Kubara makes ready-made ramen broth. They currently offer shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce) and yuzu shio (citrus salt) flavors. All are robust and full of flavor, but I like the shoyu (soy sauce) the best. All broths are based in seafood and kelp, but I am blown away by the depth and intensity they all have.
For more information about ramen, check out my Guide to Ramen Styles. Enjoy!
We hit this Key West joint because it was well-rated on Trip Advisor for having a great bloody mary.
The awesome, friendly and very knowledgeable bartender, Al, mixed this wonderful shit up perfectly. It’s made with house-infused bacon vodka and a killer bloody mix that had both spice and meatiness.
We were so impressed that we came back for dinner that night to try the all-you-can-eat crab dinner.
Not bad, but like Prime Steakhouse here in Key West, it could be anywhere. The crabs were tasty, but they’re not local or fresh. I was hoping that they had some stone crabs on the menu.
Al recommended earlier that we try the artichoke dip. We weren’t that impressed. It was made with pickled artichokes I think, not fresh, so it had an awkward flavor and texture.
My wife’s mussels appetizer was massive. Big enough for an entree, and they were good to boot.
I also got to try this nice blueberry wheat beer as well:
Overall I’d say you should come here for a bloody, talk it up with Al and share some mussels. Skip the rest.
UPDATE 6/2/23
First off, check out my Ride & Review of this place HERE:
I was invited in by the new management/ownership here to check out the menu offerings, in particular the steak. But there were so many items on the menu that were incredibly enticing, that I just had to try as much as I possibly could. I’ll drop in a photo slide show here, and then go over some of the highlights.
The cocktails were spectacular. I really enjoyed the Gibson and the Gold Rush, pictured here:
In the starters arena, the tartare has been elevated with egg emulsion drops, caviar, and an overall superior cut/chop and flavor. Chef Jack Logue is truly taking this place to a better level than Michael WHite or Geoffrey Zacharian has done before.
The soft shell crab special was excellent, but the real star of the apps was this platter of hot and cold shellfish items. As delicious as it is beautiful.
Here’s that softshell crab – cornmeal crusted for extra crisp!
As a mid course we ate the nduja carbonara, which was a really innovative and spicy take on a traditional carbonara. My only criticism here is to swap out the flat pasta for a thicker chitarra or bucatini type pasta. But this preparation lent it self very nicely to a lighter mid course.
We also took down the veal milanese, which was thick, tender, crispy and well seasoned. Great execution and beautiful presentation with the bone and everything.
The Cote de Boeuf was a shade overcooked in parts, but the dry aged flavor on it carried it the Valhalla of my stomach on golden chariots. It was a delicious 8/10.
Great array of sauces to go with it.
The highlights in the side dish realm were the spinach, mushrooms and this ox cheek mac and cheese that was listed as a starter, but could easily be either an entree or the perfect mac and cheese side dish. Get it!
Our favorite dessert was the NY Apple, a layered cheesecake of sorts in apply lollipop form. Watch the video to see what it looked like before we destroyed it. I also enjoyed the crackerjack sundae. Simple and delicious.
UPDATE 5/15/18
On a second visit, my wife and I sat downstairs, which had a very different atmosphere from the more mid-century modern upstairs decor. Downstairs, it’s a bit more cozy and steakhouse-esque.
We tried the beef tartare and the scallop crudo to start.
Both were really nice. The tartare had a good flavor because they use dry aged beef.
For a mid-course, we had the gnocchetti scampi.
This was served in a white wine and butter style sauce with nice juicy chunks of perfectly cooked shrimp, lemon herb breadcrumbs and a walnut and arugula pesto. This was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had in years. It was well balanced in both texture and flavor, and the unique cavatelli size/shape gnocchi pasta was absolutely perfect.
I had the 12oz dry aged strip steak for my entree.
It came with a shitake mushroom cap that was stuffed with short rib, and it was accompanied by a truffle sauce. Perfectly cooked, with a good dry aged flavor. 8/10.
My wife had the lamb.
This was a great dish. It was really three parts of the lamb: thick cut belly, t-bone, and rib chop.
Really great middle eastern flavors happening on this too.
For dessert we had the pistachio parfait and the vanilla cheesecake. Both were really flavorful and unique. I preferred the pistachio parfait, but my wife liked the cheesecake better. Can’t go wrong with either, though.
This was a really great meal. I highly recommend this place. They mix some really great cocktails:
…And even the table bread is excellent:
This joint is owned by Geoffrey Zakarian, famous celebrity chef. My wife and I came through this place for restaurant week during lunch hours in the upstairs bar room.
We started with an Arnold Palmer, made with unsweetened iced tea an slightly sweetened natural lemonade. The interesting part about this is that the ice cubes are also made of Arnold Palmer mix, so you never get a watered down drink when the ice melts:
Starting bread was nice, warm and buttery:
For the apps, we shared bur rata and zucchini, barley and avocado soup. The soup was a nice, light tomato and veggie broth that packed a lot of flavor for such a light dish.
The burrata was nice and soft. I sort of wish that they served some roasted tomatoes with it, but the greens and pickled onions were good as well.
My wife had a crispy skin duck rilette. Portions of the skin weren’t crispy, but this dish was otherwise a really nice item. The such was pulled or shredded style, and mixed with light mustard, capers, and other goodies that made it pop.
I had the sirloin burger with aged, sharp cheddar. This was nice. The meat was a little soft and crumbly, but the bun was top quality challah bread.
The lunch menu charges $24 for this, with the fries, but the restaurant week menu included an app and dessert for just a buck more. Not sure I’d think this was worth it for $24. The fires were pretty good though. Nice and crispy, golden brown.
For dessert, we tried the chocolate mousse with ice cream and the passion fruit semifreddo. Both were nice. I liked the chocolate mousse better, but the semifreddo did have a nice mango sorbet that cut the tang of the passion fruit.
THE LAMB’S CLUB
132 W. 44th St.
New York, NY 10036
My wife and I took a stroll through Reading Terminal Market today in Philadelphia when we were nearby for a cousin’s 5th birthday party. This place is awesome. I was a little overwhelmed actually. It’s basically like a flea market filled with awesome places to eat, with cuisines varying across dozens of cultures. There are even some fresh meat, cheese, seafood and produce purveyors too. Unfortunately I was full, having just eaten some great pho and banh mi at a Vietnamese place just outside of Philly. But I wasn’t too full to snap some photos for you fuckbags. Here they are. Enjoy.
Me, my wife, and some of our friends went to this pretty crazy Korean restaurant in Woodside called Sik Gaek. Good luck reading the website if you can’t read Korean. However the pics are nice under the “Delicious Table” drop down menu. They have some nice looking meats and fish.
I say “crazy” not to be judgmental of other cultures, but rather to demonstrate the purely subjective boundaries which I needed to cross to actually partake in the ingesting of food here. It’s crazy for ME, in other words. I typically eat my food cooked (with the exception of sushi, ceviche, shellfish and tartare). Not only that, but I usually eat my animals and fish AFTER they are good and dead (again, with the exception of shellfish). Also – my food usually isn’t MOVING. As you’ll see below, these western culinary conventions are thrown out the window at Sik Gaek. And that’s a good thing.
This place (the Flushing location rather than the Woodside spot we went to) was actually featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel called “No Reservations.” The show is now off the air, as he has moved to CNN with “Parts Unknown” (it’s essentially the same show). In the “No Reservations” episode clipped below, he was in the midst of doing a tour of various “hidden” Asian food and culture spots around Queens with renowned chef David Chang. Watch as he eats still-moving, live, marinated and chopped octopus:
It makes me think of a shocking scene from the Korean film Old Boy, which has one of the most fucked-up twist endings ever, and is one of the most fucked-up but excellent movies of our time. No doubt this film will garner even more attention when Spike Lee fucks it up upon the release of his remake later this year, starring Josh Brolin:
Anyway… on to the actual food that we ate. It turns out there was a huge disappointment. They were out of live octopus. So after all that babble above, I didn’t really get to test the limits of my culinary tolerances. We did enjoy some delicious food though, and some of it was still moving while it cooked in the hot pot. Check out the pics below.
First, the drinks. Two types of beer, two types of soju, and a watermelon full of vagina juice (watermelon punch):
Almost forgot the Psy shot glass:
Next, the starters. First up, eggs and veggies:
Then rice cakes and tofu skin with spicy sauce, along with some pickled items and dips:
Then we had some thick cut pork belly:
Then we moved on to the seafood hot pot, which contained lobster, blue claw crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, razor clams, abalone, baby octopus, squid, udon noodles, bean sprouts, and cabbage. They even give you a trash bucket beside the table to throw all the shells in.
And YES – the lobster was still moving at our table while it cooked:
Since they knew we were there for the live octopus, and we had made the reservation and tried to reserve a ‘pus for the table way in advance of getting there, they felt bad and gave us a plate of bacon wrapped mushrooms on the house:
One of the best parts of the meal was using the broth pan to cook fried rice. Packed with flavor, and nice and crispy:
Two more shots – one of the restaurant space, and one of a little kitchen flood:
SIK GAEK
49-11 Roosevelt Ave.
Woodside, NY 11377
