This place does take ressies and they are strongly recommended.  Being New Yorkers that we are, we didn’t expect a popular brunch spot to take ressies, luckily a large party just left and we were seated within 10-15 mins.

We tried desperately to look around for inspiration, since everything on the menu looked good… the 7 specials they had that day certainly did not help.  In the end, we opted for the Cypress breakfast: eggs fried in olive oil, halloumi,
lounza and bread;  the Shaksouka: two eggs poached in a cumin scented tomato and pepper stew served with grilled bread; and last but not least, the Kanella platter: stuffed grape leaves, tabouli, falafel, fried eggplant, spicy tomato salad, tzanziki, olives and pita.

Much to my surprise, the food was actually excellent, despite the shameless plug on Food Network.  Everything was extremely fresh, and though the quality of the ingredients were still sub-par to those in Greece,  everything was very well-prepared and the flavors were well-judged and delicate.  Nothing was over-salted or over-oily.

The falafel was perfectly fried, slightly crispy on the outside and full of fresh chickpeas on the inside. Moist and textured- Simply awesome.

falafel

The Cypress breakfast had everything I wanted that morning:  Fried eggs in olive oil was done just right, the Haloumi cheese was much better than the average Haloumi cheese, although still not comparing well to the one I had in Istanbul.  The lounza was just like a thick-cut Canadian bacon.  The tomato and cucumber salad is fine, although nothing spectacular like the ones I’ve had in the Mediterranean, but then again,  this is the North East!  That’s why they make planes…

Cypress Breakfast

The Shaksouka reminded me of a mix between a minestrone soup and a Huevos Rancheros.  It was described by the server to resemble a chili, but it really didn’t, as it was much lighter and had more tomatoes than any chili I’ve ever seen.  I was worried that it would be over-salted or over-spiced with cumin, but it turned out to be just right.  If you’re in the mood for something more brothy or soupy, go for this one.   Oh, and the grilled bread is awesome.

Shaksouka

Last but not least, the Kanella platter was arguably the  star of the show.  With the tasty falafel, fresh tzanziki,  fresh salad and the amazing fried eggplant; this traditional combo of all the best small eats of the former Greek empire is hard to beat!  I say if you go, get it all.

Kanella platter

Apart from the 20 minute wait, my buddy Alejandro and I enjoyed sitting at the bar and catching up over bloodies.   The omnipresent waft of fresh biscuits being baked and fried chicken was enough to tide us over while we fought for attention from our server.  Clearly, service is NOT their strong suit.

I opted for the make-your-own biscuit, which scrambled eggs and country ham.  It was wonderful.  The biscuit is crusty on the outside, and oh-so-moist on the inside. It was perfect.  The scrambled was very well done and the country ham tasted more like sopresetta, which is no bad thing.

Alejandro got That L’il Piggy, which consisted of Roast Pork, Pate, Fried Egg and Spicy Coleslaw on a roll, along with a side of potato chips and pickled cucumber.  It was good, but they served it room temperature, which was a little strange…

In our effort to counter the fatty pork, buttermilk biscuit and greasy eggs, we opted for a chopped salad, which did the job of adding some fresh tartness to balance off our palates.

Overall, it was good.  The biscuit being the standout. I hear the fried chicken is good too, must try next time around.

That L'il Piggy Sandwich

Build-your-own Biscuit with Scrambled Eggs and Country Ham

Chopped Salad

My brother raves about the Ham & Cheese Croissant & Chocolate Croissant.  My girlfriend raves about the bread pudding. My cousin raves about the Banana Cream Pie.  Both my cousin’s room-mate (the ever-awesome Kiri) and my cousin raves about the Spicy Sopprassata Sandwich.  So naturally, I got it all.

Everything was amazing.  The croissants were fresh and buttery, along with the super crisp outer layer and warm soft but yet chewy inner layers, it was heaven on a plate.  I have to say the Ham & Cheese croissant stood out more than the chocolate one,  not because the chocolate one isn’t excellent, but because I don’t ever recall having a savory croissant this damn good.

I have to thank Nanette and Kiri for patiently standing in line with me and to introducing me to Tartine Bakery. I also have to thank Nanette for insisting that we get the sandwiches.  You were right Biu Mui, the country bread there is out of this world.  I owe all of my SF eating adventures to you!

