I <3 Midtown.I <3 Midtown restaurants that are fun, young, and have outdoor seating. After a tiresome beginning of the work week (aka Monday 6/11/07), I decided that I wanted a DATE date. With that, off we went to Dragonfly right in the heart of Midtown to enjoy some Asian fusion cuisine.
Note: I am usually hesistant to eat at such places since they tend be “off” if you will. However, past experiences at Dragonfly have always resulted in pretty good fare. It also helped that I had a nice D-Fly gift card to boot.
Dan and I arrived to our destination circa 7PM when the light outside during the summer time is just perfect. There was a gathering of the Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce going on which was quite rowdy….goooooooooooo commerce! My homie, Pat Fong Kushida, however, was not present although she is the Pres of the organization. We were seated outside by a very friendly hostess and gave us a good table placement. The chairs on the otherhand, were QUITE low. Maybe if I were say, a Kings player, this would be fine but I almost felt like I needed a booster seat!
Enter our server, Katlin.
Sweet, dear Katlin….not the sharpest tool in the shed. We made some witty comment about the menu that completely drew a blank on her face. We were responded with the ever so popular MTV generation reply: “Whaat?” She asked if we’d like anything to drink like a good server should, she I believe tried to upsell on a cocktail, but we just wanted some water to start.
We ordered fresh spring rolls (since I am going through this crazy fresh spring roll kick…and this involves another entry), the Ron Artest Roll (the menu boasts: “See if you can handle it!”), and the Sacramento Roll. Here’s the thing about the D-Fly sushi menu; if it doesn’t have tempura in it, it has cream cheese. I love both items, however, I like my cream cheese on my Noah’s bagel and not everything needs tempura to appease the palatte.
The fresh spring rolls were extremely dry and bland. Not so fresh in my opinion! Who puts in chopped WHITE BUTTON mushrooms in a rolled up spring roll? Where’s the mint? Mint is essential in a fresh spring roll! It was served with a very cliche yet tasty, sweet chili sauce very common to Thai cuisine. Also, the rice wrapper was quite dense and not light and delicate like it should be. All in all, don’t bother. The mark up on this plate was ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I dig eating out and understand the mark up on things, but c’mon! WB mushrooms, carrots, ICEBURG lettuce and a rice wrapper really doesn’t cost $7.95.
The Ron Artest Roll is quite good with shrimp tempura and spicy tuna topped with albacore and “one million scrovils”. The kick on that roll is mighty powerful, yet tasty.
The Sacramento Roll is all about the tuna (my fave!) and not about deep fried business. Fresh salmon, spicy tuna and cucumber topped with more red tuna and yellowtail. Oh and of course the “special sauces”.
I love how the term “special sauce” really equates to “mayonaise with other shit mixed in” to make things tasty. Which it does…however, mayo all over the place? I think not. Especially since they lay it on pretty thick. Again, to appease the palette?
The food in itself is not the worst part of the evening. The worst part of the evening was the poor service we received. We asked for water in the beginning which should always be automatic anyway and we received our dry appetizer first. I politely asked for the water and she said, “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” quickly ran to grab a glass and handed it to me. Hmm…table for two yet one glass of water. She never returned with the other glass. Since it was so nice and warm, I drank half of the glass pretty quickly and shared the other half with Dan. I set the glass in the middle of the table to see if she would notice. She did not. The food arrived and as hungry people would, began to eat. The second glass still had not arrived. Considering that I have a very high tolerance for spicy foods, I was fine; just thirsty. Dan, however, was in dire need of some cooling refreshment. We had finished our water and still waited. When Katlin finally returned, Dan asked her for a glass. She again said, “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” She retrieved another glass which was quickly consumed. We finally finish our meal and she returns with the water pitcher.
SUCCESS!
Or so we think. She refilled my water and was trying to not let the ice into the glass. In doing so, she was pouring this water over the second chair (why?) which had my purse sitting on it (WHY!?). End result? Wet purse. Thanks. She then saw that we were done and quickly picked up all of plates with Dan’s glass unfilled.
“Babe, can you hand me that pitcher please?”
“Why of course, dear.”
Katlin comes back with the bill and asks if we wanted any dessert. She however did not address the fact that we had the pitcher of water on our table. No jokes, no apologizes, no “Its my first week!”. Nothing. (Second note: It was not her first week…I’m pretty sure the last time I had poor service, I had her.) We declined any dessert options.
With the bill squared away and an awfully annoying table next to us (which one of the patrons insisted on parking in the “loading zone” and got a ticket w/o noticing…yippee! Please be a law abiding citizen, thank you.) we bolted.
We stopped by Zocalo’s to see if my friend Emily was bartending. She fortunately was and made us some very stiff yet wonderful mojitos. The Giants were winning and I was watching it in HD. At least Zocalo’s knows what’s going on!