74th Street Alehouse

My first shock regarding the 74th Street Alehouse was that when I walked in at 7:45 on a wednesday evening, the place was absolutely jam-packed. After getting over this initial shock, I managed to snag a small table for two from a departing couple. A waiter was over almost immediately to clear and wipe the table. I very much appreciated this, because nothing is worse than sitting at a dirty bar table full of someone else’s dishes.
Our drink orders were nearly immediately taken by a somewhat crazed waitres–crazed in the good, ‘all over the place’ kind of way, but it did take a little while to get the point across that I wanted my appetizer platter as quickly as she could bring it out, as oppose to when the others were getting their food.

Our drink arrived in a timely manner and continued to do so all night, despite our rather confusing switcheroo as our group grew and we table hopped to larger and larger tables.

The food was very different than your average pub grub. I had a meditteranean platter with pita (very good, surely from one of the many great Greek restaurants within a few blocks) and a dipping sauce that had some sort of amazing tangy bite–not citrusy, but just straight tang. Unlike anything I had tried before. It also came with a greek salad, which was dressed differently than a normal greek salad–a little bit less of vinegar bite to eat, but still with the same flavor. I enjoyed it very much.

B was less pleased with his gumbo, as he felt it was sacrificing too much flavor for a spice effect, luckily he had ordered it with a side of the goat cheese salad.

This goat cheese salad deserves its own paragraph. I was impressed after trying it that he was willing to sacrifice the bite he gave to me. Basically it was a bread crumb encrusted baked goat cheese on spring greens, but some how the mix of ingrediants came together in this warming but fresh flavor profile that really could have been described as a perfect salad for a cold winter night by the fire or for a sunny summer afternoon on the patio. This was what salad should be like–simple (I could barely detect a dressing) and rich.

The Old Peculiar

I love pub trivia, and I had heard that the trivia at the OP was legendary, so I decided to give it a shot. I recruited the man and a friend and her man and the four of us went. I got there at 615 to snag a table, though if you stood around and got lucky, you could snag them up until right about 7. But this isn’t about trivia.

We mostly drank and enjoyed ourselves, though I got hungry and ordered a mac and cheese. I don’t expect much from pub grub. In fact, I don’t even need the veggies to be on the plate. I liked my mac and cheese–penne and cheese with garlicky bread crumbs on top, to be honest. I don’t care where it came from or if it were microwaved, it satisfied the need. I enjoyed it. But on the side of my mac and cheese were some veggies. Frozen veggies. I don’t mean previously frozen veggies that they heated up for me. I mean my cauliflower was still fully frozen.

The boy didn’t even try his veggies, but enjoyed his bangers and mash. He got soup with his, but found it to be luke warm (and what is french onion soup with out paremsan (or cheese at all) on top?).

Which brings me to my main point: OP, my darling, you are a nice pub. You pull good pints, people like you, and your main dishes, they aint bad. So why even put the veggies on there? why serve the soup? I’m not there to eat my veggies. I’m there for the beer. and maybe a mac and cheese…

Taste of India

You might think I ought to go to Taste of India all the time, as it is about a mile from my house, but when Anita’s Bistro is across the street, it is easy to resist.

However, I was in the mood for that little bit greasier taste of Indian I knew I could find at Taste of India. So off we went.

Sitting down, we were starving and started with the Baba Ghanouj appetizer. I ordered some Roti to go with it since I wasn’t interested in pita. It was a wise choice, as the pita appeared to be slightly moldy. It did not make sense to me why a place with such delicious and varied breads would serve pita that was so clearly brought in from another source? The baba tasted great with the roti, and was beautifully presented. It did bother me a little that my roti was brushed with melted butter, but like I said before, I knew what I was getting in to in grease land.

I love the way they do the chutneys at Taste. The tamarind and mint come out together and while each are delicious, they blend together for a sweet but fresh teste when you dip your bread through both.

For dinner I ordered the Tandoori Surprise, which is not a surprise at all, but rather a combination of all the tandooris. I also ordered Aloo Paratha. I enjoyed the Aloo Paratha, it was perfectly done, exactly as I wanted it, but I could again have done with out the butter brushing on top…

The Tandoori surprise taught me a good lesson–to order the tandoori chicken next time! The fish was alright, though over done. The beef and lamb were both so over done I could barely tell which one was which! But the chicken. Oh the chicken. That was what I came for. Bright red and savory spiced, this tandoori chicken was melting in my mouth. the veggies melted in with my chicken and it all mixed in with my rice. Or simetimes my paratha. Either way, it was amazing. So next time, I know. Stick with the tandoori chicken. Who needs the rest of that stuff. Good. Classic. Delicious.

Taste of India might not be the healthiest Indian food. I wouldn’t even argue it for the best around. But it is close to home, it is just greasy enough to satisfy the need, and it was delicious!

Sun-Ya

Oh how I love dim sum! This saturday we went out in search of a new place. My dim sum heart has not been at peace since the closing of Top Gun. I like Jade Garden, but I don’t fight crowds well. But I think I have a new go-to place.

The first thing that drew us to Sun-Ya? The parking lot. When driving around the ID in search of a good dim sum place, there is endless advantage to having a place to park the car. So Sun-Ya was the choice. We went in and were quickly seated. Right away a cart was headed straight for us with my roommates favorite food–Honey walnut prawns. No need to grab something to hold you til your favorite thing comes by here. We also snagged a shrimp paste filled peppers and eggplant. The eggplant and peppers were a little luke warm, which tastes okay with the peppers but was a little off with the eggplant. Honey walnut prawns–my roommies fav, though not mine–were as good as I’ve ever had.

The steam cart came next. We pulled off a shrimp dumplings, sticky rice in lotus leaves, rice noodles and shrimp, and some chinese broccoli. All were good.

That is my basic tenet for Sun-Ya. Everything was good. No complaints. I was well attended to and got everything I wanted (okay, well, my roommate refused to share the turnip cakes with me, but that was her fault, not theirs). Nothing was outstanding or melt in my mouth good. But I had no complaints either. Which is all I can ask for a place with no wait and a parking lot. I’ll be back here when I’m hungover and need dim sum now, no hassle and delicious!

Umi Sake House

I had previously only been to Umi for happy hour and thus my only memory was fuzzily searching for the bathroom, which is camoflouged into a wooden wall and not ideal for those of us who have had too much cheap sake.
But this time we had missed Happy Hour (which runs til 8, so you must be very flaky to miss). So we had a look at the extensive fresh sheet and the two enormous pages of menu items.

I started with the oyster shooter. Each of the components–a sorbet, the oyster, and the salsa type veggies on the bottome–were delicious, but I very much like my oyster and found it very overwhelming to have all that going on.
I had a similar experience with the 007 Roll, which we tried later in the meal. I loved the concept of jalepeno and cilantro on a roll–it reminded me of Bahn Mi, but the lime slices were very overpowering. By removing them from the roll, just a hint of the lime remained and I found that much tastier. It was also a little unwieldy having everything (salmon, jalepeno, cilantro, lime) on top of the roll, since they didn’t really mold into the rice, so it was difficult to eat. However, the flavors were extremely inventive and I like that they are able to do new american style sushi in such original ways.

They are also capable of traditional sashimi just the way I like it. We ordered the smallest of the sashimi omakase’s ($25). We were brought a huge platter of a multitude of different kinds of fish, including multiple salmon, many fish I couldn’t name off the top of my head. Each and every one was delicious and well cut. I even ate the surf clam, which is not normally a favorite of mine. I wish I could remember what they all were so I can order them individually at places with out such an incredibly good deal!

We also had two other appetizers, the rainbow tartare and the king crab tower. They were eerily similar for being to such different things. Both came like a chirashi bowl, with avocado and rice. They both were nearly drowned in a wasabi mayo sauce as well. The rainbow had great fish and I loved the crab meat, but like the oyster and the 007, I felt that they didn’t leave the tasty and amazing fish they served to speak for itself. Sometimes simple is better.

Even so, I would return for another Omakase, and maybe a few other things too, I just know now to stick to the simple pleasures of raw fish.

I Love Sushi

So after having convinced the Man that I Love Sushi deserved a second try (he had been there, I had not, but had heard great things about it), we headed down for an early dinner. It was expensive (80 for the two of us), but you got what you paid for. The service was excellent (the B did not like that the waitress moved his beer when she put down the food) and I got to try things I don’t normally order at sushi places.

We started with a special: salmon wrapped oysters. While I was almost insulted when the waitress asked us “you know its raw, right” I held my tongue. And what came out was 4 beautifully presented raw oysters, on shells, wrapped in two different kinds of delicious salmon sashimi, all drizzled with just a hint of ponzu sauce. I could eat these things all day. I had already been won over.

Next up was the Seafood Poki. I had never seen it spelled that way, but ordered it anyways. It was delicious, the fish all cut up small and well dressed. I could have used a bit more spice, but I happen to like my poke to burn. The cucmber mixed in well with the size of fish slices, and I even enjoyed the tako (octopus) which I often find to be too rubbery for my taste in sashimi or sushi form.

We had a rainbow roll, which was good, though other than being enormous, did little to set itself apart from the average rainbow roll. Similarly the spicy tuna roll was the mashed up kind with the sauce mixed in, as oppose to a whole chunk of tuna with sauce on it, though that might just be a personal preference.

We finished up with a salmon skin hand roll with spicy sauce. B enjoyed that they left some meat on the salmon skin, though I thought that just highlighted the fact that the roll lacked the crunch I enjoy in the skin. The spicy sauce was a little different, it kind of reminded me of siracha in taste, but it did get my mouth burning, so I was okay with it.

Overall I enjoyed to experience, but I would stick to the inventive and interesting dishes rather than pay a lot for pretty good sushi.