Volare Restaurant Visited 2/24/2018 4.5 Forks

Volare Restaurant  147 W 4th St, New York, NY 10012

This has got to be one of the most surprising restaurant discoveries for me in a while and I can't take any credit for it.  Will has been on a red sauce tear of NYC for a while and since this place is basically 5 mins from his and Aarti's apt, it's now become his version of Cheers - where everybody knows his name. In my almost 18 yrs of living in NYC, I have never seen this place before and for good reason.  The outside is so unassuming that it's very easy to walk right past it without even blinking an eye.  It's smack in the middle of the West Village but it reminds me more of a place that belongs in Williamsburg like Bamonte's (the old Italian part).  

It's incredibly old school and everyone in there looks like a regular.  It was jammed packed when we went on a Saturday night at 6:30pm.  The menu is a typical old school red sauce joint with your anti-pasti, insalate, pasta, pesce, and carne.  It's nothing fancy but everything is comfy and spot on.  We ordered a TON of food and I can't remember all of it, but we got several kinds of pastas (meat and veggie friendly kinds), caprese salad, and an ossobuco which has kind of become this thing that Will and I get when we do these types of over the top Italian meals.  The pasta dishes were super hearty and delicious.  What was great about them was that when you got to the bottom of the dishes you didn't see a big pile of oil - so it made me feel like we were kind of eating healthily?  The food feels homemade and very much like you're eating in someone's home.  The ossobuco (veal shank) was amazing - it fell right off the bone and I would highly recommend mixing each bite with the risotto.  I often feel incredibly guilty for eating veal but sometimes it's just so damn delicious.  At the end of the meal, they wheel over dessert and then gave us some after dinner drinks and that literally put me over the edge. 

The waiters there was so incredibly friendly and accommodating.  We kind of went off script and ordered things that were not really on the menu (like a penne vodka) but was easy enough to make in a place like this.  I'm not sure if it was because Will was a regular there but the wine pours were gigantic.  1 glass was pretty much like 3 glasses.  We left the meal feeling incredibly excited and ready to conquer our trip to Italy in the fall.  If you're looking for a really solid place that's no fuss and right in the heart of the Village, definitely put this on your list of places to visit.  Tell them Will sent you!  Total bill:  $80/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp  

Raviolo Visited 2/24/2018 2.5 Forks

Raviolo  57 7th Ave S, New York, NY 10014

Sorry, I realize it's been a while since I've updated the blog!  Lots of things going on but the good thing about taking a long break between visiting a restaurant and updating the blog is that I have a lot of time to really think about my meal.  Raviolo was the February stop on the monthly rabbit habit date Anuja, Amy and I have (visiting veggie/seafood friendly restaurants).  It seemed like a super cute idea - pasta tapas concept and most of it in a ravioli format.  My rating is probably a bit harsh but upon further reflection, it just wasn't a meal I really enjoyed or would go back to unfortunately. 

When I walked in, it reeked of cleaning fluid.  I realize they had just cleaned off the table which is good thing but the odor was quite strong and off putting.  The staff was super nice and explained the menu - it was a laminated menu where you use a dry erase marker to indicate your order.  As I mentioned, it's mostly small (2-4 pieces) of ravioli dishes, buns, bun-boloni and then main entrees of pasta where you can also mix and match.  We started with 2 orders of the cocktail gamberi ($12) and another veggie type of ravioli (it's escaping my mind now which one it was - the one big downside of writing a review a month later), the cacio e pepe bun-boloni ($10) and I got the white carbonara ($15) pasta entree and Amy and Anuja split the pasta combo of green pesto and the black vongole ($18).  We also got their version of an aperol spritz which was the total highlight of the meal because it came with these fun lit up ice cubes. 

When I hear the word "ravioli" I usually envision a square or circular pasta with a pocket sealed with filling.  So when I thought we were getting a shrimp ravioli I pictured a ravioli filled with shrimp in it.  I guess I should have read the description more closely because it did say it was a "cocktail" and it was essentially a giant piece of shrimp cocktail with pasta dough wrapped around the outside.  It made no sense and while the shrimp itself was tasty the pasta was too doughy and too chewy.  The other ravioli dish we got was a traditional ravioli dish and it was fine but since it's not served in any sauce or broth, it was kind of meh.  The bun-boloni was an Asian style white steamed bun shoved with cacio e pepe, pecorino cheese and black pepper.  To me, the only thing you should ever put into between two steam buns is pork belly.  The bun was dry and the concept of the dish was a miss for me.

