Beauty and Essex Visited 9/24/2011 2.5 Forks

Beauty and Essex 146 Essex St., (between Rivington St & Stanton St), New York, NY 10002

I was all ready to give B&E 3 forks last night but the more I thought about my experience this morning, the more the whole experience just didn't sit right with me.  First, the place just tries so hard to be hip and trendy.  It located behind a faux pawn shop but then when you walk in, it's the vast space that's actually pretty beautifully decorated.  The only reservation time we could get 3 weeks out was for 6:15pm on a Saturday, which actually was fine with me.  I got there 2nd but Lav had mentioned that when she first got there the hostess was rude to her, and I could totally see that happening.  Although there wasn't a huge crowd there yet, I got this feeling that the clientele was a lot of wanna be trend setters.  If it's any indication of the type of people who go there, apparently Lindsay Lohan was there this week making out with her mom. Enough said.

The style of food is tapas style with a few bigger dishes (it's owned by the same people at Stanton Social).  However, the prices definitely do not correlate to their plate size.  I was just at Traif for dinner which was also tapas style and their dishes ranged from $8-11 and Spanish tapas places the prices are also in that price range.  But here, each tapas was around $15-$20 yet they were still tapas-sized plates (i.e. very small).  Our waiter was overly excited about the whole menu but picked out about 5-8 dishes that were all "Amaaaaazing".  In the end, we opted for the Classic Pan Con Tomate with fresh burrata ($14), grilled cheese with tomato soup dumplings ($12), lobster tacos ($19) and the chicken meatballs ($16).  The dishes actually came out really quickly.  The pan con tomate with burrata is just a fancy word for a crositini and while it was good I don't think it was mind blowing enough for $14.  Next they brought out the soup dumplings which Lav had asked for with no bacon and the one they gave us clearly had bacon in it.  When we mentioned that there was bacon in it, they said "there's no bacon" - but as someone who loves bacon, I can tell when there's bacon in something.  The next version they brought out didn't have bacon in it and Lav had said it was pretty yummy (hard to get anything called cheese dumpling wrong!) Next came the lobster tacos and chicken meatballs.  I will say that the lobster tacos were very good.  They were small bite sized soft tacos with 1 piece of lobster tempura and red cabbage slaw and a light cream on it.  I could have eaten 2 more orders of it.  I had barely taken my last bite before the bus boy came and took the plate away.  The chicken meatballs were also perfectly fine and actually pretty filling.  It was very moist and you could taste the wild mushroom flavoring. 

However, I got super annoyed when I wasn't even finished with my plate (there was clearly still 1/2 a meatball on the plate) when the bus boy tried to take my plate away and I had to tell him no.  Lav and I got this really annoying feeling that they kept trying to push us out of our table.  I understand that the table probably was booked for another reservation behind us but that is totally not our problem and they have to manage their booking system more properly.  Even though we had finished our meal, Lav and I were both still hungry (since all the plates were small and too bite sized) but instead ordering another dish, we ordered dessert.  We got the chocolate bread pudding ($11) since I love bread pudding and Lav loves chocolate.  You'd think that since everything else was tiny in size, so would the dessert.  But I was surprised when it was actually pretty big in size. The actual bread pudding was soft and soaking in chocolate but it was hard to get to it due to the extremely hard chocolate topping.  I mean the thing was rock hard and made it really difficult to get to the bread underneath.  Of course the minute we put our forks down, someone came and took our plates away and before we knew it, the bill was on our table.  So freakin annoying.  By the time we left, the place was super packed.  It was mostly filled with a slightly older crowd (but as Lav mentioned, it's pretty expensive, so young people can't really afford dinner here) but it was filled with these kind of sad looking old people who are trying really hard to hang on to being cool and hip (i.e. Real Housewives type of people).  The place would probably be better for a large group of people who can split a lot more stuff from the menu.  It wasn't the best place for 2 people who were trying to catch up (it was super loud in there).  The total bill was $81/pp!!        

Photo Credit: Yelp

The Good Fork Visited 9/20/2011 4 Forks

The Good Fork 391 Van Brunt St., (between Coffey St & Van Dyke St), Brooklyn, NY 11231

Four forks for The Good Fork! Ok, I had to get that out of the way.  But in all seriousness, The Good Fork is a great neighborhood restaurant in a great neighborhood, Red Hook.  It's one of those places that just makes you feel super homey and comfortable.

