e a t e r y R O W

SALT & FAT
44-16 Queens Boulevard
Sunnyside, NY 11104
(718) 433-3702

Sunnyside has seen an explosion of restaurants in the last few years. Frankly, it's embarrassing how many new places have sprouted up since I live in Forest Hills, the Queens nabe which should be the premier place to set up a restaurant given the express subways, the LIRR, and the amount of money the area has. Oh well. 'Tis not to be... yet. In the meantime, along hath come Salt & Fat, a small plates restaurant right off the 7 Train that focuses almost to a crazy degree, on pork. If you don't like pork or won't eat it for religious reasons, you might as well just skip off to some other blog, because, odds are, you won't read about anything you can eat here. If, however, you like pork, even in your popcorn, then read on, dear reader, read on.

Upon entering this otherwise not-too-big establishment, you will be given not bread, but bacon popcorn. Yes, bacon popcorn. Essentially, it's popcorn popped in bacon fat which leaves it a hint of what you might otherwise get at breakfast while spending the weekend with your parents. Pike, who I went here with, thought they should drizzle bacon fat on the bag they give you like it was butter, then maybe tossing in Bacos. To seal the deal. Personally, I think this goes a wee bit overboard, but you get the idea. They have a bit of a pork fetish.

As I said, Salt & Fat is a small plates place, and though they do have three regular entrees, Pike and I stuck with the smaller, appetizer sized ones. We ordered eight. This was too many. In retrospect, three each would be wise. Four each, even though split in half, was enough to make us feel a little ill. In any event, here's what we ordered, in the order in which we ordered them.

First up, the Meatballs. Holy shit, were these sick. Absolutely disgustingly good. A blend of beef, pork and (unfortunately) veal, and topped with a light and sweet and flat-out perfect sauce, we couldn't say enough good things about this dish. This was followed by the Korean BBQ Wraps, super-fresh lettuce around a filling of hangar steak pickled onion and spicy mayonnaise. Very good, but mild. It's small and you'll eat the whole plate of them before you realize that there was ever a plate in front of you.

The Braised Pork Belly Tacos, with pico de gallo, kimchi salsa and cheese came next. Although Pike didn't mind it, I didn't much like the dish at all. The pork belly was virtually all fat and it was a bit like eating a slime taco. The server suggested we sprinkle the jalapenos into it and this made the dish far more tolerable. Luckily, the tacos were followed by the Hampshire Pulled-Pork Sliders, shredded pork in a barbecue sauce with pickles. And these, my friends, were fantastic. Not too sloppy, not too dry, just the perfect amount of melt in your mouth pork in a sweet bun.

The next set of two plates started with the Oxtail Terrine, a cube of shredded oxtail meat in a caramelized onion puree with roast mushroom. This was the one dish that really isn't made to be shared. We cut it in half, but I think you should order two. And by that I mean: don't go to Salt & Fat without ordering the oxtail! It was, in my mind, easily the best part of the experience here. We followed it up with the Crack & Cheese, fried potato gnocchi in a cheese bechemel sauce with bacon. This customized version of the mac and cheese was good, but not overwhelmingly great. It was heavy, but the gnocchi was extremely smooth. The cheese sauce was pleasant and it was a nice change from the comfort food we all know and love, but I felt that topping it off with bacon unnecessary. The bacon didn't add anything and I found myself picking around it.

By the time we finished the Crack & Cheese, we were starting to feel the food catching up with us. But it was already too late. There was still a final round. The Prince Edward Island Mussels had arrived. They were mediocre. Served in a Thai oyster sauce with dashi and Chinese sausage, they, while not bad, are no competition to the more traditional kind you might find at a Belgian restaurant made with white wine, cream and shallots. The sauce didn't have very much bite and, as with the bacon in the Crack & Cheese, the sausage was completely unnecessary and left almost completely uneaten.Last but not least arrived the Short Rib Buns, rib meat in an Asian bun taco with pickled cuke and apricot mustard. Pike and I both wished we ordered these earlier. They were good, but we were too full to enjoy them. By the time we each ate one, all we wanted to do was take a nap under the table.

Actually, all we wanted to do was wash everything down with a coffee, but the waitress told us "sorry, we don't serve any hot beverages." I've never heard of a restaurant with a policy of not having coffee or tea since it's pretty much the same thing as minting money. No matter how full you are, if you like coffee, you'll order a coffee and be more than happy to pay two bucks for thirty cents worth of food. Pike predicts that this policy will change soon once the owners do the financial math. In any event, I overall had a great time here and highly recommend the restaurant. It's nice to see Queens getting the kind of place that, typically, would be reserved for Brooklyn.

