Category Archives: Restaurant Reviews

American, Burgers, Fusion, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Fuku+ and Ma Peche

September 21, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

In need of a fried chicken fix, and with no real deal fried chicken joints in my area, Fuku+ became the spot to hit on a Sunday evening.

My wife and I tried the “mini me” sandwich and some bites. All of the chicken is dark meat, so you’re getting good flavor and tenderness each time you sink your teeth in. One thing to note: the green sauce that comes with the bites is fucking incredible. It’s a jalapeno jelly of sorts. Spicy, sweet, thick and the heat stays with you a few minutes.

Each item was $6, so reasonably priced. I just feel that the mini me sandwich needs lettuce, tomato and mayo and it would be perfect. All that comes with it are two slices of pickle. But the breading and crisp are nice, and the potato bun rocks.

While we were there we ordered some fried chicken from Ma Peche to go; their famous habanero fried chicken. Kind of a let down, in my opinion. The batter was overcooked and slightly burned, and it lacked seasoning. The habanero kick was barely present at the aftertaste mark. Also one of my drumsticks was not fully cooked on the inside. Bummer. At $30 per order (pictured below are two orders), this is simply not fucking worth it. You’re better off going to Fuku+ for a few orders of the bites if you need your fried chicken fix.

On a second visit to Fuku+ with my friend Matt Bruck, we sampled a few other items. First was the “Juicy Lucy” burger, which is made with a cheese-stuffed Niman Ranch patty, topped with grilled onions and special sauce, and slapped between a nice, soft, supple-yet-strong potato bun.

This fucker was cooked to about medium well, despite the waitress warning us that it would be “cooked through,” presumably to well done (so that all the cheese inside adequately melts down). Some reviews online reported that this was a rubbery, overcooked burger. We didn’t have that experience, though I do sympathize. The all-natural burger, being cooked and formed a bit differently than a traditional patty, certainly has a different texture than you might expect. The flavors smack of teriyaki or some other Asian influence. It reminded me a bit of the burger I had in Maui at Bully’s (the roadside joint I will mention in my forthcoming Maui blog post).

Next we had the mission Chinese chicken fingers. These are nice and spicy, and it’s the only white meat chicken you will find here at Fuku+. These were breaded with a crispy crust that was steeped in chili and five spice. Really nice, and I highly recommend it.

Last was the pickled mussels. These were okay. They were a little bit unwieldy, being served in a jar and meant to be eaten on the provided toasty slices of French bread. They were definitely pungent and had a touch of spice from the pickling process.

FUKU+ / MA PESCHE
Chambers Hotel
15 W. 56th St.
New York, NY 10022

Burgers, Diner, Restaurant Reviews, Upper West Side

Big Daddy’s

September 19, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Big Daddy’s was running a special for National Cheeseburger Day (9/18): buy one get one free. My wife and I came to sample the wares. The place has a fun throw-back feel to it, with random memorabilia from the 80’s and beyond.

We started with a Cookie Monster shake, which was vanilla ice cream blended with Oreo cookies. Delicious. It was a little too thick at first, but after about five minutes it was suckable. Just right.

I had the Big Mac Daddy burger with American cheese. Essentially this has grilled onion, tomato, lettuce, pickle, and special sauce.

It was cooked nicely to medium, just as ordered. The patty was good, though maybe could use a bit more seasoning. Perhaps one too many slices of tomato. Good cheese coverage, but they should swap out the buns. They were a little stale and crumbly, and my wife’s bottom bun was rock solid – an ass should always have some jiggle, even just a little bit.

I ordered tots with mine, and my wife got fries with hers. Both were good, but I think we both liked the tots better. They were crispier and had a good crunch.

BIG DADDY’S
2454 Broadway
New York, NY 10024

Long Island, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Fire Island Shave Ice

September 18, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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

African/Middle Eastern, BBQ, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Braai

September 11, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

NOTE: This place is now closed

Braai means BBQ in Afrikaans. And South African food is something I’ve never had before. So naturally I had to try this joint. I walked by this a few times and the menu looked really good. So tonight my wife and I gave it a try.

First some cocktails: a bourbon julep and some South African wine. It’s important to note here that they also offer Tusker beer, from Kenya, which I like very much.

Braai has a bunch of tapas for $9 each, or you can man the fuck up and get five for $42 and save a few bucks. That’s what we did.

Top left is sausage, polenta (pap) and tomato. It had a nice pork and beef flavor to it, with a little spicy kick.

Center was deviled chicken liver. I was expecting something whipped and spreadable for some reason, and spicy. These were some more traditional styled liver items… cut up and sautéed in a hearty sauce. Very iron flavored but not grainy or snappy at all.

Top right: meatballs with tomato sauce. The sauce was tangy, and the meatballs were spicy and tender.

Bottom right was fried chicken wings with peri-peri sauce. The wings were crispy and nicely battered, and the sauce was spicy and herbaceous – almost like a salsa. Very nice. I was putting it on everything!

Bottom left was grilled octopus. This had less of a char flavor than I expected, but it was very tender.

At this point we were pretty full, but we kept pushing on. We ordered the ribs (ribbetjies); baby back ribs with a rooibos chocolate glaze (a legume, often used in teas), sautéed spinach and creamy polenta.

This was really good. The meat was tender and flavorful, and the sauce was sweet with a little spice to it at the end, and some depth.

We had to try dessert, seeing as though this is one of the only places that doesn’t just offer creme brûlée, tira misu and cheesecake (though they do have cheesecake). Love those when they are good, but come on! Anyway this place gets it. We ordered something called “koeksisters,” which is pretty much thin, braided fried doughnuts or funnel cake with ice cream and honey on top. Awesome.

BRAAI
329 W. 51st St.
Hell’s Kitchen, NY 10018

Japanese, Midtown West, Ramen, Restaurant Reviews

Donburiya

September 9, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This joint used to be on the east side, but that spot closed. It recently reopened with a revamped menu on west 55th near 8th.

We started with some pork items. First was the not-so-awesome “grilled” bacon with blue cheese. An odd item to grace the menu of a Japanese joint, granted, but we were hoping for more crisp and less stringy/rubbery texture.

The better pork item was the yongen-ton kakani, which was silky simmered pork belly. This was fucking delicious, and reminded my wife and I of the clay pot casserole style Vietnamese dish from Cha Pas. This is a definite must-order for any of you bacon heads.

For my ramen, I ordered the nagahama fu tonkotsu. It is pork-based, with good firm alkaline noodles (LOTS of noodles – like an extra kae-dama amount), some pickled ginger, sesame seeds, scallions and one very tasty piece of pork.

I liked it very much. It was moderately robust without overwhelming the taste buds. And for $11 it is fair, though I wish there was at least another piece of pork in there.

My wife ordered the onsen tamago sukiyaki udon, which was gingery and nicely cooked udon noodles in a sweet broth that had beef and a poached egg within. Nice, but the ramen was better.

DONBURIYA
253 W. 55th St.
New York, NY 10019

Chelsea, Commentary, Other, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Amorino

August 27, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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.

AMORINO
162 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10011

Carcass Club/Beast Feast, Chinese, Flash Deals, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Restaurant Reviews

Golden Unicorn

August 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife picked up a Living Social deal for an eight course Peking duck dinner at Golden Unicorn, which is otherwise famous for its dim sum service. I was pretty impressed overall. But let me babble about a few other things first…

First off, I absolutely love this part of town. East Broadway and the surrounding side streets encircling the Manhattan Bridge still feel like old NYC. Not much has changed, save for a few new buildings poking up here and there. Walking around, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back in time, possibly even into another country.

This area is the real deal Chinatown, unlike the tourist-laden, knock-off selling, shitty DVD purveying hustle on Canal street. Take a closer look in these parts, or allow a lingering eye to glance into some storefronts, and you’ll spy people working at a ground floor dumpling factory. You’ll see produce, dry goods and health products that most white people have no idea about, and you can’t even read the signs to get more info, because they’re all in Chinese. It has a busy, bustling vibe and I love it.

Okay on to the fucking food. First up was egg drop soup with chicken. This was pretty good, though I did have to add a little bit of hot sauce to punch it up slightly.

Next were two types of dumplings: crystal shrimp and siu mai. Both were excellent. If you swing by this joint for dim sum, these are some of the delights you can enjoy from the carts. Both were packed with ingredients and nicely steamed.

Then the spring rolls came out. They didn’t look like much, but they had great flavor. I was actually surprised, although they were a little bit too greasy on the shell.

Our waitress then brought out the Peking duck. YES!

She cut off a good deal of the crispy skin and more generous portions of meat, and, with that, assembled six steamed buns for us, accompanied by hoisin sauce, scallion and cucumber. They were awesome. Crispy, fatty, juicy… all around excellent.

The rest of the duck was chopped up for us and served on a plate:

The meal kept on trucking along with this ginger beef and broccoli dish. The ginger was fresh and sliced thin. The beef was tender and flavorful. I think it was a mix of flank and rib eye. And the broccoli was steamed in the sauce, so it tasted awesome.

There was also some fried rice with shrimp, roast pork, ham, peas, onion and egg. We were really too full to dig into this too far.

At the end of the meal, some honeydew and orange arrived at the table. A nice, refreshing, smiley-face looking end to the meal.

Excellent deal. Jump on it if you see another Living Social or Groupon offering for this place. And definitely check out their dim sum on the weekend for lunch.

GOLDEN UNICORN
18 E. Broadway
New York, NY 10002

Downtown, German, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Clinton Hall

August 4, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

CHECK OUT THE RIDE & REVIEW HERE!!!

This recent addition (last 2 years) to the downtown barscape benefits from ample seating (indoor and outdoor), a massive amount of space, and a good selection of beer.

My wife and I stopped here for a quick drink and a bite before seeing an extremely overpriced and under-sized studio apartment that is up for sale nearby.

Pretty cool to see a few kids playing with the giant Jenga set on one bench. Nice.

I was happy to see that it was happy hour on the weekend, so that’s a big plus.

We started with a pair of $5 pints (growler was filled with water):

My pour, on the right, was a little bit shy of a full glass, but whatever.

I ordered the chicken sandwich, which came with fries, and was topped with lettuce, pesto sauce and brie cheese on a potato bun:

Pretty good. The breast was juicy – not dry as I expected it might be.

My wife had the crispy buffalo cauliflower, an interesting concoction that almost makes you feel like you’re eating healthy if it weren’t for the buttery hot sauce and crumbled blue cheese sprinkled all over the batter-fried veggie morsels. Tasty!

This part of downtown could use a kick in the ass for nightlife and daytime boozing. Clinton Hall is a welcome addition to the area.

UPDATE 11/10/2023 – Great food options here, and a perfect spot for our Electric Wednesday ebike meetup.

CLINTON HALL
90 Washington St.
New York, NY 10006

Flash Deals, Indian, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Bombay Grill House

July 26, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little Hell’s Kitchen joint offered up a decent Groupon that made it worth while to try. An app, two entrees, two drinks and a bread for $30.

I had a banana lassi. It was good, but I wish it was colder. Drinking room temperature banana yogurt isn’t that appealing. My wife had a pistachio shake, but it was more like a lassi than what we expected a shake to be (cold, creamy, ice cream-ish). They both looked exactly the same, so here is a generic shot. Can you guess which this is?

For the app, we shared some lamb kebob, which came to us plated and un-skewered. This was deliciously spiced lamb that was minced into a sausage-like texture.

I ate a biryani lamb and spicy rice dish, and my wife had a lamb curry that was mild and creamy.

As you can tell, this was a lamb-centric meal. The biryani was a bit dry and oddly spiced, but tasty nonetheless. In hindsight I probably should have gone with my staple Indian food order to test the waters, chicken saag.

My wife’s lamb curry was the winner on the day. It was creamy, mildly spiced, and mildly sweet from the presence of pineapple.

Our bread selection was a naan that was filled with coconut and pistachio. Really nice.

BOMBAY GRILL HOUSE
764 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10019

American, Downtown, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Wogies

July 26, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Wogies is known around town as having some great Philly cheesesteaks. I had been to the one in the west village once before. When I was downtown to meet a friend at a bar, I noticed a new Wogies location down by Rector Street on Trinity. I gave it a shot on my way home.

I tried a chicken and regular Philly cheesesteak, both with wiz, American and onions.

Pretty tasty. Only down side is that the cheese was not evenly distributed throughout the meat. It was mostly packed into the back of the sandwich, where the top and bottom sandwich bread meet, at the crease.

This other one I tried from the west village location was a cheeseburger hero. Pretty good, though heavy on the lettuce: