The Foodie Monster!: Caribbean Inspired French Food at Arcane in Alphabet City

Arcane is a quaint bistro located adjacent to another restaurant that I love, Zum Schneider (a small German Beer Hall with good eats), on Ave C in Alphabet City. Arcane features a small menu of reasonably priced entrees; pretty much nothing is over $20. The restaurant is also has a Groupon for $30 for $60 worth of food/drink that is still available on the site as of this writing. Mix the reasonable prices with the basically half off Groupon deal, and two people can eat like a king for $30!

I had been here a few times but one of my favorite dishes is the Pork Colombo. It's a pork curry stew with string beans and potatoes served with rice. While the dish is a bit different from the Caribbean curries I had, the dish is still packed with flavor and the pork was super tender.

On this trip I went with my bro and he had the skate with lemon caper sauce served on mashed potatoes. The skate was cooked perfectly and the mashed potatoes were super creamy. The lemon caper sauce was tasty and the skate was a pretty big portion from what I usually see at other restaurants. At $19 it's quite a steal.

For apps we got the guacamole with salt fish. I don't like bland tasting guacamole and this one is flavored well with the salt fish. While they gave you a lime wedge the guac itself needed a little more zing though.

We also had the mussels app, and while the serving was small the mussels and broth tasted great. The bread they provided was great for soaking up all that tasty soup.