Lower East Side
October 6, 2009
*** Three Stars
Address: 154 Orchard
St., btwn. Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Phone: (212)780-0100
Cuisine: Vietnamese street food
Vibe: Hush hush
backyard beer garden
Occasion:; Group
dinner; Beer binges; LES dining.
Hours: Dinner; Seven
days a week, Sun-Thu, 5p.m-12a.m., Sat & Sun,5p.m.-2a.m.
Don't Miss Dish: Crispy pork belly; Duck nem sausage; Baked whole fish.
Average Price:
Appetizers, $10, Entrees, $15, No dessert.
Reservations: No
reservations accepted.
Cash only.
Think La Esquina by way of Vietnam and you’ve got Bia Garden, which recently opened on the Lower East Side. If you’re not the kind of eater that hunts down restaurants, you might miss it. But it’s worth discovering. There’s a dinky grill out front, the kind you’d find in someone’s backyard in the suburbs. Step down a flight of stairs and you’ll find yourself at a take-out counter where you can grab a bahn mi or bbq rib rolls. The shelves are stocked with fish sauce and Café Du Monde coffee cans and there are bags of shrimp crackers hanging over the kitchen window.
I loved the crispy pork belly – crusty nibbles of sweet meat – as much the caramel-fish sauce that accompanied it. There’s a good starter of bbq rib rolls with slippery vermicelli noodles and a meaty duck nem sausage, studded with pine nuts, and served with an anchovy dipping sauce. Baked whole fish can be boring and tedious. Not this one. Bia Garden’s whole fish is a feast that requires every inch of table space. Out from the kitchen comes a shimmery pink snapper crowned with a fistful of scallions and crushed peanuts. It comes with Vietnamese basil, pickled onions, fish sauce, mushrooms, and rice paper. You dip the rice paper in warm water and built your own fish wrap.
Unfortunately, the crab spring rolls tasted like every other
spring roll you could find on the street in Chinatown and so did the shaking beef,
which lacked the peppery kick that you’d traditionally find in the dish.
February 3, 2009
Chinese cooking too clever for its own good.187 Orchard St., near Allen St.,
(212) 260-7900
Hours: Dinner, Mon.-Sat., 6 p.m.-11 p.m.
CUISINE: Global fusion
VIBE: Glossy hotel haunt
OCCASION: Group dinner, business dinner, date.
DON'T MISS DISH: Singapore slaw with salted plum dressing, turnip cake, chickpea sweet onion fritters.
AVERAGE PRICE: Appetizers, $16; entrees, $28; dessert, $10.
RESERVATIONS: Recommended.
I worry about new restaurants. Especially big, glossy ones with 130 seats to fill. I mean, who could've predicted such a frosty economy?
Opening a restaurant requires years of planning. Think of all the details that have to be settled — financial backers, designers, vendors, inspections, a liquor license and getting Con Edison to finally flip the switch.
I'm sure the Thompson Hotel Group had big plans when they first set their sights on the fashionable lower East Side. The Thompson Hotel and Shang — its restaurant — were still on the drawing board back when the Dow was over 10,000. But those days are gone, and you can feel it the moment you walk in the restaurant.
It feels like you're going back in time — oversized red banquettes, lacquered decor, bronze mesh chandeliers and the smell of money burning.
It just feels wrong.
Shang is a restaurant with an idea. The chef, Susan Lee, is cooking global Chinese, drawing his influences from some of the countries in which the Chinese have settled — India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, even Jamaica.
Lee has always tried to be different. In Toronto, he decided to serve entrees before appetizers, and in doing so, he made a name for himself.
The fact is, Lee is a really good cook who's too clever for his own good sometimes. You can see it in the jerk chicken. He takes a Jamaican dish, applies a French technique — roulade — and sprinkles in a few Chinese accents. The result, international warfare. Does the world really want to eat tiny jerk chicken rolls? It might if they tasted great, but these don't.
