Dominique Bistro is a small French joint in the West Village. I recently had the opportunity to try a pair of steaks there when I was invited in by the restaurant’s PR group.
But let me start at the beginning. I also tried the escargot and the steak tartare appetizers. The escargot was very herby and flavorful. Nice texture and nicely cooked.
The tartare was delicious. It was well seasoned, and the toasted bread, mixed greens and caperberries were great with it.
Okay on to the steak! First, the steak frites. This was a nice 14oz bone-in strip, cooked to a perfect medium rare and well seasoned.
Easily a 9/10. And the fries? Maybe some of my favorite yet.
Next up, the filet mignon.
This 10oz beauty was served on a bed of truffle oil infused mashed potatoes with spinach and gravy.
Also a perfect medium rare inside.
While a sauced steak isn’t generally my thing, this one really worked. It was so juicy and tender. 8/10.
I highly recommend this joint; they know how to handle their meat.
DOMINIQUE BISTRO
14 Christopher St
New York, NY 10014
Greenwich Steakhouse is a newly opened French-inspired steak joint in the West Village. Chef Victor Chavez helped open Smith & Wollensky, and is a 30yr veteran chef from there. He tried retirement, but decided that he wanted to be back in the game. As such, he opened Greenwich Steakhouse.
I recently set up an “influencer event” here to help get some photos and reviews out there. Take a look at all the crazy shit we tried, and enjoy the review below.
Flavor: 9
Cajun Rib Eye: 10/10 (I have had it several times)
I’m starting with the best steak first. This baby was cooked to a perfect medium rare from end to end with an awesome savory crust on the edges.
But the hint of cumin in the Cajun rub really sets this baby off as the best steak in the joint.
The spicy oil at the bottom of the place is reminiscent of the delicious sauce you get with the cumin lamb noodles at Xian Famous Foods, which I love.
When you come here, this is the steak to get. Chef Victor just absolutely nails it.
48oz Porterhouse: 8/10 (had this a second time and it was 9/10)
This is nice and thick, and really goes great with the marrow butter sauce addition.
There was some grey banding since this is such a thick cut of steak, but nothing was dried out.
48oz Tomahawk Rib Eye: 6/10 (had this a second time and it was 7/10)
Unfortunately this was a bit overcooked for our liking. Some parts were dry as a result, but the flavor was still nice.
Strip for Three: 9/10 – extremely good crust, really nice texture.
Filet Mignon: 9/10
Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 10
All the meat here come from Strassburger, a great supplier. Chef Victor dry ages them for three weeks in-house to develop a bit more flavor for his guests. There are several sizes of the four major cuts available.
Portion Size & Plating: 9
Portions here are pretty big. The plating is on the nicer side with steel pans being used as serving vessels.
Price: 10
The prices are on par with midtown NYC steakhouses, but since they are slinging some of my favorite food in the city, I have to say this place offers a good deal.
Bar: 8
The bar is a short stretch on the first floor with some seats along the window for people watching.
It’s on a nice stretch of Greenwich Ave in the village too, so likely will be a good spot for nightlife.
Cocktails are nice, particularly the Great Kills.
Specials and Other Meats: 9
The waiter read us some specials that were not on the menu. We tried one of them, a shredded Brussels sprout salad. I thought it could use some more dressing, but it was tasty.
For alternative meats, they offer a nice variety: veal, chicken and lamb. Perhaps a pork chop would round it out. We tried the lamb and it was incredible. So nicely seasoned and flavorful.
While the lamb may no longer be available, they do offer a veal parmesan that was excellent:
And a veal chop that is absolutely delicious.
A recent addition to the menu is a Saturday prime rib roast.
Check out this video!
At just $59 this is a steal. 7/10.
And if filet mignon is your thing, try the whole roasted tenderloin:
An easy 9/10 for that. Feeds 6-10 people at $295.
Apps, Sides & Desserts: 9
This is the best thick cut bacon I’ve ever had. It was about a half inch thick, and each order comes with three massive slabs. We cut them each in half since we had a table of six.
The fries are pretty good as well:
The marrow is overkill. If you are eating steaks here, each cut will come with some roasted bone marrow, so no need to go for the app. Here are three delicious boats of bone meat though:
Creamed spinach was also nice:
As well as the hash browns:
The crab cake is top notch. This thing rivals Del Frisco’s.
Especially now that the sauce for it has a cajun flavor profile:
Nice hand cut steak tartare:
For dessert, we went with the ice cream tartufo:
Creme brulee:
And chocolate cake:
All were good, but my favorite was the creme brulee.
Seafood Selection: 10
We tried the seafood tower, which comes with oysters, king crab, shrimp, lobster and lumb crab meat.
The shrimp were massive! For entree items, they offer tuna, halibut, lobster, sole and salmon. Branzino was on special as well. That’s a serious variety!
Branzino:
Tuna:
Salmon:
Crab & Avocado Salad:
Lobster Cobb:
Service: 10
The staff here is all top notch. The guys are pure gentlemen and it doesn’t surprise me that Chef Victor would staff his joint with such people. The table breads are served from a basket at the outset.
Ambiance: 9
They’ve done an awesome job with the space here. The main dining room is on the second floor and boasts elegant chairs and a bright space. Very different from other steak joints.
The third floor has a huge table for parties, and holds about 8000 bottles of wine in elegant glass-windowed rooms flanking each side.
This is also one of the only places you can actually eat beside a roaring fireplace, on two different floors. Amazing.
Munchery is a food delivery service that brings you chef-prepared meals that just need to be heated or sauced prior to eating. They recently hooked me up with a $100 credit for me to test out their service. As such, I placed hefty orders on two different dates to test out their skills. I ordered for dinner both times, but they do offer lunch as well. My total for all of this food came to $95.
Dinner One
My delivery guy showed up on time, he was super nice, and seem to be delivering a ton of other orders. Here’s what we had:
Chirashi: This was really pretty. The rice was pre-seasoned with sesame seeds and other Japanese spices, and the sushi was all good quality and tasted fresh.
Farro, Black Rice & Kale Salad: I really liked the dressing and wanted more! The salad itself was massive. This could easily be an entree for one. Very nice.
Applewood Smoked Whole Chicken: Delicious. Awesomely smokey, juicy and flavorful. I really liked the sauce that came with it too.
Balsamic Marinated Tri-Tip Steak: Tri-tip is a very tricky thing to do right, and probably suffers a bit from a second heating process, but they did a pretty good job on it. The sides of peppers, potatoes and mushrooms were on point.
Dinner Two
Here’s a shot of everything:
Beet-Pickled Eggs on Boston Wedge: Your basic type of wedge salad, only with Boston leaf lettuce instead of Iceberg, and a nice touch of pickled eggs..
French Dip Beef Sandwich: Not too bad at all! It came with pickled red onion, which I love, extra juices for dipping, and a horseradish cream sauce. Very nice.
Misoyaki Glazed Salmon: This was the big winner of the meal. Nicely cooked, really tasty and balanced with both sweet and savory flavor elements. This was my wife’s favorite too.
Roasted Bistro Filet: This steak was more tender than the tri-tip, but it was unfortunately a bit overcooked when it arrived. It wasn’t ruined, but I was nervous to stick it back into the oven for the re-heating process. The blue cheese cream sauce and potatoes were delicious though.
All in, this is a great service. It’s really convenient to just have to pre-heat the oven, which you can do during the delivery time window, and then heat your food. Or in the case of something like the Chirashi or the salads, just dress and eat. It’s a perfect service for a city of tiny, useless kitchens and people who are way too busy to prepare and eat proper meals at home. I definitely recommend it!
Camacho’s is a new Mexican joint with great cocktails and a fun cantina vibe. Named after the executive chef, it features a variety of classic Mexican favorites, including tacos:
Clockwise from top: shrimp, steak, short rib, cod.
Excellent guac and chips:
Tasty Mexican corn:
A nice, filling taco salad:
Yucca fries:
The “Bad Hombre” drink, a mezcal based margarita-ish concoction that’s served in a smoke-filled glass skull:
Tons of DOTD sugar skulls on the walls:
Crazy dessert shakes:
And even a suggestive neon sign that’s all the rage on Instagram:
They play some fun music too, if this is your thing; a throwback to mid- to late-90’s rap and hip hop. I dug it, and I’ll definitely be back.
