Little Giant

 

Note: Little Giant closed at the end of 2011.

*

Little Giant is a happy comfort-food place. It was an instant sensation when it opened four years ago on the Lower East Side, and it has more-or-less stayed that way. I’ve been meaning to visit for a long time, but whenever I called for a reservation it always seemed to be full. Frank Bruni awarded one star in early 2005, in a mostly favorable review that was as much about the owners’ iPod playlist as it was about the food. One star would be a compliment, if Bruni hadn’t awarded two stars to so many uninspiring places.

The restaurant has a corner lot in an early 1900s tenemant building. The owners, Julie Taras Wallach and Tasha Garcia Gibson, did the renovation themselves. It has an understated homespun charm. There are 35 seats in the dining room, 5 at the bar. Space is always at a premium in these small spaces not originally designed as restaurants. But Little Giant seems less self-consciously crowded than other restaurants of its ilk, like the Little Owl and Prune. It wears the space well.

The owners accurately describe their cuisine as “refined comfort food,” using the usual modern buzzwords: “Seasonal American” and “creatively celebrates local farmers and small, artisanal producers.” Oh, and “We bicycle to greenmarkets.” It may sound a little hackneyed, but they do live up to it.

The menu features half-a-dozen appetizers ($7–14) and an equal number of entrées ($17–27). Side dishes are $4–8. I was tempted by the “world-famous” buttermilk-chive biscuit with honey butter ($4), but the free bread service, with soft, rich butter on the side, offered all the carbs I needed.

 

I loved a simple salid of warm figs, nuts and prosciutto ($15; above left). Chicken liver mousse ($13; above right) was soft and creamy, the liver taste balanced by other ingredients—probably about a half-pound of butter.

 

“Swine of the Week” ($25; above left) is a recurring menu item: always pork, but the preparation varies. The offering when we visited was braised pork butt off the bone with barbecue sauce, baked beans and cole slaw. I found this dish successful (though it is hard for braised pork to fail), but my girlfriend found it a bit dry. We agreed that the cole slaw was too bitter. A terrific side dish of mac & cheese ($7; above right) was enormous. It could have been dinner all by itself. It was the best mac & cheese I’ve tasted in a long time, with a crisp crust and gooey cheddar filling.

Frank Bruni’s review complained about long waits for food, but that didn’t happen to us. However, our reservation was at 6:30 p.m., which is a very early hour in this neighborhood. Most of the tables were empty when we arrived, but most were full (as was the bar) by the time we left, at around 8:00.

The owners announced recently that they’ve signed a lease in Chelsea at Ninth Avenue and 19th Street, for a space that is double the size. The new restaurant, planned for an early 2009 opening, will be called the Tipsy Parson and will feature southern-style comfort food. They’ll have a twofold challenge. The first is to ensure that their charming concept maintains its allure when it plays on a bigger stage. And the second is to ensure that Little Giant doesn’t lose its edge once it is no longer the owners’ only property.

Little Giant (85 Orchard Street at Broome Street, Lower East Side)

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

Spitzer's Corner

When I heard that Wayne Nish was serving “three-star bar food” at a Lower East Side gastropub, I was a little skeptical.

Guess what? He has pulled it off.

Spitzer’s Corner, which opened in August 2007, had a tough first nine months, with a revolving door in the kitchen. Nish is the fourth chef. The early reviews found his predecessors’ menus underwhelming, and it’s tough get the critics back for a second look.

Wayne Nish

They should come back, because Nish’s menu at Spitzer’s corner is remarkable. Although Nish is billed only as a “consultant,” his hand-picked chef de cuisine, Sung Park, has serious credentials, with stints under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Didier Virot, and Laurent Tourondel under his belt. He was also Nish’s chef de cuisine for the short-lived second act at Varietal.

And Park is no absentee chef: he was there on a Saturday night.

When I think about the food here, the closest comparison that comes to mind is Momofuku Ssäm Bar. Both restaurants offer sophisticated cooking with luxury ingredients in a laid-back, pared down environment. Park seemed taken aback when I mentioned the similarity, as David Chang’s food has an Asian tang, while Nish and Park come from the French tradition. But once I explained myself, he seemed to agree that the analogy was valid.

The foodies haven’t descended on Spitzer’s Corner as they’ve done at the Momofuku restaurants, but it’s not struggling either. The Saturday evening business was fairly brisk. The restaurant seats 130 and is open daily for lunch and dinner, with food served until 2:00 a.m. There is also Saturday and Sunday brunch.

The menu is inexpensive. A section called “Bar Snacks and Sides” features eight items priced from $4–10, while a section called “Plates,” corresponding roughly to appetizers and entrées, has fifteen selections from $9–17. Most items are suitable for sharing.

The aesthetic is pared down, with most of the seating at long communal tables. (There are a few two-tops.) The wood that lines the walls is alleged to have been made from reclaimed pickle barrels. There are broad picture windows, which on a warm evening are open to the outside.

The name, by the way, comes from a dress shop that formerly occupied the space. It has nothing to do with Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York.

They don’t have a hard liquor license, but there are 40 beers on tap and another 40 in bottles. They’re listed on the menu with brief tasting notes, as you’d find on a wine list (“Epic malts, spicy notes w/ hints of baker’s choc”).

