Farewell MJ Grill

MJ Grill, the casual outpost of Mark Joseph Steakhouse, is under new management. Although the signage and decor remain the same, it is now an Italian place. Within the next 2-3 months, it will be renamed Amici.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the lack of a dinner crowd. Just like every time I’ve been there, you find oceans of empty tables once you get past the bar. You’ve got to wonder if an unremarkable Italian place is going to have any more luck at attracting patrons.

The menu doesn’t break any new ground. I had a rather dull crab cake caesar salad, although my friend loved the veal parmagiana. There is still a cheeseburger on offer, but I have no idea if it’s as good as MJ Grill’s version. On the whole, it’s a menu that could have dropped in right out of Little Italy—which I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing, but it’s not going to turn many heads.

Service on a Tuesday night was extremely slow, despite the lack of patronage. We were offered complimentary after-dinner drinks, which unfortunately we had to decline.

MJ Grill, soon to be Amici (110 John Street at Cliff Street, Financial District)

Food: Okay
Service: Fair
Ambiance: Okay
Overall: Okay

Nebraska Steakhouse

I’ve been meaning to visit Nebraska Steakhouse for a while now, as I live only ten minutes’ walk away. The first trouble was that I couldn’t find the place. Stone Street is in two segments, and I kept looking for it on the cobblestone segment between William St and Coenties Slip. Once you get to the other half of Stone St, Nebraska Beef is fairly conspicuous with its huge orange sign.

The menu’s signature item is simply called “The Steak,” a 32 oz bone-in ribeye dry-aged for 28 days that’s about as thick as any ribeye I’ve seen in town. It’s a wonderful piece of beef, and Nebraska cooks it expertly, with a deep char on the outside and a juicy medium rare interior. If the ribeye I enjoyed at Strip House was a 10, I give this one a 9. I was unable to finish it, but the steak made great leftovers the next night.

I was impressed with the prices at Nebraska Steakhouse. That enormous ribeye is only $37.95 — obviously not a budget item, but there are plenty of steakhouses that would charge more. There’s also a 7 oz filet on the menu for around $20, and if the quality is anywhere near the ribeye, it’s a great deal for someone who doesn’t want a huge steak.

Even by steakhouse standards, the decor is of the Plain Jane variety, but service was friendly and efficient. They are open only on weeknights, as in that part of the Financial District there is hardly any foot traffic on weekends. On Wednesday evening, when I tried it, I think there were more people in the bar than were seated at the tables.

There are four steakhouses in the area: MarkJoseph, Flames, Bobby Van’s, and Nebraska. On this showing, Nebraska has the best ribeye of the bunch, while I prefer the strip at Flames. MarkJoseph has the superb Peter Luger-style Canadian Bacon and an excellent porterhouse. I’m not sure where Bobby Van’s fits in, except that it’s the most crowded of the bunch.

I’m looking forward to another ten-minute trip to Nebraska.

Nebraska Steakhouse (15 Stone Street between Broad and Whitehall Streets, Financial District)

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

The Dining Room at Country

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to Country.

Like a number of upscale restaurants (Gramercy Tavern, Aquavit, Jean Georges, The Modern, BLT Fish), Geoffrey Zakarian’s new restaurant Country has an upscale dining room attached to an informal sister establishment that offers a similar but less elaborate menu in humbler surroundings. My friend and I tried the Café at Country a few months ago, and we weren’t impressed. It was loud, uncomfortable, and pretentious.

But we knew that the main Dining Room was designed to offer a far more luxurious experience, so we were willing to entirely forget our unpleasant memory of the Café downstairs. I should add that, despite Frank Bruni’s imprecise co-mingling of the two in his three-star review, the Dining Room and the Café should be thought of as entirely separate restaurants under one roof.

Your choices in the Dining Room include an $85 four-course prix fixe, a five-course tasting menu at $110, and a seven-course tasting menu at $145. We were in a celebratory mood, and chose the seven-course tasting. Our server then asked us which dishes from the à la carte menu we wanted included — a flexibility I don’t recall at any other restaurant that offered a tasting menu. We named four particular items that interested us. Our server advised that he would confer with the kitchen, and in fact all of our choices were included in the meal.

