ewindels

My boss will be in Paris next week, and is trying to find a bistro (or bistros?) recently recommended by Patricia Wells near the Arc de Triomphe for a business lunch (one of the participants works at the Brunei Embassy). I've scanned Wells' web site, and emailed them as well, but do any fellow gulleters have any ideas or recommendations? He says he's looking for something more traditional than whizzy/modern/shi shi. Any ideas or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

As I breathlessly anticipate having the crudités discussed with me, I have decided that in a nod to our aging and decreasing capacity for gluttony and therefore the advantage of a much lighter pre-prandial nosh, I'm dispensing this year with the goat cheese and herb dip. Real tasty, but a little too heavy prior to the masticatory battle to come. Vegetables will be brined or pickled, research still ongoing, details to follow.

What better way to quell the qualms of Election Day than a visit to the Shack, especially in its waning days of this year. They were out of the wild board sausage!! I was devastated. Made up for it with a double shack burger, fries and chocolate shake, which I took back to the office. This stuff is so well-done that it didn't suffer at all from the 10 minute subway ride -- the fries were still hot and crisp and perfect. So filling... but so delicious!

Note again, please, that my beef is with the fact that instead of letting my friend swap her shrimp and dessert courses as part of the $55 fee, these two items were instead charged on top of her $55, which I thought was a little much. And it's exactly because Devi is trying for a higher strata than most Indian restaurants that I take issue with the charges for nan. That said, I couldn't agree more that the $55 tasting is a spectacular deal for both the breadth and the quality, and none of these quibbles would stop me from going again, which I very much look forward to, especially since now I know how the menu operates.

Run, do not walk, to Devi. Went last night with a couple who were Indian food novices and not big fans to begin with, both of whom raved through the whole meal. We all did the tasting menu, and not one thing was amiss. The panoply of spices and flavors was never repetitive or too much. Portions are tiny but you leave thoroughly sated. I can't help but compare this small but ambitious undertaking with my experience at Cafe Gray last week, and the difference is simple: at Cafe Gray, the general comments were "Mmmm, lovely." At Devi, it was uniformly "Oh my god." There is a magic at work in the kitchen at Devi that I didn't encounter amongst Chef Kunz' myriad minions. One quibble: the tasting menu is $55 a person, but the bill came out to $112 with tip per person, and that with only two glasses of alcohol each. This was due to two orders of nan at $4 each, and two substitutions from the tasting menu for one of my friends who a) is allergic to shrimp and b) wanted to try a third dessert. Both of these items were charged on top of the $55. Who doesn't serve free bread, folks? And nan, even as superlative as this, ain't expensive to make. These policies strike me as stingy on the part of the restaurant, so by all means go -- but go prepared.

OK, since Comrade RCuisine has launched the first volley (gullet purists, skip this pointless post about something other than the actual food), I will spill: the decor's pretty tacky, at least to my taste, an amalgam of Trump and Euroglitz. Way too much mirrors and chrome, and those sparkly tile floors like some cheap casino in Eastern Europe. And the whole idea of blocking the windows with the kitchen is a serious miscalculation in my opinion: Chef Kunz and staff may be top rate at what they do, but watching them do it all night is not necessarily as engaging as they may imagine, nor does it compensate for the loss of one of the few view opportunities in Manhatten restaurants.

