Bufon is a new meat and seafood focused joint in the lower east side. My wife and I tried five items from a menu that we really wanted to ravage. We definitely plan to go back to try more items.
Sunchoke
This was fantastic. Really nice, fresh and mildly starchy.
Halibut
The sauce on this was crack. It was some sort of buerre blanc with bottarga.
Pork Chop
Delicious. Served with butter beans and chopped up Chinese sausage. Super unique.
Picanha
Roasted to perfection. The fat was delicious as well. Scored and rendered to become a beef gelatin of sorts. Skip the vinegar based Creole salsa and get the au poivre for a more classic Sunday roast feel. 9/10.
Crispy Confit Potato
I didn’t expect a fancy hash brown, but it was really good.
No dessert was offered yet. They literally just opened. Interior decor still a work in progress, and the windows still needed to be cleaned!
I hit Seafire Grill with some buddies from high school. While this can technically fit into the steakhouse review format, I decided to keep it quick and easy, since the thrust of the menu here is seafood.
Speaking of seafood, we had a nice selection of raw east and west coast oysters to start, along with grilled calamari and Spanish octopus.
Of course I had steak for my main course. This was a nice 8/10. Rib eye, dry-aged on sight.
Nice seared tuna entree.
The sides were all good. We did creamed spinach, truffle mashed potatoes, and caulilini. For dessert, pecan pie and apple strudel.
This southern food restaurant is a staple in NOLA. On my last trip to the “Big Easy” I was finally able to try it.
They’re known for their po’ bouys, so I had to try the Famous Ferdi special: a po’ boy packed with baked ham, roast beef, debris and gravy, served dressed.
Absolutely incredible, and I think this was the best bite of the 2025 trip.
The waitress came over and gave us this plate of collared greens, shrimp etouffee and green beans. Someone had ordered it and left, or they made an extra by mistake.
This didn’t look like much, but it was absolutely amazing! Definitely need to come back here next visit.
MOTHER’S RESTAURANT
401 Poydras St
New Orleans, LA 70130
We stopped into this joint for a quick bite. I tried the special gumbo of the day, which was called the Cajun gumbo. It consisted of chicken, andouille sausage, crawfish and shrimp. It was really tasty!
I didn’t take any photos of this place, but you can watch my Ride & Review HERE:
This is by far my favorite cheesesteak: The Long Hot. It has steak, crumbled sausage, long hot peppers, cooper sharp, and fried red onions. Perfect. And all on a fresh made sesame seed bun.
You can’t beat it. I’m so happy this place is in my neighborhood. They have great deals on Uber Eats, and awesome happy hour specials.
My wife and I stopped in here for a quick meal and drinks at the bar. Here’s what we had:
Montauk Royal Red Prawns
These beauties are served raw over ice and dusted with umeboshi (dried pickled plum). I really liked these.
American Wagyu Tartare
This was probably one of the best tartare dishes I’ve ever had. It came with crispy fried artichoke, fried shallot and ramp oil.
Smoked Pacific Oyster “Tartare”
This was essentially a dressed up tin of high quality smoked oysters, minced up with red onion and aioli, which you then spread on toast points.
Stuffed Chicken Wings
These were stuffed with stilton, pork sausage and scallion. I think there may have been some hatch chili involved too. The flavor was excellent on these.
Potato Ice Cream Sundae
Totally unique. I could taste the potato knowing that it was made from that. but otherwise I might not have. It was not too sweet, which I really appreciated. This was also served with blueberries.
I can’t wait to go back for more drinks and food. Everything was so good!
I contemplated reviewing this in my steakhouse template, with ten categories of ten points each, but it seems like the website calls this place a restaurant as opposed to a steakhouse. I think we are on the borderline, for sure. In any case, let’s get started…
For the appetizers, we went with fries and horseradish aioli, madai crudo and grilled artichokes.
These are all great but the fries took the cake. They’re an absolute must. It may seem like a waste to get one of the sauces, but the horseradish aioli will work well with your steak later on, so it’s not a bad deal to grab one. The madai was really fresh and bright, and had some added meatiness and texture from the sliced caperberries in the garnish. Great touch! The grilled artichokes really popped because of the mint on there. I haven’t ever had that combination of flavors before. I like it!
On a second visit, we started with the wagyu French dip, which is probably the best item I’ve eaten here.
We also had the tuna tartare on another visit. This was perfect.
For our mains, we did the chicken paillard and the bone-in dry-aged strip steak. Both were incredible. The steak was perfectly cooked to medium rare and sported a mild aged flavor. I would definitely get this again. I give it a score of 9/10.
On a second visit, the dry-aged rib eye (boneless) pulled in with the same score. We also tried the 4oz Margaret River wagyu strip (boneless). Another 9/10.
The chicken was pounded super thin and almost had a potato chip crust on the top side. It comes with a really nice salad that had a good amount of acid in it. This was actually nice to cut the fat of the steak between bites.
For dessert, we had their apple pie with vanilla spice ice cream, and their Samoa cookie sundae. The apple pie was absolutely perfect, and it came with a little container of ice cream that reminded me of the kind you used to get from the ice cream truck, with the little paper tab on the top!
On a second visit, the little tub of ice cream was gone, but a nice raised glass was filled with a nicer ice cream. We also tried the Szechuan peppercorn -seasoned melon, which was nice.
That pie was probably the best dessert I’ve had in years. The sundae was good – a nice soft serve ice cream was under there – but over all there was a little bit too much salt content that took away from the Samoa flavors.
This place is definitely worth visiting again. I can’t wait to try more of their menu!
THE CORNER STORE
475 West Broadway
New York, NY 10012
