NYC: The Grub

Still trying to get caught up from my little blogging hiatus, here another NYC post (here is the first one).

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Let's get to the good stuff about the New York trip: THE FOOD

We hit up some street vendors and there was a (late night) trip to McDonalds, but other than that, we stuck with non chain kind places.

I have always read about yelp.com, but never used their site. For whatever reason, I downloaded the app while waiting in Charlotte at the airport and that was a major help for us to find good food.

Hit it!

(Caribbean) Soule - Brooklyn

I started to scan Groupon for NYC restaurant deals a couple of weeks before our trip. While it seemed a good idea at a time, the lack for really knowing the area and the lack of knowing what we'll be doing when, kind of made the whole thing a little unpractical. But we ended up going the first night, just to basically get it out of the way. The food was good. If I had paid full price for it, I would have been upset. They had a separate menu for Groupon customers and that's something I don't really care for and know, that a lot of restaurants don't handle their Groupon deals that way. But time to move on.

Shanghai Cafe - Chinatown

The next day, we were walking around Chinatown around lunch time. I pulled up yelp on my phone and we were soon on a wild goose chase (as fast as you can walk with thousands of people on the sidewalks in Chinatown) in search for a restaurant that had at least 4 stars and was marked with one $ sign (read: cheap). The first place we walked into was PACKED. No way we would get anything to eat anytime soon, so we walked a block down he road and ended up at the Shanghai Cafe.

The decor is not your traditional Chinese, but more a stainless steel and neon light variety... but not in bad way, it was actually pretty nice looking.

When we walked in, I saw wood baskets with steamed dumplings sitting on every other table, so that seemed to be a popular dish in there and that's what I was going for.... It took a little while for us to get our order in, since our Chinese is really rusty and so was the waiters English, but we both ended up with very very tasty dished. Score!

Bianca - NoHo

That evening before seeing STOMP, we had dinner at Bianca. If it wasn't for yelp, we would have never gotten on this street and even with, we almost walked past it.

This is a teeny tiny place with rustic decor and tables tightly cramped in. The menu is short and full of Italian pasta classics and a couple of meat and seafood dishes.

I kept it simple with Spaghetti Marinara and from looks and taste, those spaghetti were homemade and Terry claimed he had the best Lasagne of his life. Can't beat that! ;-)

Salvadoreno Usuluteco

After a long weekend and day of sightseeing, we decided to keep dinner close to the hotel on our last night. The restaurant was labeled as "Southamerican Food" and the place looked kind of funny and I probably would have just walked past it, if the reviews on yelp were not as good as they were... At that was the only place around that had reviews like this.

So we walked in and the decor is very sober. Think industrial lighting, plastic table covers and artificial flowers. Once again, getting the order in was the most challenging part since the waitress almost didn't speak any English and my Spanish is good enough to order beer, but that's about it.

It took the forever to get the food out, but there was the Southamerican version of Dancing with the Stars on TV and when they started to Karaoke night, they also dimmed the industrial lighting, which made the whole place a little easier on the eyes. So the food took forever to get to our table, but boy it was well worth the wait.

I had stuffed peppers, rice and baked plantains and I was glad that I eventually ran out of food on my plate otherwise I would have kept on eating and eating and eating... Seriously, it was that good.


So here's to being adventurous (a little) with our food choices on our trip. Or like that one guide on the bus said: "I forgive you, if you had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays on Times Square, but for dinner, please try out any place in Chinatown, where you can feed a family of four with the same money you spend on one for lunch!"

Where Carbo Loading Is Yummie!

I haven't featured a restaurant review in a while, but I actually wanted to talk about this place and kept on postponing it.

Brioso Fresh Pasta is one of the new places in the Cherrydale area and I what I heard about it, said that they have really good food. Looking at "urbanspoon", the reviews have been very mixed. Not many people complained about the food, but several people about the service.

The first time I had something from there, we actually just ordered to go. If my memory serves me right, I had the portobello mushroom ravioli with the marinara sauce and I loved it! But of course, I couldn't quite get the full picture if I never actually ate there.

So last Sunday, we finally made it. The set-up of the place is a little funny, since you order your food and drinks on the register. If you have never eaten there before, things can get a little confusing, but the staff on the register was very helpful.

We placed our orders and then got a table in the outside patio area... Got our beverages, water refill bottle, olive oil and herb bread to start us up....

The food was there fast.

My choice was the spinach gemelli with the siciliana sauce (eggplant, mozzarella, and basil in tomato sauce topped with shredded ricotta cheese). I enjoyed every single bite of my bowl!

Terry was so hungry, I couldn't wait for me to take the picture! ;-) He had spaghetti with bolognese sauce (classic Italian meat sauce) and some meat balls (meat with a side of meat ;-). He said he really like the spaghetti and sauce, but didn't care so much about the meat balls (bland).

The great thing about this place is that you can combine any pasta they have with any sauce. They also offer gluten-free pasta options and with all the different sauces, there is plenty of choice for the vegetarians too.

The place is super cosy and the interior design is very Mediterranean without being kitschy. I think it's odd to order at the register in a place that looks like so inviting to just hang out. But the food is great and I will certainly go back.

Thumbs up!

Not Crazy About That Mojo!

The title says it all hmmmm?

This place opened up a couple of weeks ago in the new strip mall close to Cherrydale and without knowing anything about the place other than they serve burgers, we just walked in last Sunday.

My first reaction was "Oh, is this a fast food place?" No it really isn't, but you order on the counter and then they bring the food to you. The burgers can be customized with whatever you like. Right from the get-go the place felt like a "Five Guys" place with a different interior design.

I ordered the mushroom/swiss burger with lettuce and tomatoes and Terry ordered the bacon/cheeseburger and we split a mountain of fries. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the food, so you'll have to take my word for it.

The burgers were alright, but that was about it. I wasn't crazy about it and I don't think we'll be going back. The juiciness factor of it, was just not there and that what makes a really good burger for both of us. Seriously, since the place was similar to "Five Guys", I guess I just expected a burger that was as good as theirs and that just didn't happen. Maybe the cook had a bad day?

What I really liked about that place though was the outside sitting area in the back, but obviously, we were the only ones that found that appealing that day! ;-)

Have a great weekend!

So Close And So Good!

I am no gourmet by all means, but I like food.... And I am not a big cook and mostly also under a little bit of time constraint... Call me a whiner... Whatever.

Anyways, since I like to share and mostly my opinions, I thought about introducting a new category on this channel about our restaurant experiences.... The good, the bad, the ugly.

Let's hit it off* with something good... really good actually: Taicoon Ricefire and Sushi Bar

*Well, to be exact, I was writing something resembling a reveiw about the Bavarian Pretzel Factory a couple of weeks ago, so this is technically already my second post in this category.

On Friday nights, Terry and I normally go out for dinner. Last Friday, I was craving sushi, but Terry is not a big fan, so going to Taicoon was the obviously choice since they offer Thai food and sushi and it's around the corner from the house, so it's also super convenient for us.

We split three pieces of spicy tuna and three pieces of spicy salmon as an appetizer:

I also had the Tom Kha Gai soup... I have this soup every time I go there, it's so good!

Terry had the Chickeen Stir Fry... His go to comfort food in this place.

And I got my sushi on with the Super Crunch (my new favourite) and the Rainbow Roll.

The food was yummie,  the portion size was just right and the service nice as always. I also like the interior design of the place, with the lighting and separate booths.

No complaints... Would recommend it anytime.

Just one quick reminder for the fans of adult beverages. They are outside the city limit and therefore don't serve alcohol on Sunday!

So long! ;-)