East Village fish shack Butcher Bay's no keeper

Tuesday, March 10th 2009, 4:00 AM

Not quite everything you hope for in a fish shack.
511 E. Fifth St., near Avenue A. (212) 260-1333
Dinner: Mon.-Sun., 6 p.m. until late.
CUISINE: Fish shack
VIBE: Down and dirty East Village
OCCASION: Neighborhood dinner, bar bites
DON'T-MISS DISH: Scallop pan roast, steamed mussels with bread
AVERAGE PRICE: Appetizers, $6; entrees, $17. No desserts.
RESERVATIONS: Not accepted.

A hell of a lot has changed at 511 E. Fifth St., near Avenue A. It used to be called Seymour Burton. It wasn't the prettiest place to look at, but the food was wonderfully hearty. And they had a great burger. Now Seymour Burton is Butcher Bay, a wanna-be Pearl Oyster Bar. Adam Cohn, one of the original owners, remains. The burger doesn't. Big mistake.

The sign on the front door says, "Cash Only." It should also say, "No Beer on Tap." Butcher Bay is the kind of place that should have beer on tap. It should also have a full bar. It doesn't. No dessert either.

At the rear of the dining room, there's a raw bar with five kinds of oysters, one kind of clam and 1%BD -pound lobsters. Aside from a steak and fried chicken, it's a fish menu. There's fish and chips, chowder, boiled Maine lobster and a lobster potpie. There aren't a whole lot of seafood spots in New York anymore, but there used to be not so long ago.

Did you know that oysters used to thrive in New York Harbor until the 1900s? So did clams, eel, shrimp, lobsters and conch. Did you know that in the 1820s there used to be oyster bars along Canal St. with "all you could eat oysters" for 6 cents? Or, that by 1880, New York Harbor produced over 700 million oysters a year?

Those days are long gone. You wouldn't eat oysters out of the harbor right now.

You should eat the oysters at Butcher Bay.  Sometimes, there are Beau Soleil or Witch Duck oysters, but most are fresh from the Chesapeake Bay. And the best thing on the menu is the scallop pan roast. It's rich and buttery - studded with small, sweet scallops, bacon, corn and potato. The menu also has a generous bowl of steamed mussels served with grilled bread, and tasty shrimp hush puppies.

Seymour Burton served fried clams, and so does Butcher Bay. But Butcher Bay's are overbattered and underfried. The fried oyster and bacon po' boy isn't so much a po' boy as it is fried batter, lettuce, tomato, bacon and a muck of mayonnaise on a stale French baguette.

I remember having a good oyster chowder at Seymour Burton. But the oyster chowder at Butcher Bay is thin and flavorless. The Green Goddess salad is woefully overdressed, not exactly how you like to see your goddess.

There are a few cheap wines by the glass and one really awful sparkling white wine - a Veuve Ambal Blanc de Blancs NV - which my friend called the Mountain Dew of sparkling wine. The menu and the decor at Butcher Bay suggest fish shack, but this is one halfhearted fish shack.

The most imaginative thing about Butcher Bay is its name. Adam Cohn says that co-owner Bob Giraldi made the name up. But the only Butcher Bay I've heard of is a fictional place - a maximum-security prison in the video game Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Riddick is voiced by Vin Diesel - and like any good hero, he manages to escape.

Perhaps we should take a cue.

Guerilla molecular gastronomy at Desnuda

122 E. Seventh St.,
(212) 254-3515
Hours: Dinner, Mon.-Thurs., 5 p.m.-midnight;
Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m. - 2 a.m.; Sundays: closed
CUISINE: Ceviche
VIBE: Sexy Ceviche Bar
OCCASION: Bar bites, Casual date
DON'T MISS DISH: Tea-smoked oysters, mackerel ceviche, apple & fig mixto with pomegranate molasses.
AVERAGE PRICE: Appetizers, $4; entrees, $16.
RESERVATIONS: No reservations

There's no kitchen at Desnuda, a new cevicheria on Seventh St. in the East Village. There's a popcorn popper, a microwave, a dinky sushi fridge, and a toaster oven.

