The entire back room, which is quite large, was reserved with three large tables for the food and lifestyle bloggers that had been invited to this event.  Our extremely friendly main-server came by to give us some bread to start, which he explained was a traditional Colombian bread – I thought he said pao de quiejo so I got super excited, but this turned out not to be that.  It looks like it… but it’s pandebono, which I thought was OK but needed more oomph (cheese or salt?).  A black bean dip appeared on the side.  I didn’t finish my piece, because I saw the menu and knew that with my wonky appetite, I needed to save room for what was to come. 

Our first course was served shortly: a duo of ceviches.  Marinated aji tuna, ginger, cilantro, mustard vinaigrette on the left, and cured salmon, aji amarillo, sour orange, pineapple on the right: I enjoyed the salmon, but I really enjoyed the tuna.  The flavors were bright, fresh, and just worked together to make my mouth happy.  Yum! 

Next, our aperitivo: bacon wrapped almond stuffed dates, hearts of palm, cabrales on the left, and Colombian sweet corn arepa, ropa vieja, crema nata and Criolla salad.  I thought the dates were a little sweet and overpowered the rest, but tasty enough; the ropa vieja on the other hand was super tender and super flavorful.  Delicious. 

With each course arrived more alcohol, so fast I couldn’t keep pace.  As soon as we’d sat down, actually, mojitos appeared; I’m not a fan of mojitos in general but these were so, so good.  I downed half of it, and the alcohol punched me in the face, so I had to stop before I got completely sloshed.  This is the sangria that arrived with our aperitivo, but I’ll let Beer Boor tell you about all the drinks as that’s his job, not mine.  And yes, that’s him in the background of this pic – I think he’s looking at his phone?

Beer Boor says: Har har. The mojitos were very citrusy and minty, to the point where the alcohol just didn’t register — the way I like mixed drinks. The sangria was given to us as using a very good bottle of red, which I couldn’t understand; I figured usually you use mediocre wine since it’s going to be drowned out by the fruit. In this case, the opposite occurred, and the drink became more of a red wine with solid bits of flavorless fruit.

Our first entree – yes, I said first – the fish course, roasted striped bass, serrano ham chick pea roasted pepper sauce.  My piece of fish was slightly overcooked, and I was feeling really full here so I opted to only take one bite before setting my fork down.  The server came to ask if everything was alright, and while I tried to assure him that it was fine, he took my plate from me and wrapped it to go without me asking.  That was pretty nice of him, though unnecessary, as I knew I wouldn’t eat it once I went home, and as expected, it wound up in the trash. 

Beer Boor says: I speculate that this was the Las Perdices pinot grigio. It’s never been a favorite grape of mine, but this was a mediocre wine, sharp and a little sour, and I struggled to drink much of it.

Our second main course, Cuban style ‘steak frites’ with traditional chimichurri – oh, how we looked and looked for the chimichurri.  It was not on any of our plates, and questions later didn’t solve the riddle.  Regardless, the steak was cooked to a perfect medium-rare and I enjoyed what I ate.  The yucca as ‘frites’ underneath didn’t fare so well in my opinion, but the dish was still very tasty. 

Beer Boor says: Just when I thought the wine choices might improve, this cabernet sauvignon appeared. Again, guessing based on the menu, this was a 2009 Infinitus. Far from tasty, this was mealy, flabby, mushy, all bad adjectives-y, and sat largely untouched for the duration.

For dessert, dark chocolate cake, dulce de leche ice cream.  I found it highly amusing that everyone’s ‘domino’ showed the number 7 (minus one person who had a 5)… when the name of the restaurant has the word ‘eight’ in it.  I went around looking at everyone’s dessert just to try to find someone with an eight!  I thought the cake was good, but I’m not a sweets person so it didn’t have a chance of impressing me anyway. 

Yvo says: There were definitely some really good dishes and some dishes that were only so-so for me.  I really liked the ceviche, and had varying levels of enjoyment for the rest of the meal.  I could see coming here if I lived closer or was in the neighborhood, but as the Upper West Side proved itself to be incredibly annoying to return to Forest Hills from after dinner that week, I doubt I will return any time soon.  However, that’s just a matter of personal convenience; it’s perfectly fine for most people… so I would suggest checking it out if you find yourself near the Museum of Natural History and in need of some tasty eats. 
recommended (but if you live in Forest Hills, be sure to leave plenty of time for the commute home)

Please note that we attended this event free of charge, courtesy of Calle Ocho and their PR team.  Opinions expressed herein are our own, and we received no compensation for such a post – the meal was free, and we were given $25 vouchers in the event we return.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ceviche, fish

My dear friend StB has had an exciting year.  Long time readers may recognize her as my former partner-in-eating-crime; we ate many many meals together (as that link will show you), but then she did something horrible and moved to Ohio.  But this year, she moved back!  She got engaged!  She turned 30!  And when I finally had a minute to breathe during this intense, scary, terrible, awesome, amazing summer, we took a jaunt around Jackson Heights for food – cheap.  We started off at Mira Cali II for pandebono…

This was $1.  We split one because we knew how much more food was coming.

