Lower Orchard Gets A Few New Places

[weinoo]

Lower Orchard (and I define lower Orchard as being anything below Delancey St.) has a few new places that have just opened. They should be added to what's already there; for instance, on the block between Grand and Broome, we've got, in no particular order:

Little Giant - #85

88 Orchard - #88

Casa Mezcal - 86

An Choi - #85

Some Thai joint

Roasting Plant Coffee - #81

Cafe Katja - #79

Spur Tree lounge - #76

A place that sells clothes and is also a bar.

Then, skipping a block to the block between Hester and Canal, we've got...

Fat Radish - #17

Sweet Paradise Lounge - #14

MY recommendations from the above continue to be Cafe Katja and The Fat Radish, with Austrian/Germanic Katja still offering some of the best value food around. Fat Radish is a little more of a scene and more expensive, but I do love their burger served with what they call duck fat fries, and some of the more adventurous, farmer's market driven items are well executed.

Now, add a few more places to the above, both of which I stopped into at different times yesterday.

IF&L 74 now occupies the space that was a South-African restaurant called Bunny Chow, and I don't know that I've heard 2 weirder restaurant names following one another in the same space. The "pre-opening" menu leans towards burgers, sandwiches, mac and cheese, wings, etc., and the drinks menu has the I guess by-now obligatory pickle-back shot, PBRs, bacon-infused vodka blood Mary's and a few other drinks that will never cross my lips, but that's just me.

My burger last night (yes, La Freida) was quite good, if slightly over-cooked for medium-rare. I liked the brioche bun, which held up nicely, and the couple of slices of tomato actually had some flavor. Bacon was good too. At $11 for a bacon-cheeseburger ($2 extra for fries, which I didn't order), a reasonably priced burger for the 'hood is always nice. Our shared order of chicken wings was fine too, so I'm looking forward to going back and trying a few of the other offerings on the menu. I did ask the owner how the "real" menu will differ from the "pre-opening" menu and he mentioned that they will remove the words "pre-opening" from the menu. They are open now but they will really open on September 7th.

At #45 Orchard, which is on the block between Grand and Hester, The Lost Weekend has opened. They're pouring, dripping, pulling and selling Blue Bottle coffee and my espresso yesterday afternoon was well made, though it gets my goat to pay $2.75 for an espresso. The've also got some Mast Brothers chocolate cookies and bars (yawn) and like a few other places on Orchard St., they seem to sell some clothing as well. It might be a bit of a gallery too - I really can't figure it all out, but now that I can score some Blue Bottle in the 'hood, along with Counter Culture, Stumptown and Grumpy, it makes my jittery self happy.

[weinoo]

So I found out that IF & L stands for Interstate Food & Liquor...who knew?

Of course, Shecky's review claims that a pickle back shot is made with whiskey and pickle juice, whereas I thought it was a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice.