review: old town hot pot - 6/14/2011

i love hot pot so i was super excited when this place opened by the owners of grand sichuan close by (yummy). they have individual pots (like quickly in chinatown) which some ppl prefer (not me).

pros:
1) the soup (i got medium spicy) is good and not that spicy.  not MSG tasting.  the chicken soup sounded very soothing, would love to have next time i'm sick.
2) the appetizers are AWESOME.  especially the spinach with hot mustard sauce.  but we tried them all and they're all good, even the hawthorn with the jelly stuff.
3) the fish balls were excellent.  this is an easy dish to do badly.
4) the service is pleasant.
5) it's super inexpensive ($22 per person w tax/tip, and some ppl had beer).

cons:
1) no sauce bar!  this really takes away from the hot pot experience.  making your own custom dipping sauce is awesome.  here, they give you 3 options - none of them are soy sauce with raw garlic, red chili powder, ginger and cilantro.  (that said, you can get the hot mustard sauce on the side and the bean paste and spicy sauce are tasty).
2) NO NOODLES (besides rice stick type noodles). at the end of hot pot, it's awesome to get noodles (ideally hand-pulled, or even handmade) to end the meal.  next time i'm going to bring my own.
3) they need more boilable items.  in china, you can order all different plates of meats, seafood, fish.  you get a bowl of veggies w tofu and tofu skin, but... they should have specials - live shrimp! scallops!

i prefer shared hotpot (next stop: QUEENS!), but this was pretty tasty and easily accessible.  i miss china!

old town hot pot
70 7th ave south btwn commerce/bleecker street
new york, ny 10014
212/929.2188

commerce

merriam webster defines com•merce as 1 : social intercourse : interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments; 2 : the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place.

and commerce restaurant, a newish spot in the west village definitely fulfills its first definition. there's a lot of chatter, and i absolutely loved walking in to the frenetic energy that filled the room; however, they're somewhat lackluster on the 2nd definition... they don't seem to get that buying/selling involves being SEATED.

our reservation was 815pm, but we weren't seated until 910pm. they bought us a round of drinks, but only because we nagged. we ordered quickly, and other than bread (which wasn't memorable at all, except the pretzel), our first dish came out at 940pm.

fortunately, i had the pleasure of seeing my favorite friend/bartender at bobo before dinner, who let me test drive some of bobo's soon-to-be-released spring cocktail menu items, so my patience level for commerce's misgivings was quite high. however, i can't say the same for my dining companions, who grumbled and grumbled some more all through the meal (our hostess didn't exactly make you feel warm and fuzzy - her looks and coldness actually reminded me of "Cutthroat Bitch" aka Amber from House).

despite the cocktails, i might've been affected had the food not been so EXCELLENT. the hamachi ceviche was spicy and tart - quite delicious; the duck and foie gras rillettes were good, although not as creamy as i usually like; and the winter vegetable fricassee (which our server highly recommended) was tasty, although i wouldn't get it again.

i loved both pasta dishes, the ragu of other things (some name like that) with homemade orecchiette and the spaghetti carbonara. i think lupa's carbonara is better, but fatty pasta is yummy (note: i don't generally eat pasta, so i'm easy to please in this category).

we ordered the roast chicken for 2, and we were warned that it took 35 minutes. instead, they brought out a strange 1/2 order of the chicken - the meat was very moist and tasty and the skin crispy, and it was served with a homemade spaetzle-like pasta... but it was no foie gras bread dressing! she put the order for the roast chicken in after she realized her mistake, but it was too late... it just prolonged our already LOOOONG meal.

i was thoroughly impressed with the braised beef, bone marrow and sliced fillet - beef dishes are usually boring when you're not at a steakhouse, but this one was jam-packed full with flavors. by the time the roast chicken was ready, we were already stuffed, so we requested that it be split in half so we could take it home. i still haven't tried it (i can't eat so indulgently every night!), but it's in the frig, waiting to be eaten.

on a final note, let's talk cocktails and wine... although the cocktail list isn't impressive, the one drink i did order, the nor'easter, was so tasty, that i couldn't help to order another. we also had a couple bottles of wine, a priorat and a st. emilion (both in the $80-100 range), and the latter was DELICIOUS. perfect with our meal, perfect on its own. and all in all, dinner was quite a bargain (but not nearly a recession special) at about $120pp.

commerce
50 commerce street
new york, ny 10014
212/524-2301

friday night cocktails!

yesterday, the S.O. realized he could get out of work to have dinner with his high school buddy (a real estate tycoon AND model in from dallas for a weekend). they left choosing the venue in my capable, but overplanning, hands. the criteria: people watching, outdoor option, food the picky S.O. will eat. after lots (and lots) of thought, i settled on morandi, keith mcnally's (balthazar, pastis, schiller's) somewhat newish italian joint in the west village.

basically, it was perfect: a sweet, adorable hostess; a not-offensively-crowded bar to wait at (we didn't have reservations); a generally attractive crowd, plus a celeb-sighting (carla gugino); opened french doors leading out to a quasi-sidewalk cafe; and who doesn't like italian?

the food was fine. it didn't impress my standard outlets (New York magazine, the New York Times, Chowhound), but the S.O. and his buddy really liked it. the baccala fritti, their take on fish & chips and a friday night special, was delicious (actually the fries were just average, but the salt cod... YUM!).

the space was great (rustic, warm), there were cocktails and good wines (i loved the negroni and the S.O. loved the Tuscan red), and never a shortage of people to watch.

plus it was walking distance to horrible buddha bar. i wouldn't have gone except it was the birthday boy's choice. we had two bottles, and i requested another carafe of soda water. our waitress (a petite blonde idiot) flat out said, "No." i asked the DJ to play better dance music. he might as well have said no ("i don't play commercial crap"). we walked around TWICE looking to recruit attractive girls for the birthday boy, and the best we found were these cheezy blondes, both wearing trashy-cheap outfits. the only ok parts were the guy at the door who was actually friendly rather than stoic and aloof. and the guy who showed us to our table, who maneuvered around buddha bar's ugly patrons with major skillz.

morandi
211 waverly place between seventh avenue south and charles st
new york, ny 10014
212.627.7575

buddha bar
17 little west 12th street between ninth ave and washington st
new york, ny 10014
212.647.7314 (but why you'd want to call is beyond me)

photo credit: Robert Presutti for The New York Times