Lingo — Restaurant in New York

Edit as I can't reply to owner: I just want you to know that we were not offered anything at all at the end of our meal. I was trying to order a dessert at the end because you have one of my favorite British desserts (sticky toffee pudding) but was told only one item did not have egg (the grape ice cream) but at no point was it offered in lieu of your lovely birthday treats being passed around. I do want to let you know that a few things felt a bit exasperating, but I gave the benefit of the doubt each time - when seated, we were given the far corner table away from everyone else, but we thought - oh maybe they're trying to give us privacy. Then when we weren't offered anything for the special occasion I thought to myself, oh it's probably the egg but they could have at least acknowledged me or taken my mocktail off the bill. And then when we saw the coat rack we thought, oh maybe it was full when we came in. But at some point you just realize that the communication is either really poor, or a second thought. If given a choice, I would have picked a different empty table of which there were many. And if offered a celebratory treat I would have appreciated it because Christmas adjacent birthdays are absolutely the worst 😓 and people hate having their coat collect dust on the floor. The food is good but the service really needs a little improvement and consistency. I'm disappointed that whoever told you that we were offered something was not telling the truth.

I REALLY wanted to like this place.

I'm going to smack whichever Instagram influencer beguiled me enough to spend my birthday dinner here. I knew immediately when I walked inside and felt overdressed that I probably picked the wrong restaurant for my special occasion. The food is fairly interactive - bone marrow has steak tartar that you assemble with nori which was such an interesting twist on a bone marrow dish. Beef curry pie has a smoldering rosemary stem coming out of a piece of bone marrow but the curry was very one note. The mushroom rice was very unsalted so you missed out on all the great mushroom flavors. Food was good but for the price point it's just not quite good enough.

For a low key meal this will probably meet expectations, but for the prices here I thought it would be a little more refined, interesting on the palate and proudly served. One very hard working server was taking care of the entire seating area to the best of his ability but there was no sparkling conversation or personalized attentiveness. I think I just set my expectations too high because of all the online accolades. Lighting is very dim so not super great for photos or big energy.

Not only did I watch 4 other ppl get birthday desserts while we were passed up tonight (the special occasion and allergy instructions never made it to the server I'm guessing) but on my way out we see a coat rack and on the coldest night of the year having many layers on we were not offered to have our coats hung up when we walked in. So for a birthday dinner I ended up feeling like I got subpar service, a missed birthday treat (could have gone elsewhere) and an expensive but mediocre meal. Maybe if I just came in for a regular dinner without all the hype I would have been less disappointed. Will not be back though. For half the money you can get better...

I really wanted to love this place but it was a miss in my books. The two things I did REALLY enjoy were the Smoked Tamago Sandwich - the smokiness in the egg salad was a nice touch along with the salmon roe on top and The Beef Pie was full of flavor and the beef cooked to perfection. Soba-Cha madeleines were also good but barely tasted any Soba-Cha flavor (I also didn’t have it fresh so maybe that was a factor).

I love uni and chawanmushi so of course I had to order the prawn chawanmushi and add uni to it. The uni itself had that fishy/fish market after taste and the chawanmushi didnt have much umami flavor. I truly love the concept of the dish but it seems the execution was not there for me.

The milk bread was okay in my opinion, dont get me wrong it was good bread but there wasn’t much of a wow factor there. (If anyone is wondering how “wow” milk bread can be, the milk bread at The Peak in Hudson Yards was SOOO good that I wanted to order an extra one.)

The spicy fried chicken seemed to be a popular item but all the flavor was in the skin and that was also on the lighter side. There wasn’t any flavor in the chicken. The skin itself was very crispy so props on that but once the skin separates from the chicken and eating the chicken alone, it was pretty bland.

Branzino itself was OK, the sauce that the fish was cooked in was good and that elevated the dish.

Not sure if I went on an off day or maybe I ordered the wrong dishes but everyone else around me seemed satisfied. Their brunch menu does look intriguing and I originally wanted to come to try the brunch menu but after my dinner experience I’m a bit unsure if its worth the commute...

The space is pretty, and the service is great. The food is Japanese fusion, and I thought the idea was kind of interesting, but the execution less so.

The cocktail I got was probably the best example of fusion cuisine, using a Japanese whisky, Japanese flavors, and a scotch floater. It was surprisingly more savory than I expected, but I thought it was worth the experience.

The maitake tempura and duck confit udon were also interesting, but I’m not sure I would get them again. The tempura batter was a little heavy; it was definitely still lighter than a Southern deep fry, but the taste of the batter overwhelmed the flavor of the maitake. The duck confit udon was fine, but not so unique compared to random udon shops in the city that I would pay that price. The fusion seemed relegated to just having duck confit as a component, since I couldn’t really tell if anything else in the udon used duck (or if anything in the duck used Japanese ingredients).

Also, this is the most minor thing, but the udon was served in a what looked like a Western pasta bowl significantly wider/flatter than usual soup noodle bowls, and without a soup spoon. It was still usable, but I feel like the awkwardness of trying to eat udon with a fork and dinner spoon out of a flattish bowl kind of captured the vibes of the food in general. Thank goodness the bartender let me know they had (disposable) chopsticks, which I swapped in for the fork.

I think the concept at Lingo is pretty interesting. And while nothing was bad, New York and Greenpoint have so many great options that this place doesn’t really stand out, for...