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Inexpensive BBQ or Mexican Dinner for 10 in Village
We actually ended up going to Yerba Buena, which somehow had room even though it is a tiny space (we did go early, about 6:30pm). Restaurant week menu was really good - highly recommend the beef entree. Thanks for the suggestions!
Get Out of Town: Rhinebeck, Red Hook, and Tivoli
I second the recommendation of Le Canard in Kingston, which has very good hearty French bistro food.
Malaysian Restaurant Week (NYC) Recommendations?
My wife and I and two friends went to Laut for dinner and Fatty Crab (West Village) for lunch for Malaysian Restaurant week so far. At both places, you get an appetizer, entree, and dessert. Here were our impressions:
Laut - The appetizers we got were otah otah (fish cake wrapped in banana leaf), five-spice pork rolls (spiced minced pork wrapped in some form of wrapper and then deep fried), and roti chanai (curry and a very thin bread). The otah otah was tasty but small, we all enjoyed the five-spice pork roll a lot - the spice was not overwhelming, and it came with a nice sauce (deep fried minced pork, how can you go wrong?), and the roti chanai had a nice flavorful coconut curry. Our entrees were chili crab, shrimp coconut curry with okra and black rice, beef rendang, and a fourth I can't remember. The chili crab was really nice, two soft-shell crabs with a spicy thick red chili sauce - served with rice buns to mop up the sauce. The shrimp coconut curry was nice as well, the black rice added an interesting nuttiness, the curry was spicy but not overwhelmingly so, though the okra was a bit slimier than I like. The beef rendang was flavorful and soft, but not overly so. For desert, we got fried ice cream, peanut crepe, and sticky rice with pandan pudding. Unfortunately, the dessert overall was disappointing - the batter of the fried ice cream had a weird consistency, the ice cream was freezer burned, and the sticky rice was fairly tasty but very small. Overall, the meal was very nice, and am definitely interested in going back to Laut.
Fatty Crab - This is a restaurant I'd wanted to try for a while, so I was very excited to see they were participating (albeit only for lunch). The selection at Fatty Crab was much smaller than that at Laut - only 3-4 entrees and 1 dessert while Laut had ~7 entrees and 4 desserts. For the appetizers we got grilled asparagus and mango & papaya salad. The grilled asparagus was tasty, and came with a nice chili-mayo type sauce, but still was grilled asparagus. The salad had a good amount of mango and green papaya, and was spicy, but was missing the sour flavor that really brings this dish together. For the entrees we had nasi lemak, clams with pepper and yuzu, and beef redang. The clams were very peppery and tasty, but overall somewhat disappointing. The nasi lemak was extremely tasty, very good rice, tasty chicken curry, excellent anchovy and grilled onion side - BUT the otah otah was just crumbly red grains that tasted nothing like fish and the chicken in one of ours did not appear to be cooked all the way through (they apologized and reheated it. It is braised for hours, so the pink color inside was a bit surprising). The beef redang was amazing though - a small beef rib, ridiculously tender, with a lovely coconut curry sauce. The dessert was a small coconut sticky rice concoction that was tasty. Also, the service was friendly, but there were problems with the meal - the chicken as mentioned above, one otah otah had nothing inside of it, the portion sizes were okay but not great, and >10 minutes separated when the different appetizers and entrees were brought to the table (I know they bring food when ready to promote sharing, but it was still a bit ridiculous).
Overall, the meal was good but I didn't feel it lived up to my expectations. Very good deal, esp. given their usual prices.
Hope you find this helpful.
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Website: http://adeats.blogspot.com
Location: Abu Dhabi / NY
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Thanks a lot for the info. Does Tulcingo del Valle sell just their mole sauce for take away? I looked at their website and they appear to be a restaurant. I guess I'm more looking for a good Mexican / Oaxacan grocery store somewhere in the city...