Marzano

Our last review was kind of a bummer (not that it was the restaurant's fault), so it was great to have such a pleasant experience at Marzano. The place feels warm and inviting, not too loud to have a conversation, but boisterous enough that we didn't feel the need to speak in hushed tones. The staff and servers were friendly and generally seemed happy to be there.

Look at these breadsticks: They look average, but if you zoomed in you would see salt! And herbs! Mm.




We got the arancini appetizer. These are one of those things that are often served as appetizers at events and usually just bland filler. Even without the rich "tomato jam", these would have been above average. But the sauce made them ridiculicious(TM). These were probably our favorite part of this generally very good meal.







Briana ordered a 'distinguished gentleman' as her cocktail. A fresh ginger and citrus gin concoction with a sliver of celery. She loooved it. It was a concentrated drink, the only "mixer" was lemon juice. Her drink came with a tiny carafe the extra goodness. Bonus!








Margherita pizza w sausage. Solid upscale pizza (on par with Dopo and Pizzaiolo). Cheese maybe a little sparse, but the cheese that was there was excellent. Delicious sausage, check. Scrumptious sauce, check. Ate too many slices? Check.









Collard greens with chili flakes and ham hocks. It's easy to make decent greens, but these took it to the next level. Not over or under-cooked. The choices in flavoring were surprising (in a good way).









For our other entree we got the chicken all' arrabbiata (chicken in tomatoes and peppers). We might have enjoyed this more if the appetizer had not ruined us for all tomato sauces in the future. While the chicken was tender, the sauce was a little off. Not "spicy" as advertised, and simply didn't meet the standards of the rest of the dishes. BUT, there was a lot of it.






Marzano is a great new Italian restaurant that is fancier than, say, Filippos, but not as pricey as a place like Oliveto. It was a great place to come in from the cold to.

We give it 4.5 Sabuys out of a possible 5. Well done, Marzano.

Here is a collage of some Marzano menu stuff. Note the night time special! Good to know.

Next stop: Garibaldi's!

Khana Peena

Since Currylicious and Khana Peena are so close together on College Avenue we tried not to order any of the same items.

We messed up and ordered veggie samosas (which we order every time we get Indian food). They were decent, but what stood out was that green cilantro/mint sauce. Sometimes that green stuff can be watery and bland, this was thick, zesty and super flavorful. Oh, man I want some right now.







Then we shared:
Lamb Korma and Veggie Masala (they include one serving of rice for every person with every dish). The sauce on the Lamb Korma was creamy and wonderfully spiced, but the lamb itself was kind of tough and not that awesome.
The Veggie Masala had some trouble. The sauce was almost too sweet and the veggies themselves weren't that exciting. Imagine Campbell's soup vegetables.




and:
The Garlic Naan was as beautiful as it was delicious. Nuff said.











Over all we thought it was pretty good. If we had ordered the Chicken Korma instead of the lamb we might have loved it more. We give Khana Peena 3.5 Sabuys out of 5.







Disclaimer: We sat next to some very rude people, this might have negatively affected our Khana Peena experience. Some of the tables are pretty close together, and we ended up next to some real a-holes. Anytime we took pictures they would make snide comments to each other about it. We didn't want to make a scene, so we didn't take very many pictures this trip. We may come back to Khana Peena and update this review at a later date.

Here is the menu!

Next stop: Marzano!

Marica

Marica is a seafood oriented restaurant, and neither of us are particularly into seafood. So we called in our favorite fishatarian friends, Tim and Jody for help.

DISCLAIMER: When we showed up with our giant cameras, the waiter asked us what we were taking pictures for, so we told him about our blog. We maaaaay have gotten some special treatment. We'll try not to let it influence our opinions of Marica, but it probably will. Other College Avenue restaurants, take note!

Appetizers
Clockwise from upper-left: shoestring fries, fried calamari, mussels, and Caesar salad.

All the appetizers and salads were fantastic (not pictured: a mixed green salad). The Caesar salad had a reasonable level of anchoviness. The fries were beautiful, although they were cut so thin that it was difficult to get enough of them in your mouth so that you could taste them. The mussels were awesome, Briana and Steve even tried them. Briana was pleasantly surprised to find that they mostly tasted like the delicious lemon-garlic sauce. Everyone liked the calamari*, although Tim thought it was maybe a little overcooked.

*Side note: Briana thought that calamari was octopus until last night.

Steve's Entree: Yucatan Sausages

Steve was planning to branch out and order seafood, but the Yucatan sausages were calling to him, plus the waiter recommended them. They grow some good sausages in the Yucatan Peninsula. We don't remember what was in them, but if you go there and order them, you won't care.

Jody's Entree: Grilled Salmon

Jody said it was "warm and comforting." Not mind-blowing, but all the parts of the dish were satisfactory.

Tim's Entree: Seafood Soup

Tim's only complaint was that it needed a little salt. Easily fixed! Briana wanted to rip the souffle off of his plate, but it was covered in fishiness.

Briana had grilled chicken with peanut satay sauce and cucumber salad (not pictured). It was just OK. You would think that a ton of peanut sauce would be a good thing, but this was just too much. The sauce just wasn't quite tasty enough to warrant such flagrant sauciness.