Too many dishes on this menu taste like cleverness. (Sometimes, after all, you just want to eat dinner.) And somehow, Lee's cleverness is always undermining the protein. The sauces, the condiments, the accompaniments can be tasty.
But if you order the slow-cooked pork belly, you don't expect the best thing on your plate to be the lily bulb and apple puree. I ordered the crispy-skinned chicken. I remember the sweet and sour onion marmalade beside it. Also, that the skin wasn't crispy.
Smoothness is a guiding principle at Shang for Lee and the diner. He's a master at it so order anything that sounds silky. Lee turns seafood into custard, cake into pudding.
One of the best things on the menu is a turnip cake with steamed eggplant, black bean sauce and shiitake mushrooms. The turnip cake tastes almost as doughy as gnocchi. It's also one of the more traditional Cantonese dishes on the menu. It made me wonder what Lee could do with straightforward Chinese cooking.
I was ready to hate the $16 Singapore slaw, especially after the server told me it had 19 ingredients. That could easily have been 17 too many. In fact, it was terrific. It had roasted hazelnuts, jicama, daikon, carrots, celery, onion seed sprouts, pansies, lotus root, fried shallots, etc., etc., etc. It was every desirable texture you could imagine in your mouth, plus a salted plum dressing.
The real inspiration of Shang is simple Chinese food and the way it's been adapted all the way around the globe. I'd go a long way for good, simple, Chinese food.
November 29, 2007
115 Allen St. (btwn. Delancey & Rivington Sts.)
Phone: (212) 253-5400
Hours: Dinner, Mon.-Sat., 6 p.m.-12 a.m., Sun., 5 p.m.-11 a.m.
CUISINE Contemporary European.
VIBE Cozy lower East Side haunt.
OCCASION Romantic dinner; Bar dining.
DON'T-MISS DISH Caramelized bone marrow, Sweetbread raviolo
PRICE Appetizers, $12-18; entrees, $20-29; desserts, $10.
RESERVATIONS Highly recommended.
At Allen & Delancey, a well-heeled woman spooned bone marrow into her mouth. It was a nonchalant bar gesture, followed by a leisurely sip of a cocktail.
This is a culinary sign of the times.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "Live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." Dining on bone marrow was likely not what the philosopher had in mind, but fitting, as this is not an uncommon sight at New York City restaurants in the 21st century.
Allen & Delancey is the perfect place to heed Thoreau's advice. It is a warm, nearly wintry lower East Side haunt. Reminiscent of a gentlemen's library, the upfront bar is lined with artisanal bitters, books and frameless paintings. The black bar top is as glossy as the creamy pearls of paddlefish caviar that crown the caramelized marrow. It's a luscious appetizer that can be indulged on a bar stool or at a dimly lit banquette in the main dining quarters.
Owner Richard Friedberg has appointed sommelier Glenn Vogt and chef Neil Ferguson to tend to this romantic room. Having been recently released from Gordon Ramsay's upscale inferno, this is as far removed from the chilly formality of The London Hotel as Ferguson can get.
But Ferguson is a British chef, versed in the refined art of French cooking. This is also a chef with a serious offal and organ meat fixation. Thus, the menu pivots on a sophisticated and downright hearty axis.
Ethereal sweetbreads are tucked into a raviolo atop braised cabbage and a vigorous Bolognese sauce. A supremely tender lamb chop comes topped with a zesty persillade and sided by succulent braised lamb's neck. An excellent Moulard duck breast shares a plate with seared foie gras; its buttery richness ably tempered by the earthy bitterness of turnip confit and button radishes.
In matters of seafood, Ferguson also enlists the bold, lusty flavors of meat. He infuses bacon into gnocchi below mackerel, and wraps fluke in a smoky blanket of prosciutto. Both have tasty results.
