e a t e r y R O W

BEAUTY & ESSEX

2012-01-31T00:16:00.002-05:00

146 Essex Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 614-0146

Beauty & Essex is like a scene out of a movie. It is honestly almost surreal that places like this exist, in real life, but yet, there I was, pushing my way past a throng of people smoking on the sidewalk on an otherwise deserted Lower East Side street. In front of me was the glowing neon sign of what appears to be an all-night pawn shop; and in fact, it is one. Behind those glass front doors lies an actual pawn shop where actual people actually mill about buying actual antique jewelry. On the back wall of that late-night jeweler sits a nondescript plain door that just so happens to have an almost constant stream of girls in sequined dresses walking into and out of it. I followed them in.

Operagirl and I went here on a weekday night and it was hopping. The music was cranked so loud that you have to scream to have a conversation after elbowing your way through the mob to find a place to stand while waiting for a table to open. We had a 9:30pm reservation and still waited 40 minutes to get seated. On one side of the lounge is a bar and on the other are velvet chairs and sofas. It was only missing a fireplace. I saw a empty spot on the sofa and had just tapped Operagirl on the shoulder when a tall young brunette in a painted-on dress and her sixty-five year old "date" snagged it. "Damn. I was gonna tell to grab those seats while I grabbed us drinks, but that hooker beat you to it." And so it goes at Beauty & Essex. Escorts, cougars, gold-diggers, and the men who love them. People watchers looking for a celebrity to squeal at and scenesters joyously celebrating being at the city's current "it" spot. An actual mini-celeb like Operagirl. An actual mini-poseur like me. You feel both special for being a part of this kind of excess, because deep down it's huge fun, and depressed because you simultaneously know it's all fake and fleeting.

"They're serving free pink champagne in the ladies room!" Operagirl screams.

The thing is, since it feels like you're having dinner at a nightclub, you would be well within your rights to expect that the food would be just a diversion between cocktails; high end bar-food designed to keep you drunk enough to be happy without getting you drunk enough to puke on the pink champagne lady. And yet the food was surprisingly... good! So were the cocktails, by the way. As a cocktail guy, I was impressed.

When Beauty & Essex isn't being a great big circus of laughter and club music and glitter, it's basically Spanish-American small plates restaurant. The appetizer sized small plates are big enough to be small entrees and the entrees are small enough to be big appetizers. This means you share everything. We started with the Braised Short Rib Tamales and the Chili Relleno Empanadas. The Tamales were super creamy and super rich. I can't say I tasted any short rib in there, but it was pretty damn good nonetheless. The empanadas under a light but rich poblano-manchego-jalapeno cream sauce, were likewise extremely good and, while I've had better in Corona, neither of us could possibly complain. For the entree part of our meal, we ordered the Brick Pressed Chicken and the Oven Braised Chicken Meatballs. The brick pressed chicken didn't hold a candle to Danny Brown's version (how could it, the place has a Michelin Star) but was still extremely good. It was served with tangy baby tomatoes on a bed of polenta. Operagirl and I both loved the polenta, but she wasn't a fan of the decision to include tomatoes. I felt that it added a little oomph, to use a technical term. It didn't need the tomatoes, but I wouldn't get rid of them. The meatballs were the weakest part of our dining experience here. They weren't bad but they were sort of tasteless. Ground chicken is fine if you're on a diet, but I'd never consciously choose to make a meatball out of pure chicken. if I were cooking at home. It just isn't hearty enough.

For dessert, I wanted to try the "box of doughnuts" which I heard were fantastic, but Operagirl wanted the Molten Chocolate Bread Pudding. Naturally, we did what any two semi-mature adults would do: we flipped a coin. I lost. If you don't know what bread pudding is, think of regular pudding but puff it up with a lot of air to give it a soft doughy texture. The bread pudding, under a big scoop of hazelnut ice cream, was delicious. I still wish we got the doughnuts.

Our experience at this carnival consisted of six drinks, two small small plates, two large small plates, and a dessert and a coffee, plus tax and tip. It came to a little about $220. I'd go back.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2012 ]

eateryARCHIVE

2007-02-27T15:23:00.072-05:00

eateryARCHIVE

#
• 5 Front
• 5 Guys Burgers & Fries
• 5 Points
• 5 Napkin Burger
• 10 Arts Lounge (Philadelphia, PA)
• 26 Seats
• 44 & X
• 71 Irving Place
• 116 Crown - (New Haven, CT)

A
• A Salt & Battery
• Aja
• Apizz
• Artichoke Pizza
• Atlantic Grill

B
• Baci & Abbracci
• Back Room, The
• Baked By Melissa
• Bar 36 - CLOSED
• Bare Burger
• Beard Papa's - CLOSED
• Beekman Beer Garden Beach Club
• Beer Table
• Ben's Best Kosher Deli
• Berry Park
• Best 1 Sushi
• Better Burger
• Billy's Bakery
• Bistro Truck
• Bliss Bistro
• BLT Burger
• Blue Owl Cocktail Room
• Blueprint
• Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden
• Brasserie Le Bouchon - (Cold Spring, NY)
• Brgr
• Bryggeloftet & Stuene
• Bun Soho
• burger joint at Le Parker Meridien
• Burgers & Cupcakes

C
• Cafe D'Alsace
• Cafe Grumpy
• Cafe Steinhof
• Cafe Tapeo - CLOSED
• Cafeteria
• Catch de Fish / Ca Tch Def Ish
• Cavatappo Grill
• Cavo
• Cercle Rouge
• Char No. 4
• Charm Thai
• Checkers
• Cheeburger Cheeburger
• Cheesecake Factory
• City Tavern - (Philadelphia, PA)
• Corner Bistro
• Crisp
• Crumbs Bakery
• CupcakeStop

D
• danny brown Wine Bar & Kitchen (1)
• danny brown Wine Bar & Kitchen (2)
• db Bistro Moderne
• DBGB
• Dean's
• Death & Company
• Defonte's of Brooklyn
• Delectica
• Delhi Palace
• Der Schwartz Kolner
• Dim Sum Go Go
• Divine Bar - CLOSED
• Dos Caminos
• DuMont
• DuMont Burger
• Dutch Kills

E
• Eatery
• Egg
• Ess A Bagel
• Ethos

F
• Farm on Adderley, The
• Fat Witch Bakery
• Five Front
• Five Guys Burgers & Fries
• Five Points
• Five Napkin Burger
• Flor De Sol
• Florent - CLOSED
• Fort Defiance
• Frankies 457 Spuntino
• Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co., The - (Philadelphia, PA)
• Freemans

G
• Gansevoort 69
• Gemma
• Geronimo - (New Haven, CT)
• Gibson, The - (Washington, DC)
• Glaze
• Goodburger
• Goodfella's
• Gradisca
• Grano Trattoria
• Gravy
• Gray's Papaya
• Green Table, The
• Gusto

H
• Haku - CLOSED
• Hane Sushi
• Hea
• Hill Country Chicken
• HK
• Honu Kitchen & Cocktails - (Huntington, NY)
• Hotel Delmano

I
• I Coppi
• IKEA Cafe
• Il Bambino
• Immigrant
• 'inoteca

J
• Jack's Stir Brew
• Jackson Diner
• Jade Eatery & Lounge
• JG Melon
• John's Italian Restaurant
• Johnny Mack's
• Johnny Rockets
• Jolie
• Josie's
• Joya

K
• Kambi
• Katsuno
• Kingswood
• Klee Brasserie
• Klimat
• Kushi Q - MOVED
• KyoChon

L
• La Belle Vie - CLOSED
• L'Arte del Gelato
• Land Thai Kitchen
• Lantern
• Lavagna
• Le Grainne Cafe
• Le Petit Belge
• Legal Sea Foods
• Lemon Hill (Philadelpia, PA)
• Life Cafe
• Little Branch
• Loft At NYLO - (Warwick/Providence, RI)
• London Lennie's
• Loreley
• Louis 649
• Lounge 47
• Love Street Coffee Truck
• Lucky's Famous Burgers
• Luke's Lobster

M
• M. Wells
• Macchiato Espresso Bar
• Mad For Chicken
• Madiba
• Magasin Wells Diner
• Magnolia Bakery
• Mama's Empanadas
• Markt
• Marrakesh
• Martha's Country Bakery
• Max Brenner Chocolate Bar
• Meatball Shop
• Mermaid Inn, The
• Metrazur - CLOSED
• Milk & Honey
• Millbrook Vineyards
• Moco: Global Dining
• Momoya
• My Kitchen

N
• Nelson Blue
• New Leaf Cafe
• Nick's Pizza
• Ninth Ward
• Noble American Cookery - (Philadelphia, PA)
• NoNO Kitchen - CLOSED
• NY Burger Co.

O
• Old Town Bar & Restaurant
• Oms/b
• Orange - CLOSED
• Oriental Garden
• Ostia - CLOSED

P
• Painkiller
• Papaya Dog
• Papaya King
• Pasticcio - CLOSED
• Patty & Bun
• PDT
• Peanut Butter & Co.
• Pegu Club
• P.F. Chang's
• Petal Belle - CLOSED
• Pier I Cafe
• Pig 'N' Whistle
• Ping's
• Pio Pio
• Pizza 33
• Pizza Truck
• Please Don't Tell
• Pommes Frites
• Pukk
• Punch
• Purple Yam

Q
• Q, A Thai Bistro - CLOSED
• Quaint

R
• Radegast Hall
• Raines Law Room
• Ramen Setagaya
• Randolph at Broome, The
• Rare Bar & Grill
• Red Square
• Red Hook Lobster Pound
• Republic
• Rickshaw Dumpling Bar
• Riingo
• Rocking Horse Cafe
• Room Service
• Rose Water
• Roti Roll
• Rye

S
• S'mac - CLOSED (Upper West Side)

• Saigon Grill
• Sala One Nine
• Salsa Y Salsa
• Salt
• Salt & Fat
• Sarge's Deli
• Shake Shack
• Shi
• Sicaffe
• Sidecar
• Sigiri
• Simply Fondue
• Spritzenhaus Bierhalle
• Standard Biergarten
• Starbucks - Howard Beach
• Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies
• Studio Square

T
• Tartine
• This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef
• Tisserie
• Tonda
• Tribeca Taco Truck
• Two Boots Pizza

U
• Unidentified Flying Chickens
• Uvarara

V
• Vamos!
• Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck
• Vegetarian Dim Sum House
• Veniero's Pasticceria
• Vero
• Veselka
• Vinegar Hill House

W
• Ward III
• Warwick Valley Winery
• Wechsler's Currywurst Bratwurst
• 'wichcraft
• White Star
• Wollensky's Grill
• Woodhaven House

X

Y

Z
• Zaitzeff
• Zen Burger - CLOSED
• Zerza
• Zip Burger - CLOSED
• Zum Stammtisch

10 ARTS LOUNGE

2011-12-27T21:13:00.001-05:00

10 ARTS BISTRO & LOUNGE

The Ritz-Carlton

10 Avenue of the Arts

Philadelphia, PA 19102

(215) 523-8273

This rainy December afternoon Bro and I decided to make 10 Arts our rest stop while shopping in Philadelphia. Located inside of the Ritz-Carlton lobby, in what used to be an old bank, the 10 Arts is like drinking in a Roman temple. Perhaps to Bacchus? Anyway, it embodies everything that hotel bars are supposed to embody. It's fancy and expensive and the drinks come second.

Eric Ripert, who was on an ex-girlfriend's I'd-cheat-on-you-with-this-guy-list (right behind Anthony Bourdain) is the brain behind the menu. Bro and I ordered some bites (the French Fries with a rosemary spice dusting and some Mini Burgers in a tangy mayo) and they were very good. As for our liquor, well, I ordered a Negroni and a Sazerac, both classic drinks, both made wrong but drinkable. Bro ordered a Godfather.

