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kurl

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Everything posted by kurl

  1. I'm fairly certain Picholine requires jackets but not ties for dinner only.
  2. kurl

    Amuse

    It is, of course, possible that the first tier serving staff wasn't there for Thanksgiving. Of course that's not an excuse, but still ...
  3. kurl

    Atelier

    Here's a New Atelier Review in the Times.
  4. This probably isn't the place to discuss it, but I sometimes think that "nice" restaurants think that putting prices or a menu on a website has a cheapening effect, or something. Witness that the Jean Georges website has menus/prices for JoJo, Vong, etc. but not for JG.
  5. kurl

    ChikaLicious

    It's called Chikalicious, IIRC. And I don't *think* it's open yet.
  6. kurl

    Nice Matin

    If your assumption was correct, they've succeeded -- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/dining/25REST.html
  7. kurl

    wd-50

    Here's the WD50 review - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/18/dining/18REST.html
  8. Granted, it was on the street. It was actually really really good, though fried chicken is not my forte (did you guys know that that's supposed to be pronounced "fort?!" blew my mind when I heard that), financial district, on Hanover Square or right near it. Thanks for all of your recommendations in that other thread, when I get more than 5 free minutes, I'll be sure to try more of them out (I only started my job 9 days ago)
  9. kurl

    Bolo

    I mean, I haven't eaten at Bolo in the last year -- I'd wager that maybe one person who reads this topic has -- so it could really be up there with Veritas, Craft, and Gramery Tavern, but it just seems so damned improbable. Still, I'll check it out at some point in the near future, probably.
  10. kurl

    Bolo

    And New York's Newest Three-Star Restaurant Is... The answer may surprise you -- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/dining/04REST.html
  11. kurl

