TBar Steak & Lounge

I found out about TBar Steak & Lounge via an Eater post, which lampooned the place for its dorky décor. I wouldn’t normally go to the Upper East Side for a steakhouse, as there are plenty of great ones in my neck of the woods, but hey, I was feeling adventurous.

The good news is that it’s nowhere near as dorky-looking in real life as it looks in that Citysearch photo. And the restaurant seems to be doing well. When I walked in at around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday without a reservation, they could seat me only in the lounge. That was just fine: the lounge is spacious and comfortable.

The bad news is that they’re serving USDA Choice at a Prime tariff.

I took one bite of my Ribeye Steak ($42), and I knew immediately it wasn’t headed for the pantheon. The conversation with my server was almost surreal.

“Excuse me. Is this prime or choice?”

She looked at me with a puzzled stare. “In terms of…what?”

“Have you heard of Prime beef, versus Choice beef?”

“Uh, no.”

“Can you ask the kitchen if it’s Prime or Choice?”

By this point, I already knew the answer. At any restaurant serving Prime beef, the servers know it. Her response, a few moments later, was just a formality: “It’s Choice.”

For a Choice steak, it wasn’t bad. But it was $42, which is as much as, or more than, many restaurants charge for aged Prime. Any steak-lover will instantly know the difference.

I also ordered the Potato Cake ($12), a luscious creation made with potatoes and gruyère (upper left in the photo). Servers were young and friendly. And obviously not schooled in the difference between Prime and Choice.

TBar Steak & Lounge (1278 Third Avenue between 73rd & 74th Streets, Upper East Side)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Satisfactory, but the servers aren’t meat scholars
Ambiance: Good
Overall: Overpriced, for what they’re serving

Rolling the Dice: Moim

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Moim, the four-month-old Park Slope Korean. The Eater oddsmadkers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 8-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: This week’s Bruni target is something of a wild card. The owners, Kiho Park and Saeri Yoo Park, were featured a couple of months ago in a New York Times piece about their Park Slope brownstone, but I could not find a single review of their restaurant. The chef, Saeri Yoo, has some serious credentials, with stints at Spice Market, Café Gray and The Modern.

Bruni has never issued a zero-star review outside of Manhattan. Given the rarity of his outer-borough visits, it would be silly to write a review only to say, “Don’t bother,” especially for a restaurant that the other critics had already ignored. So you can bet that Bruni is going to be fairly enthusiastic. The only question is: one star or two?

Bruni definitely has a two-star bias when he reviews an earnest out-of-the-way family-owned place. It has happened over & over again. You can bet that when he walked in the door, he was itching to pull the trigger on two stars. Is Moim good enough? Eater seems to have a good point: if it were that good, surely it couldn’t have flown under-the-radar for so long.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award an enthusiastic one star to Moim.

The Payoff: Centro Vinoteca

Today, Frank Bruni loves the fried food at Centro Vinoteca, but there’s enough wrong with everything else to knock the restaurant down to one star:

Here’s the ordering guide you need for Centro Vinoteca: if you see the word fried, or if you see any apparent derivation of the Italian word fritto (which means fried), or if you see a word that calls to mind either of those other ones (e.g. fritter), get whatever it’s attached to. And get anything else that you suspect may be fried.

For quite a while, you’re sure Bruni has boarded the two-star train. He loves the piccolini (which means “very small things”), though he’s irritated that they’re listed on a separate menu:

An annoyance in addition to the deafening commotion is the presentation of that piccolini card apart from the rest of the menu, so that you can’t evaluate your interest in these snacks, which take on a compulsory air, before you’ve seen your other options. Is this method designed to guarantee larger aggregate food orders and higher tabs?

The complaints mount, and we realize Centro Vinoteca doesn’t have the angels on its side:

Ms. Burrell went overboard with a sloppy, heavy amalgam of lamb Bolognese, fried onions and fried gnocchi — it’s the fried exception that proves the fried rule. Her judgment erred as well with overly bitter broccoli rabe and Swiss chard ravioli.