They aren’t just the obvious beers, either. There couldn’t be many places in town serving Delirium Tremens, Victory Golden Monkey, Stone Arrogant Bastard, or Rogue Dead Guy Ale. The servers are like sommeliers, recommending beers that pair well with the food you’ve ordered.

The wine list is more modest, though the server insisted it should be taken seriously too: five reds and seven whites, all available by the bottle or the glass, with the most expensive bottles priced at $36 (not counting Veuve Clicquot Brut, $110).

Full disclosure: We dined at Spitzer’s Corner at a publicist’s invitation, and our meal was comped. We sampled considerably more food than any two sane people would order on their own. However, as I always do, I am calling the shots as I seem them.

I’ll be haunted for a long time by the “French Kisses” ($10), five luscious armagnac prunes filled with a liquified foie gras mousse. This was a dish that could come out of the kitchen at Per Se or Jean Georges, and it wouldn’t seem out of place. Prunes and foie gras make startling bedfellows, but we had the same observation several times during our long meal.

 

Nish works similar magic with a salad of warm Spinach and Shitake Mushrooms ($6), in which the startling extra ingredient is a white soy sauce.

I was eager to try the Duck Fat Potato Cake ($6), but it was the evening’s only dud. There’s plenty going on in this dish too, with confits of shallot, garlic, rosemary and thyme, but it was too dry. I expected the duck fat to be more flavorful, but I really couldn’t taste it.

  

We loved the bracing, bright flavors of a Red & Yellow Tomato Salad ($9), with goat cheese, marcona almonds, balsamic vinegar, and watermelon-chili dressing. Even better was Mac & Cheese ($9), which the menu says is made from local artisanal Saxelby cheese and topped with herbed duck cracklings.

A Sweetbread Po’ Boy was just fine, but the sandwiches that came next surpassed it.

We had the Roasted Pork Belly Sandwich ($11), the Warm Duck Confit Sandwich ($12) and the Soft-Shell Crab Po’ Boy ($15). We couldn’t agree with was the best, as all had their merits. They all benefited from Nish’s playful combination of unexpected ingredients. The pork belly was paired with a red wine sauerkraut, the duck with pickled daikon radish, the crab with housemade aioli. My girlfriend thought that the tempura batter on the crab was especially successful, while I was partial to the pork–sauerkraut combination.

 

Halibut, at $17, is the most expensive item on the menu. It was the second item we had (after the “French Kisses”) that could come out any three or four-star kitchen with no one batting an eyelash. It was certainly as good as the wonderful halibut we enjoyed the night before at Café Boulud. A lemon walnut crust imparts a tangy crispness to the perfectly roasted fish.

Our stomachs had by now reached our limit, so we barely tasted the Herbed Roast Chicken, but it seemed to be just about perfect, with (according to the menu) herbes de provence and jus roti. Once again, take note of the price: a half chicken for $12.

 

The last item we tried was the Kobe Burger ($16). There’s a bit of dishonesty here, as it’s actually American Kobe beef, and strictly speaking, that’s a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, where else is any kind of Kobe beef (even if it’s Wagyu) available for $16.

We aren’t the hamburger experts, but my girlfriend said, “This is the best hamburger ever.” A blogger on Serious Eats disagrees with us, but to our taste it was excellent: a nice charred exterior, a perfect medium rare inside, and a buttery brioche bun. To be sure, the real Kobe beef would have more marbling, but this was impressive enough, and what do you want for $16? At the Old Homstead, the Kobe burger is $41, and I don’t know if their menu is any more accurate about its origin than Spitzer’s.

For the record, Spitzer’s also serves a trio of sliders for $9 and a short rib burger for $10. Both are available with cheese, but when a customer asked for cheese on the Kobe burger, the server declined. There are culinary standards to be upheld, even for hamburgers.

Our server was knowledgeable, attentive and friendly. There are paper napkins, but silverware was replaced after every course. We were clearly getting the VIP treatment, so you can take that for what it’s worth. But there’s no denying the attempt here to serve “pub food” several orders of magnitude better than the norm. Word of mouth seems to be catching on, but only time will tell if this level can be maintained.

There are some limitations, besides the spartan surroundings and communal tables. At present there is no dessert menu or even coffee. Some people would consider the lack of cocktails a drawback, but with 80 beers available no one should go thirsty here.

Full credit is due to the persistent owners of Spitzer’s Corner, who could have given up on their gastronomic ambitions and relied on their beer menu. Instead, they snagged Wayne Nish and Sung Park, who have turned this pub into a destination.

Spitzer’s Corner (101 Rivington Street at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side)

The Stanton Social

OpenTable.com has a list of the Top 10 Booked Restaurants in New York. For a long time, the Stanton Social was on that list. It isn’t any longer, but I’m sure it’s not far off the pace. I almost pinched myself a few weeks ago, when I saw a 7:00 p.m. two-top on a Friday evening, and grabbed it.

If there’s a popularity checklist in the restaurant industry, the Stanton Social ticks all of the boxes. Its inexpensive tapas-style menu covers all the popular cuisines. Check. Kobe beef and foie gras are on hand to contribute an haute cuisine flourish or two. Check. Lower East Side vibe. Check. Eye-popping AvroKO décor. Check. An ear-thumping sound track. Check.

I arrived early, so I headed upstairs to try a few of the house cocktails. Black Magic ($10), a simple mixture of Guinness and Brut Champagne, was a complete failure. The bartender later admitted he hates it too: “Guinness and champagne can be good friends outside of work, but they don’t belong together at work.”

The Social Tea ($12), with Stoli Citros, green tea and orange-honey marmelade was appealing in a generically sweet way. But the best of the three I tried was the bartender’s recommendation, the Blood Orange Jalapeño Margarita ($12), with a house tequila that marinates in jalapeño peppers for about two weeks.

The menu, as noted, is entirely tapas-style: “Rather than offering individual starters and main courses, The Stanton Social serves dishes that are designed for sharing and are brought to the table steadily and continuously throughout the meal.”

Awarding one star in the Times, Frank Bruni commended chef Chris Santos’s “determination to find readily divisible finger food where no chef has found it before.”

Our server advised 5–6 dishes as being about right for two people. That was pretty reasonable advice. We chose five (out of a menu offering nearly fifty), including all three that she recommended. While we waited for our food, the kitchen brought out crisp bread with chipotle garlic butter (above right). We would easily have eaten more than one slice apiece, had there been more.

 
Duck Confit Empanadas and Potato & Goat Cheese Pierogies (left); French Onion Soup Dumplings (right)

It’s safe to assume that the kitchen’s greatest hits are mostly pre-assembled, as our first two plates came out after only five minutes or so. We loved Duck Confit Empanadas ($9), which had a nice tang, the blood orange dipping sauce offering a sweet-sour contrast. Potato and Goat Cheese Pierogies ($8) were less interesting, and my girlfriend (who’s half-Polish) felt that these deep-fried dumpling-like creatures weren’t pierogies at all. [Sorry about the washed-out photo.]

We also wondered why, on a menu designed for sharing, the kitchen would send out three empanadas and three pierogies. Most of the parties at the Stanton Social are even numbers of people. Would it have been that hard to create dishes in twos or fours, rather than threes?

French Onion Soup Dumplings ($11) admirably show off the chef’s talent for going where sharable plates have never gone before. Served in an escargot dish, there are six dumplings, each on a skewer with its own crouton, a hot onion soup center, and Gruyère slathered on top. Even more admirably, there are six of them.

 
Kobe Beef Sliders and Fries (left); Braised Short Rib Soft Tacos (right)

Kobe Beef Sliders are one of the few dishes not designed for sharing: they’re $7 apiece, and a wonderful tender gooey mess. The server recommended a bowl of fries ($6) to go with them. They were hot and not greasy, but over-salted. Beef Short Rib Soft Tacos ($19) weren’t very flavorful, and seemed somewhat “flat” compared to everything else we tasted. Once again, there were three of them—an odd design in more ways than one.

Tapas-style restaurants usually send out plates when the kitchen is ready, no matter what the customer may want. I don’t know if we got lucky, or if the Stanton Social is more enlightened, but the pace of our meal was just about right. Plates were delivered, cleared, and delivered anew on schedule, without us having to deal with mountains of food we weren’t ready to eat.

Of course, that “schedule” needs to be construed in the terms of a restaurant designed to turn over the tables quickly, and where no food item is meant to be lingered over: we were in and out in under 75 minutes. Given the din of the sound system, we weren’t eager to spend any more time there than necessary.

Although we snagged a 7:00 p.m. table, no one should conclude that the Stanton Social is losing its popularity: the place was packed. The small-plates format is still a winning one, and there are many clever choices to tempt you. If one or two are less successful, you’ll still have several others to enjoy. A larger group could very well try most of the menu.

We weren’t quite impressed enough, however, to endure again the crowds, the noise, and the difficulty of getting a reservation.

The Stanton Social (90 Stanton Street between Orchard & Ludlow Streets, Lower East Side)

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

Bondi Road

Note: Bondi Road closed in October 2012, to make way for a new location of Calexico.

*

Bondi Road and The Sunburnt Cow are a pair of Australian-themed restaurants operated by chef/owner Heathe St. Clair. They are both fairly casual, with nothing on either menu above $16. Bondi Road, the newer of the two, opened on the Lower East Side sixteen months ago to fairly positive reviews (New York,  RG).

I get the sense that Bondi Road was meant to be a bit more ambitious than it is now. Restaurant Girl mentioned a $30 tasting menu that no longer seems to be on offer. The restaurant does not take reservations, but we had no trouble getting bar seating at 8:15 p.m. on a Saturday night. The space was already starting to clear out by 9:30, which is not a good sign, and may explain why I received a publicist’s invitation to dine there.

  

Fried foods are the kitchen’s strength. My son loved Coconut Shrimp ($9; above left), and everyone was dipping into my order of “Salt N Pepper Squid” ($9; above center). The breading was just light enough to add flavor without overwhelming the squid. But Tuna Tartare ($12; above right) was a real dud. The tuna was not sushi quality, and an unattractive lump of it wasn’t rescued by a mango chilli yogurt sauce or an olive tapenade.

 

My son thought that an order of New Zealand Mussels ($10; above left) were “just okay.” My girlfriend and I both ordered the Barramundi ($15; above right), which comes grilled, breaded or fried, and with your choice of side dish. I asked for it grilled, but it came out fried anyway, and I decided to give it a try. I thought they nailed it, but my girlfriend found her order too greasy. However, everyone agreed the french fries were excellent.

