I live in Forest Hills Gardens. It is a beautiful place, and I enjoy living there. However, the neighborhood of Forest Hills is a bit lacking in terms of food. Well, almost. It has Nick's, a pizza place that regularly ranks among the best pies in New York. It has 5 Burros, a very tasty East-Coast style Mexican place (meaning they have lobster tacos). We have a few decent Thai restaurants and a pretty good Greek place, a good Cantonese style restaurant, and a great bagel shop. But even with all this, the restaurant scene feels bad. The main street, 71st Ave, is filled with fast food restaurants. There are no good slices (Nick's serves whole pies only). No good cafes either, in fact no cafes I can remember except for Starbucks. Lots of mediocre restaurants. Very few restaurants opening.
One new restaurant has just opened, though. "db" on Metropolitan. It features Spanish and Italian fare with a clean, modern style. The menu is small. The wine list is interesting, and overall it's about ten times classier than any other joint on Metropolitan. My friend Adam and I ate there a few weekends ago. We had Serrano ham croquettes with garlic aoili, a hanger steak, mushroom risotto, and a crisp for dessert. The food was well prepared with exception of some greens that came with the steaks, that were not properly washed and therefore gritty. The mushroom risotto was a trifle under-salted. But the flavor of the risotto had a great punch, and the consistency was perfect, which is unusual even for good restaurants.
db may not be much, but it is what could be a very solid restaurant. Maybe not so awesome that someone may come from Manhattan to eat there, but good enough so that you don't have to go to Manhattan to get food of this quality.
Posted by ahyatt at December 3, 2006 10:01 PM