Pinche Taqueria

9/21/2008

Soho: 227 Mott St (and Spring St) - (212) 625-0090

Price: Cheap Eats

Rating (1-10): 6

Pinche Taqueria is a fun spot to drop in and grab some cheap eats done well and light. It's casual and kind of hipster New Yorky but not in an annoying way. Prices are very fair and for around $10, you can grab a filling meal, and hang out in the small eating area or just outside (if weather is nice) and enjoy the SoHo scene.

The menu is pleasantly varied selection of tacos, burritos, salads, and other fixins - with fish, pork (braised and grilled), beef, shrimp, chicken - and the food comes out quick. It's mostly good but it's not a homerun. The braised pork taco (carnitas) has a porky flavor although tougher than most things braised. The chicken (pollo asado) had char flavor but a bit on the rubbery side and the fish taco (pescado), a deep fried piece of fish, is soft and tasty, especially with a squeeze of lime. The tacos are served with crispy onions, cilantro, a pleasantly unadorned guac, and a side of green or red salsa. (If you can get extra salsa, I'd recommend giving it an extra douse for extra flavor.) What's nice is that, thanks to the toppings, these tacos have a light, fresh feeling, even the deep fried fish. For what is essentially street food, it's comfortably above average in quality, taste and healthiness.

If you're looking for a quick and affordable bite or if you got a hankerin' for some Mexican food, I'd recommend popping in on Pinche Taqueria. Chances are, you'll at least think it's worth the ~$10 you spend.

Song

8/27/2008

Park Slope: 295 5th Ave (and 2nd st) - (718) 965-1108

Price Range: Cheap Eats

Rating (1-10): 6

Song is a neighborhood "go-to" restaurant when you need take out, delivery, or a satisfying but cheap - yet somehow fancy - sitdown meal. It's solid, generously-portioned Thai food in a sleekly designed restaurant. I've enjoyed all my meals here - standard Thai fare: pad thai, masaman curry, green curry, fried rice, chili basil sauce krapow dishes, spicy noodles, etc. In short, it gives you your money's worth and probably more. If you're looking for Thai and you're in Park Slope, look no further. (If you're in Carroll Gardens area, you can call on its identical sister restaurant Joya).

Of course, if you're being critical, Song isn't super gourmet and the menu doesn't change a lot so it could get old if you go too much. The service could be better and the music is sometimes too loud. It's not daring or innovative from a strictly culinary perspective...but it does what it does well.

The service is friendly enough and fast. The design of the place is clean and contemporary and there's a nice, quiet backyard if you want the outside dining. You can also go to a pretty cool looking bar for a drink if that's all you want. All this for sub-$5 appetizers, sub-$7 pad thai/noodle dishes, sub-$8 curries, and moderately priced drinks.

The consistency, good taste, affordability, and "hip feel" of Song are make it one of the better cheap eats places I've been to in New York.

Barrio

8/9/2008
Park Slope: 210 7th Ave (and 3rd St) - (718) 965-4000
Price: Mid-Range
Rating (1-10): 7


If you find yourself strolling around the Park Slope neighborhood or vicinity, you should stop by Barrio for a relaxed atmosphere and solid Mexican food. I thought a rating of 7 might be high but in the end, decided it fair considering for the atmosphere, the quality of the food, and the value.

The food is fresh and light - a pleasant change from other Mexican joints that, though satisfying, leave you feeling like jabba the hut. I enjoyed the flavors in all of the dishes that I tried - and the variety of flavors in particular: delicious calamari-conconut flavored rice with spicy grilled shrimp; a "chile arbol" peanut mole, which tastes strongly of peanut and goes with a roast pork; or a chicken enchilada in a red salsa puree with more typical heat and a bit of tanginess. The seasoned doesn't burn your mouth out or go crazy with one element - sweet, sour, spicy, etc - and offset the balance - in fact, the food both in taste, freshness, and composition achieves a nice balance.

The fish tacos appetizer - though small in portion - were light and pleasantly simple, letting the ingredients be themselves with cilantro, cabbage, and citrus. The Yucatan shrimp dish were meaty, juicy (and not rubbery), strongly seasoned, and nicely charred. And the chicken enchilada was gone in about 5 minutes - the cheese (a crumbled queso fresco), raw onion, red salsa sauce, along with the chicken and tortilla were simply a great combo that and no part of it was unpleasant.

Improvements could be made - such as the addition of a starch to the Puebla pork dish, which would have been better served over rice to catch some of the pork juice and sauce. And I do wonder about the authenticity of the menu - some of the stuff they could do without like the chile caesar salad or granola and yogurt served at brunch. The concern is not only that it makes it disappointingly generic, but also might bring into question the ability to produce real Mexican food. It strikes me as a lack of confidence to stick with one true theme.

As enjoyable as the food at Barrio is the atmosphere, particularly in the warmer weather with all the open windows and a large outdoor eating area, looking out onto the stoller-filled, but pleasant and spacious intersection at 7th ave and 3rd st. With relaxing music (which I can't name) playing through the speakers and friendly, personable, unpretentious servers, the ambiance is calming and struck me as a place you could come back to consistently, for casual dinners, dates, or just to chill and grab a quick drink or bite. Although the owners seemed to have gotten it right with a lot of things about Barrio, the color selection of the exterior awning is a bit odd - bright orange and pink. On the one hand, its loud and vibrant and is about energy, but it's a bit of a shock. They say that people go crazy sitting in a red room - sitting under the awning outside on a sunny day might be a good place to conduct that experiment. I opted to sit inside given the heat lamp-like glow. I'll go when it's nighttime.

