The Payoff: Co.

Yesterday, Frank Bruni awarded one star to Co. We are still not sure what this review was doing in Bruni’s territory. If ever there were an obvious $25 & Under candidate, this was it. Anyhow:

Its sire and guiding spirit, Jim Lahey, hails from the breadmaking side of things. It’s bread above all he knows and loves, and you may well have tasted the evidence of that if you’ve eaten out in New York over recent years. Many restaurants buy loaves, rolls, focaccia and such from Sullivan Street Bakery, his yeasty baby. At least they do if they’re smart.

… … …

But he could indeed improve upon his pizzas somewhat. Although the best of them are outstanding and all pack the pleasures of a serious crust with serious blisters — Mr. Lahey uses an oven that generates heat in excess of 900 degrees — he hasn’t yet nailed the toppings. It’s as if he’s too focused on, and maybe too confident about, what lies beneath. A pizzaiolo-come-lately, he needs to sweat the cheese and the rest of it a little more.

We and Eater both took the one-star bet, but it paid only even money, so we win just $1 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$126.50		$147.67
Gain/Loss	+1.00		+1.00
Total	$127.50		$148.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	57–25 (70%)		59–23 (72%)

Tse Yang

I tried Tse Yang last week with a friend visiting from out of town. It’s an opulent place that puts a fine-dining gloss on Chinese cuisine usually associated with take-out. It has been around for 20 years, along with a sister restaurant in Paris. All of the menu items are listed in two languages, French and English, an affectation that I suspect is mostly for show.

Most of the online reviews emphasize that this place caters to expense accounts and well-heeled plutocrats. Soups and appetizers range from $6.50–28.00 (most over $15), entrées $19.50–55.00 (most over $25), vegetables, rice and noodles $12.00–19.50. It’s a little odd to see items listed at $0.25 and $0.75 increments, at a place where the average check size is probably over $75 per head.

There’s a serious wine list (which we did not sample), and service is a big step up from the average Chinese restaurant. We ordered entrées to share, which were plated tableside. The servers are efficient, but they seemed bored—as you would expect at a place with laminated menus that probably haven’t changed in decades, except to raise prices.

We ordered quite modestly: a spring roll (left) plus shared orders of “Your Favorite Tse Yang Chicken” and “Lemon Sweet–Sour Pork” (right). There was nothing revelatory about either dish, but the flavor balances and freshness were well above what you’d get at take-out—as they ought to be.

The final bill was $36 per person before tip. You can probably get food just as good or better in Chinatown for a much lower price, but the refined atmosphere at Tse Yang fits the bill for a quiet, relaxed meal.

Tse Yang (34 E. 51st Street between Park & Madison Avenues, East Midtown)

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

Rolling the Dice: Co.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni gives yet another audition for the $25 & Under column with a review of Jim Lahey’s Vongerichten-backed pizzeria, Co. (pronounced “Company”). The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 10-1
One Star: EVEN √√
Two Stars: 5-1
Three Stars: 500-1
Four Stars: 20,736-1

The Skinny: Today’s action won’t detain us for long. We’re not regulars on the pizzeria circuit: there just aren’t enough days in the year, nor spare calories in our diet. But the notion of betting on anything other than one star strikes us as absurd, crazy, or absurdly crazy. Take your pick.

The Bet: The year of the one-star restaurant continues. We are betting that Frank Bruni will award one star to Co.

Dardanel

During the recession, practically every new restaurant serves French–American bistro comfort food. And those that didn’t before seem to be rapidly evolving towards that model. It’s a cuisine we love as much as anyone, but we’re getting a bit tired of it.

So on Saturday we visited Dardanel, in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge on Manhattan’s far east side. It was a bit out of the way for us, but well worth it. The specialty here is Turkish seafood. The décor is full of nautical bric à brac, and the servers look like ships’ pursors, but there’s plenty for landlubbers too.

Dardanel hasn’t received much critical attention since it opened in November 2008, aside from the dependable Bob Lape of Crain’s, who awarded two stars. But it’s well worth a visit, especially if you’re dining out on less money these days (as we are).

Appetizers and entrées are just $5–12, entrées $16–24. The wine list has a lot of offbeat selections (Israel anyone? Georgian Republic?), along with more standard fare. Most bottles below $40. We chose a bottle of Rock Rabbit Sauvignon Blanc for just $25.

An appetizer of Octopus Salad ($12; above left) was the only disappointing item we had. It tasted flat and under-seasoned; the octopus could as well have been chicken The kitchen redeemed itself with one of the daily specials, a Red Caviar Spread ($8; above center), which came with addictive home-made bread (above right).

There are a good dozen meat and vegetarian entrées, but we continued with the seafood theme. Grilled Whole Bronzini ($21; above left) was as good a preparation of that fish as we’ve had anywhere. Mahi Mahi ($24; above right) had a beefy texture. I would have preferred it a bit more tender, but I loved the cream sauce underneath it.

After dinner, the belly dancer arrived. We won’t deceive you: she’s not there every night. Actually, the owner said it was a first. As the photo shows (above right), we got a first-hand look. We know you expect hard-nosed investigative reporting from New York Journal, and we’re determined to let you have it—raw and unvarnished.

Dardanel is a fun little place that hasn’t quite caught on yet. It was only about half full on a Saturday evening. Service was friendly, if a bit on the slow side, but we were in no hurry. Dinner for two, including tax but before tip, was just $101.

Dardanel (1071 First Avenue between 58th & 59th Streets, Sutton Place)

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

The Wölffer Estate Premier Cru Merlot

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I visited the Wölffer Estate on Long Island, where she splurged on the Premier Cru Merlot, at $100/bottle. According to the winery, it is the first Long Island wine to retail above the century mark.

At $12–16, Wölffer charges a good deal more for tastings than any other Long Island winery we’ve visited. They have some remarkable wines, but given the prices, I thought they ought to comp the tasting if you buy a few bottles (as we did).

But I can’t complain too much, as the wines we sampled were indeed well beyond anything we’ve seen on Long Island. I bought a couple of bottles too, though nothing approaching that $100 Merlot.

Michelle’s report is here.

Seäsonal Restaurant & Weinbar

Note: Seäsonal closed at the end of 2014 after a six-year run. The chefs sold the lease to Maria Loi, the Greek chef, who will replace it with Loi Estiatorio.

*

It’s not easy for a restaurant to exceed expectations. Most new places are heavily over-promoted, establishing high hopes that few can hope to meet. Seäsonal Restaurant and Weinbar has the opposite problem. It has been open since December 2008, but among major publications only Crain’s gave it a full review (two stars from Bob Lape). The Times gave it the Dining Briefs treatment (mostly favorable, from Julia Moskin).

Seäsonal deserves far more attention than that. It serves modern Austrian cuisine, an under-represented genre in New York. With David Bouley’s Danube now closed, Kurt Gutenbrunner’s Wallsé is the only restaurant even close to comparable. We gave Wallsé three stars, and while we’re not yet prepared to bestow the same laurels on Seäsonal, we were certainly impressed.

The menu is mid-priced, with appetizers $9–18 (most $14 or less), entrées $21–32 (most $27 or less), side dishes $7, desserts $10. A seven-course tasting menu is $64. These prices are more than fair, given the quality of everything we tried.

As you’d expect for a wine bar, there’s an ample selection of wines by the glass. The bottle list is a bit more expensive than it ought to be, with few choices below $50. We settled on an Austrian Pinot Noir at $48, which was about the cheapest red wine available.

The minimalist décor looked more Scandinavian than Austrian to us, but we found it quiet and comfortable. On a Wednesday evening, the space was less than half full.

We started with a nice amuse-bouche of smoked duck (right). As I recall, there were two kinds of home-made bread, and two contrasting butters to go with it.

 

Cheese Ravioli ($12; above left) defied the Austrian food cliché: they were light as a feather, complemented with smoked mushrooms, baby spinach, and a harvest corn sauce. My friend was equally pleased with the Foie Gras Terrine ($18; above right), with a lingonberry-mandarin confit and toasted brioche on the side.

The entrées were terrific too: Pumpkin-Seed Crusted Black Sea Bass ($26; above left) with a butternut squash and black truffle sauce, and Duck Breast ($27; above right) with red cabbage and Schupfnudeln.

The meal ended with a small plate of petits-fours. Service lived up to the quality of the food. The bar tab was transferred to our table without our having to ask.

The restaurant’s location, in the middle of a quiet midtown street, does not work to its advantage. People need to know it’s there. I came in expecting a decent neighborhood place, but left with the idea that Seäsonal needs to be taken far more seriously.

Seäsonal (132 W. 58th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Apiary

Note: This is a review under chef Scott Bryan, who left the restaurant in April 2014. Bryan will be opening a new restaurant on the Bowery called Bacchanal. After a very brief renovation, the space re-opened as Après with Mazen Mustafa, the former chef de cuisine at The Elm.

*

Like many restaurants these days, Apiary had a troubled birth. It opened in August 2008 under Chef Neil Manacle, a Bobby Flay disciple. Adam Platt of New York awarded just one star, while the Times relegated it to Dining Briefs (a treatment accorded restaurants deemed not worth reviewing).

In January 2009, the owners quietly replaced Manacle with Scott Bryan, the chef who earned three stars at Veritas. There was no splashy announcement. Florence Fabricant of the Times reported the news after Bryan had already been on the job for “about a week.” We decided to wait a few months to give Bryan time to install his own menu.

It has been a tough couple of years for Bryan since he left Veritas (the reasons were never explained). He was named chef at two New York properties, 10 Downing and Lever House, backing out of both projects before cooking his first meal. In between, he consulted at the Falls Church, VA restaurant, 2491. He comes into Apiary with distinctly lower ambitions. The menu, with no entrée above $27, is a far cry from the $85 prix fixe at Veritas.

There is clearly some confusion about the concept. The sleek, high-end décor seems out of place in a neighborhood where most restaurants cater to NYU students and foodies who prefer to dine on bar stools (think Momofuku). The mid-priced menu doesn’t pair well with a wine list where most reds are well above $100, and many are far above that. We had to wonder who would order a $950 Cabernet with such unassuming food.

It is not unusual for appetizers to outshine entrées, but the magnitude of the difference was staggering. It was as if the main courses came from another kitchen. I started our meal assuming that I was going to give out at least two stars. I ended it wondering how I could justify even one.

Hefty chunks of grilled octopus ($12; above left), served over white beans, had a luscious, smoky flavor. Warm Chevre cheese ($9; above right) was topped with greens and roasted beets. It was a less inventive dish, but beautifully done.

The entrées were poor. Peking Duck Breast ($26; above left) and Grilled Hanger Steak ($27; above right) were both tough and cooked well beyond the medium rare we had requested. We couldn’t detect any of the Peking spices alleged to adorn the duck, nor the green peppercorn sauce promised for the steak. Both were served atop a pedestrian vegetable purée—celery root for the duck, potatoes for the steak.

We had no complaints with a side of Brussels Sprouts ($7; left). We also liked the bread service (homemade olive bread).

We suspect that Bryan’s kitchen is capable of doing far, far better than this. However, we can rate our meal based only on what we had, not on what might have been. Perhaps other reviewers will recommend Apiary. We cannot.

Apiary (60 Third Avenue between 10th & 11th Streets, East Village)

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

The Payoff: Macao Trading Co.

Today, Frank Bruni bestowed one star on Macao Trading Co., once again cementing the perception that the rating means “mediocre,” not “good,” as the Times claims:

One of my companions put it best. “This…is a deeply silly restaurant.”

That’s what makes it sort of fun, and that’s what keeps it from being anything more than that. In the right mood, with the right stretch of the menu, lubricated by the right cocktails, and with the right tolerance for ear-decimating decibels, you can definitely enjoy Macao, in a minor way….

I think fewer New Yorkers these days are looking for restaurants that “ooze sex and decadence,” which is how the publicist explained the aim behind the erotica. But if New Yorkers are looking for croquettes that do that, Macao’s their place.

We and Eater both took the one-star bet, winning $3 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$123.50		$144.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$126.50		$147.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	56–25 (69%)		58–23 (72%)

Rolling the Dice: Macao Trading Co.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Macao Trading Co., the new Sino–Portuguese cocktail bazaar in West TriBeCa. The Eater odds are not yet posted as of 5:23 p.m., but we’re going to go ahead and bet anyway.

ETA: The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

 Zero Stars: 4 - 1
One Star: 3 - 1 √√
Two Stars: 15 - 1
Three Stars: 10,000
Four Stars: 250,000 - 1

The Skinny: Bruni waited a while to review this place, which has been open since late November. If his reaction was anything like ours, when we visited in mid-December, then Macao Trading Co. is a mortal lock for one star. There were too many things wrong with it to justify two stars, but a David Waltuck menu and a strong cocktail program will keep it out of goose-egg territory.

We don’t entirely rule out a repeat of the Double Crown Affair—a similar restaurant that inexplicably got the deuce—but one star seems like a safer bet.

The Bet: We are betting that Frank Bruni will award one star to Macao Trading Co.

The Pork Chop at Hill Country

It’s enormous. ’Nuff said.