[Pigging by Wilfrid: May 11, 2015]
Opening a new bar or restaurant in New York can be a slow, drawn-out process. It was nearly two years ago that people connected with Roberta's and Momo Sushi Shack were reported to be planning a sandwich restaurant in the closing Mazelle space, with the working name "Hi Hello."
Perhaps it's a pity they didn't change the unsearchable name in the mean-time, but Hi Hello finally debuted a few weeks back. Not sure what took so long, because it's still a fairly small, comfortable, one-room bar. You can sit at the bar or at a counter facing the windows, and there are a few tables. And indeed, it's all about sandwiches.
There's a list of seven running from $5 to $14 (plus soup, salad, fries and a tortilla, $4 each). Your choice of sandwich does include one of those four side items (I suspect, although the menu isn't clear, that may not be the case for the cheapest sandwiches).
That's a fairly priced food menu, but the beer menu is compensatingly silly. You can order drafts in two measures, 10 or 20 ounces (obviously smaller and larger, respectively, than the standard pub pint). The 10 ounce pours are priced at $5 to $8, the same you'd pay for a full pint elsewhere in the immediate neighborhood, so that's not good value.
As for the food, I did not know the Icelandic hot dog was a thing, but apparently they're all the rage in Reykjavik, made mainly from lamb rather than pork or beef. What qualifies the Hi Hello offering as Icelandic seems, from my research, to be the deployment of a caper remoulade. The sausage itself is duck-based, and the whole shebang comes on a Martin's roll.
And it's a very good hot dog indeed, meaty, snappy, well-proportioned. A steal at $5.
I also tried the roast beef sandwich, slices of cold roast tenderloin thickly layered on what seemed to be ciabatta, with goat cheese, and the unusual accent of kim chee. It's a hefty bite, and all but concealed a large serving of fries in the basket. The fries were okay--could have been warmer. Thirteen bucks.
There's a burger, as well as pan con tomate--which counter-intuitively features ham--and several other choices. Very useable if you happen to be in the neighborhood and don't want to fight for a full meal at Northeast Kingdom or the already slammed Faro.
Comments