Restaurant experiment: Pio Pio Riko

Pio Pio Riko

996 Manhattan Avenue at Huron Street

Brooklyn, NY 11222

718-349-5925

On our way to a party in Greenpoint on Halloween, Dave and I were walking up Manhattan Avenue but dismayed by the lack of appropriate dining options.  Granted, it was a little late, close to the witching hour, but still.  After a Polish place literally shut its door in our faces and an American joint was overflowing and pulsing loud music, we were relieved to unearth Pio Pio Riko.  The place was very dead.  Sometimes hipsters would pop in to use the restroom to change or to check the World Series game score, but the dining room was quiet.  Quiet in that there weren’t many people, but not really quiet, since a singer was belting out tunes in Spanish while playing a Korg keyboard.  ”Lady in red!”

The menu has a lot of seafood but Dave and I decided on the chicken because we love Dominican chicken, and rotisserie chicken in general.  Pio Pio Riko started things off on the right foot by offering free roasted corn.  Yum.  Our waitress placed the heavenly green sauce on the table in anticipation of our whole chicken.

Outstanding chicken!  The skin was salty much, but that could be forgiven, seeing as the meat was moist and well oiled and tremendously tasty.  Dip in green sauce, and you are good to go.  The maduros and rice and beans are good accompaniments too.  Thanks for being there when we needed a friend, Pio Pio Riko.  They have a couple of locations in Brooklyn and Queens but sadly not in Manhattan.  Tear.

Restaurant experiment: Park Slope Ale House

Park Slope Ale House

356 Sixth Avenue at 5th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-788-1756

When you’re stuck in a torrential downpour with no rain boots, you just want to find the nearest non-sketchy restaurant and just dine there.  And that’s precisely what Dave and I did.  Monsoons are not my friend.

Park Slope Ale House wasn’t too crowded, probably because no one else wanted to venture out in the rain without kayaks.  I’d never been here before despite having passed it a thousand times in my past life.  The place is dark but welcoming.  And you know what else is welcoming?  Burgers!  Dave and I both ordered burgers, and I got mine with blue cheese.  Mmm.  It helped me forget how soaked my socks and the bottoms of my jeans were.

As you can see, the kaiser bun they used dwarfed the patty.  Hey guys, you might want to either up the beef or shrink the bread.  Looks wrong.  The fries had skins which I’m not huge on but was fine. 

Once I was eating a baked potato at someone’s house, and I was asked why I wasn’t eating the skins, and I was confused because I thought you weren’t supposed to eat it.  My family didn’t eat skins and I assumed that’s what everyone did.  Huh.  Storytime over!

The desserts were tempting (chaos pie?) but I was too full from the burger goodness.  Thank for being there when we needed you, Park Slope Ale House!

Restaurant experiment: Motorino

Motorino

319 Graham Street at Devoe Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718-599-8899

http://www.motorinopizza.com/

The picture is gigantic on delicious purpose.

I didn’t have a choice in the matter; it was destiny. It was fate. Last week, the heavens were telling me to go to Motorino.

• My Newsweek from last week contained an article, “Save the Slice,” which mentions Motorino. The article was kinda dumb though.
• My Time Out New York from last week did a mini-writeup about Motorino in a section about pizza.
• And I was slated to be in Brooklyn that weekend anyway.

Since Lily, Nina, and I showed up at a funky time (mid-afternoon) on Sunday, Motorino wasn’t very crowded. I’m not sure how crowded it gets, but with all these articles and buzz, I’m sure the traffic has been heavier as of late. We were given the option to sit in the backyard but since the sun was in full force, we opted to stay in the main dining room by the open doors. The staff is very helpful and genuinely affable. It’s Williamsburg, ya know? So that was surprising.

There was a $10 brunch which I didn’t select mostly because it offered two liquids and I didn’t want to drink much (non-alcoholic but alcoholic for $3 more). I opted for a pie for myself, and Lily ordered one for herself. The Prosciutto di Parma ($12) featured parmiggiano, olive oil, and oregano, though I maintain that my pie was meatier than hers and more filling. Nina commented that they sure were generous with the prosciutto, and I concur. See the evidence above. The crust was outstanding! The right amount of burnt combine with a hint of cheese, aw yeah.

Lily’s pie was sort of like the flagship Motorino pizza: the Margherita DOC ($13). That baby had tomato, mozzarella di bufala (tangy buffalo cheese), and basil. She and I slice exchanged, and I also approved the message the Margherita DOC was expressing. Very thin dough in the center though. Typical New York.  Lily also had wanted lemonade and was offered some lemon drink ($3) which was astronomically sour, meaning I loved it or at least the sips I stole.

In the battle of the Williamsburg pizza parlors, I might have to side with Fornino but I still like you lots, Motorino.

Restaurant experiment: Fornino

Fornino

187 Bedford Avenue between North 6th and 7th Streets

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718-384-6004

Stacy declared that we had to try Fornino because their tagline is “the art and science of pizza.” I’m not sure what they qualify as science. Did they hole up in a lab and run experiments with all sorts of controls to determine optimal conditions for pie production and ingredient combinations? Forgot to ask. There were no references to published articles under each menu item, tsk tsk.  All right, I’ll stop.

Since it was such a warm day, we decided to sit in the enclosed back patio which was the same idea a lot of other diners were having. At Fornino, you aren’t served by any one person; it seems as though the staff swap duties/tables because I was a bit surprised when different hipster girls kept coming up to our table.

Stacy’s brilliant ideas consisted of ordering a pitcher of the fruit filled red wine sangria (white was also available) as well as the antipasti platter for $15. I was half expecting a sampler which would barely whet our appetites, but I was as wrong as humanly possible.

Because this is what came out (note the sangria in the background).

Oh, it was massive! A half of that could have easily been my dinner. I tried it all except the beets which I let Stacy consume. Beets and I don’t particularly get along. Highlights include the mozzarella balls, figs in the salad, and the beans. Well, everything mostly. The sopressata was a little too spicy for me, so Stacy took care of them for me. We make a good eating team. I wish I could find the names of everything somewhere online, but nothing’s coming up, so my hampered memory will have to do.

Unfortunately, I still had to contend with the small Trevisana pizza we had ordered. You know, I would have been fine with either/or; both the pizza and the appetizer were too much! The waitress made it sound like the small pizzas were the size of the personal pan pizzas you got from Pizza Hut with the Book It! program if anyone knows what I’m talking about.

But how could we resist? As is my mantra, you cannot go wrong with cheese and bacon. Make that goat cheese, drool. And sweet pearl tomatoes (I don’t know what they are called since the menu just referred to them as roasted tomatoes, but I like calling them pearls) were only making the pie even better. Yum yum yum. The radiccio I could do without, but it wasn’t anything major.  And I had to cut the crusts out of the consumption plan.  Don’t need no filler.

I’m sure any foodie with a pizza hankering could be sated here. The pizza selection is almost too unwieldy, and going with the science theme, I suggested to Stacy that Fornino should implement a flowchart to assist with your pizza selection. For reals. Though I was helped since I don’t like eggplant, and we nixed all the pizzas with that as a topping. Ick.  And clams because we weren’t too thrilled about clams on pizza.

OK Fornino, you get the delicious science stamp of approval from the scientistas.

Lesson time

I learned that pancetta AKA Italian bacon, is different from bacon AKA American bacon because it is cured but not smoked. Both Italian and American varieties are taken from the belly of a pig. And pancetta also often comes rolled up in a cylinder and is pronounced pan-SHEH-tuh. Whoops, I think I had been saying pan-CHETTA but now I know. (reference: http://www.foodsubs.com/MeatcureBacon.html)

Restaurant experiment: DuMont

DuMont

432 Union Street between Devoe Street and Metropolitan Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718-486-7717

http://www.dumontrestaurant.com

My Zagat bestows upon DuMont the distinction of having the best burger in NYC.  Is this true?  Well, it’s hard to compare DuMont to my current favorite, Burger Joint.  Hmmmmmm.  Or should that be mmmmmm?

I suggested trying DuMont to Laura, and she was receptive to the notion.  Making a reservation for Saturday night was one of the smartest things I’ve done in quite some time because DuMont didn’t have a seat to spare.  Since we were the early side of our appointed dining time, the hostess sent us to the garden bar in the back which was also mobbed with the Williamsburg set.  If you want hipsters, DuMont’s got ‘em.

DRINKAGE

I had the El Diablo highball, consisting of Sauza Hornitos tequila, cassis, lime, and ginger ale.  Yes!  What a devil of a drink.  Laura’s Plantation Sidecar lived up to her expectations and exceeded them.  Cheers.