Note: I was invited in by the bar’s ownership to take some photos and do some Instagram posts in exchange for a free meal.
The more I learn about farming and beef production in the US, the more I come across this thing called “Extension.” No, it’s not what happens when a young man sees an attractive woman sans clothing. Let me do my best to try to explain exactly what it is.
The Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Cooperative Extension provides non-formal education and learning activities to farmers, residents of rural communities, and people in urban areas throughout the country.
The country’s more than 100 land-grant colleges and universities have a critical mission, which they call “extension.” Through extension, they bring vital, practical information to agricultural producers, small business owners, consumers, families and kids.
That’s where 4-H comes into play. 4‑H is a youth development program delivered by Cooperative Extension. You may remember the commercials that used to air in the 80’s, like this one:
Kids complete hands-on projects in areas like health, science, agriculture and citizenship. They receive guidance from adult mentors and are encouraged to take on proactive leadership roles. 4‑H touches every area of the country via in-school and after-school programs, community clubs and camps.
I finally had the opportunity to eat at Indian Accent when a gang of us food maniacs came in for a quadruple date.
This place has been on my radar for a while, and I had heard it was one of the city’s best Indian restaurants.
We all opted to all get the four course meal rather than do the full chef’s tasting menu. But, first off, the cocktails here are fantastic. There’s spice, interesting flavor combinations, and a lot of really inventive riffs on old classics.
The meal starts with some amuse type offerings.
Above is a garam masala spiced pumpkin soup along with some blue cheese bread puffs (and a pair of our drinks). Below is the revealing of a nice fried beet root bite.
My first course: a collection of crab claws cooked in butter-pepper-garlic sauce with cauliflower. These were so rich and flavorful. Very bold, assertive flavors that I really loved.
My wife’s first course: the mathri trio, consisting of smoked eggplant bharta, duck khurchan and chicken khurchan. The duck one was definitely our favorite of the three, with chicken close behind.
My second course: sweet pickle ribs with sun-dried mango and onion seeds. Amazing flavor on these babies, and super tender. I’ve had Indian flavored “BBQ” before but this was much better. It had sweetness, spice, acidity… just really nicely balanced.
My wife’s second course: pathar beef kebab with bone marrow nihari. This was really interesting and had a pouring element to the dish presentation. I think, however, the ribs were way better.
My third course: ghee roast lamb with roomali roti pancakes. This was essentially like the Indian version of peking duck, in which the diner assembles his “tacos” and eats.
Here’s the set up:
That’s the roasted lamb meat on the left, cucumbers and sauces in the center, and pancakes on the right. In the upper center is an accompaniment that I chose for this course, which was essentially a stuffed naan type bread called kulcha. Mine was stuffed with pastrami and mustard grain (there were many other choices).
Here’s a closer look at the succulent roasted lamb meat:
And one of the little fuckers all assembled and ready to eat:
This shit was amazing, and I definitely feel like I picked the winning dish of the night (although a few others also ordered this).
My wife’s third course: braised lamb in a prune korma sauce with rajasthani pearl millet khichdi.
Not sure if you can see it but the cilantro leaf baked into the wafer cracker thing was pretty impressive and beautiful. The lamb was cooked for something like six hours and became incredibly tender and remained juicy. Great dish.
My dessert: doda barfi treacle tart with vanilla bean ice cream.
This was perfect. The tart on the bottom was similar to a toffee cake, or a cross between a cake and a crumble. Awesome.
My wife’s dessert: cheeni ki roti with marshmallows and old monk ice cream (rum raisin).
Beautiful plating, again, and really unique flavors. This was essentially like a disassembled pastry tart meets s’mores.
I also tasted a bite of the meethe chawal, which is sweet rice with almond milk and barberries. I said could have easily been a breakfast item as well as dessert. It was similar to oatmeal in taste and texture, only dry rather than like porridge.
Then some after dinner snacks came to the table:
And the chef gave us a brief tour of the kitchen:
And he finished us off with a scoop of mango sorbet right there in the kitchen. Very nice.