As fantastic as all the above mentioned items are, the one that takes the cake (no pun intended) by quite a margin is the BANANA CREAM PIE.

The Banana Cream Pie blew my mind.  I am just going to leave it at that.  Words will not do it any justice.   Get on a plane, train or automobile and go eat one.  As many of you know, I’m not a big sweet/dessert person, but OH MY GOD.

Banana Cream Pie. To. Die. For.

Grilled Spicy Sopresseta Sandwich on Country Bread, w/ Pickled Carrot

This little French Bistro has actually been on Sam Sifton’s Top 50 list for the past couple of years.  Located just off of Times Square,  this cozy little place is the perfect pre-theatre dining spot.   They have an outstanding $32 three-course Prix Fixe that changes daily.   This isn’t some fancy ‘seasonal’ concept, you have a feeling it changes daily because it basically depends on whatever Grandma’s cookin’ that night.  They also do half-carafes of house wine, which is exactly what I need after a long day at work.  Nothing fancy, nothing pretentious, just plain good home cooking.

For appetizers, they were serving a house salad or a dairy-free, pureed vegetable soup.  For the mains, they were serving a Lemon-Meuniere Sole,  grilled veal with fries and slow braised beef with carrots, potatoes, lentils.  As for desert, you have a choice of Chocolate Mouse and Caramel pudding.

I opted for the vegetable soup,  braised beef and chocolate mousse.

The soup was indeed cream-free and pureed, giving it a slightly thick and grainy texture to it.  It was very tasty and not very salty, like most soups tend to be.  It went perfectly with the bread!

The braised beef brisket was very, very good. Again, not in a shouty-look-at-how-sophisticated-I-am sort of way.  It truly reminds me of home-cooking.  You can instantly tell the beef was slow-braised for hours until it was fall-off-the-bone tender.  I thoroughly enjoyed it!

The desserts were okay, nothing to write home about, but it is included in the $32 prix-fixe, as is coffee or tea.

If you are looking for a casual pre-theatre resto with good solid food at reasonable prices, look no further.

This is what we had:

Truckers' Breakfast

pig in a poke

biscuit & gravy

All 3 were very good!  The butter-milk biscuit was moist and thick, the house-made sausage was spicy, rich and satisfying; the eggs were poached to perfection and the grits were also very good.  My pick:  Biscuit & Gravy with poached eggs and house-made sausage and gravy…

As its reputation spread, the bakery grew into a destination for not just bread but also savory Roman-style pizzas, rustic Italian pastries and cookies…

Today, over 340 of New York’s finest restaurants and markets, such as Jean Georges, The Four Seasons, Gramercy Tavern, Marea, Zabar’s and WholeFoods are all loyal customers and swear by the bakery’s remarkable bread.

“Jim Lahey’s simple, rustic bread has hit on something important: Bread is more than bread. It reaches all the way from the belly to the soul.”

Opened in 2009, Jim Lahey’s new pizza joint Co. received rave reviews from New York Times and New York Mag:

“The man can do wonders with flour and water, massaged or not. (He’s a leading proponent of the knead-less method of baking.) He can do fluffy, crunchy, supple, dense. He can do pizza bianca — man, oh man, can he do pizza bianca — those salty squares of almost entirely naked crust.”

That I got out of bed on a cold-rainy Saturday evening, got dressed and made an effort to get there before 6pm to secure a table,  says something about how much I have been wanting to try this place…

We got there right around 6pm and was surprised that it was already half-full with families and young children.  I guess the casual atmosphere, universal-appeal of pizza and reasonable prices naturally draw young families in… at 6pm on a Saturday.  I have to say, I have actually come to enjoy dining during these senior-citizen times.  Think about it, the restaurants are usually less busy, the ingredients, staff and chef are at their freshest,  so you get better service and better food.   It is also nice not to have to fight for a table.

So we get there and after 15 minutes of serious deliberation we decided on the following:

- Special grapefruit, endive and mustard seed salad – this seasonal special was sweet, tangy, crisp and creamy, I just wish it were larger…

- Daily selection of four artisanal cheeses with toast – The spectacular toast along with 4 very good cheeses and good charcuterie was the perfect starter before the pizzas, and went spectacularly with the beer.