When I first visited Barrio, the service was a bit cluttered since it was one of the first weeks of operation, but they have since gotten into rhythm and continue to be a friendly establishment. Although it is possible to rack up a hefty bill here, especially if you get into the drink menu, there are more than enough very reasonable items so that you don't get to the cusp of feeling a significant pinch on the wallet. Given the fun atmosphere, good value, and quality of food, I wouldn't be surprised if Barrio starts to build up a contingent of neighborhood "regulars." I'm considering it myself.

Walter's Cafe

7/18/2008
Portland, Maine: 15 Exchange St - (207) 871 -9258

Price: Mid-Range

Rating (1-10): 6

Walter's Cafe is an enjoyable dining experience set in a nice space in the heart of the port area of Portland, Maine. The food is ambitious but is hit or miss, the wine list is good, and the service is decent. All in all, it's not bad but it's not great. You should go here for the ambiance and the steak, but several of the dishes were disappointing.

Steer clear of the caesar salad which was unremarkable and simply a head of romaine on a plate with some caesar dressing and cherry tomatoes. Zero points for ingenuity on a barely passing caesar. I would also not recommend the lobster pasta or the mushroom pasta, both of which come with a delicious sounding description but end up being somewhat boring. The ingredients - lobster and wild mushrooms respectively - sound amazing and then come out and are kind of ho-hum, maybe not the best usage (for example, I'd rather just have the lobster in the shell with butter and lemon).

The star here is the steak and I would definitely go back just for that. It comes with a stilton butter, which is very nice and adds that strong salty flavor. Also on the plate is sauce bordelaise, which is fine and doesn't hurt, but it's more just along for the ride. The meat is incredibly tender and delicious. I was savoring every bite and wish there was another. It has been a while since I've had a steak this good in a restaurant, and fortunately, it's not at steakhouse prices.

Walter's Cafe is a pretty good restaurant and it might suit your fancy but it's not a place that left a particularly strong impression or elicits a strong recommendation from me. Unless you're talking about the steak, which blew my mind.

Street and Co

7/17/2008

Portland, Maine: 33 Wharf St - (207) 775-0887

Price: Mid-Range

Rating (1-10): 7

Street and Co is the kind of restaurant that seems to blend perfectly with a quaint costal town like Portland. The food is solid and comes out with exciting presentation, but above all, the ambiance gets you in the mood for a cozy New England seafood experience. Service is casual here and it's not particularly remarkable but it's friendly enough.

Dim candle light, exposed brick, bunches of dried herbs hanging from wooden ceiling beams, simple white tshirt server uniforms, and an extremely aromatic interior all contribute to a rustic, warm atmosphere. It's a lot easier said than done to create this kind of environment without it being cheesy or forced or pretentious. The 'organic' feel is kind of trendy right now but Street and Co feels like a place that was onto it long before.

The food is more or less Italian with heavy doses of seafood, which you expect and want, being on the water in lobster capital USA. Many of the dishes (presumably those cooked on the stovetop) come out served in an actual beat-up saute pan, which adds to the simple and straightforward idea - no dots and swirls and Miro-looking dishes here. The mussels appetizer is truly delicious, with a rich, garlicky broth. You could just dip bread (which is from nearby Standard Bakery and also delicious) into this broth all night and leave totally happy. The crab and avocado appetizer is uncomplicated and fresh with a very generous serving of crab; it's a good selection if you're looking for light, healthy, unadulterated taste of the sea - the only downside is that the meat is mostly broken up and you don't get the large lumps o' crab that offer big, meaty bites.

The plates get more dramatic with the entrees, headlined by the lobster diavolo: a mammoth two person pasta in a saute pan, loaded down with a red sauce packed with an assortment of seafood including mussels, squid, lobster in the shell. When you see this on the menu, you figure, "when in Rome..." The diavolo is good enough but the joy of this dish comes less from the taste of the food and more from seeing the presentation and all the stuff in the sauce. The food itself could use some refinement: the sauce was quite oversalted, for one. And when cracking the lobster claws, water came rushing out into the dish, watering down the sauce. Clipping the ends of the claws prior to putting it in the dish would drain a lot of this water. The more simple lobster with butter-garlic sauce over pasta is a similar dish that tastes better - but perhaps it's not as exciting or chaotic as the diavolo. But one thing to emphasize is that with either one, and most any other dish I saw, is that you get your money's worth. These are very generous portions and they don't sacrifice the quality of the ingredients. I like places like this because it feels very hospitable.

The service is a bit scattered but not intended to be super-high end anyway. They might forget a thing or two that you ask for, or more than one person might come over and ask you the same question. But the weaknesses are not egregious and the bottom line is that you come to have a good time, and in places like these, you don't hold the staff over the fire. You get friendly, warm atmosphere and pleasing food for good value. Of course, for Street and Co to take it to the next level and really be a place that grabs a spot in your heart, it'll have to improve the personability and attention to detail in its service.

When you go visit Portland, Maine, I think it's this kind of dining experience you're looking for. You come to the town because you want to cozy, quaint, relaxed feel - and you want to get hit over the head with seafood. Street and Co delivers well on all of those things.