e a t e r y R O W

BRYGGELOFTET & STUENE
Bryggen 11
N-5003 Bergen
55-30-20-70

The Rents jetted off to Norway a short while ago, and returned with an odd suggestion: write about Bryggeloftet & Stuene. See, while eating out in Bergen, they thought it would be fun to whip out a camera, shoot a few dozen photos and start taking notes. Somehow, they even got a whole menu out the door with them. I don't normally (well, ever) write about restaurants that I haven't personally eaten in, but this time, for those who gave me life (and an education and money and a car and a sofa to crash on when I'm wasted at 3am and don't want to commute all the way home), I will. I guess we're even?

Bergen, Norway's second largest city with just under 400,000 people, was founded by traders and fishermen. The Bergen waterfront, where much of this trade took place, has since become a World Heritage Site. Bryggeloftet & Stuene (B&S) is a century-old restaurant on that waterfront and occupies a building which used to be a warehouse for merchant ships and living quarters for their crew. These days, the area is a bit more touristy than it was four hundred years ago, but Dudeman assures me that Bergen's idea of touristy is quite different from Times Square's.



B&S focuses much of its menu on meats which you and I, here in the States, might not eat all too often... like reindeer. Sitting inside of a quaint northern-European-style row-house, and replete with fireplaces, dark woods, paintings, heavy candles and bric-a-brac, it's akin to eating inside of a log cabin ski lodge that's just itching for an Oktoberfest party.



The first appetizer to arrive at their table was a Wood Pigeon special (so pardon me for not having the Norwegian name). Neither Dudeman nor Shirnk thought it was especially impressive. Too bony, too gamey, too small, too tasteless. And when they peeked at the menu later during their trip, they noticed that it had been removed from the menu. Up next came the Bryggecarpaccio Av Rokt Hval mit Cumberlandsaus, thinly sliced smoked whale in a Cumberland sauce. Dudeman didn't like it and doesn't recommend it. He found it chewy and tough. "If it wasn't cut paper thin, it would be inedible. I can't imagine working on a whaling ship and having to eat this all the time." Shrink thought the exact opposite, finding it tender and delicious and wishing it were legal in the States.



When dinner arrived, the Rents stuck with dishes that would be rare, at best, on this side of the Atlantic. Dish one was Elgmedaljong, a fillet of wild elk (ie: someone shot it in the woods, not on a farm) with vegetables, pureed peas, apricot and with a balsamic syrup. Both enjoyed the dish, saying it was comparable to a fillet Mignon, but because it's a gamey meat, not quite as tender. Dish two was Reinsdyrfilet, reindeer steak with vegetables and red onion chutney. Unlike the elk, it's a farmed meat and was, according to my parents, incredible. Like a expensive cut of beef, it was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Dessert, it seems, knows no borders and was pretty similar to what you could get here in the Big Apple. Shrink tried the Konfektkake mit Sorbet, a chocolate layer cake, and Dudeman ordered the Eplekake mit Vaniljeis, an apple pie with vanilla ice cream. The chocolate cake was smooth and tasted just as one would expect it too. The apple pie, while enjoyed, was found to be somewhat on the doughy side.

The staff were very helpful (everyone speaks English there) and friendly despite being grilled by my parents about the history of the building, the restaurant and Norway. All in all, the Rents said that they had a wonderful experience eating at Bryggeloftet & Stuene and highly recommend it to all of you who plan to venture towards the North Sea.

Up until now, I've always updated a review by simply adding a paragraph or two without notice or warning. But I think that from now on I'm going to try giving everyone a heads up that the restaurant was gone to again.

Case in point: right here. I went to Hell's Kitchen's Eatery for the first time in quite a while, and you can read the update HERE. Long story short, not so impressed.

KLEE BRASSERIE
200 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-8033

Klee has been on my go-to list for over a year. I think I was drawn by the purple awning. What can I say, I like purple. New York has plenty of places that survive on hip trendiness, pricey exclusivity, or cheap mass-appeal. But these restaurants don't often provide a feeling of warmth when you go. I think I can count on my fingers alone the number of restaurants in the area that I've been to that give off a relaxing, chill aura without serving a been-there-done-that menu. Klee is one.

The staff at Klee was friendly right from the beginning, though by the end, they were clearly rushing to close. The simple decor, the choice of light woods, and the ample lighting (relatively bright for a restaurant) made us feel very welcome. Speeds started complimenting the atmosphere long before we even ordered our meal. Klee, though almost full, was pretty quiet and reserved. No loud music, no loud customers, no groups of friends photographing each other. The one downside to the whole experience was the price, which was higher than what I expected after reading other online reviews.

I started my meal with a bowl of Chilled Cucumber Soup. The soup itself was good but unexpectedly tangy. I'm used to more subtle cucumber soups. The addition of corn and the large pieces of lobster floating within was a smart move to temper the sourness. In addition to enjoying the warm bread served with warm thyme butter, Speeds ordered a Bowl of House Marinated Olives to nosh on while we waited for the main courses.

Speeds' entree was the Large Sea Scallops charred and dusted with Hungarian paprika, served with herbed spatzel pasta, red pepper and a burnt onion chutney. She thought it was excellent, but not excellent enough to warrant paying $30. I'm not a scallop person. I am, however, a pork person, and my dinner, the Pork Belly, was fantastic. Barbecued black hog, under a barbecue sauce of balsam cherries and served with candied endive. The pork belly layers of meat and fat was tender almost to the point of rendering the knife irrelevant. This entree was worth every penny.

For dessert, we ordered coffees and debated the menu. I ended up with the White Carrot Cake with coffee-cookie ice cream and a marshmallow-like goop. While the ice cream was very very good, the cake was disappointing. It was a little dry, forcing it to rely too heavily on the ice cream accompaniment, but also I think that maybe carrot cake is one of those desserts that isn't meant to be turned into something haute. Carrot cakes should be big and thick and moist and covered in a cream cheese frosting. Speeds ordered the Strawberry Shortcake with strawberry sorbet. This was delicious, especially if you like your desserts buried i a mountain of fresh strawberries.

Two appetizers, two entrees, one side, two desserts, a coffee and a cappuccino, no wine, plus tax and tip came to a bit over $130.

I was doing a little shopping around Union Square with my friends Mr. Dogz and Emma when the fierce pangs of hunger began to set in. "Let's get pizza" someone suggested. "It's cheap." Our lunch debate concluded before it began and we began our search of what, in New York, is a ridiculously easy culinary quarry. Little did we know how easy it would be when, twenty feet later, we turned the corner to find... the Pizza Truck.



Yes, the Pizza Truck. A truck with an oven. Pies are literally tossed and baked fresh right there on this rolling premises. You, ladies and gentlemen, are able to get fresh, cheesy, gooey goodness right there on the sidewalk with barely a pause to your day. No, wait. Strike that. The pizza's terrible. You ladies and gentlemen will have to to take that pause after all. How bad is "terrible"? To put it bluntly, it was probably the worst pizza I have ever had within Gotham's limits... and I'm including the stuff I make at home using my toaster oven, an English muffin, and some Polly-O.



Emma and I ordered plain ol' Cheese Slices. Simple enough, but shouldn't a "cheese" slice have a bit more cheese? I mean. this was pizza for the lactose intolerant. Mr. Dogz took a look at the options and chose a Sicilian Slice because it had a bit more of the gooey stuff. We paid ($2.50 per shitty slice) and walked into the park to sit and eat. "This is gross." was Emma's simple summation. "Did they use spaghetti sauce?" Yes, they did, in fact, use spaghetti sauce (with little bits of parsley in it and everything...) instead of proper pizza sauce. On top of it all, they failed to cook the pizza enough to fully melt the cheese. I guess the silver lining here is that my mouth didn't get scalded. The crust wasn't too bad.



I won't make the mistake of ordering at the Pizza Truck again and can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone but the most desperate among us.

WHITE STAR

21 Essex Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 995-5464

If you crossed a cocktail lounge with a seedy dive bar, you'd get White Star. There's no dress code, no pretense, and the bar's sticky. Mr. Dogz being a dive bar guy, it seemed like the perfect place to introduce him to my fascination with mixed drinks. Plus it was his birthday. What can I say. I'm a multitasker.

White Star's small. Possibly the smallest of any of the cocktail places I've been to so far. There are two and a half tables in the back, about ten seats at the bar and some seats at the window. We sat at the bar, ordered concoctions and talked about girls. Like most dive bars, there's music, but because it's not cranked to 11, you can actually have a conversation at a normal volume.

Three rounds is enough to get anyone good 'n' happy and good they all were. Happy we became. White Star's menu is a sweet and citrusy one. Syrups are verboten, but fresh squeezed lemons and limes and grapefruit abound. For round one (pictured below), I tried the Dark and Stormy, a mix of molasses rum, lime juice, seltzer and ginger. If you like bitter drinks, this is probably the closest you're going to get here, and that's purely because of the ginger, which was potent and gives your tongue a little burn after each sip. Mr. Dogz, a history buff and big fan of FDR, naturally ordered the Lendlease: bourbon, St. Germain and lime juice. This is basically a lime-based whiskey sour and unfortunately the St. Germain got lost behind the bourbon and lime.

For round two (above) Dogz went with the Holland Razor Blade, genever, lemon juice, sugar, and Cayenne pepper. Sweet and smooth, like a gin-heavy lemonade, but with a spicy bite that you don't even notice until a second and a half after swallowing. My choice was the Bermuda Sour, dark rum, egg white, bitters, sugar and lemon juice. Delicious. The egg white gave it a thicker texture and frothy foam; the bitters cut the sour from the lemon. There was time for one more round before dinner, so I snapped up a Bourbon Shake, bourbon, lime juice, and sugar. It tasted good, as everything we ordered did, but it was virtually indistinguishable from the Lendlease that Mr. Dogz ordered earlier. It was a whiskey sour with lime. The Airmail was Dogz's last, and he says, the best of the evening. Made from white rum, honey, lime juice and prosecco, it's a light drink that has just enough honey to lend its flavor a sweet musky aftertaste.

Bro and I were supposed to go to the Rents for dinner, but, since we forgot our keys and no one was home, we had time to kill. I suggested we shoot to the Lower East Side for cocktails at White Star. My assumption was that it was early and we could easily get a seat.

How right I was. Not only was it empty, it hadn't even opened. We walked in to find the place completely deserted. Luckily, the bartender, who was setting up for the coming throngs told us to stick around. We ordered two relatively simple drinks so's not to keep him from the part of the job that has nothing to do with having random bloggers walk in the door.

Bro went with the Amaretto Sour: lemon juice and Amaretto Di Lazzaroni. This is the amaretto sour you nurse. Very sweet, very sour, and with a hearty foam on top. Brush your teeth when you're done. My drink was the Sure Thing, a combo of gin, Punt e Mes (dark vermouth), lemon juice, sugar and club soda. A sure thing it was. Tall and cool and sweet and bubbly, it was the perfect way to ride the long late afternoon into the coming evening.

PETAL BELLE
158 Sullivan Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 677-1580

The first time I walked past Petal Belle, I was dying from a lack of caffeine. Their door was locked, forcing me to find a new source of liquid energy, but a quick peek in the window cemented my resolve to return. Petal Belle is a small European-style cafe in the style I just love. From the sandwich-board and the tin lamps outside, to the checkered tile and ceiling fans inside, I knew that I would find this place to be a relaxing respite from the day. And I wasn't wrong. When I finally was able to come and sit, I felt completely at ease. The Sunday Times crossword wasn't gonna beat me this time, dammit!

I went to Petal Belle for waffles. Belgian waffles. But they serve a variety of pan-European bistro fare, from paninis and pastries to quiche and gelato, from coffees to loose tea. Almost everyone who came in while I was there was ordering a panini. The staff was very courteous and smiling and I'd go back just for that warmth, even if the food was awful. Luckily, it was not.

I asked the woman behind the counter about what waffles she liked and she mentioned two. "I'll take both," I said, "and a cappuccino, too." The first to arrive was the Sugar Waffle, pictured below. It was a bit dry, but take a bite with a sip of cappuccino and you'll be in heaven. The cappuccino, not to go off track, was excellent. Back to the waffle, like I said, it was a wee bit dry, but with a hint of cinnamon and very sweet. You could almost taste the individual sugar grains as they hit your tongue.

In stark contrast, the next waffle I had was the Brussels Hot Iron Waffle, a cream cheese waffle with whipped cream, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and banana. This was very light, very moist, and absolutely delicious. It's also very big. You could share it with someone and there was no way I could finish it, especially having just had another waffle.

My two waffles and a cappuccino came to a bit under $16. Petal Belle is not open Monday or Tuesday.