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

Jerky, Product Reviews

Chef’s Cut Jerky

September 26, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I recently got to sample a bunch of different jerky flavors from Chef’s Cut at The Great Big Bacon Picnic in Brooklyn. While the samples they were serving were mainly uncured bacon (in the spirit of the festival), I did try three flavors of said protein, so I figured that was enough for a full product review.

Sriracha is by far the best of the three bacon flavors.

It was spicy but mellowed out by the natural sweetness of bacon. Really the perfect savory snack if you ask me. Get a bag ASAP, or a gross of boxes stacked high on a warehouse skid of bags. Hope you can drive a forklift…

We also tried maple and applewood. I preferred the maple, but the crew I was with liked the applewood. Either way you win, though, because it’s all fucking bacon.

As you might expect, this company also makes regular beef jerky, chicken jerky and turkey jerky in various other unique flavors. One that looked nice to me was the buffalo chicken jerky. I’ll have to try that fucker next.

American, Filet Mignon, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Metropolis

September 25, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Metropolis is a new revitalized space that once served as the jazz lounge beneath Blue Water Grill in Union Square. It’s still owned and operated by the BR Guest restaurant group, and it seems that these folks can do no wrong when it comes to quality eating.

While there will inevitably be a few items at any place that a person may not like too much, I have to say that BR Guest delivers great food on a consistent basis, whether it’s Strip House, Dos Caminos, Bill’s or Blue Water Grill.

We came here to celebrate a birthday with another couple. My wife and I arrived early and ordered a drink at the bar, took in the live music and marveled at the amazing cocktail selections and quirky decor.

Speaking of drinks, my recommendation is to skip the Montauk seawater martini for two. If you’re like me, then you’re a martini purist. When I saw seawater I got excited, because I love that kind of brine for a martini. But this drink is made with sweet vermouth and garnished with a sweet pickled tomato and similarly pickled string bean. Maybe you like a sweet martini. I do not. Perhaps next time I can request a more savory version of this.

The whole ordeal is concocted table side, which is fun, but ultimately the two drinks were shallow. They could have filled it up a bit higher at $35 for the pair.

Okay so let’s get to the food. We browsed as we snacked on some delicious table bread with ricotta and olive oil.

This joint’s menu is purposefully heavy on the seafood, and for good reason. It’s below Blue Water Grill and the former chef, who happens to be from Per Se, does an amazing job with the fish dishes in particular. The first things that will pop out at you are the seafood tower selections and caviar items. Take a suggestion from me: the seafood towers are awesome.

That’s the “Flatiron” tower at $125 for 2-4 people. It contains two styles of oysters (six each of east and west), a dozen Little Neck clams, a char grilled octopus tentacle, seafood ceviche, a king crab leg, a half dozen mussels in tomato sauce and a whole lobster.

We also shared the surf and turf tartare. This was a bit small and underwhelming, but certainly not bad by any means.

We ended up going with two fish items and two meat items for our entrees. Let me first address the meat, since that’s what this website is all about. The filet mignon was perfectly cooked to medium rare, but unlike Strip House, it lacked that external char that I love so much. On the other hand, it was sauced with a really savory bacon reduction that blew us away. 7/10.

The steak came with this little skillet of spinach that was topped with brulee’d cheese. Very nice.

The real winner is the steak sandwich. It’s made with sliced rib eye steak that was cooked sous vide style in 45-day dry aged beef fat. Then it’s topped with charred onions and roasted tomato, and Velveeta wiz for that authentic Philly flare. Fucking fantastic. Get it.

It’s served with waffle cut potato chips (crisps, if you’re European). These were okay. I think I would have preferred some standard shoestring French fries instead.

Now for the fish. Hands down my favorite item of the night was the cod. It was served with an airy, creamy butter sauce and nicely roasted veggies. Then it was topped with a little circle of puff pastry.

The fish itself was perfectly cooked, juicy, flaky and mild. I’d definitely go back for that.

The cedar plank salmon was excellent as well, cooked to a perfect medium rare and served with sweet roasted tomatoes and basil.

The table next to us had some nice looking peanut butter and cherry Baked Alaska, so that got us into the mood for dessert.

However we wanted to try some of the other items. Warm apple crisp pie with vanilla cinnamon ice cream:

And cheese cake parfait with fruit and graham cracker crumble layers. Beautiful.

Both were very nice, but I think the winner was the parfait.

METROPOLIS
31 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003

Brooklyn, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Ample Hills Creamery

September 25, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This is expensive, but high quality ice cream. Below is a shot of the Mexican hot chocolate flavor (with cinnamon and spice), and of course some sprinkles on top. It rests comfortably in a cookie cone, which was delicious. If you find yourself in the area, give it a try.

AMPLE HILLS CREAMERY
305 Nevins St
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Commentary

The Great Big Bacon Picnic

September 25, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I’m going to keep this short and sweet so you guys can get right down to the food pictures. The Great Big Bacon Picnic is an awesome multi-day event that was held in Brooklyn at the old Pfizer factory to celebrate the awesomeness of bacon. There were tons of businesses and restaurants there, so we got to try a ton of shit. I will highlight the good stuff and give a few extra words here and there. Enjoy.