When he doesn't employ animal offerings, fish tends to register as a blank slate, too reliant on accompaniments for flavor. A hunk of cod served as a bland sideshow for a well-seasoned saute of artichokes, peppers and lemon confit; a tasteless branzino was matched with a muted onion stew, and slivers of hamachi washed away in an acrid sea of grapefruit and pickled fennel.
Though dessert demands decadence and indulgence, Ferguson becomes shy and all too restrained. A sparsely dressed mélange of fall fruit wore nothing more than timid hibiscus syrup. It surely deserved buttery crumble or moist cake. Caramelized tangerines suffered a sterile marriage to frigid chunks of clementine. The closest I got to richness was a pale shade of chocolate cremeux that merely hinted at a lukewarm sweetness. This was dessert, not afternoon tea.
Still, Allen & Delancey boasts more than its share of meaty delights. Even if you're not an organ eater by nature, his wickedly light sweetbread raviolo may persuade you to explore a more carnivorous side. Allen & Delancey is an inviting hideaway, where guests can store up for winter on savory European classics and hibernate from the cold.
October 23, 2007
Expect the unexpected.
525 Broome St., between Sullivan & Thompson Sts. (212) 334-5182
Dinner: Sun.-Thurs., 6 p.m.-midnight, Fri.-Sat., 6 p.m.-1 a.m. Closed Mondays.
CUISINE Progressive American
VIBE Stylized speakeasy
OCCASION Adventurous dining
DON'T-MISS DISH Passionfruit poached char, Crumble cocktail.
PRICE "Salty" small plates, $15-$17; "sweet" small plates, $11-$12; cocktails, $13-$15.
RESERVATIONS Reservations accepted
Tailor is an adventure in dining - a walk on the wild side of food.
Pastry chef Sam Mason demonstrated his innovative technique at WD-50, home of molecular gastronomy and cutting-edge cuisine. At his funky, new SoHo restaurant, Mason unleashes an unusual vision of "salty" and "sweet" small plates.
His menu obscures the line between savory and sweet, food and drink, and just about everything in between.
Picky eaters beware: Chicken and vanilla ice cream make no appearances on the menu. Think foie gras with peanut butter when screening potential dining companions. This is a culinary tour of Mason's avant-garde workshop.
Walking into the restaurant conjures images of an old-school tailor's shop: A giant spool of fabric leans lazily against a wall, a garment rack sits on display in the dining room. Chocolate banquettes and crystal chandeliers offer warm dashes of elegance to the predominately industrial setting.
Down below, the subterranean "cocktail parlor" - a cross between a dimly lit speakeasy and a laboratory - is crawling with a hip crowd imbibing Eben Freeman's (WD-50) cocktails and homemade spirits.
The Violet Fizz was triumphant: a subdued milkshake, made with gin, egg whites, cream and lime. So was the Crumble, a beautifully balanced cocktail with hints of clove, pear cider and brown butter rum. Tragedy struck in the form of a bracing, gin-based Cascade, with unspeakably bitter aftershocks that lingered long into the meal.
Mason makes a compelling case when you forage among the "salty" plates, weaving sweet elements into inherently savory dishes.
Though pork belly has practically become a menu staple, Mason's interpretation is transcendent: tender hunks of pork in a salty-sweet spill of miso butterscotch, accompanied by whisky and cider-braised artichokes. Mason glimpses at genius, poaching a silky char in a sublime, passionfruit butter with doughy bits of lime-pickled spaetzle.
You'd be smart to stick with the salty side of the menu. The "sweet" offers complicated dishes with often unsatisfying results.
Tomato foam doesn't belong on the same plate as warm peaches and ricotta purée. Or maybe it's that tomato foam doesn't belong on a menu. And there was an exceptionally moist, brown butter cake paired with rum and caramel-braised bananas. If only they hadn't been marred by the sharp overtones of mustard ice cream.
With any restaurant, there are dishes that hit and some that miss. But here, with only six sweet and six salty options to choose, the odds are not in your favor.
