Ray's Pizza

This wasn't Famous Ray's, or the Original Ray's, or the Original Famous Ray's, or even the Famous Original Original Famous Ray's (I made that one up, I think), but it's probably the worst Ray's.

Overpriced.

Terrible.

Pizza should never be terrible.

There's an Original Famous Ray's on 53rd and 7th. Go there instead.

Ray's Pizza
49th and 7th Avenue

The tin foil might have tasted better.

Congee Village Bowery

So after the unplanned first dinner at SoHo Park, we went in to Congee Bowery at around 10:30. There was only 3 of us, but they gave us our own table in a cool section of the restaurant. It wasn't quite private, but it was pretty close.

The plan for Congee Bowery was to eat things we had never eaten before and in that manner we were very successful.

The first dish that arrived was the jellyfish salad. The jellyfish had somehow been sliced into long thin strips and mixed in with some vegetables that looked very similar to the jellyfish strips. I'm not sure how to relate this to anything else but I thought it was pretty tasty.

The second dish was geoduck clam sashimi. I have no idea what a geoduck (pronounce goo-ey-duck) clam is, nor, like the jellyfish, do I understand how they made it into thin strips. Despite my lack of understanding, this was really good (and rightfully so as we found out later that it cost 65 bucks. oops). A person who appeared to be the manager was enamored by how we had ordered and was very excited that we had ordered the geoduck (we thought we were cool, but he was probably excited by the money we were spending). He came by often to check on us and offer advise. We asked if geoduck clam only came as sashimi and he explained that there were two parts to the clam and the part we were eating was best served as sashimi. The other part, he explained, contained very little sustanence so it was normally fried in batter. He assured us that the sashimi was the way to go. Then, half way through our quest to devour the sashimi, the manager returned with a plate full of something that was definitely deep fried. Turns out that he had had the staff make the other part of the geoduck for us (this is probably normal, but we wanted to feel special). As he said, it wasn't very good and was only slightly tasty due to being deep fried.

Next came the sea cucumber. Sea cucumber is weird. First of all, it looks like a turd (see picture below), and second, I know it wasn't alive but it sure acted like it was. Perhaps the cucumber and I were rivals. I tried to eat it with chopsticks but it proved impossible to pick up as it almost had the consistency of jello. I switched to a fork and cut the sea cucumber into small pieces (take that cucumber) but my attempts to eat it were still in vain. I stabbed each piece with my fork but as I tried to move the fork to my mouth the sea cucumber would dive back onto my plate. My friends didn't have a problem eating theirs so my sea cucumber was obviously a jerk while it was alive and its crap behavior had carried over into the edible food stage of its existance. Since we were white, they had given us plenty of forks so I outsmarted the cucumber by using two forks and piercing the cucumber in different directions, hence trapping it between the two forks. Eating the cucumber suddenly became difficult with my forks pointed in such a manner, but I managed.

I don't really like sea cucumber.

Razor clams were next and these were pretty good. Razor clams are long thin clams for reasons that are completely lost on me. They look a little bit like mushrooms and they taste pretty good. The clams were followed by beef chow fun. We ordered beef chow fun because we wanted to have at least one dish that a normal person would order. The chow fun needed more soy sauce but once this was applied it was quite good.

Our last dish was duck web. We had tried to order duck web at Shanghai Cafe but they were all out (although they may have been lying as they apparently horde all the good food for fellow Chinese people). This time we were successful and I have to say that duck web is weird. It took me a couple minutes to get over how weird it was, but once I did I enjoyed it. Duck web is exactly what you would expect. It's bone wrapped in skin. No meat. If it were a drumstick, someone would have had to suck the chicken right out while leaving the skin intact. Duck web is sweet and, well, skin. It's good if you can get past how weird it is to be eating skin.

207 Bowery

New York, NY 10002

Jellyfish Salad

Geoduck Clam Sashimi

Geoduck clam insides

Sea Cucumber (whole and obviously a jerk)

Sea cucumber (small piece, yet still a jerk)

Razor Clams

Beef chow fun

Duck web

SoHo Park

On our way to dinner, we passed SoHo Park and I noticed on their menu that they had something called the Grilled Two Cheese Sandwich. Usually I have grilled cheese with just one kind of cheese so having two sounded pretty awesome. Soho Park is only two blocks away from our planned dinner spot, Congee Bowerey, so we should have just kept going but instead we went in for a pre-dinner snack.

