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.

Chapter 2 – The West Bank Café

I have to admit, I have a real love for the West Bank.  A while ago, I had tickets to a show at one of the theatres on 42^nd Street, and as I’d just been put on a very strict diet for health reasons, I couldn’t eat at my beloved Ollies, (Chinese food is a no-no) so I tried the West Bank.  I’d always thought of it as pricey for some reason, but that turned out not to be the case at all, and the roast chicken au jus that they gave me was some of the best chicken I’ve ever eaten in my life.  So when I found out that they were celebrating the 30^th anniversary of the café by having a thirty buck prix fixe, the club just had to go.  I insisted.

We haven’t talked about wine yet, but the selection at the West Bank is small but thoughtful – there’s something to please everyone, from the ladies who lunch looking for a nice pinot greege to the older dudes who have to have that heavy as lead red.  My only quibble is the size of the goblets, because of course I have baby hands and am a klutz, so it’s a recipe for disaster to hand me an over-large glass with a slender stem. 

Kel, Robby and I were seated at a table right next to a bunch of giggling ladies who seemed a tad toasted and were probably enjoying a night out away from their husbands.   But aside from that, the atmosphere in the West Bank is absolutely lovely.  There is a distinct lack of snootiness, and the menu is simple, yet the small touches – like candied pistachios on your lemon mousse, or dried cherries in a salad – show that the chef has elevated them to a new level.  If people are going to be looking for a cheeseburger, then, by god, it’s going to be the best goddamned cheeseburger they ever had.

I don’t eat cheeseburgers anymore of course.  No red meat, no cheese, and no refined carbs for the kid here.  But the prix fixe in the West Bank is excellent, and full of healthy choices for me.   They're updating their website at this writing, but I'll link to it now so you can see it: West Bank Cafe  It says the Laurie Beechman because there is a theatre space in the basement.  Neat, eh?

Kel and Robby started out with the gazpacho, which makes sense on a sweltering day in August.  I chose the Caesar salad, not being in the mood for tomatoes.  Both were tasty.  I then moved on to the roasted chicken, with haricots verts (or, as my Mom would say, those skinny stringbeans).  The dish usually comes with some lovely mashed potatoes, but since I don’t eat white carbs they were nice enough to toss some extra beans on the plate and leave the tatoes off.  Kel went for the grilled Scottish salmon, which comes with summer squash, red peppers, roasted tomato, Japanese eggplant and a ratatouille vinaigrette.  Can’t go wrong there.  And Robby dove into some spaghetti and meatballs which were absolutely perfect.

Can I just go raving mad over the dessert here for a second?  Now, I’m a sucker for lemon flavors.  Caramels a second fave, but lemon?  That’s for me.  The way some people feel about chocolate, which I can take or leave, I feel about a lemon meringue or a lemon tart.  At the West Bank, they do a lemon mousse with a small meringue on the top, surrounded by fresh berries and including the candied pistachio nuts that made me absolutely crazed.  And, p.s., it’s huge.  I only get to eat dessert once a week, so if it’s only once it better be great.  I fantasize about the lemon mousse at West Bank.  The alternative offering for dessert on the fixed price dinner is an Arborio rice rice pudding – ah yes – a former favorite that I no longer dare eat with my slow metabolism.  Robby ordered the rice pudding and said it was fabulous.  Arborio rice is the same kind, if you don’t already know it, that they use for making risotto.  It’s a high starch baby, which is the reason I can’t eat it anymore and the reason it tastes sooooooo goooooood.  It’s also short grain, which makes it a good choice for a pudding.  You want that texture.

The only annoying thing about the West bank is in the bathroom.  Okay, I’m not going to get too graphic on you, especially in a food blog, but basically when you think you’ve locked the door?  You haven’t.  I was unpleasantly surprised in there by some weird old lady in an evening gown and helmet hair, who SCREAMED when she realized the stall was occupied.  I mean, seriously, this woman looked like she was a hundred and fifty, and she screamed like a little girl watching her Barbie get run over in the driveway.  And it’s not like I was doing anything UNUSUAL in there.

Other than one bathroom stall, the West Bank is brilliant, and I am definitely going back again and again.  The price is right, the service is attentive, the atmosphere welcoming (except in the john), and there’s even a theatre space in the basement which no doubt adds to the coolness factor.  Eat there.  Trust me.

Chapter 1: Kellari Taverna

Just about every Friday night, for the past few years, my friend Robby and I have gotten together for dinner at various cool dives, dumps and diners.  During dinner we review all of the various things that have annoyed us during the week, make plans for getting out of the various terrible jobs we’ve had, and talk about theatre and entertainment.  


When I met Robby, we were both agents at TeleCharge, taking phone orders for tickets to Broadway shows and, in between calls, shooting the shit.  Robby’s now a producer, and I’m a produced playwright, and our taste in food has evolved – but we still don’t enjoy spending fifty or seventy bucks trying a new restaurant only to discover that the food didn't live up to the hype, or that the service was horrible.  Thus was the prix fixe club born.

