Congee Village (Chinese, Chinatown)

NY Sidewalk Review
Menu Pages Review

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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Menu Pages Review

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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Menu Pages Review

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)

NY Sidewalk Review
Menu Pages Review

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!