All posts by Johnny Prime

Hinata

June 22, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little midtown east ramen joint puts up a decent bowl.

The broth is paitan chicken based, but for a price premium you can choose the Nikumiso ramen if you need to get your pork fix.

That bowl still has the chicken broth, but it’s topped with miso-glazed sliced pork and miso-seasoned ground pork. For me, this was the right choice, because I’m not a huge fan of just chicken flavored broth (unless it’s amazing), and the miso on the pork brought back a little bit of the cloudy thickness that I like without going all-in on an entirely miso-based broth.

I chose the straight noodles over the wavy egg noodles. If I went full chicken broth I probably would have went with the wavies though, because they keep that eggy flavor going strong in every bite.

The bowl also had black mushrooms, bamboo shoots, beautifully sliced corn fresh off the cob, properly sliced scallions, and spinach, which was an interesting touch. There was a bit of burnt or black garlic as well. The bowl looked incredible. The flavor was good but not the best I’ve had. With a soft boiled egg added, the bill came to $18, which is a bit pricey for a bowl of slightly above average ramen.

HINATA
159 E 55th St
New York, NY 10022

Recipes

The Johnny Prime Burger

June 22, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Let me start off my reiterating the fact that I am a burger purist. I like my burgers pretty much on the standard side. My ideal: a nicely seared beef patty (on a flat top – not grilled), sandwiched between a potato bun with mayo on both halves of the bun, and topped with melty American cheese, iceberg lettuce, one thin slice of tomato, some pickles and a few rings of raw onion (not a full slice). Occasionally I will throw some bacon on top, but I figured out a better way to get the bacon into the mix without adding yet another topping. Sometimes when the toppings get too numerous, you end up with a tall stack; that sucks.

I should also mention here that anyone can make a good burger at home. In fact some home burgers far surpass anything you can get at a burger joint. It’s one of the easiest things to cook at home, so a “recipe” for a burger is kinda nonsense, know what I mean? There’s nothing particularly special or innovative about this recipe other than the first three steps, and to even suggest innovation there is a stretch. It’s really just good sense, and I feel like more people need to know about it.

Here’s a quick time lapse video of me executing all the steps below:

1) Fry up some bacon in a cast iron pan – as much as you would normally include on top of your burger.

2) Remove the finished bacon from your cast iron pan, but leave the grease in the pan.

3) Once cooled, crumble up the bacon and mix it into your chopped meat. The crunchy bacon inside will add texture as well as flavor to your finished product. Don’t overwork or overpack the meat when mixing the bacon into the patty. I like about 6oz of chopped meat for a burger. That means it’s not too ridiculously thick, and not too thin to the point where you need to eat two burgers just to feel something in your stomach.

Note: Some burger recipes tell you to add diced bacon into the chopped meat BEFORE cooking the bacon. BIG MISTAKE. If you’re like me, and you like your burger medium or medium rare, then some of that bacon won’t cook properly in the amount of time is takes to get the beef up to temperature. There’s nothing worse than rubbery, undercooked bacon. It blows. The key is to fry that shit off beforehand, as I noted in step one above, and then mix the fully cooked bacon into the raw beef burger patty.

4) Cook your burger in the bacon grease, in the same cast iron pan. This will follow through on your bacon flavor, and it’ll give the patty a good crust to boot.

5) When you flip the burger (you’re only flipping it once, by the way), add your American cheese (go with two slices) and cover the pan, so that the cheese gets nice and melty.

Note: Some people add a bit of water into the pan at this point, before covering the pan (like maybe 2-3oz). Why? The water instantly sublimates to steam, which is a higher temperature than the air in the pan. When sealed up and covered, this helps to melt the cheese faster. This is especially helpful if you like a rare or medium rare burger, because you don’t have to wait as long for the cheese to melt, which in turn means you are less likely to overcook your burger while waiting for the cheese to finish melting.

6) Remove your patty from the pan when the cheese is melted, and set it aside for a moment. You can use a cooling rack or a plate.

