Centrico

For NYC Restaurant Week, I went to lunch at Fig & Olive with my sister and my best friend, then later we met Ken for dinner at Centrico.  (In between we went to Chelsea Market.  I was hoping to see some Food Network people since they work upstairs and shop down there, but sadly we didn't see anyone.)

If you watch Food Network, you may have heard of Aaron Sanchez.  Centrico is his restaurant.  I believe it is categorized as Mexican.  I'm not a restaurant reviewer, so I'm just going to share some pictures, along with the description from the menu, and my brief opinion.  (I know nothing about Spanish so excuse any capitalization/spelling/etc errors.)

Appetizers:

Camarones y Pozole - sauteed shrimp, creamy guajillo chile sauce, pozole  (Ken)

Tamal de Huitlacoche - masa flavored with corn truffles, saffrom-aji amarillo sauce  (Deanna)

Ceviche del Dia - shrimp ceviche  (Me and Andrea)

The plantain chips were delicious!  There were some other kinds mixed in there, but I'm not sure what they were.

Entrees:

Pollo a las Brasas - grilled recado chicken, roasted garlic, lime and chipotle  (Me and Deanna)

Birria en Estilo Jalisco - braised short ribs jalisco style, ancho chile broth  (Ken)

This also came with a little salsa-like thing (it looked like cucumber) and small white tortillas (they're in the little basket at the top of the photo) to make little tacos.

Pescado Veracruzana - pan roasted market fish (she chose tuna), tomato, olives, serrano chiles   (Andrea)

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of this one.

Dessert:

Molten Mexican Chocolate Cake  (me and Deanna)

There was nothing overtly Mexican about it, but it was chocolatey!

Flan de Coco  (Andrea and Ken)

Andrea is unfortunately allergic to mango.  There was not a mention of mango on the entire menu, but it arrived on top of the flan.  She obviously sent it back, but the guy did not seem to understand that she is allergic, not just didn't want the mango.  She got a plain one though, so it all worked out!

Overall, the food was delicious, the service... not so much.  We were there around 5:30 which is before the dinner rush, and as soon as 1/3 of the tables in the restaurant were full, they completely forgot about us and we had to wait (I'm estimating) 20 minutes for our dessert.  (Later when we missed our train by literally seconds we were extra pissed about this.)  But as I said, the food was good.  For me personally, it wasn't a favorite, because I like vegetables and there were pretty much none in sight, but what was in front of me was yummy.