This weekend, we took a break from New York City to head out to the North Fork of Long Island, where my girlfriend grew up. On our culinary tour, first up was The Frisky Oyster in Greenport. The restaurant has been open since 2001, and has received generally glowing reviews (New York Times, Newsday).

Despite the name, seafood accounts for only about 40% of the menu, which changes daily. Indeed, when we asked our server for ordering advice, she said that several entrees and appetizers were new that day, and she hadn’t tried them yet.

The vaguely New American menu has some standard-issue favorites (steak frites; beet and goat cheese salad), but more than a few dishes that combine ingredients in unexpected ways: cannelloni with goat cheese cream; scallops with eggplant purée. 

The space has comfortable tables and banquettes, and there’s a lively bar scene in the front of the restaurant. The flowery red wallpaper is a bit gaudy, but the restaurant feels warmer in person than the photo above would suggest. The dining room is on the loud side, with solid surfaces and uncarpeted floors that allow the sound to reverberate.

The vibe feels very much like the West Village, and we surmised that most of the clientele were from out of town. Prices are high by local standards, but visitors from Manhattan will feel at home, with appetizers $9–15 and entrees $25–35.

 
Oysters ‘Friskafella’ (left); Lobster and Corn Quesadilla (right)

Several reviews mentioned that The Frisky Oyster often has no oysters on the menu, but on Friday night they were present and accounted for. I started with the Oysters ‘Friskafella’ ($15), a play on the old classic, Oysters Rockefeller, made here with spinach, garlic and chipotle, and covered with a sheet of parmesan.

My girlfriend had the Lobster and Corn Quesedilla ($15).

 
Halibut with “clams oreganata” (left); Striped Bass (right)

I was especially impressed with the entrees, which can often be a letdown. Both fish we tried were impeccable. Halibut ($28) was topped with Clams Oreganata (crushed clams, bread crumbs, oregano, parsley, mint), on a bed of asparagus. The combination worked perfectly. My girlfriend had the Striped Bass ($28) with an artichoke, potato, shitake ragout.

The wine list is brief and eclectic. Naturally we wanted a Long Island wine, so I chose the Macari 2002 Meritage Bergen Road ($55). This is a Bordeaux-style blend, which I find is more dependable than the Long Island wines that rely upon a single grape. This one had matured nicely, and it wasn’t too overbearing to be enjoyed with fish.

We’ve heard reports of service issues at this restaurant, including long waits for food. That didn’t happen to us, but there were only two servers for the whole dining room (more than half full), and it could be a very different story during the high summer season.

Even if you do have to wait, it is well worth it for seafood so beautifully prepared.

The Frisky Oyster (27 Front Street near Main Street, Greenport, Long Island)

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

 

Recently, a friend suggested dinner in the iconic Oyster Bar & Restaurant at Grand Central Terminal. I’d never dined there, and I suppose this is one of those experiences—like a walk in Central Park—that everyone must have, at least once. The walk in Central Park is an experience you’ll more likely repeat. Here, the fabled Guastavino ceiling is instantly impressive, but I don’t understand why they spoil the atmosphere with red-and-white checked tablecloths that would look cheesy even in Red Lobster.

Oyster Bar’s Long MenuThe Oyster Bar has been around since 1913. I didn’t do an exhaustive search for reviews, but I noted that Bryan Miller of the Times awarded one star in 1989, and William Grimes demoted it to Fair (two notches below one star) in 2002. Miller noted an earlier two-star review in 1985, which I didn’t try to find. Its most recent write-up was a Diner’s Journal piece by Sam Sifton in May 2004, after a strike had shuttered the restaurant for 112 days during the preceding winter and spring, finding a bit more to like than Grimes did.

The menu is about three times longer than it should be. Reprinted daily, it comes on a broadsheet that takes about 20 minutes to read. No restaurant could possibly offer so many items, and expect to excel at all of them. A month of dinners at the Oyster Bar wouldn’t be sufficient to get through it all.

