Lunch @ Almond
Almond Flower (Chinese Bistro)
96 Bowery St
New York, NY 10002
Tel: 212.966.7162
I don’t know what the hell this is.
So it is my first time going to a chinese/french fusion restaurant in Chinatown. There were rave reviews on menupages and NY Timeout magazine, as you can see on the front door, which is practically mounted like an award plaque, but I actually found out to see if it was true.
Okay, so I still don’t know what the hell Chinese Bistro is. Does it matter? Maybe not. Anyways, there didn’t seem to be a problem getting a table at Almond because the restaurant was practically empty! Like what, 2 or 3 other tables with a white guy and a wannabe chinese businessman. Very empty. I arrived late, but my friends were already sitting there chatting it away while eating toasted bread with olive oil. The servers seems to be super courteous and they were. There were like 2 people serving anyways.
I ain’t kid you. This place is very desolate. Maybe because it’s 2pm on a Tuesday?
With a growling tummy and a sense of sleepiness overwhelming my mind, I decided to order something that wasn’t so french. A cheap girl like me, I ordered from the pre-fixe section. Turns out the menu was really a mix of italian, hint of french, and a little bit of chinese. I swear, there was lop chern in my salad which I will discuss more later.
Appetizers!
Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad w/Caesar Dressing
Price: Normally priced at $7, but I got it for pre-fixe that is $15 for one soup/salad/appetizer and one choice of entree.
Design: Look at it! It looks off the hook, very amazing to the eye. It’s the first time I’ve seen salad crushed into one sandwich type of thing. Is it necessary? Eh, I had to mess it up like a normal salad to eat it anyways. But I like that they put some heart and effort into this simple piece of salad.
Taste: The salad did not taste bad nor was anything special. Throughout the whole chewing experience, it was creamy, real creamy for a salad. At least it’s better than most asian salads that’s for sure. There were chicken which was ok and this red piece of meat which I’m sure it’s not bacon – it’s lop chern, chinese sausage. Oh lop chern in my salad…hm…? Maybe I could be wrong?
Recommended: Yes if you’re in a salady mood. It sounds better than the Almond Flower House Salad, which I was told that it doesn’t have lettuce! O_o
Crispy Calamari w/Cardamom Salt
Price: $7
Design: It’s actually the best looking plate of calamari I have ever seen in my life. Too bad I’m not a fan of calamari, otherwise I’d take a bite into this.
Taste: Well my friends ordered two plates and finished it off completely, so I’m assuming that it does taste good. I heard that it was a little salty, but it’s a good kind of salty.
Recommended: If you’re a fan of calamari, why not? Go get it!
Alright, here comes the entrees:
Crispy Spaghetti w/Mozzarella Meatballs & Gorgonzola Garlic Bread
Price: $10
Design: Again, the design is pretty dam good. I have to give the chef a heads up for making my food beautiful!
Taste: Eh… Well, it looks like it taste. And in my case, it wasn’t all too impressive. The noodles was obviously made by egg noodles and the marinara sauce overwhelmed the dish itself. The bread sticking out was obviously not necessary, but it gives it a cute look.
Recommended: No. The only thing crispy about the spaghetti was the part that you see it. I broke that into my wet noodles but, eh….lacking something.
Grilled Salmon w/Asparagus, House Bacon & Roasted Carrot Puree
Price: $12
Design: Good of course. Has not let me down.
Taste: I was told it taste good, I can’t really say.
Recommended: I can’t say, but if you like Salmon, try giving it a shot.
Pasta Carbonara w/Prosciutto & Clams
Price: $10
Design: Well, I’m not a seafood and I don’t think clams should ever be mixed with spaghetti. That’s just a thought.
Taste: I was told it was very bad.
Recommended: No.
Grilled Sirloin Steak w/French Fries & Mushroom Gravy
Price: $13
Design: It wasn’t too bad, but it’s not anything special.
Taste: I’ve tried a piece, the meat is tender, but it’s not the good kind of tender. It tasted pretty dam tasteless and the fries were stale, really stale. There was no potato in it and it was hard has hell. No wonder Amy needed to call for ketchup.
Recommended: Eh, not really but you get what you pay for.
So to sum up guys:
Reservations: Not necessary, especially when you’re going early. Prefixe is before 3pm.
Design: Impressive
Recommended: Still yes, although the food isn’t spectacular. The price is very inexpensive and the design of the food is great.
Comments
11 Responses to “Lunch @ Almond”
Leave a Reply
I can’t believe you went for lunch. Who goes out for a birthday lunch? Anyway, you’re right, Almond is empty. It’s empty when I was there for dinner. It’s empty whenever I would pass by it. And it stayed empty this time that you were here, even though they have opened for such a long while already.
