Augieland

Café Cluny, 421 saturatillian stars: originally posted 11/08/06

It takes nerves of steel to decorate your restaurant with a three foot cockroach. To be fair, I am not sure it is a cockroach or that it is carved from driftwood, but that’s how it looked to me suspended from the ceiling in the back corner of Café Cluny, the new little French place in the West Village serving straightforward bistro food. I am sure you are asking, “the West Village needed a new small restaurant serving French bistro food, how will it stand out?” Well, besides the three foot driftwood cockroach, a serious collection of sketches of flora and fauna, and a strikingly good portrait of a young Jonathan Waxman in pencil, it has a stupendous appetizer.

Like Gavroche, Jarnac, La Ripaille, Le Gamin, Paris Commune, Tartine, and the many places in the neighborhood that also serve standard French bistro food but don’t identify themselves as uniquely French, this is a quaint room jammed full of little, two-person tables and bistro chairs that encourages an intimacy with the crowd. You are, after all, about ten inches from your fellow diners in two of the three directions that aren’t facing the table. Also, like all of these places, this one was full of patrons; it would seem outside Paris the best place to be a Parisian bistro is in the part of New York City where the East-West streets start running diagonally SE-NW.

When Wife and I walked in around six on a Monday to a rather sparsely sat restaurant we were told they could accommodate two but that we would need to finish by 7:30pm. This initiated a gamut of feelings in me. First was this isn’t Nobu and I stopped eating at Nobu because of the “I need the table back” thing they do. Second was, well, maybe the table has been reserved and this host is kindly squeezing me in, making a fair deal for both of us (we weren’t going to be long anyway, people who sit before six seldom are and he must know that or he wouldn’t be the gatekeeper at a restaurant in Manhattan). Third was what kind of inept reservationist loads a book around 7:30pm on a Monday? Finally, when the third phrase uttered by our waiter was “there is no rush” I figured best to write it off to new place jitters not worth being distracted by.

Ok, so the place is not very unique and is very popular very early in its run. What matters is the food and wine:

The wine list is trite and dear, however every bottle of wine on the short list is also offered by the glass. A tough program to maintain that would end up wasting a lot of fine wine, it seemed sensible with these simpler selections which may even improve with a little oxidization. The menu doesn’t care what you drink with it so neither should you. Get a glass of whatever you feel like; Swordfish “Au Poivre” will be fine with Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc.

Mixed Greens Salad: there can be beauty in a simple salad, as this example shows. Crisp, well selected greens with fine herbs mixed through, dressed in sherry vinegar and a nutty olive oil vinaigrette. There is a margin for error in such simplicity that many versions of this salad fall victim to, happily not here.

Sea Scallops w/ cauliflower puree & beet jus: no doubt the dish of the night. Seared scallops dotted with a touch of caviar resting on a velvety cauliflower purée which has been ringed with reduced beet juice, all topped with a scattering of what I assumed to be baby mache. The scallops, seared to a taut level, had a smooth texture, perfectly complimenting the luscious purée I would bet was 99% butter. The beet sauce offered a light sweetness, the caviar provided saline bursts that stood well individually rather than homogenizing as salt would have otherwise, and the mini-lettuce offered a light bitter touch of vegetal astringency to play off the tight spectrum of sweetness, saltiness, tartness, and richness of the other components.

For entrées we had Roasted All Natural Chicken w/ autumn vegetables and Hanger “Steak Frites” w/ fingerling potatoes, Swiss chard and garlic butter. The good side of both was the cooking. The steak had a great char with a tender, exactly-cooked center, the chicken’s skin was crispy while the flesh remained succulent; both were as good as or better than most of the versions around town. The accompanying vegetables were as good. The fingerling potatoes were called confit in the sides part of the menu, by which I assume they mean poached in oil, either way their waxy flesh had a sumptuous bite. The braised chard was light with only enough vegetal bitterness left to compliment the beef. The vegetables with the chicken were roasted Jerusalem artichokes, onions, carrots, and spinach, a mélange that played quite well with the deep reduction of chicken stock (with its zip of long roasted bones and vegetables) dressing the plate.

Notwithstanding the menu’s annoying habit of presenting certain options “in quotations,” the weakness of the entrées was a pronounced lack of salt, which is often the weakness at new restaurants. I never complain about salt in a restaurant that provides it on the table. If it’s there I can use it after all, but the level of preparation in this case wanted far better salt than was available in the shaker on the table. In the chicken dish the breast, the vegetables, and the sauce were properly salted, the thigh however was entirely lacking (I have to imagine because it was plated under the breast the last touch before service missed it). As for the steak, it was missing salt entirely as were its accompanying potatoes. After three bites I added some of the table salt, only to have it wash through and make the meat taste coated in salt rather than seasoned with. Better table salt would cure this, but I assume from the level of attention in the rest of the preparation it won’t be necessary for long.

So that I could say I tried a dessert I sampled the Concord Grape Tarte with Peanut Butter Ice Cream (apparently the pastry chef does not believe in shorthand). People often try to reinterpret childhood memories like PB&J in dishes, some to good effect, some to poor. This one works, both components are solid and well produced but in no way genius, much like the ingredients they ape. The result is a fun, good take on the fondly familiar.

I originally thought Café Cluny would serve best as a way to skip the line around the corner at Tartine and its sibling good French bistros, except that a week in they are already very full, which leaves us with that scallop. The staff has nailed that cute and adept, if not expert, thing that usually takes years to get down. The food is good enough to expect it will get better. The best you can hope for from a restaurant serving the standards that are on this menu is aptitude, which this place has. Have a bad jones for simply roast chicken? This place will be as safe a stop-off as any other. But I would definitely be willing wait around a short amount of time at the cute little bar and have some drinks in order to eat more of their scallops.

Boqueria, 741 accuratillian stars: originally posted 10/17/06

Tapas are the garage band of the food world. At their best they are tight and inspire you to have raucous fun. Bad, they are neither here nor there, feeling like a small waste of time. By their nature, like covers of great rock, perfect tapas are someone taking a standard and riffing on it; if their interpretation is both solid and unique in some way they have succeeded. What I needed was Jane’s Addiction doing Ripple.

After a full day (11 hours) of listening to some of Spain’s greatest chefs discussing their methods, philosophy, and cuisine at Spain-10, watching cooking demos live and on video with little offered in the way of acceptable sustenance, I was hungry and I was hungry for Spanish food. While all of the food I had been listening about was modern cuisine utilizing newer techniques, it was one thing above all – Spanish. So although part of my hunger was pointed toward the contrasts and interplays of the modern philosophy, I realized what was actually going to satisfy it was not a long contemplative meal but rather a smattering of many flavors that were the underpinning of all this modernization.

During a break between Spanish-centric seminars I was introduced by a mutual friend and chef of a Spanish restaurant to Seamus Mullen, the chef of the kind of new-ish Spanish spot in lower Chelsea called Boqueria. This forced me to admit to not having been to a place I had heard good things about, a situation I seldom find myself in.

Somewhere between the hunger started early in the morning by Arzak’s lecture about the four fundamental sauces (green, white, black, and red) in the Basque country, and being assured by a person whose American renditions of traditional Spanish fare I enjoy that Seamus was doing a good job, I decided to and then did grab Wife and wander into Boqueria unannounced around 8:30 on a Saturday night.

The space is shaped like a traditional Bordeaux bottle with a couple of tables and a tapas bar/bar in the neck, with the front door playing the cork. The deeper you move through this bottleneck which seems to prefer a state of congestion, the looser the crowd gets until you pass the shoulder of the bottle shape to find a tight lively space abuzz. There are high tables holding groups of three and up running down the walls, with a long communal table running the center. We asked for two anywhere and, advised of an expected twenty minute wait, decided to grab spots at the inside, less congested end of the bar where two people who were just now being led into the back had been standing.

Sitting at the service end of the bar waiting for a server to pick it up was a plate of Pan Amb Tomaquet wafting garlic, tomato and olive oil scents at us and pretty much deciding that we would be ordering one of those and a cheap glass of Cava to go with it. After I got the Cava, but before the tomato drenched bread showed up, a spot became ready so Wife and I were sat side by side in the middle of the communal table, closely followed by our bread.

Before everybody started trying to make all wine taste like all other wine, regions had distinct wine and that wine went with their food. As a cocktail, this cheap lousy little Cava would have been boring, tasting of cheap yeast, cellar and metal. However paired with Pan Amb Tomaquet  (this one grilled in a panini press, with screaming garlic that just walks the edge of being way too hot and overpowering but is kept in line by the sweet acids of tomato pulp and unctuous Spanish olive oil), simple, rough Cava like this is the perfect perceptibly sweet counterpoint.

The menu offers four options: thirteen Tapas priced between four and six dollars, eight Media Raciones (average rations) for eleven dollars, four Raciones (rations) for nineteen dollars and three Para Compartir (to Share) ranging from fifteen to forty dollars per person if split by two. Grooving nicely on the simple pleasure of the Pan Amb Tomaquet, Grilled Bread rubbed with tomato, garlic and olive oil: we decided it best to stay in the groove and just run the tapas section.

Pintxos Morunos Grilled lamb, marinated in lemon and cumin: skewered tender rounds of lamb grilled hard and fast so they have a nice carmelization while staying to the rarer side, served on toast topped with a rough, chopped herb salsa verde.

Pintxos De Jamon y Melon Serrano ham and melon: three small balls of honeydew melon on a skewer with folded thin slices of Serrano ham in between. A mint leaf on each added a light touch, drawing out the contrast between light, sweet and crisp, and light, salty and savory even more.

Pintxos de Guindilla, Aceituna y Anchoa Pickled pepper, olive and white anchovy: as simple as that, the olive with a slice of piquillo pepper and a white anchovy filet around it held in place on a skewer. Got a friend that wants to like anchovies but doesn’t? This may be the best inroad; the good parts of the anchovy are drawn out by the spicy notes of the pepper and the earth-born green flavors of the olive, while the vinegar of the pepper and the richness of the olive temper any fish flavor leaning toward strong. It tastes like fish in the good way so it won’t change someone’s whole point of view, but if they are on the fence it may knock them our way.

Tres Croquetas Cremosas: Jamón, Pollo y Setas Three creamy croquettes: Serrano ham, chicken and mushrooms: the chicken had an aroma of fennel seeds, almost like Italian sweet sausage, the mushroom was the flavor of a good duxelle, and the ham was more about the creaminess of whipped potato, each on a complimentary sauce. They were creamy and hot as blazes inside, while crunchy and light on the outside.

Buñuelos de Bacalão Salt cod fritters: fried in an herbed batter, the inside had a dense chew with only the lightest waft of cod flavor.

Tortilla Española Spanish omlette of onion and potato: far more plentiful in potato than egg, this version of tortilla was like the Spanish you-could-eat-it-cold version of potato gratin.

Cojonudo fried quail egg and chorizo on toast: when our waiter served it he told us a story of Seamus first trying the dish in Spain in his youth and asking what it was, only to have Cojunudo repeated over and over later learning that “cojundo” basically translates to “really eff-ing good.” This is a crisped piece of chorizo an a toasted round of a baguette with a sunnyside-up quail’s egg on it, and it is indeed “really…”

Datiles con Beicon y Almendras Dates stuffed with almonds and cabrales, wrapped in bacon: I love cabrales. At its best it is serious cheese, so serious I live a little afraid of it. On a cheese plate I eat it last and only with a glass of Pedro Ximenez or some other really sweet sherry; it is that piquant. As an ingredient in this dish it balances and drops to the back, leaving this a date dish with a couple of complimentary flavors, rather than a bleu cheese dish as I expected.

Brandada de Bacalão Salt cod brandade: a pure creamy brandade in a clay dish served with grilled bread.

