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Manhattan Notes -
Restaurants
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Monday, 02 February 2009 20:40 |
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Fat Cat Bar
75 Christopher St.
(at 7th Avenue)
212-675-6056 http://www.fatcatmusic.org/ It’s Sunday afternoon in Manhattan and your reveling in the quiet calm of the city. Couples walk through the boroughs, looking in shop windows, drinking coffee, taking in a movie. You meet with friends and are looking for something a little bit different to do but with none of the social pressure of having to look overly elegant.
Famed gaming center, Fat Cat may just be exactly what you need. Named the best pool hall in NYC by New York Magazine, Fat Cat provides the relaxed atmosphere to practice your pool and table tennis skills, while luxuriating in the constant melody of live jazz music.
Chess and scrabble tables line the walls while big comfy couches sprawl themselves out in the center of the large room. The venue is dark peppered with bright lights hanging over the assorted gaming tables. Let’s be clear, this is not a bar with simply one old pool table in the back for kicks. Fat Cat houses at least ten pool tables and a handful of ping pong tables, as well as foosball, chess, scrabble, checkers, backgammon, Othello, go, shuffle board, late night jam sessions, and live music acts (mostly jazz and latin). In fact there is so much to do here, you may end up staying the afternoon and late into the night! We did!
We were impressed by the bar/café as well. Fat Cat offers “an eclectic line of domestic and imported beer on tap, hard cider, and saveur’s selection of wines from the U.S. and abroad.” In addition, the health conscious may just want to try the organic juices!
So after a series of magnificent ping pong matches in which I, not surprisingly, claimed victory for all who witnessed the spectacle, and then hours of heated conversation over chess and scrabble while googling our favorite words (it has wi-fi), we imagined our bill would be staggering. Yet, Fat club is the recession survivors delight. Pool, table tennis, and shuffleboard are $5/person/hour while chess and checkers, get this, $1/person.
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Manhattan Notes -
Restaurants
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Friday, 30 January 2009 20:03 |
Quintessence
236 E 10th Street
(btw. 1st and A)
646-654-1823
After experiencing another wild night in the East Village, I felt the usual mid-afternoon heaviness from a little too much wine and cheese. Deciding to forgo the typical stroll to the local dinner to grease up our insides and soak up last night’s drinks, we decided to venture to a small restaurant recommended to us by a health-consciousness friend. Quintessence is a “life food” restaurant which their website states means “fruits, vegetables, and grains that are never cooked” or heated above 118 degrees. Having not known this before, we stood out front a bit baffled. Could we possibly eat a whole meal of cold un-cooked food?
Surprisingly, we were in for a real treat. The food is absolutely delicious. We had to put aside our prejudices for a moment to really experience the vibrant flavors of the dishes. We started with the Dips and Chips Platter, a wonderfully satisfying appetizer boasting spicy tomato-cilantro salsa, dairy free sour cream and guacamole, and home-made corn chips and flax crackers. We were astonished that nothing was cooked as we later learned that the chips, free of all the chemicals we hate to admit we are eating from our usual grocery store, were made in a dehydrator, reproducing the effect of regular chips but without heating the food.
Next, we tasted the Indian Coconut soup which even at room temperature was a real delight. Lightly dashed with cardamom, coriander, and a spicy kick, we found ourselves wanting to order another bowl!
The restaurant is tiny but this adds to its coziness. Its color scheme is definitely intended to produce a sense of calm amidst the noise of the east village, succeeding gracefully with a series of warm pastels tones and vibrant plant life. We were very impressed with the wait staff, or wait-staffer as the restaurant calls for only one. Ours was very knowledgeable and helpful without the pretentiousness that sometimes comes with having to serve “first-timers.”
We could not have imagined what bounty was to be placed in front of us for our main course. Lying before us was a hamburger overflowing with sides and a hefty sausage pizza! The first, the Big Moc, was a brilliant display of culinary ingenuity. Two nut burger patties, avocado, thousand island sauce and a tasty version of raw bread. The pizza was a hearty full-flavored “sausage” nut-meat on a spread of creamy nut cheese, chunky tomato sauce, and flax bread. If you think it is impossible for a meal of uncooked fruits, veggies and grains to be fulfilling as we did, then Quintessence will be a pleasant surprise, perhaps even a shock. We felt so satisfied after this meal that we literally had no room for dessert. The best part of it all, we felt energized and free from sluggishness, something we have to admit would not have occurred at our usual dinner. Could this place become the new next-day-after-partying oasis?
Later, we found out that the reason for not cooking the food is not some strange way to carve out a niche for oneself in a rapidly changing Manhattan restaurant scene, but rather that Quintessence believes by not heating the food “all the natural enzymes are left alive and intact.” We were not exactly sure why this was important until learning on their website that an abundance of enzymes helps to repair cellular damage, create billions of healthy cells, reverse the aging process, improve physical and mental status, and create an overall sense of better health. These are big claims in fact but after our savory meal we feel good enough to not smirk completely the next time someone mentions “raw foods.”