Blue curaçao figures in several of the mixed cocktails. I had one called the Wipeout  ($9), a mixture of blue curaçao, sprite, and several white liquors, served in a tall glass. One or two more of those, and they would have needed to carry me home. My girlfriend was less impressed with Sex on Bondi Beach ($9), which sounded like fun, but tasted like a bland orange–grapefruit juice.

The food at Bondi Road is fun (if a bit uneven), and some of it is even very good, but the format works against it. The space, dominated by the bar, is cramped and dark, and the small, high tables would be more suitable for an ice cream parlor. Australian waitresses and a loop of beach videos playing on a projection TV are the only real reminders of “Down Under.” However, with $9 appetizers and $15 entrées, it’s a good budget-conscious choice if you happen to be nearby.

Bondi Road (153 Rivington Street between Suffolk & Clinton Streets, Lower East Side)

Allen & Delancey

[Kalina via Eater]

Note: Allen & Delancey closed in March 2010, after something like five chefs in three years. A Scottish-themed restaurant, Mary Queen of Scots, from the Highlands team, opened in November 2010.

The new restaurant Allen & Delancey had one of those star-crossed births that give restaurant owners nightmares. It was announced for the Fall of 2006 with former Craftbar chef Akhtar Nawab at the helm. Then, an investor pulled out, and the project seemed dead…or was it?

A year later, Allen & Delancey has finally opened, with Neil Ferguson in the kitchen. Ferguson is the chef that was canned after the critics demolished Gordon Ramsay at the London. Ramsay is still alive and kicking with a new chef de cuisine, while at A&D you can enjoy, at less than half the price, the chef whom Gordon Ramsay thought was capable of earning four stars.

The space has been beautifully decked out, but it’s so dark you should bring a flashlight to read the menu. Ferguson keeps things simple, with just seven appetizers ($12–18) and seven entrées ($22–29). The similarity to the menu at Gordon Ramsay is striking: not a lot of fireworks, but simple things are done well.

 
Terrine of Guinea Hen (left); Cabbage, Beef and Onion (right)

My girlfriend and I both started with the Terrine of Guinea Hen, Smoked Ham Knuckle, Foie Gras, and Beetroot ($18). It takes a sure hand to make all of those ingredients work, but Ferguson managed it.

I probably wouldn’t have chosen Cabbage, Beef and Onion ($29), had not the server recommended it. This is the kind of dish that got Ferguson in trouble at Gordon Ramsay. It’s a technically impeccable presentation that doesn’t have much oomph. I was pleased with it, but perhaps some people will say that it doesn’t deserve to be a nearly $30 entrée.

The major critics have yet to weigh in on Allen & Delancey. The staff, who are all excited about the restaurant, mentioned that both Adam Platt and Frank Bruni visited earlier in the week. I can only hope that Ferguson gets a fair shake this time. Allen & Delancey deserves to succeed.

Allen & Delancey (115 Allen Street at Delancey Street, Lower East Side)

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

Koca Lounge

Note: Koca Lounge is closed.

*

Lower East Side newcomer Koca Lounge has had a rough start. It opened last fall, but initially without a liquor license. It has gone largely unnoticed by the critics, but the two who’ve reviewed it—Paul Adams in The Sun and Evan Mantyk in The Epoch Times—have been pleased.

The name is also not in its favor. “Koca” comes from a Thai word for a boiling hot pot that you use to cook your own food. The Japanese version of it, shabu shabu, is considerably more familiar. But to Westerners, “Koca” suggests coffee or cocaine, neither of which is the image the owners want. The restaurant started with an even stranger name, “Outlet Koca Lounge,” which was simply bizarre. “Outlet” has now been wisely dropped.

With that out of the way, we come to the food at Koca Lounge, which is not only wonderful, but also surprisingly inexpensive. The menu is in numerous categories, with “snacks” ($2–12), noodle dishes ($9–13), stir fry ($8–9), “plates” ($11–14), hot pots (four choices, $17), meat and seafood for the hot pots ($7–11), sweets ($6), and chocolate hot pots ($11).

The category called “snacks” is roughly equivalent to appetizers. Thai Meatballs with Peanut Sauce ($7) came with two skewers of four deep-fried meatballs apiece, along with a peanut sauce for dipping. Cumin Grilled Baby Lamb Chops with Japanese Pepper & Cucumber Yogurt Sauce ($12) came with three pepper-crusted lamb chops and a wonderful dipping sauce.

We saw the same dishes coming out of the kitchen over and over again, so obviously the other tables were as drawn to these choices as we were. Both were terrific, and the lamb must be one of the better bargains in town. Where else do you get three lamb chops for $12?

Four hot pots are offered, named for the seasons. Each one comes with a bountiful plate of bok choy, enoki mushrooms, cauliflower, corn, seasonal greens, taro, egg dumplings and fish cakes. The server suggested that one additional meat selection would be ample, and indeed it was. We chose the prime ribeye ($8), along with the Winter hot pot, a heavy beef broth with Szechuan spices.

Obviously this wasn’t traditional shabu shabu (they don’t serve Szechuan spices in Japan), but it had all the usual trappings. The hot pot was brought to a boil, then we added the vegetables, since they take a short while to cook. The ribeye was sliced paper-thin, and each piece cooked through in about 15–20 seconds. I thought the meatnwas sliced a little too thin, as some of the pieces fell apart inside the pot.

