Then, three months ago he opened the Laotian-themed Khe-Yo, followed soon thereafter by American Cut, a steakhouse, both within a few blocks’ radius of the first restaurant. It’s a good way to branch out, as the steakhouse can run on auto-pilot, and the chef at Khe-Yo is a former sous-chef of his, Soulayphet Schwader. It’s a Forgione restaurant in name only.
The dining room isn’t my kind of place: dark and gloomy, a thumping sound track, overly loud. It was full when I arrived for an 8:00pm reservation; our table wasn’t ready until 8:20. The nine-seat bar was full, at first, and there was nowhere to wait.
But for what it is, the service here is very good. The staff apologized profusely, and repeatedly, for seating us late. Once I finally got a bar seat, the tab was transferred to our table. I wouldn’t choose to go back, but if it’s your type of spot, you’ll be well cared for.
The menu is just 14 items (plus one special) in three categories: salads ($11–15), appetizers ($9–13) and entrees ($21–33). I assume these dishes are Laotian (a cuisine I’ve never tried before), but only in New York would the names of the purveyors be added to the name. Khy-Yo serves not just any beef jerky, but Creekstone Farms Beef Jerky.
Whip me with a wet noodle, if you must. I suppose I deserve some kind of penance for the following confession: Until recently, I had never been to Momofuku Noodle Bar.
Blame it on the lines, which at dinner times often snake down First Avenue. I was eager to visit, but not eager enough to go that far out of my way, and then wait for a bar stool. (Reservations aren’t taken, except for the large-format chicken meal, which feeds 4–8 people. I saw an order go out while I was there: four people would need to be awfully hungry to finish it.)
I rectified this shocking omission in my culinary travels on a recent Friday afternoon, when I dropped in for a late lunch at about 3:30pm. There was still plenty of business, given the oddness of the hour, but it was delightfully uncrowded. If it were always like this, I might come more often. But if it were always like this, it wouldn’t be Noodle Bar.
The Momofuku story is so well known that it hardly needs re-telling. After graduating from the French Culinary Institute, David Chang worked his way through the fine-dining kitchens of Jean-Georges Vongerichten (Mercer Kitchen), Tom Colicchio (Craft), and Daniel Boulud (Café Boulud). Then, he left fine dining and opened a noodle shop.
The original Momofuku Noodle Bar, which opened in 2004 with 27 seats, was such a hit that Chang followed it up with Momofuku Ssäm Bar in 2006. After another two years, Noodle Bar moved into its present 65-seat space down the street. Momofuku Ko, Chang’s Michelin two-star spot, moved into the old Noodle Bar. The empire now includes four restaurants, a chain of dessert shops, and a cocktail bar in New York; outposts in Toronto and Sydney; and a culinary lab.
Last year, the brilliant chefs Fredrik Bersilius and Richard Kuo set the fooderati atwitter with their Scandanavian pop-up, Frej.
After it closed suddenly, the chefs went their separate ways. Bersilius re-opened in the same Williamsburg space, this time with a serious full-time restaurant called Aska. It’s quiet, austere, verging on formal, and still Scandanavian. It could get a Micheln star.
Kuo went rock ’n’ roll, with Pearl & Ash on the suddenly-hip Bowery. It’s loud, brash, casual, mostly walk-ins, pan-Asian-themed small plates. Criticsloveit. Well, almost all.
They’re on OpenTable, but the bulk of the seats are first-come, first-served. The dining room is beyond 100 percent occupancy. They’re squeezing folks into every square inch that the law allows.
On a Wednesday evening, we arrived early for our reservation, with no tables vacant and two-deep at the bar. The host sent us next door to cool our heels, a dive where cocktails are something like $8 each. When our party of four was finally seated, it was at a half-communal table with about as much legroom as the coach cabin on a budget airline.
Sommelier Patrick Capiello landed here as wine director and partner, after Gilt closed late last year. A greater contrast between the two restaurants couldn’t be imagined. Nevertheless, he’s built a list that his former uptown customers would recognize, even if they’re unlikely to visit. It’s studded with trophy Burgundies and Bordeaux that most three-star restaurants would drool over.
