Category Archives: restaurant reviews

In the mystical land of Brooklyn, there lie many foreign and exotic kinds of food and drink. These delicacies are sought after by the bravest of adventurers for one does not simply walk into Brooklyn. The land is separated by a vast uncharted sea and populated by Brooklnites, a strange tribe of people who have great influence on what is fashionable in the civilized world. For those who manage to make a successful voyage to Brooklyn unharmed, its treasures are there for the taking. For those who can’t brave the journey, there is The Brooklyneer.

All joking aside, it’s more than just a little bit silly to make bar themed after another borough, especially one that can be reached within 30 minutes using the subway. The Brooklyneer, located on 220 West Houston St, is a Brooklyn themed bar. In many ways, the place feels like it might be something you’d find in the Universal Studios theme park. However, once you get past the gimmicky nature of the place, there lays a pretty decent place to chill. The interior design is interesting. It is reminiscent of some of the many chic bars you’d find in Williamsburg and they went so far as to even use some of the wood that is from the Coney Island boardwalk.

Depending on the night you go, you could either be listening to a DJ playing club hits or listening to very relaxing smooth music. The first time I visited The Brooklyneer, I was dismayed because the kitchen was closed at the time. Between 1 and 4am the chefs get off of work and the place becomes a full-fledged bar complete with singles trying to hook up. The two chicks I was with pointed out that although the music supported dancing, the space did not and I agreed. The cozy space was not meant for partying à la Ke$ha, however, this was the Saturday night crowd and I suppose they were trying to accommodate for that.

I came back the next night, a Sunday night. Now the atmosphere had changed quite a bit. Things were slow and low key. It was so slow in fact that the bartender, Dylan was happy to personally serve me. Dylan with his French mustache and interesting attire had the appearance of a Williamsburg hipster. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a job requirement or if he dressed like he did all the time.

For my first course, I ordered the Sunset Park sliders. My tongue was first greeted by fresh, oven toasted bread that was warm and soft. As I bit deeper, the tender, moist pulled pork and ham said hello in the juiciest way imaginable. The warm melted gruyere arrived between my tongue and the meats and gave everyone a nice big group hug. Then the spicy mayo showed up and lit its fireworks inside my mouth turning up the heat quite a bit. I finished it off with the crisp cucumber slice that the sliders come with. It was simple and fresh and although it did take a while to arrive at my table after I ordered it, it was well worth the wait.

I had to make sure that the quality was consistent across the menu so after finishing the sliders, I ordered a chili dog which just happened to also be the special that night. Like before, the order took a bit of time to arrive and like before, the bread was fresh, soft, oven toasted and the veggies were so green, you’d think they had a garden in the back. This time around the meat was a different kind of animal literally and figuratively, they use oven-toasted Mile-End all beef hotdogs. While some dogs can only play dead, what I bit into knew more tricks than there are sex positions in the Kama Sutra.

To drink, I ordered the house lager, named The Brooklyneer. It’s the cheapest drink on the menu and for an interesting reason, it’s brewed in Pennsylvania. Unlike the food, the drink isn’t anything special. It isn’t terrible by any means but it also doesn’t stand out. If you just want to have something to wash your food down and get a bit tipsy at the same time, it does the job well enough. Connoisseurs of alcoholic beverages most likely will order many of the other quality drinks on the menu though.

The Brooklyneer is a nice little spot for those who are too lazy to travel across Brooklyn to find the best eats. Though the theme is a gimmick, the food and friendly service are not.

 David Burke Townhouse has been described in an array of word choices; whimsical, playful, elegant and even visionary, yet to my father Massimo Rossi, a devoted captain at the restaurant for the past seven years, his favorite adjective used to describe this four-star restaurant is simply “interesting.”

True, it is possible that Rossi has become jaded by the individualistic style choices made by David Burke on this unique restaurant, but he continuously gives credit where credit is due by insisting that Burke is his most favorite chef. “The innovative style that David uses in his food ideas is really mesmerizing,” Rossi begins “The cuisine choices that David makes really represent his personality, which is rather extravagant.”

Interior of David Burke Townhouse

The restaurant, located in an actual townhouse, provides a home like comfort while still remaining ornamental and focused on detail. Rossi says that the restaurant can relate to a broad variety of customers because the food itself is “accommodating to all tastes.” Rossi’s favorite meal is the cavatelli with shortribs. This platter consists of mushrooms, truffle mousse of course all over braised short rib. Rossi says the short rib is never short of “perfect”, always being tender, hearty and satisfying.

The Catavelli with Braised Short Ribs

 One perk of visiting my father at work is to be reunited with my favorite dish, the Cheesecake Lollipop Tree. 