So how does Christian Zammas, the chef, manages to smoke raw oysters every night? In a gravity bong, of course. Zammas made his bong from scratch, using a Sprite bottle and a glass bowl he bought on St. Marks Place.

He packs the glass bowl with Lapsang souchong tea leaves and Sichuan peppercorns, lights it on fire, then catches the smoke in a shot glass and places it over a raw oyster.

He does it right on the bar. Now for the audience participation part. You lift the shot glass, inhale the intoxicating, pine-like perfume, then raise the oyster to your mouth and let it slip down your throat.

Dinner at Desnuda isn't just dinner.

It's edible, interactive performance art. It's just a sliver of a space, but it's completely stylish, far more stylish than its chef. Zammas' thick, black-rimmed glasses are held together by Scotch tape. So is the rest of his appearance. But you won't mind.

He's a student of guerrilla molecular gastronomy, or as he puts it, ghetto molecular gastronomy. In other words, he's a low-budget, culinary mad scientist.

For a dish called ceviche mixto, he mixes salmon, scallops and tuna with cinnamon, lemon, lime, shallots, Sprite, and rocoto paste, made from a South American pepper.

Sprite? "I was drinking a Sprite when I came up with the dish," he says. Think of it as East Village Champagne. It tastes far more sophisticated than it sounds. All of this is happening on the fly. After all, letting fish oversit in ceviche is the equivalent of overcooking. This is cooking one customer at a time, one dish at a time...

Zammas is not alone behind the bar. It's a two-man show. In some sense, Zammas came out of nowhere, from restaurants you've never heard of. Co-owner Peter Gevrekis comes from Wall Street, where he used to be a broker.

Now, he shucks oysters and tends bar at Desnuda. Here's how it works. You walk in, take one of the 18 seats in this restaurant; there isn't a menu. The two men behind the bar explain their offerings for the night.

There's two kinds of oysters with four different sauces, nine kinds of ceviche, free truffle popcorn, and a few other things. Then they go to work right in front of you.

I ordered the apple and fig mixto. It requires pomegranate molasses, which they're out of. So Zammas darts across the street to the Bourgeois Pig to get some. A few minutes pass. And he sets in front of me a ceviche with salmon, scallops, cilantro chiffonade, green apple, green pepper, brown turkey figs, cherry tomatoes, and a hit of mustard oil.

 It's an amazing riot of textures and flavors, and yet perfectly balanced. This is how food should be, prepared right in front of you with fresh ingredients and tons of imagination.

Dinner at Desnuda is completely unpredictable, in the best way. Oh, I left something out of the kitchen inventory, a blowtorch. Order the tuna dessert — yes, tuna — and Zammas will whip out his blowtorch. He brulees ruby red slabs of tuna sashimi, then dusts them with salt and a sour orange zest. The finishing touch is a soy mirin glaze. If there's mackerel in the house, order it.

Mr. Jones: A little swank with your yakitori.
243 E. 14th St., (212) 253-7670.
Sun.-Wed., 5:30 p.m.-midnight; Thur.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-2 a.m.;  CUISINE: Traditional Japanese
VIBE: Stealthy yakitori den; 
OCCASION: Night out, casual date;
DON’T MISS DISH: Chicken wings, wagyu with wasabi, escolar with citrus sauce; 
PRICE: Appetizers $6; entrees $15; desserts, none; RESERVATIONS: Recommended

Some people like to invent imaginary friends. Lesley Bernard likes to invent imaginary friends who design restaurants.

He created Tillman’s, a Harlem soul lounge in Chelsea, named after its fictional proprietor, Mr. Tillman. Mr. Jones is the name of Bernard’s new restaurant on E. 14th St.

The question is — who does Mr. Jones think he is? And more importantly, do you really want to eat in the mind of a fictional character? Especially a mind that resembles James Coburn’s in “In Like Flint”?