SoHo Park is funny. The service stinks, but they try to make up for it with a DJ. Why does a restaurant have a DJ? Probably for the same reason the Puma store does (I'm not sure what that reason is, I just know they both have DJs).

Our pre-dinner snack quickly became a full dinner. I ordered the tomato soup, which came in a paper cup with big chunks of tomato, the aforementioned grilled two cheese sandwich, and the SoHo Park Spiked Cocoa because it was cold outside.

The tomato soup was good as was the grilled cheese. Nothing too special. The spike cocoa was seriously spiked. It came in a large cup with a ton of whipped cream and was pretty gross as the cocoa was barely noticeable, and the drink cost more than anything else, so that sucked.

Mix Master Michelle?

gruyere, parmesan, fresh basil pistou, and sliced tomato on sourdough

Tomato Tomato Tomato w/bread croutons

Spiked Cocoa

Rice to Riches

Yuck. I don't like rice pudding. Why would I ever want to go here?

Oh. Probably because they make rice pudding taste like candy.

Most people appear to go to Rice to Riches and just try as many samples as they can before the staff gets sick of them. Luckily, there are usually 3 or 4 employees serving the candy-flavored rice pudding so you can milk each one of them for 2 or 3 tastes each.

If you do build up the courage to order one of these million calorie snacks (sugar+rice+sugar+rice+pudding - I don't know how to make rice pudding), you have to order a lot. You might only want to eat a tiny little portion but you are instead forced to order a massive container that purports to be a small. There are actually four different sizes starting with something called the 'solo' which is a gigantic small and building up to a container that can be filled with enough rice pudding to feed a village.

I wanted two different flavors in my dish and instead of being able to fit both flavors into the 'solo' (which they easily would have) I had to order the next size up to accommodate my wishes. It was worth it though. Granny Smith Apple and Honey Graham cracker rice pudding were born to be eaten together. Super delicious.

Also, the store is full of really funny signs. It's worth going inside just so you can read all of them.

37 Spring St
(between Mott St & Mulberry St)
New York, NY 10012

Lombardi's

First pizza place in America apparently. They screwed up my order and I forgot to take pictures. It's good but nothing special for New York. Plus they don't give free refills of soda and that's just being greedy.

32 Spring St
(between Mott St & Mulberry St)
New York, NY 10012

Shake Shack

Yummy burgers, good shakes, and good fries. Their ice cream is okay.

In LA we have In'N'Out as the fast food hamburger heaven (although I think fatburger is better). Shake shack kicks its butt. I've now had 3 different sandwiches here. A regular cheeseburger, a double stack (one hamburger and one deep fried portabella mushroom filled with muenster and cheddar cheese), and a double cheeseburger. I didn't order the double cheeseburger. The second time I came here they messed up my order, but i didn't care and it was tasty nonetheless.

Shake shack usually has a large line but this is not at all the case on Sunday nights. Saturday afternoon is kind of long and during the day it's packed but Sunday nights are pretty empty. Right now they're still installing heaters so people don't freeze their butts off while they eat their burgers. It's cold here.

I recommend the double stack or maybe just the shroom burger (sans hamburger). Deep fried portabella mushrooms filled with cheese are pretty damn awesome. Although, I imagine pretty much everything filled with cheese is awesome.

Madison Square Park
E 23rd St & Madison Ave
New York, NY 10010

double cheeseburger (not what I ordered)

Cafe d'Alsace

Mmmm, steak salad. I don't like salad. I really like steak. The solution to my lack of salad eating exists at Cafe d'Alsace.

This place is known for all kinds of things that I didn't even try. All I had was their steak salad (steak, arugula & reggiano parmesan) and part of my friends adventure in meat (called the CHOUCROUTE GARNIE: assorted sausages, braised pork belly & smoked pork breast over sauerkraut with Riesling, juniper & potatoes). Both great.

I need to go back for more.

Cafe d'Alsace
1695 2nd Ave
New York,NY 10128

Choucroute Garnie

hangar steak salad

Dunkin' Donuts

I didn't need to go to Fat Sal's which means I definitely didn't need to go to Dunky's after walking a few more blocks. I do love donuts though, especially little ones made of chocolate or covered in sugar and filled with jelly. 25 munchkins go for 7 dollars and these didn't taste very good at all. They had probably been sitting out all day. Oh well. I decided to throw them on top of storefront awnings throughout the rest of my walk home. That was fun.

Dunkin Donuts
Everywhere
New York City

Fat Sal's Pizza

I didn't need to go to Fat Sal's. I wasn't even hungry because I had just eaten my second dinner of the evening at The Diner. However, Fat Sal's is a funny name so I went in for a slice.

The only thing redeeming about Fat Sal's is that it's pizza. It's nothing special but it's not bad either. I'll throw it into the large pile of mediocre pizza places (which are all good compared to my hometown of Los Angeles) that populate this city.

Fat Sal's Pizza
217 W 14th St
New York 10011

Free delivery, but probably not by Fat Sal because then he'd be Skinny Sal.

pizza pizza

The Diner

I've been here twice now. For some reason we try to go to clubs on 8th avenue and at some point we either give up and go here because they have a bar or we get tired of the club and decide we want to eat and drink more. The Diner works well for that although i'm not sure why I would ever want to have grey goose vodka on the rocks with my chicken fingers. My friend ordered grilled cheese to go with his belvedere and soda. None of this makes sense.

It was around 3 or 4 am at this point. The food wasn't that good.

The Diner
14th and 8th Ave

Chicken fingers. woo hoo!!!

Shanghai Cafe

We were told that Shanghai Cafe had dumplings that rivaled Joe's Shanghai. I'm not sure that's true.

Shanghai Cafe is definitely cheaper. We ordered a ton of dumplings and didn't pay all that much for them. Joe's was one of the first places I ate when I moved here and it was also the first time I had ever had soup dumplings. These two things are possibly making it fonder in my memory than it really is but as of now (not having gone back to Joe's yet) my opinion is that Joe's is superior. Shanghai Cafe is good but it's not getting Joe's status just yet.

Aside from dumplings, dumplings, and more dumplings (see pictures below), we ordered hot and sour soup (just okay), and pig ears. We tried to order duck web but they were out. The pig ears came in roughly 80 thin strips piled on top of each other and made me wonder how many different pigs were represented by those ears.

We went on a Friday night and it wasn't completely full which is both good and bad. Overall this place is pretty good. The waitstaff were pretty funny. There was a portion of the menu that was only in Chinese (sans English translation) and my friend asked what it said. The waitress looked at my other friend (who's Korean) and said "You can't read this?" as if all Asian people could read Chinese. We then listend as she read (or at least we thought she read, she could have been making it up) the menu to us. The Chinese only section had a ton of really good dishes. It was confusing as to why it was in Chinese only. Oh well.

Shanghai Cafe
100 Mott St

Pork soup dumplings

Pig Ears

Hot and Sour Soup

Crab and Pork Dumplings

Fried Dumplings

Dumplings in soup.

Pop Burger

There was an Obama rally on the third floor of Pop Burger. We sat in the bar-esque section on the 2nd floor but thanks to the bathroom's location on the third floor we were forced to join the Obama movement from time to time. The highlight of which was probably watching the staff escort a wheel-chaired Obama supporter to the party. It may sound uninteresting to watch a dood in a wheel chair get escorted to a party on the third floor but it gets interesting in a hurry when you factor in that this place doesn't have an elevator.

As for the food, the burgers are tasty and the fries are fantastic. The egg rolls were okay. I've been told that the food has different prices depending upon which floor of the place you're on. The first floor, which looks like a fast food joint as opposed to the second and third which look like a trendy bar is rumored to be cheaper. The idea is a little weird to me and I can't confirm or deny it. If I go back here I will definitely invesitgate.

Pop Burger
14 E 58th Street

pop burgers (served as sliders in 3s)

fries, served in a tall skinny glass (poorly represented by this picture)

chicken egg rolls

Cafe Cortadito

This will probably be my favorite place to eat in New York City for the rest of the winter. Not only is it really good but, nearly as important, it's less than 45 feet away from the front door of my building.

