Category Archives: Press Reviews

Italian, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

Romagna Ready 2 Go

October 10, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I was recently invited to an Instagram influencer and PR event at this little Italian joint in the village which was re-focusing its menu for the fall. I tried a few items and snapped pics for good measure.

Mushroom crostini: flavorful, but the topping was a bit too watery.

Sausage: absolutely delicious. I could eat a whole trey.

Pumpkin piadina: I wasn’t really a fan of this, which is a shame because it was the star of the show for the fall menu. It lacked flavor and the pumpkin was a bit too sweet for my savory tooth. It did have a nice texture, however, and the mushrooms were a nice addition.

We also tried some truffle french fries and truffle risotto as well, but I didn’t photograph those items. Both were very good and nice and robust with the truffle flavors.

ROMAGNA READY 2 GO
182 Bleecker St
New York, NY 10012

Brooklyn, Chinese, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Yaso Tangbao

October 9, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Soup dumplings are some of the most amazing things to eat. That burst of thick, viscous deliciousness is like nothing else in the food world. So when two friends of mine hosted an Instagram event at Yaso Tangbao, a dumpling and noodle joint in Brooklyn, I was psyched. First, I captured this footage of the guys making the dumplings. Check it out:

Then, of course, I gorged my face off on this shit. There were three varieties of soup dumpling, the best of which was the spicy (with red powder on top).

These are some of the best I’ve tried. The pouches never ripped or stuck to the paper beneath – and the flavors inside were always robust and packing great depth.

We also tried some other fun stuff:

Along with a shitload of noodle dishes. The one with the meatballs was amazing. Those meatballs are really soft and tender, made with pork.

As far as straight up meat goes, this place also slings some killer ribs.

And while this whole fish dish isn’t on the menu (staff caught it the day before and served it to us special), one awesome thing at this place is a water cooler filled with soy sauce. Yup.

YASO TANGBAO
148 Lawrence St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Carcass Club/Beast Feast, Chinese, East Village, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

The Tang

October 8, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

The Tang is a great little noodle bar on 1st Avenue at 7th Street. I was invited here for a PR event showcasing some of their current and forthcoming dishes. Everything I tasted was really fucking good, and, in fact, the noodle quality is probably the best I’ve had in town so far. They’re strong, thick, have a really nice texture and snap to them, and they’re really nicely flavored in all the dishes I tried.

The meats in all of these noodle dishes are outstanding, by the way. One had braised pork belly, one had sliced beef, and the other had ground meats.

Some of the soup noodle bowls are excellent too.

But this place is more than just noodles. One standout item was the sliced beef short rib. These babies are packed with a ton of flavor, and cooked so perfectly. You don’t see short rib presented like this too often, like a real cut of steak on a plate, so I am featuring it here for my steak reviews as well. Short rib can be fatty, and that’s why it is usually either grilled hard with tons of sauce, or braised. But here, it was leaner and notably excellent at medium rare temps, because it was cooked sous vide style for 20 hours. 8/10.

This place is really my speed, especially given this large format pork knuckle/shank dish that will be rolling out on the menu soon. It’s super soft and tender.

I also tried a sesame tofu dish, a salad with soft boiled egg, and some sliced, rolled chicken with chili oil.

THE TANG
120 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10009

Italian, Midtown West, Pizza, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Angelo’s Pizza

September 30, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Through all the years that I’ve lived and worked in midtown, I never once thought to venture into Angelo’s. It’s dumb/arrogant of me, but I always just assumed it was a tourist trap for the people going to see Letterman or Colbert next door. And being just a few streets up from Times Square and right on Broadway, I just assumed it was a shit show, like almost everything in Times Square. Boy, was I wrong.

While it may indeed get crowded at times due to the location, the pizza is definitely on point. They use a nice big coal-fired brick oven that heats up to 900 degrees.

The guys slinging the pizzas work with robot precision, and nearly every pie that comes out looks identical.

They’re not all square, obviously, and in fact these square pies are rolling out on the menu soon. The current pizza menu is quite diverse and full of really nice variations. The one that the guy was making above (at least in most of the pics) was a simple style pie with sauce, mozz, chunks of parm and basil. It was pretty good.

