e a t e r y R O W

857 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
(212) 463-0847/0850

A guy should always have a working knowledge of good places to get dessert. For dating reasons especially, there is almost no better place to go on a first date than somewhere one can get a good pastry. What girl doesn't love dessert? Never in my life have I met someone who goes "Dessert? Eeew yuk. Let's go somewhere I can get Raisin Bran." Dessert cafes are romantic, indulgent, yummy, sexy, yummy, and romantic. Plus they're cheap. Little's worse than a bad date that was also expensive, and no matter what you paid for that latte and tiramisu, I can promise that it was less than you would have paid for that fettucini alfredo and glass of wine. Plus, it's way cooler than meeting up with someone at Starbucks.

If you live on the Upper West Side, there's a trio of great ones: Cafe Lalo, Edgar's Cafe, and Cafe Mozart. Since Lalo's lines are typically an hour-plus long (thank you, Nora Ephron), it's nice that you can just amble on over to another equally good, albeit less famous, option. If you live on the Upper East Side and can look past the poor service and the worse attitude, the delicious Payard Patisserrie may be for you. And if you're in the East Village with a love of Italian pastries, there's Veniero's. I live nowhere near any of these. But in the last year or so, two spots opened up in areas I frequently frequent. One in Union Square (where I hang out a lot), and one in Forest Hills (where I live).

I decided to try them out. Think of it as dating recon. The first up is the French pastry shop, Tisserie, the Union Square one.

Union Square seems to be a magnet for attractiveness, and waking into Tisserie is no exception. It's almost like the only people they let in to eat dessert here have to have the high metabolism required to suck down a calorie-laden pastry without effect. Tisserie is very modern, with funky chandeliers, weird white-ball chairs, and a cool, wide staircase that spirals up to the second floor. The first floor is where the loooong glass case full of sweet sweet wonderfulness is, tempting you into buying things you deep-down know you shouldn't, and the second floor is where you eat them, guilt be damned.

And man, oh man, does everything look guilty... I mean good. I'm willing to bet that even the things I normally wouldn't like would become something I'd like here. Tisserie has exactly what one would expect. Lots of cakes, tarts, cookies, pies, and espressos. Tisserie also goes beyond that with soups, salads, sandwiches, and on weekends, a brunch menu. There's also pizza. I ordered one a while back that was Thai-inspired with chicken and scallions. It was pretty good, as I'm sure the sandwiches and other lunch items are, but it gives one (me, anyway) this feeling they've perhaps gone a bit overboard. Tisserie isn't where I'd want to go for a wrap or for eggs. It's all about the sweet tooth. That's the part of the dining experience I'd return for and tell others about. If I wanted a fancy sandwich, I'd go to Cosi.



If there's one thing Shrink (the female Rent) likes, it's a good dessert, so I decided to drop by and pick up a few pastries before heading on to the ol' homestead. The first pastry we tried out was the Mixed Fruit Tart. The fruit on display was green apple, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, and a tiny yellow tomato (which we couldn't really figure out). Shrink bit into it, and initially thought it was a strange cherry gone horribly bad. Aside from that, this is what a tart should be. The custard was butter smooth and I'm pretty sure it melted once it hit my tongue. Meanwhile the crust was sweet and almost as smooth. Wow, that was good.

Then we tried the Frasier Cake, a rectangular strawberry shortcake-like layered confection. The top is a bright red layer of gelatinous strawberry syrup. Under this are layers that alternate between cream and cake with one large layer of sliced strawberries. Shrink does not like strawberry and never has (don't ask me how such a thing is possible). She avoid strawberries and anything even remotely strawberry-ish. But even she ate the whole slice and liked it. That says a lot, believe me.

Finally, we went for the Sacher Cake, a bittersweet chocolate layer cake with a hint of orange and with a big square of chocolate artfully placed on top. Actually, all of the desserts are artfully made. The fruit on the fruit tart, while delicious, were probably chosen in part because of the variety of their colors. Underneath the red syrup atop the Frasier cake was an edible decal design. But back to the Sacher cake. It's smooth but also very rich. So if you aren't into dark, rich chocolate that's dense and not sugary, you might want to pick something else. This is not a typical chocolate cake with frosting made in a big steel bowl. Shrink thought the Sacher was the best of the bunch. I've never been a big chocolate person, and while I liked it a lot, I'd probably say the tart was my favorite, minus the tomato.

