A few things to note before we get into it. First, this is a review of the Boqueria on 19th St., not of the newer SoHo location, and not of both. Boqueria Soho has a different dynamic and clientele. Second, let us preface this by saying that we’ve been coming to Boqueria for a while now, and we generally enjoy the place. The only problem we have is that it’s slowly becoming to Spanish food what Sushi Samba is to Japanese. What does that mean exactly? It means that it’s on the short list of venues for Girls Night Out, and that the food is hit or miss. Don’t get us wrong, we’re absolutely fine with going to a restaurant loaded with girls, but consistency is what we crave and Boqueria seems to be all over the map these days. The best bets on the menu tend to be the more simple items like Brussels sprouts, pan con tomate, and anything with chorizo. The wine list is good and reasonably priced (plenty of bottles priced under forty dollars), and the churros are pretty excellent. Maybe even better than the ones that dude sells on the L train platform. At the end of the day, the good at Boqueria is definitely good, and if you stick to the right things, you’ll probably walk away happy. Then again, when we’re craving some Spanish food we’re probably headed to Bar Carerra, Mercat, or Casa Mono instead. For the purposes of this food rundown, we’re going to stick (mostly) to the stuff we liked.
After being hyped on this place by friends and food media for the last year, I was pretty confident Aldea was going to be a John Starks over the entire Bulls team kind of slam dunk. Not the case. While some of their highly touted dishes – namely the sea urchin toast and duck paella – were certainly quite good, the rest of the food wasn’t nearly as impressive. Some of it even had to be sent back, and we rarely ever play that game.
Aldea pimps out their chef, George Mendes, New Orleans style. In NOLA, chef photos and accolades greet you at the front door and decorate restaurant walls, watching you eat. By the time your meal is finished, you know damn well that John Besh or Donald Link is the man that made it all possible. Aldea revolves its world around Mendes in a similar way. Our waiter must have dropped George’s name three or four times, and I guarantee he’s required to do that. It all feels a little desperate…if your food is that good, New Yorkers will recognize. No need to shove it in our faces. Despite all the name dropping, Aldea is a very comfortable eating environment. We lucked out and got the best seat in the house, the back booth right in front of the kitchen, which you should absolutely request when you’re making a reservation. Overall, we’re not saying Aldea is a bad restaurant, it just doesn’t live up to all the hype. We’ll go back sometime, we’re just not in any rush.
Local pig farmers must have thrown the biggest barnyard rager ever when news broke that The Spotted Pig’s Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield were ditching their failed fish experiment, The John Dory, and headed back to the swine. Everyone on the Internet certainly paid attention. Hands down, The Breslin was the single-most hyped restaurant opening of 2009. Like college kids camped out before Bonnaroo, hungry food bloggers set up shop in the Ace Hotel lobby for weeks, drinking Porkslap Pale Ale and sleeping on couches as they typed, tweeted and texted The Breslin’s every move.
Not to say that we weren’t guilty of blowing up @immaculateinfat with pictures of pig foot now and again, but we definitely tried to not get sucked in by the hype. We hit The Breslin as much as possible before fully weighing in, which wasn’t an easy task. It’s obviously one of the tougher tables in town. Over the last month or two, we managed a solid Chronic Brunch hang with Hot 97’s Miss Info and Spin.com’s Peter Gaston and a Dinner With The Parent’s move was manageable mid-week. The Breslin is definitely a better option for Weekday/After Work Drinks & Dinner than on the weekends, when you’re sure to hit crazy three hour waits.
After a recommendation from an Immaculate Board Member (since put on probation, sorry Fred), we headed to Sagaponak, a new-ish restaurant that’s flown under the radar and free of much online buzz or chatter. With an empty stomach and open mind, we went in hoping to find a diamond in the rough. Unfortunately, Sagaponak turned out to be less upscale Hamptons and more dirty summer share house. It takes more than a few shells on the wall to transform an otherwise non-descript space into a “beach” restaurant. Courtesy Flush, you definitely want to check out and review the ladies room here, the females at our table couldn’t stop talking about it. Sopranos gone fishing. The service was pleasant, but MIA most of the time. Water glasses remained empty for the majority of the meal and never once were we made to feel like they gave a crap that we existed. We were one of three occupied tables in the restaurant, so where the help was and what they were doing is a mystery to me. Maybe they were playing Pro Kadima in the kitchen.
With the exception of the oysters, which were surprisingly affordable and quite good, the appetizers were a huge disappointment. After those were cleared away the service went dark. Like, we didn’t even see a Sagaponack employee for a solid half hour to forty-five minutes. We hoped that the wait meant that they were putting some extra love into our entrees, but sadly that wasn’t the case. You can read all about the underwhelming Applebee’s fare in the food rundown. Bottom line, there are too many good seafood restaurants in this city to waste your time with Sagaponack. In the same way that families out East will be packing up their homes and closing up shop at the end of the summer, we wouldn’t be surprised to be waving goodbye to Sagaponak for good come September.
Bar Breton earns itself the dubious honor of being one of the few restaurants he have tagged as perfect for “wasting your time and money” on this site. We don’t throw that around lightly but unfortunately, this place makes L’Express look like Le Bernardin. It’s surprising, given chef Cyril Renaud’s Michelin star littered resume, but the food is a drag, the service erratic, and the space feels like a brasserie designed for Terminal 4 at JFK. We had high hopes for the galettes, buckwheat crepes inspired from Renaud’s homeland of Brittany, but for the most part they’re forgettable. As for the rest of the menu, the meat entrees almost uniformly arrived overcooked, and the fish dishes we tried all shared a pungent fishy smell. We give it three total points for an affordable wine list and a burger that’s serviceable, but there are better options in this area, even if that means you’re eating chicken paillard at Mustang Harry’s before the Knicks game.
Feature: Infatuation TV: P.O.S.
