Restaurant Review: La Esquina

Details: Located at 200 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019. Official site is https://esquinanyc.com/

La Esquina is small chain of Mexican restaurants in New York City.

Restaurant Review: Mango Mango Dessert

Details: Located at 136-28 39th Ave, Flushing, NY 11354. Official site is https://www.mangomangodessert.com/

Mango Mango is a comfortable place to eat Asian style desserts. Unfortunately, it has few seats and is usually packed during peak hours.

The space is comfortable. This specific Mango Mango location has been open for a while so the couches are a little worn down, but there are couches.

Service was fine.

I had the snow white mango slush-o. I tried some of the sweet soups that the other people I came with had. It was all just okay. Most things cost somewhere between five to ten dollars.

Overall, it was fine. It’s a nice place to hang out, but the food and drink were just okay.

Score: 6/10

Restaurant Review: New Mulan Seafood Restaurant

Details: Located on the second floor of Queens Crossing Mall, at 136-17 39th Ave. Flushing, New York 11354. The official site is http://www.queenscrossing.com/shopinfo/new-mulan/

Came here for dim sum. Nothing extraordinary about this place. Just your average dim sum. Nothing else to say.

Score: 5.5/10

Restaurant Review: Salt & Bone Smokehouse

Details: Located at 32-07 30th Ave, Astoria, NY 11102. The official site is https://www.saltandbone.com/

Salt & Bone Smokehouse is a barbecue place in Astoria. It’s not the best barbecue I’ve ever had, but it was satisfying.

I ordered the half rack of ribs (cost $22) and a small order of potato salad (cost $4). Ribs were pretty good. The potato salad was pretty good… for the first four bites. It was hard to eat after that as I got real tired of the taste. There are like some small seasoning they use, I think it might be capers, that they over did. The potato salad wasn’t great.

Overall, if you want barbecue and live nearby, then Salt & Bone isn’t bad. I think there are vastly better barbecue places in the area though. Butcher Bar comes to mind.

Score: 6.6/10

Restaurant Review: Pio Pio

Details: Located at 210 E 34th St, New York, NY 10016, among other locations. The official site is https://www.piopio.com/

Pio Pio is a Peruvian restaurant with a focus on rotisserie chicken. They have other sides, too, but it’s mostly about the chicken.

The location we went was a relatively small, cramped space.

Service was meh. Not great.

In regards to food, I had the quarter dark chicken (costs five dollars) and the salchipapa (french fries with cut up hot dogs, cost six dollars). I also ate some of my friends sides. It was okay.

Overall, this isn’t a great place to eat for dinner. It’s a good place for lunch as they have decent lunch specials. If you do want to come here for dinner, you need to bring a few people with you. They don’t really serve things in individual serving sizes and none of the food here is so good that you’ll want to eat a platter of plantains or beans and rice.

Score: 6/10

Restaurant Review: Nippon Cha

Details: Located at 39-34 Bell Blvd, Bayside, NY 11361. The official site is https://nipponcha.us/

Nippon Cha is pretty good quality Japanese restaurant on Bell Boulevard. The only downside of this place is that the prices are those of Manhattan when the restaurant is located in Queens.

Restaurant Review: Pho Best

Details: Located in the mall at 42-35 Main St, Unit 1k, Flushing, NY 11355. I couldn’t find an official site but I did find a claimed Yelp site here: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-best-flushing

Recently I did a search for something to eat in downtown Flushing and near the top of the list was Pho Best. Pho Best is mostly the same as every other Pho noodle place in the neighborhood. What distinguishes Pho Best from the other Vietnamese Pho restaurants in Flushing is one thing: bone marrow.

Bar Review: The Ditty

Details: Located at 3503 Ditmars Blvd, Queens, NY 11105. Official site is http://www.thedittybar.com/

The Ditty is a friendly, casual, local bar in Astoria, Queens. If you live in the area, it’s a good place to get a drink and a bite to eat.

Service was great and everyone was really nice.

I ordered the Redneck Korean (a chicken sandwich with pickle brined fried chicken, buttermilk ranch, kimchi cole slaw on a sesame bun; for $12) which came with fries with their house aioli and curry ketchup. Pretty good chicken sandwich.

Most importantly, it was a place with a cozy, friendly vibe. It’s the kind of bar I could see myself going to again.

Score: 6.5/10

Restaurant Review: Outback Steakhouse

Details: Located at 2348 Bell Blvd, Bayside, NY 11360, among other places. Official site is https://www.outback.com/

Outback Steakhouse is a chain of casual steakhouse restaurants with a lot of locations all over the place. I’ve been here a couple of times and I’d probably rank it above Applebee’s but below Texas Roadhouse.

Restaurant Review: Via Carota

Details: Located at 51 Grove St, New York, NY 10014. The official site is http://www.viacarota.com/

My goodness was this placed packed. I came here with a friend on a Saturday night and the wait took about two hours. They don’t take reservations. They just write down names onto some pipes with chalk as people come in. They have a bar where you can drink as you wait… for hours. Despite the long wait, each patron that I saw add their name to the pipes extolled the same admiration and praise for this restaurant’s food. After eating at this restaurant, I mostly disagree.