25 New Restaurants in 2009

[c-lando]

So, it's my goal to get out there in the world and try some new restaurants. It's WAY to easy to get stuck in a rut and keep going to the same places over and over again. So, I'm going to try and encourage myself to get out and about by keeping track of all the new restaurants where I raise a fork or two. The restaurants don't have to be new. They can be part of a chain (as long as I have never have dined at this particular chain in the past) and they can be in any city (not just where I live).

Any one else want to be a foodie with me?

1. Spoon - 01/10/09 - Marietta Street - Atlanta, GA - Thai food - not the best Thai food ever, but AMAZING service, great glass of 14 Hands Riesling (a new wine for me that I lurved!) and lovely atmosphere. The people seated next to us started talking to us and they were SO much fun.
2. The Southern Skillet - 01/11/09 - Roswell, GA - Southern breakfast - Meh. I've definitely had better eggs, grits and bacon. But, the biscuit hit the spot. Coffee was a bit bitter and the service was pretty aloof.

[Kwyjibo]

I love eating at new (to me) places.  I'll give it a shot but one every two weeks will probably be pretty tough unless we travel, which isn't likely this year.

[Cockney Rebel]

1 • Terry's Turf Club (Eastern Avenue, Cincy)
MK kept being told how good the burgers were here and kept telling me the same thing. Finally I could take it no longer and we sped there as part of my birthday weekend treats. From the outside this place looks like a complete shithole in what also looks like a somewhat shithole neighbourhood (I could be wrong). Inside however you step back into time with a decor straight out of olde American movies. Neon signs, old beer fridges and much to stare at. Very friendly service from the time we went in until the time we left. MK enjoyed a mushy burger whilst I went all out with a freshly made hamburger covered in a marvelous combo of materials w/peanut & garlic sauce on top. Freshly cut fries adding to a very tasty package indeed. (I like my package to be tasty). It's not cheap, but its not stupidly expensive either and you have the advantage of knowing that every item is made to your own specs, and you can even watch it being made behind the bar. I'll award Terry's a 9/10 chippitychomp rating.

[MissKitty]

1. Terry's Turf Club - Eastern Ave., Cincinnati - American fare.

This is pretty much the chippity-chomp. As CR said, everything is made to order and very fresh. Vegetarian offerings include a portobello burger and shitake mushroom burger, and be sure to get it with fresh-cut fries. YUM. The restaurant is a veritable feast for the eyes and tummy, with loads of vintage neon signs and posters, authentic Bevador coolers and other assorted eye candy. Genuinely friendly and accomodating staff too. I'll echo CR's 9/10 rating. This place is all kinds of awesdome.

[whigsgeek]

OMG! Over Christmas I was thinking of starting almost exactly the same thread! Awesome, c-land.

[Kenneth Toilethole]

1. Madison's Bistro (Dayton) - It doesn't look like much from the outside and being in a crappy little strip mall doesn't help. Inside however, it was OK. It was nice but in a very generic way. The service was very good and the meatball dish was outstanding. For $12 I got about 8 or 9 handmade golfball size meatballs over a bowl of dense fettucini. Overall it was definitely a positive experience. Entrees ranged from about $12-$24 so it wasn't cheap but for the amount of food it was a pretty fair price for a place like that. The kind of place I would have taken a date when I was 23. I rate it a 7/10. It would have been just a 5 but the meatballs and the service moved it up 2 points. Its a good place but there are just so many better options in the area.

[vizzah]

