The Pink Pony

This is also the first time I’ve felt compelled to write a Unilocal review about a restaurant experience.
We had a reservation for 5 people for Saturday brunch. We sat down right away but didn’t get any menus until 20 minutes later. When we finally ordered, our food took over an hour to come. We considered walking out but none of us had ever had this bad of an experience before and we were unsure what to do. The waitress barely paid any attention to us and the few rare times she did she kept telling us that the kitchen was working on our food but that was clearly untrue. When our food finally did arrive, it was very mediocre, small portioned and room temperature… definitely not worth waiting that long for. We spent the next 20 minutes trying to pay for our horrible experience. Given what we experienced, they should have taken our money before we gave up and left but like everything else, it took forever.
I don’t know if it was the look I gave him on the way out, but after we paid and left, the owner came out to thank us. I said, «That was the worst brunch experience I’ve ever had.» He said, «Well, we are down three people today.» Mind you, he was standing at the bar eating bread, clearly not helping his staff as we walked out… He then said, «What do you want? Your money back?» in a very sarcastic tone. I said, «Yes.» He went back inside and when he hadn’t come back out a few minutes later, we left.
I have to say, I don’t know who was at fault, the owner for understaffing, the waitress for being inept, or the kitchen for being super slow. I hope this place goes out of business ASAP. It’s in a great location and something better deserves to be there.

I first want to say that regardless of reviewing this right now – I have not been here in 3+ years.
I have some AMAZING memories here. This was a stable all throughout highschool and into college whenever going to the LES. It was a friend and his family who introduced me to this place and when moving on to college I took pride in introducing this place to new people.
The décor is always changing, which brings another element of excitement when you step in time and time again. The kitchen is also exposed. which depending on where you are sitting brings a bit of an unexpected show.
My most ordered item on the menu is the roast beef sandwich with caramelized onions… it is just chock full of flavor! I am also a big fan of there flourless chocolate cake!
My biggest problem I could never get over esp the older I got, is not taking card… I just rarely cary any cash on me.

The Pink Pony used to be a mega-​cool, hip, artsy spot. I guess they changed management or décor, etc. to survive and pay NYC rents in that area. Now — it’s ok too, just not the same «scene» as it once was…

This is such a beautiful place. I love the décor, the seats, the tables, the semi-​arcs in the walls, the books, the pictures… but the food is so bad, so so bad. the cheese platter is a joke. The salads are puny. The wine is cold. The vegetarian burger is terrible. Please get a new chef or a new kitchen all together.

Good for a quick bite or if you are craving something frenchie! Cool atmosphere

Listen: the coffee was great, the staff was sweet –just dig the photos!- and although it’s classic Ludlow people prep around you, it’s still a sweet spot for brunch with friends. The open spaced, wood shelved bookish ambience and interior is worth the trip alone, and the food, although nothing to jump up in down in glee about, was fresh and decent for the price. However, and this is why it’s 3 not 4, expect a WAIT, even if there’s no apparent crowds lol! Darling waitress btw-​wearing some great funky gear and served us in rapid succession once the food did appear.

Très bon resto! Tartare de boeuf, salade caesar, tarte tatin et gâteau au chocolat excellents. Très bon côte du rhôné. Et service sympa.

Found this place after trying to go to ‘inoteca down the street and learning that the wait would be roughly three hours (!) No problem getting a table here however, and we would soon learn why. The French/​North African menu is exciting and the décor is fun. But almost everything we ordered was excruciatingly bland! The cous cous with chicken was the worst. The chicken was OK but the cous cous was just super plain despite an attempt to «spice» things up with some soggy julienned vegetables. The burger was also nothing to write home about. The best thing we ordered was the beef tartar appetizer which was actually very good. The service is bruuutally slow and at times we felt completely ignored.
Good prices, bad food, worse service.

Right in my hood and I was terrified by the review before I went. Turns out its pretty good.
Initial service was good and fast, a girl came quickly and was friendly when we ordered a bottle of wine. The tuna tartar was yums and the wine was good. Next time when I’m feeling like a fatty I’ll go steak au poivre and that’ll be a true test.
Took forever to get the check — I’ll go back, but my mind is not blown.

