Shabu Shabu 70

A friend of mine has been itching to try shabu shabu ever since she saw it in the film Lost in Translation. I’ve had it several times in my life, including twice in Japan. While I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it, shabu shabu is always fun. There are only a handful of shabu shabu restaurants in New York, and as my friend lives on the Upper East Side, I decided to give Shabu Shabu 70 a try.

In case you’re not familiar with it, shabu shabu (Japanese for “swish swish”) is food that you cook yourself at the table in lightly spiced boiling water. Some restaurants offer a variety of meat, seafood, and vegetable platters, but Shabu Shabu 70 offers just beef or chicken ($20.50 pp, minimum of two); we chose the beef. You start with a platter of very thinly-sliced beef and another of vegetables (noodles, onions, carrots, mushrooms, greens, and tofu). The meat is so thin that each slice cooks in a matter of 15 to 20 seconds. The vegetables take a little longer.

When you decide that a piece is done, you fish it out of the boiling water with your chopsticks, dip it in one of the two sauces provided, and slurp it into your mouth (it tends to get a little messy). I don’t usually like to work for food I’m paying someone else to prepare, but I make an exception for shabu shabu, which never fails as a social activity, and is also quite tasty. As my friend pointed out, the ingredients are all very lean, so it’s a healthy meal too. By the time you’re done, the water takes on the taste of all the food, so the grand finale is to drink it as a soup.

In Japan, I’ve been to restaurants that do only shabu shabu, where the cooking apparatus is built right into the table. At Shabu Shabu 70, despite the name, they serve a wide variety of Japanese food, so the cooking apparatus is carried over to your table. We started with a couple of excellent sushi rolls ($4.50–7.50).

Service was friendly and helpful. The server could tell that we don’t do this every day, and came over several times to check up on us. I was also pleased that my bar tab was transferred over to the table, something far too many restaurants refused to do.

The décor is fairly plain, but for $20.50 apiece we got an enormous amount of food. Indeed, one reviewer suggested that four people could share a portion for two. With appetizers and dessert, that just might be the case. The lack of a seafood shabu shabu option was a bit perplexing, but the one option offered was plenty enjoyable.

Shabu Shabu 70 (314 E. 70th St. between First & Second Avenues, Upper East Side)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: okay, but undistinguished
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

Café Boulud

Note: This is a review under Chef Bertrand Chemel, who has since left the restaurant. Click here for a review under his replacement, Gavin Kaysen.

*

A friend has just celebrated her 45th birthday. For the occasion, I decided to take her to Café Boulud, the three-star sibling of Daniel Boulud’s four-star flagship, Daniel. I’ve heard great things about Café Boulud over the years, but Andrew Carmellini, the chef de cuisine to whom it owes its reputation, jumped ship recently to open A Voce, leaving the kitchen in the hands of Bertrand Chemel.

We weren’t blown away. One can never go too far wrong with seared foie gras ($26), but there was nothing distinguished about the preparation. Peking Duck ($36) was likewise competent, and an ample portion, but wasn’t special. My friend had a similar reaction to sweetbreads ($19) and hangar steak ($34). Her cheese course ($21) was one of the comparative bargains.

One server offered a special dessert, but moments later another server told us it was unavailable. The strawberry grati ($13) was just fine, although quickly forgotten.

On the plus side, I was impressed to see that the wine list had a full page of white wine selections under $60, and another full page with reds under $60. I’ve been to plenty of restaurants less ambitious than Café Boulud where the choices under $60 were few and far between.

With so much more to choose from on the menu, I hesitate to say that Café Boulud is coasting, but both of us found the cooking uninspired, given the price point.

Café Boulud (20 E. 76th St. between Fifth & Madison Avenues, Upper East Side)

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

Crispo

Crispo is an easily overlooked trattoria on 14th Street, on the border between Chelsea and the West Village. The chef, Frank Crispo, worked at La Côte Basque, among other places. There is an attractive outdoor dining space, a handsome bar, and plenty of indoor seating. The restaurant has received its fair share of good press since it opened in 2002, although the Times has never formally reviewed it.

For a restaurant of its kind, prices are quite reasonable. Appetizers, salads and antipasti are $6.50–15.00, pastas are $17.50–19.00, mains are $17.50–25.00. I ordered the pork shank “fra diavolo,” a most impressive production. It was an enormous hunk of flesh, braised to a point of tenderness where the knife was almost unnecessary.

I was there with three friends, and frankly we were so engrossed in conversation that I forgot to ask how everyone liked their food. But if the rest of the menu is as good as the pork shank “fra diavolo,” Crispo is doing very well indeed.

