Dropping In: Má Pêche

The Momofuku phenomenon has largely passed me by. Mind you, I like David Chang’s restaurants, having visited them seven times, in all. But I never bought into the unstinting bouquets of rapture that floated his way, from people whom I believed knew better.

That said, I’d love to have been able to drop in on the East Village Momofukus more often, during the era when Chang’s adoring faithful were teary-eyed over the latest new dish his chefs had created, on practically a daily basis. I’m sure many of those dishes were very good indeed, but that part of town was too far away for me to visit with any regularity—especially given Chang’s no-reservations policy, which meant one was not even assured of getting a seat.

The Momofukologists say that the East Village places have lost a step (though they remain packed at prime times). Chang himself is now tending a much larger empire. Tien Ho, the day-to-day chef at Ssäm Bar during its heyday, is now at Má Pêche. As I mentioned after my first visit, I find the cuisine at Má Pêche far too timid, but I assume Ho hasn’t forgotten how to cook. As it is on my commuting path, I’m willing to give it a few more shots. I keep hoping to see the inspiration that made Momofuku what it was. I haven’t found it yet.

Má Pêche is a Momofuku you can get into. My experience, and everyone else’s, is that the place is never full, or even close. Just a day after telling the Times that his no-resy free-for all is more “democratic,” Chang started taking them on the web, though only for lunch and prix fixe dinner from 5–7 p.m. I suspect that more will follow. Midtown diners tend to want reservations, and if the restaurant is empty, you might as well give customers what they want.

When I arrived last Friday evening, at around 6:05 p.m., the host said, “I can seat you at the bar or the raw bar.” I thought, perhaps they’re finally busy. I came down the stairs to find a dining room two-thirds empty. They couldn’t possibly have believed that all those seats would miraculously fill up—which, of course, they did not. So why offer me only a backless bar stool, when the long communal table was available.

One can speculate endlessly the reasons they might have had for putting me all alone, at a corner of the raw bar. Charitably, they might have believed a solo diner preferred the bar, but in that case I’d suggest they ask. A friend allowed that perhaps they thought it would look silly to have a solo diner alone at that long, X-shaped table. Perhaps, but they ought to be thinking of what the customer wants, especially when they have vast real estate that clearly is not filling up. Let’s just say they need to get a lot smarter.

Onto the food. I started with the pork ribs (left), which came out almost instantly. I take no issue with their being obviously pre-made, but they were slightly dried out. Pork spring rolls (right) were fresh as a daisy, as if the vegetables had been picked that day. I had a glass of wine, which was one of the stingiest pours I have seen—probably around three ounces.

Má Pêche remains a promising restaurant that needs a lot of work.

Tamarind Tribeca

The best place to put a restaurant is where there are already successful restaurants. So when Avatar Walia, owner of the Flatiron Indian restaurant Tamarind, wanted to go way upscale, it’s no surprise he chose Tribeca.

Still, there’s a huge risk here. Tamarind Tribeca is a big-box 11,000-foot bi-level space. Take one look at the build-out (Eater.com has photos), and it’s immediately obvious it wasn’t done on the cheap. With fresh orchids on every table and a service brigade worthy of a three-star restaurant, the operating costs must be substantial.

There’s no reason why such a restaurant cannot work, but I do not recall a successful precedent for Indian food.

I can report, at least, that the food is wonderful, and it is not expensive, in light of the surroundings. Dinner for two was $135 before tip, including two appetizers, two entrées, sides of rice and naan, and a bottle of wine ($45). That’s more than you’d pay at the neighborhood tandoori mill, but Tamarind is much better than that.

I cannot compare this outpost to the Flatiron branch, but the server said the menu here is broader and more ambitious. The Village Voice, in a rave review, reported that the owner “does not employ one executive chef, instead using a team of chefs from various parts of India.”

The Voice thought that “the unusual strategy seems to be working,” and so do we.

Murg Malova ($10; above left). Hunks of chicken packing plenty of heat are seasoned with yogurt, coriander, cream cheese, and caraway seeds, then finished in the tandoor.

Bataki Kosha ($10.50; above right). Duck with mustard, onion, garlic, ginger, and garamasala is wrapped in a rice crepe with black salt and tangerine chutney, and deep fried. I’ve never had an Indian dish like this.

Both of these were large enough to be entrées—especially the duck.

Punjabi Mutton ($23; above left). Goat meat was served with whole spices, tomatoes, onions, ginger, and garlic. Aside from the use of goat—as opposed to the more common chicken or lamb—this dish resembled what you’d get in just about any Indian restaurant in the city. For all that, it was just right. The goat was served on the bone, but separated without difficulty.

Sufiani Machli ($26; above right). We were dumbfounded at the silky tenderness of sea bass, which had somehow survived roasting in the tandoor., then garnished with an intoxicating elixir of hung yogurt, dill, lime zest, and mixed peppercorns.

The server conceded that nobody in India is serving Tandoori Sea Bass. Still, this was the best fish entrée I’ve had all year—the kind of dish you can’t wait to have again.

The wine list is much longer and ambitious than it needs to be. This just might be the only Indian restaurant in town with wines that reach four figures, but there is plenty for those who want to stay under $50, as we did. The service was very close to flawless.

The space looked to be about half full by the time we left, at around 7:30 p.m. on a Friday evening, but Tribeca is a late-arriving crowd. Still, there are a lot of seats here, and they’ll need a lot of repeat business to keep them full.

If every meal at Tamarind Tribeca is as good as ours was, that won’t be a problem.

Tamarind Tribeca (99 Hudson Street at Franklin Street, TriBeCa)

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

Belated Review Recap: Torrisi Italian Specialties

This week, Sam Sifton gave the expected twospot to the miraculous hit restaurant, Torrisi Italian Specialties. We’ve not dined there—and with reports of two-hour waits and reservations not taken, perhaps never will—but the review was in line with everything else we’ve read:

During the day, Torrisi is a sandwich shop modeled on those of the neighborhood old school. You can get a good chicken parm or an excellent turkey hero there, some flavorful contorni, a can of beer, a small bottle of Coke. The dishes are all smart upgrades on classics, beautifully cooked, humble Italian-American lunch fare for an era that respects the form.

At night, though, the room is transformed into a restaurant of around 20 seats, in which artists make work and customers consume it. The prix fixe for this is $50. The food is still beautifully cooked, still aggressively Italian-American…

Sadly, we think this conclusion is absolutely on the money:

And how long can that last? The Torrisi project as it stands surely must run its course, the way any performance does, the way any combination of kinetic energy and art must eventually fall off its axis. (What happens if the money gets tight? No one counts on the tears.) Presumably Mr. Carbone and Mr. Torrisi will cook this way until it gets boring, and then will do something else.

Which means the time to get to Torrisi Italian Specialties is now.

Here’s our usual weekly list of Sifton’s lazy prose and odd exaggerations:

• …Torrisi Italian Specialties, a tiny and terrific new restaurant…
• …an excellent turkey hero…beautifully cooked…
• But the dishes…are edible paintings…
• …the restaurant shows itself to be towering in its ambition…
• There is always warm, just-made mozzarella…outrageously good…

First Look: Plein Sud

Plein Sud is the new Southern French-themed brasserie in Southern Tribeca, in the swanky Smythe Hotel. It has top-drawer names behind it, including restauranteur Frederick Lesort (who previously ran the now-shuttered Frederick’s Madison mini-chain) and design firm AvroKO.

The chef here, Ed Cotton, has a blue-chip background, with stints at Veritas and BLT Market on his resume. He’s also a competitor on the coming season of Top Chef. If he survives deep into the season, Plein Sud could start to get a lot of attention.

The restaurant has been open since May, but it only received its liquor license yesterday. In honor of that event, they were offering wine on the house. Where the alcohol is free, New York Journal is on the case, so I dropped in. Service at the bar was a bit inattentive, but considering that they didn’t even have a bar until yesterday, it is too soon to reach any judgment.

The space is easy on the eyes, as you’d expect from an AvroKO production. The only food I sampled was an excellent Duck and Foie Gras Terrine that could withstand comparison to anything served at Bar Boulud, the city’s charcuterie capital. The young lady seated next to me at the bar offered me a taste of her Loup de Mer entrée, which had a nice crisp skin and a medley of roasted vegetables.

