Choice Kitchen & Cocktails

THEY CLOSED! WHY???
RIP Choice. :o (

What a waste. Came here with a buddy tonight for dinner because we wanted to try out somewhere new on 3^rd Avenue. With something as enticing as $ 3 happy hour beers all night long, it seemed like a solid enough place…
…well, at least until we started being served (or what passed for service) and the food. We decided to sit outside, and we had to go inside and get a waitress to come and take our order. The beer was terrible… I haven’t the faintest idea how you screw up beer from the tap, but the Stella tasted like freakin’ Coors Light, and the Guinness was flat and lacked any real sense of that deep, rich flavor it has. The nachos sucked; no other way to put it. The cheese was already hardened by the time we got it, and there was barely any guacamole or salsa on it. The main entrée was the most passable; the penne a la vodka was a big portion that justified the $ 16 price, even if the sauce was merely average (it wasn’t as creamy as regular vodka sauce). I took what I couldn’t finish home because I couldn’t stand to nurse a flat Guinness. What a crime.
Maybe we caught it on a bad night, but won’t plan on coming back here anytime soon. Good company, bad food, terrible service, and the tip reflected it.

Highlights:
Pretty good happy hour deals. $ 3 draughts, $ 5 wine, $ 6 cocktails
Pretty nice décor and good location
Cons:
The food. The Nachos included THE WORST guacamole I’ve had in years. Stay away from the nachos.
Also had a $ 16 salad that was not fresh at all! The lettuce was browning, it had practically no flavor to the dressing, and not much chicken.
Overall I was very dissasisfied with my experience there. I’ve been there in the past and thought some of the appetizers were pretty good. Maybe I just got unlucky with what I ordered so stay away from the Nachos and the Uptown Salad.

Regular American Food. My bf and i ordered delivery from them. Got a sandwich w/​fries for $ 12 bucks, fried calamari for $ 10 which is a normal price, and french onion soup for $ 6.
I’m eating this french onion soup right now and let me just say, did you guys kill the salt producers and stole all of their salt!!! i feel like im drinking soysauce. it taste good, but taste like french onion soup+ two spoonful of salt.
and it’s kinda pricey…

I met up with my cousin here for afternoon drink. She had Chardonnay and I had a Watermelon Martini. We also had the Chicken Quesadilla ($ 10 for 4 pieces). The happy hour was going on so draft was $ 3, wine $ 5 and $ 6 for martinis and cocktails. Not bad, not too crowded. Pretty chill but nothing special.

I was here for an invite only event so there were only appetizers and an open bar. The apps were very good but nothing earth shattering. I liked the marinated beef and chicken on skewers and the chicken nuggets the most. The caprese salad was flavorless, but we still have winter tomatoes so I’ll let it slide.
The staff treated all of of great and I had a wonderful time.

Went on a Saturday at 8 – 10:45 for dinner and top shelf open bar deal for 13 people and it was excellent.
First of all the place is emaculate, very clean and kind of intimate setting.
The menu has a great variety of apps to choose from all of which I tried and enjoyed. Fried Calimari, spinach dip, buffalo nuggety things, steak scewers, and more
Service was awesome. I know what it’s like to serve a group constantly wanting refills. Not to meantion a thirsty group of drunks at an open bar type deal. Our server was always on point.
I recommend this to anyone wanting a birthday/​group dinner who would also like to booze up before going out.

Solid happy hour spot.
$ 2 non-​shitty beers. Chimichurri beef skewers. Happiness.
Dunno about this place for anything else. You’re on your own for that.

Co-​hosted a (evening) bridal shower event at Choice and it went really well. It’s been nealry two years since, so I’m sure the prices (very resonable for a group of 30) and staff has changed but overall I had a good experience here. We worked with the event staff, Kate and she was thorough and very helpful during our pre-​lim plans and actual day of the party.
We had the back space of the restaurant for our event. It was private without feeling closed off from the rest of the space. The bar service and (preordered) hors d’oeuvres was plentiful (it kept on coming; we had a lot left and the staff was so friendly, gave us take-​out containers to take things to-​go, etc.). Considering it would be bar food we didn’t expect it to be filling or that good, but it was! We ordered the: chips and nachos, chicken fingers, spinach dip, veggie plate, quesadillas and chicken skewers.

Happy hour bar.
Not sure what this place is like at night, or in the morning, but as a happy hour spot, it’s pretty spot on. $ 2 drafts of stella? sweet. Tap was fine thankfully (unlike my previous experiences with cheap stella, which tasted… cheap).
Nice, quiet ambiance. Big TVs to watch the World Cup (although there’s only a few games left). The AC actually works! I was at a few different bars earlier today and I had to leave because the sweat was literally dripping from my forehead.
Bartender was pretty friendly and animated. Haven’t tried the food — from the looks of other reviews I think I should keep it that way.

Had to decide on a place to chill and eat with new friend and fellow Unilocaler, Nydia C. and good friend/​Yelper, Albert W. We decided to meet at 6:30pm. Upon arrival, I noticed that their happy hour is from 5pm to 7pm. Drafts are $ 2 and wine is $ 4/​glass.
The place is dimly lit and spacious. Perfect for small or large groups. We started off with the Beef Skewers which were very tasty and tender. The Goat Cheese Tapas didn’t really speak to me so I wasn’t quite feelin’ that dish. For my entrée, I had the Cobb salad. It was what it was supposed to be: Romaine, tomatoes, bacon bit, grilled chicken and avocado. Nydia wanted to be more adventurous and try the Goat Cheese Mushroom pizza. «Sorry, we don’t have any goat cheese.» Okay… then the Strawberry and Apple Salad, please. «Sorry, we don’t have any apples.» I saw the utter disbelief in her eyes. Seriously? On a Monday night? They DID have wraps and chicken because she ended up with the Sesame Chicken Wrap w/​fries. Albert had marinara sauce rigatoni with sausage and broccoli. I sampled the sausage and it was alright. After all said and done, we passed on dessert.
This place is nice for it’s décor and atmosphere. A good place to have drinks with friends and coworkers. The food is average. If you like wine or beer, stop in for the Happy Hour.
This place only deserves 2 ½ stars but will round up for the company that I had in this place. ;-)

Go make another choice. These aren’t the dishes you’re looking for.
Drinks: Pretty good, but beer could’ve been colder.
Goat Cheese Tapas — Absolute fail
«Fresh Goat Cheese on toasted panini points topped with baby tomatoes and served with marinated artichoke hearts.»
–They were instead served on bland toasted bagette slices and there weren’t any tomatoes at all. Artichoke wasn’t even marinated.
Chimichurri Beef Skewers — Only good dish
–Intermittent conversations between Elaine M. and Nydia C., Albert W begins to feel like a third wheel– *sad face*
Two mains were unavailable for Nydia. wtf… What kind of kitchen is your chef runing here?! No pizza (an entire category of the menu is unavailable! and no apples (for a salad)).
Rigatoni Roma (my dish)
«Rigatoni topped with Italian sausage, fresh mozzarella, sauteed spinach in a garlic marinara. Served with herb garlic bread.»
–Garlic bread was good but pasta was absolute fail. Mozzarella was nice, but instead of garlic marinara they should call it like it is — salty marinara. Plus there was no spinach, only broccoli.
The service was decent he was apologetic about the menu, however he messed up the bill; not reading the
certificate terms.
I wanted to give this place 3.5 stars for the company, but now looking at all it’s short comings and dining experience (oh and yes the bathroom could use a bit of renovation), I unfortunately have to give it a 2.

I’ve only been for Sunday brunch and can’t speak to their evening offerings, but their brunch – which is overpriced for the area – is not something I’ll shell out for again.
The extremely slow service, coupled with mediocre food (fairly bland, dry omelets dominated the table both times I visited), make this place rather ho-​hum. This neighborhood has lots of options. Want super cheap and quirky? Go to Rodeo Bar. Want delicious with a long wait? Go to Penelope. There’s a restaurant for every brunch need in Murray Hill, and this place doesn’t fit any of mine.

Brunch has taken on such a ridiculous persona now it almost doesn’t seem worth it to me. Walking up and down 3^rd ave and passing places that charge exorbinate prices to over dressed girls sitting at outside tables frequently with a yappy dog, we finally found this place that had a table and had a quite reasonable $ 15.95 for brunch plus 2 drinks.
We sat out doors where there are about 6 tables cramped together in the sidewalk outside of the place. The server was relatively attentive and got us our drinks quickly. The bloody Mary was delicious but not necessarily that strong.
I had the eggs benedict with smoked salmon on an English muffin. The eggs part with smoked salmon was great. The homefries that came with it were just ok (they also had a huge long black hair in them… which happens so I don’t hold it against em so much). The sausage that came on the side was pure fat. Really not that tasty just like chewing on chunks of fat… I just had a bite and stopped. My friend had the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon which he enjoyed.
Good price, well made drinks, and mediocre food = 3 stars.

I decided to check out Choice Kitchen and Cocktails because we had a $ 25 off coupon from
. We were seated right away and brought menu’s.
Everything on the menu sounded really delicious and there are a lot of vegetarian options as well. My boyfriend and I opted to order 4 things and split everything.
*Mushroom Goat Cheese pizza– A slightly thick crust, super cheesy, and pretty good.
*French Onion Soup– SOOOO cheesy and maybe the best I have had in the city! The broth was a little thicket than usual and it was a very hearty sized bowl
*Goat cheese and artichoke bruschetta– DELICIOUS! Very generous portion and very tasty!
*Nachos– Lots of chips, cheese, and toppings. They didn’t skimp on layering the nachos, which is important in my book.
Now for the service…
Seriously lacking in my opinion. This is really the only reason I could see this restaurant getting some bad reviews. Our waiter NEVER came back after our order, and it was always some random bus boy or water re-​fillers that was coming by to refill the water or ask how things were. It took them about 10 minutes to locate and bring over a Tabasco bottle, which is ridiculous. It took us a while to flag down our server at the end of the meal and get the check.
I mean, the service did take away from the dinning experience, which is why I took away a star, but the food was really great. AND, with the coupon we only ended up spending like $ 20 bucks for all that food!
Definitely will be back to CK&C

We had brunch here on Valentine’s Day, mostly because Penelope’s was too busy. I have to say that I was very impressed with an impromptu stop over. The restaurant was having a special, $ 16 for any brunch item and TWO drinks! They had me at the booze alone, but there didn’t stop there. I had a «city» omelet which was swiss, ham and mushrooms, delicious and came with a hearty accompaniment of sides. My fiancé had the salmon benedict which was a nice spin to the traditional.
One warning, the bloody mary’s are made with Clamato for that special fishy spice we all crave. If it’s not your thing, they can make it with regular tomato juice as well.
This place is definitely worth a shot!

I’m always wary of restaurants that turn into bars at night, and choice is one of them.
First off this is in Murray Hill, so I should have known what I was walking into. The striped buttondown shirt crowd (non-​matching tie optional) packed the bar area. The bartenders are competent and drinks are decently priced (dogfishhead for 4 bucks? this place gets 3 stars solely for that) but there were only two bartenders for a bar 3 deep on a saturday night.
I cant speak for the food or restaurant portion though

Wasn’t a huge fan. We ordered the Mediterranean platter, the hummus didn’t taste that good. A couple people said it tasted like tuna fish. On the platter there was also pico de gallo — which last time i checked, wasn’t just tomatoes, but should have had some onions and spices. The guac tasted pretty watery too. I think my favorite part was that the server kept trying to take our food away, even though we kept ordering drinks. We still had some food on our plate, and they just yanked it from us eventually. My second favorite part was that we got hit on by a guy who’s pick up line was «You ladies look nice. I just returned from a trip to Montréal. Ever been?»
Overall, no reason to go back. And no, I’ve never been to Canada.

All I’m gonna say is no dice. To be honest I’m a little disappointed in my fellow Unilocalers who gave this spot more than 2 stars. I trusted you, and I went and it was gross. I would have been more satisfied at Mickey D’s…
Had a $ 30 off groupon ordered 2 diet cokes that were flat and gross but was still charged $ 4. The appetizers were sub par, I had the steak frites, which came with 3 gross soggy french fries, my boyfriend got the best burger, we believe the bacon was from that mornings brunch it was shrively and dry and NASTY.
I would give this place negative stars. No one was in there, the waitress was nice, but service was slow and seriously not an awesome place.
BOOOOO. BOOO to this restaurant taking $ 50 of my hard earned money. BOOOOOO.

A nice little surprise near the India Row section of Murray (Curry) Hill, Choice is a quaint place to grab a bite without pretentious service and quality food. I came here for brunch and came away quite impressed. The prices were solid, the service was stellar, and the food tasted quite good. Bringing groups of people here may not be recommended, at least not groups of 10 or more. This place isn’t that large and most of the tables are only built to seat 4 – 6 people tops.
I was fortunate to come here with a group and we sampled each other’s dishes. The Salmon Benedict was just awesome. The Banana Stuffed French Toast had just enough crisp, with a mushy banana center with a bit of tartness. Another favorite was the Sirloin Burger and Grilled Chicken Sandwich, both were tender, juicy, and full of flavor. The clear favorite for me was the Smoked Salmon Scramble, as the eggs were fluffy, the salmon was soft, and the tastes blended together perfectly. All for $ 14.95 + 2 refills of your choice drink.
I am told dinner here is a great time as well. Their seafood driven menu looks fairly reasonable in price, will definitely come back here for another feast again.