Sushi Yasaka Visited 5/21/2018 5 Forks

Sushi Yasaka  251 W 72nd St., New York, NY 10023

OMG - where has this place been my whole life??!  I'm so obsessed with this place and can't believe I haven't been there before.  I've never been a fan of the UWS but this is a place where I would 100% go out of my way to go.  The best thing is that it's not some fancy pants sushi place - in fact it's much more of a local, mom and pop joint but the quality and value is second to none. 

I was in that blissful state of being in between jobs, so I was able to take long leisurely lunches in the city and there's nothing I love more than a good ole fashion sushi lunch special.  Even though it was a weekday, the place was fully jammed so you should definitely make a reservation.  It makes me wonder, where the hell do these people do for work?!?  In any case, the menu has quite a few options but I went straight for the Miyabi lunch - for $18 you got 4 pieces of sushi, 7 pieces of sashimi, an oyster, a 6 piece roll of your choice, soup and salad - a seriously amazing deal.  I was tempted to go for the regular Miyabi combo which had the same thing but 6 pieces of sushi and 8 pieces of sashimi but I figured I didn't need to spend $28 when I could get the lunch special.  As a treat to myself, I got a spicy scallop roll as well.  This was beyond plenty of food.  This is what fresh fish is supposed to look and taste like.  Even the 1 oyster was fantastic.  The fish was all gorgeous in cut and color (I make it sound like a freakin diamond ring).  It's this kind of sushi that makes me happy and crave sushi every day of the week.  Don't get me wrong, I love a fancy pants sushi place every now and then too but you can't eat there all the time.  While I can't say this place is oozing with Japanese authenticity, I can say with 100% confidence that if I live anywhere near this place, I would be spending significant amounts of time and money here.  In fact, just writing about this place makes me want to take a detour up there after work next week.  Total bill:  $33 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bar Boulud Visited 3/9/2014 3 Forks

Bar Boulud 1900 Broadway at 64th St., New York, NY 10023

I don't usually go to brunch on the UWS, but Lav and I had just spent a nice early morning at the MoMa and we decided to just walk around the city and ended up near Bar Boulud.  I always had this vision of the UWS being older, more high brow, more expensive and just not my scene.  My brunch here didn't really change my view.  While my meal was totally fine, I spent way more than I wanted on brunch and the vibe was just too stuffy for me.  I mean I rolled into the restaurant in jeans and sweater and there were some people there in 3 piece suits (ok, there were only 2 people like that but for the most part the crowd here is older and not dressed in ripped jeans like me). 

I generally like French food and they have your usual line up of eggs (or ouefs) florentine, croque monsieur, croque madame, quiche, salad nicoise, and omelettes.  They also had a brunch prix fixe but at $32 not including tax and tip, no thank you.  With all our walking, I had developed quite an appetite, so although I usually go for eggs in the morning, I got the Frenchie Burger ($18).  It was made with beef and pork belly confit, roasted tomato, raclette cheese, arugula, and french fries.  Compared to most places, the burger here was a bit on the smaller size, but from a health perspective, I was fine with that.  I will say that the burger was tasty - the pork belly confit was a nice touch and really added a great flavor and moisture profile to it.  The fries were the skinny salty kind and were totally fine.  I demolished the entire thing in a matter of minutes and did enjoy its every bite but I'm just not sure how I feel about paying almost $20 for it.  The restaurant was kind enough to let Lav order the frittata off the prix fixe menu (it was not listed under the a la carte section).  I had a small bite and it was a solid frittata with cheddar cheese and spinach and onions. 

All in all, it was totally a fine brunch experience if not a bit too high brow and expensive for me.  I guess I'll always be more of a downtown/Brooklyn gal, but if you are looking for the that UWS experience this place isn't a bad choice.  Total bill:  $29/pp with tax and tip 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Barcibo Enoteca Visited 7/4/2012 4 Forks

Barcibo Enoteca 2020 Broadway, (between 69th St & 70th St), New York, NY 10023

While this is not the first time I've eaten on the UWS, this is the first time in over a year that I have ventured up there.  As much as I bitch and moan to other people when they complain about coming to Brooklyn, I've often done as much complaining when people mention the UWS or UES.  But in all honesty, getting up to the UWS only took 30-35 minutes.  I can't believe how easy it was.  The reason I went up there was to see the 4th of July fireworks at a friend's place, so we decided it would be easiest to grab dinner up there too. 


Julie recommend Barcibo which was right across the street from her place.  It was a super cute wine and Italian small plates restaurant and luckily it was also open on the holiday.  We ordered a bunch of small plates and split them, which is a lot of fun when you have a group of 3.  3 is small enough to comfortably share but big enough to order a lot of different dishes.  We got 3 different kinds of crostinis: the soppressata, gorgonzola and honey, the proscuitto buffalo mozzarella and pesto, and the burrata, roasted tomato and basil ($15 for 3).  We also ordered the risotti with wild mushroom, parmigiana, and olio di tartufo ($18), and the meatball crositini with fontina ($16).    The crositinis were all delicious: the bread was thin, toasty on the outside (so that it was strong enough to hold all the food but it did make it a bit difficult to cut 3 ways) but soft enough that it didn't cut the roof of your mouth.   At first it didn't seem like the soppressata one had honey or gorgonzola but after you bit into it, you could taste all of the ingredients in one bite.  I guess they were just hidden under the large pieces of soppressata.  The proscuitto one was also great, I mean how can you go wrong with thinly sliced proscuitto and soft buffalo mozzarella?  The same can be said for burrata.  I don't think I've ever had anything bad when burrata is involved.  This crostini had 1 large wet piece of burrata and then it was covered with a few slices of really well roasted tomatoes (they were super sweet) and basil.  My one complaint is that there was only 1 of each crostini.  For $5/crostini, it would have been nice to have at least 2 pieces.  Next came the risotti and the meatball crostini.  Unlike the other crostinis we had, the star here really was the meatball.  It was 1 HUGE meatball cut in half served on top of a crostini that frankly was totally unnecessary.  I'm not really sure why it was even on the plate.  The actual meatball was fabulous and had great flavor and spices to it.  The tomato sauce on top of it was also delicious and I kept pouring the sauce on my third of the meatball.  The risotti (it's the same thing as a risotto) was super super rich and creamy but what I really loved were the mushrooms in it.  They were so meaty, firm and were almost raw, which I love.  There's nothing worse than soft old mushrooms in a dish.  You could really taste the parmigiana in the dish also.  I'm super glad we split this dish because it would have been just way too much  (and super unhealthy) for 1 person to consume. 


