Chester N.'s Profile

My main complaint: why the heck didn't you guys open this place 4 years ago when I first moved downtown?!

I just had dinner at the Den and was pleasantly surprised by how tasty and authentic this place is.

As others here can attest, there is a severe lack of decent Asian food in downtown (besides Jwok) so my expectations were guarded when we decided to give this place a shot. They were also extra guarded as I've never encountered a restaurant which tries to serve different types of Asian food (this place does Chinese, Japanese, and Thai) and actually does a good job of it.

Almost everything we ate well exceeded those expectations:
- green onion pancake - exceptional, perfectly thin/light/crispy with a nice touch of raw green onions on top. So good, we ordered seconds.
- crispy curry beef dumplings - very good filling of ground beef and curry flavor. Deep fried (I think it would be good pan fried too) and the filling is tasty
- pan fried potstickers - tasted like they were straight out of a Shanghainese restaurant; delicious skin and perfectly pan fried
- salt and pepper calamari - my least favorite of the dishes as it was fried a bit too hard but the flavoring was on point
- beef noodle soup - very good, will be one of my go-to hangover cures
- honey glazed shrimp - delicious mix of sweet and spicy; would definitely order this again

For downtown standards, this place is definitely a strong 5 stars. Welcome to East Village, Dragon's Den!

I've only been once so I'm hoping my second experience doesn't run into some of the service issues that many of you are b*tching about.

I believe Malarkey's goal was to provide , *real* and delicious cuisine for local San Diegans that doesn't suffer from a lot of the bs and crappy overpriced food that it's neighbors on 5th Ave. ALL share in common. At first blush, I think he's on his way to that goal.

- ambience: I temporarily forgot we were in SD, and thought I was in a more spacious Manhattan. Then I snapped out of it but it was fun while it lasted. Beautiful place.
- cheddar puffers: nice, complimentary touch but didn't knock my socks off
- watermelon salad: a bit overrated IMO, I could make that at home and probably will try
- bone marrow: my first time having marrow. Not a ton of bang for the buck but my wife Gracie C loved it so that's good enough for me.
- flatiron steak w/ chimichurri: cooked perfectly med-rare, the chimichurri sauce was refreshing and not overpowering, this dish was exceptional
- jalapeno-chorizo corn off the cob: my favorite dish of the night but admittedly I'm a sucker for fancy corn dishes these days.
- doughnut holes w/ warm chocolate: a bit overrated but a decent night cap
- drinks: both the cocktails I had were awesome - one was the white whiskey one with the flower in it and the other was the jalapeno watermelon gin drink (which I thought might be weird but was actually my favorite and something I'd love to try again as well as imitate on the home front!)

Overall, I'm encouraged by this much-needed addition to the SD food scene and I now have a new go-to spot when the missus kindly reminds me we're long overdue on a date night.

Having been to Thailand a handful of times, I "think" I'm pretty discerning when it comes to Thai food. So, I was surprised to be floored by my first meal here Friday night and that this hole-in-the-wall in San Diego of all places was going to nudge me out of temporary Yelp review laziness/retirement.

Including great Thai meals in SF, I think this is the closest I've found to the real deal in Cali.

Here's the scoop:
- papaya salad: refreshing, just the right kick, we ordered seconds
- pad thai: closest to Thailand I've had here, main difference is it's not 40 baht = $1
- pineapple fried rice: my wife Gracie C makes a great pineapple fried rice but don't tell her, this one blew me away with the perfect rice consistency and a delicious blend of spices and seasoning
- panang curry: wonderfully creamy and spicy, 'nuff said
- spicy mint beef: I'm a sucker for ground beef / spicy ish dishes

And... you can BYOB! That was just gravy on top of an awesome meal.

Came here for the 30 on the 30th crawl. Unfortunately, they ran outta food so all I got to try is the ice cream sandwich made of hand made horchata ice cream, Mexican chocolate chip cookies which they gave us on the house. It was decent, and the gesture was definitely appreciated.

3 stars until further notice. Looking forward to trying this place!

Happy that the 53rd and 6th guys are expanding:
http://midtownlunch.co...
http://midtownlunch.co...

Sad that they're only expanding a block at a time, which means it'll be the year 4312 when they finally get to California. :-*(

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Desperate measures call for predatory service providers to take advantage of desperate consumers.

Not in this case.

My friend Janice S somehow managed to lock herself out of house AND her car at 10 pm on a cold, tired weeknight. We surveyed our options and decided on a race between option #1 (Janice S's friend driving from an hour away to bringing AAA and her AAA card with her) vs. option #2 (finding a hopefully trustworthy locksmith). You can probably guess which option won.

Before Janice S's friend even left her house to come rescue us, America's Finest Locksmith (I believe his name is Omar?) showed up and was Janice S's "knight in shining armor" for the evening. For a very reasonable price and in record time, Janice S was back in her car and house.

Definitely recommend America's Finest Locksmith to anyone who lives in or nearby the UTC area.

Shirley C just brought me for a quick snack and drink - both were spot on.

We ordered the shrimp toast (on her recommendation) which was delicious and I got the saketini (a mix of sake, vodka, ginger, cucumber - 4 refreshing ingredients combined into a refreshing concoction!). The shrimp toast was perfectly crispy - not too thick, not too thin (also how I like my women) and the saketini was strong and not overly sweet but perfectly refreshing (like how I try to be with my women). I mean "woman".

I heart NY. What's next?

A "pizzeria" with only several slices of cold pizza looking lonely on a glass shelf during prime time lunch hour should have tipped us off. Yet, we were in the mood to experiment so we tried Krust. Bad decision.

My $10+tax spaghetti and meatballs tasted like bad hotel food (oh crap, this place is a hotel isn't it?) and everyone else's food took too long, was too expensive for what it was, and was utterly mediocre-to-terrible.

Yet another new, crappy downtown spot. Next.

Shawarma, side of fries (albeit 15 to be exact), and drink for $6 is indeed a great deal. And the woman who works there is very nice, attentive, and inviting.

Unfortunately, the shawarma just didn't stack up (to Kebab Shop) and certainly to any in NYC or Europe. The beef was grainy/dry, the wrap tasted like a cold tortilla, and the ingredients were lackluster.

I was thinking of giving them a second try in a couple months after they've had some time to optimize but my colleague reminded me that "life is too short for mediocre food." He's right. Sorry Oasis!

Disclaimer: This was the 5th lap out of an 8 restaurant, 10 hour food marathon and by far, the lap that found us the most fatigued. In other words, by the time we arrived at Kati Roll, I no longer wanted to eat let alone stand on two legs.

I find that the concept of a wrap combining all of the best Indian ingredients is always so great in concept, but lacking in execution.

I found that to be the case with the Chicken Unda Roll we tried from Kati Roll Co. The chicken and unda (egg) was extremely dry, the wrap didn't seem to be naan (which is what I expected while fantasizing about this concept in the first place), and I didn't find the sauce spectacular.

With all the stellar reviews from you stellar Yelpers, I'm still open to trying this place again (which I never do for 2 stars) but will certainly do so in different circumstances i.e. I'm starving, I'm drunk or I'm starving drunk.