Mason refuses to let you end dinner on a sweet note. He wages a civil war on your tongue. The result? You leave Tailor still craving dessert.
June 21, 2007
Address: 165 Allen St., btwn. Rivington & Stanton Sts.
Phone: 212.253.8840
Cuisine: "Freestyle" Latin American & Spanish
Scene: Island chic
Hours: Dinner, Sun-Thu, 5:30-11pm, Fri & Sat, 5:30-12pm; Brunch, Fri & Sat, 10am-5pm.
First Bite Impressions: An admirable work in progress with a truly inspired cocktail menu
Don't Miss Dish: Ecuadorian seafood stew
Price: Appetizers, $13; Entrees, $25.
Reservations: Reservations accepted.
Chef-owner Maximo Tejada (Patria & Lucy) & restaurateur Hector Sanz couldn't have chosen a more favorable season to introduce New Yorkers to their sexy, tropical oasis with a freestyle menu that liberally wanders through Latin America & Spain. While Allen Street's only just beginning to reap the benefits of a Lower East Side dining boom, this Latino-bent newcomer has undoubtedly made aesthetic strides on this otherwise bleak street. Rayuela's airy, two-story space is furbished with natural wood tables, exposed brick walls, breezy linen curtains, stone floors & earthy green banquettes.
You aught make a pitstop at the generous, slate-topped bar for Rayuela's main attraction: Junior Merino's vibrant cocktail menu. An impressive selection of fresh-squeezed concoctions, stylized classics and made-to-order red, white & rose sangria, Merino takes creative liberties with exotic ingredients and liquors of the pisco and tequila sorts. Open only two weeks and neighborhood locals had already claimed bar stool territory and made a commendable dent in the cocktail list. Me, I was suddenly whisked away from the madness of the city to the tropics, lounging poolside as I sipped on a luxurious, lemongrass-infused watermelon juice muddled with fresh mint and limes. While perhaps more appealing to the eye than the tongue,
"coming up roses" appears a perfectly romantic, rose petal-tinged tall glass of champagne,
rose water, lime juice and Bacardi Razz. Instead, the men seemed to gravitate toward the pisco
sour, served straight up, in a stylized martini glass with a bright splash of bitters.
Come time for dinner, the hostess guided us passed an olive tree (imported from California) that stretched its limbs up to the second floor dining room, as if we were happily ascending into an urban tree house. There, we were left to explore an ambitious and all too complicated menu that ambles through the Carribbean, Latin America, South America and even into Spain. Our well-intended, but overeager waiter, debriefed us on Rayuela's (hopscotch in Spanish) freestyle philosophy, encouraging guests to "skip" around an overwhelming list of ceviches, empanadas and embrace Tejada's contemporary interpretations: ham-wrapped scallops in a kiwi citrus sauce, a duck breast with a foie gras-topped arepa and a side of truffle-scented white asparagus.
The tropical juices aren't bound to the downstairs cocktail lounge, but also spill into the savory side of things, especially the ceviches. Tejada splashes tuna &
calamari with watermelon juice and marinates corvino (a
whitefish similar to sea bass) in a blood orange & carica bath. Unfortunately, the ones I sampled weren't served by the weightiness of the sugar. The corvina ceviche might as well been served in a
shotglass, or at least with a spoon, an overly sweet,
citrus soup that swallowed any traces of flavor the corvina might've once claimed. Even a hefty dose of cilantro & red onion couldn't balance
out the flavors. The red snapper was a more successful pursuit: buttery dominoes of snapper, blissfully soaking in a sesame-dotted soy sauce, capped off with a crunchy julienne of peppers, cucumbers & avocado. But truth be told, the snapper was more grounded in Asian tradition than Nuevo Latino. This was curiously also the case with the hamachi ceviche, tasty, and the "tuna rellena" - which wasn't. It was like searching for lost treasure as I dug through a bland & clumpy mound of avocado in search of a few scarce strands of crab and shrimp.
