Cuisine: Tibetan

Tsampa

Tsampa (Tibetan, East Village)

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Location
212 E. 9th St.
South side of the street, between 2nd and 3rd Aves.

Cuisine:
Tibetan

My friend Dood and I wanted to catch up, and we decided upon a random restaurant in the East Village where we could try new food and catch up on the past month. So, lo and behold, Tibetan sounded like a lovely option! Who knows about Tibetan food? I was about to try.

I don't even remember the names of the food. The choices seemed overwhelming, probably because I'd never eaten there. Or had such cuisine. I just got back from a trip to Hong Kong, where my family ordered food for me. I am no longer accustomed to ordering from a menu, so I made the waiter order for me.

It was worth it. Fantastic fried noodles with shrimp and salmon. My friend chose a vegetarian version of the food. Both entrees and the appetizer were well seasoned and very memorable.

So, on to dessert. There were two "specialties." I opted for one, which was described as a barley cake (warmed) covered in yogurt and brown sugar. Why the hell not. Because I shouldn't have. Have you ever had one of those digestive cookies? Well, imagine one much sweeter and more cake-like. Drenched in sour yogurt.


My advice? Skip the "special" desserts. Go with what the waitstaff recommends. You won't fail.

And I know I have many other restaurants to write about, but this one is kinda sticking to my ribs right now and I can't really get past the dessert. So, skip the dessert. Just eat the entrees.

Crab Cakes

Ingredients
1/2 C mayonnaise
1 large egg
1 Tb Dijon mustard
1 Tb Worcestershire sauce
a dash Tabasco sauce
1 lb fresh jumbo lump crab meat
20 2x2 saltines
6 C vegetable oil (if you're frying) OR
spray-on oil

Directions
Whisk together mayonnaise, egg, mustard, worcestershire sauce, and tabasco in a bowl. In a shallow container, spread crab meat in one layer and carefully pick out cartilage and shell; do not break up large pieces of crab. Coarsely crack the saltines over the crab meat. Pour mayonnaise mixture over the meat and fold gently. Using ice cream scoop or 1/2 cup measure, scoop out crab mixture and form into a ball. Fry balls until golden brown and drain excess oil on paper towel. Makes approximately 10 crab cakes.

I used a shallow skillet and oil about an inch thick, and flipped the crab cakes once....They said about three minutes total cooking time, and recommended a temperature of about 375 F.

Addendum to the frying: I coat a baking sheet (covered with foil) with spray-on oil. Bake the cakes at about 350 – 375 F for approximately 10 (?) minutes, until golden brown.

Congee Village (Chinese, Chinatown)

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Location
100 Allen St.
Northeast corner of street, just below Delancey

Cuisine:
Chinese

There's nothing quite like a Chinese banquet. Dish after dish after dish, all following a prescribed order. Appetizer, soup, meat, meat, vegetable, fish, rice/noodles, dessert, fruit.

If you can't attend a banquet, then you can make up your own rules. The benefit of family-style dining is that variety is key. Don't try to do single orders at a Chinese restaurant, it's much more enjoyable and appropriate to go with a bunch of people than to single serve yourself. Bo-Ring.

Congee Village is one of the best restaurants to go for some "authentic" Chinese food. Originally introduced to me by YumYum, I've been going there at least once a year. Which isn't bad, because it takes a lot of coordination to get a bunch of people to go have an 8+ course meal with you. There are many things you can try at CV, and of course you should try the congee. Congee, aka rice porridge, is basically boiled rice that's seasoned with different types of meats and/or vegetables. Plain is good to eat when you're sick, and all kinds (including the plain) are tasty when you're not. Real congee is made by cooking the shit out of rice in (1:3 to water) until it falls apart into smaller pieces. Cheater restaurants will grind the rice to bypass the long-ass cooking time.

I digress. CV has good congee. I usually like to start with it as an appetizer/soup. Out of the ordinary, yes. Most people will eat it with the meal too.

Ok. Onto the notable dishes, the crowd pleasers no matter their tastes. I'm not going to describe them in detail, but you should definitely check them out.

