New York Restaurant Reviews – Page 8 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Counter

105 First Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets
212/982.5870
$80 for two, with one cocktail, with tip
wheelchair patron may dine al fresco or wheel in
♥

I picked Counter as the first vegetarian restaurant to visit for my special project with Erin. She had sent me links to several restaurants she liked after she requested for me to start reviewing more vegetarian restaurants on this site. We made a three-night date in one week to ensure that I would actually do it. Sure there was some apprehension–I do love my meat–but I can never say I’m open to eating anything if I don’t even give tempeh a chance.

Counter had the most exciting menu that wasn’t Asian-inspired. If I was going to eat vegetarian food for dinner for almost a week, I didn’t want my meals to be regular meat dishes without the meat. Because what would have been the point of that? I could eat almost anywhere and just pick out the meat. (Sad.) I also signed up for this eating project because I wanted to see what vegetarian kitchens in the city can do besides the misconception of slathering tofu with soy and sesame oil.

Counter’s tofu with kale and barbecued peaches on a bed of jalapeÃ±o polenta didn’t disappoint. The combination of textures was interesting: the tofu was very firm without being rubbery while the kale was crunchy and hearty. The polenta had that roasted taste that only green peppers have and gave the dish the depth it needed. I could easily see these Counter accoutrements with a flank steak in another restaurant that serves meat. (Harold Deiter’s Perilla, for example.)

I also had Erin’s grilled seitan with Swiss chard in red wine-reduction sauce. Though I thought her dish needed some more salt, I liked the autumness of the entire plate since it could easily have been a braised short ribs dish. The seitan held its own without any beef support and took to the red wine really well.

However, our server forgot we were there. Erin changed her mind about getting a cocktail and she had to keep her eye out for our waitress in the almost-empty restaurant. We were pretty much left alone at our table except for the occasional diners hovering over us to check out the 3D art hanging on the wall behind me and the busboy who was relentless in refilling our water glasses.

All in all, I liked Counter for not looking like a vegetarian-only restaurant and for serving tofu and seitan with a creative spin. I was pretty satisfied by the time we got our bill, too, and even packed our leftovers to go.

Related post/s:
Perilla is in the West Village

Robataya

231 East 9th Street between Second and Third Avenues
212/979.9674
$135 for two, with a drink, without tip
♥ ♥

Clair and I didn’t have reservations at Robataya when we walked in so we missed out on the whole scene up front where you point at the produce you like and the robed guys sitting on their shins grill them for you. We ended up sitting in the back with all of the Japanese salarymen where we enjoyed our food sans the show.

I haven’t flinched at a bill in a very long time and boy, did I flinch when I got this one. We ate well, but things added up quickly that we lost track of all the $11 grilled unis sliding down our throats. A six-piece sashimi dish of tuna, salmon and sea urchin was $35. Grilled vegetables of okra, enoki mushrooms and shishito peppers ranged from $5 to $8 per plate. The kamameshi, or rice cooked in an earthenware pot, included small fish with black dots as eyes served two and cost $15. Two pieces of Aussie Kobe beef fillets cost $9.

Everything was delicious and the service was warm and attentive, but man, did it have to cost that much?

Related post/s:
Inakaya is also a robatayaki

Xiao Ye

198 Orchard Street between Stanton and Houston Streets
no phone number yet
$50 for one, with one beer, with tip
wheelchair may enter; may be hard to get to the restroom
early review: ♥

I’ve never been to Taiwan, but it has always been on my list of places to go and do nothing but eat. When reports started coming in about Xiao Ye and its “Taiwanese night market” food, I knew I had to go. I have several friends who hail from Taiwan and my mouth waters whenever they talk about the food they eat back home. I love Southeast Asian food and I enjoy sweating over that flavor profile with a cold, cold bottle of beer. I walked in once last week with a friend only to be told that they were having a private event. We laughed and let ourselves out and promised to return when they officially open. The temperature hit 90-plus again this week and so I made a trip to the Lower East Side for one of their soft openings.

I really wanted to like it. When I visited, half of the published menu on BaoHaus owner Eddie Huang’s blog was not ready and none came with any descriptions except for the obvious homage to the Wu-Tang Clan. With names like Poontang Potstickers, She Bang Fish and Buddha Sex Cabbage, I had to get the bartender’s help to find out what each dish was all about. (Can you guess what Golden Taste Balls are?)

I was told by a friend of a friend that I should skip the cocktails, so I opted for Magic Hat’s Wacko summer ale as soon as I found myself at the bar. They got the Asian weather down all right; it was steamy and it was hot and all I wanted was to eat comfort food that reminded me of home. But there’s a reason why they call such nights “soft openings”, and in my case, Xiao Ye was having a very, very soft night.

I dove in the Extreme Taste Salt-Cured Pork, generous slivers of pork belly that didn’t warrant the name nor need anything else. The meat was naturally sweet and the fat was equally addicting, but they were impossible to eat with chopsticks. I requested for a knife and a fork just so I can cut through some of the chewy skin. It would have been unacceptable to most people, but unlike most people, I actually enjoy gummy pork skin. I would have preferred it crisp and crunchy, but I knew I didn’t order chicharron.

The Taiwan Most Famous Pork on Rice by name alone had so much promise. This is a Taiwanese joint, yeah? Wrapped in mustard leaves, my rice was hard and crackly as if it had been sitting out for quite some time. There may have been a trace of pork somewhere, but most of what I tasted was the pieces of scrambled egg that was mixed in. My ghetto Chinese take-out place in Harlem would have done a much better job. I tried to put up with it, but you just can’t fuck up rice like that, so I finally told the bartender that I needed a new serving.

In between bites of the Concubine Cucumber–cucumber chunks pickled in vinegar, salt, sugar and garlic–I finished the pork belly while I waited for my rice replacement. Luckily, the second time around was warm and just right, so I felt compelled to eat it with the Trade My Daughter for Fried Chicken after I got over its name. The breaded chicken fillets tasted of cilantro, crushed peanuts and chili powder but were also heavily salted. I understood the flavor they were going for and I would have liked them if the cook was a little bit less heavy-handed with his seasonings. I would have taken my leftovers home, but I thought they were beyond repair–even the single girl eating next to me agreed when I offered a taste of my food. And I love salt! she said, but that is burning my lips!

Past the silly dish names and the Fantastik spray bottle next to the drinking glasses at the bar, Xiao Ye could be something. It’s that kind of a place bloggers and wannabe-foodies tend to love because the price and location are right, but the taste and service need to be accounted for in the next several weeks if they want to be taken seriously.

Fatty ‘Cue

91 South 6th Street off Berry in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718/599.3090
$55 each for a group of 10, with drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

I donâ€™t think the ten of us overdid it at Fatty ‘Cue at all.

To celebrate the Dr. finishing residency, I organized several friends to get together and eat at Fatty ‘Cue in Brooklyn. Not a lot of people at our table were big fans of Zak Pelaccio’s first endeavor, Fatty Crab, but they were willing to try Fatty ‘Cue solely because of the promises the name â€œcueâ€ can offer. We spent about two hours eating and passing plates around to share family-style, and I can assure you, we all left pretty happy in food coma state.

The dishes were served as soon as they came out of the kitchen. We started with the pork loin, thinly sliced pieces of the best part of my favorite animal. They were soft and surprisingly light and were perfect with the green peppercorn aioli.

The coriander bacon was to die for. They had those perfectly burnt ends that were crispy. The crispiness prepared you for the fatty goodness that was underneath. If I only had to eat these, I’d be completely satisfied. The yellow curry custard, in my opinion, was almost unnecessary, but I ended up asking the waiter if I can keep the rest of it to dip the vegetables that were served later.

One of my favorites was the grilled mackerel. Iâ€™m already a big fan of the oily fish, but the way Fatty ‘Cue grilled it in banana leaves gave it so much more flavor. The chili-lime-garlic sauce was that Southeast Asian flavor that I was craving. I wanted to be in some tropical island, in a hut, ceiling fan quietly oscillating overhead, and patiently picking the fish bones.

Both the cucumber and celery salads were just the right side dishes for such a fatty spread. Cucumber chunks were tossed in brown rice vinegar, while the slivers of celery were dressed in yuzu and preserved cabbage.

Iâ€™m also going to have to get into my Malaysian recipes, as the Fatty ‘Cue version of nasi ulam was delightfully a high-blood pressure inducer. It was a little too salty for me, but I still couldn’t stop eating it. The anchovies and dried shrimp reminded me of my dad’s recipes from his hometown in Ilocos Sur in the Philippines.

Fatty ‘Cue offers the “whole pig” as a special only on Sundays, an $18 dish that’s a plate of different pieces of a pig, as opposed to a whole lechon. It was actually my least favorite out of everything we ate because it was on the dry side even though the pineapple curry added to the sweetness of the meat. The plate came with accoutrements perfect as beer food: chopped Chinese long beans, pickled red onions, lightly grilled garlic cloves and, oy, chili jam. I stuffed several pieces of everything in the steamed bun and went to town. The buns reminded me of what made Momofuku famous; you can basically stuff anything in those buns and people are not going to complain.

The lamb ribs didn’t come until we were all ready to take a nap, but when they did, no one hesitated to pick a rib and gnaw it down to its bone. The meat wasn’t gamey and fell off the bone with just the lightest bite.

All in all, Fatty ‘Cue is perfect for groups because you can order several things from the menu and share the dishes. Our bill included gratuity, which is to be expected when dining with a group of more than six people, but our waiter was attentive even though he didn’t really have to work for his tip. Food came in quickly and our glasses were refilled just as fast. With a few local brews while we waited for a table, standing by the bar was as difficult as it got at Fatty ‘Cue.

Sandwiches For Lunch, Downtown New York City

I had one day off between the old job and the next, so I planned a sandwich tour to make up for all those missed New York City lunches while I was in Connecticut. Three sandwich shops were recommended to me by my friend Josh; I needed his help because I’ve been out of the food scene for what I felt was too long. He told me to pick one and enjoy, but true to Cia-style, I went to all three and enlisted my friend Dex to help me put everything down.

Each sandwich shop occupied a sliver of a space, with Torrissi a tad more spacious to accommodate more than three tables. They all had short, straightforward menus, good unpretentious vibes and pretty damn good sandwiches. I give them all ♥ ♥

Rbbts
142 Sullivan Street between Prince and Houston

We ordered the jerk chicken sandwich, the most promising item on their menu. The fish tacos sounded good as well, but they didn’t have them the day we stopped by. The jerk chicken was on the salty side but it was full of flavor and they didn’t skimp on the chicken. A bowl of rice with it would have made me a very happy person, but I’ll take that fresh, crusty bread for lunch just fine.

Local Café
144 Sullivan Street between Prince and Houston

Next door at Local, we opted for the panini with fresh mozarella from Joe’s Dairy. You can’t go any more local than that: Joe’s Dairy has been a fixture of Sullivan Street for so many years even before SoHo exploded into the shopping mecca of downtown New York City. The contrast between the warm, toasty bread against the soft, giving cheese was incredible. The caprese combination is nothing new, but simplicity done well makes a good impression.

Torrisi Italian Specialties
250 Mulberry Street off Prince Street

We walked off the two sandwiches and headed east to Torrisi. Of all the shops we visited, Torrisi is the type of shop I dream of opening in my next life, complete with hanging sausages and aged meats. We kept a low profile and opted for three of their Italian antipasti: fried cauliflower, roasted rabe and roasted bell peppers.

Perhaps it was the time of day, but Torrisi was more bustling than the previous two and we had to wait fifteen minutes before we could eat. It got even busier when the clock hit 2pm and the line wrapped in front of the counter and out the door. I’ll definitely be back again for their sandwiches when I can spend more leisure time to wait.

And during my first week at the new job, I tried the following to add to this set of reviews:

Num Pang Sandwich Shop
21 East 12th Street off University Avenue

I couldn’t wait to taste Num Pang’s pulled pork sandwich after my other friend Caroline told me she thought about it days after she first tasted it. After a late night out, I stopped by to order one duroc pork sandwich with honey and added the ginger barbecued brisket to compare it with. Both smelled delicious and were very filling, but were essentially Cambodian stews in a sandwich. I could have easily eaten the filling with a bowl of white rice. It was humid outside and the sandwiches brought me back to those warm Southeast Asian nights.

Luke’s Lobster
93 East 7th Street off First Avenue

I waited in line for about ten minutes before I was able to order my lobster roll. I waited another fifteen before I actually got my order to-go. Such is the price you have to pay when you join the queue at the sandwich shop du jour and you’re competing with other customers who are also changing their status on Facebook, checking in on Four Square, reviewing on Yelp and, well, spooning on UrbanSpoon.

Luke’s lobster roll, albeit smaller than the rest of the east coast’s, was worth it because I can’t just walk around New York City and get a fresh and trustworthy lobster roll. Was it better than the other rolls I’ve had in Amagansett or Narragansett? It was comparable, but I’ll take it when the craving to spend $14 on a sandwich hits me.