Crispo (240 West 14th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, Chelsea)

Food: ★
Service: ★
Ambiance: ★½
Overall: ★

Benihana

A friend of mine gets a peculiar Benihana craving about once a year or so — “peculiar,”  because she can’t stand the “Benihana smell,” which so thoroughly impregnates her clothes that even laundering doesn’t entirely remove it. But she enjoys the theater of hibachi cooks preparing dinner before your eyes, even though the act is entirely predictable.

So at her suggestion we visited Benihana earlier this week. To an extent, the theatricality of it is still fun, even though we all know what’s coming. Our chef did all of the usual tricks, like making a volcano out of a sliced onion, performing acrobatic catches with shrimp tails hurled in the air, and spinning his knives as if he were a samauri.

The food wasn’t particularly impressive. Perhaps the best item was fried rice prepared tableside. Grilled shrimp were also enjoyable, but steak was rather dry and flavorless. A salad tasted like it was mass-produced, and left sitting in the fridge for a while. A frazzled server took a while to deliver our drink orders, and throughout the meal we had the slight sensation of being rushed. At Benihana, all parties are seated at tables of eight. If a couple of people are left lingering, the whole table is unavailable, so they want you out of there on a pre-programmed schedule. It was not particularly busy on a Monday night, but the requirement of seating people in batches of eight must be a constant constraint for them.

For the amount of food, prices are reasonable, with most entrées in the $20–30 range, which includes soup, salad and dessert. A gin and tonic, which came with a liberal amount of gin, was only $5.50. As my friend noted, Benihana is surely the place to come and get plastered, as most Manhattan restaurants nowadays charge over $10 for a mixed drink (and $15 is certainly not unheard of). If you double-up on the G&T’s, perhaps you’ll overlook the fact that the food is just mediocre. The faux-Japanese décor gets you in the mood. While you’re waiting to be seated, see how many celebrities you can identify in the photos posted in the vestibule.

Benihana (47 W 56th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Food: Comme-ci, comme-ça
Service: Ah, so-so
Ambiance: Almost like Japan
Overall: Okay

Del Posto

In last week’s New York Post, Steve Cuozzo surveyed the scene on Tenth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets, where three restaurants have opened to great fanfare in the last year — Del Posto, Morimoto, and Craftsteak — but all have had their troubles.

Craftsteak has been pummeled by the critics, after the peculiar decision to roast steaks instead of grilling or broiling them, as most diners prefer. Cuozzo reported that Craftsteak is “awaiting delivery of a broiler.” How anyone could open a steakhouse without a broiler utterly eludes me, especially when the owner is a savvy restauranteur like Tom Colliccio. About Morimoto I don’t have much to say, but it too has been mostly lambasted by the critics.

Reviews of Del Posto have been mixed. Frank Bruni awarded three stars — not the four that Mario Batali and his partners were hoping for, but better than it could have been. New York, as I recall, awarded only two, and that was on a five-star scale. Del Posto isn’t exactly hurting for business, but Cuozzo reported that a lower-priced Sunday menu has been quietly introduced. My friend and I had no trouble scoring a 6:15 p.m. table just a couple of days in advance.

Prices at Del Posto are all over the map. Some of the more ridiculously expensive items are now gone. The whole veal shank for $240 is no longer on offer, but risottos are $50–60 for two, which is ridiculous. All of the other pastas and main courses are far more reasonable. A special Sunday-only four-course menu is $49, while the chef’s tasting menu is $120 for ten courses.

Although it was the lure of Sunday bargains that brought us there, we chose the tasting menu. We were most impressed to find that a wine pairing was available for just $30. Many restaurants in Del Posto’s class would charge double that. To be sure, we got five small pours of relatively recent vintage, but the wines all worked well with the food, and at the price it was a bargain.

After an amuse-bouche of fried zucchini, our menu was as follows:

SALUMI MISTI with Erbazzone and Figs
Grilled SUMMER VEGETABLES with Ricotta di Buffala
Tocai Friulano, Bastianich 2004 Friuli

The house-cured salumi were one of the highlights of the meal, extremely fresh and tangy.

INSALATA di MARE with Prosciutto
PERCH with Truffled Green Bean Salad
Falanghina, Feudi di San Gregorio 2004 Campania

I found the seafood salad dull and rubbery, but the Perch was perfectly prepared.