The risky gambit worked. The economy has improved, and if you’re looking for proof, you might as well start here. I don’t know who would order 1955 Château Palmer Margaux 3ème cru with this food, but apparently someone does. That’ll set you back a cool $1,000, and it’s not even the most expensive bottle.
I’m not in that league, and if I were I’d choose to drink it elsewhere.
But you can easily do business for under $60 a bottle, and even as low as the mid $30s. I always smile when I see wines from the Jura, and under-appreciated region many restaurants don’t stock. At Pearl & Ash, there are 19 whites and a dozen reds from there. The 2008 Philippe Bornard “Ploussard” (above right) from Arbois Pupillin, the Jura’s winemaking capital, was just $52. Served chilled, it tasted like a cross between red and rosé, well suited to the eclectic menu here.
The menu offers twenty items ($3–16) in six categories: raw, small, fish, meat, vegetables, sweet. If you want bread, it’s extra: $3. The seven meat and fish items can be super-sized and ordered as entrées ($24–28), in which case Pearl & Ash becomes a traditional three-course restaurant.
We went all-in for sharing. Typical of such places, it was tough to guess exactly how much food we needed, or which plates would be readily divisible, but we got it about right. The kitchen did a reasonably good job of timing and sequencing (good!) but plates and silverware weren’t replaced between courses (not so much).
Each item on the menu is a short list of three or four ingredients in lower case, without adjectives or verbs. I’ve quoted these descriptions below, to give a better idea of what’s confronting you when you order. (The party next to us offered several suggestions, which turned out to be excellent.)
We loved the hot, musky smoke of “octopus, sunflower seed, shiso” ($13; above left). But it also meant that bland “tea cured salmon, goat cheese, tamarind, seaweed” ($10; above right) barely registered.
We placed a double order of “pork meatballs, shiitake, bonito” ($11 a pair; above left). The dish seemed under-sauced: the rich flavor of the meatballs needed some extra kick. The “lamb belly & heart, kohlrabi, hazelnut” ($26; above right) tasted mostly of fat.
The hit of the evening was “quail, almond, pomegranate, chicken skin” ($28; above left), a technically impressive preparation of deboned quail wrapped and deep-fried chicken skin. I also loved the flavor of smoke (much like the octopus) in “skate, chermoula, cauliflower, leek” ($14; above right).
If you’re up for a side dish, you won’t go wrong with “potatoes, porcini mayo, chorizo” ($8; below left), served crisp with just the right amount of salt.
There are just two desserts, and both are a bit odd. The “coffee parfait & cake” ($7; above right) is better than it sounds, with only the slightest hint of coffee.
But the “fernet-branca ice cream sandwich” ($6; above) is more interesting than good. Fernet-branca is a digestivo invented in the 1800s as a stomach medicine: pepto bismol with alcohol. A member of our party who’d tried it straight, said that it’s barely tolerable to drink. In ice cream it’s acceptable, but nothing I’d rush back for.
The dining room is a long, narrow room with an open kitchen at the back. The walls seem to amplify sound, as the speakers go thump, thump, thump. The wall opposite the bar is an attention-stealer, a lattice of differently-sized blonde-wood cubby holes filled with candles and nick-nacks.
The friendly, eager staff do their best to keep up, but there are too many of us, not enough of them, and too little space for everyone. The food (at its best) is good, and the wine list is great. As long as they’re served in this room, I won’t be rushing back to try either one.
Pearl & Ash (220 Bowery between Prince & Spring Streets, NoLIta)
Food: An eclectic selection of vaguely pan-Asian small plates Service: Friendly and eager, but struggling to keep up Ambiance: A loud, narrow room, with an attractive modern design
Over three years ago, I wrote a mostly favorable review of Jo’s in NoLIta, which soon became obsolete after the owners fired the chef. The restaurant soldiered on for a couple of years with cooks, but apparently without a named chef, before Andrew Pressler (formerly of the Fatty Crab empire) was appointed executive chef late last year.
