SoHo – Page 2 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Centovini

25 West Houston Street between Greene and Mercer
212/219.2113
$196 for two, with five drinks, without tip
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I knew I shouldn’t have ordered the $22 glass of Barolo but the guy behind the bar gave me a taste after I picked the $16 Muraglie and convinced me that it was the better way to go. It was a very good glass of wine and I gingerly drank it with the meats and cheeses that we ordered as appetizers, as well as with the asparagus salad topped with fried duck prosciutto and egg. For $20, we had a choice of five cheeses and salumis: we split the cacciatorini, the sweet coppa, the finocchiona and the Calcagno with the Testun al Barolo. I loved the subtle spring taste of the trout main dish with the fava beans, sprouts and sweet peas; a few pieces of morels upped the price to $28.

I have walked by Centovini several times but never paid much attention to it because it looked far too dark from the outside. I thought the space would be a little too romantic to meet a friend, so I was surprised at how bright it actually was inside. We sat at the bar under the massive mirrored lamp and even felt like a surgery can be done right on the marble-top counter. The rest of the restaurant is quite handsome, with a beautiful wall of wine shelves in one end and a lounge area in another.

The service was unobtrusive because they knew to leave us alone the entire time we were there. The bartender seemed to just show up whenever we needed to refill our wine glasses. And as to not interrupt our conversation, we would nod and just give him an okay–that makes for a very hefty bill after two and a half hours.

You can still get away with a much simpler dinner–and less wine–before heading to Angelika Theater without spending too much. A three-course prix-fixe is available every night for just $38 while brunch on weekends goes for $18. Centovini isn’t Lupa but I think it’s a good spot to start the night off right. Just make sure you don’t order the Barolo.

Boqueria SoHo

171 Spring Street between West Broadway and Thompson
212/343.4255
$70 for three, with drinks, without tip
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I felt like I got the gist of Boqueria SoHo after I stopped by for “dessert” with my brother and sister-in-law during its second weekend. We walked in around 5:45pm to eat an early dinner but were turned away because the bar was full. The maitre d’ refused to seat us fifteen minutes before the official start of dinner service. It seemed like a ridiculous rule only a person with a clipboard would impose, so we went to Snack around the corner instead for a better dinner.

My companions really wanted to taste some Spanish wines, so we returned after dinner to try and score seats at one of the long tables in the middle of the restaurant. We were seated immediately by the beautiful pata negro and a few spots away from a swollen-looking Bobby Flay.

We started with beers on tap before we moved on to the full-bodied red wines. Because we were only there to pick and taste, we shared the Garrotxa goat cheese, the Valdeon blue and the Idiazabal, a smoked sheep’s milk cheese. A smattering of salchichon was thrown in the mix for a few extra dollars. The Brussels sprouts with sausage was a favorite, as well as the roasted green peppers I learned to love while I was in Barcelona.

Two years ago, I said the food at the first Boqueria needed to be more inspired. It’s more refined here in SoHo, but the attitude need not match the neighborhood.

Cafe Select

212 Lafayette Street off Kenmare
212/925.9322
$40 for two, with 2 drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

Everything Serge Becker touches turns into the next place-to-be. (You’ve seen La Esquina and The Box in the news, right?) A 1pm lunch date with my friend at the bar started gloomy: we were meeting to drown our sorrows about the grim economy and the prospect of losing our jobs. But by the time I was halfway through my Swiss Lagrein wine and he was done with his Stella beer, we were celebrating the fact that it’s still an incredible city to live in. People around us were drinking bottles and eating as if they have all the time in the world even though the giant Rolex clock above us ticked. (Hey, maybe they’ve lost their jobs already!) Sharply-dressed men waited for their equally beautiful partners to show up. We heard French and some other indistinguishable language behind us; ah, must be Euros taking a break from shopping.

I opted for the comforting elbow pasta with ground beef in brown sauce and it came with applesauce on the side. It was weird, but if the Swiss say they go together, I believe them. It was an unusual combination I couldn’t stop eating. The bratwurst was smooth and the rösti, or Swiss potato pancake, added good texture.

I couldn’t help but love the red and white check table napkins. It’s only one of the details that make the place whole. A diner-style bar displays the ready-to-eat breakfast items like yogurt and muesli. The small room in the back seemed like the perfect place to rendezvous with someone while the chef’s table in the kitchen would be a good place to get some friends together. The dungeon-like storage room behind the kitchen includes a mezzanine you can rent for a private party–what New Yorker doesn’t like access to “secret” places?

