Sunday, March 23, 2008

new local restaurant review

For the sake of full disclosure, I am typing this while I watch Music and Lyrics for, like, the 5th time. And I am not ashamed, even if some would think perhaps I should be. And they can suck it.

Anywho, Jamie and I went to a new local restaurant Saturday night and I thought I'd report back for all of my pizza loving friends. It's called Toby's Public House and it's on 6th Avenue and 21st Street in "South Slope", aka Greenwood Heights aka our neighborhood. We've been watching the construction on the space for over a year, so it's nice to see it up and running. I've seen a lot of talk on other blogs and websites complaining about the "No Strollers" sign they have placed in the window, but personally I'm pretty okay with a place that draws that line in the sand off the bat. And anyway, the place is way too small and crowded with tables and a big bar to fit even one stroller, let alone more than one. We were pleased to get a table as soon as we went in, around 7:30 or so on a Saturday night. Every staff person we interacted with was really nice and there were 2 big tvs with the basketball games on, so my dining partner was happy.

The centerpiece of the place is the really beautiful woodfired pizza oven. The menu is not huge, but it's pretty well rounded with a couple of salads (breasole, arugula) meat or cheese plates and about 10 types of pizza. They also had a pretty good selection of beers, including the Stone IPA, which is delicious. We got the mozzarella, tomato and basil salad to start. The mozzarella just melted in my mouth, the tomatoes were sparse, but that's to be expected in March and the basil was virtually non-existent. We got the double portion which was about 5 slices of cheese, half a tomato and 4 pieces of basil for 17 dollars. Delicious? Yes. Overpriced? Yes. The pizzas are individually sized and we got the Napolitano which was anchovy, olive and caper with mozzarella and the something that neither of us can remember the name of, but it had sweet sausage and red onion. Both pizzas were very, very good, particularly the Napolitano. Jamie felt like the sausage one was a little bit skimpy on the toppings, which it kind of was. The pizzas were 14 dollars each which, while not cheap, was really not outrageous for how good they were.

We got one shared salad, 2 pizzas and 2 beers and including tip our bill was almost 75 dollars. And here's the thing, our food was good, even if the salad was a little on the smallish side, the service was great, the atmosphere was comfortable and casual. But as we were walking home Jamie said "That was good, but it didn't feel like a 75 dollar meal." And it didn't. It feels wrong to pay that much for a meal in our neighborhood, especially a meal that was spent watching a basketball game. And just because you can charge that much for a meal on 21st Street doesn't mean you have to. I did however see the meat and cheese antipasta for 2 as we were leaving and it looked so good. We both feel that if went back, the antipasta and one pizza would be the way to go, but I can't say when we'll go back. I just wish we could have restaurants and amenities without it automatically translating to overpriced places. I suppose overpriced boutiques are the next signpost on our slow march toward "development".

2 comments:

Wisdom Weasel said...

Up here for $75 they'll escort you to the walk in fridge and let you have at it.

Clockwatcher said...

That sounds like a good time to me! But then again,grocery shopping is my favorite kind of shopping.