Eater made the very reasonable guess that a Mario Batali protegée would get a sloppy, wet, two-star kiss from Frank, but it wasn’t to be—proving that even a Batali connection is no guarantee of Frank’s undying love. On our hypothetical $1 bets, NYJ wins $3, while Eater loses $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$53.50		$52.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		+3.00
Total	$52.50		$55.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	21–6		20–7

Oyster Bar & Restaurant

 

Recently, a friend suggested dinner in the iconic Oyster Bar & Restaurant at Grand Central Terminal. I’d never dined there, and I suppose this is one of those experiences—like a walk in Central Park—that everyone must have, at least once. The walk in Central Park is an experience you’ll more likely repeat. Here, the fabled Guastavino ceiling is instantly impressive, but I don’t understand why they spoil the atmosphere with red-and-white checked tablecloths that would look cheesy even in Red Lobster.

Oyster Bar’s Long MenuThe Oyster Bar has been around since 1913. I didn’t do an exhaustive search for reviews, but I noted that Bryan Miller of the Times awarded one star in 1989, and William Grimes demoted it to Fair (two notches below one star) in 2002. Miller noted an earlier two-star review in 1985, which I didn’t try to find. Its most recent write-up was a Diner’s Journal piece by Sam Sifton in May 2004, after a strike had shuttered the restaurant for 112 days during the preceding winter and spring, finding a bit more to like than Grimes did.

The menu is about three times longer than it should be. Reprinted daily, it comes on a broadsheet that takes about 20 minutes to read. No restaurant could possibly offer so many items, and expect to excel at all of them. A month of dinners at the Oyster Bar wouldn’t be sufficient to get through it all.

Both Grimes and Sifton agreed that the bar is superior to the tables, but we were ignorant of that advice, and sat in the dining room (which, in any case, was better suited to our party of three).

 

While we waited for the third in our party to arrive, my friend and I shared the completely forgettable Fried Oysters with Tartar Sauce ($8.95; above left). The Smokehouse Sampler ($23.95; above right) features Atlantic Salmon, Pacific Sturgeon, Brook Trout, horseradish cream and capers. Once again, I was struck by the blandness of it.

One of my friends ordered the New England Clam Chowder ($5.75), which she loved. The other ordered the Trio of Cheeses ($8; pictured left), which he enjoyed. There are probably some wonderful things among the 100+ choices at the Oyster Bar, but I wouldn’t recommend either of the ones I tried.

Service was not particularly attentive, but everything we ordered came out fairly quickly. There are some unusual bottled beers, and in his review Grimes had good things to say about the wine list. We contented ourselves with some port after dinner.

Oyster Bar & Restaurant (Lower Level, Grand Central Terminal, East Midtown)

Food: Bland
Service: Acceptable
Ambiance: It’s a train station
Overall: Ho-hum

Smith & Mills

You could easily walk right by Smith & Mills, and I nearly did. I was actually on my way to another restaurant when I saw a tiny little space I’d never noticed before. I had no reservation that evening, so I changed my plans and gave this new spot a try. I had no trouble getting seated immediately when I wandered in at around 7:00 p.m., but later on the place filled up.

The space, which was formerly a garage, and was a stable before that, is decorated with faux rusticity that is persuasive enough that you’d think the place had been there forever, but it has only been open four months. It earned two stars from Randall Lane in Time Out New York, and a strong write-up from Peeter Meehan in the Times.

I suspect most of the clientele is local. There is no sign on the outside. The couple seated next to me said that they, too, had found it only by accident. Even the name is cloaked in mystery: it’s not printed on the menu. When I asked, the server said there’s no one involved that’s actually named “Smith” or “Mills”; someone just liked those names.

The server said that the cuisine was “Rustic European.” I suppose that’s accurate. House cured salmon ($13) was quite respectable, and I very much enjoyed the seasonable vegetable soup ($6).

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the dessert ($6): an apple cake, I believe, with cheese drizzled on top. The skimpy wine list was short on specifics, but the house sancerre ($12) and bordeaux ($14) were just fine.

There doesn’t seem to be a kitchen. All of the food is prepared behind the bar, which explains why most of the offerings (everything but the soup) are served cold. There are only seven tables, but service was almost excruciatingly slow, even in the early part of my meal, when most of the seats were still empty. It’s a pleasant space to kick back and relax, but be prepared to wait.

I don’t normally comment on bathrooms, but this one had to be mentioned. It’s built into the original freight elevator, and like the rest of the restaurant, is made to look like it has been there forever. The toilet is kept clean, but the “tilt” sink is arguably a bit gross.

Smith & Mills doesn’t break any new culinary ground, but it’s a welcome casual addition in a neighborhood where most of the dining options are expensive. Three courses and two glasses of wine set me back just $51 (before tax and tip). Credit cards aren’t accepted.

