BryanZ
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Posts posted by BryanZ
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Price hikes in a recession be damned, I went to Jean Georges with two others for lunch last Thursday. For the umpteenth time, everything was excellent, perhaps even more so than usual.
Jean Georges was, again, in the house, seeming to work on the pass for a few minutes before the requisite surveying of the dining room. Our meal started off with a somewhat slow, but then quite marvelous start. We had an early reservation and were seated, temporally speaking, right behind an eight-top. It seemed to be taking quite a while to get our standard trio of amuse bouche. Not a big deal but we were on something of tight timeline.
Then, much to my delight, we received as our amuse bouche the egg toast dish, a new signature of sorts that I'd never had before. This is two pieces of thin toast, sandwiching custardy egg yolk, topped with a quenelle of caviar. To say this was a generous offering would be a gross understatement.
After this unexpected surprise we got into our dishes. The standards like the foie and skate with chateau chalon are still awesome. The snapper with nuts and spices in sweet and sour jus has been refined in the year or two since I had it last. It's tamer, less jarring, but more elegant in taste and presentation. Short ribs are now glazed with soy, served with an apple-horseradish puree and served with rosemary breadcrumbs, a simple addition that brings some welcome crunch to the dish. The peekytoe crab dish is now in dumpling form, topped with a lemongrass tea. I thought the pasta was a bit thick here, but still a very enjoyable dish. The shrimp is no longer bacon-wrapped, and perhaps is not as fun with this omission, but served with even more exciting accompaniments. Tapioca and passion fruit made appearances in another sweet/savory seafood dish. Finally, the roasted veal was perhaps the simplest of dishes, and focused on the interplay between the veal and strongly flavored accompaniments: Roquefort on top and a sweet fruit compote on the bottom.
The three of us put together a well-balanced meal. This time, I noticed more sweet aspects than in other meals, perhaps an issue for some but never a problem for me.
For desserts we ordered the Caramel and Apple, and were also sent the Harvest. As usual, very nice, seasonally appropriate. I think my only issue with these desserts, and it's one I think I and others have mentioned before, is that they're almost too intricate. I love seeing so many components go into each plate, but it's sometimes difficult to fully appreciate and evaluate everything in such small scale.
But, all in all, another fantastic and reasonably priced lunch. Service was spot on, timing perfect, no complaints.
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I can't hate on the room. Again, it's spacious and not totally awful. That's better for me than being wedged against some banquette. The booths also looked nice, Marriott fabric notwithstanding.
But, yes, soundtrack, bad news. Seriously, this is New York City, at least try. Kevin Drew while eating a pig's tail at Noodle Bar = I feel hip. 90s rock in a somewhat sparsely populated room = I feel depressed.
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Irving Mill
16th and 4th-ish
Just off Union Sq.
Irving Mill first opened to mediocre and underwhelming reviews. Much was said of it trying to be like Gramercy Tavern-lite and falling short in that regard. Come this fall, however, Ryan Skeen, ex-Resto took the helm and had been generating some buzz about his porcinephillic menu. Of course, seeing pork on a menu these days is far, far from novel, but some of the dishes I saw, namely the burger and the varied charcroute plate piqued my interest. The place had been just off my radar screen until a new friend suggested we check it out.
So, the space is a bit generic but not nearly as Restoration Hardware as people have made it seem. The restaurant is spacious and feels warm enough even when not full (and far from full it was on Tuesday evening).
Two of us shared the much lauded burger, the small charcroute platter, and the pork toasts. Even the small version of the charcroute platter could be a main course for two, so while three dishes may not seem like a lot, there was plenty of food.
The pork toasts are a nice couple bites of food. A bit flat, but satisfying. Its like ground confit of pork, fried, then toped with an egg dressing and caviar. The salinity was good, but I wanted some acid, somewhere. The burger was very nicely cooked to mediuum-rare, and might well have been rare to some diners. No matter, it was tasty. Not as gamey as I'd heard and perhaps would've liked but for $15 this is a strong version. The fried potatoes that accompanied both the burger (and the platter of meatiness, for that matter) were exactly that, fried potatoes, not french fries as one might more typically expect.
