eateryROW: FOREST HILLS

BROWNIES & CREAM

72-40 Austin Street

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 480-3849

The handful of specialty food shops in Forest Hills has grown in recent months. While we may not have a butcher shop (a crime), we did just add the kind of candy store that you might find in SoHo and now, a brownie shop. Actually, Brownies & Cream also sells macarons and ice cream, but... I like brownies.

Of the roughly dozen varieties I tried about all of them. Actually, I went up the girl behind the counter and just said, "I'll take one of each." Though, truth be told, I'd had one of each already earlier in the week. I just needed a reminder of each of the flavors (and something to have with my milk), which were: Plain (of course), Walnut, Coconut, Oreo, Dulce de Leche, S'Mores, Vanilla Cheesecake, and Raspberry. There's also a Lemon Square dusted with powdered sugar should you not be a chocolate person. I won't beat you to death with my thoughts on each of them, but as a generality, the overarching theme of Brownies and Cream is "soft". These might be the farthest from dry that any brownie could be, and they fight peanut butter for dominance in the stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth wars. This isn't to say that they seem goopy of undercooked. Not at all. But I was glad I had that milk handy. My favorite was the Dulce de Leche, which has a caramel layer and the Raspberry, which had a layer of raspberry syrup. My least favorite was the Vanilla Cheesecake, which is a plain brownie with a thick later of cheesecake on top. But baking the two drastically different cakes together meant that the cheesecake came out lacking any firmness, like a cheesecake cream. My mom's favorite was the Plain, interestingly. She said she would probably have preferred the Walnut or the Coconut (which is what I thought she would have chosen), but she wished that the walnuts and coconut shavings were baked in, rather than just as a topping. If Brownies and Cream really wants to satisfy her, they should make a brownie with both baked in.

As I said, in addition to the brownies, Brownies & Cream also sells ice cream and macarons. While I've seen macarons for sale here and there in various patisseries across the city, I've never bothered to actually buy one. So for my first experience, I tried three of them, and rated how good they were by the standard told to be via Serious Eats. So for those of you who, like me, haven't tried this French treat before, let me give you a brief description of them. They're sort of a sandwich cookie, except that instead of dough, they use a firm, but delicate meringue. Eggs and sugar. What are they like? Well, each flavor is very different. I tried (and liked) all three. Imagine biting into an Oreo Cookie while on an acid trip. Brownies and Cream had about a dozen flavors to choose from. My mom and I were both partial to the Espresso one.

VENEZIA
Atlas Park Mall
80-60 Cooper Avenue
Glendale, NY 11385
(718) 326-1200

As I once up a time may have mentioned, Atlas Park needs customers. There needs to be some sort of a draw. In my line of thinking, such a draw could be its dining options. Venezia is the newest of these options and the latest restaurant to occupy the central green space by what used to be the fountain. The central area is both a blessing and a curse. First, the atmosphere of dining outside by the grass with the lights from the arches all around, is unmatched in the neighborhood. I love eating outside and the Forest Hills vicinity doesn't have nearly enough of it. But, come the rain and come winter, nobody wants to be outside, and the interior isn't too big.

Venezia is a quaint little Italian bistro serving up frills free comfort food. It's simple. It's cute. It won't win awards but it's far from bad... though they do have a penchant for excessively al-dente pastas (ie: undercooked), so if I were you, I'd suggest asking for them to boil those noodles a wee bit more. Service-wise, everyone was pleasant, but they're sloppy and tripping over each other. The left hand clearly doesn't know what the right hand is doing. At one point, Bro and I had three waiters ask to take our order.

I ate at Venezia twice recently. Once with Operagirl and once with Bro. Both times, we ordered the Fried Calamari. The first time, it was mediocre and doughy and salty. The second time it was impressive. The marinara sauce was very good and we asked for more of it. Operagirl ordered the Portobello Trifolato, a mushroom salad. She was impressed, especially since she only ordered it as a gag because "trifolato" doesn't mean anything in Italian.

For both of my meals, my entree was the Pappardelle Bolognese. What can I say? I like pappardelle. The meat sauce was perfectly fine, if not terribly inspiring, but, as I said, the pasta itself was undercooked. Five more minutes and it would have been al dente. Five less and it would have been in the box. And this was both times, so they need to update that recipe. Operagirl ordered the Penne Alla Vodka, which was more cooked, but they still should have let it sit in that water longer. She liked it, however. And despite a few hiccups, we left saying "actually, this place isn't bad!" When I went with Bro, he ordered the Chicken Francese, two chicken breasts in a sweet lemon pepper sauce with a side of sauteed vegetables and some potato. It's the kind of cafeteria-style Italian food that would make an Olive Garden line cook wince, but it was, I regret to admit, pretty tasty.

Operagirl and I split a pitcher of sangria and I recommend that you skip it. It was the weakest sangria I've ever had. Definitely not worth the $30-something it cost. The other cocktails that they serve are pretty good. Cutesy drinks, not the classic speakeasy types I typically get, but fun for when you're sitting outside at sunset.