- Stracciatella Pizza with crushed tomato, stracciatella, arugula, black pepper- In my opinion, the better of the two.  The bread and crust were phenomenal, the proportion of topping, sauce, cheese and bread were also very, VERY well-judged.  I have been to Rome and I have had my fair share of pizza there,  although not exactly the same, the style and texture is very close.

- Popeye Pizza with pecorino, gruyère, mozzarella, spinach, black pepper, garlic-  The first few bites were much better than the last few bites, and I think it is due to its saltier,  slightly oiler and overall heavier flavor.

…and a Jug of Six Point Draft to wash it all down!

Overall, everything was very enjoyable.  The pizza and bread were the obvious stars of the meal, but the other dishes were equally delish, from the charcuterie plate to the salad and the beer.

Owners of Five Points and Hundred Acres did a good job putting together a smart, dynamic, Nouveau American menu with Mediterranean influences, with dishes boasting fresh, sustainable and organic ingredients.   The pastry chef and butcher dominate the menu here with dishes like the Butcher Board, House-made Pork Sausage, Chocolate-Banana croissant and freshly made Beignets.

After much deliberation, we decided on the following:

- Chocolate-Banana Croissant with honey-thyme sauce

- Fresh Beignets with  Dipalo’s ricotta cheese, apple compote

- Cook Shop Scramble with caramelized onions, creme fraiche, chives & buttermilk biscuit and house-made pork sausage

- Huevos Rancheros- three baked eggs, black beans, ranchero sauce,Monterey jack, crispy tortillas, lime creme fraiche & pickled jalapeno salsa

The standout are the croissant and the Cook Shop Scramble.  The croissant was super flakey, crispy on the outside and chewy and buttery on the inside.  With dark chocolate decadently oozing out of the croissant and the banana’s tartness, it is just so, so, so damn good.

The scrambled eggs were fluffy and light, while the pork sausage added flavor and body. This is then balanced with the fresh side salad and the warm biscuit that was crumbly on the outside, warm and moist on the inside.  Y-u-m.

The Huevos Rancheros was so-so, and the beignets were good, but I enjoyed the croissant so much more.

Definitely a solid brunch spot with generous portions, an inventive enough menu along with fresh ingredients and made-to-order preparation!

The all-you-can-eat-for-$30 hot-pot offering brings you downstairs where they have huge tables along with a buffet of the traditional sauces set up, so you can make your own sauces.

Then a huge hot-pot and gas stove is set up in the middle of the table,  with boiling non-spicy broth on one side and pepper and spice filled spicy sauce on the other.  There is no menu,  as soon as the it is at full boil, they just start bring food out.  The assortment is stunning, it included:

- 2 different type of veggies

- 2 different types of mushrooms, including my favorite Enoki Mushrooms!

- Fish fillet

- Lamb

- Beef

- Tofu Skin

- Meat balls, fish balls, fish cakes

- Lotus roots

- Pumpkin

- Prawns

- Crab

- Chicken Feet

- Cow esophagus

And they were NOT kidding when they say it’s all-you-can-eat.  Whenever we finished a dish of something, be it prawns, fish, crab, bak choy, they immediately come over and ask if we wanted a refill.  Combined with a Happy Hour that runs from 5pm-7:30pm, with $5 cocktails and 2-for-1 beers, it combined to a gut-busting, incredibly tasty and happy experience!

Since everything is served raw, hot pot is all about the quality and freshness of ingredients, and I have to say, apart from the Chicken Feet Skin, everything was very, very fresh! From the crab to prawns to the fish balls and veggies.  One of my favorites was the Tofu Skin,  they apparently make it fresh daily in-house!

The broth is also very tasty, especially the spicy… but do be careful, those of you who are not used to Sichuan spice should stick to the non-spicy side…

We really did a toll on the place.  2.5 hours and 20 dishes later, we left spicy and happy.

For $30, it’s extraordinary value…  I could barely contain my surprise it when they brought out the fresh, sizely prawns along with fresh crab.    You can sit very comfortably ( we were 5 and were given a table for 12 ) and enjoy the incredible feast!

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I had just had some excellent  Sichuan food in Hong Kong in December and so the memory is still fresh in my mind.  I have to say, the spicy fish dish tasted very, very close to the one I had in HK.  The sauce had the same tang to it and the fish was cooked well.  It had less of the tongue-numbing kick to it than the one in Hong Kong, but the flavor was spot on.

In addition to the spicy fish dish, we also had:

- Jelly Fish

- Pickled Radishes

- Sichuan Spicy chicken tossed with peppers

- Stir Fried Spicy duck with mushrooms and peppers

- Spicy lotus roots with spicy peppers, red peppers and garlic

- Stir Fried Pea Pods

Everything was good, apart from the Jelly Fish being a tad salty.  The chicken was as authentic as the one I had in HK and the lotus roots were succulent, flavorful and just crunchy enough.  The duck dish was good and has some interesting ingredients.

Though I have to say, the spicy “water-cooked fish” was my favorite by far.

I am a huge Michael White fan.  I like his food, I like his restaurants (Marea being my favorite), I like how he was ambitious enough to open a $6 Million restaurant, Marea in the height of the recession, that ended up grossing an absurd $13.5 Million the first year.   I like that he spent twice as much time in Italy as Mario Batali.  Take that Batali.  Lastly, I like that he only has ONE cookbook and zero TV shows.

Osteria Morini, with just 100 seats, is the smaller, downtown, casual and rustic sibling of Alto, Convivio, Marea; which are all managed under the Altamarea umbrella.  Morini is a tribute to the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy,  with an emphasis (always) on freshly made pasta.

It is dangerous and unhealthy to have such high expectations,  since most of the time disappointment undoubtedly follows.  Except this time.  Osteria Morini was fantastic.  The ingredients were fresh, well-prepared, well-seasoned and though more rustic and bold in flavor, than say Marea, the food was no less brilliant.

Along with the fantastic house wine they serve by the glass or liter,  they served some great little appetizers that pays tribute to the ‘street food’ in that region of Italy. To start we had:

Lardo prosciutto bianco

Cacciatorini salt & pepper cured salame

Mortadella delicate pork from bologna

Cassoni Fried pork sausage & stracchino cheese fritters

All of them come in small tiny portions (with BIG flavors) that go very well with their house red.  We then dug into the pasta menu, it was a difficult choice but we finally decided on the tortellini, the macaroni

As I was working on the meat platter I saw Michael White come out of the kitchen, and started walking around the restaurant greeting people and saying to hi guests.  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  I naturally got all giddy and started following him with eyes, as he strolls around his restaurant.   I wondered if he would come over to our table.  I wonder if he would say hi to us and ask us how the food was.   Just as I was fantasizing about my Michael White moment, he started slowly circling the side of the restaurant towards the direction of the kitchen.  This was it, I thought.  It was now or never.

I got up and literally walked across the restaurant and started following him, as he headed toward the direction of the kitchen.   I was JUST able to catch him, as he reached the kitchen door.  Since I was chasing him around, his back was naturally toward me, so I tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned around,  looked down at me (he’s 6’4″), and with the stupidest grin imaginable, I nervously introduced myself.  ”Hi Mr. White, I’m Brian, I’m a big fan of yours!”.  He smiled back and said, “Oh, call me Michael, please”.   From that moment on I was on a first name basis with Michael White.

I told him how much I loved all his restaurants and how big of a fan I am. How Marea is spectacular in every way and how much I loved the meat dishes at Convivio.  Since I wasn’t that impressed by Alto, I left that one out of our conversation.  But at some point in the conversation, overwhelmed by my own enthusiasm, I even told him I liked his restaurants more than some of Batali’s!  With which he responded, “Ah! Mario would love to hear that“.  For some reason, I think not.

Anyway, we continued to chat and I started telling him how excited I am of his new restaurant in Hong Kong, and how exciting it is for him to expand overseas, and to Hong Kong no less!  I told him how I am from Hong Kong and he immediately whips out his iphone and started showing me pictures of all the food he ate while he was over there.   “You’re from Hong Kong? No way!” He exclaims.  ”Then, you gotta see these pictures dude, I was JUST there 2 weeks ago!”