The owners recently invited my family and me to pay a return visit. We paid for our drinks, but the food was comped.
The space remains as I described it last time. The bar business is brisk; the cocktails are a strength, and at $11 a bargain by Manhattan standards. The new menu is dotted with Southeast Asian accents, although it’s not as provocative as the “Fatty” menus. But if you like that style, you’ll like this place, and it is less expensive.
On the current online menu, starters (dubbed “small plates”) are $7–16, entrées and house specialties $14–23, side dishes $3.50–6.00, desserts $7.50–11.00.
Our first quartet of dishes was:
1) Mussels with spicy garlic and butter ($12; above left)
2) House-made mushroom and cabbage dumplings ($6; above right)
3) Spicy shrimp with curry ($14; below left)
4) Deep-fried ork ribs ($16; below right)
The ribs were the highlight of this course, as luscious and plump as I’ve had anywhere.
Whole red snapper ($34 for two; above left) with curry and banana was the highlight of the evening, beautifully prepared, and easily separated with no bones to speak of. Shrimp fried rice with chili peppers ($14; above right) had an intense, fiery finish.
Fried chicken with butternut squash ($18; above left) was coated in a memorable plum sauce. Vietnamese Lamb Pho ($12; above right) in fish oil received nods of approval at our table, though I found it less compelling than the other entrées.
Fried chicken & waffle ice cream with maple syrup ($9; above left) is one of those gimmick desserts you have to order, but it really didn’t need shards of fried chicken skin protruding at odd angles. Peanut butter s’mores ($7.50; above right) is a much raved-about dessert, and deservedly so: a must-order.
Lime panna cotta with coconut (above left; not on current published menu) was a bit rubbery, but there were no complaints with a simple bowl of three house-made ice creams ($7.50; above right).
I’ve listed the prices above, where the items correspond to the current on-line menu. At the current rates, and compared to similar places, the food struck us as very good, with perhaps just one or two items slightly disappointing, among the dozen we tried. The chicken, the fish, the fried ribs, the fried rice, and the peanut butter s’mores are all highly recommended.
It’s hard to re-launch a restaurant under the same name: to the critics, it’s not considered a novelty. If you haven’t been to Jo’s lately, you haven’t been to Jo’s. I’m a big fan of the “Fatty Crab” style of cooking; I know it’s not for everyone. If you like the style—you know who you are—Jo’s is worth a try.
Jo’s (264 Elizabeth Street, south of Houston Street, NoLIta)
It’s a bit sad to watch David Chang’s team at Má Pêche fumble their way around. Chang’s Momofuku restaurants in the East Village practically defined their era in the mid-aughts. They remain crowded and popular today.
It hasn’t gone as well in midtown, where Chang was tone deaf to a clientele comprised of mainly tourists, shoppers, and business travelers, in a neighborhood that hardly anyone considers a nightlife destination.
If it were a standalone place, Má Pêche would be closed by now. But it’s in the Chambers Hotel, which guarantees a captive audience. A hotel without dining is considerably less useful to prospective guests, and it would take many months to build a new restaurant. I’m sure the Chambers would be loath to see it go. Nevertheless, I’ll be surprised if Má Pêche is still around in five years.
Chang has re-tooled Má Pêche several times since it opened in 2009, but nothing has quite done the trick. There’s a regular parade of offers and special deals, to say nothing of constant infotising on Eater.com. And yet, the place was half empty at 7:00pm on a recent Saturday evening. It doesn’t look good.
It’s hard to itemize all of the changes, or when exactly they took place. Reservations and dessert are now available (they weren’t originally). The huge X-shaped communal table has been broken up into several smaller ones. On a prior visit, a hostess insisted that I sit at the counter, even though the tables were almost all empty. Now, no one sits at that counter.
If this is American, it’s not any particular idiom you’ll recognize. Chang has long claimed to serve “American food” at all of his restaurants. It has never really been true, except in the loosest sense.
