07.28.08
Posted in food-related musings at 03:12 by Dominique
I live in a buzzer-less building, and believe me, it’s really frustrating trying to get food delivered. Since I moved down here in December I don’t think I’ve actually had takeout for that reason – except today, when I remembered SeamlessWeb. I used it a lot with the English Ex, who never met a technological advance he wasn’t ready to embrace immediately. Somehow I never thought of using it here. I have to admit – Seamless rocks. You don’t have to make yourself understood to someone who barely speaks English, you can use your credit card without ever taking it out of your wallet, and most importantly, you can make sure the restaurant knows the guy has to call when he’s outside. I can’t count the number of times FedEx has been completely befuddled by that simple concept.
Seamless is great if you know what kind of food you want, even a specific dish. You can sort by cuisine, estimated delivery time, restaurant rating, price, minimum for delivery or do a search. Unfortunately, if you’re just browsing, it’s not quite as user-friendly. The site doesn’t allow right-clicking to open a restaurant’s menu in a new tab, so when you’re clicking around trying to figure out what you want, it can get tedious going back and forth from the restaurant list. But I’ve only been annoyed by that a few times, plus I’m very finicky so it’s probably less of a problem for most people.
I really like how they’ve worked out deals so that many restaurants offer discounts, at least the first time you order from them through Seamless. There’s even a pickup option that was just added. Inside the menus themselves, you can see how people have tagged them, leave your own notes on dishes and see what the most popular ones are. It’s also good for making sure you don’t get all excited about what you’re going to order and then finding out oops, the place is closed. (That happens to me a lot. It’s disappointing how many takeout menus don’t have delivery hours on them.) Seamless never lets you order from a place that’s closed and shows a little reminder on top of the page if the kitchen is about to wrap up. Though I wish they’d make it possible to open more than one menu at a time, it’s a great system and lets me be a hermit and have food delivered to my door like everyone else.
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07.21.08
Posted in Asian, Gramercy, Japanese, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 8 to 8.5, Union Square at 04:18 by Dominique
111 E.18th St. near Park Ave., 212-260-2020
Great for: cocktails, splurging on beef, meeting people for drinks in a lovely lounge
I met Blond Hedge Funder here for our second first date (long story), and had to wait about 20 minutes in the lounge because he got stuck in traffic. Fortunately for him it was a very pleasant place to pass the time, with lovely cocktails, a whole lounge area with couches besides the bar, and one waitress so friendly I started to think/hope she might be hitting on me. I hate to be the yucky presumptuous customer though, and didn’t follow up on that before BHF arrived finally.
Our first appetizer was the rock, a thinly sliced marinated New York strip on a hot stone. The slices were surprisingly thick – I was expecting carpaccio width, so that was nice. I enjoyed the quality of the meat and the yummy, spicy, salty sauce. We also tried the sakana carpaccio of three kinds of fish. The lean tuna in chef’s special sauce with black tobiko and fluke in ponzu sauce topped by spicy radish were good but nothing special. I really liked the soy-marinated salmon in garlic sauce with spicy tobiko.
Although a lot of the other apps looked good, we stopped there to save room for the 12 oz. Akaushi (a kind of Wagyu) ribeye which is marinated in togarashi (chili pepper) and comes with a generous helping of uni butter and satsumaimo pommes frites. I can’t recommend this dish enough. The meat was fantastic, soft yet perfectly charred outside with a delicious marinade highlighting its flavors. The fries were a bit like yam fries, which I usually dislike, but they were actually pretty decent with the sauce. I loved the creamy crazy uni butter too. I calculated (completely without basis, or even numbers) that sharing 12 ounces instead of eating the whole thing myself made it ok to spread the butter all over every piece of meat I ate. Even if that’s not true, I was so happy devouring it I’m sure it all evened out.
BHF also got some sashimi, two pieces to an order, of kanpachi (a Japanese amberjack or wild yellowtail), chutoro, wasabi tobiko, otoro, zuke (soy-marinated salmon) and hamachi. He also got some nigiri with unagi and ikura. I helped him finish the fish when I was able to tear my attention away from the ribeye, and it was all very good.
The drinks are quite as tasty as the food. The Japonais caipirinha was on the special cocktail menu that day – I don’t have a note for why it was special, it may have had an interesting fruit juice. As a proud science geek, I had to try the special cocktail with Moët and watermelon molecular foam. Watermelon and Champagne should be put together more often. The great thing about the foam is that it gives you fruit flavor without the actual pulpy fruit. I also liked the Moulin Rouge - fresh muddled strawberries, Bacardi, Navan (vanilla cognac) and lime juice.
