Txikito

It takes time to figure out how how to pronounce the name of this little tapas restaurant in Chelsea but I get a sense that I’ll be saying it a lot more. Txikito (actually pronounced chee-kee-toe) is a new venture by Alex Raij and Eder Montero of Tia Pol and El Quinto Pino. Once again this duet has brought tremendous new Basque flavors to Chelsea, with top notch service to boot.

The restaurant only has about 28 seats and a sliver of a bar at the front with bright red stools. The space is small so expect intimacy and bring a sense of adventure, there’s a lot to try here. The menu is divided between Ostatutik, Pintxoak, Hotzak and Beroak (from the bar, canapes, cold items and hot items) and each dish is as intriguing as the next. There is a lot of focus on seafood including a myriad cod dishes, anchovy, tuna, mussels and squid though meat lovers will find nice selections including odd parts like trotters, tripe and head cheese. Though a tough decision, we decided to start with mushroom and shrimp grilled cheese sandwiches (txiki txanpi) and atuna, a little sandwich of tuna with sweet onion and olive oil. The atuna was the surprising star, nestled into a mini baguette with slick tuna that oozed with flavor from the onions. The grilled cheese sandwiches had dots of earthiness from the mushroom but lacked the depth of flavor that the atuna had and the bread was a bit dry, they were thirsty for a dipping sauce.

Next came a special for the evening which was chickpea and cod stew with spinach. The yellow sauce of the stew was smokey and rich, so good that we slurped up the last drops in our spoons! Next we had squid in its own ink, a bountiful, deep-black portion served with short grain white rice. Lastly huge, salty lamb chops (chuletillas) with watercress, lemon juice and a decadent layer of fat on each. We asked for bread to cut some of the richness of the food and enjoyed sopping up the squid ink with it. I washed it down with a Basque rose and a redhook ale.

Txikito was a fantastic meal with lots of unique flavors. I can’t wait to go back.

Txikito: 240 9th Ave (betw 24th and 25th)
Cuisine: Tapas
Average Appetizer/Entree Price: Tapas run from $5-$20 with the “Beroak” (hot items) being as large as a regular entrees
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.
Word to the Wise: They do not take reservations but at 9PM on a Friday there was only a 20 minute wait for 2. Give them your phone number and get a beer around the corner at Half King or West Side Tavern!

Bar Carrera

My meal at Bar Carrera last Friday is leaving my head spinning. And it’s not due to the 3 glasses of Spanish wine I had (a Verdejo, an Esmeralda blend of Gewurztraminer/Moscato and a Monastrell), it’s because I have few positive words to say about it, while everyone else on the internet seems to have many. I read so many great things on NY Mag, Yelp, Urbanspoon and other blogs about this little slice of a Spanish wine bar yet my experience was so different.

They seemed desperate for help that night with 1 bartender, 1 busboy, 1 chef, and 1 waiter/hostess in a bustling restaurant filled with about 20 tables of people. Aside from that, the people there were pretty inept. The bartender seemed confused about the Basque wines. I’d heard stories about “Stefan” a waiter there who was amiable, who introduced himself and suggested dishes and wines. If we had Stefan, he was far too swamped to spark up a conversation with us.

We asked for water and were given 1 communal glass between three people because they had run out of water glasses. This is strange of course, but bearable were it ever remedied, or if our communal glass was refilled. Neither of these things happened. Empty wine glasses lingered on the table as did plates, forcing them to be abruptly cleared when new food arrived.

The tapas are served pintxos style which typically refers to a slice of bread with a spread of some kind on it. The pintxos are smaller than regular tapas, though priced as such at about $6 per plate. They were once just $3.50 according to the prices listed on NY Mag and once we saw the portions, I can understand why. Even $6 was robbery for these portions. The best dish of the evening was the smoked salmon on brioche with caviar and a drizzle of honey, though I wasn’t as moved by it as my friend Feisty Foodie. The brioche was bland though the combination of salty sweetness between the salmon and honey was nice. The other dishes were forgettable including a mushroom and morcilla sausage on a tiny skewer and some garlic shrimp which came about half an hour after everything else. Our waiter explained that they had run out of shrimp and had to go next door to get some more. I’m not kidding.

