e a t e r y R O W

323 New York Avenue
Huntington, NY 11743
(631) 421-6900

D moved to Long Island a short while back and seeing her means a half hour schlep on the Grand Central. Oh goodie. On the one hand, I wanted dinner at someplace cool. On the other hand, she wanted Italian. Conflict was bound, thusly, to ensue. I'd visited a couple of weeks back and we got cocktails, good ones, at this place in Huntington Village that I couldn't remember the name of. Honu, she said. Let's go there, I said. But I've been there before and the food's not great, she countered. C'mon. Fine. Haha! I won and we went.

Huntington Village is awash is restaurants, cafes, and shops. Sitting amongst them is Honu, a small plates restaurant and cocktail lounge. Small plates, huge space. Huge and loud and crowded. Crowded, but I felt young. This is definitely a primo spot for Nassau County's 35-50 crowd to go and get shitfaced. There were a few people around my and D's age, but not enough to really fit in.

Honu has four sections: the large bar area, the small lounge area, the downstairs dining room and the upstairs dining room. And they were full. Standing-room-only full. Not having a reservation meant waiting for a table at the lounge or getting a seat in the bar area. We wanted a table in the lounge so the hostess have us one of those blinking buzzer things and we headed to the bar for a solid half hour wait. But we sucked down drinks and eventually got a great table with cushy chairs by the window. The whole place is decorated in wrought iron with dimly lit by faux gaslamp-style lighting and candles. With the exposed brick walls, dark woods and leathers, Honu has a strange mix of old with cool, while hitting neither trendy nor retro.

Since this was a tapas style, small plates place, we ordered a range of dishes. I regret to say that , contrary to what some other publications may have experienced, most of what we ordered was not very good. Honu's website links to about a dozen articles from various media including the New York Times, Newsday, and National Culinary Review, all offering up praise. I have serious doubts that they'll link to me any time soon. And that's too bad. I could use the traffic.



We first ordered the Ribbon Fries with Sea Salt and Herbs side dish to munch on while drinking. They were over-fried to the point of being skinny potato chips. Maybe that was intentional, but part of me really doubts it. At least they weren't burned, but sign of a good fry is a crisp outside and a soft inside. These were so thin that they was no room for an inside.



D ordered the Crispy Shrimp & Chili Sauce, the best plate of the evening. The shrimp was tender and sweet, with just enough spice to give it some bite. Squeeze on the lime and you were golden. In my naturally contrarian way, I ordered the Duck, Scallion, Cucumber, the worst plate of the evening. The three items named were placed atop a small, soft tortilla shell to be eaten like a wrap. The dish was ruined by the duck, which was cold and fatty. This could have, should have been very good.

D then ordered the Chicken, Mozzarella, Tomatoes. Side note, Honu does not play games giving things fancy pants names. They're very straightforward. Anyway, this dish was exactly what it sounds like... bland. I mean, it's chicken and diced tomato with slabs of mozzarella. Given the amount of liquor most people here take down, I'm sure no one really notices. D also ordered a Fettuccine dish of some sort with shrimp and broccoli rabe (perhaps it was called Fettuccine, Shrimp, Broccoli Rabe?), but I forgot to write it down. Again, I recall that neither of us were really blown away by it. D liked the broccoli rabe, but didn't bother eating much else on that plate. Actually, her exact words were "don't eat this." She used the word "crap" in there somewhere, too.



Finally came the Scallops, Almonds, Honey. My guess is that this dish actually did taste good. Problem here, D and I both don't like scallops. Why order it then? No good reason. My only bad reason was that I hoped my taste changed and I'd find myself enjoying them. Taste aside, they were very tender, cooked medium-medium rare, seared on the top and bottom, and with the noticeably sweet honey glazing. Scallop lovers, this might be for you. As for the rest of us... "I warned you about the food", she said with an I-told-you-so tone.



