Cafeteria

119 7th Ave.  New York, NY
www.cafeteriagroup.com

Price: $$$
Favorite Dish: Warm fallen chocolate cake (whoops)

On Friday night, I went out for a fun little dinner with Arleigh, Sara, and Frankie. We decided we'd try and aim for a place on my restaurant bucket list so that we can keep that moving. We ended up going to Cafeteria, a place I have been before, but solely for dessert. Cafeteria is a super trendy spot, and has indoor and outdoor seating. Since they don't take reservations, and the restaurant is super busy on a Friday night, we found ourselves waiting for a table for quite a while. However, it was a really pleasing and enjoyable environment for a night out with friends.

Here's what we got:

At the beginning of the meal we were given a basket of warm biscuits and butter (Sara's favorite!!!!!) They were actually really good and I enjoyed having something other than bread for a change of pace.

Arleigh and I both got the grilled peach salad, with prosciutto, arugula, aged goat cheese, and a shallot wine vinaigrette. Although I ordered my salad without prosciutto, it was still really good. The only thing was that the goat cheese tasted a little funky to me. Even though goat cheese is usually my favorite type of cheese, I ended up eating around it. The peach tasted great, and was really a good combination with the dressing and the arugula.

For my entree, I ordered the appetizer portion of the baja fish tacos. These were served with grilled Mahi Mahi, Salsa Fresca, crispy tortilla topping, and a Serano Salsa Verde. I loved the tacos. They were really tasty, and I am not usually much of a fish person. The salsa verde had a nice zing and was great on top of the taco.

Frankie got the appetizer portion of the old school meatballs. The meatballs were topped with a roasted tomato sauce and were served alongside grilled rustic bread. I was contemplating ordering these since they sounded so good, and they definitely looked that good too.

Sara got the Cafeteria burger, which came with tomatoes, red onion, and field greens, a pickle, and french fries. 

Arleigh decided to channel her inner southern side and ordered the fried chicken and waffles.  It was buttermilk fried chicken, with crispy sage, grilled lemon, and came with a chili butter sauce. 

Ready to dive in!

 Cafeteria has an extensive dessert menu, and Arleigh even said that it may have the best dessert selection at a restaurant that she's ever seen. We had trouble agreeing on a few desserts to share, but we finally were able to narrow it down.

We ordered the warm fallen chocolate cake, served with a passion fruit drizzle, and topped with vanilla bean ice cream. I was expecting the cake to be a little bit larger, but regardless of the size it was so good. The cake was warm and moist, and not overwhelmingly chocolatey. The little bit of passion fruit sauce was actually a surprisingly nice touch. Everyone likes a good chocolate cake, right?

For our other dessert, we agreed on the red velvet cake in a jar. The cake was topped with a cream cheese frosting and chocolate pearls. The cake tasted good, but wasn't super moist. It wasn't the best red velvet we had ever tasted, but it wasn't bad. I also don't tend to like cream cheese frosting very often, but this one actually was not half bad. All in all, this one wasn't our favorite dessert.

Although our meal had a few flaws, it mostly was pretty good. I would like to come back to try some of the other things on their extensively long dinner menu, and of course, their dessert menu (aka, I'm coming for the Cafeteria waffle banana split.) The crowd at Cafeteria is very hip, and the wait staff are very friendly and willing to engage in conversation. It was a fun evening, and I would definitely give Cafeteria another try in the near future.

XOXO,
Danielle