Of course, the point of a place like 10 Arts is entirely to feel important and wealthy. Doormen open the door for you and warmly say hello as though you live there. It's marble and granite from floor to ceiling and that ceiling is fifty feet high. The seats are plush and the liquor is top-shelf. Eric Ripert made the bar food. Sure, there's a guy drinking Miller Lite watching a muted ESPN on a flat screen next to you, and some businessmen from Cincinnati doing shots of tequila, but you barely notice them. You're too busy relaxing away from the grind of the city outside. You're too busy trying not to smile at the cute tourist girls. You're too busy letting go of the day. You're too busy not being busy, eating a mini-burger.

Expect to shell out $14 per cocktail and $5 per mini-burger.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2011 ]

THE BACK ROOM

2012-01-27T19:25:00.002-05:00

THE BACK ROOM

102 Norfolk Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 228-5098

So it goes like this. Operagirl and I were out and about, having a night on the town, when I suggested walking over to The Back Room for a night-cap. I like my hidden speakeasies as we all know, and what could be more hidden than a place with literally no sign, where the entrance is under the sidewalk and down a dark alley? And yet despite all of these otherwise fantastical things, The Back Room is simply awful.

The Back Room has just about every single thing going for it. High tin ceilings and crystal chandeliers, top shelf liquor and velvet sofas. But it also goes over the top on kitsch, indeed it does so to a damning degree. I want so much to like a place like this. I want to love it. But the music is super loud, it gets super crowded, and the drinks are... well the drinks stink. Where The Back Room excels is in its physical space. There's a large bar area, nude 19th century paintings, sofas in the rear, and a dimly lit, Victorian atmosphere. But it ruins all this with its club music and crowds and the not-so-subtle feeling that half of Manhattan already knows it exists (actually 3/4 of Manhattan). And of course, the drinks have room for improvement.

If you've already arrived and all of the sofas are taken, fear not. I'm sure that if you stand around for an hour, something will open up. Who knows, maybe one of the bachelorette parties that are there will ask you to take photos with them, as happened to me. "We want to be seen with a cute guy!" Flattering, if hollow. When your drinks arrive, they'll be in 1920s speakeasy form: a teacup or a beer bottle wrapped in a paper bag. The teacup, despite being half the size of a normal drink glass, I can forgive, but the paper bag makes me feel like I just bought of forty of Old English at a Spanish Harlem bodega. And with the beer choices including Miller and Bud Light, I'm not far off.

If, by looking at the two drinks above, you think "that looks like weak green tea and Hawaiian Punch" then you'd be right. Hawaiian punch with vodka is about as close to what we were given (for $12 a cup) as you could get at home by spiking Junior's lunch kit. To add insult to injury, apparently some of the people who go here are bitches. "That chick just hip-checked me to get to the bar!" Operagirl said before adding "...if I weren't sober..." I can't envision coming back unless invited to a party, but something tells me that I'd second guess my agreeing to show up.

If The Back Room was a real restaurant where the seating up that small set of stairs was where meals were served, where great drinks were available at the bar, and where they enforced the low-end of the maximum occupancy rules, then it could be, in my humblest of opinions, one of the best places in the city. Instead, it's just annoying.

KATSUNO

2012-01-17T02:24:00.002-05:00

KATSUNO

103-01 Metropolitan Avenue

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 575-4033

It's so very rare that my home nabe of Forest Hills gets props for its dining scene that once I saw that Katsuno, on Metropolitan Avenue, was awarded New York City's Best New Japanese Restaurant by Time Out Magazine, I knew I had to go.... And a year and a half later, I finally did. A year and a half lost, I must say, because Katsuno was indeed very good.

When I went, on a blisteringly cold Sunday night, it was... not crowded. And Katsuno is small. Maybe twelve tables. The interior is bright and clean and jazz plays over the room. The only thing about Katsuno that feels cheap (because with some appetizers in the teens, the price isn't) are those paper Sapporo/Asahi ads you see on the tables of every ten-cent sushi bar.

Pike met me on the other side of one of those Asahi ads and, over piping hot cups of fresh green tea, we looked over the menu, debating what to order. Most Japanese restaurants are basically sushi bars that will occasionally deep fry some cauliflower or shrimp for you. That isn't the case here. There is sushi, to be sure, but Katsuno is more of a restaurant. Sliced steaks and big bowls of noodle soup are the name of the game and I for one think it's nice to be able to get something other than a California roll every now and then.

As a starter, I ordered the Octopus with Cucumber Vinaigrette and a vegetarian Plum and Pellira Roll. The octopus was light almost to the point of floating off the plate and out the door. The only thing holding it on the plate was the cucumber. Pike and I both liked it, but it might be too soft for people who are used to their food fighting you for dominance of your tongue. The plum roll was not great. It was at first sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. I wanted different, which I got, but ended up wishing I got something more tried and true, like eel. I also had a bowl of Katsuno's thick Miso Soup. Normally, one orders miso soup and it's pretty much a bowl of water with some scallions floating timidly within. Not so much here. It's no stew, but Katsuno doesn't skimp on the miso. Pike ordered the Grilled Lightly Salted Chicken, which was far and away the best appetizer of them all. It was ultra-tender with a hint of char. Pike felt that there was more salt than he would have preferred, but I differed, thinking it was just fine.

When it's all of ten degrees out it makes sense to get soup, so Pike's dinner was a large bowl of Thinly Sliced Duck Over Udon in Warm Soup. The broth was sweet, the noodles were thick and the duck had nary an ounce of fat. We liked it, and I'm pretty sure that you will also. My entree was the Grilled Miso Marinated Beef, served with an assortment of roast winter vegetables. I was not asked how I wanted the beef cooked and it came medium rare (the way it should). The miso marinade lent a salty crust-like texture to the outer part of the meat which I've never had before and didn't dislike. My only complaint was that it had been left to cool too long before it was served. Still, I liked it a lot.

Our bill came to $82 including tax and tip. Katsuno is closed on Monday.

BEST/WORST 2011

2012-01-10T22:28:00.000-05:00

BEST/WORST 2011

The good, the bad, and the ugly of 2011.

Last year, my best/worst was dominated by the outer boroughs. It taught us all - but specifically me - that if you want great food, but insisted on sticking to Manhattan, then you were a lazy bum undeserving of such fine caloric intake. As I look back on this past year, I note that I was in a comfort food mood. I continued to travel to wherever the subway would take me, but I was clearly subconsciously looking for food that I could wrap myself up in like an old blanket surrounded by Tonka trucks and Lincoln Logs.

**********

THE BEST

Best Restaurant

HILL COUNTRY CHICKEN

There are few foods that embody comfort food to the degree that fried chicken does, and Hill Country Chicken, near Madison Square Park, makes just about the best chicken, and couples it with the best pie, that you can get. I had a lot of trouble deciding between Hill Country and Salt & Fat. Both were great, fun places to eat. Salt & Fat, a small plates restaurant that never met a pork dish it didn't like, was close. But it boiled down to the small fact that I can feel my mouth watering right now at the thought of Hill Country's chicken and pie in a way that is pretty much unmatched by any other food product known to man.

Best Burger

JG MELON

If there's one thing I eat far too many of, it's probably burgers. They're my diet's Achilles heel. They're quick, inexpensive, and hard to really be terrible. On that note, it's rare that you find a standout. But JG Melon managed to pull it off with their no-frills, ye olden tyme style ground beef in a bun on a plate with nuthin'. What's that? You want veggies on your burger? Here, have a pickle. And yet, easily one of the best burgers I can say I've had, period.

Best Bar
SPRITZENHAUS

I'm no connoisseur, but I love beer and, in that vein, the beer halls and gardens that serve such a copious volume of the stuff. With NYC seeing a beer hall/garden renaissance, it's only natural that one of these newbies rise above the others. Spritzenhaus not only has a ginormous beer list, it has damn good food and more space than you'll find anywhere outside of Astoria.

Best Cocktail Bar
RANDOLPH AT BROOME

It's hard to imagine a better combination than a classy coffee bar that transitions into a a classy cocktail bar. Then add the ability to hog a booth for hours doing New York Times crossword puzzles and reading back issues of the New Yorker and you have a caffeine and alcohol infused coupling not seen since biblical days.

Best Sandwich
MELT SHOP and
RED HOOK LOBSTER POUND

There's no way to compare the two most fantabulous between-the-bread creations I've had this year so I'm giving them a tie. Neither of them are original, but both of them are perfect. Literally, perfect. Melt Shop's Classic Grilled Cheese With Bacon and Tomato is so good I can't describe it without getting X-rated. Meanwhile, Red Hook Lobster Pound's Maine Style Lobster Roll is something I can see grown sober men fighting each other bloody over. Do not, and I can't emphasize this enough, do not allow 2012 to go by without eating both of these creations at least twice.

**********

THE WORST

Okay. First there was no worst. I did a pretty good job of self policing this year. I managed to avoid being suckered into going, by hype, hyperbole or ignorance, to too many places that stunk. Hype, hyperbole and ignorance did lead a few disappointments though.

Biggest Letdown
VINEGAR HILL HOUSE

Vinegar Hill House was supposed to be so great and was instead just not. While the atmosphere and service were fine, the food was well below par. Operagirl and I trekked all the way out through Dumbo to get here and wound up walking back the the F train with a sulk in our stride. To this day, she scrunches her nose at its mention. "$200 for that meal?" with incredulity.

Where's The Beef?
DBGB

You'd think that a place with as much schmance as DBGB wouldn't serve a cold, overcooked beef slab coupled with shit service, but you'd be wrong. 'Nuff said.

Nostalgia gone amok
PEANUT BUTTER & CO.

PBnC led me astray with some mediocre-as-can-be peanut butter sandwiches. I wanted so badly to love this place. I mean, hell, I love peanut butter. Who doesn't? But they seemed to have gone the route of crazy-shit-we'll-stick-together-between-bread and then hoped that everyone would get lost in the nostalgia of the days of yore when you did that as a kid. Unfortunately, as an adult, it didn't translate so good.

**********

NOTABLE MENTION

Dearly Departed

M. WELLS

M. Wells would have been the best restaurant of the year if it was still open. It was great. Simply great. I never went there and ate anything less than amazing. It sucks that they couldn't afford the new rent. Word to the wise: read the lease. They're expected to return in a new location, but then they won't be in that cool antique diner space. It created a mood that was almost priceless. Plus, it was right on top of the subway. Couldn't be more convenient if it wanted to be. And so I lament their (temporary?) passing.

LEMON HILL

2011-12-29T11:47:00.000-05:00

LEMON HILL

747 North 25th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19130

(215) 232-2299

From the cocktail minds behind the Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company and the kitchen minds behind Supper, comes Lemon Hill, a gastropub/cocktail haunt that both looks and feels like it belongs in Brooklyn alongside Fort Defiance instead of a not-accessible-by-subway part of Philadelphia. But hell, Bro drove, so I was able to have an extra cocktail.

Walking in, it's dark, lit by the orange glow of old bulbs, very much in the vein of the now-ultra-trendy turn of the (20th) century style. Dark woods, exposed brick, tin ceilings, New Orleans jazz, lotsa whiskey. No signage of any kind. These are the hallmarks of Lemon Hill. Bro and I showed up opening night to see what all the pre-opening night hype was about. We expected a long wait, so we showed up around 6pm, way earlier than I'd otherwise have any interest in having dinner, but it was a good idea. By 8 it was packed and the line was out the door.

The courses at Lemon Hill are small, though I won't say that it's a small plates restaurant. They have a "snack" menu, and starter menu and an entree menu. I recommend that you pick one of each. Naturally, you'd do well to have a cocktail too. I mean, when your bartender comes right out of Franklin Mortgage, why wouldn't you? Bro whet his whistle with a Rye Buck, a ginger-infused sweet whiskey drink. Very good. Stop arguing and get it. My choice was the Clover Club, a gin and egg white cocktail that I ordered out of nostalgia to the bar near home. But it was a wee bit thin. As a starter, we split the Dirty Rice Fritters, piping-hot deep fried rice balls with a cold crab? cream sauce. We both enjoyed it, but it was a bit dry and I'd have preferred an actual crab cake.