Venezia, while not "expensive" isn't cheap. My meal with Operagirl (a pitcher of sangria, two appetizers, two entrees, tax and tip) cost over $100. My meal with Bro (a few drinks, a single appetizer, two entrees, tax and tip) cost $85.

So it's got a great atmosphere, not-too-bad grub, and it won't break the bank if you hold off on the booze. Is this enough to get people to go to Atlas Park? And can it inspire others to open up shop? Time will tell.

With the death of Border's Books, one of the anchor stores at Atlas Park, yet another storefront bites the dust.

To be sure, Atlas Park seemed a long shot back when they were breaking champagne against its bow and lowering it into the sea a few years back. I had hope but I was realistic. Too few stores had signed on prior to the grand opening and its location seemed... ill advised. Creating a classy mall that dreams of one day housing Coach stores and Givenchy outlets requires quite a leap of faith when you stick that mall in working-class Glendale. (UPDATE: still no Givenchy outlet)

It's one thing to stick a fancy-pants mall in a neighborhood with zero intention of actually having the residents of that neighborhood shop there, but if that's the plan, then it requires drawing people TO that area from afar. Sure, Forest Hills proper has some spending power, but there has to be more than that. Atlas Park needed to pull people from Manhattan (but they have SoHo and Fifth Avenue) and it needed to pull people from Long Island (and they have Roosevelt Field). Hell, at the very least, it needed to pull teenage girls with daddy's credit card (and they all went to Queens Center because it at least has access to a subway line). Even if Glendale wasn't a terrible place for a shopping center, and everyone who lived there was an avid wearer of J. Crew polos, one side of Atlas Park borders a cemetery (and those residents don't shop for much) and another side is almost entirely industrial. In essence, even if it was the correct demographic for an upscale mall, the location still leaves much to be desired.

Making matters worse, they charge for parking(!) and they keep their overflow lot closed to everyone but Carnies. This is just flat-out stupid. Hey, I get it. The malls on Queens Boulevard all charge for parking, it doesn't seem fair. Maybe, I have heard, they fear that the lot will be used people commuting to work in the morning, but without a subway or LIRR station, this is clearly an unwarranted fear. Maybe, I have also heard, they're concerned that people will park there 24 hours a day, leaving shoppers without. The simple solution to that one is for the shops to validate the parking space with a purchase and then to have management run a tow truck through the garage after closing. And hey, maybe charge a monthly fee for people to park there overnight without getting towed.

Indeed, so few people are willing to pay for parking that the neighborhood is clogged with those cruising for a spot on the street. Yet, for all this traffic, once you get inside beyond the walls, the place is a ghost town. During the week, tumbleweeds might as well blow through it.

I write a restaurant blog and recognize that this post goes against the grain of my usual topic flow. But so far, half of the places I've reviewed at Atlas Park for y'all have gone under. How is that helpful to me? I'm just watching my money get sucked away. I'm sure that this has to do entirely with the fact that it's desolate. The restaurants are far from alone, though. Amish Market, the fancy supermarket, is gone. The Filene's Basement-style department store under the movie theater is gone. ArtWorld, which moved from Austin Street thinking that Atlas would be a boon to business, moved out and is now on Metropolitan. Stella Gialla, a cutesy boutique, moved out and is now on the opposite, ass-end of Metropolitan. Rosetta Wines is gone, moved to the Wall Street area. The rent may be fifty times as much, but people there actually go inside the store.

My advice to the Atlas Park owners is two-fold. First, you need to attract people. People aren't attracted to pay-parking, so shit-can that turd of an idea. I have literally driven back home after being unable to find street parking. Next, give people a reason to go there other than to see an abandoned mall. Call up Target. It fits the price-point for the neighborhood and doesn't feel cheap. Do not call Kmart. Give them a rent-free year if they seem iffy. Under no circumstances should a dollar store or nail salon be green-lit to come in. They're a slippery slope. Like broken window syndrome, you invite one, and then, the next thing you know, there's a check-cashing joint and a place wanting to sell phone cards scratching at the door. Instead, find a florist and entice students at FIT to open boutiques. There's plenty of space for a Crate & Barrel or a Pottery Barn and the borough doesn't have either of 'em. Talk to the people at Lillian August. As a furniture store, they rely more on single large purchases than on lots of small purchases. People plan out their furniture excursions in advance so a store like this does not require as much foot traffic.

You want to really drive up sales? Sell that open parking lot that you don't let anyone use to a developer. I know, "developer" is a four-letter word 'round these parts, and the real estate market isn't what it used to be. But, well fuck it. You want to go into bankruptcy (for a third time)??? Have this developer put in a high-rise condo and now, all those tenants are guaranteed shoppers. The Lofts at Atlas Park, you could call it. They'll buy their clothes at the mall, go out to dinner at the mall, fix their bikes at the mall, see movies at the mall, park their cars in the (thus far unused) garages at the mall. And they'll bring friends.

LA BOULANGERIE
109-01 72nd Road
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(347) 644-5606

If any of you readers have ever asked yourself "why does Manhattan get all the Le Pain Quotidien's?" you need hunger for one no longer. Now, we have one. It may be called La Boulangerie, but it's basically the same thing. Or it will be once it's up and running to full capacity. Apparently, the owners figured that they'd have a slow start, what with being all hidden away down a nondescript street and without so much as a website to call their own. But if the woman behind the counter's tone of voice was any indication, they were dead wrong.

