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juuceman

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  1. juuceman

    Boca Chica

    far from authentic.. good, reasonably prices food, trendy vibe, nice place to meet a friend for drinks and dinner.. my girlfriend (an East Village resident) goes here a few times a year with her girlfriends for a reasonable meal in a fun atmosphere.. you're out for about $25 per person, with an entree and a cocktail.. they've got great plaintain chips and a back bean dip, gratis, to start with.. this is probably the highlight of the meal though, as it's all i really remember after a few visits.. contrast with Flor's Kitchen a few blocks up, which serves much better food in a smaller, less sceney surrounding, for about the same price.. pick accordingly..
  2. it's fine.. ate there friday night.. called in the morning and secured a table for nine o'clock.. overall- nothing amazing, nothing that made me close my eyes and dream i was in heaven, but the lamb chops were great.. raspberry/tomato gaspacho amuse.. we split the pepper crab dumplings which were good, the seared tuna surrounded by a rice cracker which was dry, tasteless, and a waste of the tuna (all but inedible) and the hamachi sashimi which was perfect- light, tasty, flavorful.. she had the arctc char which was good.. the tomato water bath surrounding it was ok, a bit overpowering in my mind, but i'm not huge on tomatoes.. i liked the couscous and cockles side this came with.. i had the previously mentioned lamb chops, cooked amazingly well, nice crumb crust.. don't recall the accompaniments.. the chocolate pudding with candied violets was good.. nice chocolate and the violet was interesting.. the peppermint donuts with ice cream is poorly conceived or executed.. the donuts weren't really all that fresh tasting, and were extremely medicinal in their flavor.. maybe they just didn't work for either of us.. while i can't comment on the quality of the offerings, nor the markup, the pricing on the wine list was remarkably reasonable, with a number of the bottles in the $40 - 80 range.. the service was extremely proficient.. well trained in the mechanics, although the tuna went back with 80% of the dish still on the plate and the char and the donuts went significantly untouched and no one bothered to inquire whether anything was amiss.. with the exception of the greeters, everyone was pretty devoid of emotion.. the place is small.. tiny bar seating about a dozen people and a lounge for about two dozen.. couldn't tell you how many it seats (52- just read Bruni's review), but it's really not that many.. nice layout of tables and banquets.. extremely modern design, great lighting and lamps, and the light level was nicely dim.. no direct light anywhere in the place- everyone looks beautiful, which is likely the idea.. JG was in house- he spent a solid 20-30 minutes in the lounge with some friends and at least half of our meal sitting at a large table with others.. he's likely around to be seen for a while, no one should have an expectation that he's cooking in any of his places anymore.. overall, a decent meal for me.. i think Cafe Gray's opening was better.. the menu here is rather limited to nine appetizers, almost half of which are salads, and nine entrees, none of which appeared to be all that special.. Bruni says it's comfortable and back to basics.. i think it's JG coasting by on reputation.. maybe it's for those who are tired of the theatrics of high end dining, JG style.. regardless, went in with high expectations which weren't fully realized..
  3. their cheesecake is excellent.. it has a walnut crust and is HUGE.. a slice would easily fit in her carryon.. other than that, this place is good for the kitsch factor of a visit.. good ice cream and random desserts, but it's not a chocolate shop at all..
  4. Ciao Bella makes a green tea with white chocolate chunk ice cream that makes even me, a devoted anti-white 'chocolate' folk, lick my lips thinking about it..
  5. this is how the event was run for the first two years.. it was a clusterfuck.. there was a line to purchase tickets at one of the two stands (each with multiple registers) followed by even longer lines to purchase the food.. the most logical thing for them to have done would've been to have a credit card machine at each tent dedicated to pastpass use.. i believe this is what the original plan was but technology got in the way..
  6. closed a few years ago..
  7. juuceman

    Troncones ?

    we had an amazing meal at the Inn at Manzanillo Bay when out there.. i'm pretty certain they have a website, google them, and their chef came from the California Culinary Institute.. very casual spot, on the beach, feet in the sand, as pretty much all of these places are.. was the best food on the beach a few years ago.. Casa Eden had a nice outdoor grill and wood burning pizza oven that seemed to turn out things a notch above the usual stuff.. more casual than the Inn, although I believe their sunday evening bbq required reservations.. Don't completely write off Zihua if you haven't been.. Kau Kan was one of the nicer meals I've had in Mexico.. it and the .20 peso tacos were the best meal down there..
  8. There's a great panini place that opens two hours before every home game.. great panini, guacamole, and a nice beer selection.. called the Press Cafe.. it's half a block from the stadium, if you're coming from the train walk north underneath the tracks, when you get to the north end of the stadium, make a left on that block and walk half a block- on the north side of the street, it has a guiness sign out in front.. they pack stuff up to go..
  9. juuceman

    Taku

    is this the same guy from Momofuku in the east village??
  10. not a clue what it's called.. when you come out of the subway station, you need to cross the four lane highway and go three or four blocks down Joralemon Street (you'll pass the pizza place on the corner, the Wendy's will be on the left as you walk) go one block past Jay Street, which is a highly trafficked street (and where the A and F train station is) and make a left on Lawrence.. half a block down, on the left hand side you'll see the place.. if these seem confusing, ask someone where jay street is.. they'll point you in the right direction and then you just keep going one more block and make the left..
  11. There's Queen for higher-end red sauce Italian.. It's where the attorney's and judges go to eat.. on Court Street.. for low brow I like the Slovaki Joint on Lawrence Street.. the place is 20 or 30 years old, same guys own the building and have been there forever.. great gyro and chicken kabobs.. no atmosphere to speak of- it's great for a lunch alone..
  12. The non-Southern staff was provided by some event staffing company.. i thought most of them were pretty ineffective, poorly trained, and generally mechanical.. for instance, on Sunday at noon, when the Bubba Pass system was up and working and people were pouring in, two of the main registers were down because the operators didn't know how to clear paper jams.. for at least 20 minutes we had to wait while she yelled at each person with a walkie talkie who walked by and asked them to help her.. for the most part they just kept going and she got more and more frustrated.. i should note that while this happened, the guy who runs the company was sitting on the grass in the middle of the park drinking beer with his friends.. he later complained that he had to put someone on duty to keep the beer contained within the beer garden area.. the fact that they had centralized registers for the bubba pass seemed pretty counter-intuitive to me- why not just have a register at each vendor, rather than what i believe were four (plus a single anomoly register at the Southside booth).. i don't think that the stands were paid for individual portions.. most all of them sold out, some faster than others.. portion sizes were all over the place, and accounting was sloppy, to say the least.. i'd wager that they were paid handsome appearance fees to show up with their rigs and cook.. everyone was more than happy to give away the food on saturday when the system was down, and i can't imagine that they'd have been that charitable if it meant the money was coming out of their pockets.. coupled with the line that proceeds benefitted the Madison Square Park conservancy, I'm pretty sure of this..
  13. possibly.. ate at Salt Lick yesterday and Southside Marker (Elgin) today.. we'd been hearing how great Elgin was, in fact all staff questioned indicated that it was the only thing they were recommending.. i was less than thrilled with it- while I didn't love the brisket at Salt Lick, Southside's brisket was overly smoked- in fact it seemed as if someone had poured liquid smoke into the shredded brisket we were served.. the sausage at Salt Lick blew away Southside's, the casing was crisp and the flavor exploded in my mouth while Southside's was fine but nothing special..
  14. Anybody else have anything on this? Is this the regular pass that anybody (who wants to drop a c-note) can buy or the one that you have to have an AMEX gold card for? I've been looking forward to tomorrow. Please don't tell me have to wait in line with the riff raff. ← i don't know that there was a card you could purchase with a regular Amex card- it was offered as a gold card event type thing, and the Bubba Fast Pass indicates that its a Gold Card Event.. i was worried that they would oversell these, but the setup for it was extremely smooth.. i spent most of the day wandering through the park on both sides of the line and in the park itself, which was packed until it started raining and the fastpass area was never more than a five minute wait at any stand- throughout the morning and early afternoon when the cards weren't useful, a lot of the stands had several portions available to grab and go.. when the computer system began to work, the whole thing slowed down a bit, since rather than having a terminal at each stand, you had to decide how many portions you wanted in total before going in so they could debit you.. if there had been more folks with cards at that point, it would've been more similar to the cash lines..
  15. so i walked by tonight (without the $150 AMEX escorted tour) and noted that ubon's, big bob gibson's, the texas spot on the corner of 23rd and madison, and ed mitchell were all cooking on site.. i've heard that last year a majority of the food was cooked off-site and brought in and simply finished on-site.. any truth to this?? if so, why the switch?? regardless, it was nice to wander thru tonight before the crowds.. everyone was applying the dry rubs to their meat, the cookers were getting up to temp, and the pitmasters and their families were discussing the bbq technique.. first time in nyc for a lot of these folks, most of whom run one or two restaurants in their home states..
  16. This place gets almost no attention, yet has been around longer than (almost??) anyone else.. Tennessee Mountain 143 Spring Street (at Wooster) 212-431-3993 http://www.tnmountain.com/ 1982 Hickory Ribs
  17. thanks for looking into this.. it's Meyer's joint.. look back five years- the only semi-serious barbecue offered in NYC was out at Legend's in Queens.. people would say you couldn't cook halfway decent stuff in NYC.. the others at the time were Tennessee Mountain, Virgils, and the oven roasted/baked spots, a la BBQ.. now these places don't even come close to top tier barbecue in the city.. a lot of this is attributable to Meyer.. while NY'ers whines about the lack of good stuff, he made it happen.. it is a bit interesting that there'll be overlap, i.e., guys doing the same stuff this year.. i believe that's a first..
  18. cool.. my fingers are crossed.. any chance you feel comfortable sharing the name of the event planning company??
  19. when you call to order they check your customer service number against those of the gold and higher cards, kind of like the hold card seating that Amex offers. i don't understand how forcing the stands to make change for everyone on line is going to speed things up at all.. the coupons were about the only saving grace of the line speed, and this year they're also going to accept credit cards, presumably at the stands.. unless they rethink this one, and sell tickets at a separate booth, plan to be waiting a whole lot longer, even though there will be ten booths as opposed to the seven (??) in years past.. the bracelet is supposed to allow one access to the express lines.. you can pickup two bracelets with the pass.. the pass can be used for both food and beverages, as per the website you link to above as well as the people taking care of the passes at bluesmoke.. three of you can still get on line and you can each pay with cash or a credit card.. that's going to be a disaster though.. i'm predicting lines longer than ever due to this 'improvement'.. bad weather is unlikely to change the number of people turning out.. the first year it rained throughout most of the day and the streets were still packed.. the problem this event has is crowd control.. the line setup hasn't made any sort of sense, there's been little crowd control or signage directing people where to go, and it's been overcrowded.. it seems like the additional space should help out a bit, but i think taking away the centralized pay system, and forcing people to pay at the individual booths will slow this thing down to a crawl.. i hope they don't really do this..
  20. the French Butcher closed up shop a year or two ago.. the shop was taken over by someone else, I believe it's currently called Grammercy Prime Meats, or something along those lines.. the meat is still pretty good quality- definitely better than the supermarket, and i've never had anything but great service there- they happily deboned and rolled a leg of lamb for me- was great.. good luck getting beef at the Green Market.. you're much better off going to Florent if you're going to travel at all..
  21. i don't understand how friday night is working.. is takes hours to smoke the food.. i'm assuming the permit to close down madison ave won't be until friday night, and i'm pretty sure they'll be waiting to load the space ASAP.. so how exactly are they going to have the pitmaster's food at blue smoke?? and why would anyone pay $150 for samples of this, when you can have all you want on saturday and sunday??
  22. ate there on a crowded Saturday two weeks ago.. we were a party of six, without a reservation.. coming from the ICFF party at the MoMa, we were able to secure a seat in the front room with about a one hour wait, sitting just after 10 p.m.. what with the smaller size dishes, it's a perfect lateish meal.. loved the food, the service, the whole deal.. as we were the last ones out of the place, we left with a plethora of the lemon tea cakes, which were amazing the following morning..
  23. ate at Blue Smoke last night.. paid with my Amex and the waitress mentioned that they were selling the passes.. i'm interested in seeing how many of the ez-passes they wind up selling..
  24. I'm sorry... what do you mean? ← I'm just guessing, and wouldn't want to speak for anyone else, since I haven't been in White Plains recently, but there is a school of thought that fresh foods that were once seasonal such as asparagus, might actually be better if they were still seasonal, and not shipped in from Mexico, Chile, or California. If you wait a few weeks, you could order it and ask whether they have a local supplier. ← asparagus are currently in season around here..
  25. or you could show up early and skip the lines..
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