Otto

Otto (pronounced “Oh–Toe”) is the most casual of the Mario Batali–Joseph Bastianich series of restaurants. There is a large bar area (the Enoteca) that serves wine and bar food, and a dining area with table seating.

The name of the website (ottopizzeria.com) indicates the restaurant’s theme. The menu is dominated by eighteen kinds of pizza ($7–15), both “classics” and house creations. Antipasti include a wide variety of cheese, crudo, and salads. Only six pastas are offered (all $9). The place is family-friendly, and I saw many tables with children.

As I wasn’t very hungry, I ordered only the Penne con Noci e Zucca, with hazelnuts, butternut squash, and smoked ricotta. It was prepared with a light touch, with the flavors pleasurably balanced.

Service was slow, although at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon there was no good reason for it. After I sat down, there was a long pause before anyone came to my table; another long pause before water came; another before bread. The pasta also took its sweet time to arrive. The only thing the staff did quickly was to deposit a bill after I was finished.

The bread service consisted of two slices of baked Italian bread wrapped in wax paper, and bread sticks still in their commercial wrapper. I think a server was supposed to pour some olive oil onto a plate for dipping, but none arrived.

Otto must have the most serious wine program of any pizzeria. The wine list is substantial, and there are regular wine tasting classes on offer. I have some trouble imagining who orders the $375 Barolo to go with their $14 pizza. Indeed, quite a bit of the wine list seemed over-priced in relation to the menu, but who am I to question Mario Batali?

A review based on one dish can only be provisional, but Otto is clearly a cut above most pizzerias, and the food prices are quite reasonable. With the money you save, you can do some serious supping on the wine list.

Otto (1 Fifth Avenue, entrance on E. 8th Street, Greenwich Village)

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

Blue Hill

Monday night was the final stop of my culinary mini-tour with my Mom, who was visiting from Detroit. I chose Blue Hill, an iconic New York restaurant that you simply wouldn’t find anywhere else. As we were chatting, it occurred to me that Fleur de Sel, which we visited on Sunday night, is clearly the better restaurant, but you could find it anywhere; Blue Hill could only be in New York.

New York’s Adam Platt coined the phrase “haute barnyard,” referring to restaurants that self-consciously define themselves with a reliance on locally-sourced seasonal ingredients. Blue Hill fulfills that ideal better than any. The cooking is impeccable and technically precise, although to some tastes it may seem a bit bland.

I started with the Stone Barns Greens Ravioli ($12), made with ricotta, zucchini puree, pancetta, and lettuce. There wasn’t much zing in this dish; its only point was to show that you can turn fresh farm vegetables into an acceptable ravioli. Stone Barns Berkshire Pork ($30) was served on a bed of spaetzle and spinach. The pork loin medallions were cooked to gorgeous tenderness. A square of crisp pork belly offered the right contrast, but it was only the size of a large postage stamp. My mom loved the lamb ($32), which like the pork was served in bite-sized medallions.

On a previous visit, I complained of a lack of red wine choices around $40. This time I had no trouble finding a satisfying California red at around that price. Service was up to the usual standard, and I especially liked the warm and hopelessly addictive warm bread sticks.

Blue Hill (75 Washington Place between Sixth Avenue and Macdougal Street, Greenwich Village)

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

BLT Burger

Note: BLT Burger closed in April 2014. Long before that, the chef Laurent Tourondel had severed his relationship with the restaurant and all of the other “BLTs”. As of May 2014 the space was a Mexican restaurant called Horchata.

*

The Bistro Laurent Tourondel empire keeps growing, and this week Tourondel added another offspring to the brood: BLT Burger. If first impressions are any guide, the new outpost will be just as successful as the first three (BLT Steak, BLT Fish, BLT Prime). An eGullet post mentioned that the place was packed on a weeknight just a day or two after it opened, but I had no trouble getting a table at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon.

The restaurant doesn’t much resemble the other BLT’s, except for the chocolate brown upholstery on the banquettes. The prices certainly set it apart. Unlike the other BLT restaurants, BLT Burger could actually be called a bargain.

In addition to the “Classic Burger” ($7), there’s the “BLT” Burger (two patties, $11), a Kobe Burger ($16), Lamb Burger ($10), Turkey Burger ($7) or Veggie Burger ($7). All burgers come with tomato, onion, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Cheese is an extra $0.50, other toppings (such as bacon, avocado, portobello mushroom, chilli) are $1.50. A “combo” of the classic burger with fries and a milkshake will set you back all of $13.

There’s a variety of sandwiches ($10–15), salads and appetizers ($9–14), sides ($2–5), and desserts ($3–6). The whole back page of the menu shows an impressive array of drinks, including nine kinds of milk shakes ($5), five kinds of floats ($5), four kinds of alcoholic milk shakes ($9), house cocktails ($11), twenty-seven kinds of beer ($3–10), and six wines by the glass ($6–9). Sodas are $2 or $2.50. Tap water (free) comes in a beautiful tall glass caraffe.