From his iphone, he started showing me all the Cha Shiu and Siu Gnap he had while he was over there, started raving about Chinese food, “Fucking Amazing” as he so eloquently put it.  He then showed me snapshots of dishes he had at Lung King Heen (the only 3 star Michelin Starred Resto in HK) and how the chef cooked the dishes himself, and all the other places “Tony” (as in Bourdain) recommended him to go to, etc.  We then started to joke about how many pictures of food you took while he was in HK and he said,  ”Oh yeah man, I document all the good meals I have so I can look back and relive the good dishes”. Ditto Michael, ditto.  He then started showing me the 6,000 sq/ft space of his new restaurant in Harbor City and how it is slated to open in April of 2011 with this beautiful outdoor space by the harbor…

The whole time I was thinking of how if I should try to get his number or email, but in the end, I couldn’t think of a good enough reason for me to ask.  My friends all still remind me that it would’ve been as simple as, “I will be back in Hong Kong next year, if you want someone to show you the REAL local good eats…” Damn my star-struck-ness.  Damn it all… I could’ve been stalking Michael White this whole time… ah all the lost opportunities.

Anyway, meeting Michael White was definitely the highlight of the entire experience.  I have to say, he was a really genuine guy. Very nice, personable and down-to-earth.   Not in the least bit pretentious or arrogant.  It was fucking amazing.  Here is a picture of him, myself and my Biu Mui, Nanette…

The place was unlike the typical clean, modern Thai restaurant.  It resembled more of a dive bar than modern thai bistro.  Anyhow, the menu looked decent and the prices were reasonable.  So we gave it a shot.

It turned out to be okay.  Not as traditional as I’d liked, but not as Americanized as I thought it might be.

We had the fresh rolls (average, 75 pts) , stir-fried Chinese broccoli (a tad salty, 79 pts), chicken satay (average, 75), pork chop (nice cut, tender and well-cooked! 80 pts) and pineapple fried rice (not the traditional style, but by no means bad, 83 pts).

Overall, a good, quaint, cheap place in SoHo, perfect for a post-shopping fuel-up.

Just a friendly warning: If you are looking for refined, exotic, well-manicured, low-cal ingredients, please look elsewhere.  The Red Head is all about the Southern cuisine in all its greasy, heavy glory.  I have to say, even being a health freak myself, it is refreshing to dine in such honest, unapologetic company.

So we started with Home-Made Waffle fries with a divine butter-braised onion dip. The waffle chips were thin and crispy.   As its title suggest, it tasted like it was freshly made, which means it tasted really, really good.  The dip was decadent and appropriately rich.

We then ordered the mushroom flatbread with mascarpone.   The flatbread was thin and crisp, the mascarpone was creamy but light, the mushrooms were robust both in flavor and in texture.  Overall perfection.

For mains, my dear friend Julianna ordered the BLT on home made cheese bread, I ordered the Buttermilk fried Chicken with corn bread and Kendra (staying true to her souther roots) went for the Low country shrimp with grits.

If I had to rate the dishes, I’d give the BLT a 95; this was probably the best BLT I’ve ever had, not that I’m a BLT expert… then fried chicken with corn bread comes in 2nd at 90;  the chicken was tender and moist and the corn bread was authentic (Kendra vouched for that!) with a good balance of being sweet, salty and corn-y.  The shrimp and grits were good,  but in this company it comes in 3rd at 88 pts.

The fried blueberry pie was mediocre.  Nothing really worth writing about. I’d give it 80 pts.

Overall: 89 pts.

Then my dear friend Julianna ordered the

Grimaldi’s and Little Italy Pizza are among the best in my book for your traditional thick and chewy crust pizzas.  However, as far as thin crust pizza goes, Vezzo is one of the best.  What can make it even better?  Have the owners open an identical pizzeria steps from my apartment.  It’s called Posto.

We started with the Tre Colori salad, with Arugula, Radicchio, endives, roasted spicy walnuts,  roasted pears with the homemade gorgonzola dressing.  I have to say, I rarely order salads when I dine out, partly because I refuse to pay $15 for something I can get in a bag at Trader Joe’s for $3, and partly because I find salads in restaurants over-dressing-ed and under-whelmingly similar to what I whip up at home.   However, since I was about to down a nice hearty starchy pizza, I figured I should help my stomach out with some kind of roughage.

It turns out my preconceptions were mis-guided and this salad was phenomenal.  The ingredients were fresh and the combination of the spicy, crispy walnuts were perfectly offset by the sweet tenderness of the roasted pears.  The dressing was flavorful and well-prepared and well-judged, meaning I could actually taste the vegetables.

