Category: New York Restaurant Reviews

New York City Restaurant Reviews

The Tasting Room

72 East 1st Street on First Avenue
212/358.7831
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

When people ask me for my top five restaurants in New York City, I rank Sushiden on five, Tom Colicchio’s Gramercy Tavern on four, Snack on three and Mario Batali’s Babbo in second place. I usually get a reaction when I tell them that The Tasting Room ranks first because they have never heard of it or because the proprietors are more famous at the farmers’ market than they are on FoodTV.

The Tasting Room is where I was introduced to ramps a couple of years ago. Ramps belong in the leek family and have the taste and smell of garlic and onions combined. Ours were served with very tender Moulard duck breast. I have been ramp farming every spring in Vermont since then. I don’t know any other restaurant in New York City where I can eat carpaccio, squab and to-die-for pork belly all in one seating.

I visited for a second time a couple of weeks ago to see the difference in their autumn menu. Again, my expectations were superseded. A friend and I started with the uni velouté and then the fluke tartare with roasted eggplant. The soup was perfect for the almost-winter weather outside; it could have been butternut squash because of the color but the distinct taste of the ocean was obviously there. We also ordered the rabbit terrine and the pheasant in three ways: rillettes, roasted breast meat and chopped liver. My dining partner definitely knew she wanted fish to match with her choice of white wine, so she picked the striped bass with smoked eel, pappas amarillos and roasted garlic. Maitake mushrooms are still in season so I chose them with scallops, turnips and celery root purée–simply delicious. The turnips and the celery made the maitake subtle, which sometimes could be overwhelming in taste and in smell, but the saltiness of the scallops brought all of them together. We opted for the cheesecake with red wine-braised pear to finish, which carried the namesake of the co-owner’s mother.

The space is tiny with about ten tables but the dishes speak volumes. You have a choice of tasting portions for all of their dishes or a share at double the amount. The service is attentive whether it’s to answer your questions (What the hell is salsify? What is burdock?) or to recommend one of their numerous bottles of domestic wine.

Updated, 2007: The Tasting Room is now a café and the restaurant has moved to a bigger space on Elizabeth Street off Houston.

Shabu Tatsu Downtown

216 East 10th Street between First and Second
212/477.2972
about $75 for two prix fixes, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

Shabu in Japanese means “to swish,” and when you’re at shabu-shabu, swishing your chopsticks to mix in fresh minced ginger and scallions together with the cabbage, watercress, mushrooms and thinly-sliced ribeye beef in a steaming pot of broth is exactly what you do. Pick up a few slices of raw beef using your chopsticks, swish in the broth for a few seconds, pick them up and dip in a sesame-based sauce and eat them with sticky white rice. Before your meal ends, small cups are provided so you can ladle the broth, which now tastes like beef extract, and slurp it like soup with thin or flat noodles and seasoned with salt and pepper.

A prix fixe of shabu-shabu for two with salad and ginger dressing, rice and ice cream is about $20 per person. It’s even better if you’re with a big group because the whole concept of swishing and sharing becomes more fun. I crave eating at Shabu Tatsu in the summer even if it’s too hot to slurp hot broth, but I especially pine for it during the cold winter months when the only comfort I can turn to is a comforting bowl of soup.

Snack

105 Thompson between Prince and Spring Streets
212/925.1040
about $60 for two for dinner or $15 for one during lunch, with drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

At least once a month, I get a craving for Snack’s artichoke chicken salad. A big bowl of potatoes, butter beans, tomatoes, string beans and chicken are tossed with black olive vinaigrette. If I’m in the mood for braised lamb without the heavy sauce, I order their braised lamb sandwich with tomatoes and roasted red onions with tomato aioli and arugula on ciabata bread. The bulgur wheat salad is also delicious with mint and walnuts in citrus vinaigrette. I’ve had better houmus and pita bread elsewhere but I doubt any other Greek restaurant, Queens included, can beat their spanakopitakia or spinach triangles. The phyllo flakes off ever-so-lightly at each bite.

For dinner hours, the menu changes to include heftier items. When I visit, I always order the white anchovies and the octopus as appetizers. For main courses, I’ve enjoyed their vegetarian mousaka with eggplants, mushrooms and potatoes in creamy bechamel sauce. The braised lamb stifado smells really nice with currants and apricots while the keftedakia or veal meatballs are a treat with pine nuts.

Snack’s menu rarely changes, but with meals that are sure to please, I don’t see a reason why it should.

Peking Duck House

28 Mott Street south of Pell
212/227.1810
about $80 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥

Peking Duck House is unlike any other restaurant in Chinatown because they actually put extra effort in their interior design. It attracts diners who are still skeptical of the hole-in-the-walls in the neighborhood. You will be served on tables covered with cloth unless you’re seated downstairs where the fluorescent and lazy susans rule the room. Uncannily enough, most of the diners upstairs are white. The staff aims to please, especially if your group is not entirely Asian. It was a little unsettling when I experienced two kinds of treatments when I visited with different people separately. There are plenty of restaurants that serve Peking duck in Chinatown, but it is the Peking Duck House’s specialty. For other Chinese dishes, you’re better off paying less down the street.

Daniel

60 East 65th Street between Madison and Park
212/288.0033
discounted for about $200 for two, with matching wine, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Daniel is one of Daniel Boulud’s New York City restaurants and has been rated by Michelin and The New York Times with four stars more than once. It’s that kind of restaurant with those kind of people–my boyfriend and I needed a big event to have an excuse to eat there. The best we could do was to celebrate finishing his first year of medical school.

A few weeks before our date, I met chef Alex Lee to interview him for an online magazine, generationrice. We talked about his becoming-a-chef story and his history with Daniel Boulud. We were also given a tour of the Daniel kitchens. It now counts as one of my most amazing experiences in New York City. He let us in before dinner time and we saw the production kitchen, the coffee kitchen, the French and the American kitchens, plus the dessert room where we tasted chocolates on layers and layers of trays made in-house.

All that only added to our actual dining experience. We returned a few weeks later for dinner and chef Alex Lee did not forget us. Our waiter kept serving us complementary dishes from downstairs even though we’d already ordered our appetizers and main dishes. Wine was brought out to match each course, and in between meals, there were cheeses, soups and chocolates.

We were just delirious with the whole experience. When the bill was put on our table three hours later, we could have detached our arms and legs or promised to sell my future children to pay for it, but it also noted that 70 per cent of it was already covered.

You see? It’s all about who you know!