Category: New York Restaurant Reviews

New York City Restaurant Reviews

Blue Hill Restaurant

75 Washington Place between MacDougal and Sixth Avenue
212/539.1776
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

To welcome autumn, Nabi and I had dinner at Blue Hill in the West Village last night. It’s probably the first restaurant in the city that attempts to be an answer to Chez Panisse with all their locally-grown produce offered on the menu. Everything we ate reminded me of that day in Berkeley, but in a more intimate outdoor summer night setting.

So intimate in fact, that a gargantuan roach decided to drop on my bread plate in the middle of my admiring the Berkshire pork. Our very good-looking waiter happened to be right next to me attending to the other table when it happened and I managed to grab and dig my fingernails on his arm to muffle my scream. I stood up and walked away without knocking our wine glasses. Nabi said she watched the waiter gracefully, and quickly, cover the plate with a napkin and walk away with it.

The manager ran to our table after hearing about the incident. He was very thankful that I did not make a scene to scare the rest of the restaurant. They comped everything from our main course on: the soufflé, an extra glass of white for Nabi, two glasses of dessert wine and a pot of mint tea. I think they should have comped the entire meal, but maybe the roach wasn’t large enough.

Sans the Kafka episode, the food was refreshingly divine. We started with the different kinds of tomatoes in watermelon, cucumber and basil jus. We also split the Maine crab salad. Nabi had the wild striped bass which was cooked perfectly. My pork came from a very happy pig indeed, its own juice sweet without help from any kind of sauce.

After an entire conversation that involved mastication and other big vocabulary words not roach-related, we walked out of the restaurant happy and content. Blue Hill remains as one of my favorite New York City restaurants, but I have to subtract two stars because of the roach. I like organic, but not that organic.

Related post/s:
I have replicated the delicious watermelon and tomato salad many times

Buddhai Bodai

5 Mott Street at Worth, New York City
212/566-8388
about $60 for two, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

I never thought I’d say this but I love vegetarian food! That is, if it’s from Buddha Bodai. They specialize in both kosher and Buddhist vegetarian meals, so during a busy day, the restaurant is abuzz. Sundays are a scene when the Jews and the Chinese are in one room eating dim-sum. Service is efficient and fast, but don’t expect all of them to warm up to you; it’s nothing personal.

Most people get turned off with gluten because the fake meat does not sound appealing to them. I’m an omnivore, so I tend to agree, but Buddha Bodai does vegetarian really well. The lettuce song is crispy rice, fried noodles and pine nuts. You put some plum sauce on a piece of lettuce, scoop some of the filling and wrap it and eat it like a roll. I love the texture of this dish and it’s one of their best appetizers. The barbecue is a must-have. It’s actually the dish that changed my mind about vegetarian food. It’s so tasty, I could even be convinced that it’s not gluten but real meat.

I love the mushroom with black bean sauce. The mushroom flavor is so intense even the thick brown sauce can’t cover it. The crispy duck is really paper-thin tofu skins that taste even better when dipped in duck sauce. At Buddha Bodai, you’ll also have the best broccoli of your life. They’re bright green and perfectly tender flash-fried in garlic sauce. I wish parents would introduce their children to their version of broccoli as I’m sure any one, no matter what age, will love them.

Don’t skip the ginger pine nut fried rice or the house special congee especially if you go with a big group of people. The servings are more than enough and everything is so much better to share with your friends, dim-sum style.

Momofuku Noodle Bar

163 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets
212/475-7899
about $80 for two, with two drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

Updated, 2007: Momofuku has moved two stores down to make room for the third restaurant in their family, Momofuku Ko

Momofuku, which means “lucky peach,” is a nicely-designed noodlebar with mostly Japanese and Korean-influenced dishes plus a touch of Chinese. It reminded me of London’s Wagamama, which means “naughty child” in Nihongo, famous for their inexpensive and quick fast food as for their interior’s design.

We shared a plate of baby bok choy, flash-fried in hot oil, garlic and chilis–a good start to whet the appetite. Since it was almost a hundred degrees out, I picked the Momofuku somen with chilled noodles and dipping broth. My bowl came with mushrooms and very yummy shredded Berkshire pork which reminded me of leftover Filipino lechon, or roast pork. It’s a huge serving and more than enough for my hungry self. My companion opted for the pork neck ramen with neck meat and poached egg. It was also delicious. Both were served with scallions and menma, or bamboo shoots.

Even if it looks like a ramenya, a place that sells ramen in Japan, any new visitor would be glad to know that it just isn’t that. Dishes change seasonally, just like David Chang, owner and chef, learned at Craft. The noodles are not soggy and they have the right firmness and tenderness. There are buns, kimchi chigae, or fermented vegetables in soybean paste soup, and Sichuan-spiced crawfish in the menu.

I normally cook the baby bok choy at home when they are in season, so I thought the $8 price was pretty steep. Our tall Hefeweizens were also $10 apiece. In fact, everything is priced twice as much as its counterparts along St. Marks. Alas, this is New York City and this is the lower east side.

Corner Bistro

331 West 4th Street at Jane
212/242.9502
about $45 for two, with a few drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

Possibly the best burgers in New York City besides Le Parker Meridien’s, people wait at Corner Bistro not just for the $2.50 McSorley’s but also for the Bistro Burger, a slab of juicy beef so big you can barely flatten it to put it in your mouth. The best part of it all is that it comes with crispy bacon and onions.

Related post/s:
Le Parker Meridien Burger Joint

Falai

60 Clinton Street between Rivington and Stanton
212/253.1960
about $100 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

I rarely go to an Italian restaurant because I can’t, and don’t want to, eat a whole big bowl of pasta. Falai serves the familiar but transcends at the same time because of the imaginative use of ingredients.

Rich chicken livers were served with a fluff of polenta but also surrounded with chanterelles. The baby octopus did not come with vinaigrette but instead cooked with caramelized Gaeta olives for that mildly sweet taste. Eggplants fried in batter sounded off-putting in 90-degree weather but they were sliced so thin and done so lightly, perfectly. For our main course, we split the ravioli squid ink pasta stuffed with pine nuts, scallops, white asparagus fonduta and baked zucchini. It was heavenly.

Before chef Iacopo Falai managed the kitchen of Bread TriBeCa, he was the pastry chef at Le Cirque 2000. He pays tributes to his roots with the restaurant’s dessert menu, but alas, we had to settle for a dainty strawberry sorbet because we still had glasses of Veltliner and Tocai and Prosecco to finish.