L’Ecole at the French Culinary Institute

462 Broadway corner of Grand Street
212/219.3300
about $120 for two, with four drinks, with tip
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L’Ecole’s five-course dinner is probably the city’s lowest-priced prix fixe at $40, but at that unbelievable price, how does the food taste? Well, like $8 apiece. The restaurant prides itself in using sustainable seafood but I missed any information about their meat and vegetable sources. I assume they buy everything from the farmers’ market, but I wonder how they afford to charge less than $10 a plate if that was the case.

An appetizer of asparagus with crumbled chorizo sounded great but came out tasteless. I understood that the pan tomate with Manchego cheese was included to round up a Spanish-inspired dish, but they were disconnected here and the triangle of a sandwich needed to spend a little more time on the grill press.

The scallops were presented well in a row of shells topped with roe. They would have made great amuse bouches as they were actually lighter than the ones we received made of pancake batter.

I looked forward to my trout served in a curried mussel broth on a bed of baby bok choy, but the fish was under-seasoned and no amount of curry rescued it from blandness. The fluke was immemorable with braised cabbage and mushrooms. My Cornish hen needed some sauce to make the white meat taste like something. I thought the rhubarb that came with the duck would have been a perfect accompaniment because I’ve always cooked and eaten Cornish hens with tarty flavors like pomegranate. The duck triumphed as the best dish of the night. The duck breast was perfectly seared while the leg was braised with rhubarb presented, oddly, like Lincoln Logs. However, the bottom half of a side of rice was dipped in the leftover duck sauce and was an unnecessary addition.

We were pretty much satiated with mediocrity by the time we had to order our desserts, so we opted to share the cake with blueberry compote because it came with olive oil ice cream. We just didn’t want to waste any more food.

At L’Ecole, the ingredients used were not a problem. I’m sure there are talented students at the International Culinary Center, but they need to tighten their execution and add some finesse in their cooking to translate what they want to convey on their diners’ plates. I half-expected a professor in the kitchen tasting everything before going out, but it seemed like the students were pretty much on their own. Our waiter was really accommodating, but his every move was ruined by the too-lazy busboy who haphazardly stacked up all our utensils on our plates before briskly taking them way after each course–he just couldn’t wait to get out of there. We couldn’t either.

Noble Food and Wine

7 Spring Street between Elizabeth and Bowery
212/777.0877
about $120 for two, with wine pairings, with tip
â™¥

The $15,000 Enomatic Enoline 8 machine was in place behind the bar when I visited with a friend, but it wasn’t functioning. Tonight’s not the night if you were in the mood for a $90 glass of wine, our friendly bartender told us. The expensive toy is an argon gas preservation system which keeps wine fresh after it’s uncorked for up to two months–I’ve only used it to decide which bottles to buy from Union Square Wines.

Noble Food and Wine has been quiet even though it opened in mid-September. It first made news with the machine and it made a buzz again when chef Daniel Dorado, previously of Marema, reportedly walked out several weeks later. This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but the space looked like it was waiting for a party that refused to start. Maybe because it was six days before Christmas, but we felt a little weird for being the only two people there for dinner time.

We sat and drank at the bar instead of the lower-level dining room with Philippe Starck furnitures–our bartender seemed like he needed some company. He was attentive without being too obtrusive. To make up for the Eno, he generously let us share our wine pairings. We started with a half dozen oysters with sparkling wine. The busboy wasn’t exactly sure which were the Kumamotos from the Blue Points, but our bartender came back to the rescue and clarified. The perfectly-cooked serving of seared scallops came with a nice glass of white from Oregon and the Berkshire pork chops with honey-glazed apples and sautÃ©ed spinach were served with a full-body red. We weren’t sure what wines we were drinking anymore, but we both thought that it was just a sign that we were actually having an okay time.

When it was time for dessert, we also split the goat cheesecake. Our bartender proved that he was really paying attention to his only two customers of the night because he served it with a lit candle after he overheard that my birthday was coming up. Thankfully, two more couples walked in before we paid our bill. We didn’t feel as bad when we left to join the revelry outside.

We appreciated our bartender, but I’m afraid Eater.com’s Deathwatch is looming over Noble Food and Wine.