e a t e r y R O W

PORCHETTA

110 East 7th Street

New York, NY 10005

(212) 777-2151

Ever found a spot that does just one thing and that one thing is worth returning to an awful lot? That's Porchetta. They make roast pork sandwiches. I take that back. They make A roast pork sandwich. A dry rub roast pork sandwich. Fine fine, they also do A taco on weekends. I haven't been there for that.

I stumbled on Porchetta by accident while wandering the East Village for vinyl record shops. "How hipster of you" you might be thinking. Ah, but I did it in an unironic tie. I was hungry and I didn't want neither to spend a wad of cash on a restaurant nor go cheap with fast food. And fate did not steer me wrong.

Porchetta has a few sides, but, having skipped them, I can't vouch. I can vouch for the sandwich. The salt rub was just about perfect. The meat was ultra moist. The baguette was perfect. There's nothing else there (save the beer I had). No veggies. No mayo. No sauce save the jus from the pork itself. The closest there is to a topping is the skin, which was roasted to a crisp shell that is almost impossible to describe but to suggest that you conjure up images of the pork version of the crispy chicken skin you'd devour as a kid.

Okay, so at $12 for the 'wich, it will lighten your wallet some more than a five dollar footlong will, and with a drink you should expect to cough up a solid $15. But it's worth it at least once in a while and, if you buy ten, you get one free.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2013 ]

The Gotham West Market Opening Party

I'm not one to turn down going to a food event, and the Gotham West Market's opening festivities was no exception. The vendors who will locate themselves at this Hells Kitchen food court such as Blue Bottle Coffee, The Cannibal, Ivan Ramen, Court Street Grocers, Genuine Roadside, El Colmado, and Little Chef, each prepared a sampling of what they plan to serve the public once they open while liquor companies like Tito's Vodka, Chopin Vodka, Pama, and others also dished out libations. Indeed, within thirty seconds of walking through the front doors a girl in a yellow dress walked up to us with a tray of rainbow-colored "Lucky Charms" cocktails. The drinks pretty much didn't stop from there on, but neither did the food. Myna and I were almost sorry that we grabbed a quick bite to eat beforehand.

OKTOBERFEST SPECIAL 2013!!!

Bier International

Clinton Hall

Die Koelner Bierhalle

Killmeyer's Old Bavaria Inn

SingleCut Beersmiths

So once again, it's autumn and autumn means Oktoberfest. For the fourth wonderful time, I've traversed the city looking for the best, most appropriate places where one can go to hoist a stein in honor of the gods of beer. Mere bars need not apply. Oktoberfest is about quality and mood. Any sixteen year old with a fake ID and a pushup bra can get a can of Genny Lite at a divey sports bar. Nein! Oktoberfest is about relaxation and friends and food. Oktoberfest makes beer the focus of the outing, not merely something you hold in your hand during a Jets game.
 
Four boroughs, five beer halls and gardens. From the southern edge of Staten Island to the northern edge of Queens. From Park Slope to Harlem. And yes yes yes. Before anyone decides to tell me that Oktoberfest started in September, thanks, shut up, I know. I do it in Oktober.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BIG OKTOBERFEST MAP!

BIER INTERNATIONAL

2099 Eighth Avenue

New York, NY 10026

(212) 280-0944

If anyone ever doubted the gentrification of Harlem, they need look no further than Frederick Douglass Boulevard. What was once the street you'd cross on your way to buy crack and get stabbed in Morningside Park has become the street you cross with your kids so they can play there. Brand new luxury apartment buildings and sidewalk cafes line the avenue. Should you happen to live in this New Harlem or perhaps in the northern Upper West Side and should you want a beer hall experience without having to travel too far, Bier International should be on your short list. It's not large the way that Radegast Hall or Spritzenhaus is and it's menu could be more authentic, but the beer list is decent, certainly for the area. And they roast whole pigs on a spit right there on the sidewalk. So how can you complain?

CLINTON HALL

90 Washington Street

New York, NY 10004

(212) 363-6000

Clinton Hall is the street-side beer garden for Wall Street analysts who want their happy hour to include liters of Radeberger and who want to avoid the chaotic mess of The Standard Biergarten in Meatpacking. But though calmer, Clinton Hall also has less than a fraction of The Standard's sex appeal. Perhaps you want that. Perhaps you don't need to be surrounded by arm-candy-hookers. Perhaps you and your buddies don't say "hoo-ah!" every time someone you know walks in the room. Perhaps you want more than three beers to choose from. Still, while Clinton Hall's convenience, relative calm, ping pong tables, and tap-only beer selection are nice, and I certainly think that The Standard is awful, I'd still make the trip to Brooklyn or Queens if I had the time. While there appear to be lots of tables, seating is very tight. This isn't helped by a policy of keeping certain tables "reserved" but empty for hours. The servers were tripping all over each other as they squeezed between tables, umbrellas, scaffolding support beams, and customers looking for the bathroom. The beer list is good, but the food is mediocre at best. Most of the menu is french fries and dipping sauce. The wurst that we had was microscopic and the schnitzel sandwich was mostly bun.

