Immaculate Infatuation

If you know the Upper East Side at all, then you probably know that trying to find an unpretentious, good restaurant in the area is almost as difficult as eliciting human facial expressions from the overly Botoxed women who reside there. Take a walk in the east 70’s and 80’s sometime and what you’ll find is a bunch of stuffy, overpriced Italian restaurants, a handful of unbearable bars, and at least five stores that sell neckwear for tiny dogs. Not particularly Immaculate Infatuation territory. Luckily, Cascabel Taqueria has come along and opened its doors in the name of good food and making sure the neighborhood knows it’s OK to chill the f**k out every once in a while. We’ve been spending some time there over the last few weeks, and we’re officially obsessed.

Cascabel is primarily a taqueria, a low key spot for Mexican food done with high quality ingredients. It’s about keeping things simple and having some fun with a restaurant, not something you often find in this city where the food scene can be so damn serious. We’ve been fans of Chef Todd Mitgang’s since the B.I. days (Before Infatuation), when he was putting the ceviche treatment on everything from tuna to beef sliders at Crave. He’s now applying his creative approach to the menu at Cascabel, and the result is some off the hook Mexican in an atmosphere that actually feels like a real neighborhood hang. The tacos are unbelievable, there’s Negra Modelo on tap, and everything is made from scratch in house. We recommend you bring a friend and/or a massive appetite – seven bucks gets you two huge tacos, but you’ll want to try a few different kinds, so make sure you’re prepared to get down to business.

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History. Corner Bistro is filled with it, especially for Immaculate Infatuation. To fully understand why we back the Bistro so hard, we need to drop a little Infatuation history lesson.

Before it was the name of this website, the name Immaculate Infatuation belonged to a made up British rock band that my college friends and I dressed up as for Halloween one year. Check the pic, we were a bad ass rock-n-roll shred machine. Think Guns N’ Roses meet a British version of Motley Crue. The town of Ithaca, NY will never fully recover from that night. After the band retired, Immaculate Infatuation lived on as my fantasy football team name. Luckily, Diddy rejected it as a suggestion for Making the Band 4’s group name, and when Stang and I needed to figure out what to call our new venture, the choice was obvious.

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When we heard about The Mermaid Inn opening an “Oyster Bar” in the Village, we were fired up like burnouts scrambling for tickets to the Phish shows at MSG. We’ve been frequenting the East Village location for years now, and the uptown outpost is just as good. They both serve up great fish and a nice lobster roll, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a safer bet for an “Early In the Game Date.” I also just recently had an incredible meal at Neptune Oyster in Boston and it’s been on the brain ever since. So naturally, we went in to the new Mermaid optimistic and ready to throw down some bivalves. Now, the place has all of the same appealing qualities as it’s predecessors and the food is good, but an oyster bar? I guess fifteen or so varieties qualify you, but we were hoping for a deeper raw bar and a little more excitement. Where’s the oyster inspiration? How about an oyster stew, maybe a po’ boy? The menu is standard Mermaid Inn fare, which is fine, but we had hopes for something a little more inventive. What it comes down to is that the Oyster Bar is perfect for mid-day beers and a dozen on ice, but it’s really just another Mermaid Inn. Hit up Flex Mussels if you’re looking for some inspired variations on a theme.

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Sitting in Il Buco on a recent Tuesday night, one wouldn’t think our country was currently experiencing severe economic turmoil. The place is packed to the gills with people eating and drinking without a care in the world. Even some of the hottest restaurants have empty tables on “off” nights, but the fact that Il Buco is routinely slammed is a testament to the quality of the food and the unique character of the space. You won’t find another place in town quite like it. The restaurant’s rustic country vibe is as authentic as it gets. Originally opened as an antique store in the mid-90’s, the owners quickly realized their meal ticket wasn’t in the form of selling antique ceramic pots, it was the kitchen.

Il Buco has been a hotspot for a while now, attracting an older, celeb heavy crowd. Our girl Christina Hendricks (Joan on Mad Men) and her Infatuation approved ass got married here recently. The menu has become famous for its seasonal Mediterranean tapas and daily selection of homemade pastas, local poultry and fish entrees. We’d suggest focusing on the tapas and the pasta. Better yet, get a big group together and take advantage of Il Buco’s chef’s table or private dining room in the downstairs cellar.

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Midtown wine bars are pretty high up there on the list of places you won’t find us hanging out. Why? Well, first of all, the majority of them are slightly less exciting than having a glass or two inside your local Pottery Barn. Second, we’re not so down with the menus rife with shitty pizzas and cubed cheese served on cutting boards. Oh and that fig thrown in next to the pile of Wheat Thins? Yeah, that’s not fooling anybody.

On the surface, Bocca di Bacco doesn’t look much different than any of those places. What is interesting, though, is that the food is actually very good. On the menu is an extensive offering of Italian small plates, pastas, and tasty full sized entrees to accompany all the wines that pour from a giant wine keggerator behind the bar. The crowd is a nice mix of Hell’s Kitchen’s hottest residents and some downtowners that know where to get good eats when they’re in the area. We went in on a Twitter recommendation and have now had two solid meals at Bocca di Bacco, along with some nice wines by the glass that didn’t put too bad of a hurting on the wallet. I’m glad we gave it a chance. The ridiculous house music on the website almost doomed it from the start.

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