Hungry Travels

Confused.

That’s the only word I can think of to describe Tuckahoe’s Thomas Stone Restaurant.  From the website, to the decor, menu, food, and the stone-cooking concept on which the restaurant is based — it’s all over the place.

I met the restaurant meetup at Thomas Stone last Thursday and was the last to arrive because of an accident on the Hutch.  Worried the place would be packed, I rushed inside, only to find out…

(sound of crickets)

The restaurant was dead empty.

I’m not kidding.  There were a handful of patrons at the bar (they might have been employees), but in the dining room, not a soul besides our group.  Tumbleweeds were drifting by.  Thursday night and no one’s eating here?  Uh oh.

The dining room was dark and vaguely depressing, with a hodgepodge of dissimilar artwork on the walls and no defined theme for the room. (A lounge singer on piano started wailing away like she was playing Mohegan Sun.  When a room’s completely empty, voices carry.  My ears hurt.)  “What is going on with the decor?” I asked the table above the din of live music.  We agreed the interior decorating discussion must have gone something like this:

“All right, we need wall art.  Pick up anything you see.  Spanish bullfighter painting?  Great.  Old black and white photo of Yankee Stadium?   Love it!  Do we have anything with Marie Antoinette?”

A section of one wall was filled with meaningful quotes in large writing like “Enter as friends, leave as strangers,” and “Love conquers all.”

Love may conquer all, but it doesn’t conquer my hunger.  Where’s our server?

She was nowhere to be found.  After dropping off our menus she disappeared completely, until after fifteen minutes I finally asked another server to go get her.  She came back and explained how the stone cooking worked (A granite stone is heated to 500 degrees, meat or vegetables are placed on top, and it’s brought to the table half-cooked, in theory so that you can finish cooking the dish yourself to the preferred level of doneness.  The menu also warns, “Do not touch the stone or BURN INJURY WILL RESULT”).

Our server recommended a few dipping sauces, like peppery parmesan.

“What is it?” someone at the table asked.

“It’s just ranch dressing with black pepper and some parmesan.”

Oh.

(A note about the menu: If you’re billing yourself as a stone-cooking restaurant, then why offer so few stone-cooked dishes?  I’d say 2/3 of the unfocused menu are dishes cooked away from the stone.  If you’ve got a concept, commit to the concept!)

Then again, the concept, is er, kind of flimsy.  Lori and Mike’s veggie appetizer came out sizzling away on the stone.

Then it was my skirt steak.

I dug the twice baked potato, and the steak itself was nicely seasoned and tender.  When it arrived at the table it was at about a medium rare; within minutes it was at my desired medium-well.  I quickly took the meat off the stone before it overcooked — and that was that.  And therein lies the problem.

When you go out for fondue or hot pot, you skewer, you dip, you stir, you throw things into a broth… the activity makes the experience.  With stone cooking, the dish is essentially already cooked, so the “activity” lasts all of two minutes, after which you’re left with a stone sitting on the table — an insanely hot one mind you — with no real use other than to potentially send you to the burn ward.  The more you think about the concept,  the sillier it seems.  The draw is the novelty and the “ooh… aah” factor.  It’s a $28 version of Chili’s sizzling fajitas.

At the end of our meal, we were each presented with a little box — cutely called “Pandora’s Box” — that contained our bill, a rewards card and a comments card.  As someone at the table astutely pointed out, “Aren’t there bad things in Pandora’s Box?”  I went home and looked up the exact definition, which reads as “The box carried by Pandora that contained all the evils of mankind.”  I’m thinking management may want to rename the box.

The best part of the Pandora’s Box?  The collection of rocks at the bottom with a label that said, “Do not eat the rocks.”

You know what that means?  Someone DID try to eat the rocks!  Good thing they’re not heated to 500 degrees.

I do feel slightly bad for being so harsh, because the servers were very nice and I’m not looking for any restaurant to fail; I can only imagine how difficult it must be to hit your stride.  But I’ll leave you with this thought — Thomas Stone advertises itself as:

“The first authentic stone cooking restaurant in New York”

… and maybe the last.

GRADE: C

Thomas Stone Restaurant & Piano Lounge
106 Main St.
Tuckahoe, NY 10707
914-779-0012

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One of the best parts of doing endurance sports is that short window after a race when you feel completely justified in eating whatever you want, whenever you want it. “Who cares, I just burned a few thousand calories!” you say to yourself, while scarfing down fattening food without a second thought.   The window doesn’t last very long — maybe a few of days — but during that time… oh, it’s on, it’s on like Donkey Kong.  

So what does a person eat after finishing the Westchester Triathlon?  Hint: It ain’t salad (unless we’re talking potato salad).

This was my plate, thanks to the Team in Training post-race party.  Doesn’t it look good?  I was ecstatic to eat a cheeseburger, and up top you can see the beautiful hot dog (with sauerkraut!).   A perfect way to end a great day.  Congratulations to everyone who finished the race!  

