Kin Shop - NYC

I'm a big fan of Top Chef, so Perilla (Top Chef Harold Dieterle) has always been on the top of my restaurants that I would like to try in NYC. It's one of the favorite restaurants of some of my friends in the city and it's gotten really good Yelp reviews. ...I still haven't been there yet, BUT I did get to go to his newer restaurant Kin Shop which is Thai fusion. One of my friends always insists on Asian food whenever we go out to eat, so I chose Kin Shop for her birthday dinner!

I really liked the understated decor of Kin Shop - it feels relaxed and doesn't try too hard. There is a green motif throughout and the marble-top bar area has gilted gold accents that gives the restaurant a bit of understated glamour.

I loved that the menu had a mini "glossary" explaining many of the menu items on the back page:

The food definitely did not disappoint either. The noodles were good, but paled in comparison to the red snapper in green curry. The red snapper was perfectly tender and the sauce was so good that both my friend and I used our roti (which we ordered as a side) to soak up all the leftover sauce. This was definitely one of the more memorable and unique fish dishes that I've had in a while.

Fresh Egg Noodle & Maitake Mushroom Broth poached duck egg, green onions & spinach ($14)

Green Steamed Red Snapper cashews, bok choy & kabocha squash ($27)

The restaurant's dessert menu was extremely limited but we decided to go with the passionfruit pudding with buttermilk sherbet, topped with candied cashews. My friend thought the pudding was a little too tart for her taste - which was perfect for me because I prefer tart desserts nowadays and I actually thought the buttermilk sherbet was too sweet for me.

For those that live in the West Village/NYU area, this is the perfect neighborhood restaurant. Amazing food and it doesn't feel like it's trying too hard. (Lately, I've been feeling like a lot of restaurants in NYC are just too high maintenance!) Perfect for when you can't think of a restaurant to go to (although given its popularity and rave reviews, you might end up with a long wait...).

Alpha Fusion - NYC

So it's been a while since our last post, keeping up with a blog is a lot harder than we thought it would be! Today's errands took me to the Penn Station area and lunch was at Alpha Fusion. I had heard that their Chelsea location was really good and they had really unique and inventive sushi rolls - like the kind from California that I always miss. Then Alpha Fusion came out with a Living Social coupon offer - $25 for a $50 gift certificate, which I quickly grabbed up. The 34th Street location is in kind of a random location between 8th and 9th - it's actually next to a small parking lot, and the inside wasn't too great either. Actually the inside was fine by itself, it had a modern decor, but they opened the restaurant to the outside that day so I couldn't really get past the random location. I don't know how to explain it...it seemed a little strip mall-ish to me. I guess it would be an okay place if you are already in the area but based on the atmosphere and out-of-reach location alone, I don't know if I would come back here.

The food didn't make up for the location either. First off, we got the "Spicy Tuna on Pringles with Black Tobiko." Yes...that's raw tuna on a Pringle. I really liked the novelty factor, and their spicy tuna is pretty good, but I don't think it was particularly enhanced by the potato chip at all. I actually didn't really notice it.

For sushi rolls, we got: the Volcano (chicken tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and chili pepper), Red Hot Dragon (shrimp tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and crunchy), and the Spicy Alpha (crunchy spicy salmon roll topped with tuna, salmon, and avocado) - each around $14. None of these rolls really stood out to me - I don't think their sushi rice was made that well. It seemed like regular white rice to me and didn't hold together well on some of the rolls (there was also just too much rice in my opinion). My favorite of the three would be the Red Hot Dragon, if I had to choose. They give a fair amount of spicy tuna on top of the Red Hot Dragon - the spicy tuna was probably my favorite part. As for the Volcano roll, it was my first time having chicken in a sushi roll...and I just don't think it's meant to be. If it was just chicken and rice - sure. But adding spicy tuna to fried chicken didn't do it for me.

The service at the restaurant was really nice though. They were attentive and I think the bartender was trying out different drink recipes at the time - the manager came around with free shots for us to try. However, my dining partner was dreadfully hungover from the night before, so we politely declined.

Alpha Fusion was definitely a good value with our gift certificate, but it probably won't be a repeat for me. The Chelsea location might be better? I also didn't think these rolls compared to the sushi I had in California!