Tonight we dined at a new restaurant — a place in Bay Ridge called Tanoreen. Danya found it through Zagat — high food rating of 26 and a moderate $31 estimate per person looked promising.

When we arrived at the location indicated on Zagat, the place looked closed and uninhabited. Apparently, the restaurant is currently located one block away from this address, but they will be moving to the 76th Street and 3rd Avenue in a matter of weeks.

The decor of the current Tanoreen is not very posh, but the service and the food lived up to our expectations. We ordered Brussels sprouts as an appetizer, and two fish dishes as a main course. Danya got spicy tilapia with rice, and I got red snapper meal with salad. Everything was delicious, and the portions were quite big — we weren’t able to finish our food.

My meal actually reminded me of kafta (ground lamb cutlets with onions, spices and pine nuts) which Habib used to buy for lunch from time to time when I was working at his pharmacy. The cuisine of Tanoreen is probably best classified as Middle Eastern, and it was really hard to pick just two dishes from a very appetizing menu.

Our bill ended up being $49. I have a strong feeling that this was not the last time we ate at this restaurant!

This is another post from the “series” that I started a while ago:

The same website, or rather forum, that I found Applewood at had a list of other good places people were suggesting in Brooklyn.

As we’ve said before we’ve been to Applewood and to Saul and yesterday was Al Di La’s turn.

A bit of downside to Al Di La is the fact that they don’t take the reservation and the wait can take over an hour on a Saturday night. However they were nice enough to take down my phone number, so they could give us a call when our time was up.

Since we were in good company (Maruks) we just took a nice walk around Park Slope and when we got back they had a table available for the 4 of us.

We started off with mussels (which I could not look at before Maine) and some sea-food soup. Mussels were good, but the soup I found somewhat tasteless and plain. For our main meals I ordered a steak and Alena ordered black risotto painted with octopus ink. Steak was good, though not as great as at Saul, but Alena’s risotto was delicious. And all that was complimented by wine.

The total for the 4 of us came out to something around $180, which is not bad at all considering the amount of food that we ordered.

Overall it was a great experience with close friends. I had a very good time.

Today we felt “adventurous” — we decided to check out some new restaurant for dinner. I knew just the place to look for one. A while ago I was looking for some information on the lounge that Alena and I had our first date at. Sadly the place has closed down, but the search with the same address revealed that there was a new restaurant at the same location — Applewood. We have checked it out a while ago.

The same website, or rather forum, that I found Applewood at had a list of other good places people were suggesting in Brooklyn. We picked Saul and there we went.

The place was not cheap and the bill ran close to $200 for 3 of us, but I must stay that I haven’t eaten meat more delicious in a long time now. Alena enjoyed her fish and Alex had the same meal as I. In short it was a good place that we should visit again sometime in the future.

We’re home. Just yesterday in the morning some of us were swimming and Caribbean Sea and now we’re in cold, gray New York. But I must say no matter how good the vacation is it is always nice to come back home. Home, sweet home.

I want to take a moment and jot down some notes before the memories start to fade.

Flying

Flying out of JFK is sweet. The ride there is less than 20 minutes which keeps my departure fears in check and saves greatly on time and taxi fees.

We had a bit of a scare during check-in. First we were told that we were missing some papers that we should’ve gotten for Alena at Mexican consulate, so she can’t go. I kept insisting that I did call the consulate and the embassy and was told that we don’t need anything and kept making them recheck until they did figure out that everything is OK. That was scary 15 minutes.

After a relatively short flight¹ we stood in a passport check line for about hour and a half. The line was huge and was moving slowly.

And going back was even more fun. When we got to the airport the line to AA (our airline) was spanning through half the terminal. We stood in it for 1.5 hours and started feeling that we’re not going to make it. At that time they started letting people bound for New York go ahead of the line. Ironically it turned out that pretty much all flights were delayed, including ours, so we wouldn’t have been late anyhow.

The whole “check-in” in JFK took about 10 minutes, which was nice.

Hotel

During check-in I gave $20 to the clerk and asked for 2 rooms to be next to each other, be on the highest floor they can give us, and have ocean view. I’m not sure if $20 did it, or just asking would’ve worked, but that’s what we got.

The room had a full fridge of beer and other drinks and there was a full bar of hard liquors. I proceeded to take a shot of tequila before putting down my bag.

The territory of the resort was not too big, but it had 5 restaurants, a buffet, a couple of bars and a bunch of pools and jacuzzis.

