JADE EATERY & LOUNGE

JADE EATERY & LOUNGE

One Station Square
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 793-2203

I know I know. I just reviewed a Thai place. How many Thai restaurants can one poor slob go to? Well, apparently a whole lot. Look! Another new one opened up right behind you!

Picking up JenX from her soon-to-be-vacant abode, we drove over to the Tudor-style, cobblestoned loveliness that is Station Square. Seriously, this is a gorgeous place. In the spring, the trees flower and the petals slowly fall like pink snow. Just one block separates it from the crowds and boutiques on Austin Street, but somehow it manages to feel miles away. Almost silent.



There used to be a restaurant here called The Melting Pot, a fondue joint. It went out of business and the location sat empty and decrepit for years. I remember how you could walk up to the window and look in, through the chipped and broken glass, and see booths and chairs and tablecloths still there, untouched and dusty. There was continuous consternation that this neighborhood embarrassment was never fixed up and re-rented to a new tenant. Some speculated that it was slated to become an art gallery. Some said a tea lounge. I merely prayed, "Dear Lord. Please don't let it become a nail salon."

In moved Jade Eatery & Lounge, ending all debate about how long this beautiful part of Forest Hills would remain vacant. Jade calls itself "Asian fusion", and whatever definition may be floating through your head right now, it actually means "Thai-with-a-sushi-bar". On the one hand, Jade is everything I want a restaurant of its size (it's not small) to be. But on the other hand, it disappoints on a fundamental level.

The One Hand: The Physical Space.
Jade is made up of three parts: Bar, Lounge, and Restaurant. The bar is at the back, but there's also a side entrance. It seems clear that Jade wants to be the place where sexy twenty-somethings choose to go when they want a hip place to get a fancy drink and aren't in the mood for something that ends in "-tini" and don't want to head to Manhattan. The DJ spins the music loud, so you'll be given a great excuse to lean in right to kissing distance with your date. Off to the side is a hallway that bends around the corner to the lounge. It doesn’t open until later, but when it does, it meets its guests with some dimly lit tables and pillow-topped sofas. Very sexy. A scene from Eyes Wide Shut could have been filmed here.

Jade is very modern and, from a style point of view, very different. Very trendy. I welcome this with open arms. Forest Hills already has plenty of restaurants that have decided to allow the stereotypes that follow their cuisine to dictate their style. A good example of what I mean can be found at certain Italian restaurants nearby. Frank Sinatra on the radio, Chianti bottles with candles poking from their spouts, red checker tablecloths. This may be traditional, but traditional is the polar opposite of original. Jade's restaurant is large and is both divided in half by, and dominated by, a large reflecting pool. Flower petals float within. Columns lined with tea lights glow all night long. It's a beautiful space. I've long wanted a trendy place nearby that would encourage the perception of Forest Hills as a place where restaurants can come and experiment. Where I could take friends who may be reluctant to travel out to Queens and have them wanting to return.



The Other Hand: The Food.
The diplomatic way to express myself is just to say that Jade's food leaves a lot of room for improvement. As I said, it's Thai. At current count, Forest Hills has 13 Italian restaurants, 8 Japanese restaurants, and 7 Thai restaurants. This leads me to compare FoHi with one of those intersections where every corner houses a different gas station. But instead of gas, they're sell ing pasta, sushi, or satay. So I’m disappointed. French would have been nice. Or Moroccan. Or Napa Valley Neo-Revisionist. Fine, I made that one up. I think.

But more than that, the food isn't spectacular. JenX and I both love coconut soups, so we started with the Gai Tom Kha soup. I liked it, though it was slightly on the thin side. She thought it was too salty. We split the Lollipop Chicken appetizer, which was pretty good for what's basically seasoned fried chicken with a dipping sauce. I wish they had this as a main dish. It would have changed the rest of the review. One thing nice, and this is something that may make no difference to you, is that they have Heineken Light on the beer list. To me, a good light beer is a big plus. JenX asked for the Thai Iced Tea and she thought it was really good. She complains that too often it will come excessively sweet. But Jade's was just right.

When our main courses came, JenX and I seemed to swap tastebuds. She ordered the Pad Thai, which is something that everyone should do when going to a Thai place for the first time. If they can't get the pad thai right, it's a bad sign. She liked it. I tried it and hey, it was pretty good. I wish I got it. Sadly, I chose the Chicken Snow Peas & Carrots, which was a stir-fried chicken veggie dish in a garlic sauce. A salty-garlic sauce. Or more accurately, a garlicy-salt sauce. Adding the rice helped, but I couldn't finish it.

When we went, Jade seemed to be specializing its desserts on lava cakes, but JenX and I opted to hit up Eddie's Sweet Shop over on Metropolitan for ice cream sundaes.



I really, really want to like Jade. I want to love Jade. And because their location represents Forest Hills more than anything else does, I want it to succeed probably more than any other restaurant in the area. Jade's success could boost the dining presence of the entire neighborhood; it's failure could damage it. They have the atmosphere down cold and they aren't expensive. Jade's entrees are where their problem lies. The next time I go, and go back I will, I'll focus my tongue on the appetizers.