Silly. Didn't they know Forest Hills has been itching for a real upscale French bakery for years?

The hours are still limited. They close at 4pm. When I got there, they were wiped clean. I got the last sandwich, there were only a few breads and, when I asked to see the menu, I was told that it wasn't ready yet, but would eventually have, in addition to their breads, sandwiches, paninis and soups. So I bought that lonely sandwich, ordered a cappuccino, and grabbed a seat. Jazz music played pleasantly. The interior is bright, with light woods and high ceilings. The stroller set will appreciate the bookshelf of children's books and available high chairs. Forest Hills is beginning to feel a little more Park Slopey.

A large communal table, the kind you might be seated at should you go to that aforementioned Le Pain Quotidien, takes up a third of the small dining area. All told, you might seat twenty patrons in here. When, not if, La Boulangerie gets its ball rolling to speed, I expect that the brunch crowd will have quite the wait.

La Boulangerie is, first and foremost, a bakery. Large glass windows open the clean white kitchen to both diners and passers-by. It's a relaxing place where you can go, have an espresso, read the Times, and smile in the knowledge that Forest Hills is finally becoming a little more refined.

The cappuccino was $3.25. The sandwich, which was very good, was $6.50.

BARTINI'S
1 Station Square
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 896-5445

I am struggling with how to properly review Bartini's, the bar at Station Square. If I wanted to be mean (though honest), I'd call it a laughable joke. A ghetto dump. A seedy pit. But there's no denying its potential. It could be simply amazing if it only wanted to.

Bartini's sits inside of the Forest Hills Inn building beyond the glowing pink neon sign. You'll show your ID to the black-clad bouncer at the door and walk down the steps towards the super-loud thumping club music. A DJ sits in the corner blasting rap and hip hop. Another bouncer watches the crowd (though I use the term "crowd" loosely).

Bartini's claim to fame used to be that they were a martini bar extraordinaire. There was allegedly a cocktail list with hundreds of different martinis to choose from and the bar had a solid ice top to keep drinks cold. Instead, we were given no such menu and the ice top was... gone. As you can see in the photo, tea lights are housed there now.

Purple neon glows along the ceiling. Mirrors line the walls. Red lamps, reminiscent of Amsterdam brothels, illuminate some tables. Instead of booths, a long series of heavily-stained velvet sofas wrap themselves from one wall to the next. What little carpet there is nearly black from old gum (or something). I don't even want to know what this place looks like with the lights on. The floor is tacky white tile, good for mopping up spills and puke. Bartini's feels like the kind of place that spends most of its time either being rented out for sex parties or closed by the health department.

Most people crowded the bar; a few people sat along the wall, drunkenly dancing alone in their seats. The crowd was thin, especially for a Friday night. "The music is so loud in here!" Girl Next Door screamed. "What?!" I screamed back.

I think that what upsets me so much about Bartini's is the potential. It has so much of it. It's not some shit-pot sports bar throwing cheap beer at a bunch of middle aged dudes interested in watching the Mets lose again. It's a bar that's literally underground in a city currently experiencing a speakeasy revival in a neighborhood with a high income bracket. What the hell is it doing being some wannabe club when it could be a $12-a-drink high-end cocktail lounge?

Okay, here are my thoughts: Bartini's SHOULD be Forest Hills's cocktail lounge. And I don't mean cocktails based in store bought syrups with pussy names like velvet rouge or midnight's delight. I mean the real deal. Hire someone who worked at Employees Only or Rye or Clover Club to create the menu. Ditch the goddamn DJ and replace him with a jazz CD or, better yet, nothing at all. Rip up the tile floor. Put down hardwood. Tear out the mirrors. Clean the bathroom. Toss the ratty disgusting stained sofas. No more well-liquor. From now on, the cheap gin is Tanqueray. No vodka. Dying to have beer on the menu? Local micro-brews only. Go to "Beers of the World" in Sunnyside on Queens Boulevard if you need ideas. Shitcan "ladies night", "salsa night", "reggae night", "gay night", "karaoke night" and any other theme-night from the repertoire. Leather booths. Replace the bouncer outside with a hostess and the bouncer inside with a waiter. Bartini's should only attract people who want to surround themselves in class without compromise, so throw away the garish neon sign and replace it with nothing. Maybe etch the name on the window glass or make a tiny brass plaque, but that's it. Subtlety is key.

The bar, the actual physical bar, is great. Solid wood, huge, with two classic vintage registers. It's fantastic. Forest Hills is crying out for a place where guys like me can get a real drink. Not a mass-produced beer and not a vodka-cranberry (notice I didn't say a Cape Cod, because the bartenders wouldn't know what I'm talking about).

FUJI
113-27 Queens Boulevard
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 263-3636

There are so many places to get sushi in Forest Hills that we tend to just stick with the first halfway decent place we can get our grubby hands on. My last attempt was at Chikurin and I was sorely let down. Naturally, heading back to Queens Boulevard for sushi made me think twice after such an experience, as it would with anyone. But this time, I was pleased with my selection.

