I had a “Big Braddah” combo plate that consisted of imu pit kalua pork and teriyaki chicken. These meats were served on a bed of rice that was seasoned with shoyu/soy sauce, and served with a side of “potato-mac,” which is macaroni salad mixed with potato salad. Pretty brilliant, and it seemed to be an island staple side dish of sorts, as I ended up seeing it all over the place.
Everything was good. The chicken was really tender, juicy and flavorful. The pork was awesome too. It wasn’t drenched in sauce like I expected, and it wasn’t dry at all.
My wife ate what I consider to be Hawaii’s signature fast casual dish: Loco Moco. Essentially this is a chopped steak, or a large-sized, seasoned hamburger, on a bed of rice and topped with gravy, onions, an egg, sesame seeds and other tasty things, depending on the particular restaurant. This, too, was served with potato-mac. This was the better meal of the two here, simply because… well, burger + egg + gravy, I guess. It packed a ton of flavor and was a really generous portion.
I ended up eating half of my wife’s dinner as well as my own. This joint is fast casual, and fair-priced. You order your food and eat at tables like any fast food joint. I was impressed with the quality given the fact that five people ate dinner for a total of $65.
I even tried a bite of my sister’s chow funn (for some reason they use two n’s in Hawaii). This was pretty good too. Big serving size, good, thick noodles too.
After a gut-stretching meal like that, we slept like babies…
I had pineapple and coconut with a topping of hao pia (coconut cream). Refreshing, smooth and light. This place is a little shack type joint that serves the ice in styrofoam cups instead of the traditional flower looking cone cup thing.
I became aware of this little joint while hunting for shave ice places after getting hooked on my trip to Hawaii.
Technically, this is “shaved cream,” whatever that means. If I had to guess, I’d say that the block of ice they are shaving is creamier and has different ingredients and flavorings within other than water, which is what you have with shave ice. You can see the milky-colored block of ice on the shaver machine here (it’s white, not clear):
The logo is fun: a cartoonish, cute yeti…
…and the menu is pretty interesting, with great combinations of flavors that you don’t always see represented in ice cream or Italian ice places.
I went with “original,” which was sweet milk cream (shaved), topped with Cap’n Crunch, blueberries and peanut butter sauce.
The flavors were awesome together. It tasted like someone froze my cereal and then put the ice into a high powered blending machine. One critique: I think they need to layer the sauce a bit. Toward the bottom, my “sweet milk ice” was a bit bland – similar to when the syrup doesn’t get down to the bottom of the shave ice cup to penetrate all the ice. Unlike shave ice, however, there aren’t bottles of syrup that get poured on top. The flavor is in the ice itself already, I suppose. But a string or two of that peanut butter sauce down in the middle or at the bottom would have helped tremendously.
My wife had green tea flavored ice with mochi and grass jelly. This is undoubtedly inspired by Asian desserts. The green tea ice was very natural tasting. Not sweet, but very “green tea”-ish. In other words, anyone would easily identify that flavor.
I will definitely be back here. It was a really interesting take on the shave ice concept, and it felt way healthier to eat than both ice cream and shave ice.
After our trip to Hawaii, my wife and I were in dire need of a shave ice fix. Luckily we got wind of a joint out in Babylon, near where we used to live. We were out there for the weekend anyway, since I was running in the inaugural Suffolk County Marathon. This was the perfect way to cut my nerves the day before the race. Check out the flavors:
Look at the size of this medium!
Overall it was a pretty legit experience. The ice seemed correct to me, but my wife thought that maybe they weren’t using distilled water (she said the ice was harder or chunkier than in Hawaii). The flavors were right on though. Very similar to what we tasted over there in the islands. The prices were the same too.
FIRE ISLAND SHAVE ICE
450 Fire Island Ave.
Babylon, NY 11702
My wife and I were invited to another awesome Tabelog event – this time at a new gelato parlor on 18th & 8th called Amorino.
This place is known for its beautifully crafted cones that look like flowers, and their unique flavors like pistachio and biscotti.
If you see this fellow, be nice! He’s the owner, Federico:
Our task was to rate a bunch of flavors on a scale of 1-5 using this nifty score card:
The flavors came around in little sample cups like this:
And we were permitted to ask for pretty much anything else that we wanted to try. Check out this wild mix:
My favorites were pistachio, yogurt and biscotti.
At the end of the tasting, there was a little blind taste test going on:
I got 3 out of 4 correct, with my one mistake being a tech-fault. I wanted to write raspberry but since it wasn’t passed around as a sample earlier, I just didn’t think it existed. So I wrote strawberry instead. Lesson: Always trust your taste buds! I was right, but I was wrong. Oh well.
Afterward, they passed around some of their awesome gelato-filled macarons:
These were really good! I definitely recommend hitting this place for a tasty and unique treat.
The story behind Minton’s jazz club is pretty great. The way it worked, back in the day, was this: Musicians would be given a free meal of soul food if they played. They were allowed to solo, as long as they could keep up with the house band. At the time, that house band was run by the great Thelonious Monk. His style was tough to keep up with for most musicians, but guys like Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were able to hang with him when they came in to play and eat.
The joint closed in 1974, reopened in 2006, then closed again in 2010, and reopened again in late 2013. The neighborhood has undergone some dramatic changes in real estate values, demographic, businesses that operate there, etc. If I had to guess, I’d say that tho splice is not going to close again anytime soon. The music and food are just too good.