The service was very nice. Our waiter always asked how things were and told us when things were about to come out. He had an uncanny sense for that, and it couldn’t have just been acute hearing, because I think I only wondered where the next dish was aloud once. I appreciated his patience very much, too. We took a really long time to order, since we were too busy talking for quite a while, and he checked on us just enough to remind us of what we should have been doing but not so much it felt like nagging. Everyone in general was nice and seemed more or less happy to be there. And as much as I try to go only to unreviewed restaurants for you, dear reader, I might have to be naughty and sneak off to Japonais again sometime soon.
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Our cost: $300 (3 cocktails, $72 ribeye)
Noise level: noisy but tables are spaciously placed which helps
Chance of walking in: medium, just because it’s so big with two floors.
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07.08.08
Posted in Flatiron, Gramercy, Italian, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5 at 01:28 by Dominique
37 W.17th St. & 5th/6th Aves., 212-366-0888
Great for: pasta, cocktails
My dear friend E and I try very hard to carve out time in our busy schedules to eat out together. We managed to do that once a week in June. She was impressed with this place last time she came so I was excited to try it myself. She’s a chef and very picky.
I started with an appetizer portion of farfalle with lightly smoked salmon, sugar snap peas and tomato in tarragon grain mustard cream sauce. It was a little sour but I liked it. The chopped up peapods were quite raw and crunchy. The nice and flaky salmon was a bit lemony and was not too salty. Overall, I found it tasty. E had the tonno fresco scottato (prime tuna tataki) with original wasabi tartare sauce, potato, okra and cucumber in orange saffron sauce. Apparently Basta Pasta is kind of a Japanese-Italian fusion. We thought it was interestingly spicy and good. I even liked the vegetables.
My main course of charcoal-griled Naiman Ranch pork loin (lombata di maiale) with mustard greens, paprika paste, prosciutto pangrattato and olive flakes was pretty good but sometimes dry. The overly sweet dollop of reduced balsamic vinaigrette on top didn’t add anything to the dish. It was a really big hunk of meat, and I got tired of sawing through the dry bits so I didn’t finish it. E’s appetizer size of spaghetti with Parma prosciutto in a half wheel of parmesan reggiano was better. Watching the waiter construct the dish in front of us was fun. He first filled the cheese wheel with a thin layer of pasta, then carefully arranged prosciutto and basil on top of that and tossed it all together. It was pretty much worth all the fuss.
We both tried the pear martini first, which subtly snuck in quite a lot of vodka that we couldn’t taste but could certainly feel after a few sips. We enjoyed its yummy pearness. Next I had a decent but unmemorable bellini.
I noticed they didn’t bring us bread plates or bread. I’m not sure if that was restaurant policy or forgetfulness. Our waiter seemed very busy but generally took pretty good care of us. As for the decor, I couldn’t decide if I was more disturbed or unmoved by the weird bandaid rainbow-colored paintings on the wall. They were kind of interesting but completely out of keeping with the restaurant’s ambience. Generally the experience was ok. I would happily recommend only the pasta.
Rating: 7 / 10
Our cost: $115 (2 cocktails each)
Noise level: somewhat loud
Chance of walking in: medium to low.
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Posted in French, Midtown Central, Midtown West, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 8 to 8.5 at 00:03 by Dominique
9 W. 57th St. & 5th/6th Aves., 212-829-0812
Great for: crab cake, very civilized meals, relaxing after couture shopping, exciting trysts
After a very satisfying morning of shopping at Chanel, it was time to relax with a lovely lunch. I never got to try this place when I lived on the Upper East Side so I was glad to finally have the chance.
To start with, there was the excellent Maryland jumbo blue crab cake with artichoke salad, Dijon mustard sauce and red onions. The crab came in big lumps, slightly spicy, with minimal breading. The mustard was the perfect level of sharpness. My only caveat was the slightly chewy artichoke leaves.
The chicken salad “Chinoise” with tropical fruit, Napa cabbage, cashews and honey ginger dressing was chopped very fine and arranged to look like a giant crab cake with artistic flourishes of the nuts. I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious I found it, considering how much I hate fruits and sweets mixed into savory foods. I even thought the sugary cashews were a good accompaniment. The angel hair pasta with lobster Bolognese, basil oil and Parmesan crisp was not quite as good. Creamy, but a bit bland, pepper improved it. I liked the tender small pieces of lobster.
