Calle Ocho

Note: This is is a review of Calle Ocho in its former location. It has since moved to the Excelsior Hotel at 45 W. 81st Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West, the former site of the failed restaurant Eighty One.

*

Calle Ocho is named for a street in Miami’s Little Havana. On this stretch of Columbus Avenue, its bright exterior immediately gets your attention. The interior décor is consistent with the snazzy Latin vibe.

The ceviches are terrific. For $28, you get a sampler of four of them, which a friend and I shared:

Conchitas – Bay Scallops, Salsa Verde, Avacado, Pico de Gallo
Ostras – Four Oyster Shooters (Mojito, Caipirinha, Sangria, Margarita)
Tropical – Rock Shrimp, Roasted Tomato, Mango-Passion, Citrus
Pescado – Red Snapper, Aji Amarillo, Crispy Sweet Potato

(Separately, they’d be $10-12 apiece.)

The restaurant offers a crispy cuban pork special on Sundays called Pernil ($21). My friend, who’s had the dish at considerably less expensive Cuban restaurants, said that Calle Ocho’s version was over-cooked, and dry. I’ve no comparison to go on, but I agreed that the meat wasn’t tender enough.

She had a happy experience with the Cuban skirt steak ($22), which had been slowly braised, and yielded easily to the tug of a fork.

I won’t rush back, but the ceviches and the skirt steak were well executed, so I assume the menu has a lot more to offer.

Calle Ocho (446 Columbus Avenue between 81st and 82nd Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Alain Ducasse

Note: Alain Ducasse at the Essex House closed in late 2006. Ducasse transferred the kitchen team to a new but less formal restaurant, Adour, at the St. Regis Hotel, which opened in early 2008.

I had been looking for a special occasion to visit Alain Ducasse at the Essex House Hotel, a/k/a “ADNY”. That occasion presented itself yesterday, and my friend and I had a grand time. The experience was, if not perfect, certainly extraordinary—the definition of four stars, if ever there was.

I’ve seen many photographs of the room, but they fail to do it justice. It is creative, comfortable and luxurious, without being over-the-top. The exposed kitchen surprised me. Obviously there are plenty of open kitchens at fine restaurants in New York, but here it seemed slightly out-of-place.

ADNY virtually defines extraordinary service. One could give a thousand examples, but what especially impressed me is that our coats were taken when we arrived without a check ticket, and were ready for us when we left. Somehow, the staff is able to keep track of every coat and has telepathic insight when you are ready to leave.

Your options at ADNY are a three-course meal at $150, four courses at $175, the seven-course tasting menu at $225, or the six-course tuber melanosporum (black truffle) tasting at $290. We chose the four-course meal ($175 plus supplements), which offers an appetizer, a fish course, a meat course, and dessert.

ADNY tries mightily to tempt you with the truffle menu. Before we ordered, a member of staff brought around a box of several enormous black truffles in a bed of rice. I was encouraged to pick one up and take a whiff, which I did. We had already decided on the four-course, but we were still going to see truffles later on.

The water service might be seen as an attempt at upselling. Almost every starred restaurant tries to entice you to purchase bottled water, but at ADNY a water sommelier comes along with six waters for you to choose from. However, our request for tap water was heeded graciously.

I was beginning to wonder if attempts to pad the bill were going to take over. I asked the wine sommelier either to recommend a single bottle in the $150-200 range, or wines by the glass paired with each course. He was happy to do either, and when he didn’t state a price, I wondered what was coming. I was happy to find that the paired wines came in at only $140, below the bottom end of my stipulated range.

Our service began with two wonderful gougères and an amuse of seared tuna with pureed celery root. There was a choice selection of warm bread, of which an olive roll was especially memorable, along with two fresh butters (one salted, one not).

For the appetizer, I chose the butternut squash ravioli, celery “moustarda di cremona”, and sage emulsion, a complex dish that is difficult to explain. More straightforward, but no less superb, was my friend’s foie gras terrine, with mango chutney sandwiched by layers of foie.