I’m going to give this place some love, and not only because they brought us a slab of goat cheese after I whipped out my Unilocal wristband and assured my date we’d be getting a plate of caviar within earshot of the waitress (sup!). Yes, it was definitely plan B after I entered Tre across the street for their $ 20 boozy brunch but exited 2 minutes later (38 minutes less than the promised wait) while in the first stage of Brunch Rage (getting passive-​aggressive with waitress, desire to shove some patrons aside to create space in the cramped dining/​waiting room. Still, the interior was extremely inviting: a large, open space, the walls lined with books, kitchen supplies, and kitschy-​cute French objets dart.
We had some wine at the bar and decided to stay for brunch rather than take chances on other mobbed bottomless mimosa haunts. We soon discovered why they wanted to stick us in the front room: the big space in the back was taken over by a massive yuppy family gathering, babies included. The servers were pretty friendly and my omelet with asparagus and other fixins was up to snuff and the flourless chocolate cake with ice cream was delicious. The portions were relatively small but this is a good thing at the moment. Of course, without all-​you-​can-​drink the tab can really run up on booze, but at least it keeps the crowds away – who needs a stressful hour wait for a meal that’s supposed to be fun and relaxing?

This was probably something I could have done without… was a back up plan recommended by some friends that live in town.
Its cute enough, very fun looking place. But just not very good.
I think what really threw it off was the service, all 3 of them.
We started with one girl, then another got our drinks, then another asked if we wanted dessert… before our appetizers had even come out because she thought we had already eaten and been cleared. I found that odd that so many people were waiting on us at once, especially considering how empty the place was.
I ordered the pepper steak, medium rare… came out medium well, and took about 30 minutes to even get to the table. I am not one to complain about time, on vacation especially… all you have is time. Its different if you’re 1 of 3 tables in the place though.
For a place that is suppose to be some sort of nod to french cuisine, its severely lacking, the wine list, everything. It almost makes me NOT want to listen to friends recommendations after this. Wish the wait at the meatball shop wasn’t 2hrs… then we would not have got stuck with this joint. Ah well, as the french say… cest la vie!

Came here for brunch for a friend’s birthday. They were able to reserve a rather large table for us in the back. Meanwhile most of the restaurant was pretty empty, which is shocking in NYC for a weekend brunch. We soon realized why.
The brunch menu is limited. Fair enough. One would think with such a short menu, it would be hard to get confused or screw things up. For what it’s worth, I think the staff here has a lot to learn. Our entire party ordered 2 or 3 different items off the menu. There was very little room for error since we all got pretty much the same things. Yet somehow when our food arrived, items that no one had ordered made it to our table. With a lack of business at this time and a bunch of people ordering the same things I can’t really understand how they were so confused and screwed things up so badly. They managed to eventually get us all the right dishes, but it was clear to all of us that the service here is just not on par with what it should be.
The food was actually pretty good. I would hope with the short list of brunch items the kitchen should be able to master each and every one of them. Although not mind-​blowing, it was satisfactory. In the end, however, I can’t help but be disappointed in the slow and confused service.

HORRIBLE SERVICE! DO NOT GO HERE!
It has a nice ambiance, but being treated like less than human is not worth the exchange.
A specific waiter purposely ignored seating us tonight at all costs, and wouldn’t give us menus when we asked, and then wouldn’t make eye contact to give us the bill for 10 minutes in a near empty restaurant. Then after asking for the check, he purposely walked next to us and made himself a coffee, then started cleaning the tables next to us at a slow pace, then went back to the bar and spent 10 more minutes changing the glasses out.
He gave us a dirty eye when we complained to another waiter that it’d been 15 minutes and still had not given us the bill. I’ve been there before and the asian waiter is quite nice, but this french black kid was extremely judgmental against gays.
The other waiter didn’t even reprimand our hate criming waiter. we didn’t do anything except want our food and to eat it and be treated like everyone else. They essentially offered us no consolation and took no action.
If you ever get the tall black french waiter with the fro in his early 20’s, you know what to expect. He needs to be removed from that restaurant pronto.

Nothing was particularly wrong with the Pink Pony, but nothing was exceptional either. The Pinot Gris was Gris-​ey, the salmon ceviche was cevich-​ey, and the mesclun salad was just… mesclun. They forgot the dressing, so I’m not calling it salad-​ey. It was all fine but not exciting in the slightest.
It was a decent place to have a meal and chat with friends, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back. M did get a great tuna sandwich, though, so I may get dragged back for another cevich-​ey ceviche.

This place is like a teleportation device to Paris. The dim lighting, writings and photographs on the walls, and particularly the back room, which features a breath-​taking wall of books and quirky knickknacks, all create a cozy and romantic setting.
A group of friends and I stopped in after a night out on the town. The staff was engaging and helpful. We had a couple of drinks and ordered a caesar salad, the escargot and a tuna melt with mashed potatoes. Everything was very tasty. The waitress mentioned that the steak au poivre is generally a customer favorite.
Although I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to return to The Pink Pony, I might try the steak au poivre if I happened to be in the area. And I’d certainly stop in for a quick glass of wine with the boyfriend!

The star is for ambiance, which is lovely, but I would not recommend going to The Pink Pony if you are (1) hungry or (2) don’t like hair in your food.
I came here with a friend and there was only one other party at the restaurant. She ordered a tuna melt with fries and I ordered a garden salad with a scoop of tuna. Some 30 minutes later, our food arrived. I was served a $ 13 handful of baby greens with 2 – 3 cherry tomatos cut in half and a sorbet-​sized scoop of tuna. My friend’s tuna melt came without cheese and her fries had a huge black hair on them! We kindly asked the waitress, who was very very apologetic, to replace the fries and to not charge us for the cheese. She agreed and took back the dish. Overall, the experience was so desperately beyond mediocre that even though I think it is a cute restaurant, I can’t recommend going to the Pink Pony.

I’m not a brunch guy. I mean, how many ways can you serve eggs, potatoes and toast?
I’m wrong, as usual. The brunch in this spot is terrif /​flavorful /​ample.
There’s a large back area for groups but we sat at the counter, which wasn’t crowded since there are only three stools available.
The french motif is understated, the patrons are attractive and the servers are attentive.
I still hate french people.

okay, this place is getting 4 because it may have some off days (like i read on some of the reviews), but it makes up for it in food, décor and making you feel comfortable staying for hours (if you wanted to).
Cozy little spot on Ludlow, that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a french bistro on a side street in Paris. I went here new years day for brunch. Most places weren’t taking patrons for 45 minutes to an hour, but not so at the Pink Pony. We found a cozy little table by the door (not my favorite place to sit), but they closed the front door to keep us warm and the ‘owner’ made mimosa’s on the house for our entire party of four because, he was already apologizing in advance for being short of servers (i appreicated the heads up). We did wait for an extremely long time, but the company was good and if we all weren’t starving, it probably wouldn’t have seemed like that long of a wait.
When the food finally arrived, it was pretty yummy. I had the EGGS NOVA and the salmon was great, the hollandaise sauce was just the right amount and the poached eggs were a little on the dry side (vs runny) and the english muffin wasn’t toasted, but overall it all worked out. The homestyle potatoes were yummy and the side salad was okay.
The granola was really great, and you could probably just order this and a great cup of coffee it you weren’t starving.
Last but not least, The Pink Pony was very nicely decorated and made me feel like I was in an artist apartment, but books and flowers and framed pictures all over the place.
I’d like to come here again and just hang out… and maybe have a little more granola.

Why is it so hot in there?
My whole group was sweating buckets while eating our mediocre food. My tartare was good, but everything else like the steak and clams was nothing special.
Our waitress was nice though, but I wouldn’t eat here again.

I know, I know the food is hit or miss here. But the reason why I like it has nothing to do with the food. There’s some history here people!
Back before it was a french bistro, back before a lot of you kids were born (I’m thinking 96, 97, 98, 99 maybe?) it was this old school LES café hangout place. That sort of quintessential coffee house from some bob dylan, or 60’s spoken word days… Everytime I came in it seemed like there was drug dealing or drug taking going on, and lots of insider crowd goings-​ons… Those are fond memories, yes indeed…
When they renovated it, I didn’t like it much at first, but it was still right next door to max fish, so I would gather up friends here every Wed or Thu night for wine drinking as prequel to max fish pool playing and associated debauchery… It was great, and I would make a point of having a few regulars, and then some new people each time, so it was interesting, and fun. Usually no one ate, we’d just buy bottles of wine. So the food quality wasn’t an issue, and well there were a few cute waitresses here too, and oh did I mention the free jukebox???
Lately I’ve been trying to revive the idea, to some mixed success. I still like the neighborhood, and of course the weirdness that is max fish. The place is cute, and I have a lot of good memories there… what can I say?
(oh yeah in the back there’s a secret door that connects you to max fish… if you care to know…)

The two stars is for the ambience only. Lovely French bistro setting on the Lower East Side (and yet, I was silently bemoaning the days when it was a slightly decrepit coffee shop under the same name).
The service was what knocked it down from a respectable three to a lousy two stars. Pink Pony had atypical (for New York City) laissez faire servers, who we had to constantly flag down for anything. And how can it take you 20 minutes to realize that the kitchen is OUT of an entrée? The place was packed on a Sunday afternoon for brunch, you’d think that they’d want to be kind of swift. Oh WAIT! This is supposed to just like it is in a European café, isn’t it? I get it now. No, wait, that’s STILL not acceptable in New York.
I had lost my appetite for whatever the hell it was I ordered and ended up just getting a side of home fries (I mean, pommes frites), while my friends had very basic brunch entrees that were nothing to write home about.
C’est la vie!