Pimientos de Padrón Blistered Padrón peppers with coarse sea salt: The first one each Wife and I tried were hot, the piquant burn-your-throat-after-you-swallow kind of hot. After about three more I remarked that the ensuing three had not been hot, so I suggested she try another. As we discussed how strange it was that if only two were hot they happened to be the first two we tried, our waiter stopped by and hearing our chat explained two things. First, that these were grown in California being the closest facsimile to the Spanish version available here, and that were we in Spain this dish would always be served accompanied by a sentence that translates to “some are hot, most are not.” So as far as that goes they nailed it. Each one tastes different and it becomes fun to keep eating them just to see what the next will bring. I gave up many of the dishes I was served at this meal half finished in the interest of not getting overfull before I could taste each thing, however every time someone tried to clear the peppers they were rebuked.

Aceitunas Aliñadas Marinated olives: various olives that favor the astringent side of the olive spectrum, these are perfectly suited to snacking while sipping an ice cold Fino.

About two thirds of the way through our tapas exploration, Chef Mullen wandered from the kitchen to greet some friends of his, the nature of the room causing him to pass us as he did. I took the opportunity to introduce Wife, reintroduce myself and compliment the seven or so dishes we had been served to that point. Soon after his disappearing back into the kitchen two dishes showed up with his compliments. These strayed greatly from my simple plan to  explore the place by way of simple fare, but other than that small hiccup, seldom are gifts from the kitchen as welcome as these.

      The first of the two was a torchon of foie gras rolled in dehydrated rose petals and crushed candied hazelnuts, with fig preserves on brioche toast; the second was seared diver scallop on black trumpet mushrooms with a green apple purée and crunchy little nuts. Both classic fine ingredients made unique by interpretation: the foie a traditional pairing of unctuous with sweet, distinctly Spanish sweet by choice of product, with a layer of perfume from the rose and the nut’s crunch contrasting the foie’s smoothness; the scallop doing the decidedly Spanish thing of linking sea and land, sweet plump diver scallop with the earthiest of mushrooms sweetened by the green apple. These two dishes offered a bit of satisfaction to the part of me that was craving finer, more contemplative food, and also made me eager to return to try the more composed dishes offered next time.

It is also worth remarking that we had a fantastic waiter. I do most of my eating as a repeat guest of places and have a group of waiters and wine geeks I have a definite rapport with that has in some cases taken weeks and sometimes years to develop, yet seldom do I find a server on a maiden voyage to a place who has both the competence and personality to settle right in and greatly add to the dining experience. Long before he realized that the chef was familiar with us, he was comfortable enough to tell us anecdotes about our food and discuss wines and dishes as related to their regional origin. I would tell you his name but I am afraid someone will go and steal him and I want to know where he is when I finally open Augieland (the all pork, foie, and offal restaurant) and go poach him myself.

These are tight tapas. Sure, if it was my band I would have sprinkled a little more salt on the Pan Amb Tomquet, or drizzled a raw, peppery olive oil or paprika on the brandade to offer a counterpoint to its homogenous nature, but I would just be doing a cover of Seamus’ work.

Of all of Spain’s destinations I like Barcelona the least. I like cities that could take or leave me as a tourist (Madrid hits this one squarely on the head). Barcelona definitely prides itself excessively on its status as a tourist destination. That being said, two of the things that make the city of Barcelona great are the Boqueria market that this restaurant is named for and the little bars down quiet side streets that behind unassuming doors are raging with people eating and drinking and reveling into the wee hours of any given night. On this visit Boqueria has done a good job of replicating that energy. When I stroll into this place with a couple of friends late on a Tuesday and order too many bottles of cheap wine and get swept up in the buzz that this room had that night, it may mean I can skip Barcelona, leaving much more time for San Sebastian, Madrid, Rosas and places as yet undiscovered.

Harry's Steak: 471 brokerillian stars originallyposted 5/24/06

After being closed for three years, Harry’s on Hanover Square officially reopened last week as Harry’s Café and Harry’s Steak, two separate restaurants. The entrance for the café is on Hanover Square, under the India House, and the steakhouse’s entrance is on Pearl Street. They are joined at their respective backs in the middle of the building, but other than that are separate entities. Harry’s earned its reputation as a “seven hundred three-martini-lunches-a-day” place in the 80’s, so I decided that on their inaugural eve, I would eat like a Wall Street guy. I took a booth in the bar area of Harry’s Steak.

The room is all new, the lacquer on the tabletops still shiny; the newly sandblasted stone walls look almost modern New Mexico rather than actually the hundred-plus-years old they are; and it generally has a new car smell. There is space around the tables but not enough to lose an intimate feeling. The room is sub terra by about five steps with ground level windows that allow you to be aware of the degree of light outside, yet don’t do anything as silly as allow outside light to come into the room. There is a sense that, over time, the luster will fade into the patina of a comfortable room in which people eat steaks and talk deals.

Business dinners start with cocktails, so we had one. With all the innocence in the world I let my Glow choose, and she decided on Cosmos. This being Wall Street, where no deal gets broken without a penalty, I decided to stick by my trade, but modify the details. I asked for a Cosmo with just a touch of cranberry, Cointreau, and fresh lime juice, in combination with whatever citron vodka they used. They gave me exactly what I asked for, and it was good -- as good as it was before everyone in the world watched Sex and the City and started calling kamikaze shots with cranberry in a cocktail glass a Cosmo.

Before Harry’s closed in 2003, it was a wine geeks’ secret getaway. Harry Poulakakos, the owner then and now, had purchased wine from 1972 to 2003 and amassed quite a serious, yet fairly priced list of about 60,000 bottles. When Harry got out, his son Peter took over the collection and sold it in the restaurant upstairs, Bayards. I am told the intention is to offer the same collection again at Harry’s in the near future. At the moment there is a good sampling from around the world but nothing like the famous old list.

I saw some decent wines at decent prices but they were all pretty current vintages and more fairly priced than great deals. There is one horrible indicator though and that is that they use Riedel O series glasses. As far as I understand it one of the younger generations of the family behind Riedel was frustrated by the space the stems on stemware were taking up in his small cabinets in his small apartment so he took them off.  Indeed the most important part of the wine glass is its bowl. The depth and shape of a bowl can have drastic effects on how your palate perceives a wine. The stem, although not as important, is still key to the glass functioning as part of the wine experience. It may save space in small places and there may be logic in keeping them for guests, and they do make very cool water glasses, but serious wine deserves a proper wine glass, with a stem.

