Chapter 9 - Chez Napoleon

Robby has a real soft spot for Chez Napoleon.  Actually, he has a soft spot specifically for Grand-mère's pate, which I know he looks forward to as soon as the decision is made to eat there.  There is a huge difference between "I learned to make pate in culinary school and I got an 'A'" and "I learned how to make pate by watching Maman make it the way her Maman taught her."  Don't ask me what's in it.  Hell, it's pate, so you don't WANT to know what's in it.  But it's g-uuu-ud...

Who is Grand-mère?  Folks, this is a family run restaurant, and Grandma really is the chef.  There's not a piece of broccoli rabe or a slab of Chilean sea bass within three hundred yards of this maison, and if you're pining for Paris, you'll really think you're there if you're here.

If you check out this picture, you will be a bit deceived by the lens that was used - Chez Napoleon is quite teeny.  Which is fine and nothing to be ashamed of.

They can seat around 40 people, and having been around since 1960, these folks know how to get you in and out if you're seeing a show in record time.  If you make a reservation for the first seating, they may ask you (politely) to clear out before the second, post theatre seating occurs, but that will only happen if they're fully booked.

Kel, Julio, Robby and I arrived at our normal 6:30, and as my eyesight is going I asked our waiter what Grand-mère was cooking up that night for the Prix Fixe because I couldn't read the blackboard.  Shades of third grade.  And, you see, rather than doing a usual three or four entrees that diners choose from each night, the concept of the Chez Nappy prix fixe is letting Grand-mère cook whatever entrees she feels like cooking that day and letting you know what they are when you get there.  The waiter let me know (politely - always politely) that he would rather wait until all the diners arrive so he doesn't have to go over it more than once.

The prix fixe here doesn't give you a lot of choice, being a family kitchen, but at $30 it's completely forgivable.  Julio, Kel and I went for the salad to start, but Robby chose the cream of watercress soup du jour and he was a bit disappointed.  Rob is a Midwesterner and he doesn't like wildly spiced or exotic food by any means, so if he's complaining that his soup is on the bland side, it's got to be pretty damned bland.    To be fair, though, watercress isn't the most flavor-packed green in the world, and a traditional cress soup is likely to be bland.

The chicken entree of the evening was really, really lovely, though.  You're not going to get a fussy presentation here - as all four of us went with the chicken, the entire pot was brought out to us, and Chez Napoleon's version of chicken stew was stick-to-your-ribs yummy.  Not a traditional coq au vin so much as stewed dark meat on the bone with potato and onion and a homemade brown gravy that I would have been proud to turn out myself for a holiday meal with friends.  String beans were served alongside, and were cooked perfectly in just a little butter.  Past experience with the steak au poivre was also good, though I have to admit that when I was eating red meat I was quite a sucker for steak au poivre, and it would have had to have been awful for me to complain.  The sauce was a little old-school French, i.e. heavy, and for obvious reasons.  But the sign says "Chez Napoleon" not "Chez Diet Food."

The choice of wine at CN goes without saying - a traditional French restaurant without a traditional Chateuneuf-du-Pape would be an absolute crime - but at $70 bucks a bottle, we left that for the guy at the next table who was ordering it to impress his Match.com date.  The house red or white are absolutely fine, and at 8 bucks a glass were certainly more my speed.

Dessert was more than satisfying.  The boys went for their chocolate fix with the mousse, and I chose the creme caramel.  Both were excellent, and made with love.  As it turned out, the second seating was not full, so no one made any moves to hustle us out of there.

As Chez Napoleon is kind of tucked away on 50th near 9th Avenue, you don't get the tourist crush that you do at some theatre-district restaurants.  It's cozy and quiet, the theme is French comfort food, and unless you're in the mood for something more eclectic, more bizarre, more way out in Top-Chefy left field, you'll have a good, wholesome dinner here.  Trust me.

Chapter 8 - Cafe Un, Deux, Trois (Theatre District)

Over the years I've eaten at Cafe Une, Deux, Trois a lot.  I seem to remember a lot of noise and plenty of good spaghetti.  That much hasn't changed. There's even a clone (I guess they could have called it "Cafe Une, Deux, Trois, Deux" if they'd been the kind of smartasses that I am.) down in Manhattan Plaza, and that's good as well.