I didn’t take detailed notes, and the online menu is outdated, so I can describe our experience only in general terms. There was a trio of amuses to start, of which the most memorable was a gougère filled with spinach. Another amuse was a delectable miniature poultry leg (I’m not sure of which bird). Perhaps I am forgetting a third amuse course. Along the way, we received a melt-in-your-mouth parker house roll with soft butter.

Our seven course meal consisted of the following:

1. Foie gras terrine
2. Grilled white asparagus
3. Shrimp ravioli
4. Crisp Berkshire pork
5. Bison filet
6. Cheese course
   (Palate cleanser)
7. Hot apple crisp
   (Petits fours)

This was the best meal I have had in the last twelve months. While both Per Se and Alain Ducasse offered individual courses that were superior to anything at Country, each of them had at least one course that I rated—in relation to the price range—a disappointment. But there were no disappointments at Country, nor anything even remotely close to it. Just one outstanding preparation after another. We kept thinking, “It can’t last; there must be a dud.” But there wasn’t.

Service was highly attentive and nearly impeccable. We were also impressed with the timing of the courses, which came neither too quickly nor too slowly. I would have liked a bit more time to relax after our cocktails, but as the overall meal was spaced over nearly three hours, I could hardly call it a rush job.

The wine staff upsells a bit too aggressively. When we asked the sommelier for a bottle of red under $100, her recommendation (a wonderful burgundy) came in at $110. We could, of course, have refused, but I suspect she realized that we weren’t going to quibble over $10. And when our foie gras arrived, we were asked if we’d like a glass of sauterne to go with it. (Even downstairs, the waitstaff on our previous visit had done the same.) With our still-unfinished cocktails and the just-opened burgundy already on the table, this would have been more alcohol than the table would bear, and we declined.

The Dining Room was formerly the hotel ballroom. It retains the original beaux arts tile floor and a gorgeous tiffany skylight, and is open to the lobby below. The period details are wonderful, but as the hard tile floor reflects sound, the restaurant is just a touch noisier than I would like. Somewhat in compensation, the tables are generously spaced.

It would take many more visits to determine whether Country is a four-star restaurant. But as I rate this one meal at least as highly as those I enjoyed at Alain Ducasse and Per Se, for now Country is four stars in my book.

Country (90 Madison Ave at 29th St, in the Carleton Hotel, Flatiron District)

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

Return to Keens Steakhouse

Note: Click here for more reviews of Keens Steakhouse. 

I returned to Keens last night with two companions who were eager to try an authentic New York steakhouse. I started with the House-Cured Salmon ($12.50), which was wonderful.

Last time at Keens, I tried the mutton chop, which I loved. I’m sure I’ll have it again someday, but in the interest of science, I wanted to sample something else. I would have chosen the porterhouse (available for 2 or 3 people), but my companions prefer filet to strip. So I ordered the T-bone ($42), while they ordered the Chateaubriand for two ($90).

The T-bone was correctly prepared to the medium rare that I’d requested, although I like a crisp char on the exterior that is apparently not in Keens’ repertoire. My companions declared the Chateaubriand “best steak we’ve ever had.” It was one of the largest hunks of beef I’ve ever seen on one plate. I tasted a bit of it, but their preference for well done steaks renders my opinion irrelevant, as I like to see blood on the plate.

For dessert, we shared (but could not finish) an order of bread pudding, which was terrific, but more than we had room for.

Keens Steakhouse (72 W. 36th St. between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Frederick's Madison

Note: Frederick’s Madison has closed, after its corporate parent filed for bankruptcy.

*

There isn’t a whole lot to say about Frederick’s Madison, which a friend and I tried on Monday night. I agree with Frank Bruni’s one-star verdict:

Frederick’s neither composes an interesting enough menu nor performs consistently enough to lure many diners with no other business in the East 60’s.

Yet Bruni was in a very different world when he wrote:

Frederick’s seems to exist in very large measure for people who want to feel, and want restaurants to make them feel, that they have reached the very apex of privilege. In that pampering clime they find an Upper East Side neighborhood bistro recast as an unabashedly expensive validation of their social and economic stations.

Our take on the ambiance was so much different that I almost wonder if they’ve dumbed the place down since his review. We found Frederick’s utterly forgettable — certainly no “apex of privilege.” And there was no $26 foie gras, nor any $42 veal chop on the menu (both of which Bruni mentioned).

Frederick’s is carb-happy. Two kinds of bread come to the table. A while later, there’s a hot sliced bread with a garlic, olive oil and manchego cheese. About the best thing we sampled was a filet mignon tartar appetizer with dijon mustard ($14), which came with yet more bread (which I left alone). Sea scallops ($26) were about as boring as scallops could be. They came with an over-powering cauliflower puree and raisin sauce (I tasted no raisins). A Pot de Crème trio ($10) was a pleasant dessert.

My companion had an Alaskin King Crab Legs cocktail ($15), Poached Snapper ($22) and Chocolate Tartufo ($10) that were just fine, but unremarkable.

Frederick’s Madison (768 Madison Avenue at 66th Street, Upper East Side)

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

Bar Room at The Modern

Last weekend, I wanted to try a couple of the “little sister” restaurants of the city’s fine dining rooms. After our food orgy at the Aquavit Cafe on Friday night, we proceeded to the Bar Room at The Modern on Saturday. The atmosphere here is far more raucous and lively than at the sedate Aquavit.

It is located in the Museum of Modern Art, although there is a separate street entrance. The Bar Room has been a hit – Frank Bruni even suggests that it is more enjoyable than the fine dining room adjoining it – and there is the ever-so-slight hint that the staff know you’re at they’re mercy. However, I was pleased that they were willing to transfer our bar tab to our table, something that even much fancier restaurants will often refuse to do.

The menu is in three columns, labeled One ($9-19), Two ($12-16), and Three ($15-19). Column One are the cold appetizers, Column Two are the hot appetizers, and Column Three are the entrees, which the menu says are half portions.

We were still feeling over-fed from Aquavit the night before, so we ordered a bit less of chef Gabriel Kreuther’s food than we might have had under other circumstances. My friend ordered the gnocchi and the Austrian pork sausage (both from Column Two). I ordered the Warm Veal & Goat Cheese Terrine (One) and Crispy Tuna (Three).

I was struck by the complexity of both dishes I tried, and they were both terrific. I was also impressed with my friend’s sausage. (I had only a bite of her gnocchi, not enough to form an impression.)

Chef Kreuther’s cuisine deserves a more serene environment than the frenetic Bar Room gives it, but service was generally acceptable, and the place is impressive when you consider it’s the cafe attached to an art museum. If I lived in the neighborhood, I’d stop by often just for a plate or two. Just about everything on the menu looks appealing.

Bar Room at The Modern (9 W. 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves, West Midtown)

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

Aquavit Cafe

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to Aquavit Cafe. It was less impressive the second time around.

My friend and I dined at Aquavit Cafe last Friday night. As Frank Bruni noted in that day’s paper, there are now several restaurants in New York that have an informal cafe attached to a fancy main dining room. I’ve tried several of these “little sister” restaurants, and the Aquavit Cafe is the most refined of them. Despite its comparative informality, tables are generously spaced, and there’s plenty of fabric to deaden the sound. Service is top-notch.

We started with cocktails (a bit pricey at $14 ea.), two kinds of Swedish bread with luscious goat cheese butter, and an amuse of toast with sour cream and a hot mushroom sauce.

My friend ordered the Herring Sampler ($12), while I had the Salmon Sampler ($18), and we each sampled each other’s plates. My friend observed that my appetizer had “enough salmon to feed all of Chelsea.” Okay, not quite, but it was a large portion. On days when I’ve had a full lunch, it could be dinner all by itself. But it is also perfectly prepared, and not at all “fishy.”

Quite to our surprise, the kitchen sent out mid-course plates, compliments of the house. We aren’t celebrities or regulars, and we weren’t spending much on liquor, so this was most unexpected. My friend was served a lobster roll, while I got a plate of duck carpaccio.

For the entrees, my friend had the Swedish meatballs ($18), one of chef Marcus Samuelson’s specialties, made with beef, veal, and pork. It was an enormous portion, and even after I shared a bit of it, she was unable to finish. I ordered the hog smoked salmon, which was poached in wine, cauliflower, pearl onions and lentils. (I know, salmon twice — what was I thinking)? This was a bit bland, as I am wont to find with fish courses, but technically excellent. The kitchen recommends paired wines with each entree, and we adopted their excellent suggestions ($14 ea.).

When my friend ordered, our waiter noted that her appetizer and entree choice were both on the prix fixe, so she might as well get that, and have dessert in the bargain. She had the Arctic Circle, a terrific goat cheese parfait with blueberry sorbet and passion fruit curd. Although I had not ordered dessert, the kitchen sent out a plate of chocolate cake for me anyway, compliments of the house.

We left Aquavit happy as could be, stuffed to the gills, and eager to try the main dining room. The bill for all of that food was just $121 with tax. I left a 25% tip.

Aquavit Cafe (65 E. 55th St. between Park & Madison Aves, East Midtown)

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

Jarnac

Note: Jarnac closed in June 2009 due to a rent dispute. Its owners now operate Bistro de la Gare. The Jarnac space became Recette.

*

A friend and I went to Jarnac a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday night. This is a casual French bistro in Greenwich Village, not far from the Meatpacking District.

We both started with the Duck Rillettes ($10.25), which came in thin wrapped pastry dough and packed plenty of flavor punch. We then tried the Cassoulet-Braised Pork Cheeks ($24), with duck confit, pork sausage, great northern beans, tomato & garlic. It’s a heavy meal, which neither of us was able to finish. The dish comes painfully hot, to a point that some of the flavor potential is cooked out of the ingredients. Your server provides an extra plate, along with the advice to spoon the cassoulet in stages onto the plate for cooling. It’s a bit too much of a production, with the danger of a scorching burn if one miscalculates.

Our table was comfortable, service was friendly, and we were pleased to find a reasonably priced wine list. In nice weather, be sure to get one of the window seats (which we had).

Jarnac (328 W. 12th Street at Greenwich Street, West Village)

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

Craft

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Craft.

Craft is one of New York’s iconic restaurants. The name “Craft” was suggested by chef Tom Colicchio’s concept of preparing “expert ingredients, expertly and simply.” Colicchio adds that “simple doesn’t mean simplistic.” It is, in other words, the “craft” of getting the simple things right. Trite, perhaps, but it has been a huge and much-imitated success. Craftbar in Manhattan and Craftsteak in Las Vegas are popular spin-offs, and a new branch of Craftsteak is opening on Tenth Avenue later this spring.

As originally conceived, the name “Craft” also meant that the diner would design the meal, choosing from among a variety of ingredients, sauces, and cooking styles. It was probably the original restaurant where servers would begin with, “Let me explain how our menu works.” Colicchio soon found that diners weren’t interested in quite so much freedom, and Craft’s menu is no longer so complex. However, side dishes and accompaniments are still extra at Craft, as they’ve always been, and the bill can mount in a hurry.

My friend and I had dinner at Craft a couple of weeks ago. We had a wonderful time, although we concluded that the restaurant is, perhaps, a touch overrated. We started with the foie gras terrine ($24) and the roasted quail ($14). Everything at Craft is served family style, and two appetizers are more than enough for two people. We were especially struck by the ample foie gras portion—two hefty discs that resembled slender hockey pucks. It was superb, to be sure, but required a little more of the wonderful toast that came with it. The quail, too, was excellent.

We wondered whether a Côte de Boeuf, at $125, could possibly be worth it. Concluding that we weren’t willing to spend that much to find out, we went with a more modest choice, the braised veal shank ($75), which is a portion for two. As one would expect for a braised meat, it fell off the bone at the touch of a fork, and was perfectly prepared.

We ordered a side of the gnocchi ($10). Our waiter seemed aghast: “Just one side?” We stuck to our guns, and good thing too, because we were plenty full and were unable to finish the gnocchi, which was chewy and over-salted.

The dessert menu is confusing. There are six sorbets and six ice creams listed. Below these, it reads: “Ice Cream & Sorbet Sampler. 6./12.” So, what do you get for $6, and what do you get for $12? When our server heard that we were both interested in the sampler, he advised, “In that case, you can get one of each.” We didn’t ask him to specify what that meant.

Promptly, $24 worth of ice cream and sorbet arrived, and there were full scoops of each flavor. One must assume that this was a greedy waiter who eagerly seized on an opportunity to pad the bill, as no one could sensibly believe that two people could polish off that much ice cream and sorbet. Indeed, a party of four most likely wouldn’t have finished it.

At Craft, wine selections under $50 are few and far between. We settled on a Cadence Coda 2003 at $60, which was terrific. Service was solid, aside from a couple of attempts at bill-padding. The ambiance is upscale, but casual. The tables are both large and well spaced. The final bill for two was $229 before tip.

Craft (43 E. 19th St. between Park Ave South & Broadway, Gramercy/Flatiron)

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

Colors

Note: Almost two years after I wrote this review, Colors was soldiering on, largely ignored in the restaurant press, and apparently no great success. A New York Times article suggested that it was struggling to survive. My award of a star was overly generous; the colleagues I dined with later said it was the worst restaurant recommendation I’d ever made.

Since then, there have been multiple closings and re-openings. Most recently, Colors closed in 2012 and re-opened in 2014 after a re-vamp. The original concept of a cooperative, with recipes suggests by the employees’ family backgrounds, has been abandoned. The new chef is Colt Taylor (One if by Land, Two if by Sea), with chef de cuisine Aaron Stein (Manzo, Perla).

*

Colors is a restaurant you want to root for. It’s a cooperative run by former employees of Windows on the World at the World Trade Center. According to the manifesto on the website:

COLORS’ mission is to build a worker-owned cooperative restaurant dedicated to food quality, service excellence and employee welfare.

Chef Raymond Mohan and his kitchen team offer a global menu inspired by the diversity of the staff and their family recipes reinterpreted for New York diners. COLORS is committed to sustainable agriculture, purchasing locally grown foods and sourcing free trade vendors whenever possible. The winelist spotlights small wineries and producers from emerging regions, featuring great values from around the world.

I dined at Colors on Wednesday evening with two colleagues. It is an attractive space, even if the international theme hits you over the head (you can’t look anywhere without seeing a map). There are white tablecloths. The staff, in general, are highly professional and smartly dressed.

The bread service was as good as, or better than, many three-star restaurants I’ve been to. The menu is a mongrel, with dishes composed from many cuisines and styles, and no recognizable theme uniting them. Among the entrees, for example, you’ll find steak, goat curry, and a Japanese bento box. The offerings are said to be “inspired by favorite family recipes” (i.e., of the staff).

To start, I ordered the Colors House Cured Duck Breast ($13). The menu says it’s “Citrus flavored, hardwood smoked, served on raisin bread with porcini jelly.” The porcini jelly tasted more like a horseradish spread. The duck, an ample portion for an appetizer, came stacked on three small slices of bread. It was a little unwieldy to pick up and eat, but the rewards were ample.

One of my colleagues had an oyster appetizer that looked wonderful, while the other had a tuna appetizer that he described as “okay.” He didn’t finish it, so I would guess his response fell well short of rapture.

None of the entrees really caught our fancy, so all three of us wimped out, and ordered the NY Strip (around $33). It came with chimichurri sauce, potato confit, watercress and blue cheese salad—or so the menu said; I couldn’t really detect any blue cheese. The online menu shows a “Grass-Fed Ribeye,” and I don’t know why it’s been replaced. It’s hard to go seriously wrong with a steak, but at such a restaurant the strip is predictably going to fall short of what the better steakhouses have to offer.

The restaurant was nowhere near full. I suspect they are hanging on for dear life. There have been no professional reviews yet, aside from Frank Bruni’s Diner’s Journal preview right after the place opened. I suspect the critics are giving Colors a bit more time to get its act together—a kindness extended to a restaurant one desperately wants to succeed. Rather than deliver a potential death blow with lukewarm reviews, it seems the critics have steered clear, a courtesy they wouldn’t extend to most other restaurants.

Colors offers a pleasant experience in comfortable surroundings, but I won’t rush back.

Colors (417 Lafayette St. between Astor Place & E. 4th St., NoHo)

Food: ★
Service: ★★
Ambiance: ★★
Overall: ★