*Squid/Calamari (just the right amount of spice!)
*Salt and Pepper Shrimp
**********House Special Chicken (no carnivore has anything bad to say about the roasted skin with the roasted garlic)
*Short Ribs
*Beef Lo Mein
*Young Chow Fried Rice
***Snow Pea Shoots (tender shoots with garlic? need I say more?)
*Buddha's Delight (includes fish bladder and all sorts of yummy veggies)
*Fried Flounder

I could go on. But seriously. You can even rent a room for dinner, or sing karaoke post-dinner in their restaurant. And they have frothy blue drinks that are really good.

Otto Enoteca and Pizzeria (Italian Pizzeria, Greenwich Village)

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Location
1 5th Ave.
Southeast corner of street, on 8th St.

Cuisine:
Pizzeria

If you don't know who Mario Batali is, then you don't watch the Food Network. This man is the Italian restaurant king of NYC these days, it seems. I don't know if I'll ever get to try Del Posto, since it's so far out of my price range, "it would take a miracle."

My sister and her husband did take me to Babbo one year for my birthday (hmmm, birthday...), and I truly enjoyed the rustic Italian cuisine and the ambiance was beautiful -- a cozy, converted brownstone.

But I'm not here to talk about either or those Batali places. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of the Molto Mario, with those shoes that for some reason everyone loves. Eh, I've never tried them, and a good friend of mine can't stop wearing them. But they're ugly.

I'm here to rate Otto. When I got there, it wasn't for the plebian-friendly prices for the food, that such a gourmand as Batali would want to offer. I was drawn to the gelato. It's a running joke when every time my friends go back to Italy, they ask me what I want from there. I respond immediately, "gelato." For those who know me, gelato and ice cream are my kryptonite.

NY Magazine just rated their favorite ice cream sandwiches. Because of this article, I started salivating. I convinced my colleague to go on a little three hour tour with me. Ok, it was just a short trip.

We arrived to the restaurant, without realizing what it was. The crowd was not our flavor, but then again, we're flip-flop-wearing slackers, not part of the normal Happy Hour crowd. We stood at one of the bars, and ordered two brioches to go.

I went for the brioche with olive oil gelato. My colleague, the brioche with ricotta gelato.

Our verdict? The gelato was heavenly. The olive oil, smooth, gentle, and delicious. The ricotta, sweet and creamy. Both wonderful. The brioche part of the ice cream sandwich? Well, a bit dry. I choked on mine twice.

Would I go back? Hell yes. For those prices? The antipasti are supposed to be excellent, and $9.00 pasta? Just right for the working schmo. So, head over to Otto! Tell me what you think of the actual food!

Cafe Ronda

Location:
249 Columbus Ave (bet. W71-72 St)

Fave Dishes:
Burgers ($9.50-12.00), they only have four kinds (it's a Latin-American restaurant not a burger joint strictly) but they're all excellent. Best two
-Drunken Mushrooms:
red wine cognac sautedd mushrooms and swiss melted cheese (plus I think iceberg lattuce and tomatoes)
-Kofte "A house specialty"
spiced parsley beef sirloin, grilled onions and sliced tomatoes
(they also have a regular cheesburger and one with apple smoked bacon and blue cheese)

All burgers come with:
-pickles
-hand cut french fries

Ambiance:
Cozy with a touch of New York Mag style-pages. Indoor and (limited) outdoor seating. Mixed crowd, overall nice, dogs etc (it's the Upper West Side...). Waiters are polite, the hostess is very nice.

Detractors:
The french fries were a tad soggy. And the music can at times be loud.

I recommend you go back after trying the burgers and branch out a little: the menu says "all of our dishes are hand-crafted to order and meant to be shared" and it's true! Great tapas, emapanadas, deditos, seafood-based appetizers, chorizo, platos de serano, rich salads, desserts (try the vanilla crepes).
The place belongs to the same peeps of Cafe Frida, near the American Museum of Natural History.