FOODAGE

Ah, the notorious DuMont Burger.  I ordered it with white cheddar which was maybe not the wisest choice because it faded into the background.  Man, should have done blue cheese.  What made DuMont’s burger more distinctive was the topping options which included pickled onions and homemade pickles.  I’m still a raw onion enthusiast, but I appreciated the difference.  The fries were just my type: crispy and non-bland and slim.  Props, delicious burger, with a patty the size of a studio apartment.

DESSERTAGE

 

The special dessert of the evening was a pots de creme.  After evaluating my other options, I knew the pdc was the way to go.  Whippy chocolate custard-type dessert?  Can’t go wrong.  Adding a generous handful of raspberries elevated this treat to heavenly status.  Hells yeah!  Excuse the photograph, not very flattering.  At least the raspberries came out decently.

Hooray, a successful venture to Williamsburg!  DuMont’s got it going on: atmosphere, drinks, burgers, desserts.  Thumbs up.

Restaurant experiment: Peter Luger

Peter Luger

178 Broadway at Driggs

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718-387-7400

peterluger.com

AmyL had been the champion of us eating at Peter Luger, the Michelin-starred, established-in-1887 steakhouse institution. She got us a 10:45pm reservation; if you’re planning on coming here, be sure to book about a month in advance for normal times. Peter Luger is not far from the subway, but the surrounding area is almost spooky dead. We met up with the Geneticist and his friends T and the Engineer and prepared ourselves to gouge on steak.

The waiter asked if we needed menus. The menu as you could imagine, is pretty bare bones. I copied AmyL and ordered the small single steak [medium] with French fried potatoes (approximately $32). I was not ravenous due to the big lunch, but I was hungry enough, opting not to fill up on bread which wasn’t receiving rave reviews from the table anyway. What also didn’t receive rave reviews was the world famous Peter Luger’s old fashioned steak sauce which was basically cocktail sauce. A1’s still #1 in my book. The other three decided to order steak for three, rare. I tried a bite of that. Very tuna tartare-like.

As you can see from my photo above, the steak was astronomically amazing. It didn’t even need sauce. So buttery and flavorful and meaty. A vegetarian’s nightmare! Just rented Tommy Boy so now I have that quotation about butchers and steaks in my head. It’s not exactly appropriate to repeat here.

Even though our stomachs were full of steak, we indulged in desserts. The rest of us hacked into a fat slice of cheesecake with homemade “schlag” (whipped cream), and T generously let us try her mango sorbet. Mmm.

From reviews on Yelp, I thought the waiters would be gruffer than they were. They were actually sort of friendly, but you got the feeling that they wouldn’t be bending over backwards to satisfy your every whim. However, they did toss silverware on the table, loud clatter. And they were trying to shoo us out so they could close; we were the last diners at the restaurant. Cash only is annoying. But you receive a shiny gold Peter Luger chocolate coin as a free dessert.

I got oily steak fat onto one of my favorite t-shirts. Oh well, if I had to stain a shirt, it might as well be from phenomenal cuts of cow.

Andy Samberg and Bill Hader from Saturday Night Live were at the next table. Sweet!

Restaurant experiment: Pacificana

Pacificana

813 55th Street at 8th Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11230

718-871-2880

www.sunset-park.com/mall/PACIFICANA/

I heart dim sum but don’t eat it all that much unfortunately. Plus I always feel as though I should go with someone who speaks the language, and I sure don’t. Alas. So when AmyL came to visit, we knew a dim sum experience was in order. I don’t know the names of the dishes and can only visually ID them. AmyL tried to teach me some names but I’m hopeless. I’ll use Wikipedia to try and name what I ate.

Even though we arrived at the Sunset Park restaurant past 2pm and the place itself occupies a massive second story space which was still bustling, we were seated promptly. It took a while for come carts to reach our table though. Luckily Pacificana rolls the carts until 4pm so we were safe. I tried one of Amy’s favorites, char siu sou which contains sweet meat enveloped in layers of shiny flaky pastry. I approved. There were my personal picks: rice noodle rolls with shrimp (the pork version just doesn’t compare) and shaomai (steamed pork dumplings).  Yummy.

The only letdown was the scallion pancake. I normally love scallion pancakes, but this one was lame: too chewy thick, cold. We only ate half.

Dessert of sorts was jin deui/matuan, those deep fried sesame balls with doughy centers and a core of sweet bean paste. Yum. Thumbs up for the jasmine tea too. The damage was reasonable (~$20 for the two of us), and we waddled out onto the street, in dire need of some strolling around to ease the stuffed feeling. Dim sum expert AmyL gave Pacificana her seal of approval.  Man, typing out this review makes me want dim sum for lunch right now!