As for the meat plate, it's generous. The ribs may have actually been my favorite item. I kept thinking how this plate was what every Friday's/Applebees/Chili's mixed appetizer plate should aspire to be. But then I thought how a comparison of that nature was not only obscene but unfair to the restaurant. In addition to the ribs, we had boudins blanc and noir, a fried disk of chopped trotter, some veal head cheese (I think) that was a bit too chewy, some pate, and probably some other stuff. After a while, a bit samey (like the Henderson dinner at Noodle Bar) but as far as this type of cooking goes there was at least some variety. I also really liked the violet mustard. Quite the trendy ingredient these days but my first exposure to it.
Dessert was an apple doughnut with cinnamon ice cream. Pretty good, but the apple filling in the donuts gave the pastry a bit of an underdone gooeyness. Not exactly unpleasant but not light and crisp either.
With a glass of wine each, we spent just shy of $50 each. Reasonable enough for what we got. It was election night, but the restaurant was completely dead when we left shortly after 9 pm.
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Not to follow up on my own post or anything, but this thought just struck me too. At a previous meal at St. John, I loved the variety of items. A wild game terrine, a breast of bloody squab, salty chitterlings, the rich marrow bones.
This meal lacked that diversity. It was pork and/or fried. Perhaps this is a supplier issue, perhaps it's that catering to NYC tastes. A piece of rare game bird or a cold pate would've been welcome in this meal.
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Reporting back from dinner tonight featuring Fergus Henderson as guest chef. I got in line at about 4:45 and was probably in the first 10-15 people or so. Various individuals in line, myself included, were joined by others in their respective parties a the opening hour approached, and by the time doors opened at 5:10 or so there were easily 50 people in line, probably more. Meeting some friends outside shortly past 7 pm, they told us the wait was around two hours.
We ordered the entirety of the menu, minus the $41 deep fried rabbit; we also doubled up on the signature roasted bone marrow with parsley salad. From the normal menu, we threw in a small pot of kimchi, a large pot of pickles, a regular roasted hangar steak, and a few softserve ice creams. There was a good deal of food, but not an excessive amount. I was full by the end, but not entirely stuffed either.
The dinner, on the whole, was quite enjoyable. But I actually feel that the sum of the experience was better than the individual dishes. Chef Henderson's dishes hit what is, for me, a sweet spot in offal-type cooking. While I probably enjoy the haute offal items in fine-dining restaurants and ambitious casual ones like Ssam Bar more, building an entire meal around nose-to-tail comfort food was quite enjoyable. For the same reason, while I find myself finding offal cookery in ethnic cuisines more interesting, this meal occupied its own culinary space.
Nothing on the menu really blew me away. I think the strongest Henderson dish was the deep fried lambs brains with green sauce. This was a seriously tasty bite of food. Many of the other items started to taste similarly, perhaps because, as others have written, Henderson's NYC menus seem to cater to an distinct NYC audience. For those who have been sleeping for the past six or so years, NYC diners worship pork; this menu played right into this trend. In fact, I can't even clearly remember the difference between the confit pig's cheek with dandelions and the warm pig's head with bean salad. Both were fatty, porky, a bit brothy/saucy, very tasty, but apparently not all that memorable.
The menu can be found online, and, in general, most everything tasted as it should. If the marrow bones serve as a barometer for the "authenticity" of the rest of the menu in its NYC debut, the preparation served tonight could have easily been served at St. John.
Perhaps my biggest issue--more misgiving, than a complaint--was that I felt that the portions were rather small given the prices charged. Of course, you're paying for the novelty of eating said items--a full-time restaurant with this menu likely wouldn't survive for very long, I feel--but throwing a few more chunks of protein in each plate or bowl would've helped the meal feel more abundant. With moderate drinking we spent about $95/person for four of us. Not cheap, at all. None of the dishes on the Henderson menu were like the kimchi stew, soulful dishes that help fill the belly. In fact, we ordered the hangar steak after most of our food had come out, fearing that we'd still be hungry.
So all in all, I enjoyed myself. There is value--in the utility, not dollar, sense of the word--in this event. This type of cooking is still lamentably rare in this city. On the whole, I like other presentations of nose-to-tail cookery, but the cuisine of St. John has its place.
