Category Archives: Restaurants

Nov 17 2017
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American, Places to eat, Restaurants, Sandwiches, Technically not nut-free

Wogies

wogies

I like bright, open spaces. Lots of windows. Modern, minimalist decor—clean lines and simple shapes. I don’t like clutter. I don’t like congestion.  I don’t like to eat in the dark. I don’t like to eat in the loud. I don’t like yelling over music, and I certainly don’t like yelling over drunk people. (Basically, I don’t like restaurants From The People That Brought You Hollister.) And I hate kitsch, too: sports memorabilia, autographs, dream-catchers—whatever the breed, it probably offends me. Call me picky, or something worse. Fact is, I hate the vast majority of bars.

So it’s a little strange, I guess, that I can tolerate Wogies, a bar’d-out, sports’d up sports bar with two locations in lower Manhattan. It’s tight, and it’s dark, and it’s packed with flatscreens and Eagles fans—but the food’s all right, and some of it’s actually sort of good, and only one dish (a dessert) has nuts in it. Everything else is safe, including the bread, which is made in house, and which has virtually no chance of having come into contact with nuts of any sort. As you all probably already know, I’ll go just about anywhere for a safe sandwich. What’s a night at a nearby sports bar, then? And a sports bar with outdoor seating, at that—which means that with a little creative positioning, I hardly have to acknowledge I’m at Wogies at all.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with blocking out my surroundings in the name of good food. I’ll happily shut down my senses of sight and hearing (and annoyance, my ever-important sixth) and just double down on smell and taste for the evening, provided, of course, that the smells and tastes I’m signing up for can stand up to that sort of focus. But the situation at Wogies isn’t quite so simple. Their dishes—or those I’ve selected to try, at least—fall into three categories: the kinda-bad, the just-okay, and the actually-kinda-good. That last category’s definitely real enough to keep me coming back. But…I don’t know.

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Most of the menu is made up of sandwiches: a few Philly cheesesteaks, and bunch more “Wogies originals.” There are wings and sides, too, but since the cheesesteaks are clearly, you know, the point, I figured I’d start with those. So my first time at Wogies, I ordered their standard cheesesteak: “seasoned steak,” grilled onions, and provolone (which I chose over American and the unpardonable monster that is Cheez Whiz), all wedged into a homemade Wogies roll. But despite how ready I was to like that thing, I just couldn’t. The steak, though plenty soft in texture, tasted tough. No, I’m not sure how that’s possible. I’m not even sure what it means. I guess it was the seasoning—too strong, kind of funky. Beyond these, I don’t have the words. But I didn’t like it, and I couldn’t ignore it.

No big deal. I figured I’d just stay away from the more steak-forward sandwiches. But that didn’t quite solve the problem. The chicken cheesesteak—same as the standard, but with marinated chicken breast in place of seasoned steak—was effectively the same as the one made with beef. And the “pizza steak,” also the same as the standard, but smothered in marinara, and with mozzarella and parmesan instead of provolone, is disappointing as well. I prefer it to the cheesesteaks, but only because the marinara covers the flavor of the meat. Far from good, it’s intensely wet and soggy—and though that marinara’s doing the Lord’s work, it’s not like it’s particularly engaging, taste-wise. It’s flat and boring, and the sheer amount of it guarantees a one-note sandwich.

All that suffering, and then a realization: Wogies offers two kinds of beef—not for you to choose from, cheese-style, within a given sandwich, but across their selection of sandwiches, at least. There’s “seasoned steak,” which term the menu uses to refer to the grublike chunks of steak with the funky flavor I half-described above, and then there’s “house-seasoned chopped steak,” which evidently signifies something else entirely: not chunks, but strips—ribbons, even, layered side by side (by side, by side) to form one tender, textured whole, entirely without the funk of the chunks. To my delight, the sandwiches made with the chopped steak…are actually pretty good.

One of those sandwiches, the cheeseburger hoagie (just what the name implies: a roll stuffed with steak, bacon, cheddar, grilled onions, lettuce, and tomato), bears an absolutely remarkable resemblance to a cheeseburger in both taste and texture, and it’s all right, if it’s a take on a cheeseburger you’re after. There’s also the Fat Jimmy (chopped steak, American cheese, hot peppers, french fries, and chili—pictured at the top), which, though ridiculous, is a lot of fun to eat. The meat itself—remember: ribbons, not grubs—is good ‘n’ greasy, with a nice, simple beefy flavor. And the American, though not exactly my cheese of choice, is totally inoffensive. Plus, I recently renewed my (burning!) passion for chili-cheese fries, so of course I’m on board with throwing some on a sandwich.

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But while the Fat Jimmy is my current favorite, I’d love to see it usurped. Perhaps by the Oscar (chopped steak, bacon, peppers, grilled onions, a cheese of your choosing, and two eggs, either scrambled or over easy), or by Adrian’s Atomic Avalanche (chopped steak, American, pepperoni, hot peppers, fried mozzarella balls, and marinara), or even by the Chicken Tender Club (chicken tenders, bacon, American, chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, banana peppers, and ranch). Chopped steak, man. It’s gotten my hopes way back up.

Of course, Wogies sells more than just sandwiches. There’s garbage bread (above and above-above)—in the menu’s words, “homemade Italian bread stuffed with 3 different kinds of Italian meats and cheese”—which is great in theory, but so-so (and so goddamn salty!) in practice. And there are wings, too, which are solid, provided you stick to the ones that are sauced. (The garlic-parmesan wings are the ones in the photo below. They need sauce. Badly.)  I’m decidedly not a Buffalo person, so I haven’t tried those, but I do like the honey-mustard wings, despite the fact that the “mustard” itself is, uh, candy-sweet. “Touch of natural honey,” my ass—but Wogies’ mild, creamy ranch tempers the sweetness nicely.

But if you ask me, the sides—sorry, “extras”—are where the real fun happens. (I feel this way about almost every low- to mid-tier restaurant, though, so take that statement with a grain of salt.) Ooey-gooey deep-fried mozzarella balls; solid, friendly chicken fingers; fried pickles, usually not soggy; and fries, good fries, standard or waffle, with chili, cheese, or gravy. The promise of chili-cheese fries was actually what compelled me to contact Wogies in the first place. And though these didn’t end my search—they’re no Al’s chili-cheddar fries, that’s for sure—they’re not half bad. The gravy’d waffle fries are good, too, as is everything else I listed above. Sides, man. Way, way, way overpriced, but sort of irresistible, once you’ve got that menu in your hands. Oh well.

Garlic-parmesan wings from Wogies

That’s Wogies. Way too expensive to be as hit-or-miss as it is, but perversely enticing nonetheless. The Call of the Bread plays a part in this restaurant’s appeal, to be sure—but you and I both know that’s not all that keeps me orderin’. Maybe I’m a glutton for food-punishment. Maybe I’m just particularly prone to wiping underwhelming dishes from my memory. After a while, they sort of just fade away. “It wasn’t so bad,” I’ll start to tell myself And before I know it, I’m back.

