Tag Archives: union square

Banh Mi, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron, Vietnamese

La Dong

August 3, 2026 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

First, check out the video of our food HERE:

My wife and I stopped in here to try some stuff at the bar just before they transitioned from the lunch shift to the dinner shift. Here’s what we had:

Vietnamese Beef Carpaccio:

This was awesome. Great herbs on top, nice tender American wagyu beef, raw, thinly sliced, and dressed nicely with fish sauce, shallots, and crispy garlic.

Crab Cakes:

Also awesome. These were basically patties made from egg, pork, and lump crab. The dipping sauce served with this was incredible, and if you take a bite each time with some of the Thai basil, you’ll be in heaven.

Pho Hanoi:

The northern style pho had a nice cinnamon aroma, but it was more mild on flavor than it smelled. There was a generous amount of quality beef in the bowl, along with nicely cooked noodles.

Banh Mi:

We ordered the traditional Banh Mi, but one glaring thing that stood out as not traditional was the presence of lettuce on the sandwich, and the absence of daikon. We still liked it, and the bread was very good, but we took the lettuce off.

Duck:

We ordered the crispy roasted duck as well. The sauce was a bit sweet, so it was important for me to eat each bite with one of the dried chili peppers that came with the dish. The little supremes of grapefruit helped cool it down afterwards.

We also tried four cocktails, all of which were really interesting. They definitely sit outside the box of traditional cocktails.

Overall I liked this place and would probably go back. I think there may be a bit of Thai influence in the dishes, but I enjoyed.

LA DONG
11 East 17th Street
New York, NY 10003

American, Burgers, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews

Little Rebel

September 5, 2021 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I came here with my wife and another couple to try out some of the menu items, as this place just recently opened about a month ago.

We tried two flavors of wings: maple waffle, and everything bagel. My favorite was the everything bagel. They even came with little blobs of creamed cheese.

The popcorn shrimp was addictive. I could easily eat 3 bowls

Massive chicken sandwich, topped with excellent quality thick cut bacon.

Both regular and truffle fries are great as well. And the burger was executed perfectly.

The pork belly was a bit too sweet from the candied orange on top, but otherwise it was very nicely cooked and tender.

They also have some really creative coctails.

Definitely give this place a shot. For bar food, this place has an elegant setting and some really high quality menu items.

LITTLE REBEL
219 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003

Burgers, Diner, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Joe Junior

August 25, 2021 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This joint came highly recommended by a food reviewer and meat expert friend of mine, Nick Solares. He has waxed eloquent about the burger here many times!

It’s deceptively simple. Nick ordered it for me: Rare, simply seasoned with just salt, and seared on the plancha, with cheese melted on both sides of the bun.

I have to say, for under $8 (sans fries), this thing rivals many of our city’s great steakhouse burgers. They’re using real quality ground beef, and they certainly know how to cook it. Rare was warm to the touch in the center, but not much bleed out or drips on the plate. Impressive.

And total steal at that price point. Go give it a shot!

JOE JUNIOR
167 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003

American, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Union Square/Flatiron

Oceans

February 16, 2020 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife took me to this joint for a belated Valentine’s Day date. This spot has some great seafood. We tried a lot of it, so I’ll get moving.

First, their bread service is incredible. I didn’t take a great picture of it, but the focaccia and sourdough are perfect. They bring it out with a dish of whipped butter mixed with some seriously high quality olive oil.

We started the meal with some fresh uni. This was a bit steep at $38, but it was so damn delicious, seasoned simply with some flake salt.

The stone crab claws were probably the low point of the meal. It was difficult to extract the meat (didn’t come out in good sized chunks), and over all it was just average in terms of flavor. For $25 a pop, we would have spent that $50 on more langoustines or carabineros (you’ll see that ahead).

The octopus with gigante beans was a good dish, but not excellent like some of the others. I would pass on this next time and focus more on the other seafood options.

Here’s one of those excellent dishes now: grilled langoustines.

These were perfectly cooked and incredibly flavorful. Make sure you save some bread so you can scoop out the succulent brains and eat them together like a makeshift lobster roll.

The carabineros shrimp were our favorite part of the meal. These giant, head-on shrimp from Spain are so deeply flavorful that it’s almost hard to explain. That dark red flesh is packed with natural fatty juices too. You’ll want to wipe some bread into that shit as well.

