American – Page 18 – Writing With My Mouth Full

The Tasting Room

264 Elizabeth Street off Houston
212/358.7831
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Update: The Tasting Room is closed. I’ll miss you.

I am separating this review from the original restaurant’s because a new location deserves a new writeup. RenÃ©e and Colin Alevras’ new space is definitely bigger than the one on 1st and First. The wine bottles have their own room now and a beautiful sliding stable door opens up in the back. Because I went during their first trial night, I wasn’t sure if it will be another dining area or if it will remain as a storage room. (Stay tuned to find out!) Past the bar and sitting area in front, the new digs open up to a roomier space. The lighting is warm and comfortable that dining in there made us forget it was the hottest day of the year outside.

Moving into a new location usually means sacrificing something, but The Tasting Room seems to have brought everything with them to the west side. My sugar snap pea soup was a cooling summer starter topped with green peas and small and crusty pieces of pork belly. The Muscovy duck terrine was delicious, but what stood out was its side of parsley and pickled shallot salad with homemade Worcestershire sauce. And what would The Tasting Room stand for if not the season’s freshest ingredients from local farms? The chantarelle mushrooms with roasted Japanese eggplants in garlic confit was so beefy, their daintiness fooled us. It was a complete meal on its own. The Tamworth pork loin obviously came from a happy pig: sweet, succulent and juicy. The swiss chard’s bitter taste was the perfect accompaniment. We split the tomato and strawberry sorbet for dessert and had enough room to finish our glasses of Shiraz and Channing Daughters white blend.

Besides the new bar that can whip up some refreshing Moscow mules, everything at The Tasting Room is pretty much the same–I’m so glad they are.

Update: Yes to the extra dining room behind the sliding stable doors.

The Little Owl

90 Bedford Street on the corner of Grove
212/741.4695
$100 for two, with two drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

We told ourselves we will find another place in the West Village if the wait for a table at The Little Owl was unbearable. Thankfully, we were seated right away when we walked in at 7pm because I would have missed the soft-shell crab and asparagus, the sardines with green beans and the hamachi with coleslaw. Match that with a bottle of chilled white wine and you wouldn’t have gone anywhere else either.

Flash-frying soft-shell crabs are hard because cooking them a second over will give you mushy but chewy meat. Here, they were just the right amount of crispiness. The beans balanced the saltiness of the sardines. I could have done without the coleslaw but I must say that the pink inside of the hamachi gave me joy together with the light onion rings.

What used to be Chez Michallet is now an even sweeter space with white-washed walls and chef Joey Campanaro behind the glass-covered kitchen. Sitting at the bar gave us a peek of the action in the tiny kitchen. Our server was very attentive and never let us see our wine glasses empty. Our orders were always split in two so there was no awkward sharing. It was almost ninety degrees outside but it felt very comfortable inside.

Degustation Wine & Tasting Bar

239 East 5th Street off 2nd Avenue
212/979.1012
$130 for two, with two drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥ â™¥

The latest from the Jack and Grace Lamb empire, Degustation is the replacement for Jewel Bako’s robato grill next door. They kept the same layout: an open kitchen where you can sit at the bar and watch everything unfold as you wait for your food. This time around, polite Latino chefs show their skills behind the counter instead of the more familiar Asian chefs along Second Avenue.

Head chef Wesley Genovart, fresh from Perry St., is twenty-six years old and looks it, too, but he’s adventurous enough to fry artichokes with Kumamoto oyster in mussel broth and celery leaves. He’s smart enough to recognize that a slowly poached egg can be served with Serrano ham in chicken broth and, bless his heart, stuff a squid with braised short ribs and serve it with lentils.

The lamb was perfectly grilled with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and served with a sauce simply called “chlorophyll” which was, you guessed it, green in color. The pork belly is so crisp, the fat just screams Eat Me as soon as the plate arrives in front of you. The grapefruit in caramel water was the perfect complement to the seared foie gras and the lemon juice went well with the grilled jumbo shrimps. To end our night out, one of the chefs grilled strawberries and served it with ginger granita and basil and mint sauce. My only regret was not ordering this in between our seafood and meat courses to cleanse our palate.

Our 8pm reservation was easy to get, but we ended up waiting for forty minutes at the door to be seated. The staff never forgot us and served us complementary glasses (two each!) of champagne while we waited. A croquet amuse started us off and they still kept us in mind after six dishes and served us a wild arugula salad with ham and almonds to show their appreciation for our patience.

For a minute, I forgot that we were in New York City because of the exceptional service but, really, where else can I get this much good food for under a hundred dollars?

Peter Luger

178 Broadway, right under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn
718/387-7400
about $400 for four, with a bottle of wine, with tip, cash only
♥ ♥ ♥

Most New Yorkers will think of Peter Luger when porterhouse is the topic of conversation. How could we not when it’s been around since, oh, 1887. Even our cab driver knew where Peter Luger was. You mean the boo-jee steak place? when we only mentioned the steakhouse by the Williamsburg Bridge.

Since some of us have eaten here before, we knew to split the porterhouse for two between four people because we ordered the fresh bacon, two salads and creamed spinach with our meat. Our waiter was obviously disappointed when we refused the steak for four but lit up when we ordered the 2002 Cakebread with it.

We were a bit dismayed when our waiter brought a 2003 bottle and told us that he had run out of the 2002. Good thing my friend was aware of the fact that the 2003 harvest wasn’t worth the 2002 price. When we tried to order a less expensive bottle instead, our waiter returned with the 2002 and told us he just “found it” in the cellar. He was this close to opening that 2003 bottle and charging us the 2002 price! Tsk to Peter Luger! It pays to know something about your wines.

Bouchon Bakery

3rd floor of the Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle at 60th Street
212/823.9366
$64 for two, without drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

It’s in the mall, but it has Thomas Keller’s name on it, so how can anyone say no to Bouchon Bakery even though it’s just really a bunch of tables and chairs outside the Samsung store on the third floor of the Time Warner building? Bouchon Bakery is for those who can’t score a table at Per Se on the fourth floor or don’t have the $200 to feed themselves. It also serves lunch to the corporate employees around the area during the day from a take-away counter.

We started by splitting the haricot vert soup. Creamy but oh-so-light, we just couldn’t figure out how it was done. The peekytoe crab meat, poached scallops, shrimp and squid fruits de mer tasted so fresh. The sweet and sour dressing was so refreshing, you can absolutely taste the fresh herbs used. The tuna sandwich is made to look like a tartine, topped with eggs like a niÃ§oise.

The service is Thomas Keller all the way: a waitress asking us to pardon her reach when she would offer us freshly cracked pepper, a waiter knowing what exactly was in the dessert when asked, another waitress refilling our water glasses without intruding. It’s a great place to have a simple brunch and to experience a tiny part of the Thomas Keller enterprise without paying more than $30 for a dish. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything good at a food court until Bouchon Bakery.