That, or…I just really, really, really love going out to eat. The whole process: picking a restaurant, riding the train there, getting annoyed at all sorts of inconsequential things about the restaurant and/or the people in it, deciding what to order, waiting, grumbling about hunger, waiting, waiting, and then, best of all—yes, even better than all the chewing—that moment of inarticulable bliss that accompanies the realization that it’s not a false alarm, not this time; that the server, my server, who has nine times now walked straight past my table with an order I’ve mistaken for mine, is actually-finally-certainly approaching me, my table, not with napkins, or a pitcher, or a fun fact to share, but with whatever it is I’ve asked the kitchen to make…

Nah. It’s definitely the nut-free bread. (Which, by the way, might as well be store-bought. Totally mediocre.)

Find Wogies at 39 Greenwich Avenue, between Perry and Charles, and at 44 Trinity Place, between Rector and Edgar. I’ve only been to the former, but I can’t imagine there’d be much variation between the two.

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Nov 03 2017
4 Comments
Italian, Pizza, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

OTTO Enoteca e Pizzeria

Spaghetti alla carbonara from OTTO Pizzeria e Enoteca

I grew up haunted by the image of Mario Batali. My mom had a bunch of his cookbooks, all plastered with his image, which gave him—shorts, vest, orange Crocs, and all—quite the presence in our kitchen. My babysitter, who watched only local news and the Food Network, loved to watch him (and just about every other celebrity chef) on TV. And I, for my part, had my family touring the same high school as one of Batali’s sons, which was how my dad ended up badmouthing Batali’s “look” a mere two feet from a woman who turned out, yes, to be Batali’s wife.

Still, I never thought to look into any of his restaurants—until I stumbled upon this post from 2015, which suggests (nay, states outright) that OTTO is rather allergy-aware. Naturally, I sent the restaurant an email. Here’s the meat of the response I received:

There are pinenuts in our Eggplant Caponatina and in our Olive Oil Coppetta (which has a pignoli brittle but can easily be made without that topping). They are also sprinkled on top of our Caprese salad but that can also easily be made without the nuts. We serve walnuts in our Fregola & Stinging Nettle Pesto. We serve almonds in our Escarole & Sunchoke salad but the nuts can be removed from that dish as well. We are very practiced at dealing with allergies and take every precaution to avoid any cross-contamination so the foods that are prepared without nuts (which is the majority of the menu) are completely safe for those with nut allergies.

What an answer. Usually, positive responses take the form of a “yes, you’ll be fine here,” without any information about of whether or how the kitchen handles nuts. But this woman listed every dish I ought to watch out for, and she took a stab at explaining why the rest of the menu ought to be fine for me, too. Sure, “every precaution” is typical vaguebabble; but as a whole, her response was incredibly promising, both for its level of detail and its use of the sort of absolute language (e.g. “completely safe”) most restaurant personnel tend to shy away from. Usually, restaurants refuse to make guarantees, however informal. So when one does—especially in writing—it usually means that the staff is pretty confident in their ability to prevent cross-contamination. So I went ahead and booked a table.

OTTO's Cacio e Pepe pie

As for the restaurant itself, it’s a dark one, decorated only in the tones of sauce: reds, browns, and red-browns (in other words, there was nothing I could do about the way these photos were doomed to come out). It’s also enormous, and nearly always packed to the brim, and so nearly always astonishingly loud. On a bad night, it’s club-loud, with shrill voices yowling, screeching, shrieking to be heard over booming laughter, clinking glasses, and tables of wine-drunk 30-somethings who can’t seem to stop hooting, clapping, or—I swear this happened, and under 24 hours ago—chanting “drink, drink, drink!” (I’m not being a curmudgeon. I’m 21 years old. I like the loud and the lively. I’m one of the loud and the lively. But the back half of OTTO is, on occasion, exceedingly raucous.)

On a good night, you’ll luck into a table toward the front of the house, where OTTO seems to seat the majority of its don’t-need-to-be-banned-from-public-dining customers. Those nights, you’ll be able to get away with a half-yell—but it’s still too goddamn loud in there, no way around it. Fortunately, though, the food’s pretty good, and the prices are relatively low, and—oh, yeah—the servers know their allergens, and they don’t give me any flak when I ask them to double-check on the safety of my order. So half-yell I do. It’s a small price to pay.

Of the pasta dishes, I can’t really say I have a favorite. They’re different from one another, sure, but no one in particular has been better than any of the others I’ve tried, and they’ve all sort of blurred together in my mind. But I suppose the ones I’ve liked best have been the (seasonal) summer-truffle pasta, the bucatini alla gricia, and the spaghetti alla carbonara (pictured at the top). Truffles are truffles; it’s not as if they call for much evaluation. But I can say that the bucatini alla gricia, made with the most perfect guanciale, is particularly well-balanced, and that the carbonara—my go-to—is reliably good. Plus, it involves scallions, the greatest of the onions. I won’t say more.

OTTO's Fennel & Bottarga pizza from OTTO

As for pizzas, there are almost 20 on the menu—and though I, boring, have only tried a few, I can say with confidence that that most (if not all) are worth an order. The Bianca—not really a pizza, but a flatbread dressed with olive oil and sea salt—is as tasty as it is boring (that is to say, very), and the Otto Lardo—the same thing, but with a few slices of lardo on top—is even better. Salty, oily dough is great, especially when it’s got a chew like OTTO’s; throw some funky lardo on top and it becomes something that feels like a real food, too.

Of course, OTTO does do actual pizzas as well. Of those, I’m most drawn to the Fennel & Bottarga (pictured immediately above), which is made with fennel, bottarga, tomato, pecorino, and mozzarella. Normally, I hate fennel, but I can actually tolerate this variety. Though I will say: There sure is a lot of it, and very, very little bottarga. Still, it’s a fine pie. The crust—always crisp, never burnt—is better than your average, and the sauce is just as it should be: present, and savory, and acidic, but not the slightest bit overbearing. None of that sickly-sweet shit.

Anyway. I really like OTTO—and I’d probably like it even more if I hadn’t discovered it within mere days of finding Osteria Morini, where the pastas are so ridiculously good that they actually manage to hurt my feeling. But OTTO, though it’s nothing incredible, is certainly good enough to hold its own, and I have enough sense in me to (try to) override my bias and acknowledge that. The food isn’t life-changing, but it does make me happy. And the noise is tolerable, I guess. If you’re ready for it. Sometimes. Maybe.

Find OTTO at 1 5th Avenue, between 8th and Washington Mews. (Really, though, it’s on 8th, between 5th and University.) But bring earplugs, or noise-cancelling headphones, or a gaggle of your finest LoudBros. Just don’t bring a date—or at least not a date you’d actually want to, you know, hear or be heard by. I bring my parents. They seem to like it.

Best of luck.

