*** - Three Stars

 Address: 308-310 Bleecker St., at Grove St.

Phone: (212)675-2009 

Cuisine: Chesapeake seafood

Vibe: Refined neighborhood joint 

Occasion: Oyster binge; Casual date; Group dinner.

Hours: Seven days a week. Dinner, Sun-Wed, 5:30p.m.-12a.m., Thu-Sat, 5:30p.m.-2a.m.

Don't Miss Dish: Arctic Char; Fried chicken; Bay leaf sorbet. 

Average Price: Appetizers, $10 ; Entrees, $20; Dessert, $7.

Reservations: Reservations recommended.

Capsule: Fine fish shack fare & terrific fried chicken in the West Village  

You used to have to wait patiently for summer to arrive to get your  fix of crab chowder, peel 'n eat shrimp, and Old Bay seasoned fries.  Not anymore.   It may be February and freezing, but fish shack fare is in fashion right now.   Choptank, located in the West Village, is the latest in a string of newcomers.   If you wanted a lobster roll a few years ago, you had Pearl Oyster Bar, Grand Central, & Mary's Fish Camp.  That's it.  Now, there's plenty of respectable lobster rolls, including Ed's, Luke's, Mermaid Inn, & Ditch Plains. 

Choptank doesn't have a lobster roll on the menu.  It's New York's first Maryland fish shack.  That translates to crab chowder, crab claws, and Chesapeake Bay oysters.   The kitchen also turns out an excellent crab cake with lots of fresh crabmeat and and almost no breading.   Maryland is famous for its blue crab.  When blue crab season begins in June, Choptank will also have lots of blue crab and an outdoor patio to enjoy it on.  Choptank is a little less laidback, more of an urbane fish shack, minus the plastic bibs,  and handiwipes.  The dining room is outfitted with dark wood floors and tables, white marble bartops, and light fixtures cloaked in burlap fish netting.  There's a large oyster bar with plenty of seats if you want to spend the evening sampling oysters and tables in the main dining room.  There's a concise, but good selection of West and East coast oysters  (My favorites were the Chesapeake Bay variety.)

One of the best things on the menu is actually the fried chicken.   The first time I had the chef's fried chicken was at Bussaco in Park Slope, Brooklyn.   There, Matthew Schaefer served it with waffles and an apple-onion butter.   Here, he serves it alongside an intriguing black pepper honey and sauteed collard greens.  Schaefer, who trained at Le Bernardin, also brought over his fancy version of crab chowder, which tastes like a creamy crab consomme bacon and chives.   Other than that, this is a new menu for the chef and it isn't just seafood.   There's a house burger, bistro steak, Polish sausage and a pretzel, and bone marrow with winter lettuces and onion marmalade. 

My favorite dish is the braised octopus with paprika and potatoes.   It's not easy to make good octopus because you often have to make sacrifices.  You either take a crispy exterior for a dry interior or vice versa, but this one manages to crispy, yet moist, tossed with a pepper confit with a nice kick.   I like the roasted wild mushrooms glossed with a warm, egg yolk and an excellent arctic char, cooked medium rare, and poised over lentils with bacon.

Not everything is perfect.  I'd skip over a snooze of a salad tossed with a few pecans, apricots, and no detectable dressing.  The fish tacos were standard issue, but could've used more fried shrimp, and the brussel sprouts were undercooked and underseasoned.  But the pro's definitely outweigh the cons at Choptank.  If you order right, you can have a great meal and unique cocktails that go well with seafood, like the Tempest made with prosecco, vodka, and prosecco or their version of the classic British Shandy Das Shandy, made with German beer, bitter lemon soda, and a lemon peel.   The only worthwhile dessert was first for me -- an invigorating Bay Leaf sorbet that was like a fuller bodied palate cleanser.

*** -- Three Stars

Address: 79 MacDougal St., nr. Houston

Phone: (212)260-0100

Cuisine: Seafood

Vibe: White-washed fish shack

Occasion: Oyster cravings, casual date,  group dinner.

Hours: Dinner, Mon-Thu 5:30p.m.-11p.m, Fri & Sat, 5:30-11:30p.m. Closed Sundays.