I won’t go back to Bar Carrera but I do wonder, what happened here?

Bar Carrera: 175 2nd Ave @ 11th
Cuisine: Tapas
Average Price: About 6-$10 per tapas
Food: Good
Service: Poor
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Not even worth a doggy bag.

Pipa

Pipa is a tapas restaurant-come-ABC Carpet sales tool. It shares a space with the home decor store and is adorned with a sea of chandeliers and lamps, all with price tags hanging. It’s an odd concept but it works, creating a wildly colorful setting for tapas that are just as vibrant. The atmosphere felt nearly whimsical on a cold, rainy Friday evening.

Pipa seems to draw large parties, there to celebrate with pitchers of sangria and selections from the menu of small plates split into tapas, charcuterie, quesos, croquetas and cocas (open faced flat bread sandwiches). We were indeed there to celebrate as well, as a close friend had just run the marathon and I had taken my spirits exam. Being a big group, we sampled a bevy of dishes. A pulpo gallego, sauteed octopus with roasted potatoes and black olives was in dainty octopus rounds, bursting with earthy, spicy flavors as was a Gambas al ajillo, a shrimp with garlic and chiles. My two tortilla Espanola (Spanish omelette) critics both approved of a pure tortilla, served in a wedge, dotted with hearty potatoes. We sampled two cocas, both served on crisp bread with towering toppings of mushroom, caramelized onion, dried fig, Serrano ham and toasted almonds and another with sobrasada, artichoke, tomato, piquillo peppers and manchego cheese. I loved the interplay of sweet and savory with the crispness of the bread. We also ordered a peach cobbler, a chocolate flan, and a chocolate cake which were decent though wildly overshadowed by the tapas. Service was spot-on with tapas served in duets, rather than overloading the table at once.

Pipa started off on a bad foot having lost my reservation after failing to confirm with me in advance. But they recovered gracefully, wooing us with free sangria and scrounging up a table within twenty minutes or so. From then on, it was a fully enjoyable meal. I’d return to Pipa anytime to sample more of the menu.

Pipa- 38 E 19^th Street Between Broadway and Park Ave South
Cuisine- Tapas
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.
Word to the Wise- Provide the restaurant with a number where you can be reached for confirmation.

Tia Pol

I finally endured the hour and a half wait and made it to Tia Pol on Thursday night. It was certainly the most authentic tapas I have had yet in the city and I believe my friends, who all traveled abroad to Spain, agreed with me. Unfortunately the restaurant is tiny and the word is out, yielding wait times of two hours, on any given night. They do not take reservations for less than six people.

The decor at Tia Pol isn’t fancy. It is a narrow space with a long bar at the front and daily specials written on a large black chalkboard in the center. The walls are mainly exposed brick with low hanging lanterns dangling from the ceiling. The restaurant is certainly a scene, with people packed like sardines between the bar and the wall behind it, anxiously awaiting a spot at one of the mere fifteen tables in the back.

By the time they were ready for us, we were starving. Luckily the service was very prompt as servers were rapidly bustling from table to table. We ordered a pitcher of sangria for the table- excellent with a perfect balance of tanginess from the wine and sweetness from the juice. We ordered two rounds of tapas, the first consisted of: ham croquetas, tuna croquetas, fava bean puree with beyos cheese on toasted bread, chocolate and chorizo, and tortilla Espanola. The second round consisted of: squid in ink with rice, head on shrimp, Serrano ham with manchego and artichoke and sweet peppers filled with potato salad and topped with white tuna.

Everything we sampled was truly unique but my personal favorites were the ham croquetas, chocolate and chorizo, Serrano ham and fava bean puree. There is still so much more on the menu that I’d love to try. I am so pumped that Tia Pol is a block away from my new place! If you have some time in your evening, I highly recommend carving it out for Tia Pol, you won’t regret it.