Unlike a lot of restaurants in this city, CUDT is pretty large.  It's a pleasure to have room to move around in when you're eating in Manhattan, but, as happens sometimes, the acoustics in the place are incredibly hot, and like the John's Pizza down on 44th, it's so incredibly noisy that it rather makes you feel like you're eating in a very, very fancy high school cafeteria with great food.  On the particular night I was down there, the wait staff seemed to be singing "Happy Birthday" four or five times (I think the fourth and fifth times were just a joke by people wanting to go along with what seemed to be a trend that night.).

I had a ticket to "Women on the Verge" so I figured I'd pop in here and try the PF, taking a seat at the bar.  I did get a tad bit of "I'm the bartender so I'll only serve you dinner under duress" attitude from behind the bar, but only a tad.  I was pleased to discover that the Prix Fixe Menu was under $30 bucks for the usual three courses, and that there was a comforting variety of choices.  I chose the mixed green salad to start, but the pate is quite good as well, and the only reason I didn't choose the soup is that it was a creamed soup and I'm trying desperately not to blow up like a balloon this holiday season.  Like I do every other holiday season.

Anyway, my mind was taken off mister cute snobby waiter when someone ordered a glass of absinthe.  They have an urn set up at the edge of the bar for proper louching of the drink, carefully balancing the sugar cube over the tiny glass, dripping cool water on the sugar and letting it seep slowly into the absinthe to release the little green fairy.

How lovely.  Not before dinner for me, though, thank you.

I've had the pasta here many times before, so I passed it by this time in favor of trying something new.  And as my buddy Andi says, if you're going for a prix fixe entree, why not choose something that costs more to make than a plate of spaghetti does?  The Poulet a la Moutard was just what I needed.  Chicken breast can be scarily dry, but this was not so, and the mustard sauce was a good complement.

Dessert was nicely turned out, with a more than serviceable chocolate mousse jockeying for position with one of my favorite things on earth - a blood orange sorbet that almost (but not quite) rivaled the blood orange sorbet they used to serve at Rafaella in the village.  (Oh, why oh why did they close down my lovely Rafaella, with it's lousy service, it's cute waiters who didn't speak English, and it's lovely coffee and sweets?)

But back to Une, Deux, Trois - this place has been around long enough to know how to get you in and out in time for a show, the price of the prix fixe ($29.95) is right, and nothing you're served here is ever going to be a misfire.  You can even have a romantic snort of absinthe, poured in the old French way, if you want to impress your date.  True foodies may find the menu a little run of the mill, and the flavors a little timid, but Cafe Une, Deux, Trois, all things considered, is a definite "oi" and not a "non", trust me.

Chapter 7 - Mont Blanc Restaurant

Okay, in examining Mont Blanc Restaurant  I have developed a theory.  A restaurant that has been around since your parents were dating and still makes money is going to be pretty good.  It's not going to be spectacular.  It's not going to be the gustatory experience of a lifetime.  But it's going to be pretty good.  And the food is going to taste pretty much like you could have made it yourself, which is not the reason I want to go to a restaurant, even though the prix fixe may be really reasonable.  My theory - which I have, and which is mine, is mine (that was for you Monty Python fans out there) : Mont Blanc suffers from HORS - "Hella Old Restaurant Syndrome."

One of the first signs of HORS is a really terrible website.  Mont Blanc Restaurant has one of the worst sites of any sort that I've ever seen, and of any sort, not just restaurants.  Some younger member of this family-owned establishment obviously dragged someone kicking and screaming onto the internet, and this site is what they came up with - horrible whacked out fonts, annoying guitar music by cousin Rolf, and no picture of the actual restaurant itself, which is why I'm now posting a picture of the real Swiss Alp Mont Blanc for your enjoyment.

But what does this have to do with the dining experience, you say?  Well, here we go.  When I walked into the restaurant, there was no host or hostess around to seat me.  I don't mean just for a moment, and I don't mean for a minute or two - I mean they were nowhere to be found, and I meandered around to look, finally snagging a waiter who obliged me and took me from the bar area, past the regular tables inside, and out into a patio area which was larger than the actual restaurant.  It even has a large atrium contraption for rainy nights that can be pulled out to cover around two thirds of the tables there.  