Oh well. I regret the menu and the price attached to it, an average of $13 per small plate. But the drinks were great and given what I'm used to in the city, cheap. $9 per cocktail instead of $13. Plus, the service, from the bartenders to the wait staff, was great. Everyone there was helpful and nice and hey, we got a great table. Honu will remain my imbibery destination of choice when out this-a-way, but I'll eat somewhere else first.

One nice thing we got were two chocolate chip cookies with our bill. The cookies were very good.

CAFETERIA

119 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(212) 414-1717

Speeds and I always talk about getting together. But somehow, a combination laziness, being too busy, commuter fatigue, dating, sleepiness, family obligations, travel, various TV shows, and drinking until 4 AM seem to get in the way. Luckily, with the help of Mr. Dogz, we pulled it off. About damn time.

She wanted a place near her. Dogz wanted a place that was reasonably priced. I wanted a place that people would be interested reading about. The conclusion: Cafeteria, a trendy restaurant/bar with club music blasting so loud that you're forced to scream at the top of your lungs, just so your friend's hot friend can have a halfway decent fight with you. ...So it goes.

With four of us going and only three of us having yet arrived, we were told to wait. Yeah, this is one of those places. If your whole party ain't here yet, keep standing. And no amount of my usually successful, flirty sarcasm worked at getting the hostesses to seat us before Dogz showed up. I had to rely on Speeds to cajole them into giving the three of us a table for four. And yes, I said Dogz. For the first time ever, Speeds beat him to dinner. I will credit her aforementioned hot friend.

Cafeteria seemed more pricey this time around, with fewer of the traditional comfort food items that they're known for. The menu still had mac and cheese and meatloaf, but it seemed to have more attempts at haute dining as well. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention the first few times. But a peek at the older Menupages menu tells me that I'm not.

To keep things on the low-cost side, we skipped the hooch and stuck with water and cola.

The first thing you need to know about Cafeteria is that, salads aside, this ain't no healthy menu. Dogz and I split the Mac and Cheese Spring Rolls. This is pretty much macaroni and cheese, stuffed into a pocket of dough, deep fried to perfection and served with a cheese sauce. Good. Not good for you. Luckily, but sadly, it's not that big. Our marathon-running female friends refused to inhale that many empty calories. Suckers. More for us.

Speeds ordered the Chicken Caesar Salad. I won't bother to describe it. For those not in the know, read this. Well, did you like the salad?, I asked. "Yeah, but it tasted like every other caesar salad on the planet" came her reply. So not bad, but not memorable either. On the other hand, this is supposed to be comfort food. Same-ol'-same-ol' can be comforting sometimes. Speaking of which, you can't get more comfortable than Country Fried Steak, which was my pick. Take a steak. Smother it in batter and toss that sucker in the fryer. Serve it over mashed potatoes and drown it in gravy. This is much like the deep fried macaroni and cheese, only it might actually be worse for you. This meal is why southerners are so fat. And happy. And fat.

Hot friend ordered the Spicy Roasted Chicken, served with buttermilk chive mashed potatoes, green beans and a tomato relish. She, being as honest as possible while maintaining a respectable level of politeness, said it was okay, but not very spicy. I stole a bite. Well, she was right about it not being spicy. At all. But it was also thoroughly mediocre and I might even go so far as to say I didn't like it. It's not something I can bother recommending. Last but not least, Mr. Dogz ordered the Cafeteria Burger with avocado with fries. It's hard to go wrong with a hamburger. Just ask Dave Thomas. And Dogz had nothing but delicious praise across the board for his dish.

For dessert, I ordered the Strawberry Shortcake Parfait with mascarpone and vanilla ice cream. Meh. Not worth ten bucks. Speeds and co. shared an order of Fresh Berries with Vanilla Whipped Cream. This was pretty good and I especially liked the vanilla whipped cream. But it was a glass of berries... with whipped cream. It wasn't terribly wowing. Better than mine though.

One appetizer, two diet Cokes, four entrees, a coffee and two desserts, plus tax and tip came to $115 even.

APIZZ
217 Eldridge Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 253-9199

Bossette and her beau Shoulders were persistent. Dinner. Now. Come on, Jon. Let's get a move on. Bossette (now, ex-Bossette) and Shoulders have this thing for Italian food. She hit a home run with I Coppi once upon a time. This time she invited myself and Pike to sample the fare at Apizz.

Apizz sits in Nolita on a quiet, old street. Glowing near the corner, up above the heads of potential patrons, is the unobtrusive neon Apizz sign. Thankfully, this sign exists. Like many older New York neighborhoods, the streets are named instead of numbered, and finding anything without a map or a guide is tough. We had a cell phone. Same thing. Once we turned down the right block, the neon guided us to safety... or in this case, dinner.

Right away, I was impressed with Apizz. The interior is classic and classy, without being snobby or pretentious. It has a very calm feeling. After walking through the front hallway, you're greeted by the open kitchen and fireplace oven, which burns attractively until late. There are two dining rooms, each small, but not cramped. Apizz is dimly lit. Not so dim that it's exclusively for couples, but dim enough that I worried about my flash photography irritating another table. but no one seemed to care. The vibe was very warm. Needless to say, it's a really nice space.

I think that my initial impression upon walking in, added to Bossette's having hyped the place up, may have been a contributing factor to my ultimate disappointment. My expectations were too high for the food.

Apizz had a decent wine list, but for whatever reason, we weren't in a wine mood. So a round of beers were ordered instead. Italian microbrews. Soon after, bread and marinara sauce arrived.

The four of us decided to split three appetizers. First up, the Apizz Margherita, otherwise known as a margarita pizza. Sounds boring. It wasn't. This was, far and away, the best appetizer we ordered. We should have just ordered three of them. The thin crust was crisp but soft, rather than cracker-brittle as you sometimes can get. There was tons of flavor packed into every bite of this rectangular dish and it willed you to eat it slowly so not to miss any. We followed this up with the Mazzarella di Bufala e Peperoni, slabs of buffalo mozzarella drizzled with olive oil, a scoop of roasted peppers, and a little bowl of olives. Sure, they all tasted good. I mean, who doesn't like eating a big slice of cheese? I feel like this was more wine-bar food than restaurant food. All we needed were a little bowl of nuts to round things out. Maybe some prosciutto. Wait?!? What's that? Is it our third appetizer? It is. Pera Con Prosciutto, pears drizzled in balsamic vinegar, prosiutto, parmigiana cheese, and walnuts. All just... sitting there. I decided to try making sandwiches, but really, who was I fooling? The prosciutto was excellent (really) and I'm not one to turn down a pear. But other than look nice on the plate, this did nothing for me.

Come entree time, Bossette and Shoulders chose to split the Gnocchi con Ragu di Carne. It's a good thing that they did. This entree was large enough for two. It was basically a gnocci-beef stew. Gnocci, honey-braised beef short-ribs, and a tomato-based sauce. The gnocci was perfectly tender and the beef melted in your mouth. It was not something I was expecting. This is the perfect cold weather, winter dish and I'd come back here when the temperature isn't 80 degrees to eat it again. It's very heavy though, so skip lunch. Bossette and Shoulders, again chose the winning dish.

My entree was the Maiale e Riso, apricot glazed pork chops with vegetables and rice. At first, I really didn't care for it. First off, although there was certainly a sweet glaze of some sort, I would be lying if I said that it tasted of apricot. In fact, everyone who sampled it agreed that there was something off about it. Almost a fishy taste. Bossette stated point-blank that one bite was enough for her. However, I discovered that if you sprinkle on a little bit of salt, followed by a whole lot of pepper, it ended up being pretty good. Night and day. The salt pulled out the pork flavor and the pepper mellowed out the fishiness (not that it ever went away...). On the other hand, the vegetables and the rice were flat and tasteless. Perhaps they were hidden under the chops for a reason. On the plus side, the chops were very moist and well seared. I can't fault the cook, but the chef needs to retool the recipe.

Finally, Pike's dish, the Fazzoletti i Granchio, handkerchief pasta with crab meat in a creamy tomato sauce. I didn't think it was bad, but I was personally less than impressed with it. Pike enjoyed it, recommended it, and since he ate the whole dish (which is more than I did with the chops) it couldn't have been all that bad.

We took a quick peek at the dessert menu but didn't order anything.

So what's the final result here? Apizz didn't live up to the hype. It's as simple as that. The service was good, but Pike felt that our waiter was too eager to get our order, rather than wait until the menus had been closed. I didn't much care. The appetizers were blah, save the pizza, which was very very good and the entrees, save the gnocchi, were mediocre. The atmosphere was excellent. Can I see myself returning? Yes, with a "but". And I think the "but" might be "but order the same think that Bossette and Shoulders do".

HAKU
2425 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
(212) 580-2566

Sushi used to be about the sushi. It used to be about having some good fish, some warm sake, and relaxation after your day in the corporate grind. Sushi used to be an art form. Sushi used to be fresh. These days sushi is everywhere. From Amish Market to D'Agostino's to Stop & Shop to Zabars, supermarkets carry pre-made rolls, kept cool in a refrigeration unit. Non-Japanese restaurants have sushi menus and have hired sushi chefs, just in case you want an eel roll before your bowl of New England clam chowder. And of course, there are the super-fancy and grotesquely unnecessary sushi restaurants like Masa. Sushi has become a at once a dirt cheap lunch for people who want to feel like they're eating healthy or a stupidly expensive dinner for snobby princess types who want to name drop fancy restaurants. If I hear "I only eat sushi at Nobu" one more time...

Currently, in Manhattan alone, I bet you that you can get sushi within three blocks from any random point south of 96th street. There are plenty of hits and a whole lot o' misses. Haku would be a hit. Haku is where I should have gone, but didn't, while cruising for sushi on the upper west side and wound up bored at Momoya. So when Mr. Dogz called me with a sushi craving, I suggested not making the same mistake and we were Haku-bound.

Like at any halfway decent Japanese restaurant, dinner started with a warm towlette. Actually, for some reason I always found the towlettes annoying at best. I can't help but think of these extra loads of laundry that didn't have to be wasting water. This was followed up by an Asahi Dry and a round of Miso Soup. The soup was good but miso soup is one of those soups that, unless it really sucks is soon forgotten. Plus, it's about as filling as air. So I needed something a wee bit more solid. Yaki Nasu fit the bill, and Haku's was excellent. I'm not sure if I've ever described yaki nasu in any other reviews, but it's grilled eggplant in a sticky sweet ginger soy sauce. Some places make it too bitter or burn the eggplant, but this was perfect.

Mr. Dogz and I each decided to go with one specialty roll and one standard, been-there-done-that roll (they're cheaper). I won't bother describing the standard rolls (a Tuna Roll and a Salmon Skin Roll). Suffice it to say, they were good. But the large rolls were what really stand out. Mr. Dogz ordered the Sushi Bullet, a fish tempura roll with spicy tuna under a "special sauce." Don't ask what the special sauce was; I can't tell you. But it was good and complimented the roll well. The sushi bullet is unlike most rolls in that it's not a roll, but a series of dome-shaped sushi-esque rice balls that are at once too big for one bite and too small for two.

I ordered the Rainbow Roll. It's a super-roll with tuna, yellowtail, salmon, crab, white fish, avocado, cucumber, and asparagus, all rolled up and buried under roe. You're not going to go wrong ordering this, especially if you're running low on your weekly omega-3 intake. Nor are you likely to go hungry. Finish it. Sit still for about thirty seconds. You're suddenly full. Ordering another small roll seems like overkill. Finishing your sake doesn't. Your long day in the grind is over. Now you can go home.

One beer, two soups, one appetizer, two small rolls, and two large rolls, plus tax (but not counting tip), came to just under $60.