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Manhattan Notes -
Restaurants
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Monday, 12 January 2009 18:58 |
Pick a Bagel on Third by Martha Cooney
On a weekend morning, there will be a long line of eager breakfasters still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes as a result of racing to beat the crowd at Pick a Bagel, so you'll have to keep your own eyes wide open to snag one of the rickety high tables or tiny square seating areas that are hard to come by in the crowded space. I ignore the hordes around me by focusing on all that beautiful food behind the glass counter. There's every type of classic Jewish delicacy here -split open belly lox, Israeli salad, liver pate, all kinds of spreads including vegetarian and vegan options, and a case of mouth watering desserts as well that the out-of-towner might find exotic: almond horn; hamentaschen; black and white cookies. The range of options for having your bagel is vast, but my personal choice is the ultimate New York Salty Snack: an everything bagel with lox spread (and coffee, in your favorite We Are Pleased to Serve You Greek-style cups). Make sure you get extra napkins because the spread on the bagel is heavier than your own body weight. The clientele is entertaining to watch as you attribute stories to each (the couple that just met last night; the pair of elderly friends who've been coming here for thirty years; New Jerseyans). This place is not fancy, and I doubt anything has changed in twenty years. But whenever I'm near Twenty-Third, I find myself gravitating toward the Home of the Salty Snack. I once got a wisdom tooth pulled at NYU Dental Clinic, just blocks away from Pick a Bagel. My last meal before descending into weeks of Jell-o? What do you think?
Pick a Bagel on Third, 297 Third Avenue, between 22nd and 23rd Streets.
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Manhattan Notes -
Restaurants
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Monday, 12 January 2009 18:56 |
East
With every new customer that walks in, the chefs rolling sushi in the center of this Murray Hill restaurant shout "Yokoso!" ("Welcome!") as if to remind everybody that this is a party, damn it, and we love our guests, so enjoy yourself or else. The yelling is okay with me, because East offers my kind of New York (sushi) experience: fast, cheap and easy. There's a tiny bar studded with all-year Christmas lights to have a drink if you have to wait for a table, which may be likely, and I've experienced the full range of seating experiences here: twosome tables upstairs for a quieter meal; counter dining where you'll end up chatting to the fascinating character at the next stool (there definitely will be one, and be warned, he probably won't shut up). The best is a regular booth with more space for filling the table with miso soup and vegetable tempura and snitching all the ginger from the bottomless bucket on the side. If I can't be bothered to hold out until the wait staff arrives, I just grab one of the tempting plates right off the conveyor belt that carries freshly made sushi around the restaurant like it's Charlie's Chocolate Factory for grownups. Spicy tuna and Philadelphia rolls are standard, but the Dragon Roll is the best treat here with avocado and a heavenly sauce. Topped off, of course, by the perfectly chilled pre-wrapped red bean buns off the conveyor. You can't linger too long at this busy spot, but the prices are just delicious. East is one of those places to return to again and again. It's kind of like a boyfriend of many years: predictable... but in a good way.
East Japanese Restaurant, 366 3rd Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets. |
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Manhattan Notes -
Restaurants
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Friday, 09 January 2009 01:19 |
Spice 60 University Place
Thai, Pan-Asian
Upon entering the small restaurant, you’ll notice that the interior is very different from the normal Thai restaurants around New York City. Rather than decorating with traditional Thai art, Spice is very modern and is only accented by yellow and white round lights. Everything else is very simple. Due to the proximity of this restaurant to NYU, there are a lot of students that frequent the restaurant and it is always crowded during dinnertime. Due to the high volume of the restaurant, Spice is changing their location to 13th street after the New Year. My major complaint about the ambiance of the restaurant is that it was way too dark. I understand that they were trying to set a mood, but when it’s too dark to read the menu without holding a candle directly above it then that’s a problem. I could barely see what my food looked like, which isn’t a huge deal but I like seeing the presentation of the plates.
Speaking of the food, even though I could barely see the food, I could certainly taste it. I ate with a friend and unfortunately did not have a large enough appetite to order any appetizers (although I hear that the summer rolls are not that good). I ordered the chicken panang curry and my friend ordered the chicken pad see ew (flat noodles). My main tic, before I even tasted the curry, was that there wasn’t nearly enough rice for the bowl of curry. The pyramid shape was attractive but you will have to get a second little pyramid to actually finish the meal. The curry itself was quite sweet with a nice spicy kick. The chicken was well prepared and the addition of peppers was nice although it probably would have been better if they used green peppers instead of red since the curry was already sweet enough. The portion size was quite large and I couldn’t finish the entire bowl. The pad see ew was a great portion for one person and spiced very well although it was a touch on the sweet side (seems to be the trend for Spice). The noodles were firm without being undercooked and the chicken was thinly sliced and a little on the dry side although the sauce makes up for the dryness. Despite these small complaints, the food overall was very satisfying and the service was exemplary. We were seated very quickly and our waitress was very attentive to us (although it wasn’t too hard since we didn’t order too many things). I especially enjoyed the fact that she left the kettle of tea since I am a huge tea drinker. The meal was also relatively cheap coming out to about $22 for two people including tip.
I give it a 3.5/5 |
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