Agua Dulce

Hells Kitchen…known for restaurants, but not many that we frequent. Sure, we love 5 Napkin, Eatery and Hells Kitchen (that’s the name), but haven’t really found anything groundbreaking there…until last weekend. We hit up Agua Dulce for some Pan-Latin cuisine and were very impressed by the food. It’s also a great place to have a drink - there is a lounge area in the back of the restaurant.

For starters, we got the Guac trio: Guac Tropical, Guac Ahumado and Guac Tipico with a heap of crispy, fresh tortilla chips – the good, thick kind. This app was more than enough for four people and I think everyone had his or her favorite. Eric & I were huge fans of the Guac Tropical with pineapple, mango and habanero, while the others dipped frequently in the Guac Ahumado with chipotle, house cured bacon and tomato.

It was a battle of the sexes for the main courses: the men went with the macho Churrasco – grilled skirt steak, chimichurri (yummmmmm), hand harvested sea salt and roasted new potato. The portion was so large that both men had leftovers on their plates.


The females both ordered the crispy organic salmon with seared cauliflower, red pepper and mustard green olive caramel sauce, how typical. Everything was great. The skin gave a crispy and salty flavor to the fresh salmon and the red pepper sauce was a great dipper.

For Acompanamientos, we got the cauliflower with brown butter and fresh lime and an order of the crispy fluffy yuca fries with garlic and vanilla aioli. Both were huge hit. The cauliflower was delicious and had great flavor – there were crunchy garlic-y bits throughout. And the yuca fries with a little dip of the vanilla aioli is a party in your mouth. Both plates were empty by the end of the meal.

Suffice to say, we had no room for dessert because everything ordered was consumed. We’ll definitely be back to Agua Dulce – dreams of the yuca fries all through my head.

More info: http://www.aguadulceny.com/

Yerba Buena Perry (Brunch)

After running the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, Jess & I headed to Yerba Buena Perry for a hearty, celebratory meal with our parents. The outside of YBP is very unassuming, and before entering, we were unsure if the place was even open. This would be OK if the restaurant was packed, but it was at best 1/3 full. Makes us think that the look of the exterior is doing the restaurant a disservice. Many passerby's wouldn't even know that inside is a Latin restaurant with great food & tasty cocktails.

The "good bartender" was behind the bar so we all indulged in a celebratory drink - bloody mary's, blueberry gimlets, & a mojito. Everyone enjoyed their respective drinks & every last drop was devoured by the meal's end ;-)

The guacamole to start was smoky, chunky, & topped with queso fresco. I'm not the biggest fan of smoky guac, but this worked well with the layer of cheese on top balancing it out. The chips were a bit salty and served already dipped into the guac. Interesting presentation.

We ordered the sausage chorizo side dish as an appetizer & it comes with one sweet sausage & one spicy chorizo. Both were stellar and some people liked the sweet better, while others preferred the spicy... all about what tickles your taste buds.

Jess got the tilapia fish tacos, which were quite good but a little weak on the portion size. We both felt that for $13 they should serve you 3 tacos, rather than 2 small tacos. The dish did come with a healthy portion of rice & beans, but that's not why anyone orders that dish & YBP should know that.

There was no complaining about the portion of my dish, the Cubano Sandwich:

In between two pieces of freshly toasted baguette was serrano ham, BBQ suckling pig, brie cheese, chipotle mustard, & pickles. This sandwich was hearty & delicious... exactly what I was looking for! The crunchy bread was perfect, the brie cheese was strong enough to cut through the layers of pork, & both the ham & pig were uber-tasty. Served alongside Papas Provenzal - long, thin potato chips - and a side salad, this dish was a big winner in my book!!

To satisfy our sweet tooth, the table split the churros - served with mexican hot chocolate, that's so sweet it should be illegal. One mini churro per person with a follow-up sip of hot chocolate hit the spot!

Worth mentioning was that the french toast was out-of-this-world amazing.

We'll definitely be back to YBP to sample this savory dish for brunch & see what they can offer to a couple of restaurant hoppers for dinner.