As an appetizer Bro ordered the Smoked Tomato Soup, with blue cheese popovers which was quite good. And quite smokey. My appetizer was the Pastrami Fried Chicken Wings, a salty breaded variant of the bar food fave with thousand island dressing and pickles that my buddy Dogz would drool over. While it was certainly a different, more haute version of that which emerged so famously from Buffalo, it was small and not so filling. I'd get two. After that, the entrees showed up. My dinny din din was the Hearth Baked Cavatappi, a creamy mac-and-cheese type dish with gruyere cheese, brussels sprouts and mushrooms with a dusting of breadcrumbs. I liked it a lot. Very good stuff. Bro ordered the Shrimp N Grits: grits, shrimp, okra and a whole prawn garnish (that Bro ate anyway). While I don't much care for okra, I couldn't find any faults here. If you were looking for a comfort food menu with flair, I think you've found it.

Dessert time came around, but Lemon Hill didn't have any coffee or tea on hand, so I skipped it and instead ordered another drink, the Blues Explosion, a grapefruit and whiskey combo. While I got myself nice and happy, Bro ordered a slice of pie. Specifically, he got a slice of Apple Cranberry Pie. I stole a bite and it was very good. Hopefully, one day, they'll have some coffee available.

Cocktails average $12 each. Expect to spend about another $30 on top of that for food, per person.

OKTOBERFEST SPECIAL 2011!!!

2011-10-20T19:39:00.000-04:00

OKTOBERFEST SPECIAL 2011!!!

Beekman Beer Garden

Der Schwartz Kolner

Loreley

Spritzenhaus Bierhalle

Zum Stammtisch

Last year, I traveled the city for my first Oktoberfest Special. This year, the beer garden wars return with a little more of a showing from the indoor beer halls instead, thanks in no small part to the abysmally crappy weather we've been having this month.

In addition to last year's five, Berry Park (Williamsburg/Greenpoint), Bohemian Hall (Astoria), Radegast Hall (Williamsburg), Standard Biergarten (Meatpacking), and Studio Square (Astoria), there are a few other notables that I have visited that were not all lumped together in the Special, but which would be great additions to anyone's Oktoberfest bar crawl: Beer Table (Park Slope), Manor Oktoberfest (Forest Hills), and Wechsler's Currywurst and Bratwurst (East Village).

Although Queens is what most people think of when they think of beer gardens, Brooklyn has taken center stage as the place to be for beer people. Brooklyn Brewery is there and has grown lots in the past few years. It's New York's answer to Boston's Sam Adams. Brooklyn probably has as many beer gardens/halls as the other boroughs put together. Hence, for the five I looked at this year, Brooklyn took three spots.

BEEKMAN BEER GARDEN BEACH CLUB

89 South Street

New York, NY 10038

(212) 896-4600

The Beekman, at South Street Seaport, takes over from the recently gone Water Taxi Beach and the sand is still there. The outdoor space is vast. Dozens of long tables, a pool table and some fooseball sit beside bright white easy chairs and benches that look like soft pleather but are actually all-weather hard plastic.

The Beekman was dead when I went around lunchtime. Shockingly dead. The beer menu is paltry at best, and as much as I like Magic Hat #9, it didn't really inspire that Oktoberfest biergarten mood. Plus the food I ordered, a tasteless sausage, generic fries, and a pretzel that was probably made out of cardboard didn't add much to the experience. Still, one can't get past the simple truth that of every beer garden in the city, it has the far and away best views of all of them. I was content with my book and the solitude but I imagine that come nightfall throngs of tourists and recent MBA grads swarm this place like their life depended on it, huddled together by the outdoor fire pits, pints of Witte in hand.

DER SCHWARTZ KOLNER

710 Fulton Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

(347) 841-4495

Smack in Fort Greene, Der Schwartz Kolner is gentrification incarnate. Once upon a time, if someone compared Fort Greene to a toilet, the toilet would get offended. These days, based on the number of babies, smartphones, and yuppie 30 year olds high fiving each other, you're looking at Park Slope 2. Communal tables with folding chairs aside, that's where Der Schwartz Kolner falls short. It's a (small) beer hall with good beer and better currywurst, but it lacks a certain soul. The white and black checkered tiles say that much.

I met Seth here after he finished roaming the nabe for an apartment. I grabbed one of the tall tables near the door and plopped down. I ordered a beer from a waitress in jeggings and was left pretty much completely alone. The customers, from the business-type dudes in the photo to the community-garden hippies with the strollers behind me, everyone was having a loud ball. One thing's for sure, I may not score it high in the traditional sense, but if you're here, the odds are you've got a big smile on your face. Like you probably would at a normal bar.

LORELEY

64 Frost Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

(718) 599-0025

Loreley (shouldn't it be Lorelei?) is the place everyone has been talking about (recently with a short blurb in the Oktoberfest pullout in the Daily News). Located in what looks like a widget factory, half indoors and half outdoors, half restaurant and half beer garden, half eating space and half music venue, Loreley is the closest I came this year to a traditional beer garden. It's maybe a fifth the size of Bohemian Hall in Astoria, but with some trees, communal tables and more Radeberger than you can shake a stick out, it sure does try to live up to the standard.

I met Lina here after she got herself a tattoo nearby (this is Williamsburg). We grabbed a table outside, a round of half liters, and proceeded to fill up on pretzels. Warm and soft, the way they should be, though perhaps with more salt than necessary. She then ordered the a weisswurst plate. It came the way they do in Germany: with a mountain of sauerkraut next to another mountain of mashed potatoes. I ordered another beer and a schnitzel sandwich (the schnitzelsandwich, in German).

The crowd here was young, but this is Brooklyn, where they get rid of you Logan's Run style once you hit 40. It was also chilly and overcast, as it was all week. So much so that we wondered if we'd be forced inside by rain. But the rain never came, leaving Loreley relatively calm and relaxing. The walls and hedges muffled the sound of the few cars that drove by, but at a cost of making one feel somewhat claustrophobic. Still. If I lived around here, I'd be a regular.

SPRITZENHAUS BIERHALLE
33 Nassau Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(347) 987-4632

Spritzenhaus wins. Spritzenhaus manages to be literally everything anyone could want in a drinkatorium. First, they're huge. Just massive. Bench tables, bistro tables, group tables, plus outdoor sidewalk seating. They have a vast arrays of beer on tap and, for those who aren't into beer, a vast array of whiskey to boot. The staff is friendly. They let you sample the beer first and those "samples" are big. I had a whole pint in samples alone before I ordered anything. Not only that, but the food was spectacular.

I met Seth here for a few bites and a few brews and it was deserted. "It's the weather," the bartender told me. "Usually we're packed." Still, I wasn't complaining. Better service for me. We ordered the blood sausage, which was fantastic, along with a bratwurst. That was followed up by some more wursts and some fries and plenty of dipping sauce. All of which was washed down with copious liters of malty hoppy goodness.

But no place is perfect and I won't go anywhere without making one negative comment, so here it is. The music. God awful. Please, no more heavy metal. Or at least, no more bad heavy metal. I beg of thee.

ZUM STAMMTISCH

69-46 Myrtle Avenue

Glendale, NY

(718) 386-3014

Yeah, that's right. There's a guy playing an accordion in that pic. That's how real Zum Stammtisch is. No bullshit games about trying to incorporate ways to get free-range organic veal on the menu. This place is old school. Do the waitresses wear those St.Pauli Girl get-ups? Yep. Does the bartender wear green overalls and hand you your beer in an off-white porcelain mug? Damn right he does. Is escargot served in a baked potato here? Ummm... apparently that's a tradition. Who knew? Anyway.

Granted, Zum Stammtisch isn't a great big beer hall and granted, it doesn't have quite the outdoor space to be a beer garden either (or any outdoor space, for that matter). But there's something to be said for adding an honest-to-God, NYU student-free, tourist-free, blasting-live-polka-loud-as-all-shit place to the Oktoberfest mix. If Bohemian Hall and Zum Stammtisch prove nothing else, it's that if authenticity's what you want, Queens is where to be.

Pike and I arrived here midweek and killed a half hour at the bar before getting food. If the other places I looked at were young or hip, this ain't them. The average age here was 60 and the average weight was 200 pounds. These were fat, aged, happy people. And I emphasize happy. People were tapping on the windows and waving when they looked in to see their friend inside. Middle aged women were dancing with each other between the tables. People you didn't even see five seconds ago were striking up conversations about... well, nothing. You know how people complain about New Yorkers saying that we're cold, that we're not outgoing, that we don't smile at each other. They need to come here.

So Pike and I found a seat, ordered more food between us than a third world village saw in a week, drank from our steins and vegged out for who knows how long while the oompah band played loudly on. Sadly, the sauerbraten was not more than just okay. But the potato soup was something you'd kick cute little puppies to get at.

BAKED BY MELISSA

2011-10-31T13:14:00.000-04:00

BAKED BY MELISSA

2325 Broadway

New York, NY 10024

(212) 842-0220

"How," thought Melissa, one lazy Sunday, "can I tap into NYC's already saturated cupcake scene? What can I do that hasn't been done?" Inspiration hit her like a sugar rush. "Bite size!"

Yes, cute little baby cupcakes. You just want to eat them right up. Yes you do. Yes you do.

There are about a half dozen Baked By Melissas in Manhattan. I went with Emma to the one near her on the Upper West Side. Emma likes cute little things. She has a cute little studio and a cute little puppy, works with cute little children, wears cute little dresses and, when I first met her, drove a cute little Honda Civic del Sol. It was only natural that she'd make a bee-line to a bakery churning out cute little cupcakes.

The cupcakes are an inch and a half wide and a half inch deep. So when I say bite size, I'm not just implying small. They're the exact opposite of the ones that are sold at crumbs which can feed a family of four. Baked By Melissa sells them in boxes of up to 100. We ordered a box of six. The standard vanilla-vanilla cupcake is made pretty as the Tie-Dye, a rainbow cupcake with frosting that tastes like any other cupcake would. The Peanut Butter and Jelly is literally a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It tastes just like what you'd make for your kid before the run off to camp. But I can get that at home before I go to camp. So... Emma's favorite was the Cookies and Cream, which was the best we tried. A chocolate cupcake with an Oreo cookie chunk on top and Oreo frosting. Very very good. The runner up was the Cookie Dough, which was a yellow cake cupcake with chocolate frosting and a piece of soft cookie dough baked into the middle. Yum.

There wasn't much of a line when we went in the late afternoon, but when we went out around 8ish, there was a line out the door.

A box of six cost us $5.50. A box of 12 would cost $10.

Here's the rub though. While I literally spent almost nothing at Baked By Melissa, it's a terrible terrible terrible value. It would take at least a box of twelve micro-cupcakes to add up to one normal cupcake at Billy's (my fave). That's a $10 cupcake. No one in their right mind would pay ten bucks for a cupcake.

PAINKILLER

2011-11-07T23:55:00.003-05:00

PAINKILLER

49 Essex Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 777-8454

Usually, you crave warm weather cocktails (mai-tais, diaquiris, pina coladas, etc.) in the summer, or maybe when you're on vacation someplace where the summer never goes away, like the Caribbean. But sometimes, you want the illusion of summer. The illusion of a vacation. Lina and I decided to go see The Rum Diaries, a movie about a guy in the 1960s drinking booze like it was water and breathing cigarette smoke like it was the fresh country air, all in the Caribbean. Painkiller, a tiki bar with a classic tropical cocktail menu, seemed appropriate. And, in hindsight, it was far, far better than the movie, which was pretty awful.

The cocktails at Painkiller hearken to that pre and post-WWII era when Hawaiian shirts weren't just for pensioners on a golf course. The interior is wrapped in bamboo like a Tahitian hut and the walls are covered in tiki masks (and inner-city graffiti?). The soundtrack is all either oldies or the kind of reggae white people like (Bob Marley, Chaka Demus, etc.). The first time I tried to go here was a year ago and it was like trying to squeeze into a sardine can, but this time, it was calm. We got a table right away and it never really crowded up. Clearly, winter's the time to go.

I got to Painkiller slightly ahead of Lina so I nursed a Missionary's Downfall in a small booth. Rum, pineapple juice, lime juice, mint, honey, peach, and topped off with a garnish so thick you need a machete just to get your straw in. The drink was so physically tall that I needed to take it off the table and stick it in my lap just to drink it. It was effectively a mojito with pineapple juice. By the time Lina arrived, I was left with a big glass filled with what had become green ice. While I thought about my next cocktail, Lina ordered a Dying Bastard. Painkiller has a few cocktails that they consider signatures of the establishment, each with a wacky history described on the menu. It also has a few pages with a huge range of daiquiris, punches, frozen drinks, fizzes, and "strong" drinks (they'll only give you one per sitting) that have names, but no ingredient list that I can regurgitate for you. The Dying Bastard was a fizz that was very ginger heavy. I ended up with the 1934 Zombie Punch, the drink you see below served in Charlie Chan's head. This is Painkiller's signature strong drink. Three different rums, lime juice, grapefruit juice, grenadine, falernum, and absinthe. And damn was it strong. I didn't notice it at first, but then, about a half hour later, I suddenly realized I had gotten loud and thought I was way funnier than I normally do. It was probably a good thing I stopped there. I hate looking back and realizing that I was "that guy" on the subway. Okay okay. It just about knocked me on my ass.

Drinks here average about $14 each except for the higher octane ones, which will run you $16.

BLUEPRINT

2011-11-16T13:24:00.001-05:00

BLUEPRINT

196 Fifth Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11217

(718) 622-6644

Cocktail-centric gastropubs have become a force to be reckoned with in Brooklyn. Blueprint, one of the latest to emerge in the borough borrows heavily from the formula. Dark woods, good drinks, rich grubs. So it's not original by any stretch, but it is good. Indeed, it does just about everything right. Though I'd lose the gangsta rap soundtrack, which almost seems to be played in irony, the vibe is spot-on comfortable. The staff was super nice, the food was good, the beer was fantastic and the well liquor is top shelf.

Seth is planning on planting his flag in Brooklyn, as any good follower of this blog is well aware. And after bouncing from a walk-up in Prospect Heights to another in Sunset Park, we decided to split meet up, grab some dinner and get our shit-face on here in the Slope. Okay, so I may have mentioned that Blueprint is much like Rye is much like Char No. 4 is much like Fort Defiance. But I liked it. A lot."Come on," Seth said after I commented about this trend. "You know that if they opened up in your neighborhood, you'd stick a cot in the corner and move right on in." It's true. I would.

Half of the menu a Blueprint is meats and cheese, like a wine bar would have. The other half is a kinda-sorta small plates menu. Some are truly small plates which I will term an "appetizer". The larger plates I will give the random description of "entree". Seth didn't bother with the "appetizer" but I couldn't help myself. I ordered the Baby Octopus, a salad of cold potatoes and salsa verde with little whole grilled baby octopi. Fantastic. I don't care if you don't think you'd like octopus, you'd like this. Everything came at once, so while I was having a good ol' time with my app, Seth was enjoying his Blueprint Rabbit Pot Pie. Pot pie is an underrated food group. My dad makes the world's best pot pie and he stole his recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook from 1965. While this didn't live up to the Dad Standard set my a corporate giant during the McCarthy era, it was still pretty good. Rabbit is more tender than your average meat (largely due to the muscle tissue being continuously massaged/petted by second graders on field trips) and it's also much sweeter (from those same field trip kisses that the rabbits get so many of). As a result, you're left with a meat that reminiscent of the dark meat of a chicken that's been glazed in maple syrup. If this sounds appetizing, I suggest you order some rabbit. My only complaint was that the crust was one of those annoying puff pastry crusts that looks good in photos but tastes like bread-flavored air. It added almost nothing except a soggy copy-paper texture after a few bites. My dinner was the Grass-Fed Beef Bourguignon served with a side of au gratin potatoes. Blueprint prides itself on using locally grown vegetables and locally raised meat. Their website even lists the farms that they order from. I happen to think that organic food is a scam perpetrated on the dumb by the crafty, but I am very much in favor of locally-obtained non-factory-made food. If I want that mass market stuff, I'll eat at Cracker Barrel. But I digress. The beef was great. Super tender, super sweet, super why didn't they give me four times as much? And maybe it's because I've cut so much starch from my diet that you could throw a potato in manure and I'd still love it, but damn was that au gratin good!

But who knows? Maybe I was drunk. See, by this point, we were already on the tail end of our second round. The big reason someone goes to a gastropub is the pub. And the big reason I picked this particular gastropub was the cocktail menu. To be honest, Seth didn't much like his drinks. His first round was The Kickstarter, an espresso-based cocktail with rum, turbinado and a lemon twist. It was a bitter concoction that he probably should have, but certainly didn't see coming. As a result, he found it unpalatable. I kind of liked it, though perhaps for much later in the evening rather than as round one. Or perhaps as a brunch drink. See, my first round was The London Bootleg. Gin Aperol, lemon, tonic and grapefruit bitters, and believe me, this could give the mimosa a run for its money if it were served at noon on Sunday. Round two Seth checked out the Kentucky Waltz. Bourbon, ceylon tea, mint and maple syrup. Effectively, it's a sophisticated mint julip, but he felt that they went overboard on the mint. My round two was a classic. I had a Dark & Stormy. Rum, ginger beer and lime. It's hard to go wrong with a dark and stormy and I surely didn't. For round three, we nursed a couple of microbrews before heading out and debating politics on the F train.

Four cocktails, two beers, a small plate and two large plates, plus tax and tip totaled $130. There's also a small rear patio area that is probably quite charming when it's warm out. Or when there are outdoor heaters.

PEANUT BUTTER & CO.

2011-11-28T14:33:00.001-05:00

PEANUT BUTTER & CO.

240 Sullivan Street

New York, NY 10012

(212) 617-3995

There have been a spate of restaurants opening in recent years that focus on a single dish served in a variety of ways. Meatball Shop is a perfect example of this, and so too Peanut Butter & Co. in the West Village. Peanut butter sandwiches naturally make up the majority of their menu. There are other items for sure, like salad, but ordering one of those seems to defeat the whole point.

So, the other day, a buddy of mine, Pike, was reading the New York Magazine food blog Grub Street, and came across an article from the past summer listing the best 101 sandwiches in New York City. Peanut Butter & Co. was in the list, cheap ,and was right next to the subway. Plus, one of the top 101 sandwiches in a city of a billion sandwiches? How could we not go? Long Story short, Grub Street was wrong.

The staff was very friendly, it's absolutely a place that kids will love, the food came quickly, we got a table right away, you can't beat the nostalgia value, and while they're not giving anything away, it's not terribly pricey either. It's a comfortable place to sit and enjoy what amounts to jazzed up comfort food. But the bottom line is that we were pretty let unimpressed. I think that, deep down, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is already so close to perfection that improving upon it is a thankless task (I say this despite the fact that there are at least a dozen other blogs and food critics who get paid who disagree with me and have been thanking these guys for two years). There are a few, additions to be sure, that are good, like adding cream cheese, but you can do that at home any time you want with virtually no effort. So it makes sense to order something that would be time consuming. But Pike and I just felt that they don't work very well.

Pike ordered the Grub Street fave, The Elvis. Peanut butter, bacon, banana and honey on toast. Was it decent? Yeah. Was it worthy of being in NYMag's top 100 list? No. My choice was The Heat Is On. Peanut butter, cold grilled chicken, and pineapple marmalade on white bread. The chicken was so heavily spiced that I could barely taste anything except it. I like things hot, but I also have this thing about flavor, and there simply wasn't any here.

Now, before you go thinking I'm all negative, we did not order any desserts, all of which looked pretty good. So maybe I'll come back for one of them. But the sandwiches were damn heavy and there was no way we could fit anything else in. In an ideal world, I'd also return and try one of the many other sandwiches that we obviously couldn't get to. But this time, I won't be quite as giddy as a kid in a peanut butter store.

Speaking of which, Peanut Butter & Co. also sells their brand of peanut butter.

Expect to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $8 for your sandwich, plus tax.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2011 ]

THE GREEN TABLE

2011-12-05T14:33:00.000-05:00

THE GREEN TABLE

Chelsea Market

75 Ninth Avenue

New York, NY 10011

(212) 741-6623

Upscale food malls are de regueur in Manhattan lately as Eataly and the Limelight Marketplace can attest. Chelsea Market beat them to it though. L'Arte del Gelato is here, along with Amy's Bread, Fat Witch Bakery, and a host of other restaurants and specialty food shops. The Green Table is the restaurant wing of The Cleaver Company, a catering business which wholly embraces the mantra of the organic, small-farm, locavore lifestyle. Everything here is either organic or local or both. Guilt free food for reasons finally having nothing to do with being on a fad diet.

The inside it's small and cozy and warm. It's dimly lit but not to the point of being romantic. I've heard Green Table called a wine bar (actually, it says so on the business card) and it certainly has that atmosphere, but it's not one. It is similar to the kinds of places I'd expect to find in Brooklyn.

If you read this blog at all regularly, you know that, outside of cocktails, my favorite kind of restaurant are upscale casual new-Americans like Quaint in Queens and Fort Defiance in Brooklyn. So while the atmosphere here was spot on and the service was great, I can't lie and say that I was blown away by what we got on the plate.

The menu is a seasonal one and we ordered off of the current "Autumn" menu. Although it may feel like spring out there, it's almost winter so I expect that this menu won't last much longer.

While looking at the menu, Speeds and I shared a small bowl of Olives, which were curiously served piping hot. I certainly wasn't expecting to get a mouthful of searing hot olive oil, but I there it was. I think I can safely say that I prefer olives at a nice room-temperature temperature.

I started the meal with the Market Soup, which is a sort of trendier way of saying the soup of the day. On this particular day the soup was creamy parsnip. I finished the bowl feeling far more healthy than when I started it, which is a nice feeling to have. But the soup itself was disappointingly tame. It just didn't have, to use a technical term, much oomph. I would have added some salt or some pepper if there had been any to add at the table, but as there was not, I made due (I don't usually ask for things that aren't provided). Speeds ordered the small-sized Harvest Salad, which was actually rather large. She loved the dressing and raved about the walnuts, but was let down by the sliced apple, complaining that they were completely tasteless. "It's like I'm eating a raw potato," she told me.

As an entree, Speeds got the Gnocchi, served with chanterelles, sage, butter and an assortment of "autumn vegetables" (potatoes and the like). She liked it and ate as much of it as she could, but it was a heavy dish. My opinion, having stolen a few bites, was that it wasn't more than just okay. I found the plate overall dry and bland. I'm was very pleased that I ordered the Organic Chicken Breast, a roasted, skin-on chicken breast with local greens and thyme au jus on a bed of lightly toasted spaetzle. Though the chef went a little overboard on the spaetzle, the chicken had tons of flavor and was as moist as anyone could hope for. I highly recommend this dish.

So the chicken and the salad (save the apple) was great, Speeds and I had differing opinions on the gnocchi, the soup was squarely in the middle and the olives... well, I think you should just skip those altogether.

The Green Table is far from prohibitively expensive. Our meals totaled $37 each after tax and tip.

JG MELON

2011-12-21T00:59:00.002-05:00

JG MELON

1291 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10021

(212) 650-1310

New York is a pizza city. It's a bagel city. It's a hot dog city. But, by and large, it's becoming a hamburger city. JG Melon, on the Upper East Side, has long been ahead of this particular curve. They've been on the best-of lists for burgers for as long as I can remember so, when Bro was in town and we found ourselves in the Lenox Hill area, we decided to go check it out.

JG Melon reeks of old New York. It's dark inside but not because it's trendy (they were a gastropub long before the word existed). It's because the lights are 25 watts to keep the electrical bills down. It's tight. Tables are practically on top of each other. It's loud and even the little old ladies are raising their voices. The waitresses are so busy that they barely look at you when you're ordering and only grunt at you when you tell them what you want. If you grew up in a small town where things move a little more slowly, then you might mistake this as rude. But it's not. We're just busier here in New York. Having to literally tug on a waitress' shirt to get her to see you is part of the charm. Cash only, no free refills on soda, and a meat-centric menu of old-school bar food. It's like going back in time.

Anyway, as I said, I came for a burger. And so that's what I got. The Cheeseburger, served with pickles and red onion and a square of Kraft American on top. Nuthin' else. Nothing else is even offered. But hell, it doesn't need it. It was everything they said. When you just want a perfectly made patty on a toasted bun, without forty different sauces that just end up hiding the taste of the meat, now you know where to go. I also ordered a side of Cottage Fried Potatoes, JG Melon's version of french fries. They were okay, but too thin. I would have preferred big honkin' steak fries. Bro ordered the Grilled Breast of Chicken Sandwich. It's exactly like what it sounds like. A butterflied chicken breast on a hero roll with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. There's a choice of salsa or barbecue sauce which comes in a cup on the side. Bro went with the salsa. I'd have gone with barbecue. Either way, it's an all around yawn-inducing dish. This sandwich is one that cries out for one of those forty sauces I mentioned. It couldn't have less taste if it tried. On the other hand, if you want a traditional sandwich, it doesn't get more traditional than this.

Everything you see in that picture up there, plus soda, tax, and tip came to $40. Get the burgers. You won't be sorry.

MELT SHOP

2011-04-22T00:04:00.022-04:00

MELT SHOP
at the Citigroup Center
601 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(212) 579-MELT

Nestled at the foot Citigroup Center, literally under Lexington Avenue, is Midtown's newest food spot, and the lines that spread forth into the plaza clearly demonstrate that it's a much wanted addition. You can't even see the storefront from the street, but that hasn't stopped people from heading there in droves (note, the photo below was taken at around 2:30pm, well after lunch). Melt Shop is the name and grilled cheese is the game. I grew up with grilled cheese sandwiches, as did pretty much everyone I know. They were a staple of my childhood and they've come to roost right here on 54th Street.

The Melt Shop menu focuses on varieties of the original grilled cheese and they go way beyond the tuna melt, though they have that, too. Roast beef, fried chicken, gruyere cheese, caramelized onions... the ingredient list takes the grill cheese away from its humble country-fried roots and into the cosmopolitan hub of New York. But of course, you have to start with the humble, country fried roots. And thusly did I first try The Classic. White bread, American cheese, pan fried. It's exactly the same way mom used to make, except that they used salted butter. By the way, "exactly the way mom used to make" ain't a bad thing. It means perfect. Following that, I pimped it out by getting all the additions I could dumped into it. I'll term it The Classic (Plus), but I hope that they'll name it after me. The classic plus tomato, caramelized onions and bacon. A. Maze. Ing. I love this. Like the classic on steroids. Or ecstacy. Beef 'N' Blue: roast beef, blue cheese, caramelized onions, horseradish on sourdough. Very good. Tangy blue cheese, some nose twitching horseradish. It was literally, one of the best warm sandwiches I've had in years. Buttermilk Fried Chicken Melt: buttermilk fried chicken, jalapeno-jack cheese, red cabbage cole slaw and melt sauce (whatever that is) on white bread. While still pretty good, this was the least impressive. The chicken got lost in the slaw and sauce and spice of the jalapeno.

Melt Shop, while not "expensive" in terms of real dollars, is pricey from a relative standpoint. The sandwiches, before tax, are about eight bucks. A Stumptown coffee milkshake is $5.50. They also serve breakfast.

VERO

2008-08-25T00:16:00.022-04:00

VERO

1483 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10021
(212) 452-3354

Going to a wine bar for cocktails may seem counterintuitive, but I’ve never been to Vero for the wine. Still, if you’re looking for a wine menu with regional variety, Vero’s the way to go. From The West Coast to Europe, with day trips to Australia and Argentina, you won’t get bored. Almost every wine is available by the glass, so if you find some tasteless plonk, you won’t have to suffer through a bottle of it. Take a peek at the wine menu. I think next time, I will.

But not this time. This time we went for cocktails. Cocktails and paninis. Cocktails and paninis and a huge plate of meats and cheese.

We got out of work early… relatively speaking. Being told on the phone that the place was dead and that finding a table wouldn't be a problem, four of us hopped a cab, got there licketty split around 9pm and squeezed past the crowd to get the last table way in the back. Suffice it to say, if this is Vero in dead mode, I can only imagine what it's like when there's a crowd.

Starting our mostly liquid dinner off we ordered a round of drinks. I ordered the Coffee Martini which tasted like a coffee (black, no sugar) made with vodka instead of water... in other words, pretty kickass. A Mojito, Mango Bellini and Raspberry Bellini were also on the list. Next thing I know, another round of bellinis (girls apparently really love bellinis), a Tropical Sangria, and a custom drink for me (2 parts vodka, 2 parts Baileys, 1 part Chambord, shake, serve).

So by this point, we're starving and starting to get mildly drunk. Time for food. The Assorted Meat and Cheese Plate was the way to go. We quickly devoured the variety of prosciutto, sopressata, and salami meats and ricotta , truffles, parmesan, pecorino, fontina, asiago and provolone cheeses. Quickly. Naturally, we needed Bruscetta. We ordered the Tuscan White Bean Spead with lemon basil pesto and bacon (amazing), the Braised Chicken with Arugula, and the Three Cheese (ricotta, asiago, and pecorino). The foodie in me won't waste anyone's time by describing the dishes. Trust that they were good, order them, chew, swallow, yum.

More drinks? Yes Please. Strawberry Bellinis , a Vero Lemonade, a Strawberry Martini, and a Raspberry Martini.

Panini time. There were two orders of the Smoked Turkey Panini, which has fontina, pesto and tomato. There was one order the Mozzarella Panini, with zucchini, tomato, onion and pepper. Everyone loved (capital "L") their paninis. I didn't eat them. And actually, I didn't like mine. My choice was the Proscuitto Panini, with figs, gorgonzola and rosemary oil. It was exceedingly sharp, to the point of not being able to taste anything. It's simply not something I'm gonna recommend. I should have ordered the Chicken with Frisee, Sweet Onions and Bacon. That sounded good. But I wanted figs. Rats.

We were told good things about Vero's signature dessert, the Cookie Monster. So we ordered one. It's a huge, warm chocolate chip cookie topped with vanilla ice cream and buried under a mountain of whipped cream, chocolate syrup and strawberries. Ohhhh man. This lasted about 45 seconds so we got another one. Good healthniks be damned, this time without those strawberries giving off unnecessary vitamins.

Monday is free panini night (with the purchase of glass of vino), and they'll be doing wine tasting classes this fall. Plus I hear that they'll be opening another location further south very soon.

A large appetizer, three bruscettas, four Paninis, two desserts, and thirteen drinks plus tax and tip came to $280.

UPDATE: 2/12/09VERO MIDTOWN, 1004 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10022, (212) 935-3530
I returned to Vero about a month ago to try out their newer one in Midtown at 53rd street. This newer Midtown expansion is a lot less playful and felt a lot less casual. I'm sure that this had to do with the crowd coming right after work, but still. Go uptown for a fun date. Go here for a more seductive one. There are seats in the back where you and lots of people can go and hang out. But since I went with just one other person, we sat at one of the windowside tall round tables.

She and I sat and ordered a few drinks before picking out some entrees. This should not be done, as you will smack yourself for having ordered $30 worth of cocktails before realizing that your date isn't going anywhere (side note, I usually NEVER blog about my dates unless the girl actually wants me to, but I haven't had a chance to return and have been putting off doing this update for just too damn long. Besides, I didn't tell you anything about the date anyway.).

I ordered the Pan Roasted Quail with fingerling potatoes and cippollini onion hash under a mushroom jus. Delicious. Tender. Crisp. A little on the small side. But order it anyway. No one outside of a mental institution will fail to enjoy eating this. She ordered the Yellowfin Tuna Tartare, served with capers, red onion, olives, lemon and an anchovy oil. She though it was very but felt that she should have ordered something more substantial. Especially given that we had already hada few drinks by the time the food came. So we ordered the Assorted Meats and Cheese Combo Plate to back it up. It was okay, but I remember it being better at the one uptown.

CAFE D'ALSACE

2011-01-10T00:19:00.001-05:00

CAFE D'ALSACE
1695 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10128
(212) 722-5133

Cafe D'Alsace is one of the Restaurants that pepper Manhattan as part of the Tour De France restaurant group. It includes the likes of L'Express, Nice Matin, and French Roast, to name a few. Each of them, in theory, focuses on the cuisine from a certain part of France. Cafe D'Alsace focuses on the Alsatian region near the German border, so the food here is heavily German influenced. They naturally have a pretty damn good beer list. I was a jerk and ordered an Ommegang Hennepin.

Cafe D'Alsace rests comfortably on the Upper East Side. Much like the Upper West Side, this isn't a dining out destination. The restaurants are good, to be sure, but they are rarely innovative. People come home from a long day at work (this being the UES, they're probably hedge fund people) and want to eat something that they're familiar with. And let's not forget that 88th street isn't the most youthfully exuberant area in town. Slightly farther north and you've got 20-somethings just out of college rooming four to a two-bedroom and going to fratty bars drinking beer out of plastic cups, but 88th street is a solidly empty-nester friendly zone.

And so Cafe D'Alsace, while thoroughly pleasant and comfortable, isn't about to make me lie in bed at night craving their cuisine. I arrived around 8pm to meet my friend Lina. There was a pretty good sized crowd and we wound up at a table smack in the middle of the restaurant. Good for camera angles, not good for being able to gossip without the table right next to you listening in. After ordering a round of drinks, Lina skipped an appetizer but I started with their Venison Sausage appetizer, which I liked quite a bit. Venison, for those who've never had it, is very very good. It's gamey, but not gritty and tough like buffalo. It's a red meat, so it's similar to beef in texture, but with a twist, the way wild boar is pork with a twist (for the better, in my opinion). Served on a bed of sauerkraut salad with lingonberries and a sweet red wine glaze, this was a great appetizer, but was not indicative of the rest of the meal.

Lina orders the good ol' French go-to dish, Steak Frites, Thin steak with french fries. It was, as I implied earlier, fine, but not spectacular. I order it A LOT and have certainly had better steak frites (though she asked for it well-done so maybe this isn't the restaurant's fault. Seriously, for the rest of you out there, don't let those cows die in vain by ordering your steak well-done). I ordered the Classic Cassoulet, a bean-based stew with fois gras, lamb, duck and garlic sausage, and duck confit. It was heavy. Super heavy. And when you get it you think it's small. But it's dry. The beans were okay, but too gloppy and the sausage required being eaten while drinking your beer. Lina loved the duck confit though and has since out trip here reminded me twice of how good it was. I took half of it home and finished it the next day.

Come dessert, I was ready to explode like a Monty Python character but Lina ordered a Chocolate Tart. It looked nicer on the plate than it tasted on my tongue. Like the other dishes, it was too dry and too heavy. I stole a bite or two with my coffee.

Compared with the other restaurants in the Tour De France playbook that I've been to, Cafe D'alsace is the weakest. It doens't have the outdoor space of Maison or the eye candy of L'Express or the relaxed cheapness of French Roast. It doesn't have escargot on the menu. It does have a good beer list though, something that I would certainly be willing to return for. I'll just skip the chocolate tart.

1 expensive Ommegang, 1 less expensive Leffe Blonde, 1 appetizer, 2 entrees, 2 coffees, 1 dessert, and tax and tip was about $125.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2011 ]

SICAFFE

2009-03-23T13:46:00.015-04:00

SICAFFE
964 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10021
(212) 452-2259

On the day that I was born, particles of light left the star Delta Iridani. Traveling at nearly seven hundred million miles per hour, their journey across the cosmos took them past other stars and planets and giant gas clouds. They saw things that, despite whatever advances science may make, I, in my corporeal frame, can never hope to see. Upon reaching Earth, these particles prepared for the end of their trip. They entered the atmosphere, crossed through the clouds, between the canyons of high-rise condos that have become the Upper East Side landscape, and arrived at Sicaffe a solid hour before Speeds did, whose journey began somewhere around 68th Street (give or take).

Speeds eventually arrived and, after being greeted accordingly, ordered her usual from this Italian-style espresso cafe's selection of cakes and sandwiches. A Chocolate Chip Cookie. "Do you know why they make the best chocolate chip cookies?" They discovered the Pepperidge Farm section of the supermarket? "They use just the right amount of sugar and salt." And it's true. They're not too sweet with just a hint of salt. And, as cookies go, it wasn't half bad. The best? She certainly thinks so. In the meantime, I ordered their Apple Crumb Cake. Also, not bad. It crumbled in all the right places, with chunks of apple buried deep within its crust. But is it any better than something I could get elsewhere? Probably not, but I'm not complaining.

I ordered myself a standard Cappuccino and it was fine. Aside from the fact it was a little thin for my taste, it was everything a Cappuccino should be. Dark and bitter espresso underneath a sweet creamy foam with requisite heart carved on top. Get a glass of water for your soon-to-be dry mouth. Speeds, culinary rut in hand, ordered her usual, a Latte, which she loved. Stealing a sip, I can vouch wholeheartedly that it was, in fact, a pretty good latte. Again, the best? No. She would like me to plug her favorite Sicaffe espresso drink, by the way, which is the Triestino Doppio. Go give that a try, and, in the meantime, gimme a sip of that water!

On the back of the menu is a shout-out to Sicaffe's signature drink, the Triestino Cappuccino, which quotes New York Magazine as saying the that it "is close to the ideal - a syrupy shot of rich espresso, a righteous tuft of silky foam - and all the sweet, bitter, smooth components are as well balanced as a Cirque du Soleil tightrope artist." Righteous foam? "I smite thee, decaf! Hallelujah!" You can't seriously say things like that with a straight face. Naturally, as a wide grin began to grow, I knew that trying this Cirque du Soleil-in-my-mouth drink was part of my destiny. And did it quite live up to the pretension? Guess.

OLD TOWN BAR & RESTAURANT

2007-06-10T01:57:00.005-04:00

OLD TOWN BAR & RESTAURANT
45 East 18th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 529-6732

Every so often you don't care what you eat. Every so often the food is secondary to having a good time. Every so often, you order something not because you want something new... or even good. You just don't want something bad. Like the smokers on the corner who maybe take three drags before they're down to the filter; like the guys who spend three hours at a bar, but maybe have two drinks. You want to eat because it's an excuse to hang out. Okay. I'll admit it, that wasn't why we were at Old Town. But that's what it turned into.

Courtesy of Mr. Dogz, I, like Ernest Hemingway, carry around a Moleskine notebook. Unlike him, I write down restaurants I want to try out instead of prose. Also unlike him, I'm not a depressed alcoholic. Dogz and Speeds and I were hungry and happened to be in the neighborhood of an entry in my little black book. So turning a corner, we headed on over. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why I wrote down Old Town. It looked like a dive bar that hadn't seen sunlight since the heyday of bowler hats. I half expected to trip over an elderly drunk with a cockney accent on my way in. And yet, I'd gladly go back now that I've been there. It's good. Real good. Hell, it's even made the New York Times and Time Out New York "Best Of NYC" lists.

I think Ernest might have liked this old-school place. And by old-school, I mean old-school. Old Town claims to have been opened in the 1890s, and I think it's still there. The ceilings look about three hundred feet high with pressed tin embossed designs along its entire length. The wood-paneled walls are dark and decorated with antique photos and posters. The black and white porcelain tile floors and massive mahogany bar that, from where we sat, seemed to stretch practically out the door, would have been enough to complete the time-warp. Would have been even if I never went to the bathroom.

Ah, the bathroom. The one place where originality could easily be sacrificed in lieu of modern stuff. You know. Like modern stall doors. Mr. Dogz went in and there was some poor guy on the can, probably just finishing a prayer specifically begging that no one enter while he sat. See, the stall doors start so high that you can see up to whoever-it-is's thighs, pants around his ankles, hairy knees, and all. I think the lesson is obvious: don't take a dump. I wasn't too fond of the urinals, either. First, they're right by the door and it doesn't close all the way. So see that cutie you just left at the bar for two minutes? If she stretches while waiting and twists to face the bathroom... peekaboo. Second, since they go all the way to the floor, there's a splash factor. Um... I was wearing flip-flops. ...yeah.

Let's move on.

The food: Geez. Who even cares? It was about the atmosphere, people! Fine fine. Dogz and I split a Mozzarella Sticks, and the table split a French Fries. The mozzarella sticks were very good and the fries were huge. Massive. There were three of us and we would have had to invite more people to finish them off. Speeds ordered a Freshly Squeezed Lemonade, which they advertised in the window with a hand-written sign that informs us how awesome it is with vodka. Speeds said it would have been more awesome with more lemon. But whatever.

I ordered a BLT which was pretty much a standard BLT. No complaints except that I asked for cole slaw instead of fries, since Speeds ordered them already, but no slaw came. I didn't bother pointing it out. Like I said, I didn't care. Dogz chose the Fish Sandwich. He though it was perfect. Not content with merely one great big fried piece of flounder, he also stole the anchovies from Speeds' Chicken Caesar Salad. And by the way, that salad was hu-mon-gous. It took up the entire plate and I'm not kidding when I say that there was so much grilled chicken on top that it blocked out the view of the lettuce.

The difference between Old Town and retro is that retro is fake. Retro is an attempt at recreating the fantasy of being around that which we idealize as classic. Like the new Mustang or those phones you can get at Pottery Barn. Like one of the few guys who can pull off a fedora, it looks cool, but it's just a modern attempt at authenticity. Old Town is authentic. There's nothing retro about it. It's pure.

Most bars are clones of the one down the block. Another Irish pub, another hipster dive bar, another yuppie gin joint, another smooth cocktail lounge. They're all good, but if you've been to one, you've been to 'em all. If you're looking for a bar that's unique, that's enough of a dive to keep yuppies away like garlic to a vampire but that not so divey that hipsters have it on their radar prepped for colonization, this might be the place for you. It's a one-off. And just look at that neon sign! ...and watch your feet.

Two appetizers, three main dishes, a couple of beers, and a lemonade, plus tax and tip, and we dropped $63. Not bad.

UPDATE: 5/6/08

A recent return to Old Town this past Saturday was disappointing, to say the least. The men's bathroom has gotten worse, if such a thing were possible. Now you can sit on the toilet and look clean through the door. Lovely. But the biggest thing was the service, which was awful. Screw giving her a tip, I came close to the border of just leaving, tab be damned. Anyway, one miserable time will not dissuade me from returning, but I write this as a warning to other customers.

HOT DOGS!!! - Part One

2009-02-01T17:34:00.001-05:00

Papaya Dog
Papaya King
Gray's Papaya

The hot dog. Much like the hamburger, it's one of the original American fast foods. Unlike the hamburger, no one has figured out how to make it classy without being laughed at. The hot dog is a staple of the ballpark and the carnival, Coney Island and Times Square. It's enjoyed by so many Americans that even vegans created their own clone to avoid feeling left out of the fun. And yet it's a publicly derided staple. One need only recall The Simpsons episode where Lisa imagines a hot dog being pieced together from the remnants of roadkill and a hobo shoe. Still, the hot dog endures.

The hot dog and New York. It fits in its own nook between a slice of pizza and a soft pretzel. And from Nathan's on Coney Island to the ubiquitous Sabrett cart, the hot dog is everywhere. In the middle of everywhere are the rivaling Papaya micro-chains.

Hot Dogs and papaya juice. Not the first combo I think of when I think of phallic-shaped processed meat products, but clearly a popular one.

PAPAYA DOG
239 First Avenue
New York, NY 10003
no phone (?)

Papaya Dog is the closest of the seedy hot dog joints to where I grew up, so I figured that this would be a good place to start.

Whenever I'm in the East Village, and it's three in the morning and I'm drunk and I'm hungry, I go to Papaya Dog. I always order the same thing, the hamburger combo. They have pretty good hamburgers, especially at three in the morning. I also get a hot dog to nosh on while I wait for the hamburger to cook. This time, it seems more fair to review them sober.

There's always a crowd at Papaya Dog, regardless of the time of day. In the daytime, students line up to get cheap eats and annoy me with their tweenage banter. Later on, they come back for a post-school snack. As the day gets later, the crowd evolves into the more hipster population that has become the new Alphabet City demographic. Followed later still by everyone who just finished partying.

This time around, I skipped the burger and went for the regular hot dog and one with some added stuff, in this case, cheese and chili.

In theory, the cheese and chili hot dog was a good idea. After all, I like cheese and I like chili. Ipso facto, cheese and chili on a hot dog must be a winning combo. However, that logic can also be extended to liking Rice Krispies and Coors, which is not quite as winning. It was like eating a chunk of lead and I could taste it for the better part of an hour. Plus I couldn't taste the hot dog. I could have easily asked for chili, cheese and a bun and saved some money.

Still, their plain Jane hot dog was really good, so stick to those.

*****

GRAY'S PAPAYA
539 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
(212) 904-1588

Gray's Papaya is the most famous of the trio, and based on my experience standing on the long line at the upper west side one, it's the most popular. This time, I chose to visit the one in the far more colorful neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. If the motto of real estate is location, location, location, then Gray's Papaya must be targeting the "need more porno" demographic.

Gray's Papaya is small. In fact, if it got any smaller, you'd be standing outside. Tables shmables. "Eating in" means propping your dogs and drink on a five inch wide ledge by the window. Unlike Papaya Dog, there's no menu. Hot dogs or nothing. And there aren't that many to choose from. I ordered one plain hot dog, which I then put ketchup and mustard on, and one with some sort of onion glop. It was the glop or sauerkraut. Glop me.

I actually expected the onion glop to taste vile. But no, it was pretty good. I think that I might glop all of my Grays Papaya dogs from now on. New York magazine thinks that the Gray's dogs are the best of the Papaya offerings, and I think that they were fine, but somewhat small. The meat got lost in the bun. As for the best, I dunno. Maybe I'm not enough of a connoisseur. I won't argue with the cost though. The two dogs and a papaya juice (which was very good, by the way), was under $5.

*****

PAPAYA KING
200 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 367-8090

Papaya King was the first of the three, and always seemed to be one step up from grungy Gray's Papaya, which seemed to be to raison d'etre for the random-meat hot dog. At least in the 1980s when I was growing up. Papaya King was, like, real food.

Similarly to Papaya Dog, I opted for the regular good ol' hot dog and a chili-topped one. But for the chili-topped one, no cheese this time. Onion instead. And what a difference! I could actually taste the meat. The chili and onion complimented the hot dog rather than drown it out.

The regular hot dog, as you can see in the photo, is somewhat on the thin side. The hot dog is longer than the competition's, but this being the Chelsea location, you think that they'd know that it's really the girth that matters. Still, I can't argue the taste, which was moderately better than Papaya Dog's, though not enough to make me cross town for the difference.

VESELKA

2010-09-20T13:11:00.006-04:00

VESELKA

144 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 228-9682

Veselka has been around since 1954. It's sort of a NYC institution. In the past few months, I've found myself wandering into Veselka more often than I'd ever think I would. This is entirely, to be honest, because Veselka happens to be open 24 hours a day and at 3am, after a multiple conversations with my pal Johnny Walker and his brothers Blackie and Red, I wasn't in any condition to go hunting. Veselka looks and feels like a greasy spoon from the mid-70s. Some people eat in the dining room in the back, some in the cafe front, and some at the counter. If you go in during the daytime, the age of the customers hovers around 70. It's understandable. If you were spry in the 1972, then eating somewhere that hasn't changed since then can make you feel young again. Kinda like playing with Legos. Meanwhile, at night, almost everyone is in their 20s or 30s.

The service at Veselka has been, on every occasion, awful. I feel somewhat guilty saying that since my waiter or waitress has always been very nice when she's there, but attitude aside... awful. They're slow, they get the orders wrong, they vanish, they don't refill water glasses, etc. I think I could forgive them if the food was something worth writing home about, but it's not. What makes this disappointing is that Veselka has its own cookbook published, but the meals they serve you in person are on par with what you'd get at a diner. And what doubles that disappointment is that if you go back far enough in time, you'll find my ancestors eating this same stuff while fighting Cossacks. I won't go so far as to say I grew up on Ukrainian food, but I did eat it while in the process of growing up.

I made one lunch trip to Veselka with my dad, Dudeman, and one dinner trip with Dudeman and my mom, Shrink. Prior to that, all I'd eaten here were their burger platters and some coffee (the worst coffee I've ever had). During the lunch, I ordered the Beef Stroganoff ($15), cubed beef with egg noodles under a creamy mushroom sauce. Nine times out of ten beef stroganoff is great, but you need to use good quality beef, and that wasn't done here at Veselka. The beef was very cheap, very sinewy and chewy and tough. The noodles and the sauce were good, though I can't say I recommend the meal. It came with a choice of a side dish so I chose the Potato Pancake. I thought the pancake was fine, and it's a virtually impossible dish to screw up unless you're drunk while making it. That said, Dudeman didn't have much to say. "Too dense", he muttered before heading back to his plate. He went for a selection of Pierogis ($7-$11 per plate) a boiled or fried (I recommend the fried, trans fat be damned) dumpling typically filled with potato. Normally, I love pierogis. We tried the Fried Meat Pierogi, which was okay, but the ground beef that filled it was as dry as a bone; the Boiled Potato Pierogi, which was decent but not spectacular; the Boiled Sauerkraut and Mushroom, which was just hideous; and the Fried Broccoli and Cheddar, which was pretty good. Overall, Dudeman said that none of them compared to the ones our aunt makes and that if he had to choose between these and the ones we've bought at the supermarket in the past, he'd opt for the supermarket. Not, I must say, a resounding compliment. The pierogis came with sour cream, apple sauce, and sauteed onions, all of which were used liberally.

We returned with Shrink the following week to make sure that we didn't catch Veselka on an off day and sat at pretty much the exact same table. Both meals that the Rents ordered came with a choice of soup so Dudeman ordered Chicken Noodle. "This is the best chicken noodle soup I've ever had in a restaurant" he told us. A glowing compliment that I do not concur with. Well, maybe it's the best that a restaurant will serve you, though I find that hard to believe, but it's certainly not better than what you get out of a can from Chunky or Progresso. I found it bland at best. That said, it was better than Shrink's starter, the Mushroom Barley Soup, which was just laughable. Maybe the barley was made out of Styrofoam? I dunno. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Before the soups had been finished, let alone cleared, the waiter appeared with the entrees, pushing aside plates and scooping up utensils, mine included. The Rents quickly finished what was left in their little bowls to get us more space. Shrink ordered Stuffed Cabbage ($14), cabbage leaves wrapped around ground beef, ground pork and rice, under a tomato sauce. They also have a vegetarian version, and you can choose a mushroom sauce instead of a tomato sauce if you so prefer. Again, the relatives make a better one, and again, the biggest complaint was blandness. Still, Shrink didn't think it was too bad and I agree. It wasn't. It just needed a bit more oomph. Dudeman ordered the Bigos ($14), which Veselka describes as a "hearty" stew of kielbasa, pork, onion and sauerkraut with a side of mashed potatoes. Now, to be sure, this combo seems about as appetizing to me as eating something that fell on the floor of a bus, but se la vie. The thing is, when it arrived, Dudeman's reaction was "this is stew?" It was almost a tossed salad made up mostly of sauerkraut and onions, with some pork and kielbasa thrown in as a topping. Like a reverse hot dog without the bun. Hey, if you love sauerkraut enough to wolf down a whole plate of it, then have I got a recommendation for you! In the meantime, I decided to order the Veselka Reuben sandwich ($13.50). Sliced krakovska (a sausage) with swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on a seven-grain bread. And you know what? It was damn good. Finally, something to recommend! Yay! It came with a choice of potato and I decided to try Veselka's Home Made Potato Chips, which I assure you are home made. They're soggy, saltless, and left the bottom of the plate swimming in oil.

As we were leaving, Dudeman smiled and said simply, "Well guys, this is the kind of place you go to once every few years, if only to remind yourself why you haven't been there in a few years."

OKTOBERFEST SPECIAL!!! - BEER GARDEN WARS

2010-10-09T00:16:00.002-04:00

OKTOBERFEST SPECIAL!!! (BEER GARDEN WARS)

Berry Park
Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden
Radegast Hall & Biergarten
The Standard Biergarten
Studio Square

October. The leaves are yellow and orange, the air is crisp and clean. Halloween, which used to be when girls dressed like hookers but which is now when girls dress like zombie s, is just on the horizon. October is the title of a thankfully very short, brooding U2 song. October is the official month both for Breast Cancer Awareness, an important cause we should all support, and Caffeine Addiction Recovery Awareness, a fake cause invented to hawk merchandise we should all laugh at. Last but not least, October is the international month of beer. OKTOBERFEST is here!!

The best place, we all know, to fully appreciate Oktoberfest isn't at some sports bar watching the Giants lose. No, Oktoberfest requires a beer garden. So this Winterfylleth I decided to wander the boroughs to find the best Beer Gardens NYC has to offer.

BERRY PARK
4 Berry Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 782-2829

Berry Park, on the border between Williamsburg and Greenpoint, was the second stop on my journey between the boroughs hunting for outdoor German beering. Berry Park sits alone along a deserted industrial street smack between the bustle of the Nassau stop on the G and the bustle of the Bedford stop on the L. You can't miss it. It's the warehouse with all the lights. Unlike Bohemian Hall, the inside area is large and maintains the ubiquitous beer hall decor of communal tables. In fact, with the high ceilings, warm candlelight glows and the faint smells of wood and ale blending together, you could almost pretend that your imbibery was taking place at a ski lodge in the Alps.

But of course, this isn't about sitting inside on a perfect fall night, it's about sitting outside. Walk up the long staircase in the back to find yourself on the roof. There's far less seating than at Bohemian Hall and far, far less seating than at Studio Square, but when Mr. Dogz and I showed up, the place was calm and we were able to get a table to ourselves. We ordered a couple of beers from the rooftop bar and hunkered in for some guy-talk.

If the beer menu is almost exclusively German, the food menu is anything but (save a pretzel). Mostly appetizers, salads and sandwiches, this isn't standard bar food. With choices like a jambalaya, a smoked salmon sandwich, roasted seasonal vegetables and an avocado BLT the menu has more in common with what you'd find on the menu of a WASPy, Hamptons venue than any normal bar. I wound up ordering the Pulled Pork Sandwich (very tasty), which came with a small side salad and a small side of potato salad while Dogz decided to have a Roasted Artichoke Dip, which came with roasted corn chips. This was mediocre at absolute best.

But we didn't come here for dinner. We came for the ambiance, and that particular aspect of Berry Park was fantastic. The crisp air, the lively, but not raucous fellow patrons and the smell of someone's wood-burning fireplace in the air was everything this particular New Yorker was in the mood for. The beers we tried, to give you an idea of what they had, were a Palm, an Aventinus, a Gosser, a Weihenstephaner, and a Leffe Blonde. They ranged in price from $6 to $8.

Berry Park is cash only.

BOHEMIAN HALL & BEER GARDEN
29-19 24th Avenue
Astoria, NY 11102
(718) 274-4925

When NYC beer gardens come to mind, this is the one that we picture. The Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden is such an iconic part of NYC that it was chosen as a location in the latest Grand Theft Auto video game. What makes this a beer garden, as opposed to an outdoor bar, are the trees. Big and thick and as old as the century-old bar itself.

The indoor space is microscopic. But who comes here to sit inside? Head to the back and you'll immediately find that the seating outdoors is both vast and yet insufficient. Seemingly hundreds upon hundreds of grad students fill row upon row of picnic tables. Most people here came in groups of four or more. Bro and I were certainly in the minority as we wandered the aisles looking for a seat. We squeezed in between some law students from DC and a pair of cutesy couples on a double date. It's not very loud here, but it's hardly quiet. The air, as fall began to descend upon us, had turned brisk, but the mass of humanity warmed the place up and wearing my jacket became uncomfortable.

While I held our place at the table, Bro grabbed us some liquid and solid refreshment. The food menu is pretty small. Kielbasa (pictured) and Bratwurst (not pictured) was our nosh du jour. But most people seemed content with fries or some other sort of lighter, shareable finger food. The beer menu was much smaller than one might expect from a place this size and this famous. Sure, 20-odd beers may not be something to sneeze at elsewhere, but I was thinking that I'd have an array of 50-plus. The beers we tried, which I won't bother opining about, were Hoegaarden, Krusovice and Staropramen. Bro also went for one of the few domestics with a Captain Lawrence. The majority of the brew options are from the old country, as it should be. Half liter mugs are the standard size and cost $5.

RADEGAST HALL & BIERGARTEN
113 North 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 963-3973

About a ten minute walk down from Williamsburg's Berry Park is Radegast Hall, on the corner of Berry and North Third. From the side, it appears to sit in a large factory-like building. From the front, it looks like a medieval tavern where road-weary travelers seeking sanctuary from the bandits of the night. Either way, it's an ominous structure. Unlike the other four beer gardens I visited, despite the name, Radegast Hall is entirely indoors. It's a beer hall. And when I say hall, I mean it's big enough to line three freight cars up in the dining room.

Radegast Hall's front room is a standard bar/restaurant with individual tables and a very large central bar. Combine the smell of citrus, the dark woods, the jazz music playing and the non-beer drink menu and you can almost imagine that you're in a cocktail lounge instead of a beer hall. You can almost miss the little touches of German cliches that pepper the walls. But walk into the vast rear dining room, sit at the long tables and glance at the beer menu and you'll bring yourself to reality pretty quick. The beer menu is two pages long. One page is entirely drafts. The bottle menu on page two is literally in fine print.

There are two food menus. One is for table service and has things like steak and soups and so forth. The second menu is the grill menu where you go for burgers and sausages. Dogz and I split a Large Pretzel, which was very very good. Not too soft, not too hard, with just enough salt and a perfect mustard to dip it in. Dogz also tried Radegast's Garlic Soup, which I stole a sip of. Good, if a bit thin. We decided to stick with the grill menu for the remainder of our solid food here. Dogz ordered a Portobello Sandwich, which he gave a thumbs up to. Radegast has a large sausage menu, so I tried their Venison Sausage. It was smaller than the sausages you might get at Bohemian Hall, but it had a bit more concentrated flavor. Both of these meals came on a paper plate with fries. Mine also came with (surprisingly good sauerkraut).

Of course, the name of the game here is beer. And the selection is seemingly limitless. Between the two of us, we had a Gaffel Kolsch, a Schneider Weisse, a Hopus Ale, a Weihenstephaner Festbier, a Franziskaner Hefel-Weisse, and a Krusovice Imperial. I'm sure that these don't mean much to most of you, but that just means it's time to start expanding your palate.

Bottles vary in price. The Hopus was a bottle that cost $11. Everything else was a draft and Radegast Hall uses the following price structure: Half a liter (a little more than a pint) will run you $7, a liter will cost $13, and a liter-and-a-half will cost $18.

THE STANDARD BIERGARTEN
848 Washington Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 645-4646

The Standard Hotel, in NYC's trendiest neighborhood, Meatpacking District, is perhaps the surest sign that beer gardens are cool again. Not long ago, beer gardens were quaint and kitch and anyone who showed up in heels, a miniskirt and sporting a Fendi bag would be first laughed at, then sprayed with lager, then laughed at again. Finally, arm candy girls can go someplace where they won't be discriminated against by the haters to meet the man of their wallet's dreams.

The Standard lies under the High Line and beside the Standard Hotel, so it's both indoors and outdoors at the same time. It's actually a very nice space and the inside-but-outside concept means you're safe to brew it up on a rainy day. Long beer-gardeny tables, high steel support beams, a decent number of tables including a bunch of smaller ones off to the side so you don't have to squeeze between strangers, and plenty of candles made for a pretty good time. But it has three big drawbacks. First, the clientele. If the other beer gardens are causal places for relaxing with your buddies, The Standard is where suits go to pretend that they're laid back dudes slumming it with the masses. The place absolutely reeked of cologne and there's something distinctly nauseating about watching a graying guy in a tie and eight-hundred dollar wingtips play ping-pong with what appears to be his clone while their dates drink cosmos at a nearby table. Second, the waitresses dress like Bavarian beer-wenches, something that I happen to think is pretty tacky.

Finally, for a "beer garden", more people were at the liquor bar than at the beer bar. But they offer up surprisingly little beer anyway. Three are on tap. Three. Kostriker, Lychee Weizen, and Bitburger, when I was there. I tried all three, suffice it to say. Food-wise, I saw a lot of pretzels floating around.

Poseurs can expect to pay $8 per beer.

STUDIO SQUARE

35-33 36th Street
Astoria, NY 11106
(718) 383-1001

Like Bohemian Hall, Studio Square is in Astoria and has a positively huge outdoor space. 18,000 square feet of it. That's pretty much where the similarity ends. If you're looking for a traditional beer garden experience, don't go here. If you're looking for a place where you can arrive dressed up, don't go here. On the other hand, if you're looking for a place where you can take ten friends and sport your Ed Hardy collection, then Studio Square is where you want to be.

If The Standard Biergarten presumes class (or at least the pretense of class), then Studio Square eschews any and every such presumption. After waiting in line behind a girl in torn capri jeans and ultra-glossy heels for the bouncer to scan your ID, I headed to the bar and placed an order with one of the bartenders in a black S2 tee. There's theoretically a "fire pit", something sort of like a long, stone trough of fire outside that people can hover around in the cold, but only one burner was on so it seemed more underwhelming than cool.

The best word to describe Studio Square is "immature". If Bohemian Hall feels like it attracts Ivy League grad students, Studio Square feels like it attracts State U. undergrads. There are probably a dozen flat screen TVs playing sports. The beer Studio Square serves on tap is basically regular beer, despite what articles may say to the contrary. A variety of Sam Adams, Blue Moon, Magic Hat, Spaten. Not a bad beer among them, but they aren't serving up any of that unique stuff nobody's ever heard of. For the non-beer drinkers, pitchers of hard lemonade, sangria, hard cider and mojitos (all on tap) are available.

I wanted to like Studio Square more than I did, it certainly has an incredible potential, but it was hard to get past the quasi-club-scene atmosphere and the customers. Two guys who look like they spent the whole day burying bodies in a Jersey landfill leaned against the unlit part of the fire pit for a smoke. The live music was a horrible band singing painfully off-key covers of pop songs. Lady Gaga blended into Boston blended into Miley Cyrus blended into ACDC. "That guy just spit on the floor!" Operagirl blurted out. "Right there in front of the bouncer! You know, at other bars, they'd have a problem with that. Here, no biggie." I slugged some more of my beer, not really feeling the place and watched as a guy about fifteen feet away slid his hand down onto his date's ass, squeezed it firmly, and didn't really let go.

Studio Square has a standard bar-food menu with some German wursts, plus a sushi menu, but keep in mind that it's cash only.

JOYA

2007-12-16T15:57:00.001-05:00

UPDATED 11/18/11 at end of original article.

JOYA

215 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

718-222-3484

Cobble Hill is like one long stretch of restaurant options. This venture into New York's hippest borough was to Joya, a cool Thai place that clearly makes all of its money on the drinks, since it can't possibly be turning a profit on the food. Their specials aside, there are hardly any entrees that break $10. Plus, they give you so much food that you're pretty much required to take some home for tomorrow.

The first time I had been to Joya was months ago with Mr. Dogz in warmer times when the large rear dining area was open. I'd been dying to return, this time with a camera, but as Dogz was unavailable, I took along Bro and D. We had a great time. Joya's front half is occupied by a large bar and the music is so loud that you can barely hear the words coming from the person next to you. The wait, when we got there around 8pm was over half an hour. So we grabbed a seat at the crowded bar and proceeded to enjoy some libations until a table opened.

Once ordering, the food took no time to arrive. It was so fast that one could be forgiven for suspecting that maybe it was being reheated from earlier, except that the kitchen is wide open and you can see everything being prepared.

The first thing we ordered, other than booze, were some starters. I'm usually found ordering the coconut-based Tom Ka Gai soup, but this time around, I changed my tune and went for the Tom Yum Koong soup, a hot and sour soup with shrimp and mushroom. Very good, especially if you like spicy soups. It was light, but since they give you a bucket of it, pretty filling. D ordered the Fried Tiger Shrimp Rolls served with a plum sauce, which I got a tiny bite of and recall enjoying. She wolfed them down, so I'm guessing they were tasty. Finally, Bro partook of the Fresh Thai Summer Rolls, deep fried shrimp rolls with tamarind sauce.

Next up, we ordered was an entree for the whole table to share, Chicken Pad Thai, sauteed rice noodles with chicken, peanuts, sprouts, and egg. The good ol' stand-by dish. Everyone who goes to a Thai restaurant has to, by law, order their pad thai. Joya's pad thai was pretty good. I've certainly had better, but for the price, it'll be a long time before I start to complain.

Our respective entrees were all good and, for better or for worse, all pretty similar. I went with the Nuur Kartiam, sliced beef wioth broccoli, cabbage, carrots and onions in a fresh garlic sauce. D ordered the Nuur Kraprow, sauteed sliced beef with pepper, cabbage, carrots and onions in a chili basil sauce. Last, but not least, Bro picked the Koong Kraprow, shrimp with peppers, cabbage, carrots and onions in a chili basil sauce.

See how similar they are? No wonder they took all of fifteen seconds to make. I feel like I'm cheating by lumping them together, but the truth is, you order one dish and vary it based on the type of sauce and whether you want chicken, beef, shrimp or octopus. At least for the entrees. Joya has noodle dishes and curries. I can't speak for their noodles beyond the pad thai above, but I have had their green and red curries, from the time I was here with Mr. Dogz, and they were both good and plentiful. We'd have taken doggie-bags of leftovers home, but we were going to start bar-hopping and no one looks like a bigger tool than the guy at the bar with his doggie-bag of leftovers.

Our entire meal of three appetizers, four entrees, and four drinks came to around $70. No dessert this time. We were too full. Joya's cash only, by the way.

UPDATE 11/18/11: So I returned for a quick bite after a couple of years since eating here and honestly, can't say I was impressed. I ordered a soup and it felt thin and listless. I ordered the grilled quid salad and it came in a soup of dressing. I ordered the garlic chicken and... meh. The upside is that it all cost only $25 with tax and tip, but man. What drop in expectations. I was really hoping for oh so much more.

THE FRANKLIN MORTGAGE & INVESTMENT CO.

2011-08-02T14:55:00.008-04:00

THE FRANKLIN MORTGAGE & INVESTMENT CO.
112 South 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(267) 467-3277

If you were ever in Philadelphia and ever wondered to yourself, as I have on more than one occasion, "Where can a guy get a decent drink around here?" (other than the bar at the Ritz Carlton lobby... and even then), then you need ask no more. Philadelphia does in fact have its own true cocktail lounge.

If I were to compare The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company ("The Franklin") to a New York bar, it would most fit the profile of Little Branch. It's dark, it's under the street and the staff wears Prohibition-era-esque clothing. The drinks are stunning and the bartenders know their shit more than you might think possible (Date Tip: guys, do not sit at the bar if you want your girl to look at you, because the bartenders here ain't the uggos you might see slinging hooch at McGeneric O'Plain's Irish Pub). One major difference between The Franklin and almost any NYC speakeasy is the speakeasy part. They skip the hidden aspect. No teensy weensy little plaque nobody can see; they fly a huge flag over the sidewalk. But once you're inside, it's back to speakeasy-as-usual.

I spent the last several days with Bro in Philadelphia and one lovely, scaldingly hot evening, we decided we needed to go-a-drinkin'. The Franklin was our first stop. If the lounges here were any indication, there'd be a line that we needed to beat. In fact, we did not beat the line. But the wait wasn't too bad. About ten minutes, but we did have to sit at the bar.

Our stay at The Franklin netted us six drinks (three each), leaving us with a good, pre-very-late-dinner buzz. I started with the Coal Cracker Cocktail, rye whiskey, galliano, sasparilla, blackberry syrup and bitters. For those of you out there who aren't very big whiskey people, this is a good drink to start with. While it's far from a sweet drink, it's more mellow than something as hard-nosed and old fashioned as, say, an Old Fashioned, which is what I ordered for round two. Rye, bitters, and sugar. Thankfully, they didn't dumb it down with a maraschino cherry.

Bro started with the Regime Change Punch, Bourbon, Applejack, Galliano, Allspice dram, lemon juice, honey, demerara, honey, tea and bitters. It's a mouthful and there's no way I could make it at home. But it was very good. His second drink was a Classic Mai Tai. Have you ever been on a cruise or at some resort where you can swim up to the bar and ordered a mai tai. You get a drink with rum, Malibu, pineapple juice, OJ and a jungle of garnishes to fight your way through? Yeah well, this ain't that. Rum, sugar, triple sec, lime juice and Orgeat, an almost syrup. It's creamy and light and doesn't taste like it came from a can.

We ended our experience here with an Airmail (rum, lime juice and honey, topped with champagne) and a Corpse Reviver #2 (gin, Cointreau, Lillet and absinth). Again, fantastic drinks, and they closed out the night here properly.

RED HOOK LOBSTER POUND

2011-07-19T17:41:00.007-04:00

RED HOOK LOBSTER POUND

284 Van Brunt Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

(646) 326-7650

Like any blue-blooded American, I like... nay love, lobster. But it's neither the easiest nor cheapest food to find. So lobster was for special occasions and restaurants that made you wear a tie to sit down. But now, thanks in large part to the sudden popularity of Luke's Lobster, this crustacean is having a renaissance. The Red Hook Lobster Pound, in Red Hook (and Washington, DC) is expanding this market with a food truck roaming the city (something that is also enjoying a renaissance).

I found myself in Red Hook the other day with nothing to do and all by myself. I wanted some lunch and remembered that Red Hook Lobster Pound had just started following my Twitter ravings. Naturally, I wandered over.

There are no seats at the Red Hook Lobster Pound, but there are a couple of benches outside. I was reminded of my visit to Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies. But Van Brunt Street is a deserted place and I was able to straddle the bench to use as a makeshift table. You can order a lobster or shrimp roll and they'll serve it Maine Style or Connecticut Style. I opted for the Maine Style Lobster Roll. A buttered, toasted bun, lettuce, paprika, scallion and a giant amount of lightly mayoed lobster. I got through half of one bite before all the synapses in my brain lit up and "holy shit" emerged from what little room there was left in my mouth. This was a damn good roll, my friends. Luke's has competition in the taste department if not in the convenient-to-get-to department.