The prix fixe menu, at $29, has an old-fashioned price that I do appreciate I must say.  Having sampled it now, I don't think I'd suggest by any means that MB raise the price.  As I sat in the corner perusing the menu and waiting for the guys, I was mystified as to why my eyes seemed to be watering a teeny bit.  In the back corner of the patio, where the waiter had sat me, there was some sort of mild steakhouse acrid smoke thing that was happening just the other side of the fence.  It wasn't bad enough for me to ask to be re-seated, but it was yet another oddity to add to the list.

One of the things I do appreciate about this prix fixe was its variety.  Too often, a prix fix will be limited to either soup or salad to start, a choice of three entrees, and a choice between two desserts, which is the bare minimum of choices you can give prix fixe diners without pissing them off.  Mont Blanc does a really great job here, and I think that's a reflection of how large and eclectic their menu is.  Being a swiss restaurant means that they are influenced by French cooking, German, Austrian, Belgian, my God just about any cuisine where people groove on cheese and saute everything.  And since they're in America, you can also get a margarita there that doesn't suck at all.  Mont Blanc gives the prix fixe diner a choice of five starters, seven entrees, and will simply open the entire dessert menu for you at the end of the meal and let you choose whatever you like.  Astounding.  

I started with the mussels, which were perfect.  Kel followed my lead, but Robby went for the pate maison which he really loves.  Another oddity arrived on his plate with the pate, though - some sort of enormous plastic bead which has something to do with preparing lemons.  To Mont Blanc's credit - as an elder statesman of a restaurant - they whisked away the entire plate, somewhat eaten, and brought him a new one.  I would love to report that the pate itself was a phenomenon, but it was simply - here's the theme again - pretty good.  

The entree I chose was a chicken marsala, and Robby followed me there.  Kelvin went for a veal dumpling which he really did like a lot.  Gotta say though, we see here another symptom of HORS - weird presentation.  The veal dumpling was just exactly that and nothing else - one single sphere of meat around the size of a jai alai ball, topped with some gravy.  Not even a sprig of parsley, my friends.  Tasted great.  Looked very weird.

Like the tasty veal ball, the chicken came to us with a side order of sauteed stringbeans that were a bit buttery and very overcooked - just like Mom used to make.  My Mom making vegetables is just a crying shame, as she herself can't stand them, and this is precisely what she used to do to them.  Also served with the meat course is a portion of what we would call a hash-brown pancake.  Again, tasty but not healthy in the slightest, and prepared as one large panful which is hacked into nice-sized chunks at table. I rather wish my friend Aine had been eating with us, because she's madly in love with anything made of potatoes.  Me, not so much.  I like to keep the oil content of my meal down, so this isn't the healthiest way to prepare potatoes, but, that said, a bit of flavor could have been added with a bit of scallion or onion.  

The chicken marsala was okay.  Ever so slightly gummy from being over-floured during cooking I would say.  The marsala itself was not so easy to discern - it just tasted like chicken breast with gravy to me - again, probably a by-product of the old fashioned over-flouring before sauteing.  Not enough shrooms for me.  Again, PG - pretty good.

Dessert was a good time, in that we had loads of choices.  There were some very odd, old fashioned offerings - the 19th century favorite Poire Helene was there, with no explanation of what it was for us working class Americans.  (It's a poached pear covered in chocolate, in case you, like me, didn't know) - and there was also a meringue glace which I probably would have liked except fluffy ice cream wasn't going to do it for me who is only allowed dessert once a week.  I wanted something with a little more body to it.  I settled on the peach melba, which was, again, not a revelation, not a sparkling jewel.  Tasted good.  The peach was actually large, and that's noteworthy in October, but the bottom line was, if I'd been home and grabbed myself some high-quality cling peaches, wiped off the syrup, tossed them on top of some Bryers and kissed the whole thing with a little pulverized frozen raspberry, I would have gotten the same effect. Kel went after the chocolate mousse, and there is no denying that chocolate mousse makes people happy.  And it's something you can't buy, despite Jell-O's attempts to convince people otherwise.  This was a real mousse, and nowhere near Jell-O, so happiness was definitely experienced.

