This Thai joint serves up “isan” style Thai food, which is generally saltier, spicier and more pungent with ingredients like fish sauce than the typical sweet Thai places you see around town. They still serve up an amazing sweet Thai iced tea, though:
This first plate is crispy beef with a tangy hot sauce. These were very similar to the dish I tried at Thai Select in Thai Town.
The Tom Yum soup was very good. It had a great acid base from the tomatoes, and it was spicy. The mix of seafood was fish balls, shrimp and squid.
Below was a crispy pork belly dish. This was heavily fish-sauced and spicy. It was really nice.
This platter below contained various meats, like head cheese, crispy pork, pork rinds, noodles and cabbage.
Japanese BBQ is some of the best shit around. Unlike Takashi in the west village, this joint offers all sorts of meats as well as fish. Takashi is just beef.
That’s pretty commendable of Takashi, but every once in a while I hunger for some pork. Yakiniku West delivered in what was essentially a “Bang Bang” meal, as we had just finished eating Thai food an hour or two earlier.
So we began our meat fest by kicking off our shoes, popping them into some cubbies and drinking some nice sake.
The starter plates came out. First was an agedashi tofu dish, and the next was a eggy pancake of sorts with seafood mixed in and topped with shredded bonito flakes. Both were good, but the pancake dish was top notch!
This first platter of meat came out that had a few different kinds of beef, including tongue, as well as pork belly and duck.
This shit cooked up nicely. Watch as it sizzles… “Tssssssss…”
We couldn’t stop there, not on a “Bang Bang,” so we grabbed a plate of chicken gizzards, mixed beef intestines (liver, tripe, stomach) and some extra tongue. Everything was delicious!
“Meat in the Middle” (4.8% abv) is a rauchbier that’s brewed with slow-smoked NY State barley. What makes it special and “meaty” is that it’s smoked with cherry wood at Brooklyn specialty butcher and sandwich shop, The Meat Hook.
The beer itself is pretty good. You get a hint of that smoke in there, with a malt-forward beer flavor. Very nice. I tried it in a flight of some other goodies. In this photo, it’s all the way on the left:
The porters and dark beers here are really fantastic:
After working up a little buzz, we hopped on one of the brewery tours and picked up some additional info about the brew process:
By then we were hungry, so we ventured upstairs to try some of the sausages that The Meat Hook was selling.
We tried both the Long Dong Bud and the Beet & Onion sausages.
Check out the color on the Beet & Onion. Incredible! It was really nice, and topped with a kale kimchi type of slaw that really made the flavors pop.
Long Dong Bud was topped with some shredded cheese, and a pineapple relish. It definitely had more of a traditional German type flavor profile, other than the relish.
We were torn on which we liked best. I went one way (Long Dong Bud), and Jay went the other (Beet & Onion). In any event, if you can get over to The Meat Hook and try these, I highly recommend them.
Ben Turley, a butcher from The Meat Hook, gave us a demo of how he breaks down a “rear quarter” of a cow – a beef shank (a back leg).
As he explained what he was doing, he trimmed off various specialty cuts within, like the oyster steak and merlot steak.
Here’s a shot of the oyster steak:
And some various other items like portions of the top round and eye of round.
He parted out the femur bone, too.
The coolest thing about this was that they were just slicing up parts of the lean beef sections and passing it around to eat raw, with just a little bit of salt on top. Awesome!
One of the thicker cuts benefited from just a quick, hot sear:
So this day was basically a dream come true. Good beer, Good food and a dead cow. And Ben basically has my dream job.
On my way out, I picked up a jar of this really crazy banana jam too, from Stagg Jam & Marmalade.
They had a table set up where you could try all four of their jams on crackers. This bacon jam has a hint of citrus and vanilla that really explodes with flavor.
ROCKAWAY BREWERY
46-01 5th St.
Long Island City, NY 11101
NYC restaurant week now includes this joint at the One57 building on Billionaire’s Row, “The Back Room.” They offer a really great menu. The decor is beautiful and vast. It’s a huge place. Tables are wide and spacious. Very different from the usual situation in NYC.
The onion bread with garlic and herb cream cheese is a delicious way to start the meal here:
We also sipped on some really excellent cocktails.
The charcuterie board had five different styles of cured meat with some pickled items. I thought this was really generous. The quality of these meats was top notch, too. Coppa, cacciatorini, fennel sausage, soppressata, spicy nduja, lardon. The fat content was so soft and sticky that it was clinging to the bottom of my tongue like peanut butter. So good.
We also had the reginetti pasta, which are like little squiggly brain shapes that hold the sauce nicely in the convolutions.
For our main courses we went with the beef cheek and the quail. The beef cheek was braised in red wine to a perfect tenderness that still retained a nice juicy inside. It was served on a parsnip and rutabaga puree, and topped with crispy onions and a red onion jam.
My wife’s quail dish was nicely cooked and had good flavor, but it was slightly gamey. The quail was in no way bad. It just didn’t hit the same high mark as the beef.
Dessert was pretty great. Maybe restaurants in NYC are finally understanding that people want to see something different than tiramisu, creme brûlée, chocolate cake and fucking flan. First up was this cocoa toffee pudding with brulee’d bananas, salty cocoa nibs and malted coconut ice cream. Excellent.
We also had the meyer lemon zabaglione with whipped tea, lemon confit and earl grey ice cream. Very inventive and unique, and a nice bright way to end a meal.
The waiter, Ivan, was great. He even brought over a candle and complimentary glass of honeyed dessert wine for my wife since they knew it was her birthday (was mentioned on the Open Table reservation).
On a second visit I tried their two-course lunch for $32, along with a taste of a few other things that the rest of the table had.
First was this delicious grilled octopus.
The texture was perfect. While the chimichurri-esque green sauce was a bit bland, I did like it a lot with the octopus, and even with the table bread as well.
I went with the skirt steak for my main course.
The dollop of garlic butter on top really added a great flavor and creaminess to the cut. It was perfectly cooked to medium rare.
While the steak itself was a bit small, it did pack a ton of flavor. 8/10.
Here’s a look at the lobster roll on the lunch menu. I think it could use a bit more quality, large chunks of claw meat. The bread was solid, but I’ve had better lobster rolls elsewhere.
The duck leg confit was brilliant. So tender and juicy, and beautifully plated as well.
And speaking of beautiful plating, this bowl of fried oyster mushrooms with lemon are served with an edible chive blossom.
For dessert we sampled a trio of eclairs and a chocolate espresso cake, which was super soft, smooth and decadent. The texture was more like soft fudge or a thick custardy pudding.
Of the three eclairs, I liked the pink and red one the best. All three had great creamy fillings and were beautiful as well as tasty.
THE BACK ROOM AT ONE57
157 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
My wife scooped up a flash deal for this place that offered five courses with a bottle of wine.
We got to sample a little bit of everything. I’ll hit you with a rundown of everything below:
The first thing I will say is that this place needs to do better with the pacing of the service. Everything pretty much came out all at once. The table was extremely cluttered as a result, and things inevitably spilled. I don’t mind too much, but maybe the kitchen needs to think about that when they receive orders.
We “started” with the spicy salmon salad to share. This was essentially a bed of lettuce topped with onions, diced salmon sashimi and spicy mayo. I thought it was delicious. Simple and tasty.
The two sliders we tried were “Jack’s” and “The American.” “Jack’s” had bacon, onions and a spicy mayo, while “The American” was a simple lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese burger. The better of the two was Jack’s. It was nicely seasoned, had a good char, was cooked just right, and even had their dog logo pressed into the bun.
We devoured these with an order of the old bay and herb french fries. These were excellent: golden crisp! Glad we ordered these above and beyond what the flash deal provided.
Our next course was ramen. We tried the pork and beef bowls, skipping a sushi choice. The pork ramen was bland and lacked flavor – even the pork meat itself, which looked great, was just a little too boring. In hindsight, I wish we ditched the pork ramen and went with a sushi roll instead.
The beef ramen had a good salt level, decent thin-sliced meat, and a thicker broth. That was the winner of the two, but I would say that if ramen is your game, then you should go to another place. This place is better for the burgers and sushi, and the ramen comes off more Chinese in flavor than Japanese.
Our next item was braised short rib. The veggies here were useless. They tasted frozen or over-steamed or something. Not much flavor. But the beef itself was good. The meat was soft and tender, and the fat was all edible.
Our wine was actually good. We went with the merlot instead of cabernet, chardonnay or pinot grigio. I thought it was going to be a headache-inducing acid reflux fest, but it was smooth and mild.
For dessert, we tried two ice cream sandwiches. One was a sugar cookie with cookies and cream ice cream in between, and the other was red velvet cake with taro ice cream in the middle. Both were good, but we liked the sugar cookie better. The cookie held up better than the cake as “sandwich” material.
Overall this was a decent meal. Skip the ramen, stick to the raw fish and burgers, and get the fries. That should keep you happy.
JACK’S SLIDERS & SUSHI
171 3rd Ave.
New York, NY 10003
NOTE: THIS PLACE HAS MOVED AND I HAVE AN UPDATED REVIEW: CLICK HERE.
My wife and I were recently invited to Nai, a Spanish tapas bar in the east village, for a press dinner.
This place slings classic Spanish tapas that hail from Galicia, but they also serve some high-end molecular gastronomy as well as fine dining cuisine. But at first glance, the inside might not make you think about fine dining. By no means do I mean to suggest that the decor is not good. On the contrary. It’s set up like a warm, inviting and cozy tavern. Very low key. There’s lots of custom dark wood fixtures and furniture, and even some artwork on the walls.
On the food and service angle, though, this place is nothing short of 5-star dining. What you’re getting here is high quality fine dining in a cozy, rustic setting, with beautiful plating and stellar service, all at an affordable price. The 40 different tapas on the menu range from $6 to $15 a piece. I mean, shit… they even offer a prix fixe deal for 12 or more guests: 10 dishes and unlimited open bar for 2.5 hours at just $45. That’s unheard of!
The wine list is 95% Spanish, and all the beer on tap and in bottles are also Spanish, with the exception of one Ommegang farmhouse saison (one of my favorites, which was served with our first courses). I tasted this refreshing wheat beer:
In April or May, Nai will expand its space into an upstairs second floor, which will have an open view test kitchen and a more experimental menu. In addition, the wine list will become 100% Spanish, with a much larger selection.
They offer happy hour specials, a live flamenco band and flamenco dancing on Thursdays and Saturdays, and six different flavors of sangria, including mango and blueberry. Pitchers of sangria are just $22 during happy hour and all night Monday through Wednesday.
Nai means “mother” in Gallego, which is meaningful because Chef Ruben has garnered all of the traditional tapas recipes from his mother (also a chef and restaurateur), and in turn, his mother’s mother. He’s added his own touch since studying under famous Spanish chefs from Europe, picking up newer, more modern and more technical styles. There are 15 tapas that he considers to be core items, which are always available on the menu. The other 25 items change seasonally.
Having grown up in his mother’s restaurants in Spain, Ruben is comfortable in, and passionate with, his craft. He’s always striving for more, to be better, to take his food to the next level, and he’s constantly shooting for perfection. This passion is reflected in his food, as what I tasted at this meal was truly some of the best tapas I’ve ever had.
Essentially we had a multi-course fine dining experience here, with wine pairings for each. I’ll take you through each course below.
This first bite was a hint of that molecular gastronomy style of high-tech cheffery. It looks like an olive, but it is essentially a small edible water balloon filled with liquefied olive. A great way to open up the taste buds.
Next up was a platter of thinly sliced jamon and a bowl of marinated REAL olives. Very simple, very beautiful, and very delicious.
Those two courses paired with the Ommegang farmhouse saison.
These mini-airbags were like a crispy yet soft pastry filled with creamy manchego cheese foam. It was cool and savory. I immediately exclaimed that I could pop these for hours. Very deadly.
There was also this delicious plate of bluepoint oysters with a lemon foam as garnish. These go for $14 per half dozen. Not bad! They’re bright, crisp, creamy and fresh.
Those bites were paired with cava that was mixed with lemon, orange rind and fresh mint. Watch as David Martinez, co-owner, wine director and general manager, swirls it up before pouring:
The next course was one of two favorites for me; a delicious sea bass wrapped in thin-sliced crispy toast and then topped with asparagus that was wrapped in prosciutto. What a perfect bite here! Soft, crunchy, savory, juicy and light.
In fact that’s something that runs through all the courses here: lightness. Nothing felt heavy or burdensome to eat, which is a feat given the ham-heavy offerings available here.
Shrimp in garlic sauce was next. The sauce on these babies was amazing. We sopped it up with some bread after devouring all the perfectly cooked shrimp in the skillet.
This next dish is crab meat wrapped in avocado and then topped with crisped ham sprinkles. It was a lot like a sushi roll, though I felt that it needed a touch of finishing salt. The crispy ham on top didn’t quite have that savory salt-punch that I expected. In any event, this was a light, fresh and creamy-textured dish.
Those fish items were paired with an albarino single grape wine that was crisp and refreshing.
This palate cleanser was watermelon infused with sangria and topped with mint leaf.
The next dish was smoked chicken with Asian bbq glaze. The chicken is pre-smoked with hickory wood, then cooked sous vide style for hours, then glazed and skewered. The presentation is great with this dish. Watch as David lifts the cloche and wafts the smoke:
The chicken was tender and soft, and the glaze was key for adding that salty, spicy-sweet kick.
We also had these fried croquettes that were filled with ham. They had a potato and cheese flavor and feel, with a crisp cornmeal texture on the outside.
This pork belly was super soft, and was served with a carrot puree and toasted pecans. It reminded me of Thanksgiving dinner!
These bites were paired with a three-grape red wine blend of cabernet, temperanillo and monestrell grapes. Super smooth.
Here comes my other favorite of the night: spicy basque chorizo, with manchego cheese and piquillo pepper on toast, topped with a fried quail egg. This is upscale breakfast at its finest! It had spice, smoke, fat, and ooey-gooeyness. The texture was dynamic.
The final savory course was this short rib platter. It came with fire roasted shishito peppers and diced potatoes in a cheese sauce. Very hearty but not heavy. It was a Spanish tapas nod to great American BBQ, if I had to fit it into a pre-conceived food notion.
These were paired with crianza red wine from an area south of Rioja, made with a temperanillo grape called “tinto fino.”
For dessert we had a small stick of pear flavored cotton candy. It was fun, and actually tasted like a mix of pear and sour apple.
Finally, there was this incredible chocolate filled churro. The outside was crisp and light, and the inside was soft and fluffy. It was filled with a melty chocolate and nutella mixture that was decadent.
Dessert was paired with a nice sweet white moscatel dessert wine.
This place is amazing. I will definitely be back for happy hour, sangria night and flamenco night. I think my next party or event will probably be here too. There’s amazing food, amazing service and everything is really fairly priced.
A good thing to know for those with diet restrictions: Chef Ruben whipped up this vegetarian menu with only 30 minutes notice regarding one of the press meal invitees. I tasted a few things from this menu, and they were all delicious.
This is a review of the buffet dinner at Crystal Palace in Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
For $42 it is all-you-can-eat, and they even have some decent meat carving stations with roasted sirloin and turkey. The star, for me, was the achiote pork. I found a big chunk that was super moist in the middle.
They also had some good dessert here, in particular the small square / cube cakes. Key lime pie, cheesecake with oreo crust, and a berry pie that had the same consistency as the key lime pie but with sweeter fruit and berry flavors. All great. Even the basic sugar cookie was pretty good. The ice cream, on the other hand, was too icy for soft serve.
Despite the pretty good desserts, I think the best part of this meal was that achiote pork, as I mentioned above. Either that, or getting a love-attack by Tigger!
We took pics with all four Pooh characters as they wandered around the restaurant: Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger. I won’t bore you with those. I will say that the people who wear the costumed must be very patient to deal with screaming kids every day.
This place at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is set up like the inside of a mid-century modern 1950’s or early 60’s home. Lots of round-screen tube television cabinets are playing clips of old shows from the era, and there are sea-foam green appliances and furniture, wood paneling, checkerboard floors, etc. I loved it.
Plus the food was pretty fucking great too. Everything is home-style cooking, like stuff that your grandma would cook for you. I ordered a smoked gouda stuffed pork chop. It was absolutely awesome. Juice inside, crispy outside, good stuffing. I demolished it.
I also got to try the fried chicken. Same deal – crispy on the outside, juicy inside. A great thigh!
Their PB&J ice cream shake is incredible too. Not too heavy on the PB so that you get instantly full either, as the base is vanilla.
My wife had a great pork osso buco. While I liked my dish better, her’s was fall-apart tender and beautifully plated.
She also had a crazy soda concoction drink with a glowing ice cube, and they sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her a cupcake for dessert.
Check out the mixed plate, with chicken, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Not bad!
Big Steak is king in the vast wasteland of Manhattan’s midtown “Bankville,” but Japanese cuisine is a strong and worthy adversary that’s rapidly encroaching on its territory (especially for lunch).
My wife and I stopped into one such Japanese joint, Iroha, for a quick dinner bite at the bar before seeing a Broadway show, and we were both pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, the plating presentation and the price.
First off, there is a coupon for a free mug of beer online that you can use from 5-7pm. That was perfect for us, since our show was at 7pm.
We ordered a bunch of shit, and we could have kept going, because everything looked fucking awesome.
First was this amazing glass cup of rawness. Uni, salmon, salmon roe, tuna, yellow tail and avocado. Not only was it beautiful, but it was absolutely devourable. Get it. I can’t recall the name of it for the life of me, but you can’t miss the pretty picture in the highly visual menu.
Next was a pork belly and soft boiled egg appetizer, which had three generously sized thick-ass hunks of braised belly. Perfection. It’s ramen toppings without the soup and noodles, essentially. Can’t go wrong with bacon and eggs, ever.
I ordered a small version of the all-salmon Chirashi bowl (Salmon Oyako Don), which had four pieces of salmon sashimi and a good blob of briny and savory salmon roe. The sushi rice beneath was surprisingly tasty, and was topped with a good amount of fresh wasabi, ginger and sesame seeds.
My wife ordered a grilled eel dish that came with a LOT of eel (in the pic, there is an entire second slab of eel that is not visible because it is UNDER the rice). It is served with a miso broth of sorts, to mix in with the sweet-yet-savory flavored rice. There’s also a plate of pickled items and some puffed rice for a crunchy texture element.
In short, this place is great, and it is representative of the strong and growing force that is Japanese cuisine in midtown. We sat at the bar, and the guys were plating everything right in front of us. Some of the salad items were tremendous and included tons of proteins (fish). I will definitely be back here to try more shit in the future.
When I’m away from NYC, I love trying new fast food joints that I can’t find back home. In Florida, I kept seeing these Pollo Tropical joints all over the place, so I had to try it.
The menu is pretty simple – chicken or pork, rice bowls, platters and sandwiches. My wife and I tried a bunch of stuff.
First was the guava BBQ pulled pork sandwich, which reminded me of luau pork or achiote pork. The BBQ sauce was good – sweet and tangy with a unique fruity flavor. The chicken sandwich was pretty basic – nothing special there: grilled chicken, cheese and some fixings on a potato bun. The rice bowl we tried was the same pork meat as the sandwich, but on a bed of yellow rice with black beans, onions, and corn. This was the best value, in my opinion. You got a lot of food for the money.
Each sandwich item came with a side. We had fried yucca, and corn soufflé – both were excellent, and easily addicting snack foods.
They even serve beer from the Bahamas. Sweet!
But the thing that really sets Pollo Tropical apart from other joints is the sauce selection, all free to grab as much as you want, to mix and make concoctions of your own, etc. They have things like guava BBQ sauce (as well as regular BBQ sauce), curry mustard sauce (amazing – I know it sounds bad, but trust me), garlic cilantro cream sauce (awesome for the beef selections, if available in that particular restaurant – and it has a hint of lime), pineapple rum (thing “tropical duck sauce”), spicy poyo poyo sauce (great kick from habanero peppers), Pollo Tropical hot sauce, and fresh salsa. You really can’t go wrong with any of them.
In short, I dig this place. If there was one in NYC, I’d be hitting it pretty often.