Les Enfants Terribles (Afro-French, Chinatown)

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Location
37 Canal Street
Northeast corner of street, by Ludlow

Cuisine:
Afro-French

Non-Asian food in Chinatown? Must suck, right? But it doesn't.

A fairly tiny bar/restaurant in the heart of true Chinatown (the one the tourists don't visit), the bar is fairly big for its size and the decor is pretty cozy. The menu is straight from the French-colonized Ivory Coast. Every dish we tried was tasty, well-seasoned, and absolutely nothing disappointed. Well, except for the five spice-infused plantains. Those were a little bit weird.

For starters there was the Les Enfants Terribles salad, complete with roasted beets and potato crisps. The mussels in garlic and butter were perfectly done, and I can't say enough about the calamari. They know squid.

The entrees were fairly diverse. Steak done many ways, one was on the spicy side. The bass wrapped in potato on a bed of spinach and leeks were excellent, even for the palate of the girl who will only eat steamed fish. The lamb fell off the bone.

Dessert was also a wonderful surprise. Banana creme brulee and passion fruit mousse were the ones we tried. One as sweet as the other was tart.

Would I go there again? Probably! As long as you don't mind the excruciatingly slow service.

Paquito's (Tex-Mex, East Village)

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Location
143 First Avenue
West side of the street, between St. Marks Place and 9th St.

Cuisine:
Tex-Mex

Betty introduced me to this marvelous and cheap restaurant. We both got the Paquito's special Asada burrito, and I have to say it was pretty special. Great conversation, great food, outdoor garden, what more can you ask for in an evening? Oh, maybe the ten firetrucks and the hot firemen we saw at our next destination, but that's a different story.

Since we were on a budget, the priority was cheap but tasty. I'm not a huge fan of Tex-Mex (meaning, I don't have cravings) but I'll always eat it when it's offered as a choice. The service, excellent. The decor, whatever. But that beef! That chicken! The chimichanga! Ole' indeed!

And it's cheaper than La Palapa, even though that restaurant is authentic Mexican and I'm comparing it to a Tex-Mex place.

Check it out!

Veniero's (Italian pasticceria e caffe, East Village)

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Location
342 E. 11th St.
south side of the street, between 1st and 2nd Aves.

Cuisine:
Italian pasticceria e caffe

Tonight I had the distinguished honor of taking two Italians to two different Italian restaurants. One was for southern Italian cuisine, the second was for dessert.

Dessert, of course, was at Veniero's. Ducati was in search of an afogato, and failed miserably. Well, they did serve affogati at the restaurant, but the line was too long.

Instead, Colomba insisted on getting dessert. He asked for one sfogliatella (layered phyllo layers encasing a (traditionally ricotta-based) cream. The server (lovely Asian woman that she was) corrected him. He asked for uno cannolo. She corrected him again. "No, it's 'cannoli.'" I started giggling. So he acquiesced. Clearly the woman was right and he was wrong. He asked if she could cut both the sfogliatella ("no, 'sfogliatelle'") into three pieces, and the cannolo ("no, 'cannoli'") in half. She complied. He apologized for butchering Italian.

She liked him so much, she gave him a bunch of cookies for free.

Too bad we were way too full to truly enjoy the dessert. Because the 112 year-old institution is a pretty darn good institution.

Casimir (French bistro, East Village)

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Location:
103 Avenue B
east side of the street, between 6th and 7th Streets

Cuisine:
French bistro

The last time I went to a French bistro of note, it was Rue 57. I'm sure there are plenty of great French bistros in NYC, and Casimir certainly lives up to it.

The menu items are on the pricey side for what you would consider for bistro food, the entrees range from $16.00 up. But who (outside of vegetarians, non-meat eaters, etc.) doesn't like steak frites?

I of course, carnivore that I am, went for the steak tartare. Just the right amount of seasonings laid out in palette form for you to choose, including ketchup, mustard, garlic, parsley, capers, anchovies, and onions. Pre-mixed with the raw egg, and minced well.

Do I recommend this place? The food was good, there was a wide variety of seafood, meat, and non-meat dishes, and a garden in the back.

Sure. If you're in the area.