1. Flavors Eatery in Centerville, Ohio.
I'd been wanting to try this place for a while, but I'm never that far out on that end of town.  A friend trying to sell me some advertising took me there for lunch yesterday.  The best way to try out a new place is always when it's free. 
Bad start.  It's 5° outside, the sign in the window says they open daily @ 11:30.  The doors are still locked, and it's 11:35.  The gal who came and opened the doors didn't act completely burdened, but she sure wasn't overly apologetic for making us stand out there when they should have been open, either.
My friend and I ordered the exact same thing - open-faced chicken, artichoke and spinach sandwich with a diet coke. I ordered this because it sounded totally delicious, but honestly - I couldn't read the ridiculously small print on the menu hanging above the register.  Our drinks came out and I couldn't decide if I was happy or pissed.  Cute little tumblers with orange slices in them...and a CAN of Diet Coke.  Love the tumblers, hate the lack of free refills. 
Our food arrived and looked delicious.  My friend had asked if each of us could have a extra house sauce when we placed our order, which did not arrive with our food. When she asked for it again, she was met with, "Uhhh, ok - but it's already on the chips and the sandwich."  This particular friend can be a bit testy, and said "I didn't ask you what it was already on, I asked if I could have extra. That implies I know it's already on the sandwich."
Another negative - the staff yells really loudly to regulars when they leave.  For those of you who haven't been, Flavors is set up kind of like a fancy/trendy deli or diner.  You order & pay at the counter, someone brings your food out to you. So, the register and all the staff are about 5 feet tops, from anyone who is seated and eating.  So, it makes conversation difficult.  To boot, we stayed for quite a while - between 1-2 hours, and they looked none to happy that we took up a small table for that long.

The big win is, the food was motherfucking delicious.  I'll definitely go back, because I can see myself craving that particular dish - but there's a good chance I may be getting take out.

[Kenneth Toilethole]

2. Buffalo Jack's (Covington, OH) - Known locally for its exotic game meats on the menu. I had the alligator and antelope sausage. The alligator tasted just like I remembered from the last time I had it. Not a whole lot of taste and very chewy, but I get a kick out of eating alligator for some reason. The antelope sausage was quite good. There really wasn't any particular tatse however that made me think "so that's what antelope tatses like". Tasted like deer sausage to me. The service was very good and the food came out very quickly. I saw some reviews online complaining about slow service, but I have no idea where those complaints came from. Honestly, it was almost out too fast. Dinner came with a nice loaf of bread and honey butter that was very tasty. My dessert was a homemade warm apple dumpling with ice cream that was incredibly good. Definitely worth saving room for. My ranking: 8/10. Website: http://www.buffalojack.com/buff_jack/index.html

[redbobsled]

1.  Yujean Kang's (Pasadena, CA) - This "gourmet chinese" restaurant has been here forever, and I've always meant to try it.  While it's too pricey to add to our regular take-out rotation, it was really excellent.  It's not traditional in the way that some of the places we go to in the San Gabriel Valley are, but it is fresh, they use no MSG, and they have a more innovative take on Chinese cooking than the PF Changs of the world.  I had the steamed fish with spicy sesame sauce and broccoli, and Brian had kung pao shrimp.  I liked the fish better.  It was really fresh, light, and had tons of flavor.  I would definitely order it again - but at $16.95 it's kind of a lot. 

2.  Wurstkuche (Los Angeles, CA) - This new German/Belgian sausage and beer restaurant in the arts district downtown opened in November.  They have about 15 types of sausage, belgian fries, and about 25 beers on tap and more in bottles.  They also have 3 types of vegetarian sausage, so I could actually go.  Your sausage comes with two toppings - choose from carmelized onions, sauerkraut, sweet peppers, and spicy peppers.  They also have different kinds of mustard on hand to serve yourself - including my favorite - spicy brown.  They have about 10 dipping sauces for fries including blue cheese bacon, curry ketchup, barbecue sauce, and white truffle oil.  I had the vegetarian bratwurst, and Brian had the regular brat - both of us had it with sauerkraut, onions, and spicy  brown mustard.  It was excellent.  Plenty of on-street parking in a neighborhood near Little Tokyo - lots of loft conversions and a very hipster crowd.  Service a bit slow with one cash register and a huge line - and the cashier is also the bartender.  If they can streamline their ordering and serving process, they will be awesome.  We'll definitely go back - especially when we're downtown. 

[Cockney Rebel]

2. The alligator tasted just like I remembered from the last time I had it.

Bring me an alligator sandwich and make it snappy

[Dan]

1. The Hill - 3rd Ave btwn 29th and 30th, NYC 01/01/09 - American Bar Food
2. Live Bait - 23rd at Madison Ave, NYC 01/18/09 - Cajun Bar Food
I had a blackened turkey burger and it was good. I suspect my soccer team will be going there after games during the winter, but I did feel the pitchers were much too expensive so who knows. The burger was good, but not great. The rest of the food that everyone got looked a lot better. I hear good things from everyone about this place.

[c-lando]

2. Live Bait - 23rd at Madison Ave, NYC 01/18/09 - Cajun Bar Food
I had a blackened turkey burger and it was good. I suspect my soccer team will be going there after games during the winter, but I did feel the pitchers were much too expensive so who knows. The burger was good, but not great. The rest of the food that everyone got looked a lot better. I hear good things from everyone about this place.

Man, I've always heard that you couldn't find PITCHERS of beer in Manhattan. So, this thread has already learned me something new. WOOHOO! Next time I go, I'll have to ask you were the inexpensive pitchers are.

[Dan]

Haha. There are definitely pitchers in Manhattan... it's just that $18 per pitcher is absurd. $10-$12 is how we roll.

[Butter]

1. Alioto's - 1/17/09 - Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, CA - Seafood/Italian - 4

This place was a 2 story climb up to the 3rd floor.  I sat down and found 95% of the entrees and even salad contained seafood.  Seafood is not my thing, so I went with the cheeseburger and fries, which was $12.99.  Ouch.  The rest of the menu is similarly overpriced.  Service was mediocre to poor, as I went an hour without a refill, and we waited a good half hour for the check after a couple in our party were served coffee.  The burger itself was very good, but I would have just as soon gone to In-N-Out about 3 blocks up the street and saved the company 10 bucks.  Hard to rate this one since I didn't like anything on its menu.

2. The Stinking Rose - 1/17/09 - Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA - Garlic, garlic, garlic - 5

Our party of 20 was shoehorned into a room no bigger than my own living room, so it was a tight squeeze for anyone not on the end (luckily, I was one of the lucky 4 on the end).  The service was pretty good, they kept the food coming, and we were out of there in 2 hours, which with a party of 20 is pretty impressive.  Downside was they did a terrible job of describing the menu to all of us newbies, and almost no job of pushing one of their signature appetizers (Bagna Calda, bread with roasted garlic cloves in oil).  The food was disappointing.  They may know garlic, but sadly, garlic is not a main course.  My soup of potato onion with a cheese cap (French Onion style) was too watery and not very garlicky.  My entree of the Neon Ravioli was boring, with only faint garlic undertones in the alfredo-y sauce.  Some of the party were wild about their pork chops... the person seated immediately to my right only finished half, calling it flavorless.  An interesting concept, but their food needs a lot of work from what I tried.

3. John's Grill - 1/18/09 - Ellis St., San Francisco, CA - Steakhouse/seafood - 5

Disappointed that the 4 of us had not been invited to Harris' Steakhouse, the company's big dinner place for the evening, but only for the true bigwigs of the people involved, our party chose another steakhouse near the Financial District.  This place had some ambiance about it.  It's over 100 years old, and was a setting in "The Maltese Falcon".  They offer a couple of cutesy meals tied to the characters in the book/movie.  One of the guys I was with ordered a "Bloody Brigid", which comes in a souvenir glass (or, more correctly, you drink one, then they bring you a clean souvenir glass to take home)... this is a mix of sweet & sour, vodka, soda, a "special mix", lime, and grenadine over crushed ice.  I had a taste, and it was very sweet and citrus-y, not bad at all.  And it was big.  I ordered the Roquefort salad, without shrimp, which was simply some field greens and Roquefort cheese topped with bleu cheese vinaigrette.  Pretty plain, the Roquefort was much more mild than I expected, and the dressing was not at all zippy.  I had the filet mignon my standard way (butterfly, medium-well), with a baked potato and green beans.  The beans were very good, the potato mediocre.  The potato was barely done, but passable.  They burnt the steak though.  And it had no flavor, unless you consider "dry steak" a flavor.  I order my steaks medium-well because I can get through medium ok, and well done ok, so they can mess it up a degree and I'll still be ok.  But this was just flat-out burnt in some places.  I chomped away, and my boss who was with me later admitted his steak was off too.  He ordered a standard filet medium, but it was well done.  For dessert, I ordered a slice of New York Cheesecake.  What I GOT was a round of cheesecake about the size of a cocktail glass with berries.  It was fine, but not nearly rich enough.  My boss got the chocolate mousse torte which was good, but a little too cocoa-y.  +2 for the service and ambiance.

