Sweetgreen Limited-Time Tiger Bowl

I was excited about the collaboration between Sweetgreen and Danny Bowien's Mission Chinese Food on the Tiger Bowl. It's available for a limited time from now until Jan. 3, 2018 only at NYC Sweetgreen locations, and the ingredients sounded pretty good.

The Tiger Bowl is a warm salad with organic spinach, organic wild rice, roasted sesame tofu, kimchi, shiso, carrots, cucumbers, pears, spicy sunflower seeds, nori furikake, tiger dressing. No details on the dressing ingredients but photos on Sweetgreen's site would suggest it has some red chili pepper. It costs $12.15, which is on the higher end of their prices.

Image: Sweetgreen

The Tiger Bowl version that I got could have been great. Unfortunately, all the ingredients were severely overpowered by the extremely sour vegetable pickle that Sweetgreen tries to pass off as kimchi. Instead of kimchi, I got a pink-hued mix of napa, radish, & sliced carrots heavily pickled in red wine vinegar that assaulted my taste buds. There was no spicy red chili that kimchi tends to have. I like pickles & sour things. But this was a very sour jardiniere. And it's wrong because someone who hasn't had kimchi will get a very wrong idea of what kimchi really is. I pushed the pickled veggies aside and tried to salvage the rest of the salad, but their acidic, sour juice was everywhere.

My Tiger Bowl order

Pink pickled vegetables as so-called "kimchi"

I also tasted a lot of black pepper. It seemed like that was the only spicy heat element in the bowl. No flavor or heat of red chili peppers. There was no shiso either.

I stopped by Sweetgreen on 75th & Amsterdam on Nov. 2, the first day the new bowl was available, and that may have been a mistake. I wonder if this location had all the right ingredients yet to make the Tiger Bowl. Maybe this is just wishful thinking. But I don't plan to give the salad another try to find out.

I usually like Sweetgreen salads & bowls, but this was a big disappointment. I can't believe what I got is what Danny Bowien imagined or that he approved the recipes.

My Rating (out of 5): 1

Sweetgreen
311 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10023
www.sweetgreen.com

Wolfgang's Steakhouse Review

BLOT: I'd rather go to Peter Luger.

I'd give the porterhouse 4 stars because it is a decent steak but the rest had a lot to be desired.

Medium-rare porterhouse for two

If you didn't already know, Wolfgang's Steakhouse was started by a former Peter Luger waiter, not Chef Wolfgang Puck. (The fact that Wolfgang Puck recently opened his own steakhouse in NYC, called Cut, doesn't make it any less confusing.) So, Wolfgang's Steakhouse is a copycat of Peter Luger in menu and how they serve the porterhouse. Yelp reviews of other Wolfgang's locations weren't good, so I decided to try their flagship location on Park Avenue.

When I arrived for my reservation, I was checked in by two young women at the host stand right away, but told to wait for someone to seat my party. Another party came in after me, and an old guy in a suit (maître d'?) walks up to the stand and motions for my party to step aside even more than we already were. He stands there smiling at the other party waiting for them to remove their coats and chit chat. Then, he seats them first at a table that already has guests sitting. Clearly, he favors this other party, but it's rude to disregard other paying customers.

I've worked at a restaurant, so I know friends, VIPs and regulars get preferential treatment. But he could have seated us in the time he stood there waiting for the other party, or he could have asked one of the young women to seat us instead of making us wait and watch him kiss up to the other party. Not a good way to guarantee repeat business.

When he seats us, he stops at a table in the main dining room but then decides to take us to the back room and tries to sell it as "quieter". The back room is darker, looks run down, and only had a couple of other seated tables which notably were all minorities. The decor looks like they originally tried to be an upscale steakhouse but they skimp on up keep. I sat facing a terrible paint job of different colors because an expensive steakhouse couldn't spend the money/time to repaint the whole room. Maybe that's why the back room was darkly lit. And this is their flagship location?

Our waiters weren't very friendly and just went through the motions without explaining anything. For the tips they get at an expensive steakhouse, they could make just a little effort in trying to earn it. Our main waiter didn't even have the courtesy to say bye when he walked by us on the way out.

As for the food, the crab cake did not have too much binder/filler and tasted fine. The bread basket was meh. The medium rare porterhouse (currently $49.95 per person) was good, but we thought the one at Peter Luger's tasted better and was more tender. The side of sautéed mushrooms was extremely salty almost making it inedible. But I hate wasting food and money so I forced myself to eat it.

When we left, a huge (literally & figuratively) middle-aged douchebag was blocking the door. He's the epitome of the arrogant male steakhouse patron out with his boys club. He barely moved and we still couldn't get around, and he made dumbass comments to harass me. Got no help from the hostesses who just stood there watching.

Extremely disappointed given that a lot of people rave about Wolfgang's (along with Luger's). I wouldn't go back even if someone wanted to try it or offered to pay. I'd rather go to Peter Luger for better service and food.

My Rating (out of 5): 1.5

Wolfgang's Steakhouse
4 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
wolfgangssteakhouse.net/parkave/

Dough Doughnuts Review

I like a good doughnut, but I haven't made a point to visit all the doughnut shops that have popped up in the city over the years (i.e. Dough, Moe's, Dun-well, etc.). In my opinion, the gourmet/artisan doughnut trend started with Doughnut Plant, which is where I tend to go to when I want some fancy doughnuts. But, Dough is one shop that I see others post positively about, so I finally got around to trying it when I was in the Flatiron District. 

Dough's Flatiron location had a good selection of 10 or more flavors; most of them are yeast-style doughnuts with a couple of cake-style options. And they offer doughnut holes and their doughnut-babka hybrid, a doughka. Their doughka is currently only available at this Flatiron store. 

The doughnuts are huge, catering to American oversized culture. I will say that given the size, the price is decent at $3 for most doughnuts and $3.50 for filled doughnuts (compared to other similar doughnut specialty shops).

Hibiscus (l) and Boston cream (r) Dough doughnuts

Being my first time at Dough, I asked the employee what their signature flavors were. She apparently didn't understand what I said and made it very clear in her twisted up face and unfriendly response of "What?" like I have the problem. Sadly, you are probably familiar with the type of service/attitude that I'm referring to. Hate to see how she'd treat someone with a disability or impairment just because she may not understand them. I didn't really care about the answer after that.

I ended up getting hibiscus and Boston cream flavors and tried the Boston cream first. I was kind of excited about taking my first bite of a Dough Doughnut given the extremely positive endorsements!  Upon my first bite, "what is this?" came to mind. It is the densest, breadiest doughnut I have ever had, and not in a good way. It felt like I was eating bread instead of a doughnut. It's just not the texture that I want in a doughnut. I want some airiness in a yeast doughnut and this just didn't have any. The fact that the dough is so dense, I don't get why they are so huge. The chocolate glaze had a bitter dark chocolate taste, so I assume some kind of high quality chocolate is used. The cream was a nice thick consistency, but lacked in flavor that I expect from a Boston cream. 

Boston cream

The glaze on the hibiscus doughnut is very pretty and tasted really good. I also liked the dried hibiscus flower garnish. I could taste the nutmeg in the dough more in this one. But the doughnut was also the same dense, bready texture. 

And the grease. SOOOO much grease soaked into the paper bag from only 2 doughnuts. Kinda gross. Never had this issue with Doughnut Plant. 

According to Dough's website, they use a proprietary brioche-like dough. I like brioche, but I don't want it in my doughnut. Hate to say, but I'm perplexed by the numerous raving reviews. This place is definitely not for me. 

My Rating (out of 5):  1.5

Dough
14 W. 19th St.
New York, NY 10011
www.doughdoughnuts.com

Spicy Roasted Cauliflower

I was drawn to this PureWow recipe because of the beautiful color and flavors the spices would bring to cauliflower.  I've had this recipe on my "to try" list for several months and finally tried it last week.

PureWow's Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower

I followed the recipe exactly and man, was I disappointed.  I roasted for 40 minutes at 400°, and the crust did not achieve the same dark orange color as pictured on the PureWow site.  I don't think I would have gotten the same color even if I roasted it for longer...a lot longer.  Instead, mine came out an unappealing dark tan color.  Maybe I used too much of the marinade (about a third), but the recipe says to "dunk" and "smear" it on which does not imply a light coating.

Besides the unappealing color, I did not enjoy the flavors and texture of the crust.  I use chili powder, cumin, and curry powder regularly.  But I think the amount of these spices was too much.  The moisture of the Greek yogurt cooks out leaving a crumbly, dry texture that I didn't find pleasant.

The recipe wastes 1-1/2 cups of good Greek yogurt (and spices).  I don't understand why the recipe wasn't written with smaller proportions.  I used about a third of the marinade, which was probably too much, and a cup was still leftover.  The recipe suggests using the leftover marinade on meat, fish or other veggies, but it is so over-spiced that I wouldn't want to eat it on anything else.

Here's how my dish came out.  See the PureWow link above for comparison.

My Rating (out of 5): 1