I had the classic burger with cheddar cheese ($7.50). The burger was enjoyable, but nothing special. I would have preferred a thicker patty. The “BLT” Burger, with two patties, is always an option, but I thought that would be too much of a good thing. Onion rings ($4) were delicious. I especially admired the lightness of the batter. A strawberry-banana milkshake ($5) was plenty of fun. Service was friendly and efficient.

You have to wonder if Laurent Tourondel can keep up the quality as his empire grows. Ominously, BLT Fish was stripped of its Michelin star, and I must admit my last visit to that restaurant wasn’t stellar. At least two more BLTs are on the way: BLT Market in the former Atelier space, and BLT D.C. But for now, Tourondel is happy to go downmarket, and at these prices BLT Burger is sure to be a hit.

BLT Burger (470 Sixth Avenue between 11th & 12th Streets, Greenwich Village)

Strip House

Strip House is the witty name of a steakhouse in the Village. It faintly suggests a house of ill repute, and it comes dressed for the part with its ruby-red decor. It also suggests a cut of meat, which is Strip House’s real point.

The owners, Glazier Group, run a chain of restaurants, including two other Strip Houses (New Jersey, Houston) and two other steakhouses in New York (Monkey Bar & Michael Jordan’s). Monkey Bar is an enjoyable place, attractively priced for a steakhouse. I’ve never been to Michael Jordan’s (inside Grand Central Terminal), but several reviews have suggested that it’s surprisingly good for a restaurant named for a celebrity and located in a train station.

Strip House is the group’s flagship. I paid a visit last night on the advice of blogger Augieland, who pronounced their bone-in ribeye ($42) his “favorite steak in Manhattan.” I’d been there once before and ordered the NY Strip, which was okay without being memorable. But Augieland is right about the ribeye. It’s a wonderful hunk of meat, with high fat content and a crisp char on the outside. I tried the identical cut of beef at Bobby Van’s the other night, and while it wasn’t bad, it lacked the perfection of Strip House’s version.

Best steak in New York? It’s hard to say, when there are so many of them. But I don’t recall offhand having tasted a ribeye better than this one. (Wolfgang’s came close, but I think this one was superior.) It was preceded by an amuse bouche of warm potato soup with parsley oil in a shot glass. The restaurant was packed on a Thursday evening, but I had no trouble getting served at the bar, where service was friendly and efficient.

While I was eating, a couple next to me saw what I had ordered, and raved about the Strip House ribeye. The gentleman told me that the March 2006 issue of GQ named Strip House one of the five best steakhouses in America. (I couldn’t find an online version of the full article, so I can’t say which four other steakhouses were so honored.) Visit the Glazier Group homepage, and you’ll see they’re crowing about it. The company has announced plans to open Strip Houses in several other cities. Lucky for them.

Strip House (13 E. 12th St between 5th Ave & University Place, Greenwich Village)

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

Gotham Bar & Grill

You could eat for a month at restaurants helmed by chefs who trained under Alfred Portale, whose Gotham Bar & Grill is one of New York’s iconic restaurants. After twenty years, Portale still delivers one of the most satisfying dining experiences you can have in this city. On a Wednesday night in November 2004, Gotham was packed.

I started with the Gingerbread Crusted Foie Gras ($24), which was probably the best foie gras dish I’ve had. Who else would have thought of putting such a humble ingredient as gingerbread on foie gras? It was ingenious.

It was really tough to choose an entrée, as every item on the menu sounded good. I chose the Rack of Lamb ($39), which I suppose is a boring choice, but when in doubt the lamb will never disappoint. It came with two generous double-cut chops, mind-blowingly tender, and a potato puree that was a bit underwhelming. Portale’s trademark is that he plates dishes vertically, so it was no surprise to have the chops delivered with the bones pointed upward, leaning against a potato tower.

Service was impeccable. This struck me right at the beginning, when I took the plastic stirring stick out of my vodka & tonic, and laid it on the table. It can’t have taken more than 30 seconds for someone to notice this, and come take the little stick off the table.

My only complaint is the bread—a fist-sized wad of dough that seemed to have been baked many hours before. The crust had long since turned to concrete. If Kentucky Fried Chicken can turn out fresh, warm bread, why can’t a three-star restaurant?

Gotham Bar & Grill (12 East 12th Street btwn Fifth Avenue and University Place, Greenwich Village)

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

Annisa

In early September, I took a friend to Annisa for her 40th birthday. It’s a sweet-looking room. We were seated side-by-side on a banquette, which was an intimate twist on the usual arrangement.