My buddy Kelvin and I met in B-school, and have also hung around various restaurants looking for a cheap meal.  The chopstick salad at Dojo is still one of my favorites, although you can no longer get it for five bucks as you could in the 80’s.  I introduced Kelvin to Robby a year or two ago, and Kelvin is now a fixture in the “club” as well, joining us for various meals at various places around Manhattan. 


This is going to seem silly to you, but I always felt weird about doing a prix fixe dinner.  It seemed rather touristy to me, and as a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker I have a love/hate thing going on with tourists (love the money they spend, hate the way they clog the streets gawking when I’m trying to get somewhere).   It’s my insecurity about having grown up as a working class kid in New Jersey – as if asking to see the prix fixe menu was exactly like telling the waiter “Do you have happy meals for broke adults?”  But then, see, we got used to this great thing called Restaurant week (now extended through September 6th!  Whoo-hoo!), and even fancy-schmantzy restaurants create a fixed price menu, appetizer, entrée and dessert, as a promotional.  That’s right, it’s to let new diners know what the food tastes like, so they might, perhaps, return under other circumstances and know they’re not going to be disappointed.  


When the club got together about a month ago, Restaurant week was in full swing, and we decided to check out some Greek food at Kellari Tavern.  Greek food is great for me, because it’s heavy in fish, yogurt, and olive oil, and not so heavy in things I can’t stomach like cream, butter, saturated fats and cholesterol.  Robby’s boyfriend Julio had been to Kellari before and really loved it, so when we saw it was participating in Restaurant Week, we three were in.

When you get to Kellari you see a gorgeous restaurant a tiny bit off the regular theatre district drag.  High ceilings, lots of wood and warm lighting, and a roomy bar where they accommodate drinkers with bowls of fabulous olives and a huge slab of great, hard cheese and crostini-sized croutons to go with them.  I had a glass of Pinot Grigio and ate more cheese than I should have before Robby showed.

Kel came in a bit later (he’s always got to park the car so he misses the beginnings of conversations a lot), and we sat down to review the choices for Restaurant week, only to discover that right on the back of the laminated 35-buck RW prix fixe, there was another business-as-usual pre-theatre prix fixe.  And it was $32.95. ( – only available between 4 PM and 7 PM).  Find the menu here: http://www.kellari.us/prepost_theater.php.  While you couldn’t mix and match between the two, the pre-theatre menu appealed to all three of us and, of course, if you actually are attending the theatre they will get you out of there quick enough.

For the appetizer, I couldn’t resist the grilled squid.  I love squid, but can’t usually eat it because I avoid deep fried food and breaded stuff and most restaurants give it the onion-ring treatment.  Gach.  But a Greek Taverna rises and falls on the quality of it’s squid, grilled not fried, so I hoped this would be splendid and I was right.  Cooked perfectly – not gummy, not chewy, with just a little olive oil and lemon.  A thing of beauty.  Kel and Robby loved it too.  Kel entertained himself with a greek salad, as did Rob.

The waiter recommended that we try the Lavraki for entrée.  A small Mediterranean bass, it did require a little navigation around the bones as smaller fish generally do, but of course it was melt in your mouth delicious.  My favorite thing, pre-diet, was lamb, but I had to leave the lamb chops alone this time and live vicariously through other diners.  Kel joined me in choosing the fish, and Rob went for the Seafood Yiouvetsi – oven roasted orzo, with shrimp, mussels and clams.  Pasta is also not on my personal menu anymore, but Rob loved it and ate every bite of course.

For dessert, each of us chose something different and we all got to taste.  Robby went for the baklavas – baklava can be a little sad if the pastry isn’t right, but this was perfectly done.  If the honey hadn’t added a teeny bit of extra weight, the pastry might well have just floated off and ended up on the ceiling.  Mine was the Karidopita, a honey walnut cake and – something I can never ever resist – fig ice cream.  I die.  Kel went for the greek yogurt, honey and walnuts – a traditional Greek dessert that has the added attraction of being easy to recreate at home (in a home made peasant version of course) with zero-fat greek yogurt and whatever nuts and honey you have handy.  I’m becoming a real expert on various types of honey, and using thyme or clover makes a difference – but if you’re home and trying to avoid running out to Food Town to buy Keebler cookies and then eating the whole bag, yogurt-nuts-n-honey is better for you and, to be honest, actually tastes better too.  

I’m very much looking forward to my next trip to Kellari.  I pondered coming up with a “rating system” for this blog – you know “I give it four sporks” or something – but that’s too silly, so all I’ll say is – the portions are worth the price, the food is brilliant, and the price is right so… Eat there.  Trust me.

Next week’s chapter will be “West Bank Café – celebrating its 30th Anniversary with a 30 buck PF!”