Il Baggato--Manhattan

212.228.0977

Had another nostalgic night in the East Village the other Friday. Yes, I was out on a Friday, once again with my wife, and once again instantly sad that I'm getting old. This time we ate at this Italian place that she used to love that I'd never been to. The owner was cruising around table to table in a cheesy politician sort of way, quipping about how much wine they drank or how the garlic must be sliced thin but not too thin and I was thinking that he's a total phoney.

Then Bam! I had a dish of five simple ingredients that was shit yourself good. I still can't believe how good it tasted. It was a special, spaghetti with oil, garlic, salt and parm. Mami jami. Everything else was solid, but so pale in comparison to the gleaming light that was this miracle bowl of spaghetti.

By the time the guy got to me I was so spyched to talk to him, that I was hoping he would dish out one of those cheesy puns just to bring me back to earth. So much for being a phoney. I would walk around with my dick in my hand too if I knew that spaghetti dish had my back.

All's Well--Brooklyn

(347) 799-2743

Went there with the polygamist-four the other day for dinner. I'd walked by it a bazillion times, not realizing that it had changed in the same way most of North Williamsburg has, ie., Polish to Trendy Youngish American. Sadly, it's more of the same. I'm starting to get sick of the fact that every restaurant that opens in my neighborhood is nothing more than a different twist on what Dumont and Diner were doing ten years ago. Fortunately for me, this place gave me something else to talk about, the handling of corked wine.

It's been a while since I've discussed how unfriendly and inhospitable service can ruin a chef's good intentions. Once you have a snide waitress be "annoyed" it affects your entire perception of the place. In this instance, we had a bottle of corked wine. It was evident to me (who for once sat on the inside--as I am a gentleman and almost without exception deposit my lovely wives on the bench so that I can stare lovingly into their eyes, and their eyes only) that she went to the bar, took a swig, and confirmed to herself that we could not be trusted and were trying to get the restaurant to open another bottle of the exact same wine. She returned to tell us that it wasn't corked with such disdain you'd think we were dressed as SS officers, clearly gloating that she had uncovered our conspiracy of cheating the restaurant out of a bottle of wine that we wouldn't drink in the first place.

At this point, if I weren't older and more humble, I would have had a long-winded, profane diatribe about the server's ignorance of the collective food and beverage knowledge at the table (including ASA wine credentials), as well as her ignorance of the industry as she clearly did not know that any restaurant can return the corked bottle for full credit, how the owner would have been displeased with her overall lack of hospitality, etc... But I'm older and wiser you know? You're not reading this to hear about some waitress that was potentially having a bad day, you want to know my take on the restaurant as a whole. How it fits into the overall socio-economic fabric of the neighborhood. Basically, whether or not it merits a visit.

So with all of that....How was the food? Who gives a shit when you're being served by Cruella de Vil. Honestly, I'm still rankled by it. Actually, I barely remember the food. My notes said that the entrees were prepared well, but in terms of cuisine it's more of the day special menu's, comforty, bacon infused, blah, blah, blah. I'm shocked at how packed the place was, that's for sure, which only means that I'm ahead of the curve in boredom. I do have notes that the fig thing was disgusting. Though by the time we got to dessert I wanted to punch someone in the face so I wouldn't necessarily take my word for it.

Total Backlog, part 2--Manhattan

Rayela--LES

212.253.8840

A tasting menu debacle. Went here with with all three spouses and a boisterous expat living in London. Other wife was convinced that the multiple awards meant something. We decided to get the tasting menu and make a night of it. There must have been something lost in translation, as they kept bringing us regular sized portions, of different items, and then expecting us to pass the plates and share.

At first it was okay, but once you've tried everything and realized that one or two of the items may or may not contain dog, you want to stick with one thing. You inevitably end up competing with the other diners for the one tasty dish (the ceviche was miraculous). By the end of it, I had a black eye.

Trattoria Rino--Midtown West

212.307.0666

I'm never trusting Yelp again. Rather, I'm going to start the new fad, beloved nine, of stating quite clearly that I've been yelped. We saw Book of Mormon (not as good as you've been led to believe, FYI,--but this is a restaurant review damn it!) and needed to get the in-laws to a relatively inexpensive and menu-neutral post theater dinner. Yelped Italian food and this is what we got:

A glorified pizza parlor with gimmicky wall hangings and a bunch of wanna-be Gambino's playing make believe mafioso restaurateurs. Food sucked. Service Atrocious. They had this weird dude in a fedora and trench coat chain smoking cigarettes outside that would occasionally come inside and ask how everyone was doing. There was a fat, greased, mustacheoud oddball that must have been the owner, getting up from his table of losers every ten minutes to come and ask how everything was doing.