So from the truncated list in the silly glasses we had a glass of Zinfandel (pretty heady, acceptable as a fruit bomb) and a Bordeaux (pretty simple, much more suited to the steaks then the Zin). On the whole there were about seven reds by the glass to choose from, spanning a good sample of grapes and regions.

For food we tried:

Beefsteak Tomato/ Three Ways: One slice of a tomato topped with very thinly shaved Vidalia onion with tomato ranch (what’s tomato ranch? is it dressing? then you need to say that), another slice with chopped bacon and crumbled Maytag blue cheese, and a third with a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, and a drizzle of olive oil. It would be insane to bash tomatoes for being out of season after ordering them in May, so I won’t, but I suspect if they source them locally this will be a great dish in the third fiscal quarter.

Dry Aged NY Strip on the Bone: Aged in-house 28 days, this was a decent steak with nice browning, not overly charred. There were both sweetness and richness, good salt and pepper, and no need to do much more to this than apply a knife and fork. I ordered it medium-rare and felt it favored the medium side. I would bet that very many people polled would concur that the steak I was served was medium-rare so I won’t complain, but going back I would order mine rare.

Dry Aged Rib Chop: A fine steak, although it wasn’t as good as the strip. Also aged 28 days in-house, it was not as well marbled as other rib chops I’ve tried, which I guess makes the next critique useless, but a rib chop is a cut of meat that does its best work under insane exposure to very high heat. This was very nicely black, but due to its low marbling ratio, it just wasn’t succulent. This chop had good, beefy flavor borne out in a substantial, yet giving chew, but it wasn’t genius, just good. It went very nicely with the house steak sauce, which says great things about the sauce but not necessarily good things about the steak.

Hash Browns: A light pile of sliced potatoes fried with a golden brown surface of clarified butter. Well-executed, but maybe better with steak and eggs.

Creamed Spinach: Rich and thick, with a taste of nutmeg. More about cream than spinach, this was probably exactly the dish that was first written down as a creamed spinach recipe.

Salt Crusted Baked Potato: As great as great baked potatoes are, they are truly nothing more than baked potatoes. I imagine it must be quite frustrating to make an exceptional baked potato; the good news at Harry’s is that it is not as much an exceptional potato as an exceptional presentation, which may just be what the baked potato needs. This is New York -- if you can’t genuinely be fabulous, dress yourself up as fabulous. Here, a large Idaho baking spud was baked in a salt crust, basically adding an intense thermo level to the classic diner foil-wrap. It arrived at the table in its crust, which was broken open with a hammer. It was then sliced into disks and served with five accoutrements in metal soufflé cups perched on a winding piece of metal that looked as if it could be an Ikea candleholder. In the cups were chopped chives, bacon bits, sour cream, cheddar, and corn with black truffle. I loved the potato if only for the corn, which was very good both on the potato and on a spoon.

For dessert we tried a cheese plate, cheesecake, and mixed berries with cream. Crossing the finish line with a boom, all these classic desserts were plated and served with far more ornamentation than the rest of the meal by someone who enjoyed flourish class in culinary school. We had a short time for dinner and the restaurant had done a great job of getting us everything in a timely manner, such a good job that we thought we had the time for dessert. After the extra attention given to plating we were only left with about 5 of the 25 minutes we had allotted.

Like most of Harry’s fare, the desserts will satisfy a craving if not create one. The berries were those very pretty, out–of-season, tasteless berries sold by companies like Driscoll. The cheesecake was a small, light, pretty version of classic New York Cheesecake, and the cheese plate was “a cow, a sheep, a goat and a blue,” served with walnuts, dried cranberries and raisin nut bread.

Harry’s always traded in no-nonsense, classic food that is exactly what is expected by most of the people in America, and that seems to be their plan going forward. If there are three levels of steak house in New York, on its first night Harry’s was solidly at the top of the middle -- far better than many, and only subjugated to a few. It will do its best work as a local place for people looking for good food in a neighborhood with copious dollars to spend on vittles and not a lot of close outlets offering solid fare. Once the wine list gets up to speed, it may be awesome, but at this point, just being pretty good puts them at the top of the game for their neighborhood, as well as for most of their competition.

InTent: 542 ambrosillian stars originally posted 7/22

A couple of weeks ago Wife informed me that we were invited to the opening party for InTent restaurant by a friend of hers that works for their PR firm. I had been looking forward to eating there and reporting my feelings on it for a while, but that visit did not exactly fit the bill. Those parties are fun but they are distractingly social, and although you have the chance to sample food there is too much going on to assess it properly or fairly. At the end of the party I left very well entertained, appreciative, and interested in returning but had learned little more than a couple of things about the place:

1. The little bits of food I had were quite good. I particularly liked a monkfish mousse.
2. Devoid of tables and chairs, the space is very much about varying types of stonework. It feels somewhere between a modern Greek American trying to recapture the marble glories of ancient Athens, or the dream spec house of a contractor that believes the current market is pro rock.
3. The leather (or close facsimile) banquettes lining the walls of the main room are likely the most comfortable seating I have ever encountered in a restaurant.
4. Francois Payard is the owner, Craig Freeman is the chef de cuisine, and Eric Estrella is the pastry chef.

All good notions, but not enough to go on to suggest or discourage friends from trying the place out. For that, I would obviously have to go back, sit down, have full servings of the food and contemplate. Having been invited to the party by a friend, I hoped to end up on a positive slant so as not to have to apologize for my opinions. Then I had the crab…

Wife and I wandered in around eight on Sunday night without a reservation, which meant we would need to sit in the front room as every seat in the back was taken. So we traded those buttery couches for café chairs, and the river stone waterfall for the backlit red marble wine wall, as well as the removable copper-colored Bedouin tent for glass doors open to the summer evening. Since the menu is the same in both rooms, a pretty easy switch except for the chairs. (The seating in back really is that comfortable).