Then came the pizza.  We got half of a Big Pineapple and half El Greco.  What a treat.  The Big Pineapple was like a Hawaiian, but better. The bacon was crispy, fragrantly smoked and dry, while the  pineapple and basil added a layer of sweetness and herbiness to it.  The crust was as good as I remembered the crust at Vezzo to be.  Thin, crispy on the outside, but still being able to be chewy and moist on the inside.

The El Greco was just as good, if not better.  If I had to choose, I actually preferred the El Greco and I don’t know how to articulate why I do.  On paper, the Big Pineapple has bacon on its side… how can you beat bacon on pizza?  But I think it’s the onions that made the difference in the EL Greco. That was the secret weapon.  The onions were roasted, but were still extremely crunchy and retained the tangy quality to it.  Combined with the Feta cheese and fresh tomatoes… it was unstoppable.

1. Half of their menu is 50% during the week. AND they have a dollar menu. Yes, really.

2. They have a good selection of Sake, appetizers, cooked items, Sushi, Sashimi, Makis, Rice bowls, Noodles, etc.

3. It’s 5 minutes from where I live

4. Oh and did I mention they are cheap?

So sure, it’s not the best Japanese food I’ve ever had, but for the price, location and selection, I have yet to find a better place for Japanese food.  The menu is 7 pages long, with plentiful pictures and great prices.  Although the food isn’t top notch, it’s decent enough to satisfy those Japanese cravings that I have.

So if you’re looking for a casual Japanese place with a wide variety that won’t break your wallet, look no further.

You go to a Ramen place to have Ramen. And the menu dominated by Ramen.  All you’ll get there is Ramen, along with some small rice and side dishes.

Same applies to Tempura, Teppanyaki, Izakaya, Sashimi, Rice bowls, etc.

I was in Roppongi (or maybe it was Ginza?) with my family several years ago and we went to this amazing Robatayaki place.  Robatayaki is a type of Izakaya where you sit around in the chefs in a big semi-circle.  Within the semi-circle, you are surrounded by all the available menu items, from red meat to root vegetables, all neatly laid out.  All you have to do is point, and you can watch your chef chop it up, prepare it and grill it to perfection over an open fire.  Up to that point, that was the best grilled meal I’ve ever had!  I remember walking away from that meal swearing I would return the next time I was in Japan.  And so I did.  Twice.

I liked Curry-ya and Soba-ya a lot. So when I realized Bon Yagi was behind Robataya (Robatayaki style!) in East Village, I dragged my friend with me to check it out.

Not knowing they take reservations, we sadly weren’t able to get seats by the main Robata area.  So we made-do with our own table in the back room of the restaurant.

The food was good and very reasonably-priced, as long as you don’t eat like I do… with most dishes ranging from $5-$10.   I am sad to report though, that it wasn’t even close to being remotely as good as the place in Tokyo.  Oh well, I guess I should have curbed my expectations?

Neverthelss, it was good enough to scratch my itch and curb my craving.  The highlights were: Griled Corn (90), which was juicy , extremely fragrant and perfectly done.  Not too hard, not too soggy. The duck (87) was also very, very tasty!  Just fatty enough to really bring out the flavor, but not too fat where you feel like you’re gargling oil.   I would also recommend getting the Shitake and Enoki mushrooms (85)- simply grilled to slightly cripsy , while still retaining the moist and tender qualities of the ‘shrooms.  Good stuff indeed.

Both the Chicken Breast and Sirlion steak were mediocre at best.  Both being slightly dry and flavorless… In hindsight, I think it also had to do with the fact that we ordered white meat  (should have ordered the dark meat… should always go for dark meat- Sigh. I should know better, I am Asian after all!)  and that my friend had the steak grilled to Medium instead of medium rare.  Oh well. Now we know!

Overall rating: 86

This old adage rang true again this weekend, when we almost walked away from a good restaurant due to its appearance. I want to preface that having grown up and extensively traveled throughout Asia, I usually don’t get jeeved out by the sketchiness of restaurants. However, this one was completely and haunted-ly empty, which really set off my Asian-restaurant-judgement-sixth-sense-logic, which works something like this:

empty restaurant = no good. Good thing Simon ordered a beer there and hence forced us to stay and try the place out. Thanks Simona.

It all started with my friend Simon emailing me, dude, I’m craving Taiwanese food, make it happen. So I went online to do my research and came across Jobee with few but decent reviews. So Jobee it was. What a fun name. I just love saying it “Jo-Beeeeeeee”.

