Octavia's Porch

Note: Octavia’s Porch closed in May 2011 after just six months in business.

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It’s Hanukkah! Which put me in the mood, the other day, to visit chef Nikki Cascone’s new Jewish-themed restaurant, Octavia’s Porch.

Cascone is Jewish on her mother’s side. (She’s also a Top Chef alum, having been eliminated mid-way through Season 4.) She told the Times, “I want people to understand Jewish food that goes beyond the New York deli.”

The menu is a mixture of obviously Jewish dishes (Gefilte fish, Kreplach, Latkes), and a few others you could find anywhere (roasted chicken; a veggie club sandwhich). The only nod to the other half of her heritage (her father’s Italian side) is a buckwheat tagliatelle entrée. There is certainly enough to please those for whom the Jewish dishes hold no appeal.

It’s all offered at Avenue B prices, so appetizers are mostly $10 or less, sandwiches $12, entrées $18–22, desserts $6–7. Cocktails seem like a great deal at $10, until the bartender tops off your Mojito from a soda gun, sending it to a watery grave.

The warm, house-made bread could be Robert Atkins’ public enemy #1. Serving such a gorgeous specimen to a solo diner is almost criminal. Most three-star restaurants don’t serve bread this good. The only explanation I got out of the server was, “She just uses a very high quality flour.”

Kreplach, as Wikipedia tells us, “are small dumplings filled with ground meat, . . . usually boiled and served in chicken soup.” The Kreplach here ($8; below left) are an error of both conception and execution. Made with beef and veal, they quickly fell apart, with the meat filling not adhering to the dough. Worse yet, the traditional chicken soup was replaced with an inauthentic dipping sauce of soy and scallions. These were not the Kreplach of my youth, nor were they an improvement.

But Long Island Duck Breast ($19; above right) was wonderful, with glistening meat wearing a sensuous coat of fat and skin. Spiced vanilla–apple sauce was unsubtle, but just fine. It comes with a latke, and though I didn’t mind that it was made with sweet potato, it won’t put Russ & Daughters out of business.

The space is bare-bones, particularly in the rear dining room, but old-school chandeliers and sconces make it feel like home. Menus are presented in a laminated sleeve, which means they don’t have to be replaced as often, but which also makes them look a bit cheap. The wine list is unmemorable. Service was reasonably smooth, for a restaurant that had been open just three days. The restaurant was full, and with clearly more than just an Avenue B crowd.

I am sure there will be adjustments to the menu. Cascone understands the idiom and there is no question she can cook. The bread and the duck entrée show promise of how good the restaurant can be. The kreplach show that there is still some work to do. I would certainly go back, if I lived anywhere nearby.

Octavia’s Porch (40 Avenue B between E. 3rd & E. 4th Streets, East Village)

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

The Humm Dog

A couple of years ago, the East Village speakeasy bar Please Don’t Tell began to offer hot dogs inspired by local chefs, such as the Chang Dog and the Wylie Dog. (PDT’s adjoining sister joint, Crif Dogs, probably makes the city’s best hot dogs—the best we’ve tasted, at any rate.)

Last year, they added a Humm Dog, inspired by Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm. It was dropped after a couple of months, as the $6 selling price wasn’t sufficient to recover the cost of the truffle mayo in the recipe. (A “daintier, pricer” version of it was briefly offered at EMP itself.)

The Humm Dog (pronounced whom dog) has returned, but only for the month of December. It’s still $6.

As before, it’s a bacon-wrapped deep-fried hot dog with celery relish, melted Gruyère cheese, and truffle mayo. I shot the best photo I could in PDT’s dim light; the websites I linked show it in much better light.

A bit messy to eat, it’s nevertheless fetchingly delicious, and really a bargain at $6. We saw more of those coming out than any other hot dog they sell.

Most of PDT’s cocktails, on the other hand, are $15, so the evening gets expensive before you know it.

Please Don’t Tell (113 St. Marks Pl. btwn 1st Ave. & Ave. A, East Village)

Providence

Providence is a lovely seafood restaurant in Los Angeles, the recipient of two Michelin stars in 2009 (no L.A. restaurant received three) before the Tire Man abandoned the city, claiming its residents didn’t care about food. The chef is Michael Cimarusti, who opened Providence in 2005 after a long stint at the Water Grill, also in L.A. The space is relaxing and quiet, the service cool and polished.

The prices would be right at home in New York for a restaurant of comparable quality, with appetizers in the $20s and entrées mostly in the $40s. Then again: New York hasn’t seen a new, non-Italian à la carte restaurant in this price range in quite a few years. If Providence could be transplanted to Manhattan, it would have the genre almost to itself.

For about the cost of three courses à la carte, you can have a five-course tasting menu, and so we did. There is also a nine-course tasting ($110) and a chef’s tasting ($160) that likely goes on for hours.

There was a quartet of amuses-bouches. I didn’t take note of the descriptions, but the two on spoons were wonderful solidified cocktails; then a gougère, and I believe a concoction of watermelon and wasabi (in the shot glass).

The chef has a bit of the mad scientist in him, mixing ingredients in unexpected combinations. Balance is everything: sweet and sour, crunchy and soft. Preparation was impeccable, but the menu became more conservative, and a tad less exciting, at the end.

The first two courses were the strongest: Japanese kanpachi (above left) with crispy rice crackers and soy crème fraîsche; Block Island sea scallop (above right) with buckwheat, napa cabbage, and dashi butter.

Long Island wild striped bass (above left) shared the plate with fresh cranberry beans, lemon, nori, and brown butter. Veal tenderloin (above right) was gorgeous, on a daikon radish pedastal, with chanterelles and a a black truffle fondue.

Dessert (above left) was a banana bread pudding with barley ice cream, followed by petits fours (above right).

The staff, as at many restaurants, had a bit of trouble grasping the notion that we wanted to enjoy our cocktails and settle on wine, before ordering food. (If you let them take your order too soon, you could be on your third course before the wine is uncorked.) It’s a delicate trade-off between inattentiveness and over-eagerness that very few restaurants get right. After that, the pace of the meal was exactly as it should be.

This isn’t the place for debating whether two Michelin stars in the U.S. measure up to the same rating in Europe. But certainly, Providence is comparable to the two-star restaurants in New York. Given that Michelin abandoned L.A., Providence might hold that honor for a very long time. Good for them. They deserve it.

Providence (5955 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles)

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