7) Prep your bun for assembly. This entails a few sub-steps:

a) Apply mayo to both sides of the potato bun.
b) Add one leaf of iceberg lettuce to each side.
c) On the bottom side, set down your thin slice of tomato on top of the lettuce. Ideally you want a good sized tomato so that your slice covers the majority of the bun from end to end.
d) On the top side, place your rings of raw onion and pickles on top of the lettuce.
e) I’ve also opted to add some fried crispy shallots to the burger for extra texture, as well as some sliced jalapeños for heat, mainly because I almost always have these things in my fridge.
f) Put your burger in there, and close her up.

That’s it. You’re ready to eat!

Flash Deals, Product Reviews

Carnivore Club

June 20, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

I follow Carnivore Club on Instagram due to the high quality images of incredible meats that they post. When I’m telling you that they post some of the best quality foodporn, I’m being dead serious…

They’re located somewhere far, far away from NYC, so I figured I’d really never get to try one of their boxes of products unless I spent big dough and ordered something online to have it shipped. Well, to my surprise, they were offering a Groupon deal! There was a massive discount on a premium box of meats (along with a $15 credit to use on your next purchase).

A premium box is a real wood humidor of sorts.

A subscriber can get monthly deliveries of high-end meats at their doorstep. This is what the unboxing looks like:

There are generally four meats per box, though not all boxes are this amazing. Mine was filled with iberico shit:

Again, mine was a premium box (which is generally much more costly), made of real wood, nice hidden hinges, ultra high quality meats, etc. The regular packaging is a faux wooden box, still very smart looking. But take a look. Mine even came with the humidity gauge and shit.

“Satisfy your inner carnivore” is printed on the box, as well as an image of their logo.

Okay so let’s get down to the goods here. The box came with four meats, and I’m going to review each one and provide some pretty pictures.

The first thing I did was to slice up some of the chorizo, which you saw in the video above.

If you treat your meat like you would treat your own dick, you’re always going to enjoy it. This stuff was super flavorful. It wasn’t overly spicy to the point where you couldn’t keep shoveling slices down your throat. The fat content was soft and malleable, melts between the heat of your fingers. Really nice.

This next shot is everything together. The chorizo, plus the other three packaged meats.

The top left is the chorizo that I sliced, so we will skip that, since I already talked about it. The top right was another type of chorizo. This one was softer, a little more moist, had less fat content and a more smoky flavor. Clearly they had different diameters too. I really thought I was going to get jipped here with two of the same type of meat, as far as flavor goes, but the two chorizos were very different from one another. The bottom right was the salchichon. Like the chorizo, this had good melty fat content, but it was a more mild and more pure flavor. You could taste the meat, unencumbered, because it wasn’t laden with spices. Very crisp. The sparse peppercorns really made it pop too. The bottom left was the dry cured ham. This was really soft. It had the texture of a very high quality prosciutto, with a clean flavor. Really nice meat, excellent non-stringy fat. It wasn’t paper thin, but the flesh was so soft to the touch that it was difficult to get each slice up in one piece. That’s freaking tender shit!

Overall this was a great buy. If I didn’t get a Groupon deal, I might have thought it was a little overpriced, but then again I am not a rich bastard. Some of you bank-makers out there might find this to be a good price given the supreme quality of meat that you get in each box. So give Carnivore Club a try. I think you’ll like it.

UPDATE

Since I had a credit with Carnivore Club, I ordered a regular box. The quality is once again incredible. Take a look at the unboxing here:

Inside, there is a card that tells you all about the meats you are about to eat, along with suggested pairings like cheeses.

Here’s what they look like unwrapped – like shriveled penises:

While a shriveled penis is admittedly not the greatest look in the world, I’m pretty certain that these taste much better than a shriveled penis. If any of you have had both, give me your opinions.

So as I was going over my note card along with my packaged meats, I noticed something. The “salami picante,” #4 on the note card, was swapped out for “campo seco.” It seems the provider ran out of the salami picante and substituted the campo seco instead, but Carnivore Club was unaware and unable to update the note card in time for the shipment.

No bother to me, really, other than the fact that campo seco and cerveza seca were somewhat similar in both look and flavor. Cerveza seca was a bit leaner, however, while campo seco had large blobs of delicious fatty white spots throughout – most of which were surprisingly tender.

