New York Restaurants by Area – Page 40 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Bar Bossa

232 Elizabeth Street between Houston and Prince
212/625.2345
$57 for one, with four drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥

Both times I’ve eaten at Bar Bossa, I sat in the back room with a group of friends where bathroom visitors always say, Oh, I didn’t know there was a table back here. Sitting in the back is like sitting in someone’s cozy and well-lit home where the whiff of the good food about to come out from the kitchen floats around. You can reserve the back ahead of time, but in one of our visits, we walked in and were accommodated without any problems. (Check out the soap in the bathroom as I’m sure it will be a topic of conversation at your table.) I’ve also dined at the bar alone–yes, I was very proud of myself, too–and I enjoy their fish entree with braised tomatoes.

The owners are English and Brazilian but the Latinos in the kitchen run the show, churning out specials like pork chops with chayote, pineapple and potato peppered with crispy sausage and breaded beef steak with rice and watercress. Their offerings play on all kinds of cuisine: baked crab meat in a clam shell, beef carpaccio on a bed of mixed greens and even Italian paninis. Several cocktails and a bottle of wine later, even the assorted desserts taste good: bananas baked in coconut, Guiness chocolate cake, passion fruit-flavored sponge cake with whipped cream. The bar is proud of their caipirinhas which come in different flavors. With the amount of liquor they put in them, they have no reason not to be.

Otto Pizzeria e Enoteca

One Fifth Avenue on 8th Street
212/995.9559
$90 for three, with several drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

When a group of my friends and I just want a laid-back night with good food but can’t afford the other Batali establishments, we end up at Otto where we can eat thin-crust pizzas cooked on a flat-iron griddle. My favorite is the funghi and taleggio pizza with earthy mushrooms and fragrant taleggio cheese. The fennel with bottarga, or Italian caviar, showered with mozarella and pecorino pizza is also delicious. For those who want something more familiar, the classic marinara and pepperoni pizzas are also available as well as smaller pasta dishes like penne, spaghetti and linguine. We spend most of our money in antipasti like prosciutto, octopus, tomato and mozarella salad and the anchovies.

The service is brisk especially when the place is hopping on weekends. If you prefer to skip the dining room, there are tables at the bar where you can just stand and hover over your food and Italian wine. During one visit, our waiter bumped into our table and spilled water all over my brother’s lap. They apologized by bringing him a complimentary beer and dessert afterwards. It’s not Babbo, but your wallet will gladly thank you for it.

Blue Ribbon Brooklyn

280 5th Avenue between 1st Street and Garfield Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn
718/840.0404
about $300 for three, with several drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

It’s been years since I’ve been to Park Slope. The Dr. used to live there and it was back then when he took me to Blue Ribbon for dinner. My brother was in town and we happened to be driving around Brooklyn one rainy Saturday, so when dinner time came up, I suggested we go back to his old ‘hood.

Nothing’s changed about the restaurant. It’s still crowded and people still wait for their turn to be seated either at the bar or the dining room in the back. We were lucky that a table for three just opened up when we walked in. The menu hasn’t changed either. Seasonal seafoods still dominate the menu–a pound of crayfish were ordered to start with a dozen oysters. Their bone marrow and oxtail marmalade is still one of our favorites. When you poke out the fat and eat it with the sweetness of the jelly preserve, you’ll understand why. The steak tartare was just another plate of appreciated excess with the several glasses of sparkling and red wine we drank.

The service is pretty attentive even though the place is so busy. A Blue Ribbon experience usually ends up not needing the attention of the service staff: you just eat and eat.

Related post/s:
Roasted bone marrow recipe

SoHo Park

62 Prince Street corner of Lafayette
212/219.2129
about $15 for one, with a drink, without tip
♥

A really uncool name for such a great space and location, SoHo Park opened this week to all kinds of hungry and curious visitors. There were fashionable girls in line while the Brooks Brothers-wearing boys sat at the bar; even backpack-carrying guys joined gray-haired ladies in the dining area. I stopped by after work when they first opened and ordered a Hoegaarden and a Stella at the bar. The bartender had no clue how much beers were. I said, let’s just make it $11, shall we? And he did. (They probably were about $5 apiece anyway.) After drinks, I wanted to see if I can sit on one of the camouflage-covered benches outside. I waited for the hostess to let me know how long the wait was but I could never get her attention. She needed help from other employees fast!

I returned the next day for lunch and the line was long. There were plenty of seats inside but of course, the benches outside were already taken. After we ordered, we were given old license plates that had our order numbers written on them. Perhaps a nice touch to their “park” theme but the servers walked all over the restaurant in search of the correct numbers when delivering orders. (It was 1pm, by the way, but the girl at the counter was still compelled to greet each person in line a good morning.)

The double Park burger was juicy but I didn’t get cheese with it–I wasn’t reminded by the girl at the counter that I could order it as an extra. The hand-cut Belgian fries were also pretty good.
The grilled cheese with pesto smelled heavenly and tasted like it was indeed freshly-made. The onion rings were crunchy, greasy and was our best guilty pleasure side order. The different sauces were notable especially the red-pepper ketchup and the garlic aioli. (Redundant, I know, but they had different kinds of aioli.) The turkey portobello mushroom sandwich was a bit boring and dry but the focacia bread and the barely detectable sauce saved it. (I hope they correct the misspelling on their menu board before my next visit, though.) We also ordered the fried pickles which just turned out to be, well, hot. I think I like my Gus’ pickles just the way they are.

The food took a while to come because of the time of day, but when they did, we were pretty content (and hungry). The foot traffic will be good for business for sure, but they have to act quickly and focus on the service before they start turning people away.

Fatty Crab

643 Hudson Street between Gansevoort and Horatio Streets
212/352.3590
about $70 for two, with three drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

Chef Zak Pelaccio is my kind of guy because he would fry pork belly until it’s crispy and serve it with watermelon chunks and its rind, pickled. The result is a delicious balance of saltiness with juiciness and just the right amount of sourness. I can live with just this dish for a while.

The rest of the menu is also good. During our first visit, we tried the quail egg shooters after I was alerted by a reader about an oyster-sake version. Four quail eggs are lightly poached and topped with sambal oelek, a traditional Indonesian spice; the other three come with a single anchovy and shredded dried pork floss. We also ordered the Jalan Alor chicken wings named after what used to be the Red Light District of Kuala Lumpur but where the best street food stalls are now located. It was a messy ordeal trying to eat them with our fork and spoon, and then later, with our hands. A very large serving of short rib Rendang came braised with kaffir lime, coconut and chili. It was absolutely delicious but I wished it wasn’t $20–I would like it in a smaller portion for half the price.

We sat at the bar at 7:30pm on a Monday night and just made it before people started lining up outside to get the next table. It’s warm near the kitchen and with all the spicy food we were eating, we felt like we were actually in southeast Asia; Tiger and San Miguel beers flowed between my brother and I. An extra star for the spoon and fork setup, the oscillating fan on the ceiling, Chef de Cuisine Corwin Kave in baseball cap, and of course, the porn in the bathroom.