Sneakeater

Ten million people are going to tell you Pegu Club, which New Yorkers would consider walking distance even though non-New Yokers might not. Let me be the first. There's also Employees Only, on Hudson near 10th St. (which, because of the strange way the streets are laid out in the West Village, sounds like it's a lot farther from Babbo than it actually is: a fairly short walk). This is one of those "fake hidden" places that were such a rage in New York last year: you walk through a storefront fortunetelling place, through a door that I believe is labeled "Employees Only", into the cocktail lounge. Cocktails are excellent (although not as stratespherically great as at Pegu Club). I don't know if it's open -- it was closed for a long time owing to a flood caused by a broken pipe, and I sort of gave up on it -- but there's also Little Branch, at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue South and Leroy. It's run by the people who run Milk and Honey (altough you don't need to know any secret words to get in). Cocktails are superb.

How did you ever think of that?

That's all distressing. Because to me, based on my one visit (to their old place), Tocqueville's appeal comes mainly from the very pleasant and attentive (without being cloying) service, from the warm greeting at the door to the informal cosseting throughout the meal. Without that, you notice that what you get is just a lot of concedely well-prepared but not all that inspired "restaurant food." The quotation from Chef Moreira is notable because, as you say, it describes the food served by a huge percentage of New York restaurants with culinary pretentions. It certainly describes the food served at Savoy. Savoy is an interesting comparison to Tocqueville. The food there doesn't hit the upper reaches of culinary ecstasy, either, but I think it's better than the food at Tocqueville.

Stone Street has two disconnected segments, separated (I think) by the plaza created by that big orange building that the Strook law firm is in. One of the segments is the cute cobblestoned one. Nebraska is in the other segment.

WARNING: This Post Is In Questionable Taste You really had me going until I got to the word "Mayonnaise".

I get a headache everytime I go to one of those big noisy crowded MeaPa food barns.

Datum: Maybe a 10-minute wait for two seats at the bar at about a quarter to nine on a Monday night.

Went to Yakitori Totto again. Don't worry: I'm not going to post everytime I visit this place. But it's so great -- and such a great time -- that I can't resist this update. 1. I think the Vinegared Seaweed Osaka Style is one of the great dishes now available in New York. What makes it so good? I guess it's the vinegar. It's the kind of thing you find yourself craving in the middle of the night after you've eaten it. 2. The Eggplant with Miso has grown on me. (Not literally.) 3. The mushroom wrapped in bacon is better than the asparagus wrapped in bacon. 4. The grilled chicken thighs with scallion: so simple, so good. 5. Daniel isn't the only person who really likes the shiso wrapped in chicken with red bean paste. 6. The tsukune (described as chicken meatballs on the menu -- more like an uncased sausage, really) are fabulous. We had ours with mint/soshu glaze. 7. Still building up the courage to try the sashimi. It is perhaps unfortunate that my dining companion eventually realized that I was only kidding when I suggested she try to get our adorable waitress to leave with us.

Of course not, but this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. ← Thing is, some people would say it has lots to do with the topic at hand. I've seen it on other boards where consumers interact with service providers. Some consumers will argue that, by cozying up to the service providers on the board, they enable themselves to get superior service. They wonder why anyone would decline to use the board that way. Isn't that what the board is for, they ask: to improve the consumer posters' experiences with service providers? And, in any event (they always add), what's wrong with being "nice" and "sociable"? The problem is, of course, that such agenda-driven board usage diminishes the board's integrity. I think it's just wrong to post things for any reason other than expressing your true opinion. To be clear, I'm using a lot of bad words and pejoratives here. The people who do what I'm describing would probably say they aren't "agenda-driven" but rather "friendly". I know I sound harsh, but I wonder how different those two things are in this context.

(And then all the Philadelphia people wondered why we New Yorkers were so suspicious of Morimoto.)

Well, forget "within the last five years". Some Googling disclosed that it opened in 1995 or 1996. Seems like only yesterday. But still not the Koch Administration.

Yeah, that's right, pretend to complain about being young. ← Not that green mind you. When did that fairway open? Koch? I seem to have only taken notice when they were joking with the big electronic sign that looks on to the west side highway ← Much more recently. Probably within the last five years (when you get old like me, time melts into itself and loses all meaning). Not that long before Dinosaur BBQ opened.

Would you believe that, when Spice Market first opened, that dish was actually good? The quick decline of that restaurant is really damning.

How much like?

Yeah, that's right, pretend to complain about being young.

In fact, it was sort of this big political thing when this famous Upper West Side market opened a store up there.

The Harlem one isn't the original.

It's definitely true that the pieces are much bigger at Karuma than at Yasuda. In fact, Mr. Yasuda makes a big show of tailoring his cuts to each individual diner's mouth size.

I think this is how:

This is probably worthless as prospective dining advice, since this year's installment of Savoy's annual Shad Festival ends tomorow (Sun. 4/9). But, anyway. If you're not from the East Coast, maybe you don't know about shad. It's a member of the herring family, with a very pronounced fishy taste. If you like mackerel and bluefish, you'll LOVE shad. It's very boney. And it's only available for a few weeks each Spring, when the fish return from parts unknown to the rivers of the East Coast of North America to spawn. I love shad. I love shad more than any other fish, and more than most other foods. Every year, during shad season, Savoy has a Shad Festival. They serve a multi-course shad meal with optional wine pairings. For shad lovers, it's an event. First course was smoked shad served on what I think were potato pancakes. This was good, but not extraordinary. What was the wine pairing? Shad roe is, of course, prized perhaps even more than the meat. Second course was a fancy shad roe preparation, with a Meyer lemon sauce. It was very good, but I think I prefer the simpler traditional serving with bacon. The pairing was supposed to be Long Island chardonnay, but as they didn't have a bottle handy, they substituted an Austrian chardonnay. No harm no foul there. Third course was the standout. The traditional way to cook is to "plank" it -- you afix it to a piece of wood and cook it over a fire. The wood imparts a meaty, not-quite-smoked taste to the fish -- and shad is sufficiently flavorful to stand up to the wood flavoring, instead of simply becoming a medium for it. This appeared to me to have been superbly executed; it must be easy to overcook the fish using this method, but I thought it was well nigh perfect. And it was accompanied by the bacon I missed with the roe. It was succulent. The pairing was a red Loire. I'm guessing it was a pinot noir -- but it didn't taste like any other pinot noir I've ever had. It tasted like black pepper in a glass. I wouldn't want to drink it every day, but as an accompaniment to planked shad, it couldn't be surpassed. Dessert was a panna cotta with (I think) rhubarb. We all take Savoy for granted now. To me, it's the restaurant that Blue Hill wants to be. That's not quite right, of course: Blue Hill is much more radical in its reductive cooking philosopy; Savoy is more traditional. But I like it better. The two places share a devotion to fresh local ingredients and to seasonal cooking. Except during Shad Festival, I never get excited about going to Savoy. But once there, I always enjoy it.

That's a GREAT recommendation.

Cafe d'Alcase is a new Alsacian restaurant on the Upper East Side, at the corner of 88th St. and 2nd Ave. It's very good. It's not great. Perhaps one problem that Manhattan diners of a certain age have with Alsacian food is that we were introduced to it by Andre Soltner at Lutece. No 2nd Ave. brasserie is going to approach that. If you go with more realistic expectations, this place is head and shoulders above the mediocre eateries that line this street. My "appetizer" (more on this later) was something with a long German name* that I couldn't pretend to be able to remember, described by the menu as semolina "gnocchi" in a creamed truffle sauce. I suppose you could compare them to gnocchi if you ignored that they were fried. They ate well, though. I couldn't avoid ordering the Baekoffe for my entree. As most of you probably know, this is a sort of stew in which lamb and other meats are braised, along with vegetables, in a white wine. This is a very good dish, well prepared here. I had no dessert. The wine list is fairly extensive -- going way beyond Alsace -- and, while not mind-bogglingly expensive, is not cheap. I had a half bottle of an Alsacian chardonnay/auxerre [sp?]/pinot blanc blend that was as close to perfect with this food as you could imagine. As you'd expect (or at least hope), there's also a good beer selection. Service was fairly attentive. But they served my appetizer along with my entree! Is this decidedly European place going Pan-Asian with their serving philosophy? More likely, I think, is that I came in after 10 p.m. on an early weeknight and they wanted to move me along. Prices were fair, albeit not low. I'm bad at remembering this, but I'd say that entrees were probably in the mid-to-upper twenties, appetizers in the teens. I don't love Cafe d'Alsace the way I do the vaguely comparable Blaue Gans. Within the sphere of Alsacian food, I don't think the food here is quite as good as the Alsacian dishes on the menu of db Bistro (now that they have an Alsacian chef). I wouldn't travel to Cafe d'Alsace as a destination. OTOH, as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best dining options in its neighborhood, and I'm very happy to see it there. _______________________________________________ * My waiter, who looked like he was about 17 but probably was in his early 20s (and French), remarked on how strange it was that the dish had a German name. I remarked that a lot of people died deciding whether Alsace was German or French. "But Alsace is completely French!" he responded. I guess news of WWI hasn't reached his generation yet.

(N.B. re Angel's Share: I was once there during a snowfall, and the view out the window over the square -- ummm, triangle -- was actually quite pretty.)

Just to pile on, no mob problem at all at Pegu at 5 PM on a weeknight (I've been). If anything, you might feel it's too empty and lifeless. But you won't care because THE DRINKS ARE FANTASTICALLY GREAT, THE ROOM IS PERFECT, AND (DID I MENTION THIS?) THE DRINKS ARE FANTASTICALLY GREAT. Go once, and I guarantee you you'll be finding a lot of excuses in the future to come down to the City and be on Houston St. around cocktail time.

A couple of days ago I had the two-course "pre-theater" meal at Sugiyama. That's obviously no way to judge this restaurant. But it was good enough to make us all eager to return for a proper kaiseki. I had excellent octopus (with citrus sauce), grilled salmon, and miso soup (for $32! there are deals to be had in this City's top-level Japanese places!). Service was nonpariel. I can't wait to go back and see what they can really do.