Le Boeuf à la Mode

Note: Le Boeuf à la Mode closed in June 2008. As of 2011, the space is an American bistro, East End Kitchen.

*

Le Boeuf à la Mode is one of the last remaining classic French bistros, in a city that was once full of “Le” and “La” restaurants. It’s run by the same French family that founded it in 1962, and one suspects the menu hasn’t changed much in all that time. Thanks to a renovation in the 1990s, it doesn’t have the same time-warp feeling as Le Veau d’Or, and it is also a bit larger.

However, one is still acutely aware of a bygone era. My friend and I are in our 40s, and we were surely the youngest people there. The restaurant, which seats 90, was less than half full. In the most recent New York Times review—perhaps the only one—John Canaday awarded two stars in 1975.

We ordered the four course prix fixe at $38.50. A duck mousse terrine was uncomplicated, but offered all the simple pleasure such a dish should. I am fairly certain the soup was the same cream of leek that John Canaday raved about, though to my taste it was merely average. Chicken breast stuffed with spinach and goat cheese (a recited special) was excellent. I seldom order chicken in a restaurant, but the promise of goat cheese was enough to tempt me, and I wasn’t disappointed. For dessert, a blueberry tart was rather forgettable.

Le Boeuf à la Mode’s perch on 81st Street is too far out-of-the-way for me to consider becoming a regular. Besides, I liked Le Veau d’Or’s ancient charm slightly better, and it is closer. But if you are hungry for the old-fashioned French classics, Le Boeuf is certainly worth a look.

Le Boeuf à la Mode (539 East 81st Street between First and York Avenues, Upper East Side)

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

Varietal

Varietal has been open less than a month. Food blogger Augieland is already smitten, as are many of the eGullet community. The concept draws on several ideas at once, and it remains to be seen if they will gel. It is a wine bar, with some 70 selections by the glass. There are savory courses too, which have drawn mixed reviews so far.

But what has everyone raving are the inventive desserts of Jordan Kahn, who has stints at The French Laundry, Per Se, and Alinea on his resume. We dropped by at around 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night after our dinner at Applewood, and were seated after about a ten-minute wait. The dining room was nearly full at that hour, although it had cleared out considerably by the time we left.

You’ll either love or hate the décor. The chandelier (pictured above), made from inverted wine glasses, is a work of genius. But the austerity of the stark white walls is relieved only by several undistinguished blow-up photos of grapes. The all-white theme is even more apparent in the front bar area, where there is another very clever sculpture made with wine glass stems.

We asked to share the four-course dessert tasting ($35). The server blundered, and we actually got two full orders of the dessert tasting. I did not realize this when the first course arrived—assuming that the kitchen had been considerate enough to divide the portions. But it was clear, both to us and our server, by the time the second course arrived, that we’d received twice the amount we wanted. To the restaurant’s credit, they continued with double orders of the third and fourth courses, but did not charge us for them.

The four-course dessert tasting is far more than most people will want. For the typical appetite, one portion to share is ample for a couple who have already had a full dinner. Indeed, any one of the courses would be nearly enough to be a dessert on its own. The desserts are of course enjoyable in their own right, but the artfulness of the platings almost makes you regret digging in. You just want to gaze at them, as you would paintings in a museum.

Most of the desserts have about half-a-dozen ingredients. I certainly can’t remember them all, though fortunately I think I’ve found descriptions on various Internet sites.

1) Sweet potato ice cream, yogurt, yuzu, picholine olive. The actual color was closer to orange than the photo shows. The olive was dried and shredded—you can see the crumbs at the back of the photo. An excellent starter.

2) Wolfberry puree, rigid lime sabayon, broken macaroons, tonka bean cream, soybean, ketjap manis. This was the most gorgeous of the four desserts, and probably the most successful.

3) This is the only dessert for which I cannot find a description, but we enjoyed it nearly as much as the wolfberry, above.

4) Chocolate Gel, Pear Sorbet, Mushroom Caramel, Brown Butter.We thought this one was a little too similar to the third dish. We particularly admired the cylinder of pear in the middle of the dish, which was the consistency of an egg yolk and “ran” with pear juice when punctured. But after that, we left the rest of the dish unfinished.

