Category: Lower East Side

Reviews of Lower East Side Restaurants

Kampuchea Noodle Bar

78 Rivington Street on Allen
212/529.3901
about $50, without drinks, with tip
♥

It was a balmy, summer evening. We thought ordering a bowl of noodles was just appropriate. Upon entering Kampuchea Noodle Bar, I surely felt like being in Asia. It was hot and humid, but a faint breeze coming from the outside made everything comfortable inside. The restaurant details, from the glass mugs to the dim lights, romanticize everything on the menu. That’s a good thing because the food can’t hold its own.

We started with the crisp pork belly. They were a little sweet for my taste, but it’s hard for me to turn down fried fat. It reminded me of Fatty Crab’s better-executed version, served with chunks of watermelon. The pickle plate was very spicy but addicting at the same time. It made me wonder if there was a Korean back in the kitchen. My bowl of vermicelli was good enough to satisfy an Asian taste craving I was having, but the Dr. hated his bowl of duck soup because it was too oily. We both felt that the noodles needed some more love because their consistency felt like they were prepared carelessly.

The wooden communal tables and the mostly beautiful diners reminded me of Momofuku but with a sexier address. In terms of food, however, Momofuku it wasn’t.

Related post/s:
Fatty Crab has better fried pork belly
David Chang uses Berkshire pork, too, but Momofuku has better noodles

Sachiko’s on Clinton

25 Clinton Street between Houston and Stanton
212/253.2900
$180 for four people with three carafes of sake and two beers, without tip
♥ ♥

I didn’t expect to save money during Japanese Restaurant Week. Every restaurant week promo I’ve managed to attend always sounded better than what I actually ended up experiencing. The discounted menus during restaurant week are usually subpar, with the least expensive ingredients being offered. I’ve been content with some of the prix fixes I’ve ordered, but what to drink with them? My bill just always adds up in the end. I booked a table at Sachiko’s to take advantage of the week-long event, but not once was I reminded by the restaurant’s staff. On my way out, I saw printed menus on the bar with a 10% coupon attached to them. Even if they told me about Japanese Restaurant Week, my discount would have been, at most, $18. I doubt I ordered anything that was eligible for the discount anyway.

For $20, you can get at least three slivers of seven types of fish–that’s a whole lot of fish! It was the better choice because nothing in the a la carte menu was different. The eel wrapped in rice paper was a bit boring, and the kushiage, breaded and deep-fried meat and seafood assortment, although lighter, was similar to anything I’ve eaten before that’s been breaded and deep-fried. My favorite was the soy and egg “soup” with uni, a delicate concoction of soft tofu, egg and sea urchin. Scooping up the tofu and having the uni softly collapse in my mouth were most pleasurable. At Sachiko’s, the sashimi was pretty good, the sake choices even better.

wd-50

50 Clinton Street between Stanton and Rivington Streets
212/477.2900
about $300 for two, with a bottle of wine, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

Wylie Dufresne, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

1. Pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise and onion streusel. I loved the beef tongue carpaccio style; you can barely remember it was pickled. And fried and cubed mayonnaise? It was worth ordering just to find out how the hell they would do it.

2. Octopus with celery pesto, pineapple and tiny bits of mojama, or dry tuna, and marcona almonds. Celery pesto is something I’ve never had before.

3. Corned duck, rye crisp, purple mustard and horseradish. Our waiter told us this is the mainstay on the wd-50 menu and that it was an absolute must-try. He was right. The mini parsleys were a nice touch.

4. Root vegetable “lasagna” with sweet and sour mushroom broth. I tasted carrots, parsnip and burdock in there. Perhaps beets were not in season. Lasagna is in quotes because the familiar layering technique was used. The mushrooms were a delight to eat, but I wish this came in a smaller portion.

5. Rack of lamb, sauerkraut spaetzle, swiss cheese consommé. We finished a bottle of wine from Piedmont and all I remember about the lamb was that it melted in my mouth. We ordered medium, but it was definitely rare. Divine.

6. Kumquat confit, carob ice cream, or St. John’s Bread, a pea pod that looks like cocoa but without the caffeine, with soy caramel. The kumquat was chewy, but I wondered if it would be any softer if cooked longer.

7. Caramelized banana, smoked chocolate ice cream and stout. I have no clue how one would smoke ice cream, but we paused after every spoonful and asked, Is that bacon I taste?

8. Thin crisps in a wooden box. I had to ask our waiter to take them away because I couldn’t stop picking from it.

A very expensive meal for two, but worth every penny.

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.

Chubo

6 Clinton Street off Houston
212/674.6300
about $80 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥
Update, 2007: The space is for sale

Chubo’s offerings are familiar but the combination of all of them makes the menu a little confused. The hamachi was served two ways: tartare and the other, glazed with teriyaki. They had foie gras but unfortunately in shumai form. Their steak sits on wasabi-truffle sauce. Our soft-shell crabs were excellent, but I was a bit surprised they came with duck. Perhaps the chef just wanted to offer a little bit of everything, or maybe he just couldn’t make up his mind about which cuisine to concentrate on.