But there are other theories. Everybody has one.

Mr. Jones could be a furniture store specializing in Danish Modern. It could be George Jetson’s bachelor pad, fireplace and all. It could be the first-class lounge at Dubai International. Most restaurants look like they could only be restaurants.

But Mr. Jones is more club than restaurant, more sex than food. And Mr. Jones seems to have a question too. Who are you? Perhaps it’s best to plan on coming in costume.

The waitresses are dressed like ’60s stewardesses. The hostess almost offered to reclothe me at the door. And all this for yakitori, which, after all, is food on sticks. Not that I mind some swank with my yakitori. But perhaps not so much music. And perhaps not so much darkness.

And perhaps chairs that don’t force you to recline and use your chest as a plate.

Is this dinner or a seduction? The trouble is that all this gets in the way of the man in the kitchen — Bryan Emperor, a highly trained chef who has worked at Nobu, Megu, Bouley and at one of the most famous kaiseki restaurants in Japan. The point is, the persona that matters in a restaurant should be the chef’s, not some imaginary dude’s.

Now, let’s talk food. The problem here, too, is persona. What is a humble iron pot filled with kimchee, tofu and Korean pepper paste doing in a spy movie? Or

Berkshire black hog belly with lemon and Mongolian sea salt, for that matter? Both were good, and yet it felt strange to be eating them in that setting. There is some excellent traditional Japanese food here — though no sushi — but it deserves a more appropriate room. Remember, this is yakitori: small, small portions and lots of choices.

Here’s what I’d order: Karai honey — chicken with spiced honey. Harami wasabi — wagyu beef with wasabi paste. Tsukune zura — minced chicken and a raw quail egg with sichimi, a Chinese blend of seven spices. Most of these are $8, even the wagyu.

One of the best dishes on the menu is the tori tatsuta age — Japanese for tempura-battered chicken wings with daikon sauce. I also liked the slow-cooked escolar with a goma ponzu sauce.

Here’s what I’d skip: The chicken with mikado teriyaki sauce — too much sauce. The sakura smoked duck — too much smoke and too much pepper. And the shiitake mushrooms skewers — too cold and slimy.

At the moment, Mr. Jones is too cool for dessert. But as an alternative, there is a wide array of sakes, including the kikusui funaguchi, an unpasteurized sake that comes in a can. And there’s a perfect palate-cleansing cocktail. It’s made with wasabi-infused vodka, sake and cucumber.

Guess what it’s called? Mr. Jones, of course.

The urban tropics, Malaysia by way of the Bowery.

316 Bowery, at Bleecker St., (212) 254-0350
Mon.-Thur., 6 p.m.-midnight; Fri.-Sat., 6 p.m.-1 a.m.; Sat.-Sun. brunch, 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CUISINE: Fusion.
VIBE: Hip Bowery eatery.
OCCASION: First date, festive group dinner.
DON'T-MISS DISH: Duck steam bun, sea bream sashimi, Singapore laksa.
AVERAGE PRICE: Appetizers, $14; entrees, $25; dessert, $10.
RESERVATIONS: Accepted.

In the right kind of restaurant, eating out reminds you that you belong to a social world, something larger than yourself. Maybe it's the gentle haze of conversation, the buzz at the bar, or the music thumping in the background. There's a pulse, something electric in the energy darting about the room.

How do you create that feeling? In the case of Double Crown, down in the Bowery, it was designed right into the restaurant. It is owned and run by AvroKo, a design company that has created three other restaurants in the city. They practically invented butcher-shop chic at Quality Meats. At Public, they opened what looks like a big, sexy library serving Australasian food. And the Stanton Social is now a landmark of lower East Side swank.