And no matter where you were there were always somebody asking you if you wanted any kind of drink. So needless to say we drank our fair share or all things alcoholic.

Rooms didn’t have any internet, but there was a Wi-Fi connection in the lobby, which was half dead as well. But that’s probably should be added to the “pros” column.

Activities

This is the main part of the vacation. There was no plan, no place to rush to and it was great. Alena, mama and Lina were on the beach getting their tan starting from 7am. Initially I was out there pretty early too, but as the time went by I kept sleeping later and later.

The water in the sea was very clean and the color was beautiful. It was as warm as a sea can get and we did a lot of swimming. I took my Casio watch swimming with me every time and I it was cool not having to worry about it going bad and having the time right there with me.

The only bad part about the sea was the fact there was a lot sharp hidden stones under the water. Each one of us ended up hurting our feet pretty badly at one point or another.

Besides that we treated ourselves to the spa with a massage, dry sauna and hot and cold jacuzzi. This was the first time either one of us got a massage. We all ended up liking it.

And obviously we did a lot of eating.

Food

There is no question that there was a lot of choices. Buffets had different themes every night and there was a choice of 5 restaurants for dinner. For lunch there was buffet and Italian restaurant and for breakfast — just the buffet. There was also 24 hour free room service which a small selection of light meals.

A restaurant requires a reservation at least one night in advance, so our first 2 dinners were in buffet, but the rest were in the restaurants.

We tried out all the restaurants and I have to say that living in New York spoils you. Brazilian was a joke. A very sad parody of what a real Brazilian steak house really is. It got nothing on Plataforma and the service was horrible on top of that.

Japanese was a big disappointment for Lina and Alena. And even thought I’m not a big sushi eater, I can tell when a Japanese place is good. The problem with this one was not the fact that it was bad — it just wasn’t Japanese. Anything, but Japanese.

Our 3rd visit was to the Spanish restaurant. We were impressed. Really interesting selection of meals, great atmosphere and great service.

Steak house was OK. I for some reason had grown tired of steaks, so I kept ordering different dishes in different places, but in steak house I had to go for a steak. As I’ve said, the steak was OK. I’ve had better, but it wasn’t bad.

And for our last night we went to a place called Krystal — a fusion of different cuisines. Another great place. Delicious food. I ordered bass and I loved it — this never happens. The atmosphere was really nice, you get greeted with champagne and friendly, funny servers.

Out of 5 restaurants I’d love to go to Krystal and Tío Pepe (Spanish cuisine) again and would stay away from Brazilian Rodizio.

Chichen Itza

On Wednesday we a took a tour to Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza it an ancient city built by Mayans.

The price of a ticket for one person was about $99 and the private tour for 5 people was $348 + tickets². The choice was obvious. We had a van all to ourselves with a driver and guide. Our guide was really mediocre and boring, but he showed us the right spots.

It was interesting to see the Mayan pyramid with our own eyes and the rest of the ruins of their city. They were a bloodthirsty and brutal civilization and a lot of their art and architecture depicts it.

Later on we drove to a swimming well. It seems to be a round deep crater filled with water, and you can swim in it. The distance from the top to the water is 75 feet and from than there is another 150 to the bottom.

Sadly I managed to catch a cold a day before and by this time I had a fever of 38°, so papa ended up the only one going to swim. He said the water was not nearly as cold as he expected, it was very clean and there was a lot of fish swimming in there.

Overall

All in all it turned out to be a great vacation. It’s nice to sometimes have no agenda at all and just do a lot of nothing on a beautiful resort on the shore of a Caribbean Sea with family.

Last Saturday we had a delicious dinner in a little Chinese restaurant which is located in Williamsburg. It was our second visit to the Red Bowl, and, just as the first time, we had a great experience.

We know David, the owner of the restaurant, for a while now. He used to work as a waiter in Wasabi sushi restaurant in Bensonhurst. Maruks, being sushi lovers as they are, developed a very friendly relationship with David, so when he opened up his own place, he notified them, and they took us with them one day.

The food in the Red Bowl is really good, and the prices are moderate. What I especially like though, is the warm atmosphere of the place. David treats us as special guests, always shares good alcohol with us, and gives discounts. This time we tried some sparkling sake from little pink bottles — I must say that was a real treat!

And if you want to know where the name of the restaurant comes from — just visit its bathroom.

P.S. Too bad that the battery in Maruk’s camera died and we weren’t able to take a picture of David.