Rayuela's kitchen performs at its best when Tejada sticks closer to home. An Ecuadorian seafood stew was generously stocked with superiorly moist scallops, briny clams, mussels and octopus, all wading in an aromatic coconut and yellow chile-laced broth that snuck a subtle heat. Beyond supple strips of sepia were elevated by a garlicky white wine sauce and a faintly sweet, manchego was elevated by a rich pocket of wild mushrooms. But the most delightful arrival to the table was the bread basket. Warm doughy nibbles of Colombian "pan de bono" - made from yucca flour & a hint of queso - were perfectly paired with a creamy blend of butter, honey & roasted garlic. Indulge at your own risk.
Alas, when you attempt to cover this
much territory, it's bound to result in inconsistencies and a few misteps. While Rayuela would benefit from paring down its menu, this Lower East Sider is worth a trip if not for the cocktails alone.
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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October 9, 2006
191 Orchard St. (near Houston St.)
(212)228-9888
Menu
TYPE: Seasonal American tapas
As the Lower East Side's latest newcomer, Core 191 delivers seasonal american cooking by way of a talented chef, Stephan Boissel, whose cooking stints include Gilt and La Cote Basque. Previously occupied by Heirloom (Matthew Kinney's ill-fated organic effort), the space has been transformed into a masculine dining lounge with an expansive outdoor garden oasis. Somewhere between a modern bar (stone floors, flat screen tvs & a DJ booth), and a traditional dining lounge (dark wood tables, chocolate leather chairs, & cloth napkins), this new spot is part bar, part restaurant, part lounge and part private party hall. With lofty ambitions, Core 191 doesn't seem to know who it wants to be, or rather tries to do it all, but perhaps shouldn't. In the same vein, the Tapas menu, a confusing mix of uncontestably inspired dishes and casual bar bites, might be better served if it were separated into two different menus: a casual bar menu and a formal dining menu.
After sifting through a lengthy and disorganized list of small plates, dubbed Tapas, I imposed my own categories, choosing to label the lavash crackers, tuna crudo and autumn salad as appetizers. The housemade lavash deserve praise beyond what even the most pleasant cracker might normally merit, not to mention a place on gourmet grocery shelves around the city. These paper-thin, honey-infused crackers were perfectly seasoned with sea salt and black & white sesame seeds, then served with an unworthy and overly bitter hummus and mediocre artichoke dip. Superior slices of tuna sashimi were sadly smothered by an overly sweet orange confit olive oil sorbet. The autumn salad, a splendid melange of stylishly seasonal vegetables - turnips, yellow & red beets, carrots and whole chestnuts - was perched atop a fig compote, and dressed in a zesty vinaigrette with a uniquely tart kick from whole verjus (unfermented, unripe wine grapes).
Let's get down to the meat of things, where the chef's talents most evidently shine through Core 191's somewhat indecipherable menu. Though smallish in size, the hanger steak was a juicy and entirely satisfying dish; tender pan-seared meat was creatively accompanied by slivers of rich aged gouda and a lovely warm shitake vinaigrette. Ditto on the spicy duck, which was nicely offset by figs and a tasty sesame-pine nut dressing, but sorely mispaired with a dollop of tart yogurt.
Even the blaring music from the DJ booth that had suddenly set up shop between courses, couldn't cast a shadow on Stephan Boissel's dessert offerings. The desserts aren't even awarded a proper place, never mind a simple category heading on the menu, but rather appear toward the bottom of the rambling Tapas list. The Irish coffee frozen parfait made a stellar showing - an uncharacteristically fluffy sponge cake served as the base for a chilly, but luscious espresso & whiskey-infused cream, uniquely topped off with a pleasing vanilla-laced creme brulee. Equally, a remarkably crunchy and addictive marshmallow crisp was a standout creation - a corn flake take on a rice krispie treat with semi-sweet chocolate, corn flakes & marshmallows - which overshadowed a sufficiently rich and dark chocolate pot de creme that the crisp was intended on merely accessorizing.