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Aug 29 2017
3 Comments
Bagels, Bakeries, Chains, Guides, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Pizza, Places to eat, Restaurants, Sandwiches, Snacks, Sweets, Technically not nut-free, Truly nut-free

Nut-Free Chicago: A Travel “Guide”

Last month, I spent a week and a half in Chicago, where I did just about everything I do in NYC. I wandered aimlessly. I people watched. I browsed clothes I couldn’t afford. I watched way too many late-night Cops reruns. And to my surprise, I dined out a whole hell of a lot. Last time I ventured to Chicago, I subsisted on literally nothing but McDonald’s, Subway, pretzels, Cup Noodles, and water. But that was pre-blog. Now, I’m a practiced diner-outer, and I have a much harder time settling for such a repetitive and high-trash diet. It’s probably a good thing.

But before I got there, I didn’t expect to find all that much in the way of safe restaurants. It took me months to compile even the very beginnings of the NYC-specific list that’s now my pride and joy (half-serious about the whole pride-and-joy thing), so I didn’t expect to get all that much done Chicago-wise in the 10 days I’d have there. I figured I’d bark up a bunch of wrong trees, find maybe a restaurant or two, then resign myself to a week of fast food and Airbnb-home-cooking—but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Chicago’s not at all a difficult city to eat in, and with the help of a list compiled by the No Nuts Moms Group of Chicago, I ended up with plenty of options.

So here they are—all the non-chain restaurants I ate at, and some I called, but couldn’t make it to—in brief-ish (yeah, right), because we’ve all got things to do. And please, pardon the iPhone photos. I didn’t bring my camera.

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Jul 20 2017
10 Comments
Chains, Chinese, Guides, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

A Guide to Nut-Free Chinese Restaurants in NYC

At this point, I’m basically a broken record: “Nut-free Chinese food is hard to find.” “Nut-free Chinese food is hard to find.” “Nut-free Chinese food is hard to find.” Yeah, we get it—and anyway, if you’ve found yet another occasion to start off yet another post with yet another iteration of that fresh and shocking information, doesn’t that just mean you’ve found yet another nut-free Chinese restaurant to write about, thereby throwing yet another point of evidence out there that sort of, you know, contradicts whatever it is you’re trying to say…? Um, yes, Italics Voice. Yes. I’m repetitive, and the repetition is in itself actually sort of paradoxical, which is why I’ve decided to drop the shtick altogether and put together a guide whose very existence implies that nut-free Chinese food is both hard and easy to find. Because really, it’s both.

So. Here’s my one and only truly original contribution to this world: a list of all of the tree nut–free Chinese restaurants I’ve found—so far, because if putting this guide together has taught me anything, it’s taught me that there are undoubtedly many, many more where these restaurants came from. You’re welcome.

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Jun 24 2017
3 Comments
Italian, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

Osteria Morini

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I didn’t used to be such a stranger to Italian food. I grew up with Italian home cooking, and when I was a kid, my parents and I went out for ridiculously good Italian more than we did anything else. But these days, things are different: I don’t have a single Italian restaurant I’m comfortable eating at, and I’m not eating my mom’s cooking any more than once or twice a month. I cook the occasional pasta dish, sure—but I don’t do it well. All told, then, I hardly eat the stuff. Shit sucks. Or it did, at least.

Until a few weeks ago, when a reader sent me an email about Altamarea Group, the insanely allergy-aware hospitality company owned by Wisconsin-born pasta legend Michael White. Altamarea has a bunch of restaurants, and each and every one is as allergy-friendly as, say, Blue Smoke—but most are far more nut-filled than I’m used to, and they’re pretty far out of my price range, too. Still, I wanted to give one a try. And after some stressing, I ended up with Morini, purely because its menu is a little less nutty than the others, and, well, because it’s among the cheapest of the bunch.

Now. Trying new restaurants is always nerve-racking, even when they’re virtually nut-free. Add some nuts to the menu and I’m guaranteed to be an actual basket case for at least the duration of my first three meals. But not at Morini. The first time I went, I was nervous, sure. But their shit is so together that not even I, Queen Anxiety, was able to find much to stress about. The servers seem to know every ingredient in every dish, and they’re unusually forthcoming about what might have had a chance to get cross-contaminated, too. They’re happy to relay allergy-related messages to the kitchen, and whoever’s back there cooking is great about sending servers out to double-check on whether you’re good with this, that, or the other ingredient, too.

The garganelli from Osteria Morini

Eating at Morini, then, is totally painless. But it does require a lot more care and consideration than a meal at the average Nut-Free New York restaurant. That’s not to say a Morini meal isn’t worth that extra effort—it is, but you ought to know what you’re getting into, and you shouldn’t get into it if you aren’t comfortable with thinking and trying. I can’t recap all of Morini’s allergen information; it’s too complex, and it changes too often. Rather, determining what’s safe for you is a job for you, your server, and the chef. It’s not a hard job, but it’s a job nonetheless, and if you have food allergies, you ought to go in with that in mind. (Of course, it’s your server who’ll be doing most of the work. And that’s a good thing, because Morini’s are fucking all-stars. Some are more openly and obviously proactive than others, but it seems that absolutely all of them at least do what’s necessary behind the scenes.)

Asking questions helps (“Is this bread made in house?” “Are the prosciutto and the mortadella cut on the same slicer?”), but one of the best things about Morini is the fact that you can expect to be taken care of and looked out for even if you don’t take on the role of hyper-cautious investigator. There’s no way you could ever expect to know all the right questions to ask, anyway—but that’s all right, because Morini’s staff is so allergy-aware that you won’t have to do any legwork. You can—and if you do, they won’t make you feel bad about your million-and-a-half questions, nor will they give you any trouble whatsoever about double-checking on the specifics of a piece of bread (or whatever)—but you won’t end up dead on the floor if all you offer is a quick “I’m allergic to tree nuts and need my meal to be free from even trace amounts, please.”

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But onto the food itself, which is no doubt the real best thing about the place. My first time, I started with the burrata, and it was everything I was hoping for. I ditched the elsewhere-made bread it’s usually served with, and the crispy prosciutto, too (as it’s sliced on a cutting board that’s shared with something or other that contains walnuts), but I was able to eat the cheese itself and the strawberries it comes with, and…well, it was burrata. What’s there to say? It was creamy. Really creamy. Entirely perfect.

Next, I moved onto the garganelli—”pasta quills, cream, peas, truffle butter, prosciutto,” but without the prosciutto—which is pictured second above, though under some really abysmal lighting. For real, though: That shit was good. The quills were perfectly al dente; the truffle butter was plenty truffle-y, but not the slightest bit overbearing; and the peas were flavorful enough to keep me from even remembering the fact that the dish was meant to be topped with prosciutto. Really, the sauce was so good that I had a hard time keeping myself from licking the plate clean—so while I’d initially been a little worried that the dish would be just a little too simple, I’m happy to report that it’s, uh…not.

