breast but it had part of the bone in to make it super juicy. If you paired it with the risotto, it made of a lovely bite of food.  The menu felt like a laundry list of bar food versus a restaurant with a theme or vision.

Overall, it was a great place to kick back and have a few cocktails and snacks before the show.  It's a fun environment and I liked the cutting/scissor visuals decorating the place.  I just wished it wasn't suffering from an identity crisis.   Oh well,  at least I'm diversifying my blog and adding another restaurant to the UES category! Total bill:  $33/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Tanoshi Sushi Sake Bar Visited 4/22/2014 5 Forks

Tanoshi Sushi and Sake Bar 1372 York Ave., New York, NY 10021

Woah, I was completely caught off guard by this place.  I had read about Tanoshi in several blogs as being one of the top omakase in the cities despite not being incredibly fancy.  In fact, this place is the complete opposite of high end fancy pants sushi places.  It's pretty much a tiny hole in the wall far off on the East Side.  I would have never found out about this place on my own.  However, similar to Sushi Nakazawa, it's incredibly difficult to secure a reservation.  It used to be that you had to physically stop by the restaurant and put your name on a clipboard outside the restaurant to secure a slot.  But now they've upgraded to the 21st century and you can go online to make a reservation although I will say that you'll probably have to click through several dates to find an opening.

Luckily I was able to secure 2 seats on a random Tuesday night at 6pm.  They only have 3 time slots for the evening, so you better be on time or close to being on time.  When you walk in, you'll notice that there are only 10-12 seats and it's all at the sushi bar - which I love.  While it's omakase style they do have a wall that lists out separate appetizers that you can order individually.  We decided to start with the scallop sashimi ($12) because I'm obsessed with anything scallop related.  It comes out thinly sliced and it was heavenly.  Not super buttery but very very smooth, sweet and silky.  Then the omakase started.  The first piece was fluke - and they mention on the wall that all the sushi is served room temperature and with loose rice.   It was fantastic and served totally traditional style with no soy sauce and very little wasabi.   The quality of the fish was amazing and the rice was indeed loose and had the right touch of vinegar to it.   This first bite made me super excited for what was to come.  I'll spare you painful details of me and Janet swooning and tearing up over every single piece we ate but they were all mind blowing and it really puts into perspective what is high quality sushi and what is just ok sushi. The meal continued on with red snapper, wild king salmon, marinated big eye tuna, squid, albacore tuna, poached scallop, salmon roe, sea urchin with a raw quail egg, eel, then a trio of big eye tuna, king salmon and albacore tuna rolls, a small cup of miso soup and then the meal ended with a large delicious spicy tuna hand roll.   Everything was amazing and completely 5 fork worthy.  My favorite was obviously the sea urchin - just incredibly creamy and silky.  I could have eaten 5 more of those and then some.  Even thought it was a lot of food, we decided that we still wanted to try one more  appetizer so we opted for the king salmon carpaccio ($15) which was about 6 thin slices of slightly seared king salmon with yozu sauce on it.  Again, it was simply delightful and perfect.

Despite its awful location, this place is a genuine gem.  While I loved Sushi Nakazawa, this place is definitely much more my speed in terms of it just being much more low key and informal.  PLUS the best part of it all? It's only $60 per person.  Yes it's half the price of Sushi Nakazawa.  It's got to be one of the best deals ever for sushi in terms of quality and variety.  Another huge plus is that it's BYOB, so definitely bring your own wine or sake before heading over.  I truly loved every minute of my meal here and I hope it stays under the radar for a while, although I doubt that will happen.  Total bill:  $100/pp with tax and tip

Marche du Sud Visited 8/25/2012 2.5 Forks

Marche du Sud 1136 1st Ave, New York, NY 10065

Normally I would never find myself up by this area (all the way on the east side in the 60's), but a friend of mine who lives on Roosevelt Island was having a baby shower and this was right off the tram.  I will say that the 2.5 rating doesn't really reflect what I thought of the decor and space of the restaurant.  My friend's sister had reserved the entire back room which had this beautiful open feeling with tons of windows surrounding the room.  It was the perfect room for a baby shower because it was totally closed off from the rest of the restaurant and big enough for all of us to walk around and mingle but small enough that it felt cozy.  The meal started with a bunch of french pizzas, which were very thin crusted pizzas with no tomato sauce.  They did come with sauteed onions, creme fraiche, and gruyere cheese.  Although they are not like your usual Italian pizzas, they were tasty and light.  Unlike my rant about how I like pasta with tomato sauce, these pizzas didn't feel lacking without the tomato sauce and I had about 3-4 slices because they weren't so heavy and I was starving.  For the main entrees, we got to pick from a long line of dishes from risotto, burgers, omelettes, waffles, and salads.  I figured since it was a brunch, I ordered the L’Omelette Parisienne ($12) which is an omelette with wild mushrooms, french ham & gruyère cheese.  In an attempt to be healthy, I asked for it to come with egg whites instead.  I'm not sure if that's where I went wrong but when the omelette came out, it was a bit underwhelming.   It was pretty small and thin and looked like something I could make at home.  The salad that came with it was also just ok, a bit overdressed.  I don't mean to make it sound like my food was awful because it wasn't.  It just felt like food that I could make at home with my friends and not at a nicer French restaurant.  I took a look at the other food and the presentation of the other dishes and they also looked underwhelming as well.  But despite all of this, this was a lovely place to have a small gathering like a baby shower.  

Photo Credit: Yelp