116 CROWN
116 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06510
(203) 777-3116

With Operagirl having returned from doing the opera thing in Italy, I thought it was a good time to drive north to New Haven. Our plan was a simple one. First go see a terrible movie then go find a good place to get our drink on and badmouth it. Operagirl is aware of my love of cocktails, the speakeasier, the better, and suggested 116 Crown in downtown near her place. While 116 Crown isn't really a speakeasy (think fancy hotel bar in a fancy hotel, it's closer to a cocktail club/wine bar) it fit the bill nicely. It's half priced bottles of wine on Sunday didn't hurt either.

It was weird ordering drinks while the sun still shone, but it didn't stop us. We had Red Riding Hood to mock (ugh, using any objective standard and every subjective one, this was a terrible movie). We sat at a table in the back, instead of in the little booth kiosks buried in the wall at the front and instead of at the long bar, back-lit to look like a huge glowing slab of concrete.

Our first round was better than our second one. I ordered the Pimm's Cup, Pimm's Number 1, ginger ale, lemon juice, muddled mint and muddled cucumber. It looks like a rotting salad but tastes like a light, cucumbery mojito. It was fantastic. Operagirl got the Four Thieves, blueberry-infused vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup and lavender and was like a spiked blueberry lemonade. Next she ordered the Branch & Vine, Chardonnay, grapefruit juice and vodka. She took a sip and immediately asked to trade me for my New Black, creme de cassis, gin, campari, lime juice and mint. This was dark and syrupy, sweet and bitter. Better by miles than her drink, but not quite as good as the Four Thieves.

I always recommend ordering some food while you're drinking. We ordered a Three-Cheese Cheese Plate. There are a selection of cheeses to choose from and we opted for the Tallegio, the Stilton and the Manchego. On the huge wood block the cheese comes with bread, house made herbal butter, grapes and a pear jam. We also ordered a round of Olives, typically great cocktail/wine bar food. Regrettably, these, while huge, were mostly pit and you spend far too much time fighting the olive instead of enjoying it.

116 Crown has actual food, too. Operagirl and I decided to stick around later than we thought we would simply because we couldn't think of any good reason to leave (other than to save money). It was Sunday, so we took 116 up on their half-priced bottle of vino. We chose a Spanish white to be served alongside our Brick Oven Roasted Chicken For Two, served with potatoes and brussels sprouts. It was good, but not great. Operagirl liked it far more than I did. The skin wasn't crisp enough so there was a layer of fat I could have done without. Probably a few more degrees in the oven would have helped in that regard. Where 116 succeeds most highly is when it doesn't stretch too far from being a wine bar. Since you wouldn't order a chicken at a wine bar, I don't suggest ordering it here (likewise, no wine bar would pour grapefruit juice and vodka into their chardonnay).

I ordered a fifth cocktail after dinner but by this point, do you really expect me to remember what it was?

Cocktails cost about $10-12. Our three-cheese cheese plate is $14. The roast chicken dinner for two is $32.

ZAITZEFF
72 Nassau Street
New York, NY 10038
(212) 571-7272

Hamburger joints have been spreading across NYC almost to the point that they're becoming like pizza. Well... not really. But they're are a whole lot of them now and there didn't used to be when I was growing up. Zaitzeff represents the new breed of upscale, luxury hamburgers, where Kobe beef is on the menu and it doesn't even raise an eyebrow. I stopped into Zaitzeff's Financial District location (they also have in the East Village and East Midtown. Clearly they like the 6 train) for lunch today and last week to partake in their fare.

Zaitzeff is small. Four tables and expect to share them with your fellow diners. Upbeat jazz plays loudly to blur conversation and the line can be long. People coming in with orders to go cram up against people like me, who hope that a seat opens up in time. Financial District is a good place for Zaitzeff and restaurants like it. Tourists are everywhere (in fact, Zaitzeff seems to attract a lot of French ones. Or Canadian ones. Or maybe recent Tunisian expats.) along with business folks and a growing residential community. Plus, and let's be honest, FiDi has its share of seediness. Extra-cheap suit stores, we-buy-gold places, and cellphone repair hole-in-the-walls are everywhere. Finding a decent place to eat that isn't either a chain with a homeless person awkwardly offering to play doorman for you, a diner, or that caters to a corporate account clientele is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The menu here consists of hamburgers, a few sandwiches (three, actually), some sides and some salads. There's also serve beer and wine. To be sure, on my first visit, I sat next to a couple eating their burgers while sipping on some large glasses of red. One sandwich I tried was the Organic Chicken Breast Sandwich, a grilled chicken breast with lettuce and tomato, onion, mayo, and mustard. It was perfection except that it had the bad habit of falling apart. They should give you a fork, too. The mustard gave it bite, but it was mellowed out by the sweet sugar from the caramelized grilled onion. Every sandwich comes on a Portuguese roll, including the burgers. It was a nice touch. This makes the burgers considerably sweeter than they would be in a standard bun. And I'm sure it makes it easier to charge twice what you'd pay for something similarly sized at Wendy's. I also tried their Sirloin Sliders, three smallish hamburgers served with grilled onions and melted cheddar cheese. No lettuce or tomato, but I think they were probably better that way. Oh man, was that good. I almost don't want to return to get the Kobe burger because I doubt it can live up to the sliders. But I will.

