Fr.Og

[Nathan]

so...this place has been talked up on Eater and the like as a competitor -- overflow-pickup of Balthazar.

its by Didier Virot of Aix.

anyway....they had a "friends and family" shinding last night. it completely rubbed me the wrong way...massively so actually.

they had a velvet rope, red carpet, bouncers.

I get the bouncers...but the rope and carpet? Is this a club or a bistro? Hopefully it was a onetime thing...but it still p_____ me off. Good way to tick off the neighborhood as well.

What were they thinking?

[Eatmywords]

so...this place has been talked up on Eater and the like as a competitor -- overflow-pickup of Balthazar.

its by Didier Virot of Aix.

anyway....they had a "friends and family" shinding last night.  it completely rubbed me the wrong way...massively so actually.

they had a velvet rope, red carpet, bouncers.

I get the bouncers...but the rope and carpet?  Is this a club or a bistro?  Hopefully it was a onetime thing...but it still p_____ me off.  Good way to tick off the neighborhood as well.

What were they thinking?

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How long did you wait before realizing they weren't letting you in?

[Nathan]

ha!

I was actually on my way to meet a date at Epistrophy...but was just appalled to see a velvet rope and red carpet next to Sur La Table...it's just not that kind of street.

[hshiau]

Hard to believe no one has eaten at or written about this place since April. My wife and I stopped for dinner since we were doing some shopping down in Soho. Although I couldn't get an 8pm reservation, there were only 2 tables occupied when we walked in. I loved the space but it does seem a bit like a lounge/night club. Between July 4th and the regular flight of folk out of the City during the summer, they had closed the downstairs dining room. Only problem I found was that it was freezing cold in there. They must have had the air conditioning down to around 55%!

My wife had the foie gras to start and I had the seared lamb. The soy/balsamic sauce worked extremely well with the foie gras. Unfortunately, I only had a small taste before my wife polished it off. My lamb was rather flavorless...and cold. I would never have attributed flavorless to a lamb dish but there it was. Even the sauces couldn't do anything to add to the dish.

On to the mains: I had the grouper and my wife had the seared beef sirloin. I very much enjoyed my grouper and it's accompanied sides. Nothing wow but still well prepared. As for the sirloin, my wife likes her beef medium well and it came as requested. However, it was a bit dry. That could be a result of the requested medium well but we've definitely had beef that was juicy even though it was cooked longer. My wife felt the sauce was a bit too strong but I thought it necessary.

For dessert, we shared the pistachio souffle and the coffee sponge cake. The sponge cake was wonderful. Great flavors in an almost "wet" package. I wasn't as impressed with the souffle. It might have been slightly overdone. Hard for me to tell since I've never had that experience before. This really was the first souffle I've had where I thought...'eh'.

Overall, it was a bit hit or miss but the price point isn't exhorbitant so we'd do the walk-in thing again if we're in Soho. I'm sure they get a lot of overflow from Balthazar since the place was full when we left.