I had no firm idea about the fish course, but I chose the Chatham cod, which includes “fennel—some braised, others raw—Taggiasca tapenade, and clear essence.” I reasoned that as this dish is part of the tasting menu, the chef must be rather pleased with it. It was, of course, impeccably prepared, but utterly unadventurous, and in the end unacceptably dull. My friend made the happier choice: poached Maine lobster with truffles ($35 supp.), which she pronounced superb. She must be getting to know me pretty well, as she said, “I took one look at that cod, and could tell you weren’t going to love it.”

(Update: Over on eGullet.com, Steven A. Shaw (the “Fat Guy”)—who is a professional food writer and has been to ADNY more than just about anybody else who writes about it—read my review and said, “I agree that the fish dish oakapple described is unremarkable as were two other fish dishes I tried on our most recent visit, when we also had the four-course menu with all the same choices oakapple described. On the whole, the fish course was weak. Maybe as part of a longer tasting menu I’d have seen it in a different context: a beautiful little piece of fish with a technically correct sauce. But as an entree-type course the fish dishes fell flat.”)

I’d heard rave reviews of the blue foot chicken ($35 supp.), which we both had. This dish is a truffle orgy, with truffles both under the skin and all over the plate. The raves are entirely justified; it was outstanding.

Another dish everyone raves about is “Monsieur Ducasse’s favorite dessert,” Baba Monte-Carlo style, with rum of your choice. A server comes around with a tray of five rums. You choose one, and it is poured into a small copper cup. You also receive a bit of the rum in a snifter. The Baba comes out in a sterling silver bowl that must have been custom-made for Ducasse, as I’ve never seen anything like it. Your server slices the cake in half, pours the rum over its innards, then ladles on heapings of cream. If there’s a better dessert in New York, I can’t imagine it.

We were not finished yet, as the kitchen sent out a small serving of sorbet as a palate cleanser. Then, a cart comes out with more sweets, of which you may choose as many as you please. (I had the vanilla panna cotta and a marshmallow coated with almonds.) The selection of coffees ($8) was impressive, including even M. Ducasse’s custom espresso, which I enjoyed.

The meal was not perfect: the Chatham cod didn’t live up to the surroundings, and none of the vegetable accompaniments wowed me. But at its best, ADNY operates at a level few restaurants can touch.

Alain Ducasse at the Essex House (155 West 58th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

Food: ***½
Service: ****
Ambiance: ****
Overall: ****

The Café at Country

Note: This is a review of the Café at Country under chef de cuisine Doug Psaltis. Click here for a more recent review under executive chef Blake Joyal.

Chef Geoffrey Zakarian, formerly of Le Cirque, 21 Club, and Patroon (among others), owns and operates the well-regarded three-star restaurant Town, in the Chambers Hotel on West 56th Street. It was only appropriate that he would call his next restaurant Country, which is in the new Carleton Hotel at Madson Ave & 29th Street. Zakarian recruited Doug Psaltis (who worked most recently at Alain Ducasse’s failed Mix in NY) as chef de cuisine.

Like many a restaurant (Jean Georges, Gramercy Tavern, Aquavit, The Modern), Country has an informal café attached to a more upscale main dining room. The café has been open for about two months, but the more elegant room upstairs hasn’t opened yet. We could see that the tables are all in place and tablecloths laid, so I’m not sure what Zakarian and Psaltis are waiting for. The café is surprisingly ill-conceived, and it strikes me as a waste of time. The décor is unattractive, the tables and seating are uncomfortable, and the noise level induces a splitting headache.

We were seated at a small circular table that looked cheap, and seemed to belong in an ice cream parlor. It was just barely large enough to accommodate our food. The banquette was too low. The restaurant also has a number of two-top rectangular tables that appear to have come from a different designer. I don’t know what the circular tables are doing there, as they clash with the rest of the décor.

Dinner began with cylindrical bread rolls that were so hard they could have been used to pound nails. There was olive oil at the table. It came in what looked like a cologne bottle, but the label on the outside said, “I Love Olive Oil.” I poured a little of it onto my plate, and my jaw had a good workout chewing through the bread.

I started with a beet salad, while my friend had the foie gras pâté. The pâté was probably the highlight of the meal. It was an excellent, but very large serving, and even after my friend and I shared it, we sent almost half of it back unfinished.

Coincidentally, the New York Daily News reviewed the Café at Country in yesterday’s issue, awarding 1½ stars, an assessment that may have been a tad generous. It was thanks to that review that I knew what to order for the main course. Critic Pascale Le Draoulec said:

Among entrees, I loved most of all the spectacular lamb shank, braised endlessly in North African spices. The rosy flesh yielded at the slightest prompting from my fork. Topped with glistening pomegranate seeds, it comes with basmati rice laced with exotic preserved fruit.

In fact, we both had the lamb shank. Le Draoulec’s enthusiasm is about right, but we both felt that it was more akin to comfort food than fine dining. Anyone competent isn’t going to mess up a lamb shank, and Psaltis is at least competent.

Service was solid, but in some ways over-the-top in comparison to the humble surroundings. Our server kept referring to my friend as “Madame,” and his obsequiousness was almost irritating. There is a very large wine list, which almost certainly will be shared with the main restaurant when it opens. We had an enjoyable Loire Valley red for about $47.

With most appetizers under $15 and most entrées under $25, the Café at Country clearly aims to attract diners who want a thoughtfully-composed menu that doesn’t break the bank. But what you get is basically a baby step above comfort food, and it isn’t good enough to justify putting up with the ugly, uncomfortable, and ear-splitting surroundings.

The Café at Country (90 Madison Avenue at 29th Street, Murray Hill)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: *
Ambiance: Poor
Overall: Satisfactory

Return to Churrasacria Plataforma

Last night, I visited the midtown branch of Churrascaria Plataforma. This outpost is larger, noisier, and a bit less hip than its TriBeCa cousin, which I have been to twice. It was the ideal outing for a group of 30 people belatedly celebrating the new year.

I’ve not much to add to what I’ve said in the past, so I’ll just link to the account of my first visit.

Churrascaria Plataforma (316 W. 49th Street between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Hell’s Kitchen)

Return to Dominic

Note: Dominic closed in 2007. I did have one more visit, and it was again positive: see here.

It took me nineteen months to get back to Dominic, which I finally did last night. (An account of my earlier visit is here.) My enthusiasm for the restaurant is undimmed—some minor glitches aside.

It’s not often that the Zagat review tells you precisely what dish to order, but it does for Dominic: “all can agree the roast suckling pig, a holdover from its old Portuguese incarnation, is ‘a must.’” So, that’s what I had last night.

The menu describes the dish as a 10-Hour Pig Roast ($24). It’s slow roasted with Tuscan seasonings, crispy skin, wildflower honey and sautéed greens. The dull sautéed greens added nothing, but the pig was terrific, including the crunchy skin and a brick of tender, flavorful meat.

Coincidentally, I had Cookshop’s version of this dish on Monday night, and found it bland. The folks at Cookshop need to high-tail it over to Dominic, to see how it’s done.

Dominic’s current winter menu lists five pasta dishes, and it was most peculiar to be informed that three of them were unavailable last night. I wasn’t looking to order pasta anyway, but it’s strange for a purportedly Italian restaurant to be out of so many items.

When I sat down, I was not presented with a wine list. When I asked for red wine by the glass, the server told me that my choices were chianti classico, pinot noir, or merlot, apparently on the view that it is unnecessary for me to be told which chianti, pinot, or merlot it is. I could have insisted, but I just ordered the chianti and ignored the lapse. It was nothing special, but at $7 I didn’t feel cheated.

The restaurant seemed to be a little over half full, which isn’t bad on a Wednesday night, in a neighborhood where there are so many dining options. It might help if they knew their own web address. It says “www.DominicRestaurant.com” on their business card, but the correct address is “www.dominicnyc.com”.

Dominic (349 Greenwich Street between Harrison & Jay Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: *
Service: Satisfactory
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Industria Argentina

Note: Click here for a more recent (and less positive) review of Industria Argentina.

