Dirt Candy (NYC)

“The Unbeatable Brunch!” À La Carte

  • Squash Biscuit: only time I’ve eaten a biscuit of this size and thickness and didn’t feel horrible afterward.

  • Spinach Croque Monsieur

  • The Canadian Cracker: a giant waffle covered in cheese. Kind of hard to get wrong. Loved the roasted tomato on top.

  • Breakfast Potatoes: I didn’t even order this. They just brought them over, an $8 side for free. They’re fried potatoes—enough said.

This was another one of their special menus in celebration of Dirt Candy’s 16th birthday. Nothing super creative; just solid brunch food (they used to serve brunch years ago) at a great price.

Revisit Rating:8/10

Dirt Candy (NYC)

Way Back Wednesday! Tasting Menu

  • Jalapeño Hush Puppies (maple butter): nothing surprising but inherently delicious.

  • Portobello Mushroom Mousse (truffled crostini & fennel compote): I think the proportions of the different accoutrements were a little bit off kilter, but once you assembled a bite, it was great. The presentation was also a bit impractical given the sauce all over the plate.

  • Carrot Risotto (carrot dumplings, carrot ribbons): another carrot dish they hit out of the park! I go my whole life hating carrots, but in their hands… it’s like a miracle ingredient. Other than the rice and the many variations of carrot preparation, I think there is nothing else in this dish. Yet it has such a cornucopia of varying sweetnesses, creaminesses, and textures.

  • Corn Grits (tempura poached egg, corn cream, huitlacoche): floored by two dishes in a row. I’ve never had huitlacoche before—it’s a fungus that grows on corn.

  • Lime Beurre Blanc Tofu (green ragout): and the good times have to end at some point. My least favorite course from my two Dirt Candy visits. The only times they falter are when they try to emulate a non-vegetarian dish, and that’s all this seems to be. Like a generic fish with a bland white sauce, but they’ve replaced the fish with tofu that has no taste other than salt.

  • Candied Grapefruit Pop!: that’s their exclamation point, not mine.

  • Popcorn Pudding (caramel popcorn): nowhere close to the dessert from last time.

  • The Great Wave (japanese whisky, ginger, tamarind, lemon)

This was a special one-day menu to celebrate Dirt Candy’s sixteenth year since opening. All the dishes came from the first couple menus they served at the restaurant. Overall, I thought it was very good but with less consistency than my previous visit. Higher highs (Carrot Risotto and Corn Grits) and lower lows (Lime Beurre Blanc Tofu). It’s still one of the most exciting restaurants in NYC—I very well might go to every one of their seasonal menus for now on.

There were no service snafus like during my last visit, but FOH could still use some polish. I was served by two people, and one server gave notably less in-depth explanations than the other server. When he served the tofu dish, I think he might have just said, “Tofu.” And I looked at him expecting him to continue, and he just gave me this look like what do you want from me and then left. There was a major catastrophe on the M train as usual, so I had to uber about half way there—ended up ten minutes late, but they were perfectly accommodating when I arrived.

Revisit Rating: 9/10

Shmoné (NYC)

  • Hot Jerusalem Bagel (olive oil & Za’atar)

  • Pan Seared Chanterelle, Maitake & Lion's Mane (lemon ricotta & toasted almonds)

  • Stretchy Stracciatella Pyrex Lasagna: one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had! Very surprising. A bit curiously priced, but given it’s enough for two people, I’d certainly order it again.

  • Charcoal Grilled Octopus (brothy cranberry beans): this was like eating a tender steak. Belonged mainly to someone else at the table, but the couple bites I got were delicious.

  • Olive Oil Panna Cotta (candied pine nuts, fresh Zaatar leaves)

  • Honey Cake (labneh cream, salty honey syrup)

  • The Red Sea (arak cocktail)

A somewhat under-appreciated restaurant. Everything we ordered was excellent; not one miss. Service was on the more casual side, but they were very friendly. And they threw in two free shots at the end!

Rating: 9/10

Rezdôra (NYC)

  • Fett’unta (toasted bread with extra virgin oil)

  • Gnocco Fritto (prosciutto di parma, mortadella & pancetta): the ham and zeppole at Torrisi was better.

