e a t e r y R O W

Yes. I started a Facebook page. I'm expanding within this interwebbed tubing.

I don't entirely know why or what I hope to accomplish with it. But thar it be me mateys. Go nuts. Become a fan and get a free gift. And by free, I mean something that cost me absolutely nothing. Like an emoticon. --> :-)

Also, for those who are my friends in real life, if you become a fan, don't give yourselves away. Let us endeavor to maintain the preservation of anonymity.

So walk with me, Suzie Lee, through the park and by the tree.

HEA
145 East 13th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 982-1688

Asian fusion restaurants are not something that this city is in short supply of. Any neighborhood worth it’s weight in rent expenses has at least one. You can tell an Asian fusion restaurant right away. They’re sexy. The interior screams cool. The waitresses are hot. There are funky cocktails. The menu doesn’t know if it’s Japanese or Thai. And the food always tastes kinda the same. Not bad, not great. Better than mediocre most of the time. Mediocre the rest of the time.

Hea is pretty standard Asian fusion. The first floor has a lounge area where a DJ spins beats and a bartender whips up specialty martinis. The second floor has the dining room and sushi bar. The basement probably has extra plates.

I was the last to arrive at Hea the other night. Bossette, Shoulders and Pike were already there, discussing the usual work stuff. They were itching to eat by the time I graced them with my presence and upstairs walked we four.

After a not-very-short, but I'd like to think hilarious running commentary about our respective love lives, we ordered some food. To start, a round of Miso Soup, which was universally derided as bland and tasteless. Shoulders liked the sliced seaweed. Pike sort of just grunted and tossed in another squirt of soy sauce. Bossette chose the Chicken Coconut Soup and, wagging her finger said, “You guys should have gotten this. It’s great!” Clearly, you know what to have when you go.

After soups came more solid forms of appetizers. I ordered the Thai Chilli Mussels (sic), mussels served with glass noodles in a spicy seafood broth. These were a very good appetizer. The broth was spicy, but not obtrusively hot, with more emphasis on flavor than on raising your tolerance. It's not a small appetizer and was a little big for me. Two people could easily share it. Bossette ordered a Spicy Tuna Roll and Shoulders tried the Yellowtail Tartar appetizer. The yellowtail was light and smooth and fine... if somewhat thin on flavor. It sat in a soy-sauce-esque sauce that was either desperately needed or too thin to be of any real value. The spicy tuna roll, however, was quite good. Good enough that when Bossette finished it, she went and ordered another.

Entree time. I ordered the Lychee Duck, a fried duck dish with vegetables in a sweet lychee curry "stew". This was very good and went well with my lychee martini. The duck was perfectly cooked and virtually fatless, though somewhat bony. The vegetables were just the right degree of crisp. If you like curries, this is for you. Pike ordered the Krapow Shrimp, jumbo shrimp over vegetables. The sauce was very good, and like the mussels spicy in flavor over hot way, but I'm positive that I've had it before somewhere else. I can't put my finger on it, but it was painfully familiar. I enjoyed it and I think it tied with my own entree for best of the evening.

Shoulders and Bossette shared the Mango Chicken, a chicken and vegetable dish with a heavy, sweet glaze coating it from head to toe. This was possibly the dish I liked the least, if for no other reason than because it seemed like something I'd get at a takeout restaurant. But, to be fair, I was in the minority here, everyone else deciding that it might have been the best dish of the night.

So what's the word on Hea? Well, we all left with about the same vibe. The interior is great. The staff was friendly and they've created a laid-back atmosphere that you don't always get at trendy places. Hea is not trying to fill you with adrenaline. At least not upstairs. Think of it as the ambient-house version of a restaurant. Still, the food has a very been-there-done-that quality. It's not new, not inspired, not even presented on the plate terribly sexily. But it's also not bad and not expensive. If you want something unique, Asian fusion just isn't the way to go. But if you want something fun, Hea does the trick.

Two drinks, four sodas, three soups, five appetizers, and three entrees, no dessert, with tax came to about $125.00. I rounded the pennies.

S'MAC

474 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10024
(646) 438-9494

Macaroni and cheese. Mac and cheese. From Mom to Kraft, everyone thinks that their is the best. I know that my mom's is. Want the recipe? Just ask.

If any food existed to thumb its nose at the health-food industrial complex, it's the venerable mac and cheese dish. High carb, high fat, and high calorie, mac and cheese almost needs a warning from the Surgeon General: WARNING, people with high cholesterol should consult their physician before consuming."

S'mac, a restaurant opened specifically to specialize in this specific form of artery cloggage, has two locations, one in the East Village, and the other in the upper west side. They have radically different vibes. The East Village outlet is full of 20-30 somethings looking for a cool way to get dinner for under ten bucks. It's tiny. The upper west side one is way larger, shares its location with a gimmicky pizza joint (Pinch: Pizza by the Inch), and was filled with kids when Mr. Dogz and I showed up. Cartoon Network played on the large flat-screens and was soon followed by what felt like hours of Hannah Montana.

Dogz suggested that, in the interests of my beloved readers (all six of you), we get a range of small "nosh" sized mac and cheeses. The nosh size is the smallest and would be good for a lunch or if you're alone. With a friend or a date, get other flavors, share them, and it's like tapas. Dogz and I went the international route. No two mac and cheeses were anything like the other... except, of course, for the mac and the cheese.



I wanted to try the All American, macaroni with cheddar and American cheese with some bread crumbs on top. Pretty much the closest version of what we should all be used to. The ole' standby. Not bad... but not nearly as good as Mom's. Dogz's choice was the Parisienne, a hoity-toity combo of brie, figs, shitake mushrooms and rosemary. This smelled incredible and had the best start. Dogz was drooling over the crust. Alas, the amazement began to wither as the dish cooled and the novelty wore off. I somewhat think that the problem was the macaroni. Take the sauce, toss it over some chicken, and voila, mon ami, magnifique! Finally, the Masala, an Indian-inspired version with cheddar, American cheese, tomato, ginger, onion, cilantro, and cumin. Like the Parisienne, despite a very strong start, it started to get tired as we ate further into the dish. But it had a longer shelf life, so to speak. The cilantro was a genius touch and absolutely made the dish.



S'mac is definitely a great place for something different and relaxing and inexpensive, and there are another dozen variants of the dish I didn't get to try... or I can make my own. But I can't see myself making a habit of going there... if for no other reason that the starch and the dairy sit like a brick in my gut. Still, it's fun and, Hannah Montana aside, something to check out before you start your new years resolutions.

Side note, we tried the Pinch pizza, a plain, eight inch "pie". Pinch serves square pies four inches wide and as long as you want within your budget. It was okay. The sauce was sweet, the crust was good, it needed more cheese. Dogz and I were both impressed, having assumed that it would taste like something you'd get in a school cafeteria. But it reminded me of the soulless stuff you might get at the supermarket and heat in your toaster oven.

37 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003
(212) 627-7172

Every few months I go through my coats and jackets and clean out their pockets. There's always some good stuff there beyond the usual loose change. This time I discovered a crisp twenty, a believed-lost set of earbuds, a pack of Camel Lights (with requisite Zippo), so very many extra Starbucks napkins, and a ratty old matchbook from Republic, the Union Square noodle shop. My gaze shifted from the bent and tattered matchbook to the window. It was frigidly cold and windy this particular day. Though it wasn't sticking, snow had been falling for a few hours. Suddenly, I needed noodles. And I knew where to go.

Republic is, or at the least tries to be, trendy with its cocktail menu and black and white noodle photography. The crowd is young and the place is always loud despite there being no music. It's a cool date spot or hangout spot and people can and do sit for long stretches of time in its deep, well lit interior. Being able to buy Republic t-shirts and shot glasses from the hostess. creates a certain level of tacky kitch, but it's not abrasive. Republic feels like it could be an art museum restaurant, but it also feels like it could be a fancy college cafeteria, but part of that has to do with its communal tables, something I don't particularly care for. On the upside, it's pretty cheap.

I went to Republic more than once since that bitter windswept weekend and tried a variety of dishes. In no particular order...

The weakest of my lunches was the Curried Duck Noodles. The duck, served in a coconut broth soup with egg noodles and some vegetables, should have been better than it was, but the duck was reminiscent of tasteless yet bitter rubber. The broth was heavy, but okay. unfortunately, it completely buried the entire contents of the bowl and was overpowered any other flavors that may have been lingering within its depths. I won't get this again.

The best lunch was the Wonton Soup in a lemongrass-galanga broth with glass noodles and Chinese vegetables. This was the perfect dish for staving off the chilly winter, and probably damn good any other time of year as well. Local fast-foodish Chinese places, the kind with the stock photos of the food they claim to sell and tri-fold menus, sell thick as 2x4 wontons in a heavy chickenesque broth. The wontons here at Republic were paper thin and airy and the broth was similarly light, though not bland.

My final lunch here came int the form of their Vegetable Pad Thai. Good, yes. Great, no. The pad thai itself was fine, but the vegetables associated therewith were primarily carrots and snow peas. Yeah, there were some other veggies thrown in for good measure, but there were so many carrots that one might logically conclude that they were trying to thin down their stockpile. Next time, I'm choosing the beef variant.



I also ordered two appetizers while I was here these few times. Both were excellent were a pretty good size. The Fried Wontons were crispy but not brittle and were served with a sweet plum sauce. The Crispy Tofu was not crispy but was fried and was firm and was, dare I say, very spicy. If you like your tofu spicy enough that you're forced to eat it slowly, then this should be right up your alley. In a sense, the sesame mustard dipping sauce it was served with, while a nice addition, was spice overkill.