DIE KOELNER BIERHALLE

84 St. Marks Place

Brooklyn, NY 11217

(347) 227-7238

Northern Park Slope has what appears to be a World War One airplane hangar. It's a beer hall. The tables stretch deep into oblivion and the beer list is like a phone book. The food is also fantastic. A big warm pretzel with a pickle and mustard and a heaping plate of curried chicken spaetzle kept us happy into our second round. We arrived at Die Koelner Bierhalle on a weekend afternoon just after brunch was winding down. It wasn't too crowded, so we were able to get a seat of our choosing right away. Still, it was far from empty. As time wore on, the stroller set started to arrive. By the time we left there were no fewer than a dozen toddlers running around while mom and dad had lunch and chatted with friends over a pint. One person I was with thought that the scene was nuts but I appreciate a place that's both kid friendly and lets you drink. Parental sanity. Besides, if Park Slope is known for anything other than brownstones, it's strollers. If you've got a problem with little kids, brother you picked the wrong neighborhood.

KILLMEYER'S OLD BAVARIA INN

4254 Arthur Kill Road

Staten Island, NY 10309

(718) 984-1202

Sometimes, it's fun to get into your car and drive out to the city's edge just to remind yourself of how large New York really is. Then, of course, when you get there, you'll want a beer. Killmeyer's has been around slingin' ale since 1859 and it feels it. The interior is pure German restaurant. Dark woods, family crests, medieval style tapestries. The outside is pure beer garden complete with weekly oompah bands. Sadly, on this particular day, it was rainy and sitting outside enjoying the garden just wasn't in the cards. But just looking at it, you know that it deserves to be on the list of places to visit. On the downside, the food was a bit dry, and telling their weinerschnitzel apart from their chicken schnitzel will take more skill than I have, but the service was friendly, the beer was cold, and on a crisp fall day I can see this as being the perfect place to hang out.

SINGLECUT BEERSMITHS

19-33 37th Avenue

Astoria, NY 11105

(718) 606-0788

While Singlecut, up at the tippytop of Astoria, Queens, is not technically a beer hall, technically, it kind of is. So I've put 'em on the list. They have tables, food, and a ton of taps. They just also happen to make their own stuff in ten thousand gallon steel vats behind the bar. It's hard to choose from a list of a dozen home-made beers, from super hoppy IPAs to Belgian-style sour ales, but we couldn't find anything we didn't like. Having showed up at the tail end of a Sunday night meant that the kitchen was closed, but the menu looked great. It's mostly meat pies (of course, they have pretzels, too) and I'm dying to return to eat and bring along a growler, which they'll fill. If you'd like your Oktoberfest to be one that reaps the benefit of local beer, then get your butt on the Q train.

[ © Copyright eateryROW 2013 ]

STONE ROSE LOUNGE

10 Columbus Circle

New York, NY 10019

(212) 823-9770

Stone Rose Lounge shares the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center along with Per Se and Masa, the two most expensive restaurants in New York City. Stone Rose Lounge, as evidenced by my eating there, is not the third most expensive. Still, with views of Central Park, Columbus Circle, and 59th Street, and with its backlit bar, dim lighting, and leather sofas or cushy chairs everywhere, there's no getting away from its posh, classy-yet-sexy atmosphere. If you're a baller looking to unwind after a hard day of making more money than you deserve, this is your spot. There's even a vintage air hockey table should you want to play.

It was Myna's birthday and with her office just a few blocks away, it seemed like a good place for a surprise drink and bite. As I said, sofas abound and the view from the windows is stunning. I arrived early and was given my choice of where to sit this particular midweek evening. The hostess and wait staff were all very pleasant. One of the largest complaints that people had on various review sites like Yelp was about service. Basically, people found the staff too inattentive. I do not disagree, but I'd prefer inattentive to constantly hovering. My main complaint was that the food was not what it could have been.

Stone Rose Lounge is, above all else, a lounge so food is secondary. Noticeably secondary. Cocktails run about $16 each. Liquors run anywhere from $12 to $300 per glass. Beers are about $8 per bottle. The food is mostly small shareable plates with some salads and sandwiches. Myna and I ordered everything to share and nibbled on the complimentary pretzels and mustard while we pondered.

All three plates we ordered basically came at once. Myna and I always find ourselves getting the Deviled Eggs wherever we see them on a menu. It's not intentional. We don't go looking for it, but somehow we always find ourselves ordering them. I think that a good deviled egg is a good test of a bar kitchen. If you can wow me with a deviled egg, you're probably gonna do the same with everything else. We were not wowed. Nor were we repulsed. They were fine. The same can be said of the Meatball Sliders, which came with melted cheese and a little bowl of marinara for dipping. These were fine as well, but Meatball Shop they are not. And last but not least we ordered the Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Bacon and Tomato. This was close to being great, actually, except that the tomato was tomato sauce instead of a sliced tomato and it threw off the whole thing.

There are only two desserts and we chose the chocolate plate, a selection of thee types of dark chocolate truffles. They were too salty and rich for my taste on their own, though with a glass of brandy, they worked and Myna and I somehow nursed them for nearly an hour.

My verdict is thus: I like Stone Rose. I would return and unlike a bunch of Yelpers, I do recommend it. If you want to go to a place with class and sex appeal and a great view and you don't mind spending a few extra bucks for the privilege, this is where to go. Do you want to impress a date or need an excuse to wear your little black dress? Go here. Do you want to take someone from out of town someplace for a swank drink without waiting in a line for a speakeasy? Go here. Do you want a rooftop bar but it's cold out? Go here. Do you want a delectable meal made with the freshest ingredients and paired with a side dish of impeccable quality? Go somewhere else.

Stone Rose Lounge wasn't cheap, though relative to its neighbors, it's practically free. We had three small plates, one dessert, and five drinks. The total came to about $150 with tax and tip.