Both Grimes and Sifton agreed that the bar is superior to the tables, but we were ignorant of that advice, and sat in the dining room (which, in any case, was better suited to our party of three).

 

While we waited for the third in our party to arrive, my friend and I shared the completely forgettable Fried Oysters with Tartar Sauce ($8.95; above left). The Smokehouse Sampler ($23.95; above right) features Atlantic Salmon, Pacific Sturgeon, Brook Trout, horseradish cream and capers. Once again, I was struck by the blandness of it.

One of my friends ordered the New England Clam Chowder ($5.75), which she loved. The other ordered the Trio of Cheeses ($8; pictured left), which he enjoyed. There are probably some wonderful things among the 100+ choices at the Oyster Bar, but I wouldn’t recommend either of the ones I tried.

Service was not particularly attentive, but everything we ordered came out fairly quickly. There are some unusual bottled beers, and in his review Grimes had good things to say about the wine list. We contented ourselves with some port after dinner.

Oyster Bar & Restaurant (Lower Level, Grand Central Terminal, East Midtown)

Food: Bland
Service: Acceptable
Ambiance: It’s a train station
Overall: Ho-hum

 

It’s hard to know when you can trust Frank Bruni. He seems to give a one-star premium just because a restaurant is Italian. And he seems to give a one-star premium wherever Mario Batali is involved. In just three years on the job, he has awarded nine stars to Mario Batali’s restaurants, a remarkable total.

So when Frank Bruni promoted Esca to three stars (his predecessor had awarded two), I had to wonder: was it really that good? Or was Frank just up to his usual mischief? Luckily, there was a parade of almost exclusively favorable comments on the eGullet boards, which persuaded me that I really must try Esca.

Bruschetta to start

It wasn’t easy. Esca fills up in a hurry. Several times I tried to reserve, only to find that 10:00 p.m. was the only time slot available. And no, I wasn’t that desperate to eat there. Last night, finally, I had an 8:00 p.m. slot. But even in late August, Esca was packed.

I agree with Frank Bruni about one more thing. The key to Esca’s success is that its chef and co-owner, David Pasternack, hasn’t over-extended himself. According to Bruni, whenever he’s called the restaurant for an interview, Pasternack is nearly always there. These days, when a restaurant is as successful as Esca, the chef starts to become an industry. Pasternack has dallied a little, but Esca remains his home.

Esca—the name means bait—introduced crudo, the Italian version of raw fish appetizers, to New York. Bruni, at least, credits Pasternack with the innovation. It was sufficiently obscure that William Grimes, in his 2000 review, had to explain what it meant. Nowadays, it’s all over town.

The menu’s crudo selections are followed by standard appetizers, pastas, and fish entrées. A solitary veal dish is the lone concession to the meat-lover. There’s no obligatory strip steak or roast chicken for the patron who was dragged along, but really doesn’t like seafood. If you can’t or won’t eat sea creatures, there’s probably no point in visiting Esca.

According to the website, the menu changes every two weeks. The menu currently shown there is quite a bit different from the one we saw—and also noticeably less expensive. I don’t know if it’s a very old menu, or if the prices were jacked up after Bruni awarded the third star. Nowadays, I think a restaurant in Esca’s class ought to have a reasonably current menu on its website.

While we pondered our order, a sommelier came over to offer assistance. The wine list is of medium length, and nearly all Italian. There’s an ample number of good options below $60. I asked for a red wine under that figure that would go well with the entrées we were considering. He instantly offered a fine suggestion at $54.

After pouring the first taste, he took the bottle away and put it on a serving table out of sight. Only a few restaurants in New York do this, and I find it a bit annoying. I don’t need someone to pour my wine for me, and I don’t like having to look around to signal for another pour. My request to have the bottle put back under my control was granted without complaint.