Get here before 8 to make sure you get a seat without having wait. By 8:30 Jade'll be packed and have to wait. Luckily, they have a cool bar to get a drink at. If you can, ask for seats in the middle and not at the micro-booths along the wall. They aren't that comfy. The bar and louge are awesome. I hope that the restaurant catches up soon. Jade's aiming to be the destination of the local hotties, and judging by the girls I saw there...

The total amount of cash we laid down before we left was $65.



UPDATE, 5/29/07:
A few days ago, on May 26th, I received an email from Jade's owners. They wanted me to know that they've updated and tweaked the menu and they encouraged me to return. So it may be that your experience with Jade's menu will differ from my own. When I go back and give it another go, I'll write my experience up.

UPDATE, 6/19/07:
Earlier this week, Jade was approved for outdoor seating and I heard a rumor that rear garden seating might be coming. I hope so. And I sternly hope that more restaurants move into station square. LANDLORDS and CO-OP BOARDS, I'm talking to YOU.

UPDATE, 8/6/07:

I just recently to Jade with a friend, hoping, for one, that the food would have improved since my last full meal here. She didn't really know the neighborhood and I wanted to give the impression that Forest Hills was a cool place. Naturally, Jade was the place to go.

A few weeks ago, Jade started seating customers outside. But we wanted something indoors. Okay, she did. I didn't ask why. We sat at the bar near the Moroccan Lounge in the back until we were seated by the central reflecting pool by a very friendly, but very confused waiter where we ordered our appetizer, the Sushi Pizza. I wasn't really expecting much. Actually, I was expecting very little. Sushi and pizza combined, while eating in what's pretty much a Thai restaurant, screams doom. But holy crap was I wrong. The fish, tuna and salmon and yellowtail (I think) sat on a rice wafer crust and came with a ginger soy dipping sauce. It was excellent. This was one of the best intros to a meal I've had in a very long time. My friend and I followed it up with a spicy Pad Thai, which I liked a lot, and the Jade Salmon, which she liked even more. Alas, since I wasn't taking notes, I can't really write much about them. This update is really here to wholeheartedly endorse the sushi pizza.

Update 10/7/07:

Prospect Parks came over for a visit and since the wait was too long at Five Burros, we decided to sit by the cobblestones at Jade. First, the booze. She went generic with a vanilla Stoli and Ginger Ale followed by a Bacardi and Coke. I picked off the cocktail menu: the Superior Mojito followed by the Razz Mojito. Basically, they were the same drink, but the Razz used raspberry rum. Both were strong, but needed more sugar. The couple at the table next to us had ordered coffee and when they left, I pilfered some sugar packets.

Our appetizers were the Lemon Fried Calamari, served with a tamarind dipping sauce, and the Popcorn Shrimp, swankily served in a martini glass with a cilantro dipping sauce. Parks liked her popcorn shrimp and liked it more when she dipped it in my tamarind sauce. As for me, I didn't think the calamari was bad, but there wasn't much of it, and it was kind of blandly dull. We also split a special sushi roll, the Fleet Street Roll. It's yellowtail tempura topped with lobster and tabiko roe under a sweet sauce. It was very good, but next time I want to try the Burns Street Roll or the Jade Roll. The entrees we ordered were good. I got the Pad Thai, which I've had before numerous times, and she ordered the Red Penang Curry Rice Noodles with Chicken. Good, not very spicy, and humongous. She gave a healthy portion of it to me and there was still enough to take home.

Our four cocktails, two appetizers, two entrees, a sushi roll, with tax and tip, was $115.

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LAND

LAND THAI KITCHEN
450 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10024
(212) 501-8121

It’s like this. Bro owed me $25. So I thought, “Hey, I’ll have him take me out to dinner someplace inexpensive.” Where better than the always popular Land on 82nd and Amsterdam? I'd eaten there a handful of times and knew about what it was going to cost. My next decision, driving there, was a bad idea. I’m not one of those guys who’ll drop 20-30 bones on a two-hour garage spot. So Bro and I spent 45 minutes tooling around looking for parking. The guy who invents the hover-car will be one rich mofo.

The Upper West side is a diverse place to eat. Not just in terms of the types of food you can get, but in terms of what you’ll be paying to get it. On the one hand, there’s Ollie’s, the consistently badmouthed, but always full, Chinese that I’ve never had a problem with. Dirt cheap, lots of food, and fast, but hated by critics who, quite clearly, no one listens to. On the other hand are Aix and Oeste. They are… not so dirt cheap. In between are about forty eight million billion gajillion other restaurants of varying price, quality, and popularity. Land is one of them.

Land is Thai. Lately, Thai food has become the catch-all type of food for NYers. If you’re meeting friends or on a date, you seemingly can’t go wrong with Thai. Your vegetarian friends will have a wide menu, your meat-eating friends will have a wide menu. Thai restaurants don’t specialize in a specific culinary ingredient that risks turning someone picky off the way a Steakhouse focusing on steak, a seafood place focusing on fish, or a barbecue joint focusing on ketchup might.

But the thing is this. Thai restaurants are growing in number at what looks like an exponential rate. This happened with Chinese food back before my time, and now no one goes out to eat Chinese unless they travel to Chinatown or Flushing. Everyone just orders in. I predict that there will be a saturation point.

But we’re not there yet, and upon arrival that’s immediately obvious at Land. I’ve been here a few times, and when the maitre d’ told Bro and I that it would be a 20-minute wait, I was shocked. That’s it? So little? I’ve waited over an hour before (against my will and cursing the entire time, mind you). We were given little wooden tokens that were good for $1 off a beer next door at The Dead Poet and out we went to grab our discounted hooch. So far, so good.



Like I said, I’ve been to Land a few times, and it’s always been consistent in two ways: consistently cheap and consistently mediocre. Bland was a word I’d tossed around liberally and if someone suggested Land as an option, I was almost guaranteed to roll my eyes in amazement that in a city with three Thai restaurants for every Thai resident, the powers-that-be would pick Land as the place to go. I’ve commented to those that listen that if you’re gonna get what you pay for, I’d like it to be more expensive.

Thus, I arrived fully expecting it to be mediocre. Bland. But a friend of mine, who for lack of a better pun I’ll call Mr. Dogz, lives nearby. We were hungry, he suggested Land for lunch , and I wasn’t going to argue with either my stomach or wallet. I was pleasantly surprised. So this time, I figured that I’d hit the place up with Bro. He’d never been there, it was cheap, and recent experience suggested that it had improved.

Land is popular. And small. And small. And small. Did I mention how small it is? Three inches separate the tables which are lined up along the northern wall. Therefore, I suggest not getting up to go to the bathroom. If you sit against the wall you’ll just have to pee right where you are the way marathon runners do. I say this even though Land is known for its bathroom. It doesn’t have a sink. It has a clear pipe that pours water out from the wall, cascading over your hands and onto smooth pebbles on the floor. Neato. It’s cool and weird, but infinitely less weird than Peep’s bathroom, whose one-way glass lets you watch people eat while you simultaneously drop a deuce.

A mirror along the wall does wonders for increasing the perceived size, at least. But Land does a lot of take-out, and delivery guys are in constant flow. This makes the already small corridor tighter.



Bro ordered the Satay Sampler appetizer, a combo of three skewered meats: chicken, beef, and lamb served with a peanut sauce. He thought it was excellent although he felt that the beef was a bit dry. Once he dipped it in the sauce, however, he said he no longer noticed. I love calamari, so I ordered the Crispy Calamari. And it was delicious. I must say that there wasn’t much of it and the batter was more than a bit too thick, but I’m gonna get it again anyway.

After coming back from a semester abroad in Australia, Bro orders lamb whenever he can find it on a menu. He’ll even pick the fake lamb over the real chicken when eating lunch from a Halal cart vendor. This is probably the reason he picked the satay sampler and probably why he chose his entrée, the Massaman Curry with Lamb. But mine is not to wonder why, mine is but to speculate behind his back without bothering to ask. He liked it a lot. Bro had to go to the bathroom during the meal. So after he almost knocked the table over and after he stuck his butt in the faces of the people next to us while squeezing out, I snuck a bite. It was okay. When I think “lamb”, I don’t usually follow it up with “Thai”, and it wasn’t really my type of dish, but he liked it. So maybe you will too. As for me, I ordered the Green Curry with Chicken, which was very good. I ate it all. But here’s the thing. I like spicy. I love spicy. I picked it because it was supposed to be the spiciest curry they had. And it wasn’t spicy. So when I say Land can be bland, this is what I mean. It’s not that the curry was tasteless, but it did lack a little sump’n sump’n.

When I had lunch a few days prior with Mr. Dogz, I ordered the Chicken Galangai Soup and the Drunken Noodle with Chicken. Both were good and for an $8 prix-fix lunch, worth every penny… if not more.

So Land is popular and it clearly is quite the yummy place to go. But is it the best Thai in NYC? No. Is it worth standing on line for? Hmm... maybe for half an hour. But not more than that. Is it worth the money? Oh yeah.

Dinner and diet-Cokes for the two of us came to around $50 total.

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FRANKIES 457 SPUNTINO

FRANKIES 457 SPUNTINO
457 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 403-0033

Not so long ago, telling someone that you were going out to dinner in Brooklyn would have been met with a raised eyebrow. Brooklyn food, unless you were headed to Peter Luger or the now defunct Gage & Tollner, meant a Nathan’s hot dog or a slice of pizza from Totonno’s. And neither of those was ever really worth traveling very far to get to. Brooklyn was known for people who felt that upscale cuisine was for sissies and who still fumed about the Dodgers 1958 move to LA. Well, times have changed. Brooklyn has become the place to be if you’re a cool, young grad student but can’t afford rent in the Village or if you’re a newly married couple who wants a brownstone but can’t afford to push your Bugaboo around the Upper West Side.