WARM CURRIED CRAB NAPOLEAN CRISPY POTATOES Man is this dish good. The fine fingers of crab flesh perfectly married to the flavor of clarified butter, studded with diced celery and apple and stacked on long, thin crisped potato slices, surrounded by a yellow emulsion tasting lightly of saffron and curry. However it was intended to be eaten, I went with spreading the crabmeat onto the potato chips and eating it with my hands as if it was some crab dip at a bar near the shore. The lavishness of the warm crab salad on the perfectly thin, perfectly crispy, perfectly salted, just thick enough to support the weight of the crab when covered with an equal portion of the meat, potato chip was delightful. The redolence of the sum of these parts was profound. The question of would I recommend this place to a friend was answered as I finished this dish and snuck a text to Bubby that read “if you haven’t eaten dinner yet run to InTent and get the crab appetizer.”

For her appetizer, Wife had ISRAELI COUSCOUS SALAD TOMATO, CUCUMBER, ONION PARSLEY OIL and liked it very much, I was to wrapped up in the crab to bothered to try it.

As an Entrée I had TANGINE STYLE EGGPLANT RAISINS, PINENUTS AND PRESERVED LEMON COUSCOUS. I like dishes that combine the richness of toasted nuts with the tangy sweetness of raisins, especially when these flavors are ameliorated by the dividing texture of the small beads of couscous. The eggplant flesh favored the meaty end of the texture spectrum, while the other components of a ratatouille combined with the disparate flavors and textures of the raisins, nuts and lemon, offering sharp peaks and broad valleys in a harmony of Moroccan fragrance that encompassed the whole dish.

As her entrée Wife had SAUTÉED FILET OF DAURADE WRAPPED IN BRIC DOUGH CRUSHED POTATOES, SPICY MEDITERRANEAN VEGETABLES AND TOMATO OIL and declared it the best piece of fish she has had this year, particularly for the textural interplay between the crisp dryness of the dough and the moist softness of the fish and pulpy potatoes. I would have to agree based on the two bites she let me steal before finishing it.

For dessert we split SUMMER FRUIT SALAD WHITE BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE, SEA SALT AND WATERMELON GRANITE, little flakes of watermelon ice that perfectly fit into molars for crunching set in a nest spun of black cherries, apricots, figs, and strawberries. Even I, who care very little for dessert, was going to try one at a Payard restaurant, and was happy to find one as refreshing as this, allowing nature’s sugars to display without attempts to overdo it.

So I went in afraid I would not like the restaurant and was served one of the most pleasing dishes I have had in a long time, with the added benefit of Wife being delighted by one of her dishes. If there was a downside, it was the length of time between Appetizers and Entrées, but apologies were made early and the food showed before it was too late. Net-net I would consider that a positive enough experience on a restaurant’s third open night to plan a return trip, which I have done.

Posted in thoughts ending 8/25

…Went back to Intent this week and had the amazing curry Crab Napoleon again. This time it was far more about the curry than the crab. What had been a fantastic dish about the flavor of crab and butter accented by a touch of curry and the crunch of potato was this time an interesting curry dish…

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon NY, 613 enhhzillian stars and 613 deuxillian stars, originally posted on 8/22 and 9/18/ 06

A branch of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon has opened in New York at the Four Seasons Hotel in the old Fifty Seven Fifty Seven space. Starting about two weeks ago and running for the next three it is going through a protracted soft open. This time (during which walk-ins are received, but reservations are not) is claimed to have been set aside to work out the menu and the service.

In general I am suspicious when the public is asked to pay full price while subjecting itself to the working out of kinks, but most of New York is clamoring for the chance to finally eat Robuchon’s food here in our town; before this the closest examples were in Las Vegas (which I might mention as interesting had he not opened the Japanese location  prior to the Paris). It would seem the chef likes warming up. 

In sticking with the “working out the kinks” theme, I offer this report in questionnaire format with the porn following.

What was your impression of the space at L’Atelier on a scale of 1-10?  8
Comments: The deep and glossy black and red room with its blond wood accents is aesthetically pleasing, feeling metropolitan by way of Paris, Tokyo, and New York all at once.

Did you sit at one of the bar seats around the open kitchen? Yes

How would you rate this experience on a scale of 1-10?  6
Comments: The bar is comfortable and gives one a good sense of the calm confident buzz in the kitchen adding a dynamic to the whole room. However the lay of the kitchen within the bar space means all you really see is the Garde Manger section, relegating most of the more interesting things you would want to witness to the background, or behind closed doors. With Opera glasses you could watch entrées being plated, but the cooking happens in the unseeable kitchen.

There is an awkward service aspect to the bar seating caused by the large blond wood partition that divides the customers’ and the kitchen’s sides which makes service, 100% of which is from the kitchen side at this point, somewhat discomfiting. I suspect this will be resolved by moving water service, mise en place, and clearing to the customer’s side, leaving just the presentation of courses to overcome the design obstacle, or else they will hire a ridiculously tall staff with superhuman reach.

Would you be interested in sitting at one of our tables in the future? Yes
Comments: As nice as it was watching the kitchen staff do their work in front of my seat, in the end I felt it was about an even trade for sitting shoulder to shoulder with my dining companions. I am sure I would have had as good a time exchanging some of the proximity with the kitchen for the ability to discuss the food with all of the other three diners attending with me (Helmet, Pichon and Deputy). All food is served by waitstaff rather than kitchen staff, making this more like a glorious diner counter than the interactive experience of a Hearth or Minibar.

How would you rate the presentation of our food on a scale of 1-10? 9
Comments: Every single course was beautiful. From the lemon amuse in the shot glass to the lavender sugar sphere that was a component of dessert, the food was plated in a manner that could only impress without going so far as to distract from the taste.

Overall, in comparison to other classically French fine restaurants you have been to how would you rate the food at L’Atelier on a scale of Wow, Enhh, and Blech? Enhh
Comment: There were a couple of Wows – like  the crispy egg and caviar, and the lemon amuse – and there were zero Blechs, but on the whole the food seemed to lack by the slightest degree of seasoning, primarily salt, which left it in the middle of the road as far as fine cuisine goes; in the middle with obvious potential, but not at Wow.