For our mains, we had Japanese snapper and a Niman Ranch rib eye. Both were served as composed dishes with sides of vegetables, and both were cooked really nicely. The steak was a solid 8/10.

For dessert, 16-layer lemon cake. So good with that blood orange sherbet swirl.

I definitely plan to go here again. They have beef tataki and lamb belly pasta on the menu that I need to try, but the daily seafood specials will be difficult to pass up again, I’m sure of it. Go give this place a shot.

OCEANS
233 Park Ave S
New York, NY 10003

Korean, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Barn Joo

February 10, 2019 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I recently had a meal here when celebrating a friends birthday party. Here’s a quick rundown of everything I tried:

This chicken with peanuts dish was really tasty. Nicely fried morsels of dark meat.

These fried beef dumplings were better still. I could have eaten a dozen.

While I’m not a huge tofu guy, these fried cubes were pretty tasty. I’d eat them again, but definitely not over the other two apps above.

Next up, beef noodles. These were ultimately pretty middle-of-the-road. Nothing stand-out about them.

The star of the show, however, was this pork belly dish. So much nice quality belly, with some chiccharones and a great spicy bean curd dip to boot. Awesome.

The octopus was perfectly cooked and had a great crunchy texture on the outside, but there was just something about it that bugged me. It had a flavor that reminded me of the smell of dried fish food. Perhaps it was something added on top for seasoning.

Lastly, their pickles and kimchi items are superb here. Some of the best I’ve had.

I would definitely go back here again.

BARN JOO
35 Union Square W
New York, NY 10003

American, Burgers, Diner, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Chat n Chew

September 18, 2018 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This local diner is in the vein of the American classic in feel, but with a bit less traditional menu items.

They have a great selection of cocktails, which are part of their happy hour menu as well.

I was impressed with the food. I tried a lot of stuff so here it goes:

Mac & Cheese

Great flavor on this and a nice blend of cheeses.

Asian Grilled Chicken Salad

Loved the sesame balsamic flavors on this.

Korean Wings

These are not batter fried in the traditional Korean style, but they are still sticky, sweet, spicy and crisp.

Fish & Chips

These are perfect. The best I’ve had, actually. The cod is juicy and flakey, and the batter is perfectly golden brown and crisp. They get hit with a dusting of curry too so the flavors are great.

Burger

This 10oz monster is great. Classic style, cheddar, LTO. Comes with fries for $15.

Crab Cake

This was nice and meaty. Also comes with fries and coleslaw.

Flatiron Steak

Lean and flavorful, this baby can be eaten with just a good sear on the outside. 6/10.

Coca-Cola Cake

Wow. They re-reduce the Coke back into a syrup and that gets mixed into a chocolate sponge and topped with crispy chocolate cookie bits, and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Really nice.

Give this place a shot! I know I will be back.

CHAT N CHEW
10 E 16th St
New York, NY 10003

Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Camacho’s

April 6, 2017 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Camacho’s is a new Mexican joint with great cocktails and a fun cantina vibe. Named after the executive chef, it features a variety of classic Mexican favorites, including tacos:

Clockwise from top: shrimp, steak, short rib, cod.

Excellent guac and chips:

Tasty Mexican corn:

A nice, filling taco salad:

Yucca fries:

The “Bad Hombre” drink, a mezcal based margarita-ish concoction that’s served in a smoke-filled glass skull:

Tons of DOTD sugar skulls on the walls:

Crazy dessert shakes:

And even a suggestive neon sign that’s all the rage on Instagram:

They play some fun music too, if this is your thing; a throwback to mid- to late-90’s rap and hip hop. I dug it, and I’ll definitely be back.

Note: I was invited in by the bar’s ownership to take some photos and do some Instagram posts in exchange for a free meal.

CAMACHO’S
118 E 15th St
New York, NY 10003

American, Carcass Club/Beast Feast, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Feast

February 10, 2017 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

As many of you know, I occasionally gather with various friends to devour entire carcasses of animals. We call ourselves The Carcass Club. This latest “meating” went down at a joint aptly called Feast.

A buddy of mine, NYCFoodFomo, organized this as an Instagram influencer meal. It was on the house, given that we were going to glaze Instagram’s face with our “cam-shots” from this “pork-fest.”

I used “quotes” there so that you knew I was actually making a reference to something else besides food photos…

Anyway, here’s what you get at Feast, for just $75/pp:

First Courses

Flat bread with fried egg, smoked gouda, arugula and horseradish cream.