Hey Rocko, you know what? Everything thing is going poorly. Your team of Ecuadorians are currently hauling your garbage through the dining room, your wine is a magnum of grape juice and antifreeze, and your risotto is par cooked crap. Go smoke another cigarette and while your at it continue your effective yelp campaign as that is the only way I could fathom you getting three stars.

Pelligrino's--Little Italy

212.226.3177

Now on the other side of that coin is Pelligrino, a typical red-sauce joint down in little Italy. I know that everyone rolls their eyes when they think little Italy, assuming the worst: the fleecing of would-be diners who are mostly from areas of the country that don't have little Italies (let alone Italians). But I must say that this place was perfect for my purposes. Firstly, I was with my family. It had enough gimmick to satisfy their tourist hungers, but enough class to satisfy my NY snobbery.

The food was authentic red-sauce Italian. Cooked well but with no real surprises. Not great, not bad, but cooked as though it's been cooked a million times before. And the pricing? I'm the wine buyer at my company, and I must say we were knocking down Antinori Toscana ( a decent middle of the road wine) bottle after bottle and it was inexpensive enough to do just that and still stick my older brother with the tab.

Total Backlog part 1--Brooklyn

Holy moley, the busy season does this to a fellow. My little scribble pad is full of places that I've vowed to review, only to not review. Many of these are antiquated, but probably still relevant.

The Meatball Shop--Williamsburg:

718.551.0520

Right in the center of the universe for Williamsburg, this place seemed to come out of nowhere one day and replace an old card shop (I think?). There's a few in the city, so like other local LES franchises (Grif dog's and San Loco to name a few) these guys decided to capitalize by exploiting their demographic. Anyway, it has all of the hipster fixins: marble bar, turn of the century vibe, and comfort food. Seems like a recipe for success, but how could they make it different enough to stand out from all of the other places doing the exact same thing? By using a dry erase marker on a jarring and poorly designed laminated menu to select your meatballs? Stupendous!

So there's this over-designed menu to contend with, and since I'm sitting at the bar trying to make sense of it, and the bartender is too busy rehearsing his bit to help us, how about a decent pilsner draft beer? PBR, the only option, is totally insufficient. And why I'm on the subject of the bar, I appreciate a comedian/bartender as much as the next asshole, but how about a little less joking around and a little more pouring my pisswater beer? The meatballs, on the other hand, are as good as advertised. Too bad they make it overly confusing to order and hire jackass bartenders.

Trix--Williamsburg:
347.599.0702

Speaking of overly designed, walk a few blocks north and you run into Trix. Completely re-done in all painted wood, this place was a florist shop for years, but eventually like everything Polish in this neighborhood transformed into a wooden bar with cute hipster waitresses.

Oddly, we ate here the night before the infamous Irene rain storm that came through. We had oysters, bruschetta with artichoke, and fries. I can't comment too much as this is way distant (more distant than I've ever gone before!) but I can say that I haven't been since--meaning I definitely didn't shit myself with excitement. Though, to be fair, it's hard to get that excited eating oysters. Unless, of course, they're very, very bad oysters.

Fat Goose--Williamsburg:
718.963.2200

This place is the culmination of someone trying to grasp the whole hipster Brooklyn thing by reading about it and replicating from magazine clippings. And boy oh boy, there's nothing worse than seeing a restaurant with hard working people destined to fail. The last time I wrote that was about the Clerkinwell in the LES and I was proven wrong. Much in the same vain I hope I'm wrong about this place, but we were here with my entire family the night before Thanksgiving and they had maybe, I'm being generous here, ten covers. The staff was clearly bored and worse, were used to it.

The chef came and served a lot of the stuff herself (clear sign of a dead restaurant--as she even had time to comment about a bad yelp post) which was a bummer because one of the appetizer specials was about as delectable as gravy train which made the fact we didn't eat it a little awkward when she came back. The entrees were all prepared well, and the vision of a game influenced menu is cool, but this place is too new, too polished, trying too hard. A game influenced menu should have a rustic vibe, not an overly varnished strip mall pedestal-table vibe.

The chef seemed sincere and was quite pleasant, too bad that doesn't equate to success in this town.