*

Industria Argentina has been open about two weeks, in a space that used to be a Chinese restaurant. It has been totally remodeled. According to Daily Candy, “everything in the place—floors, tables, chairs, fabrics, bar—comes from Argentina.” (Photo here.)

When I visited last night, a small corn tortilla was served as an amuse bouche — a soft, warm, tasty miniature pillow of dough that was a perfect prelude to the meal. Crisp Pan Seared Sweetbreads ($12), or mollejahs, were served over a salad of warm potato, scallions and bacon bites. This was an ample portion, to which I would award the ultimate compliment: I just couldn’t get enough of it.

Several entrées are in a category labeled “From the Brick Oven.” I tried the 24-hour Braised Ossobuco ($25), which is served over roasted vegetables with pine nuts pesto, in its own juices. My knife was entirely superfluous—the delicate flesh readily collapsed at the touch of a fork.

There menu also offers a variety of steaks from the grill (filet, ribeye, skirt steak, short ribs), and other dishes like pork milanese, pan seared chilean sea bass, pumpkin risotto, and so forth. It looks like there will be plenty to explore on future visits. For the adventurous, the available side dishes include a grilled blood sausage. You can look at the menu on menupages (to which my description of the food is partly indebted).

I concluded with Spiced Bread Pudding ($7), which is served with vanilla ice cream and caramelized rum-infused raisins. Again, a wonderful dish. Everything I tasted was conscientiously prepared and most attractively plated. The final bill before the tip, including two gin & tonics, was $65.

It’s early days yet, but the restaurant hasn’t caught on. According to Eater, even people who live on the block had no idea what was coming till the place opened. Evidently, this is the softest of “soft openings.” I was truly worried when I walked in at 6pm and was literally the only patron for about the first 20 minutes of my visit. But by the time I left, around 7:20pm on a Friday night, about half the tables were occupied.

Service was friendly and usually efficient, but there are a few glitches. No one offered to take my coat (I hung it myself). There were no other customers were when I arrived, so the staff couldn’t have been too busy. Warm bread rolls came with a wonderful lamb pâté, but no knife to spread it with. I asked for a cocktail menu,, and was advised, “Our menu is to invent your own.” Another patron asked for single-malt scotches, and was offered Johnnie Walker or Dewar’s. He then got up to look at the bar himself, and advised that there were indeed a few true single-malts on offer.

Still, with the restaurant barely a couple of weeks old, a fault or two is to be expected. The owner said hello to me warmly as I was leaving. According to Daily Candy, he also owns Novocento in SoHo and Azul Bistro on the Lower East Side. I wish him the best in this new venture. Industria Argentina is a fun place to eat.

Industria Argentina (329 Greenwich St., between Reade and Jay Sts., TriBeCa)

Food: **
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: **

Viet Café

Viet Café is an attractive home to Vietnamese cuisine. Next door is the companion Gallery Viet Nam, which was featured on an episode of Donald Trump’s show, The Apprentice.

The attractive décor is composed entirely of furniture and lamps imported from Viet Nam. The tables are plain wood, many of them with benches for seating, although other tables have real chairs. For those against the wall, the banquette seats seem rather austere. The restaurant looks like it seats about 65, but it wasn’t at all crowded, nor has it been anytime I’ve walked by since it opened about a year ago.

Appetizers are a very reasonable $6-10, salads $6-8, noodle dishes $8-10, fried rice $5-7, and entrées $16-24. On my first visit, I wasn’t quite hungry enough for the Roast Laquered Duck ($24) or the Grilled Pork Chops ($18), with shallots and Vietnamese herbed wine. Instead, I had a one of the specials, a flavorful shrimp curry stew ($20), which was made with coconut milk, eggplant, kaffir lime leaves, carrots, and potatoes, and came with white rice. The ingredients seemed fresh, and the dish took just long enough to persuade me that it hadn’t been sitting under a heat lamp all day. I was pleased that a glass of respectable cabernet to go along with it was only $7.

On a second visit later the same week, the restaurant was, again, rather empty, although it was early (around 5:40pm). I started with the Grilled Garlic-Marinated Pork Rolls ($6), which are made with mint, pickled carrots, cucumber, rice noodles. This was not quite what I expected. The pork, carrots, and rice noodles were wrapped in a mint leaf, which was wrapped in a cucumber slice, and held together with a toothpick. It is finger food — a salad you eat with your hands. I didn’t find much pork, however.

From the entrées, the Roast Lacquered Duck called out to me. At $24, it is the restaurant’s most expensive main dish. The menu says that it’s made with “5-spice lacquer, nuoc mam glaze, and ginger sauce,” but the only spice I tasted was the ginger sauce. The duck was an ample portion, but slightly dry and a tad overcooked.

Dessert was a winner, a litchi meringue cookie with coconut sorbet ($5).

Viet Café (345 Greenwich Street between Harrison & Jay Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *

Fatty Crab

Note: Fatty Crab closed in July 2016, ending a run of over a decade. The “Fatty” brood, with chef Zak Pelaccio at the helm, once included two Fatty Crabs, two Fatty ’Cues, and other diversions. Pelaccio left the group in 2011 and opened an unrelated restaurant, Fish & Game in Hudson, NY. The group lost its way without Pelaccio, and the various “Fatties” closed, one at a time, with this one being the last. It was fun, while it lasted.

*

Fatty Crab is chef Zak Pelaccio’s casual Malaysian spinoff. His other restaurant, the more upscale and expensive 5 Ninth, is just steps away, in the center of the Meatpacking District.

Indeed, Fatty Crab is about as casual as it gets. The restaurant is tiny, and reservations aren’t accepted. The bar serves beer and wine only. However, it has the foodie buzz, and if you get there much later than 6:30pm, you can expect to wait. A Fatty Crab meal isn’t an epic-length event, and the tables seem to turn rapidly.

The restaurant follows the irritating contemporary trend of turning out plates as they’re ready, regardless of whether you are ready for them. This can work well if you’re intending to share (as my friend and I were), but I find it presumptuous when I am informed that this is what the kitchen means to do, like it or not. Isn’t dining out meant to suit our convenience, rather than the restaurant’s?

The menu comes as several printed sheets held together with a clip board. It offers the following categories: snacks ($4-8), salads ($7-13), noodles/soups ($10-12), vegetables ($7), rice bowls ($1-3), and specialities ($6-28). All of those specialties are $17 or less, except for the restaurant’s signature dish, the chilli crab, which is $28. It was unavailable last night (worldwide shortage of dungeoness crab, we’re told).

A salad of watermelon pickle and crispy pork ($7) was wonderful, offering a sharp contrast between the cool watermelon and the warm crunchy pork. I would have liked a bit more of the pork, but I shouldn’t complain at that price. A sweet and sour fish broth with rice noodles ($10) was plenty of fun, but awfully difficult to eat.

The dish of the evening was Short Rib Rendang ($17), which is braised with kaffir lime, coconut, and chili: tender, succulent, and flavorful. A dish called Chicken Claypot ($10) offered tender cubes of meat that had all of the flavor cooked out of them.

I suspect that Fatty Crab’s menu will reward further exploration. At its wallet-friendly price, the trip will probably be well worth it.

Fatty Crab (643 Hudson St., btwn Gansevoort & Horatio Sts., West Village)

Food: *
Service: Satisfactory
Ambiance: Satisfactory
Overall: *

THOR

Update: This is a review of THOR under Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, who has since departed. As of 2008, THOR was on its fourth chef, with Jesi Solomon (a former sous chef at Stanton Social) having replaced Mark Spangenthal, who replaced Kevin Pomplun, who replaced Gutenbrunner. Later Update: THOR closed in May 2009. It was replaced by a new concept called Levant East.

*

THOR is short for The Hotel on Rivington. It’s also the name of the restaurant that occupies the ground floor of that hotel. I don’t know what possessed somebody to put a 21-story hotel on the Lower East Side, although it is surprisingly easy to reach (just 2 blocks from the F train’s Delancey St stop).

The building sticks out like a sore thumb in this trendy, but still gritty neighborhood of low-rise tenements. Who could be staying there? You get no immediate idea of the hotel clientele when you visit, because the entire ground floor seems to be occupied by the vast lounge and restaurant. Indeed, you wouldn’t even know that it is a hotel, except for the name. There is no check-in counter, bellhop, or concierge to give it away.

The host that greets you seems oh-so-annoyed to have landed in the maelstrom of a successful restaurant. You get the sense that he’d be happiner in a far less hectic profession. Just beyond his station, a capacious lounge area awaits, filled with beautiful young bodies sipping their drinks. Loud music thumps in the background. “This is very Lower East Side,” my friend remarked.

The seating area is just beyond the lounge, and it is not far enough. I have not seen a serious restaurant that goes to a more sustained effort to ensure that your ears will be battered and assaulted during your meal. THOR’s 21-foot ceiling offers plenty of hard surfaces for the sound to bounce off of, and the sound happily obliges. Your eardrums may need a medical checkup after the meal is over. The large tables (apparently the same ones you find at BLT Steak) offer plenty of room for the food, but to communicate you’ll have to shout.

If you survive the aural onslaught, you’ll be treated to some of the best and most creative food in New York. Of restaurants I’m familiar with, only nearby WD-50 offers a comparable exercise in culinary experimentation on this level. Practically every dish on THOR’s menu offers surprising combinations from superstar chef Kurt Gutenbrunner.

I had my doubts about THOR, because Gutenbruner is now on his fourth restaurant (with Wallsé, Café Sabarsky, and Blaue Gans also in his stable). Perhaps, like many a celebrity chef, he’s taken his eye off the ball. But Gutenbrunner is obviously as good a manager as he is a chef. THOR’s kitchen staff turns out his creations expertly, and the service (despite the din) is nearly perfect.

Gutenbrunner told Frank Bruni that “he considered Thor the culinary equivalent of a chance to move from orchestral music to rock ‘n’ roll.” You can see what he means. At his flagship Wallsé, the Austrian cuisine is excellent, but largely traditional. At THOR, he lets his wildest urges run wild, with spectacular results.

The menu is needlessly confusing. My friend, who hadn’t researched the restaurant in advance (and one shouldn’t have to), was initially baffled. In a preface, Gutenbrunner explains that there are plates of various sizes, allowing you to construct a tasting menu of your own design. But there is no indication of which plates are small, and which are large. Instead, the menu is in sections labeled “Cold Plates to Start,” “Warm Plates in the Middle,” “From the Market on the Side,” “Hot Plates” (a fish list and a meat list) and “Sweet to Finish.” Since when did the traditional captions — “Appetizers,” “Entrées,” “Side Dishes,” and “Desserts” — need to be replaced?

Anyhow, after all that my friend and I each ordered a “Warm Plate,” a side dish, a meat course, and a dessert. And we were transported. To start, my friend ordered the “Grilled shrimp skewers with green tomatoes, peppers and quark powder” ($14), and I the “Ravioli with farmers cheese, mint and hazelnut butter” ($13). My dish came with three ravioli, and they were wonderful; the ingredients worked marvelously together.

The side dishes are all $7. Many of them are traditional vegetable sides, but a terrific mushroom risotto is offered, which my friend and I both ordered. This is one of THOR’s better bargains, given the intensive labor required to make a risotto. It could have been an appetizer in itself, but it came out with the main courses.

I hardly ever order calves liver; indeed, I can remember ordering it only once before in my life. It wasn’t a bad experience, but calves liver is simply one of those dishes that you don’t want every day. “Glazed calves liver with apples and scallions” ($24) seemed too intriguing to pass up, and my willingness to take a chance paid off. If all calves liver dishes were this good, nobody would be ordering foie gras.

My friend had “Roasted rack of lamb with broccoli puree and 14K golden nugget potatoes” ($28), which offered two hefty chops, which she said were spectacular.

For dessert, I tried the pumpkin cheesecake with maple syrup ice cream ($9), which Frank Bruni had described as “a happy nose dive into the heart of autumn.” My friend ordered the petits-fours ($5), which come with what looks like a tube of toothpaste, but it actually contains hazelnut chocolate, which you squeeze into a small basin in the center of each cookie. WD-50’s Wylie Dufresne and Sam Mason would be kicking themselves, and wondering, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

The wine list is organized by region, but there is also a section labeled “Sommelier’s Discoveries,” featuring growers and/or regions that don’t get a lot of publicity. The friendly sommelier came over unbidden and made a wonderful suggestion from that section. It was a 2003 Blaufrankisch by Feiler-Artinger, from Burgenland, a region of eastern Austria. Better yet, I had requested a wine between $35-45, and it was $39. Sommeliers who don’t try to gouge every last dollar earn my everlasting respect. The restaurant uses stemless wine glasses from the Austrian firm Riedel. Somehow, you feel strange drinking wine from a stemless glass, although the Riedel catalog is in fact highly regarded, and pricey.

The individual dishes on the menu are all reasonably priced, but if you heed Gutenbrunner’s advice to construct a “tasting menu,” the bill can mount in a hurry. Our meal of an appetizer, side dish, main course, and dessert apiece, plus wine, was $192.56 (including tax and gratuity). Had we ordered cocktails, more tasting plates, or a different wine, it could easily have been a lot more. For cooking this good, we considered it money well spent.

THOR is full of contradictions. Kurt Gutenbrunner’s serious cuisine finds itself in a clubland setting designed for twenty-somethings who probably don’t realize how special it is. Many of those who would appreciate it are no doubt put off by the location, the clientele, or the noise. (We are in our forties, and seemed to be among the oldest people there.) But if you can put up with the racket, you’ll find that THOR is serving some of the finest food in the city.

THOR (107 Rivington Street, between Essex & Ludlow Streets, Lower East Side)

Food: ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: *
Overall: **½

Siam Inn

Siam Inn is easily overlooked. The sign outside is small and humble; we nearly walked right by it. But for a happy, budget-friendly pre-theatre meal, Siam Inn is the ticket.

Both Zagat (“very plain decor” leads some to opt for the “excellent delivery”) and Michelin (“plain dining room”) take swipes at at the ambiance, but this is misleading. Okay, it’s not a decorator’s wet dream, like Vong or Spice Market, but Siam Inn is both pleasant and easy on the eyes. The banquettes are comfortable, the tables generously spaced. There are white tablecloths, and service was better than some two-star restaurants I’ve visited lately

In Michelin’s defense, they are tough graders on ambiance, or what they call “comfort.” Siam Inn receives two couverts on their one-to-five scale. That might not seem very good, but quite a few fine dining restaurants in New York have two couverts, such as Artisanal, David Burke & Donatella, and TriBeCa Grill, so Siam Inn is in pretty good company. Notwithstanding that, Michelin praised both the cuisine and the service, and it was an entry in the guide that led me to Siam Inn in the first place.

Anyhow, back to the restaurant: My friend and I shared an order of Thai Spring Rolls ($4.25), a generous and tasty portion that comes with three rolls, provocatively cut in half lengthwise, to show their innards.

Menu choices show between zero and three stars to indicate the degree of spiciness. I ordered a three-star special, Duck Basil ($19.95), which comes with Holy Basil, White Mushroom, Garlic and Chili. I would describe this as pleasantly hot, but not the fire-engine red associated with Sripraphai or some Indian curry houses. The duck slices (boneless, with the skin still on) were tender and moist. My friend had another hot duck dish, which looked very similar to mine, but with different vegetables and spices.

We both had a fun cocktail starter called a Blue Moon (sorry, I forget what was in it). The final bill, including tax but before tip, was about $62.

Siam Inn (854 Eighth Avenue between 51st & 52nd Streets, West Midtown)

Food: *
Service: **
Ambiance: *
Overall: *