4. Spada - 1/19/09 - Marriott Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, CA - Breakfast buffet - 5

Limited choice, but what do you expect out of a hotel buffet?  They did have an omelet guy, and my bacon/onion/cheese omelet was good if not great.  I only got offered one glass of orange juice despite everyone around me getting refill after refill.  The breakfast potatoes were very good, while the rest of the buffet was pretty forgettable.  Standard hotel stuff here.  At $21.95, you're paying for the convenience.  And the fancy buffet warmers.  Or something.

5. Kokkari Estiatorio - 1/19/09 - Jackson St., San Francisco, CA - Greek - 8

Service was fantastic all around.  They did forget my Diet Coke at one point and left me without a glass for about 20 minutes, but I barely noticed due to the conversation.  We were seated at a long table for 20, but we had 22, so I doubled up at the head of the table with my boss.  They started us out with some interesting appetizers... some pita bread with 3 dips, a creamy crab dip, a greek herb dressing dip, and a sort of olive tapenade.  I'm not a crab guy, but the other 2 were outstanding.  The olive stuff tasted like a warped Greek salsa, in a good way.  Then they served us “Gigantes, oven baked giant beans with tomato sauce, olive oil, and feta”… I’m not a big bean person, but that was damn fine tasting.  The salad was lettuce-less olives, peppers, and tomatoes in a vinaigrette type dressing… not my favorite.  Then for entrees, they served everyone family style from 3 entrees: A grilled whitefish (not sure which fish), some chicken kebab-type pieces of chicken with onions and peppers, and then prime rib slices.  I’m not a fish person, and one taste of the whitefish cemented that.  The chicken was quite good, if not quite seasoned well enough, but the prime rib was great.  Both my boss and I were lamenting the fact that we only got 2 pieces of it, and were not served any more.  Our hosts were on a budget, I suppose.  For sides, we had a salted and herbed, quartered and fried potato, which was done to perfection.  I only got one of these quarters, and was crying on the inside.  There was another side, but damned if I can remember what it was, as I was too busy salivating over the prime rib.  The dessert was baklava, which was perfect.  Perfectly flaky, stuffed with terrific nut filling, and drizzled with delicious honey based sauce.  Nice.  My boss feigned a nut allergy and got a cocoa-based flourless cake which was WAY too rich for him, so he struck out twice.  The dinner time of 3 hours was a bit long, but it was designed that way I’m sure, so no fault to the service.  Great place, would highly recommend if you like Greek food.

6. Balboa’s – 1/22/09 – Vine St., Cincinnati – Subs and pizza - 8

Mmmmm…. Cheese steak with cheez whiz.  Mine was a bit too drippy, but I think authentic Philly-style is SUPPOSED to be like that.  The fries were not typical sub house fries, they were thinner and crispier, but still very good.  And my compliments to the syrup guy who delivered the pack for the Sierra Mist, yum yum.  But the big metal pushy thing to get the Sierra Mist out kept sticking, so I probably wasted a whole cup’s worth because of faulty equipment.  This destroyed my post trip diet, so back on the horse I go.

Edit: Oh yeah, -1 for this.  I noticed a couple of signs as I'm about 2/3 through my sandwich: "Order fries and a drink, and get a whole sandwich for just $5!"  The cost for my half sandwich: $4.99.  Thanks a lot, cashier.  Thanks for nothing.

[vizzah]

I know it's not the best driving weather, but restaurant week in Dayton is only on through tomorrow night.  You can check out all of the participating restaurants, along with their menus here.  It's a great deal, and a good way to try something you normally wouldn't be able to afford.  Plus, part of your money goes to charity!