Pity. Give it 3 or so months, and the place will be ready to fold. Pitiful not because the food is good, or that the space is sexy, but it was different. Probably not in the good way though. It’s just so out of place. Chinatown is not ready for this. Go a bit North, and it’d attract the NoLiTa crowd. Slant a bit to the East and it’ll be in hipster haven with the LES-ites.
I’m writing your review a critic, but would never allocate the same amount of time or effort to do a review of my own. Oh well. You’re well worth my time, and I’m always the first to comment. I need my #1 fan award and plaque, please.
To sum it all up, you should hit Butter (http://butterrestaurant.com/) next time. More pricy, but hey, this place attracts Paris and Lindsay. Of course, no celeb or socialite can match the presence of “mr. softrice”! The best veal, and sexier calamari on the eyes. I heard, from better sources, that their salad was off the hook too. You’ll totally devour the veal. It’s that good.
Now to go on about your pictures. What the heck is that on the back of the counter and on top of the grill? Is that meat? Salad ingredients aren’t all that fresh from their color tones. Why didn’t you try the calamari? I’m the #1 calamari fan. Sigh. Now you make me want to return to this place just to try out how good their calamari is. Chinese pan fried noodles with meat balls. Not exactly my combination choice. Salmon and steak are the easiest to make anywhere, they’re always bland, and it takes superb places to really take something so simple and make them shine out. The steak at Loft (http://loftnyc.net/) with a red wine sauce is so good! And you’re right again, clam SHELLS should never be mixed in with noodles, even though I assume they’re trying to prove that they’re fresh.
No one tried dessert or their drinks? Neither did I and my date on my visit, but I was hoping your party would have. Then I’d have known if I missed or lucked out. Okay, so this is done. What’s next for you to review? Shall it be Rice, or Peking Duck House? Haha.
You have 5 minutes to write up the next review. On your mark, GO!
You know what I don’t like about this? The time mark is always wrong. I can never tell when something was written.
You are so not getting a hot dog at Pace. Why would he be there on Winter break anyway? To tell to the snowmen?
I’m going to STK with Eddy tomorrow. So excited. Yay!
I’ve been thinking all day, and I should make my first restaurant review post for Rice tonight. So, when all is good and done, I’ll go home and write a new post for you tonight. Then tomorrow is another one on STK. Yay!
My Victoria is working tonight. You want ice cream? We should buy some and leave her tips. I want PB&J flavor!
Fixed my time. It’s a -5 hours difference. Fix yours too.
I want to go to beer pong too! You want me to stalk out your Victoria? Sure.
Delete one of my comments that repeated already.
Buddha Bar sucks. Didn’t I tell you that already? Girl, go to Lea, NINJA, Butter, or any of the many other places that I’ve recommended for you to go already. Haha. Actually, why don’t you try Suba or Mas? I want pictures and a story to know how it goes.
This reminds me. I told you to get Sablefish at Almond!! And you go get some fried pasta?!
Why didn’t you eat lunch today? I have no money, that’s the problem. If I did, I’d take all the restaurants on my list and dump them into an experiences section with someone. Actually, I’ve updated more links. Haha. You should take me out more then, if I haven’t been to enough places. Yo. I want to branch out. When you bringing me to the NJ Japanese market? I also want to do Brooklyn and Flushing restaurants too. You in?
Ho moon ah!
YO! How’d you fix your time? Mine won’t be fixed. Lol.
I have the link to STK on my restaurant section. What do you mean I don’t? It’s all the way down. Shouldn’t you know my sources to stalk out a restaurant link by now anyway? You want to call Vic out to join us?
Have a cracker and nothing else. You’re eating rice later. Haha. Remind me to buy a tooth brush please. Are we going to see Kim’s kitten too?
We can just take the Chinatown van to Flushing. Don’t you have a car anyway? Ms. I can DRIVE!
PB&J ice cream sound very bad meh? Sounds good to me! Haha.
Did you check STK yet? It is super sexy!! Maybe you should take your girl friends and come too.
i’m still confused with how to switch from me to you. i have to type in your address to go to your page and then my address to get back to mine. still learning…
p.s. since when do in-laws or potential in-laws ever get along with each other??? my mom’s mom hates my dad. my mom claims that “2 tigers can’t live on the same tree” since they’re both born in the year of the tiger. but then again, my grandma is a bitch, well she’s narrow-minded because she never went to school and is illiterate, and my dad is just plain arrogant and sexist and alawys thinks he right. i just avoid both of them as much as possible. my dad is annoying. he needs a hobby other than rockin’ the boat.
Yo, where’s my flood of comments? Darn. Time to almost bail and get my comics before I meet up with you. Are we going to compete blogs for Rice by tomorrow? Hehe. Oh. You’re going to help me shrink pictures, right? Because I have no idea how that business works. There’s a fire alarm going off in my building too. How interesting. Commenting you is now officially a life-threatening situation. But I’ve just gotta give you your comments so badly that I’m staying. Haha.
This time thing sucks!
We should go to Hong Kong Station next.