Allen & Delancey (My Last Best Meal of 2009)

A rotation of five chefs in two years would normally be a recipe for disaster. Not so at Tom Block’s Allen and Delancey. After taking the reigns in the kitchen just two weeks ago, Allen and Delancey showed no signs of distress. In fact, it was a truly memorable meal which I plan to include as one of my top five of 2009.

Though sharing Christmas dinner with my sister, it was impossible to miss how gorgeously romantic Allen & Delancey is. The low lights, red velvet curtains, iron chandeliers and dusty books lining the shelves create quite a scene. If I were to seduce Edgar Allan Poe, I might do it at Allen & Delancey. Being Christmas day, we had a 3 course prixe fixe menu with less choices than normal, but each dish fully delivered. My sister started with three oysters with lemon granite, paddle fish roe and celery, while I had the market green salad with goat cheese croquettes. While not exactly innovative, the greens had an intense olive oil which was delightfully absorbed into the croquettes. Next we both had the foie gras torchon with quince and salty slices of brioche. We both remarked on the perfect ratio of creamy foie, sweet quince and brioche which perfectly complemented each other. For our last course we had bright pink, smoky ocean trout which was nicely cooled by a yogurt sauce.

Everything was phenomenal in the food department but the service left a bit to be desired. Our first course arrived rapidly, before the drinks were served, but then we had a long wait for the other courses. Our waiter was affable though, and he informed us that he was actually a Babbo transplant, filling in for a friend on the holiday. So I take the service issues with a grain of salt.

A & D has an entire section of their website devoted to cheese, yet there was no cheese course offered in the prixe fixe. Being the cheese head that I am, I asked if they could create one for us. Our waiter asked the manager who not only created a 4-cheese platter for us, but he personally delivered it with his own explanations.

An odd thing happened to me that night. I was not in the mood for wine. So I tried my luck on a “Tinker’s Stand”  #2, a warming blend of Rye, elderflower, amaro, sherry, benedictine and aromatic bitters. I’ve learned in the past that mixed drinks at restaurants are colossal disappointments, 95% of the time. This drink was that 5%. It was as good as the drinks I adore at some of the best bars in New York like Little Branch and Death and Co. It was serious. My sister had successful drinks as well: a Jalisco Trail #1 with blanco tequila, acacia honey, lime, Angostura bitters but even better was a smokey mix of Islay scotch, tequila and absinthe. I had to celebrate bartender on the way out. I hope she was more appreciative than horrified ;)

I hope Chef Tom Block sticks around and continues to do great things at Allen and Delancey.

Location: 115 Allen Street (and Delancey)
Food: Excellent
Drinks: Though they have a worldly, well-priced wine list, it would be a tragedy to miss their elegantly crafted cocktails.
Service: Good
Average App/Entrée Price: $10/$26 though our four course prixe-fixe Christmas dinner was $85
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Hundred Acres (You Are a Delight!)

It is a real shame that a restaurant like Hundred Acres had an open table for 2 on a Friday night at 9:30. A shame for the restaurant, not for my friend and I who adored our meal in the warm space that beckoned us in from the rain.  The people who brought you Cookshop and Five Points opened Hundred Acres with its huge, glowing dining room adorned with fresh flowers, marble tops and deep brown pillars. Farm-to-table cuisine may not be novel but it’s a nice reprieve from the more glaring trends, when done well.

Looking at the prices at Hundred Acres, your mouth kind of drops. $18 for a spit-roasted Hudson Valley 1/2 chicken with spinach and ramps? $17 for blue fish with spinach and chickpea salad? Are these people out of their minds? Prices like that in Soho for good food is rare. I assumed we’d be disappointed with our dishes or the portions would be small. Not so.

A heaping bowl of crisp chicory salad topped with New York feta, pomegranate and radishes, topped with a tangy vinaigrette had bright flavors. Then a creamy gratin of cauliflower and brussel sprouts with bread crumbs brought the meal some nice wholesomeness. A huge steak of peppery Block Island swordfish with hummus, garlic braised escarole and fig anchoide was bursting with savory-sweet flavors. Beside all of these spot-on dishes we munched on fresh bread with honeyed butter.

The prices make more sense when you consider the service. On that night, 3 people asked if we wanted ‘bottled water or tap’, nobody knew who was taking our order, and our cleaned plates sat until I asked for them to be cleared. It was the curse of too many people helping us, meaning nobody was helping at all. If well-orchestrated service is what you seek, look elsewhere. But if you feel relaxed and seek well-executed food at soft prices in a charming space, Hundred Acres is right on the money.

Location: 38 Macdougal Street
Food: Very Good
Drinks: Nice variety of local beer and wine i.e. Channing Daughters Sauvignon Blanc (Long Island) by the glass
Service: Good
Average App/Entree Price: $9/$19
Value: Excellent.
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Apiary (Serious Food Where You Don’t Expect It)

On an unlikely block of 3rd avenue, unfortunately close to underaged watering hole Bar None , sits Apiary.
I’ve had Apiary on my wish list for months without a clue of how it got there. Few people were familiar with it when I suggested it on other occasions. Despite its name (means bee yard), I hadn’t seen much buzz from the big critics.  That’s because most of the big pubs visited it before Chef Scott Bryan took over, so it was snubbed  “They can’t get by on looks alone” said Time Out, of the sleek space and lackluster food. But things have changed with the new chef and luckily Apiary has grown organically, through rave reviews from bloggers.

We had the assistance of Apiary’s affable Sommelier Brett Feore, who suggested the tasting menu for us, pairing wines with each course. We began with a fresh hamachi crudo with avocado, hearts of palm and flecks of spice from jalapeno. Feore paired it with a Riesling for us, a winning match. Next we had the Chatham cod with a crisp outside and luscious center, accented by some white beans on a bed of zucchini and tomato.  The flavors brought an often-dull fish to new heights. I’ve never had cod like that before. Surprisingly, Feore paired it with a Brunello, alluding to the unconventional match, but stating that the meaty beans could support such a rich wine. Though I’m always supportive of exploring new pairings, I did find the wine overpowering. Following the cod, I loved dragging the tender peking duck breast through the parsnip puree accented with caramelized endive and tokyo turnips in our final savory course. Feore paired it with a Rioja, though I sensed the new wine was more because I was drinking faster than the others, than out of necessity ;) Somehow we squeezed a 3-cheese course with three artisanal honeys (in keeping with the bee theme) and a dessert sampling  (the vanilla panna cotta was a favorite). Honestly, each dish was a tremendous success and I would struggle to find a low point in the food.

There were a few minor glips in service. When you go through 3-4 different wines in a meal, each with its own glass, the table gets cluttered quickly. We had to ask for leftover glasses to be removed, something that should have been done without request. There were a couple of longish drags between courses, that could be tightened up as well as more frequent water refills. Generally it was quite good however.

For the price of what some mundane East Village restaurants charge, at Apiary you’ll get refined food and service in a sleek space. More critics could give it a second review, but by the looks of the packed room on my visit, they may not need it!

Location: 60 3rd Avenue, between 10th and 11th
Food: Excellent
Wine: A varied and reasonable list with prices that start at $29. New York wines are represented as well, which I always like to see.
Service: Good
Average App/Entree Price: $12/$23
Value: Very Good
Word to the Wise: Apiary offers a $35 3-Course Prixe Fixe Menu Sunday-Thursday. Monday is “no corkage” night.
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Table 8 (A Fresh Opening Turns Stale)

Table 8, in the controversial, neighborhood-shifting new Cooper Square hotel does little to make the locals happy for its existence. Our meal last Friday had issues that were downright deplorable, especially for experienced restaurateur Govind Armstrong who trained with Wolfang Puck, operated Table 8 in LA and South Beach and made a household name of himself through Top Chef appearances.

Adam Platt gave Table 8 a brutal review, in May but I wanted to give New York-newcomer Armstrong a chance. But even when I read the menu back in June, the Spanish goat cheese, “salt bar”, and snapper with lobster confused me.

It’s true that you can barely hear yourself think at Table 8. Even with a half-empty dining room, I was yelling to my friends who were seated close to me at our cozy four-top. Acoustics are quickly forgiven when the food and service is great, but the meal kept getting worse for us.

There is nothing unique about the “salt bar”, which consists of little $4 crudo and charcuterie. New restaurants don’t have to be revolutionary but if Table 8 chooses to jump on the bandwagon of a trend, it should do it well. The salmon crudo was dense and difficult to chew with an off, fishy taste. The sea bass was flavorless.