Afterwards I came home and took a much needed nap.  By late afternoon, my stomach started growling again.  I immediately knew what I wanted: pizza.  Not a slice, but a whole pie.  Not topped with veggies, but meat.  I texted Jose — “Want to go get some pizza?”   He called right back — I guess he was in the pizza mood too.  ”Let’s go to Colony Grill,” I said. 

According to most Connecticut residents, the state’s pizza discussion begins and ends in New Haven (Connecticutans will argue to the death that New Haven pizza is the best in the land. They’re so damn adamant about the issue that I’m inclined to believe them).  Stamford’s a cut below New Haven, but Colony Grill gets a lot of pub for being the real deal.

Jose and I had barely sat down when a server crouched down at our table.  ”So are you ready order?”

“We could use some menus,” Jose said nicely.

“We only serve pizza.”  She rattled off the different toppings; my ears perked up when she told us their specialty was hot oil with sausage.

“What are the sizes?” I asked.

“There’s only one. They’re individual-sized.”   

Could this place make things any easier?   They serve one dish and they’re all the same size!   I liked the simplicity.

Jose ordered a pie with extra cheese and hot oil.  I got half meatball and half sausage with hot oil (I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted meat).

I’m guessing this was about a 14″ pie.  The crust is super-thin and crispy, but there’s no puffed up edge like a regular pizza — it’s uniform in thickness throughout.  And amazingly, even with the toppings (and hot oil) loaded on, it stays crispy, as if somehow the toppings don’t penetrate the crust.  The jalapeno and hot oil gave off a fragrant warmth and made my lips tingle.

“Damn, this is oily.  I feel like I’m going to break out,”  Jose said. I nodded in agreement as hot oil dripped down and completely enveloped my right hand.  This was a good pizza… a five napkin pizza.

I’m not embarrassed to say that I ate the whole thing.  Hey, I’m allowed to, I just did a race.  At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself through Tuesday.

GRADE: A-

Colony Grill
172 Myrtle Ave.
Stamford, CT 06902
203-359-2184 

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On Sunday, Danielle was a woman on a mission.  We both read The Journal News’s review of Velo, and she told me what she wanted:

“The goat cheese tartlet and the risotto.”

Here’s what we discovered about Velo: It’s the latest “bistro & wine bar” to hit the area (like “fusion”, this “wine bar” thing is exploding in popularity), the dining room is understatedly decorated with bicycling art, and the food is really, really good.

(I knew I was going to like Velo when I read that owner/chef Anthony DeVanzo is an avid cyclist and spotted an old, black and white Tour de France photograph on the wall.  That appealed to my cycling nut side, spawned in 1988 after I first saw Breaking Away and started riding around in bike shorts with Mendelssohn’s “Italian Symphony” racing through my head).  

I should note that Danielle and I were talking so much at dinner that I completely blew it on snapping pics of the dining room (being a conscientious blogger takes some practice).  

One other note: our server was fantastic.  He managed to be friendly and helpful (especially when it came to the wine list), without being overbearing or God forbid, doing something insane like crouching down to eye level to take our order.  Don’t you just HATE when servers do that?  

For an appetizer we shared what else, the goat cheese tartlet.

Oh, to eat this every day…  Flaky, buttery crust— check. Creamy goat cheese— check. Drizzled honey sauce and fresh thyme for that savory zing— double check.  I’m betting Velo can’t make these tartlets fast enough to satisfy its hungry customers.

Danielle gave me a bite of her chianti risotto with black truffle. It was super creamy and luxurious.  

Here’s my cioppino with clams, mussels, scallops, arctic char and a giant prawn:

You could have just given me a pile of bread, and I would have happily dunked it in the broth all night long.  The seafood was fresh and sweet, but as Danielle noted, “That’s not going to be enough food for you.”  She was right.  She knows my human garbage disposal tendencies.

Our dessert was the cardamom spiced twisty donut served with crème anglaise and wild berry compote.  

That’s a fancy way of saying “Donut with scrumptious dipping sauces.”  

Velo’s got it going on.  Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet Chef DeVanzo one of these days and we can talk bikes and food. And then I’ll swipe a goat cheese tartlet when he’s not looking.

GRADE: A-

Velo Bistro Wine Bar
12 N. Broadway
Nyack, NY 10960
845-353-7667 

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When did the Asian fusion trend take over the world?  Did I miss the memo?   I’m not sure how I feel about all this “fusioning.” On the one hand, I love places like Watermoon in Rye and Kuma Inn in Manhattan.   On the other hand it bothers me a little that fusion is muddling up the unique and individual qualities of Asian cuisines— especially if a restaurant doesn’t have expertise with any of them.  Like the saying goes, “Jack of all trades. Master of none.”

This all makes it sound like I’d be poo-pooing the arrival of Hito Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar in White Plains. Quite the opposite actually; I’m excited when any Asian restaurant comes to Westchester.  And you know what?  Hito has some kinks to work out, but as the restaurant meetup and I found out, it’s got potential.

The staff were certainly friendly and attentive— and not afraid to make suggestions.  I ordered a wonton soup to start.  One waitress didn’t seem to agree with the choice.  

“You sure you don’t want to try the hot and sour?”

“Uhh, I don’t know,” I said, a bit surprised.  ”You tell me— which is better?”

“The hot and sour.   It’s not that hot, but it’s very good.”

She seemed determined to dissuade me from wonton, so I was game (besides, hot and sour IS one of my favorite soups).  She brought it over and said, “You tell me what you think.  If you don’t like it we’ll get you something else.”

Good soup, but I’ve had better.  I like it darker and thicker, with shredded pieces of pork.  And the waitress was right— the soup had the sour, but it needed much more of the hot.

While the sushi bar is clearly the star of the show, the rest of the menu at Hito is a mix of Japanese, Chinese and Southeast Asian.  I’m not sure “fusion” is the right word though. There’s some crossover of flavors and sauces, but for the most part the menu feels more like a collection, rather than a fusion, of Asian cuisines.

Krysia’s mango shrimp, served up in its own mango shell, looked worthy of a pic.  And according to Krysia, it tasted worthy too.

My Szechuan peppercorn shrimp was fragrant and flavorful, with a nice warming heat from the peppercorns.

The shrimp were enormous and there were plenty of them.  Shrimp dishes are often a few dinky shrimp and lots of filler.  Not here— good portion size all around.

I’m worried how Hito’s doing— on the day the restaurant meetup and I went, it was mostly empty— I’ve read comments from others that it’s been empty when they’ve gone too.   I get the feeling that at two months old, they’re still sorting things out; they don’t have their liquor license yet and the dessert list of just ice cream is paltry (no mochi— I asked).   Also, sushi aside, the rest of the menu could use more creative juice.  Some of the dishes are rather pedestrian (beef and broccoli looks glaringly ordinary in a restaurant owned by a former chef at Nobu); why not push the menu in more imaginative directions…

I hope the folks at Hito take some more chances with their food. They’ve already got the makings of something good— nice decor, big portions and reasonable prices. Let’s see if they can make it even better. 

GRADE: B

Hito Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar
106 Westchester Ave.
White Plains, NY 10601
914-428-2626 

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Oh, f.i.s.h….. I wanted to love you.  I really thought I was going to.  In the end, I liked you.  It’s not you, it’s me… wait, where was I?

f.i.s.h. (Fox Island Seafood House) is the waterfront restaurant in Port Chester that’s notoriously hard to find, and as the restaurant group and I found out, has notoriously sucky parking. We must have come at the heart of the dinner rush because the cars were backing up like the end scene of Field of Dreams. The poor valet was running around trying to direct the logjam and grab everyone’s keys.  

I walked into the restaurant, saw the rest of the group, and we hung out at the bar for a few minutes. After 10 of the 12 had arrived, I told the hostess we were ready to be seated.  She looked up and said, “I can’t seat you until your entire party arrives.”  Thanks, nice to be here!  I know, I know, restaurants constantly get screwed by inconsiderate groups who are late or don’t show up for reservations (Frank Bruni explains both sides of this thorny issue much better than I can).   But seeing how this was the start of my f.i.s.h. experience, a smile and a “Hi, welcome to f.i.s.h.!” would have been nice before being fed the company line.   To be fair, the hostess did sit seat us after I explained that we were practically all there.

One thing you need to know about f.i.s.h.— it’s l.o.u.d.

The restaurant’s all glass, wood floors and hard surfaces, so there’s zero sound absorption.  I felt like I was yelling the entire night— and trying to talk to people at the end of the table? Forget about it.

But enough about noise, let’s talk food.  The group ordered dishes like steamers (delicious), lobster rolls and paella.  Karen got the linguine with white clam sauce.  It looked excellent.

I ordered one of the specials, wood roasted whole bronzini with fingerling potatoes and Greek salad.

The bronzini probably should have been yanked out of the oven a few minutes sooner.  The meat under the backbone was tender and perfectly cooked (the best spot was right behind the head), but the meat above the backbone was overdone and dry.  And for something that was “wood roasted”, the fish was curiously lacking any wood flavor.  The fingerling potatoes were under-seasoned (next time I’m smuggling in Bacon Salt).  But I loved the goat cheese on the Greek salad.

For dessert, key lime cheesecake.  

Very good— less dense than regular cheesecake and appropriately tart.  I was kind of hoping for a bigger serving, though.

The food was solid, if not spectacular.   But the night was filled with little missteps in service.  First we had to ask the waitress three times to bring extra bread.  Then Karen’s clam linguine came with chili flakes even though she had specifically asked that they be left out.  And finally, for some weird reason, the waitress only asked half the table if we wanted dessert, while ignoring the other half.  I didn’t even realize this until Heike brought it up later.  Sorry Heike!  Had I known, I would have given you some cheesecake!

So there it is.  f.i.s.h. and I didn’t fall in love, and we’re definitely not soulmates.  But I’ll give it a second chance. Maybe we can be friends.

GRADE: B

f.i.s.h.
102 Fox Island Rd.
Port Chester, NY 10573
914-939-4227 

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