e a t e r y R O W

CABANA

107-10 70th Road

Forest Hills, NY11375

(718) 263-3600

If Forest Hills has a restaurant that never seems to have a bad day, it's Cabana. On any given night, it's crowded with a line. On most days, the wait can be close to a half hour, and I've been told an hour and a half on more than one occasion (in case you were wondering, no, I didn't wait). The other night was no exception and despite the rain Pike and I were still told that a table for two would be about 15-20 minutes.

Is it me, or are there relatively few Latin restaurants in the city (other than Mexican)? There seems to be a Sushi joint on every corner, and you can't trip on a sidewalk crack without falling into a new burger place, but look around for some decent fried plantains outside of Corona and you're shit out of luck. Thankfully, I live near Cabana. Cabana is loud, bustling, somewhat cramped, and while it's definitely not the cheapest meal you could get, the food's good and the atmosphere is light and fun. It has far and away the most diverse customers of any restaurant that I've been to in quite a while, both ethnically and age-wise.  Our waiter was chipper, served us promptly, and didn't need to take notes. Given the long lines that Cabana seems to have an endless supply of, it had been years since I was here last, so I wasn't really sure what to expect anymore.

According to our waiter, Cabana's two most popular drinks are their sangria and their mojitos. So I got the mojito and Pike got a red sangria while choosing our dinner. Cabana isn't cheap, by the end of the meal, we dropped over $70 each, so bear that in mind. Pike's starter were the Baccalaitos. He thought they were fantastic. I thought they were good, but uninspired. Baccalaitos are deep fried, battered cod filets layered three deep with an avocado puree sandwiched between them. I was far happier with my choice, the Ceviche Mixto, a shrimp/octopus/calamari/scallop ceviche dish with huge tostado chips. If you're a bit vague on what ceviche is, or at least is supposed to be, it's when you "cook" the fish by marinating it in lemon and lime juice. The citric acid does the work of the stove, the fish is served cold, and it's intensely refreshing. My friend Mr. Dogz loves making his own. In any event, the ceviche appetizer at Cabana was spot-on perfect and come summer, when the heat and the humidity begin to make us feel like a bunch of miserable Miamians, this is what you should get.

Pike has a soft spot for paella, so he ordered the Paella Marinera, a seafood paella that, for a few extra bucks, they tossed a lobster tail on top of. The paella itself was very good. Very good. But look at the picture there. See the cast iron skillet filled with all that delectable saffron rice, scallops, clams and shrimp? Now see that plate just above it that also has a mountain of food on it? You could order this dish and easily split it between two people. Easily. There's no way that any one person could finish this. Likewise my dish, the Coco Cabana Pollo, was also massive. It's a chicken and vegetable stew, basically, in a heavy coconut curry soup with coconut rice in the center. Except for the fact that the potatoes in the dish were undercooked by more than an acceptable amount, the entree was great. It was just huge. If they gave me half as much (and cooked the potatoes more), I'd have been more than happy.

Dessert was Cabana's weak spot. Pike ordered the Flan, which he took two bites of and pushed aside. I ordered a Fried Banana dessert. Battered and fried banana with a dusting of powdered sugar, some chocolate syrup and a small scoop of banana ice cream. I liked it plenty, but I think I liked it less than I should have because, frankly, the coffee was so incredibly bad. It was just terrible. "I'm pretty sure they ran out of beans and instead brewed dirt and cigarette ashes" I said, unable to finish my cup.

Here are my recommendations when you go: get plowed with a pitcher or two of sangria, that goes without saying. Get the ceviche then split a paella (with lobster). If you can still stand up under your own power and want dessert, get the fried bananas and maybe a glass of milk to wash it down with. If you're desperate for coffee, there are plenty of options just around the corner.

NASHA RASHA

4 West 19th Street

New York, NY 10011

(212) 929-4444

For Shrink's birthday, Dudeman and I asked each other where we should take her. That it should be someplace in the Gramercy/Flatiron area was about as far as we got. It wasn't until later in the day as I was shooting through the subway tunnels home that Dudeman passed Nasha Rasha and declared "Here! This is where we should go!" When I got his message I was, to say, surprised. I did not envision Nasha Rasha as the kind of restaurant that my parents would be terribly psyched about eating at.