There's something very alive about Double Crown. That's what I like most about it - the red neon lights in the corner, the subtle hum of the ceiling fans twirling overhead, turned round and round by a leather belt. Or maybe it's the Hindu screens propped up just so against the wall, or the warm, worn-in teak wood tables, or the imperfectly hung white panels in the dining room. Double Crown creates a fiction - the urban tropics, Malaysia by way of the Bowery. And they've hired a production staff to make the fiction feel real. There's a wine director and a cocktail director. From the look of the crowd, there might even be a casting director.

In a room this lively you can't pay too much attention to the food. And at Double Crown, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The simple dishes here work well - duck steam buns, crispy whitebait, and wild boar bangers and mash. I would even return for the sea bream sashimi and its smoky bonito vinegar dressing. Or the Singapore laksa - a wonderful green tea noodle soup with crab, bean sprouts, and a spiced coconut broth.

But this isn't a restaurant given to simplicity. Where else would you find pheasant and licorice pie or wet pigs in a blanket?

Nobody wants to be in a wet blanket. Not even a pig. But out it comes stuffed into the center of a lychee fruit with a coconut dipping sauce. Pickled watermelon rind isn't a bad thing. But when you mix it with fresh watermelon and cilantro, it ruins everything that's good about watermelon.

The food at Double Crown is all over the map. Sometimes worlds collide right on your plate. One night, I had the venison Wellington. The venison itself was perfectly pan-seared. The hard part was unwrapping it. The meat in Beef Wellington is usually wrapped in pastry, mushrooms and perhaps a little foie gras.

But at Double Crown, the packaging is much more complicated - mushrooms, cabbage, mustard, a crepe, puff pastry, red currant jus and cranberry chutney. How does it taste? Like a British riff on Thanksgiving. Your tongue doesn't know where to begin. That's the trouble of eating in a fantasy food world.

Brad Farmerie proved he can cook at Public, where he unites Australia, Asia and Africa under a single roof. He proves he can cook here, too, as long as he keeps it simple.

But he has been led astray by exoticism. The secret at Double Crown is to order simply and enjoy the crowd.

60 Third Ave., between 10th and 11th Sts. (212) 254-0888
Mon.-Thurs., 5:30-11 p.m.; Fri-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-midnight; Sun., 5:30-10:30 p.m. CUISINE: New American
VIBE: Stylish E. Village eatery
OCCASION: First date, group dinner
DON'T-MISS DISHES: Roasted peaches and serrano ham; spice-crusted lamb
PRICE: Appetizers, $12; entrees, $25; dessert, $8
RESERVATIONS: Recommended
CAPSULE: Honey and spice

Apiary reminds me how hard it is to get it right. To most of us, dinner is just dinner. But to a restaurant's chef and its staff, it's much more complicated.

Imagine all the questions that have to be answered before your entrée arrives. What's fresh today? Can we make a profit on that? Am I going to shoot myself if I have to roast another chicken? Is this dish too much like Bobby Flay's? Would anybody notice if I just pulled it off the menu? What's eating the sous chef?

Really, it's a wonder the food ever shows up on the table at all. And yet somehow, sometimes, someone does get it right. When that happens, out comes a dish you never forget - a dish that seems effortless, almost logical, the very idea of what good food can be.

Too often, though, out comes a dish that reads well on the menu and tastes good in theory - but not necessarily on the plate. Case in point?

The slow-cooked rabbit at Apiary.

Before us we find: roasted loin wrapped in serrano ham, wild mushrooms, brown-butter spaetzle and a red-wine reduction sauce. What has the power to unify these ingredients? Nothing, really. The reduction sauce overwhelms the loin, erasing the poor rabbit's identity. And here's a rule of thumb: What's wrapped in ham tastes like ham.

Unless it's peaches.

One of the dishes that comes out really right at Apiary is an arrangement of honey-roasted peaches, wrapped in ribbons of Serrano ham and served over a mustard-seed-flecked frisée salad. What makes this appetizer work so well is the harmony of salt, sweetness and spice.

