Category: Reviews

I don't believe in restaurant hoarding (obviously).  It's hard enough to keep a restaurant afloat, what with lease increases, fickle taste, and trickly profit margins; it's got to be even harder when your most ardent patrons selfishly refuse to sing your praises aloud.  So I worry about the fate of my new favorite lunch place.

About once a week, my co-workers and I brave the brutal West Side gales for lunch at RIB.  With its stainless steel curves, sleek black pleather booths and usually unmanned bar stools at lunch, it looks like a loners' diner out of a Hopper painting.  It is a total travesty that RIB is almost always empty at lunch, while that boring little Chick Inn up on Hudson is always bumping.  Why do people accept and encourage mediocrity when quality and superior atmosphere can be found just two blocks west? 

We're crazy about the 12 hour brisket sandwich, a good three inch pile of the most buttery cross-grain slices of beef, with caramelized onions and a smidge of horseradish mayo on a lightly toasted brioche-like bun ($11.50).  If you need something a tiny bit lighter, try the piled-high pulled pork sandwich, mixed with sweet-tart Carolina mustard sauce and celery seed-dotted shreds of coleslaw on the same toasted, airy bun ($10.50).  Need to pack on a little flesh for hibernation season?  Go with the hefty, cooked to order burger with Hoop cheddar and marinated tomatoes, and spoon a little homemade chow chow relish on top ($10.50).  Every sandwich comes with a pile of mesclun and cherry tomatoes tossed with the cool, zingy refrigerator pickles -- slices of deseeded cucumber and onion freshly marinated in sweetened white vinegar.  You'll be fighting with your tablemates over the most genius item on the menu  -- an enormous bowl of super-crisp, hot barbecue fries, tossed in that salty-sweet rust-colored seasoning that usually coats BarBQ flavored chips, served with a little cup of creamy buttermilk dip ($6.95).  Add a mason jar of their homemade lemonade or Southern-style sweet tea and you've got a getaway that redeems even the dreariest workday. 

So please, people, don't sentence me to a lifetime of neutral chicken breast sandwiches and flatlining greens over at that other place.  Help keep RIB in business.  Tip the hottie waiters well.  And don't be afraid to tell your friends.

RIB
357 West St. between Clarkson and Leroy
(212) 336-9330

1 9 to Houston St.

If you can't stand the heat, get off 32nd St.  DoSirak's soondubu jjigae (soft tofu stew) was exactly like the jazz piano trio rendition of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" they were piping through the dining room -- soft-pedaled pap stripped of the original's fire and virility, rendering it completely benign and boring.  The kimchi pajeon was similarly flabby and lukewarm.  And no hot corn tea!  This is impotent, pandering Korean food in desperate need of some culinary Viagra. 

DoSirak
30 E. 13th St.
between Fifth Ave. and University Pl.
212-366-9299

N Q R W 4 5 6 L to Union Square

SliceNY master Adam and I hit No. 28 Carmine for lunch today.  We split margherita and a mushroom with truffle oil.  Nice crisp-to-chew ratio, charred bottoms, perhaps a hair thicker than I prefer, but not in an unpleasant way.  The margherita had judiciously thin slices of mozz with delicious squashed San Marzanos in a good cheese-to-tomato ratio, though I could have used a little more basil.  The mushroom pizza was a white pie with a fragrant but not overpowering sprinkling of truffle oil, setting off thinly sliced crimini mushrooms and rosemary.  The meal was bookended by pizza dough in alternate formats: first as little blackened squares of pizza dough dusted with herbs and anointed with a very fruity olive oil; last in a champagne flute filled with hot, toothsome, cherry-sized zeppole, dusted with powdered sugar and topped with a dollop of Nutella. 

They've got a great lunch special -- salad, pizza or pasta, and a soda for $9.99.  Even better is the happy hour Beat the Clock deal from 5:30-7:30pm -- arrive at 6:00, your regularly $14 pie is only $6.  Arrive at 7:15, it's still only $7.15. 

Chatty pizza maestro Salvatore obviously takes pride in his work.  He changes the menu four times a year, so if you loved that zucchini flower pizza, you'll have to wait til September comes around again.  But there are plenty of choices I'm looking forward to from this season's menu -- like arugula and San Daniele prosciutto, or ricotta potato pizza, or anchovy with hot pepper.

Even with our carb-loaded lunch, I still had room to stick my foot in my mouth when I got back to work:

GANDA:  I really want to try their lasagne.  They've got real lasagne, with bechamel --

BOSS:  What?  What's bechamel?

GANDA:  White sauce.