The chorizo was good. Not too potent and garlicky, as some can be, and it had a mild heat to it that didn’t overpower.

The clear winner by far, however, was the “trufa seca” truffle sausage. It was coated with a sea salt and was vibrantly flavored with that earthy and robust truffle flavor. Absolutely delicious. I’ve never tasted something so unique in this kind of product.

I highly recommend purchasing meat from this supplier, which was Charlito’s Cocina. And if it isn’t obvious, I am a big fan of Carnivore Club. This box alone would cost WAY more if all items were purchased separately, so you’re getting a good deal along with such great service. I let Carnivore Club know about the swapped sausage issue for #4, and they insisted on sending me the salami picante even over my protestations. Good people!

Recipes

Satan’s Fried Chicken Sandwich

June 16, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Satan’s Fried Chicken Sandwich is a recipe I concocted for usage of Saint Lucifer Spice during my review of their product. If you can’t get your hands on their delicious shit, then substitute for some other pepper like cayenne powder. But I highly recommend their habanero garlic blend. It just works better.

What do you need, and how do you do it?

1) Grab a pack of thinly sliced chicken breast from the grocery store.

2) Crack a few eggs into a bowl and mix/scramble.

3) Create a breading mixture using a combination of Italian breadcrumbs, panko and a teaspoon of Saint Lucifer Spice.

4) Drag your chicken filets through the egg dredge and batter them with the spicy breadcrumbs.

5) Fry your chicken to golden brown in hot oil.

6) Hit your still-hot chicken with some more Saint Lucifer spice to lock in the seasoning after they come out of the fryer/hot oil.

7) As the chicken cools, quickly prep some lettuce, tomato, onion and sliced apple. Maybe some cooling cucumber as well, if you feel like it. As an alternative, you can do this step before you start cooking, but then the apples may bruise up and oxidize – unless you know to hit them with some lime juice to prevent that brown bullshit from happening.

Note: This step is for adding additional crunch and a little sweet juiciness to cut the spice. If you happen to have coleslaw laying around, you could simply use that. And if buying an apple is too much work for your lazy fucking ass, you can also use the pickles that have been sitting in your fridge, floating around in murky water like a shit that never got flushed.

8) Mix a few shakes of Saint Lucifer spice into some mayonnaise.

9) Apply some of that spiced mayonnaise onto each half of a potato bun. A soft, sweet bun is key, like Martin’s or King’s Hawaiian.

10) Assemble sandwich and eat.

If you’re ambitions, you can make some “conundrum fries” to go with this sandwich on the side: sweet potato french fries spiced with a few shakes of Saint Lucifer, once they come out of the oil. Do it, and then eat them with the remainder of your spicy mayo mixture from above. Why? Because fuck ketchup, that’s why.

Flash Deals, Italian, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Cara Mia

June 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I have walked by this place many times. So when I saw a Groupon that offered $25 for $50 worth of food, I jumped on it. Not only that, but I also used a coupon code on top of the deal, so it was technically even cheaper by at least $5.

Our first appetizer was a fennel, endive and pancetta salad. It wasn’t really dressed with anything. Still tasty, but I think some added citrus would have made it better – orange in particular.

For our second appetizer we had the roasted calamari and mushrooms. This was really delicious, and both this and the previous app were large portion sizes. With the squid roasted instead of sautéed or fried, it made a big difference in the depth of flavor. That great roasted garlic was present without being too overpowering, and the rings of calamari were perfectly cooked. They had a good, tender snap to them without any chewiness whatsoever. The mushrooms were porcini and portobello, lightly cooked off with butter. The addition of lemon really made this dish pop with brightness.

Our first pasta was a pappardelle with mushrooms in garlic and olive oil. This was very similar to the app above, with porcini and portobello mushrooms, but here the sauce was olive oil instead of butter and lemon. I actually thought the app had a more robust flavor. The pasta was perfectly cooked, however.

