Sneakeater

Amarone, on 9th Ave. in the mid-to-high 40s (cross-streets, not price)? Rocco's, in Borough Park, Brooklyn? (Not a pasta place; more a seafood place -- but GREAT and cheap.)

I'm building myself up to that.

You're right when mainstream places are OK. You're wrong when they just suck. I mean, Domino's pizza is just terrible. It's not bad cuz it's mainstream. It's bad cuz it's bad. As for being "open minded" enough to give places like this "a chance" (not quotes from you), I think the burden of proof is messed up on that. If from experience, you know that these places tend not to be good, why take it upon yourself to keep trying them? I'm not saying you should be so closed-minded as to refuse to patronize them totally; I'm saying that, to me, it's only worth going to one of these places if someone trustworthy has said something that made it sound worthwhile (as with Chipotle or, now, Macaroni Grill). What I agree with you on is the vehemence you see in threads like this. To me, places like Olive Garden aren't worth decrying. They're more worth ignoring. (I feel the same way about the trendy food barns in the Meatpacking District.)

From my last experience hiking around there, it would have to consist mainly of mud.

Where has this place been all my life? A whole style of restaurant that I'd never even heard of but that I LOVE LOVE LOVE. I was incredibly lucky in that I walked in, alone, at about 10:30 last night and only had to wait a couple of minutes for a seat at the bar. It was very convivial. The food . . . I don't know what to say about it. Grilled chicken is taken to a level you can't believe. And not just chicken, either: one really great thing I had was a skewer of grilled slices of "kobe" beef tongue. I don't remember who here recently said he grew up with pickled tongue and loved it, but I did, too. And I was thrilled to find a new way to have beef tongue that tasted nothing like the tongue I'm used to but was, if anything, even better. Let's see: I also had the chicken skin and one of the special plated dishes, in which the chicken bits were flavored with garlic and served with chopped scallions. These were all great. My least successful dish was the fried silverfish, served with a very salty dipping powder. I thought the fish without the powder were too bland (and over-breaded) (although completely grease-free: one thing that's clear is that this kitchen has chops), but I couldn't come up with a way to dip the fish into the powder that didn't make them too salty. Probably a flaw in my technique more than anything else. Nevertheless, to me the supreme NYC silverfish dish remains the one served at Ping's. I thought my vegetable dishes, on the whole, were less successful than the meat dishes. They were eggplant with a misu coating and asparagus wrapped in bacon. The latter one surprised me: I never thought I'd eat a vegetable wrapped in bacon and think it would be better without the bacon. Maybe I'm growing up or something. I started with a glass of my personally beloved Wakatake and then moved onto a carafe. That's when things got really convivial. Also, I have to say that, while my devotion to Pricilla at Room 4 Dessert remains total, I think I've fallen in love with my waitress at Totto. This place isn't particularly cheap, but it's fun and delicious. Everybody, go.

Omigod, I said "Saranacs" instead of Sazeracs. I don't DESERVE any credibility. I shouldn't show my virtual face in this forum again!

I was going to say the same thing . . . .

I hope Woody Allen isn't reading the "Sincerest Form" thread.

Although I'd say that Cafe Gray is DEFINITELY a place where ambiance/decor/serivce issues affect people's opinion of the place. Look at the most recent reviews in the Cafe Gray thread. I'm not talking about the kitchen's blocking the window. I'm talking about the way it looks, feels, and operates like a noisy, uncomfortable upper-mid-priced cafe but charges "fine dining" prices. It definitely seems to bother people (very much including me), even though no one has anything particularly bad to say about the food -- and many think the food is great.

Therese, I know this is off the topic of this thread, but I just want to say that if I were someone who liked Sidecars and I were to find myself near the mid-50s in Manhattan, I would be sure to stop in the Bar at Town (56th between 5th & 6th, north side of the street) and order one of their Cardinal Sidecars -- a really superior version of that drink.

ABSOLUTELY no disagreement there. Not even a wall of glass bottles.

If the lights are too bright, it makes it harder to enjoy the company. In general, I can't believe that even the most food-obsessed person is unaffected by the way the room looks and feels or the service. Are you saying that it means nothing to you if you have to wait a long time between courses, if you have to go through time-consuming contortions to get your order taken or to get the check and leave, or if they take your wine and put it somewhere and then fail to keep everybody's glasses full? If I'm paying more than bargain prices, service and ambiance definitely count.

At least one reader thought this a brilliant paragraph, FWIW.

Sorry to keep posting serially, but I forgot to mention that, while we were finishing our cocktails and studying the menu, we ordered a special of fresh riccota on toast. It was heavenly: maybe the best thing we had there.

About the wine: I just looked it up, and contrary to what the sommelier told me, Il Futuro isn't 100% sangiovese, but rather a sangiovese/cabernet/merlot blend. That would explain its extraordinary smoothness for a sangiovese (i.e., because it isn't just sangiovese). I have to say, though, that there wasn't a pronounced cabernet flavor. I mainly am pointing this out because, although I'm not complaining or anything, it seems notable to me that the sommelier was mistaken about something like this. (Although his description of how the wine tasted -- a far more important thing -- was right on the mark.)

OK, having looked it up, soffritto is a Tuscan preparation wherein you cook and cook a bunch of vegetables and herbs until they sort of loose their physical integrity, and then you use them to flavor meat or I guess some other protien. So that's what I took to be a "lightly-spiced tomato paste" coating the veal. It's REALLY good. I should add, BTW, that the lamb shank tortellini were NOT on the menu last night.

Oh, so it was veal soffritto. Wonder what THAT is. (I'm so ignorant I have no right to be writing about food.)

A Voce is slightly disappointing only because it isn't as good as Cafe Boulud was under Andrew Carmellini. (More on that later.) In every other way, it's a highly recommendable spot. The room is nice, although a bit cold (in aspect, not temperature [Duh]). The already-famous swivel chairs are among the most comfortable restaurant seats I've yet experienced (now I sound like Frank Bruni). Service is slightly over-friendly, to my taste, but you can't say it's inattentive. The food is sort of deracinated upscale Italian. (More on that later.) But it's very good. I started with the duck meatballs, served in a tangy sauce. I was going to say that I can't imagine anyone not liking them, but if you're one of the people who find the Mongolian Cauliflower at Devi too cloying, you might think the same of these. As is common -- and as people who've had Carmellini's pasta dishes at Cafe Boulud would expect -- the high point of our meal was the pasta (although I want to emphasize, pace Babbo, that I didn't find the secondo unworthy; I just found the pasta extraordinary). We had what I think was a special of pumpkin ravioli with sage. Sometimes this dish can be a little wan, but here it bursted with flavor. The ravioli themselves were very delicate, though. Dishes that can be simultaneously delicate and strongly flavorful are, to me, a real treat. Trying to create my own duck, duck (oops! only two ducks!) dish (that was the waiter's joke, actually), I had as an entree roast duck with "tuscan spices", whatever they are. It was perfectly fine -- but it wasn't a patch on my dining companion's veal dish (which she graciously shared with me after she saw me looking at it in a way that suggested I was about to strangle her for a few tastes). I seem to recall its being listed on the menu as a veal "sformato", but I must be remembering wrong (maybe there's another similar term I don't know that I'm confusing it with), because I didn't any sformato component. What I did see -- and taste -- were fork-tender bits of veal (among the tenderest I've had) thinly coated with what I took to be a lightly-spiced tomato paste. If you go, I strongly recommend this dish. The desserts were good, although I didn't think they were great. I had a special of cheesecake with huckleberries. My companion had the citrus coppa with black pepper, which, although good enough, frankly sounded better than it turned out to be. The wine list is very good (not all Italian, BTW). As has been noted, there are more choices in the $40 area than you'd expect at a restaurant like this (although we decided to have a bit of a blow-out with a super-Tuscan called Il Futuro, an extremely smooth 100% sangiovese that had all the flavor of that grape but was refined rather than earthy -- a delicious wine that I thought complimented the food perfectly). So what do we have here? Perhaps you could say that the food at A Voce is what Babbo's would be if it were more subtle, or what L'Impero's would be if it were less complicated. What's mainly interesting to me, though, is that although A Voce is a very good restaurant, it doesn't approach Cafe Boulud under Carmellini. And I have to say that, despite the skepticism I had expressed, I think the reason might be what Rich said earlier in this thread. For all sorts of historical reasons -- Italy didn't develop a restaurant culture the way France did, Italy never developed a national cuisine -- it may be that French cuinsine lends itself to haute elaboration better than Italian (especially since there is no such thing as "Italian cuisine"). For whatever reason, though, Carmellini's food at A Voce is very good, whereas his food at Cafe Boulud was truly special. On the other hand, A Voce is also cheaper than Cafe Boulud (entrees, as best as I recall, are under $30 and, if I remember right [i'm really bad at this], mainly not more than $25). It's very good. It's highly recommendable. It just isn't all that Carmellini can do.

Without wanting to sound too gloppy about this, it's really sort of an honor -- as well as something of tremendous value -- to be able to discuss this stuff with you. Thanks. (Now, please forget I said that.)

This is really interesting. Thanks again.

Thanks to all. I'm pretty certain one was a Pompadour. The Improved Gin Cocktail sounds like something I'd order, so maybe that was another. I want to be clear that I'm not "accusing" the barstaff at 5 Ninth of anything. I'm more trying to explore my own reactions and the reasons for them. Mr. Wondrich might be correct that it's just that the old recipes are less sweet and stronger than what I'm used to. But that brings me back to one of my initial questions: why don't I feel that way about the old-school cocktails I've had elsewhere (add AOC Bedford to the list)? Do they change the recipes more?

There is a significant Lebanese presence in Merida, FWIW.

The cocktail menu on their website is WAY abbreviated compared to the multi-page tome you get at the restaurant. None of the cocktails I'm talking about is on the website menu. I get the feeling these are turn-of-the-century old rather than mid-20th.

No and no. As a factual point, this occurred over three different visits on three different days of the week. I doubt it was even the same bartender.

Just to try to regain some small bit of credibility, this was especially striking because I usually drink bitter drinks: Manhattans, Saranacs, amaros after dinner. But I thought the drinks in question were off the charts.