BOSS:   My mother is Italian, and I've never heard of lasagne with white sauce!

CO-WORKER:  What white sauce?  Sometimes they put ricotta in the mozzarell--

GANDA:  [Sheepish] Yeah, but that's Italian-American...um...I'm going to go back to my desk now.

No. 28
28 Carmine St
between Bedford & Bleecker St
212-463-9653

A C E B D F V to West 4th St.

First printed in metro.pop magazine, I think in the November/December issue.

New Yorkers love having choices. Corner bodegas can carry a dozen kinds of bottled water, from flat to fizzy, purified to natural springs, flavored to vitamin-enhanced. There are now at least five cupcake-cranking dessert meccas to choose from on the tiny chunk of Manhattan below 23rd Street. Stacks of delivery menus in your average NYC apartment read like a list of attending countries at the U.N.

So when it’s time for dinner, why choose between Japanese, French, Vietnamese, or American when you can have them all? So says the Stanton Social, located in New York’s Lower East Side. There are no starters or main courses, just 40 small plates that hail from around the globe, from Italian to Southeast Asian to Mexican and more, sometimes in a single dish. It’s perfect for New York’s commitment-phobes. Especially when they’re looking for a good place to take their equally non-committal dates. After all, what could be more seductive than sipping creative cocktails and leaning across the table to converse over the lively din while sharing dainty morsels of rich food off the same plates?

Potential paramours have been packing the AvroKO-designed, multi-tiered space nightly. Dark wood, gentle rope lighting, lizard print-embossed walls, and swirly goldenrod Venetian stucco provide an air of warmth and playfulness. Upstairs, the completely separate bar room features cherry blossom branches painted on the wall, a cool mint-green tile mosaic bar, and a beautifully functional herringbone-patterned wine rack wall. The space is the structural equivalent of the finger-waved, cinch-waisted Heather Graham character in Swingers – eye candy that is a little retro and a lot va-va-voom.

The kitchen is equally sassy with its offerings. With nods to every possible type of cuisine, the one-page menu reads a bit like a list of party hors d’oeuvres for a couple who are trying too hard to seem worldly. But, paired with one (or a few) of their signature fresh cocktails, the right menu choices can make for an interactive, delicious and satisfying meal.

Especially when you start with the inspired French Onion Soup Dumplings. Six ping-pong ball sized pouches of thin dough magically encase a gushy teaspoon of caramel-sweet French onion soup. The darling dumplings come in a classic six-shooter escargot dish, each topped with a lacy veil of gruyere, a crouton hat, and a toothpick for easy gobbling.

The Stanton Social also offers classic raw bar selections, as well as a nightly ceviche. Our creamy Kumamoto oysters came with four different sauces – classic cocktail sauce and mignonette as well as a mild yuzu ginger and a strangely astringent citrus sauce. Other seafood selections on the menu were a bit hit and miss. Grilled marinated sardines on tomato rubbed garlic baguette slices were meaty and wonderful, and the skewered, dice-size tamarind glazed scallop & foie gras satays were a richly sensuous pairing. But the waiter-endorsed crispy-shell red snapper tacos had a filling with the pap-like texture of canned tuna packed in water. Mushy lobster, chorizo & artichoke paella cakes tasted like spicy, fishy pizza joint rice balls.

The small plates concept works best with the richer items on the menu. The Stanton Social features “Sliders”—a cheeky reference to White Castle’s mini burgers. The Kobe beef burger was an impossibly rich and juicy patty of fatty beef sandwiched in a mini brioche bun with quarter-thin pickle slices, the whole stack a little smaller than a baseball. My friend raved, “I could come here after work and just order a cocktail and three of those.” Lobster roll is one of those menu items that I often pass over because a whole serving would be too rich and guilt-inducing to make a meal of. Not so here – the same little brioche bun receives a perfect-sized pile of mayo-swathed, tender lobster (though I could have done without the added celery, celery seed, and red pepper).

They saved the king of the small plates for last -- the Stanton Social beef Wellington is a small hunk of medium rare beef wrapped and baked in a pastry crust to look like a dollhouse miniature of the original. With the juicy beef’s earthy mushroom bloom and tender, flaky house, a larger portion would have been too much, especially at the end of such a long and varied meal. A small portion ensures that you’ll have room for their desserts – the fluffy, hot sugared doughnuts with caramel, raspberry, and chocolate sauce were so good, I had to order them twice.

With so many choices, the Stanton Social can be a different restaurant for every mood (or every date). Sure, the menu’s a little fussy, but you can be assured that there’s something on it for everyone, whether abstinent vegetarian, finicky diner, or red meat-loving omnivore. Which means all you have to commit to is a deliciously glam night out.

