Duane Park Café

Note: Duane Park Café has closed. There are new owners (Marisa Ferrarin and Frank Locker) and a new chef (Shawn Knight), whose new menu will have “a Louisiana accent.” The space has been re-decorated, and the restaurant is now called Duane Park.

*

A group of six of us had dinner at the Duane Park Café the other night. Our host was a vendor my employer does business with. He ordered a knock-out Bordeaux, the name of which unfortunately I can’t recall. As he owns a vineyard in Australia on the side, I suppose he knows his grapes. The restaurant had decanted it for us, and it was already airing itself out at our table when we sat down.

Put six carnivores at the same table, and the orders are almost predictable. Three of us ordered the grilled tenderloin, and the other three ordered the rack of lamb. I ordered the lamb. It came with three wonderfully flavorful, tender, decent-sized chops. The tenderloin crew seemed happy too.

For the appetizers, we had only slightly more variety. One ordered the pan-seared scallops and shrimp, two more the tuna tartare, and three the scallop and crab cake. The latter item looked pretty damned good, but I had the tuna tartare, which came with “black sesame tuille and tahini sauce” (that’s a quote from the website — I wouldn’t otherwise recognize those ingedients). It was just slightly spicy and most enjoyable.

Dessert was the only disappointment. A peach cobbler broke apart all too quickly into an unappetizing mess, and it was served only lukewarm.

Our host had suggested Duane Park Café because it’s a quiet place, where you can actually hear your dinner companions talk — an advantage many restaurants lack these days. Service was friendly and efficient, but the restaurant was a bit under half full.

Duane Park Café is also reasonably priced for the neighborhood, with appetizers in the $7-10 range and mains $19-25.

Duane Park Café (157 Duane St. between W. Broadway & Hudson St., TriBeCa)

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

Return to Babbo

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

A friend suggested Babbo last night. I’d been there alone about a month ago, but Babbo’s one of those places that never wears out. We ate at the bar. At 7:00pm there were still several bar stools available, but they didn’t stay empty for long.

On a second visit, Babbo was even more impressive. I ordered the Three Goat Cheese Truffles ($12) to start. Three balls of cool goat cheese were covered lightly in colored spices, which the menu calls “Peperonata.” I could have eaten a dozen.

For my entrée, I tried another Babbo signature dish, the Mint Love Letters with Spicy Lamb Sausage ($18). These are squares of pasta, with mint and lamb pressed inside. It’s a wonderful explosion of contrasting flavors.

Apropos of my visit, this week’s NYTimes had an article about dining at the bar, a phenomenon that has practically deprived many restaurant bars of their original raison d’etre. In fact, the article featured the very bartender that has served me on both of my Babbo visits:

“I was told you were dining,” said John Giorno, the bartender at Babbo in Greenwich Village two weekends ago, snatching a menu away from me as I settled into my seat and explained I was drinking. Mr. Giorno’s smile vanished like the sun and his face went as dark as a sky before a storm. I asked to see the menu and contritely ordered food.

According to bartenders, managers and owners across New York, bar space at most restaurants has become de facto dining space. Even people with reservations for a table trying to enjoy a drink at the bar first, as an enjoyable prelude, have to fight the good fight as drinkers contending with diners at the bar.

For those involved, from the staff to the patrons, the new setup has its advantages and its disadvantages. And for every separate peace, there is a potential for awkwardness that requires diplomacy.

Mr. Giorno at Babbo, realizing his brusqueness in challenging me as a drinker, quickly served me a smile with my wine.

“I treat everyone the same,” Mr. Giorno said, “but that’s kind of what we do. We’re a dining bar.”

Babbo’s bar that night was solid eaters; the host’s station was taking reservations for the seats at the bar. Drinkers who had naïvely waited to sit at the bar were told by the bartenders that the seats were not available. They seated diners who had arrived later than the drinkers.

Tension was palpable. The manager spoke with one drinking couple about the seats they were about to take, because he was negotiating with another couple at his desk who had walked in to eat and couldn’t immediately get a table. We all held our breath. The other couple decided to wait for a table. The drinkers were allowed to stay, resting their red wine and beer on the bar with some relief.

“We don’t mind them, drinkers,” Mario Batali, Babbo’s creator and co-owner, said with generosity when I spoke to him last week. “But drinkers that don’t have dinner? That’s not what we’re about.”