That night, I also tried Sam’s torcia—”squid ink pasta, seppia & shrimp ragù,” pictured (in daylight!) at the top of this post—and to my delight, it was just as good. Because our server went out of his way to tell us that he couldn’t guarantee the usual breadcrumb topping would be entirely free from cross-contamination, we decided to forego it altogether, but it didn’t matter, because the dish was absurdly satisfying, texture-wise. And the sauce has a depth to it that I really wasn’t expecting. It looks one-note tomatoey, and it smells sort of one-note tomatoey, but it tastes like so much more than just tomato. I can’t say just what it’s like—I’m hopeless at these sorts of things, unfortunately—but I can say that it’s lovely, and that it’s secured the torcia’s status as one of my top recommendations.

Osteria Morini's raviolo

The tagliatelle, served with bolognese and parmesan (and pictured third), is great, too. The texture of the pasta is spot-on, and the flavor of the bolognese is, too. Is this dish as exciting as some of the others? No, definitely not. It’s just tagliatelle and bolognese, sans any luxed-up add-ins. But! It’s a perfect execution of tagliatelle and bolognese, and sometimes, that’s just what I want. Will it ever become my go-to Morini order? Probably not. But will I insist on keeping it in my rotation? Take a wild guess.

I’m also in love with the raviolo (immediately above), a brunch special served with black trumpet mushrooms and filled with a pea-tasting ricotta stuffing and—!!!—a beautiful, undisturbed egg yolk. I’ve been lusting after something like this ever since I watched Anne Burrell attempt to teach her team to make raviolo al uovo on Worst Cooks in America—it was quite the episode, let me tell you—but I was finally starting to come to terms with the fact that there didn’t seem to be any way I’d ever manage to find an allergy-friendly version. By the time I discovered this dish, though, Morini had already changed my game in about half a million ways. So I guess I should’ve expected this. But I didn’t.

Anyway, it’s fantastic. The black trumpet mushrooms taste more like chicken skins than mushrooms—a good thing, don’t worry—and the raviolo itself is out-of-this-world delicious. The skin (does anyone call it that?) is paper-thin; the pea-ricotta filling is subtle, but decidedly present; the egg yolk, should you find it in yourself to not slurp it up in a single bite, pairs beautifully with the rest of the dish; and the whole thing is doused with some good-ass olive oil that does plenty to liven it all up. It’s a small dish, and certainly not the one you’d want to choose if you’re feeling particularly ravenous—but it’s so delicate, so refined, so goddamn good that I can’t help but deem it worthwhile in its own right.

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Every single one of Michael White’s pasta dishes is excellent, though. You won’t need my opinions (or anyone else’s, for that matter) to steer you in the right direction, because there is no right direction. Choose any of the 12 pastas on Morini’s menu—or any of their daily specials, which are just as good—and you’re sure to be fine. More than fine. But do be sure to pick a pasta (or set of pastas, sharing encouraged), because they’re obviously Morini’s strong suit. All the rest you’d expect is available, too—cured meats, cheese platters, salads, seafood, all sorts of meat dishes, and a bunch of other stuff, too—but it’s the pastas (and perhaps only the pastas) that are really, truly worth a special trip.

They so are, though. Worth the special trip, I mean. And on Sunday and Monday evenings, after 9pm, Morini offers them for $12 each, which is absolutely not a deal you want to pass up. (Otherwise, they’ll run you $25-ish each, which is quite a bit, I suppose, given the sizes of the portions.) That said, it’s a little tough to get a reservation during those golden hours—I like to book my Pasta Nights a few weeks in advance, so I don’t end up getting stuck with, like, the 10:45 slot—but those $12 plates are well worth the effort, especially if you can bring a friend or six to swap bites with.

Morini, in general, is well worth the effort. I mentioned that it’s a little extra work, and it is—but the food’s so much fun, and the staff really does make the whole discussing-and-communicating thing as painless as possible. So they serve a bunch of food I can’t eat, sure. It gets crowded-ish in there, and loud-ish, and reservations sometimes require some foresight, especially when there’s discounted pasta at play. The meals aren’t cheap—but they are for an Altamarea restaurant, and prices aren’t unreasonable, given the quality of the food. And as for those other quasi-complaints…

I’m telling you. Worth it.

Find it at 218 Lafayette Street, between Spring and Kenmare. (Or in Washington, D.C., or in Bernardsville, New Jersey.)

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Jun 18 2017
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Chains, Japanese, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

KazuNori

A crab hand roll from KazuNori

Here we go again. But not really. I’ll behave this time. Promise.

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know that I have high standards for sushi. You’ll also know that Sugarfish—which Pete Wells quietly lambasted in March, and which I very noisily lambasted a few weeks prior—doesn’t come close to making my cut. Why, then, have I so willingly chosen to dine at its hand roll–hawking cousin? There are, I suppose, many reasons: I’m forgiving. I’m hopeful. I believe in the power of low expectations. I can’t afford better Japanese. I like to trash bad restaurants on my blog. Oh, and Sugarfish’s hand rolls, made up mainly of their top-tier sushi rice, were by far the best thing about the place.

Like Sugarfish’s, KazuNori’s kitchen is entirely nut-free—as it ought to be, because it churns out nothing but hand rolls. Also like Sugarfish, KazuNori doesn’t take reservations. To get a spot at the counter at an unridiculous mealtime hour, you’ll have to play it smart: stop by early to case the joint, and be prepared to wait in line, though probably not for anywhere near as long as you’d have to wait for Sugarfish. (The first time I went to Sugarfish, their waitlist was full, so I rerouted to Sushi on Jones. The second time—the time I actually made it to a table—I waited 3 hours. Last Saturday night, though, I was seated at KazuNori within minutes of walking in. So that’s something, I guess.)

KazuNori's interior

For all intents and purposes, KazuNori is Sugarfish Lite. The two restaurants fall into the same price range, and their hand rolls are virtually identical. Nearly everything else about the two places lines up, too. KazuNori’s ambiance is basically a more casual version of Sugarfish’s: loud-ish, dark-ish, and desperate to be cool-ish. Of course, neither restaurant is actually all that cool, and both are perpetually filled with goofs in the habit of doing terrible things to their servings of fish—but I’ll leave that one alone for today. Still, both restaurants are wasabi-averse; both restaurants seem to have some sort of ideological problem with flavorful fish; and both restaurants are insurmountably disappointing.

Still, KazuNori is by far the better establishment—and by the end of this point, I might actually end up recommending it, if only through gritted teeth and after issuing a boatload of disclaimers.

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Anyway. For my KazuNori meal, I went with the largest of the set tastings. (To my enormous relief, the words “Trust Me” don’t appear anywhere on KazuNori’s menu.) That got me six hand rolls—toro, yellowtail-scallion, salmon, bay scallop, crab, and lobster—for $28, or around $4.50 per roll. Reasonable, I thought. Especially given the fact that it would’ve cost me a total of $38 to order those same six rolls à la carte. An easy decision. So I pencilled in my order—no, there are no waitstaff—and got to looking around.