Fuji is a full service Japanese restaurant a little east of the main drag, near the firehouse and the Pinnacle building. I arrived ahead of Pike and, with a few minutes to kill, immediately ordered a cold beer. Well, immediate is a relative term. As you can see by the photo, it was relatively empty, yet it took seemingly forever for a waitress to get to my table. A wait might not have been so bad in and of itself had Fuji bothered to add air conditioners to its list of things to buy. The place was a sauna and I was cooking in my seat. When I finally got a waitress, I ordered an Asahi. It was gone before Pike showed up.

At least the sushi was good. I ordered the Sashimi Regular plate which, unlike the same dish at Chickurin, came out unspoiled by the ravages of time. It was pretty good if I dare say. I also ordered an Eel Roll, since who but a complete nazi traitor doesn't like an eel roll? I was stuffed by the end, which I didn't see coming. Pike, meanwhile, ordered the Fuji Roll (shrimp tempura and avocado) along with something else I didn't write down (but did steal a piece of). Overall, we left pleased.

I like Fuji, but man oh man, please someone tell them to order an AC. I mean, Christ! PC Richard is right across the street! The standard rolls cost an average of $4. The more complex ones are in the $10 range. All you cheap-assed Chikurin people should walk the extra four blocks. Trust me.

AGORA TAVERNA
70-09 Austin Street
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 793-7900

We in FH have seen a near explosion of new restaurants as of late. There's the new Q, Marianella's Taqueria on 71st, Exo on Austin, La Boulangerie on the way, Wafa's has been replaced. But perhaps the most anticipated of them all is Agora Taverna, located where the original Piu Bello used to be. As a dining community, we wanted upscale and unique and most of all, not something done half-assed. Agora Taverna, a none-too-cheap Greek seafood restaurant managed to pull off two of those three. Could it deliver on the third? A few days ago I grabbed the 'Rents to find out.

From the outside, Agora Taverna, located in one of the Austin street mall buildings and under a glowing plastic blue sign, seems more like a chain restaurant than a place where you could easily drop over $60 per person on a meal. But inside it's crisp and white and clean and modern and feels incredibly comfortable and pleasant (albeit extremely loud), even when it's bustling. And bustling it was when we went. There lies its biggest fault. The staff is overwhelmed. Being told it was a twenty minute wait is one thing, but when it's actually 45, you get the feeling that they're told to keep the advertised wait low to prevent people from walking to one of the other myriad nearby restaurants. So a throng of people milled about, in front. So many, in fact, that extra chairs were lined up in three rows to seat them all. Plus the staff, while nice, wasn't terribly helpful over the phone. When I called earlier in the day someone clearly out of the loop picked up. Being evasive and giving unhelpfully useless answers is great for TV, but in real life tends to piss people off. When I asked to speak to the hostess, he said he didn't know where she was and that I should just stop by and ask my questions in person. A few hours after that pointless phone call, Shrink tried herself with the same exact result. "What an idiot" she muttered as she hung up the phone.

So that's the downside. But we were eventually seated and, having had plenty of time to look through the menu, promptly ordered. Agora Taverna gives every table timid French bread in olive oil with hummus and we wolfed it down. A quick side note, Agora does have food that isn't seafood, but nothing we ordered used to live on land. We figured that since this was supposed to be a seafood restaurant at its core, we would limit ourselves to sealife. Anyone whose meals breathed air is more than welcome to wax about their experiences in the comments.

Round one, appetizers, and they were worth the wait, despite a little frustration that they didn't all arrive at the same time. I ordered the Octopus, grilled to perfection, slightly and amazingly tender. It might have been the best octopus I've ever had. Don't trust me? Go order it. Shrink ordered the Loukaniko, a grilled sausage dish made with spices and orange. Also fantastic. Spiced without being spicy and you absolutely could not ask for more flavor hitting your palate all at one time without conflicts. Dudeman ordered the Stuffed Calamari, whole grilled calamari stuffed with a blend of feta, manouri and kefalograviera cheeses. I don't personally care for Greek cheeses. Never have. But if you do (and my parents do) then you'll love this. The only downside to the dish is that you can't really eat stuffed calamari without the stuffing squeezing out of it like toothpaste from a tube. So the stuffing is ultimately for show since, in about ten seconds, the squid and its filling will be next to each other on the plate.

Round two, entrees. These were less impressive and leave me saying the following to Agora Taverna: change and become a small plates restaurant! Seriously, I'd go there every week. Anyway, I ordered the Swordfish, marinated cubes of swordfish with vegetables and it was, while excellent, a step down from the near-crack-like experience of the apps. Dudeman and Shrink ordered from the whole fish menu. He chose the Branzini and she chose the Royal Dorado. There isn't any point in talking about them separately since they both looked and tasted like the same fish. Perfectly bland white fish with lemon, spices, capers and a whole mess o' bones. Whoever tried to de-bone these fish needs a refresher course. Anyway, they were fine for what they were, but I'm not about to stand on the table and shout praise to the masses. Each entree comes with the choice of a side dish and we tried three from the list. None were very good. The steamed Asparagus was cooked perfectly well, but for some reason they decided to dump half a ton of sea salt on top of it. The Lemon Roasted Potatoes were obviously boiled instead and were pretty bad as a result. If you're planning to boil a potato, don't serve it until you've mashed it smooth and injected it with butter. Finally, the Florta, a combo of steamed red chard, green chard escarole, spinach and chicory was the kind of side dish that public school lunches and soup kitchens would have rejected. I'm sure it's healthy, but still.

Round three, dessert. Myself and Shrink kept piling on the calories while Dudeman passed. and the food and drinks took an obscenely long time to arrive once we ordered. "How long does pouring a coffee take?" my parents Shrink asked. I ordered the Loukoumades, deep fried dough balls sprinkled with cinnamon. I was expecting something akin to a beignet (I love beignets) but these were fried for too long. As a result it was like biting into a searing hot golf ball. Less time in the fryer would have done wonders. Shrink chose the Ekmek, a cake that's the love child of a custard and a baklava with pistachio whipped cream to boot. This was very good but mind-numbingly heavy.

Three appetizers, three entrees, two desserts, two coffees and a few glasses of wine came to about $200 after tax and tip.

MARIANELLA'S TAQUERIA
106-11 71st Avenue
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 263-2008

11375 gets it's third Mexican restaurant with Marianella's Taqueria. "Great", some might argue,, sarcastic tone in hand. "We're up to our ears in Italian, Japanese and Thai. Now instead of something unique, we get more of the same, only Mexican." Ah. True, but false. Sgt. Garcia's is an actual restaurant with a more mature atmosphere... relatively. Five Boros is a cantina for twenty/thirty-somethings like me to get sloshed at at 2am when everything else is closed and you still need to get your drunk on. Marianella's is basically fast food. Cheap, Mexican, and in case you missed it the first time, cheap. It's the kind of food you get from a taco truck in Corona. So naturally, Marianella's is good. At least, in my experiences so far they have been.

There isn't any table service at Marianella's. You order off the big board and find a seat wherever you want. Turnover is pretty fast. You probably aren't going to wait more than five minutes to get through the line and they make almost everything right in front of you. Should you so desire, there is a FULL bar. Of course, you shall not desire. Almost no one will and it takes up space and it looks tacky... and weird. I mean, can anyone picture a scenario in which someone says to themselves "Man, this chicken taco would go great with a Rob Roy! Barkeep! Your finest blended Scotch, please." That said, I do think a chicken taco would go great with a Tecate.

The menu here is relatively simple, but varied. Tacos, burritos, quesadillas and your choice of a "protein". Ground beef, steak, chicken, etc. No tofu though. There are no vegetarians in Mexico. Marianella's also has a small empanada list and I've tried all of them. What can I say but that I love empanadas. My recommendation: skip them and go to Mama's Empanadas just off Queens Boulevard by the Queens Center Mall (Here's my review of the Northern Boulevard one). Curry Chicken, Ground Beef & Pea, Steak, Four Cheese are the ones you can try should you ignore my wisdom. The best one was the chicken curry followed by the cheese. Both beef options were pretty flat. Plus, they all suffered from far too much dough with far too little filling.

Everything else, though, was pretty good. I've gone twice. The first time, my friend Pike ordered a Beef Quesadilla which he thought was great. I did not try it, but I trust his word on whether or not unheathy food tastes anything less than par. My choice was a Steak Burrito, and I was mightily impressed. The set up is identical to what you would find at a Chipotle, so if you like Chipotle, you're likely to enjoy yourself here. If not, you'll at least know the system. Pick a meat, pick a rice, pick a bean, pick some veggies, maybe get some sour cream. That's it. Then they wrap it up and send you on your merry way. My second time I ordered a Shredded Chicken Hard Taco and a Ground Beef Hard Taco. As is normal for all hard tacos, they tend to crumble into tortilla chips by the time you're done.

I think that the biggest competition to Marianella's will be Pahal Zan for the lunch crowd during the day and McDonald's for the late night post-clubbers with the munchies.

Pricewise, just about everything floats around $7 or $8, plus tax and a drink. Three empanadas are $5.

70-20 Austin Street

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 261-6162

Once upon time, there was a Cajun restaurant called Mardi Gras. They served alligator. They had live jazz. One day, for no discernible reason, Mardi Gras became MG's and then MG's soon died, passing quietly to the great Austin Street in the sky, next to Wine Gallery and Rouge. Enter Exo Cafe (Cafe/Lounge/Grill). Goodbye beads, NOLA kitch and jambalaya. Hello mirrors, marble and sandwiches. Hello staff of hotties and hello best beer list in the neighborhood. Exo really could be a great place. It has the potential. But the follow-through has been weak at best. Gowing pains? Nah, that's a service issue and the service was fine. In fact, everyone there is great and my orders were never screwed up.

When I first looked at Exo's menu in their window, The Beatles were playing an apropos song on my iPod. Fun-looking and inexpensive, I was, overall, impressed. With decent-looking but admittedly girly cocktails and a list of impressive beers, this, I said to myself, might be just the kind of place Forest Hills needed to attract the crowds that might otherwise wind up in at the cocktail lounge/restaurants in Brooklyn. Sadly, Exo isn't even remotely threatening to attract young, hip, disposable income-earners on their way to Brooklyn. I kept wondering where the disco balls and strobe lights were. The music, which alternates between bubblegum-pop and techno, is oppressively loud, even at lunch. It's almost like the owners wanted to give Forest Hillians the experience of having dinner in the eastern-European charm of an Astoria nightclub.

I went to Exo with Pike the other day. The Belgian Fries we ordered as a side were somewhat soggy, plain-old french fries. They weren't terrible but were they Belgian? No. At least there should be mayo. Dipping sauces cost seventy-five cents and while they might be good, we didn't order any. The Beer Battered Onion Rings actually were pretty good (especially if you like batter more than you like onion). They were served with a not-too-bad dipping sauce that was half barbecue and half honey-mustard. Unfortunately, you get very few onion rings. Maybe a dozen or so. We ordered two sandwiches and traded halves. I got the New York Cheese Steak, not to be confused with that loud-mouthed Philly knock-off. It was okay. Strips of steak, some sauteed red bell pepper, and some but not much mozzarella with a hint of A-1 steak sauce. Pike nodded along with me. "Yeah, this is okay." He ordered the Chimichuri sandwich to split, which was far better. Garlicky steak, provolone, tomato and pesto. I recommend this one.

Since Exo devotes a healthy chunk of its menu to burgers, I returned to give their Kobe Beef Sliders a try at lunch (music thump-thump-thumping). Honestly, these were terrible. The bun had been exposed to the air long enough to begin getting stale and crumbly. The tomato slices were wilting. The burgers literally smelled bad. I never send food back, but man was I tempted. I returned once more to order their Hawaiian Hamburger, a teriyaki glazed beef patty with tomato, lettuce and a slice of pineapple. It was okay. Not amazing. The sugary glaze somewhat drowned out the taste.

Back to my dinner with Pike, we ordered coffee, which was pretty good, and skipped dessert. There was a moment of temptation when we noticed the Deep Fried Cheese Cake. I mean, if you're gonna kill yourself with food, cheesecake is one of the fastest and tastiest ways. And if cheesecake is how you've chosen to go, you might as well make it official by boiling it in oil, too. Next time.

So, in the end, what do I think? Exo could be a really cool place to go, god-awful shit sliders notwithstanding. But they should know is that, just like Common Space across the street, they aren't a club and, if they insist on calling themselves a "lounge" then there are certain rules that come with that distinction. First, lounges don't have half a dozen TVs over the bar. That glory goes to TGI-Fridays and Ruby Tuesdays. Second, part of the point of going to a lounge is to talk to your friends and that requires being able to hear them. It's not comfortable to have to scream across the table. So I advise them to nix blasting Beyonce and replace their CD collection with medium volume jazz and funk. I recommend investing in some low-vol Roy Ayers, RJD2 and Theivery Corporation. Get people's feet tapping and their heads swaying while they enjoy their sazeracs. That's a lounge. This is a lounge. If Exo could do this, I wouldn't even care about the take-it-or-leave-it food.

I'll give Exo kudos for being very reasonably priced. Especially their lunch specials, which are under ten bucks. Sandwiches and burgers float between $8 and $12. Beers are $7 per glass.

Esparks, the microchain coffee shop on the Corner of Metropolitan and Cooper is closed.

Esparks had a lot of pros and cons. They gave you a Starbucks atmosphere with cushy chairs and free wifi, but the coffee was pretty weak and the wifi was often out. The tables were too high for the chairs and benches and they frequently played Christian rock and folk music, which I could have personally done without. Very often the staff was missing and you'd stand there in silence waiting, ever waiting for someone to come out of the back room.

But still. They were a nice place overall. They were not too far out of the way that I couldn't walk there. The area was safe enough and they had a small parking lot so that on a drive out of town I could drive up, park with my roof down without fear, grab an iced coffee or a froyo and be on my way. The area Starbuckses are in areas too congested to be able to do that.

SANTA FE STEAKHOUSE
107-18 70th Road
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 459-4040

Uno's, TGI Friday's, Sizzler. These three chain restaurants nestle themselves comfortably in the 11375 zip code. They serve decent, if not particularly impressive food, they don't cost a ton, and they're frequently crowded. I think we can add another chain to the list, even though it's only a chain of one. A single, lonely link. The Santa Fe Steakhouse. From the staff that wears embroidered Santa Fe polos to the Southwestern kitch theme, to the generic and patently unoriginal food, it's painfully clear that this was a franchise concept that never grew past this one location.