The fluffy innards.  I liked this – it was airy, chewy, slightly sweet – but I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to get get it again.  I like pao de quiejo

After we wandered up and down Roosevelt Avenue for a few minutes looking for a tamale lady said to sell out of a cooler under the train stairs (we saw no such person), we decided to pick a truck and order.  This looked a lot like any of the trucks I’d hit during my Oakland truck tour, so we stopped and quickly agreed upon…

Oreja, or pig ear. 

Slightly chewy in texture, the flavor wasn’t actually all that interesting.  We both agreed that at $2, this was a steal, and quite tasty but next time we’d both opt for a different “meat” (we split this, too). 

Our next stop turned out to be a taqueria/sit-down type of restaurant. 

As soon as we sat down, we were given menus to ponder and a basket of clearly housemade tortilla chips and salsa.  Not spicy, but a nice nibble for while we perused the offerings. 

We both ordered the horchata, but because I’m always thirsty lately, I got the supersized version.  I think this was $1.50 and $3. 

StB went with the cesina, or salted beef.  (We split both of these again.)  When they say salted beef, they mean salted.  I mean, it was really freakin’ salty.  Tasty, to be sure, but something both of us agreed that we couldn’t eat the entire taco because it was just too salty to comfortably consume.

I went with al pastor (pork) I believe, and this was really yummy.  I liked mine quite a lot, finding it super tasty and everything worked well together.

Also, before anyone gets upset at how the “guacamole” looks – I don’t think that’s guacamole.  I think that’s salsa de aguacate – a sauce made of avocado, and meant to be blended quite a bit more (and therefore “waterier”/more liquid-y than guacamole, not nearly as chunky or thick and creamy as many Americans are used to).  And it tastes good, as long as you know what to expect. 

Following that, we walked over to Seba Seba to look at antojitos. 

Small bites that range in price from $1 to a few dollars. 

And yet somehow, we were too full to consider picking and choosing from the cases displaying some really amazing bites. 

Yeah, we walked to East Elmhurst from Jackson Heights to find Cannelle… which was the lone patisserie that BeerBoor skipped during his Macaron Day trip.  I hadn’t even known that was where we were heading, but when we arrived, I excitedly asked the woman behind the counter if there were any macarons.  She looked at me as though I were a little nuts, and flatly informed me that no, there were no more macarons.  Hmm. 

We were there for a dessert that made some list in Time Out New York, though –

The Creole. 

Which, not being that into sweets, both StB and I found a little too rich for our tastes.  For some reason, we were both under the impression it would be lighter, airier, fluffier, but this was pretty heavy and we ate only a little more than half of the $3.50 individual cake before we had to dump it and walk back to the train station. 

What are friends for if not to walk around and eat for hours?  Welcome home, StB.  You were missed.

Yvo says: None of the places we visited were particularly expensive, and all had very many tasty treats to explore and discover.  I highly recommend taking a similar walk around (and if you know me, invite me along!) and checking out all the goodies, eating to your heart’s content, as we did.  The most expensive meal of the day was, of course, the one sit-down place we visited, where even that came to just around $10 before tip.  Everywhere we went, despite clearly not being locals, everyone was nice to us, and our food was yummy! 
recommended, every single place, explore your way through the menu!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: horchata, tacos

I’ve been hearing about Ipanema from a buddy of mine (hi Adam!) for years now… literally.  He raves about this place almost as though it were his or family owned so a bunch of us gathered on a muggy day to check out the goodies…

Chorizo or was this kalabeza?  Spiced sausage, pretty tasty… I was picking this up and just eating it alone!

Various empanadas filled with yummies… I like the croquette-like ones, deep fried mashed potatoes. 

The extremely potent looking hot sauce.  I avoided this except to take a picture… Adam is insane.  He was eating the chiles like candy… as was Sir Eats-a-Lot, amusingly.  I was kind of scared watching them. 

Very strong caipirinhas… loads of tequilacachaca in there. 

M.’s seafood dish.  I think she liked it. 

