Restaurant Review ~ Caffe Swish

In an effort to find a place above Midtown which has decently priced sushi that doesn’t taste like fish ass on a three day layover, we decided to try Caffe Swish. The online reviews were more than mixed, warning of poor service and unimaginative dishes, but frankly, just a solid spicy tuna roll would be like a breath of fresh air right now in the wasteland of chicken bones that is Central Park North. This place is a staple of the Columbia Business School crowd, so how bad could it be?

Overall look, feel…Is it worth the price? ~ The décor of the restaurant is nice enough but typical: high ceilings, light hardwood, small tables and booths, fake corn cobs on the wall behind glass, outside seating…. The prices are not terribly high; high enough to make you think you are having an adult dinner yet low enough to entice students. When we came in there was an unidentifiable smell in the air, and it wasn’t a good one. Also, the bathrooms were pretty foul. I hate restaurants with foul bathrooms. Come on people, it really is not that hard to mop up once a day and toss in some fresh tissue. Right….

Service ~ The service was robotic and dismissive from the moment we walked in the door. The “hostess” was certainly NOT a part time model or even the mother of a part time model, and she was more than rude. This led me to hope that the food would be good. Eventually we were shoved in a small table in a corner next to the opening to the outdoor patio, where we asked not to sit due to the chill finally hitting Manhattan. Our server seemed appalled that I asked for light rice on the sushi rolls and he either thought I was joking or disregarded it altogether. It took more than five minutes to get their standard hot tea, the sushi rolls came before the soup, our server forgot a roll, and our table was so small that we had to consolidate dishes to fit things. The only thing that was fetched with some sort of pertinence was the check.

Food…the MOST important part of all! ~ Well, let’s just say that I have not spit out food into a napkin while at the table since 2002. As I noted earlier, if a place has a solid spicy tuna roll, a lot can be accomplished there. Caffe Swish’s spicy tuna…kind of like tuna paste, not spicy, and certainly not good. The tea was weak, the rolls all were coated in sauces and mayonnaises which were not listed on the menu, and the food came out of order. The only good thing we got out of 4 rolls and soup was the Hot & Sour Prawn Soup. However, if you are going to say “with Prawns” there should be more than 2 of them in a large bowl. The other rolls: the Volcano, the Lobster Mango, and the Sushi Bullet were all fairly disgusting, the last of which got spit into a napkin. Even the young Andrew would not eat it. Our server did not even care that we mentioned how bad it was. I hope he enjoyed cleaning up that napkin then.

Overall, if the food was good I would go back, but it really really wasn’t. The soup has the best chance of being ordered by delivery as it was cheap and decent and Saigon Grill won’t deliver here (I don’t blame them). Overall, I give it zero out of three possible points. Back to the drawing board.

Japanese, Sushi, Thai fusion

Neighborhood: Manhattan/Morningside Heights
2955 Broadway (between 115^th and 116^th)
New York, NY 10025

~beth