But not everything's heavenly. To start with, Tisserie is far from cheap. Each slice we tested cost $5.50. Service can be kind of slow due to the crowds, and it gets slower when you order an espresso. The seating is upstairs, so you can't really see if there's even a table to sit at. Since the seating area is small, you aren't very likely to get a table. At Tisserie, you seat yourself. So there isn't anyone to ask if there's a table available before you order to eat in and get your food and drink on a porcelain plate and in a mug. It ruins the mood when you want to eat in the air-conditioning, out of the scorching heat, and wind up having to stand waiting by the garbage can for ten minutes.

Still, none of this will be enough for me to keep from going back. The desserts are awesome and it's all the better when I luck out and get a chair upstairs. Worst comes to worst, I'll eat in Union Square Park. Or maybe I'll just stand by the garbage can.

I returned with Bro today to Tisserie for a little post-lunch sweetness. The place was standing room only, so we were forced to get our desserts to go. Kind of a let-down, but short of kicking the Dutch exchange student-slash-model down the stairs to beat her to the last remaining table, or eat standing up (which at least two other people were doing), we were out of luck. I ordered the Ipanema Cake, a layering of mousses on what's basically a ladyfinger base. It was as smooth as a cloud, and not over the top sweet. Delicious. You can't go wrong unless you don't like chocolate. Bro picked the Mango Mousse with Passion Fruit Coullis. He liked this more than the ipanema cake, but I preferred my choice. I liked that it was sour, but it was too sweet for me. Though it claims to be mango, it really tasted more like tangerine lemon.

Tisserie here on Union Square is CLOSED. They have an outlet at the DKNY store in SoHo... meh... And they've decided to go bistro in a hotel uptown. I guess I'll have to check it out.

PASTICCIO

It took about a quarter of a billion bucks, but the old Atlas Park plant has become The Shops at Atlas Park, a suburban-styled outdoor mall with two floors of stores and restaurants built around a central, parklike courtyard and fountain. Atlas Park is a beautiful place, but it's also a bit of a mystery to me. I initially felt it had a European architectural feel, but I think another blogger hit the nail on the head with her description of it as coming straight out of Palm Beach. Either way, it clearly wants to be a mall that caters to high-end consumers (it has the only Amish Market in Queens). But it's in the middle of the average Joe neighborhood of Glendale, which if you didn't already know, is home to neither mansions nor high-rise doorman condos. It's both too small and too inconvenient to lure Manhattanites who can get most of the shops here over there. As for Long Islanders, same thing. But I'm glad it's here, since it really is very, very nice. Hopefully, it's a sign a things to come rather than an odd duck development.



Up on the second floor is Pasticcio, an old-fashioned Italian restaurant that has its roots in Murray Hill. Walking in, Pasticcio has done very well in re-creating the feeling its original restaurant has for this branch. The walls are covered in Italy-themed wallpaper. This sounds tacky, even as I sit here writing it, but it doesn't look tacky in person. Kitchy, perhaps. But not tacky. Up a wrought-iron staircase, over the front entrance and behind glass doors is the wine room. The ceilings are very high, so no matter where you sit, you can see the wine collection. The indoor dining area is divided into two parts. In the main floor area where you walk in is where the largers parties will be. When Speeds and I ate here, there was a party of at least 20. Over by the windows the floor is raised up a few steps and here's where most of the tables for two and four are. There's also a good amount of outdoor seating.

I was immediately greeted very warmly by the maitre d'. I had to wait a bit for Speeds, who had gotten herself lost in a bathroom somewhere, so I put my name down and just gave the woman a vague time of when I hoped I'd be back. No problem. We even got to sit outside, which was what I was hoping for, since it was about 80 degrees that day and the evening was shaping up to be really nice. Our table was in the corner and overlooked the manicured courtyard with its fountain and trees all lit up with mini-bulbs. The music that was played was far from the stereoypical Italian stuff one might get elsewhere. It was really chill and funky and lent a nice twist to the atmosphere. The cloth napkins and umbrella were a good addition.



It seems to be a growing trend among restaurants to hold off on the bread until after you order. I guess they want to keep you hungry so you don't order less. And sure enough, once we ordered, the bread came. Very good bread. A variety basket with thick Italian bread perfect for soaking up olive oil and balsamic vinegar and two kinds of focaccia. Speeds wasn’t in the mood to drink, and I wasn’t in the mood to drink alone, so we skipped the vino and just stuck with colas. Our sodas came, we thought one last time about what we wanted, and then ordered… and it was pretty much downhill from there.

Speeds started with the Misticanza, a mixed-greens salad with carrots, tomato, cucumber, a red wine vinaigrette, and sheep’s cheese. She thought it was pretty good, and having sampled it, I’d have to agree. But then again, it’s a mixed-greens salad. Making a bad mixed-green salad is so hard to do that making one borders on malicious. I ordered the Zuppa di Cozzi, which I was told was a shrimp bisque with mussels. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, a bisque is a cream-based soup, typically with seafood. Now I’ll be the first to admit that this edition was published in 1976, and that there have been a lot of changes to the lingo since disco was king. But I’m pretty sure a definitional shift of bisque hasn’t been one of them. This was more of a tomato vegetable soup with some seafood in it. Anyway, the soup was okay. Not great. It was kinda bland and for a shrimp soup, it would have been nice if there were some more shrimp in it. This was one of their “specials”, which means you probably can’t get it.



Speeds ordered the Pasticcio di Ravioli, a combo of two kinds of ravioli, one braised veal and the other shitake mushroom, in a light pink sauce. Speeds loves ravioli and while she thought that these were okay, she thought that they were a little on the stiff side. I don’t eat veal, but taking a mushroom one, I agreed. Definitely undercooked. Olives’ butternut squash ravioli is the standard by which I judge all other ravioli. They’re perfectly smooth, perfectly cooked, perfectly proportioned. These did not meet the standard.

The entrée I ordered was the Pollo con Salvia, a chicken breast with mushroom, asparagus, sun-dried tomato, and sage in a red wine sauce served with mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. My problem with this dish was the red wine sauce and the chicken covered in it. The garlic mashed potatoes and mushrooms were very good. In fact, I could see a braised steak dish with those as well-placed, delicious sides. The vegetables were similarly well done. The thing is, the red wine sauce was just too overpoweringly strong to allow you to taste much, and the vegetables were under the sauce. Meanwhile, the chicken, which was butterflied to make it thinner, was then cooked for too long and got kinda tough and rubbery and lost all of its moisture.

Speeds wanted to stay and get dessert here, but I already had it in my head to try out two new places today. Pasticcio here was one, and the other was the also-brand-new Martha's Country Bakery on Austin Street (coming soon). The waiter came and we asked for the check.



So let's talk about service. For starters, Speeds and I had great service, at least until the time came to pay. Then it seemed as though the waiter and my credit card got sucked into a black hole. But other than that, we got our menu right away, we got our drinks right away, we got our appetizers and entrees promptly, and there always seemed to be some guy coming around to full our glasses with water. The people around us, though, had some problems. Twice other customers got spilled on. The guy sitting beside us got the wrong order and the folks right behind us apparently were waiting and waiting and waiting for the menu, then their drinks, and then their food. They were unhappy. These errors, and the little insignificant ones that we had, seemed like sloppy mistakes due to what appeared to be a lack of communication between who was doing what and when and to whom. My guess is it'll clear up in time.

Our meal came to $52, plus tax and tip.

I very near flew out of work as I raced to Grand Central to catch the shuttle to Times Square for the 1 train. I try so hard to be on time, and get so pissed by those who can't show the same courtesy, but work prefers those who leave late over those who leave early (or even on time), so I squeezed every second I could out of the day before I hit the door.

Not one to like having to make reservations somewhere, I almost didn't even bother. But when I told a co-worker I was meeting friends at Flor de Sol for tapas, she gave me that "your funeral" roll-of-the-eyes and sternly suggested I get on the horn as soon as I could. The only time they had available was for seven, which was way earlier than I had hoped. I figured 20 or so minutes would be the bare minimum to make it from midtown to Tribeca. It took 23.

I hadn't really wanted to eat at Flor de Sol. Not because of the food or anything, but I felt like I'd been barking up the Spanish tree a bit much lately, and for that I apologize. But Flor de Sol was where I was supposed to go on a date about a year ago. Long story short, we started the date about 2 hours after we were supposed to and ended up going to this snooty pizza place around the corner instead. The pizza was medicore. I've been determined for the past year to return and see what I missed out on. Anway, when I got to Flor de Sol, already waiting were Gira and Chi. Ah, punctual friends. So refreshing. We went inside.



Normally if a restaurant lost my reservation, I'd have been upset. Instead, I merely raised a solitary eyebrow and said "oh good". Maitre d' Chick deftly cut through my sarcasm and, using her incredible psychic powers, deduced that I wasn't BSing her about having called in advance. I guess in the back of my head, I knew that we were in a neighborhood with plenty of other good places to eat. To her credit, Maitre D' Chick got us a table in minutes. "I trust you", she said. Sweet. Apparently some folks confuse Flor de Sol with Fleur de Sel. And wackyness ensues.

The first thing to hit the table was a pitcher of Red Sangria. Good stuff. After that came, it was time to get down to the business of food. We were there for its tapas, so its tapas we got. And its tapas ain't cheap. It's almost as expensive as the recently-visited Ostia , and not as good. You basically pay for the atmosphere. When we went, it was a Friday night and the place was dark and loud and kicking (in contrast to the weekend brunch crowd in the photos). A live band played salsa music about 10 feet away and the sexy couples and the ever-streaming flow of hotties made being a generally shy single guy even more painful. Luckily, we had booze.

The tapas all arrived at the same time and we dug in. All of them were good. None of them were great. None of them were worth getting again. Like Pad Thai at a Thai place, Patatas Bravas, satueed and spicy potato wedges, are a good standard dish that should always be done well. Here, they were too greasy and very spicy. Maybe you like spicy. I love it. But you shouldn't replace spice for flavor, and behind the burn on your tongue was an otherwise bland dish. At least it was cheap.

The Champiñones en Ajo, mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and garlic, were equally bland. Maybe they needed some pepper or sea salt or something. When I was a kid and didn't want to get out of bed for school, my mom would come in and start clicking the light on-off-on-off-on-off, and would time the clicks with the simple chant: "up". "Up-up-up-up". Something was needed to wake those flavors up. Something less annoying than my mom.

The Chorizos Española, broiled sausages in white wine basically reminded me of pepperoni. I can't beat it up. It tasted good. But it seemed to lack any depth. The best part of the tapas portion of the meal was the Pulpo a la Fiera, a spicy octopus dish. This is probably the only one I'd recommend and it went quickly with three foodies attacking it.



Since tapas aren't big, and since there were three of us, Chi suggested that we split a Paella Valenciana from off the dinner menu. This was a big dish of mussels, scallops, shrimp, clams, chicken, and sausage, over saffron rice and topped off with a whole lobster. Yummy. All the rice made me feel guity, but the tapas were small and I was hungry. This one I'd get again but it's definitely something you'd share. I don't think we finished it off, though we did finish off a second pitcher of sangria, so who am I to say?

A few coffees and a dessert Gira got that I forgot to write down later, we asked for the check. Service overall was perfectly fine. Everything came quickly and without incident. In fact, I can barely remember waiters even existing. It's almost like they used telepathy to read the menu in our head.

Gira and Chi paid the bill. My resistance was futile. I can't be certain, but I think the pre-tip tab floated somewhere in the vicinity of $150. Drinks at Church Lounge were on me.

The Rents suggested dinner out to Bro and I. And not being one to normally turn down a free meal, we capitulated and headed to Manhattan to test out a new restaurant in the old 'hood.

Growing up in the lower east 20s meant basically living in a culinary desert. The closest thing to a restaurant in the area that wasn't a pizza place was the Pastrami Factory and this large-but-God-awful Chinese place, the name of which I won't mention, that somehow survived for over twenty years despite never having more than three of it's forty tables full at any given time. It's gone now, replaced by a Washington Mutual bank. Eating anywhere else meant going for a walk.



Vamos is owned by the same people who own Petite Abeille, the Belgian-restaurant micro-chain that has a handful of locations in Manhattan. A few years ago Petite Abeille opened a restaurant on the corner of 20th Street and First Avenue and immediately ended the draught of good dining in the Stuy-Town/Peter Cooper area. It's routinely packed (and has been since day-one), has very good food, a great atmosphere, and I hope to write it up sometime in the future. Regretfully, I will be unable to do so for its brother, Vamos.

I have found that there are two types of Mexican places: Trendy Mexican, like Rosa Mexicano and Dos Caminos, where they serve yuppies like me trendy drinks at trendy prices in a trendy atmosphere. Their primary raison-d'etre is so guys in dress shirts can order big fruity drinks without looking fruity. Their cuisine is Mexican-ish. New takes on old classics, served artistically on your plate. You don't get much, but you sure pay like you do.

The other type is Regular Mexican. Regular Mexican typically sets the expectational bar pretty low. Nobody really expects much from regular Mexican food. Almost everybody likes it, but in my experience the food is just one part of the overall experience. Grab some friends, order some pitchers of beer or margaritas, get a plate of nachos the size of Mount Everest, and have fun. Vamos tries to blur the line a little, but basically, it's regular Mexican. And so when the bar is already low, and it hasn't been met... uh... well, it's kinda makes me sad.

But before I get to the food, I want to quickly mention the atmosphere. Vamos is a cantina, complete with Tex-Mex artwork and designs along the walls evoking the feeling of something that should be on an unpaved street in Tijuana. The bar is Vamos' center, which you immediately notice just from walking past it on the street. It's the first thing you see after the handful of tables at the window. All the rest of the restaurant's seating is behind the bar. And it's pretty dark back there. The tables are huge - almost picnic table sized. You practically want to yell at the people you're eating with just to make sure they can hear you. I don't know that this is really a complaint. It's conceivable that the reason I didn't much like the tables might have been that I was eating with The Rents, and there's something about having dinner in a bar atmosphere yelling across the table that just doesn't translate well when with people in that demographic.

The food wasn't awful, but it was disappointing. Vamos was practically empty, but it still took very long for the food to come (over 45 minutes). When it did, it all came at the same time. Appetizers and entrees and drinks. Just jumping ahead, we skipped dessert. And while the waitress was very nice, the rest of the staff spoke zero English. I'm not about to alert Lou Dobbs, but this can be (and was) a problem when they bring you another table's dishes and you're trying to explain that it isn't yours.



I had met someone for a late lunch and wasn't starving come dinner, so I just ordered an entree. A grilled shrimp dish, Camarones Veracruz. The shrimp were a decent size, but there were just five of them and they arrived cold on the outside and lukewarm on the inside. Everything else on the plate was rice. The rice was hot. Cold shrimp on a huge cube of hot rice. If I had much of an appetite, I'd have been pissed off.

Bro ordered the Peruvian Ceviche, a citrusy fish dish with vegetables, which he said was very good. He followed it up with the Pollo Aroztizado, an orange-glazed roast chicken that came with grilled corn on the cob (Elotes Callajeros). And he liked that a lot, too. Methinks I should have ordered what he did. Nonetheless, by the time he got to eat the chicken, time had taken its toll on the temperature, so Bro began alternating between eating between appetizer and entree. Fish-chicken-fish-chicken.

The Rents tried the Sopa de Tortilla, a spicy tomato soup, Alambre Chimichurri, a steak kabob grilled with vegetables, and the Ensalada Linda, a salad with shrimp, corn, avocado, tomato and squash. I didn't have any of the soup, but they liked it and suggested that if there's a next time, I give it a go. Shrink, it should be noted, does not like spicy things and has no spice tolerance of any kind (perhaps choosing a Mexican restaurant was not the thing for her to do) and hence felt that the steak, which was given a chili rub, was too spicy. I disagreed, but I love spicy food. I tried the steak and should have liked it, but like my shrimp, it was cold. Unlike my shrimp, it was also pretty tough. The salad was tasty and supposed to be cold, but DudeMan wished that for what he paid, he got more shrimp.



The thing about Vamos is that it's usually always packed. But I'm guessing not for the food. It's the kind of place I'd definitely go back to with friends for drinks and relatively inexpensive chow. But I'll bring a Zone bar to stave off the hunger pangs and I'll stick to more easily made food like the tacos.

The total bill for the four of us, including tax and tip, was $120.



UPDATE: 7/28/08:
So I just grabbed a beer and mojito with Dudeman here today and Vamos is much more impressive. I think it's the outdoor seating that they've added. So I'll give Vamos this: go here for drinks.