Wild Salmon

Note: Wild Salmon closed at the end of 2007, yet another failure for Jeffrey Chodorow. The space became Richard Sandoval’s Zengo.

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Wild Salmon is the latest offering from restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow. His China Grill Management empire now spans twenty-five restaurants in ten cities—several of them mini-chains, such as Asia de Cuba and China Grill, both in five cities. The first opened in 1987, so it’s clear he turns them out in a hurry.

He’s also a prolific failure. Just three months ago, Kobe Club received zero stars from Frank Bruni of the Times. It was a replacement for another failure, Mix in New York. Wild Salmon replaces the failed English is Italian, which replaced the failed Tuscan, which replaced the failed Tuscan Steak. Across town, there was the failed Rocco’s (made famous in the TV series The Restaurant) and its successor, the failed Brasserio Caviar and Banana. All gone.

The Upstairs Bar

Wild Salmon, described as “A Pacific N. W. Brasserie,” looks to have a brighter future. A solid and moderately priced seafood restaurant, it should have no trouble drawing on an East Midtown corporate audience looking to eat well, if unadventurously.

Chef Charles Ramsayer, who moved to New York from Seattle, flies in everything he serves from the Pacific Northwest. The menu offers the usual raw bar items, including several varieties of salmon, prepared every conceivable way. Or you can have anything from Penn Cove Mussels ($7) to a huge platter costing $160. Other starters are $11–26.

 
Bread service (left); Smoked scallops cocktail (right)

I started with the Smoked Scallops ($13), served with sour cream & chives and cocktail sauce—a happy riff on the more commonplace shrimp cocktail (also available). The bread was mightily addictive.

The entrée menu offers a range of composed dishes ($21–38), along with an à la carte section where you choose a protein, a cooking method, and a sauce. Just considering the à la carte seafood options (there’s beef too), there are seven fish, five cooking methods, and eight sauces, making for a dizzying array of 280 combinations, before side dishes are considered.

Cedar Planked King Salmon with Meyer Lemon Orange Hollandaise Sauce

The server recommended the Cedar Planked King Salmon with the Meyer Lemon Orange Hollandaise sauce. At $37, it was $10 more than the next most expensive à la carte fish. It certainly was a solid choice, but there are 279 more options, and it could take a decade to try them all. If Wild Salmon lasts that long.

Among the composed entrées, more than one server recommended the Black Cod ($28), but I doubted that Nobu’s version of it could be improved upon, so I took a pass.

Cheesecake

I had cheesecake for dessert ($9), which wasn’t particularly memorable.

The restaurant is still in its first few weeks of business. It was not full at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening. Nevertheless, as one would expect at a Chodorow restaurant, I was firmly commanded to retire to the bar until my girlfriend arrived. At least it is a comfortable bar that one doesn’t mind retiring to.

Everyone working at Wild Salmon is excited to be there, or they’re putting on a damned good act. Bloomberg reviewer Alan Richman complained that they were too talkative, and I suspect other visitors will too, but we were merely amused. Lines like “We have a plethora of side dishes” or “We have tons of appetizers” aren’t all that helpful.

The wine list is reasonably priced in relation to the rest of the menu. A sommelier came over unbidden and steered us to a terrific pinot noir ($52), and probably not one I would have thought to choose.

The space is attractive and comfortable. Built on two levels, the dining room is downstairs, the bar upstairs. Hundreds of little sculpted salmons hang above the dining room (they reminded Richman of sperm), reminiscent of Kobe Club’s dangling samurai swords. But here, one needn’t worry of imminent death should one of them fall.

We enjoyed our meal, but wouldn’t rush back. We suspect that’ll be Frank Bruni’s verdict, too. The bartender told us that, as far as they knew, Bruni hadn’t been in yet. I suggest they simplify the menu. Frank doesn’t like to have quite so many choices. Neither did we.

Wild Salmon (622 Third Avenue at 40th Street, East Midtown)

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

Asia de Cuba

Note: The original Asia de Cuba closed in October 2011. It re-opened in March 2015 at a new location in NoHo, at 415 Lafayette Street. The review below is of the original location.

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The communal table at Asia de CubaA friend of mine adores Asia de Cuba, Jeffrey Chodorow’s fusion restaurant where pan-Asian meets pan-Latin. When she asked where I’d like to be taken for my birthday, I thought it was the perfect choice — a restaurant she loves, and one I’d never been to.

Since it opened in 1997, Asia de Cuba has been the ultimate “scene” restaurant. Unlike many such places, the buzz hasn’t died out. Almost a decade later, the young and the gorgeous haven’t stopped flocking there. Philippe Starck’s luminous double-decker interior still turns heads. Downstairs, a communal table the length of a football field dominates the dining room. Upstairs, the comfortable bar area and additional dining tables overlook the room below.

Reviewing for the Times in 1997, Ruth Reichl wasn’t impressed. She began, “You won’t eat well at Asia de Cuba.” There wasn’t much that she liked, but she proceeded to award a star anyway—surely the best evidence of the star-inflation for which she was known:

I’m not impressed with the ropa vieja of duck, either. One of those thoroughly cross-cultural inventions, this is a variation on the classic Latin beef stew (called ropa vieja because the meat shreds like old clothes) served like Chinese minced squab in lettuce leaves. The idea is to spread the lettuce with hoisin sauce, add a few pea shoots, some thinly sliced snow peas and calabaza squash, spoon some stew on top, wrap it all up and eat it with your fingers. Nice idea, but it doesn’t taste very good.

I’m glad I didn’t read Reichl’s review before we went, as we ordered that very dish ($19.50), and it was a hit. They’ve changed the vegetable accompaniments since Reichl had it, but the idea is still the same. The server brought the duck to our table still on the bone, then shredded it and left us to wrap it into delicious pancakes with the accompanying lettuce.

Miso cured black cod ($33) comes with a black bean and edamame salad. It’s competently done, but these days every Asian-themed restaurant has a version of that dish, and the one here didn’t erase memories of the better renditions of it. My friend recommended a couple of side dishes: Plantain fried rice with avocado salad ($9.50) and Lobster boniato mash ($13.50), which both lived up to her enthusiastic endorsements.

Ruth Reichl and I do agree that the coconut cake is excellent. The restaurant served it with a candle and “Happy Birthday Marc” written in chcolate syrup on the plate. Like everything else, it was a huge piece, which even two people sharing could not finish.

The restaurant has some wonderful specialty cocktails. I loved the Coconut Cloud Martini ($12), made with coconut rum and Stoli vanilla, topped with coconut shavings. We also had the Mojito ($12), for which my friend says Asia de Cuba is deservedly famous.

Like many restaurants in the genre, Asia de Cuba serves the food family style. One appetizer, one entree, and a couple of side dishes are more than enough for two people (indeed, my friend took home leftovers). The ample portions somewhat make up for the stratospheric prices: appetizers are $19–26, entrees $23–59 (most over $30), side dishes $9–$13.50. I would prefer smaller portions and prices, which would allow a party of two to sample more of the menu without spending a fortune.

If Asia de Cuba’s food is no longer unique, it is certainly plenty of fun. Ruth Reichl’s 1997 review didn’t offer much promise, but in fact kitchen is doing a very respectable job. And if you can’t make it to New York, there are Asia de Cuba outposts in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Asia de Cuba (237 Madison Avenue between 37th & 38th Streets, Murray Hill)

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