Nasha Rasha is, in a word, garish. A tacky parody of Glasnostian Sovietism. The base color of the interior is a deep rich red, murals of Gorbachev and others line the wall, there are hundreds of backlit vodka bottles, a giant hammer-and-sickle, a giant red star. When I walked in, the music was Eurofied, electronic versions of Western pop and was scream-across-the-table loud. The waitresses wear "traditional" Russian versions of the St. Pauli Girl dirndl outfits (I don't know what the Russians call it) and from the ceiling hang crystal chandeliers that would be happy in, if not the Czar's palace, then at least in his pied-a-terre. There's a large flat screen television playing a yule log video on a continuous loop. Then as if this wasn't all hilarious enough, after a short while, someone walked out into the middle of the dining area with an electric violin and started fiddling along with the pop music. It's so dark that the menus have reading lamps built into them. Naturally, this place was fun.

Nasha Rasha isn't just a Russian restaurant, it's also a vodka bar with a wide array of vodkas. Shit, just look at the pics I put up. If there's a vodka you want, odds are, it's on their wall somewhere (and there's also a vodka wall upstairs I didn't get a photo of). Dudeman ordered a Manhattan on the rocks. Shrink was not amused. "You're at a Russian restaurant and you're getting a Manhattan? Who does that?" "It's like I'm the CIA contact," he replied. "This way the defector will know me." As for me, I tried few of their numerous he vodka infusions. First, the salmon infusion, then the horseradish infusion, and finally, the bacon infusion. The salmon was mellow and tasted distinctly of smoked salmon. Zabar's would be proud. The horseradish was nose-clearingly strong and, aside from the fact that it was liquid and alcoholic, it would be hard to tell the difference between drinking a glass of this and shoving a spoonful of actual horseradish down into your mouth. As for the bacon, it was just like drinking bacon. And who doesn't like bacon? My favorite, though, had to be the salmon.

Russian's have a reputation for being big drinkers. Maybe this is why the appetizers here were so large. By which I mean, they were HUGE. One appetizer would have been enough for all three of us to split. But being ignorant of this, we got three. I orderd the Mushroom Stroganoff, sauteed wild mushrooms in a creamy, cheesy sauce served in a bread bowl so big that you could crawl in and take a nap. It was fantastic, but no normal human could eat the whole thing without passing out. Shrink ordered the Pan Fried Potatoes with Wild Mushrooms. Basically, this dish was french-fry-like potatoes and sauteed mushrooms. The Rents loved it. I wasn't too impressed. It was the kind of simple dish I could make at home if I wanted to but never want to. Dudeman ordered Chebureki, two extremely large empanada-like deep-fried lamb dumplings. They were huge. Good (how could they not be? They're deep fried bread pockets stuffed with lamb), but giant and even though they were far lighter than the mushroom stroganoff, which was like having a tub of glue in your stomach, the chebureki was still heavy. As it turns out, after the appetizers, my three vodkas no longer had any effect on me.

Come time for the entrees and not a soul at the table was hungry anymore. But, for blog and country, soldiered on did we. I ordered the Chicken Kiev. I mean, it seems sacriligious to be offered chicken kiev and turn it down. Chicken Kiev, in case you were wondering, is chicken that they somehow turn into a vessel for several tablespoons of herbal butter which then gets breaded and deep fried. Then, when you cut it open, the butter pours out like floods from a broken dam and pools on your plate, soaking your side dishes. Glorious, decadent food designed to give you a coronary while you're still young enough to enjoy it. It was served with decent, super smooth mashed potatoes and a piddling little salad that was more garnish than anything else. Shrink ordered the Beef Stroganoff, beef in a heavy sour cream sauce with mushroom. Similar to the mushroom stroganoff appetizer, but without the cheese. Of course it was good. How could it not be? It also came with a side of mashed potatoes and weighed in at about four hundred pounds.Dudeman's dinner was the Zharkoe, a lamb stew with boiled potato (and just about nothing else) in bread bowl the put the appetizer sized one to shame. It was okay, but not as good as the other two entrees. Unless you eat the bread bowl, which is larger than you are, it's just too healthy a dish.