Restaurant experiment: Siggy’s Good Food

Siggy’s Good Food

76 Henry Street between Pineapple and Orange Streets

Brooklyn, NY 11201

718-237-3199

siggysgoodfood.com

I didn’t really experience the complete Siggy’s experience since I only noshed on a salad, just wanted to get that out there. Lily’s stomach demanded dinner, and she suggested we come to this place. We sat outside on the sidewalk, and our server probably secretly wanted to kill us as he stopped by our table several times and we still weren’t ready to order. If he did want to kill us, he did a bang up job of pretending like he didn’t. Lily opted for a salmon burger while I selected the Simply Greens salad for $5 and went with balsamic vinaigrette as the topping over the other dressing choices. Seriously, it’s difficult to muck up a salad especially when it’s quite simple like this: leaves+dressing. I don’t have any qualms. Lily’s salmon burger looked messy but she said it was good. The smoothies on the menu sounded like tastiness (Coco Peanut Brain!), but I was in a Scrooge mood and didn’t feel like doling out $7 for a smoothie. Maybe another time.

The best part of the meal was being visited by the cat. Is the cat Siggy? I have no answer for that. Anyway, the cat is well fed and blue with bits of white. He/she made a cameo on the patio and allowed me a friendly pat. The second best part was looking at the bill and noticing that we were served by Chuck Norris. Haha. Well, he did have the beard going on.  Bad part of the meal: no credit cards accepted.  Boo.

Oh, and if you happen to not be from this planet, you can eat at Siggy’s for free! So states the website. I sometimes feel like an alien, but I don’t think that counts.

Restaurant experiment: Pedro’s Spanish American Restaurant

Pedro’s Spanish American Restaurant

73 Jay Street at Front Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

718-625-0031

Pedro’s seems almost out of place in the shiny gleaming brand new DUMBO part of Brooklyn where all the shops have a coat of new on them. It’s a low key Latin food joint on the corner, very laid back with multicolored lights and murals and no pretentiousness. There might be table service, but we ordered at the counter and brought our food to a spare table outside. Some bug bit me so that kind of tainted the whole Pedro’s experience.

Itchiness aside, I ordered beef tacos dorados (fried tacos) which were simply beef stuffed into deep fried taco shells with fixins piled on top, like sour cream, cheese, and avocado. I complained to Kora about a lack of cheese since I’m a cheese monster, and she encouraged me to ask for more which I was hesitant to do but did because I wanted more cheese to complement the plain beef. Luckily a guy on staff was kind enough to comply with my request; I’ve been traumatized by asking for sour cream one time in the West Village and being charged $2 for it. Bleh. Kora liked her cheese tamales, and Stacy found the Cuban sandwich to be filling and yum. Her margarita looked delightfully thirst quenching; I wish I had gotten one. The guacamole wasn’t that pure; it was adulterated with lots of onion which Kora didn’t dig but I found that fine. The chips were thick, sort of like pita chips. Sadly they are not gratis, to use the Spanish word for free which I taught myself earlier this year. To satisfy your cheap eats hunger pangs in DUMBO, Pedro’s would be a solid option.

Restaurant experiment: Rancho Alegre

Rancho Alegre

204 Garfield Place at 7th Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-369-2681

Rancho Alegre, according to the gregarious manager, has been around for 31 years. 31 years in NYC?!?! That’s like 1000 in restaurant years. Well, something must be done correctly as it is still going strong. From the second story, you can eat your food and spy on the people walking around outside, not that you would get any amazing people watching in, it is Park Slope after all. Lily and I went on Labor Day, and it wasn’t very crowded. There was a $4 special on frozen lime margaritas, not bad. In typical Tex-Mex restaurant fashion, the menu is large and features combinations of every possible menu item or it would seem. Lily pointed out that it seemed like a question from math class: how many possible combinations can you make from X items? Answer: a lot.  The menu also had a glossary for bonus points. I ordered a burrito/taco/enchilada plate. We gave the chips and salsa a thumbs up, with chips crunchy and not undersalted and Lily pouring the remaining tolerable-with-the-cilantro salsa over her food. Though the Rancho Alegre grub isn’t as satisfying as my favorite Tex-Mex joint back home, it’s a great deal with friendly service. I was happy enough. The free shots later didn’t hurt!