I do have to mention, at this point, that our waiter was a goofball.  Unlike the other waiters in the place, we happened to have the guy who just served up your food and then disappeared to go and smoke or gossip until such time as the other waiters would collectively chorus "Sameer!  Your table!... Sameer - check!  Sameer!  Wake up!"  We waited for what seemed like a decade for this guy to come over and settle up with us, and, being the rude New Yorker among us, I popped back into the restaurant proper and started asking around.  The hostess (yes, there was one) came over to us instead of Sameer and helped us to settle up so we could get out of there.

Are you going to have a terrible time at Mont Blanc?  No.  Are you going to have bad food there?  No.  Is it going to become your favorite pre-theatre stop?  Are you going to become a regular?  Hm.  Only if you're Swiss and you yearn to hang out with other ex-pat Swiss people.  There are better places out there, trust me.

Chapter 6 - Dervish

You know, I really wanted to like Dervish.  At only $27.95, the price was certainly right and and a fiver cheaper than most other prix fixe menus in the theatre district.  I like Mediterranean food, I love Turkish food, so I was really looking forward to this particular adventure.  The menu looked rather interesting, so Robby, Kel and I went over and decided to give it a go.

The restaurant itself is actually cavernous compared with some, and it is a pleasure not to have to shuffle between tables.  But I have to say I thought that for a restaurant called "dervish" there was a distinct lack of energy around putting this food together.  Traditional appetizers like the babaganoush were done fairly well, and the hummus made with walnuts and pine nuts was of a more robust texture than a traditional chickpea-only hummus, but the Turkish salad was merely some tomato and cucumber marinated in lemon juice, and the mihrap borek, what a Greek restaurant would just call spinach pie, was downright tough.

The main courses were even more disappointing.  The chicken skewers I ordered were as dry as chicken breast tends to be - I never know why people don't use thigh or leg meat when making skewers because they wouldn't dry out the way breast meat does.  The rice pilaf that comes with most of the entrees is just high-school cafeteria rice sprinkled with a bit of parsley, and there was a distinct lack of moisture there too.  Kel ordered the salmon, as he does fairly often, and I had a feeling it would be overcooked, though he ate it politely.  Robby doesn't dig lamb, so he went for the stuffed cabbage and we both agreed that the vegetarian dishes in the restaurant fare better than the meat or fish.

I'd love to report that Dervish redeems itself with dessert, but that would be wrong.  The "Devil's Chocolate" I was served was just a thin slice of a chocolate cake that might have come from any below-average bakery - just a little stale and the frosting just a little dull.  The baklava was victim to the same ossifying force that the spinach pie was heir to, and the cheesecake was, again, purchased from some cheesecake factory somewhere - nothing special.  

New York City is one of the finest food towns in the world.  When I run across a restaurant that doesn't even seem to be trying that hard, I wonder why the people who run it are even in the food service industry.  Serving food this boring and badly prepared in one of the highest priced real estate markets in the country takes unbelievable cohones.  It's almost as if the chef is daring diners to eat there more than once.  I wonder if they have regular customers at all.

If you want better Mediterranean influenced food, you'll want to try L'YBane instead.  It's on 8th Avenue between 44th and 45th, has fabulous tabouli, succulent chicken, and a great collection of medium-priced wines.  They don't have a prix fixe that I know of, at least not yet, but the food is infinitely better and reasonably priced.  Skip Dervish.  Trust me.

Chapter 5 – Fig and Olive (Meatpacking District)

There are things about our trip over to Fig and Olive that I must say I really enjoyed.  The service, for one thing, is incredibly attentive and not at all snooty.  The food is good.  Do not mistake me.  But the atmosphere in there is just a little odd.  Or maybe it’s just me.   
I arrived early for the reservation, as usual, hauled my butt up onto a barstool and asked for a grapefruit juice.  The bartender then proceeded to open up a sad little can of grapefruit juice and pour it on the rocks for me.  Now, I know this sounds horrible, but is it too much to ask to have some Tropicana not-from-concentrate on hand at a trendy place like F&O?  Does grapefruit juice not get used at a bar?  Silly and odd.