Pictured immediately above is KazuNori’s roll-prep area. (They might have more than one. I’m not sure. That was the one I sat by.) You’ll note that it doesn’t look like something a restaurant-restaurant would want to put on display, but rather like those funky vats of fast-casual glop you’ve probably seen at places like Chipotle or Uma Temakeria. And while I really don’t have any problem with seeing (or eating) fast-casual glop at, you know, a fast-casual restaurant, you’d better believe I have a hell of a problem with it at what’s supposed to be a nice-ish place.

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Still, the rolls themselves are perfectly executed, and only some of the fish within actually tastes like fast-casual glop. The toro, literally flavorless, just isn’t passable as toro, and the yellowtail, marginally tastier, only makes for a decent roll because of the scallions that accompany it. Salmon (above, top left) is all right—it’s moderately flavorful, and unlike the toro and the yellowtail, it isn’t fucking minced—and blue crab (above, bottom left), though too sweet and too heavy on the mayo, is fine, too. Lobster (above, bottom left) is good, but would be much better in chunks than in shreds. But it’s bay scallop, of all things, that’s best, by far.

I don’t know what it is, but that scallop is damn good. Unlike the rest of the Nozawa Group’s various offerings, it’s actually interesting, flavor-wise. Present in actual fish-like chunks, KazuNori’s bay scallop is actually sort of perfect: subtly sweet, pleasantly thick, and covered with just enough mayo-coating to keep things moving. For the first time, I’m not mad at a Nozawa creation. In fact, I seriously considered ordering another. (I held my horses, though. There was no forgetting where—or who—I was.)

So. Is KazuNori a great restaurant? A good restaurant? A restaurant anyone who knows his fish might walk away from satisfied? No! But the prices are low. The nori is crisp, the rice warm. The fake wasabi is avoidable, and from here, the lines appear manageable. There’s less hype, less praise to rage against. The menu’s smaller, so there’s less to object to. No waitstaff, no mention of a “Trust Me”—just the palatable concept of a set tasting. And on the whole, patrons are about three iotas less clueless than their Sugarfish-eating counterparts. It helps.

KazuNori is an option. I’ll give it that.

Find it at 15 West 28th Street, between Broadway and 5th.

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Jun 06 2017
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Chains, Japanese, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

TsuruTonTan Udon Noodle Brasserie

A bowl of US wagyu shabu udon from TsuruTonTan

Every summer, I have to impose a moratorium on broth, and every summer, I’m sad about it. Right now, it’s 87 degrees outside. There’s no wind. Humidity’s at about a million percent. This morning, I took a cold shower. Now, I’m sitting two feet from the air conditioner. I’m still sweating. So for the foreseeable future, at least: fuck soup. Barneys, Ganso, Kung Fu, Sao Mai—for the next three months, I don’t care. I can’t care. I’m hot. Get away.

TsuruTonTan, though, is exempt. Maybe because my obsession with the place is still in its infancy, or maybe because the space itself is relatively large and dim and cool, or maybe because Tsuru’s cold dishes are just as good (if not better) than the hot ones. I don’t know, man. All I can say is that this place is (a) nut-free, and (b) home of some of the absolute best udon in the city. It’s only natural, then, that I can’t seem to stay away—even in this heat.

Located in the space that once housed the old Union Square Café, TsuruTonTan is the first American location of a Japanese mini-chain. And normally, I wouldn’t care about that—in fact, I’m usually rather skeptical when elsewhere-only chains open outposts in NYC—but Tsuru is no L.A. transplant. This is a real-deal Japanese restaurant, with ingredients flown in from Japan and noodles made fresh, by hand, every single day. The only concession to us Americans is the back of the menu, where you’ll find a whole bunch of flashy, buzzy, udon-unrelated Japanese-restaurant fare. But as concessions go, that’s hardly one to complain about.

A negi-toro roll from TsuruTonTan

It’s a trendy restaurant, but it’s a nice one, too. Inside, it’s dark and loud. Everyone’s young and hip and chatty. The amusical music of consumption—pounding, plodding Club Music Lite, the kind you’ll hear at H&M and Barneys alike, and the kind you probably associate with all sorts of spending—poses a threat to conversation, but isn’t quite overwhelming. It’s loud, but it’s fine. And the decor, though a little too similar to Gap’s, is actually rather nice. If the food were worse, Tsuru’s ambiance might come off differently. But it isn’t, so it doesn’t. (Yes, it’s that simple.)

Still, some sections of Tsuru’s menu are much stronger than others. The udon’s the clear winner, of course—but I maintain that there’s some good stuff on the rest of the menu, too. In his review of the restaurant, love of my life Pete Wells writes:

Rather than describing each [of Tsuru’s non-udon dishes] individually, I’ll share a handy method I came up with for dealing with all of them at once. Unfold the menu and place it on the table so that you see the noodle dishes. The reverse side, with the appetizers and donburi, will be face down. Now, never turn the menu over. If you have accidentally learned the name of a dish printed there, don’t say it out loud.

And he’s not wrong. (He’s never wrong, that Pete Wells.) I’ve done my fair share of dabbling, but I’ve yet to come across anything special. The uni-and-wagyu sushi is good, but not $22-for-two-pieces good. And both the salmon-and-ikura roll and the salmon-and-ikura don are on the boring side, even given my ardent love of both salmon and ikura.

Pork katsu over rice from TsuruTonTan

I will say, though, that I love the negi-toro roll (second above). Strictly speaking, it’s a special, not a back-of-the-menu offering—and while the toro itself isn’t the most flavorful, there’s something about the roll as a whole that I really, really like. I’m also pretty into the katsu don (immediately above). The rice is perfect; there are plenty of scallions; the pork’s nice and tender; and the egg, though sweet, isn’t at all overwhelming. If it’s between the katsu don and an order of udon, going with the katsu would be a mistake. But if you’re at Tsuru with a share-happy group, or you’re into competitive eating, or you’re on a date with your particularly voracious boyfriend? Go for it.

Enough odds and ends, though. Let’s talk noodles. Tsuru offers two types: thin (below), recommended for the cold preparations, and thick (top of this post), recommended for the hot ones. The thick noodles are exactly as they should be—soft and sort of fluffy, yet strong enough to hold their form—but it’s the thin ones that are worth a special trip. They’re so dense, so springy, so resilient; truly, I’ve never eaten a thin noodle quite like these. (I’ve never eaten any noodle quite like these, but their thinness makes their textural feats all the more impressive.) Just the other day, my dad described them as “fascinating,” and he’s right—they are. I’ve reached the end of my descriptive rope, though. You’ll have to see for yourself.

