Boqueria is an east coast Spanish tapas chain. The food here is quintessential Spanish shareables, including large paellas. We originally ate here with some friends in the Upper East, but we have also tried this restaurant in Flatiron. Reservations are fairly easy to secure, and it does get busy during core hours. If you have a decent sized party, this is probably a decent restaurant to bring folks that might be into family style sharing.

Back in 2018, I wrote, “The food was surprisingly good, and it’s not pricey at all. They give you free sides of rice and beans, so no worries about ordering that.” Now that I am working out of Midtown and fairly close to some of these Brazilian restaurants, I’ve been curious to try some of them again especially after the pandemic. I don’t recall the decor being as “fancy” before, but the menu looked more refined and sophisticated in a good way.

Walked in on a Saturday at 7 PM with no reservations, and it was packed despite it being pretty frigid outside. Luckily, we got seats at the bar. The french onion soup was really good. The gruyere cheese was nice and toasty, and the beef broth with the onions wasn’t salty like typical french onion soups. The porterhouse of course was cooked a perfect medium rare. The strip side was preferred over the filet mignon.

Stumbled onto this just walking around. Was interested in salted pepper pork chops. All we got for a quick afternoon snack was just pan fried rice cakes with pork and the pork chops. Nothing to write home about, but the food was good for what we ordered. Note that we did not order the soup dumplings because frankly there are a gazillion other places to order this, so why would you order it here?

Hirohisa apparently has been around for a while, but they just received a Michelin star again this year. With that in mind, I felt the price point $160 pp for the 9-course tasting + $70 sake pairing was a decent price for splurging for a special someone’s birthday dinner. Just a note: they do respect some allergy restrictions. My guest had lobster specific allergies, and they were able to accomodate easy.

The clams were OK. The Nola clams were better than the casino. The casino was so oversalted by the bacon such that you couldn’t taste the clams at all. The shrimp beignets were forgotten. The most memorable items were the crawfish dip and the cornbread. The crawfish dip was really good and had a lot of flavor to it. The cornbread was super buttery and was nice as well.

We ordered a slew of appetizers. The drink fir trade. The blood sausage, bread, and chicken liver mousse was just OK. There wasn’t much memorable about it. The iberico katsu sandwich was surprisingly very good, and I could probably eat a handful of these easy. The main course, cote de boeuf, was pretty good. I actually did not care too much about the sauces, but the quality of the meat was pretty good and tender.

This place’s beef noodles was just OK. I’ve had better. The portion size is just ok. I also got a side of bean curd, and it was a little on the salty side.

This place is CASH ONLY as well. Food was pretty good, and it seems like a nice date spot. I got the steak with bone marrow. The potato (au gratin style) was also pretty good. It also came with a side of brussel sprouts and bacon mish mash. The sauce was salty, but the steak was cooked nicely for a medium rare. Final Verdict I’d come back here again if I was near the South Village, had cash, and wanted to eat something French.

The lomo saltado was ok. The sauces cost 60 cents extra.