Animo!: AnimA!, Clinton Hill Italian(ish?)

Second time out in two days. I feel like this tends to happen when you’re about to go out of town (Chicago for wedding-times), so it’s hard to justify groceries if it’s possible you’re gonna waste food. Instead, you just waste money.

I was bored with the day and we had nothing to do tonight so finding ‘dinner’ was more about finding ‘2 for 1’s’. Aaaaand…BOOM: AnimA (big a?!?) Italian Bistro

Just the facts, ma’am:

The Restaurant: AnimA Italian Bistro

Location: 458 Myrtle Avenue

What I eated: Toscana Pizza and some complementary bar potato chips

Price: $25.05 for a pizza, 2 Stellas, a Brooklyn lager, and a Sierra Nevada Pale,  general mood-based tip was $5.

Ratings!

Tasty: Blandisfying

Service: Friendly

Atmosphere: Yeah, I’d hang out here.

Portions: Pizza is the size of a pizza. Pasta is smaller than a pizza.

For the money: 4 beers! For the price of 2 beers!

Comments: Let’s be real; I went to AnimA because there’s a sign outside that says 2-1 every day, 4-8. I didn’t go for subtle hints of basil washing over rich cream sauce. I didn’t go for the exquisite texture of freshly-baked pizza crust. I went because I could get 4 good beers for 12 dollars.

The pizza came with mozzarella, peppers, onions, gruyere cheese, and grilled chicken (subbed cuz they were out of chicken sausage). What resulted was a pizza that lacked the tangy kick of tomatoes and the pleasant salty creaminess of a good white pizza. It was crunchy, it was filling, I asked for Tabasco. So alright, in the end, I wouldn’t go back for the pizza.

A brief aside: Emily and I discussed what could potentially be a problem for me as a food blogger during dinner. Mostly, it’s that I’m not all that critical. I can tell the difference between bad food and good food. I calls the bad food like I sees it. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of an apologist. If there’s something that redeems the restaurant for its so-so food (cheap drinks+nice lady at AnimA) or its horrid service (medium spicy curry+much food for cheap at Thai 101) I’ll probably go back and make the same mistakes over again.

In the case of AnimA, I ate some homemade potato chips that were not as good as Lays, I ate a pizza that was almost there, but needed some culinary love (or some chicen sausage) and didn’t come away needing to eat more of their food. On the other hand, I drank a bunch of beer at a price I didn’t have to feel guilty about and got some tips on how to make crispy chicken from a new friend (who had also come in for 2-for-1 beers).

So, a short moral of the story for restaurant owners: If you need to work out the kinks in your menu or your chef doesn’t give a shit, feed your patrons cheap booze, they’ll (read: I’ll) keep coming back.

Drink!

-kt

First (and only) stop (thus far): Clinton Hill Thai Food

Dear Reater,

To begin, my intent in writing this weblog is to record my habits as an away-from-home consumer (in the literal sense). I’m doing this because I want  to remember which restaurants that I enjoy eating at the most and also because I’ve always thought it would be fun to write about things I eat, given how much I already talk about things I eat. I have chosen not to simply post these reviews  on Yelp!  because A) people reading those reviews are unlikely to be interested in working through my personal quirks as a writer when they’re looking for a place to eat in 20 minutes and B) I wanted all of my opinions of restaurants in one place.

To be up front, I am not an established food critic. I do not have a fantastically refined palate. I am not the world’s best home cook.

Rather, I grew up eating a lot of fast food (which I still enjoy), I know the foods I like (they are varied and wide-ranging), and I know my way around a kitchen (the title of “world’s best home cook” having been laid claim to by my older sister).

About me: I am a law student at NYU who lives in the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. I’m also a pretty rad dude.

TO THE ISSUE AT HAND!

For starters, the facts.

The Restaurant: Thai 101

Location: 455 Myrtle Ave

What I eated: Green Curry w/ Chicken (also sampled Rasa w/ Chicken)

Price: $15.35 for two entrees and water, performance-based tip was $3

To follow up, an arbitrary and experimental rating system.

Tasty: Medium tasty

Service: Uninterested

Atmosphere: Zero

Portions: I’m full!

For the money: Fuck yes.

Comments: When a great deal of your dinner conversation consists of how bad you miss your old standby Thai restaurants (True Thai in Minneapolis or Siri Thai in Athens, GA) your food is probably not the bomb-est. I enjoyed my green curry and appreciated that there was no question as to how spicy it should be, it was just kinda spicy and delicious. I suppose the problem with that is if you’re not into spicy at all or think that medium spicy is for little Gerber-babies, you’ll probably wish they had asked you. My dinner partner (girlfriend) Emily felt that the peanut sauce on her Rasa (which we’d never heard of) was “too sweet and too mealy,” and was therefore disappointing.

Service-wise: In the beginning, our waiter took his sweet time in asking what we’d like to eat. In the end, it took 15 minutes to get the check after we were clearly done eating. In between, well…the man did everything he was supposed to, just 5 minutes after you might expect him to do it.

Based on this review, you might think that we won’t be going back to Thai 101. Quite the contrary actually. For$ 6.35 a meal, I’ma eat there all the time, especially when you factor in that their portions are big relative to most restaurants I’ve eaten at around here. At present, I don’t have the money to be eating expensive Thai food and soon won’t have the time to be cooking my own  (my strongest dishes are Mexican and down-home, so when I cook, I’ll stick to those).  In short, given bang relative to buck, this place likely to become a go-to, especially considering that free delivery makes my friend who was making a thorough examination of the pitcher instead of filling my water glass a non-factor.

Eat!

-kt