Although our server was no doubt chastised for sending a double order into the kitchen, she proved to be quite knowledgeable about the food, describing the complex dishes without a hitch. She recommended a lovely dessert wine to go with our tasting, which at $17 was neither the most nor the least expensive they had. The courses came out fairly slowly—no surprise there, given the complexity of the platings—but we were in no hurry.

A judgment on the savory menu must await a future visit, but for its desserts alone Varietal is a welcome addition to the restaurant landscape.

Varietal (138 West 25th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, Chelsea)

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

Applewood

Note: Applewood closed in March 2016.

Hardly a month goes by that I’m not writing about yet another restaurant that specializes in seasonal ingredients, locally sourced from artisanal farms—what New York’s Adam Platt calls an “haute barnyard.” As Platt puts it, these restaurants are “country-themed, supplier-obsessed, [and] increasingly expensive.”

Few restaurants wear their organic souls on their sleeves as proudly as Applewood, which has been wowing diners in Park Slope since September 2004: “We use only hormone- and antibiotic-free meats and poultry. Our fishes are always wild and never farmed… Our produce is procured from biodynamic, organic and/or local farms.”

Applewood is on the ground floor of a Victorian townhouse, on one of the side streets just steps away from Seventh Avenue, one of the main drags in Park Slope. It seats about 45, in a cosy room that looks like it could be transplanted from the countryside, although the noise level quickly reminds you you’re the city. All the tables were occupied, although I had no trouble getting a 7:15 p.m. Saturday evening reservation just a few days in advance.

You quickly find out what Frank Bruni meant, when he wrote, “Sometimes the food at this restaurant reads better than it eats.” Out of four plates ordered between us, only my friend’s appetizer, Crispy Vermont Pork Belly ($11) really lived up to its promise. It was accompanied by caramelized apples and roasted hazelnuts, and a pepper jelly puréee provided an unexpected spicy kick.

I started with the Warm Vermont Ham Confit ($10, pictured below), served with pickled red onions and a parsley-jalapeño sauce. In this case, the expected flavor punch from the jalapeño sauce never materialized. Fresh (not smoked) ham can be a dull meat, and the accompaniments didn’t rescue it here.

For the main course, both of us had the Grilled Vermont Veal ($24, pictured below)—“free range,” we’re assured, which means the beasts have a bit of leisure before they’re slaughtered. It was served with caramelized brussels sprouts and turnips. An applewood smoked bacon sauce promised excitement, but it was pedestrian. The veal had a welcome crisp outer crust, and I enjoyed my portion, but my friend said hers wasn’t tender enough.

Even the wine list played along with the barnyard theme, with organically-grown wines specially pointed out. I found the list a tad over-priced, but we found a satisfactory (non-organic) shiraz at $45 to our liking. Two wonderful homemade breads came with a choice of three luscious spreads, but alas no butter knife.

Applewood tries earnestly to please, and I’m sure it’s possible to have a wonderful meal here. But we found ours merely adequate. With so many similar restaurants to choose from, we won’t be in a rush to go back.

Applewood (501 11th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues, Park Slope, Brooklyn)

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

Blaue Gans

This time last year, it looked like super-chef Kurt Gutenbrunner was veering dangerously close to over-exposure. Within three months, his two-restaurant empire (Wallsé, Cafe Sabarsky) doubled, opening THOR on the Lower East Side in September 2005 and Blaue Gans in TriBeCa in December.

Perhaps Gutenbrunner realized that he’d stretched himself too far. He pulled out of THOR—the restaurant least like the others—leaving himself with three unique but strongly related restaurants. At all of them, the focus is on Austrian food, a niche that Gutenbrunner has nearly to himself.

Blaue Gans (pronounced BLAU-uh gahnz), which means “Blue Goose,” is the most casual of Gutenbrunner’s trio of restaurants. It occupies a space that was once the restaurant Le Zinc, and Gutenbrunner made only minimal changes on taking it over. The walls are covered with vintage posters, most of which are unrelated to the Austrian theme. There are no table cloths, butter knives, or even bread plates to go with the excellent bread service. Servers, many of whom seem to be Austrian imports, tend to get stretched when the restaurant fills up—as it does, at least on a Friday night.