GARGANELLI VERDI al Ragu Bolognese
RISOTTO with Funghi Misti
Morellino di Scansano “I Perazzi,” La Mozza 2004 Toscana

The pasta was just fine, although as my friend remarked, it was nothing she couldn’t have prepared at home. While eating the mushroom risotto, I couldn’t help but think, “This is what they charge $50 for.” It was a competent risotto, but fifty dollars? Give me a break.

Grilled RIB-EYE “Tagliata”
6-year PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO
Vespa Rosso, Bastianich 2002 Friuli

I’ve had bad luck with beef on tasting menus, which often seems a pale imitation of what the better steakhouses serve. But Del Posto’s rib-eye was first-class: wonderfully tender, and with a crisp char on the outside. The cheese course was again a bit of a dud. It’s wonderful to know that the parmigiano has been aged six years, but I found it overly sharp to the taste, and the accompaniments weren’t much help.

MELON SORBETTO
CROSTATA di Cioccolato
Moscato d’Asti “Sourgal,” Elio Perrone 2005 Piemonte

I enjoyed the melon sorbet. I must admit I’ve forgotten what the final course was like, but at this point I was so full that I felt they’d have to wheel me out of there. A generous plate of petits-fours went untouched.

The room at Del Posto is gorgeous. The tables are amply spaced. Service was friendly, but there were some glitches. After I used my fork to eat the amuse bouche, a server replaced it at my side, instead of bringing a clean one. It’s a minor point, but no four-star restaurant would do that. Later on, there was a speck of dust floating in my wine (they replaced it without complaint). Another table ordered the grilled whole fish. We watched the staff struggle to fillet it for what looked like 20 minutes. By now, Del Posto ought to have the staff who know how to fillet in their sleep.

For a couple of courses, the server’s description was mumbled to the point of being incomprehensible. Luckily we had a postcard-sized cheat sheet to look at (and which I brought home with me). Still, I had no idea that what looked like apricot slices that came with the parmigiano was in fact horseradish.

We enjoyed our meal at Del Posto — make no mistake about that. But both service and consistency have a ways to go if the restaurant aspires to four stars.

Del Posto (85 Tenth Avenue at 16th Street, Chelsea)

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

Wolfgang's TriBeCa

I’ve been to Wolfgang’s Steakhouse in Murray Hill several times. It’s like Peter Luger in Manhattan, except that they take credit cards, the menu has more variety, and the serving staff are a whole lot friendlier. Steakhouses are my great weakness, so I was delighted when a branch of Wolfgang’s was announced for a building literally across the street from my office. Construction was plagued with delays, and it finally opened only a few weeks ago.

As an aside, Wolfgang’s TriBeCa was supposedly the first construction permit granted in New York City that fell under a new law that any public accommodation must have twice as many women’s bathroom stalls as there are men’s stalls. It’s a little ironic that Wolfgang’s would be the first, given the male-dominated clientele of most steakhouses.

The new space is considerably larger than the Murray Hill flagship. There are actually some soft surfaces in the room, so you don’t feel like you’re in an echo chamber, as you do uptown. The menu is identical in both restaurants. Prices are a bargain by steakhouse standards, with most steaks for one priced at $36.50, and the Canadian Bacon appetizer still priced at the ludicrously-low $2.75.

My friend had never had the Luger-style Canadian Bacon, so I persuaded her to give it a try. When you see the price of $2.75, you figure it has to be a microscopic portion. But I’ve learned from experience that one slice is all anyone can eat. And on this occasion, the bacon slices were even larger than I remembered them. They may be 85% fat, but boy are they good.

My friend does not care for porterhouse (Wolfgang’s specialty), so we both ordered the ribeye. The marbling was a bit less even than some of the better ribeyes I’ve had lately, but the meat was wonderfully tender. The aging program at Wolfgang’s is obviously working to perfection. A creamed spinach side dish was perfectly prepared, and I was happy to see a good bread service, with some delicious onion rolls.

The wine list is a little on the expensive side, but we were able to find an fine cabernet at around $50. Service was friendly—even Wolfgang himself came over to check on our table. It was a Friday night, and the restaurant was doing a decent business, but was not full. Those who were there seemed to be mostly couples from the neighborhood. But there was a boistrous table for 12–14 men in ties, most likely investment bankers. On most weeknights, I suspect this will be Wolfgang’s core clientele.

Wolfgang’s TriBeCa (409 Greenwich Street between Hubert & Beach Streets, TriBeCa)

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

Dona

Note: Dona closed in early 2007, after Arpaia lost her lease. (Well, technically she was bought out, but the landlord created a situation where there was no real option to stay.) A more casual version of the concept, Mia Dona, opened six blocks north in February 2008.

*

Dona is the latest restaurant creation of impresaria Donatella Arpaia, who also brought us David Burke & Donatella (DB&D) on the upper East Side and Ama in SoHo. All three opened in about a two-year span, so you can conclude that Arpaia doesn’t linger over her creations (indeed, she has already exited her partnership in Ama).

DB&D is one of the hottest restaurant openings of the last several years, and as far as I can tell, it’s still a tough table to get. Dona is just getting started. Arpaia’s partner is chef Michael Psilakis. The website is just a stub right now, showing a photo of Arpaia and Psilakis, with “Modern European Cuisine” in big letters.

I took a friend to Dona a couple of weeks ago. The space is attractively decorated, and the sound is nowhere near as deafening as at DB&D. Actually, I’m happy to say that we could hear ourselves talk without much trouble at all. There was a pleasant buzz, but it wasn’t packed. On the other hand, Dona isn’t a breakaway hit, like DB&D. The day of my reservation, I had to change the time from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. “We can do that,” said the reservationist. In contrast, last time I went to DB&D, we were sternly told that we had to keep our original time, and if we were more than 20 minutes late, we’d lose our table.

The menu has separate sections for cold appetizers ($12–16), hot appetizers ($13–15), pasta ($18–24), fish ($26–32) and meat ($24–45). For $75, you can choose two appetizers, a pasta, and a fish or meat course, and we went that route. It’s been about 10 days now, but I believe I had the Tartare (two contrasting raw fish bites), Spiced Almond Crusted Prawns (two hefty ones), Gnuci (sheep’s milk ricotta dumplings), and the pork chop.

My recollection is that it was all solidly done, but I was not wowed. The enormous pork chop came slathered in a heavy tomato-based ragout. It struck me that this was: A) far too much food after three earlier courses; and B) far too heavy for a summer menu. It didn’t go to waste, though, as my friend took home a doggie bag.

Service was friendly, and we were quite pleased both with a sparkling rosé that we ordered before dinner and a sauterne that we ordered afterwards.

Dona (208 E. 52nd St. between Second & Third Avenues, Turtle Bay)

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

Knife + Fork

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Knife + Fork.

The new restaurant Knife + Fork (spelled thus) has attracted a lot of attention lately. Andrea Strong gave it a great review in late July, and it was the recipient of a somewhat longer-than-usual blog post by Frank Bruni a few days later.

Knife + Fork turns out food of unusual ambition for its neighborhood. It’s a small space in the East Village, owned and operated by chef Damien Brassel and his wife. The six-course tasting menu for just $45 puts the shame to other restaurants’ offerings at double the price. Although Bruni complained about the over-use of truffle oil (something we did not notice) he added, “I’m hard pressed to think of another restaurant in New York that packs as much ambition into a price that restrained.” He clearly liked the place, as he mentioned having paid several visits. I suspect he’s going to give Knife + Fork time to shake out the kinks before considering a formal review in the newspaper.

We weren’t in a tasting-menu mood, but our selections from the à la carte menu convinced us that Brassel is doing great things. The amuse was a shot of clear, hot tomato soup. Seared foie gras sent me into orbit, and it was about double the portion size that many restaurants serve. My friend had a warm goat cheese and polenta appetizer that she pronounced amazing. I found a Mahi Mahi entrée a bit stringy, although I enjoyed the crisp skin. I’m not sure whether it was entirely the chef’s fault. I would have preferred a regular knife to cut it with; fish knives are always a burden, except with the most pliant flesh. My friend found lamb loin almost revelatory. Platings were all attractive and creative.

With starters all $15 or less, and mains $25 or less, Knife + Fork delivers an outstanding value. Because it is near a school, there is no hard liquor license, but they do serve wine. Actually, the establishment bills itself as a “restaurant and wine bar.” The list is very reasonably priced, with about a dozen choices by the glass.

Brassel and his wife are practically a two-man band. Brassel does all the cooking. His wife and one waitress do all the serving. Another hand in the kitchen washes dishes and does light prep work. I didn’t do an exact count, but it looks to me like the restaurant can seat about 30–35 people. When it starts to fill up—as it’s doing more and more, as the word gets out—Brassel has trouble keeping up. We were there at a slow time, but we can well imagine what happens on Saturday nights. His wife mentioned that he’s considering adding another hand in the kitchen, although one look at the space tells you that it will need to be someone who’s used to working in close quarters.

I’ll look forward to giving Knife + Fork another try.

Knife + Fork (108 E. 4th St. between First & Second Avenues, East Village)

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