A bowl of uni udon from TsuruTonTan

As for the question of what you should order, I can’t claim to know the answer. All I know is this: of all Tsuru’s noodled offerings—the soups, the curries, the crèmes, everything—I have two decided favorites: the uni udon, pictured immediately above, and the wagyu shabu udon, pictured at the top of this post. The former, though the uni itself is a wee bit hit-or-miss, is an incredible dish. It’s perfect for summer—sweet, wet (almost juicy, even), and cold—and the sliminess of the uni is the perfect complement for the firmness of the noodles. When it’s a little colder out, though, I sometimes have to ditch this ditch in favor of the wagyu shabu udon, whose wagyu tastes like butter and whose broth has a depth of flavor unlike any other I’ve tasted. Seriously: As broths go, this one’s particularly compelling.

There are, of course, other good dishes. The unprecedentedly rich uni crème udon is lovely. The duck udon is about 80% as good as the wagyu shabu—which is to say that it’s pretty damn good indeed. The ikura oroshi udon, though a bit too sweet (and a bit too reliant on some underwhelming ikura), is fine overall. But you know what? Order what sounds best to you. I’m sure it’ll be great.

Find TsuruTonTan at 21 East 16th Street, between 5th Avenue and Union Square West.

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Apr 07 2017
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Places to eat, Puerto Rican, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

Casa Adela

Mofongo with pernil asado and chicharrón from Casa Adela

I’ve been doing a lot of food-exploring. Last month, I ate at my first Nigerian restaurant, and I’ve recently (read: finally) gotten in on halal carts, too. Bone broth, Mediterranean, arepas, Vietnamese—truly, I’m on a roll. What tends to happen, actually, is I get interested in introducing (or reintroducing) myself to a whole category of food by way of a single restaurant I’ve found and enjoyed—tacos via Otto’s, Jewish deli food via Essen, Chinese via Nom Wah—and from there, it’s a whole lot of Googling, menu-reading, and restaurant-calling. Right now, the category I’m into is the relatively general one of new (to me) cuisines, hence all my recent personal discoveries, and hence this very post on Casa Adela, a homey, unassuming Puerto Rican restaurant that I’ve really, really grown to love.

Now, I’ve no Puerto Rican grandmother, which works out to mean that I have no standard I can use to assess Adela’s food. (I say this not because I think grandmothers are the only chefs out there—though Adela Ferguson is indeed a grandmother—but because almost all the Casa Adela reviews I’ve read rely specifically on someone’s grandmother’s cooking the standard for comparison.) Beyond being grandmother-less, I’d never even had Puerto Rican food before digging into Adela’s. I know virtually nothing about it, so I can’t really claim any authority in evaluating this stuff. Still, I do know what tastes good—to me, yes—so it’s on that basis that I’ll be trying to get through this post. You’ve been disclaimered.

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Let’s take a half-step backwards, though, to discuss allergen information. The situation at Adela is relatively simple: There are no nuts in any of the food, and with the exception of one thing (the bread, which one particularly helpful employee advised me, out of an abundance of caution, to avoid), there’s nothing on the menu that sets off my high-risk-ingredient alarm, either. So while I don’t eat Adela’s sandwiches, I’m certainly comfortable with the rest of their menu. (I’ve stated this all pretty simply, but the process of getting all this information straight was not a simple one. The folks at Casa Adela clearly aren’t used to questions about allergens—that, and I ought to learn some more Spanish.)

As for the rest of that menu, I (of course) have a few favorites. First, the mofongo (pictured at the top of this post), a classic Puerto Rican dish that’s essentially a warm, dense pile of mashed plantains, oil, garlic, and often chicharrón (pork cracklings), too. It shares a common ancestor with African fufu, and typically, it’s served with a chicken-broth soup or a side of braised meat.

Again, I don’t (yet?) have any idea how Adela’s mofongo stands up to the competition’s, but I do know that I happen to like it a whole lot. It varies by the day—sometimes, there’s roast pork worked in; sometimes, it’s missing the chicharrón—but those variations are likely just a result of the place’s homey-ness. At Adela, a meal is a rather personal experience, and one cook is going to prepare your mofongo differently from another, and I’ve found it best to just accept what comes. (One server once asked me whether I wanted the mofongo as she makes it, “with skin,”—to which I answered “yes,” of course. She came back at the end of my meal to ask whether I’d liked what she’d done. Another resounding “yes.” Pictured immediately below is her [enormous!] version.)

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What doesn’t vary much, though, is the overall quality. (Unless you’ve waited too long to eat,) the plantains are never dry, and there’s a good amount of garlic involved, too. When there’s pork worked in, it’s always welcome, and the embedded chicharrón is a real treat, too. I like to order the mofongo with a side of pernil asado (that’s moist, tender, fatty roast pork—pictured second above), but it’s not as if the mofongo needs a partner. It stands up on its own, and (obviously) I love it dearly. (That said, I always order the version that comes with the pernil asado. I just like food, I think.)

The dish Casa Adela is best known for, though, is probably the rotisserie chicken (pictured immediately below)—and for good reason, too, because it’s pretty damn good. For whatever it’s worth, rotisserie chicken is something I’ve had before, and while Adela’s isn’t the best I’ve ever had, I’m confident in my belief that it’s (at the very least) good, as far as rotisserie chicken goes. Really, it has it all it’s meant to have: flavorful skin, juicy meat—you get the point.

chicken

The only downside, really, is that Casa Adela is almost always out of the rotisserie by the time I’ve gotten myself over to Avenue C for dinner. I’ve been to Adela quite a few times, but I’ve only been able to try the chicken twice. Still, it’s tasty—and there’s other stuff on the menu, too. (Usually, when they’re out of the rotisserie, I’ll get the chicken cracklings or the entrée-size pernil asado. The chicken cracklings are boring, though, and the pernil asado is a little redundant, seeing as there’s pernil asado in the mofongo I always insist on ordering. It’d perhaps help if I could eat the sandwiches.

And of course, the rice and beans are good, too. I’m always a fan of white rice, so that stuff’s a shoo-in—and per my first-ever server’s recommendation, I like to order the red beans, which have never once let me down. It’s a small portion (especially if you, like I, are attempting to share), but these beans are nonetheless rather satisfying, and they break up the meal’s other flavors nicely, too. (Generally, I don’t really like beans. But I do like these, which leads me to believe that they’re either so terrible as to be entirely un-bean-like, or they’re just normal beans that are tasty enough to have gotten through to me. It’s almost definitely the latter.)

Anyway. Clearly, I’m a Casa Adela fan, and clearly, I’m very glad to have found it. There’s just something about the place that feels like home…and since Casa Adela resembles my home in a grand total of approximately zero ways, I’ve no choice but to attribute that sensation to some sort of magic.

…Well, that and the quality of the food. I do like to chew on tasty things, after all.

Find Casa Adela at 66 Avenue C, between 4th and 5th Streets. Be prepared to walk a ways from the train, though—and consider showing up on the early side (as in: not an hour or two before closing) if it’s the rotisserie chicken you’re after. Also, bring cash.

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Mar 27 2017
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Japanese, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

Tomoe Sushi

The Sashimi Deluxe from

Hi. Here’s a list of things I need to chill about:

Thinx ads. “Brinner.” People who brag about the fact that they “don’t read.” The Odyssey Online. Bob’s Discount Furniture. Feral food-allergy mothers. Fuller House. Students who interrupt class to ask questions for the sole purpose of getting attention. Sugarfish. Shitty writing, and especially poor grammar/usage. Black Mirror. Average-size people who take up multiple seats on the subway. Ketchup. Restaurants with stupid dish names. Steaks and burgers cooked past medium-rare. Calibri (the typeface). Nestlé’s discontinuation of Butterfinger BB’s. People who don’t like things I like. People who like things I don’t like. And high opinions of sub-par sushi.

I haven’t yet chilled, though. (I’m told it comes with age.) So right now, I’m still all lathered up and sudsy over my experience at Tomoe, not because the food was terrible—it wasn’t quite—but because of all the hype that surrounds this place. Few things (and zero in the world of food) piss me off as much as excessive praise and/or hype in response to undeserving fish, and…well, I’ll bet we can all guess where this is going.

Tomoe has lots of good reviews and a perpetual line out the door. Most often praised by Yelpers: the freshness of the fish, the size of the pieces, the low prices, and the restaurant’s “authenticity.” Normally, I’d wait to the end of the write-up to get into all this, but Tomoe has me feeling all sorts of scrambled, so…

Is the fish fresh? Uh, yeah, I guess so. It doesn’t taste particularly fresh—what would that even mean?—but it doesn’t come off as old or spoiled or recently defrosted or whatever. (Congrats, Tomoe.) Are the pieces large? Yes. Outrageously so. But whether that’s a good or a bad thing is another question entirely. Are the prices low? Low-ish for sushi, especially given the portion sizes. But really, Tomoe’s prices are on par with those of your average low- to mid-tier sushi joints. Nothing to stand in line for. Is the restaurant authentic? Authentic via resemblance to what…? Sushi as it’s served in Japan? Um, no. Sushi as it’s served in select American(ized) restaurants, to hordes of open-mouthed “sushi”-lovers? Yes! Yes, indeed!

Salmon ceviche from Tomoe Sushi

It wasn’t as if any of these revelations were all that surprising. Despite the crowds, and even from a distance, Tomoe’s mediocrity is glaringly obvious. So why’d I go? Well, aside from the fact that there are no tree nuts used in any of Tomoe’s food—and that’s a big fact, no doubt—I guess I’m just a glutton for bad-sushi punishment. And that’s not even just so I can hate on the food later. (Wish I could say it were that simple, but it isn’t. I actually have no idea why I so like to subject myself to bad sushi. But I do.)

Anyway. Time to do my thing.

I’ve only been to Tomoe once. That night, I (and Sam) ordered three appetizers—the salmon ceviche, the sake kama (“grilled salmon neck”), and the assorted tempura—as well as the pre-set Sashimi Deluxe and some à-la-carte sushi, too. I’ll just go in order, I guess.

The salmon “ceviche” (pictured immediately above) wasn’t quite ceviche, but I loved it regardless. The fish itself was good—buttery, almost—and the lemony, herby marinade did wonders for it, too. Granted, the plating was a little off-putting, but who cares? This stuff tasted good, and it actually managed to get my hopes up for what was to come. The other two appetizers, though, were about as bad as they could’ve been. The salmon collar (below, left) was hardly a salmon collar—more an un-sauced piece of salmon teriyaki—and it had no flavor whatsoever, either. And the tempura assortment (below, right) was a disaster. The shrimp itself was fine, but the batter wasn’t even a little crispy; and the sweet potato was dry and bland, while the broccoli just tasted off.

The sake kama and the assorted tempura from Tomoe Sushi

Still, the “ceviche”—the only raw fish I’d eaten—had me half-expecting some decent sushi. (It wasn’t as if I’d started to expect anything crazy, but I wasn’t expecting grocery store–level slop, either.) So: Hopes half-high, Sam and I ordered a negi-toro roll, a few pieces of sushi, and the 16-piece Sashimi Deluxe, too. And while not a single piece was particularly good, not one was straight-up awful, either.

The sushi came out first—two squid, two salmon, two ikura—and it was boring as could be. The salmon was all right, and the squid had nice texture to it, but the toro in the roll had no flavor of its own, and the scallions were the only thing that kept me taking bites. (Also, look at the photo right below this paragraph, and then tell me: Have you ever seen such an unkempt roll? I wouldn’t have cared if it’d tasted good, but, well…you know.) In general, the rice was about as good as the fish, and the (fake!) wasabi did nothing for me.

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And then came the Sashimi Deluxe, that hulking presence at the very top of this post. I couldn’t identify everything on the plate, and Tomoe’s servers aren’t the sort to give you the run-down, but I do know that we got some lean tuna, some chutoro, some negi-toro, some squid topped with spicy cod roe, some salmon, some scallop, some shrimp, some octopus, and some yellowtail. (There were maybe four other pieces that I couldn’t identify, too. It was a big dish.)

Again, the salmon was passable, as were the squid and the yellowtail, and the whitefish I couldn’t identify, too. The lean tuna was all right; the chutoro was pretty good; the negi-toro, jam-packed as it was with what really was insane amount of scallions, was probably my favorite thing on the plate. The scallop was bad. The shrimp was bad. The octopus was bad, as was whatever was next to it. That fin-like thing in near the center of the plate was…bad. And nearly every single piece of fish on the plate was way too big.

Seriously. What am I supposed to with a quarter-pound hunk of salmon? As I see it, I had four options: (1) attempt to force each GiantFish into my mouth and then suffer—truly, suffer—until I’ve tongue-wrestled it down my throat; (2) attempt to bite each over-sized piece in two, then act surprised when not one will split as I’d wanted it to; (3) take a chopstick in each hand and attempt, like a yahoo, to slice each piece into some more reasonably sized chunks; or (4) ask, like a yahoo, for a fork and knife before getting into an even worse sort of slicing.

None of those options are viable. #1 was disastrous—too much fish in the mouth at once turns sickening rather quickly, and I’m sure my behavior was pretty nauseating to those around me, too—but #2 was no better, because those pieces just weren’t bite-able. If I’d taken up #3 (the Poise-‘n’-Slice, as it’s called in the biz), I would’ve had to then apply the same method to my throat, and if it doesn’t go without saying, #4 just wasn’t on the table.

Why am I going into all this detail? So that it’ll be absolutely clear how little of a selling point these “generous” cuts of fish are. It’s a gimmick, and it’s a shitty one, too. The jumbo pieces just make the meal infinitely less pleasant, both because they’re too fucking jumbo to work with, and because that jumbo-ness makes each already-mediocre piece even less of a commodity, and thus even less enjoyable. Isn’t one of the best parts of good sushi the fact that there’s never really too much of it? Aside from the fact that the fish is ostensibly mind-numbingly, mouth-meltingly good, I mean. The portions are small; the fish is scarce. You savor what little you do have.

