New York Restaurants

oh god virginia plain, please eat at Gen on Washington Avenue.
So good we ate their twice today.
We eat brunch their every sunday (literally every sunday in 2008 so far aside from one day they were closed for redecorating), and decided to go back for dinner tonight.
They always have amazing specials, like the stuffed & fried lily bulb appetizer we had tonight. Lots of vegetarian options and always great non-sushi entrees. Linds is a fan of the yosenabe and the seafood sukiyaki, and they are v v delicious. if you go, definitely take a gander at the specials--we went for lunch last week and L had a great curry short rib dish with lots of veggies and wild rice.

The brunch, though. I think I talk about it all over this thread.

If yer not feeling Japanese, then eat at The Islands, also on Washington Ave a few blocks closer to the museum--the best jerk chicken and roti.

There is also famous Tom's Diner, though not a good bet on the weekends. Closed Sundays (it's the Lord's day) and incredibly packed/line-out-the-door on Saturdays. They close early, too, I think 4pm. BUT, the good is good to great, depending on what you get (i stick to the eggs, usually, though the burgers are good too), and everything is way affordable. Tom's is ALSO on Washington Ave, at Sterling Place.

I hear 95 South on Franklin has a good burger, but I still haven't tried it.
Chavella's on Classon has delicious tacos.
I don't eat much on Vanderbilt Ave, to be honest. Yet to try the Garden Cafe or Le Gamin, OR, for that matter, the supposedly hip Korean place. So much good eating in the neighborhood now, it makes me very very happy.

Haha, I didn't realize the famous Gen's was in the area. Perhaps I'll try it when the Murakami exhibit opens (they already have a huge scupture up in the vestibule).

for the record I think Sushi Gen is good but I don't quite understand ian and bell_labs' obsession with it, this is like the second time someone posted about eating there twice in one day o_0

Yet to try the Garden Cafe or Le Gamin, OR, for that matter, the supposedly hip Korean place.

Le Gamin is a French place, has good brunch and is less crowded than Beast (also good, also on Vanderbilt). Garden Cafe is $$$, never been. The Korean place is called Noo Na and is good too ...

was there anything good at Brooklyn Museum? we almost went yesterday but decided to wait for the Murakami to open

there's some stuff down vanderbuilt too, but it's sparser and less... refined.

I think nowadays there's better stuff on Vanderbilt than Flatbush. like ian said it's like something new opens every week. oh yeah one other good Vanderbilt place is Amorina Cucina Rustica -- pizza with prosciutto and fig, yum

Hi, guys! Le Gamin is v nice, they have a patio in the back if weather permits. I love the French bistro-style brunch but dunno about weekend crowd situation. Beast ROCKS, I love to brunch there (never had any other meal), especially anything involving the chorizo hash. Anything at all.

Whatever you do, don't go to Muddy Water(s?) on Vanderbilt near Park Pl. The proprietor is incredibly unpleasant, stares at you in a remarkably hostile way every time you see her, and is rude as fuck. Also, they have antique chairs set up that look v comfortable but the signs say "for display only -- do not sit" which in a coffee shop...what the hell?

Had the prix fixe dinner at Garden Cafe many, many years ago (so long that I have no idea what I ate) but the shutter is down so much that I think they only open like six hours a week or something.

For a hangover, nothing beats the Cuban sandwiches at...what's it called, Ian? Los Tres Villejos? I can't remember.

viejo amigo?

i've been wanting to try mitchell's on vanderbilt for fried chicken, etc. Opinions?

haven't been yet. the place looks pretty generic but I've heard some of the food's good

re: Muddy Waters I lolled when the same owner's crazy attempt at a bottle-service club on Flatbush didn't even last a year (Well Lounge next to Geido)

also I think Joyce bakery and coffee shop right there on Vanderbilt has gotta be killing Muddy Waters

Joyce has decent coffee, not great, and the baked goods are fantastic, though things seemed to be priced more towards the park slope yuppie end of the spectrum, if you know what i mean.

re: our Gen obsession. It's a good question. I don't know what to say about it, honestly, but it's convenient for where Linds & I are. There aren't many decent restaurants over on our end, and the walk to Vanderbilt from Franklin can be a little much. Part of it is definitely the brunch, which is by far my favorite brunch in the area. Eating potatoes and pork and eggs is delicious, sure, but it puts me right to sleep 90% of the time. I'd rather eat fish and veggies and delicious soups. Also, the staff there seem to like us and give us extra appetizers and cocktails and stuff.

I've not tried Mitchells, but I want to. Fried chicken is great and I haven't had any since Pies n Thighs closed, though I'm worried that it won't be as good as P&T. The cuban sandwich place is Amigos Viejos, yes. I haven't tried anything else, but the cuban sandwich is huge and cheap and has delicious fresh roasted pork. Also, the people there are very nice. I showed up kinda late last night and the owner(?) sent out the bus boy to get the proper kind of bread for me.

Beast is good for brunch also, I suppose, but eating dinner there was pretty disappointing. The food was good and all but the portions were pretty small and a little $$ for what you get. It's more a place for drinking and nibbling rather than digging into a real meal.

totally agree about Beast, I wouldn't go there for dinner. ditto for Alchemy on 5th Av near O'Connors, great brunch (chorizo eggs w/ jalapeno cheese grits!), dinner kinda overpriced

i've been wanting to try mitchell's on vanderbilt for fried chicken, etc. Opinions?

