e a t e r y R O W

BEAUTY & ESSEX

146 Essex Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 614-0146

Beauty & Essex is like a scene out of a movie. It is honestly almost surreal that places like this exist, in real life, but yet, there I was, pushing my way past a throng of people smoking on the sidewalk on an otherwise deserted Lower East Side street. In front of me was the glowing neon sign of what appears to be an all-night pawn shop; and in fact, it is one. Behind those glass front doors lies an actual pawn shop where actual people actually mill about buying actual antique jewelry. On the back wall of that late-night jeweler sits a nondescript plain door that just so happens to have an almost constant stream of girls in sequined dresses walking into and out of it. I followed them in.

Operagirl and I went here on a weekday night and it was hopping. The music was cranked so loud that you have to scream to have a conversation after elbowing your way through the mob to find a place to stand while waiting for a table to open. We had a 9:30pm reservation and still waited 40 minutes to get seated. On one side of the lounge is a bar and on the other are velvet chairs and sofas. It was only missing a fireplace. I saw a empty spot on the sofa and had just tapped Operagirl on the shoulder when a tall young brunette in a painted-on dress and her sixty-five year old "date" snagged it. "Damn. I was gonna tell to grab those seats while I grabbed us drinks, but that hooker beat you to it." And so it goes at Beauty & Essex. Escorts, cougars, gold-diggers, and the men who love them.  People watchers looking for a celebrity to squeal at and scenesters joyously celebrating being at the city's current "it" spot. An actual mini-celeb like Operagirl. An actual mini-poseur like me. You feel both special for being a part of this kind of excess, because deep down it's huge fun, and depressed because you simultaneously know it's all fake and fleeting.

The thing is, since it feels like you're having dinner at a nightclub, you would be well within your rights to expect that the food would be just a diversion between cocktails; high end bar-food designed to keep you drunk enough to be happy without getting you drunk enough to puke on the pink champagne lady. And yet the food was surprisingly... good! So were the cocktails, by the way. As a cocktail guy, I was impressed.

When Beauty & Essex isn't being a great big circus of laughter and club music and glitter, it's basically Spanish-American small plates restaurant. The appetizer sized small plates are big enough to be small entrees and the entrees are small enough to be big appetizers. This means you share everything. We started with the Braised Short Rib Tamales and the Chili Relleno Empanadas. The Tamales were super creamy and super rich. I can't say I tasted any short rib in there, but it was pretty damn good nonetheless. The empanadas under a light but rich poblano-manchego-jalapeno cream sauce, were likewise extremely good and, while I've had better in Corona, neither of us could possibly complain. For the entree part of our meal, we ordered the Brick Pressed Chicken and the Oven Braised Chicken Meatballs. The brick pressed chicken didn't hold a candle to Danny Brown's version (how could it, the place has a Michelin Star) but was still extremely good. It was served with tangy baby tomatoes on a bed of polenta. Operagirl and I both loved the polenta, but she wasn't a fan of the decision to include tomatoes. I felt that it added a little oomph, to use a technical term. It didn't need the tomatoes, but I wouldn't get rid of them. The meatballs were the weakest part of our dining experience here. They weren't bad but they were sort of tasteless. Ground chicken is fine if you're on a diet, but I'd never consciously choose to make a meatball out of pure chicken if I were cooking at home. It just isn't hearty enough.

For dessert, I wanted to try the "box of doughnuts" which I heard were fantastic, but Operagirl wanted the Molten Chocolate Bread Pudding. Naturally, we did what any two semi-mature adults would do: we flipped a coin. I lost. If you don't know what bread pudding is, think of regular pudding but puff it up with a lot of air to give it a soft doughy texture. The bread pudding, under a big scoop of hazelnut ice cream, was delicious. I still wish we got the doughnuts.

THE BACK ROOM

102 Norfolk Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 228-5098

So it goes like this. Operagirl and I were out and about, having a night on the town, when I suggested walking over to The Back Room for a night-cap. I like my hidden speakeasies as we all know, and what could be more hidden than a place with literally no sign, where the entrance is under the sidewalk and down a dark alley? And yet despite all of these otherwise fantastical things, The Back Room is simply awful.

