First, check out my Ride & Review video HERE:
This new spot is located on 1st Street near 2nd Avenue. They offer a 14-course omakase for $88. We enjoyed the fatty tuna pieces, the shrimp, the king salmon appetizer, and especially the “New York” salmon piece (with tomato) and the tuna hand roll at the end.
I would definitely go back for seasonal menu changes and specials.
KAWA OMAKASE
37 E 1st St.
New York, NY 10003
First, check out my Ride & Review HERE:
My wife and I stopped in this place for drinks a while back, and we made note to come back to try the food next time we were down by the seaport. Here’s what we had:
Fried Calamari with Banana Peppers
I wish the banana peppers were battered and fried too, but these were really nicely seasoned and fried.
Al Pastor Tacos
These were expensive at essentially $6/ea, but they were tasty and nicely made.
Fish & Chips
Great fries. Great fish quality, but the batter needs to rest on a cooling rack before being served on the plate. The spots that were touching the plate turned to mush or got soggy, most likely because they hit the plate when they were too hot and couldn’t properly “breathe” on those sides.
I would definitely go back to try the Old Bay flavored chicken tenders, and of course to enjoy their $10 shot and beer special.
DORLAN’S TAVERN & OYSTER BAR
213 Front St.
New York, NY 10038
First, check out my Ride & Review HERE:
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!
BAR CONTRA
138 Orchard St.
New York, NY 10002
First, check out my Ride & Review HERE:
My wife and I came here for a quick meal to try a few items. Here’s what we had:
Complimentary Bar Snack
Castelvetrano olives and potato chips? Both high quality? Count me ALL THE WAY IN!
Bean Salad
This was a nice, light, yet filling way to start the meal. A substantial amount of beans!
Veal Milanese
This was great. Nice batter fry on this, and it came with a bright, punchy arugula salad.
Olive Oil Ice Cream
For dessert, we had the olive oil ice cream. The flavor was a bit lacking, but otherwise it was creamy and tasty.
I’d definitely come back here to try more stuff.
BAR BIANCHI
5 Avenue A
New York, NY 10009
First, check out my Ride & Review HERE:
We did the 17-course omakase, which was $125. This was definitely worth the price of admission. Favorites included the oyster and salmon appetizers, as well as the otoro, uni and king crab pieces.
Even the dessert, sesame panna cotta, was nice.
I would definitely go back here.
SUSHI LIN
151 Rivington St.
New York, NY 10002
First, check out my Ride & Review video HERE:
My wife and I hit up this Caribbean/Haitian joint called Rebel nearby. We started with some nice cocktails. Mine was the tumbler – lime, burnt sugar and rum. It was really nice without being too sweet.
We had their jerk wings, which were super tender, and perfectly spicy.
For our mains, we shared fried pork with red beans and rice, and stewed goat with black mushroom rice. Both were great, but we agreed that the stewed goat was the winner. Also the black rice was excellent (no pics, but it’s in the video).
For dessert, we tried their potato bread pudding. This had nice flavors, but the texture was different from what I expected when hearing “bread pudding.” In any event, I think this would be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
Careful when paying at this place. The 18% tip is already included on your bill. While this is illegal (can only do it with 15% for parties of 6 or more, last I recall), we still gave an extra $5 on top since the service and food were both great. We would definitely go back.
REBEL
29 Clinton St.
New York, NY 10002
First, check out my Ride & Review video HERE:
I took my wife to Crevette for our anniversary for a nice seafood-focused dinner. The cocktails here are nice. I did a classic martini, and instead of bread the table was adorned with a small place of mixed olives.
Here’s what we had to eat:
Pink Shrimp:
These were a bit pricey but they were indeed tasty. I’m not sure they were work $8 each, however.
Red Shrimp Carpaccio:
This was delicious. Easily the winner between the two shrimp starters. I would get this again for sure.
We threw in some meat here with a blood sausage and merguez sausage skewer, as well as an octopus skewer.
Both were nice but I think I preferred the octopus.
Next up were the mushroom courses.
Mushroom and Foie Gras with Egg:
This was great but we only had two small pieces of foie on the dish. I was hoping for a bit more. The mushrooms were delicious though.
Spanish Tortilla with Ramps & Morels:
This was probably my favorite dish of the night. The tortilla was really nicely made, and the morels were absolutely perfect. Ramps are always nice when they’re in season.
For one of our mains, we did the lamb ribs:
These were delicious. That had a nice candied bark on the outside. I just wish that I liked the sauce a bit more. It was sort of eggplant-ish.
We also had the Dover sole for two.
The woman who filleted this table side did a horrific job of getting the meat off of the bones. We ended up having to eat very carefully to avoid gagging on the tiny bones. The fish was nice, but I would not get this again. I would have liked a little bit of crisp on the skin. I think perhaps I was expecting a different preparation.
For dessert, we did a soft serve sundae and a lemon tart. Both of these were excellent. I think I liked these next best, just after the Spanish tortilla with morels.
CREVETTE
10 Downing St.
New York, NY 10014
The Corner Store is a new bistro type American restaurant over on West Broadway and Houston.
Check out my Ride & Review video HERE first:
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!
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.
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!
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
My wife found out about a special dairy cow beef dinner at ACRU, in which cuts from all over the animal are featured on the tasting menu. We gave it a shot! But check out my Ride & Review video for this meal HERE first:
Okay so here’s the menu we had:
The first round of bites came with some raw sliced beef in a tart shell. Admittedly, I forgot what the waiter said about that item. I assume it was the “tetaki” (misspelled on the menu I think). Tataki is a Japanese preparation that basically means seared outside and raw inside, and that seems to match what we had on the tart. It was good!
This next plate had bresaola and a skewer of yakitori style tongue. Both of these were great, but my wife had some chewy bits on her skewer. I definitely wanted more of that bresaola!
Next up was a duo of raw applications: neck tartare and shabu shabu style top round.
The top round could have been sliced a bit thinner, or perhaps swapped out for tenderloin, but otherwise it was good and flavorful. I think the beef broth that came with it could have been hotter too, that way the meat would cook a little bit, like it does in shabu shabu or Vietnamese pho.
Both my and my wife’s tartare dishes were a bit chewy in parts. Otherwise it was tasty though. I really liked the horseradish and crispy salsify.
Next up was brisket. It was intensely flavorful and peppery, but I definitely needed to eat it with the slaw because it was a bit too dry. This was served with some beef fat brushed flatbread as well.
For the main course, we had 60-day dry aged strip and rib eye.
The strip was from the back end of the loin, where there’s some connective tissue that separates the strip loin muscle from the sirloin muscle. This was easy enough to identify and cut around for someone who knows their meat anatomy, but I could see someone complaining if they chewed on that seam. I liked the fact that we essentially got to try two different muscles here, and the sauce on this, with the allium, was delicious.
The rib eye was beautifully plated, and simply treated/cooked, but I think we preferred the flavor of the strip/sirloin. Both had a mild aged flavor and were perfectly cooked to medium rare. The rib eye came with some greens and a scallion pancake as well.
The chuck meat pie was fun, but I think It could have been made bigger and better by incorporating some potato, peas and carrots inside. Perhaps they were going for a purist’s approach here, to focus on the flavor of the chuck. The sauce was delicious on this, and the pastry was perfect.
Dessert was our favorite part of the meal, I think.
This first dish was sort of like a deconstructed tres leches cake. It was excellent.
To finish off the meal, we had some beef fat caramels. These were nice. A rare treat around these parts. I think this is an Aussie or British thing. The flake sea salt really made them pop.
All in this was a fun meal. I probably wouldn’t do it again, since I felt like, while there were some hits, there were some misses as well, and, over all, the portions were a bit small. I get that this is a tasting menu, but I went home hungry after we spent nearly $400 (the same thing happens to me with omakase). I do, however, definitely want to try some of the larger items from their regular menu, namely the duck crown and the Denver steak.
ACRU
79 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
I finally made it over to Greenpoint to try out the papa restaurant to Carnitas Ramirez.
I ate two tacos here on a really quick pit stop while riding with some ebike nerd friends. I tried the tripe, which was buttery and almost tasted like foie gras, and the al pastor. The al pastor was probably the best of its kind that I’ve ever had. Nice grilled pineapple, really tasty and generous amount of flavorful and juicy meat, and a little bit of crisp skin.
This place is a winner, and there’s a reason why it draws a lot of long lines and hype. It’s worth it. Luckily for us, there were no lines and the food came out in about 12 seconds (not kidding).
TAQUERIA RAMIREZ
94 Franklin St.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