Another odd thing was the “tasting” done of various kinds of olive oil when the bread tray was brought.  A variety of oils is a grand idea, but the odd thing was the waitress being forced to describe each oil as if it was a fine Brunello di Montalcino, telling us what region of Tuscany the olives came from, and that we would be able to discern the slight hint of smoke and raisins, or peaches and lavender, or fill-in-the-blank.  It’s olive oil, for feck’s sake!  It tastes.  Like.  Olives.  Yes, they did taste a little lighter or a little sweeter, but hints of pecans and green tea?  But of course I don’t blame the waitress for this tomfoolery.  I blame Top Chef.  New Yorkers are all neurotic, now, about whether they have a good palate or not.  In any case, they only bring a tablespoonful of each of three types, and four of us went through it in around 30 seconds.

I can’t really tease Fig and Olive too much, though, because they do a daily prix fixe irrespective of restaurant week.  This is a beautiful thing to find outside the theatre district.  And at $36, it’s virtually the restaurant week all year long.  

The boys all went for the carpaccio appetizer, substituted this evening for the steak tartare they usually plan, and thought it was excellent.  Marinated raw beef, 18 year old balsamic, and truffle olive oil.   Since red meat is out for me, I went for the gazpacho which I found pretty good and fairly typical.  The problem which gazpacho is that tomato is an incredibly strong flavor, and no matter what else you throw into gazpacho, it’s still just a symphony of cold tomato.  No topnote of peaches or lavender, needless to say.


After the starter came a nice portion of branzino, cut into credit-card sized pieces, crisped up nicely, and resting on roasted figs and peapods.  Assembled into a bite, it was really lovely, though someone in the kitchen had had a bit of a clumsy hand with the salt on the fish and I got a bit of a saline blast once or twice.  Julio went for the shrimp and scallop paella, and the rice was a little al dente for his taste, but the flavor was right on.  Robby popped for the chicken Paillard, which was the largest portion of the evening and absolutely tasty.

For dessert, the boys stayed true to form and went for the chocolate pot de crème, while I decided to be different and go for the dessert “crostini” – a shortbread cookie, some mascarpone, macerated cherries and the absolutely irresistible candied pistachio nuts. 
You’ll notice that I didn’t say much about the wine list, but it’s only because I couldn’t drink, so I’ll tell you that the sauvignon blanc that Robby got hold of was reportedly good as gold.  Wish I could have tried some.  

I definitely recommend Fig and Olive for a lot of reasons.  The food is good, the service is excellent, the price is right, the portions are not abnormally small for a prix fixe, and though it’s a bit noisy when the place is hopping, the atmosphere is congenial and fun.  You’ll enjoy it; trust me.

Chapter 4 - North Square Restaurant and Lounge

Last night my buddy Annette was in town, so since restaurant week is still chugging along (at least for some participating restaurants) I decided to have an extra club day this week.  Annette is a Cali girl, and for some reason she finds it really easy to get lost in Manhattan, so I found a restaurant in the village close to the 9th Street PATH station that was still participating - The North Square Restaurant and Lounge  We both decided on the prix fixe, and it was definitely a winner.

The first thing you'll notice about the restaurant is that it's very cozy and cute.  This picture doesn't really do it justice at all.  That table you see in the back there with the flowers has fresh flowers each night, and it keeps the by-the-glass bottles chilled in an ice bath (if white) or standing and breathing (if red).  I ordered the Sangiovese, and Annette had a class of Sauvignon Blanc that was actually a blend and not as "blanc-y" - that is to say a bit mellower than a true blanc.  Really nice.  Another nice touch, and reflective of the great service here in general, was offering the taste before the full pour when you order by the glass.  Many restaurants don't do this, but North Square takes its wine seriously and its service as well.  Drop a fork, and someone will whisk it away and a new one materializes within seconds.  Suggest that it's a little warm, and the temperature is adjusted for you.  Your waiter is attentive and knowledgeable.  Of course the restaurant is on the small side, which makes good service a bit easier to deliver, but even in other smaller restaurants you'd be surprised at how off the service can be.  No worries at North Square.