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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July 14, 2006
137 Essex St., btwn. Stanton & Rivington Sts.
(212)779-7923
TYPE: Asian-influenced Italian
VIBE: Supper club(by)
OCCASION: Lounging on the LES
GO WITH: A table service crowd
DON'T MISS DISH: Butternut Squash and Asiago Cheese Ravioli
DON'T BOTHER DISH: Sweet & sour tuna with berry puree
PRICE: $30
HOURS: Dinner, Tuesday - Sat., 5 PM-11:30 PM, Sunday, 11 AM-4 PM. Open every night for cocktails and bottle service until 4 AM.
doesn't get started until after dinner.
The Lower East Side's latest lounge hopes to be a one-stop shop for all things nightlife: food, drinks, DJ, & dancing under one roof. Rewind's refreshingly un-velvet rope attitude beckons a clubby crowd into a dimly lit urban angst-free zone. This minimalist chic supper club - a narrow, brick-lined space pours out into a back of the house DJ-centric lounge - that takes nothing too seriously, a welcome relief, except when it comes to food.
Drawing on his own multi-ethnic background,
co-owner Joe Torres rushes into a haphazard marriage of Italian &
Asian cuisine, often delivering a sensory overload of flavors,
seasonings and ingredients. Thankfully, the evening began with simpler
and slightly more successful kitchen achievements. The tender grilled
calamari arrived pleasantly doused in a simultaneously sweet &
spicy pineapple chili sauce. I admired a tasty grilled shrimp cake on
its own merit, but perched on a bacon-heavy potato rosti, it became all
but eclipsed by the overpowering smoky bacon chunks.
I moved out of the safety of the appetizers to
a more treacherous warring flavor zone amidst a team of entrees. I had
such high hopes for the cuttlefish carbonara, an ingenuiously
carb-conscious substitute for pasta, if only it hadn't been for a
poorly matched cream-burdened carbonara sauce with an oddly scrambled
egg crown (might I be so bold as to suggest a garlicky tomato sauce
makeover). And there were just too many flavors duking it out in the
sweet & sour tuna with berry puree, pickled onions, and sesame egg
noodles. But the squash ravioli shined - savory and supple pockets of
squash and asiago were sharply drizzled in a thick balsamic vinegar,
then topped off with crispy sage trimmings.
The music began pumping just in time for
dessert - I was partial to a silky pot of luscious and subtly earthy
green tea creme brulee. Ask for a side of the luscious macadamia nut
gelato, order a bottle, and ease into the lounge scene.
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
July 6, 2006
153 Rivington St. (btwn. Suffolk & Clinton Sts.)
(212)253-5311
Bondi Road website
TYPE: Seafood shack
VIBE: Surfer chic
OCCASION: Endless summer
GO WITH: Friends or make a couple at the bar
DON'T MISS DISH: Rock shrimp cocktail & Tasmanian ocean trout
DON'T BOTHER DISH: Lobster lettuce wraps
PRICE: $30 (the current tasting menu)
HOURS: Dinner, Monday-Thursday, 6 PM-2 AM, Friday-Sunday, 6 PM-4 AM.
QUICK CHEAT SHEET:
Drink - John Boag's beer or a Tamaramaglamma cocktail (it's a mouthful)
Start with - Rock shrimp cocktail or crab lettuce wraps
Eat - Tasmanian ocean trout or grilled barramundi (Snatch up the John Dory when it's in the house)
Side with - Chips, green papaya & tomato, or sweet chili relish
Finish with - Pavlova - Australian for meringues with mango & creme fraiche
Bondi Road has curiously washed ashore in the Lower East Side, bringing this famed Australian surf beach and its supreme fish to American waters. Though the giant movie screen with a rolling surfer video & wallpaper fashioned from photo beach images seem theatrically staged for such a no frills fish-and-chips joint, Bondi's fresh-off-the-plane seafood & Aussie staff are the real deal.