Our second pasta was supposed to be strozzopreti (long, thinner cavatelli shape) but we were served cavatelli. This came with braised wild boar. It was delicious; heavy, but super flavorful. I wonder if this cavatelli was truly made in-house, as the menu suggested… They were all very uniform, and I noticed the tell-tale doughy, pillowy one that often shows up in quantities of one or two per pack of the store-bought cavatelli that my mom always used. Not a big deal, still delicious, and my favorite kind of pasta to boot… but it could just be that the restaurant ran out of strozzopreti and decided to run over to the nearby grocery story for some substitute cavatelli or something.

Anyway, we ate every last bite of these fucking things. Everything was delicious, so we will probably be back to try some more stuff.

CARA MIA
654 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Jerky, Press Reviews, Product Reviews

Halo Diablo Jerky

June 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This product is an incredible collaboration effort between the Saint Lucifer Spice Company and the Righteous Felon Jerky Cartel. The Saint Lucifer folks sent over a complementary package of this jerky when I queried them for a sample of their spice for review.

This is high quality dry style beef jerky seasoned with their incredible garlic habanero spice. I reviewed Saint Lucifer HERE, so make sure you check that out as well.

The jerky was non-malleable and almost dry or brittle (for lack of a better word) to the touch, but it wasn’t too chewy or tough to get through with your teeth. The meat was actually very tender and flavorful, with a nice robust smoked beef taste. The more I ate, the more I craved.

I actually enjoy a dry style jerky as opposed to some of the wet, sticky and messy jerkies that are out there on the market, so don’t get the wrong idea about my comments above. The spice level was just right, I thought. It had enough potency to let me know it was there, but not too much to the point where I needed a break from the heat. Nicely balanced.

Press Reviews, Product Reviews, Recipes

Saint Lucifer Spice

June 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

If you don’t already know what Saint Lucifer Spice is, I’m about to give you a kick-ass run-down of the product. I came across this shit on Instragram, and I’ve been salivating ever since laying my eyes on it. Who knew that seeing a powdered spice could illicit such a physical response?

You’re all familiar with chili powder, crushed red pepper, paprika, black pepper, and cayenne pepper spices, from your shitty little spice racks that swivel and take up counter space in your kitchen. You know what’s missing? Habanero. Yes, yes, yes… Everyone and their mother has a bottle of habenero pepper SAUCE. But no one has it in a fucking spice shaker.

Many people flinch in horror when spice hits their lips, but that just means they aren’t eating their spice properly. Mixed with a sweet element, hot peppers can add tremendous diversity of flavor to an otherwise bland dish.

Tolerance to spicy foods may vary, but habanero pepper is amazing. It’s super hot up front, but then it cools off real quick. Unlike jalapeno or other chili peppers, the heat dissipates quicker. In other words, habanero is a sprinter and the other peppers are long distance runners.

What Ted Ebert and Tom Hewell, creators of Saint Lucifer, have done is to create a unique granulated habanero pepper spice that can be used on anything from grilled veggies to breakfast eggs to gourmet entrees of all protein variations. Ted and Tom’s goal is to get this spice into homes and professional kitchens everywhere, to be as well known and familiar as all the other spices in your rack, with the brand loyalty that you give to other products that you might keep in your kitchen. Given the massive success of Huy Fong’s Sri Racha sauce in recent years, I think there is a wide open market for something like Saint Lucifer, in the dry spice category. Although it is clearly a different pepper than Sri Racha (chili, with lots of garlic), I think the people who love a little heat will definitely be all over this.

Anyway, back to me… I found these guys on Instagram a long time ago and I’ve been following them since. Then it hit me. Why not ask them if I can try it? I’ve reviewed other products on here, typically when they have contacted me. But I needed to do something bold and aggressive, like Saint Lucifer spice itself. I contacted them. I wrote a comment on one of their burger photos, saying that I’d love to sample their product and write a review. The next morning I awoke to an email in my inbox asking for an address where they could send me a sample.