    Bouley

    I went to Bouley with my girlfriend for lunch this Friday (which ended like 3 hours ago) and was very pleased, if not consistently blown away. We had the longer tasting menu. First course: Chef's Canape - Gravlax ("gravlox?" "grovlox?") with coconut yogurt and cucumber salad (I insisted there was some kind of foam in the waiter's description, but my girlfriend insisted that I was mistaken). I thought this was quite good -- weird, for sure, but very refreshing-tasting -- a good way to wake up the palatte or something. My girlfriend disagreed, finding it poor, and not finishing it. Even though I liked it, it was probably the least successful dish of the meal. - served at the same time as - Amuse (or something) - Tiny taco with avocado and corn and tomato. This was great -- I've had bad luck with great-restaurant amuses in the past (or, at least, they haven't been the tiny morsels of explosive flavor one would expect), but this one was superb. Sort of sweet-tasting from what I think was the corn shell, and the vegetables had strong tastes which contrasted and blended nicely. Second course (appetizer) - I got some kind of yellow-fin tuna sashimi... The fish was extremely fresh, but the presentation wasn't particularly exceptional. In a town like New York, crawling with good Japanese restaurants and having at least a few on the caliber of Nobu (even though it's hip/crowded/overrated/etc.) and Yasuda, I sort of feel that having tuna sashimi (even really good tuna sashimi) with an "Asian-ish" sauce just isn't enough for a four-star restaurant. Yeah, it'd be mindblowing if Japanese food wasn't on every corner, but it is. Still, I thought this was a successful dish. My girlfriend had "Phyllo Crusted Florida Shrimp, Baby Cape Cod Squid, Scuba Dived Sea Scallop and Sweet Maryland Crabmeat in an Ocean Herbal Broth." I don't eat shellfish (residual Jewishness), but I tried some of the broth and thought it was superb. She raved about the dish, for what that's worth (she's new to the world of great food, so the answer to "what's that worth?" may be "not much"). Third course (fish) - I had the "Atlantic Halibut Prepared in a Borscht Manner with Local Ruby Beets, and a Celery and Horseradish Dressing." A great dish. The highlight of the meal for me. The "local" beets were fresh, and I found the flavors to be exotic and homey and a perfect combination (though, for some, possibly an intuitive one (at least beets and horseradish seem like they'd commonly go together in some eastern-european country)). The halibut was well-cooked (not in the sense of doneness, but in the sense of, like, goodness), but it was really the dressing and the beets that made the dish special. My girlfriend had some kind of salmon. She enjoyed it. Honestly, I don't remember how my forkful-sized share of it was. Digression #1 - the bread - This is probably not a revelation to anyone, but Bouley's bread is superb. They start you off with two rolls, an apple one, and a "plain" one. (They probably had a more sophisticated name for the plain one, but whatever). The plain one is good, but I found the apple one to be extraordinary. The butter was merely ordinary, one of the only"little things" that I thought was not sufficient fussed-over. During your meal, the bread-passer-outer-guy comes out with a tray of slices of various breads -- I don't remember all the varieties, but my girlfriend got a slice of raisin bread with a licorice taste to it that was sophisticated and great, and I got a black olive (or was it green olive?) bread that was straightforward, flavorful, and great. Both of these sliced breads took greatly to butter, and were one of those great "four-star" touches. Fourth course - meat -- I had the Roasted Organic Tenderloin of Veal Served "au Pot" style (or something close to that). It was really simple: veal, in its own juices, with some carrots and squash and shallots and other vegetables you cook with on a regular basis at home. It was also really superb: the best veal I've eaten in a long time -- fork tender, fatty, cooked perfectly, flavorful, so good I (discreetly, hopefully) mopped up some of the juices with what remained of my "plain" roll. My girlfriend had some kind of chicken with chanterelle mushrooms and possibly buttermilk. It was chicken. Not terribly good, but decidedly not bad. Digression #2 - Atmosphere I loved the atmosphere at Bouley. The art is inoffensive and non-eye-catching; the room (we sat in the "white" room) was warm, ideally-lit, and spacious-feeling; and the waiter pulled the menus from a little end-table with two drawers -- a brilliant detail. The door is everything it's cracked up to be, and the apples in the entryway are another aspect that doubtlessly helps to elevate Bouley above the pantheon of the merely excellent restaurants. Fifth course - Intermezzo (or something) Possibly pineapple soup with what was definitely coconut ice-cream or sorbet or yogurt. Extremely well-done. The soup was pleasantly bitter and sweet, and it came with this great solid-but-about-a-milimeter-thick-and-translucent-and-melts-in-your-mouth sugar cookie-type thing that was heinously sweet and matched well with the tart soup. The coconut ice cream (or whatever it was) was well-made. -served with- Cappucino-like thing with banana yogurt, coconut foam, and espresso mousse, and possibly something else - served in a tall glass and layered like a cappucino. Really cute and great-tasting dessert. We both enjoyed this "fun" (and off-menu) dessert immensely. Digression #3 - the service The service at Bouley was, for the most part, extremely attentive. We ate fairly quickly (we got through the first four courses in about 55 minutes), and the service did not miss a beat. At 1:45, however (we'd arrived at 1), the restaurant began to get more crowded, and the service got noticibly sketchier: the meat course arrived about 2 seconds after the fish course was picked up (we weren't eating that fast), and the dessert course arrived about 15 minutes after the "intermezzo+free cute dessert" course and about 13 minutes after my coffee (which was good, but still suffered from not being served in Europe), an annoying and somewhat strikingly unprofessional (or at least "un-four-star") move. What I can say about Bouley is that the whole staff raelly made us feel "welcome" in a way that was just great -- it blatantly made me happier. Sixth Course - Dessert I told my girlfriend to order the Hot Valrhona Chocolate Soufflé with Prune-Armagnac, Maple and Vanilla Ice Creams, Chocolate Sorbet, but she didn't listen, and ordered the other option. I gladly got the souffle which was, well, a well-made souffle. It was great (any decent souffle will be), but other than the ludicrous number of ice creams it was served with, undistinctive. Still, I enjoyed it; it was definitely better than 350-or-so of Manhattan's "molten chocolate cakes." My girlfriend ended up ordering “Apple Orchard Prize” Slowly Baked Apples with Caramel and Phyllo Crunch Home Made Cinnamon Ice Cream, which was just not terribly good. It wasn't bad (I defy you to name a non-"weird" dessert at a decent restaurant that's bad), but it was highly pedestrian and indistinctive. It came with the same coconut ice cream as the fruit soup, which was just silly (the chef must know that they're both on the tasting menu). Post-sixth course - The petit fours were petit fours. -served with- Check: The check was $135 including tax and tip and without alcohol. Conclusion - Even though the food was somewhat inconsistent, if one orders well, one can have one of Manhattan's best lunches at Bouley. Even at $67 per-person it's an absolute bargain for what really is more of a "dinner" experience. The space is great, the service highly professional but very far from stuffy, and the food generally great and occasionally excellent. While the food was not really better than some of the (deservedly) three-star restaurants I'd eaten in (Veritas comes to mind first), the experience greatly surpassed them. Do you guys think that Bouley deserves four stars? Postscript - Newbie question Should I have started a new thread for this?
  12. Cool, thanks a lot. Yeah, I'd never been to Shun Lee Palace or Canton, nor did I do any research before I made the post (it was like 3 am or something :)), but they have (or, in Canton's case had) the sort of reputation-among-non-foodies that preceeded them, so I thought I'd get an opinion from people who actually know :) I have been to Joe's Shanghai, and it definitely was "off-hours" (like 4:30 pm), and my meal there was great -- soup dumplings, some kind of fish which escapes me but was in-the-good-way memorable, and some other stuff (I didn't do the ordering). Alright, I've probably highjacked this thread enough for two posts.
  13. This is not a terribly helpful post, but whatever... I don't like Chinese food very much -- something about deep-fried viscous-sauced poor-quality chicken always got to me in the bad way. However, recently, in an illicit move, I took a (rebellious Jewish) friend of mine to Tang Pavillion on Passover. Maybe it was our respective lacks of bread, but I thought it was great (for Chinese standards), and figured I'd explore what NY has to offer a bit more. I'd obviously heard of Grand Sichuan from f-g's review of it (when's that site coming back, anyway) and from discussions here, and on Monday I'd been bumming around the East 50s and decided to give that location a try, not knowing that it wasn't one of the more famed Chelsea or Clinton locations. Anyway, I had the Chengdu (I think that's the title) spicy dumplings and the Kung Pao Chicken. The dumplings were a bit greasy (bear in mind I'm somewhat of a greasephobe in some contexts (though I'll willingly eat Burger King and diner mozzarella sticks), but really amazing. They were filled with just a small bit of meat, and it didn't have much taste, but this was one of those cases where the whole was greater than the sum of its proverbial parts. The texture of the dumplings and the flavor of the sauce were truly great. The Kung Pao chicken was a bit disappointing. Anyway, several hours ago, I went with a (different) friend to the Chelsea location. I only had about 45 minutes to eat (my friend's Acela trail was late the exact amount of time it was supposed to save), so we only ordered main dishes and I asked the waiter to rush, which she did excellently (we got our food in about 8 or 10 minutes). Anyway, I ordered the Kung Pao (probably "Bao," actually) chicken from the freshly-killed menu, and was highly impressed. The dark-meat chicken seemed for once to add something (namely a fatty tastiness almost good enough to redeem chicken's general poorness as a meat) instead of merely being a sign of poor quality. I'll definitely check out Grand Sichuan again. Any other Chinese recommendations? Joe's Shanghai? Shun Lee Palace? Canton?
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