SWEET: Penelope’s

Quaint country meets New York’s palate - Penelope’s offers awesome food at an affordable price.

Have you ever waken up on a weekend morning - headed to the local diner, order whatever – only to leave feeling disappointed with your meal? Well I have. In fact, pretty much every time.

Well, Penelope’s combines upscale diner with a little bit of country love providing the perfect cure to your weekend diner blues. The décor inside consists of rustic white and baby blue French country – the menu is filled with “diner” favorites like burgers, salads, mac and cheese, egg sandwiches, pancakes – and the best part about the menu? If you are a meat lover – great. They’ve got you covered. But if not they have soy-sage, fakin’ bacon and veggie burgers – definitely a crowd pleaser. And with the exception of the Pot Pie – everything runs around $10.

My favorites to-date are the veggie burger, Penny Egg Sandwich with basil olive oil – (sets this over the top and I NEVER order eggs out) – and for dessert old fashioned cupcakes, ginger carrot cake and/or (who says you have to get just one) warm Nutella with strawberries.

This cash only establishment located on Lex and 30th – delivers – ummm awesome – and is never disappointing.

Unfortunately this place isn’t a “little known secret” so be prepared to wait at least an hour for weekend brunch.

PS - I HEART Penelope’s

SWEET: Reservoir

Last weekend, a few of us (cousins and friends) went to Reservoir on University Place to watch the Giants game. First off, let me explain a little about myself, I’m not the biggest sports fan per se, however I am a big fan of eating wings, fries, nachos and drinking beer - all of your standard game food. So by default you may say I am a sports fan, as long as there is a steady stream of food in front of my face to hold my attention.

So – while in Union Square area, we decided to go somewhere and watch the game, while deliberating where to go someone threw out Reservoir, I wont lie, when the suggestion came up I definitely hated on it as soon as I found out it was a Philly bar. I was in no mood to have sports banter and obscenities hollered at my table getting in my way of me gorging on an unhealthy amount of fried fatty foods – but I, hesitantly, agreed to go - not wanting to be difficult and all.

Well – I must say I really enjoyed my experience there. It’s what a pub should be, not grimy enough to be called a dive bar, but not nice enough to make you feel like your sneakers and hoodie are inappropriate. They had beer specials, decent atmosphere, actually had good food, and a respectable bathroom (that’s my requirement, not a good pub requirement)! Oh and they had great water, lots of ice, with those classy cubes - square with the hole in the middle, you know the ones. As TH’s friend perfectly put it, “like a mini luge.” It makes you feel special.

The only negative, the plastic water cups were opaque, so the waitress didn’t take notice to my empty water glass nor came over to ask if we needed anything, LIKE MORE WATER, and I will point out it had a slight lingering smell of you typical Sunday morning pub after a Saturday night and oh the BBQ was lacking (I am a BBQ connisoire if you must know) But all the pros outweighed the few cons. I’m definitely going back! Maybe even next Sunday to check out the mac and cheese.


Beef Stew – didn’t have it, well maybe just a taste, but it had rave, RAVE reviews I tell you!

Spinach and Artichoke Dip – Smoky, cheesy, delicious.

Waffle Fries – de-lonk-u-lous.

4 out of 5 stars for excellence on pinning down great pub food and the affordable prices.


PS – Thanks to SC for taking pics

SALTY: BANC

This weekend three of my favorite girls and I went out to get brunch on Saturday. We WANTED to go to Penelope’s (pure goodness), but as expected the wait was like an hour and a half. Being that we were all hungry and anxious to get our day started, we opted to go somewhere else. Please insert Banc. I want to like it, I really, really do, but I’ve been there a few times and the food is always okay-less than satisfactory. See if it had really good food, it would be the perfect place for me to meet people at, it’s close enough that I don’t have to go too far from home (a quick walk will get me there unscathed in any weather) yet, far enough that I can tell myself I am going further than I really am so I am not the jerk who always tries to make plans in their neighborhood, even though I think I live it the best area ever.