JoBee is set in a sort of no-man’s land between Chinatown, SoHo and Little Italy, down the street from Opening Ceremony.  Its deserted and off the beaten path location might be the reason for its deserted-ness.  It was also a Saturday night and I am sure most people look to dine in a ‘fancier’ restaurant, where they can bath in the warm glow of expensive lighting, and feel good about themselves being able to afford over-priced, dressed-up Chinese food… such as Red Egg down the street from Jobee, charging $20 for Lotus Leaf Chicken, $15 for fried rice, and $10 for a bowl of chicken soup. Nice.

Well, for the more level-headed readers out there that value food over ambiance, you might find Jobee to be down your alley.

They have a 3-plate combo meal for $18 with a huge list to choose from, as well as a large selection of a-la-carte offerings.  We ordered, scallion pancakes, spicy beef noodles, fried pork chop noodles, stir-fried Tong Choy, Stir Fried beef with bitter mellon, fried egg omelette with preserved veggies, edamame with preserved spinach and pork, and stir fried chicken (named 3-cup chicken), along with obligatory plain rice.

The after-math… yes, we did some damage that night.

Stir fried “3 cups chicken” Sweet & succulent, if a little fatty and oily.  Excellent with rice!

Rating: 75

Stir fried preserved peapods, edamame, pork. One of the better dishes! Classic and flavorful, with the saltiness of the preserved veggies offset by the unfettered flavors of the edamame and pork.

Rating: 85

Fried egg omelet. As an egg fanatic (or some might use the word lunatic)  I am incapable of having negative commentary on anything that is 90% egg.

Rating: 90

Stir-fried Beef with bitter melon.  Having been inspired by JoBee that night along with multiple requests from my dearest girlfriend, I finally tried to replicate this dish and in terms of flavor/ taste, it came out better if not just as good as Jobee’s!

Rating: 80

Stir-fried veggies, hard to screw this up.

Rating: 85

Fried pork with noodles. The noodles were a tad mushy for my taste, but the soup base and the pork were both very well done and tasted pretty legit.

Rating: 85

Scallion pancakes. I actually didn’t have a piece. After the ones from Peking Palace in HK, I have never found anything that can even REMOTELY compare…

Spicy beef noodles: Again the noodles were a tad mushy, but the soup base was strong and flavorful, with richly prepared beef and tenants.  YUM!

Rating: 85

Overall rating: 85

$1.XX/ LB of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit for a fraction of the price (I got a box of large blueberries for $1.00/box, 4 white nectarines for $1.00, 3 oranges for $1.00), fresh or cooked meats of all kinds, and of course my favorite Char Siu (Chinese BBQ pork that goes well with anything, especially eggs).  Deluxe Meat Market is usually where I get all my cooked/raw meats, Hong Kong Supermarket for the packaged goods such as dried, packed noodles, japanese soba/udon, sauces, condiments, etc.  For veggies and fruits, I go to 2 of the many, unnamed stalls on Mott between Grand and Hester.  You might be thinking, “dude, all veggie vendors are born equal”, but then you’d be mistaken.  Different stalls sell slightly different varietal of veggies at slightly different prices, and that’s why I have to hit up both.  An expert Chinatown shopper will not be taken a fool.

Before today’s extensive food shopping, it was decided that the heat and our premature hunger was too much to bear.  So instead of shopping & cooking the food ourselves, we ventured into OK218, on 218 Grand Street for some quick grub.

From the street, the place looked ok (no pun intended) with the usual hanging meats glistening in the window.  They also have about 6-7 prepared dishes such as stir fried garoupa with veggies, soy sauce- marinated intestines, etc.

We got in and quickly ordered some cantonese classics.  We had Tung Choy stir-fried in fermented bean curd & chilies, stir-fried beef Ho Fun and veggies (sup chow ngau ho), half a bone-in imperial chicken (ba wong gai), bbq pork with rice (cha siu fan). All in all it was ok (again, no pun intended), nothing spectacular, the chicken being the only stand out. However, their portions are HUGE (even for me), and prices are Chinatown-reasonable. With all that food, the bill came out to $34 for 2 people.

I love Chinatown. I love being around the great, cheap food, the no bullshit service and the general efficiency of the place.  And most of all, after hanging out with my brother in Midtown for the better part of my weekend,  I love how Chinatown keeps it real.