My friends at NYCFoodFOMO and BeFatBeHappy invited me here for an Instagram influencer event to sample and take pics of the food for promotional purposes.

The joint itself is category 1 in my pizza review taxonomy, which means that it’s a pie only place, with no sales by the slice. But it’s also a legit Italian restaurant as well with a fully stacked menu. With all that said, here’s what I tried:

There were two pizzas conceptualized by NYCFoodFOMO and BeFatBeHappy. One had sausage, roasted peppers and pepperoni, and the other had ricotta, garlic, bacon and red onions.

Here’s the first:

And the second:

Both were excellent, and the circular pies were more of a success than the square pies. I think if I had to choose one, the sausage, pepperoni and roasted peppers was the winner.

We also tried some pasta dishes. Three to be exact. The first was a nice and simple bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

The meatballs were pretty good. Nothing can compare to mom’s, but these did get the job done.

Next up was a carbonara pasta dish with fettuccine and mushrooms.

Not bad! But it just needed a touch of salt. I guess the pancetta in the dish wasn’t as salty as expected.

Finally was a shrimp and pasta dish with added baked mozz on top.

Very nice. And then we moved on to dessert. Tiramisu, cheesecake and vanilla/chocolate mousse pie.

If you’re wondering who these folks are, they’re some of the crazy Instagram food people from the event. Check out the madness:

UPDATES 7/5/17 & 7/23/17

I finally made it back to try a classic style pie. Awesome.

It is now my go-to delivery pizzeria as well.

ANGELO’S PIZZA
1697 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Filet Mignon, Fusion, Italian, Japanese, Midtown East, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Natsumi Tapas

September 28, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

When I see something that’s marketed as Japanese-Italian fusion, the first thing that comes to my mind is Super Mario Brothers, one of the best video games ever released by Nintendo.

From http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net

But now, since having this meal, the next thing that comes to mind is Natsumi Tapas. Natsumi is the latest venture by Barbara Matsumara, and it focuses on small plates for grazing and larger plates for sharing. She consulted with Italian chef Andrea Tiberi and sushi chef Hiroyuki Nagao to create a dynamic menu that gets increasingly interesting the more you look at it. I was invited in for a press meal with Jay from The Dishelin Guide, so we got to taste a lot of stuff. Here’s what we had:

First, a nice pour of sake from this very cool bottle that houses the ice inside the center without touching the sake and thereby watering it down.

This place also mixes up some really nice cocktails too, by the way, like the EMW, which is made with shiso leaf, sake and gin.

We started with this filet mignon, which was served sliced, tataki style, with a ponzu, garlic and truffle sauce. The truffle and garlic really brought an awesome fusion flavor to an otherwise Japanese flavored dish. While this wasn’t a traditional “steak” in the sense of a steakhouse cut or portion size, I’m still going to score it since it was worth discussing. 8/10. I definitely recommend this dish.

Next up was the tuna tartare martini with avocado and caviar. The orange layer at the bottom definitely had some tobiko mixed in for a nice change-up in texture. Very smart. The mango and basil pesto sauce really made this pop with unorthodox and surprisingly good flavor combinations. Also recommended.

While the flatbread wasn’t exactly the pizza dough crust that I imagined (it was more like a puffy cracker), it did pack a lot of flavor. We tried the spicy tuna caviar flatbread. It wasn’t as much of a fusion as some of the others seemed to be, like the seared salmon flatbread, but it was really delicious nonetheless. If you’ve ever had “sushi pizza” before at some other restaurants, it is somewhat similar to that, and always a crowd-pleaser.

This bowl of green tea gnocchi with asparagus and capers in a light butter sauce was absolutely perfect. Definitely my favorite item of the night, by far. While it leaned a bit more on the Italian side, it was probably one of the better gnocchi dishes I’ve had in town. The green tea flavor was very mild, but the sauce was drinkable. I highly recommend this dish when you go here. Not only was it tasty, but it was also beautiful.

