Combining that experience, Lim has created a menu of vegetables, meat, and seafood. Dishes in each category include sweet potato beignets with chilled white kimchi soup; spicy soft tofu flan with shrimp, squid, and manila clams in a seafood broth; and sliced pork belly with mini kimchi-radish rolls. Drinks focus on Korean spirits, wine, beer, and twists on classic French cocktails — rather than the traditional French 75 with Champagne, lemon juice, gin, and simple syrup, the French 108e has sake, Champagne, and lemon juice.
In 2009, Mak left Lung King Heen — a three-starred Cantonese restaurant at Hong Kong's Four Seasons Hotel — to open the original Tim Ho Wan in a Kowloon neighborhood. When rent rose thanks to gentrification, Mak moved the restaurant rather than raise prices. Six years after earning his first Michelin star, little has changed.
Steamer baskets of plump prawn dumplings, Mak's signature trio of baked buns stuffed with barbecue pork, and Chinese-sausage-stuffed glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf all remain under $5. Even now, the tissues within the boxes placed atop each table serve as napkins. Meanwhile, diners still choose dishes pictured on a paper placemat, fill out their checks with pencils, and rinse their chopsticks in cups of hot tea.
If lines out the door aren't already profitable enough, the New York Tim Ho Wan will also have a liquor license. While the menu will continue to be strictly limited to dim sum, the menu will grow over time and add more dishes appealing to American appetites, including "high quality beef dishes."
The drink menu at Fifty Paces is still focused on wines by the glass, served in either three or six ounce pours, and also includes a few sherries and ciders, and a handful of beers ... The food menu, meanwhile, now consists of dishes "inspired by" the food at Hearth. It's an on-trend bar menu, with small snacks, toasts, and large shared plates like pork ragu sloppy joes, yoshi fried chicken, and braised rabbit legs with polenta.
Center of the restaurant's culinary program are the cut-rate bento boxes. In its final days, these cost around $16 at Sapporo East; now the price at Beronberon is approximately $18 ... Quite a deal, and delicious!
Reflecting its status as a sort of Japanese diner, the over-rice donburi selections — served with soup or salad — constitute meals that might fall in the "blue plate specials" category. The pork cutlets are profuse and of high quality, with just enough edge-fat hidden by just enough breading. The soy poured over the rice is slightly sweet, which guarantees that you'll actually finish the rice underneath. The "Mononoke special ramen" ($12), one of eight choices, was not quite as good, beginning with the noodles themselves and extending to the miso broth. You can find much better ramen at the dozen or so other places that serve it in the East Village.
Yonekichi serves their crisp rice buns with a variety of made-to-order fillings: ginger mujifugi features sweet bites of pork shoulder ($8) and the saikyo salmon includes a fresh fillet marinated in miso ($9). For a more traditional burger, the tsukune, a chicken meatball patty topped with shishito peppers ($7.75), most resembles your average quarter pounder. Vegetarian options, like the Kinpira made of sautéed lotus root, carrot, sesame seeds and togarashi ($6.50), are also available.
Yonekichi's menu also includes Furi Furi, Japanese for "shake shake," which are crispy, thick-cut potatoes topped with your choice of salt, pepper, yuzu or wasabi, and served steaming hot, ready to be shaken in their thick paper bag for optimal seasoning coverage.
[T]he pressed white sushi-grain “buns” disappointed Daily News testers.
"This is a dough-zaster," said one member of the News’ formidable Taste Kitchen. The expert had imagined that the rice buns would be thinner, and therefore, crispier.
Instead, he found himself eating too much of the unhealthy Asian staple.
"This is just a thick layer of bland rice," he said. "And it keeps breaking up, like those mini-sandwiches from 'This is Spinal Tap.'"
And it’s not even homemade! The rice bun is made off-site then combined with Yonekichi’s made-to-order umami-bomb fillings, which are far more impressive than their container.
Partner Kamran Malekan and Executive Chef Nicholas Nostadt debut Picnic, offering a contemporary take on homespun classics inspired by Nostadt's Midwestern roots. The lofty, 70-seat restaurant is located on a sunny corner in the heart of the East Village, inviting nostalgia with a nod to picnic fare with a creative spin.
Chef Nostadt, formerly of Williamsburg's Berry Park, offers a menu of modern riffs on American classics, from small bites including the Cheese Ball with Roquefort, Bresaola, Dill, Braised Bosc Pear, Pickled Red Onions and Grilled Bread (cheese selections will rotate) and Mussels with Hard Cider, Apricot Nectar, Dijon Cream, Soft Herbs and Spices, to salads such as the Celery with Celery Leaves, Celery Root, Tarragon, New York State Apples, Capers, and Meyer Lemon Dressing. Sides and snacks include Scratch-Baked Beans, Boiled Peanuts and a riff on a Roll-Up made with Mortadella and Roquefort.
Entrees range from "Between the Bun" options such as the Pulled Pork Sandwich with Rootbeer BBQ and Roasted Corn & Cabbage Slaw, to a bucket of Fried Chicken with House-made Ranch Dressing, and a Whole Roasted Fish with Lemon, Garlic and Herbs. An assortment of house-made donuts, a rotating selection of pies and chef Nostadt's take on the beloved Midwestern Puppy Chow round out the menu. The beverage program consists of American beers on tap, bottled and canned brews, all-American wines and Counter Culture coffee.
Picnic is open seven days a week for dinner and late-night dining: Sunday through Thursday from 5 pm to 11 pm, and Friday and Saturday from 5 pm to 12 am.
In the East Village, local cuisine is quickly whittling down to a single food: pig. With new pork-bun outlets and ramen shops, porchetta and hot dog specialists, plus bacon peanut brittle as a local bar snack (at The Redhead), the area is all bellied up.(New York Times)
