This spot has swiftly become known for their stiff drinks and small bites. My wife and I tried a pair of their martinis: the pickle, and the clean dirty. Both were great.
We moved on to small bites, which included mini burgers, mini glizzies, and shoestring fries. These were all delicious. I was surprised to see the burgers cooked to a nice medium and still having decent thickness for the patties.
Although a bit expensive, I would definitely go back and try more stuff. Go give this place a shot!
I finally got over to Royale to try the burger that I’ve heard so much about. It was good! We ordered the Royale with cheese (not the smash burger).
This was probably about a 6oz patty, perfectly cooked to medium with nice cheese melt and cheese coverage.
Bun could use a little work, but it had a nice toast on it, and I appreciated the thinly sliced tomato, onion, lettuce and pickle on the side. Fries were good. Natural cut style, not too salty but good and crisp.
My wife and I came here for a quick meal and really enjoyed everything we tried. She had been here soon after they opened for a quick meal at the bar. Now, Corima was awarded a Michelin star and even has a fancy tasting menu. We opted for an a la carte meal, and I’m glad we did. Let me get into it.
We started with two recommendations from the waiter, Francisco, who was AWESOME, by the way…
The first recommendation: Their sourdough flour tortilla. This is CRACK.
It comes with a sort of mole butter, too. I could eat pounds of this stuff. When you go here, do not skip this. I’m not kidding. It doesn’t seem like much, and it’s hard to describe, but this is fantastic.
The second recommendation: Their Beef Cecina Tlayuda. This was essentially like a beef carpaccio on a crispy tortilla. Raw thinly sliced beef on top, lots of flavor packed underneath with alliums and such. This was my favorite dish of the night.
Next up was an absolutely perfectly cooked hamachi collar. It came with a spicy aioli, but the fish was so beautifully cooked and seasoned that it wasn’t necessary.
After that was another seafood item: The spicy surf clam toast with Chinese sausage and super thin sliced tomato. The toast was sourdough. This reminded me of a panzanella.
The duck enmolada was super unique. Think of this like an enchilada, but with a mole sauce instead of a chili-based sauce. Despite this being our least favorite dish of the night, we still vvery much enjoyed it. Literally nothing was left on any of our savory plates.
For our final savory course, we had the 120-day dry aged NY strip steak. This was about 6oz, pre-sliced, perfectly cooked to medium rare and topped with a veal brain Bearnaise sauce! Served with it were some jus roasted white asparagus spears grilled kolrabi cabbage. This was a 9/10. So good.
We ordered one dessert but they sent out all three! Incredible service here. We ordered the chocoflan, thinking it would be flan. It turns out it was more like a brownie topped with whipped cream and ice cream. It was delicious. Unexpected, but delicious. This was my wife’s favorite.
The rhubarb tres leches cake was served with a hibiscus sorbet. It was so light and flavorful. What a treat.
My favorite dessert was the mango granita sorbet with spicy tamarind chamoy and candied sakura leaf. So unique. Spicy and tart, with a bit of sweetness in there to round it out. And doesn’t the plating look kinda like Plankton from Spongebob?
I will definitely be back here for more. What an incredible meal. Put this place on your short list!
Okiboru is a small ramen joint that specializes in tsukemen (concentrated broth for dipping noodles in). Since the tsukemen was a combination of fish and chicken broths, I skipped on that and went with the ramen, which was a pork and chicken broth.
This was excellent, and I was glad that I chose this over the tsukemen, since the tsukemen broth was a bit too pungent in terms of fish flavor (my wife had that).
Overall, I would definitely go back for more ramen.
Bufon is a new meat and seafood focused joint in the lower east side. My wife and I tried five items from a menu that we really wanted to ravage. We definitely plan to go back to try more items.
Sunchoke
This was fantastic. Really nice, fresh and mildly starchy.
Halibut
The sauce on this was crack. It was some sort of buerre blanc with bottarga.
Pork Chop
Delicious. Served with butter beans and chopped up Chinese sausage. Super unique.
Picanha
Roasted to perfection. The fat was delicious as well. Scored and rendered to become a beef gelatin of sorts. Skip the vinegar based Creole salsa and get the au poivre for a more classic Sunday roast feel. 9/10.
Crispy Confit Potato
I didn’t expect a fancy hash brown, but it was really good.