 
Orange Marlin (left); Verdura Mista (right)

I started with one of the crudo selections, Orange Marlin ($16). It was perfectly seasoned—just delightful. By the way, the restaurant offers a two-flight crudo tasting for $30 per person, and I’ve made a mental note to try one of these days. My girlfriend started with a salad of Verdura Mista ($16), and the kitchen did a superb job with this deceptively simple dish.

 
Squid ink pasta with cuttlefish and garlic (left); Whole orata (right)

The menu offers about a dozen pasta dishes, orderable as a main course or as a mid-course to split. We shared the Squid ink pasta with cuttlefish and garlic ($24). We were again impressed, as the contrasting flavors seemed to be so perfectly judged.

The menu offers several whole fish, in addition to a larger number of composed dishes. I ordered the Orata ($33), a kind of sea bream, served whole. The preparation was straightforward, but the flesh was tender, sweet, and just slightly lemony. It came off the bone without difficulty. My girlfriend was less impressed with Merluzzo ($34), a kind of cod. She found it a bit dull, and even had to ask for salt to make it more lively—and that is not something she often does.

Biscotti

At Esca, both the space and the service occupy that middle ground between casual and formal that Mario Batali has mastered at his flagship restaurant, Babbo. There are white tablecloths, and an alert service brigade stays on top of things, but you could show up in jeans, and not feel out-of-place.

On the whole, we left Esca quite impressed. Three courses apiece, plus a $54 bottle of wine still came to under $200 before tip, and in this town it’s difficult to get such a good a meal at that price.

Esca (402 W. 43rd Street at Ninth Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen)

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

Note: Wild Salmon closed at the end of 2007, yet another failure for Jeffrey Chodorow.

Wild Salmon is the latest offering from restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow. His China Grill Management empire now spans twenty-five restaurants in ten cities—several of them mini-chains, such as Asia de Cuba and China Grill, both in five cities. The first opened in 1987, so it’s clear he turns them out in a hurry.

He’s also a prolific failure. Just three months ago, Kobe Club received zero stars from Frank Bruni of the Times. It was a replacement for another failure, Mix in New York. Wild Salmon replaces the failed English is Italian, which replaced the failed Tuscan, which replaced the failed Tuscan Steak. Across town, there was the failed Rocco’s (made famous in the TV series The Restaurant) and its successor, the failed Brasserio Caviar and Banana. All gone.

The Upstairs Bar

Wild Salmon, described as “A Pacific N. W. Brasserie,” looks to have a brighter future. A solid and moderately priced seafood restaurant, it should have no trouble drawing on an East Midtown corporate audience looking to eat well, if unadventurously.

Chef Charles Ramsayer, who moved to New York from Seattle, flies in everything he serves from the Pacific Northwest. The menu offers the usual raw bar items, including several varieties of salmon, prepared every conceivable way. Or you can have anything from Penn Cove Mussels ($7) to a huge platter costing $160. Other starters are $11–26.

 
Bread service (left); Smoked scallops cocktail (right)

I started with the Smoked Scallops ($13), served with sour cream & chives and cocktail sauce—a happy riff on the more commonplace shrimp cocktail (also available). The bread was mightily addictive.

The entrée menu offers a range of composed dishes ($21–38), along with an à la carte section where you choose a protein, a cooking method, and a sauce. Just considering the à la carte seafood options (there’s beef too), there are seven fish, five cooking methods, and eight sauces, making for a dizzying array of 280 combinations, before side dishes are considered.

Cedar Planked King Salmon with Meyer Lemon Orange Hollandaise Sauce

The server recommended the Cedar Planked King Salmon with the Meyer Lemon Orange Hollandaise sauce. At $37, it was $10 more than the next most expensive à la carte fish. It certainly was a solid choice, but there are 279 more options, and it could take a decade to try them all. If Wild Salmon lasts that long.

Among the composed entrées, more than one server recommended the Black Cod ($28), but I doubted that Nobu’s version of it could be improved upon, so I took a pass.

Cheesecake

I had cheesecake for dessert ($9), which wasn’t particularly memorable.

The restaurant is still in its first few weeks of business. It was not full at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening. Nevertheless, as one would expect at a Chodorow restaurant, I was firmly commanded to retire to the bar until my girlfriend arrived. It is, at least a comfortable bar that one doesn’t mind retiring to.

Everyone working at Wild Salmon is excited to be there, or at least, they’re putting on a damned good act. Bloomberg reviewer Alan Richman complained that they were too talkative, and I suspect other visitors will too, but we were merely amused. Lines like “We have a plethora of side dishes” or “We have tons of appetizers” aren’t all that helpful.

The wine list is reasonably priced in relation to the rest of the menu. A sommelier came over unbidden and steered us to a terrific pinot noir ($52), and probably not one I would have thought to choose.

The space is attractive and comfortable. Built on two levels, the dining room is downstairs, the bar upstairs. Hundreds of little sculpted salmons hang above the dining room (they reminded Richman of sperm), reminiscent of Kobe Club’s dangling samurai swords. But here, one needn’t worry of imminent death should one of them fall.

We enjoyed our meal, but wouldn’t rush back. We suspect that’ll be Frank Bruni’s verdict, too. The bartender told us that, as far as they knew, Bruni hadn’t been in yet. I suggest they simplify the menu. Frank doesn’t like to have quite so many choices. Neither did we.

Wild Salmon (622 Third Avenue at 40th Street, East Midtown)

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

My girlfriend and I dropped into The Neptune Room for appetizers one night last week.

The press mostly ignored the restaurant after it opened in 2004, aside from Steve Cuozzo of the Post, who awarded 2½ stars. I have to assume that the other critics in town at least tried The Neptune Room, but weren’t enthralled enough to review it.

I do recall having an enjoyable meal there in October 2004, but I wasn’t wrting reviews in those days, and don’t recall the details. That visit was a pre-Lincoln Center dinner, but I suspect Neptune Room doesn’t draw much from that crowd — you have to be a bit of a sleuth to seek out restaurants twenty blocks away from the opera.

At least Neptune Room has survived (never a sure thing on the Upper West Side) — largely, I suspect, on neighborhood traffic. We dropped by at around 6:30 p.m. and found it mostly empty, although for the area this is still early for dinner.

The menu is virtually all seafood, with appetizers $4–15, entrées $19–32, and side dishes $7.

I loved Lobster & Crab Ravioli ($14), with grilled corn, Roma tomatoes, tarragon, and a lobster reduction. The kitchen also did well by Fried Calamari ($12).

I’m not going to issue a formal rating based only on appetizers, but we certainly made a mental note to try The Neptune Room again sometime soon.

The Neptune Room (511 Amsterdam Avenue between 84th & 85th Streets, Upper West Side)

It’s easy to get the idea that all SoHo restaurants are cynical ploys to separate gullible diners from their hard-won cash. That was Frank Bruni’s take when he first visited Lure Fishbar in September 2004, not long after it opened. He awarded one star in a lukewarm January 2005 review, setting a new indoor record for most nautical puns per column inch. But in New York, Hal Rubenstein was “Hooked,” and the Post’s Steve Cuozzo wrote, “This is serious seafood.”

The restaurant was nearly shipwrecked in January 2006, when a fire engulfed the Prada store that occupies the same building. Most of the expensive teak wood was saved, but it still took four months for the interior to be restored. Version 2.0 features a new sushi bar and a remodeled lounge area.

Lure Fishbar’s owners, John McDonald and Josh Pickard, also own Lever House in midtown, which I visited last year. (I wasn’t wowed.) The two restaurants share a similar design idea, but the nautical theme that Lever House only hints at has reached full bloom here, in a subterranean dining room fully transformed into a luxury cruise ship. All of this might seem like a gimmick, but it turns out the food is terrific.