First, let’s get your appetites brewing with a little bit of battle jazz:
Now, I’ll tell you about the delicious food we ate. My wife picked up a Living Social deal for the amazing price of about $90, which included two apps, two entrees, a shared dessert, two cocktails and a jazz album to take home, on top of the great music that you get to watch and listen to while you’re there.
The first thing to come out where a pair of balls: hush puppies for an amuse. These were tasty: crunchy on the outside, pillowy on the inside.
I started with the fried green tomatoes. Two thick, tangy slices of tomato were fried to a golden crisp and topped with hot smoked arctic char and dandelion greens, which were deftly dressed with a creole dressing. I’ve only had fried green tomatoes a few times in my life, but he addition of smoked fish on top was really incredible. It added substance, flash and style to an otherwise ordinary dish. I loved it.
My wife had the deviled crab cake, which tasted exactly how it sounds. It was meaty and spiced, and came with some black eyed peas and celery leaves for texture and herbiness. A really nice southern take on a northeast classic.
The music roared as we mowed through our apps…
We sipped on a pair of delicious cocktails while enjoying the band. I had something called a prima, which consisted of sage infused rye, sorrel syrup, lemon juice, aromatic butters and agave honey. My wife had the satchmo, which was made with smoky is lay scotch, bourbon, bale syrup and bitters.
…And soon enough the entrees were served.
I ordered the venison burger, which was topped with farm cheese, blackberry onion jam and country ham, with a side of yucca fries (I think that’s what they were).
The burger was smoky from the country ham, and the melty cheese was thick and sharp, Everything was cut nicely by the sweet blackberry onion jam, which I think they can bottle and sell as a gourmet BBQ sauce. Really tasty. The venison wasn’t gamey or funky: It was tender and packed with robust flavor, and it was cooked to a perfect medium rare:
Those fries though… WOW. Nice and crispy with a crunchier texture than potato. They had a good snap to them, and they were perfectly fried and seasoned.
My wife had the buttermilk fried guinea hen. This was served with a bourbon peach tea glaze, black eyed peas and pickled collared stems for a bit more crunch and punch. The meat itself was perfectly cooked. It was nice and juicy, with tons of flavor coming at you from every angle. There was even a hint of maple syrup for that chicken and waffles type of flavor.
For dessert we had the lemon tart with blueberry sorbet and shaved fruit leather. This was nice and tangy, and the shell around the lemon curd was super light and airy. A light and refreshing way to end a great meal:
MINTON’S JAZZ CLUB
206 W. 118th St.
New York, NY 10026
While I really can’t give a full-blown review of this place because I got my doughnut from Whole Foods, I can tell you that I absolutely loved the frosted blueberry doughnut. It was absolutely perfect. Soft, moist, flavorful, cake and delicious. Can’t wait to eat more of these fucks now that I know Whole Foods stocks them on site.
Side note: the PB&J doughnut is intensely good. Essentially it is a glazed donut that’s filled with jelly and then topped with chunky peanut butter. Why hasn’t this ever been done before?!?? And the coconut cream doughnut was amazing too.
This little crepe spot just opened around the corner from my place, on 7th Avenue at 58th Street. They serve both sweet and savory crepes, with stuff that’s suitable for everything from breakfast to lunch to dessert.
My wife and I came for the dessert varietals. I got a butter and sugar crepe with bananas, and my wife got dolce de leche with strawberries and raspberries.
Pretty great! Light batter, airy and crisp. I have to come back and try the savory offerings.
City Kitchen is a small second floor food hall that has some pretty decent proprietors in it. All of the food sold within is pretty much meant for take-out as opposed to dine-in, though there are a few tables available and bar seating along with windows.
I’ve decided to lump all of my reviews for each place within into this one post for easy access.
First is Kuro Obi, the ramen joint at the far end.
This is an offshoot of Ippudo. They offer the karaka-men spicy pork and chicken broth ramen. It was good. The noodles were the wavy egg style, and all the ingredients within were great. I just wish for $13 I got more than two thin slices of the pork belly.
Next up was Whitman’s for a burger and fries.
The burger was great – cooked nicely to medium, good pickles, mayo coverage, lettuce and tomato. Excellent bun (potato) as well.
The fries were lackluster. Maybe I should have upgraded to blue cheese fries. They were just a little greasy and not crispy enough.
For dessert get some “shaved snow,” An ice-cream textural spin on shave ice.
We had the banana cream, finished with some coconut shavings and condensed milk (and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal).
Nab some donuts from Dough on your way out. But if you see the famous hibiscus flavored ones, get as many as you can. They sell out quick.
We tried lemon poppy and chocolate this time. Both were amazing, doughy, big, soft, and flavorful even if not fresh out of the oven/fryer. But I was bummed that the hibiscus was all gone by time we finished our ramen and burger. Ahh what the hell… I’ll throw in some shots of the hibiscus donut from way back when I first tried them at another location:
CITY KITCHEN
Row NYC
700 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10036
La Frite is a little french fry joint on Macdougal just above Bleecker. They have a great $8 special that gets you two sliders and an order of fries. Not too bad.
But my wife and I actually liked the veggie slider (the actual veggie one, not the black bean one) better than the beef slider! Go figure.
For the fries, you can cheese regular or thin cut, and you can also get them “signature” style, with bacon crisps on top, or truffle fries (sprinkled with parmesan cheese and fried with truffle oil involved in the process). We tried thin truffle fries, and regular classic cut fries. We liked the thin cut truffle fries better, though we didn’t try any of the special dipping sauces (just mayo and ketchup).
I don’t know that I’d go out of my way for these fries. There are better around the city, but I like the idea of a french fries only type of place.