How would you rate the execution of our service on a scale of 1-10? 7
Comments: Besides the awkwardness of receiving food from over the bar, I got two distinct feelings from the service. The first was that I was in the hands of a journeyman professional very secure in his position, comfortable enough to use simple, dismissive explanations like "Tapas," whether in spite of or because of our level of comfort. The second was that this journeyman professional was working here because it was a good job and not because he was passionate about this or any other food. On the whole, the service was very good but in no way exceptional. To be honest it felt very French, maybe on purpose.

Did you have our tasting menu? Yes

Would you recommend it to your friends? Yes
Comments: In its context and its progression I think the tasting menu was exemplary. It moved well and confidently from lighter tastes to stronger and my hunger was sated at its completion.

Did you sample dishes from our À La Carte menu? Yes
Comments: We requested a round of courses to be chosen from the favorites as an alternative to the tasting menu, and on the whole I would say the big hits were evenly sampled from both menus.

Are our desserts worth $20? Most certainly
Comments: Read any other report on the blog and it will become obvious I don't care for desserts; here I finished one and tasted another. The first was all about the play of sweet and sour, while the other was an herbal dish. Both were gorgeous, and a perfect ending to any meal. I may go back for dessert, and I am sure I have never said that before.

How would you rate the wine list on a scale of 1-10? 5
Comments: It feels like a list inherited from the previous restaurant, overpriced even by midtown hotel standards and scattered, with little in common with the menu.

How did you feel about the prices? Daunted

Did you find value in your meal? No
Comments: The pricing seems to hover at the absolute top end of what the market will afford for this chef in this town and this kind of food, and it is prohibitive. No matter how much wow factor a course had, it was hard to ignore that you were paying just a little past the top dollar for it. I have spent as much on food elsewhere before and felt those places contributed much more to my having a good time in exchange for the money. I have also spent far less for a better experience.

What does L’Atelier translate to? The Workshop

Would you suggest your friends come try L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon? Whether I do or not they will, he is Joel Robuchon and, like me, my friends believe his food should be experienced. I would not however declare your life will be changed by any of the dishes I had, even the potatoes, but each one had potential, and this is the trial run. They are so tortuously close to that subtle balance between room, ambiance, excellent technique, the finest product, and appropriate price that I intend to go again at least to try what I haven’t yet, but won’t be surprised if in the end I am left un-rocked.

Tasting menu porn In order:

Amuse bouche
Comments: Seriously amusing, tasting of creamy lemon with sarsaparilla or burdock notes. I'll be bummed if it is not there next time I go.

Sea urchin in a tender jelly, topped with a cauliflower cream
Comments: Perfect urchin in a layer of jelly, the bottom of which tasted deeply of shellfish while the top tasted far lighter.

Capellini dressed with tomatoes and Ossetra caviar
Comments: Tomatoes can't live without salt, and caviar definitely tastes of salt, but here a glorious quenelle of lovely caviar gave as little of its brilliance to the combination as the tomato did. All in all I wished the pasta had been served with just a simple touch of good salt and the caviar were put on another dish.

Crispy langoustine fritter with basil pesto
Comments: By far the best fried shrimp I have ever had, which I wasn't sure I needed, and still am not.

Soft boiled eggs on a spicy eggplant stew
Comments: Like an eggplant tangine that favors cumin in its spice blend. This was a dish that a touch more salt would have made all the difference in.

Cod fillet and an aromatic broth
Comments: Light light light. Light broth, ethereal pasta, fish so light as to almost go unnoticed.

Caramelized free-range quail stuffed with foie gras and served with potato purée
Comments: Finally the potatoes. Believe it or not, the thing that made Robuchon most famous to me was that he is literally famous for his mashed potatoes. Here they are topped with some of the nicest summer truffles I have had. The potatoes are very good, as for the rest of the dish the breast portion contained foie stuffing, a mousse which extruded itself upon cutting, and the leg was a little tough. Both were nicely gamey; while the sauce was rich, the herb salad played well to halt that in its tracks.

Green Yuzu granite with a Vervain jelly
Comments: Wonderful in the pre-dessert role; citrussy, licorice and all around refreshing.

Cherries served with a soufflé and bitter almond ice cream
Comments: I didn't taste, it was gone when my turn came.

Espresso coffee and raspberry macaroon
Comments: No picture, great petit-four, nice espresso (not the best though).

Other dishes sampled porn in no order:

Sautéed squid, baby artichoke, chorizo, with tomato water
Comments: This may have been made with concern to keep the squid from getting chewy to a fault. The squid was so tender that the dish actually seemed to lack a slight chew. I have seldom seen greens of this quality though. When you do your wine studying and learn about cynar, the oil in artichokes, and other thistles that make you perceive wine as sweet this is the type of preparation they are talking about. If you want this course plan your wine consumption accordingly.

Gazpacho soup with croutons
Comments: A jelly that tastes of great gazpacho with all its good and various notes represented. WOO-HOO?

Lobster in a turnip ravioli
Comments: The finest lobster salad I have tasted; again not sure I was looking for it, but it is great.

Poached baby Kusyu oysters with french salted butter
Comments: Cooked and seasoned just enough to be solely about brininess.

Crisp poached egg with Ossetra caviar and smoked salmon
Comments: When I go back it will be because of this course (not for it, it is $98 without tax or tip).This was the dish of the eve. Served just shy of warm, the soft poached egg in a nest of fried shoestring potatoes was about perfect medium for the caviar.

Beef and foie gras burger with lightly caramelized bell peppers
Comments: One all beef patty, one foie, spicy catsup, soft bell peppers, on a sesame seed brioche bun. Glad I tried and you should as well, won't need it again.

Violet and lychee sugar sphere, milk ice cream, wild rose and blackberry coulis
Comments: This is the other thing that will get me to go back (but in this case, for $20 I may get two). The most amazingly thin blown lavander sugar bubble full of creme anglaise and lychee slices with rose notes, wonderfully sour blackberry, and a milk ice cream to tie it all together.