The Seared Foie Gras with Soup Dumplings and Jicama appetizer has been on the menu from the beginning. William Grimes loved the dish when he awarded two stars, and I guess the restaurant doesn’t want to fiddle with success. Then again, when an appetizer is this good, why should they?

For the main dish, I tried the Miso Marinated Sable with Crispy Silken Tofu in Bonito Broth, another dish Grimes loved. I suppose I should have trusted my instincts, as I’ve never been a tofu lover. The dish was beautifully prepared, but somehow it just didn’t seem like tofu and sable go together. This item, like the foie gras, has been on the menu from the beginning, so I must be in the minority.

Mind you, we had a wonderful time, especially my friend, and I can see why Annisa has garnered so many plaudits. In my book, it certainly ranks at the high end of two stars. Indeed, I am going with consensus, and awarding three. 

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

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

Blue Hill

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to Blue Hill.

A friend and I dined at Blue Hill on a Saturday night in November. I had the Foie Gras and the Stone Barns Pastured Chicken. The foie was competently executed (if nothing special). You expect ultra-tender chicken from Blue Hill—and you get it—but the dish was spoiled by an overpowering tomato sauce. My friend had the mushroom salad and the lamb. Oddly enough, she too felt that her entrée was spoiled by a sauce that had too much tomato in it.

On the plus side, my friend (who’d never been to BH) found the ambiance enchanting. When she left a third of her mushroom salad uneaten, the kitchen sent someone out to inquire if anything was wrong. (There wasn’t; it was just a large portion, and she was saving room for the main course.) It’s rare anyone will even bother to ask, and we were impressed that they noticed.

IMO, there’s a hole in Blue Hill’s wine list, with not enough choices in around the $40 range. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but they are few and far between. I asked the sommelier for a wine in that range that would go with the chicken and the lamb. She quickly produced a wonderful new arrival (not on the menu) at $38.

Blue Hill remains a friendly place to which I’ll return, but on this occasion both entrées slightly misfired.

Blue Hill (75 Washington  Place between Sixth Avenue and Macdougal Street, Greenwich Village)

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

Return to Babbo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swish: Shabu Shabu in the Village

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Babbo

Note: Click here and here for more recent visits to Babbo.

In New York, there’s hardly a tougher table to come by than at Babbo, chef Mario Batali’s flagship in Greenwich Village. Reservations are accepted up to one month to the calendar date in advance, and if you want one you’d best call at 10:00am on that exact date.

But if you don’t mind eating at the bar, you can amble in any day at the 5:00pm opening time. Babbo offers wonderful service at the bar itself, and there are also several tables in the area that are first-come, first-served. I gave Babbo a try last Saturday night, sitting at the bar as many reviews had recommended.

I had my heart set on the pasta tasting menu, but I was surprised to learn that they won’t serve their tasting menus to parties of one. What an unfriendly policy! It’s their loss, as I ended up spending less money.

Anyhow, I proceeded to order à la carte. Babbo is well known for offal, so that’s where my priorities lay. I started with Pig’s Feet Milanese. This looked a bit like a large potato pancake, crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside. It was a wonderful taste sensation.

I then had the dish so much talked about, the Beef Cheek Ravioli. Perhaps it was inevitable that it couldn’t exceed its reputation, but it is a wonderful creation, putting traditional raviolis to shame.

Babbo offers plates of 3, 5, of 7 cheeses for dessert, priced at $12, $15, and $18 respectively. I chose the 5-cheese plate, which was really far too much for one person after a full-size appetizer and main course. A waiter came around and gave a back-story for all five cheeses (one of them came from a farm run by Mario Batali’s wife’s parents) and recommended the order in which they should be eaten, from least-to-most “assertive.”

In an unusual custom, Babbo serves its single-serving wines by the quartino, rather than by the glass. A quartino is about 1/3 of a bottle, so you get about two glasses for around the price many restaurants charge for just one. I’m not a big drinker, so that was about all I needed to pace myself through the meal.

The New York Times’s new restaurant critic, Frank Bruni, chose Babbo as his first review, re-affirming a three-star status first conferred by Ruth Reichl six years ago. I agree with Frank Bruni that Babbo is a bit too crowded to qualify for four stars, but he complained of “relatively hard rock” music, played too loudly for comfort. I found none of this. Perhaps the soundtrack changes later in the evening?

Although I was there alone on this occasion, I believe my dining companions — had there been any — would have heard each other a lot easier than in most New York restaurants I’ve tried recently. The Bruni review led me to expect the hustle-bussle of a brasserie, and that Babbo is not. Service was excellent, particularly considering that I was a bar patron.

Babbo has so much to offer, and I felt that I saw just the tip of the iceberg. I will have to go back.

Babbo (110 Waverly Pl. between MacDougal St. and Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village)

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