Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.
When you call a dish the “adult version” of something, it seems to me you’re implying that either the flavor combinations are so sophisticated that it takes a developed and mature palette to truly experience the nuances, the dish contains alcohol, or it’s pornographic. And I’m afraid to say that the grilled cheese sandwich at The Commodore, which is called the Adult Cheese is none of those.
This sandwich has been touted as the best new grilled cheese in the city by many publications including Time Out. But the things that make it stand-out from your typical grilled diner sandwich didn’t really make me feel very adult. If anything, I felt like I was eating junk food which is something I really only loved to do when I was a kid.
The Commodore feels more like a bowling alley than a bar or restaurant. Everybody who walks through the door for the first time looks around trying to figure out what to do. Do you go to the bar? Seat yourself at a table? Turn around and run from the crowd of hipsters? The lighting and walls are very dark and blue and this would not be a place in which I would immediately want to order food. We finally figured out that you order at the bar, take a number, and grab a table if you can find one. And then you wait. And wait. And wait.
It must have been about 35 minutes before we finally got our grilled cheese and the Hot Chicken Breast sandwich, which tasted like more junk food, but with tender meat and serious, if slightly overpowering hot sauce.
The Adult Cheese is an artery-clogging mess of dairy products. Each bite of the crisp buttery sandwich drips out revealing a concoction that more resembles cheese soup or dip than actual cheese. It’s a mixture of white cheddar, pimento (a Southern delicacy that is now corrupting NYC), cream cheese, mayonnaise, and poblano peppers. It’s as gooey as it gets with creamy, buttery flavors and is really over the top. The flavors were good, but there was a bit of sourness that I didn’t love and the poblanos didn’t add the expected heat. And I could only handle a few bites before my stomach cried out for help. And my hands needed some wiping off.
So I’m still not sure why this is called the Adult Cheese. Perhaps because of the semi-spicy poblanos? Ironically, I felt like the oldest person in The Commodore and I was probably enjoying the sandwich the least. I think a more appropriate name for this would be the Just Graduated College Cheese Sandwich because it seemed like that was the clientele here and might be something I would have enjoyed back then. I don’t have the patience or the desire to deal with this immature, crowded environment to get a taste of something that isn’t much tastier than a jar of Velvetta. If this is what it means to be an adult, I never want to grow up.
Would The Commodore’s Adult Cheese make my Top 100 of the year? It was just too much for me so even though the cheese was gooey and the bread unbelievably crisp and buttery, I can’t give it more than a 5 out of 10
| THE COMMODORE |
| 366 Metropolitan Avenue (at Havemeyer Street) Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718) 218-7632 |
They have a magic hour, or specific times to go that are slow, I ate here every day but had to stop after I gained a little weight. This place really is a greasy spoon but you still crave it once you’ve had it, the way I crave McDonald’s or Korean BBQ and kimchi. The green salad is out of this world but don’t eat it if you care how your breath smells. The “hot breast” comes in spicy and not, if you don’t happen to enjoy spicy food. The frozen mojito’s are… Perfect, the back patio has mo smoking signs but I ignore them, the chef’s fried chicken made pies and thighs popular until he took his talent to commodore. The music and random movies on the tv screen… Cute hipster boys with beards that are too young for me, and the rock and roll music;) is entertaining and when it’s packed and the music’s good, people dance like it’s still “Black Betty” (the former bar where hipsters and longtime residents would grind the night away back when they trusted their rent was stable…. I’m 35 but if the music’s right on and the bathroom Lin isn’t too long I get a rum punch and dance with some strange. I still go back to Williamsburg for the adult cheese …the name makes me laugh because it sounds like another name for shmegma, but it tastes good.