Following them, the restaurants have arrived with a vengeance. There are literally dozens of great restaurants in Brooklyn now. And with the threat of being stabbed in the subway down dramatically since 1986, people are going out of their way to eat in them.

Frankies 457 Spuntino, in Carroll Gardens, is one such great little place. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall Italian that’s easy to walk past without seeing, but if you do miss it, you’re missing out. There are a handful of tables at the back, a small bar at the front, and the open kitchen is smack in-between. I love open kitchens. Don’t ask me why. There’s also a patio out back that I’m gonna bet is really nice in the summer.



The high tin ceiling, large fans, and exposed, artless brick walls are dimly lit by what I swear are two-watt bulbs. This creates a very moody, turn-of-the-century aura. Anywhere else and I’d wonder when Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde was planning on showing up, but you’re never given time for that sinister feeling to creep up on you. As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted by one of the smiling, happy staff and led to your table. In fact, they were so nice that part of me thinks that they’d have paid the bill if I asked nicely enough.

I went with my friend, M, who’d been to Frankies once before. She thought it was very good (she loved one dessert in particular) and wanted to go back to prove to herself it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t.



For a starter, M ordered the long-named fennel, celery root and parsley, sliced red onion and lemon salad. I ordered the lentil with smoked bacon soup. I didn’t try the salad but M liked it. I enjoyed the soup. The bacon added a nice smokeyness. But here’s the thing. When I cook, I use salt extremely sparingly, so I pick up on salt very easily. A little goes a long way for me, and the soup had more than I would have liked. I think that maybe switching to a low sodium bacon would do the trick. Not that I wouldn't order it again.

My entree was the squash and yam ravioli, which I really recommend, but I warn you, it’s heavy. So was M’s hand-made gnocci marinara. Both were vegetarian pastas and both the pastas were excepitionally smooth. They practically melted when you bit into them. The attention given to these dishes was noticeable, but they should come with a warning: ordering dessert risks explosion.

That didn't stop us though. M was there for the dessert, so skipping it wasn't an option. We split the red wine prunes and mascarpone. And here's where I felt guilty. The mascarpone was the predominant reason M recommended Frankies for dinner. This bizarre little dessert was so good the first time around, she was worried that round two would change her mind. Upon ordering it, our waitress' eyes lit up. It's her favorite, too! Ah, I can see them both now, basking in the glow of the mascarpone's sweet goodness... It arrives and we dig in. Still good. Eye-rollingly good. For M.

I, on the other hand, was indifferent. It was good, for sure. But maybe it was too sweet. Maybe I was too full. Maybe there was too much hype. Maybe it reminded me of a prune and port glaze I've made for pork roast and I couldn't picture it in dessert form. Either way, I'm in the minority here, and suggest you try it for yourself. The waitress seemed hurt when I tepidly said, "I like it."

Our meal, which included appetizers, entrees, a couple of glasses of wine each, and a shared dessert was a bit under $90, including tax and tip.



Times are still changing. Those who cleaned up so many Brooklyn neighborhoods paved the way for less adventurous (but more monied) people to feel comfortable building nice new condos. Many of these new buildings are just as expensive as their Manhattan counterparts, and I predict a northern movement of hip financial refugees. Right to my door. The better restaurants may very well be on their way to Queens.

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LONDON LENNIE'S

LONDON LENNIE'S
63-88 Woodhaven Boulevard
Rego Park, NY 11374
(718) 894-8084

If you’re ever traveling down Woodhaven Boulevard… and I can’t think of a reason why you would be xcept that you got lost headed home after spending a day at the mall, you’ll pass London Lennie’s, a wood paneled, old-school style seafood restaurant. London Lennie’s does not feel like New York City. I realize that it's hard to really explain what that means, but if you've ever been to a nice restaurant in smaller, less corporate cities such as Albany or elsewhere, there's a distinctly less formal feeling to them. From the very minute the valet takes your car, you start to get the impression that regulars come here… regularly (and that they all seem to be having birthdays).

Peeking around the place after walking in, the first thing you notice, after the standing-room only crowd, is that the walls are wood. Thick, dark, and covered with art deco posters reminding whoever Lennie is of what his home turf was like in the 1920s. You can almost picture the walls aglow with gas lanterns. Like a glass pyramid of inebriation, the bar towers over the northern half of the restaurant. This is not some small bistro made for romantic interludes. Leather booths that can seat more than 6 hug one wall. A tall table occupied by suits sucking down oysters is next to some guys looking like they just finished a shift unloading trucks. This is one of those rare places where anything you wear makes you look like you fit in (I’ll complain about this later). But London Lennie’s isn’t cheap. This is pure guesstimation, but figure that an average meal of an appetizer, an entrée, and a drink without dessert, would be around $40 per person.