Blondie’s coconut filled with shrimp curry and mashed potatoes…

Blondie couldn’t wait so she dove in. 

My steak topped with a fried egg.  Small complaint: my fried egg did not have a runny yolk.  HUGE complaint: that sauce is like crack.  Just looking at it, I want to reach into my monitor and tip that bowl, drinking all that glorious liquid into my bloodstream and just enjoying that high you get until your next fix… ahem.  I mean.  This came with fried disks of potato and rice, which I didn’t take pictures of, but dipping the potatoes into the sauce was amazing, and the rice was good in it too, but who cares.  I said fried potato.  OMG. 

Chris’s seafood dish… I hope he’ll chime in with his thoughts. 

CT’s “salad” which, she informed me, was good but didn’t really contain as much greens as she’d thought it would – as in, it was covered in meats and assorted animal parts.  Not that this is a bad thing, just surprised her since she wanted something small… looks really good though!  (Hopefully she’ll chime in with her thoughts as well!) 

Yvo says: So my dish was covered in liquid crack.  I think that alone would be worth a return trip.  The steak part was ok.  The egg was alright.  The fried potatoes covered in that sauce, though?  Amazing.  I clearly paid no attention to what everyone else ate nor what they thought and instead focused solely on my delicious sauce.  Mmm.  I have to say, though, as amazing and garlic-infused as that sauce was, I don’t think I could eat here more than once in a long while – it was way too rich for me to comfortably eat that often, as much as I’d like to…
recommended

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Post tags: mlhh

This is going to be a picture-intensive post, so bear with me.  Also, keep in mind while looking at these pictures, this entire meal cost us $27 USD.

Bread with tangy butter spread on the table

As soon as we sat down, they served us this, which we thought was an empanada but might have been a salgadinho, Brazilian snack that is like an empanada…

The meaty insides.  Pretty good.

Now, for pictures of the accompanying buffet, which are many and wow, speak for themselves.  Excuse the blurriness, I had to take them quickly since the waiters were looking at me uncertainly, possibly wanting to stop me, and people were starting to crowd the place.

Bread section – no pao de quiejo though, unfortunately.

Meat/cheese section; charcuterie- that’s a whole turkey with slices taken off, and a whole leg of jamon serrano standing over there (with slices taken off as well).

The pickled/antipasto section, with marinated veggies, olives, … yum.  I am getting so hungry right now!

I guess I foreshadowed when I said, “I’m worried; places like this, if the buffet is really good or has a lot of awesome stuff, sometimes it’s because the meat isn’t that great… or it could be everything is really good,” I offered lamely when everyone turned to look at me.  Haha, oops.

When we’d sat down, they’d presented us with the bread, the empanadas/salgadinhos and lemon drop shots for some reason…

The salad I started off with – yummy, lots of greens to choose from.

HB’s first plate- look at the size of those shrimp/prawns!  As big as my hand and tender, sweet.  We all agreed the hearts of palm were too soft, however.

MD/PB’s first plate

StB‘s first plate

My first plate : I was pleasantly surprised by the little cup with a shrimp on top; I’d thought “Oh, shrimp with tuna salad underneath” but it was lobster salad and quite tasty!  The salmon with roe was only so-so, but the little cone was filled with octopus and quite tasty as well.  The sushi pieces were weird: the rice not quite done properly, smashed down and not the right taste to it; and the fillings were just odd.  The stuffed mushroom cap was good, though.

And then the meat began.

Perfectly cooked!  The slicer wanted to take a picture with me.  I obliged, happily waiting for the succulent meat to enter my mouth and astound my tastebuds.

Big, happy smile!

Three different cuts of meat; oh, the meat.  Terribly disappointing because despite the glorious way it looks, despite all that, it was completely flavorless.  We’d read that the national “spice/seasoning of choice” here was salt; salt hadn’t seen these pieces of meat at all!  I doused my meat in the chimichurri from the salad bar, which of course was delicious, but the meat would have been so much better had it seen some salt before being cooked.

We were pretty full at this point, but of course had to partake in dessert!

HB’s something or other – she thought it was alright.

MD/PB’s something or other, that she liked very much (flan? with dulce de leche and crema on the side).

StB’s choice of three flavors of ice cream

And last but not least, my something or other.  I’m sorry!  It’s been almost two weeks since this meal happened!  And I tried to get through these reviews as quickly as possible.  I’m looking at this picture right now, and I’m amazed by how good it looks.  The fruit gently spilling over the top, the walnuts on one side… but the dessert was good, not mindblowing, and I was too stuffed to finish it all.

Yvo says: At the total price of, with a generous tip, $27 USD per person, I can’t deny that this is a great value.  The buffet alone is worth that price, but if you do go, go knowing that the meat will need generous salt and that it is not the main attraction here.  The buffet is definitely worth a go, and go hungry!
middle of the road, more recommended than not

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Steak

Cuisine: Brazilian fusion
Price: I’m a New Yawka

Ahh, haunted restaurant that you are.  (Rocco’s, of “The Restaurant” fame, was here before it went under.)

The decor was possibly the best thing about this restaurant.

No, I take that back.  The sorbets were definitely better than the decor, but it was a close one.

I started off at the bar, as I was a good 15 minutes earlier than my dining companions, and was a little surprised to discover that not one drink was under $10.  Most, in fact, hovered a little above at $12, and I just wasn’t in the mood to pay that much for a drink that may or may not appeal.  I opted for a glass of the fizzy sangria, which was alright, by no means spectacular, but appealed to my wallet as it was only $8.  (I lied.  But that was the only alcoholic drink that dipped below the $10 mark.)

Once everyone arrived, we were seated at a round table pretty much in the middle of the room.  I glanced around and wasn’t pleased to see that the room was laid out a bit peculiarly: random round tables sprouted up, mixed with some regular “4-tops” and “6-tops”.  I shrugged and took my seat, although I felt a little uncomfortable with my purse slung on the back of the chair, as that put it in the reach of anyone walking by.

The waiter brought us plantain chips (yummy, though a tad bland) and “caviar” (hence the name, “Caviar & Banana”, though they don’t actually serve any caviar with anything)- sago balls flavored with what we determined to be a little [too much] soy sauce.  Mixed with the chips, it was a bit too salty, so instead, a few of us resorted to eating the chips plain or dipping it in a jar of house “barbecue” (???) sauce we found on the table, which was pleasantly sweet and tangy at the same time.

We opted to start with a sampler of 4 tapas-sized dishes; most had Spanish names that I will butcher (and am not sure I’m getting the right ones, actually, since it was a month ago that we went, and I have just Spanish names to look at on Menu Pages right now), so I will just describe them best I can: shrimp “salad”, white mushroom in herb vinaigrette, tuna something, and jelly & what we discerned to be a kind of cheese.  The shrimp salad was grey and scary looking, unimpressive; the white mushrooms were also a strange color (no, not white) and undistinctive; the tuna was dry and bland; the jelly and cheese, however, was very tasty and interesting.  The cheese genuinely had no flavor of its own that I detected but simply was there for a textural distinction from the jelly, and just went nicely with the sweet tartness of the smooth, soft jelly.  (Cranberry jelly perhaps?)  We all appreciated that dish the most, as even the cheese haters enjoyed it.

For our entrees, despite most of us wanting to try the dish that the menu boasted was created for the President of Brazil, we all decided on other dishes except one person.  She would turn out to love her dish the most.  Two people opted for different variations of the Moquecas- Brazilian coconut stews- and the last person chose duck, I believe.  (My apologies, again, as I said, this was over a month ago).  I chose the Azul Marinho, which was terribly boring and bland.  I actually began dipping pieces of the fish, which was cooked properly but just extremely tasteless, into the barbecue sauce I mentioned earlier in an attempt at getting some enjoyment from my dish.  The plantains, stewed? braised? on the bottom were an interesting complement texture-wise but otherwise, the dish was flat out unimaginative and blah.  From the comments being tossed around the table, we were all not exactly thrilled with our food, except the one of us who had stuck to our original choice of “the dish created specifically for the President of Brazil.”  She actually really liked her dish, though I think in the end, still decided it wasn’t worth the price paid.

Dessert was a molten chocolate souffle made improperly in the wrong kind of dish, as you can see, and a sampling of sorbets: caramel or coffee?, passion fruit, vanilla bean, and mango.  The mango sorbet was heavenly, the vanilla bean was very nicely flavored, passion fruit isn’t meant to be eaten like that, and the last one was delicious as well (it had a crust on top of caramel or coffee cake, that was very delicious, I just wish I could remember what it was).  The souffle was disappointing and nothing outstanding again.

Genuinely, this restaurant is haunted and doomed for failure, I think.  Pretty much all of the food was hit-or-miss, and in our case, with 5 people ordering different dishes, we were more “miss” than “hit”, which was extremely disappointing.

Yvo says: Go if you must, just to see the dark blue walls, the restaurant where Rocco had his heart stomped on and his skills tested time and time again, but don’t expect too much from the food…

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