Craft Bar - Thumbs Up

Saturday night my sister was in town for the toy show so I decided to make reservations at Craft Bar on 19th and Broadway downtown.  I have a coworker who couldn't say enough great things about this place and it's sister restaurant "The Craft" so I wanted to check it for myself.

What i've realized recently is that the further downtown you go, the more hidden restaurants and clubs are for some reason.  You kind of have to know where you are going in order to spot these places.  As we drove into the area, the only way you could tell that you were passing by a club was the fact that there were bouncers outside.  No signage, no windows, just your average looking skyscraper office building.  On our way there we also passed what looked like a bar full of 1920's chandeliers.  It looked very funky and very cool and will definitely check that out one of these days as soon as I figure out what it's called.

So once we got there and checked our coats, we actually had to wait a good 20 minutes for our table even though we made the reservations ahead of time.  The ambiance was very chic New York style, very busy, a lot of 20 to 40 something year olds.  We got a drink at the bar while we waited which was on the pricier side of things but I suppose that was to be expected.

The menu was very european in that it had a lot of rabbit dishes, various pig and beef parts that aren't normally on a menu.  Many of the dishes were also really interesting in terms of what was in them.  A broad range of ingredients ranging from healthy things like mustard greens to fried pigs skin.

Our waitress was great, very informative, attentive and well spoken.  We decided to get the fried pigs skin ad mushroom and fontina cheese bruschetta for an appetizer which were both great but I soon realized that there's not much to fried pigs skin.  I think they even have that as a popular snack in a bag that you can by at any grocery store.  So I felt like it was more expensive than it needed to be.  The bruschetta was great though.

For dinner I had a bucatini pasta with mustard greens, pancetta and roasted tomatoes that was delicioso!  Steve ordered a barley soup again which he loved and then the veal ricotta meatballs which came highly recommended.  Brooke got the hanger steak and I forget what her coworker ordered.  All the dishes were perfectly seasoned and everyone enjoyed them.  For desert we got some chocolate ice cream to share.

The bill was hefty but expected and I would definitely go back because of their really interesting menu and emphasis on promoting local farms and local and organic ingredients.  It had an element of transparency in that it listed exactly where they source all of their ingredients from which I thought was awesome!  Definitely recommend if your in the mood to experience New York at it's best and willing to drop some dough.

Trattoria Dopo Teatro - Thumbs Down

So friday night, while we were walking the streets of manhatten to find a place to eat we came across a gentleman standing outside of an italian bistro called Trattoria Dopo Teatro on 44th and 7th in midtown.  After chatting with him for a minute, he convinced us that this was the place to eat.  Afterwards we were going to see American Idiot on broadway so we decided to stay close by for dinner, plus it had a pre-theater dinner special.  Ambiance was nice, very european, but without having reservations we had a table near the door which would get rather cold every time the door was opened.  We were served right away, but had about 4 different waiters throughout the experience.  The ambiance somehow didn't quite fit the general attitude of everyone.  Waiters were very casual, more like you would find at a family dining style restuarant, but the prices didn't reflect family dining.

Our prefix dinner was $24.50 each but add two drinks each to that and it boosted our bill up by $40 bucks, so that wasn't too great.  The meal itself was just ok.  Nothing bad but nothing great.  I had a ziti dish with marinara with a salad to start and Steve had tillapia with a barley soup to start.  Portions were also small, just as they would be in a higher end restaurant, but like I said earlier, the service didn't reflect that of a higher end restaurant.  None of the dishes were packed with flavor.  All in all, wouldn't go back even though it was super conveniently close to where we wanted to be.  There are plenty of restaurants in the area that would give you more for the price you pay.