Tia Pol: 205 10^th Ave betw 22^nd and 23^rd
Cuisine: Spanish, Tapas
Average App/Entree Price: $6-$16 Tapas
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Urena In Or You’re Out (Closed)

— Urena is now closed —

Reviews are so polarized on this place, I thought for my first post on my culinary adventures, I would chime in on my experience. I went last week after my weekly wine class and met Mom there. As has been previously stated in a multitude of foodie sites including my ever-trusted “underground food lair”, this place is in desperate need of a makeover. Now I am certainly not an interior decorator nor am I someone who loves to watch shows like Trading Spaces. However, even a decoratively challenged person such as myself can tell that this place needs work.

Here we go: Upon entering the narrow restaurant you first notice a lovely bar area lined with a glass tabletop and hardwood floors beneath. Take a couple of steps in and you enter a world of distate and poor decisions. Rather than maintaining the beautiful wood flooring, the designers chose to cover the floor with a horribly tacky carpeting which seems to have been borrowed from a Ramada Inn or the downstairs at PS450. There are some crappy looking sconces but besides that the restaurant is bare. Despite these issues, the walls are lined with comfy banquettes that are filled with couples who seem happy as clams. What’s so special about this place? I wonder. And then we get to the food….

Mom and I are promptly handed menus (one of my touch points) and are overwhelmed by a list of wondrous options. I love coming to a restaurant, perusing an inventive menu and being forced to make a tough decision between many appealing dishes. Goat cheese ravioli with braised rabbit, foie gras three ways, beef cheeks with foie and field green salad, braised short ribs, and tuna with chickpea puree all smiled back at me. They also have a tasting menu which looked great as well but Mom doesn’t like nibbling through her meal. The waiter brings bread and a delightful looking olive oil with parmesan and what appears to be a cilantro-pesto. Mom and I dig in as we go through our tough decision making process. The bread is OK. Supposedly it is baked on premise though I imagine it was baked on premise a few days ago, if you catch my drift. The waiter returns to take our order. Mom decides on the goat cheese ravioli as an app and the duck breast as an entrée and I choose the beef cheeks and tuna with chickpea puree- ordered black and blue.
The manager comes by to help us with the wine list and I deal with my usual pride issue of wanting to dissuade help by a sommelier- even when I may need it. However, in this sea of Ribera Del Dueros, Riojas, and a plethora of other Spanish wines I must admit I had to welcome the assistance. I describe to the manager/sommelier that we were looking for a light, fruit forward red wine given that Mom was ordering duck and I was ordering tuna. He recommended a really nice 2004 Torres Ribera Del Duero which complemented our choices perfectly.

After a healthy pause, our appetizers arrive which were both sublime. Plates were licked clean. Mom’s duck breast was a bit odd as the pieces were cut into rectangular shapes- off putting if you ask me . The meat needed more seasoning as well but the cinnamon-scented sauce added some flavor. My tuna on the other hand was perfectly seared the way I like it and the chickpea puree was delightful.No complaints on the service. I did not have to do my elbow-crook-head-scratch once. This is where I scratch the back of my head and crook my elbow to get the waiter’s attention if things go awry. Those who know me and love me despite my quirks are all-too-familiar with the ECHS. Maybe I’ll call it that from now on. Anyway, this is a signature move which I have honed over the years to gain the attention of waiters/waitresses. Waiter beware: if you see the elbow-crook-head-scratch you have veered off the path of good service. Figure out how to get back on or you will have an unhappy StrumErika at the end of the meal. Anyhoo, I digress. The meal was rounded out with some tasty petits-fours of chocolate lollipops and orange gelee. Lucky me that Bybil doesn’t like sweets.

Though it may be the ugly duckling of the restaurant world, Urena was a great experience in the end. In a Manhattan culinary world filled with gigantic Buddhas, pseudo-Ninja waiters, and cheese caverns, it was refreshing to visit a place for the most important thing: THE FOOD.

Urena: 37 East 28th Street (betw Madison and Park Ave)

Cuisine: Tapas with a French flair