After you’re done eating, the remaining broth makes an appealing soup. This is the part I most look forward to, but there wasn’t as much left as I would have liked. On past occasions, I recall the pot starting more full. At one restaurant, I remember the server coming by mid-meal and adding more broth, but that wasn’t done here.

At some shabu shabu houses, the cooking apparatus is built right into the tables. At Koca Lounge, each table has a built-in induction burner, which heats the pot without getting hot itself. Even the seats at the bar have the burners, so it is pretty clear that the restaurant considers the hot pots its main attraction. The tables are a bit small: ours just barely accommodated the hot pot, two plates of ingredients, our own plates, glasses, and a wine bottle.

The décor is typical Lower East Side post-industrial chic. There’s also an outdoor garden (sans induction burners). There’s a sound track of pop favorites that doesn’t add much to the atmosphere, but at least isn’t loud or obnoxious. The restaurant doesn’t take reservations, but on Friday night it hardly mattered: not a soul was there when we arrived (around 7:30 p.m.), and by the time we left only about six tables were occupied, plus another two outside.

To go with our meal, we ordered a Rioja, which at $27 was the most expensive red wine on the menu. (There are also a number of sakes available.) The total bill before tip came to about $76 including tax, making Koca Lounge one of the better bargains we’ve experienced in a long time.

Koca Lounge (76 Orchard St. between Broome St. and Grand St., Lower East Side)

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

Sammy's Roumanian

There are some New York institutions for which traditional criticism is irrelevant. You accept them for what they are—or you don’t. Prime among these: Sammy’s Roumanian, the iconic Jewish steakhouse on the Lower East Side.

This is the third Roumanian-Jewish restaurant at the same address. It was once called Parkway, before that establishment moved first to Allen Street and later to Restaurant Row. One of its waiters, Sammy Friedman, re-opened with the identical menu, and promptly failed. The landlord then leased the space and the name to Stan Zimmerman, a Romanian Jew from the Bronx, and in this form the restaurant has thrived ever since.

In a September 1976 two-star review—the first of three she wrote—Mimi Sheraton of the Times reported that Sammy’s attracted “a cross section of serious eaters, including Gucci- and Vuitton- trimmed uptowners, devotees from Queens and New Jersey who pull up in white Cadillacs and black Continentals, blue-jeaned artists and bearded bohemian types, union officials, politicians, judges, out-of-town buyers with showroom models and theater personalities.”

By March 1978 (still two stars), Sheraton would report that Sammy’s was a “huge success, lively, Bohemian, with a mixture of customers that include judges and politicians, union officials and artists in blue jeans, uptowners dressed to the teeth in Gucci trademarks and a double-parked row of white Lincolns and black Cadillacs that can be seen almost any night of the week.”

Wanting a piece of this success, the original Sammy opened up a competing place in midtown, which he called the Original Sammy’s Emporium. Zimmerman went to court, and obtained an injunction preventing Sammy from using that name.

Counting Parkway, there were thus at least three restaurants in Manhattan following more-or-less the identical format, which was probably two more than New York needed. Those others are long gone, leaving Sammy’s Roumanian as the city’s lone entry in the genre.

The restaurant is on two levels. On the Sunday night that we visited, the lower level was rented for a private party; we were seated on the upper level, which was doing a surprisingly brisk business, but was not full.

The “rec room” décor is so kitschy that it demands multiple photographs. The walls are plastered with snapshots of past visitors. Many of them left their business cards in the interstices of the ceiling panels. The cards are mostly faded, and have probably been there for decades. The balloons and streamers seem like the remnants of an old Bar Mitzvah party. Even when it was new, Mimi Sheraton said that it “could hardly be called attractive.”

A Jewish entertainer plays the synthesizer and sings a mixture of Jewish and pop standards. Some couples get up to dance, as if this were a cruise ship. One particularly loving couple must have been up five or six times while we were there. With his navy blue double-breasted suit, pink tie and matching breast pocket square, he looked like he had walked in from another era.

I would tell you that Sammy’s is only for Jews, but for the curious fact that many of the patrons appeared to be gentiles. The menu consists of a couple of mimeographed sheets stapled to manilla file folders. Except to raise prices, that menu surely has not changed for many years—if, indeed, it ever did. Then again, why should it? What Sammy’s does, it does very well indeed.

 
The home-made chopped liver before mixing … and then afterwards.

Chopped liver ($9.95), finished tableside, came with warm bread and was positively addictive. I would quite happily have finished the entire bowl, had it not been that I knew a huge steak was coming.

The signature dish, Roumanian tenderloin (really a skirt steak), comes in three sizes. You’re looking at the small portion ($33.95, if I recall correctly), which is larger than the photo suggests, as  several inches of steak are folded back on itself at the left edge of the photo. It is easily double the portion that many steakhouses would serve, although no steakhouse I know serves a steak this way.

My mom and my son placed the identical order to share. Their steak was chewy and had too much gristle, but mine was just about perfect. However, both steaks were expertly broiled to the requested temperature and slathered with garlic butter.

Silver dollar home-fried potatoes ($5.95) were delightful, but far more than we could finish, given the bounty of food on the table.

There were multiple food runners, but as far as we could tell, just one waitress for the full room. However, she was witty, cheerful, and remarkably efficient. When we told her that one of our steaks was a dud, she promptly comped us an order of Rugelach (dessert pastries), which were wonderful.

Prices at Sammy’s are reasonable by New York standards, but extras can run up the bill in a hurry. There’s a $3.95 per person cover charge, and if two people want to share an entree, it’ll set you back another $8.95.

Vodka, the house drink, is served out of a bottle of Ketel One frozen in ice. (I didn’t think quickly enough to snap a photo when our waitress served us.) One shot will set you back $9.95. They’ll also sell you the whole bottle for $99.95.

Wines are limited to Roumanian labels. My mom smelled a rat, and asked for a taste of the pinot noir, which she found hideous, but the pinot grigio was acceptable. Don’t ask for cappuccino or espresso. When I asked the waitress about coffees, she said, “Coffee? Schmoffee? We have coffee.”

Mimi Sheraton of the Times loved Sammy’s. In her final review, published in May 1982, she would report that “the Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces are still double parked along the otherwise dark and deserted street,” with “the line of waiting customers spilling onto Chrystie Street.” Finding the food “fresh, savory and greaseless,” with staff “cool, efficient and graciously goodhumored,” she awarded three stars. That assessment remains pretty much true today.

No Times critic since Sheraton has re-reviewed Sammy’s, so it remains technically a three-star restaurant. How do you rate a restaurant for which there is no comparison? A star system, if it is helpful at all, is meaningful only when comparing similar establishments. For one-of-a-kind restaurants like Sammy’s, the rating is beside the point. Either you want the unique experience that Sammy’s has to offer, or you don’t.

Sammy’s Roumanian (157 Chrystie Street near Delancey Street, Lower East Side)

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

WD-50

I haven’t had the best luck with restaurant visits on holidays, such as New Year’s Eve. Restaurants tend to simplify and reduce the scope of their menus, while charging more—in some cases a ton more—than they normally would. Our dinner last year at Picholine was a particularly egregious example of this: $800 for two, for a menu that wasn’t worth half that.

Perhaps the common-sense solution this year would have been to stay home, and save the blow-out meal for another evening. But I reasoned there must be a New Year’s Eve dinner in New York that isn’t a rip-off, and I was determined to find it. At WD-50, we hit pay dirt. It was my first holiday meal at a fine dining restaurant that was worth every penny. I reasoned that the eccentric avant-garde chef Wylie Dufresne wouldn’t suddenly start serving airline food just because he has a captive holiday audience. Dufresne did not disappoint.

At WD-50, the nine-course tasting menu normally sells for $105 [since increased to $125]. I don’t mind a reasonable premium, and the cost on New Year’s Eve was $145. That included a champagne toast, and a free disposable camera and party favors on every table, so the price was fairly close to what you’d pay anyway. The optional wine pairings were $85, again a reasonable cost for 9 half-glasses apiece.

This was the menu, with wine pairings shown in italics:

Crispy carmelized cauliflower, bone marrow, wild American caviar
Cava, Avinyo Brut, NV (Penedes, Spain)

Oyster, salsify, fried lentils, kimchee puree
Cava, Avinyo Brut, NV (Penedes, Spain)

Foie gras in the round
Viognier “Sanford and Benedict” Cold Heaven 2005 (Santa Barbara, CA)

Smoked eel, blood orange “zest,” black radish, chicken skin
Pouilly-Fuisse “La Croix” VV Robert-Denogent 2004 (Burgundy, France)

Melted cheddar, black truffle, crispy potato, powdered toast
Pink Wine Pax 2005 (Sonoma, CA)

Mediterranean bass, edamame-rye bread, chive mashed
Valpolicella Classico Superiore TB Bussola 2003 (Veneto, Italy)

Lamb loin, cucumber, pickled tongue, spicy pear, sorrel
Shiraz “Lloyd Reserve” Coriale Vinyards 2001 (McLaren Vale, South Australia)

Banana puree, hazelnut, coffee, parsnip
Commanderia St. John NV (Lemesos, Cyprus)

“Creamsicle,” rooibos, squash, orange blossom
Commanderia St. John NV (Lemesos, Cyprus)

Mango jelly-mastic; Milk chocolate-menthol

Champagne toast
Guy Charlemagne Rose Brut NV (Champagne, France)

Many of the dishes are really indescribable. Dufresne and pastry chef Alex Stupak create combinations of ingredients that you’d never imagine together. How, for instance, does one think of smoked eel, blood orange, black radish, and chicken skin? Just to ask the question is to realize how bizarre it is. And how successful. My friend, who said she normally hates eel, loved this dish.

“Foie gras in the round” was another really odd concoction. Somehow, Dufresne managed to produce little pellets of foie gras, each about half the size of a small pea. Incredulous, we asked the server how it was done. He replied that it’s a trade secret, but it involves liquefying foie gras and combining it with another liquid, an explanation that only adds to the mystery.

Each dish is rather small, and sometimes an ingredient is just a dash of crumbs, such as the powdered toast that came with the melted cheddar, or the light dusting of ground coffee that came with the banana puree. Dufresne’s gimmickry does not stand in the way of good solid cooking. The Mediterranean bass was impeccably prepared, as was the lamb loin.

With so many wacky experiments on the menu, not all could be hits. The gooey oyster (our second course) was dull and not very appetizing. But that was really the only course that I could have done without.

The restaurant was full, and service was a bit variable. Several times we were served food before the associated wine pairing arrived. When I asked our server to slow down the parade of courses, he replied, “Sorry, I don’t control the kitchen.” Our reservation was at 9:00, and we didn’t leave till past midnight, so I wouldn’t say we were pushed out the door. Still, it wasn’t an acceptable answer at a restaurant of WD-50’s calibre.

WD-50 is one of the more casual fine-dining restaurants in town, although on the Lower East Side it’s hard to imagine anything more formal. There were guests in sport coats and fancy dresses, and there were guests in t-shirts and jeans. Most were on the young side, although one table was taken by two older ladies.

In 2003, William Grimes of the Times awarded two stars to WD-50, noting Dufresne’s undeniable talent, but also that “diners are more likely to respond with respect than love.” Three years into the experiment, Dufresne is as sure of his palate as an adoring public is sure of him. This was my second visit to WD-50, so I’m fairly confident that this New Year’s Eve performance was no fluke. WD-50 isn’t for everyone, but for those open-minded souls willing to to think broadly, it’s as good a restaurant as there is.

[Update: In March 2007, Frank Bruni of The Times upgraded WD-50 to three stars.]

WD-50 (50 Clinton Street between Stanton and Rivington Streets, Lower East Side)

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

The Orchard

Note: The Orchard closed in June 2011. The owners will “regroup and decide what to do with the space.”

*

Frank Bruni has taken a lot of heat for his procession of two-star neighborhood restaurants, but I have to admit that his review of The Orchard caught my eye. After a succession of high-end meals, my friend and I were in the mood for something a bit more casual, so last weekend we decided to check out The Orchard.

The Lower East Side has become a dining and bar-hopping destination. Five or ten years ago, the idea of any respectable nightlife in the neighborhood seemed absurd. Now, the local community board has decided that perhaps it was too much of a good thing, and new establishments have been struggling to get liquor licenses approved. With carousers hanging out on the local sidewalks, you can see why they are concerned.

There was no reason for The Orchard, a refined restaurant by LES standards, to be caught up in this political battle, but it was. At the time of the Bruni review, it didn’t yet have a liquor license. As of last weekend it still didn’t, although Florence Fabricant has reported in the Times that The Orchard will start serving drinks in September, nine months after it opened.

The night we visited, most diners seemed to be well aware that Orchard was BYOB, and the restaurant was doing a brisk business in spite of it. If anything, it was a bit of fun to pick up a bottle of chianti for $35 that the restaurant would have sold for twice that much. The restaurant, of course, is losing losing the income that comes from a liquor menu, but all that will change in September.

The food is Italian-inspired, but as Bruni noted, it nods at other cuisines as well. The menu is in three parts. Flatbreads ($11–13) are like rectangular pizzas with crisp, paper-thin dough. The toppings, however, are distinctly un-pizza-like. A steak tartare flatbread is seasoned with creamy dijon potatoes, wild arugula, and shaved parmesan. Another was topped with humas and Middle Eastern spices. Each one comes pre-sliced into six rectangular pieces, and is perfect for sharing.

Since we had two of the flatbreads, we skipped the appetizers ($11–18) and went straight to the main courses ($21–32). There’s a variety of fish and meat dishes, but it so happened we both chose pasta: the smoked salmon ravioli ($24) for me, the cavatelli with crispy panceta, diced avocado, and fresh herbs in a tomato-cream sauce ($27) for my friend. Both were fresh, creative, and flavorful. A home-made bread service with creamy-soft butter was also memorable.

The décor is delightful for the neighborhood, with blonde woods and subtle recessed lighting sconces. Rows of bottled water are displayed on the shelves, which presumably will be replaced with wine as soon as they are able.

We were mightily pleased with The Orchard, and obviously so are a lot of other people. Our server unceremoniously dropped off the check before we asked for it (though we were about ready to leave anyway). Other service issues need to be resolved, too. As of now, the restaurant has coffee, but not espresso or capuccino, an extremely odd omission for an Italian restaurant of this calibre.

On the whole, though, The Orchard is doing a superb job at its price point. I would happily go back.

The Orchard (162 Orchard St. between Rivington & Stanton Streets, Lower East Side)

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

THOR

Update: This is a review of THOR under Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, who has since departed. As of 2008, THOR was on its fourth chef, with Jesi Solomon (a former sous chef at Stanton Social) having replaced Mark Spangenthal, who replaced Kevin Pomplun, who replaced Gutenbrunner. Later Update: THOR closed in May 2009. It was replaced by a new concept called Levant East.

*

THOR is short for The Hotel on Rivington. It’s also the name of the restaurant that occupies the ground floor of that hotel. I don’t know what possessed somebody to put a 21-story hotel on the Lower East Side, although it is surprisingly easy to reach (just 2 blocks from the F train’s Delancey St stop).

The building sticks out like a sore thumb in this trendy, but still gritty neighborhood of low-rise tenements. Who could be staying there? You get no immediate idea of the hotel clientele when you visit, because the entire ground floor seems to be occupied by the vast lounge and restaurant. Indeed, you wouldn’t even know that it is a hotel, except for the name. There is no check-in counter, bellhop, or concierge to give it away.

The host that greets you seems oh-so-annoyed to have landed in the maelstrom of a successful restaurant. You get the sense that he’d be happiner in a far less hectic profession. Just beyond his station, a capacious lounge area awaits, filled with beautiful young bodies sipping their drinks. Loud music thumps in the background. “This is very Lower East Side,” my friend remarked.