Anyway, it’s just not that good. As a whole, the table was not pleased with our meals, and after our meal two of us (me being one of them) briefly believed we had food poisoning and were going to be sick.

I got the Nova Eggs Benedict which is eggs benedict with smoked salmon instead of ham. Eggs were fine, hash browns unmemorable, really like the side salad…BUT the smoked salmon was way nas-ass-ty. I’ve had plenty of smoked salmon in my day, I’m a fan, if there were a club, I might join it, but this smoked salmon had that uncomfortable fishy taste. You know the one that as your eating it all your thinking is “I am totally going to get some freaky bacteria and have bathroom issues for the next 2 days,” yeah that kind of fishy. So after my first bite I thought, MAYBE it was just a bad bite, the next wont be that bad, but it was, so needless to say I ate pretty much everything other than the salmon.

Will I go as far as to say I will never go back?..no…it’s in a great location, decent variety on the menu and many out of town guest have been partial to the atmosphere, but on the flip side, am I going out of my way to eat there?…no… Do I like rhetorical questions… yes.

2 out of 5 stars for at least having the dignity to appear clean and for their major perk: they are cool with you bringing your dog to their outside seating and will even bring your dog water.

SALTY: Havana Central

Last night I ordered from this restaurant Havana Central in Union Square, I had it once before, and it was okay, but it’s really cheap and has a lot of good reviews so I thought I’d try it again. Let me just say I am appalled and they should be embarrassed at how not good it was. I wouldn’t say horrible, but in NYC there is a higher set of standards. It was okay for like Long Island, but NOT for NYC. There is just waaaayyyy too much competition to be okay or mediocre. It’s like Chinese food, pretty much everywhere on LI all Chinese food is almost the same, and all the dumplings are exactly the same. I hate it. Not in NYC though, with 6 restaurants in a 3 block radius your dumplings have to be the best and your delivery service has to be the fastest *insert Chef 28 or Noodles 28 with sesame sauce* Whatever your category is, you have to be at least above average, with the best price for the quality you are serving. But I digress.

So as I was saying or writing, the food just wasn’t that good, and as cheap as it is, I will go as far to say that I probably will never get it again. There were some things that were okay, but over all, not worth the calories. To date, the best, BEST, Cuban food I have had has been from Kuba Kuba in Richmond, VA www.kubakuba.info. It’s like this hole in the wall-ish place, first come first serve, nothing fancy, owned by a guy with a salt-n-pepper scruffy beard who drives a beat up pick up truck; First of all everything is made right before your eyes, yes, it can get hot in there, but at least you can watch the guy making your food and know for sure he is not picking his nose and scratching his butt, or dropping your empanada on the floor and applying the 5 sec rule….My top favorite things to eat there are the Empanadas, beef or spinach, plantains, coconut risotto cakes, and the turkey press. All phenomenal. I am hoping to make a trip down there and visit Kuba Kuba, Edo Squid, 821 and NY Deli (I’ll tell you about those later) and of course my friends. My life doesn’t completely revolve around food.

Here is my assessment of Havana Central: It once was really good, but as it grew more popular, two things happened 1)the food was assembled in mass amounts, and 2) they hired people who don’t give a s**t about the quality - now lacking the care and love it once had. For food to be good, its got to be made with love, sounds cheesy, but if its made with love it means the person who made it takes pride in what they are serving, ultimately striving to put out the absolute best that they can.

Empanadas– I’ve had the beef and Cubano, its got all the basic stuff there, but flavor wise..eh…2 out of 5 stars

Cuban Tamales – very dry and they used dark meat and I hate dark meat, 2 out of 5 stars

Fried Sweet Plantains – it’s pretty hard to F these up, 5 out of 5 stars

Zesty Corn on the Cob – hmmm not so much, 2 out of 5 stars. if you want really good zesty corn on the cob go to Pita Grill, AWESOME.

PS - The lettuce in the picture is my addition, got to get your veggies!