Fashionably late is a tricky thing to pull off: there’s the danger that, if delayed too long, an entrance can outlive its interest, no matter how dazzling the entrant or how hot the hype surrounding same. I can’t help wondering if this might not be the case with Café Gray, which, when I visited it with three friends last Wednesday on its second day open, was about half full the entire night. Its possible that Kunz is keeping reservations low so as not to overwhelm his staff early on in the game, although the bartender said that they’ve been doing Friends and Family runs for several weeks now. Its also possible that, given the incessant delays in opening since the originally anticipated date in February, many potential customers have simply lost interest in what was beginning to look like a hopeless cause. No doubt with the announcement in the Times that day, reservations have taken off. The purists amongst my gullet colleagues will rejoice in my intention to not waste time and space discussing the décor, which was not to my taste, so I don’t want to unduly prejudice potential visitors. The bar up front is awfully dark, more so than preferred even by those of us tenebrous-benefitting souls. And was it cold! Neither conditions conducive to people watching, which is after all one of the reasons for going to such a place. There are, one companion estimated, at least three servers for every customer, and certainly all those weeks of drilling show in choreography that is overall smooth and impeccable, supervised by a battalion of eagle-eyed captains posted about the dining room. Everyone is faultlessly polite and pleasant and eager – almost anxious, I felt, though this is maybe not surprising given Chef Kunz’ notorious fastidiousness. The concept is very high-end: lots of changes of flatware and little dishes and display. The glassware is gorgeous, feather light. This was my first experience with Chef Kunz (I couldn’t afford Lespinasse till after Delouvrier’s arrival, and Spice Market doesn’t really count), so I came open-minded and without preconceptions. The cocktails are subdued, not too silly. I had a Tamarind Tango -- Tanqueray and tamarind juice and cointreau – which was fine, subtle, didn't pack much of a punch. Someone else had a Kaffir Lime Mojito which I didn't get to taste but she liked it. The bar serves fresh crisp flatbread strips topped with all kindsa stuff, caraway seeds, chile, cumin, garlic, pepper, a few other things, I think I might have liked them a little more if they weren't quite so busy. House-made bread at the table suffers from the same thing, and had a faintly fishy taste in it. Starters: wild mushroom truffle risotto, luscious and pefect, most excellent. Seafood bisque, lovely and briny and just right. Grilled lemongrass shrimp on a bed of corn was fine, though the corn at this season was a bit tough and chewy. Same corn problem in the lobster ravioli, the whisper thin wrappers very impressive but also not much flavor. Entrees: Lobster and watermelon salad, nice and zesty but could have used a little kick to it, a little chile heat or lime juice or something. Langoustine, I don't remember the details, it came in a bowl on a bed of lentils with an acidic dressing which I liked despite a faint redolence of ammonia, my friend who had ordered it hated it and sulked. Fluke crusted with puffed rice, this was terrific and very flavorful. The topper was my short ribs on grits with a few shreds of collard greens, most extremely excellent. Portions are smallish but very rich. The sommelier, faced with a challenging range of dishes, recommended a $54 bottle of Bordeaux, Aux Duresses something or other, which worked as well as anything was going to. Dessert: a huge assortment of sorbets and ice creams: cherry, carrot, sour cream, can't remember them all, a killer chocolate sorbet and a grapefruit granite I would have been happy to take cartons of home. My hazelnut souffle was classic and lovely. A phyllo and caramelized apple croustade was beautiful. The chocolate marquise with lime and banana was not happy, but I'm not a chocolate and fruit fan. $108 a person including tip. Overall it was very good, everything was correct, but not mind-blowing, though why I should have expected it to be I can’t tell you – again, too much hype about stuff Kunz undoubtedly never intended. Those interested in sampling all of New York’s high end properties should make this a definite must.

As of yesterday, they're saying they might be open next week (w/o 10/4), but won't confirm or take reservations for that week.

Everything -- I repeat, everything -- looked amazing at 47th St. today, but note that it won't be open next week due to the U.N. General Assembly.

See my post on Ixta from earlier this summer (can't find it through the current search options, but I expect it's around somewhere). I understand from colleagues that the service has gone downhill even further. Food at Suenos rocked, but service was worse than Ixta -- our appetizers came after our entrees, with eons in between, but that was not long after it opened and maybe they've worked that out by now. The food's worth the trip even so.

I should think, following this line, that if you're anywhere near Eli's or the Vinegar Factory or the Citerella on the UES, that they could also help you out if you asked them. I'm lucky on the UWS cuz there's a nifty truck that comes around once a month on Saturdays and is usually on my corner.

Kalusytans.

From yesterday's New York magazine list of August wait times for bars and restaurants: "The wait for an upstairs table at Spice Market, per the maître d’. - 2 hrs. 30 mins. Downstairs, a predicted wait of “at least 45 minutes” takes only 18 mins. 11 secs. But then it’s 36 mins. 5 secs. until drinks arrive. A “mix-up,” says the waitress." The list was in order shortest wait to longest (full list here). Spice Market made the bottom of the list.

Purely for reference, I will mention here that a colleague at work was supposed to go with family this past Friday, but the phone reception was so rude that they cancelled the reservation. On a summer Friday night, when le monde fabuleuse is out of town or heading out anyway, the only reservation they could get was 6PM, and were told in no uncertain terms that the place doesn't open before 6, and that if they were more than 5 minutes late their table would be given away. Fabulous is a highly subjective and flimsy state of being, and while I was perfectly happy with my meal on my one visit back in February, word of mouth about the attitude and service at Spice Market is going to doom this place faster than a visit from the GOP convention. But since JVG gives the impression that his newer ventures are not meant to be long=lasting, maybe management doesn't care.

97th Street also had plums and white nectarines so gorgeous they almost didn't look real, enormous leeks that verged on the pornographic, and celery you could smell from twenty feet away. But no eggs AGAIN!

While technically Massachusetts, Guido's in Great Barrington also serves the mid Colombia County area and carries a dizzying array of rare and specialty items, huge fancy butcher department and seafood, as well as a small selection of decent wines. Their produce is OK, can't beat the locally grown stuff though. This place is a big draw for the Hillsdale/east of Hudson area. See their web site.