I’ll enjoy a fried goat cheese salad any day, but the seared cana de cabra with arugula, avocado and red onion was a confusing interplay of flavors and a messy presentation. A few of us ordered branzino with gnocchi, anticipating fresh, white-fleshed fish with pillowy pasta, but received a deep fried disaster with  five gnocchi pieces hidden underneath and some lifeless Summer squash on the side. The sauteed scallops that my friend ordered were well-prepared, but their wilted spinach accompaniment was over-seasoned, a complaint I’ve heard repeated in a few places on the web.  Everything tasted like it was prepared hours before and left under a heater. Where was the supposed fresh, California cuisine?

Even worse than the food was the rookie service. We had to grab the waiter as he ignored us and passed by, without offering drink refills. We had empty bread plates until we inquired about the bread. When it arrived it was stale and chewy, as if it had been sitting in the kitchen for days.

I struggle to think of anything positive about Table 8 aside from enjoying the company. For a bold hotel with a celebrity chef, the prices are soft, though still disproportionate to the quality of the experience. Oh, the soft leather chairs are also a benefit.

Per my friend Ashley, who dined with me:
First off, the service was pretty awful.  10 minutes passed before we were finally able to flag down the waiter and get some water, and request that our unlit candle be fired up.
We started with a few of the ’salt bar’ selections.  The fish tasted rancid and way too fishy.  A few of us ordered the Branzino.  The menu mentioned nothing about the fish being fried.  But alas, the fish was fried–maybe the chef was out and they only knew how to use the deep fryer?  I don’t know, but the whole meal tasted like crappy cafeteria food.  The quality was actually laughable.

I gave 2 stars rather than one because my cocktail was tasty, and the decor was pretty cool.  Maybe this place should just stick to drinks.

People have been complaining about the same issues at Table 8 since its May opening. It’s mid-September. Hey Govind, are you lost in L.A.? Come back to New York and fix up your restaurant.

Table 8: 25 Cooper Square (between 5th and 6th)

Average App/Entree Price: $11/$24
Food: Poor
Service: Poor
Value: Poor
You Gonna Finish That? Not even worth a doggy bag.

Quick Bites: West Branch

The Basics: Tom Valenti’s upscale Ouest has been a reliable UWS spot for nearly a decade. His latest American Brasserie venture, West Branch, shows he has a knack for laid-back locales too. The brown-and-white toned, masculine decor may be drab, but the salty, caramelized onion focaccia bread is anything but. On a Wednesday evening at 8:30, every table in the huge space was occupied, no small feat in these times. The service was friendly and the food was flavorful and well-priced. A true home run!
Best Dish: Heirloom tomato panzanella salad and luscious arctic char with a cool potato salad
Food: Very Good
Wine: Very fairly priced, diverse list, we had a nice Gruner Veltliner for $32
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
Average App/Entree Price: $12/$21
Location: 2178 Broadway and 77th
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Elettaria (Closed)

————————This Restaurant is now Closed————————-

There’s a reason that Mario Batali and his extended family were sitting next to us at Elettaria. Chef Akhtar Nawab, owner of Elettaria, knows what he’s doing.

We wandered into Elettaria on a whim, after a poorly executed media event nearby, where we ate microscopic food after pushing through crowds. I had vaguely heard good things, and knew it was nearby us in the West Village. Since it was a Tuesday evening, we had no trouble scoring a table.

The low wood plank ceilings, exposed brick, red curtains, floating doors that lead nowhere and the open kitchen make you feel like you’re in the home of somebody funky, well-travelled and just…. cool. Elettaria feels like a warm hug. Once you sit down, you won’t want to leave.

The cuisine is mainly American, but with specks of Indian influence due to Nawab’s background. It manifests itself seamlessly in spice-driven cuisine that relies more on herbs and accents, than heavy sauces. Cardamom, salsify and sumac add layers of flavor to smoked artichoke, king oyster mushroom, bok choy, and whatever else is freshly available.  And boy does it make for a wonderfully smelling room! I interrupted conversation at least three times with a “What is that smell, thyme?” As my sister and I tried to identify the aromas.

We ordered a Domaine Costal Chablis les Truffieres 2005, but the sommelier was off for the night and it wasn’t chilled. Our waiter recovered gracefully by giving us a complimentary glass of Inzolia (a buttery, Sicilian white) while we waited for it to chill. Our service alternated between two guys helping us but both were amiable, knowledgeable, and executed everything perfectly.

My sister started with deeply flavored risotto with sweetbreads and szechuan pepper and I had a special of luscious gnocchi with morels and bone marrow. Both pastas were pillowy and delicate, well-rounded by spice and greens. It’s a theme that carries through on all of the dishes: perfect spice and seemingly tremendous thought to ingredients.

My sister’s halibut with Israeli cous cous, piquillo peppers and calamari was lovely but overshadowed by my crisp-skinned striped bass with thyme. It’s not just flavor but layered texture that is a true focus.

After a treat of fried milk donuts and caramel salt gelato we were stuffed with very happy bellies.

Elettaria sits comfortably in the company of Scarpetta and Allegretti for the best meals I’ve had this year, with a more gentle price tag.

Elettaria: 33 W 8th Street and MacDougal
Cuisine: American
Average App/Entree Price: $11/$25
Food: Excellent
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.
Word to the Wise: Elettaria also offers a prixe-fixe menu, though you won’t find the most exciting options there. Elettaria has a thoughtful cocktail list too, crafted by veterans of Death and Company and Freemans.

Quick Bites: North Square

The Basics: A Washington-square sleeper with reliable food and service. “No one should ever be afraid to be SQUARE”, reads the site, which they seem to embrace fully. If a reservation at Babbo across the street isn’t in the cards, pull up a chair at North Square. Food doesn’t have to be en vogue to be enjoyable, as long as it’s well-executed.
Best Dish: Radicchio and Boston lettuce salad with goat cheese, beets and honey-spiced pecans. Arctic char with oven dried tomatoes, basil risotto and truffle sauce
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Value: Very Good
Average App/Entree Price: $10/$23
Location: 103 Waverly Place
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.

Quick Bites: Bar Americain

The Basics: Bobby Flay’s once-hip Midtown staple is in desperate need of a facelift. There’s nothing innovative about grilled tuna with avocado relish or “spice rubbed” steaks, certainly not when charging $30 for an entree and when they taste as if they’ve been sitting for a period of time. The whole restaurant feels like a tacky cliché from 10 years ago. The folks from Kentucky next to us seemed happy enough, though.
Best Dish: Mussels and Fries with Green Chile broth
Food: Good
Service: Very Good
Value: Poor
Average App/Entree Price: $14/$30
Location: 152 W 52nd Street (between 6th and 7th)
You Gonna Finish That? Meh, you can taste the side.

Blue Hill (Fiddleheads and Fuddled Service)

I happen to feel that service is important. There is a certain rhythm with which things should take place in a meal, especially at a restaurant as fine as Blue Hill. There is a special care that the server should take to check in, to explain the food, and to be generally present and amiable. My Dad always says that when the pause is too large between courses, your stomach loses that anticipation, and your appetite drops. While I don’t know the science behind this, I do think it’s true. And so when the service is off, it truly affects the entire meal for me, even one as highly anticipated as Blue Hill.

We were at Blue Hill Stone Barns in Tarrytown when it first opened, and I was so impressed. That was just as the farm to table trend was sprouting up, and Dan Barber was pioneering it. When my parents asked where I’d like to have my birthday dinner, Blue Hill (in the city) was at the top of my list. I was long overdue for my inaugural visit. Dan Barber’s menu changes as often as weekly. It’s exciting to know that the dish you’re eating was crafted that week, with the freshest ingredients in mind. I am sure it’s no easy feat, and I absolutely appreciate that.

In the beginning of our meal there was so much attention paid to detail. Our half-empty bread basket was periodically replenished so we’d have the warmest selection possible, as we munched on an assortment of dips including a whipped ricotta cheese, lardo, and arugula salt. Complimentary parmesan crisps were brought too. Our waiter was friendly enough and helpful in answering our many questions about Cobia, Wreckfish, emmer and other items that were new to us.

Lovely things are being done with mushrooms here like the Greenhouse greens and herbs with roasted and confit mushrooms, the farm egg with morels, ramps and pine nuts, and the ice spinach soup with pickled shiitake mushrooms. But my Mom’s Spanish mackerel with rhubarb and fennel and my spring vegetable salad with pistachios and homemade ricotta confused me. They both tasted one-dimensional. They needed spice and depth that seemed supremely lacking.