The Prix Fixe itself was what I think of as a totally committed prix fixe - that is to say, there are three choices of each course, and not just two.  The worst kind of prix fixe is, of course, the scam that the fancy schmanzys pull where they just offer two courses, and if you want the third you have to pay an extra 14 or 15 bucks for it, completely defeating the purpose of a fixed price dinner.  North Square does no such bait and switch - the restaurant week menu is interesting, varied, and the portions are completely equivalent to what they might be were you to order them a la carte.

Annette dove into the endive salad, and I went with a smoked salmon appetizer with the requisite drizzle of horseradish cream and dill.  Each slice was folded onto a thick, pressed homemade potato chip which, sadly, I couldn't eat because potato chips aren't in my current diet philosophy.  Nicely done and a healthy portion of five slices.

For the entree, I went after a halibut crusted with porcini atop a puree of cauliflower, while Annette chose what is usually my fave, the chicken au jus.  Both were excellent.  My fish was done perfectly, moist inside with crisped skin, salty but not overly so.  The cauliflower puree was lovely, although I'm sure it was because there was a healthy dose of cream inside.  Again, not on my diet regimen, but I let it slide and it was marvelous.

Dessert was a a success for the most part - I of course broke my one dessert a week rule and went for a creme brulee which, oddly, included blueberries.  Not necessarily a terrible idea, but it does make for a rather ugly-looking creme.  The sugar shell on the brulee was also a little bit impatiently rendered - and, for additional fuss factor, there was a pair of chocolate dipped milano-style italian cookies stuck into the top of it.  I think it would have been more effective if the brulee were traditional, sans cookies, and a teeny bit more effort had been taken with the blowtorch.  Brulee-ing something is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but heck, that's why I don't do it at home - I trust professionals.  And I can't imagine me and a blowtorch ever being a good combo anyway, given that I'm a klutz.  Annette's dessert was the wild success I have to say.  She's a chocolate freak, and chose the small frozen-chocolate mousse with a chocolate cookie-crumb bottom to it, topped by a scoop of bitter-chocolate gelato and accented with chocolate sauce.  Annette ended up eating every bit, and then wiping up the remaining chocolate sauce with my cookies which I've already said I found kind of superfluous.  Big success, was the chocolate.

North Square scores in every area - service, ambiance, easy to find, great food, good drink - they even have absinthe on the cocktail menu, so I know there's a creative hand at work here that understands the Village.  Definitely looking forward to another visit, although I'm not sure the prix fixe is a regular phenom.  If you're going to be hanging around the village, bypass the sushi joints, the student hangouts and the ubiquitous noodle shops and settle yourself down for a lovely dinner at North Square.  Trust me.

Chapter 3 – The Thalia (Pronounced “Tah-lia”)

Oh dear.  I was really looking forward to this one.  Ever since I walked by a couple of years ago and saw the adorable Chris Noth sitting in here having dinner, I’ve imagined I would get around to eating dinner at Thalia myself.  Robby’s lived in a ‘hood proximate to the restaurant for years and has never eaten here either.  So now we’ve tried it and – oh dear.

Restaurant week) has been extended to September 6^th, so I was hunting around for a new spot and we were going to go to Marseilles, but I couldn’t get the reservation time there that we wanted, so when I saw the Thalia participating I figured we’d give it a try.  The Restaurant week menu looked really inviting, so I e-mailed Robby and Kel and told them we were down.

Thalia is a pretty restaurant, no doubt about that.  But the first disappointment isn’t really their fault – huge double-decker tour buses filled with tourists use their corner – 8^th Ave and 50^th, as a pickup and dump point.  So as you’re sitting at your table, there’s about a 50% chance that your view will be completely taken up with huge, tacky, side-of-the-bus ads for daytime talk shows, Spiderman on Broadway, and the “Bodies” exhibition which is particularly unappetizing as you’re trying to have a meal.  The crowd in there was also pretty tourist heavy, which I found surprising.  Perhaps they got off the buses, saw the restaurant, and said, hell, why not?

