66

[Bond Girl]

It's about $40 to $50 per person if you order entrees. It is worth it for special occasions, it's also the only time i would go.

Good luck on your date.

[cabrales]

Bond Girl -- What was the wine selection like, including by the glass? Did the price quote include alcohol?

[Bond Girl]

Cabby,

I don't know enough about wine to comment on this, but the wine list is the size of a book, so I'd guess it must be pretty good because reading it already made me dizzy. or may be it's because i can't get used to the idea of Chinese food with wine. Although this might sound like a bad generalization but JG is a frenchmen at heart, and wine rates pretty high in his scheme of things. The designer labled couple at the next table did order a bottle of wine with lots of pomp and splendor, but that doesn't mean they can tell the difference between a 64 chateau Lafitte and Joes's Burgundy bottled yesterday.

The bill for two people including a large bottle of Pelligrino water comes out to $94.00 not including tip.

[eatingwitheddie]

DINNER AT ‘66’

Five of us had dinner last evening at ’66,’ Jean Georges’ beautiful and important new Chinese restaurant. It was a really fun experience and we couldn’t have received nicer treatment. We were recognized by co-owner Phil Suarez upon entering, and throughout the evening both Phil and Jean Georges paid close attention to our table. Our servers did as well.

When we arrived the dining room was empty, but soon filled up with a very happening downtown crowd. Restaurateur Drew Nierporent, movie star Denzel Washington, and the restaurant’s designer, renowned architect Richard Meier, were all seen prancing around.

We sampled about 20 different items and overall I would say that the food was good to very good with only one or two items that I would call excellent. To my mind it rated 2 stars on a scale where 4 is the highest.

First of all I think that it’s imperative to point out that new restaurants are a work in progress and that it’s unfair to judge them so early on (the restaurant has been open for two weeks). I think that is especially the case here because Chef V is working in a new milieu. He has years of experience in preparing brilliant French/Western food but merely days in running a Chinese kitchen.

While the menu is limited, there are a large number of dumpling items and their quality ranged from pretty good to very good – though none of the ones I tried seemed great. I particularly liked the foie gras/shrimp? dumpling with a soy based dipping sauce that contained a subtle hint of grapefruit juice, a lovely idea that also worked especially well. The pork soup dumplings were good (B/B+), though not as good as they get when they’re really good, and the pot stickers (fried dumplings) were good also, though less so (B-). The skins were thick and not crisp enough, and the filling under seasoned. That in fact was my main complaint about many of the appetizers I tasted: they all tasted quite clean and fresh but lacked a depth of flavor that I’m always looking for. Jean Georges is cooking without MSG and to do this successfully, in addition to starting with great product, one must compensate by using enough salt/soy plus make sure there is a strong herbaceous profile to the flavor. This type of very careful seasoning is the difference between pretty good and great. We also sampled the steamed mushroom dumplings, shrimp dumplings and scallop dumplings. Their skins were all good, not great, and their fillings again were fresh and clean but lacked a savory quality – though the mushroom dumplings seemed to have the best flavor. Just some more salt would have helped a lot. Spring rolls also were clean, fresh, beautifully fried, and a little light on flavor.

By far the best starters we tried, the best dishes of the night in fact, were the meaty and delicious ribs (back ribs) and the glazed squab appetizer that was terrific. It got my vote for the best/most memorable dish of the meal. The two-flavor shrimp appetizer, fried shrimp in spicy red sauce and mayonnaise-coated white colored fried shrimp, were good. But just go to Sweet & Tart at 20 Mott Street and try an almond covered shrimp, it blows Jean George’s shrimp app out of the water!

Main dishes were all interesting and nicely prepared. Everything was beautifully presented. Shrimp with fresh lily bulbs (nice to see them serving this vegetable) and candied walnuts in a light spicy sauce was well executed, interesting, and not a dish I would ever crave, and I love shrimp dishes. Peking Duck was fresh and accessible at $25 (about 1/2 a duck) but the skin was flaccid. Crispy skin is the whole point of the dish, though the duck tasted good and I loved the excellent mini pancakes that accompanied it. Braised short ribs were rich and tasty and beautifully glazed with a buttered? deeply charcoal-colored sweet sauce. The unusual fried miniature pastries that accompanied the short ribs were dramatic looking but seemed a little superfluous. They were too small (1”) to use as a sandwich covering with the beef that was cut into very large chunks (3”).

A plate of e-fu noodles with lobster had nice large pieces of beautifully fresh tail meat, but again the sauce lacked a certain savory quality. This is a dish that I know well and love. Chef V should try Pings (22 Mott St.) version of this dish when Ping cooks it himself. It is a tour de force and not a dish that is easy to get right. It will open his eyes. A moist and fresh sweet and sour black bass had a crispy coating on one side only, a great idea, and a lovely sweet and sour sauce beneath that was tart and light at the same time. To my sensibility it lacked a garnish that would have married the sauce to the fish. Thoughts turned to shredded pickled vegetables or sweet peppers or shredded sweet young ginger. The pine nuts hiding under the fish were ok but didn’t do it for me. Cold sesame noodles were made from cellophane noodles, a very nice touch, but I found the sauce too sweet and again not savory or spicy enough. A side dish of room temperature eggplant was well flavored and one of the tastiest and most successful dishes of the evening.

The desserts were fun and interesting with 66’s riff on bubble tea by far the most popular item on our table.

The Chinese food world has been far too stagnant when it comes to growth and innovation. It is exciting and of great consequence that an influential and important master chef like Jean George, and his partners, have created a restaurant like this. I look forward to seeing it mature and plan to go there regularly. For the moment it won’t keep me away from my regular haunts. But I’d love to return and try more soon. I’m sure that it will be a tremendous success. I hope JG’s perfectionist qualities run wild.

All things considered this is a very well put together package. By the way I loved the tabletop appointments: great tables, great spoons. Good job!

[Ruth]

We did not know what to expect last night when we took advantage of a last minute cancellation to have dinner at 66.Obviously we were not going to see traditional Chinese dishes. Would Jean-Georges be giving these traditional dishes just a little tweek or trying to revolutionize a 5000 year-old cuisine?

We sampled six dishes and found them a mixed bag. We started with a "hot and sour soup". This was an excelllent soup in its own right - a powerful clear, slightly sour broth, redolent with star anise and thick with mushrooms and fresh hearts of palm. Yet it was in no way evocative of the true viscous hot and sour. Nor did it have any heat. A quick glance at the other diners told us why!

The Shanghai pork soup dumplings which followed were an attempt at the traditional. They were, however, very dry and we had had far more delicate wrappers, and more flavorful soup and filling not only in Shanghai but at New York Chinatown Shanghai style restaurants.

Crispy bean curd was actually a tempura and would have been good had it not been served with an overly sweet dipping sauce. Excessive sweetness was a pervasive problem with sauces served with the meats too. Crisp chicken had a beautifully lacquered skin and the meat was moist - although we wished the cinnamon could have been omitted from the salt and pepper seasoning. The crisp pig did indeed have a nicely crunchy skin but the meat was dried out.

The star of the evening was the dish of Tan Tan (read Dan Dan) noodles although I would attribute this to our insistence that our waiter ask the chef to spice it up for us. There was far more broth than in the traditional Sichuan version, but it was less oily and had a deliciously strong peanut flavor. If only Jean-Georges had chosen the same approach for everything on his menu we would have given it an A+.

Ruth Friedman

[eatingwitheddie]

I don't want to pay that much extra for what sounds like watered-down Chinese food as an answer to watered-down Thai at Vong.

I didn't find the food watered down, on the contrary I found it thoughtful and interesting. Just not fully evolved. When I wrote that JG has spent 25 years cooking French food and maybe 25 days preparing Chinese that was much more to the point. Learning how to create the right flavors in such a sophisticated cuisine is a life-long pursuit and it would be unreasonable and improbable for even a chef of JG's pedigree to master these things overnight. He's doing a very good job, he's just not running on all four engines yet. There's so much to absorb and how can he learn in six months what some of us have been persuing for 30 years? It'll be interesting to see how far he can go. Hell I made a reservation to go back next week.

[Bond Girl]

The tapioca pearl desserts I had was the perfect finish to my meal at 66. It was a very simple idea with great execution, the base is a concoction of coonut, lime with a hint of pineapples and mint. What I like about it is the effortlessness of it all. The ovaltine pudding I am not crazy about, but everyone else seemed to like it. It's essentially what you get when you put chocolate and bananas together, it's a tried and true combination, that's as popular as tuna tartare these days.

The Vivian Tam uniform is nothing to write home about either, then again, I've never been a fan of her design (Too passively asexual).

I agree with Ed that JG is not running on all four engines just yet, but he will because I think his greatest strength as a chef lies in his understanding of creating subtle yet complex flavours that works together. Also, the dishes are very well executed, that is what I like about the place. It is also a good divergence from the average fare in chinatown, which tend to have the same menus everywhere. Since I don't eat meat, I can't tell you the difference between fresh kill and frozen. Secondly , as someone who has seen farm animals slaughtered, this is something I rather not think about.

Even though this may seemed like a generalization, but I think we chinese see chinese food very differently from Americans see chinese food. My theory is that because we grow up with Chinese food, and possibly seen so many variations on the same thing that we crave for something different and some thing new. I don't know if this is the appeal of 66. What I do know is that most of what I had in 66 tasted fresh and elegant. It's a new twist on Chinese food and in my opinion better executed than Sweet n' Tart, and more inventive than Dim Sum a Go Go. That is more than what I can say for a lot of chinese meals I had in the past.

[rozrapp]

Review in this week's New York Magazine.

http://www.nymetro.com/nymetro/food/review...taurant/n_8470/

[Fat Guy]

Am I the only person who thinks that review is alarmingly sycophantic? I think it's appropriate for a reviewer to champion a great chef, but it should be done with dignity.

[Aaron T]

I had dinner at 66 last night and I left very impressed. I called and was able to obtain same day reservations, albeit at 6:30 PM.

We started with the squab a l'orange - which came in a broth with crystalized tamarind. This was one of the highlights of the meal - it was excellent. I liked the candied tamarind too. We also had the scallion pancakes with a dipping sauce of some sort. They were hot and crispy and good.

For mains we had Steamed Cod in a ginger and scallion broth, Crispy Garlic Chicken, and a side of Stir Fried Asian Greens (Bok Choy). The steamed cod was the best thing we ate. The broth/sauce gave it a really nice flavor. The crispy chicken was good, but not as special as the cod. The bok choy was presented nicely on the plate.

For dessert we ordered the frozen mandarin orange slices. Based on the menu, we didn't realize that this was orange sorbet cut in the shape of oraneg slices and put on candied orange peels. The only thing I would not order again. So next we tried the small box of cookies. The cookies came in a red and white chinese takeaway box. Cookies were mollasses, peanut butter, and chocolate chip. The unusual aspect of the cookies was that there was salt crystals on the cookies... I've never seen that before. Salty & sweet - it worked, but I still think it is strange.

I thought the design of the restaurant from the decor to the teapots and glasses was really cool. Service was also good, especially for a new restaurant. No complaints whatsoever about anything. I will go back for sure, as the food and total experience were great. The tab came to $60 per person including tax & tip (excluding alcohol).

On an odd note, at the end of the meal, I asked my waiter if I could keep a copy of the menu as they were printed on paper. He told me no, but that they could fax me one if I called. Today I called and the receptionist told me that they weren't allowed to do that either. Don't know why. The menu is not very descriptive either, so it is not like they would be giving away their secret recipe of 11 original herbs and spices......

[Suzanne F]

I have not eaten there yet, but know I would like to. The food sounds very interesting.

However: everytime I walk past and look in the window, I see what look like Formica-topped tables and Eames-knockoff-looking chairs that would not be out of place in a 1960s junior high school cafeteria. These are right out there, visible from Church Street. Are they comfortable? Is that what the dining room actually looks like, or is that only the bar? Somehow it strikes me as far from the height of modernist luxe. I just can't get my mind around the idea of eating J-G's food while in a setting that makes me feel 13 years old.

[Aaron T]

Suzanne

What you saw was indeed the restaurant and not the bar. There actually isn't even a bar in the restaurant, although there are some loungey type chairs when you walk in on the right where you can geta drink while waiting for your table and I assume they have waiter service in that section.

The tables are not deluxe, but I was reasonably comfortable in the chairs provided and certainly didn't feel like in I was sitting in any type of cafeteria (either the Jr. High kind or the Conde Nast shnazzy kind). The tables were somewhat translucent, and didn't feel cheap to me. The vibe kind of reminded me of Spoon+ in London.

[jamal]

Went to 66 on Friday night. I would generally concur with Aaron's assessment. I was able to obtain a table for 3 at 10pm with a phone call at 8pm, although the restaurant was full when I got therre. One of the decor/layout items that I did not like was that without a bar there is nowhere to get a drink and be out of the way while you are waiting for other members of your party to arrive, particularly if the lounge area is full - as it was on Saturday. We sampled a variety of dishes most of which I thought were good to very good. I thought that the beef short ribs stood out and that the scallion pancakes were the weakest of all items we sampled. I was also a big fan of the Passion Fruit/Banana sorbet (which was one of the three sorbets in the sorbet selection). I thought the service was good, although a little slow at times. I thought the decor was very good to excellent, but then I like the modernist/minimalist schrager, starck, meier type design - I especially liked the way the room has been sectioned off so that it feels like you are in your own little dining area with a small group of other tables. The Spoon+ vibe is spot on Aaron, I ate at Spoon+ about three weeks ago so I thought it was interesting that you made that same comparison. I don't know how often I will go back - one of the problems with NYC - too many restaurants, too little time but I would recommend it to others as a fun place to eat with a midsize group.

[eatingwitheddie]

I had dinner at 66 last night and I left very impressed.  I called and was able to obtain same day reservations, albeit at 6:30 PM.

We started with the squab a l'orange - which came in a broth with crystalized tamarind.  This was one of the highlights of the meal - it was excellent.  I liked the candied tamarind too.  We also had the scallion pancakes with a dipping sauce of some sort.  They were hot and crispy and good.

For mains we had Steamed Cod in a ginger and scallion broth, Crispy Garlic Chicken, and a side of Stir Fried Asian Greens (Bok Choy).  The steamed cod was the best thing we ate. The broth/sauce gave it a really nice flavor.  The crispy chicken was good, but not as special as the cod.  The bok choy was presented nicely on the plate.

For dessert we ordered the frozen mandarin orange slices.  Based on the menu, we didn't realize that this was orange sorbet cut in the shape of oraneg slices and put on candied orange peels.  The only thing I would not order again.  So next we tried the small box of cookies.  The cookies came in a red and white chinese takeaway box.  Cookies were mollasses, peanut butter, and chocolate chip.  The unusual aspect of the cookies was that there was salt crystals on the cookies... I've never seen that before.  Salty & sweet - it worked, but I still think it is strange.

I thought the design of the restaurant from the decor to the teapots and glasses was really cool.  Service was also good, especially for a new restaurant.  No complaints whatsoever about anything.  I will go back for sure, as the food and total experience were great.  The tab came to $60 per person including tax & tip (excluding alcohol).

On an odd note, at the end of the meal, I asked my waiter if I could keep a copy of the menu as they were printed on paper.  He told me no, but that they could fax me one if I called.  Today I called and the receptionist told me that they weren't allowed to do that either. Don't know why.  The menu is not very descriptive either, so it is not like they would be giving away their secret recipe of 11 original herbs and spices......

You ordered well. All of these were items I thought were good as well. Unfortunately, many other offerings weren't so impressive, though that was 3 weeks ago and things may have changed for the better. I truly hope so and expect this will happen sooner or later.

[cabrales]

A moist and fresh sweet and sour black bass had a crispy coating on one side only, a great idea, and a lovely sweet and sour sauce beneath that was tart and light at the same time. To my sensibility it lacked a garnish that would have married the sauce to the fish.

If we are addressing the same dish, below are my notes on it:

Black Sea Bass with Green Tea Tempura (entree, around $20-25; name inexact, as the restaurant refused me a menu copy):

This dish was misguided. A long filet of sea bass was thin and was deskinned. Then, a mimic "skin" made from a heavy tempura batter (not really tempura, more like batter) with a little hint of green tea had been placed on top of the bass.

Problems abounded: (1) the bass was significantly overcooked (adjustment is absolutely mandatory for the relatively thin and long shape of the bass) and the flesh lacked a good flavor, (2) the tempura was too heavy, (3) the dish was served at the same time as the lobster claw dish I had also ordered and cooled as I took in the latter (a clear mistake; given the size of the dish, it would have been vulnerable to cooling effects even without a concurrent serving), and (4) the saucing was an orange-colored oil with sweet and sour effects predominating (particularly, the sweetness, which was too stark). True, the orange-colored oil also had some aspects of the heat from chilli. However, a bad overall saucing for an average-minus filet. The moist bits of green tea bits and oil on the side were helpful, but did not save this dish from mediocrity.

Edited March 31, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[pixelchef]

William Grimes reviews 66 in this week's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/09/dining/09REST.html

**

In my opinion, 66 deserves three stars. Or, am I totally off the mark?

[SethG]

We're having a good-bye lunch for a colleague tomorrow, and yesterday we were forced to find a new venue. On the spur of the moment, I suggested we try 66 (which is just 'round the corner from my office), but I didn't expect they'd be able to take a reservation for 27 people on a Restaurant Week Tuesday for the Thursday immediately thereafter. To my surprise, they said fine.

There's been next to no commentary on eGullet about 66 for the past year. Anyone been lately? Anyone go for Restaurant Week? Has the place improved/gotten worse since it opened?

[Pan]

Seth, how was your meal at 66? I hope you post about it when you have a spare moment.

[SethG]

The meal was good... I'd go back.

I tried to approach 66 without comparing each bite to the usual fare in Chinatown, but it's impossible. Each dish invites the diner to ask "is this really all that different from what I get down the street?" and "is it really worth more than twice the price?"

Some of the things people ordered that weren't on the prix fixe menu fell into this particularly: scallion pancake, hot & sour soup, and fried rice all tasted pretty much like the usual stuff with slight refinements.

The $20 lunch steered clear of such dishes and removed some of the sticker shock. It's a good value for four courses (and they have a $20 lunch all year long, I learned). There are two choices for each course.

Course 1:

This was a mushroom salad or a tuna tartare. I didn't taste the mushroom salad, but it appeared to me to be mostly greens with a couple mushrooms here and there-- this was not what I expected and I heard a little grumbling about it at our table.

The tuna tartare was rolled up into a ball and served with a few little toasts. I thought it tasted fresh, bright, uncomplicated.

Course 2:

This was a corn and crab soup, which was good but nothing to shout about, or a pair of large shrimp dumplings. The dumplings were the highlight of the afternoon for me. They were really great.

Course 3 (main course):

This was a choice of a cod dish or a crispy garlic chicken. I enjoyed the cod very much, although I can't really remember much about it. The chicken rivaled the shrimp for best dish of the day. It was superb-- the skin sits atop the meat, perfectly golden and crisp. Then, beneath the skin sits the chicken, which is simply prepared but really really moist. And there's a small bowl to the side with a spice mixture for dipping-- I couldn't tell you what's in it although I guessed a healthy dose of cardamom had to be in there.

Course 4: dessert

This was a chocolate cake with ice cream or some kind of tapioca concoction. The chocolate cake was delicious, and it had a gooey center. I didn't taste the tapioca.

The service was a total disaster, but we were a party of 27 people and the computers were down. I'll cut them some slack and say it was probably a one-time problem.

Edited June 26, 2004 by SethG (log)

[oakapple]

A vendor took me out to dinner at 66 on Monday night. That meant I wasn't paying. We had a fun night out, but I wouldn't rush back to spend my own money there — not because there's anything wrong with 66, but because there's plenty of other fun places I haven't tried yet. My feeling now about 66 is, "been there, done that."

66 is Jean-Georges Vongerichten's riff on Chinese cooking. Neither the menu nor the wine list is long, but this is not a complaint. Vongerichten has narrowed the stereotype Chinese menu down to the things his kitchen can execute well. Aside from a dessicated plate of overcooked spareribs, every dish was fresh, tasty, and inviting.

The menu is divided into appetizers, dim sum, rice/noodles, and entrees of vegetables, fish and meat. The apps top out at about $14, although most are under $10. The entrees top out around $26, although most are around $20-22. As at Spice Market, plates are brought out when ready. Our server assured us that all of the dishes are designed for sharing (which wasn't always true), and encouraged us to do so—which we did.

There's a tasting menu for $66 (get it?), which our server advised was "personally selected by Jean-Georges" (no surname required). Three of us were willing to go that route, but one of our party was skittish about trusting the famous chef's judgment, so we created a more conservative tasting menu of our own. Our server advised ordering one app, one dim sum, and one entree/vegetable course per person, which turned out to be an ample amount of food, and indeed perhaps a tad too much.

I can't find a menu for 66 online, and I can't remember everything we ordered, but I'll run through a few of the highlights. The two standout appetizers were cubes of pork belly and shrimp prepared two ways. We ordered four different kinds of dumplings, of which I remember three: foie gras, mushroom, and lobster. All were excellent, and you're not going to find them on the typical Chinese menu.

We ordered a fish entree, which I believe was a grilled sole. It was an undivided fillet, and it quickly crumbled into bitty pieces when we tried to divide it among the four of us. It was a wonderful dish, but hard to split among a large group. The traditional duck with scallions and pancakes was more successful in this regard. Here, Vongerichten was just replicating a Chinese standard (albeit with happy results), without putting his own stamp on it. A plate of mixed vegetables (including the inescapable snow peas) and a sweet & sour chicken dish completed the main courses.

The cocktail menu included a concoction called Mother of Pearl, with rum and coconut milk, which was so wonderful I ordered a second. After dinner, I ordered a 14-year-old Oban (single malt scotch), which was very reasonably priced at around $15, and included about twice as much as you normally get in a restaurant portion. Our meal concluded with chocolate fortune cookies—once again, Jean-Georges is winking at us.

The Richard Meier décor has been much written about. It is spare, sleek, and doesn't at all resemble your typical Chinese restaurant. The entrance on Church Street (between Leonard and Worth Streets) is so subtle you could easily miss it. My hosts had no trouble getting a 6:30 reservation, and when we left about two hours later 66 was not yet full.

Edited June 30, 2004 by oakapple (log)

[therese]

Anybody been to 66 recently and care to report?

[rozrapp]

According to eater:

There hasn't been a person in 66 since last Spring. Place is toast....

[therese]

Then we'd better hurry, I suppose. Friends from NYC suggested it and I've agreed.

Sometimes dinner isn't about the food. I'll report back.

[Pan]

[...]Sometimes dinner isn't about the food.[...]

←

I get what you mean, but boy does that sound weird!

Have fun.

[therese]

[...]Sometimes dinner isn't about the food.[...]

←

I get what you mean, but boy does that sound weird!

Have fun.

←

What's even weirder about that line is that I first heard it from a friend who is (well, was---he got bored with it and now does more general food writing and some other general sorts of things) a restaurant reviewer, and he made it one night over a less than fantastic dinner in a restaurant that he was reviewing.

Dinner last night was a great example of the principle. The husband's an old friend of mine, our spouses had never met. We ended up getting along really nicely, so pretty much would have enjoyed anything at all.

That said, it was a very pleasant experience overall. Very glam but comfortable space next to The Knitting Factory. Staff gracious, service excellent and friendly throughout. The menu's a bit of a hodge podge, and after reading through it we decided to leave the decisions up to the kitchen so that we could chat and all chose the tasting menu at $66 a person. The prices for a la carte items, by the way, are very reasonable, especially for this sort of place.

What we got (that I can recall):

tuna tartare with tapioca and lotus root chips

soba with cucumber

fried shrimp prepared two ways

peking duck (extra pancakes on request)

cod with ginger

shu mai

mushroom dumpling

asparagus with lotus root

molten chocolate cake with coconut ice cream

assortment of fresh fruit

banana spring rolls

Everything very good, if not necessarily amazing. Generally a bit on the salty side, so not ideal if you don't want to salt load. Servings on the large side, but you end up eating over several hours, so it doesn't feel too excessive until the end.

As for 66 being empty, it was quiet when we arrived for our 7:30 reservation, but filled up as the evening wore on, and was positively packed by the time we left. I'm pretty sure we were the oldest people in the restaurant, and the noise level is high: music and conversation bounce off the hard surfaces used throughout.

On balance a fun, high energy evening with reasonably priced well-prepared food.