It might be inconvenient for drinkers, but dining at the bar is win-win for restaurants and diners. You can walk into a place like Babbo on a whim, and although it’s booked solid, a seat is there waiting for you — as long as you don’t mind sitting at the bar. My companion last night said he does it all the time.

Babbo (110 Waverly Place between MacDougal St. & Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village) 

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

V Steakhouse

Note: V Steakhouse closed in December 2005. My final thoughts are here. The space is now occupied by Porter House New York.

*

V Steakhouse is part of the much-ballyhooed “restaurant collection” at the Time-Warner Center. With Masa ($300 prix fixe) and Per Se ($125-150 prix fixe) as neighbors, V Steakhouse with its $66 steaks starts to look like bargain-basement dining. Actually, you can order the chicken entrée at V for $19, and dine at the world’s most expensive food court without spending a monthly rent payment. But it’s no accident that V is called a steakhouse, and it’s as a steakhouse that it must succeed or fail.

The Time-Warner restaurant collection was designed to be three and four-star restaurants, one and all. The nominal chef of the eponymous V, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, was none too pleased to get just one star from the Times’s Frank Bruni. Bruni’s review seemed an anomaly (three stars from the Post’s Steve Cuozzo; a rave in Newsday) till New York Magazine came along with a review titled Steak, Not Well Done.

Vongerichten told New York Magazine, “Eighteen years in New York, and I never had a one-star review; I don’t even know how to do a one-star restaurant. The hardest part is the staff. Nobody wants to work in a one-star place.” Maybe it would help if they sometimes saw the boss. As Vongerichten has over half-a-dozen restaurants in New York alone, to say nothing of his global empire, you can rest assured he’s seldom there.

I had a business dinner at V Steakhouse last night. The décor has been much written about. You love it or you hate it. It reminded me of the interior of the Metropolitan Opera House, with its plush velvet reds and shimmering chandeliers. To that, V adds a grove of gold-painted aluminum trees. To some, it resembles an upscale whorehouse. I found it charming, and so did my companions, who are from Boston.

They pamper you at V. Jean-Georges may not know how to do three-star steak, but he certainly knows how to deliver three-star service. It is a large dining room, but the tables are generously spaced. By the end of our evening, it was about 90% full, but not at all noisy. Most of the tables had parties of four or more. There are hardly any two-seaters at V.

One of my companions had a foie gras appetizer, which he loved, while two of us shared steak tartare, which was wonderful. However, a steakhouse must be judged mainly on the quality of its steaks, and V fails to deliver the goods. My porterhouse was unevenly charred, had an unacceptably high fat and gristle content, and offered a flimsy and under-sized filet on the smaller side of the cut. It was done correctly to the medium-rare temperature I had ordered, but it was otherwise a porterhouse no restaurant of this purported calibre should serve. The other porterhouse at our table was a bit better, but we quickly agreed: this was not a $66 steak. At half that price, I would have considered myself over-charged.

I went to the men’s room, and a couple of guys asked me about my steak. I shared my experience. “Mine sucked,” one fellow said. “So did mine,” said another. To be fair, I should report that my other table companion ordered the Waygu, which he said was the best steak he’d ever had in his life. Undoubtedly V has the equipment to put out great steak on occasion, but they must be accepting whatever wildly inconsistent inventory appears on their loading dock every morning.

V has an ample selection of side dishes. I ordered the “fripps,” which are like large potato chips prepared in a tempura batter. These are superb, but it’s a problem when they utterly out-class the steak. A selection of complimentary sauces came with our meal. These added a little spice to an otherwise humdrum steak, but in my view the best steaks shouldn’t need them.

For dessert, I ordered the berry cheesecake. Like so many of the V desserts, the kitchen hasn’t assembled the pieces. You have a small slice of cheesecake, and a berry goo in an accompanying glass, which you’re encouraged to sip through a straw. How this is supposed to be superior to a traditional cheesecake utterly eludes me. Try the assorted cheese platter instead.

The NY Times doesn’t give separate ratings for service, décor, and food. But if it did, I’d say that three stars is appropriate for the first two categories, but that one star is awfully generous for the third. The kitchen desperately needs a wake-up call.

V Steakhouse (Fourth Floor, Time-Warner Center, Columbus Circle)

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

Pacific Grill at Pier 17

Pacific Grill has been open since June 30th on Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport. It’s run by the same people who operate Ixta, which led a number of writers to speculate that the the Seaport was ready to escape its “all tourists, all the time” mentality.

For instance, Time Out New York wrote, “This new marine-themed restaurant stands out among the TGI Friday-type establishments in the South Street Seaport.” Andrea Strong, the doyenne of what’s hot-but-cool, wrote:

When was the last time you went to the South Street Seaport for a meal? I think I was in high school. I seem to remember lots of bars…and then I blank out completely. Anyway, there may be a reason to return. Pacific Grill will open on June 30th at 89 South Street Seaport in the Pier 17 Mall. (Mall dining is very chic now? Good heavens.) The menu features Modern Pan Asian seafood by consulting chef Kenneth Tufo, currently of industry (food).

Well, I paid a visit on Sunday evening. Pacific Grill is located in the space that was formerly “Cajun.” The menu is mostly seafood, with a Seaport tourist-friendly spin. I’m probably a tad more likely to frequent Sequoia next door, with its unobstructed harbor views. However, I’ll not render judgment on one visit.

I had a lobster club sandwich, which was a traditional club with lobster and avocado replacing turkey and lettuce, not exactly a Pan Asian specialty. It came with crispy shoestring fries and made an enjoyable light supper, but there is much more to sample before I’ll say whether it’s just another Pier 17 restaurant.

Battery Gardens

The fine restaurants south of Chambers Street can be counted on the fingers of one hand, making any new arrival in this neighborhood a news event. Battery Gardens opened a month or two ago, occupying the space that was formerly American Park. It’s located in Battery Park, just steps away from the Staten Island and Statue of Liberty ferries.

The space has been remodeled in pale greens, paper-thin white shear curtains, marble table-tops, and plush ultra-comfortable off-white slipper chairs. It reminded us either of a 1930s cruise ship or a movie star’s boudoire; we weren’t sure which. The dining room offers floor-to-ceiling picture window views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. There is an ample outdoor dining area, with an open-air bar.

The menu is a serious one, under the direction of executive chef Tommy Lee, who comes to Battery Gardens from the Pierre Hotel. Per the website, “Specializing in American continental cuisine, his menus reflect his Korean heritage and vast knowledge of seafood.”

Appetizers and salads are $8-15 (most under $12). Soups are $5-7. The menu offers several gourmet pizzas at $10-12, meat entrées ($17-27), pasta ($14-16), and fish ($18-26). There is also a raw bar, with Little Neck Clams ($7/half-dozen), Blue Point Oysters ($12), or Fruits of the Sea ($30, $55 or $75). The fish category on the menu offers the most choices, which is unsurprising given the chef’s background and the location of the restaurant.

I started with the Grilled Diver Sea Scallops ($10), which are served with Spicy Asian Peanut Sauce and Red Cabbage Slaw. This came with three scallops, and the inspiration to serve it with asian peanut sauce was heavenly. For the main course, I chose the Miso Glazed Chilian Sea Bass ($25), which comes with Jasmine Rice, Sesame Hinted Shitakes and Green Beans. The miso glazing was just hinted at (as opposed to Nobu’s version of it, where it’s far more powerful), but this allowed the beautiful flaky fish to do the talking. It was an enormous portion, which I devoured.

My friend started with the Tempura Sampler, which isn’t currently shown on the website. It came with 7 or 8 tempura pieces — a mixture of potatoes, shrimp, and chicken with a tangy dipping sauce. I tried a few pieces myself, and it really was done to perfection, although the sauce perhaps was a bit too ordinary. She continued with the Pan Seared Tuna ($24), which (per the website) came with Corn Fritters, Red Onion and Tomato Salad, Cilantro-Chili Aioli. This was a nearly porterhouse-sized portion, which she enjoyed, but I found it a bit blander preparation than the sea bass.

There were some service glitches. When we arrived, they took my order for a cocktail, but neglected to ask about a glass of wine with dinner. By the time they got around to it, I was nearly finished eating. Two cups of decaf coffee arrived lukewarm. When we asked for fresh cups, they returned a bit warmer, but still shy of the correct temperature.

Battery Gardens hasn’t been “discovered” yet. On a Saturday evening (8:00pm reservation), it was less than half full. One very large, elegantly-dressed party seemed to be having a celebration. Most of the other diners seemed to be at least “smartly” dressed, suggesting they considered their visit here a night on the town. My friend and I came casual, but we did not feel out-of-place. I suspect the restaurant does a better weekday business, as it is steps away from the row of office towers on Water Street.

Battery Gardens offered us a thoroughly enjoyable meal, with dramatic views to match. On a nice evening (which regrettably this wasn’t), a scenic walk along the Battery Park esplanade would be the perfect nightcap. In any event, Battery Gardens offers serious food in a locale where there has historically been precious little of it. I hope the restaurant succeeds.

Battery Gardens (Battery Park, opposite 17 State Street, Financial District)

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

March Restaurant

Note: Owners Wayne Nish and Joseph Scalice closed March at the end of 2006, re-opening in early 2007 as a more casual restaurant, Nish. Alas, the new version was no longer the destination restaurant that March had been, and there wasn’t enough neighborhood traffic to keep Nish in business. Despite favorable reviews, it was gone by the end of June. The space is now Bistro Vendôme.

*

March restaurant is an occasion place. I visited recently to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Without question, we were treated lavishly. The maitre d’ presented her with a bouquet of roses. Service throughout was impeccable. But for the price, none of the courses at March wowed us. Or perhaps, as my friend suggested, Wayne Nish’s cuisine is just too subtle. Mind you, it was all good, but I expected to be transported, and we weren’t.

March’s menu is an interesting hybrid between the tasting menu and the prix fixe. You choose a number of courses, from three to six. ($68, $74, $85, or $102). Wine pairings are another $10 per course (or, like anywhere, you can just order from the wine list). You can select which courses you want — listed in broad categories like “raw,” “vegetarian,” “shellfish,” “fish,” “poultry,” and “meat,” with about three or four options per category. Or, you can put yourself in the chef’s hands.

We selected the four-course menu with wine pairings and allowed the chef to choose for us. Each of us got different items, and we swapped plates about halfway through each course. This, indeed, is encouraged at March. Another of the menu options is called the Five Course Dual Tasting Menu ($270 for two, including wines), with which it’s assumed that a couple will share plates.

Now to the food … and here I’m afraid I’ve failed as a food writer. I can’t remember exactly what we had. The first plate for each of us was a cold item, then a fish course, then a meat course, then dessert. What were they? I don’t recall, except that they were all very good without being transcendent. At these prices, I wanted at least some of the courses to reach culinary orgasm, and none did.

March is located in a gorgeous East Side townhouse. The tables are on three levels, with ample space between them. It is a lovely and romantic setting that makes you feel like you’re in another world. The food failed to transport me, it is true, but I would still try March again on the right occasion.

March (405 East 58th Street, just east of First Avenue, Sutton Place)

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

The Governor and His Boy-Toy

New Jersey Governor James McGreevey resigned in disgrace last week, after revealing that he’d had an extra-marital affair with another man. It wasn’t that he’s gay, or that he’d cheated on his wife, that forced the Governor to resign. Rather, it was a threatened sexual harrassment lawsuit by McGreevey’s former lover, Golan Cipel.

McGreevey and Cipel tell very different stories, and it will be some time before the truth comes out — assuming it ever does. But even construing the facts in McGreevey’s favor, the story is an ugly one. Cipel briefly held a six-figure job in the McGreevey administration as New Jersey’s Head of Homeland Security, a position for which Cipel was monumentally unqualified. As a non-U.S. citizen, Cipel wasn’t even eligible for the security clearances required to gain access to the classified information a Homeland Security director must inevitably deal with.

Cipel says McGreevey raped him, then offered him a cushy government job as the price of his silence. McGreevey says the relationship was consensual, and Cipel’s lawsuit is just thinly disguised blackmail. But the unavoidable conclusion, even accepting McGreevey’s version of it, is that Cipel was on the government payroll so that the Governor would have easy access to him for sex.

Never has such a high-profile politician come out and admitted he was gay. But despite McGreevey’s sudden candor, it’s clear this wasn’t a voluntary confession. Rather, after weeks of agonizing reflection, the Governor was forced to accept that the truth could no longer be concealed. The picture of a conflicted man living a private life of lies, while publicly trying to persuade the world that he was “normal,” is hardly the image the gay community wants to portray. McGreevey isn’t a poster-child for gay America. He’s just another corrupt politician who couldn’t keep his pants on.

Swish: Shabu Shabu in the Village

There are plenty of Japanese restaurants in New York, but not many that specialize in shabu shabu. Swish takes its name from this less familiar branch of Japanese cuisine. As the restaurant’s website puts it:

Shabu shabu is the Japanese phrase for swish swish. This form of cooking received its name from the sound of food being skimmed through boiling broth. It is an Asian tradition of food preparation that has been around for thousands of years. Typical of long-established Asian dishes, shabu shabu is simple, healthy, low in carbs, and incredibly delicious.

The process is simply to place your food into the boiling broth, allowing different foods to cook for different lengths of time. You control the amount of cooking time. If you prefer crisper spinach, a brief swish will do it. If you like your mushrooms to melt in your mouth, allow them to swim in the broth for a few minutes.

Once you remove your food from the broth, it has a delicate flavor from the absorbed broth, and can be eaten as such to enjoy the food’s full flavors. It is also traditional to use special dipping sauces. Swish offers a variety of sauces to excite your taste buds.

Swish is in the middle of NYU territory, and its menu is priced attractively for students. You can order a personal size shabu shabu priced from $12.95-$16.95. If you’re more adventurous, you can choose your own broth (five offered, $3) and select the ingredients à la carte — anything from vegetables ($2 apiece) to Prime Rib eye ($8). There are seven available dipping sauces ($0.50 each). It’s like Craft on a budget.

There are also composed shabu shabu platters for two, and last night my friend and I ordered from the top of the menu: the Swish Special Combo (beef, seafood and vegetables) for $38, which came with the house broth and all seven sauces. Shabu shabu is a do-it-yourself eating experience, a Japanese fondue. The restaurant kindly provides a laminated card instructing you how long each item should be cooked. It can be anywhere from 10 minutes (potatoes) to 30 seconds (beef, which comes sliced paper-thin).

The broth comes in a crock pot and is placed on a burner with a blue flame. It soon comes to a near-boil. As it evaporates, your server will come around and add more. Some items just go into the pot, and you retrieve them later. Others you hold in place with a fish-net ladle. For the items that cook quickly, especially the beef, you can just swish them around while holding them with your chopsticks. Over time, the broth takes on the flavors of everything you’ve cooked. You spoon it into the bowls provided, and it becomes the soup course that ends your meal. The restaurant touts its cuisine as low-carb, but offsetting that is a high salt content. Drink plenty of liquids.

I’ve been to some shabu shabu places where the broth bowl is suspended below the table surface. Swish is able to do that for the personal-size servings, but when the order is for two, they serve it on a burner that sits on the table itself. This is a bit less convenient, as you have to reach up to cook the food.

Eating Swish’s special combo is like a decathalon of chopstick skills. Some items are easy, such as the beef, shrimp, mushrooms and scallops. But others are cumbersome for the chopstick-challenged, either because they’re unwieldy (cabbage, noodles), or because they tend to fall apart after cooking (crabmeat, whitefish, tofu). However, it all tastes delicious, and besides that it’s just plain fun.

Shabu shabu strikes me as a perfect adventure for groups — Swish’s tables seat up to four. With all of that self-help cooking going on, there’s plenty to talk and laugh about. The boiling broth creates plenty of steam, which will be especially welcome on cold winter nights. The restaurant’s literature also touts it as a good first-date place, but I would not recommend that. There’s too much opportunity for accidental slapstick humor as you fumble around with your chopsticks.

I don’t know why you’d go if you’re not interested in shabu shabu, but Swish does have other things to offer. There’s a small selection of curries and rice dishes. There are lunch specials as low as $6.95. We began our meal with an order of vegetable dumplings. These were wonderful, and I had to pinch myself to believe that we paid just $3.95 for six of them. The drinks menu offers a variety of teas and smoothies ($2.50 or $3.00 each). For sake, the only options were “hot” or “cold,” but $4.50 for a small bottle was a very fair price.

Swish gave me my first chance to try table1.com, the newest of the online reservation services. Every table1 reservation comes with a discount, but you pay $1.50 per person. For a smaller restaurant, table1 is clearly a good deal, because they don’t have to install proprietary software or hardware, as opentable requires. Anyhow, I paid $3 to reserve on table1, and got a $10.42 discount off of our $52.10 bill.

Swish’s spare décor of blond wood and bamboo mats is just about perfect, creating a sense of escape and discovery. We wished the background music were more suited to this serene environment. It was not at all loud, but it was a generic jazz/new age soundtrack that one could have heard anywhere. Our server was friendly, helpful, and extremely attentive, but dressed as if she were on her way to the gym.

Swish is owned by a couple of young NYU grads. It has been open just three months. With just nine tables, I suspect it will get busy once the students return to town and discover this little gem.

Swish (88 W. 3rd St, between Thompson & Sullivan Streets, Greenwich Village)

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

Maurizio Trattoria

Note: Maurizio Trattoria closed. The space re-opened in February 2009 as another Italian restaurant, Da Andrea, which relocated from Hudson Street.

*

Maurizio is an unexpectedly good neighborhood trattoria at the north end of the Village. The eponymous Maurizio delivers a hearty greeting. No doubt he is delighted to have the foot traffic, as heavy construction on that block of 13th Street must be a serious damper on business.

On a Sunday night, the waitress emphatically recommended the veal chop, which happened to be the menu’s most expensive entrée that day, at $24. I took her advice and was glad I did. This was one of the thickest, juiciest veal chops I’ve ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Just recalling it makes my mouth water all over again.

Nothing particularly imaginative was done with the chop. It was just grilled and lightly seasoned. However, my eyes lingered enviously at several other creations that drifted out of Maurizio’s kitchen. There is a standing menu, as well as a printed list of daily specials.

Maurizio’s impresses quietly. I’d certainly be pleased to return. If you happen to be in that area of the Village, take a look.

Maurizio Trattoria (35 W. 13th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Greenwich Village)

What if the Election's a Tie?

An article today on electoral-vote.com raises a fascinating prospect: what if the election is a tie?

I don’t mean a popular vote tie (virtually impossible), but an electoral vote tie. If George W. Bush wins exactly the same states as he did in 2000, the election would be decided 278-260 in the Electoral College. Now, suppose John Kerry peels off New Hampshire (4 E.V.) and West Virginia (5) — both of them battleground states in which Kerry currently holds a polling lead. That would make the election a 269-269 tie. Not likely, perhaps, but certainly plausible.

Under the Constitution, if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives chooses the President, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. Republicans control 31 of the state delegations today, with 14 in Democratic hands, and 5 tied. Nobody thinks the Democrats can do well enough in this year’s election to take control of a majority of the state delegations. Therefore, a 269-all tie in the Electoral College is as good as a Bush win.

But in one of the more peculiar Constitutional provisions, the Senate would get to choose the Vice-President in case of a tie. The Democrats have a decent shot at taking over the Senate in this election. Not a superb shot, but at least an average shot. It could therefore happen that the House chooses President Bush, but the Senate chooses Vice-President Edwards, sending Dick Cheney into early retirement.

Needless to say, a Vice-President Edwards wouldn’t be welcome in the Bush White House. Indeed, you could expect Edwards to have a good deal of time on his hands, showing up in the Senate only occasionally to do the one thing the Constitution allows all VPs to do: cast a tie-breaking vote. At least, he’d have plenty of time to plan his 2008 Presidential race, while drawing a handsome government salary (and a beautiful home at taxpayers’ expense) for doing essentially nothing.

Oddly, this would mark an unintended return to the original system. Before 1804, electors didn’t vote separately for President and Vice-President. Instead, each elector just wrote down two names. The candidate receiving the most E.V.’s — provided he was named on a majority of the ballots — became President, and the candidate receiving the second-most votes became Vice-President. It was thus quite possible that the President and V.P. would not only come from different parties, but indeed would be complete ideological opposites.

The system of separate choice for a President and V.P. was adopted after the 1800 election, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the Electoral College. After 1800, the House of Representatives chose the President just one more time. That happened in 1924, when Andrew Jackson won the popular vote handily (43.1%), but the electoral votes split among four candidates, and the House voted John Quincy Adams President. Jackson supporters were outraged, and he easily defeated Adams four years later.