Overall, we had a great time. The atmosphere was fun, kitchy to the point of physically laughing at it. The food was good, but you got a ton of it and the presentation was as close to zero as one could get before the staff just brings the pot out from the kitchen and simply spoons it onto the plate in front of you. The service started out very good, but after the entrees were ordered our waitress vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. Someone else brought out a beer that I ordered, but it came a half hour after I ordered it (no exaggeration)  as we were finishing the meal, at which point I didn't really want it any more.

PETER LUGER

178 Broadway

Brooklyn, NY 11211

(718) 387-7400

There are few New York City restaurants as well-known as the steakhouse Peter Luger. The name itself is synonymous with steak; synonymous with tradition. They do steak, the steak is a porterhouse, they do it their way, and you shut your damn mouth and like it. Peter Luger doesn't even cook the steak to your liking unless your liking is rare to medium rare. No discussion. You want medium, they serve it rare anyway on a plate so hot you can keep cooking it right there at the table. You want it well done, leave and go waste your money at Outback.

Walking inside is like stepping back in time to 1978 when all the waiters at a place like this were men, all the diners at a place like this were men, both of them were old, both of them were fat, and both of them drove Cadillac Fleetwood Broughams. "You can almost see the cigar smoke that should be filling the room," Pike thought out loud while we ate dinner. The walls are plain with wood paneling. It's simple. No flair. No style. No sex appeal whatsoever and just in case you had thoughts about cutting the decor some slack, they leave the sugar and Sweet N Low packets in a cup on the table like a cheapo diner would. Luger's is like a German steinhaus without the steins. About the only thing that does decorate anything is a CPR poster in the corner and thirty years worth of glowing Zagat reviews on wood plaques. 

If Luger's opened today, they'd be laughed out of business so fast, it would make your head spin. But they didn't open today, they opened 125 years ago. One hundred and twenty five years ago. To put that in perspective, Luger's opened before your grandparents were even a figment of an imagination in your great grandparents' heads. You don't last that long and get that famous by serving crap.

Pike and I arrived for an early dinner to avoid needing reservations. I recommend you do this too. I had read that some people recommend making a reservation six to eight weeks in advance. To hell with that. Early dinner = get seated right away.

Pike is, to put it mildly, a Peter Luger fan. We didn't really discuss what we'd order so much as he told me. "We're getting this and this and this. And if you want to get that too, fine." While we waited for our waiter to return, we snacked on some seriously delicious onion bread. To start, we ordered the Luger's Sizzling Bacon. You order it by the slice, since it's a half an inch thick, and we got two. It was fantastic. I love thick bacon, tender with some burn, and just the right amount of fat. This was exactly what bacon should be. It's the closest I've come to what they serve at Char No. 4 in Cobble Hill since the last time I went to Cobble Hill. And that's the bacon I have fantasies about. We also split an order of Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail, which, while good, was basically just shrimp cocktail. Just much bigger.

We ordered the Steak for Two, a medium rare porterhouse two inches thick that comes pre-sliced and soaking in a quarter-inch-deep lake of butter. As I mentioned, if you want the steak more well done, the plate it's served on is so hot that leaving a piece on the lip will cook it further. The inside is cool but the seared crust is hot and thick and is the only reason that the meat doesn't melt in your mouth the instant it hits your tongue. This is some seriously good cow. Is it $90 worth of good? Ummm... Well, Pike definitely thinks so. I'm less convinced that I'd run out again any time soon to shell out that kind of cash, but there is no doubt that I'm wishing I had a piece of it right now typing this. We also ordered the French Fries for Two, which was way way too much and the Creamed Spinach, which was supposed to be for two but they give you surprisingly little. Interestingly, I liked the fries but felt that I could have skipped the creamed spinach. Far too salty in my book. But Pike dismissed the fries as mediocre and just about fainted with joy eating the spinach.

Normally, when a waiter tells me that the restaurant serves the best whatever, I take it with a grain of salt. But in this case, when I ordered the waiter-recommended New York Cheesecake, he was right on the money. It was so smooth, so creamy, so perfect that Peter Luger's cheesecake might just in fact be the best in the city. Pike ordered the Chocolate Mousse. We both thought that it was good, but so rich and sweet that I nearly went into diabetic shock when I stole a bite. The desserts are served with a homemade whipped cream so thick that it was like eating a Tempur-pedic mattress. And they don't give you a little dollop of it on the side; it covers half the plate. The dessert rivaled the steak and it might be worth going to Luger's for that alone.