Chai

Occasion: Pre-theatre (Arcadia) dinner with Winnie and Erin
Location: Chai on 55th and 8th (chai-restaurants.com)
Edibles: duck salad; beef stir-fry; cold glass noodles

Musings: We tried this place reluctantly, having not budgeted enough wait time to get seated at Yakitori Totto. The theatre district is infamous for having dismal dining options, and unfortunately Chai is a place that proves the rule.

It's a tiny space, and they really crammed the tables in. The table next to ours was pretty much inaccessible. The waitress had to reach over our heads to serve them, and couldn't even fill water glasses without the diners passing them to her. If the owners were really so desperate for extra seats, they should have foregone the large water fountain behind our table. Which is quite poorly situated anyway - I kept worrying I'd knock my purse or my coat into it accidentally.

When it came time to order, they didn't have any of the three dishes Erin wanted to try. I also heard them tell another table that they only had two of their desserts available, one of them being just ice-cream. My guess is that they were too ambitious with the menu when they started out, and have since trimmed it drastically to keep food waste down.

Of the dishes we ordered, the beef was the only decent one. The cubes of beef were surprisingly tender and the dish overall was pretty flavorful. The glass noodles were completely waterlogged, like they hadn't drained the noodles properly before dressing them. The duck salad the worst - the pieces of duck were totally dessicated and tasted like nothing so much as balsa wood.

In any other NYC neighborhood, this place wouldn't last three months. But with a steady stream of clueless theatre-going tourists, who knows? Do yourself a favor at least, and give Chai a wide berth.

Xi'an Famous Foods, part II

Occasion: More food court explorations with Mom
Location: Xi'an Famous Foods, also in the Flushing Mall food court - 39th Ave off Main St in Flushing, Queens
Edibles: lamb (or possibly goat - it's the same word in Chinese) offal soup; noodles with braised pork and cabbage

Musings: If you're wondering why I'd order such a crazy-sounding soup, let me state for the record that I've had it in Asia and, when done right, it can be awesomely tasty. The key qualifier, however, is "when done right." As it certainly was not, here.

I had one spoonful and that was plenty. All the unpleasant tastes that offal can impart were all there in that one soup - the bitter chemical taste of digestive organs, the iron-blood taste of liver, the general gaminess of lamb. Ugh. My mom had a little more than I did, but eventually even she had to concede that it was just awful. After a few minutes, I actually had to get up and throw it out - even the smell was making me a bit queasy. Epic fail.

The hand-cut noodles with braised pork were better, but also a bit lacking in technique. Some of the noodles were really thin while others were really thick and doughy, and almost all of them were too long to eat in a single bite. The braised pork was yummy, though.

[Note: As unlikely a dish as it is to order in a food court, the steak may be the way to go. A couple sitting nearby had one and it looked great.]

Shun Lee

Occasion: Jill's birthday!
Location: Shun Lee on 65th between W Central Park and B'way (shunleewest.com) [Note: there's another location on the east side, but they don't seem to be very closely affiliated and their menus are quite different]
Edibles: a mixed appetizer plate with a xiao long bao, cold sesame noodles, a fried shrimp ball and a pork (I think) and veggie lettuce cup; a mixed main course plate with orange beef, stir-fried prawns, some kind of chicken and a bowl of fried rice with Chinese sausage

Musings: First, happy birthday Jill! I'm glad we got to see you to celebrate before you jetted off for your beach vacay!

As for the restaurant... My impressions of Shun Lee previous to this visit were that it was a moderately nice Chinese restaurant, if slightly overpriced. They used to have a very good tea-smoked duck (not on their menu anymore) that I would occasionally treat myself to if I was in the neighborhood.

Tonight, I think they took advantage of our group inertia to play fast and loose with a "prix fixe" menu. What we should have done was: A) ordered wine by the bottle; B) each picked one entree (ranging from about $18 - $30) and eaten family-style. Instead, for the okay meal they picked out for us, the bill was an absolutely ASTRONOMICAL $80 per person. I felt especially bad for our one vegetarian, who had a plate of tofu stir-fry and paid the same as the rest of us.

This is decidedly not the economic environment to be pulling this kind of stunt, Shun Lee - shame on you. I will not be back.

El Viejo Almacén

Occasion: The dinner part of a tango show package
Location: El Viejo Almacén on the corner of Balcarce and Independencia in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires (viejo-almacen.com.ar)
Edibles: I had the empanadas, followed by a fish dish and cake for dessert; Elizabeth had salad, ravioli and fruit salad

Musings: A COLOSSAL waste of time and money. I'm actually still angry that this is where we spent our last night in Buenos Aires. Grrrr. Hate.

If you find yourself in B.A. and feel that you simply must see a tango show*, please do NOT get the dinner package. You will be tempted to do so because of the awkward scheduling: the show starts at 10:00, around the same time Argentineans eat dinner. (Restaurants are generally still prepping for the start of service at 8:00.) But trust me, you will be able to find something better than the in-house prix fixe.

In quality and preparation, the food was about the level of airplane food, listless and perfunctory. Elizabeth succinctly described it as "disgusting." She picked at her salad, which featured an inexplicable selection of canned vegetables, and only ate three out of her five ravioli. My empanadas were mass-produced, microwaved travesties. Just criminal, consider the fantastic and reasonably-priced food otherwise available in the city.

The piss-poor wine that they served (included in the prix fixe) was so cheap that they were willing to open two bottles for us, white for me, red for Elizabeth. At $50 a head, you'd think they could spring for some decent local wine - for example, on our wine tour we tasted an excellent sauvignon blanc that we were told retailed for under $4 a bottle.

Bottom line: Blechh.

[*Note: The tango show itself - another $50 per person - was amateurish and cheesy. The dancers barely had space to move around on the tiny stage and the show contained about a 3:1 ratio of filler to actual dancing. What a racket.]

Joe's Pub

Occasion: Dinner with Yining before the Happy Ending Music and Reading event

Location: Joe's Pub on Lafayette between E 4th and Astor Place (joespub.com)

Edibles: orecchiette with meatballs for me; frittata panini for Yining

Musings: Fun space, fun event. BUT.

Even though we arrived early and the place was more than half empty, the hostess led us to a table waaay in the back, away from the stage. When we asked if we could get a closer table, she tersely informed us that people reserve specific tables. I certainly hadn't been told about table availability when I made the reservation. Great. We also learned that the artists usually reserve the front tables. For their friends who get discounted tickets? Really? And do their friends need to be up front and center, as opposed to people who are being exposed to the artists for the first time, possible future fans-to-be? Seems backwards to me.

Yining and I both thought Joe's Pub should seriously rethink their policy of ticket price + $12 minimum food order for a table. Popular opinion is that the food sucks and is incredibly overpriced. So why not make the ticket $5 more, have a one drink minimum and forego the kitchen altogether? Joe's Pub is in the heart of NYU territory - i.e. cheap, fast, (and because it's New York) delicious casual food. In this context, it was especially galling to have to pay $17 for sub-standard pasta (the meatballs were gristly and gamey). Yining's frittata panini was better but still overpriced at $14. We could have eaten like kings at Mahmoun's for $10, had a glass of wine at Joe's, and been perfectly happy.

Think about it, Joe's Pub.

Hurley's

Occasion: Lunch with the GC and his underling
Location: Hurley's on 48th between B'way and 8th
Edibles: French onion soup and a chicken, prosciutto and brie sandwich

Musings: GC very kindly offered to take me out for a welcome lunch. I casually suggested the Blue Fin prix fixe as an option but acceded when the guys wanted to go to their hangout, Hurley's, instead. Once there, GC and Underling made a big to-do over the fact that their favorite waitress had returned.

GC started out with his "usual" - a double Johnnie Black on the rocks. Underling ordered a beer. I stuck to iced tea, and felt a little bit like I was in an episode of Mad Men. (I was amazed when Underling ordered a second beer and GC joined him. How do these guys stay awake in the afternoon? Especially GC, whose lunch consisted of French onion soup and chili? I would have been reduced to a hibernating bear after all that.)

No offense to my colleagues, but Hurley's is the kind of place I would never choose to go to, even once. It's not really a restaurant - it's more of a bar that half-heartedly serves some food. The pre-packaged / frozen / reheated / deep-fried kind. About the level of an Applebee's.

My soup was okay. The chicken in the sandwich was dry as a bone and the "prosciutto" was strongly reminiscent of salty shoe leather. The fries had a weird aftertaste, like they hadn't changed the oil in the fryer in a week. How hard is it to make good fries?! Ugh.

I thought longingly of the crab BLT and spectacular sweet potato fries I could have been having at Blue Fin. At virtually the same price. With all the wonderful restaurants in the city, it's criminal to spend your time, appetite and money at a place like Hurley's.

Animal + Backyard

Occasion: Hamptons dinner with Abby, Elizabeth and Jill

Location: Animal + Backyard at the Solé East Resort on Second House Road in Montauk (soleeast.com/restaurant)

Edibles: bbq pork belly sliders, followed by grilled striped bass with creamed corn for me; pig ear chili-lime salad with a fried egg and the sliders for Abby; Jill and Elizabeth shared the deep-fried hominy app, the chorizo and petit basque cheese app and the balsamic pork ribs

Musings: We were so excited to read about chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (two of Food & Wine's best new chefs of 2009, owners of Animal in LA) doing a pop-up restaurant in Montauk. We immediately made reservations.

First, a few sentences about the food before I start my rant on the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE service.

The sliders had a great sauce and great flavor, but were about 80% fat. Total pork fat aficionado that I am, even I had to do some serious trimming. I loved my main, a luscious slab of bass. The serving size of the creamed corn was pretty stingy considering that fresh corn is practically free right now. Elizabeth and Jill's chorizo and cheese app was good, basically a dish of pizza toppings melted together. Their rib plate provided almost an entire rack; the meat was so tender it literally fell off the bone. Good sauce there, too. Abby's pig ear salad was way too vinegary and a couple of bites was plenty for me.

On to the farcically atrocious service. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, did. I think the fatal flaw was keeping the regular Backyard menu and kitchens going at the same time as the Animal stuff.

There were more than 10 people serving, but most of them spent the evening wandering around confusedly. One waitress in a blue dress was so dazed and out of it, we thought she had to be either stoned out of her mind or actually mentally disabled.

Despite our reservations, we waited half an hour for our table. We sat, completely ignored, at the bar area and had to ask three times before we got a wine list and cocktail menu.

After we were seated, they were, of course, very slow to bring menus and take our orders. Our empty appetizer plates sat on the table, uncollected, even after our mains had arrived. Again and again, we were brought the wrong food - either dishes we hadn't ordered, or additional plates of food that had already been delivered. I watched as the waiter carrying Abby's sliders stood by the computer for five minutes, trying to figure out where to bring the plate. The top of the bun tumbled to the floor, which he didn't notice. It was kicked aside by another waiter and lay in the doorway for the rest of the evening.

They messed up our order and only brought one plate of ribs when Jill and Elizabeth had each ordered one. And this was AFTER we asked them to check the order, after a third plate of sliders arrived at our table. (Luckily, this worked out perfectly since the serving size was so big, something a conscientious server would have mentioned.)

To top it all off, the stoned waitress spilled a entire glass of water on Abby. Not bothering to apologize, she just wandered off. When we complained to the manager, all he had were excuses. No apologies there, either. We walked off incredulous, exhausted, defeated, and out almost $200 collectively.

Undoubtedly the worst service I've ever experienced. I wouldn't eat there again if you paid me. At the very least, Jon and Vinny should issue a public apology to their diners for subjecting them to what I can only describe as a complete and utter clusterf*ck.