Made another swing by L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon last week for a second look and truly enjoyed myself, as did my co-diners Bear and Pichon. On the inaugural trip there was no doubt that everything tasted was exceptionally prepared and gorgeous to look at, but all in all it lacked that certain je ne sais quoi. This may have been caused as much by reputation and expectations as newness and a light hand with salt. On this visit we sat, decided to take it slowly, going course by course as the mood struck us, and this time had a stellar experience.

For wine we had, in order, an ’04 Leroy Bourgogne, an ’00 Beychevelle, and an ’01 La Tyre du Brumont, all chosen as likely to be food friendly, which they were. We also had the same waiter as last time who remembered Pichon and me before the camera came out, speaking to an appreciation of return guests which is of course appreciated. He seems to have settled nicely into the familiarity with product he seemed capable of.

As for the porn:

LE JAMBON Iberian ham with bruschetta: hand sliced Serrano ham with the other traditional sausages of the pata negra, served with grilled bread topped with dense, cheesy French butter and the same grilled bread topped with concasséed tomato, garlic and olive oil.

LE FOIEGRAS Traditional foie gras terrine, with toasted country bread: Simple and perfect for it, a slice of foie gras paté and its fat cap served with grilled bread, sea salt, cracked pepper, and powdered ginger snap. Of my three assemblings, a bit of the fat cap spread on the hot toast with foie spread over the melted fat and a small bit of the three accoutrements sprinkled atop was slightly better than just the foie alone and a bit of the foie with pepper.

LES CUISSES DE GRENOUILLE Crispy frog’s legs, garlic purée and parsley coulis: I am currently reading Chelminski’s The Perfectionist which credits Bernard Loiseau with creating this interpretation of the classic Burgundian frog’s legs with parsley and garlic. Having missed Loiseau’s, I was both happy and eager to have the opportunity to taste it prepared by one of his contemporaries. The meat, having been frenched from the bone, gathers at one end making a plump little morsel encased in crunchy fried breading. Holding the bone, you simply swirl this drummette through the garlic that has had all its bitterness steeped out before whipping, and the parsley puree which is almost pure chlorophyll at this point. A very refined and restrained version of a traditionally rustic dish.

LES RAVIOLES Foie Gras Ravioli in a warm chicken broth, zesty whipped cream: A small version of the dish was sent by the kitchen to pass the time while the Kobe cooked.

KOBE BEEF: A boned rib-eye of actual Japanese Waygu is presented whole and the waiter places a chef’s knife along the steak to let you decide how much you want (it is priced by the oz. offering a good opportunity to test your skill at eying a chop by weight; we aimed for a pound and selected 28oz., this was confirmed as ok by our waiter prior to cooking).  The Kobe was cooked medium rare, presented, and then sliced and served with Robuchon’s famous whipped potatoes. The meat was amazing, more like Otoro than beef. Decadent on a transcendent level, it was closer to white than red on the color wheel. More a sensation than a flavor, this level of ingredient is very sparse in this town, even though its name appears on many menus. As for these poor potatoes meant to be the best in the world, to put it simply they pale to the beef. Robuchon’s potatoes are famous as being the borderline of a saturated solution between butter and creamy potato. Next to beef of this richness they seemed thin. I want to have and love these potatoes, but after two consecutive tries I still vote for Marco’s at Hearth. Next time I’ll have to get just the potatoes. 

LES SUCRE Violet and lychee sugar sphere, milk ice cream, wild rose and blackberry coulis: having had this a second time, I happily declare it my favorite desert.

To be fair, it is not exactly hard to make things like Serrano ham, real Japanese Waygu, and foie gras taste good; it is, however, amazing to make them seem well worth their cost, and this was done in all cases. Nothing was cheap by any stretch of the imagination and at some point I worried I would suffer from sticker shock when I saw the check, but at the end of it all the bill presented seemed very in line with the experience, and in this town where I have ordered what should be opulent meals, paid opulent prices, and been let down that may be the feat in itself.

Japonais NY: 471 banausicillian stars

In Neil Gaiman’s book “Good Omens” any audio cassette left in a car for a fortnight automatically morphs itself into a copy of Queen’s Greatest Hits. Much like the ill-fated tapes destined to blare the Bohemian Rhapsody, it would seem any empty space in New York with more than one hundred continuous feet spontaneously bursts forth as a “somewhere in Asia/somewhere else somewhere, fusiony but more on the Asian influence side” mega-restaurant featuring modern décor and a techno trance soundtrack.

This trend in New York dining has an intersecting set with another one – that of other American cities sending us their more successful franchises (L’Altelier, Buddakan and so on). In the dead center, AnB in our Venn diagram, is Japonais. Someone obviously forgot about a couple of feet on the north side of 18th street between Park and Madison because red vinyl chairs, flagstone tiles, and an undulating ceiling of blond wood beams have sprouted forth in a local incarnation of Chicago’s popular Japonais, complete with a lounge area, a cocktail list with way to many drinks ending in –tini and drum machine driven trance music blended into the background. If the Gramercy Park area was jealous of Nobu 57, Megu, or Morimoto they now have Japonais – the idea behind the newest comer being that genius may be achieved somewhere in the combination of an authentic sushi bar and a proper French kitchen (I can't remember what the first "fusion" food was but this version did not sound groundbreaking to me).

Originally Angelou and I were going to have dinner around 6:00 PM, in the end we sat at 7:30 joined by Lifeson, a change and a delay that the staff handled both graciously and efficiently. Besides testing the bounds of customer courtesy, this afforded us an opportunity to have a couple of appetizers and cocktails wich are vodka sake and fruit juice combinations, and get a feel for the bar space which is actually pretty cool and very convivial (I made friends with a guy waiting for a blind date while I waited for my group) and I imagine is actually more fun in larger groups.

Starting with the cocktail list and moving through the rest of the menus are separate sections of Les Spécialités de la Maison; the scope gets even narrower as the servers tell you which of these are suggested by the chef. In the absence of a chef’s menu I decided to focus on these areas when making my selections, here is what we had:

Kani Nigiri 2pcs spicy baked king crab: very highly recommended by the chef it was better warmer, as it was served. The sauce coating this dish was fatty which managed to dumb down the crab’s sweetness a little. Overall a pleasing flavor in spite of a homogenized quality.

Waygu Carpaccio thinly sliced wagyu beef with yuzu and dark soy ginger sauce: dressed and topped with lemon zest, micro greens, chives, and toasted garlic. The toasted garlic took center stage from the other flavors, which was ok because it went well with the lemon and the sanguine beef but made the rest of the components seem kind of senseless.

Eight Samurai Tartare lobster, scallop, dungeness crab, tuna, octopus, salmon, bonito, and botan ebi served with Japanese fried taro and lotus chips: The menu declares “Our unique menu is designed for sharing” which this dish belies. Eight separate chopped fish are served on Chinese soup spoons differently and sometimes well complimented (I didn’t see the sense in the curried octopus, but loved the quail egg and black sesame in the tuna). The starchy thickness of the tartares made the thin chips useless for scooping them, leaving the three of us to use chopsticks to scoop bits onto the chips. This is a pretty dish and it tastes pretty good but if you intend to share it, share it with someone you are comfortable at least double dipping chopsticks with, otherwise get it as your only appetizer and enjoy it yourself.

Sashimi Japonais otoro, whitefish, botan ebi, and zuke sake: If you are going to throw your hat into the current ring of sushi masters offering food in New York your sashimi better be of the highest quality, and this was; almost perfect examples of each fish in each case.

Ebi Ebi panko shrimp topped with shrimp and wasabi tobiko sauce: as good as I imagine a shrimp tempura roll will ever taste.
Tuna Tuna Salmon salmon roll topped with sliced tuna and avocado wasabi tobiko sauce: pretty straightforward large-gauge roll rested on a very light avocado purée.

Toban Yaki Seafood oysters, sweet shrimp, king crab, and clams served with yuzu butter: This dish was a total miss. All the fish ended up tasting the same and not necessarily good and most was well overcooked. The only real dud of the evening, it had none of the genius possible of this type of cooking and dropped into all of the pitfalls.

House Smoked Waygu Rib Eye 10oz grilled rib eye served with truffled miso potato purée, grilled asparagus and kirin beer fondue: all around very good flavors and exceptional beef, the purée and fondue were both a little tan and again kind of homogenous, thicker than they seemed to need to be; the texture was way short of ethereal but the flavor was quite agreeable.

The food at Japonais is satisfying, even pleasing, while somehow feeling safe. The closest dish to amazing was the smoked Waygu, the prices tended to the higher side of fair, and the room is best described as convivial. Japonais fits squarely in the middle of the list of places I would take a group of out-of-towners looking for a scene, keeping in mind I don’t much care for actual scenes. Japonais seems a solid stepping stone restaurant; if you need a place to take a person who sees the dragon roll as the ultimate in sushi preparation this is the perfect place to go and have quite a nice meal.

Blue Hill: 273 asuurazillian stars, originally posted 5/20/06

You know how Jeremy Piven always kicks butt? Whether he's saying "bitches, man" in Say Anything, or showing up as the Versace salesman in Rush Hour 2, I am just happy when Piven is part of a film. He's not necessarily my favorite actor. In fact, I often forget about him even though he probably would be a better sidekick than most the people cast in most of the movies I watch. Of course, then there is Ari in Entourage. As Ari, Piven is doing a thing so perfect he joins the ranks of people like Nicholson as the Joker or Hillary Swank as Brandon Teena (those rare moments when the right actor gets the right role and there is a certain perfection).

Dan Barber is the Jeremy Piven of New York restaurants. There, well respected, always doing solid work and interchangeable with a couple of other people at his level. Dan is one of the reigning kings of in-season, indigenous product and definitely performs at the top of this echelon. Dan's Ari is spring; in spring, Chef Barber's performance is transcendent.

So when Pichon, Helmet, Mispooz, Wife, and I needed a place to celebrate Ringwald's birthday in mid-April, Blue Hill seemed an obvious choice. Blue Hill, on Washington Place just west of Washington Square Park, is probably the most unassuming restaurant in New York. Down a couple of steps under an awning hardly marked in any way, you open a glass door, walk through a velvet curtain, and are standing in a basement; a well lit, somber rectangle of a room with no windows anywhere in front of you. It seems to accept there was not much that could be done with the space so little was. It is comfortable and humble. Touches as simple as channeling the lights into the low ceiling and running a strip of mirror behind the bench seating that rings the room do a good job of overcoming some of the limitations of being in the bottom of a townhouse, without going so far as to point it out.

The focus of Blue Hill has always been on the food, and Mr. Barber has created a bit of local celebrity for himself in the world of letting-the-food-speak-for-itself, and is the Times' go to guy for articles on farmers by a chef, so we thought it best to leave the menu up to him and his star ingredients. When I booked the reservation I asked Franco, the GM (in the interest of disclosure, on one of my forays into the dining scene Franco was forced to fire me, rehire me, and then fire me again all in about 2 months. I bear him no ill will and he obviously bears me none as this dinner proves), to arrange us a tasting menu of the chef's choosing with paired wines. Here is what showed up:

Pre amuse:
Turnip soup, Basil Sorbet, Olive Oil Cake with Arugula Pesto, Fried Ravioli with Stone Barns Greens and Ricotta, and Arcuri Garlic Tuile: there was nothing here we didn't like. The group's favorite was the ravioli but I would be lying if I said we contemplated these bites. All of them were gone in about 4 minutes. You will see, though, that our spring tasting menu had already well covered most of the flavors of New York State in spring.

Amuse 1:
Ferona Beets with Lime Sorbet: sweet, light, and definitely beets. Although they lacked the topsoil flavors I have come to expect in beets, the texture was the interesting part as theirs was the texture of the flesh of an aloe plant.

Amuse 2: