Tag Archives: restaurant review
4Food: If Facebook was a Burger Joint…
And oh man. I’m in love.
Place: 4Food
Culture: Fast Food
Meal: Lunch
Price: $$$
Rating: 4/5
The Concepts
The idea is super-customizable, “healthy” burgers with a unique twist: the meat is cooked in a ring and you get to pick a filling to go in the doughnut-hole, so to speak.
The combinations are endless, and the in-store display screen suggests there’s more than 1,000,000 ways to make your burger.
I totally believe it.
One other option is to get a skewer meal, which is two meat paddies of choice molded to have a dip for your scoop and punctured spartan-style with a stick. Haven’t tried this one yet, but I assume the idea is to nix the carbs. The other alternative is a rice-bowl with your choice of coconut or multi-grain. An odd mix, but I find the multi-grain both more filling and slightly lower on the calorie scale.
Here you can custom build your burger from the ground up. Choose your bread, meat, scoops, and extras from a ridiculously varied and multicultural selection. From there, you can choose a side (rices or salad) and a drink (delicious teas all come with real fruit).
Once you check out, you can name your custom burger for a chance to earn more 4f dollars towards future meals. This is where that “Bed Intruder” burger I talked about comes from.
The Atmosphere
4food takes modern to extremes in its venue, but not in a bad way at all. Located on the corner of Madison and 40th street, the restaurant has three and a half levels of seating. Yes, you heard right on that “half” part. The main floor where you order has window bar-style seating and an two-tiered island table adorned with six iPads for you to play with. Wifi included, I might add. The idea is you can hop online and order your meal and then waste time by messing around with them. Sadly, ordering in-store means at least 15 minutes waiting during peak hours, so definitely try to order ahead of time.The open space is broken by a set of stairs that doubles as stadium-style seating and topped with tables. The stairs overlook a wall that’s a giant screen spanning all 3 floors. The screen switches between orders ready to be picked up, tweets, followers, and promotion.
Lastly the bottom floor is all seating. I didn’t go down but from what I saw it’s bar-island style seating mixed with tables.
Everything is digitized. The menu above the cashiers flashes between custom-made and named burgers from online orders to promotional pieces showing how to build your burger. It’s multi-paned and the the items generally switch about. Drinks and desserts, and the ordering panes, all stay in the same spot, however.
The Food
It’s amazing. I can’t believe how good the burger was. Nothing in it was overpowering nor too bland, from the patty to the bread to the sauce. I think it helps that by custom ordering, you’re picking stuff you like or figure goes well together. But still, man it was delicious. I was actually very disappointed when I finished because there was nothing left to eat. Most burgers average at 6.50 and price may go up depending on ingredients. I don’t see it going beyond 8.
The multi-grain rice side was meh. There was no flavor what-so-ever to it. I understand the idea is making healthy food, but it shouldn’t be tasteless. A few squirts of lemon or lime would have been enough to fix it, I think. The other sides are coconut rice and salad, neither of which I’ve tried yet but I expect would be a little better.
The teas, though. The teas are pretty freaking tasty. At 3.50 a pop (3.00 online), they’re a little on the pricey side but around what you’d pay at a Starbucks. I’ve had the hibiscus berry tea and mango chai tea. Both were fantastic. The berry tea is unsweetened and uses the natural juices of the fresh berries to give it flavor. But it’s also not too tart, either. It’s a happy middle-ground. The Mango Chai was on the sweeter end, but very smooth and thirst-quenching.
My creation: La Isla Verde
Inspired by the popular beach in Puerto Rico, this tropical infusion of delicious comprises of: multi-grain bun, turkey meat, mofongo filling (traditional Puerto Rican dish), topped with a slice of sopressata, grated gruyere cheese, salsa verde, guacamole, and onions.
Next time I go in, I expect to see this beauty on the big screen!
More pics:
Food Merchants Deliver Great Staple Meals
Place: Food Merchants
Culture: City-Style Café
Meal: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Price: $$$
Rating: 4/5
Review:
While I admit Food Merchants isn’t really specifically cultural, it’s still a great place that offers a basic assortment of meals that are pretty much the staple of lunch everywhere. It’s great for those days you want to go out but have no idea what the hell you’re in the mood for. You’ll always find something decent, rarely disappointing, and it’s a great spot to have meetings or meet friends for a quick lunch.
The city-style cafés, as I like to call them, are very popular and you can find one of the major chains pretty much every few blocks (Café Metro, PAX, and Food Merchants are pretty much all the same and have the same food). They all basically come with the following: salad-bar, paninis/wraps/sandwhiches, soups, and burritos. They’ll all have a fridge with bottled drinks, cold assorted pasta salads, fruit and veggies, and soda. Some will carry pasta, pizza, quiche, and a few other random items.
The food isn’t exotic or particularly memorable, but it’s very customizable (and unlike The Pump, everything blends well!) and simply good. You can order pre-made stuff or have them custom make something for you which is what’s great about these cafes. It can be as simple or loaded as you want and the base price usually covers a decent amount of additions. You won’t be disappointed by what you eat, but you won’t be wow’ed either.
My lunch was an online order (you get 20% off every time you order online for pick up or free delivery!) was a custom made pasta: penne with tomato basil sauce, topped with sun-dried tomatoes, roasted peppers, onions, and mushrooms. It was very tasty and kept me satisfied.
Down part is prices are a little steep for lunch. A full meal will cost you 12 bucks give or take, but order online and you get 20% off and that’s pretty worth it to me. They have combos, too, like a 12oz soup and sandwich for around $8 and their breakfast meals that include a small coffee are also very worth it.
Google Map:
Links
www.foodmerchantscafe.com/
Negi-Ya is Serious Japanese Business
Place: Negi-Ya (Formally Washoku Cafe)
Culture: Japanese
Meal: Lunch, Dinner
Price: $$
Rating: 5/5
Review:
Formerally Washoku Café (which translates into “Authentic Japanese”), Negi-Ya has become one of my favorite lunch spots to go, both for price and quality of food.
I passed this spot almost every day at least once, sometimes twice, since it’s on route to my building but it took me months to actually try (what a shame!). Upon walking in, hearing actual Japanese and not Chinese from the workers was a breath of fresh air, and 90% of the time I go there, there are actual Japanese patrons eating. That’s always a good sign!
The food is pretty damn tasty. My favorite dish is the Oyakudon (fried egg/chicken over brown rice, with onions and garnished with chopped scallions. Yes, it’s as delicious as it sounds.). My only complaint is that their teriyaki bowls are a little bland, and you have to pay 50 cents for extra sauce which is a small letdown.
They have sushi, of course, which is up to par with what you’d expect from a Japanese place, and sell favored homeland snacks like onigiri (shaped rice clumps wrapped in nori with assorted fillings, like salmon or tempura shrimp) and drinks like calico and tea.
The best part is that the meals are very affordable. Most of the menu will sum to 10 dollars or less, and the bowls are big and filling. I rarely finish an entire one (more for later, woo!). For an extra buck you get miso soup on the side. Yum!
They recently started serving ramen, which I’ve yet to try, but I plan on doing that soon cause it looks fucking amazing.
Google Map:
Links:
http://www.negi-ya.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/washoku-cafe-new-york#query:Negiya
Pressure Reading Low at The Pump
Place: The Pump
Culture: Energy & Health
Meal: Lunch,
Location: Midtown. Madison Ave. b/w 39rd & 40th, east side.
Price: $$$
Rating: 2/5
Review: Manhattan is all about good tasting food that’s also good for you. That’s pretty much the motto over at The Pump, but unfortunately, they fell short on the “good tasting” part.
I first ate there a long time ago when I started working. It was winter and I had a soup of some sort. I can’t remember which, but I don’t recall much about that experience so it was neither terrible nor astounding. Last week I went to try it again, this time to try one of their custom-made dish-bowls. Can we say…iiiccchhhhh.
The thing with Cafeteria-style serving (in which you pick and choose from options) is that it’s easy to blame the ordering for a shitty combination. I mean, if you get a stir-fry over penne and vodka sauce, you can’t really complain if it tastes bad. But at The Pump, their selection was eclectic and overly varied. I ordered beef over brown rice, mushrooms, onions and peppers, garlic string-beans, and coleslaw. The last bit was kind of random, I know, but you’d expect the rest to go nicely together. But oh man, how wrong I was.
Each dish has it’s own extremely unique and pungent flavors, sometimes unexpected. The mushrooms were vinegary, the onions and peppers pickled, and the coleslaw was sweet. All the flavors clashed and were too strong to blend in together. The final twist was that the rice had no flavor at all. A group of ingredients that should have mostly worked well together wound up just being a miserable combination. Even without the coleslaw, it was a struggle to finish and at 11 dollars after tax, I was sorely disappointed.
Chances are I won’t be going back to the Pump for a long time. I might give them another go (3rd time’s a charm?) now that soup-season is upon us, but that’s definitely not set in stone.
Google Map:
Links:
http://www.thepumpenergyfood.com/
Mediterranean on Madison
Place: Nanoosh
Culture: Mediterranean
Meal: Lunch, Organic
Location: Midtown. Madison Ave. b/w 33rd & 34th, east side.
Price: $$$
Rating: 5/5
Review:
I was literally attracted to this spot because of the design of their stationary. One day after lunch in K-Town, I decided to run around collecting menus for different places for future spots and theirs caught my eye. I grabbed one and checked it out while walking back to work.
I’m a huge fan of hummus, and that is their main ingredient of choice. They put it on or mix it with just about all their main meals.
I went for something that seemed pretty safe to try: the hummus chicken wrap. I also opted for their organic mint inced-tea. The second I took a sip of that stuff, I was instantly in love. The tea was cool, garnished with a single fresh mint leaf and lemon slice. It was slightly sweetened but not too much, and tasted great. I don’t know which type of tea it was, though I imagine white or green by the color. It was amazing.
I got my wrap and dug in, happy to find that it tasted great. No overwhelming flavors but far from dull. It was at a perfect medium. The texture of hummus mixed with chicken and lettuce took some getting used to. But after a few bites, it was like nothing.
The best part was how filling the wrap is. Normally after lunch I get hungry around 3-4 depending on how late I ate, but not yesterday. I was filled up right til I got home, something I think is great news for anybody who’s food conscious and trying to watch their portions.
All of their wraps have hummus, but they also offer salads and soups, exotic sides (Labane sounds amazing) and organic desserts, all of which I plan on trying in the future.
Google Map:
Links:
http://www.nanoosh.com/
http://www.menupages.com/restaurants/nanoosh/
Down Under in Midtown
Place: The Australian
Culture: Aussie
Meal: Lunch, Dinner, Bar
Location: Midtown. 38th St b/w 5th & 6th, south side.
Price: $$$
Rating: 4/5
Review:
I was introduced to this spot via a random Meetup.com group a few years back. I ordered an Aussie-style chicken Ceasar salad and was blown away by it. The dressing had a unique flavor, the chicken was wrapped in nori, and it was topped by a poached egg crowned by a little wasabi. I had never had anything like it and was instantly in love.
It’s styled in a pretty common NY sports-bar manner: you walk in and there are tall bar-tables, then a bar, and a somewhat obnoxiously narrow walkway that takes you to the dining area. The walls are adorned with about six HD flat screens showcasing sports from around the world, so lots of soccer and rugby. The food is your typical sports-bar meals with an Australian flare; burgers with eggs and bacon, wraps with Aussie-style fries, and at one point, even kangaroo!
Their Australian Sampler for two was great. In included an assortment of Aussie-style samplers: lamb chops, battered shrimp, fries, potato pattie things, and a few others I can’t recall now. I’ve become a fan of their roasted lamb wrap / sandwich as well.
It’s located a few blocks from my job, so I still go there every now and then for lunch-dates or after-work drinks. The chef switched, though, so the menu has, too. They god rid of my beloved Caesar salad, no longer serve Kangaroo, and the sampler has changed. The food can be bland at times but still good and filling, and it’s a great place to take friends for apps and drinks.
Prices are pretty average for NY, a little steep for others. 11-16 dollars for a meal is common, but most also come with a lot of sides so it’s overall really filling.
Night-time atmosphere is, as expected, crowded and loud but during the day the place is quaint. Service is good. Bartenders are always friendly and accommodating and the servers are quiet but attentive.
Google Map:
Links:
http://www.theaustraliannyc.com/
http://www.menupages.com/restaurants/the-australian/
A Taste of the Tropics
Place: Havana Central
Culture: Cuban
Meal: Lunch, Dinner, Bar
Price: $$$
Rating: 4/5
Review:
I found this place completely by accident while wondering around the Union Square area. What caught my attention was the Yuca Bites. As a Puerto Rican, I love me some Yuca (cassava in English.) so I harassed my mom to come join me one day for lunch. The food was pretty amazing, which says a lot. We all know how picky people can be when going to a restaurant that has our own ethnic food, espeically older generations. That my parents were impressed says a lot.
For a while there in college it was my go-to spot to take friends, even stopping by one halloween for some 2-for-1 drinks (and they make some delicious, delicious Mojitos..)
I’ve been to the 42nd street location twice, and both times I found myself somewhat un-impressed by the food. It was surprisingly bland. That particular one is considerably larger so they sometimes will have live entertainment which can be fun. For now, the 14th street location seems to be better on taste and atmosphere since it’s away from the tourist-trap zone. Both are somewhat cramped for seating, but that’s the nature of the beast in NY city. I’ve yet to check out their west-end spot.
Google Map:
Links
http://www.havanacentral.com/home.php