We arrived at 9:45 and spent 15 minutes outside freezing our behinds off as we waited for three middle aged women to vacate their table. They had already eaten and paid but were lingering, probably not wanting to go out into the cold air that we were currently appreciating. S'Mac was brought up a few times during our wait, but we toughed it out and it was definitely worth it.

Cafe Cortadito is BYOB so after ordering, my friend was sent back out into the cold to look for a reseller of fine wine; or half decent wine; or even overpriced crappy wine: really any wine would do as the objective was to get back as quickly as possible.

My friend returned with a Malbec from Argentina just as the appetizers were arriving. Chorizo, beef empenadas and the cortadito salad which came with chicken and an apple flavored dressing. The chorizo and salad were delicious, but the empenadas I could have gone without.

Our main courses were Ropa Vieja: shredded beef in a creole sauce; Churrasco: a large strip steak; and Rabo Encendido: oxtail. The oxtail was awesome and didn't suffer from the bad meat to bone ratio that Margon's oxtail did. The Churrasco was moist and delicious and the ropa vieja was good but my least favorite of the three. The assessment isn't completely fair because the oxtail has the edge in fattyness and accordingly gains some flavor advantages. Overall an excellent meal.

210 East 3rd Street
New York, NY 10079

Chorizo

Empenadas de carne (half eaten)

Ropa Vieja

Rabo Encendido (Oxtail)

The Stanton Social

My friend and I started exploring the lower east side for a place to eat at around 10:00 pm. After walking a few figure eights and stopping into a ton of different restaurants, we walked in to The Stanton Social at 10:45 at night. We were greeted with loud popular music and a packed restaurant. We were sold.

The Stanton Social is pretty much an american tapas bar. They've decided to serve upscale american cuisine but in little tiny portions, hence tapas.

We ordered 5 dishes (technically six) because a) the dishes are small and b) sharing is caring and we care. The first dish was french onion soup dumplings. The dumplings were presented on a plate with 6 individual indentations (exactly the same kind of dish you would be served escargot on) that housed the dumplings. A layer of cheese topped each dumpling and on the inside of each was a small amount of soup and some tasty onions. All of these layers came together (like Voltron) to form a pretty delicious french onion soup, in a dumpling.

The second dish were 3 very tiny red snapper tacos, the highlight of which was a spicy dipping sauce that really made the dish. The tiny tacos came with normal sized lime wedges which almost dwarfed the tacos. Overall, just okay.

Sea bass satays came next and these were fantastic. Sweet and delicious all around with a salad teepee of peppers, okra, and other vegetables that i don't know but enjoyed eating. The next dish, however, was quite recognizable. In the middle sat what looked like kettle chips but were actually chips made in the restaurant with a little hint of lime. To the left of the chips was a miniature philly cheese steak sandwich with kobe beef, goat cheese, and carmelized onions and to the right sat a miniature kobe beef burger. It's almost correct to say that the miniature kobe beef burger was actually a miniature slider; it was just that big. The philly cheese steak, called a Kobe philly, was average and not something I would order again. The kobe beef burger, on the other hand, was fantastic and something I would eat 30 of, even if that 30 only equaled 1 regular sized hamburger. It wasn't really that small. It was more like the hamburger you can see in those nutrisystem commercials on espn in which Dan Marino says you can even have a hamburger and in his hands sits a hamburger which makes me think that he either has enormous hands or the diet allows you to eat little tiny burgers. Anyway, this burger is ridiculously good. Order two or three.

The last dish was their beef wellington. It came wrapped in a soft crust that contained a foie gras mousse which kind of seemed like a poor way to serve foie gras. Some of the bites were delicious and others didn't seem to taste quite right. Actually, when I say 'some' I mean one and when I say 'others' i mean the other two bites. Everything was small and we were sharing.

Overall this place was really good. Half of our dishes were fantastic and the other half were okay but not great. There were plenty of other choices on the menu that sounded really good that we'll order next time instead of the so so dishes.

99 Stanton Street
New York, NY 10002

French Onion Soup Dumplings

Red Snapper Taco

Sea Bass Satay

Kobe Philly (left) and Kobe Burger (right)

Beef Wellington

Ippudo

Ramen done really really well.

Ippudo is awesome. The restaurant is huge, which in my experience is unique for ramen places, and the staff is super friendly. Every time the hostess enters to seat a new party all kinds of Japanese phrases that I hope are congenial (I wouldn't really know) are shouted by all of their employees.

There were four of us tonight so we orderd the Hirata Buns (basically a pork sandwich) and the Omikasa appetizer special which consists of 3 dishes subject to the whims of the chef. The hirata buns were good but were overshadowed by the appetizer special. We were served a dish of pork bellies, a dish of shrimp and vegetables in a tasty sauce, and a dish of what i think were chicken croquettes in a wholey different tasty sauce. Sometimes I don't pay a lot of attention to what I'm eating, but I do know that all three were quite good.

My ramen was called karaka-men and I ordered it extra spicy, which turns out to be just kind of spicy. There are a number of add-ons you can put in your ramen and I ordered pork belly because even though i had already had pork twice, it's just that good. The ramen was delicious, excellent broth, noodles; everything.

Ippudo is pricier than your average ramen place but definitely worth it.

65 4th Ave
New York, NY 10003

hirata buns

Omikase appetizer special

Karaka-men w/pork belly

PJ Clarke's

Went here for lunch on Sunday or perhaps it was brunch; I'm not sure. Some restaurants offer brunch until 4 o'clock and everyone seems to call the food you eat on the weekend, before dinner, brunch so perhaps brunch is correct. Either way, I went to PJ Clarke's on Sunday.

In our typical buy too much food fashion, we all ordered soup, a burger, and a side and then ate until we felt horrible. I had the clam chowder which was okay. The ingredients were very good but it was a little less creamy than I would have liked, although perhaps I should be okay with the health value of not using a ton of cream.

My burger didn't have cream but it didn't need it as it came with cheese, bacon, and a bearnaise sauce. The burger was soft and moist and all around awesome. The fries were good too, but nothing special.

Definitely worth it.

915 3rd Ave (@55th)
New York, NY 10022

The Cadillac (bacon and cheese) w/ Bearnaise sauce

Clam Chowder

Oh! Taisho

Not Yakitori Taisho (which is apparently very similar if not the same and just two doors down), but Oh Taisho (we inquired about both and Oh Taisho had a lesser wait).

This place is crowded. We went at around 9:30 on Saturday night and had to wait about 20 minutes (not bad at all) to get a seat. There were 4 of us so we ordered a ton of food; go figure. There are four different yakitori combo platters and we ordered two of them: A and B. Together they provided 20 skewers that consisted of chicken skin, gizzard, chicken meat ball, scallions, shrimp, beef, and pork. This of course wasn't enough so we ordered chicken heart skewers and also two or three different something wrapped in bacon skeweres. Also we had a root salad, kimchee type pasta dish and we orderd some rice balls but those never came.

All of the skewers were pretty good. Chicken heart was interesting and definitely not one of my favorites. Chicken skin, on the other hand, was certainly one of my favorites because it tasted like candy. The chicken meat balls were okay but my assessment is a little unfair because I had just recently had Sakagura's chicken meatballs, so yakitori never really had a chance.

Overall, this place is good and it's cheap, so it's definitely worth repeat visits. I'm sure Yakitori Taisho is in the same boat.

9 St. Marks Place
New York, NY 10003

Sakagura

Awesome.

Sakagura is in a basement, which apparently is cool although I don't get it, and it's said that walking into Sakagura is like walking into Tokyo. I've never been to Tokyo so, for me, walking into Sakagura is like walking into a really nice restaurant in a basement or maybe a room with no windows. Walls without windows; take that Microsoft.

The food here is amazing. We ordered 10 dishes and each one was a delightful experience. We started with Ankimo Tofu which is apparently monkfish liver tofu. We asked how you turn monkfish liver into tofu and our server was kind enough to explain it in a completely unsatisfactory way (not because he was rude, but because he really didn't understand it either). We ordered it nonetheless and it was very tasty. The dish had the consistancy of tofu but the flavor of monkfish liver. This was followed by Maguro Tartare; chopped tuna with flying fish roe steeped in yuzu and caviar. Steeped has three meanings according to the merriam-webster online dictionary: 1. to soak in a liquid at a temperature under the boiling point, 2. to cover with or plunge into liquid, 3. to saturate with or subject thoroughly to. I like the idea that my tuna tartar was thoroughly subjected to yuzu and caviar. I'm not quite sure how or why it was thoroughly subjected, but it sure was delicious on top of it's spectacular presentation.

The third dish was Onsen Tamago, a soft boiled egg topped with sea urchin and salmon roe in cold soup. I'm a big fan of egg, uni, and salmon roe so I overlooked the fact that cold soup didn't sound appealing. I couldn't have been more wrong about the soup. The entire dish was delicious and every piece seemed to compliment each other very nicely. The only problem was the we were sharing this soup and it was difficult to seperate the sea urchin into smaller pieces so that we all could enjoy it. Chopsticks do not make good knives.

Next came the Tori Tsukune which are chicken meatballs with terriyaki sauce. These weren't that special but I'm a fan of meatballs and thought they were good. A dish called Gindara Yuan Yaki came next. I don't know what any of those words are but what we ordered was grilled filet of cod fish steeped in a sweet soy sauce. Very delicious. Cod seems to be a can't miss dish at Japanese restaurants.

Our 6th dish was called Chawanmushi; steamed egg custard with chicken, shrimp, and ginko nuts topped with thickened ponzu sause. I'm not sure i've ever eaten egg custard before and my friend said that normally egg custard is a lot drier than this was, which I assume was a complement to the dish. It was certainly an interesting experience but we ran into our sharing problem again as there was only one piece of chicken and one piece of shrimp. This isn't a knock on the dish at all, just a problem when you're trying to split everything three ways.

Next came Surumeika Yaki; grilled japanese squid brushed with garlic soy sauce. I don't know how you get meat from a squid, but the presentation on this dish was cool. There was a section of strips of squid meat and at the end was a smile pile of tenticles. The strips were definitely tastier than the tenticles in my opinion and maybe anything brushed with garlic soy sauce is delicious, I'm not quite sure.

Our 8th and 9th dishes came together: Gyu Miso Nikomi and Gyutan Yawarakan. The former is shredded beef back ribs stewed in miso topped with grated daikon radish. Very good. The latter is beef tongue stewed in miso. Also delicious, but it was the 10th dish that stole the show.

When we heard about Sakagura we were told that their pork belly was to die for. We didn't see pork belly on the menu so we inquired with our server who seemed to say that the Buta Kakuni; stewed dice pork, was what we wanted without actually saying that it was in fact pork belly. We're very trusting so we ordered one for each of us. This dish was amazing. It came in a bowl, sitting in a delicious sauce and looked like a piece of cake. The icing was a three quarter inch thick layer of fat that covered the tiny square of pork. It melted in your mouth. I have to imagine that this dish came last for the sole reason that if it had come first, everything else would have been disappointing. It was that good.

10 dishes is a lot, but what's dinner without dessert? We ordered the black sesame cream brulee (their spelling) and the chocolate souffle. Both dishes were very good, the creme brulee had a perfect thin, crispy top layer and the chocolate souffle was good too. They are known for their truffles but we decided to save those for our next visit.

Also, aside from serving amazing tapas style dishes, Sakagura is a sake club. Their sake menu is massive and how amazing it is is completely lost on someone like me. My friends and I weren't sure where to even start so we asked for help from a server. We wanted something relatively cheap, say $40-$50ish (those were our exact words) and he recommended one of his favorites, a $75 dollar bottle called Kamoshibito Kuheiji. Some people don't appreciate it when you ask for something in a certain price range and are offered something that's almost twice as expensive, I on the other hand find it hilarious. We bought the bottle. I imagine it's a good sake, but I know very little besides that I really liked it.

211 E 43rd St
Basement #1
(between 2nd Ave & 3rd Ave)
New York, NY 10017

Maguro Tartare

Surumeika Yaki

Chawanmushi (not my fingers)

Remants of Gyu Miso Nikomi (those are my fingers)

Buta Kakuni

Dessert