Asian Fever hit the city a few years ago. I don't mean bird flu, though ironically, those most afflicted handle food. Specifically the trendy restaurateur population. Thai restaurants and sushi bars have been popping up like Starbuckses, each one making the concept of eating Thai and Japanese about as interesting as having a pretzel in Herald Square only less unique. Don't get me wrong, I love Thai and Japanese, but variety is the spice of life. I would have thought that a place like London Lennie’s, which presents the same old-school, traditional aura as Smith & Wollensky (though with neither the price tag nor stuffiness) would be have been immune from this bug. I would also be wrong. The menu is full of Japanese-themed dishes. There’s sushi, soba noodles, dumplings, chopsticks on the table by the forks when you’re seated. Of course, maybe Lennie lived in Tokyo between London and New York, I which case I shut my mouth. However, it lends the meal a schizophrenic air.



The first thing you get after your microbrew is a massive loaf of bread. I know some people who would choose a bad restaurant over a good one simply because they prefer the bread that they get at the table while placing an order. That isn't my first priority, but they’d like this bread. I might too if its crust didn’t explode across the table like grenade shrapnel. It’s far too crusty and that crustiness isn’t helped by the fact this huge baked ball is on a tiny cutting board meant for cheese that it barely fits onto.

Being a seafood restaurant, London Lennie’s fish selection is large and varied. There’s a raw bar selection, and the Blue Point oysters I ordered were excellent, presented with a selection of three sauces to dip them in (naturally, one was Asian-ish). The New England clam chowder was something I liked very much. Smooth, creamy, flavorful. Those I was eating with were less impressed though, feeling that there were too many potatoes and too few clams. They had a similar complaint about the Manhattan clam chowder. I say don’t listen to them. Order the chowder.

The entrées we ordered, pignoli nut crusted red snapper, organic grilled salmon, peppercorn-crusted mako shark, and the east-coast seafood bouillabaisse were all enjoyed with the only serious complaint being that some of the dishes were perhaps a bit too dry for the taste of whoever ordered it. I never noticed. Having sampled all of the dishes, I thought that that they were all pretty moist and quite good. I do wish that the Asian-Fever-struck salmon I ordered had a less tart, more sweet sauce. But that was pretty much my only issue.

If you love lobster and are willing to pony up the dough to get one, London Lennie's has a whole tank of them. When I went they ran as heavy as six pounds. There's also a turf menu if ever you find yourself there with some unfortunate soul who doesn’t like fish. But like their seafood, Lennie’s steaks aren’t free. So lubbers should expect to part with some wallet stuffing when they order.

As I mentioned, anything you wear here is acceptable. And frankly that’s what irritated me the most. I always try to look nice when I go out, or at least not like I just woke up. And I while I’m not saying not to wear jeans (I wore them) I draw the line at hoodies and keeping your Giants cap on at the table. Most people looked fine, but there were a noticeable handful who were just too slobby for my taste. And the staff was too nice to say “this isn’t Long John Silver’s. Take of the hat, sir.” I recognize that it’s a minor complaint that has nothing to do with the food, service, or décor but I mention it nonetheless.

Just like Manhattan, you’re about as likely to find a parking spot on the street around here as win the lotto, so you’re better off using the valet. If you don’t own a car, enlist a friend who does or get a ZipCar subscription, because you’ll need to transfer from the local subway to the bus and back again without one.

Hungry but can’t eat out? They sell fresh fish to take home, too.

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TARTINE

TARTINE
253 W 11th Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 229-2611

There are two great things about a BYOB place. First, it’s cheaper. Restaurants typically price wine two or three times the wholesale cost. This means that the fifteen-dollar bottle of Chateau Je Ne Sais Pas you drank last week is probably going to be $30 or so when you order it with your meal. You not only save money by getting the wine yourself, but you can amortize the cost of the entire eating experience over two bills, making you feel like you spent even less. No matter how good the food may be, it always tastes worse when you’re hit with an exorbitant bill.

The other great thing about a BYOB restaurant is that you have removed that guilt you know you have about getting that second glass. No more stretching the first glass for as long as possible. You HAVE to get a second glass. And then you HAVE to get a third. After all, you don’t want to get arrested for waving your open bottle of vino around like a hobo with a forty.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Tartine is BYO.

Tartine is nestled deep in the West Village, surrounded by the quaint brownstones and bistros that define the West Village streets the way used record stores and sex-toy shops define the West Village thoroughfares.

If you’re like me, and find that these quaint West Village streets make about as much sense as string theory, then I suggest you bring a map. Option B is to wander around until you see a corner with people standing in a long line, wrapped around the corner, drinking wine. Huzzah, you have found Tartine.



Tartine is a bistro in the truest sense of the word. A small restaurant serving a limited, basic menu. The specials are listed outside and I promise that you’ll have plenty of time to pick each of your courses before you sit down. If the staff tells you that the wait is twenty minutes, you should be hearing “at least forty minutes.” Ask for some glasses and you can drink on the street while you wait. And if you and your date run out of things to talk about, you can just stare inside and watch people eat like they’re part of a Macy’s display. But the crowd here is very friendly and the odds are that you’ll talk to the other people on line.