Remnants of the former approach remain. There are still chopsticks at every table, even though they’re not needed for any of the food, and they’re hardly usable for most of it. You’ll have to ask for silverware.
The menu is divided into several categories: “Raw” ($15–18), Small Plates ($13–18), Large Plates ($29–32), “For Two” ($40, $75), and Vegetables ($10–14). The server rather unhelpfully suggested 1½ to 2½ dishes per person, which is a rather wide range of the amount of food and what you’ll pay. We erred on the lower end of that range.
Portions are rather dainty, and a couple might even be considered insulting.
Half-a dozen oysters (above left) were $20. A sliver of cheese (above center) was $6, and so were bread and butter (above right). That butter was a superb specimen, one of two kinds offered. They could serve it at Per Se. The bread, warm and crunchy, was wonderful, and seconds came out without extra charge. But in the context of the prices here, it should come with dinner.
Trout ($15; above left) and Soft Shell Crab ($18; above center) were small but acceptable portions. Duck ($32; above right) was downright offensive, with just three modest slices. It was all pretty good, but portioned for a health spa. A solo diner could have placed our order, and gone home hungry. Our party of three shared it, with no indication from staff that it was on the light side.
Servers are generally more casually dressed than the customers. In fact, there seems to be no staff dress code at all: t-shirts, torn cutoff jeans, you name it. I don’t personally care what the staff wear, but the approach here doesn’t quite fit the neighborhood.
And at a restaurant where the bill can easily soar above $100 a head, can’t they do better than a stack of DIY paper napkins on each table? What’s with serving martinis in juice glasses? Even the server couldn’t help but be embarrassed: “Sorry, we don’t have martini glasses.”
Service was eager and friendly—but not fast, attentive, or competent. We were warned that plates would come out family style. The oysters, bread, cheese, and trout, appeared with alacrity, but we waited about 30 minutes for the last two plates, as our order was stuck behind a “large format” dinner (10 people, $450, for lamb, chicken, and veggies).
We were ignored for long stretches: plates weren’t promptly cleared or replaced. No one noticed we were ready for a fresh round of drinks. When we finally ordered those drinks, they didn’t come out until we were done eating. There didn’t seem to be any hierarchy in the dining room: you’ll give your order to one server, and then another asks again.
For all that, there are the bones of a good restaurant at Má Pêche. This was my fifth visit, and if it lasts long enough I’ll probably go again. The food, although overpriced, is pretty good. Poor service can change with the day of the week, and the staff clearly want to be helpful, when they can and know how to do so.
I don’t have much hope for Má Pêche. It looks like David Chang is just phoning it in.
Má Pêche (15 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)
Food: An American/Asian mash-up with excellent American-sourced ingredients Service: Eager but inattentive and poorly organized Ambiance: A striking, high-ceilinged dining room; casual, perhaps to a fault
Rating: ★ Why? Food is better than the West Midtown average, although over-priced
Very soon, “gastropub” may need to join “locavore,” “sustainable, and “New American,” among restaurant terms so overused that they are almost meaningless.
The OED says that a gastropub is “A public house which specializes in serving high-quality food.” And what does that mean? It takes Pubology a whole blog post to decide.
The Toucan and The Lion, which opened late last year, claims to be a “Gastropub…with an Asian twist.” I agree with Pubology that, to be a gastropub, you have to be a pub first, and this is not a pub. It’s a restaurant.
But it does have a bar, where cocktails get much more attention than beer or wine. Michael Cecconi, formerly of Savoy, wrote the cocktail menu, which “draw[s] inspiration from the British East Indies.”
Sidle up for the likes of The Toucan ($10; yamazaki whisky, house rendered vermouth, angostura bitters), The Lion ($10; kaffir ginger infused rum, lime, simple syrup, sriracha), the Eastern Hospitality ($12; Gordon’s gin, lemon, house made pineapple shrub, vanilla essence), or the Thai Fighter ($11; Ezra Brooks bourbon, thai basil leaves, lime, yuzu, simple syrup). They’re all enjoyable, well made, and a good three or four dollars less than you’d pay elsewhere.
The dining room is striking in its minimalism, though a bit cold on a winter evening. It’s all white, except for the oak floors and terrariums built into the light fixtures. But it was empty at 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday evening, which could be why the owners invited us to visit on their dime.
The chef here is Justin Fertitta, formerly of Jane. The menu is in the same British–Asian fusion genre as the cocktails, and fairly inexpensive, though not as inventive. There are eight items called “Shares” ($9–16), though you and I would call them appetizers; just five mains ($16–22), and five sides ($3–6).
A lot of these dishes have the distinct feel of a snack. They complement the cocktails, rather than being substantial attractions in their own right. The Toucan and The Lion becomes a place to tide you over to the main event, or to wind up your evening after you’ve been somewhere else.
Pork Ribs ($12; above left) in an espresso glaze were probably the best dish we tried. Duck Confit Mofongo ($14; above right) was somewhat forgettable, though you can never go wrong with a fried egg on top.
Meatballs ($9; above left) are a beef/pork mix in a tangy curry sauce. Goat Pot Pie ($22; above right) didn’t resemble any pot pie I am familiar with. The goat was tender and the curry sauce was just fine, but perhaps the curry/chili theme is overdone on this menu.
I usually skip dessert, but there was no way I could pass on Bacon Sweet Potato Donuts with a coconut glaze. This could become a destination dish, if the right people hear about it. Some will say that bacon is for breakfast, but this dish tries mightily to disprove that, and in our view succeeded. Bacon lovers unite!
It is certainly worth dropping in for the excellent cocktails, and you won’t do badly with any of the share dishes or the bacon donuts. I do think the entrée menu could use more of the depth and variety that will attract serious diners and keep them coming back.
The Toucan & The Lion (342 E. 6th St. near First Avenue, East Village)
For all of my complaints about New York Times restaurant critics, I typically can’t make much use of their advice—even when they are right. By the time they get around to reviewing a place, there’s usually enough press that I have a pretty good sense of what is going on, even if I haven’t already been there myself (which I often have).
Wong was different. It was totally off my radar until Pete Wells gave it an enthusiastic two stars, three weeks ago. I went to the restaurant on his say-so, and ordered the dishes he recommended. I almost never do that.
Ya know what? He’s right. Wong is a great restaurant.
The chef, Simpson Wong, is Malaysian. His cuisine purports to be “Asian locavore,” although many of the dishes defy ready classification. Naan bread (left), served before the meal, seems to be the main nod to India; and I saw nothing Japanese.
The menus seem to be freshly printed, and the staff eagerly assure you that “97 percent” of the menu, including even the beers and wines, is sourced locally (and of course, sustainable, seasonal, yada yada yada). I have never visited Wong’s earlier restaurants—the now-closed Jefferson or the still-open Café Asean—so I have no basis for comparison.
There isn’t a huge selection, which for an Asian restaurant is unusual. I find it admirable that the chef focuses on a few things he does well. There are just eight appetizers ($9–15), eight rice dishes and entrées ($17–31), three sides ($6–7), and three desserts ($8–10).
About half the dishes are marked with a stylized “W”, indicating that they’re house specialities. This silly custom ought to be abandoned: either serve a dish proudly, or not at all.
Hakka Pork Belly ($13.50; above left) is as good a pork dish as you’ll find; it shares the plate with little tater tots made from taro root. Sea Scallops ($15; above right), as Wells noted, come with little deep-fried duck tongue fritters that steal the show.
Cha Ca La Wong ($17; above), Wells tells us, is a pun on a famous Hanoi restaurant, Cha Ca La Vong, where the only dish served consists of rice noodles and partly-cooked fish that you finish yourself at the table. The version here comes fully cooked in a sizzling cast-iron skillet; the fish is Hake, topped with tumeric (a kind of ginger), just slightly spicy.
