Tag Archives: scallops

American, French, Restaurant Reviews, Upper East Side

Cafe Commerce

February 9, 2025 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

First, check out my Ride & Review video HERE:

Chef Harold Moore recently re-opened Cafe Commerce on the upper east side. I came up with my friends Jay and Jeremy, who you know better as “The Dishelin Guide” and “NYC Food FOMO” on Instagram. We tried a bunch of shit.

First, I started out with an ODB (dirty gin martini with blue cheese olives and olive brine) at the bar. This was delicious, so I had another with dinner.

To start, we went in on some beef carpaccio, which is served with horseradish, mayo and capers on top of a flat tater tot. Incredible!

These scallops with mushrooms and escargot butter were a smash hit, too.

As a middle course, we did the rabbit papparedelle with bacon and olives. This was really nice, but it could have used a pinch of finishing salt on top.

For the mains, we went big. First, Harold’s famous roast chicken. This is huge, and comes with a side of whipped potatoes and foie gras stuffing.

You can see the potatoes in the video, along with the other side of nduja Brussels sprouts that we ordered.

Next, we had the Thursday night rack of lamb special. This was the winning dish, hands down.

It came with a decadent fig and pistachio mustard glaze that paired nicely with that perfectly cooked lamb.

Last up, Harold’s famous coconut cake. A massive slice!

Everything here is great. I can’t wait to go back to try more stuff.

CAFE COMMERCE
964 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10021

Italian, Midtown East, Parms, Restaurant Reviews

Il Tinello East

October 13, 2022 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

My buddy Benny from Greenwich Steakhouse opened up a second location of the Italian joint Il Tinello. Benny is second from the right in this picture, next to me. Ask for him when you go, and tell him I sent you!

The menu and ambiance here are a little different from the original location. It feels like a more lively restaurant with a younger crowd. It was packed both at the bar and at the tables on a Wednesday night.

The bartender AJ has a nine year pedigree at Benjamin Prime, and he mixes up some excellent cocktails. Ask him about his mezcal negroni and “new fashioned” drinks.

Don’t skip on this meat martini waterfall thing. Great selection of olives, cheeses and peppers to go with the hand cut prosciutto.

Table bread service comes with an eggplant and tomato dip, and nice freshly made bruschetta.

We started with the special oysters Rockefeller, which were awesome. Nice crispy pancetta on top!

We followed these with baked clams oreganata and beef carpaccio.

For a mid course, we tried three pastas. The favorite of the table was probably this orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage. Just like mom makes.

These crab ravioli on special were incredible as well. They had a nice robust, clean crab flavor. Not too heavy with a light creamy pesto sauce.

The tagliolini with seafood is PACKED with chopped scallops, mussels, and shrimp. Great stuff.

For our mains, we tried two veal dishes. The first was a delicious glazed rib chop.

So tender and perfectly cooked to medium rare inside.

We also had the bone-in veal parm that was on special.

This was massive! Definitely something to share with your date.

For dessert, we tried the creme brulee, Italian cheesecake, tira misu and panna cotta. I think my favorite was either the tira misu or the panna cotta.

Great meal with a great old friend. I’m happy for the success of his new venture here at Il Tinello. I’ll definitely be back again soon!

IL TINELLO EAST
244 E 46th St
New York, NY 10017

Commentary, Press Reviews, Product Reviews

BallerBoil

September 6, 2016 Johnny Prime 0 Comments

This post will serve as a triple hit review of the Fresh Direct food delivery service, Tipsy’s boozy ice cream and Saveur Select wines.

My wife and some of our food friends were planning to do a Labor Day seafood boil on the rooftop of our building. It turns out, a few of the ladies managed to get the entire thing sponsored by the three companies above, provided that we post a few pics on Instagram.

Fresh Direct gave us a $500 credit to use towards their incredibly high quality seafood. We broke this out into two main items: a huge seafood boil, and a colossal chilled seafood tower.

There was so much fucking food! Lobster, king crab legs, blue claw crabs, steamer clams, little neck clams, three varieties of oysters, jumbo shrimp, scallops, multi-colored potatoes, kielbasa and corn. My wife and I were always big fans of Fresh Direct but this seafood really hammers home the word FRESH in their name. The lobsters were delivered LIVE! And everything tasted incredible, which is obviously the most important factor.

Saveur provided us with four bottles of crisp Gewürztraminer wine. This white German variety of wine was just the kind of refreshment we needed with this meal. We even poured some over fruit to make a white sangria.

Tipsy hooked us up with six different pints of ice cream for dessert.

The flavors were incredible: spiked hazelnut coffee, raspberry limoncello sorbet, cake batter vodka martini, dark chocolate whisky salted caramel, mango margarita sorbet and vanilla bean bourbon.