Claustrophobes beware. Tartine is a teeny tiny place. This means that no one in wheelchairs can eat here, no one fat can eat here, no one who broke their leg and has it in a cast while they hobble around on crutches can eat here, no one who doesn't have a cat somewhere on their family tree can eat here. Tartine’s tables are so tight that you practically sit next to but reversed from the table behind you. Parties of four should seriously consider eating somewhere else. To avoid having too many people crawling over the other customers, the four-person tables are almost all by the door. So you’ll have every new customer squeezing past you, virtually without exception. In the winter you’ll get the first blasts of cold air. This may be invigorating to some, like members of the Polar Bear Club, but the general twenty-something public, of which I am a member, may opt for warmer climes in the back.

I went on a Saturday night with a friend, M. She’s a vegetarian. Like many vegetarians, M is a vegetarian who cheats and eats fish, thus allowing her access to a wider variety of resaurants. Tartine, however, has almost no fish and this seriously thinned down her food choices. Not me though, since I’ll eat almost anything. I try not to rub it in.

For starters, M ordered the corn chowder and I ordered the escargot. When I was a kid, I went to some French restaurant somewhere with my parents and tried escargot for the first time. Most often, the criticism I hear from people who don’t want to try it is that it’s going to be like eating a big, disgusting wad of snot. NO. Not true. It’s like eating a big, delicious wad of snot, piping hot and drenched in garlic and butter. Heaven. Since then, if I’m at a French place and they have escargot, I have to get it. And the escargot at Tartine was probably among the best I’ve ever had. I also really liked the corn chowder (so did she). Smooth and corny, like half of my jokes… yum.

For dinner, M ordered the only thing on the menu she could that wasn’t a salad, the grilled salmon. I didn’t try it, but M said it was very good. And since she ate the whole thing, my vast brain deduced that she wasn’t lying. For me, I ordered the Brouche a La Reine, which is basically the French version of the pot pie. It’s a big flaky pastry ball in which is baked chicken and vegetables and cream. Absolutely delicious. Everyone around us was ordering the lamb special and I wondered if I was missing the boat by passing on something unique for something more generic, but by the time I started eating, I stopped noticing their plates and concentrated on my own (this is harder than it sounds since we practically had to share the table). We were pretty full by the end and decided to skip dessert, but not the coffee.

One thing that you need to know is that Tartine is cash-only. Cash or travelers check. You 're not gonna break the bank here, though. Our dinner-for-two total, including tax and tip, but not including the wine, came out to around $70.

If you get a late dinner, you might be able to avoid the wait. The kitchen closes at 10:30pm.

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MAGNOLIA BAKERY or BILLY’S BAKERY?

MAGNOLIA BAKERY
401 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 462-2572

BILLY'S BAKERY
184 9th Avenue
New York, NY, 10011
(212) 647-9956

The Magnolia concept of bakeryhood is to create a place that makes a cake so sweet, diabetics fall down ill just from being downwind. Cupcakes are the main weapon Magnolia has in its war on Atkins. They're made fluffy and with extra sugar. Extra extra sugar. Magnolia's three major varieties of this particular ordinance are chocolate, vanilla, and devil's food. Like Rosie the Riveter, an attractive female stands in the window hammering out as many as supplies allow, ensuring an ample supply of ammo. Magnolia's cupcakes are hit or miss, though in my opinion are better than their cakes. Sometimes they're perfect, but sometimes they're too dry. Either way, order a cup of passable coffee and you'll be fine.



Popular before long before the Narnia song, the lines at this no-seat little place snake around the corner and down the block. Since you’ll be on line for half an hour, pull up a brownstone stoop and have a seat. Magnolia might not have made it into my more-aggravating-than-it's-worth list if there was no wait, but there is. When you've finally gotten around to ordering, you can’t eat inside. Instead, you get to sit on the fabulous benches by the fabulous Bleecker Playground surrounded by fabulous garbage cans fabulously overflowing with Magnolia boxes, wrappers, and cups while being asked if you could spare your fabulous change.



I am very glad that the Magnolia people have been so successful. I love it when small shops create a product that becomes popular without flushing their principles down the toilet. But Magnolia's popularity and subsequent lines create a perception that the cupcakes I get should taste like an orgasm topped with sprinkles. And when they don't, I personally wonder why I wasted my time. Their stuff is pretty good, but is it worth spending half an hour on line for? I'm not kidding when I say that I have friends who have fallen asleep leaning on me while waiting.



And that’s where Billy’s Bakery comes in. Billy's is one of a handful of new MagnoliaClones that have cropped up like mushrooms across Manhattan in recent years. Each one has its own twist on the Magnolia brand and each one tastes good. So why single Billy's out? It's the closest to the F train stop where a friend of mine lives. Hence, I review.



Actually, plenty of others have sung the praises of the place, so I won’t bore you with too many details here. You can read everyone else's two-sentence blurbs for yourself later. I’m more about opinionated extrospection. And besides, how long-winded does a review about a cupcake store have to be?

The cupcakes are like Magnolia's, but better. Maybe it's because the owner used to work at Magnolia and he "borrowed" the style. Maybe it's because there’s hardly any line, so by the time I get to eat what I've ordered, I'm not in my pissed-off-puppy-shooting mood. Maybe it’s because they actually DO taste better. It doesn't really matter. Cupcakes aside, without a doubt, their regular cakes are better than Magnolia’s. Smoother, richer, not as dry. Sure, there’s no nearby park filled with the perks of litter and homeless people to eat in, but Billy’s does have a couple of tables. In the winter, this means you can pull up a seat and not freeze your nips off having dessert.

Actually, I tease Magnolia about the park. During the day it's fine. I just happen to always go around 10pm or so, the peak of crappitude. During the day, Magnolia's West Village neighborhood is very nice. Lots of shops, tree-lined streets, romantic. Billy's is in Chelsea. It's not that Chelsea's bad, but let's not kid ourselves. It ain't the West Village. Magnolia wins for atmosphere.

Some have complained that Billy's service is less than stellar. That the gay male staff wishes it were working at Armani Exchange instead. Perhaps, but I haven't had any problems and I'm far from a regular who gets VIP treatment. Everyone was very helpful and seemed nice. The slice of cake I ordered was the size of a small car and the coffee was fresh. So far so good. Better cakes, better coffee, better line. Billy's wins for food.



Anyway, the last thing I would want is to encourage people to go to Billy’s and re-create the line phenomenon I so abhor. So stay away. You’ll just get fat.

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DB WINE BAR & KITCHEN

DB WINE BAR & KITCHEN
104-02 Metropolitan Avenue
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 261-2144

My neighborhood of Forest Hills can be divided, for all intents and purposes, into two halves. Half one is Austin Street, north of the mansion-rich Forest Hills Gardens. Austin Street is home to the subway lines, Station Square, Barnes & Noble, Ethan Allen, Banana Republic, more boutiques than you can shake a stick at, and most of the neighborhood’s restaurants.

Half two is Metropolitan Avenue, south of the Gardens. It’s home to… well, not much. A few antique stores, the gas stations, some cafes, and now an ongoing dispute about whether a dry cleaner should become a 7-Eleven. But this is changing. Dee’s Brick Oven is there (which I promise to review one day). The perfect-for-summer-nights Theater Café opened last year. Trader Joe’s is planning a supermarket here. And now, in has arrived DB (Danny Brown, not Daniel Boulud) Wine Bar & Kitchen.




DB is what every Forest Hills restaurant should aspire to. Actually, it’s what every small restaurant, as a general category, should aspire to. Make a few things, make them well, and make your customers welcome.

DB itself is small. Not Savoy small, but not large. There are perhaps twenty tables, almost all of which are for two people. No booths. The dining area’s high ceilings and well-lit interior (they dim the lights a bit at 8) serve to raise customer volume. Everyone’s talking and laughing. No one sits eating their meal in silence as though they fear waking the table next to them. People have already become regulars, as one can immediately tell by the sheer number of patrons who walk in and start hugging the staff. One almost feels left out.

The tables fill up by 8:30 and the bar soon follows. DB is supposed to be a wine bar, and with a bar that stacks its wine to the ceiling and a wine list five times as large as the menu, this could be an accurate statement. But it isn’t. The term “wine bar” in this case appears to be a way to differentiate DB from the other restaurants in the neighborhood. I think of a wine bar as someplace that focuses almost all of its attention on wine at the expense of having a full menu. Usually just an appetizer list should you desire solid sustenance to temper the coming insobriety. Besides, you can differentiate yourself from most of the other Metropolitan Avenue restaurants just by not serving Italian.

The seemingly endless waves of E coli scares that have flooded through the news freaking stay-at-home moms and vegetarians alike have done little to assuage the numbers of eat-outers. But they have prompted health agencies to be more vigilant. Maybe this is one reason why the open kitchen thing feels nice. I walk in. I see the open kitchen. Any grease dripping off the pots? Nope. Any once-flying food stuck to the walls? Looking good. Is this why I like DB’s open kitchen? Who knows. Probably not, since I was one of those guys who kept ordering spinach this past fall, but it does look nice, and it does look clean.

God, as they say, is in the details. But so is quality. If I go somewhere that looks perfect initially, but I’m given paper napkins or the sugar packet selection is left on the table throughout the meal, then I can assume that the lack of attention to detail here will transfer into the kitchen. This isn’t snobbery and this isn’t universal, especially when it comes to inexpensive mom-and-pop places. But when it comes to a restaurant that wants to play the “we’re-worth-the-price” card, it has been my experience. DB doesn’t go the cheap route (though their menu is hardly expensive). Real napkins, tablecloths, butter NOT served inside the foil with the bread, and miniature peppermills so you can grind yourself fresh pepper right at the table all exude the time and energy that went into the restaurant beyond making it look good past a cursory inspection. Candles on the table are everywhere these days except at McDonalds (though give them time), but it’s always a nice touch.

I ordered the organic chicken “under a brick” and found it moist and tender with a yummy, crispy skin. The dish was very lean even with the skin and thus, virtually guiltless, but heavy nonetheless. For an appetizer, I ordered the grilled calamari. Full disclosure: I have been to DB once before, and ordered the exact same things. The chicken was identical, but the calamari was not. Don’t translate this into my thinking it was bad, but it was better the first time ‘round. The calamari is served warm on a bed of white beans and this time the dish was noticeably more liquidy than the first time as well as saltier. I’m not a salt person. Still, I enjoyed it and would recommend it, especially to someone who likes calamari but maybe gets tired of the same ol’ deep fried versions that exist most everywhere else. My brother ordered the ham croquettes starter and the striped bass entrée. His dishes were, I jealously mention, more artfully displayed than mine. After reading a few articles in the Times health section, Bro makes a point to have fish for dinner once or more a week. And he was clearly not disappointed with his bass dish (nor was I when I stole a bit without asking) given the speed with which he inhaled it.

The desserts were similarly tasty. My upside down, boozed-up rum raisin carrot cake and Bro’s ultra-smooth buttermilk citrus panna cotta were delicious and I was very glad that the waitress recommended them to us.

Now for my ignorance. I am terrible at a couple of things. Asking for directions is one of them. In fact, when I crumble and ask, I end up barely listening (just point “thataway”). Number two is names. This applies to people, state capitals, your extended family and specifically wine. Give me a vineyard and a year and I’ll just stare blankly and mutter “uh huh.” I’ve started keeping a wine diary so I can remember which ones I’ve had that I liked and which ones I’ve wasted my money on. I regret to admit that when I go to a wine bar, I have no idea what I’m doing. Therefore, I cannot review the wine list, but from what I’ve read about it online at places like Chowhound, it’s pretty damn good. So take their anonymous words for it and buy a bottle or two with some friends. For a pro's advice, I recommend the Wine Library online program.

As I’ve said, DB is on Metropolitan Avenue. This could present a problem. See, Metropolitan is a street sans a subway. So if, after reading this review, you decide that, like any good foodie, you’re gonna trek out to Queens (as well you will), how will you go? If you’re coming from outside of the neighborhood, I suggest driving even though parking is, politely put, a pain in the ass (though both times I’ve eaten here I managed to get a spot right out front). If driving is not an option, then you have to take the subway or LIRR. Walking south away from Queens Boulevard, head towards the cobblestone of Station Square and begin your journey through the Gardens to Metropolitan. Your walk through the Gardens will be both tree and Mercedes-Benz lined, but it’s going to take twenty minutes to get where you want to be, so go in warm weather. And since you’re walking back, don’t get too plastered at dinner. I can vouch for the safety of the neighborhood, but not for the safety of wandering into oncoming traffic.

My meal, which was an appetizer, entrée, glass of wine, dessert and coffee, including tax and tip came to around $50.

Bro paid.



P.S.-
In your web travels, you may have already come across AvenueFood.com, a far more professional blog created by a fellow resident of Forest Hills. The author mostly writes about recipes, but she also wrote a review of DB Wine Bar & Kitchen. Read it here and notice how we, purely by coincidence, ordered many of the same things. Freaky. Anyway, while the choice of dishes ordered by me in no way had anything to do with her review, my choice to use the restaurant's business card did. Just some full disclosure on my part. Kudos for the good idea. And a good review also, by the way.

UPDATE: 6/15/07

Daniel Boulud has threatened to sue Danny Brown over the use of the "db" initials.

UPDATE: 9/24/07
I compared DB Bistro Moderne to DB Wine Bar and Kitchen.

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INTRO

I used to be a Manhattanite… actually, I still really am. I’m an expat living in the Colony of Queens. For most Manhattanites, Queens is where you wake up at three in the morning, half drunk, after passing out on the subway. You get out, mildly pissed and mostly hungry, change directions, fall asleep going the opposite direction, and hope not to wake up in the ass-end of Brooklyn.

If my parents woke up on the F train in the middle of the night in Queens, they’d say “DAMMIT!” much as we would today. Except that in 1975, “DAMMIT!” translated roughly into “Thank God I’m not in the Bronx.” For my parents, Queens was where elderly relatives went to die, next to their cats and on a lawn down the block from the cemetery.

Queens was not, is not, cool. At least not most of it.

The end result of this is that not many outer borough restaurants get reviewed, especially Queens ones. This is slowly changing. Lots of us have been priced out of Manhattan and into Park Slope, Williamsburg, Long Island City, or where I am, Forest Hills. But most Manhattanites don’t know what they’re missing out on (and don’t really care) until their expat friends cajole (guilt) them into visiting and eating out. So while this isn’t exclusively a Queens blog, it’ll include perhaps more new places than you’re used to.

I hope.
We’ll see.

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