We finished our savory courses with the Squarano roll; seared tuna, seared salmon, kani, avocado, scallion, pepperoncini and green tea aioli. This was pretty tasty, and nicely nestled into the fusion realm with the addition of an aioli and pepperoncini from Italian cuisine. Really, you can’t go wrong with any of their special roll selections. They all looked great.

For dessert we tried the cheese cake tempura, which was nice and crispy outside, and soft like mashed potatoes inside. It had just the right amount of sweetness, and the berry compote on the plate was the perfect way to incorporate a sauce element.

Definitely give this place a shot. It just opened in March and the place was packed to the gills when we went on a Tuesday night at 7pm. The ambiance is comfortable, not too dim, not too bright, not too loud and very spacious, which is a welcome addition to the NYC Japanese restaurant world.

NATSUMI TAPAS
323 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10010

Indian, Midtown East, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Kokum

September 28, 2016 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED

I’m generally a pretty simple person when it comes to Indian food. I love a few of the popular and Americanized curries, and almost anything in the saagwala family (stewed spinach). In addition, Indian rice like Basmati is far and away the most superior rice that I’ve ever eaten. And who could pass up the amazing tandoori oven breads like naan, or delicious fried samosas? They’re amazing. But that’s such a limited, pinhole view of an incredibly vast and diverse cuisine.

Kokum opened my eyes and my stomach to items I would never think to order. Most of my experience with Indian food in NYC is centered around ordering delivery. What tends to happen is that I end up ordering the same things from the same places because I know that I will be satisfied. That’s lazy, and it precludes a lot of great stuff from ever hitting my palate. For example, I almost never order fish for delivery, from ANY kind of restaurant for that matter, not just Indian joints. I don’t know what it is, but I just never do it.

So when my wife and I came to Kokum for a press meal, we were pretty amazed at the inundation of flavors we were getting from a pair of Indian fish dishes that we probably never would have thought to order. I’ll get to those dishes in a moment, don’t worry. I just want to keep prattling on about Indian food a bit first, because I’m seeing the greatness of the cuisine with a fresh pair of eyes now; I’m re-motivated about the food, and really eager to dive deeper.

Kokum is a great place to do make that dive. It’s been open for three years, it’s captained by a Michelin starred chef, and it’s been reviewed favorably by top notch, respectable food critics from major publications.

Chef Hemant Mathur distinguishes Kokum from the plethora of other Indian joints in Curry Hill by representing four regions in southern India: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra. With his newly re-envisioned menu, he offers some items that most casual diners like me don’t often see or wouldn’t necessarily think about when eating at Indian restaurants or ordering delivery.

So here’s a run down of our meal. I’m always eager to try beers from all over the world. These two imports, Kingfisher and Taj, were mild lagers with good flavor. I preferred the Taj for the slightly more malty and round flavor at the back end.

These little fried calamari-shaped doo-dads are multi-colored rice crackers. They come to the table at the start of the meal and are fun to snack on.

We were then presented with two shot glasses of warm tomato, tamarind and lentil soup, called rasam. This was delicious, and similar to a hearty minestrone, only with more complex spice flavors. The lentil flavor was strong here, but the soup was strained of any chunks or actual lentils, so it was velvety smooth.

We started with a pair of potato, cauliflower and pea samosas, These had a great crunchy pastry outer shell, and the inside was perfectly cooked and well seasoned.

Next up was lasoni gobi: fried cauliflower bites in a tangy sauce. Imagine a cross between General Tso’s chicken and buffalo chicken wings flavors. I was impressed! They had a crispy outside and the cauliflower was soft and tender inside. The sauce had bits of peppers and onions.

Fish poriyal came out next. This is flaky shredded fish with lime, shallots and mustard seeds, served on a banana leaf. My wife and I really loved this dish. It reminded me of some of the Vietnamese fried rice concoctions that my wife makes at home, only without the rice. Super healthy and very flavorful.

This beautiful web like thing is called appum. It’s a huge bowl-shaped rice crepe that you basically rip up and eat with curries.

Another vehicle for delivering delicious curry to your mouth is Kerala parotta, which is a multi layered bread that comes out steaming in a bamboo dumpling-style basket. Looks like onion rings with bits of potato mixed in. It’s cool bread.

This first curry is kori gassi. It’s a spicy and savory Mangalorean (an ethnic group from the south western coast of India) coconut chicken curry. This was by far my favorite item of the night. It had a great, rich and salty flavor with nicely balanced heat. The chicken was perfectly cooked, super tender, and varied by cut (both dark and white meat portions).

This next bowl is keerai masiyal: spinach, lentils and red chilies in a savory broth. Since this dish had a more soup-like consistency, it seemed to pair better with the rice. This is definitely a solid choice for you health-conscious eaters out there. It packs flavor and its satisfying, but its low on calories and fat content.

Our final entree was meen polichattu, which is roasted cod that’s wrapped in banana leaf with green masala. It comes with a side of diced, fried banana that serve as a starch element similar to a potato side. It had a nice high level of spice, was really tender and was completely devoid of any bones. Lovely!

We tried two items for dessert. The first was rasmalai. This is a cold dish of cheese balls in sweet reduced milk (like a vanilla custard soup) with pistachios. I liked this because it wasn’t too sweet.

In fact, the above cold dessert went really well when you combined it with the warm dessert, gulab jamun. These are warm cardamom dough balls in a honey-flavored and sugary sweet syrup. This was very sweet, so I loved going back and forth with the cheese balls to balance the flavors.

That about does it. I highly recommend trying this place out. I was really impressed and will definitely be back for more.

KOKUM
106 Lexington Ave
New York, NY 10016

Deli, Press Reviews, Queens, Restaurant Reviews

Ben’s Best Kosher Deli

September 26, 2016 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

You can probably count on your hands the number of real-deal, old school, authentic Kosher delis that are still standing in the same place where they started decades if not centuries ago. Ben’s Best is one of those places.

Located out in Rego Park, Queens, it lacks just one thing that places like Katz and Carnegie have in spades: a massive line of tourists that trails out the door and down the block. This place is a small, quaint neighborhood spot that has withstood the test of time and NYC real estate economics for over 70 years, since 1945.

But more importantly, Ben’s Best is serving some really high quality deli fare. This was, hands down, some of the best pastrami I have ever tasted.

Better than Katz, better than Carnegie, better than 2nd Ave. They use a proprietary secret blend of spices to make it their own and differentiate their product from other delis, but the execution is really where it shines. It was juicy, thinly sliced, not fatty and super fucking tender.

I usually prefer corned beef over pastrami, any day of the week, but this place flipped my preference on its head. In fact I even put together a sandwich with both on it, because I was so torn:

Pastrami on top, corned beef on bottom:

Absolutely magnificent, and it wouldn’t be a meal without some pickles and cole slaw:

And if that’s not what gets you going at a deli, then check out this platter of beef cold cuts:

On the far left (above) is rolled beef, something you really can’t find anywhere else that I know of. It’s a deli meat made from shoulder and rib meats that are rolled into a log and then sliced for sandwiches. It’s amazing. Going from left to right (below) we also have thin sliced brisket, roast beef and beef tongue.

That tongue was outstanding, by the way. It almost tasted like really good ham. So for all you Jews out there who keep Kosher but often wonder what ham tastes like, it tastes like Ben’s Best beef tongue.

This joint also does BBQ brisket sliders, which rival any smoke house I’ve been to in the city. Crazy good.

Ben’s is clearly a meat lover’s wet dream, but let me drop some other shit on you guys too. This is a plate of cabbage stuffed with chopped meat. It has an almost sweet flavor from the tomato and carrot sauce in which the meat is stewed.

Beef goulash on egg noodles. Simple and delicious. The meat was so incredibly tender.

Chopped liver:

A mix of sweet potato and regular french fries:

And of course Jewish Penicillin, aka matzoh ball soup:

I was invited here for an Instagram influencer event, so I ate for free, but I wholeheartedly recommend this place. It was a quick 30 minute subway ride on the R from midtown Manhattan, and the subway stop is directly below the restaurant. Not too bad. I’ll definitely be back for that amazing pastrami.

