Peels Visited 12/30/10 3 Forks

Peels 325 Bowery, (between 2nd St & Bleecker St), New York, NY 10003

 I will give Peels props for being a visually cute restaurant.  The inside is very warm and cozy feeling with the upstairs consisting of mostly wooden/country-feel communal tables.  It almost kind of reminded me of the inside of a ski cabin.  The menu matches the feel of the restaurant in that it's mostly southern/homey food.  They are well known for their biscuit sandwiches, but what bothered me was that they literally itemize the entire sandwich: they charge you $3 for the biscuit itself, then if you want eggs it's another $3, cheese is another $1 and bacon/sausage is another $2 and it doesn't come with any sides.  The menu has a section for more breakfast type food (eggs, grits, etc) and a section that's more lunch-y (sandwiches, salads, etc).  I was torn between getting a sandwich or an egg dish.  In the end I opted for the Attius Finch ($12), which was roasted pork, fried egg, and cornbread with gravy.  Nancy got the Greens and Eggs ($11) which was poached eggs with collard greens, mushrooms, onions and a biscuit.  

I should mention that the service at this point was lacking.  Our waiter took forever to take our order and I noticed that he also took forever to take our neighboring customers (to the point where the host actually took their order).  Our food came out and I was a bit underwhelmed by the presentation.  It was a piece of pork and fried eggs with a side of cornbread (like I ordered) with gravy poured on top of them.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was just lacking with the way our food was presented.  I will say that the pork and gravy were quite tasty and I could have had another slice of it.  The eggs were fine..the yolk was a bit overcooked but not to the point where I was pissed.  I was disappointed with the cornbread. It was very dry despite the gravy and had this grainy texture to it.  Nancy's food also looked a bit austere, but she finished the whole dish, so I guess it couldn't have been that bad although she also agreed that she wasn't wow'd by her meal.  We decided to split a piece of monkey bread ($3), which I thought would be something along the lines of banana bread (I mean, hello, don't monkeys eat bananas?!), but it turned out to be closer to a cinnamon bun.  It turned out to be good but again, nothing amazing.  The one thing that made me kind of want to come back was looking at the other food that people around us were eating.  The guy to the left of us got the Meltin Melnick, which was a huge sandwich with brioche bread, applewood bacon and cheddar cheese...it looked pretty damn good and heart stopping.  The couple next to us got the the turkey sandwiches and they looked pretty tasty (they came with a side of chips which the menu didn't mention).  Our total bill was $17/pp with tax and tip.  I wonder if I had ordered something else if I would have had a better experience, but I'm willing to give it another try at some point.  

Num Pang Visited 12/29/10 4 Forks

Num Pang 21 E 12th St, (between 5th Ave & University Pl), New York, NY 10003

 Having just returned from Cambodia and falling in love with the country, I was eager to seek out what sort of Cambodian restaurants existed in New York (although really the cuisine there was fairly generic South East Asian fare).  Num Pang has actually been on my list for places to try for a while because I love Vietnamese sandwiches and when I had heard about this place I was very curious. 
When I got to the place Aarti was already waiting outside and from the outside the place looked kind of dumpy.  I was curious why Aarti was waiting outside in the cold, but I slowly realized that there is no place to really stand (at least on the first level).  When you open the door you essentially walk right into the kitchen, so you have to know exactly what you are going to order before walking in.  I got the pepercorn catfish sandwich and Aarti got the cauliflower sandwich ($7.50 each).  They do have a very small seating area upstairs (which you get to via a narrow winding staircase) and once upstairs there are only about 6-7 stools and a high counter, so definitely don't go to this place thinking you can have a real sit down meal.  Luckily we got there so early that we had the whole place to ourselves so we could spread out and talk as loudly as we wanted to.
Ok, to the sandwich...it was really good and it reminded me of this place called Xie Xie that used to be in Hell's Kitchen (and was owned by Angela Sosa, a current contestant on Top Chef).  While I don't recall seeing or having any sandwiches while I was in Cambodia, that didn't really deter me from enjoying my food.  The bread was very soft, which a bit of toasty crunch on top, and very similar to a Vietnamese sandwich it comes with cucumbers, thinly sliced carrots, mayo, spices and cilantro.  The catfish was seasoned well and cooked well...I just would have preferred a thicker piece of catfish...it was a bit on the thin side.  They also had a variety of other really good sounding sandwiches there that I would gladly go back and try.  The only downside is that this place is cash only.

Burger Joint Visited 12/26/10 3 Forks

Burger Joint  4827 Fairmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814

 When Jeana had told me she wanted to meet up the Burger Joint, I immediately thought of the Burger Joint in New York that's in the Parker Meridien Hotel which is amazing.  But this place is not a part of the one in New York and is its own chain in the VA/DC/MD area.  In any case, Jeana had raved about the burgers so I was pretty excited about it.  It's more of a fast food joint rather than a restaurant.  You order at the counter and wait for your little buzzer thing to light up and you seat yourself in booths.  My first reaction was that except for the regular burger, the other "specialty" burgers were a lot pricier than they should be.  I ended up getting a turkey burger with cheese and it was $11 and an order of fries were almost $3.  So I was a bit shocked that I paid $15 for what was essentially a fancier fast food burger, but I was willing to have an open mind about it.  I wasn't wow'd by it but it wasn't a terrible burger either. The turkey burger did taste like it was home-made and it was a very hefty burger, but it reminded me of veggie burger because it had a sort of a crumbly texture that veggie burgers have.  One of my pet peeves is a burger bun that can't hold a burger and this one held up for a while but then slowly fell apart after I was half way through, but that could have been due to the pile of mayo, lettuce, tomato, onions, and pickles on it, making the bread pretty damp.  The fries were thick cut and pretty good, but I could barely eat them after finishing the burger.  Jeana got the rootbeer float which essentially came with a cup full of ice cream and then they give you a bottle of A&W rootbeer and she was raving about it.  If I am there again, I will try the standard burger and save myself some $$. 

Salaam Bombay Visited 12/22/10 3.75 Forks

Salaam Bombay 319 Greenwich St, (between Reade St & Duane St), New York, NY 10013

 Now that Aarti has "retired" from work, we thought that it would be fun if we met up for a nice long lunch before we left for the holidays.  Luckily work is very slow the week of x-mas so I was able to take off two hours for one of our favorite styles of food: Indian Lunch Buffet!  The best way to have many types of Asian food is buffet style because you want to be able to try many different dishes...just having 1 main dish just isn't satisfying, so having food buffet style is just perfect.  There are two Indian lunch options by my office: Taj Tribeca and Salaam Bombay.  I had been to Taj before and it's about $18 while Salaam was only $14, so I figured I might as well try Salaam out and see what it's like. 
It was extremely packed when we by the time we got there already (around 12:15).  The restaurant is quite nice inside and much fancier looking than I thought.  I don't remember all the different dishes that were in the buffet line but it was pretty extensive.  I remember there was a lightly battered chicken dish, paneer, chicken tikka, an eggplant dish, samosas, and basically every kind of Indian food you would normally order at an Indian restaurant. They give us fresh, soft naan bread at the table (you can see them making it in this room in front of you) to help sop up all the fattening, but yummy sauces.  I had about  1 1/2 plates before I was completely full.  All in all, it was a great Indian lunch buffet for $14.  The one downside was that it took forever for us to pay the bill.  We had our credit cards sticking out of the bill holder for at least 15 minutes before I had to practically shove it in someone's face to take it.   We are hoping to make it monthly lunch date going forward.  

Torrisi Italian Specialties Visited 12/22/10 5 Forks

Torrisi Italian Specialties  250 Mulberry St, (between Spring St & Prince St), Manhattan, NY 10012

 Instead of giving each other x-mas gifts, Dan and I usually treat ourselves to a nice, semi-expensive dinner each year.  Torrisi was the perfect place and probably one of the best x-mas meals we've ever had.  The place is a deli by day and at night they have a set prix-fixe menu at $50 person.  They post the menu on the chalkboard outside and there are no substitutions allowed.  Since they do not take reservations, I had read that people generally start lining up at 5:30pm to be one of the first people seated (they open at 6pm).  Dan and I got there at 5:30 and there was not a single person in line (this could be due to the fact that it was a Weds and it was freezing cold outside).  The hostess came and took our names at 5:45pm and told us to come back close to 6.  We were promptly seated inside and I understood why on a crowded night the wait can be up to 2 hours.  The place is tiny with at most 8 tables inside. 
As soon as we sat down, I checked out the menu for the night.  It started with a 4 course anti-pasta course: mozzarella and toasted garlic bread, followed by roasted brussel sprouts with jingle bell peppers, seafood salad, and liver pate served with soft pretzel bread.  They were all small in size but made up for it in taste.  You can never go wrong with mozzarella cheese and as someone who hates brussel sprouts, these were roasted to perfection and didn't even taste like a brussel sprout at all.  The seafood salad was like a ceviche with raw scallops marinated in onion and lime juice.  You could definitely tell that the scallops were fresh and not frozen.  Surprisingly, I liked the liver pate with pretzel bread the most.  The pate was extremely smooth (I've had grainy pate which makes the whole experience gross) and it came with a side of sauteed red onions which were reduced in red wine and the bread was so freakin soft that I could have eaten an entire basked of them.  
The anti-pasta course was followed by a linguine and clams with tobacco flakes.  I thought that the flakes would have been overpowering but there was just the right amount of flakes to give off some heat but it didn't ruin the dish.  The only choice you have for the night is either fish or chicken for the main entree. I got the yellowtail sole with black truffle mushrooms and Dan go the Devil's chicken with Evan's yogurt.  While I enjoyed my fish (it was two fillets baked with breadcrumbs on top of it), Dan's chicken was out of this world.  The waiter even commented that it was going to be a very talked about dish in the future.  It was beyond moist and juicy and the red paprika like dusting really kicked it up a notch.  It was probably best chicken dish I have had in years.  I should mention that we had opted for the $25/pp wine pairing with our meal and by this time we were about 4 glasses of wine deep.  All the wines selected for the meals were amazing. I am normally not a white wine drinker but they brought out this Ecole No. 41 that was practically tasted like water (but in a good way).  It went down waaay to smoothly.  They were pretty generous with their pours and they even re-filled our glasses at times.  The meal ends with a dish of homemade pastries, which initially sounds kind of lame, but they were the best damn pastries I've had in a while.  They were all piping warm and there was two of each kind, so you didn't have to fight over them.  They had a popover with cream filling, a rainbow type cake that tasted like marzipan, mini cheesecakes, and cookies with a chocolate-kiss like filling.  It was the perfect finish to the meal.  
What also made the whole experience great was the waitstaff.  The busboys are essentially the waitstaff and they were extremely knowledgeable about all the dishes and the wine list.  I love that they get the opportunity to be really involved with restaurant beyond just taking our plates away.  The whole meal set us back about $200 with tip and tax, which in NYC isn't totally expensive but it's still a nice chunk of change, but it was worth every penny and for what you get, it's probably worth a whole lot more.  

Le Comptoir Visited 12/19/10 4 Forks

Le Comptoir 251 Grand St, (between Driggs Ave & Roebling St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

 I haven't been to France in quite a while but being in Le Comptoir made me feel like I was in a cute cafe somewhere in Paris.  The entire waitstaff there is French and their accents were so freaking cute, to the point where I wanted to try to converse with them in my horrendously poor french (I wouldn't recommend trying to do this).  You enter the restaurant and there is a large relaxing seating/eating with large couches to the right where you can just sit and hang out with a drink or they will also serve you food there as well.  
The brunch menu had about 7-8 items and were all reasonably priced under $14.  I got the croque madam ($12) and Dan got the special benedict of the day which was lobster and crab ($14).   As we were waiting for our meal, you can see the chef making everything to order so you know it's fresh.  The croque madam came out and it was huge and came with a great side salad of mixed greens in a light white dressing.  The actual sandwich was perfectly toasted on super soft but crispy on the outside bread and covered with gruyere cheese and ham.  The egg on top was perfectly fried with a runny yoke.  As I start eating at more and more restaurants for brunch, it makes me realize how right Tom Colicchio is about making a perfect egg.  I am a Top Chef addict and they always have a challenge where they make the contestants make an egg dish.  Although it sounds easy enough, he always says how hard to make a perfect egg dish and he is totally right.  I can't even count the number of brunch places that I have been to that serve terrible eggs (especially of the poached style). I know judge every brunch place on how they poach their egg and based on that forms my decision if I would come back.  I had a bite of Dan's benedict and it was amazing as well.  The hollandise sauce was perfect...it wasn't too strong but had enough flavor to make you want to lick the entire plate.  The lobster/crab mixture underneath was cold, but it didn't really matter since the rest of the dish was perfectly warm.  The only downside was that the potatoes that came with that dish were slightly undercooked and too crunchy.
The service there was great and super friendly.  Even the chef came out to make sure that our food was good.  My own gripe about the place was that it was cash only.  But given that our total bill came out to $31, it wasn't too hard to pay with cash. 

6th Street Kitchen Visited 12/17/10 4 Forks

6th Street Kitchen  507 E 6th St, (between Avenue A & Avenue B),New York, NY 10009

 I was afraid to suggest a restaurant this time around because I had been having a streak of crappy restaurants.  Although 6th Street had been on my list for a bit, I didn't want to suggest it, but then Aarti also independently suggested it, so I felt like we had to go.  I had actually been to this place years ago when it was called OG, so I definitely got a sense of familiarity when I walked in.  The menu here is American tapas food, which reminds me a lot of Traif, one of my favorite restaurants in Brooklyn.  The waiter was super nice and friendly and made our eating experience very pleasant.  He informed us that from 6-7pm it's Happy Hour for sliders:  the chorizo sliders are $2 each.  Although it seemed like there weren't a ton of options, the items we got more than made us happy and full.  Our waiter suggested that we order 2 dishes each, so we got the beet salad, the mushroom risotto, fish tacos and 2 sliders.  I'm generally not a huge fan of beets but this one was done well as it was topped with lots of fresh dry herbs and goat cheese.  Next the fish tacos came out and they were AMAZING.  There were 2 of them and the fish was very lightly, but perfectly breaded.  It was more tempura style and you could definitely taste the fish through the tempura batter.  It was topped with delicious aioli mayo and red cabbage.  Although I usually think 2 tacos aren't enough, this was extremely filling and light tasting.  The mushroom risotto came out next and was creamy and had nice chunks of cremini mushrooms.  The chorizo sliders were great and super filling.  They came on a potato slider with a very generous chorizo patty and cheese.  It was really juicy with a right amount of spice.  You can also order a regular entree of sliders for $12, but to only have 2 for $4 was perfect if not almost too much.  The only dish that I didn't love was the dessert.  We were going to get the chocolate cake but our waiter told us that the rocky road ice cream sandwich was better.  So we got it and it's basically 2 giant ginger/chocolate chip cookies with rocky road ice cream in between.  I thought that the cookie was too hard and it was hard to split in half.  We ended up just eating the ice cream and cookie separately, which kind of defeated the purpose to getting it as a sandwich.  Our total bill for 2 people was $47, which I thought was a pretty good deal considering all the different dishes we got and how full we were when we left. I would love to come back here and try other small plates.