Don't Miss Dish: Mermaid Mary cocktail; Sauteed calamari with feta & frisee; Fried clam strips; Roasted mussels.

Average Price: Cocktails, $11Appetizers, $9; Entrees, $20; Complimentary Dessert.

Reservations: Reservations recommended.

Capsule: Back to the beach for dinner.

It's rare to find fried clam strips in Manhattan and even rarer to find some that aren't overly chewy.   So when I spotted them on the menu at the new Mermaid Oyster Bar, I ordered them and hoped for the best.  They were even better than that: Tender clam strips enrobed in a perfectly light & crispy batter.  Even the aioli that came alongside it was remarkable.

I was sad to hear that owner Danny Abrams had decided to close Smith's in the West Village and transform it into another Mermaid Inn restaurant.   Normally, I'm not one to put decor before food, but Smith's was stunning.  There was a mirrored ceiling, black leather booths, chandelier sconces, and a gorgeous back bar with gray velvet walls.   Most of the food was inconsistent and the kitchen went through a string of chefs before calling it quits.

This was quite a transformation.  Walk inside and you'll find yourself in a understated dining room with white-washed wood walls, two tops with elevated metal stools , and anchor light fixtures hanging over the bar.  This isn't really just another The Mermaid Inn.  This one offers twelve different kinds of oysters -- six from the east coast and six from the west coast.   There's a classic fish shack menu with dashes of creativity here and there: Saltine-crusted oysters on a bed of garlicky spinach, roasted mussels with harissa and aioli, and snapper ceviche.   The cocktail list has some excellent offerings, like one called the Hot & Dirty, a better man's martini spiced with tobasco sauce.  The Mermaid Mary --  tomato juice, fresh horseradish, and old bay topped off with a shrimp & cornichon stirrer -- is just as solid and perfect for when they decide to open for brunch.  I prefer the East Coast oysters to the West Coast, especially the super smooth Mermaid Straits and the salty Mystic oysters. 

As for the rest of the menu, I much prefer the appetizers to the entrees.  In fact, most of the starter dishes are great.  My favorite is the sauteed calamari creatively paired with a tangle of frisee, feta, and mushrooms.  The roasted mussels were simmering in a garlicky aioli with escarole and harissa.  I only wish they served bread to sponge up all of the aioli sauce at the bottom of the bowl. 

There were a few weak points: The snapper  ceviche was watery and the lobster bisque muddy and lacking in the lobster department.  Skip the overly dense hush puppies in favor of the old bay fries or a generous side of bright green spinach.  All of the Mermaid outposts have the same, standout lobster roll served on a bun with old bay fries.  The best entree I tried was first-rate flounder. 

There's no dessert menu, but guests all cap off the evening with a complimentary cup filled with rich, dark chocolate pudding and one of those fortune-telling fish.   I miss the mirrored ceilings, but I love the extensive oyster selection, the cocktails, and the newly minted laidback setting.   Seeing as I put food before decor, I also like the Mermaid Oyster Bar's menu much better.

**** -- Four Stars

Address:  1 Perry St., at Greenwich Avenue
Phone: (212)620-0808
Cuisine: Modern Latin cooking
Vibe: Sleek, lively West Village haunt
Occasion: Group dinner; Casual date; Night out.
Hours: Dinner; Mon-Wed, 5p.m..-11:30p.m., Thu-Sat, 5p.m.-2a.m, Sun, 5p.m.-2a.m.
Don't Miss Dish:  Manchego croquetes; Tilapia tacos; Lechon (Roasted suckling pig); Watermelon fries: Churros.
Drink: Mezcal Maid
Finish With: Cinnamon-dusted churros with dulce de leche & chocolate sauce
Average Price: Appetizers, $11, Entrees, $25, Dessert, $9.
Reservations:  Reservations recommended.