It is one of the treats that the restaurant is most famous for. Each lollipop is elevated on a stand and when eaten enriches ones mouth with a different flavor, whether it be chocolate crunch cheesecake or regular with strawberry creme on top, each flavor is sure to please. To add to the creativity behind this dessert, The tree also comes with bubble gum whip cream. The Cheesecake Lollipop Tree was featured on The Best Thing I Ever Ate on The Food Network.

The Cheesecake Lollipop Tree

One cannot help but be mesmerized at Burke’s decorative, original and delicious creations while also being captivated by the modern art shown throughout the restaurant. The pieces he selects to be shown bring about a discreet yet glamorous aura to ones dining experience. One collection of drawings Burke has showcased is called The Key to the Kingdom created by Tony Meeuwissen. The drawings are fantastical and bring a artistic ambiance to the Townhouse that make it more like a gallery that happens to have amazing food. The balance between art and cuisine is shared perfectly in David Burke Townhouse.

Interior to David Burke Townhouse

Burke also combines his interests in cooking and art while remaining a true entrepreneur and inventor. David Burke Townhouse has been critically acclaimed. It won New York magazine’s Critics’ Pick, A 24 food rating (meaning very good to excellent) from Zagat 2011 Edition, and Time Out New York’s Critic’s Pick. “At this theatrical little restaurant … it’s a pleasure to watch the restaurant’s staid Upper East Side clientele gawk at Burke’s decorative and generally delicious creations as they go by.” Said New York magazine and Time Out New York commented “David Burke, the culinary merry prankster that knows how to cook.”

David Burke has made himself one of the leading pioneers in American cooking. He grew up in Hazlet, New Jersey and has always been inspired by French chefs and their techniques. He has a fascination with the power that individual ingredients have over the entire meal and the components he puts into his meals to turn them into works of art. Burke has a career fueled by creativity that provides him to have revolutionary products and cooking techniques. He has been featured on Iron Chef America and has opened seven restaurants throughout America.

Winning numerous awards for his culinary skills, it is understandable why David Burke is considered one of the best modern American chefs by one glance at his menus. Ranging from pretzel crusted crab cakes to tuna burgers with lemon French fries and spicy mayonnaise show how avant garde Burke can get with his meal choices.

Massimo Rossi has had prior experience as a captain at Le Cirque 2000 when it was at the Palace Hotel. With these duties, it is Rossi’s responsibility to not only direct but to supervise and train the fellow servers in the restaurant. He monitors their work habits in the dining room while handling the seating arrangements for the guests. He will at times serve tables to which he suggests food courses and appropriate wines to ensure that the guest has an amazing dining experience.
Rossi always knew he wanted to be in the restaurant business. He left his small hometown in Italy and went to the Culinary school in Switzerland when he was 16. Since then on he has worked on world-wide cruise liners and top of the line restaurants but claims that working for Burke has been one of his favorite experiences “I have really watched the restaurant grow and develop into this amazingly elegant yet casual restaurant that is nothing like anything else around. I also think its great how accommodating the food is to every palate, it makes me feel good that what I have invested my life in what can make a lot of people happy.”

Sometimes who you eat with at a restaurant can make or break the experience, but even loving your company won’t help Amber.

Despite its misleading height of three floors, Amber is a relatively small asian restaurant on the second floor of its Gramercy location. The third floor is mostly unused, except for private parties, and gives the restaurant lofty high ceilings. The first is primarily “a bar area for young people,” in the area according to Wi Pam, the assistant manager. It’s long electric blue bar is modern looking and complimented by the neon orange of the stairs that clashes nicely with the brick facade hiding behind a curtain.

The space fits roughly 50 hungry people pressed together during the busy lunch hours in a closely spaced tables. It has two long leather couches on either of the exposed brick walls, but those stuck in the aisle’s wooden chairs will be surprised at how comfortably you sink in to them. The tables are an elegant dark mahogany that in the candle lit dinner atmosphere is almost romantic; I say almost because the Katy Perry blaring on the sound system is anything but.

Before you place an order the wait staff is patient, practically invisible. The same is true for when you get thirsty or need a fork if you’re not trained in the art of chopsticks. They begin to test your patience after a while but the giant Buddha surrounded by a small pond of fish by the kitchen remind you to keep your inner peace.

Once the food arrives, faster than the slow service might initially indicate, you realize the reason for the diner like prices. The portions are immense, but the food is disappointingly simple in flavor. Buddhist delight ($9.00), a combination of squash, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and noodles were so drenched in soy sauce that the smell and taste was uniform. The texture of the vegetables also varied from hard huge chunks of the broccoli and cauliflower to smushy squash in your mouth, something I was unprepared for. The side of sticky white rice it came with reminded me of a cheap Chinatown restaurant and did not effectively compliment the dish in any way, even to soak up some of the soy sauce.

The pineapple fried rice ($9.00) was a little better, but that’s not saying much. It comes in an empty pineapple shell, which is nice, but just like the Buddhist delight, the combination of pineapple, cashews, an array of vegetables and shrimp did not combine well to bring out any of the flavor. The pineapple for example had a sharp sweetness that didn’t allow anything else in the bite to be tasted. If you tried each individual element with just the rice however, it fared better in the taste buds.

“I want to just eat the cashews alone, I’d be disloyal to them if I combined them with the shrimp,” said Jessica Rozario, who left a third of her food untouched.

Needless to say, we decided not to take remainder of her meal home. It was nice to sit there though. If you eat there on a weekday night only a few people downstairs silently drink their cocktails, the second floor plays poppy music giving it a lounge feel and no one, especially not the wait staff, bothers you. Just makes sure not to get your hair stuck on the gum stuck on the wall. If you want good Asian cuisine you would probably have better luck eating at any of the other 18 restaurants in the area.

“Can we eat outside?” were the first words out of my mouth as soon as I encountered the hostess at Blue Smoke, that unseasonably warm Friday afternoon. It was near 70 degrees, and I couldn’t even fathom stuffing my face with barbecue food let alone having to do it inside the dimly lit restaurant. “I’m sorry, but the outside dining area is only open after five thirty,” the hostess explained. Of course it is, I thought.

Joe and I ready to eat!

Chris and Laura posing before the meal

The hostess led my group and I to a spacious booth with a great view of the outdoors, where we would not be dining. The restaurant was dimly lit, with a large bar running from the front door all the way to the back of the restaurant, where a couple early drinkers were already mingling. The bar was lined with bottles of wine all the way to the ceiling, despite the generous amounts of taps lining the wooden bar top. The waitress was very knowledgeable in helping us select beers to go with our meals, although our underage group member (who shall remain nameless) stuck to a soda.

Cheers!

Since Blue Smoke is a barbecue spot, (verified by the huge neon BARBECUE sign posted out front) I decided to be traditional and order the baby back ribs, which the waitress raved about. Now, I can’t vouch for my barbecue tasting skills, but when I took my first bite of those delicious looking hunks of meat, I was sorely disappointed. I had to stop mid-chew and decipher what in fact I was feeling. The ribs were dry and pretty tasteless, especially for a restaurant that boasted to have the best barbecue in New York City! Not quite.

I made sure all my group members tried to ribs to make sure I wasn’t just having an off day with my taste buds, but they all agreed with me. The ribs were a disappointment. I ended up letting Joe finish them up, which he gladly did, after slathering them in a baptism of barbecue sauce.

don't be deceived.. NOT as good as it looks.

There is one redeeming factor in any movie with a sucky lead: a great supporting cast. And I definitely picked the best supporting cast! The baked macaroni and cheese was the best food on the table by far. I swear when I had my first taste, I almost cried in happiness. Finally, I wanted to scream, someone has done macaroni and cheese justice! There was no wateriness, it wasn’t too crunchy, it was absolute perfection. Heaven smothered in cheese.

really excited about the food!

What’s a good meal without an even more amazing dessert? Luckily at Blue Smoke they have an amazing dessert platter, which allows you to sample their apple fritters, sticky toffee pudding, chocolate layer cake, and their key lime pie. I was mostly indifferent about most of these desserts; I’ve seen them done before, and usually better. The apple fritters however, was amazing. it was topped with a cinnamon ice cream and was just the right balance or tart and sweet to top off the beginning of my impending food coma.

delicious!

Blue Smoke may boast the best “barbecue” in New York City, but if you ask me they should stick to sides, dessert, and drinks and leave the grilling to someone else.

Normally I don’t eat at Indian restaurants. It isn’t because I’m a picky person or anything like that, it’s just because I usually don’t eat very often. I eat Latino food at home and if I do buy anything outside, it’s usually fast food from a local pizzeria or food cart. So when I arrived at Baluchi’s to dine with a group of students from class, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know that Indian food is spicy but that isn’t a problem to me at all. As for what I had to expect in terms of taste and texture, I had no clue.

Small, quaint with Indian décor, Baluchi’s certainly sets the tone, making you feel as if you traveled to the east though I was a little disappointed there was no Indian music playing. Well there wasn’t any music at all for that matter. Another disappointment came when I tried to order Tandoori Quail. Too often, I find that restaurants advertise an exotic meat on their menu and when you try to order it, it turns out they don’t have it. That’s what happened at Baluchi’s, when I went there. To be honest, I’m not going to fault them for it; I don’t think many New Yorkers regularly enjoy quail to begin with. I just make it a point to order the most exotic looking meal on the menu of any restaurant I go to, just to see if they actually have it. Usually they don’t. Noticing my disappointment, the waiter suggested another meal I might like. He suggested to me, the Combination Platter for my entrée.

The appetizer arrived quickly. I had ordered Boti Kebab which is a cube of lamb marinated, cooked in a clay oven. Sounds tasty, yes? Indeed it was. Often, the lamb I eat comes from street vendors and has a warm, bold flavor and a texture that varies from spongy to gritty. This is where Baluchi’s threw me off. The Boti felt like chicken. Though it was not some dry poultry but rather a meat overflowing with the warm and bold flavor I had expected along with a pleasant mild spiciness that won’t have your tongue causing house fires. The brown meat holds itself together well and requires some chewing before it goes down, each clamp of the jaw releasing saliva producing agents upon your tongue. Also there was a lemon, tomatoes, cucumbers and some kind of herb to go along with it. The plants weren’t bad but average; nothing special. That was just the appetizer.

Next, it was time to feast upon the friendly waiter’s suggestion. Despite the fact that I was the last person to join the table and thus the last person to order, I surprisingly was the first one to receive his entrée. I liked that but did find it a bit strange until I saw the difference between my meal and the meals of my classmates. They had ordered food that was mostly non-meat. Now, I assume the waiter based his suggestion on my size and the enormous amount of masculinity I exude. I say this because as one of my fellow classmates pointed out to me when my plate landed on the table, it was just mainly meat. The combination platter is a large assortment of lamb, chicken and salmon. No rice, few vegetables, no herbivores allowed. Fortunately for my waiter, he was right on his assumption of me. Baluchi’s cooked animals do not disappoint. This lamb was prepared in a different style from my appetizer lamb. It was slightly sausage like in appearance with the soft, spongy texture I had expected earlier. The taste brought me back to familiar places. The fish, hot pink on the outside, was so tender; I had difficulty picking it up with my fork, it would fall to pieces. Once in my mouth, it unleashed bursts of tangy, salty goodness that tickles the tip of the tongue. The chicken filled up an impressive portion of the meal. A pretty shade of pink on the outside with a brilliant glowing white inside, the chicken doesn’t stand out much in terms of taste. It isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination but it just doesn’t “wow” you. It tastes like chicken marinated with Indian spices. If you don’t know what to make of my vague description of it just keep this in mind: it’s satisfying but not exciting.

As I launched my meal into the event horizon of my mouth, I remembered something. I remembered that I was eating during Baluchi’s lunch special hours and that the entire meal is half off. Considering the quality of the meat that’s brought to the table, it’s incredible that you could spend just as much money on a single fulfilling entrée there as you would at McDonald’s which offers significantly lower quality food. This alone makes Baluchi’s worth visiting at least once. Other than price value, the food itself is great, at least on the carnivorous side of the menu.

Frantically pacing down Park Avenue, I was on a mission. I turned the corner and got to 27^th street and before I could even pull out my Blackberry for the directions, I knew I had found it. That neon blue “Barbecue” sign hanging off of the building was like a north star leading me to barbecue heaven, or in other words Blue Smoke.

Upon entering the dimly lit fairly spacious restaurant, the overwhelming floor to ceiling windows allow natural light to flow into the restaurant and you are hit with a sudden sense of southern hospitality mixed with a modern metropolitan aura. The bar itself takes up half of the restaurant, with the entire back wall filled with bottles. Their alcohol selection is one of the largest, to the point where it takes up three pages on the menu, while their food options only take up one.

The Blue Smoke Burger (11.95), though simply named, could be a contender for one of the best burgers in the city. It is relatively small but makes up for it through its height. The moist and juicy beef patty, which is perfectly seasoned, is almost as good as the fresh ingredients that come with it. One bite and it leaves your taste buds mesmerized.

Their side dishes are rather impressive and could even be considered meals of their own. The French fries were the perfect balance of crispy and salty while their creamed spinach literally melts in your mouth. What really won my heart was the baked mac and cheese (7.95). Served in a deep dish, it was like a bowl of thick, delicious, melted cheese drenching the macaroni noodles.

The Kansas City Spare Ribs [half rack) 14.95(full rack) 24.95] were another story. “Big, juicy, spicy and sweet, slathered with our KC Sauce” makes them sound utterly delectable on the menu, but in real life they were quite a disappointment. The texture of the ribs was almost rubbery and made it more of a hassle to eat them rather than a pleasure. The specially advertised KC sauce was barely on the ribs at all. Luckily, they keep a variety of extra sauces on the table.

The dessert varied. Some of the amazing types were the apple crisp and the banana cream pie. The apple crisp consisted of glazed baked apples, crispy crust and topped with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream. The banana cream pie tasted incredibly fresh with banana slices and whip cream. Yet, the chocolate mousse cake was dry and grainy tasting and the key lime pie tasted too tart.

All in all if you crave a chill jazz scene with good foods and good friends, Blue Smoke is highly recommended, but ironically enough, don’t count on their barbecue.