Gael Green's blurb from today's New York Magazine:

That sizzling sound you hear is not the endless drops of my sweat hitting the scorching pavement, but the level of fabulous at Kittichai reaching critical mass. The crowds of downtown-trender-wannabes now thronging the restaurant overshadow the place’s own fairly dazzling décor. Marvel at the $1,000 shoes, the $500 haircuts, the $400 low cut jeans worn by women who really shouldn’t, the lift jobs and pneumatical enhancements. One case in point, of an age made indeterminate by copious amounts of surgery, was draped strategically on one of the immaculate white daybeds in the bar area, a delicate pink and orange organza shift barely containing the bust which she had perhaps had enhanced a little too much, as evidenced by the recline she was forced to adopt to keep from toppling forward. The front-of-house staff loses nothing to their customers: both male and female hosts, lithe and sinewy, have obviously been sent to severe classes in runway walking and posturing. Well, if you can take your eyes off the endless floor show and drown out the increasing din as the night wears on, the food is still pretty spectacular. This time I had three companions with me (including, yes, the eternally be-Chooed Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), allowing a greater sampling of the menu than before. More of those awesome crispy jasmine rice crackers with their tangy chicken, shrimp, coconut and cilantro dipping sauce, a great way to start any meal. The foie gras was luscious (when isn’t it?) with a pineapple marmalade, as were jumbo prawns with grapefruit and a citrus dressing. But the Thai beef salad was the real marvel, just the right amount of spice and heat to make your tongue sizzle. Entrees impress, although the featured ingredients tend to rate second-tier status to the panoply of spices and flavors, making most of them interchangeable. Lamb, fork tender and served with foie gras and eggplant, could have been any number of other meats, and the duck with Chai-Mai glaze and mangos was mistaken by all of us for pork (but really tasty pork). The Chilean sea bass (“with morning glory”, which looks and tastes an awful lot like rapini) was repeated and pronounced a hit by all, although the actual fish itself was slightly lesser quality than on my first visit. This is all de-rigeur fusion, and those looking for a more authentic experience would probably do well to stick with one of the three curries, particularly the short ribs. The girls insisted on the pineapple rice, which once again didn’t thrill me – too sweet, too busy, and pointless beside everything going on in the other dishes. You can’t beat the plain steamed jasmine rice. I’m not sure which of the three scoops in the Thai tea ice cream sundae with fruits was the eponymous one (we tasted orange, pistachio and coconut), but it’s a winner. Frozen white chocolate parfait with a scoop of coconut ice actually had more of cheesecake consistency than the name would lead you to believe, but was luscious nonetheless. The killer was the flourless chocolate cake, served on a banana leaf with a cherry compote: deep but not overly intense chocolate flavor, excellent texture. The full menu can now be accessed here. $97 a person, including God knows how many of the amazing ginger and lemongrass puree highballs. And despite a substantial amount of food, there’s never a sense of surfeit, although those highballs do come back to haunt you next morning – but boy, is it worth it.

Tiny, noisy, crowded – well, you’d hardly expect a pub, gastro or otherwise, to be spacious and sedate, although the miniscule dimensions of the Spotted Pig tend to heighten the sense of crush. And the place sure is popular – at 5:30PM (when most New Yorkers are just finishing their lunch), we were one of three couples being seated, and by the time we left two hours later the wait for a table was over an hour and a half (they don’t take reservations), and the bar and sidewalk were packed with people willing to do just that. I don’t know that I’d be one of them, although the food is very good. Chef April Bloomfield comes from London’s renowned River Café by way of Chez Panisse, and with Batali and Bastianich as backers, the menu not surprisingly skews heavily Italian with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal ingredients. Ergo the octopus salad that I started with last night, lightly dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and cilantro. My limited experience with octopus has usually been grilled, so sautéed was a new one on me. I found the texture rubbery and chewy, but I enjoyed it, and the flavors were beautifully balanced. My companion started with pork tonnato with capers, very nicely done. He followed this with the chanterelle risotto – an awfully small portion, to my mind, but perfectly cooked and flavored: sumptious, but still summer-light. The recent dog days of summer have made me unusually carnivorous, so I couldn’t pass up the Spotted Pig’s much touted Rocquefort burger. And it really is a thing of beauty: the perfect bun, a briochy number just the right height and texture, barely toasted. The magazine-cover-ready burger is so juicy it looks like it was glazed with extra fat before plating, a perfectly formed 1/3 – ½ lb. patty grilled to perfection. The fine Rocquefort provides a great bite, but tends to overwhelm the beef, and I’m more of a Cheddar/Gruyere guy myself. The enormous tangle of beautifully fried shoestring potatoes are delicious and a real visual spectacle, if kind of a pain to eat – they tend to scatter all over the table and the floor. Condiments are provided on request. We split the Chocolate Decadence, an intense flourless chocolate mousse cake, moist and pudding-like with a dab of crème fraîche to offset it. Being a pub, the focus is naturally on beers and ales, but since neither of us are partisans we stuck to the wines by the glass, of which the Spotted Pig offers four whites, four reds and two rosés. My cabernet was as big and juicy as my burger. I didn’t get to sample my companion’s sauvignon blanc, but he was very happy with it. Servicewas charming but, even early on, leisurely – it was a good twenty minutes in between courses. This may be more the fault of the kitchen, whose operations appear to be split between a pocket-sized cooking space in the back of the restaurant and prep areas in the basement accessible only via the street, or so it seemed by the constant procession through the bar crowd of prep chefs lugging vats of stocks and containers of produce. And it was a little disconcerting to see Chef Bloomfield make her exit in civilian garb at 6, leading us to speculate whether her departure from the Pig is imminent. (Yeah, I know, almost no chef actually cooks in their kitchen any more – with the exception of Marc Murphy.) An appetizer, an entrée and two glasses of wine each, plus a shared dessert, came to $58 a person, and well worth it. Certainly I wouldn’t call it a destination restaurant – Batali and Bastianich’s involvement is confined solely to financial backing and consultation on the wine list. But if you’re in the area and don’t mind a boisterous and squashed atmosphere, the food’s worth it.

Colleagues of mine have had no trouble getting reservations across a wide range of times, but that may be pure luck, given the amount of buzz on Kittichai as a SHT place (that's Smart, Hip and Trendy). I should mention from my original post that the four cocktails were not included in the final bill (I paid for those separately). Nevertheless Phaelon, I should think you could get out of there with a decent amount of food for $60. Note again however that portions are not large, and that there's no bread or free munchie or anything else to fill up on, so I wouldn't go if you're ravenous.

At the risk of raving here, I have to state that Landmarc is flat out my favorite restaurant right now, and more than worth the slightly extra commute (though for those of us near the No. 1 line, it's a snap). Now, I openly admit that I've been enough times to have developed some sort of relationship with both Marc and Pamela as well as many of the staff, so there's always a very friendly greeting (such a rarity anywhere in NYC these days). But that aside, there really is a magic or chemistry about the place. We can all quibble and nit-pick till we're dead about this or that (and after all, why else does egullet exist?), but overall there's nothing bad on the menu and much of it is terrific, and as has already been discussed ad nauseum, the wine policy is dynamite. The space is unassuming but comfortable, the staff are incredibly friendly -- it all works. I have now taken three friends or groups thereof, all of whom have been dazzled -- including one notoriously finicky number who has never liked any restaurant he's been to with me, EVER! And he loved Landmarc! As I have told both proprietors, thank God the place isn't in my neighborhood -- catastrophic for both the wallet and the waistline.

See Adam Platt's NY Magazine Review of 5 Ninth.

Like all discussions, particularly the ones here on the gullet, these opinions are all subjective, including my own, and I completely agree with Bux that one should by no means judge a place on one visit alone. The difference being that at this price point if one isn't happy the first time, one isn't inclined to spend that money making a second attempt at it. After my experience, which was fine but didn't live up to my (possibly unrealistic) expectations given all the press and hype about the place, it's just not someplace I'm inclined to try again. Any number of things could have been happening that night (although we did see The Great Man there, which left us even more surprised at the results). But I've had (to my tastes) better meals at L'Espinasse under Delouvrier, JG, Babbo, and would just be more inclined to revisit those than making a second stab at Daniel.

Took my aunt to Daniel this past Christmas as my gift to her, and while I wouldn't go so far as Paula, I must admit I was a little disappointed. But one has to recognize that it is, and is intended to be, an old-world, old-fashioned, slightly stuffy restaurant, and that its focus is not on the sort of daring, inventive (occassionally too much so) cooking that restaurant enthusiasts (particular New York ones) largely take for granted. It's straight out old-fashioned high-end French cuisine, with ambience and service to match, and if one goes knowing and expecting that, there's no reason you shouldn't be dazzled. At the same time, a few things were not quite up to standard: with all due modesty, I make a better gougere than the ones we were served, and the amuses on the whole were unimaginative and bland. Some people might argue that they have no reason to be otherwise, but at nearly $200 a person I was expecting a little more panache. Everything was fine, perfectly cooked, nicely (if staidly) presented, etc. -- but flavorwise nothing dazzled. For that kind of money these days, I would much sooner recommend Asiate, or ADNY, or Per Se.

Hi Lambretta, Sorry I missed your post / question. As stated in my review, I thought the service was fine, but I do tend to go to places early (appallingly so, in the opinion of my dear friend Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), so the place was anything but full. Can't comment on what the situation might be like later on when it gets really hopping. Hope you and your boss had fun wherever you went.