The Stanton Social
99 Stanton St.
212-995-0099
thestantonsocial.com

Sometimes Sietsema and the folks on Chowhound get all creamy over out of the way outer borough eateries, promising salt of the earth, Authentic cuisine not found within the kid glove confines of Manhattan.  In the case of Sripraphai, it's absolutely true -- you can't get Thai food anywhere near as good in Manhattan or Brooklyn, as far as I can tell.

But in the case of Ba Xuyen, a Vietnamese sandwich joint just one stop away from me on the D train a little deeper into Sunset Park, I can't believe the hype.  The 10" grilled pork and pate bahn mi was perfectly fine, and a bargain at $3.  Chewy roast pork and standard pate were layered with sprigs of cilantro, a pile of pickled carrots and daikon, too few slices of ashy jalapeno, with too much butter and a sweet sauce that soaked through the only remarkable thing about the sandwich, the lighter-than-Wonder bread toasted baguette.  Unlike this guy, my friends and I requested ours spicy and got some unsatisfyingly mild sandwiches that would have left even the most Scoville unit-sensitive tongues unscathed.

Who knows, maybe we got the dud sandwich maker.  I'm definitely willing to give it another go.  Perhaps things have changed with the neighborhood's newer residents -- the only other four-top in the tiny place was inhabited by some neighborhood baby hipsters who would have looked right at home by Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches in the East Village.  For my money, the bahn mi storefront on Broome St. in Nolita is still better -- the bread may not be as ethereal, but the fillings are more flavorful, and even for a Sunset Parker like me, the location is more convenient.  Would I be psyched to have Ba Xuyen within walking distance of my house instead of KFC and White Castle?  Absolutely.  But is it worth the D train ride out to Sunset Park?  I'll have to get back to you after I try it again.

Ba Xuyen
4222 Eighth Avenue
between 42nd and 43rd St.
718.633.6601

D train to 9th Ave.

I love Sripraphai.  They treat me like family there, which is to say that the best waitress pokes fun at my limited Thai vocab and berates me for not visiting more often.  Eleven of my friends came out to help me celebrate on Saturday.  All the elements seemed to be conspiring against us: the cold October rain came in spurts, the 7 and G trains were not running properly, and it was completely packed when we got there.  They don't take reservations there, and I think Jim was right -- all the Thai people and old folks thought they'd beat the crowds by getting there at 6:00 for dinner, thus beating my 6:15 group out for the long tables.

I suppose this is not going to be a real review, because being critical of Sripraphai is no longer an option for me.  When I eat there, not only do I get to eat delicious, authentic Thai dishes that I can't get anywhere else in town, but I also get to feel like a part of the New York Thai community.  I recognize faces there, and I get to practice the first language I ever learned.  I feel at home.

That said, I thought you might be interested in what we had to eat.  It was my birthday dinner, and the deal was, people were invited to come eat, but I got to do all the ordering.  Special dietary needs were not accomodated.  Suggestions and requests were politely ignored.  Everyone got to choose their libation of choice, but were subject to my menu whims.  Here's what I ordered:

    * Som tam with preserved blue crab, no sugar
    * Pickled spareribs
    * Raw shrimp with garlic chili sauce
    * Fish cakes with cucumber salad
    * Soft shell crab with green mango salad
    * Chinese watercress with bean sauce and chili
    * Kao soy, curry with egg noodles and beef
    * Chicken massaman curry
    * Rice noodle with fish curry
    * White rice and sticky rice

For dessert, we had my favorite cupcakes from Baked in Red Hook.  And after that, a couple of us went to Muse Karaoke to make fools of ourselves in a tiny private room.  Muse is the best private room karaoke place in town, as far as I know -- they have the most insanely up-to-date song list, huge plasma TVs, clean facilities, and machines that don't require  international diplomacy skills to work.  Serendipity was on our side -- they were celebrating some kind of anniversary, and name brand beers and cocktails were only $1-$2 each.  We were told we could have the room for an hour, and when the party who had reserved the room cancelled, we stayed for three more hours.  I got messy and I whooped it up til my voice went hoarse, but I had a fabulous time.  Thank god I was with friends, because my Stoli-ravaged vocal chords were wasted by the middle of the night.  You'd never know from my caterwauling banshee rendition of Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" that people sometimes pay me to sing.

I should say that I brought the camera along so I could take pictures of our meal.  But I hate pausing the feast for photos.  The camera only came out after we knocked a few drinks back at the karaoke joint.  I'd like to think that mild embarrassment = a successful birthday festivity.  Click the picture below for photographic evidence of me working the disco pointer, the windshield wipers, and the drunken perma-wink.

Sripraphai
64-13 39th Ave.
between 64th and 65th Sts.
718-899-9599
7 to 61st St. - Woodside, or E, F, G, R, V to Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave.

Muse Karaoke
154 W 26th St
between 6th and 7th Aves.
(212) 647-0909
1, 9 to 23rd St., R, W to 28th St., or F, V to 23rd St.

I love Grey Dog's Coffee, I really do, but I wish they'd lay off the Lilith Fair music in the morning.  It pains me to be reminded before I've had my morning coffee that while I have to go be a day laborer at the cubicle farm, some crunchy nugget gets to make her living warbling about how she moved to Florida when she was eighteen.  Where is the justice?

Since I'm only there for breakfast, I'm only reviewing breakfast.  Banana blueberry bran muffin is righteous and raisin-less.  Their coffee cake is crumby and sweet with a light tang -- what is that, sour cream in there?  Mixed berry scones are buttery and shortcake like, with a juicy berry center that sometimes renders the surrounding dough wet and undercooked.  Their namesake not-acidic, tasty coffee can come with regular soy or vanilla soy, as well as your standard milk varietals.  Heavy traffic and friendly but not-in-a-rush baristas mean you shouldn't plan on grabbing your coffee at 8:25 if you've got a 8:30 meeting (*ahem*).  The egg on croissant is, unfortunately, a firm-cooked omelet-style slab of egg, so if you prefer your egg sandwiches over easy (like I do), you have to special order.  And if you're cool like Mary Karr in The Liar's Club, you can tell them to "flip 'em over and stomp on 'em."

Grey Dog's Coffee
33 Carmine St.
between Bedford & Bleecker St           
212-462-0041

B, D, F, V, A, C, E to West 4th St.

Some people dream of being the prime minister, or becoming a world famous composer, or ending world hunger.  Me, I aspire to be one of those ladies who lunches.  I don't necessarily have to not work -- I can see myself being a full time freelancer, hunched over my iBook late into the night.  But I'd like to wake up on the later side of the morning, take a 10:00 a.m. yoga class, maybe have a piece of fruit, and go meet a friend at the MOMA for the afternoon.  We'd make fun of the tourists and the art we don't get, enjoy the sculpture garden, and stroll around leisurely without having to deal with the germy masses that accompany the non 9-5 hours.  Then, after exhausting ourselves, we'd head down to the museum cafe for a little nosh and dirt-dishing.

Since I work in publishing, I've got half day Fridays for the summer.  Yesterday, my friend Winnie and I went to the MOMA just before free admission time to check out the Lee Friedlander exhibit.  It was lunchtime, so we decided to try the cafe on the 2nd floor and live out my fantasy of being ladies who lunch.  MOMA's 2nd floor Cafe serves the kind of light fare I'd love to eat midday everyday -- from clever sandwiches like tuna with olives and lemon pepper mayo to cured meat and cheese plates.

It's a bit like an old school deli  -- patrons wait on line, perusing the menu on the wall for a few minutes, and are then directed to the cashiers, flanked on every side by tempting display cases.  You place your order, get a number, and then a runner brings your order to the table.  It's even supposed to be timed so you get your dessert after your meal (though we got everything at the same time, which was just fine by me).  A friendly placard at all of the tables says that if you forget to order something, or if you're still hungry for more, a designated cashier by the tempting dessert case will place your order so you don't have to wait in line a second time.

We found ourselves seats at the long, communal tables and put our number stand between us so the waiters could deliver our food.  I stepped over to the self-service water station, where I filled up two pint glasses with ice and water.  I always appreciate a restaurant that provides a proper glass for water instead of a dinky shot glass that you have to refill 85 times before your thirst is quenched.

We ordered the bruschetta three ways.  The prosciutto with figs were a classic and perfect combination, the fig sweet and ripe and the prosciutto melty and sliced super thin.  The sheep's milk ricotta was wonderfully mild, a nice creamy counterpoint to the marinated roasted red pepper.  The tomato basil bruschetta was lovely, the tomatoes ripe and velvety with just the right amount of seasoning and little slivers of red onion for sweetness.

It's hard for me to pass up an opportunity to eat anchovies, so I also ordered this $5 plate of roasted red pepper with citrus cured anchovies and fresh oregano.  It was simple and perfect, the slightly soapy oregano cleansing the palate after velvety bites of marinated roasted red pepper and the tender, lemony anchovies.

Broccoli rabe was prepared without overembellishment -- steamed, tender and sweet, topped with one of the ubiquitous red peppers.

Dessert was a tough call, with so many yummy things to choose from, including a fruit-heavy pear tart that looked heavenly and creamy tiramisus in globular glasses.

In the end, we decided on a blueberry tart.  Perfectly thin and crisp pastry encased a golden marzipan filling.  Piled on top like some berry afro were a mess of the fattest fresh blueberries we'd seen this year, held together by a thin, glossy gel.  It was fresh, light, and had the right amount of sweetness.  YUM.

Everything was served, of course, on the interesting tableware you can purchase at the MOMA design store.  With all the sexy display cases, provocative plates, and tempting food colors, it makes sense that a cafe at the MOMA would understand the art of visual stimulation.  That the food is excellent too is icing on the cake.  At $15 each for our light lunch, I plan on making a pit stop every time I visit the museum to fuel up for the hard work of art appreciation.

Total: $15 per person
Will I go back?  Definitely.  But not on the free Friday afternoons -- there are way too many germy people there to make it a happy, healthy experience.

MOMA Cafe 2
2nd floor
The Museum of Modern Art

11 West 53 Street btwn 5th Ave. and 6th Ave.

New York, NY 10019
(212) 708-9400

E V to 53rd/5th Ave., B D F to 47-50 Rockefeller Center

I have yet to be disappointed by a meal at al di la.  It's everything you could want in a neighborhood eatery -- delicious food that you probably wouldn't cook for yourself at home, no attitude, and a tab of around $30 per person for two courses, tax and tip.  Everything was stellar tonight: the melt-in-your-mouth Australian grass-fed (read: non-mad cow) beef carpaccio with anchovies, capers, and a generous tangy shower of parmesan shards; the summery market salad of cooked beets, crunchy radishes, blanched green and yellow wax beans, sugar snap peas, tender garlic scapes, and sunflower sprouts tossed with a mild home made red vinegar; tagliatelle with meat ragu; and of course, my favorite, the genie pillow casunziei with fuchsia beet ricotta filling, glossy clarified butter and the subtle crunch of poppy seeds. 

The man sitting next to us said, "I swear to God, these are the best ravioli I've ever had.  I always order them.  They just transport you to a different place."  That's the perfect description for what I saw happen to my friend Matt as he bit into the butter basted pocket for the first time -- he leaned back, closed his eyes, smiled as he chewed, and held his hand up to put the conversation on pause.  Hey, anything that can even make me shut up has got to be special.

al di la
248 Fifth Ave. at Carroll St.
718-783-4565
closed on Tuesdays!

Don't you have to doubt the veracity of anyone who claims to be "real"?    Like Splenda, made with "real" sugar -- except that Splenda tastes like sugar, oh, NOT AT ALL?  Unless you compare it to ass-flavored Nutrasweet?  Or ReaLemon®, that reconstituted lemon powder in a lemon shaped plastic squeeze bottle, a completely pointless product for people who are too lazy to cut open a lemon and squeeze it?  Jenny from the block lip-synching "I'm Real" while rocking a fox bolero and Jimmy Choo nutbusters?  "The Real World", where pretty nubiles hump each other like they're the last seven rabbits on earth in their RENT-FREE LOFT?

I'm going to cut Pam Real Thai Food a little slack -- their fried beef jerky was pretty good, and the sticky rice was nice and soft.  Pad kee mao chicken was greasy, but tasted pretty good, if a little light on the hangover-remedy chili and basil.  Chicken with garlic used plenty of golden fried garlic, always a plus in my book.  Chicken larb was made with chopped white meat chicken, just as I like it, but the bland-ish, pale, onion flecked dish really could have used a dose of color in the form of dried chili powder and maybe a little fresh mint. 

But I measure the "realness" of a Thai restaurant by their som tam, and Pam Real Thai Food's som tam was a Real Tragedy.  It tasted like it had been doused enthusiastically with that sugar shock sweet, syrupy chili sauce that usually gets poured over fried fish.  And a peanut-allergy person could have gone into anaphylactic shock from being in the same room as that dish. 

For the Manhattanites who insist Pam Real Thai Food is authentic as an excuse to avoid hopping the train to Queens, I pat you on the head and nod patronizingly.  And then I'll catch the E to Roosevelt Ave. to get my fermented crab som tam on at Sripraphai.

Pam Real Thai Food
404 W 49th St between 9th Ave. and 10th Ave.
C or E to 50th St.

P.S.  Just because a cook in a Thai kitchen is willing to put enough chilies in your food to make your brain run out of your nose doesn't automatically mean you're getting real Thai food.  Or good food, for that matter.