The surroundings at Blaue Gans may scream “casual,” but Gutenbrunner still takes his Austrian cuisine seriously. The chef himself was in the house on Friday night, which suggests he didn’t open Blaue Gans merely to make a quick buck. I suspect the restaurant may be his laboratory, with the more successful dishes graduating to his West Village flagship, Wallsé. (A short list of handwritten specials accompanied the main menu.) As far as I can tell, the Wiener Schnitzel you get at Blaue Gans is the same Wiener Schnitzel you get at Wallsé, except it costs $8 less.

Appetizers at Blaue Gans are $8–12, but there’s a separate menu category for sausages, which are $7–8. My friend and I tried the pork and beef sausage and the smoked pork sausage (both $8), served with sauerkraut and horseradish mustard. We thought the smoked pork sausage was a tad more interesting, but I would happily try either one again.

For the main course, my friend ordered the pork belly ($21), which must have been one of the largest helpings I have ever seen. I ordered the pork schnitzel ($22), which was wonderful—as Frank Bruni described it, “The meat had been dusted with flour and cooked with veal stock, cream, button mushrooms and bacon.”

Like everything else at Blaue Gans, the wine list has many reasonably-priced entries. We settled on a bottle of gewürztraminer at $36 that was more than satisfactory for our hearty, casual meal. The bill came to $103 with tax, before tip.

One positive development is that, as of January, Blaue Gans now takes reservations, a convenience much more helpful to those of us who want to make definite plans. And I am reasonably certain my future plans will include Blaue Gans again. As my friend put it, “I could eat like this every day.” Well, maybe not: the food here isn’t exactly lo-cal. But when you’re in the mood for a calorie splurge, it doesn’t get much more decadent than this.

Blaue Gans (139 Duane Street between West Broadway and Church Street, TriBeCa)

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

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: ***

Cafe Mozart

Note: Cafe Mozart closed in July 2008.

*

Cafe Mozart is a respectable casual dining option before a concert at Lincoln Center, in a neighborhood where many of the restaurants are over-priced. I was there last night with two friends.

I loved a Duo of Goat Cheese Tarts ($9). One of the tarts was made with herb-roasted Roma tomatoes and Niçoise olives; the other with mushrooms and onion marmelade. Plenty of restaurants would charge over $10  for that appetizer. An accompaniment of salad greens was entirely superfluous.

Pignoli and dijon crusted salmon ($22) was a far less happy affair. The fish was too dry, and it was not rescued by an overpowering tomato sauce or dull risotto. One of my companions ordered, I believe, a chicken caesar salad in which the chicken was barely more than a rumor, but my other friend was pleased with her choices.

My friend tried to make a reservation, but she called repeatedly for several days, and the restaurant never answered. The host was surprised to learn this was the case. Luckily they weren’t busy last night, but I hear the place fills up on weekends. Service at Cafe Mozart isn’t fancy, with the crew who deliver the plates not knowing who ordered what. We had two different versions of the menu between us, each with different spelling errors. However, wines by the glass are under $10, and that at least is something.

Both the website and business cards promise “World’s Finest Desserts.” We were too full to test that claim, but we noted that there are more desserts than appetizers and entrees put together, so it’s clear where the restaurant’s priorities lie. The decor is unpretentious, but adequate for a casual restaurant.

Cafe Mozart (154 West 70th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Acceptable, but sometimes careless
Ambiance: Casual
Overall: Satisfactory

P. J. Clarke's on the Hudson

I tried P. J Clarke’s on the Hudson with my 11-year-old son about a week ago. It is basically a slightly more upscale version of Houlihan’s. Spectacular views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty are about all that distinguishes it from a mass of similar restaurants around town.

Frank Bruni wasted a reviewing slot here, awarding zero stars:

It’s better than snobs would like to think and worse than contrarians would hasten to claim, which may be another way of saying that it’s usually serviceable and sometimes respectable.

At least he provided a history of the world-famous urinals.

For the record, a Farmer’s Omelet ($10.80) for me and a Buffalo Chicken sandwich ($12.20) for my son were unobjectionable. Service was pretty much invisible until it was time for the check, and suddenly our server became unnaturally chummy.

The original P. J. Clarke’s has been on the Upper East Side for something like 12o years. Perhaps it has some residual charm that this mass-produced version lacks.

P. J. Clarke’s on the Hudson (Four World Financial Center, Battery Park City)

Food: Acceptable
Service: Mediocre
Ambiance: Just like Houlihan’s
Overall: Acceptable