e a t e r y R O W

SIDECAR
560 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 369-0077

After a noir thriller, isn't is apropos to eat in a noir restaurant? I think so. So, after almost three hours of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we found ourselves at Sidecar, Park Slope's more approachable version of Williamsburg's Rye. Both are speakeasies-cum-restaurants. But, while Rye is somewhat more haute, Sidecar tries focuses more on comfort food. Let me put it this way. Philip Marlowe ate here, Nick and Nora Charles ate at Rye. Both drank.

My eyes wandered the menu after ordering, of course, a sidecar. Their version is extra-sweet with a rim of finely ground sugar. The one I'm drinking right now (for inspiration) is considerably less playful. Next time, I'd order something darker, but I'm glad they know what they're doing. And here's the proof: you see that glass down there? It's called a coupe. When you order a drink and it comes in that glass, you can bet that the establishment cares about its drinks. Don't over-think this. It's just true.

Anyway, Sidecar's appeal, for me anyway, is that it manages to fit almost every niche save where to take your grandparents. It's dimly lit and cozy, so it makes a great date place. It's dark and moody with real drinks, so it's fun for hanging with friends. It's casual but refined, so you can show up in a t-shirt or tie and still not feel out of place. It's menu is small enough that you know the chef was able to focus on each dish with care, rather than try to accommodate every taste with filler plates. Yet the menu's large enough not to get have to get the same thing every time you come.

Okay, so the atmosphere is good and throw some good booze around. How's the food? Pike and I both decided to give their oysters a whirl. We tried both their Fried Oysters, served with a tartar sauce, and their Raw Long Island Oysters, served with an onion vinaigrette. I love me my oysters. Fried, raw, served in a soup, whatever. And these were far from the exception. Pike does too. He was a bigger fan of the raw than I was. My thought was that they seemed slightly bland. He disagreed. I absolutely loved the fried ones though. And, at $2.50 a pop (which is actually not a bad price, but in this economy...) they should be pretty damn awesome. After we literally sucked these puppies down, we dug into the White Bean Dip, a white bean and feta paste that you scoop up with white tortilla chips. It didn't last long, and with good reason.

We were filled to the brink of explosion by this point, so we stuck with coffee instead of dessert. This night, they were somewhat pudding heavy, anyway. Now, had they said "we have this insane cheesecake"...

CAVATAPPO GRILL
1712 First Avenue
New York, NY 10128
(212) 987-9260

For my Mom, Shrink's birthday, we wanted to take her out to dinner. There were a few rules though. First and second, it had to be nice and it had to be fun. Third, it couldn't be too expensive. All of those letters after my name and framed Latin phrases on the wall have yet to be translated into Uncle Scrooge's swimming pool. Fourthly, while this may not have been the first time she turned 29 again, Shrink's not the kind of chick who wants to surround herself with people who'd be scared and cry for their nurse each time a flash goes off. Still, eating at at place dominated by the right-out-of-college set isn't her idea of a good time. In the end, I pushed everyone out the door and into Cavatappo Grill.

There are two Cavatappos: the wine bars (there's one on East 28th street, too) and the restaurant, Cavatappo Grill, where we went. However, because the wine bar is so obviously associated with the bar, the wine list is an impressive one. Dudeman and I split a bottle of Montepulciano, while Bro and Shrink chose a Long Island white. We drank as our eyes wandered the menu.

Dudeman and Bro ordered bowls of Minestrone Soup, which they liked. They expected pasta, but it was purely veggies. Dudeman followed it up with a Cheese Plate of grappa padano, caciotta crotonese and bleu d'ambert, served with marmalade and raisin bread. The three cheeses he selected were from a menu of thirteen off-the-beaten-track cheeses. Shrink's appetizer was the Veal Ravioli, served in a prosciutto cream sauce. She liked it. Personally, I'd never order veal, but the money had been spent and my argument against getting it went unheeded, so I tried it and yeah, despite it all I know why people eat it.

