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Uncle Vanya

I have a bit of a backlog of food posts to make. While I have some free time, here's some info on a lunch I had a few weeks ago at Uncle Vanya in Midtown.

I went there with two of my good lunch-partnering coworkers. The style was individual dishes, so I can only vouch for the dish I got, which was the stuffed cabbage. Which was excellent. We also got a chicken in aspic (not pictured) which was good, but when you added the grated horseradish, it became really good. Oh, and there was nice dark rye bread served as well.

All in all, a nice change of pace for lunch. I'm no Russian food expert, but one of my co-workers is semi-Russian and thought it was good, but not truly great. But realize that this shouldn't give you pause; it is my experience that any countries ex-pats will never enjoy restaurants of their own cuisine. My Persian friend Farhang would often claim that there are no decent Persian restaurants in the Bay Area, which I always found odd seeing how there are so darn many of them. I mean, no good ones at all? But to him, his wife or mother's cooking is far superior to what you get in the restaurant. But for the rest of us who can't just invite themselves over to Farhang's house, the best we can do is a restaurant. So, in that vein, unless you can go eat at your Russian friend's house, go to Uncle Vanya and you will be happy.

Uncle Nick's Ouzaria

Last weekend, my friend Adam and I ate at Uncle Nick's Ouzaria, a place that was panned by Chowhound. After eating there, I disagree with the Chowhound reviews, I found it a solid Greek place. It was easily as good as Forest Hill's Corfu, which has good Chowhound reviews. My review follows after the jump.

First we got a selection of four dips, an eggplant, a cheese, a garlic, and a salmon roe dip. It came with a supply of nice fresh pita bread. It was very nice. After the meal, I took this home with me, and the garlic dip really smelled up the subway car. Very few people were on my end of the car, but on the other end it was more than twice as crowded.

Next, we got a huge and delicious Greek Salad. I'm not a big salad eater, but this was great and simple, just tomatoes, olives, and feta cheese.

We also got a shrimp dish in a tomato sauce, which was nice, but nothing special. Adam thought the sauce was quite good, while I thought it was merely OK.

Last, and best, was a grilled octopus and squid. Very simple, tender, but with a good texture and nice grilled taste.

All in all, fairly solid. There are better Greek places, I know, but at least if you get these items, you won't be disappointed.

Philip Glass

I've been living in New York a year now, and I've never seen anyone famous. I did see minor celebrities, perhaps, like the Charles Durning, and a women who, I was informed, was in Sex in the City, a show I've never watched.

But today I hit the jackpot, at least for myself. I'm 90% sure I saw Philip Glass, my favorite composer! He was eating a sandwich at a new place called "Your Taste" at 6th Ave and 23rd St. I never want to bother anyone so I just moved on, but it was quite a thrill. Looking back on it, I'm not sure if it should have been so thrilling. I mean, I saw him once in San Francisco at at a live rendition of Koyaanisqatsi, which was incredible. But here it was unexpected, and close up. At any rate, I'm still thrilled.

More Flushing treats

Tonight Ben and I went to eat another fine meal in Flushing. First, we stopped by Takoyaki on Prince St to have some Octopus Balls. Unlike the Fish or Cuttlefish Balls I've had previously, this was some sort of light batter with vegetables and a chunk of octopus in each one, with mayonnaise, wasabi, pepper and other things sprinkled on top. Even cooler, you could watch the guy make it, which involves filling six concave holes in a griddle, then rotating, refilling, and transferring the mix to other holes about a dozen times. It was surprisingly labor intensive.

After that, we went to eat some Shanghai food at the Yangtze River restaurant. Chosen somewhat at random.

We ordered some Si Gua. I'm unsure what the English name is, I've seen it called Loofah before, though. This was the best Si Gua I've ever had. It had a really great sweetness to it.

Next came the Xiao Long Bao, or the Soup Dumplings as they are called. They were being made by two little ladies in a window near the entrance, which I always like to see. The dumplings were nice, but could have used more soup inside. And I prefer them smaller, which no one in New York seems to do.

Finally we had some enormous pan-fried dumplings. Very interesting, I've never had dumplings like this before. There had a thick wrapper probably made with something very fattening by the look of it. The inside had crab and pork and a slight amount of soup, and the filling reminded me up those pinkish meatballs you get at dim sum. It was nice, but, perhaps because I was getting fairly full, it seemed a bit much.

Ray Lane

I usually don't talk about work on this blog, but ex-Oracle CEO and current partner at KPCB, Ray Lane just gave Visible Path a plug in an interview with Business Week.