Walking into this intimate lower east side restaurant, I was immediately entranced by the festive salsa music. Yerba Buena is perfect for a Saturday night date or a fun night out with your girlfriends.
Yerba Buena prides itself on serving pan Latin food, a blend of Cuban, Peruvian, Argentinian and Mexican spices, which is a welcome change from the predominantly mediocre Mexican restaurants in NYC. Yerba Buena's cocktail list offers Pervian classics like Pisco Sour, but if you are boring like me, they are happy to make you a good old fashioned margarita. The bartender, to my delight, takes pride in the presentation of each drink and pours with a heavy hand.
The maitre di, Giovanny, pays close attention to his patrons, ensuring that each diner is satisfied with their experience. The service was attentive and the courses were well paced. The waiter allowed us to linger at our table after we had paid (on a Saturday night), without trying to rush us out the door.
Because there was four of us, we ordered about half of the dishes on the menu, sharing appetizers and desserts family style. Every dish, literally, every one of them, was delicious.
What to eat:
Anything. I find at Yerba Buena, you can't go wrong. But since that's not very helpful, here is a cheat sheet of some of my favorites:
The Arepa. This appetizer is a bbq style pulled short rib, topped with slaw on a pillowy bun. Even if you plan on ordering the short rib entree (hint: order the short rib entree), I would still recommend this dish because the dishes have different sauces and are prepared differently.
The Miso Glazed Black Cod. This is just as good as Nobu's black cod, if not better. This buttery piece of fish is glazed in miso and sits on top of a bed of mushrooms and choclo corn (choclo corn is like corn on steroids, the kernels are much larger and have a slightly different taste than regular corn).
The Braised Beef Short Ribs. The tender short ribs are slow cooked in a mate sauce and then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. Like any good short rib, the piece of meat is fatty, which makes the short rib flavorful. The short ribs are placed on top of a large mound of crispy shoe string fries.
The paella at Yerba Buena, filled with a generous portion of shrimp, calamari, crawfish and clams, is always a solid choice too.
SAVE ROOM FOR DESSERT!
The churros were soft and crispy, accompanied by a dulche de leche dipping sauce and a thick, Mexican spiced chocolate sauce. The order came with at least 4 churros, making this an easy dessert to share with a group (or hoard for yourself, as I prefer to do when possible).
My other favorite dessert at Yerba Buena is the Mexican spiced chocolate cake with chocolate chip ice cream. The gooey chocolate center melts in your mouth and the chocolate chip ice cream has just the slightest hint of mint. Yerba Buena's Mexican spices in the chocolate cake make Yerba Buena's molten chocolate cake stand out from all of the other plane Jane chocolate molten cakes in NYC.
Insider tip: this restaurant regularly participates in NYC Restaurant Week, which is going on right now! The NYC Restaurant Week menu can be accessed here: http://www.ybnyc.com/media/restaurantweek.pdf
Also, Yerba Buena only accepts cash or AMEX.
In need of a pick me up? This is my go to spot,
Your foodie friend
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