Smith & Mills (71 N. Moore Street east of Greenwich Street, TriBeCa)

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

Rolling the Dice: Centro Vinoteca

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Centro Vinoteca, the latest in a long line of neighborhood Italian joints that have caught his eye. The Eater oddsmadkers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 4-1 √√
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: The official odds reflect the randomness of Bruni’s ratings. When Frank is driving the bus, almost anything is possible, from a rather dull one star to an enthusiastic deuce. How many Italian “formula” restaurants can get two stars? Frank tends to reserve that rating for the earnest family-owned places (like Sfoglia)…which this isn’t.

The Bet: We are betting that Frank Bruni will award one star to Centro Vinoteca. Wake me up when it’s over.

The Payoff: Park Avenue Autumn

Today, Frank Bruni is smitten with Park Avenue Autumn, turning in a quite enthusiastic two-star review.

It’s not often that I have the feeling that Bruni and I dined at different places. If I’ve dined there at around the same time, I usually feel like he’s describing the same experience as I had. When my rating is different, it’s because I weigh the value of that experience differently, not because I feel he’s describing something alien.

But today, Bruni’s enthusiasm for Park Avenue Autumn is truly unrecognizable in relation to the very mediocre meal we had there not long ago. I can only assume that we caught the restaurant on an off-night: such things can happen.

Unfortunately, it means I am a loser today, and Eater is a winner on our hypothetical one-dollar bets. Eater wins $4 at 4–1 odds, while I lose $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$49.50		$53.67
Gain/Loss	+4.00		–1.00
Total	$53.50		$52.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	21–5		19–7

Abboccato

Note: As of May 2008 Abboccato was apparently searching for a new chef de cuisine.

For me, Abboccato was a “when I get around to it” restaurant — a place that looked interesting, but not enough to make it a special priority. Well, I finally got around to it, and it turns out Abboccato is terrific. I should have tried it a lot sooner, and so should you.

Abboccato comes from the Livanos family—the same folks that run Oceana and Molyvos. It’s not a bad trio to be associated with. The chef is Jim Bostacos, who has bounced around town, and earned three stars at Molyvos. But he’s half Italian, and he made the hop to Abboccato, where the Livanos gave him more creative control.

In October 2005, Marian Burros of The New York Times (subbing for the vacationing Bruni) awarded a fairly enthusiastic two stars, finding considerable potential, but a few dishes over or under-salted. In New York, Adam Platt (in the days before he awarded stars)  liked the place too, but found the menu overly long and complicated—a problem many Italian restaurants seem to have these days.

The menu seems to have undergone some editing since then; it is now a more focused document than Platt found it. There are the obvious categories of antipasti ($14–16), primi ($22–26),  secondi and whole fish ($32–38), and side dishes ($8). There is also a pre-theater prix fixe (we arrived too late to sample it), and a pasta tasting menu at $55 per person.

Whether Marian Burros’s complaints have been addressed is harder to judge on one visit, but everything we tasted was without fault.

 

To start, we shared an order of the ravioli ($22). Silky-smooth pasta pillows were lined with wild greens, and glazed with a riccotta and bone marrow butter sauce. We moved on to the branzino for two ($70). The server presented the whole fish for inspection, then whisked it away to be filleted. There was nothing complicated here, but there didn’t need to be. The fish was simply grilled, with olive oil and rosemary, and served with a garnish of crushed olives.

We finished up with the Mascarpone Cheese Cake ($9), topped (improbably) with a strawberry-pink peppercorn sauce that managed to work, despite the odd name.

There were a couple of odd service issues near the beginning of the meal: a too-eager server taking our wine order before we’d even been shown menus; bread served without butter or olive oil. But things settled down after that.

The restaurant was not even close to full at prime time on a Saturday night, and that’s too bad: Abboccato deserves much more attention.

Abboccato (136 W. 55th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Rolling the Dice: Park Avenue Autumn

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Park Avenue Autumn, the only restaurant in town that changes its name four times a year. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 4-1 √√
Three Stars: 750-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: The Eater odds are a little funny sometimes. Frank Bruni gave zero stars last week to Wakiya, and he isn’t going to award a donut twice in a row, so the only outcomes truly in play here are one or two stars.

We weren’t impressed with Park Avenue Autumn’s summertime incarnation, awarding zero. Much as I disagree with Bruni sometimes, our ratings have seldom been more than one star apart. That alone would incline me to take the one-star bet.