-- mizzell, Monday, March 31, 2008 10:24 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i've been like three times. not the greatest in the world. you will exit the place with your clothes reeking of grease. as far as ambiance goes it's a nice antidote to bustling bistros if you're in need of one. sietsema included them in his fried chicken shortlist, which is kind of a head scratcher.

what i love about sushi gen is the amount of care they put into even a $4.50 appetizer...and the quality of the fish, etc is always excellent. and it has a great atmosphere, sweet people working there, and is in my neighborhood. could i get better sushi in the city? probably, but it wouldn't be the same experience at all, and would be much more expensive.

and on top of all this, they just flat out give you a ton of fish.

and i was looking through the siestema ethnic eats book and there are some seriouuuus wtfs in there. like, sea thai was a pick? and emerald planet and republic noodle house?

me and bell labs have an inborn love of fresh seafood; it's because we're from new england.

i know it's kind of nuts to go to a place twice in one day, but we did spend about an hour thinking about alternatives. i had really been craving oysters all day but i'm not sure where to really go in brooklyn...i'm not paying $4 an oyster like at blue ribbon cos i would be at $50 in a heartbeat. i came across jolie on atlantic online...$1 oysters of wednesday? has anyone been here?

(i did end up getting an oyster & salmon glass noodle soup at gen with a generous number of oysters in it, but i still have the craving for raw ones)

Bell, Lauren directed me to a bar that has a happy hour oyster special, but it's up in her neighborhood on Greenpoint Ave. It was pretty good, though. My friend had the oysters, I had some food, the menu looked nice.

The shells were $1 apiece during happy hour, normally $2 I think! Not a huge selection but that's not really the point, I guess?

as long as they are quality oysters i guess it aint a big deal!

we had a good experience there. the west coast ones were okay, but the blue points were great.

sietsema has some real head-scratchers, but he's also otm a lot of the time and of the bigger name critics he's basically the only one doing surveys of, say, guyanese roti shops in far rockaway.

yeah, sometimes I think Sietsema makes odd choices. He likes stuff that's greasy, spicy and generally full of flavor, and sometimes he'll recommend a so-so place that meets those three criteria because it's Uighur, looks like a dump and is located in Canarsie.

yeah i mean i really respect a lot of what seitsema and maybe he just didn't have editorial control over the book..b/c sea & emerald planet, are you serious?

a lot of what seitsema does

This weekend I enjoyed Diner, Supper, Dumont, and Lodge. All were excellent.

I ate at Monkeytown last night. I really like the food at that place.

oh wait he does big-up sea here http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0511,savvy2,62182,29.html

so puzzling. not that there's much in the way of good thai in williamburg, but sheesh!

o hey he also bigs up Pam Real Thai in that article

lol "bigs up"

I order whoppers jr.

yeah, who knows. i just ignore stuff like that. we've never gone somewhere recc'd by him and been disappointed.

Our last Sietsema rec was a little weird but good overall - a little South Indian/Indo-Chinese dive here in Jersey City. We were the only people in there. The sauce for the goat was awesome but the meat was kind of dry. He also put us on a great Egyptian fish place in the same part of town. He's made quite a few trips to JC, which I do appreciate.

<i>was there anything good at Brooklyn Museum? we almost went yesterday but decided to wait for the Murakami to open</i>

Yeah, I went for "Goodbye Coney Island" in the storage area. Very small, but very good, if you like that sort of thing. I also saw the "Utagawa" Japanese prints exhibit. This will still be up when Murakami opens. That was good too--they had a lot of prints that you don't come across everyday, from Wisconsin I think. I guess that and Murakami are going to tie in with the cherry blossoms in Prospect Park. They're going to charge for the Murakami exhibit though:(

OYSTER FAP PEOPLE
OYSTER FAP

yes please.

i might try ippudo tonight. has anyone been yet?

also oyster fap ASAP!

I would like oyster FAP.

agreed.

i tried to go to ippudo last week but it was an hour wait around 12:45pm. went to setagaya instead, so no big loss.

oh, fyi - prospect park residents, the ny sun (venerable rag that it is) declared vanderbilt "desolate" in a piece on weather up/brooklyn cocktail bars.

And may they continue to think so.

wait til they see washington!

the non-noodle food at momofuku n.b. really is much better, by the way. we had a late bday lunch their last week (the day after the ippudo denial), and it was great: pork belly buns, grilled beef tongue, rice cakes with oxtail ragu, and a korean-style cold noodle dish that was way better than their attempt at ramen. also, they have the most amazing soft serve. it's basically frozen custard.

wau that all sounds delicious. i want to try the tasting menu at ssam bar with all the pork.

if you go all the way down to the korean place on vanderbilt you cross like one deadish block and end up catty-corner to an empty lot that's been bought up for atlantic yards. but lol @ a street with three yuppie coffee shops being desolate.

supposedly that one white-picket-fence storefront (used to be a cutesy pet store) is going to be some kind of hipster country western bar serving tex-mex food (owned by same ppl as Beast). sounds kinda bad but I'll keep an open mind until it opens.

Yeah, the soft-serve is phenomenal. I agree about the non-noodle stuff being better than the noodles. Ramen was the least exciting thing we tried.

oh, fyi - prospect park residents, the ny sun (venerable rag that it is) declared vanderbilt "desolate" in a piece on weather up/brooklyn cocktail bars.

It was their first week open to the public when I went, but weather up kind of sucked.

all the bars on vanderbilt are pretty meh.

though i haven't been to weather up yet.

I'm like Soda at all times except late-night, and I'm quite happy with Barette but that's cos of K***leen probably.

the $12 cocktail place that opened on grand st in wburg (huckleberry) kind of sucks, too. likewise, we were there opening week so who knows how things have developed but the drinks were pretty poorly mixed (and cheesy atmosphere to boot).

does she even still work there? she mentioned it to me once and i went...