Category Archives: Restaurant Reviews

American, Burgers, Midtown West, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Steakhouse Reviews, Upper West Side

Landmarc

December 13, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS NOW CLOSED (TRIBECA IS STILL OPEN)

My wife and I took a nice long lunch on Friday to check this place out. After we randomly saw Marc Murphy (owner and chef) one day on the street nearby, we figured we needed to check out this location. I’ve been to his Tribeca location several times (great skirt steak – 9/10), prior to creating this blog. The Time Warner Center location is right outside my apartment, so this was a nice easy place to hit. As a side note, I think it’d be cool if Chef Murphy opened up a seafood joint called “Watermarc,” to compliment the Landmarc brand.

We started with the octopus salad. Portion size was great here, for all dishes. The octopus was cooked perfectly, without the skin. It was buttery soft, and served warm, garnished with olives, onions, potato, and some greens. Really nice.

For my entree, I went with the burger (though I will be back for a rib eye soon).

This was excellent. The robust, artisan style potato roll was really soft, yet toasty and durable. The meat was seared to a great outer crisp, and cooked perfectly pink inside without any bleed-out.

It was topped with American cheese (my choice), and served with fries and a salad. The salad was pre-dressed, and sort-of sitting on top of part of the fries, which made that portion soggy. A better service idea would be to put the fries in a side cup.

I put some of the salad greens on the burger, along with the tomato, and lightly half-soured pickles and onions that came with the dish.

Easily one of the best burgers I’ve had in Manhattan to date. If you are into the burger scene, check this place out.

My wife had the bone marrow app for her entree.

Look at how large this order is! FOUR BONES and a bunch of really great, toasty-warm bread (same stuff they give as table bread).

Nice and fatty. And served with onion jam as well. Heart healthy? Haha. Who cares it’s fucking delicious.

On a second trip, we tried the foie gras terrine. This was really delicious. It was creamy as all hell. No grainy texture, and no gamey taste.

The fried calamari was crispy, perfectly cooked, and well seasoned.

The Sunday pasta special was lasagna with short rib. Unbelievable. They put the short rib in the layers of pasts. This is a real winner of a dish. Make sure you try to come on a Sunday for this.

We also tried the rabbit cavatelli with spinach. This was delicious as well. The rabbit was shredded meat, very tender. The cavatelli were soft and light. I usually like a little more al dente, but these won’t weigh you down. The chili peppers were a nice touch.

My rib eye steak was undercooked (it came to me rare instead of medium rare) and a little too wet (not properly seared). The flavor was okay, but the gristled cut made for extra work. They also plopped it directly on top of my french fries, so all the liquid bleed out made my fries extremely soggy and utterly useless. if I had scored the flavor on my traditional steakhouse rating system, this would probably come in at around 6/10. Skip the steak here (skip the rib eye anyway), and go with the other items I raved about above.

We also had creme brûlée and lemon honey sorbet for dessert. The sorbet didn’t have the right texture. It was too hard and icy. The creme brûlée, on the other hand, was pretty much perfect.

LANDMARC
The Shops at Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Cir., #3
New York, NY 10019

American, Burgers, Chelsea, French, Fusion, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Montmartre

December 8, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSING IN MARCH OF 2016!!!

A waiter named Jeremy over at Capital Grille (midtown west) recommended this place when we got to chatting about the city’s best burgers. He certainly knew his food shit, so I was excited to finally get here to try the burger. The same owners are involved with Bar Sardine, which also slings an excellent burger, so I knew I’d be in good hands at the very least.

Jeremy’s suggestion was a good one! This baby, although slapped between two buttery pieces of sourdough toast (as opposed to on a proper bun), was packed with great flavor. The meat is dry aged beef, and it was seared to a perfect temperature: pink center, good crust all around to lock in the juices, and well seasoned. Above and beneath the patty is a bernaise cheese spinach and pickled onions, respectively. Loved every bite. The bernaise cheese brought a little funk to the party (with a nice nod to steakhouse “creamed spinach,” I might add), and the pickled onion was a great twist on the much needed acid. The fried were natural cut, nice and crispy, and well seasoned with herbs and sea salt. Take a look at this shit:

UPDATE AS OF 8/25/15

My wife and I stopped in for a quick dinner after a Tabelog event nearby. We kept it pretty basic. First was a nice snack of fresh radishes with country bread, whipped butter and salt flakes. The radishes were actually pretty spicy and had a great pop to them.

My wife had the mussels. Many of them were pretty small inside the shell. I don’t like them too big, but I also don’t like them too small. The broth had some fresh herb notes to it, like maybe tarragon. I’ve had better mussels elsewhere, but that’s not to say that these were bad by any means.

I ordered the hanger steak frites. It was perfectly cooked to medium rare and had a good sear on the outside. The sauce with it was garlicky and gave it pop. The texture of the meat was slightly off. It reminded me of some of the odd meats my wife and I used to get in Mexico from the resorts. Almost like it was over tenderized using an MSG type of product. I’m sure that’s not what was done here, but it just had that feel to it. Otherwise I liked it. I’d say its about a 7 out of 10, possibly an 8.

MONTMARTRE
158 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10011

American, Burgers, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

The Spotted Pig

December 7, 2014 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!

It was PACKED when we arrived at around 1pm on a Saturday, even after all these years of being in business. Good for them! We were looking at roughly an hour wait unless we grabbed a seat at the bar. So we put our name down on the list to be seated, and headed upstairs to the second bar in hopes of scoring a seat a little faster. To our great fortune, a group of four people were getting up from the bar to be seated at their table. When I went to grab a pair of stools for my wife and I, a woman slid over one seat and was claiming the two bar stools in the middle of the four. I asked her politely if she could move over in one direction so that my wife and I could sit, but the loser wouldn’t move.

Four spots open up and she jumped into the center two, by herself, while waiting for her guest, who wasn’t even there yet? That’s just bad social etiquette. She was nasty, too, and had horrible breath. When I explained that there are four available seats and four people who want to sit, she started to argue “but we are getting lunch.” Newsflash: so are we! And she was getting aggressive and loud! So I alerted the manager. He politely asked her and her guest, “Ken,” who had lightly shoved me at one point after his date called me “scary,” to move. They wouldn’t move . The manager kindly sat us right away when they wouldn’t shift, I assume effectively jumping us ahead in the wait line. We ended up with a much better seat anyway, downstairs, with plenty of elbow room.

My wife had one of the $14 cocktails called “Novo Mundo,” made with a Brazilian rum type booze (cachaca), egg white, sugar and lemon.

I had a pair of Naragansett beers, which I like to call Manhattan’s new PBR, because it’s cheap, in a can and because I’ve been enjoying it way before it made it onto the Hipsters’ radar. They always seem take what I like and fuck it up. Whether it is gentleman’s caps, twisty butcher mustaches, vintage graphic t-shirts, bacon, beards or beers. Fucking animals.

We ordered some starters. The pickles were WAY the fuck overpriced, at $6 for what is typically a free amount at a place like Keens. The deviled egg was a little pricey at $4. Both items were tasty. The pickles were bright and tart, and consisted of carrots, gherkins, radish and green beans.

For the entrees, my wife ordered sisig pork. It had some bits of pig ear and other nice things, topped with a runny fried egg. Essentially this is their English “bubble and squeak” dish, but with Filipino spices and herbs like cilantro. It was good, lots of pork meat, but too salty, and a little greasy as well.

The burger I ordered was good, perfectly cooked. The bun was great, durable and grilled. The negatives: the Roquefort cheese was a little overpowering of the burger meat, and it definitely could have used a slice of tomato and some lettuce. I’ve had this burger in the past, about 10 years ago. I think it may have cost around $16 back then. It’s $21 now, but since it comes with “fries” the cost is very fair.

The shoestring potatoes had fried garlic slices and fried rosemary mixed throughout, and tasted and felt, crisp/texture-wise, like the old school potato sticks snacks.

The banoffee dessert was very good – not too sweet; just right. Essentially this English dessert pie is made from bananas, cream and toffee made from boiled sweetened condensed milk.

THE SPOTTED PIG
314 W. 11th St.
New York, NY 10014

Korean, Midtown West, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Spot Dessert Bar

December 6, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Up on the third floor of a K-town food mall, this little dessert outpost serves up some really nice treats. The Vietnamese coffee cupcake was pretty good, though I didn’t get a lot of that distinct chicory and sweetened condensed milk flavor that I expected.

The other items were pretty good though, like these things which I thought were churros with icing at first. HA! They were just eclairs

Everything else under the glass looked delicious. Lots of green tea stuff, as you might expect at an Asian style bakery. Also some really tasty ice creams/gelatos.

