Victor’s Cafe is fairly close to Times Square, but not quite in the Theater District. It’s located on 52nd St near 7th ave, and it has had a steady stream of patrons over the last couple years. What is interesting about this restaurant is that the menu is fairly straight forward, and most of the visitors are people referred by past patrons, including myself. I’m not a fan of Cuban food in general, but this restaurant’s food was surprisingly pleasant.
The food here was just like one of those casual fast food centric places. It’s on Seamless (food delivery service), so enough said.
The churrasco was $18 and was mildly satisfying. They gave you a decent amount of meat, and it was quite tender when ordered “medium rare”. It came with this mayonnaise like green sauce, that had only a mild kick to it. With this, I opted for french fries and pineapple on the side. The french fries were just OK, and the pineapple was kind of bland. The pineapple skin was on at the top, so it wasn’t as great as other places.
Cool speak easy spot right next to Bathtub Gin. Seems to be Cuban driven. It has a very jazzy speak easy feel to it. The theme of the menu is pretty cool. On Wednesdays, they have a live cuban band.
The bartenders can craft drinks based on what you’re looking for. I think weekdays are probably the best to come here. The music on the speakers is good and isn’t loud, and you can actually hear people. You can also order snacks here as well.
The food here was surprisingly decent. I usually don’t expect many places in Midtown East to be good, let alone Asian ethnic foods.
We ordered a pineapple Mocktail and a glass of Hite, which is nothing to write home about.
The banchan here was pretty good, although portion size is on the smaller side. You can ask for additional banchan as needed. Here you got kimchi, mixed salad, jalapenos, pickled cauliflower, pickled daikon cubes, and pickled daikon slices. For sauces, you got some soy sauce centric thing that I never remember the name of, salt and pepper, and bean paste. On the top you have fresh large lettuce leaves for wrapping.
The vibe here is pretty cool if you’re into old school jazz environments. The walls have a load of records and lots of old music devices. It does get a little noisy, and sometimes people eat really slow to create a wait. It’s not too different than other typical Korean bar/chicken joints where they have lots of alcohol and Korean bar foods.
The drinks were ok. Started off with a passionfruit lemonade. There are some bubbles, so it doesn’t taste oversweetened compared to normal lemonade. The pineapple soju reminded me of small cans of Dole pineapple juice with some liquor and pineapple chunks in it. They serve the pineapple soju in a carafe.
This is located in the backside of Chelsea Market along 14th Street. Basically walk towards Tippler, and it’d be on your right side. Can’t really miss it. It seems to be a semi-throwback to Baja style fish tacos.
I got shrimp ceviche, 2 fish tacos, and 1 spicy shrimp taco.
I wanted the fish ceviche, but they were out for whatever reason. The shrimp ceviche was pretty good, although I’m not too much of a fan of it being put on a big tostada shell. I thought it’d be more peruvian style but who would have thought.
I’ve walked by here many times, but I’ve never actually ate here until now. One of our guests loves this place because of the burger.
The prime beef tartare was pretty good. It definitely was tender and tasted like good quality beef.
The rotisserie chicken was really tender. If I had to dock it points, it’d be for how salty the sauce and everything was. Also, it was oily too. However if you’re wondering about the meat, it was juicy and cooked nice.
I’m not a fan of brunch at all, so this was the first restaurant in the area I was in that seemed interesting to me. I completely forgot it was Easter Sunday, but luckily their prixe fix menu had all the regulars on it.
The bread was nothing to write home about. It came slightly on the cold side.
The escargots de bourgogne in baby potatoes were actually pretty good. Albeit slightly salty in some bites, they tasted better than the other appetizers on the table.
The cookie dough here is pretty sweet.
Tried multiple flavors, but all of them are all pretty sweet. I also used some of the batter and baked some cookies. They turned out ok, though no different than if you to were make regular cookies. One scoop by the way makes about 5 ok sized cookies.
Honestly, I thought the one of the better things to get was not the dough itself, but the ice cream sandwich. It’s 2 cookie doughs with DO ice cream smashed in between. The ice cream was a nice counter balance to the super sweetness of the cookie dough.
This place has a nice patio and great service. The waitress was very attentive, and the ambiance is definitely very easy-going.
But let’s talk about the food.
The mama margarita I didn’t quite like. It was rather strong and for whatever reason the fruits did not complement well. The pasionfruit caipirinha was not bad, but it wasn’t great. I’ve definitely had better elsewhere in the city. I did think that the drink was made a little strong to my liking.