The Back Room has just about every single thing going for it. High tin ceilings and crystal chandeliers, top shelf liquor and velvet sofas. But it also goes over the top on kitsch, indeed it does so to a damning degree. I want so much to like a place like this. I want to love it. But the music is super loud, it gets super crowded, and the drinks are... well the drinks stink. Where The Back Room excels is in its physical space. There's a large bar area, nude 19th century paintings, sofas in the rear, and a dimly lit, Victorian atmosphere. But it ruins all this with its club music and crowds and the not-so-subtle feeling that half of Manhattan already knows it exists (actually 3/4 of Manhattan). And of course, the drinks have room for improvement.

If you've already arrived and all of the sofas are taken, fear not. I'm sure that if you stand around for an hour, something will open up. Who knows, maybe one of the bachelorette parties that are there will ask you to take photos with them, as happened to me. "We want to be seen with a cute guy!" Flattering, if hollow. When your drinks arrive, they'll be in 1920s speakeasy form: a teacup or a beer bottle wrapped in a paper bag. The teacup, despite being half the size of a normal drink glass, I can forgive, but the paper bag makes me feel like I just bought of forty of Old English at a Spanish Harlem bodega. And with the beer choices including Miller and Bud Light, I'm not far off.

If, by looking at the two drinks above, you think "that looks like weak green tea and Hawaiian Punch" then you'd be right. Hawaiian punch with vodka is about as close to what we were given (for $12 a cup) as you could get at home by spiking Junior's lunch kit. To add insult to injury, apparently some of the people who go here are bitches. "That chick just hip-checked me to get to the bar!" Operagirl said before adding "...if I weren't sober..." I can't envision coming back unless invited to a party, but something tells me that I'd second guess my agreeing to show up.

If The Back Room was a real restaurant where the seating up that small set of stairs was where meals were served, where great drinks were available at the bar, and where they enforced the low-end of the maximum occupancy rules, then it could be, in my humblest of opinions, one of the best places in the city. Instead, it's just annoying.

KATSUNO

103-01 Metropolitan Avenue

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 575-4033

It's so very rare that my home nabe of Forest Hills gets props for its dining scene that once I saw that Katsuno, on Metropolitan Avenue, was awarded New York City's Best New Japanese Restaurant by Time Out Magazine, I knew I had to go.... And a year and a half later, I finally did. A year and a half lost, I must say, because Katsuno was indeed very good.

When I went, on a blisteringly cold Sunday night, it was... not crowded. And Katsuno is small. Maybe twelve tables. The interior is bright and clean and jazz plays over the room. The only thing about Katsuno that feels cheap (because with some appetizers in the teens, the price isn't) are those paper Sapporo/Asahi ads you see on the tables of every ten-cent sushi bar. 

Pike met me on the other side of one of those Asahi ads and, over piping hot cups of fresh green tea, we looked over the menu, debating what to order. Most Japanese restaurants are basically sushi bars that will occasionally deep fry some cauliflower or shrimp for you. That isn't the case here. There is sushi, to be sure, but Katsuno is more of a restaurant. Sliced steaks and big bowls of noodle soup are the name of the game and I for one think it's nice to be able to get something other than a California roll every now and then.

As a starter, I ordered the Octopus with Cucumber Vinaigrette and a vegetarian Plum and Pellira Roll. The octopus was light almost to the point of floating off the plate and out the door. The only thing holding it on the plate was the cucumber. Pike and I both liked it, but it might be too soft for people who are used to their food fighting you for dominance of your tongue. The plum roll was not great. It was at first sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. I wanted different, which I got, but ended up wishing I got something more tried and true, like eel. I also had a bowl of Katsuno's thick Miso Soup. Normally, one orders miso soup and it's pretty much a bowl of water with some scallions floating timidly within. Not so much here. It's no stew, but Katsuno doesn't skimp on the miso. Pike ordered the Grilled Lightly Salted Chicken, which was far and away the best appetizer of them all. It was ultra-tender with a hint of char. Pike felt that there was more salt than he would have preferred, but I differed, thinking it was just fine.

When it's all of ten degrees out it makes sense to get soup, so Pike's dinner was a large bowl of Thinly Sliced Duck Over Udon in Warm Soup. The broth was sweet, the noodles were thick and the duck had nary an ounce of fat. We liked it, and I'm pretty sure that you will also. My entree was the Grilled Miso Marinated Beef, served with an assortment of roast winter vegetables. I was not asked how I wanted the beef cooked and it came medium rare (the way it should). The miso marinade lent a salty crust-like texture to the outer part of the meat which I've never had before and didn't dislike. My only complaint was that it had been left to cool too long before it was served. Still, I liked it a lot.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2012 ]

BEST/WORST 2011

The good, the bad, and the ugly of 2011.