Bro ordered the Puff Pastry Tart with pear and gorgonzola cheese. Flaky but not such that shrapnel bits fly across the table. The cheese and the pear paired well. It was sweet and sticky, but also bitter and smooth. I skipped having a starter, instead ordering two appetizers as a main course. Actually, this worked out well, since both were pastas and filled me up to the point of near explosion. Appetizer one was the Tagiatelle Bolognese, a simple red meat sauce pasta dish. It was very good, but I'll be honest, next to my other choice, the Spinach Pappardelle with Duck Ragu, it was about as boring as a used Toyota with a dented door. This was about as good a pasta dish as one can get. I, naturally, shared it with the rest of the table. I, naturally, was reluctant to do so. I initially wasn't sure about duck in a cream sauce, especially given how fatty duck can be. This was an unwarranted fear. The duck wasn't fatty and they went perfecty together.

Bro's entree was the Striped Bass Fillet, with vegetables. I won't lie. This didn't impress me as much as it did the others at the table. I find that the majority of fish meals tend to fall into two categories: dull or damn! and this was dull. Shrink's entree was the Braised Short Ribs with Red Wine and Winter Spices, served with a puree of vegetables and mashed potatoes. So tender, they could be eaten with a spoon. Dudeman just picked at our plates.

RED SQUARE
The Quarter at Tropicana
2801 Pacific Avenue
Atlantic City, NJ 08401
(609) 344-9100

Operagirl and the Met had a disagreement, the result of which was an expletive-laden phone call to yours truly. One minute I'm cracking wise, "Sounds like you need a casino, babe" and the next minute, I'm doing 85 miles an hour on the Garden State Parkway racing towards the Atlantic City strip. AC can be a fun place if you bring a lot of cash, stay someplace nice, and avert your eyes from the rampant and ever-present squalor. In other words, don't stay within two blocks of he boardwalk. We did our damnedest to do just that. We arrived early, got some outlet shopping done at Coach and BCBG, taught a bartender how to make a proper Waterbury Cocktail at The Pier, and wandered the blinking-lighted floor of various casinos deciding how to properly invest our cash.

From the point of view of someone who isn't visiting AC to burn through his retirement savings, and for whom the Borgata scene is a bit too steeply priced, the Tropicana is the place to be. Specifically, The Quarter, a hub of restaurants and clubs. Tight dresses, cleavage, and sequins are the dress code here. Or at least that's the dress code on weekends. You'd be surprised how much more calm the place is on a weeknight. Oh well, that's last minute planning for ya.

Operagirl and I had narrowed dinner down to Red Square, Buddakan, and The Palm. The Palm and Buddakan have NYC locations, so we chose a place we couldn't take the subway to and Red Square won out. Red Square. If the name didn't make it obvious enough, then the decor does. Red Square plays homage to the Soviets and has the hammers and sickles to prove it. Posters trumpeting the glory of the farmer, the factory worker and other members of the proletariat line the walls. Red Stars abound. The chandelier in the lobby is a glowing Kremlin. Everything really is that red inside. They showed us round their snow peaked mountains way down south, took us to their daddy's farm. They let us hear their balalaika's ringing out. Those comrades really kept us warm.

While we scanned the menu, we ordered cocktails. Red Square has a cocktail menu that's three pages long, all with Soviet kitch names that reference Stalin and Lenin and Gregarin and Ivan this and Sputnik that. The kind of names that gets chicks to giggle on girls night out. The food menu is similar. The only way to describe it Russian-esque, because there isn't necessarily any real Russian food here. What Red Square does have is a massive vodka list, organized by type. We considered the vodka flight, but the last time we ordered a flight of hard liquor ambulances nearly had to be called to ferry us home. We stuck to the cutesy-named drinks. When we bored of that, we got wine.

Operagirl and I both chose the Amuse Bouche dinner, a seven course prix-fix meal. It started with a Tuna Tartare, about two tablespoons of fresh, raw tuna with pine nuts, a wasabi cream paste, and a fancy potato chip. Very good. Sadly, very tiny. This was followed by the Caviar plate, salmon (the pink one) and sturgeon (the black one) each on a piece of toast and miniature pancake. Salmon roe as a noticeable fishy taste that one either loves or hates. As I fall towards the latter, I much preferred the more bitter, but smoother sturgeon.

Third course: the Lobster Bisque, served "cappuccino style" in a demitasse mug. Operagirl and I both loved it. It was extremely smooth, like drinking half and half made from lobster. This great soup was followed by a disappointing fourth course, the Czar Chopped Salad. This was basically a blender shredded salad of lettuce, cabbage, pepper, bacon, tomato and lots of mayo to help hold it in its cube shape. Don't get me wrong, I liked it. It was like coleslaw with bacon. But for a place with $50 entrees, I expect more than a re-named coleslaw plate.

Course five was a palate cleanser. Lemon Sorbet in a shot of citron vodka. Yum..., but, Opergirl thought, oddly placed. Still, she didn't complain. "I don't even like sorbet, but this is amazing."

Course six. Entrees. My choice was the Roquefort Crusted Petite Filet Mignon, on a bed of mashed potatoes in a port wine reduction. Petite is a good word for it. It was solidly half the thickness of a normal filet mignon. The Roquefort crust was more like a lump of Roquefort cheese plopped on top. I ordered it medium rare, but it came medium well. So, since Operagirl actually prefers her steak medium-well, we traded entrees. As it turns out, I made her a similar steak last year. "Yours was wayyyyy better." Aww shucks. But yes it was. It was, not to toot my own horn, actually fantastic. Her choice, which became my dinner, was the Chicken Kiev, served on a bed of rice. The chicken Kiev's that I've had in the past have always been filled with a liquid butter that poured out when you cut inside. This was filled with a buttery cream that you would spread over the chicken as you ate it. It was good, but I burned the roof of my mouth on boiling soup the night before and the crust on the chicken did a number finding every raw section. I can't blame anyone but myself for the pain, but I can say that the bed of veggie rice was somewhat cheap-feeling.

For dessert, Operagirl ordered a Chocolate Cake, which was fine, but average and generic. I ordered the Strawberries Romanoff, which is basically whole strawberries in Grand Marnier and whipped cream. "Well babe," Operagirl said. The as she lazily scanned the almost totally empty dining area, "this wasn't bad, but back in the city, for the money, we'd have gotten way more." Having paid our bill, we stood up, and awkwardly chosen acid jazz played us off.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that our meal at a restaurant celebrating communism wound up costing $200?

Ah, the humble cheeseburger. If aliens ever arrive on Earth and our diplomats feel that a peace offering food would be a nice gesture to unify the species, this is what they should get (unless the aliens are vegans... in which case, we're in the shits). However, under the presumption that the approaching alien fleet are bloodthirsty meat-eaters, I feel that this blog is something akin to research. What burger should be send up in a rocket to greet them, as it were? Three contenders:

Patty & Bun
61 West 8th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 477-1850

Patty & Bun, in the West Village, is half burger bistro and half upscale pub. Dogz and I found our way here one chilly January evening. We grabbed a seat about forty feet from one of the only other occupied tables at the time, which was occupied by Ryan Reynolds, and scanned the menu between beer nursings.

I ordered the standard Patty & Bun Burger (deluxe: with fries), with the non-standard option of Roquefort cheese melted on top. You bite into what's at least an inch of meat and it's so moist that the plate becomes drenched in drippings and it's just natural to place the bun in the liquid to soak it up. Dogz ordered the Pastured Lamb Burger, a thick lamb patty with a smear of jalapeno sheep's cheese (also deluxe). Lamb is similar in countless ways to beef, but it's got a noticeable bit of depth that beef lacks. You'll either like this or you won't, but I do and Dogz did. Couple that with the jalapeno spread that the burger sits on and you have a dinner that bites you back.

As Astoria becomes a cooler and cooler place to live, and Brooklyn becomes more and more inexpensive, more interesting restaurants are popping up. One such pop-up in Astoria is Bare Burger, where everything is organic and au natural, even the ketchup. The furniture, ceiling and lighting are recycled. The takeout containers are biodegradable. I hope that they turn their french fry oil into bio-diesel.

I showed up with Bro mid-week and Bare Burger wasn't very crowded, so they pointed us to whatever table we wanted. I chose one with a good camera angle, balanced my Lumix on the top of the water bottle the waitress gave us, and started snapping away. The interior is bright and inviting. It's simple in a fast-food way, but with table service. There's a beer and wine list, but Bro and I stuck with bottomless glasses of Boylans.

Bare didn't waste any time getting us our burgers and our fries. I was actually surprised at how little time it took. Bro and I shared a basket of their Fresh Cut Fries, which are easily large enough to accommodate the appetite of two people. They were hot and fresh. Indeed, any more fresh and the oil would have scalded our fingers. They come with three sauces but I preferred them plain or with ketchup. The sauces, while interesting, seemed more gimmicky than anything else. The three sauces are their own "special sauce" as well as a curried ketchup and a chipotle mayo. The special sauce was the best, and although it went well on the burgers, I wasn't dying to drench my fries in them. Speaking of the burgers, they were great.

Bare Burger offers a unique customization feature. You pick the meat (beef, turkey, chicken, veggie-burger, portabella mushroom, bison, elk, ostrich or lamb) and then pick the bun (brioche, 7-grain, a wrap, or sandwiched in carb-free iceberg lettuce). We decided to order two versions of their regular burger: the Original Bareburger with Beef and the Original Bareburger with Elk. The beef burger was delicious, but the elk burger was something else. I was expecting it to be gamey and tough. Gritty even. Instead, it was like beef with the volume turned up. I recommend everyone get elk. I know I will next time I'm here.

Lucky's on 52nd Street (and a new one on West 23rd Street) makes the bold claim that they make the best burgers on Earth. Earth. Could THIS be the burger joint we'll be asking to supply our alien visitors with bunly goodness? They might be. After all it's a good sign when the guy behind the counter is swamped with phone call orders and there seem to be an unending array of people ordering five or six or ten lucky burgers at a time. The guy in front of me ordered $70 worth of hamburgers. And this was on a Sunday.

Walking into Lucky's requires sunglasses. It's overwhelmingly yellow. I'm pretty sure that the walls can tan you. No table service here, just get in line and get yourself some food, find a seat, and enjoy. I ordered two sandwiches here, the Lucky Burger with American cheese and Lucky's Famous Chicken Sandwich. Both come loaded with lettuce and tomato and onion and pickle. And the Lucky Sauce. The chicken sandwich is actual grilled chicken, not that processed, breaded, deep fried thing so many fast food chains give you. Of course, then it's loaded down in spicy mayo topped with bacon. So, uh, yeah it tastes good. The Lucky burger is probably as close to an In-N-Out Burger you'll get in NYC. Fresh, amazingly good and topped with a "special sauce". Sorry deeply-religious readers, no bible verses on the accoutrements. The fries, while good, do not compare to the burgers.

I was in a rush and took the food out to my double-parked car and photographed it on the hood before grabbing a quick bite and racing off through the QMT home. I think eating food that makes your eyes roll back in your head might be more dangerous than driving with a cell phone. Thankfully, it's not illegal.

LOVE STREET COFFEE
Union Square South
(by the Regal Theater)
New York City

Back in grad school, before I really cared about coffee, I would stand on line at a breakfast cart every morning. "Extra light and sweet please" I'd say. I loved it. But of course I did; it was like drinking candy, but I'm pretty sure it was terrible coffee. I've dropped over fifty pounds since then and, since I no longer sweeten my joe, I'd like to think that I can taste the difference between the quality and the not (but don't quote me).

Coffee cups in the hands of pedestrians have been synonymous with New Yorkers since the 1970s spawned the blue, Greek diner cups. These days, you're more likely than not to see the green Starbucks logo, but it's by no means the exclusive caffeinated hand-warmer out there. On Union Square this particular day, I saw and decided to try, Love Street Coffee, a coffee house on wheels. Finally, high end coffee without all those pesky doors to open.

And it was good. Smooth, not too foamy. It was real coffee, a real latte, not that fake crap some places try to convince you to drink by coating it in chocolate syrup. Yes, the coffee I bought from the side of a truck with the license plate hanging on by a thread and parked in a litter-strewn gutter was pretty damn good. I think that a lot of people could learn to love Love.

UVARARA
79-28 Metropolitan Avenue
Middle Village, NY 11379
(718) 894-0052

Middle Village is a neighborhood known for... not much. Unless you're me, in which case Middle Village is know for Uvarara, a completely hidden-gem Italian wine bar/small plates restaurant that's so far off the beaten path that you'd almost ask if they were looking to be avoided. Once upon a time, the location was a headstone and monument shop, so the building resembling an ancient Gothic chapel, complete with exposed stonework, wide arches, wrought iron crosses, heavy medieval style furniture and glowing white candles, to match the architecture and ambience of the buildings at St. John's Cemetery down the block.

Operagirl's in the city often enough, thanks to the Met, and it was on one such drive to town that she called to remind me that I owed her dinner. This got me thinking. I hadn't been to Uvarara in well over a year, despite continuously wanting to go. She had some free time and a car. Driving in. eh? I noted. "Yes..." Even over the phone, I could tell that she raised an eyebrow. Soon, she had pulled in front of my building and we sped off like thieves in the night towards the Village of Middle, in the County of Queens.

Like I said, Uvarara's a wine bar. So we poured over their rather large menu and ended up pounding back two bottles of their 2005 Enfer D'Arvier. This bottle was $30, the least expensive on the menu. The average is probably in the low $40s, but you can find something for $100 if you're so inclined. One thing for sure. No bulk vineyards here, only real wine. This particular night, we were the only customers (the Valentine's Day decorations were still up, so pardon the paper hearts). "It's the rain," our waitress presumed. This is a damned crime. Uvarara should be continuously packed.



As Uvarara is also a small-plates restaurant, Operagirl and I ordered a handful of things to share. If you want an entree, they exist too, but they're specials and won't be on the menu they have on their website. We ordered one special.

First up, the Gnocchi Alla Romana (see above), a baked semolina gnocchi served in butter and Parmesan cheese. Did I say served in? I meant bathed in. It was like eating cheesy, buttery sponges and believe me, amazing is just about the only word to describe it. When I asked Operagirl what she thought she just kind of closed her eyes and said "you can coat me in this." I'll probably never eat here and not order their gnocchi. Then, the Ovidio, a collection of four meats: prosciutto, salami, prosciutto cotto, and mortadella. To me, a non-Italian who wasn't raised on the stuff, this tasted perfect. My ex, who was Italian (or at least her parents were), was indifferent to this when we ordered it some time ago.

The Tortini Di Polenta, a warm slab of polenta topped with mushroom and melted fontina cheese, was the weakest dish primarily because it was a too dry. It was still good, but I recommend a glass of water to go with it. Far better than good was our sandwich, the Colosseo, was an admittedly somewhat generic sandwich, but the quality was just so good. Foccaccia panini with grilled chicken, tomato, mozzarella and pesto. The moist warm chicken with the cold tomato to contrast it was delicious. We also split one entree, the Ravioli Al Cioccolato, chocolate ravioli. Not ravioli with a chocolate stuffing or ravioli with a chocolate sauce, like it was supposed to be a dessert dish, but ravioli made with chocolate in the dough, stuffed with ricotta and topped with mushrooms and cream. It was fantastic. By this point though, we were just too full to finish it. We asked for it to be wrapped up and used the last remaining empty bit of our stomachs for dessert.

And so the night ended by polishing off what was left of the wine and ordering a Tiramisu, served in a coffee cup and dusted with cocoa powder. "I love that you can taste the rum", Operagirl said, and we both decided that it was just about the best way to end our meal.

Two bottles of wine, three small plates, one panini, one entree and one dessert plus tax and tip, totalled about around $150.