Category: New York Restaurant Reviews

9 West 53rd Street at The Museum of Modern Art between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/333-1220
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip

I haven’t been back to the new MoMA ever since it reopened in its grand, newly renovated space in midtown Manhattan. The twenty-dollar entrance fee is a little too steep for a lazy Saturday afternoon but when Esquire magazine named Danny Meyer’s The Modern restaurant of the year, I knew I had to make a return trip. It also just recently received one star from the Michelin and that’s a very big accomplishment considering it just opened a year ago.

I made dinner reservations at The Bar Room to make our Wednesday night a little less formal than if we were in the main dining area. It’s busier and more crowded. The buzz all around makes you think it’s a Friday night somewhere in the Meatpacking District. I also prefer the small-plate way of eating. This way, my friend and I can taste more than three things from the menu and really get an idea of what the chef is trying to bring out from the kitchen. In this case, it’s Gabriel Kreuther’s skills from Alsace honed while doing a stint at the Ritz-Carlton.

The menu is adventurous that even if it guides you to order one from each section — from a small portion to a medium one onto a full serving — I still ordered a medium, a large and another large. I could not help but try the baekeoffe, an Alsatian stew slow-cooked in an earthenware pot. Instead of beef, The Modern version consisted of lamb, conch and tripe. A very interesting dish indeed with scrumptious baked crumbs on top, perfect with a glass of Cotes du Provence. The scallops and oxtail were served in two ways: a lone seared scallop on top of shredded oxtail on the left and another scallop next to it wrapped in oxtail meat shaped to look like, for lack of a better word, a huge testicle. This dish would have been rich enough to end the night (rich because of its flavor, not because of the testicle allusion) so I immediately regretted ordering the next dish. The pork cheeks were braised in sauerkraut and ginger jus which was even better as a leftover lunch the day after.

If I had any more room in my stomach, I thought the tagliatelle with escargots, hen of the woods and basil was as tempting as the olive-crusted lamb loin with chanterelle ragout and butternut squash and roasted celeriac. Thankfully, my friend was watching her weight so she had a reason to excuse the bland grilled shrimp with cabbage and gruyére salad or the swordfish served with eggplant mush.

Our waitress worked like a zombie and ruined our dining experience with her expressionless manner. I can excuse tasteless seafood but unexciting service means one star less for The Modern.

105 North 6th Street between Berry and Wythe Streets, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718/963-0608
$150 for three, with three drinks, with tip

Nothing on the menu tops twenty dollars at Sweetwater and that’s a very good thing. Even for dishes under that price, portions are generous and we wonder why we do not go to Williamsburg more often. (Of course, walking down the street later and seeing the boys who looked and dressed alike reminded us of why we don’t.) The potato gnocchi was very light; even the decadent sauce did not make the dish too hearty.

The roasted hen was served with mushrooms and it smelled perfectly of autumn but fowl is still fowl so the meat dries up easily when slightly overdone.

The grouper was tender, served with clams and kale in tomato sauce. I thought the kale was perfect for this because its slightly bitter flavor gave way for the tomatoes.

My friends and I chatted the night away and after dinner, our waitress offered us complimentary coffees to make up for the long wait we endured while cooking the hen. What long wait? She was so attentive we didn’t even think it took that long and so we appreciated the gesture. Service as good as Sweetwater’s doesn’t come easily in Manhattan so why don’t we go to Brooklyn more often again?

7 East 47th Street 2nd floor between Madison and Fifth Avenues
212/317-2802
$350 for two, with four beers, with tip

Dining in Kurumazushi is no joke and that’s apparent as soon as you walk in the tight second floor space in midtown Manhattan. The entire staff greets you loudly and the attention given doesn’t wane until you leave the building. Our waiter watched us eat like a hawk. A drop spilled from the boy’s teacup and he came running to wipe his tray clean. A dangling piece of mackerel escaped my big bite and he immediately replaced my mat. Our sushi chef at the bar was old but he was also the jolliest and the liveliest Japanese man I’ve ever met. His assistant is surprisingly a young Dominican (!) woman (!) who has been training under his tutelage for about ten years (!).

We opted for the omakase and never regretted a second of it until the $350 bill came at the end of the night. The chef started us off with otoro, then the yellowfin, the clam, the snapper and the mackerel, everything prepared in pairs. When we told him that we were getting full, he asked if we wanted to end our meal with uni. A smile reached my ears; there’s always room for a sea urchin or two. We also asked for miso and nameko mushroom soup to calm our stomachs.

I’ve followed Ruth Reichl to Kurumazushi but I don’t think I will ever return and eat there again unless someone else foots the bill.

13th Street on Ninth Avenue, New York City
212/675-2322
$150 for three, with three drinks, without tip

You walk into Spice market and you immediately think, This place is massive! The place is beautifully decorated, if not a little too dark, and utilizes a lot of wood instead of glass like 66, another Jean-Georges restaurant. Spice Market is bustling. There are staff members constantly running around. Some of them in backless salmon-colored pantsuits and tunics, some in short mini-skirts. The less attractive ones, I noticed, were wearing black sweaters and jeans. Our table was for 8pm and the place was already hoppin’ by the time we got there. The constant traffic is a little disorienting but I do not expect less from a restaurant in the Meatpacking District. In this neighborhood, you go to party, not to eat.

The food is typical Jean-Georges. You are encouraged to order several dishes to share with your group family-style. We started with the black-peppered shrimps with pineapple. The sweet and sour mixed with the spicyness was a good introduction but I ate more pineapple than I did shrimps for $14.50. The lime noodles were served with too much lime and I was cringing at every bite. I like my pasta al dente but I prefer my noodles soft and slippery. The mussels and the chicken wings, I felt, did not belong in the menu even though they were smothered with chili sauce and basil leaves. Good thing I had my Singha to match.

The green papaya was delicious as well as the squid salad. We were finally eating Thai food without the frills. I liked the halibut which was perfectly crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. I also loved the shaved tuna sashimi which came with small tapioca pearls in coconut milk. It tasted clean and pure. The mint tea was a great end to the overwhelming flavors that fought for my attention. By 11pm, nothing else mattered.

I’m satisfied with simplicity. I don’t need the entire production to be impressed.

176 Perry Street on West
212/352-1900
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip

Whenever I tried to make a reservation at Perry St., my only option was either 6pm or at 11:30. When I met my dining partner at our table in the back, the restaurant looked very empty at six. Perhaps they were reserving the tables just in case Nicole Kidman or Lenny Kravitz, residents of the Richard Meier building that also houses the restaurant, decide to drop by.

Perry St. is Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s eighth restaurant in Manhattan and it shows. The modernist interior welcomes the sunset glow along the Hudson River; it screams New York City. Diners look like the more affluent version of Spice Market’s fans but are a little older than the people in 66, two more of Jean-Georges’ establishments. The food is more “new American” but still focuses on the simplest Asian fares like red snapper sashimi, crab dumplings and roasted cod. Our fig dessert was served on a warm biscuit with ice cream, a delightful offering that was similar to one I had in London’s The Farm. They do not have a lot of wine available by the glass but a few good Belgian and German beers can be ordered from the bar.