…Not so at Tomoe, though. Didn’t you get the memo? Less isn’t more—more is! After all, this is America, and something ought to be distracting me from the looming fact of my eventual death and decay. And what better than a plate piled high with mammoth hunks of fish?

Find Tomoe at 172 Thompson Street, between Houston and Bleecker. But be prepared to wait outside, to overhear some stupid shit, and to pay with either cash or American Express. Best of luck to you.

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Mar 17 2017
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Korean, Places to eat, Restaurants, Technically not nut-free

Dō Hwa

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A while-while back, I complained that it’d been far too long since I’d “gorged myself on Korean barbecue” before launching into a write-up of Gunbae, a nut-free (but rather disappointing) KBBQ spot that’s kinda-sorta in my neighborhood. I gave Gunbae two shots before giving up on it entirely—and then I sort of forgot about KBBQ for a while. That is, until Dō Hwa reappeared on my radar.

I’ve mentioned before that I used to be a lot less careful. I’d eat whatever from wherever, and when I had the occasional reaction, I’d usually just shut my mouth and deal with it. But allergic reactions are horrifying, and the anxiety that comes with the threat of one (to me, an Anxious) is even worse. I mean, how can you enjoy a meal if you’re spending the whole time hyper-aware of each and every sensation that might almost feel something like a swelling lip or an itchy mouth? It’s an appetite-killer.

So—long, long, long story short—I’m more careful now. And while that’s undoubtedly a good thing, it’s left me in the rather strange situation of having all these ex-lover restaurants that I used to adore but that I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable eating at today. In fact, the vast majority of the restaurants I liked as a (younger) kid don’t make today’s comfort-cut.

But! Dō Hwa does. There are indeed (pine) nuts on the menu, but they’re only used as a garnish on one of the salads, and I’ve been told (by more than one super-helpful, super-friendly, super-competent Dō Hwa employee) that those pine nuts shouldn’t really have any chance to come into accidental contact with anything else in the kitchen. So that’s a “100% comfortable” from me, then. [As for peanuts, though—which, again, I’m not allergic to—Dō Hwa does sometimes use them in one of their side dishes (the anchovies), so do beware.]

A plate of

The first time I went (back), I ended up at a grill-less table, which sucked approximately 93% of the fun out of the Dō Hwa experience. I mean, picture it: You’re stuck at your sorry, fire-unequipped table for two. You’ve no flames to play with, no raw meat to undercook. Without so little to do, you can’t help but glance at the grill-manning parties around you. Parties, indeed—everyone’s got heaps of raw meat; everyone’s poking and prodding at a grill; everyone’s plopping piece after piece of searing-hot BBQ onto leaf after leaf of lettuce. They are having fun. You are looking on. Grillers point their tongs and laugh, their mouths full of half-chewed bulgogi. It’s just like grade school.

Fortunately, you can ensure a grill-equipped table. Just let whoever’s taking your reservation know you’re absolutely, positively about that DIY life—not in those words, please—and you’ll be good to go. (But do be sure to speak up if it’s a grill-equipped table you’re after. The guy who took my first reservation didn’t ask, and I’d just assumed that Dō Hwa didn’t have any grill-less tables. Wrong I was, though.)

Anyway. Before I get to the real fun, I should probably spend some time on Dō Hwa’s other offerings. Pretty much every Korean restaurant presents each and every diner with a whole bunch of complimentary sides—banchan, they’re called—and while I’m usually not the biggest fan of such things, I don’t mind Dō Hwa’s in the slightest. (I don’t know why I’m so small on banchan; probably, it has to do with my food allergies and my subsequent aversion to being ambushed with a whole bunch of sometimes-tough-to-identify foods. But I’m not so big on the usual dishes themselves, either.) There’s one that I’ll often avoid—those aforementioned anchovies that sometimes come with a handful of likely-cross-contaminated peanuts—but I’m comfortable with everything else, and it all tastes pretty good, too. Even the kimchi…which is one of those foods I usually can’t stand.

As for appetizers, Dō Hwa’s are pretty standard—and I mean that as a good thing. The pan-fried beef dumplings (pictured immediately above) are tasty, though a bit boring, and I’m told the d’ukboki (rice cakes in chili sauce) are particularly good, too. But me, I’m really into the kimchi pajun (that’s a kimchi-scallion pancake)—which tastes a whole lot more of scallion than it does of kimchi, thank God. It’s ridiculously thin, with appropriately crispy edges and a soft-ish center, and (as if I haven’t already said this exact phrase way too many times) it’s just greasy enough to have me hooked.

A pile of (raw) bulgogi from Do Hwa

Now. Meat.

Pictured immediately above is a serving of Dō Hwa’s bulgogi, which happens to be my favorite of their meats. At $29, it isn’t cheap, but it isn’t a small portion, either—and it’s just about perfect, if you ask me. The marinade is sweet, but it’s (fortunately!) not too sweet, and there’s just enough of it, too. Do a half-decent job cooking the meat (really, it isn’t hard) and it’ll be ridiculously juicy and oh-so-tender—and, it’s particularly good in the lettuce wraps. Not only is there nothing wrong with this stuff, but it’s precisely what I’m looking for when I’m craving KBBQ.

I also like the seng kalbi, which are boneless beef short ribs, sans marinade. What they lack in flavor, they make up for in texture, and between bites of whatever else, they’re particularly good. Calming, even. One meat I don’t love, though, is the sam ghup sal: thick-cut pork belly that just might be a little too thick-cut for me. It takes forever on the grill, it has little flavor of its own, and I’m not entirely sure it’s possible to cook this stuff through without drying it out. So…no more sam ghup sal for me, I guess.

And just as a side note: The best part, I think, of grilling your own meat (aside from all the fucking-around you get to do) is the fact that no matter how slowly you go, everything you get around to eating will be piping hot. With how quickly I eat, I wouldn’t expect that to make much of a difference—it’s not as if much time ever passes between a dish’s leaving the kitchen and its ending up wholly in my stomach—but (at Dō Hwa, at least) the immediacy does make a difference, and that difference does go a long way.

…You deserve another grill photo, don’t you? Here’s some bulgogi and some sam ghup sal,  alongside some mushrooms, onions, and rice cakes:

Bulgogi, sam gup sal, onions, mushrooms, and rice cakes on the grill at Dō Hwa

Overall, I really do love this place. Beyond scratching my KBBQ itch, Dō Hwa is incredibly allergy friendly—and if you don’t mind the dark and the loud, it’s a pretty pleasant place to be, too. My only gripe, really, is that even when I’ve made a reservation, they can’t seem to seat me within 10 minutes of my walking through the door. Usually, I’ll end up having to spend around 15 pre-table minutes at the bar—but it’s not so bad, really. There is food at the bar, after all.

Find Dō Hwa at 55 Carmine Street, between Bedford Street and 7th Avenue South.

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