The menu is basic American with a slight Korean flare.  The menu isn't huge but that's ok when most of the food on there is good.  Dan and I split the pork and chive dumplings ($9), I got the crispy tofu and eggs ($15) which is their vegetarian version of steak and eggs and Dan got the good fork burger ($13).  While we were waiting for our food, the cute black neighborhood cat saunters in, which is probably a huge health code violation, but it just made the place feel more homey.  It also felt so comfortable there because the location of this place is such that really only people who live in the area can come or those who were on their way to Fairway (which is where Dan and I would fall in).  The dumplings came out first and they were extremely plump and full of filling.  The skin was fairly thin and it was really packed to the max with pork (didn't really taste too much chive).  The dipping sauce was different, it had this thick almost molasses consistency but it wasn't super sweet.  You could definitely tell that these dumplings were handmade and were much better than the frozen kinds you typically get at a Chinese restaurant.  Our main dishes were also equally delicious, but in a subtle way.  My dish wasn't anything totally mind blowing but there was something about it that was very satisfying.  It came with 3 fairly big pieces of lightly tempura battered soft tofu on a bed of kimchi rice and sauteed arugula.  The kimchi rice wasn't spicy at all but all the flavors were mixed well that it tasted better than just your standard rice.  The fried egg on top of the dish was ok, it actually could have been a bit runnier.  The tofu was battered perfectly and it made me feel super healthy eating this dish.  I also tried Dan's burger which he got medium rare and it was most definitely much closer on the rare side...in fact the middle was pretty bright pink but that didn't really bother either of us.  And good god, that burger was probably one of the best burgers I've had in a while.  It was juicy and salty and addictive.  The bread was a super soft brioche and it was also one of the biggest burgers I've had in a while. Really delicious.

The waitstaff was also super nice and when Dan I ordered the Six Point and instead of telling us they were just out of it, our waitress brought a tasting of another really tasty beer.  The waitress was really nice without being super pushy.  I wished I lived closer to here because it would totally be one of those places I would come into over and over again. I noticed that even on a random Tuesday night, there was a constant stream of people coming in from 8-9pm.  Total bill: $65 for 2 people with tip.

Photo credit: Yelp   

Pinto Thai Visited 9/17/2011 4 Forks

Pinto Thai 118 Christopher St., (between Bleecker St & Bedford St), New York, NY 10014

This is going to another one of those reviews where I really loved my meal but my dining companion didn't love it as much so it makes me feel torn about what rating to give.  This is what happened at Fat Radish with me and Lav and it's what happened here at Pinto Thai with Aarti.  I really loved my crab fried rice dish and Aarti felt a bit lukewarm about her Tom Yam fried rice dish.

First things first, the decor of the place.  It's very very tiny but very very trendy and dark inside.  The menu has your traditional spring rolls, pad thai, and curries but they also have fusion thai dishes like lamb massaman, flat iron steak, and potato fries with chili mayo.  Aarti and I both ordered thai ice teas ($4/each) and a papaya salad ($7) to split and I got the crab fried rice in a young coconut ($14) and Aarti got the tom yam fried rice ($11).   When our thai ice teas came out we were both a bit dumbfounded.  It came out with an empty glass with 3-4 square ice cubes of frozen ice tea and then the actual ice team, sugar water, condensed milk on the side.  I had never seen it before and it was actually kind of cool.  Luckily the waiter had warned us to try the tea first without putting in the sugar water because the actual ice tea was incredibly sweet. 

The papaya salad was quite tasty and not really spicy at all.  The green beans in the salad were really fresh and crunchy and the best part of the salad. Otherwise, the rest of the salad was like your usual papaya salad.  When my crab fried rice came out I was also impressed with its artistic presentation.  It was filled to the brim with incredibly fresh and delicious crab meat and then really tasty fried rice inside a baked young coconut.  It was a bit hard to dig all the rice out of the coconut because the hole they cut at the top was a bit small but I definitely managed to every last bite of crab and rice.  As someone who is very picky about their crab meat, I definitely give the crab here two thumbs up.  While I didn't taste Aarti's dish, I did have a piece of her tofu and it was a bit too fried (aka hard) and she had also mentioned that the rice was a bit mushy.  It looks like they have a rotating seasonal menu and I would definitely come back here.  Hopefully the next time both me and whoever I am with will both have great meals instead of just 1 person.  Total bill without tip: $45 for 2.    


Photo credit: Yelp

Waffle and Wolf Visited 9/17/2011 2.5 Forks

Waffle and Wolf 413 Graham Ave., (between Jackson St & Withers St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 This might be one of those reviews where the rating might change if I tried a different dish.  I was excited to see that a new breakfast place had opened up down the street from my place, but it turns out it's really not a brunch place at all.  The place is pretty tiny and the concept of the food really lends itself to take out rather than a sit down restaurant.  


The menu is composed of sweet and savory waffle sandwiches.  Even though I like waffles, I've never loved them enough to order them at restaurants.  I like them more as a dish to share with other people because it's usually just too sweet for me as a main dish on its own.  So I decided to get a savory waffle: #12 - it came with cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and bacon baked into it and then served with a avocado yogurt ($7.50).  It came out pretty quickly and it was piping hot.  Basically all the ingredients were served with a hot waffle folded as a cone - the waffle pretty much acted like a pita bread.  While the waffle was good and I really loved the avocado yogurt, having all that bread was a bit too much for me. I generally also like waffles that are a bit toasted and crispy on the outside but this was a bit soggy but it's probably because it was holding tomatoes and avocado yogurt inside of it.  


I'm willing to give this place another try since it's so close to my apartment and I had heard that they might be expanding to fried chicken and waffles so that could be interesting.  While there was nothing really wrong with my meal, I'm think I just might not like having a waffle as a sandwich.  Total bill with iced coffee: $9.50 (cash only)


Photo credit: Yelp

Tokyo Go Go Visited 9/10/2011 3.5 Forks

Tokyo Go Go 3174 16th St., (at Albion St), San Francisco, CA 94103

When I think of San Francisco, I think of Mission burritos and fresh seafood which includes sushi.  So as part of my SF trek, I wanted to get in at least one sushi meal.  I'm not sure if Tokyo Go Go is well known in the SF food scene but my taxi driver knew it by name, which is impressive and always a good sign. 

I walk into Tokyo Go Go on a Saturday night and the place was definitely hopping.  It was definitely way more trendy than the typical sushi place I'm used to.  The place was loud, had a club feel and the clientele leaned more towards the hip crowd.  We didn't have a reservation and while they were able to seat us they told the group right behind us that they couldn't accommodate them because they didn't have a reservation. Weird, but at least we got "seated" - when I say seated, they put 3 of us at a tiny table that barely fit 2 people.  Poor Neera had to practically sit in the line of traffic.  


The menu is not your purist fish place, it's more of an "fusion" sushi place with rolls that have ingredients like asparagus, spinach, kobe beef, and soy mayo.  We ordered the seaweed salad, sashimi plate, spicy scallop roll, rainbow roll, and the golden gate roll.  The seaweed salad was fine and your typical green seaweed salad (although I will say I've had some bad seaweed salad before) with a sweet flavor.  The sashimi came out next and it had a  mix of 3 pieces each of your typical sashimi plate: salmon, tuna, yellowtail, and white fish.  The cuts were all a great size, not too big and not too small and they tasted very fresh and clean.  The rainbow roll  was delicious with fresh crab, avocado, cucumber and associated fish on top and the pieces were very generous in size.  Along with the rainbow roll, came the Golden Gate roll which came with tempura asparagus, avocado, salmon, with a thin slice of lemon on top.  At first I was a little weary of the lemon on top, but you know what? It was actually pretty refreshing and really cleansed the palate.  I was a bit confused as to why all the rolls didn't come out at the same time and it turned out that the waitress heard "saba" (mackerel) and they brought out 2 pieces of mackerel sushi instead.  I have no idea how she mixed up the two but it was pretty loud in there.  So we finished all food and just sat around for our spicy scallop roll to show up.  When it finally did show up, it was the kind of spicy scallop roll that I like which is large fresh chunks of scallop instead of the chopped up mixed kind.  Instead of a spicy mayo it had jalapeno as the heat which was a nice touch.  Overall, the food was good and it felt like a hip "night" out.  But the reason for the deductions were: practically being seated in the aisle, the mix up of the order, and the wait for the last roll. Total bill: $110.      


Photo Credit: Yelp

Zare at Fly Trap Visited 9/9/2011 4 Forks

Zare at Fly Trap 606 Folsom St., (between 2nd St & Hawthorne St), San Francisco, CA 94107

This was one of the first times I've traveled and didn't have a long running list of restaurants to try.  Luckily, I was hanging out with my friend Neera and her co-workers and a lot of them were food lovers too.  I was felt like I was in good hands when it was time to go to dinner after happy hour.

We chose Zare at Fly Trap was because it was within walking distance, could accommodate 8 people at the last minute on a Friday night and their Pistachio Meatball was on the 7x7 Must Eats.  We were all quickly seated at a tall communal bar table, which made it hard to talk to everyone but that would have happened in my big table seating.  The menu is focused on Mediterranean/Middle East food and everything sounded amazing.  There was lots and lots of lamb on the menu and it was hard to decide what to get.  If I was with more people I knew and was in a more intimate setting, I would have suggested more dishes to split (such as the salads and bone marrow appetizer).  Instead, I got the lamb burger ($14) for myself and we split the meatballs for the table ($12).

We had heard that the meatballs were famous because they were supposed to be gigantic.  But these were normal to on the small size, so we were a bit confused.  It turns out they only offer the giant meatball on certain nights, oh well.  The meatballs were delicious and had a nice honey glaze on top of the meat but I don't know if I would say that it would belong on a Must Eats list.  Most people at the table got the lamb burger or the lamb entree so I guess lamb is the way to go here.  The burger was simply addictive.  It had a lot of different Middle Eastern/Moroccan flavors and was very juicy.  The bun was a soft brioche and went well with the burger.  The fries were equally great tasting, it was on the thinner/crisper variety, not the thick cut fries.  The salad that came with the burger was actually just ok...it came with tomato and feta but also with parsley which I don't like.  While I was eating the burger I was in heaven and I really did enjoy my meal. The one thing to note is that the smell and juices of the burger are really long lasting on your hands and breath.  I brushed my teeth and washed my hands big time when I got home but I woke up at 2AM with this overwhelming taste and smell of lamb on me.  The total bill including drinks, dessert, and tip was $50/pp  

Photo Credit: Yelp

Ferry Plaza Seafood Visited 9/8/2011 3.5 Forks

Ferry Plaza Seafood 1 Ferry Bldg, Ste 18, San Francisco, CA 94111

The Ferry Building in SF is one of my favorite places in SF...yes it's totally filled with tourists but there's just something I love about a food market by the water.  It's just a really beautiful relaxing place with lots of great food options.  I was in SF for work and was totally tempted to go back to the Slanted Door or Hog Island, 2 of my favorites in the Ferry Building.  Since I had just been to Slanted Door I nixed that idea and the co-worker I was with wasn't in the mood for oysters, so we nixed Hog Island.  So instead we tried the Ferry Plaza Seafood because it had nice outdoor seating. 

The menu there is a obviously very seafood-centric which is totally fine by me.  I had a hard time deciding between a rare tuna sandwich, seafood noodles, crab cakes, tuna salad or a louie salad.  After my last trip to SF and missing out on the louie salad, I decided I had to get it this time around. I order the crab and shrimp combo ($20) and heirloom tomato appetizer ($9) and my friend gets the half soup (Clam Chowder) and sandwich (crab melt) for $14.  Now I usually don't care too much about my waitress/waiter as long as they are attentive, but our waitress looked like my grandmother's age (and acted like her) and she was wearing a totally random tracksuit.  I just thought that was really weird.  

The thing I absolutely love about SF is their abundance of heirloom tomatoes.  Any time I see heirloom tomatoes I order it, no matter how it's prepared.  That being said, while I enjoyed the heirloom tomato appetizer, I was a bit disappointed that all it was was 2 small tomatoes cut in triangles with some shredded basil.  I thought that it could have been a bit more creative given all the fresh ingredients they have available. The louie salad came out and it was exactly how I imagined it would taste.  It's essentially mixed field greens, chopped shrimp and crab served with a side of louie dressing, which is like a thousand island or Russian dressing.  I mean it's really hard to go wrong with a thick rich dressing and greens, right?  The crab and shrimp were pretty plentiful and fresh tasting.  I had a bite of Patrick's soup and it was very rich and creamy and he commented how he really liked his sandwich.   All in all, the meal was good and the view was fabulous.  I gave it some slight deductions for the bizarre waitstaff, the fact that they charge you for bread, and they could be a bit more creative with their menu.  Total bill: $27/pp with tip and tax.     


Photo credit: Yelp