Lobster Egg Foo Yong ($24; above) is a tour de force, not at all resembling the traditional dish that many Chinese restaurants serve. This winning combination of lobster claw, leeks, shrimp crumble, and two fried duck eggs, is an early candidate for dish of the year.
We don’t usually order dessert but had to try the Duck à la Plum ($9.50; above), with the incredible roast duck ice cream, plum sake, and a crispy tuile 5-spice cookie.
Wells complained about the minimal wine list, but the white wine we tried, a Rhone-inspired Patelin de Tablas Blanc, paired well with the food, and was reasonably priced, at $39. (The server called it a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which might be a stretch, though I see what he means.)
Crowds at Wong have picked up since the Wells review came out. It wasn’t quite full on a Thursday evening, but our reservation was fairly early. And yes, they do take reservations, a welcome rarity these days for restaurants of this kind.
Service, in fact, is a strength here, with plates and silverware promptly cleared and replaced after every course Chopsticks come in an attractive woven leather sleeve, and are better than the disposable kind most Asian restaurants give out. Staff understand the menu and give sensible ordering advice.
But there is nowhere to hang coats, and the space is not at all comfortable. We got a seat at the so-called “chef’s table” (really a bar) facing the open kitchen, which is preferable to the cramped and closely-spaced tables. Wherever you sit, you’ll be on a chair or a stool so diabolically uncomfortable that you’d think David Chang was an investor.
Despite that, Wong is one of the most original restaurants to have opened in New York in quite a while. I would suffer its uncomfortable stools to have more, please.
Wong (7 Cornelia Street near W. 4th Street, West Village)
Note:Fatty ’Cue (West Village) closed in May 2014. Fatty ’Cue (Williamsburg) and Fatty Crab (UWS) had closed previously, after founder Zak Pelaccio left the company. The West Village Fatty Crab is the only remaining member of the brood.
*
Zak Pelaccio’s brood of of Fatty Restaurants has now hit five with the arrival of a second Fatty ’Cue in the West Village, a slightly more upscale version of the the popular Williamsburg joint.
If there’s a sense of monotony and a lack of range, it’s offset by Pelaccio’s uncanny sense for tailoring his restaurants to the neighborhoods they’re in. Pelaccio and his P.R. manager told Sam Sifton that this Fatty would offer “a slightly more grown-up menu and service style. . . .” Sifton added, “the seating will be comfortable and cozy, he said, and the room ‘will be quieter.’”
That’s all true. No one would call any Pelaccio restaurant formal, but the new Fatty ’Cue is more upscale than the UWS Fatty Crab, and considerably more grown-up than the original Fatty Crab or the Williamsburg ’Cue. It takes reservations and isn’t marred by the occasionally amateurish service that plagues the other locations.
At least, that’s my sense after two visits last week to a restaurant that is not yet a fortnight old. If they can keep it up, this could be the most enjoyable of the lot.
The cuisine is the same Southeast Asia-meets-barbecue theme of the Williamsburg restaurant, but there are very few dishes in common. The menu is in five sections, lightest to heaviest, though to call anything light here would be a bit of a joke. Plates range from $9 to $48, but most are under $20 and are suitable for sharing.
On my first visit, I ordered two dishes. This was the first time in my experience that a Fatty kitchen actually seemed to understand the concept of pacing a meal. Until now, Pelaccio’s restaurants were known for sending out food at the kitchen’s convenience, not the diner’s. Have they learned a lesson, or did I just get lucky?
I loved the Heirloom Tomato Salad ($13; above left) with pepper, fresh coriander, charcoal, and olive oil, resting in a pool of kimchi water. This is a typical late summer dish, but the spices and seasoning seemed just right. Heritage Pork Ribs ($12; above right) were juicy and enormous. One might complain at paying $6 a rib, but I couldn’t have eaten much more.
On my second visit, I ordered just one item: Deep-Fried Bacon ($18; above) with sweet and spicy salsa verde. It’s hard to come up with a bacon dish I don’t like, so bear that in mind when I tell you this one is excellent. The bacon is tender, with a crunchy crust from the fryer. Non-bacon addicts might be advised to share this one with a friend, but I was happy to eat it myself.
There’s a modest beer and wine selection, but I stuck with cocktails. The Chupacabra ($12; tequila, chili-infused domaine de canton, fresh watermelon, lime) and the Smokin’ Bone ($13; bourbon, smoked pineapple, lime, chocolate bitters, tabasco) both pair well with the food. I’m especially fond of the latter.
I sat at the bar both times. On Wednesday at about 6:30 p.m., the restaurant wasn’t at all crowded. At the same time on Friday, I got the last free bar stool, and the hostess was quoting walk-in waits of an hour or more for tables. Service was the best I’ve had at any Fatty establishment. The bartenders were knowledgeable about the food and happy to explain the odd combinations of ingredients at length.
I don’t want to over-sell Fatty ’Cue, but in the early days it is the most enjoyable Fatty restaurant I’ve been to, with both food and service a cut above its brethren.
Fatty ’Cue (50 Carmine St. between Bedford & Bleecker Sts., West Village)
This has happened to all of us: you get to the restaurant, and the host asks you to wait at the bar until your party is complete.
What happened last night at Double Crown took arrogance and audacity to new heights. When I arrived, the host said:
Your guest is here. She went to the ladies’ room. When she gets back, I’ll take you to your table. Feel free to wait at the bar.
This was in a practically empty dining room.
In a busy, casual restaurant, I respect the policy of not seating incomplete parties. Why should the host keep someone else waiting, while I sit at a half-empty table, waiting for guests who may never show up, or who could be considerably delayed?
But Double Crown wasn’t busy, and my date had arrived. Asking me to wait at the bar in that situation is beyond absurd.
Beyond that was a loud sound track that made pleasant conversation difficult; a hackneyed faux Asian décor phoned in by the folks of AvroKO, who’ve done better work elsewhere; and a Vongerichten lite fusion menu that seems to have lost its focus since Frank Bruni awarded two grade-inflated stars in 2008.
The website claims that, “Double Crown explores the aesthetic and culinary dualities arising from the British Empire’s forays into Southeast Asia.” The British influences have disappeared, assuming they existed in the first place. What we have now is pan-Asian miscellany, filtered through an East Village twenty-something comfort food lens.
At least it is not terribly expensive. Most appetizers are $13 or less, most entrées $27 or less. Cocktails were $12, including a great chipotle sour made with three kinds of whisky. That passes for a bargain in Manhattan these days. Bread service (below left) was pretty good too, with two kinds of rolls and soft butter.
A whole braised short rib for two, served on the bone ($44; above right), and coated with an unspecified spice mix, was tender and flavorful, but short rib is hard to mess up if you braise it long enough. I realize that braised meats are prepared long in advance, but this came out literally five minutes after we ordered it—before the wine was poured, in fact. It came with a decent Asian mushroom salad.
The wine list, printed on the back of the menu, is a grab bag with no particular focus. There’s an ample selection of inexpensive bottles, or you can go into the triple digits for bottles that I couldn’t imagine drinking with this food. A 2007 Weninger Zweigelt at $36 was one of the more enjoyable inexpensive bottles I’ve seen in quite some time.
The server kept the wine on a counter away from the table, and I wondered if she’d be attentive enough to keep our glasses charged. Surprisingly, she was. But after the wine was finished, and we wanted our bill, she was nowhere to be seen.
When Double Crown opened, the Bowery was just beginning to sow its oats as a dining destination. Nowadays, if you’re in the area, Pulino’s, DBGB, or Peels are all better bets. And if you have a hankering for Chef Brad Farmerie’s best work, Michelin-starred Public and The Monday Room aren’t far away.
Those are all better options than Double Crown.
Double Crown (316 Bowery at Bleecker Street, NoLIta/East VIllage)
Food: Satisfactory Service: Uneven Ambiance: Loud and Hackneyed Overall: No Stars
You are not going to believe this review. I am writing from experience. Publish a favorable review of a restaurant totally off the media radar, and people say, “It just can’t be that good. This blogger doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
No one, I think, will dispute that the room is beautiful, and the panoramic view over Central Park is perhaps the city’s best. Asiate is perennially at the top of the Zagat rating for décor, with 29 out of 30 points. (It gets 24 points for food and 25 for service, both well above average.)
But it is completely off the food media radar. Asiate doesn’t even try to get attention. Between hotel guests and those lured by lofty Zagat ratings, the restaurant doesn’t need any help: it was close to full on a Tuesday evening.
After the initial round of reviews in 2004, Asiate received practically no media mentions I’m aware of, aside from a review eighteen months ago by Alan Richman in QG. He was peeved—as I certainly would have been—when he requested a window table, called back to confirm he’d be getting one, and was still not seated near the window. (Besides that, he thought Asiate “in some ways . . . excellent.”)
Nothing like that happened to us: we were offered the choice and chose the window. Who wouldn’t?
The name—pronounced AH–zee–ott—suggests a vaguely Asian theme, translated as Western produce with pan-Asian spices and accents. Once upon a time, it would have been called Asian fusion, before that term went out of fashion. The opening chef is long gone. Brandon Kida is the current chef de cuisine. Although he’s been there from the restaurant’s inception, the menu is much changed from the one I wrote about in 2005. There’s no sign of the nouvelle cuisine that Amanda Hesser hated.
Asiate charges three-star prices: $85 for a three-course prix fixe, or $125 for an eight-course tasting menu. The tasting menu, which we had, is the better deal, in that it includes three dishes that normally carry supplements, albeit smaller portions of them.
It’s almost evil to plop down a dozen warm gougères(above left) in front of two hungry people. The bread service (above right) is very good, but the butter was cold.
The amuse bouche (above left) is a dainty fruit sphere, which explodes in your mouth. The first course (above right) was a quintet of tartares and crudi.
“Buckwheat and Eggs” (above left) is, I assume, a miniature version of an appetizer with the identical description that carries an $85 supplement on the prix fixe menu. It was also the evening’s best dish: soba noodles, Osetra caviar, and uni cream, all in superb balance.
Balance, indeed, torpedoed the next dish (above right), with a scallop, blue prawn, and crab meat. The individual ingredients were well prepared, but there was no idea that brought them together.
Sea Bass (above left) was beautifully done, complemented by a lovely ginger consommé. Butter poached lobster (above right) was slightly tough, and the accompanying vegetables had a grab-bag quality. (Compare the version of it that we had at Ai Fiori, which was much better.) But the same dish has disappointed me at Per Se, too.
Wagyu beef tenderloin (above left) can always be counted on for default luxury, and it was indeed excellent—perfect, really. The vegetables, again, had that grab bag quality.
Why serve one dessert when you can serve five (above right)? They were all good (if unremarkable), perhaps topped by the carrot cake (top left in the photo). And as it was my friend’s birthday, an extra piece of cake was on the house.
The wine list is a hefty tome and would repay repeated visits, if for no other reason. A 1981 Eitels Riesling was $95, which struck me as a very good price. (Afterward, I saw the 1990 vintage on the web at $60.)
Service in the dining room was excellent, once we were seated. But as Richman reported two years ago, the staff seem to have trouble finding you in the adjoining bar, even when you’ve checked in and told them you’re there. Service at said bar is too slow, bearing in mind the $19 tariff for a cocktail. But I loved the one I had, the Baby Buddha (Hendrick’s gin, fresh cucumber, cilantro, sake).
A tasting menu that offers Asiate’s greatest hits might not be typical of the average diner’s experience, ordering off of the prix fixe. But this was certainly a very good meal, one I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.
Asiate (Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street, 35th floor)
Monday, October 21, 2013 at 07:50PM 
Marc Forgione has made the transition awfully quickly. I mean, from chef to restaurateur.
;)