But harmony isn't the only thing that makes a dish work. My favorite entrée was the lamb chops, which were dominated by a fired crust of sumac, cumin, fennel, salt and pepper. I could eat the spice crust on its own. Or the crust on the chicken, for that matter. Technically, it was an aromatic reduction sauce made of turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, clove, coriander and cumin. But the fire made it something brittle, something wonderful. There's a Moroccan motif running through the menu - couscous with dried apricot and mint, smoked-paprika pork tenderloin, fried hummus.

Think of it as Newal Manacle's twist on Bobby Flay's palette of spices. After all, Manacle worked in Flay's kitchens for 16 years. You expect sweetness in a restaurant called Apiary, but sometimes the sweetness gets out of hand.

Does a crab cake really need lime curd? Does fried calamari need lemon aioli that tastes like lemon meringue?

While sangria so often recalls a forgotten bottle of cheap wine and overripe fruit tossed into a pitcher, here it's worth ordering. Especially the white sangria with peaches and mint.

If your favorite restaurant was also a street stand, what would it serve? (It's a dinner game. Play along with me.) How about Per Se? Salmon tartare cones. Peter Luger? Porterhouse bacon club with Luger sauce. Pearl Oyster Bar? Already a street stand.

And Apiary? Spicy crusts on a stick and a sangria Slushee.

This weekend we stumbled upon a truly peculiar cocktail at Double Down Saloon, the New York spin-off of an infamous Las Vegas bar.  This artful dive bar serves up a house-infused bacon vodka.  Committed to his peculiar vision, the owner has special bacon flown in from Kentucky, which he then fries up and soaks in high-quality vodka to create a "Bacon Martini" or Bloody Mary.  And if bacon vodka wasn't sufficiently audacious, each martini is topped with a juicy stick of Slim Jim to gnaw while sipping.  Bartender Joan likens the libation to "a good scotch."

Address:14 Avenue A, just above Houston St.
Phone: (212)982-0543
doubledownsaloon.com

You haven't truly eaten at Sea Salt until you've shopped for your dinner in the fish market tucked into the back corner of this East Village nook. There lies the best of what chef Orhan Yegen has to offer - an icy display of seafaring wares. To Yegen, these aren't just fish: This is his religion.

"I'm the only one who truly understands them," he declares matter-of-factly over the phone. "I taste and tune the fish. That's my talent."

He designed much of the ­restaurant himself, painting the broad, creamy stripes that wrap themselves around the space, accented with butcher block tables and black and white photos - a bit Miami Beach meets Mediterranean seascape. Tables spill onto a span of Second Ave., brimming with students and artsy types.

An impossibly outspoken and restless nomad, Yegen has rambled through some 14 restaurants in the last 22 years. He has demonstrated his skills at Beyoglu, and currently at Sip Sak, two restaurants celebrated for their Turkish cuisine. His newest pursuit moves the spotlight from ethnic staples to seafood.

The back fish market reveals a shimmering medley of seafood lounging on cascades of ice.

Dive right into the fresh selection of "small school" fish listed among the appetizers. Portuguese sardines, barely fried, arrive plump and moist with a crisp casing. Grassy bursts of dill ably temper the brininess of salt-cooked anchovies.

But Yegen's popular meze (­Turkish tapas), ravished by upper East Siders at Beyoglu, lost their spunk en route to the East Village. In place of hummus and other creamy dips emerges a trio of "spreads": a clumpy fava bean mash, uneventful yogurt with spinach, and a muddy taramosalata (carp roe dip).

Even more disheartening were the fish cakes - fish sticks consisting mostly of potato and kasseri cheese with scarce traces of red snapper.

Stick to the namesake's specialty - the salt-encrusted whole fish is Yegen's pride and joy. When it's ordered, he hurries out with an artful, salt-sculptured fish, setting it ablaze with cognac - the tableside performance unearths a buttery and pristinely sweet flesh.

And though he takes no credit for the lamb chops, they materialize juicy and bone-suckingly delectable.

