We spent this Memorial Day weekend eating at a number of Upper West Side kosher restaurants. We started Sunday morning with La Creperie. The first thing I found odd was that they didn't open until 11am. You would think that a crepe place would try to capture the breakfast/brunch crowd. They don't even serve orange juice! The service was OK, nothing special. They served bread with a dish of olive oil instead of butter, which is odd for a kosher dairy restaurant. I had a tomato and Swiss Cheese crepe, my five-year old son had a plain crepe with sugar, and my wife had a Salad Nicoise. I didn't care for the crepes at all - they were too burned on the cooked side for one, and I just didn't like them. The tomato filling in my crepe wasn't all that great either. The tuna in my wife's salad was overcooked - she says she should have asked for rare, but the waiter didn't offer a choice when we ordered. All in all, my wife liked it much more than I did. She would be willing to eat there again. I wouldn't unless I hear reports of dramatic improvement. Sunday evening after a pleasant day spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in Central Park we tried to have dinner at Mike's Bistro at around 4:30pm, only to discover that they were not serving for another half hour. So instead, we went next door to the JT Cafe in the Judaica Treasures store. The service is rather charmingly amateurish. The waitresses seem like very nice high school students without lots of experience. Cups and cutlery are all disposable plastic. We got a bread basket with a nice assortment of breads and crackers, this time with butter. I ordered a Pasta Milanese, my wife ordered a salmon and vegetable wrap, and my son ordered a plate of plain pasta. All the portions were large, and the food tasted good. We all split a huge hunk of chocolate mousse cake for dessert, which was also very good. (Part of the charmingly amateurish service - my wife and son went upstairs to pick the cake, and there was this one large slice remaining - easily a double portion. They just told her to take the whole thing.) We had a pleasant time, and would gladly return for a casual lunch or dinner. Monday evening we finally made it to Mike's Bistro and successfully ate there. We got the requisite plates of bread and olive oil. The bread was very good - rolls with crisp and chewy crusts. My son, who loves bread, ate a couple of these. I ordered the gnocchi and duck appetizer, a seared rib-eye steak, and coconut bread pudding for dessert. I also had a small pitcher of sangria and an Irish coffee. (The Irish coffee had Jameson's, peppermint schnapps, and fake milk and still managed to taste like the real thing.) My wife had the porcini mushroom soup and a roasted chicken breast. My son had french fries and a special order of plain sliced cucumber (he's at a picky eating age) which arrived stacked in a leaning tower. A friend who accompanied us and who is a light eater had the same soup and a garden salad. I thought the food was very good. The meat especially was done to perfection - I ordered medium rare and it arrived a beautiful pink throughout with crispy seared top and bottom, exactly the way I like it. My wife and friend thought that the soup was too salty, though, and our friend wasn't impressed by the salad - she thought it was too ordinary. They also serve a nice assortment of wines and scotches. I would gladly go back for more, and it's a place where you can bring a non kosher-eating friend or business associate without embarrassment.
