Review: Superfine

When I first got to Superfine (126 Front St. in DUMBO), the friends I was meeting weren’t there yet. Peeking through the glass doors I saw a place that looked like how Cosi’s original designers probably wished for it to look – exposed brick, sprawling couches, multi-leveled seating, interesting hanging lamps, attractive well-dressed clientele. Since there were no mini-smores ovens to make me feel at home, I opted to wait across the street in the bookstore.

When my friends got there, we got a table right near the swank orange-felted pool table, overlooking the swank sunken bar.

Wordlessly, a waitress came over and propped up a big menu board next to our table. On the recommendation of one of my dining-mates, I got the pork chops with carmelized onion mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini. My friends got spaghettini, pizza, and pizza, respectively. Prices were in the 12-18 range for most entrees and sizable appetizers.

When it came time to order drinks, I wasn’t super impressed. The only mildly interesting beer selections they had (unless you are especially into Bass, Harp, Guiness, Yuengling, etc.) were Circus Boy and Coney Island Lager. The Lager was good and cold and crisp, though, and no offense to anyone, but more delicious than Brooklyn Lager. This seems like the kind of place that might have a good mixed drink specialty, but after a hard day of blogging I wanted a brewskie and didn’t ask… but if you find out about one, let me know!

Anyway, though I was enjoying my lovely company, the food took forever to come. And it wasn’t until we were sitting there for like 40 minutes that someone was like, can we get some bread? Because apparently they give that stuff complimentarily. To be fair, we had an off-duty waitress sitting with us so maybe our server was confused about what was and wasn’t going to happen at our table… but the bread was crusty and tasted like it was from a good bakery, and the greenish olive oil that accompanied it was ripely excellent.

So, into my second beer the dinner arrives. I like pork chops, and whenever I go to al di la I never get them, even though my boyfriend does and they taste like heaven and I always want them. So I thought I’d preempt that issue by getting them here.

The first bite was that little medallion just inside the curve of the bone (sorry if I’m making any veggies out there nauseous, but precision is important!) and it was tender and delicious. The rest of the chop was, unfortunately, a bit tougher. The outside was grilled and charred nicely, but the pressure I had to exert on the serrated knife they’d given me meant that the meat was way too tough, the knife too dull, or both. The mashed potatoes tasted good. But not spectacular. The onions had gotten held up somewhere along their way to carmelized, and were lending a respectable initial flavor, but unfortunately not the full sweet, nutty goodness I knew they could offer. The zucchini was pretty good, as it is a delicious vegetable, though the heat could have been higher to increase the char-to-firmzucchiniflesh-factor.

I know that on the whole this sounds negative, but it was a very pleasant night with a great atmosphere and people raving about their dishes… since it’s that sickly change-of-season time I didn’t try anything else, but word of mouth has it that the pizzas and burgers are excellent. This is a good place to relax the evening away – the staff never rushed us and were generous on the drinks.

I’d give it another go, because a nighttime walk through DUMBO’s cobblestone streets, overlooking the water, can be a great dessert to even a less-than-stellar meal.

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