Other entrees fell short. Hefty scallops were lost in a pool of cheese, tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms. Handmade fettuccine was buried under a sludge of Alfredo sauce, which also knocked the life out of lobster, clams and shrimp strewn over the top.

Though slightly erratic, Sea Salt's kitchen tenders some deliciously simple seafood.

As for the check - it arrives in a sardine can, proving Yegen still has a sense of humor after all these years.

The cuisine is secondary to the parade of fashionable downtowners.

335 Bowery, at Third St. (212) 505-9100
Dinner: Seven days. Breakfast and lunch: Monday through Friday. Brunch: Saturday and Sunday.
CUISINE Modern Italian trattoria
VIBE Casual bustle
OCCASION Group dinner or date
DON’T-MISS DISH Four-seasons pizza; cedar-plank-roasted sea bass.
DRINK SPECIALTY Acqua di Gemma - sparkling and flat water filtered and bottled in-house, $4 a bottle.
PRICE Appetizers, $5-$12; entrées, $14-$39; desserts, $3-$10.
RESERVATIONS Available only to Bowery Hotel guests. So go early, and prepare to wait at the bar.

As the masses descend upon this decorated spot - dripping with candles, wine bottles and chunky chandeliers - it's become clear that Gemma has managed to wed the glamour of exclusivity with the democratic accessibility of a no-reservation policy. Owners Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode have seamlessly bridged the gap between two of their brainchildren: the elitist Waverly Inn, with its unlisted phone number and long-lingering "preview menu," and the people-pleasing approachability of La Bottega's Italian plates.

Gemma performs on a notably self-conscious stage, one that feels a lot like you're dining on the set of a Scorsese production. Despite the premeditated décor accents, the place has a magnetic charm, but it is one that upstages the menu - most of which is good enough, but certainly not a serious culinary endeavor.

The trattoria's handsome and lengthy front bar is now an obligatory rite of passage to securing a table in the sprawling dining room.

In collaboration with the owners, architect Taavo Somer (of Freeman's) delivers high wood-beamed ceilings, dangling wrought-iron chandeliers above the banquettes, and rustic farmhouse tables. An open kitchen and French doors lend a breezy, al fresco element to the otherwise warm setting.

The cuisine is as democratic as the reservation system: There is something for everyone, and nothing requires a glossary.

The menu is peppered with a generous selection of antipasti, wood-fired pizza, charcuterie and pasta. The end result: The pizzas will delight, the pastas disappoint, but it is the roasted sea bass that may compel you to return...

The chef, Chris D'Amico, also triumphs with a silky bream dish sprinkled with fried sage leaves, capers and sea salt. Equally, a sheath of black-truffle paté and lemon arouses amply fresh sea scallops.

Yet there are inconsistencies throughout the menu. The fava and escarole salad and the sliced artichokes both revealed themselves to be blander than the ingredients suggest. A watermelon salad arrived as a casualty: A few traces of ricotta, pine nuts and a measly scattering of rocket greens amounted to a soggy assemblage.

Still, the burrata was buttery and the mushroom crostini came decadently smothered in truffle-laced cremini, shiitake and button mushrooms.

The cedar-plank roasted sea bass (branzino) - the best entrée by a landslide - turned up exceptionally smoky and moist, paired with vibrant broccoli rabe. The rest? An excessively fatty porkchop, a deflated brick-oven chicken and a swordfish that would have been better left unskewered.

The safest road to travel is the selection of pizzas. They emerge rustic and warm from the wood oven, fragrant robiola cheese tucked between two wafer-thin slices of charred focaccia. Even better is the four-seasons pizza, delightfully topped with a scattering of fresh artichokes, basil, mushrooms and crispy prosciutto.

The enormous wood oven also births sweet sensations, including an excellent dessert calzone. Delivered to the table on a wooden plank, melting Nutella and gooey ricotta spill out of its doughy shell - a fitting end to a theatrical meal on the Bowery.

