Brunch at Fairway Cafe

I've been looking for an opportunity to check out brunch at Fairway Cafe for a while now because the last time I had dinner there - I must admit, months ago - I was very impressed with their tasty, affordable food and free flowing, delicious focaccia and savory spreads. So when Emily and I met up early at the Whitney on Sunday and then wanted to work our way back to the West Side to do some grocery shopping and grab a bite, I suggested we check out the restaurant on the second floor of the market at 74th and Broadway.

The trip started out well. Although the place was packed, we only waited about three minutes for a table and even snagged one right next to a big, sunny window overlooking the street. There were flowers on all the tables and even though the place is big and crowded (not to mention above a popular grocery store) the background noise didn’t interrupt us much at all.

Our waiter appeared quickly to take our orders and discouraged me from ordering the Corned Beef Hash since it takes 20 minutes. Instead, I ordered scrambled egg whites with chorizo, roasted tomatoes, and chipotle. Emily went for a burger, medium rare, with grilled onions and a side salad. Dreaming of the warm, chewy bread from my last visit, I also asked for bread and we each requested water.

Twenty minutes later there was neither bread nor water, despite the waiter's occasional promises that they were "on the way!" When the bread finally did arrive, it was brioche and seven grain toast, one slice of each. It’s certainly wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the focaccia I’d come looking for. Water came in plastic cups.

Continued...

After another ten minutes our food arrived. Emily had no complaints about her burger, she liked it quite a lot, but my eggs came sitting in a pool of yellowy liquid which seeped into my (second) piece of brioche. The chorizo was abundant and delightfully chewy, the eggs pretty fluffy considering they lacked yokes, and the tomatoes were sweet. You’d think it would have been a successful dish but there was something about the lack of heat from the chipotle (if someone told me they were bell peppers I would have believed them) that left the scramble tasting incomplete. There was no unifying flavor. I wish I'd gone for the corned beef hash. When the waiter said it took twenty minutes, I didn't realize that he meant ONLY twenty minutes.

The one thing to arrive promptly was the check. And imagine my surprise when they charged us $1.50 for the toast and another $1 for the egg whites. I'm used to paying extra for egg whites but they should have at least mentioned it on the menu, not to mention warned me about the bread surcharge! If I'd known what to expect from it, I'd have thought twice.

Rather than waste more time, we paid the bill and left, passing up some yummy looking desserts on our way out because by this point it had already been close to an hour and a half.

Moral of the story, the best ingredients on earth can't compensate for the worst service.

What's in a name?

A lot, it turns out, or at least that's my opinion of Shake Shack.

Everyone talks about their burgers; they seem to have become the NYC standard for burgers; all season long, Madison Square Park is mobbed with lunchers. Surprisingly, I'd never actually had a Shake Shack burger until yesterday, when I found myself around there on errands. So I had a burger (and fries, and a malt).

It was a very good, perhaps great, burger, but I don't understand the cultlike devotion. Joy is better, Blue9 is better, even some of the remaining outposts of Soup Burg (whatever they call themselves now) have served me better burgers. The meat, I could tell, was definitely something special, and there was good char, but it just didn't come together as a spectacular burger. It was, in an inversion of my comments on Joy, juicy but not moist, the bun was overly dense, and while the lettuce was nice, the tomato was just unappealing.

On the other hand, the fries were quite good, and the shake was phenomenal. I like frozen custard, they actually had malt, they found the proper consistency point between the overly-thinned shakes one often gets and the barely-loosened cups of ice cream one sometimes gets, and it was just a well made shake.

So yes, if that's where you are, I would certainly suggest getting a burger at Shake Shack (if the line isn't currently visible from space), but I wouldn't suggest traveling for their burger.

I might, however, suggest traveling for their shakes.

Joy Burger Bar

It's surprising that Joy Burger Bar hasn't received any formal reviews other than a short, shared blurb in the NYT, and that not recently (some things have objectively changed since that review). On the corner of 100th and Lexington, Joy is in an open, cafelike space, decorated primarily in international and classic Coca-Cola signs (a bit of a theme, as said beverage is available both in plastic and classic glass bottles, and eat-in orders are served in branded metal trays). Nearly all the food operations are in plain view (fryer, grill, and flattop right behind the register, cold prep (salads, shakes and smoothies), visible through an open door), which I always consider a good sign in a small, short-menu eatery. Similarly encouraging is the universal, in my experience, presence of the owner, who I've seen manning the register, assembling sandwiches, and just chatting up the clientele (many of whom he seems familiar with).

I've been five times (being drawn to it like flies every time I've find myself between 96th and 120th at mealtime since discovering it), and in my visits have tried each size of the burger (munch, midi, maxi (think slider, fast food, restaurant)), the veggie burger, the schnitzel sandwich, and nearly all the sides (all three types of fry and the onion rings), and the house-made drinks. Nothing was disappointing, but there's variation within the menu.

The burgers themselves are the best thing on the menu, and the maxi is, in my current estimation, the best burger in the city. Ground by the owner, cooked on grills both flaming and flattopped, the maxi burger is incredibly juicy without being inedibly messy, both beefy and flamey, and perfectly textured. This may sound hyperbolic, but the flavor is so strong that the burger is able to stand up to whatever toppings you may desire, including the housemade sauces, which are themselves strongly flavored, and easily capable of overwhelming a lesser burger (I like the chimichurri). The buns are well chosen and toasted alongside the patties (I suspect they've changed since the buns complained of in the NYT review). Sadly, "lesser burger" covers both the midi and munch burgers, very tasty in their own rights but both losing out on both texture and flavor due to their dimensions. Certainly tasty, but not in the same class as their big brother.

The fries (chip-sliced, standard-sliced, and sweet potato) are all hand-cut, fresh-fried to order, and delicious. The chip-sliced sometimes have texture problems but on the whole are better than the longer fries, and if eating in I would recommend them (they come with eat-in orders by default, but do not stand up to confinement, and the standard-style fries are provided with takeout or delivery), the longer fries are excellent themselves, of course. The sweet potato fries are good examples of the type, but I'm not a fan of the type to begin with. The onion rings were simply incredible, among the best I've ever had.

The burgers are obviously the main draw, but the other sandwiches are very good as well. The philly looked good, the shnitzel was very good, and the veggie burger (mashed-veggie style, a type I don't normally favor) was flavorful, well-textured, and while not actually meatlike at all, something I would order again purely on its own merits. The housemade lemonade and tea are too sweet for my taste, but the shakes are good, and almost undrinkably thick.

I like my food, but I'm not the type to repeat a single restaurant three times in a week, or walk a mile for a burger. I've done both for Joy Burger Bar. If you like burgers, go now. If you like veggie burgers, go now. If anything at all on their menu sounds like something you'd possibly eat, go now -- you'll like what you get.