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I should also note that when Bryan says "I sampled enough that I felt the need to go back for a full meal" he means he was the seven-foot-tall guy parked right by where all the food came out of the kitchen (where, coincidentally, most of the eGullet people at the party congregated).
What can I say, we know how to work a room.
These are the tamarind baby-back ribs, made from Duroc pork. They're served with a lime-cilantro dressing.The tamarind, lime, and cilantro combo is pretty killer, sour, faintly sweet, herbal.
For those interested in the more haute-refined items on the menu, the ones I recommend from the current crop are:The spicy organic chicken salad with cabbage, shallots, bell peppers and crushed peanuts. I've had this twice now and think it's way beyond anything the name of the dish -- "chicken salad" -- implies.
The seared sweetbreads with shiitake mushroom broth, enoki mushrooms and basil salad
The seared monkfish liver with beef jus, macerated spicy red plums, pickled daikons and basil.
The thinly sliced house-cured duck breast with shaved green papaya, dried shrimp, basil salad and lime-chili dressing.
The whole head-on grilled Spanish mackerel with lime-lemongrass Thai chile dip (if you like mackerel).
The sauteed-in-rum blue crabs with chives, red onions and honey soy sauce. These are a pain to eat and don't yield a lot of meat but are delicious.
The crispy pork belly with honey, scallions and apple cider. Lined up as four cubes on a rectangular plate, this is the most refined presentation of any dish on the menu, and it's one of the best pork-belly dishes I've had.
Ha, these were many of the dishes I wanted to order but due to my friends' preferences I couldn't order as freely as I would've liked--no mushrooms, no shellfish, limited offal, ahhhh. Even the sweetbreads were a hard sell. I'll say the sweetbread dish was good, but maybe a bit flat. I wanted a bit more. The basil and thai chile hinted at this, but it wasn't a total home run. Maybe I thought the broth was a bit too much for the sweetbread. A good dish, but I wasn't in love.
Although, the veal meatballs are a serious contender as well.I'm really into veal meatballs these days. I had only the smallest bite, but these struck me as quite light and pleasant.
I think now that it's winter, on my next visit I'll try the Duroc pork katiev (pronounced "k'thee-yew"), which is a hot soup with flat noodles, pork broth, braised pork belly, salted pork shoulder, sauteed pickled mustard greens, sprouts and herbs . I haven't tried it yet.This sounded awesome, but I wanted to try the oxtail, as it felt a bit more interesting.
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I haven't eaten out extensively in Chinatown for dinner; I've been more of a snack and dim sum guy. Despite this, I'm trying to change my habits so I recruited a handful of Asian friends with more experience in Chinese dining than I and went to Congee Village last night.
Thankfully we were able to make a reservation, which they still honored nearly 30 minutes past our appointed time due to some members of my party being late. It was very busy, and this isn't a pretty restaurant, but the food made up for it. For about $25 each, including a Tsing Tao for each of us, we enjoyed a ton of food.
My favorites included the Peking style pork chops, snail and chicken congee, and crispy roast chicken. These were seriously delicious. Other items included salt and pepper shrimp, shrimp paste pork ribs, and mixed seafood casserole. We finished the meal with seafood fried rice baked into a pumpkin. Very subtle and perfect for the season. They got us out of there in just over an hour with all that food so we could make our next reservation for drinks nearby. Really enjoyed my meal. Relatively simple food but completely delicious.
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I first tried Kampuchea's cuisine at Fat Guy's Asian Dining Rules book release party a few weeks ago. I sampled enough that I felt the need to go back for a full meal.
On Halloween I stopped by, costume and all, with several friends. We ordered a light meal from all the sections on the menu. Sandwich sampler, sweetbreads, catfish crepe, tamarind ribs, cold noodle salad, braised oxtail stew.
On the whole, I found the food to be quite enjoyable. Nothing really groundbreaking, but solid throughout. The ribs are quite tasty, very tender. Noodle salad showed a nice array of ingredients while still staying light. I really liked the flavor of the oxtail, but I'm not convinced this is the best cut of beef to use because it's so cumbersome to eat. You really need to pick up the pieces and pick to get all the meat off the bone. I like the amount of gelatin the oxtail seems to contribute to the stew, I'm just not sure serving them whole is the best way to go about doing it.
Service was fine, the food came out quickly, but our server was completely unfamiliar with the short wine list. Rather than send a manager over immediately--this happened later--she tried to relay information about potential selections between my party and staff members with more wine knowledge. This was kind of awkward.
I definitely see myself going back here. The five of us spent about $35 each, including an inexpensive bottle of wine. I'm a little bit afraid I might get bored with the menu--there is a good deal redundancy in proteins, for instance--but for now this take on Cambodian cooking is novel for me.
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Yes, and I want to reschedule, but this whole thing is kind of annoying. I certainly don't fault them for not being able to open on time in itself, but when I called to make the reservation they assured me the new restaurant would be open. I'm flexible with my dining plans, but what if this was a special night or I was only in town for the weekend. Not only do I not get to visit Bouley but it's harder to get another reservation at a top restaurant with such short notice.
Overpromising and underdelivering is one surefire process for generating consumer myopia. I'm sure there are people out there more inconvenienced by this than I am.
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Just got a call from Bouley trying to confirm my reso for Sunday. They will not be opening this weekend. Considering they claimed they'd be in the new space by this time, it's all very frustrating.
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As far as costumes go, I'd think you can be more creative than your PJs. I think more fun would be to go to somewhere like Dorsia (or its real-life equivalent) dressed as an 80s banker.
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So what about the people who made reservations to dine in the new Bouley? Have they been calling them up? I would imagine so. I'm supposed to go on Sunday but remain VERY skeptical given the Secession disaster.
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So does anyone know if the new Bouley did, in fact, open this past weekend? Looking for updates if anyone peeked in or, even better, went.
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As of whenever I emailed, I guess a week and a half ago, they were not offering the pf lunch. I had emailed because weinoo had posted it was on offer and I wanted to check it out. I'm glad that it's changed, unfortunately a bit too late for my lunch outing.
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I've never been super-impressed with the chicken sandwich. At best, it's my favorite "hangover food" item since I'm usually not too into breakfast food and that sandwich is relatively simple/inoffensive.
The burger is damn tasty though. I've tried the pancakes when friends haveordered them, but they're nothing special. Unless you're really craving breakfast food, I'd stick exclusively to the more Jean-Georges-esque items. In comparison to, say, the pancakes or omlette, the ginger rice bowl is damn good, just not as good as the calamari, hangar, chili oil snapper, etc.
And a crispy egg is just a deep-fried, breaded egg, if I recall correctly.
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No prix fixe at lunch. Incidentally, you can't really call Ssam anymore. Everything is done via email.
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I agree with you, and I'm certainly not as big a Michelin detractor as others here. Still perhaps I put the two restaurants, most broadly, in the fine-dining "category" and here EMP is, in my opinion, the much, much, much better restaurant.
I actually don't have too much of a problem, philosophically speaking, with the Spotted Pig having a star if it is in fact far and away the best gastropub/casual dining spot in the city. (The fact that I think that star might be better suited at somewhere like Ssam is neither here nor there in the context of this discussion.)
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So I was actually weighing nearly the exact same options recently. Neither NB or SB offer any kind pf prix fixe so you might as well hold off for dinner unless you only have one meal and really want to try one of the Momos. Not sure where you're getting that $72 figure from for JG, perhaps you can clarify. When I called wd~50 to ask about the lunch the other day I was told it's about nine courses for the same $75. Sounds prettty awesome. I'd also highly suggest the lunch tasting menu at EMP for $58, however.
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victornet is right, and I should've been more clear. Rather than being "so far off" the radar, Anthos is perhaps just outside of it. As I wrote the other day, I did in fact return to Anthos for my second meal and came away with mixed impressions.
First of all, it should be noted that when on, these folks can cook. Our mains were not only very good but a good value given the $38 prix fixe pre-theater menu we ordered. Appetizers were good to very good, but desserts were a definite step down.
The meal started with the standard assortment of hot mezze, olives, and few fritter/croquette-type items. Then a passable amuse of tuna tartare. So far, so good, but nothing all that special.
Appetizers were a sheep's milk dumpling dish with celery (that somehow reminded me, in a good way, of the bastardized dish chop suey) and the raw fish meze. The fish preparations are tasty but a bit too small to be fully enjoyed. Each of the three fish are served in a portion about the size of silver dollar, perhaps a bit larger. Again, I think overall I like the simpler but bolder preparations at Esca more.
The aforementioned mains were the highlight. A simple whole grilled branzino was perfect. Moist, meaty, well-butchered. This was served with a melange of vegetables in a pot off to the side. The veg included various forms of cauliflower and the like in a pleasing sheath of melted butter jus. The other main was a milk-fed chicken dish. The chicken had been marinated in vinegar, likely cooked sous vide, then crisped. The butchery here wasn't as precise--I had a sizeable chunk of cartilage in a piece that should've been boneless--but the flavors were spot on. I really enjoyed this deceptively simple dish.
One of the desserts seemed to be some kind of dense granola-like cake, cut with a nut butter. This was tasty but wayyyy too hard to eat easily. The other was a cake with a berry topping and too salty feta condiment both on top of the cake and across the bottom of the plate. It was interesting, but not necessarily in good way.
What left me feeling most lukewarm was the service. Our captain was absent for much of the evening and we had the most interaction with a young backwaitress who I'm not even sure was assigned to our section. It was kind of bizzare actually, where I kept prefacing all of my requests to her with, "I'm not sure if you can take care of this for us but..."
On the whole, the service was timely but rather cold. The room too, struck me as more corporate, more midtown than I recalled. I suppose because I was dining earlier this time, I walked into a room that was rather empty rather than nearing full. This initial impression may have colored the whole meal. Of course, I feel as though the rest of the service helped solidify this somewhat cold feeling I got. They go through all the motions, sure, but it felt more turn-and-burn than a truly hospitable experience.
So this begs the question, how in the name of the Michelin Man does this place have a star and EMP not have one? I'm not trying to take anything away from Anthos. I believe it's a star-worthy restaurant. But, seriously, my recent lunch at EMP was orders of magnitude better, culinarily, service-wise, decor-wise, wine-wise, serviceware-wise.
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Porchetta
110 E. 7th St.
Stopped by this place for lunch yesterday, and I must say the sandwich is really good. I might suggest a few improvements, but all in all it's pretty freaking tasty. Nice balance between porky and herby, and the cracklings really make the sandwich. In fact I'd pay for an entire sandwich filled just with those crispy bits. In the future I'd like to try the crispy potatoes with "burnt ends." I imagine that has to be good.
My two complaints are as follows. First, technically speaking, I feel the sandwich is too dry. Either they should throw a little bit of those cooking greens on top or just moisten the whole thing with some cooking jus. Also, it's pretty expensive. A sandwich and soda was something like $12.65. It's tasty, but a barely a lunch, and certainly not a full dinner. Given how barebones the whole operation is, I thought it was a bit pricey.
But it's still really good and worth trying.
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So perhaps because of today's NYT article, they are now taking reservations for the new space. The reservationists seemed busy when I called, so you might want to get on that. I'm going on November 2 but Friday and Saturday tables seemed to be filling up.
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Noooooooooo.
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I wouldn't say the restaurant is "so far off everyone's radar screen." If anything it lies just outside the fringes of popularity. Whether this it's due to the location/decor, atypical take on Greek cuisine as fine-dining, or the somewhat spotty service, the restaurant is one that always comes in up in discussions about good restaurants but goes disproportionately unvisited.
With that said, I'm going tomorrow for a pre-theater meal. Three courses for $38 sounds about right to me.
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As long as this is the place to discuss Bouley 3.0's pre-opening activities, I had an interesting exchange with the reservationist today. Right now, they're taking reservations like normal, with the assumption that meals booked relatively far in advance may well be in the new restaurant. What is interesting is that the reservationist couldn't tell me when this transition would take place.
This strikes me as odd, as even in the best case scenario, it'll take them at least a day or two to transition the staff from the old location to the new one. Even if that goes perfectly, you'd expect both the BOH and FOH would need some time to get used to their new surroundings. In this transition time, what's going to happen to the restaurant's reservations? You'll effectively have two restaurants, but neither one operational. Strange.
Eleven Madison Park
in New York: Dining
Posted
Oh this is a magical day. They should now accept Relais & Chateaux dining certificates available using Amex points. I'll have to confirm this fact, but, to me, this is the most exciting of the city's Relais & Chateaux restaurants.
Congrats to the restaurant.