The chicken sandwich and the sliders were each about $13, plus tax. Regular Sirloin hamburgers are about $9 for the quarter pounder and $14 for the half pounder. The Kobe is slightly more. The turkey is slightly less.

Expect to pay about $12 for a meal here, with a drink and after tax.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2011 ]

LOUIS 649
649 East Ninth Street
New York, NY 10009
(212) 673-1190

The public sphere of the NYC cocktail/speakeasy scene has been dominated by the same few bars that GQ seems to bar-crawl year after year: PDT, Milk & Honey, Death & Company, Pegu Club, et al. Rare is it that you ever learn of the lesser-known establishments. They're there, but they aren't sexy enough to fit well into a PR/publications system that seems to inch closer and closer to payola with every passing day. Louis 649 is like the indie band that you learned about at a friend-of-a-friend's house but never hear on the radio.

Louis 649 is small, but not microscopic. They're not faux-hidden like Raines Law Room, but they're no bright Times Square Olive Garden, either. They have a relatively large menu with pages of various rums and whiskeys (over 30 of them, sold by the ounce) and beers and cocktails (a little something for everyone) and while that menu includes sandwiches and snacks, I'd probably eschew having any real "dinner" there. Louis 649 is virtually deserted until 10 (another customer was reading a book in the corner while I was there), at which point they fill up like a playground at recess. Get there early for a table. There's a relaxed casualness about Louis 649 that the other speakeasies don't have. The candles are dirty and the jazz played is smokey. It's like a dive bar with high end cocktails and microbrews, populated by a staff of bearded, plaid-wearing Oregonians. Our server, Shani, was clearly not a bearded, plaid-wearing Oregonian, but she was super nice, super unpretentious, and I feel the need to give her a shout out.

Bro and I arrived at around 830, initially worried that we would be fighting for a seat. But, like I said, they don't fill until 10, so sitting at a good table wasn't a problem. He ordered a sandwich (beef something-or-other) which he thought was decent. But it wasn't why we were here and in time, and after a few rounds, we left for a fried chicken feast at Redhead. No, we were here for some drinks. And of those there were a-plenty.



Round 1 (above): I ordered the Melee: gin, Meletti Amaro, Fino Sherry, and Cherry Heering liqueur combined to make a sweet, but not overly-so cocktail that tastes so little like anything alcoholic that, if not for the price, you could easily drink ten of them without even thinking about it. Bro went with the C.S. Louis: Rum, Batavia Arrack, lime juice, falernum. Another sweet drink made with two kinds of rum and spiced up with the falernum. Slightly sour.

Round 2 (below): Bro and I coincidentally stuck with the same color scheme. I ordered the A La Louisiane: rye, Benedictine, sweet vermouth, absinthe, Peychaud's bitters. Traditionally, a cocktail can only be a cocktail (instead of a mixed drink) if it contained alcohol, sugar, and bitters, so this hit the classic cocktail requirements square on the nose. The absinthe gave it that licorice/fennel taste that can be overwhelming. Here, it just have off a hint if that. The Benedictine rounded out the rye whiskey with some sugar and made it a bit lighter. Bro wasn't a big fan, but I liked it as something you can sit and relax while drinking. The Melee was good, but it was very nearly punch. Bro's choice was the Twentieth Century: gin, lilet blanc, lemon juice, and creme de cacao. Smooth and fruity with a little bit of a tanginess. While I liked both, Bro preferred this over my drink. They are two extremely different flavors, to be sure.

Finally, we rounded things out with a beer each from Colorado's Avery Brewery. A citrusy White Rascal for bro and an oatmealy Ellies Brown Ale for me.



Cocktails cost $13. Beers were around $7.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2011 ]