The seating area is just beyond the lounge, and it is not far enough. I have not seen a serious restaurant that goes to a more sustained effort to ensure that your ears will be battered and assaulted during your meal. THOR’s 21-foot ceiling offers plenty of hard surfaces for the sound to bounce off of, and the sound happily obliges. Your eardrums may need a medical checkup after the meal is over. The large tables (apparently the same ones you find at BLT Steak) offer plenty of room for the food, but to communicate you’ll have to shout.

If you survive the aural onslaught, you’ll be treated to some of the best and most creative food in New York. Of restaurants I’m familiar with, only nearby WD-50 offers a comparable exercise in culinary experimentation on this level. Practically every dish on THOR’s menu offers surprising combinations from superstar chef Kurt Gutenbrunner.

I had my doubts about THOR, because Gutenbruner is now on his fourth restaurant (with Wallsé, Café Sabarsky, and Blaue Gans also in his stable). Perhaps, like many a celebrity chef, he’s taken his eye off the ball. But Gutenbrunner is obviously as good a manager as he is a chef. THOR’s kitchen staff turns out his creations expertly, and the service (despite the din) is nearly perfect.

Gutenbrunner told Frank Bruni that “he considered Thor the culinary equivalent of a chance to move from orchestral music to rock ‘n’ roll.” You can see what he means. At his flagship Wallsé, the Austrian cuisine is excellent, but largely traditional. At THOR, he lets his wildest urges run wild, with spectacular results.

The menu is needlessly confusing. My friend, who hadn’t researched the restaurant in advance (and one shouldn’t have to), was initially baffled. In a preface, Gutenbrunner explains that there are plates of various sizes, allowing you to construct a tasting menu of your own design. But there is no indication of which plates are small, and which are large. Instead, the menu is in sections labeled “Cold Plates to Start,” “Warm Plates in the Middle,” “From the Market on the Side,” “Hot Plates” (a fish list and a meat list) and “Sweet to Finish.” Since when did the traditional captions — “Appetizers,” “Entrées,” “Side Dishes,” and “Desserts” — need to be replaced?

Anyhow, after all that my friend and I each ordered a “Warm Plate,” a side dish, a meat course, and a dessert. And we were transported. To start, my friend ordered the “Grilled shrimp skewers with green tomatoes, peppers and quark powder” ($14), and I the “Ravioli with farmers cheese, mint and hazelnut butter” ($13). My dish came with three ravioli, and they were wonderful; the ingredients worked marvelously together.

The side dishes are all $7. Many of them are traditional vegetable sides, but a terrific mushroom risotto is offered, which my friend and I both ordered. This is one of THOR’s better bargains, given the intensive labor required to make a risotto. It could have been an appetizer in itself, but it came out with the main courses.

I hardly ever order calves liver; indeed, I can remember ordering it only once before in my life. It wasn’t a bad experience, but calves liver is simply one of those dishes that you don’t want every day. “Glazed calves liver with apples and scallions” ($24) seemed too intriguing to pass up, and my willingness to take a chance paid off. If all calves liver dishes were this good, nobody would be ordering foie gras.

My friend had “Roasted rack of lamb with broccoli puree and 14K golden nugget potatoes” ($28), which offered two hefty chops, which she said were spectacular.

For dessert, I tried the pumpkin cheesecake with maple syrup ice cream ($9), which Frank Bruni had described as “a happy nose dive into the heart of autumn.” My friend ordered the petits-fours ($5), which come with what looks like a tube of toothpaste, but it actually contains hazelnut chocolate, which you squeeze into a small basin in the center of each cookie. WD-50’s Wylie Dufresne and Sam Mason would be kicking themselves, and wondering, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

The wine list is organized by region, but there is also a section labeled “Sommelier’s Discoveries,” featuring growers and/or regions that don’t get a lot of publicity. The friendly sommelier came over unbidden and made a wonderful suggestion from that section. It was a 2003 Blaufrankisch by Feiler-Artinger, from Burgenland, a region of eastern Austria. Better yet, I had requested a wine between $35-45, and it was $39. Sommeliers who don’t try to gouge every last dollar earn my everlasting respect. The restaurant uses stemless wine glasses from the Austrian firm Riedel. Somehow, you feel strange drinking wine from a stemless glass, although the Riedel catalog is in fact highly regarded, and pricey.

The individual dishes on the menu are all reasonably priced, but if you heed Gutenbrunner’s advice to construct a “tasting menu,” the bill can mount in a hurry. Our meal of an appetizer, side dish, main course, and dessert apiece, plus wine, was $192.56 (including tax and gratuity). Had we ordered cocktails, more tasting plates, or a different wine, it could easily have been a lot more. For cooking this good, we considered it money well spent.

THOR is full of contradictions. Kurt Gutenbrunner’s serious cuisine finds itself in a clubland setting designed for twenty-somethings who probably don’t realize how special it is. Many of those who would appreciate it are no doubt put off by the location, the clientele, or the noise. (We are in our forties, and seemed to be among the oldest people there.) But if you can put up with the racket, you’ll find that THOR is serving some of the finest food in the city.

THOR (107 Rivington Street, between Essex & Ludlow Streets, Lower East Side)

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