Where Not To Eat

While cleaning my apartment I found a crumpled take out menu for Asian 289, a restaurant in the West Village that me and Stamps had stumbled into to escape the cold and grab a drink ages ago.  The restaurant was memorably strange.  It was dimly lit and packed with diners.  We took a seat next to a cooly detached hipster couple at the bar, surveyed the drink menu and were drawn to the extensive list of $5 cocktails.  I sipped my budget Bellini and took in the atmosphere which was - very odd.  It was like an Italian cafe with a bunch of Japanese lanterns hanging from the ceiling as well as other various Asian tchotchkes.  I picked up the take out menu and it all became clear - this used to be an Italian restaurant!!

(formerly Cucina Stagionale!)

The menu was a schizophrenic mess!  For the appetizer course, selections include miso soup, chicken satay, vegetable samosas, mozzarella sticks and Buffalo chicken wings!  The pasta section features several popular Italian selections like meat lasagna and penne alla vodka but also list pad thai!  Finally, in the "chicken, meat, vegetables" section, the options include chicken marsala, chicken curry, Thai chicken and Korean chicken or beef!  I'm thinking the chances of this place nailing any one of these dishes are slim to none.  There are restaurants that successfully combine Italian and Asian flavors such as Basta Pasta and Greenwich Grill, but from the looks of the anemic looking plates on the tables this was not one of those places.  Me and Stamps finished our drinks and got up to leave just as the hipster couple stopped ignoring each other and suddenly started kissing with an abnormal amount of tongue and spit - gross.  Asian 289 - a good place for a cheap drink and that's about it.