Reservations at Lure Fishbar seem to be readily available any night of the week on OpenTable, so I hadn’t expected it to be quite so crowded. I arrived at about 6:45 p.m. to find a buzzing bar scene. Neither a seat nor any of the bartenders’ attention were to be had. I did finally manage to order a cocktail, but it was so unpleasant (the service, not the drink) that I would not order another. The host had no intention of seating me in the dining room before my friend arrived, so I was left with nothing to do but pace the room. Fortunately, the service got much better after my friend arrived, and we were seated.

As you might guess, the hard wood surfaces reflect sound, and on a Friday night there’s plenty of it. This is not the place for a heart-to-heart chat, and I found myself cupping my ear to hear my friend speak. But for food this good, I’m willing to put up with the inconvenience.

We started with the Bloody Mary Royale ($14) to drink. A standard large Bloody Mary is garnished with a piece of shrimp and a stick of olives. It comes with a shot glass on the side, with more Bloody Mary and an oyster shooter. This must be one of the cleverest drinks in town, and a bargain too, considering that some restaurants have already surpassed the $15 barrier for conventional mixed drinks. (Lure’s other house cocktails are $11.)

The menu is a bit overwhelming, with an extensive raw bar, sushi and sashimi, traditional appetizers, entrees, and side dishes. It is hard to know how much to order. My friend Kelly knew she wanted oysters, scallops, and the salmon tartare; she left the rest up to me. We gave our server a large order, and left the sequencing up to the kitchen.

Four pcs. raw scallops (top left); yellowtail jalapeno roll (center); lobster tempura roll (bottom)

First to come out was a plate of four raw scallops ($3.50 ea.), the yellowtail jalapeno roll ($16), and the lobster tempura roll ($16). All were fresh and beautifully presented, with the jalapeno roll our favorite.

Salmon Tartare / Creamy Horseradish / Salmon Roe / Dill

The chef must be proud of the Salmon Tartare ($16), since it is shown prominently on the restaurant website. That pride is justified, as this is one of the best raw fish dishes I’ve had. The only flaw is that the three small pieces of melba toast were insufficient, so we just dug in with our forks: we weren’t going to let any of this go to waste.

Medium Shellfish Platter (6 oysters, 4 shrimp, 4 clams, 4 stone crab claws, seafood salad)

Three shellfish platters are offered, with the medium platter ($49) being an ample portion for two. There is not much preparation involved here. It comes down to the freshness of the ingredients, and in that respect we could find no fault.

For a restaurant this busy, service was remarkably good. The timing of the courses was just right. Used plates and silverware were promptly cleared and replaced. We were given extra plates for the detritus of our shellfish, which were taken away when full. At the end of our meal, we received warm towels to wash our hands. These are small points, but often overlooked.

I was also impressed with the warm, bread rolls and the soft butter that came with them.

Lure Fishbar is clearly the product of a modern era in which restaurants feel they need eye-popping décor to get noticed. But despite the bar scene and the SoHo crowds, the fresh seafood here is worth the voyage.

Lure Fishbar (142 Mercer Street at Prince Street, SoHo)

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

The raw bar downstairs at BLT Fish

My last visit to BLT Fish left me so utterly disgusted that I vowed to take a long break before I would visit another BLT restaurant. The fish was excellent — how could it not be? — but the service was risible.

In the meantime, Laurent Tourondel continued to expand his BLT empire, with the widely panned BLT Burger here in New York, the forthcoming BLT Market in the former Atelier space, and clones of BLT Steak in several cities. BLT Fish lost its Michelin star this year, confirming the generally held view that Tourondel was too over-extended to mind the store.

Despite all of that, I decided to revisit BLT Fish the other night with my mom, who is visiting from Detroit. This was, by far, the most pleasant of all my visits to the various BLT establishments. The food was superb, and we were blessed with a four-top table set apart from the noisiest part of the restaurant. Service was solid, though this must be taken in the context of the comparatively low grade of service in Tourondel’s restaurants.

 
The bread amuses at BLT Fish

We began with a couple of bread courses. First came crackers with a delicious tuna spread. As usual, the number of crackers was about half as many as needed—a fairly consistent screw-up at the BLT establishments. On the other hand, they are so justifiably proud of their luscious warm bread rolls that they even provide the recipe (see the little “BLT” brochure in the photo).

Grilled Sardines / Caponata / Aged Xeres Vinegar / Basil

The waitstaff at the BLT restaurants are black-belt masters of plumping up the bill. Our server advised that the whole fish we had ordered would take about 25 minutes, so she strongly urged us to order an appetizer to tide us over. Grilled sardines ($12) came perched on crisp toasted bread, but for a dish so likely to be shared, why were there just three of them?

Sea Salt Crusted New Zealand Pink Snapper

The menu offers a number of whole fish, most of them suitable for sharing. They are priced by the pound, which means you really don’t know how much you’ve signed up for until the end. We chose the Pink Snapper grilled in sea salt. After dinner, we were put out of our suspense: it weighed 2.188 pounds, which at $35 per pound came to $76.58. Aren’t you glad you asked?

The fish was presented tableside, then whisked away to be filleted. I would have preferred to watch them do it, though given the tight spacing of the tables, perhaps this would have been impractical. Any of my numerous complaints about the restaurant were completely erased once we started eating: it was simply the most sweet, succulent, tender fish imaginable. Two wonderful sauces came with it, which I’m afraid I can’t recall, but they were pitch-perfect accompaniments.

A two-pound fish is a lot for two people to eat, but when it’s this good you find a way to finish it. Had we bulked up on appetizers and side dishes, as our server advised, the snapper might have sufficed for three. When we thought we were done, the server returned to serve the tender, delicate “cheeks” from the fish head. It was an impressive encore.

At BLT restaurants, vegetables and starches are always à la carte. Our sever advised ordering two or three of these, which at $8–9 apiece can quickly add up. I was prepared for this bad advice, based on past visits. Although the side dishes are uniformly terrific, you almost never finish them. One is normally enough. We had the Sautéed Garlic Spinach ($9), which was just right.

After dinner, the server brought a small plate of petits-fours. But why only three of them, for a table of two people? A large clump of green cotton candy was too cloyingly sweet to be tolerated for more than a couple of bites.

Many other aspects of the service remain peculiar. The menu is a cheap, loose sheet of paper, which I’m sure doesn’t last much more than a day. So why must there be a separate sheet of paper listing the raw bar selections and daily specials? And why is only one copy of that sheet distributed, when there are two diners? We observed this at other tables, so I know it wasn’t just a mistake.

About the wine list there can be no complaint. Here, as at the other BLT restaurants, they take the wine program seriously. We were perfectly happy with a $45 bottle of Beaujolais, which was served (as it should be) slightly below room temperature.

With a critic installed at the Times who positively abhores traditional formality, I suppose Laurent Tourondel has perfectly captured the mood of the age. Even Frank Bruni couldn’t quite forgive the conceit of sacrificing a restroom for an open kitchen, one of the more boneheaded restaurant design decisions of recent years. But Bruni was smitten with the food, awarding three stars. For food alone, that is the correct verdict. You have to be willing to put up with some annoying conceits, but on this occasion it was well worth it.

BLT Fish (21 W. 17th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues, Flatiron District)

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

The idea behind Fresh is simple enough. Eric Tevrow, the owner, also owns Early Morning Seafood, which supplies the fish to “every four star and several three and two star restaurants in the city.” So in 2002 he opened his own place in TriBeCa, scoring two stars from Eric Asimov in the Times. Shore, a casual New England-style fish shack, followed in 2004, and Coast a year or so after that.

I paid enjoyable visits to Fresh and Shore a couple of years ago, and to Coast a while later. Shore and Coast were saddled with abysmal locations, and both failed. Fresh still seems to be holding its own. It was perhaps a shade over half full on a recent Thursday evening, with what appeared to be a mix of business diners, families, and romantic couples.

A Ceviche of Artic Char ($12) was uncomplicated, with the lively—well, freshness of the fish—allowed to speak for itself. The excellent Pumpkin Seed Crusted Flounder ($27) took the opposite approach. It came plated in a tower  (à la Gotham Bar and Grill) on a bed of chanterelles and butternut squash, and all of the ingredients worked well together. My mom was pleased with Spicy Seafood Stew ($31)—not all that spicy, she said. My girlfriend had the English Batter-fried Haddock ($21), an upscale fish-and-chips that was somewhat misplaced at this type of restaurant; she said it was soggy, and wondered how such a simple dish could be the one they screwed up.

The décor at Fresh somewhat over-plays the seafood theme, with its wicker chairs and blue-tinged walls, suggesting a Caribbean resort with faded charms. But there is nothing at all faded about the excellent seafood, which is why I’ll be going back to Fresh. Service is efficient, and tables are generously spaced, making for a sedate atmosphere that is increasingly rare in Manhattan. Be sure to order one of the specialty martinis, which come in funky glasses with curved stems that are unlike anything I’ve seen.

Fresh (105 Reade Street between West Broadway and Church Street, TriBeCa)

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

Note: After this review was written, Executive Chef Cornelius Gallagher left Oceana. Ben Pollinger replaced him. The restaurant plans to move to the McGraw-Hill Building in Rockefeller Center after its current lease expires in July 2009. Gray Kunz is said to be eyeing the space, possibly for a re-launch of Café Gray, which will be closing in the Time-Warner Center in June 2008.

I am mindful of restaurants’ tendency to over-charge and under-perform on special occasions. (Picholine on New Year’s Eve was my latest experience of that kind.) At the venerable seafood palace Oceana on Valentine’s Day I am happy to say that we were not disappointed, although I suspect it is possible to have a better meal there than we had.

For Valentine’s Day, Oceana pared its cuisine down to a six-course tasting menu priced at $125:

Smoked Cod Chowder
Virginia Ham, New Potatoes, Pepperjack Cheese

Crisp Iceberg Lettuce
Marinated Vegetables and Bacon-Buttermilk Dressing

Duck and Pistachio Terrine
Frisee, Cornichon, Mustard and an Apple-Onion Marmalade

Steamed Halibut
Spaghetti Squash, Edamame, Lotus Nuts, Kaffir Fish Tea

Loup de Mer in an Almond Tea Crust
Baby Bok Choy and a Jura Wine Emulsion
                                       or
Short Rib of Beef Braised in Red Wine
Winter Vegetables, Fingerling Potatoes Garlic-Herb Beef Jus

Valentine’s Day Dessert Sampler
Sarsaparilla Ice Cream Soda, Banana Strudel,
Warm Chocolate Tart, Blood Orange Sorbet

You’ll note that the only decision for the diner was Loup de Mer or Short Ribs for the fifth course. (Anyone who’d come to Oceana and order short ribs needs to have his head examined.) I do realize the need for restaurants to simplify on such a busy night, but I think a professional kitchen could offer more variety than that.

The smoked cod chowder, the duck & pistachio terrine, and the loup de mer—a house specialty—were all superb. I especially would have liked more of the cod chowder and the loup de mer. That’s always the drawback of a tasting menu: no matter how good a dish may be, it’s gone in a few bites.

My friend wasn’t fond of the iceberg lettuce salad, although I thought it was just fine, if unmemorable. For me, the low point was the steamed halibut, which was dry and had left all of its taste in the poaching pan.

The desserts were first-rate. I could have done without the sarsaparilla ice cream soda (basically melted ice cream that you sipped with a straw), but I can’t complain about one dud when they give you a four-item sampler.

Paired wines would have been another $100 a person. Here my rip-off alert went into high gear. For well under that figure, one can select a superb white from Oceana’s long wine list, and come home with cash to spare. Oceana also has a fine selection of half-bottles, and you could even sample a few of those without spending as much as the house wine pairing. As it was a work night for both of us, we settled for cocktails followed by a half-bottle of chardonnay ($38), with which we were delighted.

Including beverages, tax, and tip, the meal came to $398. Nobody would call that inexpensive, but for a three-star restaurant on Valentine’s Day, it was one of the better special-occasion meals I’ve had.

Oceana (55 E. 54th Street between Madison & Park Avenues, East Midtown)

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

Note: Click here for a more recent review of BLT Fish.

I returned to BLT Fish last night with one of the two colleagues who joined me there last May.

Andrea Strong reported yesterday that Laurent Tourondel’s next venture is a branch of BLT Steak in Washington, D.C. Based on last night’s performance, Mr. Tourondel needs to spend more time minding the store back home. Two years into the experiment, the BLT schtick is starting to wear awfully thin.

I believe BLT restaurants aspire to serve three-star food, and there is at least a colorable argument that they do so. Why, then, are they so determined to dumb down the ambiance? Naturally, the noise level is almost deafening. The menu is printed on loose sheets of paper, plus a separate loose sheet itemizing the raw bar, plus a separate loose sheet with “highlights” of the wine list, plus the wine list itself in a leather-bound book.

All of those loose sheets are obviously printed cheaply, and not meant to last. So you’d at least like to think that they are up-to-date, but alas, they are not. The waiter recites a long list of specials. It is black truffle season, and several of the specials include that ingredient, but it’s more extra information than I can keep in my head, so I order off the printed menu. (I also presume, given the BLT franchise’s propensity for upselling, that those truffle specials are more expensive than the rest of the menu, but our server doesn’t mention prices.)

To start, we ordered a pound of Alaskan king crab legs to share. For the entrée, I ordered the Alaskan black cod with honey glazing, while my colleague ordered a Chatham cod special that the server had mentioned. We also ordered two side dishes (mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts).

A long wait ensued. My colleague saw a tray of crab legs on the kitchen counter. He thought, “Surely those must be ours.” Ten or fifteen minutes went by, but those crab legs remained on the counter, unclaimed. Finally, we asked our server what was going on. A team of BLT staff now descended on us with the crab legs, our entrées, and the side dishes—all at once.

But it gets worse than that. Instead of an order of the Alaskan black cod and the Chatham cod, the kitchen had prepared two orders of the Alaskan black cod. My colleague pointed out the slip. After a conference, the staff announced that they were all out of the Chatham cod—a daily special, I remind you—but would he like the halibut? Well, what could he say? I ate my Alaskan black cod, and he snacked on the crab legs, while they prepared the halibut. Later on, he ate the halibut while I watched.

You’d think they couldn’t mess up anything more, but they managed it. The server forgot to offer us a bread service. The crab legs came without the usual miniature forks for prizing the meat out of the shell. The side dishes arrived without serving spoons. The amuses-bouches came with disposable wooden forks—they can’t run the dishwasher?

Earlier on, they had taken my coat, and promised to return with a claim ticket. The claim ticket never arrived. When I left, we had to turn on the bright lights in the check room and rummage around for my coat. Luckily, the place wasn’t packed. And luckily, I had a distinctive scarf that set my gray wool coat apart from the many others like it.

To their credit, the staff was aware of the more egregious of their sins, and tried to make amends. We were served dessert wines for free, and my colleague’s entrée was taken off the bill. But of other sins the restaurant is apparently out-of-touch: the cheap outdated paper menus, missing/wrong utensils, and so forth.

For all that, the food was great. I would happily eat the honey-glazed Alaskan black cod every day. The side dishes were wonderful, as they always are at BLT restaurants. Dessert (bread pudding) was excellent. The sommelier was knowledgeable, and recommended a terrific pinot noir.

But service and ambiance count, and the lapses here were too many to forgive. Laurent Tourondel’s cuisine deserves a far better setting.

BLT Fish (21 W. 17th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

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