Service-wise, Santa Fe was great. Our waitress was very nice, very pleasant, very prompt. I can't say enough nice things about the service. The decor is straight out of Outback territory. Neon beer signs, wooden booths with tall backs, murals depicting the scenic vistas of the restaurant's namesake (the state, not the Hyundai), and so on. There's even a version of the Bloomin' Onion in the appetizers. Not being the world's largest trumpeters of the glory of mall food (go to Rego Park or Elmhurst if you are), I wasn't really expecting very much. ... Uh, to be honest, that's only partly true. I'd already eaten at Santa Fe a few times and I already wasn't impressed. But it had been a few years and I was wondering if they had, like a good steak, improved with some gentle aging. This would not, I would learn, be the case.

Pike and I arrived midweek and were promptly seated. The front was rather crowded; the rear was deserted. Come the weekends, I'm sure the place fills up. We ordered a couple of sodas while we scanned the menu. Good thing we drink diet soda because what you get here is literally a liter of cola. A pitcher with a straw in it is a single serving. If they do that with their beer, I'd be in heaven. In a sense, they do, come to think of it. You can get a bucket of five Coronas for $15. That's pretty good. But I digress.

We started with some Lobster Bisque. Here's the thing. We'd literally this past weekend been to Luke's Lobster and had lobster bisque there. Luke's Lobster makes a mighty amazing soup. So how did Santa Fe's stack up? Not well. It was thin, virtually tasteless, and almost devoid of any actual lobster. There was the smell of lobster, but when you sipped, your tongue would start accusing your nose of lying to it. "Bland" was the most often used word of the evening, as our entrees, soon to come, can attest.

The dinners come with a side dish and a salad. Some form of potato, be it baked or fried, or steamed vegetables. Pike and I, by sheer coincidence, are both on a low-carb kick so we stuck with steamed vegetables. Steamed broccoli and cauliflower are tasteless almost by design. It's hard to steam them just right to retain flavor and crunch. A good chef can, Santa Fe didn't, and most people can't anyway. My point is, I'm not complaining about the blandness of the steamed cauliflower. The salad is another story. A pitiful bowl of iceberg lettuce, a single slice of onion, a single slice of tomato, and a peppering of croutons does not a salad make. Now maybe you just soak your lettuce in a soup of French dressing and don't give a shit since you can't taste anything anyway with a mouth full of sugar and mayonnaise, but I'm not like that. Salads should stand on their own. If they can't, don't serve it.

I ordered the Rib Eye Steak, medium rare. It came medium rare but I don't know if I'd call it "steak". See, "steak" has flavor. This was more like a protein-delivery vehicle. One day, when robots make steak, they will make this steak. Soulless and artless, un-seasoned, un-crusted, perfectly designed to get 14 ounces of cow matter from a kitchen to a stomach with as little energy as possible. Santa Fe probably figures that their average customer is just going to slop a jar's worth of ketchup all over it anyway, so why bother. In that case, Santa Fe is forgiven and I shake my finger in shame at the customers. Tsk tsk. Pike ordered the Sagebrush Chicken, which Santa Fe describes as a "flame-broiled chicken breast smothered in mushrooms, bacon and jack and cheddar cheese". This is a bit of an exaggeration. Here's what it should have said: "a grilled chicken breast with two strips of bacon on top, with a few slices of Cracker Barrel melted on top. Then we take some mushrooms and put them next to it." This was marginally better than my steak, if for no reason other than because my steak didn't have bacon and melted cheese hugging it like a down jacket. Still, it was bland and somewhat pitiful to look at.

Calling Santa Fe a steakhouse when it's menu has all of six kinds of steak is a stretch. It's menu is a pretty good size with chicken dishes like the one we tried and burgers and fajitas and bar food and ribs. I imagine that it's great to take kids to since kids like theme restaurants and messy fingers and it's probably not bad if you're with some friends looking for a burger or nachos or the kind of food people in the suburbs like to be washed down with a bucket of beer or a pitcher of cola. But Santa Fe does call itself a steakhouse and it certainly isn't one. In fact, other than the sign outside, if my meal is any indication, I'd say it hardly even tries to be, save the price. My steak cost $24 and you can see what that got me.

CHIKURIN

110-72 Queens Boulevard

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 263-9888

I'm not going to beat this review to death with flowery prose and lots of photos. Long story short, Pike and I went here for dinner. It stunk. If you want me to expound, read on.

Chikurin is a Japanese restaurant on Queens Boulevard and it was because it was so close to where my friend Pike lives that we decided to go here. (That and the mission of this blog is to go everywhere in the neighborhood.) The interior is plain but bright. The customers were all very young. College age. This is understandable. One of my memories of college include tipping the pizza guy in cigarettes because we ran out of money. At $3 or so a roll and plenty of inexpensive entrees, Chikurin is probably the flat-out cheapest place in the zip code to get sushi.

We were pointed to a table and we sat down. To call our waitress, a woman in her 40s-50s, temperamental would be kind. She was pissed. "Am I giving this woman an attitude and don't realize it?" Pike asked when we told her we needed a couple of more minutes to pick out what we wanted. "It's not you." I told him. "It's her. She's acting like a meanie." Though whether I called her a meanie or something else is hard to recall. My memory's fuzzy on the subject.