I was psyched. I eagerly awaited this bottle of magic powder’s arrival to my apartment. And to pass the time, I dreamed up various recipes involving the spice… and they’re really simple to execute too:

Devil Tacos
1) Coat some skirt or flank steak with Saint Lucifer Spice.
2) Grill for two to three minutes per side, depending on thickness.
3) While the meat rests, warm up some soft tortillas.
4) Also while the meat rests, prep some cilantro, onions, sour cream and jack cheese for a cooling taco filling.
5) After resting, slice the steak into thin strips for taco filling (cut on the bias for tenderness).
6) Slice up a lime (or any sweet citrus element, really).
7) Fill your tortillas, and squeeze some citrus juice on before eating.
Note: That sweet tartness from the lime/citrus will pair perfectly with the habanero of the Saint Lucifer spice and cut it ever so slightly. Trust me. Your taste buds will thank you.

Satan’s Fried Chicken Sandwich
1) Grab a pack of thinly sliced chicken breast from the grocery store.
2) Crack a few eggs into a bowl and mix/scramble.
3) Create a breading mixture using breadcrumbs, panko and a teaspoon of Saint Lucifer Spice.
4) Drag your chicken filets through the egg dredge and batter them with the spicy breadcrumbs.
5) Fry your chicken to golden brown in hot oil.
6) Hit your still-hot chicken with a mixture of Saint Lucifer spice and salt to lock in the seasoning after they come out of the fryer/hot oil.
7) As the chicken cools, quickly prep some lettuce, tomato, onion and sliced apple.
Note: This step is for adding additional crunch and a little sweet juiciness to cut the spice. If you have coleslaw laying around, you could use that as well. And if buying an apple is too much work for you, you can also use the pickles that you have sitting in your fridge, floating around in murky water like a shit that never got flushed.
8) Mix a few shakes of Saint Lucifer spice into mayonnaise.
9) Apply some of that spiced mayonnaise onto each half of a potato bun. A soft, sweet bun is key, like Martin’s or King’s Hawaiian.
10) Assemble sandwich and eat.

Breakfast at Lucifer’s
This one is pretty easy, because one way to go about the process is to just shake Saint Lucifer onto your favorite breakfast egg dish. I like eggs over easy with hash browns and bacon for breakfast. You can simply spice them all up with some Saint Lucifer. If you have hairy balls, you can even add a few shakes of Saint Lucifer into your orange juice (or Bloody Mary, for that matter). I swear that shit is fucking good. Orange + habanero is fucking amazing. I used to soak fresh habaneros in my cartons of orange juice to give it a nice kick. However, if you want to take breakfast to the next level, another idea here is to use the Saint Lucifer spice while you are cooking your bacon. Coat the bacon in some spice first, then fry it off in a pan. Afterwards, leave the bacon grease in the pan (or save the bacon grease in tupperware) so you can later use it to fry your hash browns and eggs. I like hash browns with a little diced onion and fresh peppers. Adding the spicy bacon grease would take it to the next level of awesome.

By the way, The Saint Lucifer website has a bunch of recipes on there already. If mine don’t tickle your balls, maybe theirs will. CLICK HERE to see them.

Okay so my dreams were now ready to become a reality. I received my Saint Lucifer spice package! I was impressed that it was even accompanied by a hand-written note.

I couldn’t believe it. This next bit was like providence. The bottle of spice tumbled out along with a bag of beef jerky!

Are you kidding me?!?? I JUST started my jerky page the other day, and when I was browsing the Saint Lucifer website in my research of their product, I was really intrigued by the jerky that I saw there for sale. Holy fuck… what a bonus that they included it! The jerky is flavored with Saint Lucifer, and it is cleverly called Halo Diablo jerky, which they made as a collaborative effort with the Righteous Felon jerky brand. I’ll stick to the review of Saint Lucifer here. You can check out the Halo Diablo Jerky review afterwards if you want.

My first instinct was to go right to the ingredients. Nice and simple, easy to read, no chemicals, no bullshit. Only five things were listed: that’s it! Garlic, salt, paprika, vinegar, and habanero peppers.

The taste starts off as sweet and vinegary, with a garlic nose. Then the spice creeps up. Dry and hot, like the desert, but not too cranked up to the point where you are crying and your ears are throbbing. It’s a good heat; a heat you can cook with or just dabble on as you see fit. The smell is a sharp hit of sweet garlic up front with a sweet lingering vinegar aroma. Then there’s an undertone of something evil lurking beneath the surface, something that might fuck you up if you sniff too hard or dive too deep. The habanero…

The shaker hole opening size is good for this powderized product. It’s not too big where you will accidentally dump too much out if you’re not careful, and not too small where you are shaking forever just to get a few dandruff particles out.