  • Cacio e Pepe in Emilia (little lettuces with pecorino dressing & cracked pepper)

  • Anolini di Parma (traditional meat filling with parmigiano sauce): did not like this one.

  • Grandma Walking Through Forest in Emilia (cappelletti verdi with roasted, sautéed leeks & black mushroom puree): this was very good. Noticeably al dente, that’s for sure, but it worked for me. Extremely heavy. I only needed three pieces of pasta to get my fill of this.

  • Uovo Raviolo di Nino Bergese (corn puree, finferli & tartufo nero): also quite good. Out of the three pastas we ordered, this was the least chewy/had the least bite to it.

I think the over-salted/over-cooked/small portions accusations are definitely unfounded, at least with my visit, but it’s probably not a place I’d revisit. Italian is just a very competitive cuisine in this city. Better pasta elsewhere in NYC for cheaper (Rezdôra’s biggest sin is definitely the pricing).

Rating: 6/10

Torrisi (NYC)

  • Charred Clam Boule: excellent.

  • Italian and American Hams with Zeppole: great but a bit too one note for me.

  • Pork Belly Sandwich: eh. Kind of an odd inclusion on the menu. Way too much—I only ate half of my half.

  • Tortellini Pomodoro: unbelievable. Delicious and yet somehow light as air. I’ve never had something like this that wasn’t very heavy. Not insanely expensive all things considered?

  • Dover Sole Francese: wasn’t a fan of the breading or the sauce.

  • Affogato: kind of designed to be something I’d hate yet I could have eaten the whole giant thing if it weren’t for the meal that had come before it.

Service was a bit gruff and quick paced but not unpleasant. Seemed like they were a bit understaffed, maybe because it was lunchtime. Decor is amazing and matches the price (and somehow the bill came out lower than I expected). I’d say service was below their reputation while the food and ambiance were equal to it or very slightly below.

Rating: 8/10

Jua (NYC)

All courses were equally at a high level, so I don’t have much commentary. This place is fantastic.

Tasting Menu

  • Caviar Kim: very good and I’d eat it again in a heartbeat, but this is the only dish here where the hype exceeds the quality by a little bit.

  • Striped Jack: I finally loved a beet!

  • Jook

  • Branzino: felt like I was eating at an Italian restaurant for a moment. Probably will be the least memorable dish for me by a small margin.

  • Galbi & Chan: gorgeous presentation. The bites of banchan were all fun. The little ball of perilla was interesting—I thought it was pretty mild, but my mother nearly died after putting it in her mouth. She said it was the worst thing she had ever tasted in her life. Possibly related to her aversion to cilantro? Anyway, she loved the rest of the meal, and the perilla in the next course was completely different, so it didn’t bother her.

  • Perilla

  • Goguma Juak: the benefit of going to a tasting menu with someone who has a limited appetite—I got to eat two of these! Extremely underrated dessert based on the other reviews I’ve read.

  • Passion Vibe (non-alcoholic drink; passionfruit, calamansi, basil)

Rating: 9/10

Gramercy Tavern (NYC)

Summer Restaurant Week

  • Hamachi (sungolds, ponzu, lime): prepared very similarly to the arctic char I had at The Modern recently. Given my next course is also arctic char but in a different preparation, this meal rhymes with that one. Pretty good dish, but I preferred The Modern’s version because of the peaches.

  • Pan-Seared Arctic Char (asparagus, crab, basil): I’ve read that char is somewhere in between salmon and trout, but it seems to me much more salmon than trout. It felt like classy salmon. Very good skin, excellent sauce—turned into a bit of a swamp a few bites in, but it stayed tasty. The trout at Oriole (which was also topped with roe and had a similar sauce) still tops this by a country mile, but this is a top-notch dish.

  • Plum Shortcake (green tea, honey, lillet blanc): the classic sort of dessert at these sorts of restaurants, but it delivers. I could have used one or two more bites. The size is what it is probably because they’re serving it at lunch.

  • Bread and Butter: they actually served this WARM because they’re sane and know what tastes good. They also offered me a second roll, and I said of course. Stuffing me with free bread is an easy way into my heart. They capped off the meal with a small bunch of wild grapes. I’m also a sucker for fresh fruit, especially in NYC where practically every time I buy fruit, it’s either already moldy or tastes terrible.

  • Rockaway Peach (bourbon, peach)

Their restaurant week meal is a verifiably good deal based on the normal price of the same dishes added up. If I ate the same thing next month, it would be $23 more expensive.

Rating: 8/10

Dirt Candy (NYC)

Fantastic! Yet another vegetation place this meat-lover loves!

Summer Tasting Menu

  • Lettuce (pickled iceberg, arugula, celtuce, puffed rice): a list of things I’m on paper not much of a fan of… completely transformed into something I am. Simply the perfect distillation of why food is fun.

  • Tomato (smoked feta, tomato doughnut, yellow tomato jam, cherry tomatoes): the best dish. Unbelievable. A little odd to put this dessert-adjacent course toward the front, but I’m glad they did considering it’s a bit heavy and I wanted to enjoy it fully. They focus on one genre of ingredient per dish, but they somehow milk out the entire rainbow of flavor. The tomato jam with its sweetness playing against the savory of the cherry tomatoes.

  • Corn (corn orecchiette, hominy scallop, avocado, finger lime, corn broth): this was like a clam chowder. Definitely could have drunk the broth. This felt like the only real attempt to directly imitate a non-vegetarian product, and so it felt a bit less creative.

  • Eggplant (chinese eggplant, eggplant sausage, coconut curry, dill): grew on me as I was eating it. Long satisfying aftertaste. With this dish came one of the largest service snafus I’ve encountered in fine dining—will describe in my notes.

  • Onion (caramelized onion ice cream, framboise, balsamic caramel): once again, a dessert that plays on the whole palate. I loved it!

In addition to those five courses, there were two additions not listed on the menu. One was this cream-ified carrot in a cute little ice cream cone with seaweed imitation caviar. Might have been the best carrot thing I’ve put in my mouth (I’m not a fan of carrots). The second dish I wasn’t too fond of; kind of a basic serving of radish. They should probably present it as just a palette cleanser or something because it was very unremarkable.

I also had the wine pairing. I have zero understanding of wine, so who knows how good it is. But I mean damn, it’s $55. If it isn’t just gutter water, then it’s probably worth it.

While overall the service was totally fine, there was one major service mistake during the eggplant dish—the server is supposed to pour the coconut curry in front of the guest, and when my server did, he did it way too enthusiastically and spilled a ton of it on the table. He apologized, went to the back, got a napkin, and started wiping it up. But the napkin was completely nonporous, so he ended up pushing a bunch a bunch of the curry into my lap. Stained my shirt, and he didn’t really acknowledge it. I didn’t cause a fuss at all because I don’t really care (it’s a $50 t-shirt I’ll throw in the washing machine), but I know that would be a big error for some people. Personally, if it means I get a cheaper meal (this is the cheapest one-star tasting menu in NYC by a long shot), I’ll let the server punch me in the face.

Rating: 10/10

Casa Mono (NYC)

  • Creamy Eggs (sea urchin, walnuts, and ancient anchovy oil): don’t really like the uni and egg combo. It also seems like it’s common to throw walnuts in a dish that otherwise has little texture, I guess to give some crunch, but it never works for me. Feels lazy.

  • Bone Marrow (trout roe, horseradish crema, and everything bagel spice): excellent. Really I could have just ordered this. Was extremely full by the point of finishing this dish, and yet I still had the richest food to come.

  • Foie Gras (cinco cebollas): not a pleasant thing to eat right after the bone marrow. But that was my own miscalculation. This is why I like a tasting menu—take those decisions away from me. I’ll definitely revisit this place at some point and maybe not order the heaviest things on the menu in one sitting.

Rating: 7/10

Sixty Three Clinton (NYC)

Tasting Menu

  • Breakfast Taco (Ajitama, hash brown, smoked trout roe)

  • Faroe Islands Salmon (Nước chấm, thai basil, cucumber)

  • Baked Clam Chowder (Thai green curry, grilled onion, parker house roll)

  • Stuffed Pepper (Corn, maitake, mole amarillo): least favorite.

  • Pork Carnitas (Sonora beans, roast tomato): favorite.

  • Strawberry Piña Colada

  • Sticky Toffee Tres Leches

Rating: 7/10