Pike ordered the Sashimi Regular, a plate of tuna, salmon and yellowtail. "This isn't good." He told me and left half of the plate untouched. Frankly, that half the plate was eaten was because he gave me some. I agreed. I may not have thought that it was spoiled, but it was tasteless and the pieces were so huge that one might legitimately wonder if they were trying to get rid of it. I ordered three rolls: The Philadelphia Roll, which I typically love but here was not good at all. Funky tasting; The Eel Cucumber Roll, which I also typically love but here was mediocre and boring; The Sweet Potato Roll, which was actually very good. Interesting that it was fishless... Speaking of fishless, we both ordered Miso Soup, which was also good. I guess the moral of the story here is that Chikurin is the sushi restaurant you shouldn't order fish in.

I intended to make this a two-trip review. But truth be told though, there are plenty of good Japanese/sushi places around and this meal was so disappointing that I decided not to spend the money. Let me know how your meals there have been. I'm curious about whether my experience is a common one.

TUSCAN HILLS
115-20 Queens Boulevard
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 487-4500

So many of people wrote me emails or comments asking me to go to Tuscan Hills that I was almost afraid to for fear of not liking it and then getting stoned by an angry mob. But go I did, twice to cover more of the menu, and so here we go.

We denizens of Forest Hills are in no short supply of Italian restaurants. We are, lamentably, in dire need of some good ones. Red sauce slop can be had anywhere, but especially along Austin Street/Queens Boulevard. The last time I had good Italian in FH was at Il Poeta on Metropolitan and they finally appear to have, in my book, actual competition. Though there is some room for improvement, which I'll get into, Tuscan Hills is your best bet for Italian should Il Poeta be too inconvenient.

The interior, with its exposed brick walls, high, wood-beamed ceilings and open kitchen evoke a cooler more West Village vibe than Il Poeta's midtowny, table clothed old-fartiness. The wine list is a decent one with bottles averaging in the $30s and glasses around $7. The regular menu is nice and tight, not a voluminous tome trying to cover every range of taste and they don't have two hundred specials at a time. However, that menu is also laminated in plastic, something that feels tacky and cheap. Both times I went, Tuscan Hills was virtually deserted. This should not be. Not when Portofino is routinely filled (albeit with a very aged crowd).

As I said, I ate two meals here. One with my friend Speeds and one with my friend Lina. Speeds, ever a fan of all things calamari, ordered the Calamari Fritti, a relatively standard fried calamari dish which was very good. The breading wasn't too thick and the calamari wasn't chewy. I stole a good chunk and we both enjoyed it. I also ordered the Ribollita, a white bean soup with kale, tomato, Parmesan and an island of bread floating within. It was a nice, pleasant soup, good for a cold winter, but it was somewhat bland. Yeah, I know, it's a white bean soup. Still, a little bit of bacon would have done wonders. Upon my return with Lina, we ordered their Cozze in Tegame, mussels in a white wine and cream sauce. This was delicious and the mussels were quite large I was extremely impressed.

Speeds ordered the Pici alla Fondelli, a fettucini in a wild boar and olive meat sauce. It was okay. I like wild boar, but, and this is hard to explain, the sauce lacked much in the way of kick. It, like my soup, was somewhat vague and bland. Maybe some Parmesan would have helped, but I feel like it should be able to stand on its own. The pasta was, however, perfect and clearly freshly made, something I can't help but appreciate. I'm a huge gnocchi-lover so I chose the Gnocchi Gratinati, a potato gnocchi in a meat sauce under a big heaping of melted mozzarella. This was good, but not amazing. Hands down, the winner for best gnocchi in the area, if not the city, remains firmly in the grip of Uvarara. This version was like comfort-food gnocchi, not push-the-boundaries-of-what-gnocchi-can-be gnocchi.

When I returned with Lina, she ordered the Rigatoni Alla Norma, an eggplant, basil and mozzarella dish. Actually, she ordered the eggplant pizza but our waiter misheard her and lo came this. It may not have been what she ordered but it was actually extremely good. She especially liked the sauce, which she said tasted fresh, not like it was pizza sauce from a jar. "The thing about Italian food is the sauce. It can make or break the whole dish." She's Italian, so I'll take her word for it. My entree was the Selletta Al Pepe Verde, a skirt steak with green peppercorn and mashed potatoes under a creamy brandy sauce. This, by all rights, should have been perfect, and it could have been but for one problem. The sauce was delicious. The mashed potatoes were melt in your mouth smooth. The steak, though, was cheap, chewy and fatty. If this was a filet mignon or any other boneless cut, it would be fantastic. Alas, 'twas not.

Lina and I didn't order dessert, opting to grab some cupcakes at Martha's instead. But Speeds and I split a Tiramisu for dessert. Very good tiramisu. We were both impressed and wiped the plate clean.

While I may have made a few complaints here, I do legitimately think that Tuscan Hills is a good addition for our dining community and a good sign that Forest Hills restaurants are getting better. The food was solid, the pasta was fresh, the wine was filled to the brim in my glass, the service was good despite that one mistake and the mussels were fantastic. I've heard good things about the pizza but haven't tried it yet. I will certainly put Tuscan Hills on my short list of places that I would enjoy returning to. I just hope they swap out that flank steak by then.