Restaurant experiment: Inase

Inase

1586 First Avenue between 82nd and 83rd Streets

New York, NY 10028

212-268-1238

http://www.inasesushiusa.com/

Sushi restaurants in the Upper East Side are a dime a dozen.  I always say that there are too many sushi parlors and Italian joints in the hood…what is up with that?  Lisa suggested we go to Inase for dinner because she’s been a few times and could safely recommend it to me.  Plus it’s run by Japanese people which is a plus in my book.  Yes, I am looking at you, East.

It was a gross wet evening, but we made it to Inase without getting drenched.  The dining area is long and narrow with an art gallery feel.  For real, the pieces had price tags next to them.  Lisa was telling me that the place is family run; the husband is the chef and the wife is the hostess/waitress.

I settled for the sushi regular since it was the most inexpensive sushi meal at twenty bucks.  You know what’s impressive?  You receive both soup and salad with your entree!  I was blown away since that doesn’t happen in NYC even though that is usually what goes down at other sushi sellers in other parts of the country.  The miso soup and salad were fine.  I wish we would have those hot towels, but none appeared.

I had requested no wasabi, but they goofed and gave Lisa my no wasabi regular and me her wasabi regular.  Not a grave error, but still.  That’s exactly what happened last time I had a sushi meal elsewhere.  The waitress apologized a million times.  What made up for that was having uni (sea urchin) included in the sample.  That’s amazing!  That doesn’t happen much either since it’s costly.  Yum yum yum.  And instead of dried seaweed, they used shiso (beefsteak/perilla) to wrap the salmon.  Interesting.   

Not pictured are the rolls that were included.  I picked salmon amongst the other choices.  Good good.  Low key atmosphere, high key food.  Thanks Lisa!

Restaurant experiment: Sedutto

Sedutto

1498 First Avenue at 78th Street

New York, NY 10021

212-879-9557

Even though Lisa said we could go to Pinkberry and I was tempted, I agreed to experiment and try this place out.  Sedutto looks like some den/basement from the 70s, with wood paneling walls and a giant cartoon ice cream cutout grinning at me.  It attracts the families, but there isn’t a lot of space for sitting down: only two tables.  Grab and go. 

After much indecisiveness on my part, I settled on the cappuccino ice cream: single adult scoop in a cone.  Because it wasn’t as hot as the jungle on that particular evening, I decided I could brave a cone.  My bad cone luck continues since I still managed to drip a little bit of ice cream onto my hand.  The cappuccino was a hit with me.  Not way sweet, you could taste the coffee, and there were toffee pieces tossed about.  For $3.75, your wallet says OK.

Cash only.  Bah!

Restaurant experiment: Lucky’s Famous

Lucky’s Famous

370 West 52nd Street between Ninth and Eighth Avenues

New York, NY 10019

212-247-6717

http://luckysfamous.com/

Lisa and I had dinner time to kill before we were going to a play in The Norman Conquests on Broadway. FYI: if you want the LOLs, The Norman Conquests brings ‘em. We ended up wandering around Ninth Avenue (good old reliable Ninth) in search of a place to get some supper. Passing a bunch of Mexican and Brazilian places, we turned a corner and I asked, “What’s that?” as I pointed to a bright yellow establishment next to Aki Sushi. We approached, and it turned out to be Lucky’s Famous, a burger place. Burgers? Tempting.

Since it was a mild day, the workers had thrown open all the windows, and along with the yellow/orange color scheme, Lucky’s was very cheery and smiley-face-y. Lisa and I were kind of skeptical since there were only two other people inside, but the prices were decent compared to some other places on Ninth. So we went in.

How this place works is that you order at the counter, pay, and they call you when your burger delights are ready to be consumed. I ordered a cheeseburger ($6) with fries ($3). I paid by credit card, and there was a line for tip. I am not very happy when this happens at basically fast food places. Then I feel guilty for leaving it blank, but it’s not a sit-down restaurant. All right, I’ll stop from going on about that.

The burger was fine, if a little on the small side. I was pleased that a generous person loaded a lot of raw white onions onto the burger. And it was well done as I had requested. The fries were crinkle cut which I don’t prefer in general, so they were decent but nothing marvelous. Closer to the last bite of the burger, I began to taste black pepper on my tongue. Lisa had this same issue too. Huh? I was not down with that. Looking at the picture, I’m reminded of Shake Shack. Knockoffs?

Well, I guess if Island Burgers and Shakes is too claustrophobic for you, you could round the corner to Lucky’s Famous. Famous is kind of a stretch. Lucky’s Acceptable?