The beer bottle cap is in there so you can gauge the size of the holes easier with that being a familiar/known size reference.

As you can see, the color of this stuff is like fire put into solid, powder form. It’s actually a really aesthetic and beautiful blend of reds, yellows and oranges.

Suggestions for improvement: Nothing, really. This spice is awesome as-is. One thought I had though, perhaps, would be a version of the spice that is JUST habanero: no garlic, no salt, no paprika and no vinegar. I know Huy Fong makes some spicy sambal sauce products both in a garlic version and a non-garlic version. I always prefer non-garlic because I like to cook with fresh garlic, rather than powdered/dried, which can sometimes be overwhelming and inadvertently boost the sodium content of foods too much.

Suggestions for companion products: How about a ground jalapeno pepper spice, or a ground chipotle spice? Like granulated habanero powder, I don’t normally see those in the grocery store. That would make for a great three-pack gift set, and it would corner the market on unusual pepper powders in one fell swoop.

Either way I see a big future for Saint Lucifer, and I’m glad I have it in my spice cabinet. Congratulations, Ted and Tom, on creating an awesome new ingredient and food glorifier.

So where can you get it? CLICK HERE for a list of all retailers that have this shit on the shelves in their stores. Or you can navigate to their online store and buy it directly from them.

FOR THE GLORY OF HOT!

Burgers, Flash Deals, Harlem, Upper West Side

Mel’s Burger Bar

June 13, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This upper west side/Harlem joint serves up some really great fucking burgers.

I was browsing Groupon last week because they hit me with a whopping $10 off coupon. I picked up this deal that normally would have cost $25: two burgers and a 64oz growler of beer. I applied my Groupon and nabbed it for a mere $15. That’s amazing. Essentially that’s four pints of beer and two burgers for the price of one burger. Here’s how it shakes out.

The growler was nice. We ordered an Ithaca Flower Power, which packed a whopping 8% ABV on us without being disgustingly hoppy.

Ignoring my buddy’s tasty looking California burger, I ordered a Cadillac burger, which had American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and bacon on a potato bun. That’s pretty much the perfect burger. Take a look at this piece of art:

Gorgeous, and it tasted as good as it looked, cooked to a perfect medium, juicy, crispy patty, crunchy toppings…

I’ll definitely be back here again. I really enjoyed this place, and I think it’s probably in my top 10 burgers.

The fries were $4, separate and apart from the burger, but they were really nicely cooked and seasoned with salt and pepper. One order was enough to share between two people, in my opinion, especially with two beers each.

MEL’S BURGER BAR
2850 Broadway
New York, NY 10025

Brooklyn, Other Cuts, Rib Eye, Steakhouse Reviews

Saint Anselm

June 13, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Saint Anselm overall score: 77

This small Williamsburg joint has gotten wildly popular among meat aficionados on a budget, due to their highly affordable $17 hanger steak. See how it stacks up below.

Flavor: 8
This was a tough one. My wife and I came here with a friend of ours, so we ordered an “axe handle” rib eye and the well-known hanger steak, to give it all a try. As it turns out, the axe handle was about a six or seven in flavor, but the hanger steak was a nine. So I split the baby here with an eight. The hanger was simply prepared. Salt, pepper, butter and grilled like a mo-fo. It was perfectly medium rare, super juicy and tender.

The rib eye was a bit overcooked. We ordered medium rare, but it was more like medium to medium well. The flavor was good, nicely seasoned, and not much waste or fat at all. There wasn’t much in the way of fat cap, but the eye was tasty. The main loss of points here was due to improper cooking.

Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 6
This place only offers strip, hanger and rib eye. Lack of a filet or porterhouse really cut into the point score here, but the hanger is an excellent and welcome addition to the repertoire.

Portion Size & Plating: 8
Portions here are pretty substantial. the hanger steak is definitely good enough to fill someone, with a side item or app. The rib eye is served in sizes of 39oz, 47oz, and upwards to giganto-portions. We went with 39oz.

Price: 9
The apps and the hanger are nicely priced, but the rib eye is a bit overpriced in comparison to the rest of the menu. At $2.70/oz, that comes out to midtown prices or higher. Anyway here’s the full bill. As you can see the other items all seemed pretty reasonable.

Bar: 7
This seems like a great place to hang out. However, I don’t think you’re allowed to sit at the bar unless you are getting food (see “service” comments below). I was a little bummed out by my experience on that angle.

Specials and Other Meats: 8
There were three specials and a substitution menu item (grilled clams were grilled mussels instead, which we actually ordered and enjoyed). They also serve multiple veal, pork, lamb and chicken dishes up in this bitch, so good on them for that!

Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8
I was saddened to see that the bacon item was no longer offered on the menu, but we still had some decent side items. We started with the grilled mussels ($7). These were fantastic. A simple lemon and butter sauce with some bread for dipping. The flavor was clean and crisp, really nice.

Next we had the sardines. I was glad to see that there were three in the serving, so we could each have our own. These were a little rough to navigate given the tiny bones, but the meat itself was really delicious.

Last, we tried the spinach gratin. The spinach was nice: not overly creamy. It was on the dry side, which I wasn’t sure that I liked at first, but it grew on me. The cheese on top was hard and didn’t really mix into the spinach too well. It was more of a crust on top.

Seafood Selection: 8
There’s just as many fish items as any other type of meat, whether it’s pork, beef, veal or lamb. We didn’t try any (aside from apps), but one of the specials was a salmon head that sounded great, as did the wine braised octopus. I’m not positive, but I think I also heard that this place serves dollar oysters as well. WIN!

Service: 7
When the place first unlocked its doors at 5pm, I walked in alone and said that I would be a group of three. They wouldn’t sit me until everyone arrived. I can somewhat understand that kind of policy, typically when a restaurant is very crowded or only has limited seating. But the place was literally empty. Okay. No big deal. I asked if I could sit at the bar. It was about 90 degrees outside and I was sweating. It was cool inside. I was told that the bar seating is reserved for dining customers. I looked around, shocked. I didn’t see any customers. She said she could check for me if it was okay. I said nah. Fuck it. I will wait outside. That shit just put a bad taste in my mouth. Fucking dead empty and I can’t sit at the bar to wait for my other two party members? I totally would have ordered a drink! Assholes. Anyway our waiter was awesome, and we had absolutely no complaints about the actual service during our dinner. By the way: the bar was still empty halfway through our meal. Toward the end, it was starting to fill up, but still plenty of space for one guy to sit and wait for the rest of his party to arrive.

Ambiance: 8
Despite the fact that this is a small, narrow bar type joint, they’ve really done a great job with what they’ve got. Brick walls, olde tyme sigils and banners all over the walls, etc. Very cool. It’s tough to compete with big budget steakhouses in the ambiance category when you’re a mom and pop type place, but this was one of the better mom and pop joints that I’ve been to.

ST. ANSELM
355 Metropolitan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Jerky, Product Reviews

Vua Kho Bo Jerky

June 11, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This stuff is nothing shy of amazing. So far this might be the best tasting jerky that I’ve ever had. The only down-side is that it is messy as fuck to eat. This isn’t ideal for laying on the couch and popping into your mouth while you watch a movie of flip through the TV channels. Who does that anymore, anyway? We fucking scroll through the on-screen guide looking for something better than whatever channel the TV happens to be on, or we comb our DVR’s for a show we can finally start to binge-watch, now that there are more than five of six of them recorded. Anyway… Back to business. You need a plate and several napkins when you eat this stuff. It’s fucking crazy messy. You’ll be shocked when you see how far some of the bits and pieces of tasty shit fly when you pull it apart for smaller, more manageable-sized pieces. Pictured below are the regular and spicy beef versions, but they have tons of variety to choose from. The spicy is VERY spicy. I love it.

You can score this shit in most Asian markets, or dry goods stores around Chinatown. The wording on the package is Vietnamese, and roughly translates to something like King Beef Jerky, according to my wife.

Here are some close-ups.

Spicy: