B”H
Lunch at Gotham Burger
726 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10025 – (212) 335-0005
Last year my class learned about child labor laws and the reforms this country made to protect kids from working too many hours and making sure we go to school. My mom is really into teaching our family that injustices again kids are still happening all over the world today. That said, I could not wait to get a job and make money to support my sushi cravings and outings with friends to restaurants. I am lucky to have gotten a job working at a summer camp. I made friends with some of the counselors and had a great time working with the cute little kids, including my little brother Gavi. Last year, Esther was an assistant in Gavi’s camp bunk, so even she knows a little about the responsibility of working.
One exhausting day, when the work at camp seemed to never end, I was feeling super hungry and none of the camp food was going to satisfy me. Feeling brave, I approached two eighteen year old girls who were also counselors in the camp. Secretly I was pretty nervous; you know they were much older than me, and maybe they didn’t want to be seen with a thirteen year old. I mean how would I know, I’ve never been eighteen. So I asked them if they wanted to go to Gotham Burger with me after work! …and they said, “Sure!” My heart was racing. I was so happy.
So after work, the three us headed over to Gotham Burger. My little brother, Gavi was with us. One of the other counselors gave him a piggy-back ride; he was having a great time. When we got into the restaurant, it looked really cool. It was decorated blue and with bricks as well. There were large windows in the front of the restaurant and a long couch on one side. Later we saw a big room in the back by the kitchen. It was a bit loud because aside from having the radio on very loudly there were about six televisions on. That wasn’t the best for schmoozing, or eating, really.
At that time in the afternoon, it wasn’t crowded at all, just us and a couple. We took a large window table and were immediately given menus. But then, to our unhappy surprise, we had to wait about fifteen minutes for someone to come take our order! Ok, we found things to talk about while we waited, but one of my new friends was in a hurry to get to a meeting and had to leave within the hour. So once we ordered, we asked if we could have our checks right away please because we were in a hurry.
Although we were told that our food would come right away, it took about twenty minutes to come! We think Gotham needs to run some drills and work on their timing. However, the time passed quickly, because my little brother was just being so adorable! He was at first staring at the door looking for our food to come through the front entrance. When we showed him the kitchen, he just stared at the kitchen until he fell right asleep on his chair and started snoring!
We ordered in a way many young people on a budget do: lots of things we could all sample and share, not just one main course per person. This way of ordering lots of food for the whole table is more like how we eat at home with a platter everyone can take from.
We ordered deep-fried chicken wings (which were very good) and also got a combo meal of a Gotham burger, with french fries and a large fountain soda. We also ordered an extra order of fries to go around the table. Why? Because kids LOVE fries 🙂 . The burger was amazing! It was served with a small amount of lettuce and tomatoes a perfect bun. The fries on the other hand were a big disappointment! One of the batches came so burned we couldn’t even chew them the other was extremely soggy with oil. This is the first time we have had to give a negative french fry review; sorry Gotham Burger!
We also ordered the Gotham hot apple fritter and the fried trios. The apple fritter was the best I think I have ever had. It tasted fresh, moist, and sweet, with just the right amount of crumble. But when the fried trios arrived, we told the waiter that we didn’t order any fritters not realizing that they were our fried trios. They had no sweet smell, just a fried fatty smell. The inside was not at all appetizing, and we ended up throwing them out…another Gotham disappointment.
We had an amazing time hanging out at Gotham Burger because it’s not all about the food, it’s the friends. Most of the food was delicious, and the service, when they got around to helping us, was good. I got to hang out with two great new friends, and Gavi got to take a good, long nap!
Gotham burger is a lovely place for a lunch or maybe dinner. And so saying, I put the sleeping Gavi onto my shoulders and prepared to carry him home.
(Sorry that there are no pictures on this Kosher Tweens Blog post. it was not a scheduled event.)
PS We want to publicly thank Levana Kirschenbaum, famous chef and author, who has been reading our blog and posting links about us on her very popular blog (link here). She liked our review of Grill 212 so much, she took us there for lunch. She reviewed the restaurant, too (raving review actually), so we learned from her a lot about what to look for, how to order, and how to get along in a restaurant when going, ahem, specifically for the purpose of writing a review. Thank you so much Levana! Esther and I had a really great time with you.
Levana Kirschenbaum’s blog site – http://www.levanacooks.com/blog/
Kosher Tweens 