We eat out quite a bit, but tend to go to the same solid places again and again. Now I know why. My boyfriend and I wanted to try somewhere new and, based on the reviews on citysearch (which we have used with success in the past), chose Knife and Fork. What a mistake. The place is quite cute and the setting is rustic and even romantic. But from the minute we walked through the door, the service was shoddy. Despite that the restaurant was only half full and we had a reservation, we were asked to wait at the bar. But no one at the bar asked us what we would like, so we just sat there, staring at all of the empty tables incredulously. There was no apology when we were finally seated. They were just inexplicably ready for us. We sat and then waited for about 15 minutes with our menus before we were even asked what we wanted to drink (by then, we knew our entire order). We ordered a bottle of the Magnet Pinot Noir, which was quite nice. We also shared the Pork Belly appetizer, which was terrible. We've had excellent pork belly at Aurora in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city and normally like the dish. This, though, was a thick chunk of charred fat. It was tasteless, it was chewy and it was just...burned. Not even charred in a pleasant way, just burned. I mean, I've had big pieces of pork belly before and it's not a healthy food - it is largely fat. But this was gross. For dinner, I had the duck and my boyfriend had the cod. Both were tasteless and mediocre. In fact, my duck was pretty uncooked and I felt really ill when I got home. His cod was just oddly tasteless, even despite the addition of oysters and some unidentifiable light sauce. Needless to say, we didn't order dessert. There are a lot of great restaurants in the East Village, but this just isn't one of them.
Pros: Nice setting, romantic seating
Cons: Terrible food and poor service
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