And then the service took a nose dive. There were moments when servers stood idly by our table full of empty, dirty plates, and nobody stepped in to clear. The wait for our entrée was unbearably long, despite being punctuated by a complimentary course of spinach and ramp ravioli (star dish, but was it given to cover up the pause?) When we politely inquired about the wait, our waiter defensively said to my Father: “Some people like to take their time.” Though we had already been at the restaurant for close to two hours. It was this unapologetic attitude that threatened to ruin the meal for us.

Entrees were far stronger than appetizers, amongst all of us. I had tender grass-fed lamb slices with fiddlehead ferns. My sister had Berkshire pig with an incredible assortment of beans and ramps. The beans were so smoky and rich, I could have made an entire course out of them. But when we finished, our plates sat in front of us once again, until we requested that they be cleared and placed a dessert and coffee order. It was quite late at that point but I had to try the bread pudding I had heard rave reviews of and of course, sample their cheese plate.

I should have read the bread pudding description more thoroughly and realized it was chocolate bread pudding with chocolate sauce, not a traditional bread pudding with raisins. While the chocolate-upon-chocolate must sound heavenly to some, to me it was like a cloyingly-rich brownie, just not my thing. Luckily my beloved cheese plate arrived, dumped in front of me with nary an explanation, so I can’t report on it.

There are restaurants that receive so much consistent praise and win so many awards that when I eventually dine there I worry about how they’ll meet such expectations. But they exceeded them still. I thought Blue Hill would join Babbo and Per Se in this category. Just before our dinner, Dan Barber won the James Beard “Outstanding Chef” award. Maybe the flurry of excitement at the restaurant caused some distraction. But it seemed like something was organically wrong with how the service operated at Blue Hill. These are basic errors that a restaurant with such tremendous tenure shouldn’t be making. I can’t say I’ll be dining at Blue Hill again, and I wonder what went wrong that night.

Blue Hill: 75 Washington Place (betw 6th ave and Macdougal)
Cuisine: New American
Average App/Entree Price: $14/$33
Food: Very Good
Service: Poor
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Meh, you can taste the side.

How Restaurants Must Evolve for the Changing Wine Consumer

I had a great meal last night at Trestle on Tenth, a cozy Swiss restaurant around the corner from my apartment. I was with my immediate family plus my aunt, uncle, and cousin, who love collecting wine as well. Between my Dad and my Uncle, we brought seven bottles of wine to dinner. We started with a buttery Far Niente Chardonnay then had a complex White Chateauneuf-du-Pape. For reds we had a hardy Remirez de Ganuza 1994 Rioja, a South African Shiraz, and a Walla Walla Washington State Cabernet. The wines were as diverse as can be so not all of them pleased everybody. But it didn’t matter, there was little risk involved with the $20 corkage fee assigned to each bottle. We weren’t paying a 100% markup for each bottle like we normally would, had we ordered from the wine list.

The restaurant was near empty on a Sunday night at 7:30. Despite our rowdiness and our quirks, I think they were glad to have our business. Nobody questioned the fact that we brought our own wine. Truthfully, how could they? In today’s economy, avoiding a restaurant markup is an easy way to save money. A recent survey by the Wine Market Council showed the majority of participants were eating out less, with the most significant decline (39%) in fine dining.

Of course everybody needs a reprieve from the stress that all of this causes and people may still be gripping the bottle to calm their woes. But they aren’t buying $100 bottles, they’re looking for the sweet spot of great wines at affordable prices in the $15 range. I know this from experience, promoting wine every day on WineExpress.com, but it’s no secret. Knowing all this, fewer people will needlessly pay $45 in a restaurant for a wine that’s on sale for $15 at the wine shop around the corner. Restaurants will need to wise up to meet the changing consumer, or risk facing empty tables.

My predictions for what needs to happen:

• BYOB will become more of a standard habit, with nominal corkage fees
• If not, prices will have to come down. Consumers are smart and know what a wine should cost and what it costs on a menu. They simply won’t pay double.
• If not, menu prices will have to come down. I get that restaurants make most of their money on drinks. Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect prices to come down on wine, but people need some incentive to open their wallets. Maybe more prixe-fixe meals or weekly specials?

Something’s gotta give, or I’m afraid restaurants might have a painful year (or more?) ahead of them.