Kevin K.
Yelp
I am not a fan of the color pink - not so much the actual color but the sexist connotations associated with the color. Not sure how to enforce gender roles in something as innocuous as toys? Slap some pink on it, and never mind any creativity in its design. This dis-taste of pink does not automatically extend to people named "pink" (Pink makes some decent music), or things that are pink (Pepto Bismol is a godsend when your stomach is feeling queasy, and indoor insulation foam is decently a good thing). Hell, I don't exactly dislike businesses with the name Pink (Thomas Pink makes some decent dress shirts).
However, if your establishment is called Pink Forest and served me inferior wares, well, I get to go to town on you.
See, I am okay with cafes serving food. All I ask is that they do a good job of it - There are 2 decent French bakeries in Forest Hills, one with a decent barista. There's a decent Greek bakery (Martha's). There's also a good Vietnamese bakery/cafe in the area (Violet's) that can make you one of their devastating iced coffees and a crispy banh mi sandwich (you know, a Saigon spuckie). If you are going to serve a banh mi, you need the right ingredients (thin layer of mayonnaise on the baguette, a layer of pate, quite a bit of cilantro, Vietnamese pork roll, ham, cucumbers, usually a small bit of pickled radishes and carrots, and seasoned with a dash of Maggi sauce and Sriracha sauce)...so why did the estabishment serve me something that is not quite a banh mi? I was already suspicious when they asked me whether it should be one with ham or chicken - eh...isn't Banh mi the one with pate and pork roll by default?
The result was very disappointing. It had luncheon meat, way too much lettuce (which should not be there in the first place), way too much pickles (which tastes like the Chinese ones, and not the Vietnamese ones), no pork roll, no pate, and inundated with diluted Miracle whip. It was both bland and unpleasant. It was also $8.00, more than the version across the street at Violet's. Well, maybe they are just lousy at making Vietnamese sandwiches. That's funny, there are Mexican chefs all over NYC restaurant kitchens doing all sorts of cuisines, and they generally do well, but for the sake of argument let's try to pin ethnic culinary prowess upon the ethnicity of the chef. Maybe it I order something Northern Chinese (like a jianbing), they will do a fairer job of it.
In case you are not familiar with jianbing, it's a crepe made by streetside vendors that contains a wheat based flour, an egg, thinly sliced cucumbers, julienned scallions, cilantro and a generous slathering of hoisin sauce. If you ever run into a good version as served on the streets of Beijing, it's crispy, savory, and features both an oily element, a savory element and an grassy element from the herbs. If you are familiar with an okonomiyaki, think along those lines, but minus the meat and fried cabbages. Uh, yeah. Someone should clue these guys in, because what my wife gotten was not quite a jianbing either. It was mushy, bland and slapped with lettuce. Not enough hoisin, and tasted washed out. Considering that it was $6.50 it was not good bang for the buck either.
*Ugh*. No. Just no. There are much better places to get coffee and eats in FH, and frankly, if you look at their website, you have a sneaking suspicion that they are more interested in peddling drawings than selling you something to eat or drink. Honestly, I am not really interested in that either.
