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.
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.
Vegetarian really is not my thing, but I wanted to try this out anyways with my vegetarian buddy. Thankfully, they had fish for protein.
The chips and guacamole were ok. Nothing memorable about it.
The buffalo strips were actually decent. It certainly doesn’t taste anywhere close to chicken, but they have an interesting spongy texture and were pretty good.
The broiled flounder was slightly fishy at some parts but decent in others. Generally, this reminded me of a Cocos/Carrows kind of dish, which is not a bad thing at all considering I enjoy those restaurants.
We came by in the spring when they boasted of lush flowers and decorations. Apparently the flowers were not real, but that still does not stop it to become a very photo friendly place. It still is nice during the day because they opened the canopy, and so there was a nice breeze coming in. I think for food, it wasn’t a whole lot of hit, but the ambiance is pretty appealing to those who want to get a drink and just enjoy the colors for photos.
Typically on the weekends, both this location and the midtown location have a huge line of people waiting outside. And for what reason?
We came on a Friday night around 5 PM, and there were probably at most 3 or 4 small groups of people in a big space.
The cookie shake was a massive vanila-ish shake that had a bunch of sweets on it. It was good, but it is all sugar. I am pretty sure you can finish these shakes by yourself, but that’s just punishing your diet.
This place is right around the corner of Katz in the Ludlow Hotel. We sat in the patio area which is much nicer and quieter than indoors where everyone else is sitting.
Starting off, they serve bread that seems to be freshly made for your table. The bread comes with some butter with oil on it, and it’s really good.
We ordered 2 cocktails: Laboulaye which is the green one and Petite Socco which is the red one. My green drink wasn’t as good as the red one. The green was definitely smokey, but I was hoping the bell pepper would provide a more significant kick. The red drink was definitely very good.