I have to say, I started with a glass of vouvrey which made me very, very happy.  The wine list in here is varied without being too vast, and they do have a lot of what I would consider trophy bottles on there.  Nice for a celebration, should you be having one.  But you’d want nice wine to go with excellent food, wouldn’t you?  Well, we’re going to have to talk about that.

First of all, the menu they put together for Restaurant Week was no longer offered when we went in last night.  They still had it posted on their website, and, to be fair, the ending date was July 25^th.  But be warned if you’re trying to do the Restaurant week thing proper, you have to book through the official website to make sure the restaurant you want is participating in the extended window.  Or just call ahead.

Lucky for us, the Thalia (which the waiter kept pointedly pronouncing “Tah-lia”, as in Shire.  From Rocky.) has a regular pre-theatre prix fixe as do most of the restaurants in the district.  Unlucky for us, it was far more limited and far less interesting than the RW prix fixe had been.  Even more unlucky for us, the food, was disappointing.

Robby started with a fricassee of mushrooms over some very nicely done polenta.  Actually, quite good. The plate looked a little strange, as the polenta just sort of sat boldly naked in the middle of the plate with the mushroom mixture popped in each of four corners.  I was going to eschew the polenta because my salmon was, reportedly, going to come with a barley-as-risotto component, and I wanted to keep the carbs down.  Since the soup of the day was a creamy asparagus, which is too rich for me, I ordered the mesclun greens, which arrived formed into a very weird leaning-tower-of-leaves sitting on top of (and obscuring completely) some seriously over-marinated grape tomatoes.  Not happy.

As for the entrees, I know a lot of food writers make it a point to order differently from their companions in order to give you a wider perspective.  But, need I remind you, I’m not a food writer.  I’m just me.  So Robby and I both decided that given the choices, we’d both go for the salmon.  The duxelles mushroom ravioli would have been a bad choice for Rob, as there’d already been a mushroom appetizer, and the chicken might have been nice, but I was rather afraid it might pale in comparison to the one at the West Bank I love so much.  Judging by the plate of salmon, it quite possibly would have.

The salmon arrives, and there’s a lot going on on the plate for sure.  The hunk of salmon was quite thick and large, and while I like salmon seared it was a tad bit on the sushi side even for me owing to it’s size.  Rather than be confident that a good piece of fish is a good piece of fish, the chef gave me some sad bok choy that, again, I couldn’t see (what is with this guy obscuring his food with other food?), about a tablespoon of green barley “risotto” which wasn’t all that tasty and was kind of pudding-fied, and a couple of sauces that had one kind of acid (a sugary balsamic?) fighting with another kind of acid (a nice meyer lemon that was no match for either the big fish or the pink peppercorns sprinkled overmuch).

Dessert?  This is where the big “oh dear” comes in.  A lot of restaurants don’t have a lot of respect for dessert, and on the prix fixe they figure, well, they’ll take what they get.  In this case, there were too traditionally heavy items.  One was a carrot cake which, for me, was the lesser of the two heavy evils, and the other was a vanilla cheesecake – that traditional leaden cream-cheesed based thing that people seem to associate with New York just because of some guy named Lindy who’s long dead.  This cheesecake was nothing you wouldn’t expect.  No imagination applied to it.  Barely a garnish.  A berry or two, but not a “compote” you would consider respectable.

I chose the carrot cake, which, even if you’re not a huge carrot cake fan, you expect it to be moist at least because there are, well, carrots in it.  This was not.  You expect any dryness to be ameliorated by some frosting.  There was none, though the menu did promise it – I got a bit of coconut foam instead.  And there was no sign of a “cranberry confit” either – just a little melon-ball-sized scoop of gelato that was – was it vanilla?  It wasn’t anything other than vanilla, that I can tell you.  It was actually closer to cream-and-sugar flavor.  As I’ve said, I only get to do dessert once a week, but I was not going to take this lying down so Robby and I shared a black-and-white cookie on the way home to make up for this depressing end to a very odd meal.

The service, I will say, was excellent.  Tip your waiter nicely because they are awesome.  Then again, you’re not going there on my recommendation because I’m just not making one.  This seems to be one of the many restaurants in the area that do a prix fixe only grudgingly, because some of their patrons have theatre events to go to.  There was no joy on either side of this transaction.  Hope we have better luck next week.