Bite by Byte

The cheesesteak here is too salty. Would not go back for it.

Bottom line: Would go back. It’s a bit pricey for what it is, but hey, it’s in the Plaza Hotel … er, the Plaza Condos … or whatever it’s called now.

What we liked
She likes the seafood bar (which critics have said is the best bet in the place).
He likes the flatbread pizzas. They’re pretty good.

Avoid: The dumplings/Asian stuff. They’ve been getting bad reviews, and when I had them (the vegetable dumplings), they were edible but not very flavorful. In the battle of food-court dumplings, Foodparc’s RedFarm Stand wipes the floor with Plaza Food Hall’s.

Looking forward to: The pasta. We sat at the bar in front of the dumplings/pasta station*, and the cacio e pepe that the chef was cranking out looked good.

* Maybe the fact that one dude does both pasta and dumpling stuff is what’s killing the dumplings?

Good Peking duck. It seems to be affiliated with the one in Chinatown. No complaints. Would eat here again.

About $46 a person for Peking duck.

The one in Chinatown, if you call ahead, you can get bao buns instead of pancakes for the duck.

She says: Fettucine-like noodles are weird. Broth was gross.

He says: I had the hot-and-spicy ramen. No flavor — only heat. I felt like I had lost my taste buds. I thought the wife’s bowl was good and would try that again. But WOULD NOT EAT the hot-and-spicy.

Joe Ng and Ed Schoenfeld. Photo by Danny L./Flickr

Note to Future Selves: A hearty thumbs up!

Address: Sixth Avenue & 29th Street; foodparc.com

We have long been fans of Joe Ng’s dim sum at Chinatown Brasserie.* So when we heard he was going to be doing the menu at RedFarm Stand at this new food court in a hotel, we were excited. We went recently and had an excellent assortment of small dishes — dumplings and the like. I don’t remember what we had now. Everything was good except two things …

What to avoid next time: The pastrami egg rolls and the fried rice.

The pastrami eggrolls were OK but sort of gimmicky. You see, the ol’ lady and I visit the Jersey Shore every summer, and there was summer when one of the boardwalk game parlors we frequent had a small eggroll stand with a sign that read, “It’s not Chinese, it’s Chineese.” I believe “Chineese” with a double e because it was a Philly cheesesteak eggroll. Ai yah.

The fried rice was better than most but not as great as I’d hope Joe Ng fried rice to be.

Something to look forward to: RedFarm Cafe. Let me explain: We had the pleasure of talking to Ed Schoenfeld, who partnered with Jeffrey Chodorow in opening Foodparc. He told us that RedFarm Stand was actually part of a three-prong Joe Ng–Ed Schoenfeld attack. Next up: RedFarm Cafe, which will do 40 seatings a night and “will really let Joe do his thing.” Sounds great — but also like it might be a difficult reservation to get.

The third and final prong of the RedFarm trident, Schoenfeld said, would be a web-based Chinese delivery service, with central RedFarm commissaries throughout Manhattan delivering an Ng-inspired menu. This sounds awesome. Though Schoenfeld described it as “like Fresh Direct,” it sounded more like a REALLY GOOD Chinese delivery place that didn’t have a storefront and did delivery-via-web-order only. I hope this catches on and spreads to the outer boroughs.

Anyway. Other food we tried on this occasion and on one other — the burger. Very good. It’s a special blend from La Frieda Meats. I am not automatically a salivator over La Frieda. There are plenty of places cooking this meat WRONG. But when it’s done right, it’s delicious stuff. At the 3Bs stand, they do it right — if you ask for it rare or medium-rare. Anything cooked north of medium-rare obliterates the flavor of the dry-aged beef in the special mix La Frieda makes for this place. (In a post on Serious Eats, Ed Levine says that there is supposedly a “Rare” button coming to the futuristic touchscreen ordering system. Until then, order your burger in person at the counter and not via the machine.)

* We went to World Tong in Bensonhurst once, the place that Schoenfeld lured Ng away from, but it was after Ng left. It had gone way downhill. We asked the hostess if the chef had left. “No!” Are you sure, we asked. “No. No. Of course not! Ai yah, ai yah! What a thing to ask.”

Photo by A Hamburger Today

Note to Future Selves: Do not go back.

Why not? The burger flavor is good. It’s an all-chuck patty that tastes of funky dry-aged beef. However, this burger somehow manages to be both hella juicy and dry as dirt at the same time.

The burger is way too tall. You almost dislocate your jaw trying to take a bite. And when you squeeze it down to fit it in your maw, all the juice squeezes out onto the plate. The resulting patty is dry, dry, dry.

Fries and onion rings are uninspired and undersalted. With rings being undercooked and onion almost raw.

Way too expensive for the quality of burger.

Locations in Hell’s Kitchen and UWS of Manhattan, and Astoria, Queens. This is based only on three various visits to Hell’s Kitchen location and on one visit to Nice Matin, where the same “Five Napkin Burger” there was spun off into this concept.

Mediocre snacky food. Late-night dim sum. Soup dumplings no good. Siu mai not bad. But it doesn’t matter because, Future Selves, you should not eat here. Bad service was the icing on the turd.

What we like here: The popcorn. It’s always at least good and is at times spectacular. Doesn’t seem that they have butter topping, but there’s something buttery in the mix anyway — maybe it’s some of that butter-flavored salt topping.

And the price is right. A perfectly nongluttonous small-size popcorn is $3. Prices on other items are remarkably sane, too.

What we want to try next: The Polish ham sandwich there is supposed to be good, according to a highly regarded food expert I know.

What we like here: The cookies. If that.

What to skip here: Almost everything else. Especially the gelato.

The short story long: We often end up at Martha’s Country Bakery when we have a hankerin’ for something sweet. We are almost always disappointed. Note to future selves: The cookies are the only things you’ve ever liked there — they’re not mindblowing but aren’t bad, either. Just pretty MOR. The cake is like something you’d eat at a coworker’s birthday or going-away party — adequate, inoffensive, and pretty generic. The gelato is just downright not good.

Also note the weird table service thing they have going on. You can’t just order an item or two from the counter and then go sit. You’ll get a waitress. Which tacks on extra expense. And the service is not always that attentive.

We wish there were better late-evening alternatives for our sweet tooths (sweet teeth?) — like an ice cream shop — so we’ll probably go to Martha’s again. But this time, I hope our future selves will just stick to a take-away cookie.

Freshly popped popcorn (and a large is only $4). No butter topping, tho. Coke products.