This Bourbon Street joint is serving some decent grub given the chaotic location, namely, the charbroiled oysters.
Those were great. The red bean hummus sounded promising but was pretty underwhelming.
I had a mixed fried seafood platter for my main course, which was nice, and a great way to beat back the remains of a Bourbon Street hangover.
The bread pudding, however, was awesome.
BOURBON HOUSE
144 Bourbon St,
New Orleans, LA 70130
NOTE: THIS PLACE IS NOW CALLED “TACKLEBOX”
My wife and I stopped in here for a quick dozen oysters and a drink before heading out for the evening in New Orleans.
I don’t know much about the restaurant other than it being connected to a hotel, but these were the freshest and best tasting gulf oysters on the half shell that we had in New Orleans on this trip.
They also serve up some delicious charbroiled oysters.
LEGACY KITCHEN’S OYSTER COUNTER & TAP
817 Common St
New Orleans, LA 70112
My wife and I stopped in here for a quick meal since we are both big fans of yakitori. We tried a bunch of shit.
First was the “soft bone,” which is essentially the cartilage found near the breast meat of the chicken. I thought there would be more of this, since it is generally abundant on the animal and a throw-away item in so many cultures. It was tasty though, I must admit.
Next was chicken skin. Since this is grilled, it doesn’t quite develop the crunchy texture you might expect from something that’s broiled, baked or roasted for a long period of time. It wasn’t rubbery or fatty though, so I liked it.
Next up, knee bone. This was probably my least favorite of the skewers, but I know my wife likes the weird crunchy bits, so I’m pretty sure she liked this.
These skewers are chicken oysters, tender lumps of meat found beneath the thigh of the chicken, near the ass. They’re so soft and juicy. One of the best skewers (we ordered two).
Our last skewer was the chicken thigh. These were my favorite. Nice and tender, as expected. Good fat content, lots of flavor.
We also tried both of their fried chicken apps. At $9 these were a little pricey (just four drumettes per order).
This is the regular order – just fried and lightly seasoned, served with lemon wedges.
And this is the flavored version, with a sweet sauce, a grilled shishito pepper and sesame seeds. We both liked this dish better.
Last, we had an order of ikuri: rice with roe. It also comes with a blob of fresh wasabi, shredded nori, shredded scallions, a nice seaweed broth and Korean/Japanese style pickles. Not bad for $13.
We really liked this place. The skewers range from like $3 to $10 (for special meats). Ours were all $3 or $3.50. It all came to $50-something bucks, which I thought was cheaper (and better) than other yakitori joints in the area.
YAKITORI TOTTO
251 W 55th St
New York, NY 10019
My wife and I stopped into Crave Fishbar for their daily oyster happy hour. From 5pm to 7pm (4pm-6pm on weekends) all oyster varieties are just a buck each. We each tried one of each kind (along with some other snacks and drinks):
As strange as it was, our favorites all contained the word “point” in the name.
The calamari was really nice too. A perfectly dusted and fried batter, and really tender squid inside.
But what really blew me away at this place was their red crab cavatelli. The cavatelli is home made, and is torched/crisped up so that some of the edges are actually crunchy and al dente. Here are the before and after mix shots (beautiful colors):
I highly recommend that dish. It’s pricey, but worth it. If the pasta is all you’re after, they also have another cavatelli pasta dish, without the crab.
Overall, this place is great. We will definitely be back.
CRAVE FISHBAR
428 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10024
My wife found a happy hour deal for this place down in Key West: half price drinks and shellfish from 4:30 to 6:30.
We made it by about 6:00pm and put in a shitload of the available shellfish items. Everything was really good!
Raw oysters:
Raw clams:
Steamed clams:
Mahi mahi fish dip:
Peel and eat shrimp:
And, of course, frozen drinks!
The stone crabs are NOT on the happy hour deal, but we did try a few colossal and medium sized claws. Fucking amazing, and it comes with a really nice mustard-horseradish dipping sauce that works well with french fries.
When we were leaving we saw this cool Christmas tree made from crab and lobster traps. Very cool!
NOTE: THIS PLACE IS NOW CLOSED
My wife had a deal for this joint that got us a shared app, two entrees and a shared dessert, with a cocktail each, for something like $50. Not a bad deal.
We started with a pair of pink colored pussy cocktails. Mine was called “The Pink Panther” and had gin, agave, absinthe, pink peppercorns, and ginger.
We shared a charcuterie plate, which was really nice. The best part was by far the pate:
For my entree, I had the lamb shank with polenta. This was pretty good, but lacked a little seasoning. It was missing punch, and there wasn’t much meat on the bone.
My wife had the winning dish; duck l’orange. The skin was perfectly crisp, and the orange wasn’t overpowering. This was a big portion size too.
Service was extremely slow for some reason, but eventually our dessert came out. We had the apple crisp with creme fraiche ice cream. The ice cream was incredible. I’ve had better apple crisp. Maybe it needed more brown sugar in the mix.
I’d definitely come back for their $1 oyster happy hour deal, which is pretty much every day in the after-work hours. BUT, on Mondays the oysters are a buck all night long. And the bar is incredibly big and beautiful here.
CAFE TALLULAH
240 Columbus Ave.
New York, NY 10023
NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED!
Thalia over on 8th Avenue has an amazing oyster deal. EVERY DAY from 7:00pm through 1:00am they have dollar oysters, and they are GOOD. The times I have gone, they were all nice quality, clean Bluepoints. What a steal! And with a great drink menu, this place is the perfect spot for grabbing a quick bite and buzz.
On a second trip for oysters, we had a full meal here. I had the burger. It was essentially my LGBT sandwich with a burger patty in the mix. While it was really nicely cooked, it needed just a bit more seasoning, as did the fries.
The fries had a great texture and flavor – just lacked a little salt.
My wife had pasta made from zucchini, which was nice and light, and topped with beans, mushrooms, and cheese.
For dessert we shared a velvet chocolate mousse. It had some cake on the bottom which I didn’t like as much as the mousse portion, but it was nice.
Check out this great drink I had too – really refreshing and tasty:
On another trip I had the spaghetti. Really simple but well executed. I found the sauce to be a bit too sweet, so I slapped some globs of the kalamata olive spread into it (the spread comes with the table breads). That made it perfect.
*DOLLAR OYSTERS NO LONGER AVAILABLE*
THALIA
828 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10019
Last night Tabelog hosted another incredible event for their elite team of prized food bloggers. They’ve set out to choose some of the more secret spots around NYC to host these things, as evidenced by their selection of Jukai, a very small, discrete Japanese joint on 53rd Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. My wife and I were blown away by how great the food was. To top it off, the event was sponsored by Asahi beer, so we got to sample some of their very popular super dry (goes nice with seafood) and dark (pairs well with beef) varietals. If the tasting/sampling is any indication of what an actual sit-down meal is like here, then I highly recommend that you reserve a table ASAP. You won’t be disappointed.
Okay so here’s the Food Pr0n in picture form:
First, the assorted starter. Pickled mushroom and onion, egg omelette with spinach, squid with sea urchin, smoked duck, and Jamon Iberico on top of persimmon. As you might have guessed the Iberico was my favorite portion of this plate, followed closely by the duck.
Then came my absolute favorite of the night – beef carpaccio. But not your ordinary beef. It was smokey, aged, and incredibly unique in flavor. And look at that fucking marbling…
Next, the mains. Salmon marinated in sake and then broiled, served with a grilled Shishito pepper. Very tasty. I usually dislike cooked salmon, but the experts at Jukai managed to keep the meat orange/pink inside for a beautiful rare temperature inside with a nice crisp on the outside…
Followed by Spanish mackerel with ground radish…
Then my wife’s favorite – a gigantic pacific oyster with all sorts of good toppings (I took this down in one bite)…
And a steaming bowl of garlicky shabu shabu with beef and cabbage.
For dessert we had a sampling of four delicious items: black tea panna cotta (my wife’s favorite), white sesame blancmange (almost like a pudding), creme brulee (my favorite), and chocolate truffles.
JUKAI
237 E. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10022