The latest in a series of tapas joints to grace Manhattan kicked-off Tuesday evening after a number of setbacks and massive speculation (myself included).  Of course I had to see this with my own eyes.  Opening night and Noho's newest resident was abuzz, brimming with tapas loyalists, gourmet groupies and trendy types.  Every chair was taken in the narrow 90-seat space, industrially-outfitted with unfinished wood tables, brick walls and an eating counter with a view into a white subway-tiled open kitchen: think Casa Mono meets Boqueria on a dimmer.  But Mercat's most inviting accessory was a centerstage ham-and-cheese station, which will no doubt allure potential loiterers (myself included).   

Owner & native Barcelonian, Jaime Reixach, has enlisted chefs David Seigal (Bouley) & Ryan Lowder (Jean Georges) to employ his Catalan-inspired vision of small plates, which take the form of snails & chorizo skewers and sepia ink-stained noodles. While the menu's peppered with the usual suspects - padron peppers, patatas bravas & salt-cod fritters - some dishes weren't as markedly Spanish on paper: guinea hen with wax beans & cranberries and grilled hanger steak with roasted vegetables & horseradish.  The wine list is entirely Spanish, hosting five white & red wines by the glass as well as a vivacious strawberry-red cava that makes for the perfect you-can-wait-at-the-bar aperitif.

While the fare's not as boldly seasonal as Boqueria or relentlessly authentic as Tia Pol, Mercat will likely succeed in the clamorous pursuit of tapas.  For starters, the house-cured salt cod fritters prove atypically light & fluffy: battery, salt cod-spiked pillows emit an irresistible and undeniably funnel cake-like fragrance (in a good way).  I received further funnel cake confirmation from a neighboring table.  A platoon of "stringy potatoes", cradling a fried egg, also whisked me back to the potato stix of my youth. 

Dusted in cornmeal, crispy sweetbread nuggets were pleasingly set on a vibrant backdrop of shaved fennel, capers, oranges & red onions.  The real standout was the monkfish a la plancha.  Simple but brilliantly flavorful, the monkfish proved flaky and moist, strewn on a forest-green bed of terrifically fresh ramps and further elevated by a paprika-tinged romesco sauce.  The only thing missing from the dish was a hunk of bread to lap up the remains of the smoky romesco. 

But neither a bouillabasse nor a stew, the Catalan fisherman's stew sadly ran adrift in a shallow bowl of mussels with one lone, head-on shrimp, wading in an overly garlicky, oil-drenched sauce.  While the churros suffered a sugar-coated death, the melted chocolate was dangerously drinkable.  Though there are some noticeable kinks, Mercat holds much promise.  Besides, the hip masses pouring through the door certainly didn't seem to mind any opening night wrinkles.

45 Bond St., btwn. Lafayette & Broadway
212-529-8600

Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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235 East 4th St., btwn. A & B Aves.
(212)254-2900
EU Website

TYPE: European gastropub
VIBE: Rustic farmhouse meets brasserie
OCCASION: Neighborhood nibbles or casual date
DON'T MISS DISH: Grilled octopus with chickpeas, tomato & preserved lemon
DON'T BOTHER DISH: Foie gras-stuffed quail
DRINK SPECIALTY: International beer & wine list
PRICE: $40 & up
INSIDE SCOOP: During daylight hours, E.U. will double as a greenmarket/deli (TBD)
HOURS: Dinner, Tue - Thu, 5:30 PM - 11:00 PM, Sat, 5:30 PM - 12 AM, Sun, 5:30 PM - 10 PM; Brunch, Sat. & Sun, 11 AM - 3:30 PM.  Closed on Mondays.
RESERVATIONS: Reservations accepted, recommended on weekends.
RESTAURANT GIRL RATES: N/A (Opening night for Chef Akhtar Nawab)
FINAL WORD: With a menu that seems to span the global map, this European gastropub overextends itself.  Perhaps E.U. should hone in on what Akhtar Nawab does best and forsake the name for something Mediterranean.

