Thor- Norse for really bad food on the LES

I could forgive Thor for the bad service, tacky decor, and borderline offensive maître'd, but I cannot forgive Thor for screwing up my duck salad.

Okay, I should clarify, it's not that the restaurant screwed up per se, but rather that the very basis of their recipe undermined what is so wonderful and unique about duck, and transformed what I usually consider to be the most delectable of birds into chewy chunks of oversalted meat tossed with cheap truffle oil. True, the cheeseburger was good, the fries acceptable, and the pathetic serving of risotto was adequately palateable for a dish that is so easy to screw up, but that salad... it was so bad that when I was still hungry at the end of the meal I chose to go to punjabi's on Houston st for a three dollar bowl of rice with curry rather than risk further offending my tastebuds...

Oh and those chairs? Just as uncomfortable as they look. My ass fell asleep before the free bread came, which, come to think of it, was probably the best part of the meal.

Mobile Blogging from here.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Orchard- Ápizz's Boring Younger Sister

Good flatbreads, bad entrees.
Maybe because of my intimate love affair with Ápizz, I expected her little sister to be just as good. They look alike; both having the same fiery orange lighting, but The Orchard looks more like the bottom floor of a luxury yacht (there are no windows) than a sexy lower Manhattan hotspot. The menu screamed for their flatbreads-- so we tried the steak tartare and the mushroom one. Surpringly, the latter greatly overshadowed the prime beef filet with its mouth watering herbs and mushroomy goodness. In fact, it might have been the best thing on the menu. We also tried the crispy lobster empanadas (Maine meets Miami?). The pulled lobster meat filling was wicked tasty, but the "butter leaf wrap" belonged more to a blintz than a "crispy empanada". (I should know, I'm a Jew married to a Cuban).
For $29, I got the olive-oil poached halibut with a kind of salsa on the side. I should have asked for chips with my salsa since the fish was just plain boring. We also ventured for the grilled filet mignon wraps. The meat was served in those crunchy, grasshopper color lettuce leaves (the kind the bodega puts in your sandwiches). Though boasting chimichurri pesto and spicy mayo, my dear jersey italian friend described them as "Lackluster. Unimaginative. Unimpressive"
Couldn't have said it better myself.

Rush Hour, Burger Bar- LES

I have a soft spot in my stomach for gourmet turkey burgers. It probably all dates back to when I was a little girl and still ate beef and I wouldn't eat my dad's homemade hamburgers unless they were topped with tiny chopped onions like McDonalds'.

Fortunately, down on the Lower East Side, tucked among bars and drunken hipsters, Rush Hour serves their hot little brioche burger buns anyway I like.

To begin with, beef is not the only thing for dinner at Rush Hour, aside from sandwiches and several incarnations of fried potatoes, diners have their choice of six different veggie, meat or poultry fillings for their burgers, paired with cheese, lettuce and tomato, or one of the 18 different signature toppings. (If I didn't fail grade school math that's 120 different burger possibilities).

Toppings vary from French themed goat cheese and caramelized onion (amazing!) to Brazilian mango and swiss cheese or Old Lady style pesto and mozzarella-- warmed individually a pannini press. In the end there is little to complain about, beyond the difficulty of deciding, and the ironically slow speed with which the food is served, even when there are only two people in the restaurant.


Photocredit Roboppy- http://www.flickr.com/photos/roboppy/226922998/

La Barra Cevicheria- LES

Walking into this LES mexican cevicheria, the inside of La Barra reminds me a bit as if Barrio Chino (the taco and margarita joint almost directly across the street) threw up on itself. With exposed brick from the adjacent building, minimal craigslist-esque furniture, and a bathroom that reaked of cigarette smoke, La Barra is the perfect lower east side hole in the wall. Even though it is BYOB (the best part of the restaurant besides the ceviche), four of us were still able to rack up an $80 bill, including 2 ceviches, 2 salads, guac, and a tamale. The ceviche is, hands down, deliciously flavorful and has the perfect amount of lime, cilantro, salt, freshly cut fish (theres a mushroom ceviche for you veges, though I did not try it) and whatever else they put in it. Everything else was..nothing special. I was also pleasantly surprised to find we were the only customers speaking English--