You'd think after all this food that we would be full.  But no, so we ordered the sweet sausage, broccoli rabe and gigante beans ($18) as well.  This was not what I thought.  When I think sweet sausage I imagine huge Chicago style sausages, but these were pretty thin and small sausages.  But don't like the size fool you!  They were great and it was probably better that it wasn't some huge meat platter because by the end of this dish, we were definitely all overly full.  The gigante beans were indeed gigantic.  I have never seen beans like this.  They are like lima beans on steroids.  But they had a nice soft texture and the flavor tasted a bit like it had been simmering in chicken broth.  


The service here was great, our waitress was super friendly and really helpful in picking dishes and drinks for us.  While I still don't see myself going to the UWS a lot, I can now definitely see why people like living up there and I see lots more restaurants reasons to come back up here!  Total bill: $52 with tip and tax and drinks


Photo Credit: Yelp

Dovetail Visited 7/18/2011 4 Forks

Dovetail 103 W 77th St., New York, NY 10079

What the hell am I doing on the UWS (in fact this is may first UWS posting)?! I was so confused that I ended up taking the A train to 125th street.  There's nothing worse than seeing you train go past your stop and then not stopping for another 5 stops.  But in any case, there are almost 0 reasons for me to ever go to the UWS, but Aarti had always wanted to try the Meatless Monday tasting menu at Dovetail.  So even though I won't go near the UWS with a ten foot pole, I was willing to make an exception for my best friend's birthday.  This place just proves to me that just because a restaurant is vegetarian focused doesn't mean you're doomed for a meal of boiled vegetables (other great veggie places: Dirt Candy and 4 Course Vegan).  


Dovetail only has this vegetarian tasting menu on Monday nights, so if you're interested don't forget that fact.  Luckily for meat loving folks, they also have a vegetarian focused section which includes meat and seafood.  My first impression of the restaurant was that it was super stuffy and for the older crowd.  It was pretty fancy, quiet and one of those places that had a wine list that was 50+ pages long and white table clothes.  We each ordered a round of cocktails and then waited and waited and WAITED to place our order.  I was almost so angry that I was going to get up and flag down our waiter. 

When he finally showed up, he was actually fairly helpful in giving his definitive opinion on the dishes on the menu.  It's usually a bit frustrating when you ask a waiter for their opinion on a dish and they hem and haw and don't give you a straight answer.  Aarti asked his opinion about the pasta or the seitan and he gave definitive firm answer that the seitan was better.  So between Aarti, Will, Dan and I, we all got different dishes on the vegetarian and vegetarian focused menu.  For the purposes of not writing a 5 page long entry, I'll focus just on my meal but note that everyone else gave high marks for their meal as well.  

The amuse bouche was some shredded radish which was ok but the absolute killer was the warm foccaccia bread served with the freshest olive oil I have ever had.  It was almost like they squeezed the olives right there and then.  This set the tone for the rest of the meal.  For my 1st course, I got the white gazpacho which was basically like a cold chowder.  While I generally don't like gazpacho, this one was really fresh tasting and not too boring (maybe it was because of the cream?).  My next course was the pea dumplings and it was amazing.  It consisted of the freshest peas I've ever had and stuffed in a beautifully thin skinned dumpling.  Sadly in a place like this, I wasn't surprised that there were only 3 dumplings as I surely could have had about 20 of them.  Aarti had also mentioned that her vegetables tasted like they were literally picked 30 seconds ago.  My next dish was the corn risotto with thinly sliced beef on top (it consisted of a slice of pure fat and then a slice of melt in your mouth meat on top of it).  It was simply amazing, no words for it really, just mouthful of joy and tears. 

The tasting menu is a 3 course meal at $46 but there were some choices on the menu that required you to pay extra.  Such as the gnudi (sweetbreads) which was $14 extra (no one got that) and the baked onion and truffles ($18 extra) which Will got and for dessert the chocolate souffle which is $6 more (Aarti got it).  The meal also came with your choice of dessert.  I got the bread pudding, Dan got the peanut butter ganache, Aarti got the souffle and Will got the carrot cake.  They were all really fabulous although I will say that even as a chocolate hater, Aarti's dessert was the best.  It was piping hot, soft and served with coffee ice cream and a side of carmel sauce.  F'ing Delicious.  My bread pudding was good and light but I've had better (I'm looking at you Blue Ribbon Bakery) and I took a bite of Dan's dessert and it was like eating peanut butter out of a jar. 

Overall, the quality of the food was beyond high quality.  But it's one of those places that you'd expect your parents or grandparents to love (or just what I imagine UWS-iders would enjoy), so just be prepared when you go.  Don't expect anything hop, cool, or trendy.  Expect mature, traditional, and quality.   Also, the service was a bit lacking in that it was painfully slow in the beginning but then evolved to being almost a bit too attentive.  The total bill with 2 rounds of cocktails and extra supplements was $346 without tip for 4 people. So clearly not an everyday meal but definitely worth it for a nice event.