Restaurant drama at its finest, the saga of E.U. continues: enter Ahktar Nawab, a prominent chef whose last role was chef de cuisine at Craftbar.  As Akhtar ambitiously outgrew Craftbar's menu, Tom Colicchio and Akhtar Nawab parted ways.  After much anticipation for Akhtar's next role as the chef of Allen & Delancey, a Mediterranean restaurant set to open on the Lower East Side, the venture came up $150,000 short, failing to come to fruition. 

So Akhtar accepted the chef position at E.U., a bold move considering the dark cloud that looms over this ill-fated gastropub, owned by Jason Hennings (Diablo Royale) and Bob Giraldi.  Having suffered delayed openings due to liquor license issues, a flood and the curious departures of four chefs, E.U. has tragically become theatrical fodder for the food world.  But I suppose if anyone could lift the curse from this spot, it would be an up-and-coming chef who has managed to impress critics with his inspired cooking.

THE SETTING:
Designer AvroKo (Quality Meats & Stanton Social) has struck again with signatures of the exposed brick, bare bulb, & worn wood-beamed ceiling sorts.  The rustic accoutrements manage to evoke a cozy gastropub vibe.

THE SERVICE:
While E.U. had reopened some weeks ago, it felt more like opening night as servers kept bobbling our order.  On a more personal note - why must servers prematurely snatch up wine glasses with a full-fledged last slip left in the glass?  (I'm just putting it out there.)

THE MENU:
E.U. (short for European Union) covers its bases: charcuterie, a raw bar, tapas and dishes from Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, you get the picture.  From stuffed quail to bauernwurst sausage to sardines a la plancha, this menu reads like a potluck dinner.  The latest rendition of the menu reflects a notably scaled down selection of hearty fare (gone are the schnitzle & cassoulet), perhaps an effort to accomodate their new, Mediterranean-bent chef.

THE FARE:
Without further ado, let's get down to the European-inflected gastropub grub. As far as appetizers go, there was the very
good, the bad and the ugly.  First, the good: the grilled octopus a la plancha paid superior homage to Spain.  Terrifically charred on the outside, sweet & supple within, the octopus was delectably brightened with paper-thin slices of preserved lemon, orange, roasted tomatoes & springy chickpeas.

The bad: a traditional French pate of duck, chicken liver & foie gras, came topped with a foie gras fat seal, laced with quince paste.  Though the seal itself was firm and rich, what lay beneath tasted overly dense and oddly bland. 

And then, there was the ugly: while the foie gras-stuffed quail with blood orange sounded decadently delicious, it practically walked over to the table on its own.  I'm extremely partial to rare preparations, but this rubbery-skinned fowl was sorely undercooked to the point of no return.  My eating partner and I simultaneously recoiled from the fear-inducing dish, returning back to the near-perfect octopus.  I couldn't help but wonder - how could these two dishes possibly come from the same kitchen?

Most gastropubs rely on savory comfort food dishes, like short ribs.  E.U. serves a crispy version coated in brioche bread crumbs, an apparently French preparation hailing from the city of Toulouse.  After one bite, I concluded that short ribs are better left unbreaded.  The mushy bread coating suffocated what could've potentially been fall-off-the-bone meat, obscurely paired with fingerling potatoes and a dollop of horseradish-spiked creme fraiche.

Next, wildly intense and nutty bluefoot chanterelles stole the limelight from a functional pan-roasted halibut with a sprinkling of pistachios, served with a cider pistachio vinaigrette.  I finished with a flavorful side of braised cabbage and earthy chestnuts. 

In an effort to cover the entire European Union, this restaurant offers a smattering of international fare, yet fails to excel at any one cuisine, resulting in a flurry of random and inconsistent dishes.  But with one standout - a house-made pretzel with bauernwurst sausage - already garnering a loyal following, not to mention the distinguished octopus, let's hope that E.U. can work out the kinks.

Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl

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