BEN’S BEST KOSHER DELI
96-40 Queens Blvd
Queens, NY 11374

Burgers, Greek, Press Reviews, Queens, Restaurant Reviews

Jimbo’s Restaurant & Bar

September 17, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Jimbo’s is a spacious neighborhood Greek bar and restaurant in Astoria, right near the Astoria Blvd subway stop. Inside there’s a nice long bar that serves up all the standard favorites, along with some Greek specialty cocktails, like Ouzo lemonade, which is a must try. From what I understand, some nights they have live music and dancing, late into the wee hours, 11pm-4am.

Large door-style windows grace the street-side of the joint, which open up nice and big on sunny days – a real treat for the tables situated along the window. We saw a rainbow after a downpour.

With a focus on fresh ingredients, Jimbo’s serves up some really nice cold spreads for snacking with pita bread at the start of your meal. We tried a trio with a salmon caviar spread, tzatziki and a potato spread.

All were excellent, but the standout was probably the caviar spread. It was fluffy, light and had a natural brine flavor from the roe. This is a great deal for $10 and the amount that you get.

Speaking of good deals, appetizer portions are massive here, so be warned! We tried the grilled octopus and grilled sausage apps, and by time we were ready to receive the entrees, we were almost at full capacity. In fact we had to take some of the sausage home!

The sausage was really excellent. It almost reminded me of blood sausage at times, but without the mealy texture that you can sometimes experience with that. It was spiced with really aromatic stuff like cumin, and had a robust and perfectly grilled earthy flavor. I would even love this chopped up a bit finer and served in a pita with tzatziki, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. Perfection. Perhaps that item would be a nice fit for the lunch menu?

Jimbo’s offers a really interesting Greek burger on a pita with melted feta, which I had ordered, but I think that is really only offered on the weekend brunch menu. So instead I was served a standard burger with fries. I added some tzatziki on top from the cold spreads to boost it up a bit, since it didn’t have cheese.

My wife had this really nice baked casserole dish with lamb and orzo called Arni Youvesti.

It comes with a dish of grated parmesan cheese for the top, which is key, because it adds the necessary salt element into the dish. My advice is to pour it all in! The lamb was cooked perfectly. It was extremely tender and the meat was high quality.

And the orzo underneath was a nice way to make this into a hearty stew. The pasta really took on the flavor of the tasty tomato sauce.

Another enticing dish on the casserole menu is Arni Kleftiko, which is lamb with potatoes, herbs and lemon in extra virgin olive oil. Unfortunately, they did not have this available when we came for dinner, but I’d definitely try that on another trip.

The dessert menu also has some great looking items. In particular, Loukoumades, which is lightly fried dough served with honey and cinnamon: Greek zeppoles. And Galaktobouriko, which is baked Greek custard cream in phyllo dough and honey syrup. They were out of Loukoumades, and we initially planned to get that and Galaktobouriko. But after our entrees, we were too stuffed to even think about dessert! Next time we will know to manage the large portions a little more carefully so that we have room for dessert and Greek coffee.

FYI: Jimbo’s served us a free meal in exchange for an honest review.

JIMBO’S RESTAURANT & BAR
3005 Astoria Blvd
Astoria, NY 11102

Commentary, Education, Full Points for Flavor, Japanese, Nolita/Soho, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Hida Beef

September 10, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Hida is a region in Japan, located in the northern part of Gifu prefecture on Honshu island. That’s west of Tokyo, but not quite as far as Kyoto or Osaka. While I’ve never been there, I can tell it’s a place that I’d definitely want to visit.

Hida is known for it’s outstanding beef (Hida-gyu), which is derived from a black-haired Japanese breed of cattle. Laws are such that, to quality as the Hida brand, the cattle has to have been raised in Gifu prefecture for at least 14 months. The beef is characterized by intense, beautiful, web-like marbling with a buttery, smooth texture that melts in your mouth. The flavor is both rich and delicate at the same time. It can be likened to the top percentiles of wagyu beef, rivaling kobe and matsusaka in quality, with marbling grades of A/B 3, 4, and 5.