Chocolate Souffle: YES! This one was a unanimous success. Get one. The only problem was that it overshadowed the other desserts, which were also wonderful.









Creme Brulee: Totally solid creme brulee. This one had blueberries on it.

Panna Cotta: Briana loved this one the most. Everyone else was too distracted by the chocolate souffle.
















We give Marica 4 Sabuys (out of a possible 5 Sabuys).






The food was mostly excellent with just a few misses. The service was totally amazing. Speaking of which, our waiter, Austin, enlightened us as to what a Sabuy actually is. Apparently it means "happy", which works out well for us. Thanks, Austin!

Official fish-tasters, Tim and Jody (not drinking fish in this picture)

The bar.

Steve ponders the menu.

Good to know!

Next stop Khana Peena!

Currylicious

We invited our friend Emily to join us for our trip to Currylicious. We had heard good things and were excited to try it because we love the name.

We started with veggie samosas which were good, but we're not sure we'd go as far as to call them samosalicious.

Briana got Chicken Tandoori . The spices were great. Big chunks of tender chicken. Tandoorific! It was served on bed of sauteed onions and peppers.

Emily had the Sada Bhindi (okra with tomatoes and spices). She gave it a thumbs up, but we don't know if she would call it okralicious, Em?

Steve had Chicken Tikka Masala. It was OK, but Steve thought it was a little too salty. Briana thought it needed more flavor. We'd say it was Chicken Tikka Masalaverage.

The naan was kind of a let down; bland and papery. Definitely not naantastic. On the plus side, Currylicious offers free bottomless chai tea. We can't think of a pun for chai, but we don't blame the restaurant for that.

Prices are very reasonable, but the portions are kind of small. Good if you have a problem with eating Indian food until you feel sick, like we often do.

The front section of the restaurant is small, but there is supposedly a big room in the back, which was closed for a private fashion show the night we went. I know, weird right?

We give Currylicious 3.5 Sabuys (out of a possible 5 Sabuys).






The food didn't blow our minds, but was great for the price. We're tempted to give Currylicious an extra half-Sabuy just for the name.

Emilicious!

so-so-mosas.

Tandooridiculous

Sada Bhindi

Currylicious

Kitchen Crew

Good to know!

Next stop Marica!

Christopher's Burgers

We decided we needed some fellow burger enthusiasts to help us review Christopher's Burgers. We asked our friends Jimmy and famed eater and cartoonist Thien to join us.

If you like burgers with less fat: this is the place for you! Unfortunately, this is not the place for us. Christopher's markets itself as a "healthy" burger joint. But... it's burgers! The patties were simply lacking much flavor. Bri got a guacamole burger and she could not even tell there was guacamole on it, she had to double check.

But the bacon on the bacon cheese burger was crispy and salty, everything you want in a bacon. To quote Jimmy, "The bacon!" The fries were crazy delicious, they were the only thing that really stood out. Perfectly fried on the outside, cream on the inside.

The problem with "healthy" burgers is you don't get the flavor while you eat them but you still feel gross and full when you are done. To be fair, when we scanned the menu we noticed that Christopher's Burgers has a bunch of odd and interesting looking items (Yucatan chicken and pork sausage burger?) that we didn't try. We might not have given them a fair shot by ordering three bacon cheese burgers and one guacamole burger... But that is what we were in the mood for.

We hate to keep handing out mediocre reviews but we're going to have to give Christopher's Burgers 2.5 Sabuys (out of a possible 5 Sabuys).






We're looking forward to getting further down College ave., and to some of the better (and possibly worse) restaurants.

Bacon Cheeseburger (note the delicious looking bacon).
How healthy can it be with all that cheese and bacon? C'mon.

Ketchuping the burger.

Mayonaising the burger.

Perfect french fries.

"What's that, Mr. Hamburger? You want me to start fires?"

WE DID IT!

Good to know.

Next stop: Currylicious!

College Point Cafe

We weren't expecting much from College Point Cafe. The exterior and sign made it seem like this would be a sterile, cookie-cutter style place. So we were pleasantly surprised to find that the cafe does actually have some charm and character once you get inside. Kind of like an NYC bodega.

It's sort of a weird combination of pre-packaged snacks, and greasy-spoon sandwiches. There are about six tables inside, and one on the sidewalk. There was one woman working there when we went; she seemed friendly and didn't mind our picture taking at all.

We both ordered egg and cheese sandwiches on English muffins with sausage, and medium coffees. The food was enjoyable for what it was, and the prices were reasonable, but don't expect anything too bougie. Here's the level of fanciness; the cheese was actual sliced cheddar, not Kraft Singles. Steve appreciated that they have Cholula hot sauce instead of Tobasco. Coffee was pretty standard weak diner coffee.

All things considered, we give College Point Cafe 3 Sabuys (out of a possible 5 Sabuys) for exceeding our expectations.







Here are the pictures:

Cooking with chopsticks and hotplate.

Good to know

Egg and cheese with sausage and coffee

Steve pines for Peet's

Roaaaawr!

Next stop: Christopher's Burgers!