On top of that, Bruni is seldom enthralled with “scene-y” places, which this unquestionably is. And he also tends to punish (as he should) high-priced restaurants with uneven performance, which I also think this is.

The Bet: We are betting that Frank Bruni will award one star to Park Avenue Autumn.

Grayz

 

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Grayz.

Whatever he does, Gray Kunz seems to take his time. After he left the four-star Lespinasse, it was six years until he opened a new restaurant, Café Gray, which was much delayed—the last to appear of the originally announced restaurants in the Time-Warner Center.

Then, Grayz was announced. The Times featured it in their September 2006 fall dining preview section. In October, the Post broke the story that plans had been scrapped, apparently due to a dispute with the construction company. In January, it was back on again. Two weeks ago, Grayz finally opened in the former Aquavit space, in the landmarked 19th-century Rockefeller townhouse.

I have never warmed up to Café Gray. While no one would dispute Kunz’s talent as a chef, the restaurant is crowded, loud, and distinctly unpleasant. I dined there twice, and wasn’t happy either time. For his next venture, I hoped that Kunz would open the kind of refined restaurant that his breathtaking talent deserves, but with Grayz he has gone in the opposite direction. It’s mainly a catering place, with a lively bar that serves finger food. Kunz’s finger food may beat everyone else’s, but Grayz is still a place for…well, grazing, not dining.

Frank Bruni previewed Grayz in a June blog post. He included a sample menu, which is fairly close to what Grayz is offering now. He described it as “a theater for fancy private parties.” The dinner concept, according to a publicist, is “one big cocktail party.” The lunch menu is supposed to be more traditional (which would be wise), but Bruni had no lunch menu to show, and as far as I know the lunch service hasn’t yet begun.

Bread service

I was seated immediately when I walked in at around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday evening, but an hour later the place was packed. Kunz’s catering strategy had already paid dividends, as the downstairs room was booked for a private party by the accounting firm KPMG—not bad for a restaurant that had only been open for 10 days.

The menu offers nine appetizers, captioned “Small Plates and Finger Food” ($13–22) and just three entrées ($16–33). Included among the latter are Kunz’s famous short ribs, which are also a mainstay on the Café Gray menu (and were offered at Lespinasse, as well). I asked the server how many small plates would make a meal. She cautioned, “They are small!” So I ordered three of them, after asking her for suggestions.

 Homemade bread sticks came, with a wonderful yogurt dipping sauce that tasted like a soft goat cheese. I finished all of it, and could probably have eaten more. (I apologize for the quality of the photos, but note the elegant silver tray—typical of the service at Grayz.)

 
Salt Stone Grilled Prawns (left); Crisped Calamari (right)

Grilled prawns ($18) were served on a hot stone, with a kaffir rémoulade seasoning. This appeared to be the most popular dish, as I saw more prawn orders coming out than anything else. The Crisped calamari ($12) with a lemon–honey chutney was much more delicate than the usual deep-fried calamari. (As New York revealed, Kunz makes it with Nabisco graham crackers and Cream of Wheat.) It was the largest portion of anything I ordered, but I got bored with it about halfway through.

 
Pasta Fiori and Tomato Concassée (left); Cheese and marinated vegetables (right)

Pasta Fiori ($15) in a lemon thyme broth was the best item I tried. A soft pillow of silky pasta in a delicate tomato sauce, it would be at home in any four-star restaurant. Good as it was, it seemed out of place at Grayz, as the portion was far too small to be shared, and it certainly wasn’t finger food.

The cheese course ($11), which I ordered from the dessert menu, was a miscalculation. The marinated vegetables at the corners of the plate were miniscule, while the pile of shaved cheese in the center tasted like supermarket provalone. (It also came with bread; not shown in the photo.)

Service was first-rate, with beautiful platings, and fresh silverware delivered for every course. It almost seemed overwrought and a little too precious. Every plate was left in the middle of the table, as if to be shared with an imaginary companion (I was there alone).

The total for three appetizers, a cheese course, one cocktail, and two glasses of wine, came to $100 before tax and tip. That’s a high total for finger food. The menu could evolve considerably as Kunz figures out what works, and what doesn’t. For now, I’d say that it’s worth dropping in if you’re in the neighborhood, but it’s nothing I’d rush back for.

Grayz (13–15 West 54th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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