I would definitely recommend trying the fruit-flavored iced teas. I was also very pleased with the unobtrusive, attentive waiter, as well as the lovely decor. Try to get one of the spacious leather booths if you can, which even have glass dividers for privacy between them. I imagine a lot of affairs (or just exciting dates) are discreetly conducted here. The tablecloths cover a lot. And the place is so elegant and beautiful, it’s equally appropriate for a business lunch or a princess mood (that was me).
I noticed the 3-course prix fixe lunch menu had completely different items from the rest of the menu, which was a bit odd. I thought perhaps they might be dishes only otherwise available on the dinner menu, but they’re not on that either. The dessert menu was also a little crazy. It was two pages long with something called a “Show of Dessert” on one of them. All of them look delicious though. I would love to come back here – there were tons of good things on the menu I didn’t get to try.
Rating: 8 / 10
Cost: $95 (2 passionfruit iced teas)
Noise level: low hum
Chance of walking in: medium at lunch. I think it might not be too bad on weekend nights either.
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07.01.08
Posted in Asian, Japanese, New York City, New York City Reviews, Queens, rated 4 to 5.5 at 02:15 by Dominique
7208 Main St., Queens, 718-575-8700
Great for: Orthodox Jews, giant entrées
I found myself in Queens with some friends, and they’re Jewish so they decided to show me how good kosher food can be. I wasn’t exactly blown away. I enjoyed the company and watching the waiters scurry around inefficiently much more.
We shared a bunch of appetizers, beginning with the sushi special, a volcano of tobiko, spicy mayo, scallion, jalapeño, tuna tartare, avocado roll and tempura flakes. I had very high hopes for the resto based on this dish, which was yummy and extremely spicy. I really liked the combination of textures and flavors. Unfortunately, I got excited too soon. Do not get the dumplings of beef and chicken ginger. They were dry, with a weird jalapeño sauce. El bomba, avocado and sundried tomato eggrolls with tequila lime sauce, wasn’t that impressive either. I didn’t actually eat it, there was too much avocado and I find sundried tomatoes yucky. My friends said the sauce didn’t complement the dish at all.
The Jerusalem (imitation) crab cakes with crispy panko crumbs and creamy unspicy jalapeño sauce were done very well; I could barely tell it wasn’t real crab. In my defense, the panko and “meat” were thoroughly mixed up. The agedashi tofu was pretty decent too, lightly crispy outside and fairly soft internally. I found the pink-orange sweet sauce unworthy of it. The kalbi (short ribs) were almost bite-sized. They had a bit of slightly sweet glaze which brought out the flavor of the crispy yet tender meat.
For an entrée I tried the enormous Bangkok sizzle, thin pan-seared slices of beef with onions, baby corn, bamboo, chestnuts, mushrooms and lemongrass in spicy chili sauce. It was oversauced and the meat could have been more tender. The sauce was quite basic, not spicy, and too sugary. The huge sea bass fillet with vegetables was a little better. We liked the tender, flaky fish, though some bits were a bit bland. Another friend got some rolls. The black dragon roll with American caviar on top of avocado and tuna was overpowered by the avocado and still bland. I did like the ikura and the cooked salmon and tuna roll with scallions though.
The Metsuyan kalbi fillet of mediun rare char-grilled boneless rib meat started out good, though it quickly became cloyingly sweet and too saucy. The sauce was as red as the blood oozing out of the many, many slices of meat. The Kobe short ribs were a bit better, but also very sweet and soft. The slightly charred steak Polynesia was the best thing I tasted. I later realized that I was lucky to have had a good piece – the rest was a bit overdone.
We had some pretty good sides. The French fries were well seasoned and quite good. They could have been crispier but that was a minor quibble. The others told me the cole slaw was very spicy; I didn’t try it (I hate cole slaw). The mashed potatoes came with the skins, and tasted better than they looked. I think that was from the liberal use of butter.
They don’t serve hard liquor, so I contented myself with cold sake. One friend had a glass of red wine and the others had fruity iced teas. My sake was ok. The service was forgetful but friendly. I imagine they were so scatterbrained because the place was crazy busy. Definitely make reservations. At 9pm on a Sunday night we still had to wait almost 30 minutes.
The decor walks a fine line between tacky and tasteful. I think mostly it stays on the good side. There’s lots of wood, one wall is a long aquarium, and another one is a white tropical frieze. It is an expensive (steaks are about $35), kosher place, but my understanding is that it’s pretty good for Queens.
Rating: 5.5 / 10
Our cost: $340 (6 people)
Noise level: raucous
Chance of walking in: very low. But it’s kosher, so if you’re Orthodox and hungry for Japanese in Flushing, there you go.
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