Last year, my best/worst was dominated by the outer boroughs. It taught us all - but specifically me - that if you want great food, but insisted on sticking to Manhattan, then you were a lazy bum undeserving of such fine caloric intake. As I look back on this past year, I note that I was in a comfort food mood. I continued to travel to wherever the subway would take me, but I was clearly subconsciously looking for food that I could wrap myself up in like an old blanket surrounded by Tonka trucks and Lincoln Logs.

**********

THE BEST

HILL COUNTRY CHICKEN

There are few foods that embody comfort food to the degree that fried chicken does, and Hill Country Chicken, near Madison Square Park, makes just about the best chicken, and couples it with the best pie, that you can get. I had a lot of trouble deciding between Hill Country and Salt & Fat. Both were great, fun places to eat. Salt & Fat, a small plates restaurant that never met a pork dish it didn't like, was close. But it boiled down to the small fact that I can feel my mouth watering right now at the thought of Hill Country's chicken and pie in a way that is pretty much unmatched by any other food product known to man.

Best Burger

JG MELON

If there's one thing I eat far too many of, it's probably burgers. They're my diet's Achilles heel. They're quick, inexpensive, and hard to really be terrible. On that note, it's rare that you find a standout. But JG Melon managed to pull it off with their no-frills, ye olden tyme style ground beef in a bun on a plate with nuthin'. What's that? You want veggies on your burger? Here, have a pickle. And yet, easily one of the best burgers I can say I've had, period.

Best Bar
SPRITZENHAUS

I'm no connoisseur, but I love beer and, in that vein, the beer halls and gardens that serve such a copious volume of the stuff. With NYC seeing a beer hall/garden renaissance, it's only natural that one of these newbies rise above the others. Spritzenhaus not only has a ginormous beer list, it has damn good food and more space than you'll find anywhere outside of Astoria.

Best Cocktail Bar
RANDOLPH AT BROOME

It's hard to imagine a better combination than a classy coffee bar that transitions into a a classy cocktail bar. Then add the ability to hog a booth for hours doing New York Times crossword puzzles and reading back issues of the New Yorker and you have a caffeine and alcohol infused coupling not seen since biblical days.


Best Sandwich
MELT SHOP     and
RED HOOK LOBSTER POUND


There's no way to compare the two most fantabulous between-the-bread creations I've had this year so I'm giving them a tie. Neither of them are original, but both of them are perfect. Literally, perfect. Melt Shop's Classic Grilled Cheese With Bacon and Tomato is so good I can't describe it without getting X-rated. Meanwhile, Red Hook Lobster Pound's Maine Style Lobster Roll is something I can see grown sober men fighting each other bloody over. Do not, and I can't emphasize this enough, do not allow 2012 to go by without eating both of these creations at least twice.



Okay. First there was no worst. I did a pretty good job of self policing this year. I managed to avoid being suckered into going, by hype, hyperbole or ignorance, to too many places that stunk. Hype, hyperbole and ignorance did lead a few disappointments though.


Biggest Letdown
VINEGAR HILL HOUSE

Vinegar Hill House was supposed to be so great and was instead just not. While the atmosphere and service were fine, the food was well below par. Operagirl and I trekked all the way out through Dumbo to get here and wound up walking back the the F train with a sulk in our stride. To this day,  she scrunches her nose at its mention. "$200 for that meal?" with incredulity.

Where's The Beef?
DBGB

You'd think that a place with as much schmance as DBGB wouldn't serve a cold, overcooked beef slab coupled with shit service, but you'd be wrong. 'Nuff said.


Nostalgia gone amok
PEANUT BUTTER & CO. 

PBnC led me astray with some mediocre-as-can-be peanut butter sandwiches. I wanted so badly to love this place. I mean, hell, I love peanut butter. Who doesn't? But they seemed to have gone the route of crazy-shit-we'll-stick-together-between-bread and then hoped that everyone would get lost in the nostalgia of the days of yore when you did that as a kid. Unfortunately, as an adult, it didn't translate so good.

 
M. WELLS


M. Wells would have been the best restaurant of the year if it was still open. It was great. Simply great. I never went there and ate anything less than amazing. It sucks that they couldn't afford the new rent. Word to the wise: read the lease. They're expected to return in a new location, but then they won't be in that cool antique diner space. It created a mood that was almost priceless. Plus, it was right on top of the subway. Couldn't be more convenient if it wanted to be. And so I lament their (temporary?) passing.