This is a take-no-risks menu, but if you love French classics, you’ll like Plein Sud. There are more pâtés and terrines to be tried, charcuterie, and baked flatbreads, along with the usual appetizers and entrées. It’s the kind of focused menu that David Bouley’s failed Secession, nearby, should have had.

Cotton was fired at Veritas, probably because he was serving two-star food in a three-star restaurant. Plein Sud doesn’t aspire to three stars (and won’t get them), but it doesn’t have Veritas’ high prix fixe. That terrine was just eight dollars, and most entrées are in the twenties. If he can keep serving food this good, he’ll do just fine. If he wins Top Chef, he’ll do even better.

Plein Sud (89 West Broadway at Chambers Street, TriBeCa)

Annisa

Chef Anita Lo didn’t have the best of luck in 2009. Annisa, her flagship Greenwich Village restaurant, closed after an electrical fire. An ill-considered venture into Asian barbecue, Bar Q, quickly failed.

Lo’s national profile gained luster with an appearance on Top Chef: Masters, in which she reached the champions round. But anyone who was impressed with her food would have had no restaurant in which to find it.

Annisa re-opened last month, after nine months of re-building. She and her partner, Jennifer Scism, say that it was like having a baby. The space has been brightened up a bit, with help from a fung shui consultant. Food is now served at the small bar, which (as before) is separated by a half-wall from the dining room.

In the Times, William Grimes awarded two stars to the original incarnation of Annisa. I gave three stars in 2005, though I was being more generous back then, and I always had a nagging feeling I’d overrated it. My doubts were confirmed with a re-visit on Saturday night.

Don’t get me wrong: Annisa is a very enjoyable restaurant. Chef Lo’s wizardry with French technique and Asian accents produces food that is often compelling. And it comes in one of the city’s most romantic rooms, on one of its most romantic blocks.

There are also a few misses. The newly remodeled room is a bit cramped, and the air conditioning is under-powered: we found it sweltering, and the server acknowledged that we are not the first customers to notice. It will only get worse as the summer goes on.

I puzzled over the wine list, which seemed shorter than it ought to be, and had no particular focus that I could discern. Finally, Ms. Scism explained it: Annisa (which means “women” in Arabic) only serves wines made by women, or from wineries owned by women. Ultimately, we were pleased with the wine we chose—the marvellously funky La Stoppa “Ageno” (listed with the wrong year)—but it feels like a 1970s conceit to limit oneself to suppliers with two X chromasomes.

The menu is on the expensive side, especially the entrées, almost all of which are north of $30. Tasting menus are $75 (five courses) or $95 (seven). These prices are not unreasonable for the quality of the ingredients and the care taken in preparing them.

Photos weren’t an option, in low light with the tables on either side of us occupied. I’ll describe the food as best I can.

The amuse was a duck rillette with mustard seed, pickled barbary, and chives, that tasted like it had been in the refrigerator a while, and did not have much flavor. Bread rolls were cold and a bit chewy, though the butter was soft, just as I like it.

To start, Steak Tartare with Korean Chili, Yamaimo and Asian Pear ($16) was a classic Anita Lo dish. There wasn’t quite enough chili sauce, but even without it, the flavors were strong and vivid.

Tuna: Hot and Cold ($17) was a dud, as the “hot” side of the plate was a a square of over-cooked and unseasoned fish. We later saw the same dish at another table, and it appeared the tuna had a sauce or garnish that ours had lacked. The “cold” side of the tuna was a tartare—not bad, but not as special as the steak.

The entrées were more successful. Butter Poached Lobster ($37) was as good a preparation as you’ll find outside of a seafood restaurant. It came with a sweet pea flan so good that it deserves promotion to an appetizer in its own right.

Fluke ($31) was beautifully prepared, tender and full of flavor, in a beet sauce so rich it could have been blueberry. A fluke tartare was just fine, but didn’t quite stand up to that, even with caviar.

We could have been happy with any of the desserts (Anita Lo is the pastry chef, as well), but we settled on the Pecan and Salted Butterscotch Beignets with Bourbon Milk Ice ($9), which were as wonderful as they sound.

Annisa may be a hair short of the three stars the chef aspires to, but it is a compelling restaurant, and a lovely place for a romantic meal.

Annisa (13 Barrow St. between Seventh Av. S. & W. 4th St., Greenwich Village)

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

Barzinho

Note: Barzinho closed in August 2011.

*

 Barzinho opened quietly not long ago in TriBeCa. In a neighborhood known for splashy restaurants, this one flew under the radar. I’ve found no announcements in the usual sources. A liquor license application dated October 2009 is still pending; beer and wine are available now.

The cuisine is Brazilian, and inexpensive. The space is bare-bones, to say the least. With its mismatched furniture and minimal décor, it could be somebody’s basement rec room. I wasn’t up for a full meal, but I ordered two snacks—certainly not sufficient to reach any conclusions about the place.

Brazilian sausage (above left) came from a specialist butcher in New Jersey (I asked), but they tasted just like Bob Evans or IHOP.

Yuca, also called Cassava, is the world’s third most-common source of calories, after rice and wheat, and much favored in lesser developed countries. An order of fried yuca (above right) made clear why it hasn’t become popular in the U.S. The mushy and largely flavorless starch will be nobody’s favorite substitute for french fries.

There were only about three customers, but I visited quite early—around 5:30 p.m. As I was leaving, a live Brazilian band (guitar, percussion, vocal) was starting to play. I thought: this might not be so bad! But it was time for me to go, and I caught only a snatch of it.

I wasn’t wowed by either of the appetizers I tried, but they may have been an unrepresentative sample. Barzinho deserves another chance.

Barzinho (225 West Broadway, south of White Street, TriBeCa)

Busted! Sifton Once Banned "Delicious"; Now Uses It Himself

I wrote a piece last week about New York Times critic Sam Sifton’s repeated use of over-the-top adjectives like terrific, fantastic, perfect, and so forth. (Today’s review had another pair of terrifics.)

In 2000, when Sifton was editor of the Dining section, he chided freelance writer Andrea Strong for using delicious:

My delicious veto started about seven years ago, when my editor at the New York Times, an amazingly talented guy named Sam Sifton, returned a piece I had written for him with one comment. “Never use the word delicious,” he said. “It’s banned in my book. Gimme something more than that.” He was right. Delicious? What a cop out. It’s too easy. He wanted me to work for it, to dig deeper. And I don’t blame him. Now that I teach a food writing class, I’ve borrowed his advice for my students. Last week at our first class, I broke the news to them. “There’s one word I don’t allow in my class and it’s delicious,” I said. They looked alarmed. Why?” They asked. “Because it’s not good enough. I want to know why it’s delicious. Is it the flavors, the textures, the temperature, the contrast of all three? Give me more. Delicious is just lazy.”

Guess what? Now that Sifton is writing, rather than editing, he uses “delicious” almost every week—often twice in the same review. I won’t list them all, but here are some examples:

• ABC Kitchen: “…a few pizzas for your table would not be in error, starting with the delicious morels with Parmesan, oregano and a soft large-yolked egg…”
• Fatty ’Cue: “Dessert is delicious, but is not strictly necessary…”
• Pulino’s: “It is delicious…” and later, ”…will elicit shrugs from any New Yorker who has spent 45 minutes waiting for a table here, delicious as it is.”

Let’s all quote Andrea Strong together: “Delicious is just lazy.”

Review Recap: ABC Kitchen

Today, Sam Sifton reviews ABC Kitchen, and gets it basically right, awarding two stars (the same as we did):

The notion of the place is haute organic and Hamptons sustainable. The restaurant is airy and open and relaxed the way the second homes of the wealthy often are, with LED-style lighting over warm floors. Ingredients for the cooking, as a position paper on the back of the chic cardboard menu declares, are “consciously sourced.” The breadbaskets were “handcrafted by the indigenous Mapuche people of Patagonia.”

The words tumble out like refrigerator magnets onto the table. Everything here is: Fair trade! Globally artistic! Reclaimed and recycled! Soy-based! Post-consumer fiber!

You meet people like this. Only when they are spectacularly good-looking and appear to be attracted to you are they manageable.

ABC Kitchen pulls off the magic trick. The food is great and not terribly expensive. It is a pretty room. The crowd runs high-wattage with net worth to match.

As usual, Sifton digs into his depleted store of over-used adjectives, trotting out a great, a perfect, two terrifics, and the usual “very good.”

The review is correct, but must be taken in the context of the entirely incorrect two stars awarded to The Mark in late April.

Pulino's Bar & Pizzeria

 

Note: This is a review under Chef Nate Appleman, who left the restaurant in November 2010.

*

Few New York restauranteurs—okay, none—have managed to attract as much giddy anticipation as when Keith McNally opens a new place. He’s on—what is it?—his tenth or fifteenth brasserie, each duly stamped out of a pre-fab mold, and each hailed instantly as if he were doing something new.

The critics have often liked but have seldom adored his restaurants. Frank Bruni wrote a three-star love letter to Minetta Tavern (the only rating above two stars McNally has ever received), but panned Morandi, curiously the McNally restaurant that is least like the others. Those were the only ones that opened during Bruni’s tenure. On this point McNally deserves much credit: he doesn’t shove restaurants hastily out the workroom door. He bides his time, and when he sees gold, he pounces.

I’m less in McNally’s thrall than most people. I wouldn’t have given Minetta Tavern three stars, but I’ve been twice and love it, for what it is. I found Pastis entirely unimpressive, Odeon and Schiller’s both forgettable, though it should be noted I visited them long past their prime. Nevertheless, Schiller’s and Pastis remain packed (I have not checked Odeon lately). I have never been to Balthazar: it’s too difficult to get in, at the hours I would want to go.

Now comes Pulino’s Bar & Pizzeria, which is right out of McNally’s playbook—but then again, no. It looks and feels like a McNally place, but he lured James Beard honoree Nate Appleman away from San Francisco, to sling pizza on the Bowery.

(All of McNally’s past chef hires were from New York, and if we can put it so delicately, he seldom chose anyone who presented any threat of running the show. Quick: do the names of any McNally chefs trip off the tongue? That’s right: they don’t.)

The pro reviewers have hammered Pulino’s pizzas, which are made with a thin crust resembling matzo. Of the six pro reviews I checked, not one liked it. For a restaurant that has “pizzeria” in its name, that’s a drawback.

I visited Pulino’s by myself. Given the reviews, I wasn’t going to take a chance on pizza. (The server advised that a hungry solo diner can finish one, but not if you want to try anything else.)

Fortunately, there are many non-pizza items, and you know what? I loved everything I tried. All the food is cooked in two huge wood-burning ovens, which impart a rustic, smoky flavor.

None of the food at Pulino’s will break the bank. Appetizers (various salads, antipasti, proschutti, bruschette) are $8–15, pizzas $9–18 and easily shareable, mains $18–29.

 

I started with the Fazzoletti (above left), crèpes topped with ricotta, lamb ragu and peccorino: a hearty dish, full of flavor. Tender polpettine (above right), or braised goat meatballs, came in a luscious sauce of honey, black pepper, green garlic, white wine, polenta verde, and almonds.

I can’t find an online dessert menu, but I think I had the budino di faro pudding topped with dates and goat’s-milk yogurt (left).

What I loved about this food, besides that it was very good and impeccably prepared, is that I haven’t seen these exact dishes at a hundred other places. Now, a pizzeria that can’t make pizza has a real problem, but there’s excellence and even a bit of inventiveness on the rest of the menu.

The cookie-cutter décor, cribbed from other McNally joints, doesn’t deserve any awards. And at a brand new restaurant, I shouldn’t have to contend with a table that wobbles on an uneven surface.

Restrooms with a shared washroom are another design feature out of McNally’s playbook. In the photo (right), you’ll notice separate doors labeled “women” and “men.” In fact, they lead to the same room, with a sink for washing up, and with toilets behind another set of doors.

I had read about this, but I presume many guests have not. While I was at the sink, a woman poked her head inside the door, gasped, and quickly backed out. Is this McNally trademark is past its sell-by date?

Pulino’s serves the identical menu for lunch and dinner. I took advantage of a slow work day to visit Pulino’s for a very late lunch, at 1:45 p.m., when it was less than half full. At prime times, I hear it is mobbed and oppressively loud.

If there’s anyone who can survive a slew of terrible reviews, it’s Keith McNally. Really, aside from the wobbly table, I had no complaints about the meal or the service at all. I suspect Pulino’s will remain popular for a long time to come.

Pulino’s Bar & Pizzeria (282 Bowery at Houston Street, NoLIta)

Food: **
Service: *
Ambiance: Not the reason to dine here
Overall: *½

Sam Sifton's Superlative Diarrhea

     Su-per-la-tive
     adj.

1. Of the highest order, quality, or degree; surpassing or superior to all others.

2. Excessive or exaggerated.

3. Grammar Of, relating to, or being the extreme degree of comparison of an adjective or adverb, as in best or brightest.

In Sam Sifton’s review of Prime Meats, published this week, I just about lost it when I read this:

The staff is exceptionally well trained and efficient…

If the staff of a two-star restaurant is exceptionally well trained and efficient, then what will Sifton say about four-star Per Se, Eleven Madison Park, or Le Bernardin? They are exceptional. Prime Meats, I am sure, is simply doing the very good job that a two-star restaurant should.

Sam Sifton has superlative diarrhea. He casually throws around words like “terrific,” “fantastic,” “excellent,” and “perfect,” when all he really means is pretty good. There is hardly any review in which he doesn’t use some combination of these superlatives. Several reviews have had multiple terrifics.

There are two problems with this. In the first place, it’s lazy writing. Any word used so often eventually loses its meaning. Don’t tell us it’s terrific. Write a description that sounds terrific. If the service is truly exceptional, give some examples. Now, I’ll admit that I’m guilty of these short-cuts myself. But my work isn’t being sold as a professional product. Someone paid for his writing should do better.

The other problem is that these compliments are highly misleading. If he really encounters “perfection” so often, he’s setting the bar awfully low. I eat out a lot, and I seldom find anything that’s perfect. “Excellent” is a compliment I bestow infrequently. It’s not that I don’t like what I’m eating, only that such high praise should be reserved for the rare exceptions.

The problem is getting worse over time. In his inaugural review of DBGB, his only such error was saying that Daniel Boulud’s kitchens “put out perfectly cooked food.” I like Boulud, but could any sensible person say that his five New York kitchens are perfect? A month later, he panned Aureole, but managed to throw in terrific, terrifically flavorful, extremely good, spectacular, and fantastic. At two-star A Voce Columbus, there were two terrifics, two excellents, a perfect, an astounding, and a fantastic.

Some of his praise is just complete nonsense. Within four weeks of each other, he found “deep” wine lists at both Recette and The Mark. At Fatty ’Cue, he found wagyu beef meltingly tender, a phrase so hackneyed that I’d swear he lifted it from a Yelp review. That review also had incredibly good, awesome, insanely agreeable, excellent, brilliant, and unsettling.

His sex analogies probably deserve a post to themselves. At Pulino’s, the fazzoletti “you go to sleep thinking about, dreaming about, and wake up desiring.” A dish at Colicchio & Sons “tastes of…illicit rides in late-night cabs.” One at The Mark is “like a lover sliding into bed.” One at The Breslin “tastes like a date you don’t want to end.” At Strip House, “trembling good…a sorority girl in her first low-cut blouse.”

But none of these hold a candle to the sea urchin toast at Marea: “It offers exactly the sensation as kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time — a bolt of surprise and pleasure combined. The salt and fat give way to primal sweetness and combine in deeply agreeable ways. The feeling lingers on the tongue and vibrates through the body.”

I had that dish. By all means order it. But trust me on this: kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time is better.

Sifton has taken some flack this week for the cookie-cutter quality of his reviews and his repetitive use of the words very good. Previously, Eater.com noted Sifton’s over-use of “the best,” in situations that were—at the very least—dubious.

I made a list of all Sifton’s exaggerations—or as many as I could find. You’ll find them after the jump. Some could even be true, but there are clearly far too many of them. Superlative diarrhea indeed.

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