Best bite of the day was at Tres Carnes, a pork belly taco. Nice and simple, super delicious.

Meatball with bacon and collared greens from Handcraft:

Bacon bananas foster with peanut butter:

Bacon bread pudding from The Brooklyn Tree:

Some varied flavor selections from the bacon bar:

Lots of fun to be had with fellow foodies:

Bacon chocolate chip cookies and Rhoda of Rhoda Cookies:

Various sliders and mini BLTs were all over the place, all delicious:

Bacon dust beignets!

And sriracha bacon jerky from Chef’s Cut. Awesome. I’ll be doing a separate jerky review for this product with more info.

Flash Deals, Korean, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Bann

September 22, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I picked up a Groupon deal for about $12 that gave me $40 to spend here at Bann. Pretty solid bargain. My wife and I started with a pair of apps; steamed buns and wings.

The buns contained marinated thinly sliced beef rib eye and spicy daikon. There were pretty good, and I liked the sauce, which was based on spicy bean paste, only a little thinner.

I liked the wings a lot, though I wish the honey chili glaze made them a little spicier. In any case they were hot, crispy, tender and tasty. And that’s ultimately all that fucking matters.

For our entrees we went with a noodle dish and a rice dish. First, the rice dish: steak tartare bibimbap with a raw egg yolk.

This was pretty great, served cold, of course, with a side of spicy bean paste. The greens there are spinach, and there are some other shredded veggies and mushrooms in the bowl as well.

Our noodle dish was very similar to a pork belly lo mein.

It was pretty good, but had I known it would be similar to Chinese food, we probably would have selected something else.

LIFT!

BANN
350 W 50th St
New York, NY 10019

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

American, Burgers, Flash Deals, Midtown West, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews

Beautique

September 16, 2016 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED

As usual my bargain hunter wife found a nice Gilt City deal for a three course meal for two here at Beautique.

It included two drinks per person, which is unusually generous.

Apparently the place turns into a sugar daddy lounge after like 9pm, where young girls try to score rich older men (according to reviews I’ve seen online). We went at 6pm, so there wasn’t too much of that going on at that time.

I wasn’t expecting much given that lounge atmosphere. As it turned out, the food was pretty great. So let’s get down to business.

I started with a red an yellow beet salad. Beets are all the rage these days. They were a little more stiff here than at other places, and cut into rustic chunks rather than thinner slices. But they retained a more natural flavor as a result. They were dressed with pistachio nuts, yogurt, lemon and rosemary.

My wife ordered the Beautique salad, which was radicchio, pear, gorgonzola and walnuts. This was a bit bitter for my taste, but the ingredients were all fresh, crisp and high quality.

For my entree, I had the hanger steak. This was super tender and cooked to a perfect medium rare. I was expecting some chew to this but every bite was extremely soft and had a good char on the outside. This would be 10 out of 10 if it weren’t for a slight lack of salt on that crust. But otherwise this was incredible.

It was served with a peppery gravy and on top of a bed of sweet corn and mushrooms.

My wife went with the branzino. This was plated beautifully.

As you can see, the skin was crisp and well seasoned. The meat was cooked just right, and it was served on top of some potatoes, tomatoes, baby leeks and artichoke in a rosemary sauce.

For dessert, we had cheesecake with oreo ice cream. The ice cream was awesome. It was super flavorful and almost fudgey, but without being overly sweet. The cheesecake had a nice thick, but not heavy, consistency, however the cracker crust was too hard to get through with a fork. It may have been a peanut brittle type of thing, because it didn’t taste like graham cracker.

Overall this was a great deal, especial given the fact that my wife paid much less than the asking price due to coupons and other shit like that. If it is still available by time you read this, I recommend trying it out.

UPDATE 9/16/16

My wife and I went back with another Gilt City deal to try a few different menu items and see how well this joint has been holding up. I think we went with better choices the first time around, because this time wasn’t as good as we remembered.

We started with the duck wonton tacos. The sauce on them tasted like McDonald’s BBQ sauce. Nothing wrong with that except that it seemed to clash with the asian toppings. Also there was a strange flavor that reminded me of the scent of wet dog.

The other app was tune tartare. This was a bit lacking in flavor and a bit small and uninspired in the presentation.

For my entree, I went with the burger. The menu said there were brandied onions on it, but I didn’t find any. The tomato was cut way too thick, but the bacon was nice and crisp. Also the cheese didn’t taste like gruyere either, as mentioned on the menu. It was cooked perfectly, however, the the rosemary fries were awesome.

My wife had the roasted chicken. This, too, was a bit small. Luckily it wasn’t dry and the skin on it was deliciously crisp and well seasoned.

Beautique really shined with the desserts, which took forever to come out because the place was starting to get jammed. First was cheesecake with oreo ice cream (same as last time) with strawberry and mango sauce.

Next was chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream and caramel popcorn. I usually dislike lava cake, but this was really soft like a brownie, and the fudgey melty stuff inside was tasty.