No dessert was offered yet. They literally just opened. Interior decor still a work in progress, and the windows still needed to be cleaned!
My wife and I stopped in Tre for their weekend happy hour menu, which is a great deal and runs from 2-7pm.
We started with some cocktails, which were excellent. The espresso martini and aperol spritz were both well made.
We tried five items.
The fried calamari was dry and rubbery. Skip these.
The sautéed broccoli rabe was tasty, but at $13 it was too small of a portion size (this was from the regular menu, not the happy hour menu).
The fried artichokes were great. Nice crisp, good seasoning, tender.
I also liked the linguine al limone. For a discounted happy hour deal, this was a great buy. Lots of garlic though.
We also ordered the chicken milanese from the main menu. This was perfectly crisp, tender inside, pounded thin, and topped with a nice arugula and tomato salad.
Keep an eye out for the operating fee, which is a 4% charge added to your bill. Not sure why they don’t just raise prices instead. On the flip side, they also offer a cash discount.
Would definitely come back to try more stuff. Give this place a shot.
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!
Funny Bar just opened up nearby. The Cake Dealer and I recently wandered in here and had a few drinks, and we knew we wanted to come back.
It’s a live jazz bar with no cover charge, and a really sleek, streamlined menu of STEAK!
Literally, there are like four items on the menu: steak for one, steak for two, french fries, and a wedge salad. Oh and they surprised us each with a free small chocolate brownie sundae at the end of the meal, but it wasn’t on the menu.
We started with the wedge salad, which is simple but delicious.
The steak for one is a petite filet, or shoulder tender/teres major. I love this cut.
It has all the flavor of the chuck, from where it hails, and all the tenderness of a filet mignon. At $29 for about an 8oz steak that comes with fries, this is a great deal. 9/10.
The steak for two is a larger cut. The server told me it was a flatiron, and the host told me it was a strip steak. I don’t think either is correct.
At first I thought maybe it was a tri-tip based on the shape, but the muscle striations seem to go the wrong direction for that. Based on the muscle fibers, I think this is in the sirloin family. Perhaps top butt/sirloin, or top sirloin. Either way it was perfectly cooked, had a great crust, and was artfully topped with a maitre’d butter and herbs. At $69 this is also a great deal for people to try the best of what can be on an otherwise under-utilized cut. 8/10.
Although it might be better to get two of the steaks for one instead of one of the steaks for two, satisfaction will be guaranteed. The fries are perfectly cooked as well. This is the large plate that comes with the steak for two:
They even brought us a free dessert on the house afterwards – miniature brownie sundaes!
The Cake Dealer and I decided to give this new joint a shot. We really liked everything we tried, so let me get right into it.
First, the cocktails were excellent. We tried three, and they were all delicious.
The shellfish platter is a bit expensive as $38 for six pieces, but each and every item was a masterpiece. I think my favorites were the hot items on the pebbles (oyster cooked with beef fat and topped with horseradish, and the clam with garlic chips.
The shrimp toast was so delicious. Buttery, crispy, and with lump shrimp meat instead of the paste-like texture that you might see at Chinese spots. The tarter-like sauce was definitely not needed here.
The mortadella tartine was really tasty. I could eat about 30 of these.
We also did their caviar service which was a generous heap of high quality caviar, cream, whipped bean puree, onion, chives, avocado and potato chips with a large bowl of fresh tortillas. This was really nice. I would definitely get this again.
For our mains, we did the fries and fish, which is a medium sized bowl of french fries and fried anchovies.
The anchovies were fresh, plump, light and crisp – not very fishy at all, and really tasty white meat.
We also did the Peekytoe crab omelette on rice, which I really loved.
This, the shellfish and the shrimp toast were probably my favorite items of the night. One thing I wish the omelette had was a crunch texture somewhere. Maybe some crispy fried shallots on top would do the trick. But I did appreciate the texture pops from the salmon roe on top. So good!
Finally, we finished off with their cinnamon toast sundae. The ice cream tasted like the cereal Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and the crunch element came from the tiny fried bombolini doughnuts on top. Absolute crack!
We can’t wait to go back to try more of the menu. The service was really great here too, as they gave us complimentary glasses of Lambrusco since we were celebrating our anniversary.
