02.16.11
Posted in Asian, Chinese, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5 at 00:18 by Dominique
198 Orchard & Houston Sts., unjustly closed by the SLA
Great for: interesting dishes, Taiwanese food on Four Loko, hanging out with Eddie Huang
I have many fond memories of Taiwanese xiao ye, the night market, from visiting Taipei as a baby foodie. Imagine my excitement when I heard Eddie Huang of Baohaus fame was opening a xiao ye right here in my neighborhood! As it turns out, his dishes were considerably amped up from the basic food I remember, but I like and respect his creativity.
My date and I started with the poontang potstickers, made of LaFrieda custom blend pork and napa cabbage. They’re good but not mind-blowing. I would have liked more spice. The name (and pretty much all the other dish names) was cute, though – I like a menu that makes me laugh.
Taiwan’s most famous minced duroc pork in 5 spice and soy sauce over rice with braised egg and pickled daikon was nice. The famous Cheeto fried chicken with chili orange marmalade dipping sauce was juicy, tender and perfectly cooked. The Cheeto dust is just sprinkled on top, not quite as integral to the dish as I expected. In both dishes I could wish for a little more spice.
My favorite thing was probably the corn with garlic, red pepper and unagi sauce. The sauce is to die for and the corn is very crispy.
I had to try some of their funny cocktails. The Milk Skywalker is a yummy, crazy, end-of-night type drink. You are probably only drinking it because you’re already hammered, despite knowing it will just fuck up your morning (at least). The Taiwan favorite apple sidra with vanilla and bourbon is slightly less insane. It tastes awesome, surprisingly – the vanilla is a lovely finishing touch. Both drinks came in nice generous glasses for $12.
The super friendly staff and the hip vibe made this a very cool little restaurant. Everything was black wood with red accents, super Asian without being cheesy. And it was really good for an area of drunkards. My understanding of why they had to shut down so fast was that Eddie did some unlimited Four Loko deal right before it got outlawed and the State Liquor Authority came down hard on them about it. It wasn’t really fair but you can still get some Taiwanese goodness over at Baohaus, a few streets away. And for regular dishes there is always Saint’s Alp Teahouse in the East Village.
Rating: 7 / 10
Our cost: $75 (3 small dishes, 1 medium, 2 cocktails)
Noise level: classic old-school Eddie music
Chance of walking in: sadly, nil. Why, SLA, why???
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12.05.10
Posted in Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 6 to 6.5, small plates, Spanish at 23:49 by Dominique
29 Clinton & Stanton Sts., 212-979-0002
Great for: sangria
I was technically not drinking for a while, in an ongoing attempt to slim down, but after two hours of very athletic tennis with the Pool Champion it was hard to resist the siren call of beautiful white sangria. Also we were sort of on a date and somehow I feel bad letting guys drink alone when they’re trying to impress me. It of course has nothing to do with how much I enjoy a nice drink.
We got some nibbles to replenish our energy too. The tapa of the day, scallops in pomegranate orange glaze on salad with mushrooms, was quite good. It was surprisingly not too sweet and the scallops had a lovely crunchy glaze. The croquetas de bacalao with aïoli were thick, not as fluffy as I expected and tasty. It was at least a very large amount of cod for the price. The dates stuffed with cheese wrapped in Serrano ham were only pretty good. Overall they were very sweet while the ham was basically a salt lick, so the flavors didn’t meld terribly well.
The white sangria is lovely. It’s refreshing, just the right strength and the embodiment of summer. I could use some of that right now in Manhattan winter.
Rating: 6.5 / 10
Our cost: $$60 (3 tapas, 3 sangrias)
Noise level: not too bad
Chance of walking in: decent.
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12.04.10
Posted in French, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5, small plates at 20:51 by Dominique
201 E. Houston Sts. & Orchard/Ludlow, 212-995-5546
Great for: brasserie food almost any time for very little
Instead of playing a tournament at the poker club where I work, I ended up having to deal it and didn’t have time for a single bite all day. When they finally let me go (with a pittance of an hourly rate, to add insult to injury), I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and was ravenous and cranky. Lina Frey made all that go away for only a small bit of my hard-earned cash.