Grab a stool, kick off your flip flops and dip into a delicately sweet "Tamaramaglamma" (raspberry-infused vodka with muddled lemon & strawberries, topped off with champagne) or a more manly James Boag's (Australian for beer). Unless you're a glutton for a sugar hangover, I'd shy away from the "Sunburnt", an overly saccharine mix of passionfruit tequila, orange juice, and strawberry puree.
While Bondi Road's gas still remains fatefully off, owner Heathe St. Clair & chef John McGrath seems to have turned this potential curse into a downright blessing in disguise - giving birth to the first seafood shack seven-course sampling menu ($30). I dabbled in this orgy of fish delights, exclusively from down under and all cooked to order, starting with the oyster shooter, a peppery Bloody Mary shot with a succulent oyster buoy. While I thought the lobster was salt-heavy, I was tempted to sneak into the kitchen & steal the recipe for a zippy rock shrimp cocktail, tender shrimp bites mingled with an addictive mango & chili aoili.
But Bondi Road's greatest accomplishment - the skin-roasted Tasmanian Ocean trout - seared rare, a silky & luscious fish, dressed in a glossy crisp-skinned coat atop a sweet chili relish. The barramundi, grilled whole with a touch of lemon, was simply sacrificed over an oddly pleasing green papaya and bush tomato salad. And if you're not the sea-faring type, there's always the hearty Rolled Roo Fillet, an Australian kangaroo classic.
Linger at the bar and let the bartender get nostalgic about his mum's recipe for Lamington's - a lemon sponge cake rolled in shredded coconut & chocolate. At the risk of making the natives restless, I sided with the Pavlova, a fluffly baked meringue, laced with mango & a creamy dollop of creme fraiche. Forget the gas, take the road to Bondi Beach and feast away.
Until we eat again,
Restaurant Girl
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March 20, 2006
It's been over a week and fantasies of Falai still linger in my stomach. After building pastry castles in the air at Le Cirque, Iacopa Falai has migrated to the Lower East Side, a sudden utopia where foodie's dreams come true.
While everyone else has been busy trying to impress with the latest trend, it was refreshing to meet someone so uncomplicated, boasting of simple Modern Italian Fare -- he knew what he had to offer. He wined and dined me by candlelight in his sleek new white digs. From the moment I laid eyes on the impressive bread menu (compliments of the house), it was love at first bite. I don't like to pick favorites and luckily, I didn't have to because Falai let me have my way with the entire basket filled with everything from homemade sea-salt foccaccia to an exotic black cabbage loaf. Only after I'd furtively stuffed a plateful of bread into my purse, did I realize a fresh from the oven loaf of my dreams was available right across the street at Falai Paneterria.
And that was just the beginning. He teased me over a seemingly simple grilled raddichio with manchego cheese, boasting complex character and taste.
(SQUID INK PAPPARDELLE)
Then he got wild with an exquisitely rich boar ragu tangled up in a squid ink pappardelle and an exceptionally executed pillowy spinach and ricotta gnudi gently touched by parmesan, sage and butter.
The rest was just icing on the cake, literally, which came in the form of a heavenly meringue laced with hazelnuts and pineapple coulis. Come summertime, I'd have to compete for his attention and a moonlit garden table. But for now, he was all mine.
RESTAURANT GIRL RANKS FALAI --
NEW GUY ON THE BLOCK -- IACOPA FALAI (OF LE CIRQUE)
THE TYPE -- MODERN ITALIAN, WILD GAME
DON'T MISS DISH: SQUID INK PAPPARADELLE
DON'T BOTHER: BRANZINO WITH OLIVE CRUST AND CELERY ROOT PUREE
$: DOABLE
RATING: 8 1/2
FINAL WORD: HE'S A KEEPER
Falai 68 Clinton Street at Rivingston St., (212)253-1960
Until next thyme,
Danyelle