ISA--Brooklyn

(347) 689-3594

Pretty exciting one for me, only because the moment I have been waiting for has arrived. You see, I was at this place the exact same time as NY times reviewer Eric Asimov. This allows me to see how I work as a sort of litmus test against perhaps my most evasive (and newfangled) nemesis. Let's not forget the NY times and my history. It was them that took my idea of an occasional restaurant review and ran with it, leaving me to have a registered readership of nine while they stole all of the glory. It was them that rejected my resume time after time after time. It was the NY Times that publishes it's newspaper! This is my chance to show them what a real restaurant review is about. The facts: how hot was the server? How was the food? How well did they maintain my buzz while I checked out the server? Well, now we finally have the exact same dining experience to compare just who writes the better review:

As for a caveat, it is unfortunate that the person behind the bar was an old acquaintance/server at a previous restaurant. It's hard to write objectively about a friend's endeavor. I hereby declare using the scouts honor gang sign that I'm totally objective:

My Review:
Sat at the bar with the old wife after driving around looking for a place that wasn't going to serve us comfort food with some sort of Williamsburg gimick. Fortunately we found ISA, a quasi diner-esque venue opened by the same guys who made having a beard cool at Freeman's. We knew the bartender, which warranted us a few mistakenly made cocktails that were interesting but not shit-yourself-good. The place looked like it was made by a bunch of wood shop nerds. Seriously, wooden bar stools, wooden stools, wooden walls wood everywhere. There were a bunch of 30-something, feel-good, sustainable-eating, bohemian types, some of who were good looking enough to potentially give me, ehem, well you know.

The food? Complicated. I didn't have to ask to know that it was going to be preservative free, farm fresh, organically grown, delicately harvested, etc.. but that doesn't necessarily lead to deliciousness. It only means that you have a good conscious at best and have the right to be snobby to all other inhabitants of the US that are not rich or New Yorkers at worst. Was it good? Yes. The tar tar was superb as was the bread but the simple menu was a little too healthy for me. My wife on the other hand had a total boner meaning it was tasty and nutritious.

End of my review.

Their Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/dining/reviews/isa-nyc-restaurant-review.html?pagewanted=all

I don't need you to tell me how superior my review is so don't bother, I already know.

Rosarito Fish Shack--Brooklyn

718.388.8833

Man oh man how times change. For many, many years this was the Williamsburg Cafe, then it changed to some restaurant with Sunny chef who's now back at the Essex house (Sunny made these awesome pork-brain dumplings one time at this pig roast, it's a long story by I ended up with sporks and tortillas in my hair and bit Bill Phelps on the dick at union pool) before it shuttered once again. I know this isn't very interesting to many people, but seeing a neighborhood like Williamsburg rapidly change is an odd and somewhat unnerving experience. I had brunch with both of my parents at the Williamsburg cafe, sitting below a wagon wheel that was suspended but what must have been velcro. My parents are divorced now. So there's that to think about.

The fish shack lost the cheesey tex mex vibe to install a more Latin feel. I'm not sure they pulled it off, but one thing is for sure: they serve fish. Fish tacos, fish ceviches, fish, fish fish. We went on a Sunday, With wife, other husband, other wife, and other husband's brother (other brother in law?) as I'm in the busy season and this is the only spare time I have. Our waitress suffered from news caster syndrome: the jarring switch from perfect English to perfectly pronounced Spanish when reciting the menu.

I made the mistake of trusting her to get me the best dish on the menu: which happened to be a fish stew that was comprised of everything about to spoil. It was good and hearty though. I had a bunch of margaritas so I'm not sure of anything else. Both wives said food was kind of bland, especially the crab tostada. But that white girl sure could say taquitos convincingly.

A little of this a little of that...

Hi there good people. Another one of those posts that has a bunch of restaurants that were okay:
Elephant and Castle: West Village
212.243.1200

Went here on a Friday night and were actually pretty psyched. I'm not sure what we had, I think a burger and some fish, but it was cute, quaint, understated and an overall pleasant experience. I'm also not sure why I jotted down the waiter thanked us, though if I had to guess it's because he probably thanked us for something. Which is odd, my expected comment from a waiter ranges from "go away" to "get the hell out."


Isle of Capris--Upper East Side
212.223.9430

Holy shit this place is a time warp. Multi-roomed, cheese-balled out, and authentically corny Iatlien, this is everything your Grandmother remembers about fancy places from yesteryear.

Only in New York would a place like this exist. For one the wiaters all wear cheesy bowties and vests that are covered in the thin film of three hundred shifts without a dryclean. They have a crazy olive jar Antipasto table set up right smack in the middle, and I'd say just about every guest there is over the age of 65.

This sort of authenticity really wears thin when you realize that every entree is at least thirty bucks. Some places should have closed years ago, like this one.


Tabare--Williamsburg
347.335.0187

Sick of the bar food at Walter's we decided to try this place just one block south on South 1st street. It's this little Argentine number opened a bit ago by two gay dudes who were there that night. Let me tell you, we were pretty psyched as at least 50% of the menu is a combination of meat and cheese.

I had the cheese empinadas and they were fantastic. Gooey, messy, and full of cholesterol and other things sure to kill me. Then I followed that up with the skirt steak bam, take that still-beating heart. Wifey wife wasn't as psyched on her steak sandwich. Anywho it wasn't a culinary epiphany, but comforty in a Latin sort of way; a decent place if you're in a pinch and can't get a seat at Rye or Walters.