I was invited to a Hida beef tasting event at EN Japanese Brasserie, one of the seven restaurants in the area that will be serving Hida beef on their menus. The other six are Brushstroke, Hakubai, Hasaki, Sakagura, Shabu-Tatsu and the Members Dining Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the first time that Hida beef is available here in the States, so if you’re a meat aficionado like me, you should definitely hit one of these places and give it a try. This stuff is expensive though, so make an occasion out of it.

I tried the beef in four different preparations: (1) sliced raw, nigiri sushi style, and then kissed with the scorching flame of a blowtorch; (2) seared edges, a tatami trio, with three different kinds of salt; (3) “Hoba-miso” style, stone grilled with miso sauce; and (4) chopped raw, tartare or ceviche style, with citrus and uni. Despite all the marbling, the meat doesn’t come off tasting very fatty, like some highly marbled cuts do. It didn’t leave a coating of waxy or fatty residue on my palate like certain cured salamis with high fat content. And it didn’t cause the flavors of whatever I ate next to change or taste different due to that fat, which is sometimes the case with aged beef and cured salami. In short, it was really a very pleasing experience.

I’ll start with my favorite preparations: (2) and (3). The tataki trio was essentially three slices of Hida beef (strip loin), each dressed with a different salt element: yuzu soy sauce, sea salt and a special red salt that had hints of spice to it. All three were great, but I think I liked the classic sea salt topper the best.

The hot stone grilled preparation, Hoba-miso, was the only one in which the beef was cooked through. This dish is local to Hida. The sliced beef is placed on Hoba (a big Magnolia leaf) with miso and scallions, which then sits directly on the surface of the hot stone. As you can see, the before and after photos of this method indicate that this beef can be thoroughly enjoyed fully cooked if you’re one of those puss-bags who is afraid to eat raw or under-cooked meat.

Fully cooking the beef did not take anything away from the meat. You still get that buttery smooth texture and melt-in-your-mouth flavor characteristics. In fact, the leaf and miso bring nice flavor accents to the beef that compliment it well. This, too, was a strip loin cut of beef, and it was presented to eat on grilled sticky rice patties.

Here’s the chef, Abe Hiroki, who was grilling these delicious morsels to absolute beef-paradise perfection:

The torched nigiri style reminded me slightly of spam musubi, for the sole reason that it was a warm meat item served atop sushi rice. Here, you can get a real, unadulterated taste of the beef in all its marbled glory. It truly is spectacular.

I’ve been eating aged beef for so long that something this pure and clean really blew me away. This was strip loin as well.

This was the sushi master behind these perfect pieces of nigiri:

Finally, this tartare or ceviche style came dressed with a citrus yuzu sauce and was topped with uni (raw sea urchin). Absolutely stunning and decadent. The reason I am interchanging tartare with ceviche is that, typically, ceviche involves fish and citrus, while tartare features meat and egg yolk. Since this dish had elements of both but not all, I figured I’d split the baby. Tarviche? Why not. Also strip loin.

The event also showcased some nice sake selections with flavors ranging from dry to sweet, traditional to aromatic and fruity.

In fact, the event began with a “breaking the mirror” ceremony on the casks of sake, as well as a sake toast.

The governor of Gifu was even in attendance, introducing the beef, the region and the customs to the audience.

The restaurant itself is beautiful, and I look forward to coming back to try some more of this amazing beef. Every preparation was 10/10 for flavor, and I highly recommend it.

EN JAPANESE BRASSERIE
435 Hudson St
New York, NY 10014

Brooklyn, Greek, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Avlee Greek Kitchen

September 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Some may think of Greek food as clunky, pedestrian or low-end if they’re wrongly associating the entire cuisine with easily accessible diners or budget friendly gyro joints. If this is how you currently view Greek food, then your perception will be changed once you dine at Avlee Kitchen in Brooklyn.

Everything here is not only beautifully presented, but also perfectly executed by the deft hands of an owner and chef that’s been in the food business for his entire life. Andrew Poulos’ parents owned and operated a restaurant in Brooklyn called Promenade when he was a kid, so he grew up with the skills to open his own joint as an adult. When he opened in 2012, Poulos aptly named his restaurant Avlee, which means garden in Greek, as a tribute to the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in which it’s located.

What you’ll find here is a humble, quaint and comfortable dining room with open and visible access to the kitchen and a garden out back. Servers and hostesses will make you feel at home, and the rustic tables and decor add to that experience. In fact, one or two dishes even reminded me of a few things my mom cooks (some Greek preparations are similar to Italian cuisine).

The flavors here are subtle but complex, and the quality of the food is on par with fine dining, only without the pretentious, prima donna attitude. Andrew is a master of his art, and he is using incredibly fresh ingredients from local fish markets and his own garden. Nothing he serves has ever been frozen, and some of the more important items are actually imported from Greece. This is the real deal. This is Greek food at its best. Even something as common in Greek cuisine as tzatziki is done with perfection here. I’ve never tasted tzatziki as good as the one you can find at Avlee.

So let me give you a quick run down of what we tried with some tasting notes to go with it.

Kria Orektika (Cold Spreads)

Fava Mani (right – chic peas with garlic, lemon, tahini and cumin)
Tirokafteri (center – feta with bell, jalapeno and cayenne pepper)
Tzatziki (left – yogurt with garlic, dill and cucumber)

These kinds of “meze” items are staples in Greek, Mediterranean and even North African and Middle Eastern cuisines. They’re a great way to get the party started. At Avlee, they’re $7 each, or you can get three for $14, which is clearly the better deal.

Orektika (Appetizers)

Tiropita (feta and egg wrapped in phyllo): these were fun and tasty little bites.

Keftethakia (pan fried beef and pork meatballs with tomato basil sauce): Sans the pork, these are the exact style in which my mother cooks meatballs. The pan-seared outside really adds great texture, and rather than stewing in sauce for hours and taking on a tomato flavor with mushy texture, these remain robust and hearty through and through. Wonderful.

Haloumi Stin Psistaria (goat cheese grilled with lemon oil dressing, also found on the grill section of the menu as a composed entree): Really nice firm cheese with grilled flavors and a satiating, meaty texture.

Fava Fritters (pan fried chic peas with scallions, feta, herbs and spices): These actually went nicely with the cold spreads above.

Salates (Salad)

Kalamaraki (grilled squid in lemon oil, served over greens): Perfectly cooked squid with great texture and grill flavors. The kalamata olives in the salad really make this dish pop.

Thalassina (From the Sea)

Lavraki (grilled whole branzino with lemon oil dressing): Great flavors here. Super tender and flaky fish, light and satisfying. Bones were easy to maneuver and skin had a good crisp in parts.

Sinotheftika (Sides)

Gigandes (white beans baked in tomato, onion and dill sauce): This almost tasted like Italian Minestrone soup due to the tomato sauce. Very nice.
Lemon Potatoes (red potatoes roasted in lemon, oil and herbs): My favorite of the sides. The lemon on all the dishes was never overpowering. Here, it had a bit more kick but it was just what I wanted to cut the starch of the potatoes.
Grilled Veggies (eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions and garlic)
Okra (braised in tomato basil sauce with crumbled feta)

Glyka (Dessert)

Baklava (walnuts and almonds wrapped in phyllo with honey syrup): Usually baklava is overly saturated with honey and rose water, to the point where one or two bites has me puckering up due to the overbearing sweetness. This one was perfect, and I liked that the phyllo wasn’t extremely crispy.

I’m not in Brooklyn very often, but this joint is located right near the F/G stop at Carroll Street, so it’s very convenient to access from most areas around the city. In fact, I think door to door it took me about 29 minutes to get there, so I’ll definitely be back when I need a good Greek fix, especially for some octopus. On this trip, I was invited in for a press review: a complimentary meal in exchange for an honest review. My honest review: excellent Greek fare, highly recommended. Go give it a try.

AVLEE GREEK KITCHEN
349 Smith St
Brooklyn, NY 11231

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carnivore connoisseur