“I expected to be disappointed in one, and I was. The other one I expected to like, and was disappointed in that one, too. Oh wait, is this the part where I’m supposed to be nice?”

That was the kind of feisty, go-for-the-jugular attitude evidenced in our three Grub Match contenders before the match had even begun. Monisha, Marie and Roger had gathered to defend the honor of their own restaurant picks and discuss the merits and shortcomings of the other contenders’ choices. The sun was hot. The beer was cold. They looked ready to rumble.

Let’s get this match started….

Round 1: Yerba Buena, Monisha’s Pick

Encouraged to play nice (at least at first), Roger and Marie praised the cocktails on offer at Yerba Buena, particularly the Poquito Picante, a spicy-tangy-sweet concoction that even got a reluctant “exceptional” rating from Roger. They also pointed to some unusual flavor combinations that worked well, like the watermelon and avocado fries and the chipotle peppers mixed into the guacamole.

But they weren’t entirely won over. “For happy hour, sure,” Marie said. “But I probably wouldn’t make it a regular place.”

“I’m just not attracted to the CK1 white leather West Village vibe,” Roger explained. “If my friends from out of town wanted to go out in the Village and have fun drinks and Sex and the City was my favorite TV show, then I would send them there.”

After a brief discussion of the different emotions that white leather evoked, Roger summed up his experience at Yerba Buena this way: “Look, all obnoxious jibes aside, it’s certainly far from egregious—it’s merely inadequate.”

Ouch. Must be time for…

Round 2: Taverna Kyclades, Marie’s Pick

Monisha noted that there was nothing small about Taverna Kyclades in Astoria, Queens, either in popularity (“It was overflowing with people”) or value (“We probably could have fed six people with the amount of food we ordered”). And Roger mentioned that there were some stand-outs for him, like the sardines and the potatoes: “The lemon potatoes were something that were unusual and good, a flavor you don’t encounter a lot—they tasted like a homespun classic dish.”

But again, they had some bones to pick. “The calamari was very bland, I thought,” Monisha said, and Roger went a step further, saying the food was under-salted to a shocking degree. He also took umbrage at the freshness of the food: “I’ve cooked and eaten a lot of octopus, but I’ve never eaten two-day-old octopus…it was mealy and barely lukewarm.”

Monisha pointed out that there was even a downside to the sizable portions: “We waited forever and then everything, whether it was a drink or an appetizer or an entrée arrived at once, and we were surrounded by twelve huge plates. They brought another table over just to hold all of it. I mean there were twenty-five people waiting outside and we had a whole table for our sides…it was incredibly embarrassing. I feel like someone should have told us that it was too much for two people.”

Marie fought back, saying that Kyclades really shines as a place for a big group of people to eat together. “You gotta go with a group and do family-style and try lots of different things,” Marie said.

“There are so many moving parts to a restaurant,” Roger admitted. “To try to judge it after a single visit…it’s a flawed experiment.”

Hold on, Roger, are you throwing punches at me now, too? Ding-ding. Time for…

Round 3: Saint Anselm, Roger’s Pick

Monisha was a fan of the bold flavors at Saint Anselm. “I had the patty melt, which was amazing. [My husband] had the butcher steak, also amazing,” she said, adding, about their signature fried mashed potato dish, “Anything that’s mashed with cream and truffle oil—it’s hard to go wrong.”

Marie found the food too heavy and salty (“Even our dessert had salt in it…the next morning I was so thirsty”), but admitted that the dining experience had some unexpected highs. “The prices were really good. What would have been a thirty or thirty-five dollar steak somewhere else was fifteen dollars,” she said. “And they had interesting sides like stinging nettles. I love nettles!”

Then all three of the contenders discussed the potential downside of Saint Anselm taking on a certain Williamsburg je ne sais quoi and belonging to a category of restaurant that Roger described as “nouveau Brooklyn revolution douchebag restaurants.” There is no reservation policy, and Monisha had been told at 5:45 on a Friday that she would have to wait at least two hours. “I felt a little bit like I was being given the privilege to eat there. It annoyed me,” she admitted. And Marie pointed out that the wine list, while full of interesting choices, was poorly organized and impossible to navigate.

Roger agreed that these were valid critiques, but insisted that it didn’t change the bottom line: “It’s an open kitchen and you can see real people making real food. They’re doing good work and they’re not ripping you off. So I find it harder and harder to dislike this place…I don’t want to go there, but I do.”

The Results

After a complex round of voting that was really too difficult for anyone under the influence of two beers to manage, the results were in:

Best Boisterous Family-Style Meal: Taverna Kyclades

Best Place to Sip a Sexy Cocktail: Yerba Buena

But the first Grub Match All-Around Best in Show goes to…Saint Anselm! Yes, Roger, that means you can stop scowling.

Think you’ve got what it takes to step into the Grub Match ring? Contact us at submissions@pitchknives.com.