SPOT DESSERT BAR
11 W. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10001

Korean, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Angry Chicken

December 6, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Tucked away on the third floor of a K-town food court, Angry Chicken roasts up some deliciously sweet and savory whole chickens. They were giving out some free samples when I was up there for dessert at a nearby food vendor. Check these gorgeous things out. Why so angry? Perhaps because they tasted heavily of apple? So what. Throw some spicy sauce on there and this is heaven.

ANGRY CHICKEN IS CLOSED

Korean, Midtown East, Restaurant Reviews

Don’s Bogam

December 6, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This Korean BBQ joint is pretty good. I’ve been here twice now, and I had a good meal each time. While I find the prices of many of these places to be a bit on the pricey side, if you go with enough people you can defray the heavy costs. This time I took some shots of the pork belly. So good.

The other dish is thinly sliced beef, noodles and yummy broth (the noodles are under the surface of the liquid).

DON’S BOGAM
17 E. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10016

American, Midtown East, Restaurant Reviews

Luke’s Lobster

December 6, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

A while back Luke’s had a special $5 off day, which made their lobster rolls $10 instead of $15. I put this baby down in no time. It was really tasty, excellent lump style meat, perfectly cooked. I always thought they were too expensive and over-priced until I actually had one. There’s a good deal of lobster meat on these babies. Check it out:

LUKE’S LOBSTER
207 E. 43rd St.
New York, NY 10017

American, East Village, Flash Deals, Restaurant Reviews

Duane Park

December 5, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

As usual, my wife got a sweet deal for this place; dinner and a show for two for $60. I wasn’t expecting to like either the food or the entertainment, but I was surprised at how good the food was, and how fun the entertainment was.

We started at the bar, which is really elegant and fancy. It’s set up like a 1920’s sort of art deco social club. They have a nice cocktail menu ($14 each). I had the Bowery Honey Bee, and my wife had a “That’s Gold, Darling.”

The table bread came out in a stainless steel cone, and was served warm and toasty, with a dish of white bean puree that resembled hummus, but with less aggressive spices.

Our deal entitled us to a limited menu three course tasting. I started with the roasted shrimp and grits. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and the grits were creamy. I just wish there was more!

My wife had the mushroom veloute, which was creamy, earthy and rich.

For my entree, I had the ale-braised pork shoulder, which came with mashed potatoes and sliced, roasted carrots. This was really nice. The meat was tender, soft and juicy.

My wife had the salmon, which was perfectly cooked and came with cannellini beans and tomatoes. I typically don’t like cooked salmon, but this was really tasty.

For dessert, I chose the sticky toffee pudding. It was mor elite a bread pudding than a proper pudding, so I was taken back a bit when it came to the table. It was delicious though, and warm. The ice cream scoop on top was the perfect balance.

My wife had the cheesecake of the day, which was apple. Very unique. And good timing for around the Thanksgiving holiday: a mash up of New York (cheesecake) and Americana (apple pie). Great flavors.

The entertainment was a blast. The band was playing classic soul and motown hits, and the singer was excellent!

He even did a few duets with a female vocalist – serious hips on her!

The funny thing about the show was that in-between songs, a pair of burlesque ladies would come out and jiggle their shit on stage. It was basically a classy strip joint in period-piece attire (or lack thereof).

The best part was watching the band as THEY watched the dancers, laughing, crack jokes to one another as they played, etc. The guitarist was getting dresses and bras thrown at him from across the room. He dangled this red sparkly one from his guitar:

DUANE PARK
308 Bowery
New York, NY 10012

Banh Mi, East Village, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Sao Mai

December 3, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I stopped in here for some banh mi sandwiches after eating some pizza at Motorino around the corner. We tried a classic sandwich, and a pho sandwich (sliced beef and the toppings you usually get with pho, like bean sprouts, etc). Both were pretty good, but I think I liked the pho sandwich better. Both were pretty spicy without having to ask for it, which I like. Check out the pics:

SAO MAI
203 1st Ave.
New York, NY 10003

Other, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

Holey Donuts

November 26, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I had been invited here for a press event a while back but never got the chance to check it out. After my wife and I finished a meal in the area, we figured we would check this joint out for some dessert.

I tried the lemon creme crunch, which was pretty good but you can taste their whole “low calorie” and “health” angle in these things. It wasn’t BAD, per se, it just wasn’t that good.

My wife had an apple crumble chocolate maple thing or something, but she asked for an ice cream filling. This was a cool option, but that means they had to swap out the apple filling for ice cream filling. It was much better quality donut when mixed with ice cream. Perhaps it added some softness or moisture that the non-ice cream donut was missing.