My friends J and H happened to be wandering around the area so they joined me for late supper. J started with a salade maison in citronette vinaigrette, which was good. My steak tartar with peppercorn, lemon and truffle oil maybe had a little too much lemon, which kept it from being perfectly delightful. They were not careful with the lemon seeds either, as some were mixed in. I liked the nice contrast of the peppercorns.
Our two sautéed salmons with crispy mustard hazelnut crust were lovely. The fish comes on top of a funny vegetable hash brown-type thing which might be radish. Whatever it is, it’s sort of hard to eat but very tasty. The moules au poivre are an interesting twist on a brasserie staple. The au poivre is exactly like on steaks. On mussels it makes them taste like they’re in curry. I liked it.
The lamb chops with honey mustard glaze were very good but had too much glaze. We appreciated how spicy they were. The haricots verts with caramelized shallots were so delicious we got an extra order. Dark and salty, they were almost Chinese. I need to try making that at home.
We finished with a Nutella crepe, since they’d run out of a lot of the other desserts. It was simple and delightful. So were my Cinsault-grenache glass of Laurent Miquel rosé and J’s Malbec.
It’s kind of a small plates place. Our super nice waitress suggested two to three plates per person would do it. Overall there were a couple standouts but everything was at least decent, not to mention dirt cheap. Plus they are open until at least midnight every day and the décor is really nice – they’ve even got a skylight. And if you have a large party there’s a big table with its own nook in the back. I was impressed at how well they were doing after being open four weeks, and I am definitely coming for another nice meal next time they let me out of work before 6am. (People like to play poker until the wee hours. I don’t mind, just don’t forget to tip me.)
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Our cost: $96 (8 dishes, 1 dessert, 2 glasses of wine all for 3 people)
Noise level: not bad
Chance of walking in: decent.
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11.25.10
Posted in Asian, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5, Southeast Asian at 20:12 by Dominique
172 Orchard & Stanton Sts., 212-228-9833
Great for: lunch special, crispy flounder
My actress friend E had just moved back from LA so I took her out to lunch. We tried to go to Café Charbon nearby, but it turned out great that they’re not open for lunch on weekdays – this place was a very good, albeit completely different, substitute.
Lunch is only $7.95 including soup (winter) or salad (summer), shrimp and crab taro spring roll, veggie spring roll and an entrée. All the little appetizers are good, though they are quite tiny. My crispy flounder can only be described as awesome, a perfect combination of crispy outside and tender inside. Its bed of rice noodles was just as good. E’s pad thai was pretty good too, though not on the same level.
Our waitress was very nice. I’m definitely going to try some more food here soon.
Rating: 7.5 / 10 (pending dinner review)
Our cost: $30 for 2 lunch specials with iced coffee and tea. Cash only
Noise level: probably fine unless the nearby Meatball Shop patrons really whoop it up
Chance of walking in: not too bad, medium size.
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10.25.10
Posted in Asian, Barbecue, Japanese, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 8 to 8.5 at 00:30 by Dominique
198 Orchard and Houston Sts. [already closed, sadly]
Great for: hibachi, of course
The dreaded NYC hibachi curse has struck again. I was so happy when I noticed this place opened up by my house, and devastated when I realized after several unanswered phone calls that they had closed in a few short months. I guess this is a bit of a useless review, but at least I can memorialize them. Cheap, delicious and nearby – I’m gutted they didn’t make it.
The then-Boyfriend and I liked the edamame, though $4 was a little much for it. The tempura appetizer with two giant shrimp and five large vegetable slices was crisp, light, wonderful and only $6.95. (Maybe that’s why they went out of business.) I am so tired of Japanese restaurants that charge an arm and a leg for maybe one shrimp, one sad little broccoli spear and a mushroom or slice of taro. This app was a big step in the right direction.
I was delighted with my hibachi entrée of filet mignon plus shrimp with fried rice and side of broccoli. The beef was not super tender but everything was very flavorful and I could tell they didn’t just drown it all in butter, which is usually why hibachi tastes so awesome. I was surprised to get four broccoli pieces for $4, especially considering the entire entrée was only $11.95. He got filet mignon plus teriyaki chicken, which was absolutely fantastic. I wish I’d been able to have it again so I could figure out how to make it myself. The mango ice cream was also great and enormous, to boot.
Not only did JC have mostly cheap, very tasty food, the décor was nice and restrained. Benihana could learn something from them. There was a sushi bar in front and they made the hibachi things in the kitchen. My impression, admittedly from just one visit, is that maybe they didn’t think through their pricing very well. Some things were oddly expensive, while others were strangely cheap. I am not sure I could buy filet mignon raw at Whole Foods for $11.95/pound, let alone cooked and with shrimp and fried rice. The location was good for foot traffic and random walk-ins, so I don’t think that was it. Anyway, I am very sad they closed. I really wanted to support them and it’s too bad I didn’t get the chance to do so more than once.
Rating: 8.5 / 10 (extra .5 for being super cheap and really good)
Our cost: $$45 (15% off)
Noise level: quiet
Chance of walking in: will never happen again. *sob*
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09.30.10
Posted in Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 6 to 6.5, small plates, Spanish at 19:48 by Dominique
173 Orchard & Stanton Sts., 212.253-1900
Great for: empanadas, spicy picante sauce, non-foodie dates
I’d heard amazing things about the empanadas here. Thanks to a Blackboard Eats coupon, I see why I didn’t hear about anything else. The restaurant is decent, not a standout.
The discount gave us a mini-carafe of sangria and six mini-empanadas (roughly a $20 value) with the order of two entrées. We were completely delighted with the tiny empanadas. Other than the portabello, which I didn’t try because I hate mushrooms, the queso blanco, chicken, beef, pork and chorizo were all juicy and terrific. On the other hand, the similarly miniscule red pepper crab cakes with chipotle mayo were not amazing; just crisp outside and all crab inside. Not what a crab cake should be.
The clay pot dinners with Spanish fried rice and black beans are much bigger. My carne chorizada, ground sirloin in onion, garlic, tomato and vegetable stew, was somewhat flavorful. I found the copious addition of house picante sauce helped. It’s a little sour and has a Beckham-level kick to it. The best part of the camarones a la brazas – shrimp in mustard, sherry and dill, wrapped in bacon and grilled – was the bacon. The shrimp could have been cooked less.
The sangria is lovely. It’s a bit sweet and not too strong, and gives the feeling of an outdoor café in Spain. The service is efficient, though they weren’t packed. The décor kind of looks like a roomy grandma’s house with nooks and books and interesting mirrors inside lamps. It’s cute and actually quite large, as well as very dark. The music is quiet Spanish. As long as your date isn’t much of a foodie, the sangria, empanadas and romantic darkness should get you pretty far.
Rating: 6.5 / 10 (6 if not for empanadas)
Our cost: $90 without deal (tapas are $8, small plates $14, clay pots $14-24 – it’s not cheap)
Noise level: quiet enough for a date
Chance of walking in: not bad.
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08.07.10
Posted in American, Italian, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 6 to 6.5 at 02:31 by Dominique
84 Stanton & Allen/Orchard Sts., 212-982-8895
Great for: pork meatballs, spicy meat sauce, cream sauce, bread, ice cream, destroying your hearing
I had an exhausting and strange audition – the weekend ones are always the worst – and my reward was to go try this place. Fortunately I had a wonderful book to read, so the noise didn’t bother me much. I highly recommend Leo Babauta’s Power of Less. Sadly, I can’t recommend the Meatball Shop anywhere near as wholeheartedly, but they do some things well.
There’s no mix-and-match option, so I ended up ordering 5 different meatballs as sliders. That was the only way I could try all of them (I didn’t bother with the veggie ball, that’s just dumb). They’re quite small for $3 – they’d fit comfortably in my tiny curled-up palm. You get a cool laminated menu to write your order on, since there are many permutations of sauces, meats and sandwich formats. I didn’t have stomach space to try any of the sides. You can get up to four of the same meatball on a sandwich as well.
My favorite was the pork in spicy meat (pork) sauce. The pork itself was flavorful, moist and spicy, and the sauce helped it along. I also quite liked the juicy special of tandoori lamb in tomato sauce. It had a good combination of spices.
The chicken in parmesan cream was tasty, not amazing, and soft. It scares me when chicken is very soft. I loved the cream, which definitely had some cool spices in there. I was a bit sorry I got the salmon in parmesan cream. Not as tasty or moist as I’d hoped, I definitely did not need more than one. I tired of it halfway through. Good thing I ordered it with the cream sauce.
The worst was the beef in tomato sauce. It was bland and had lots of gristle, unlike all the others. Shocking, that such a standard meatball was so underwhelming.
Whatever each bun was, brioche or something, it was terrific; fluffy and tasty without competing with the meat. And you guys know I don’t eat bread. Sometimes there isn’t enough sauce but that’s ok, the bread is good all by itself.
I’d heard a lot about the ginger snap ice cream sandwich. Since I was being a dutiful blogging piglet anyway I figured I’d go the distance. The ginger snaps were pretty good but ultimately they are still messy, bready sweets. I preferred the caramel ice cream. The sandwich is fairly difficult to eat – I found it best to nibble one side at a time so as not to squeeze out all the ice cream. For $4 it was a pretty good deal.
Service is nice, but scatterbrained and slow. It’s very likely that was because they just opened and were swamped from day one, so I didn’t mind being patient. I finished my book, though. The décor is colonial/crazy American Gothic. I have never seen so many black and white pictures of loony old people. I probably won’t again, as this place is very overpriced for being only decent, and insanely packed all the time. Only two meatballs of six offered are good – not a very good success rate. I’ll give them this, though; it’s a cool gimmick and they seem to be raking it in at the moment.
Rating: 6 / 10
My cost: $25 (5 sliders and an ice cream sandwich)
Noise level: noisy as hell; the music is loud rock and the people are just as bad
Chance of walking in: bad. But at least they’re open late (noon until 2am Sunday to Wednesday, 4am other days) and have many seats so you have a lot of chances to try.
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01.03.10
Posted in Asian, Japanese, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5 at 21:53 by Dominique
245 Eldridge St. & Houston/Stanton Sts., 212-358-7773
Great for: a quiet meal in that random Milk & Honey part of the LES, sushi
It was a sushi kind of Sunday, and after some Blackberry consultation, the New Boyfriend and I settled on this place. Our starter of furikake-dusted calamari with nori, sesame seeds and lime aïoli was pretty good, but not that impressive. The calamari could have been less rubbery and the aïoli was a bit distracting; it needed more spice and less citrus.
I was happier with my sushi sashimi combo. The tuna, salmon and hamachi sushi were well executed, as were the good-size pieces of salmon, tuna, shrimp and yellowtail nigiri. The spicy tuna maki were small and nice. Our favorite thing of the meal was the creative and spicy yellowfin tuna roll with Thai basil.
In a word, the meal was nice. So was our service, mostly. Initially we were the only patrons, and asked them to switch the channel to poker. We sat facing the TV and discussing the action. Then two guys came in and unasked, the owner changed back to baseball. Which the guys, who weren’t even facing the TV, ignored. Poker might be a slightly odd request but I found the switching back quite rude. I’m not deducting points for that; it was just a weird footnote to an otherwise pleasant dinner.
Rating: 7 / 10
Our cost: $65 (1 app, 1 combo, 2 rolls)
Noise level: quiet, but it was empty
Chance of walking in: good.
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Posted in Asian, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 6 to 6.5, small plates, Southeast Asian at 21:48 by Dominique
113 Ludlow & Rivington/Delancey, 212-353-8866
Great for: sharing lots of small dishes, easily impressed out-of-towners
One of my favorite girlfriends organized a girls’ night one Saturday. I’d been here before so I wasn’t too excited about the food, but fortunately her presence makes up for quite a lot. The last time I was here the company was also better than the food, which is only middling anyway, so it is not the place to take a foodie. Unless they like everything sweet.
We had to wait a very long while for the people at our reserved table to clear out, for which inconvenience we were given free edamame with lemon butter and salt. It was really good. It sustained me through our first dish of pickled vegetables, which was kind of like being tasered with a pickle. In my mind, even when a dish is “pickled [something],” it ought to still have some balance. I shouldn’t be fighting to keep my eyes open.
Fortunately the scallops with bacon, kalamansi and sake were much better. They also were a little sour, but a nice size and overall pretty tasty. So was the pork tonkatsu with watercress salad and lime butter. I found the meat a tad dry and the sauce a little sweet, while the lime butter was nice. I did not, of course, eat the mushrooms with baby bamboo, though the bamboo was decent.
The langoustines special in panko with wasabi tobiko aïoli was the best dish we had. The aïoli is addictive – the shellfish was good too. I enjoyed the sautéed Chinese sausage with super-hot Thai chili-lime sauce, which offset well the sweetness of the meat. The tofu with Thai basil and wood ear mushrooms in spicy soy mirin was not good. Too sweet, and just blah all around. I didn’t care for the seared ahi tuna in Thai chili-miso vinaigrette either.
We finished things off with the dessert tasting. The Thai chili chocolate ice cream (for an avowedly Filipino restaurant, they really like those Thai spices) was fine, as were the black plum sorbet and fried plantains. The lemongrass panna cotta was the best.
The service partly makes up for the mediocrity of the food. They are very attentive, and it was nice of them to mitigate the annoyance of waiting 45 minutes with unsolicited edamame. On the other hand, we were shocked to be charged corkage for our two bottles of sake; we tried to empirically figure out if that’s standard, and couldn’t remember details of past byob dinners well enough to come to a consensus, but basically it was surprising to be charged for twist-open bottles.
I can’t tell you why this place gets so much hype. Both visits I was in parties of 4 that ordered a good cross-section of the menu, and had an okay meal that rose to pretty good at best. I might have liked it better if I liked sweet flavors in food, and I think that might be a Filipino idiosyncrasy, but I am not a fan. Another annoyance is that everything is kind of expensive. Nothing is under $7, and most is considerably more. Not even the vegetarian dishes. Really? On the Lower East Side? The food definitely didn’t earn its price tags.
Rating: 6 / 10
Our cost: $130 (just food, they’re byob with small corkage fees)
Noise level: a bit noisy, not bad
Chance of walking in: not great. You can reserve for parties of 4 or more.
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11.18.09
Posted in American, Barbecue, Lower East Side, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 8 to 8.5 at 13:06 by Dominique
192 Orchard & E. Houston Sts., 212-253-6280
Great for: fried chicken, ribs, everything really
I love food. (Obviously.) However, I also have to be thin for my careers. I try to use my obsessive love of food as motivation nowadays – so whenever I have a craving for something, I require myself to nail an audition, book a job, or perform well before I can have it. This cuts down on impulsive yummy fattening food, plus I burn some energy working hard to earn it. I think in this case I had a couple successful auditions and ribs and fried chicken were my treat.
I got the fried chicken dinner with French fries and potato salad (which they forgot). It is three big pieces of chicken with lovely crunchy spicy skin. I wished that much of the fat or thick skin had been taken off but it was very good. The fries were great too. Being a greedy little piglet, I also got a half rack of ribs that were literally fall-off-the-bone tender. There was lots of fat, and the ribs were well spiced with a wet and dry rub. They definitely gave me ideas for next time I make ribs at home! I wish Georgia’s weren’t so expensive so I could have more.
The restaurant itself is quite small, with seven deuces and four counter stools. I got takeout because I wanted to watch tv too. You cannot make substitutions and they only take cash. It’s cheap for NYC – I’m still in sticker shock over how much lunch at Hill Country was – but not very cheap compared to 4 dumplings for $1 a few blocks over. (Vanessa’s Dumplings ftw!) The employees are very friendly, notwithstanding the ancient shotgun hanging on one wall.
Rating: 8 / 10
My cost: $25 (I kind of ordered 2 dinners)
Noise level: fairly quiet
Chance of walking in: probably not very good on busy nights.
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