This was nice and crispy, and the arugula is even lightly dressed, which was very nice. This dish would make for a great breakfast, actually.

Brussels sprouts with lap cheong sausage, creme fraiche, grain mustard, dried cranberry and cider vinaigrette.

The sausage really works perfectly with the sprouts. Instead of the typical bacon, this swap for lap cheong was smart, because it has a similar meaty sweetness.

Second Courses

Suckling pig with gravy.

I was shocked at how well the flavor of their 24-hour brine penetrated the flesh of this 28lb pig. The meat really took on the peppercorn flavors. And one of their secrets is to use the whey byproduct from their homemade cheese making process as a tenderizer in that brine. So awesome.

They break the pig down for you and plate it into sections: head area, shoulder area, rib area, and ass/legs area. Apologies for not getting a shot of that stuff for you. It wasn’t super pretty, but it was pretty cool to see piles of meat and a pig skull.

Chicharrones with lime.

They also give you a bowl of the crispy fried skin, which some would say is the best part of the suckling pig.

Kabocha mac n’ cheese with gruyere and toasted pumpkin seed.

The sweetness of the pumpkin in this dish threw me off a bit. Perhaps I just needed to be in the Thanksgiving holiday zone to fully appreciate this one. Nonetheless, it was tasty.

Taro fries with miso aioli.

It’s always a challenge to get taro fries good and crispy. The sauce was excellent, but the fries themselves were more like mashed potato logs. Not a bad thing: just not crispy like a French fry.

Smoked mushrooms with a soy glaze.

These were fucking incredible. The smoke added such a great woodsy flavor to an already earthy and woodsy mushroom (oyster). This was my favorite item of the night.

Indochine ratatouille.

I’m generally not a huge fan of ratatouille, but this had some nice robust and savory flavors.

Dessert Course

Chef’s seasonal selection, which, during this visit, was a caramelized apple cobbler with cold maple whipped cream and pomegranate seeds. I think there was even some diced up zucchini mixed into this unique dessert.

That about does it. I highly recommend giving this feast a go. You’ll need a minimum of eight carnivores to take it down.

FEAST
102 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003

American, Flash Deals, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, NY Strip, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

The House

January 3, 2017 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Pulsd was running a flash deal for this joint so my wife picked it up. The deal gave us a bottle of wine, a shared app, two entrees and a shared dessert. Not bad for under $70.

Our app was this nice smoked duck salad. The duck was nicely cooked and the romaine lettuce was dressed just right, and garnished with walnuts, raspberries and persimmon.

My wife picked the cassoulet for her entree. It sounded great; duck confit, wild boar sausage and lamb. However, the beans seemed to reign supreme. The meat was all shredded rather than left in chunks. It had a good smokey flavor, but the “baked beans” texture left a bit to be desired.

I went with the Pat LaFrieda black Angus strip, for a $6 up charge.

That’s a garlic and herb butter on top, and roasted fingerlings in the back. It wasn’t bad, but my first cut revealed a few lines of sinew that were really chewy and discouraging.

Other cuts were better, as you’ll see below. but overall there was just too much chewy bits for my liking. Strips always have that one side with a hard line of gristle too. This was no exception. Flavor was nice, but it could have used a bit more seasoning and searing. 6/10.

For dessert we went with a cheese plate that included five different styles. All were good.

THE HOUSE
121 East 17th Street
New York, NY 10003

East Village, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Union Square/Flatiron

Tortaria

December 21, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Type 2 Creative and Be Fat Be Happy threw an awesome holiday bash at Tortaria to help promote the restaurant. But it ended up being the sort of unofficial holiday gathering for all of us foodporn slingers on Instagram.

Everyone slapped on hats and ugly sweaters to crank up the “festive” levels. This one, worn by @StuffBenEats, was by far the clear winner:

And he was even sporting some nice Mexican corn there, which looked like yellow Christmas trees covered with cheese-snow.

Here’s my sweater, in an awesome guac photo that Ben took:

A photo posted by Ben Hon (@stuffbeneats) on Dec 20, 2016 at 7:29pm PST

The guacamole here is tight, speaking of. Lots of flavor, and good restaurant quality chips and salsa to go with.

And the pitchers of margaritas? Slammable!

A few interesting new menu items were trotted out for us; the tortas (sandwiches). This one is made with thinly sliced fried eggplant, and topped with chipotle sauce, bacon and avocado. Really nice.