As for the main pasta dishes, they were fine but not mind blowing.  My carbonara was served with penne pasta and topped with guanicale, ricotta, fried onions and an egg yolk.  As with any carbonara dish, it was very heavy and since it had meat in it, I was the only one eating it and I was definitely uncomfortably full at the end.  I'm not a huge fan of carbonara on penne, I prefer it with a bucatini or other long noodle type pasta.  As for the pasta itself, while I don't think it came from a box, it didn't really taste like some old grandma was hand making it in the back either.  It tasted like a dish I could have made at home.  I didn't try the other pasta combo but the comment Amy and Anuja made was that they wished that there was a divider or something so that the two pastas didn't end up mixing together.  At one point the pesto and black spaghetti were all mixing around together and that made it a bit unappetizing.

While the concept of this place is cute, the execution of it needs to be tightened up.  With so many wonderful and delicious Italian places in the city, it's kind of hard to justify paying $50 for this kind of meal when I know I can spend a little bit more but get a much more authentic experience elsewhere.  Total bill: $50/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

East Harbor Seafood Palace Visited 2/17/2018 3 Forks

East Harbor Seafood Palace  714 65th St., Brooklyn, NY 11220

Dim sum is one of my favorite foods so when it came time to celebrate Chinese New Year, Mabel and I thought it was only right to have some dim sum together.  We usually go to Golden Unicorn but we thought we'd be adventurous and try something new and different.  So we decided to haul our butt to Sunset Park in Brooklyn to give it a go.  Along with Flushing in Queens, Sunset Park has one of the largest population of Chinese people around NYC and you could really live here and never have to speak English if you want.  It's really a whole different world.  The only annoying thing is that it's far and a pain the ass to get to from the city.  It took Mabel and I over an hour to get there on the subway.

When we finally got to the restaurant it was complete mayhem, which I usually expect at most Chinese restaurants but this one took it to a whole other level.  We knew we came at a bad time (close to noon) so it was wall to wall of people and it was so confusing what was going on.  We ended up waiting over an hour to get seated and by that point we were about to pass out.  This place is a huge banquet type restaurant and it seems that you'll have better luck getting seated in larger parties instead of small parties.  When we finally sat down we were ready to order everything that came around.  While the carts were plentiful, many of them seemed to have the same things.  Like some dim sum places you've got to be aggressive and really flag them down if you want something.  Some of the wait staff was really nice but some were down right rude - even when we spoke to them in Chinese.  As for the food, it was totally fine and we were pretty much able to get all our favorite dishes.  As expected, some dishes better than others.  The dumplings were generally fresh and warm but others like the turnip cake was cold and unimpressive.

Overall it was like any other dim sum place that I've been to before and while the food was filling, it wasn't necessarily worth the hour long trek and hour long wait.  Maybe if I lived in the area and I could get there really early, I could see myself going there but for me, I'll stick with the usual suspects in Chinatown because at least I know it won't take 2 hours to have a meal there.  The one upside though is that the prices are cheaper here, which made the pain only slightly better.  Total bill:  $16.35/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

DaDong Visited 2/11/2018 2.5 Forks

DaDong  3 Bryant Park, New York, NY 10036

Ok, I'll get straight to the point on this one.  It was a pretty big bummer.  After reading all the reviews, I kind of knew what to expect and it was exactly what everyone else wrote back.  Get the duck but skip everything else.  DaDong is a famous peking duck chain in China so when it opened here in NYC, Jen, Kevin and I had to try it as part of our duck club. 

The location should have been the first tip off that it would be a bit underwhelming - I mean it's in Bryant Park which isn't really known as a culinary wonderland.  It's pretty fancy pants which is fine but it was much more fine dining than I expected.  To me, the best Chinese food will always be more of a mom and pop hole in the wall kind of place.  I knew it was going to be expensive but the sticker shock of some of the prices was still pretty real - the whole duck was $98 and most of the larger entrees were in the $30+ range.  All of us had read the reviews before and knew that the non-duck dishes weren't anything to write home about but we still felt like we should try some of them so we got the mashed eggplant ($8), sea salt and lime seared waygu beef ($34), cold avocado noodles ($12), sauteed pea shoots ($16) and of course the whole duck. 

The mashed eggplant was super underwhelming - it was just eggplant puree on a wafer.  I've never seen this in any other Chinese restaurant and the portion was super tiny - like 1 bite person.  The waygu beef, while tender and melt in your mouth was offensively small for something over $30.  We could cut it into maybe 5 small pieces total.  I mean one person could have eaten the whole thing and still be hungry.  The cold noodles were bland and not memorable at all.  Luckily the pea shoots, as usual,  were delicious but it was a very small portion considering how much more you usually get at other Chinese restaurants.  Finally came the main attraction - the whole duck.  They don't carve it table side instead someone is carving it in the middle of the restaurant and they bring it over to you.  They give you all the usual accoutrements to eat the duck:  thin pancakes, sliced scallion, hoisin sauce, and sliced cucumber.  They even give you something different here with sugar, sliced cantaloupe, and these puffy buns to stuff them in.  They give you lots of skin, meat and the legs.  Was the duck good?  Yes it was pretty damn tasty and all the things they give you also make it work - for example, the pancake skin was nice and thin but not too thin that it can't hold everything in it.  Was it the best duck I've ever had? Probably not.  The duck here was very very lean, which I guess is good for you health wise but the best part of the duck is some of the fat that goes with it.  It wasn't dry but it was missing an element of moistness/slight greasy-ness that you come to expect and love when you eat duck. 

Since the food wasn't very filling, we left room for dessert and that was kind of eh too.  Nothing really spoke to us but we got the Chocolate Frost ($12) which was shattered pieces of chocolate leaves with some cherries but it turned out there were only 2 cherries on it.  I should have known not to order dessert because frankly Asians are not very well known or good at desserts.

Despite the overall disappointment, I'm glad I can say I went, crossed it off my list and will likely noy come again.  While the duck was tasty, it just wasn't worth the money and there are way cheaper, more authentic and better options in NYC.  I am curious how different the chains are in China as Kevin said they were quite good there so I'm curious if they will make tweaks to this as the resounding response by the culinary world has been pretty meh.  Total bill:  $119/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

La Contenta Oeste Visited 2/11/2018 3.5 Forks

La Contenta Oeste 78 W 11th St., New York, NY 10011

It's a rare occasion these days to get most of my B-school friends together at once but when we do it's always fun and it always involves lots of drinks.  So it was no different when Jenn was in town and we decided to have a nice long boozy brunch.  The best kind of boozy brunch usually involves margaritas so La Contenta Oeste was a great choice. 

As expected the menu here is Mexican, so the brunch menu had your usual line up of breakfast burritos, breakfast tacos,  huevos rancheros, and chilaquiles.  Since I knew we were going to drink up, I went with a hearty steak and eggs ($18) option and we got several guacamoles ($13) for the table.  Not to sound like an old person but when did guacamole become so expensive?  It's just smashed up avocado with some pico de gallo but it feels wrong to not order it when you're in a Mexican restaurant.  Of course on top of all our meals, we got lots and lots of margaritas.

The food came out relatively quickly and everything tasted just fine.  There was nothing particularly creative or mind blowing about the food but it was satisfying.  The steak was a nicely cooked medium rare hanger steak and the eggs were fried - they could have been a bit more runny with the yolk but there is nothing like a really good steak and eggs dish in the morning to coat your stomach.  This one was particular hearty because it came with a side of guacamole and chilaquiles too - it's almost like you are getting 2 dishes in one. 

We ended up staying for a while because we kept ordering drinks.  While our waiter was super sweet and nice, he seemed a bit overwhelmed and forgot some orders or mixed things up.  The margaritas were ok, some of the other cocktails that we got were overly sweet and we had to tell the bartender to make it less so the next time.  This is the real reason why I'm giving this place less than 4 forks.  It's a perfectly fine girls brunch spot and I would come back but maybe with a smaller group.  I will say for the amount we ate and drank the total bill was very reasonable.  Total bill:  $52/pp with tax, tip and lots of drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Vini E Fritti Visited 2/201/2018 4 Forks

Vini E Fritti  30 E 30th St., New York, NY 10016

Danny Meyer strikes again.  Vini E Fritti is located near his other great restaurant Marta but has a very different vibe.  It feels like an upscale bar but it's actually very friendly and casual.  It's a bit small so be prepared to wait for a table but it's a nice intimate space to grab drinks and catch up with friends.  As expected it's an Italian inspired bar menu and most of the food is actually fried small plates.  I wouldn't come here for a full meal but it's a nice after dinner snack or after work place.  I should also note they have some tasty cocktails too. 

Despite being full from dinner at Dante, we walked the 1+ mile to Vini E Fritti was we felt like we could treat ourselves to more food.  As I mentioned, it's small plates style which I usually hate but these were priced appropriate as small plates (tip is already included since it's part of Union Square Hospitality).  We got the potato pancakes and horseradish cream ($7), the mixed seafood ($11) and the marinated vegetables ($7).  I would have loved to have gotten the beef tartare but since Dan doesn't eat beef it would have been a bit of a stretch for me to eat the whole thing (although I totally would).  But if you love fried food, you'll be in heaven here since they have about 10 things that are deep fried.  

Luckily the level of fried-ness isn't super greasy or oily.  The mixed seafood was a nice cone filled with shrimp (with the head on) and calamari (in ring formation and tentacles).  It was lightly battered and fried and the right level of salty.  I'm actually really glad everything is in small plate formation there because it would be really bad for your heart and health if these dishes came in bigger sizes.  The marinated vegetables were fine - they're usually not my jam anyways and it was half of olives which I'm not a fan of but the marinated mushrooms were a nice compliment to cut all the fried saltiness of the mixed seafood.  But the absolute best dish was the potato pancake.  Yum!  It was perfectly executed and the horseradish cream made it all the better.  I could definitely see myself eating this entire plate myself. 

Overall, it's a lovely space and as with any Danny Meyer restaurant, the service is great.  Due to its limited menu, I wouldn't necessarily say its a place to come for a full meal and the location isn't in my favorite part of NYC, but if you happen to be near here or just have a craving for lots of fried food, I'd definitely give this place a visit.  Total bill:  $34/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Dante Visited 2/10/2018 4.5 Forks

Dante  79-81 Macdougal St., New York, NY 10012

I had been to the other Dante at Genuine in Little Italy and loved it but after visiting the original West Village location, I'm definitely more in love with this even place if it is way louder.  My friend Dan was in town and since we both move negronis, there is no other place I would take someone to enjoy a wide variety of negroni options than Dante.  The only downside to this location is that they don't have the self serve negroni fountain like the one in Little Italy does. But regardless, they have the same line up of fantastic cocktails, and they have happy hour from 3-6pm, so I would definitely get there as early as possible or just make a reservation.  

It was completely jammed when we got there at 6:30pm but it's a super fun and lively atmosphere.  After having several negronis, it was that time where we either needed to eat or be extremely drunk.  So we did the adult thing and ordered food.  Even though they are mostly known for their cocktails and bar vibe, they actually have a great menu that's much more sophisticated than just bar food.  It's mostly Italian food - yhey have flatbreads, homemade pastas, secondi dishes and great sides.  The problem when you're 3 drinks deep is that you want to order everything on the menu but we refrained and started with the octopus appetizer ($13), orecchiette ($19) and the chicken parm ($23).  

The octopus was cut up into small pieces and served on hummus and topped with radish, chive and chili flakes. It was a nice light dish but the octopus was cut up a bit too much for me that it was hard to tell what it was.  I prefer my octopus to be in one long piece so that you can really chew on it.  It was an interesting pairing with the hummus and not one that I would have thought of before.  The orecchiette pasta was a nice sized pasta dish and amazing.  It was served with fennel, pork sausage, broccoli rabe and covered in parmesan cheese and chili flakes.  It was hearty, comforting and just cheesey deliciousness.  I was actually pretty full with this dish but then out came the chicken parm.  It also really hit the mark - it was served with tuscan kale and provolone cheese and also really hearty.  It was sauced right and the chicken moist - I loved everything about it.  It was the right amount of food for the occasion and it was all surprisingly delicious.   It's not that I expected the food to be bad but usually at a cocktail bar, I expect the food to be mediocre at best.  I would totally come here for the food on it's own with the extra fabulous bonus that the cocktails and negronis are pretty amazing too.   Total bill:  $78/pp with tax, tip and lots of drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp