Sneakeater

For a different vibe, you could go for dinner to Alias on the Lower East Side, and then to the East Side Company Bar (not mention any number of zillions of other, but worse, bars in that area).

The Bread Bar is a really good choice, given your parameters. It's an eight-or-so block walk from there to the Flatiron Lounge, on 19th St. between 5th and 6th.

Oh, having read Friend of the Farmer's post, maybe I should take back the part about the difference between a liqueur/cordial and an eau de vie.

I had it at Urena, a restaurant in New York, a couple of nights ago. It's very good -- extremely fresh taste, although not all that piney -- but my first impression is that I like Zirbenz better. Zirbenz is more, I don't know, syrupy, has more interesting and assertive flavor notes, and packs more of a piney puch. I guess that's the difference between a liqueur/cordial and an eau de vie. In any event, in order to make an extended comparison I plan to go back within the next few days to have some more.

In case I wasn't clear, that's what I meant, too. (Although I might withhold an "excellent," as opposed to a "very good," from the savory courses.)

The best place to go for rye whiskey in New York is the incredibly inconvenient LeNell's, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. But it's not only incovenient, but inconvenient with a bullet. They also have all three brands of Maraschino liqueur.

Now, for the Frank Bruni section of my review. For whatever it's worth, I didn't like the bar area. It's very white and sterile. (They used some miracle substance for the bar top, which apparently is very unabsorptive and easy to clean.) It's sort of reminiscent of the spaceport terminal in the movie 2001 (if I'm remembering right) -- some sort of '60s view of what the future was going to look like. The area seemed cramped (it's very narrow). And the stools were a bit too narrow for my fat ass. (To give my fellows credit, I was the only person at the bar with that problem.)

Stopped in late to eat at the bar last night. 1. I think this place has an identity crisis. As the name indicates, management seems to intend this restaurant to be mainly a wine place. After I sat down, a bartender gave me three menus: the bar snacks menu, the dinner menu, and extensive wine-by-the-glass list. "I assume you're here for this," he said, pointing to the wine list. "Actually, I'm here for that," I said, pointing to the dinner menu. But the identity crisis goes even beyond that. It was clear that everybody at the bar was interested, particularly, in the dessert portion of the menu. I wonder, when they hired Jordan Kahn, if the owners of this place realized that the desserts were going to steal the spotlight from the main dishes? But the identity crisis goes even beyond that. There's a severe disjunction in style between the avant-garde desserts and the normal-food main menu. You really have to shift gears when you get to dessert. This is the same problem that Cru had when Will Goldfarb worked there. What's interesting, though, is that here, the desserts seem to be taking precedence, whereas we all know what happened at Cru. I guess that's because here, Jordan Kahn is being more heavily promoted than the other aspects of the restaurant. (And also because -- and I'm saying this with the best will in the world -- Ed Witt is no Shea Gallante.) 2. The savory-course food (I'm reluctant to use that term, given Jordan Kahn's extensive use of savories in his desserts, but I don't know what else to call it) is good. Not great. Good. Sort of Bouleyesque in its combinations of disparate flavor elements (including a lot of use of fruits) -- but not as mushy. One thing I have to give the kitchen credit for is that the level of execution was very high. 3. I don't want to overemphasize this in a restaurant that's been open a week, but service was a problem. That was a surprise, because usually, sitting at the bar, good service is a given (after all, it's so easy). Even though there were something like three bartenders, it took me a long time to get anyone's attention, both initially and whenever I wanted something over the course of my stay. There were long waits between courses. Especially for dessert: I must have had to wait half an hour for that. (They comped me a glass and a half of dessert wine while I waited.) This was especially a problem for me because I stopped in late on my way home from work, and didn't want to make a late late night of it. I was so tired and desperate to get home to bed by the time my dessert came that I was indisposed to give it the concentrated attention that such a highly conceptualized composition required. My criticism of the dessert should be taken with that in mind. 4. For dessert, I had the wolfberry puree with rigid lime sabayon, broken macaroons, soybean, tonka bean foam, and some kind of katsup. As you'd expect, this was not comfort food. It requires concentration, which at that point I just wasn't ready to give it. (Kind of like trying to listen to Elliot Carter last thing before bed after a long day.) So my criticism that it was too preciously clever but insufficiently pleasing on a sensual level should be taken with a grain of salt. My similar disgruntled response to the chocolate bonbons filled with liquified avacado, dusted with cassis powder -- tastes good, but is this really necessary? -- should be taken in the same spirit. 5. There are more things I want to try here. And the tasting menu (whose components pretty much were not available a la carte) looked very good. I hope the next time I eat here, service is better and I'm in a better mood.

GOOD ENTREE ALERT 1. Tuna Wrapped In Bacon On Chickpea Puree With Olives While tuna steaks often taste meaty, this tasted fishy -- in a good way. The bacon, sliced very thin, doesn't contribute its own flavor so much as it somehow serves to punch up the flavor of the tuna. Very successful. 2. Braised Short Ribs Infused With Chorizo Here, the chorizo definitely contributes a flavor element. With each mouthful, you taste the beef, but you also taste the spicy sausage flavor. So something new under the sun: a short rib preparation that's not like all the others. *************************************** Based on my recent meal here, I think I can finally understand something that had previously puzzled me: why Vadouvan disliked this place so much. I think the level of execution in the kitchen doesn't match Chef Urena's conceptions. The food all tastes very good, but you can see that it isn't produced in as fine and clean a manner as at a real top-level place. Some fried items are the slightest bit soggy, for example. (I have neither the vocabulary nor the training to explain anything further, but I think most people who've eaten here, if they think about it, will see what I mean.) Given how much I like what the kitchen is producing, I view this as acceptable in the context of a developing young chef operating under obvious constraints. OTOH, prices here aren't rock bottom, and I can see how this would bother someone with more training and experience than I have, who is more hung up on sheer technical cooking. Speaking for myself, I enjoy the food here very much, and am always happy to return.

Yeah. If that's repulsive, then Welsh Rarebit's repulsive, right?

Hey, that's what I call "breakfast".

Oh, in that case it's easy. Go to Kossar's. Grand St. between Norfolk and Essex, down on the Lower East Side. You'll be near there when you go to Katz's. Right next door is the Doughnut Plant, which ought to be a "must visit" for you. Frankly, I think it's incredibly overrated, but most people think it has the best doughnuts in . . . New York? the Northeast? the entire eastern seaboard? North America? the universe?

Wait a minute. Isn't that the site of the building that A Voce is in? I've frequently ordered Manhattans at the bar there -- without having the slightest idea that I was at the site where that cocktail was invented!

Are the bagels at Kossar's good? I've never had one, since I always feel I have to have a bialy there.

New York bagels are a dying breed. My current favorite is somewhat off the beaten track, Daniel's in Murray Hill (3rd Ave. near 38th St.). The problem is, there's no other reason in the world you'd want to be anywhere near there.

I'm confused. I thought what Fat Guy is, is a Food Safety Expert.

Believe me, it's not. But it's always full of out-of-towners apparently sent there by guidebooks.

Andrew Marvell's reference to "vegetable love".

Joe's Shanghai is just soup dumplings. This is a range (albeit nothing near a full range) of Cantonese-style dim sum. Prepared better than any you've ever had in New York, by some ways.

Almost everybody agrees that the dumplings are great. As for the rest, well I guess that some have drunk the Koolade, and some haven't . . .

Tintol's a great recommendation.

The problem with sichuan food -- especially good sichuan food, as they serve at Wu Liang Ye -- is that if you ask them to tone down the spice, the food gets unbalanced and can be, frankly, not that good. It'll often seem like it's just very oily. The tea-smoked duck there is excellent, and not too spicy. But watch out for the rest -- even the dumplings can be spicy!

Be sure your kids can handle spice for that.

That's why it was so glaring. You'd think they'd have this really interesting, deep list. And I just didn't think they did. I don't know how many of you there are, but let's face it, there's NOPLACE where you can't find a good bottle for $150-$200 (double negative). So maybe you don't have to worry about it so much.

I actually thought the wine list was fairly uninteresting, and highly priced. I have no knowledge, but I can't but think that the corkage fee would be through the ceiling. But that's a completely uninformed comment.