Cheat Sheet:
Drink the: Mezcal Maid
Nibble On: Manchego croquetes, tilapia tacos, flounder limeno ceviche
Eat: Lechon (Roasted suckling pig)
Finish With: Churros with dulce de leche & chocolate dipping sauces

Capsule: Julian Medina on the rise in Greenwich Village 

You never really have a great meal at a bad restaurant.  Did you ever notice that?  Chef Julian Medina has had his share of restaurant successes, but Yerba Buena Perry is his best and most creative effort yet.  Have you ever eaten watermelon fries?  Or even imagined eating them for that matter?    They're terrific -- a combination of crunchy, sweet, and salty.   There's a considerable and exotic fry menu with hearts of palm, cactus, and avocado fries coated in panko and served with a homemade mate ketchup made with a slightly sweet, bitter tea that adds depth to ordinary ketchup.     

Yerba Buena Perry is really an evolution of the original Yerba Buena, a modern Latin eatery that opened last year in the East Village.  The newest Yerba Buena Perry opened a few weeks ago on Perry Street in the West Village.  It looks a lot like its East Village sibling.  The space is sleek, furnished with white leather banquettes, black & white tiled floors, dark wood table tops, and exposed brick walls.  There's a handsome, hand-carved bar at the back with a white marble bar top and a Latin-bent cocktail menu. Several of the dishes and the drinks  are flavored with the restaurant's namesake, yerba buena (Spanish mint.)    You'll find yerba buena in the Pisco Mojito, Old Cuban, and in my favorite cocktail on the list, the The Mezcal Maid mixed with fresh cucumber, lime, and yerba buena.  Last year, was all about absinthe.  This fall, it's mezcal, a spirit made from the agave plant, but smokier and more complex than tequila.   The restaurant's tequila selection is' too small and could use some attention, but the kitchen is sending out excellent Latin food..

Chef Medina draws inspiration from all over Latin America, including Brazil, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, and Spain.   He cooks with Latin ingredients, like Peruvian corn called maiz cancha, aji amarillo, manchego, habanero, and rocotto, (a spicy Peruvian pepper.)  There's a wonderful selection of untraditional ceviches, like seared rib eye mixed with aji amarillo, cilantro and sea urchin as well as flounder with lime, red onions, avocado and habanero.   I had a good tuna ceviche tossed with onion, pickled watermelon and a soy jalapeno sauce, and an even better, aji amarillo-spiced flounder ceviche, scattered with diced sweet potato, raw and toasted maiz cancha, which is a little like the Peruvian version of corn nuts, only better. 

We often think comfort food means familiar foods, like a burger and fries, steak, or ice cream.   But Medina proves otherwise New Yorkiers to Brazilian, Cuban, Argentinian and Peruvian comfort food staples.  In Brazil, an entire meal can be made of Picada, a fried assortment of yucca, chorizo, pork belly, and fried pork rinds called chicharron.  At Yerba Buena Perry, Medina offers an appetizer version of picada that comes in a paper cone filled with fried yucca chips, chicharrones, a feisty Spanish chorizo, rocotto, and tostones.   The Cubans feast on lechon, a roasted suckling pig traditionally served over yucca.  I've had a lot of roasted suckling pig this year, but Medina's lechon is outstanding.   He achieves an achingly tender pork, served over a thick yucca puree and a unique habanero tomato salsa with subtle hints of orange and garlic. 

Medina injects dashes of sophistication into manchego croquetes which emerge atypically fluffy nibbles specked with pickled jalapeno and served alongside a salsa verde dipping sauce.  Or warm empanadas filled with a savory-sweet combination of manchego, dried fig, Peruvian corn, and spinach.  One of my favorite dishes is the camarones con palmito -- meaty shrimp sauteed in a fiery tomato salsa seasoned with lots of jalapeno, capers, and olives.      

But a few dishes fall short, like a mushy and overcooked black cod in a yerba buena consome and a dried-out "ropa de vieja de pato," a trio of duck confit, a fried duck egg, and  duck leg.   There's an odd-tasting riff on a creme brulee made with a thick eggfruit custard, but the rest of the desserts proved just as creative as the rest of the menu, like a dulce de leche parfait layered with Mexican chocolate mousse and a pisco panna cotta bottom. The best dessert on the menu are the warm, cinnamon-dusted churros accompanied by an addictive dulce de leche and chocolate dipping sauces. 

Medina's already planning his next move -- a taqueria ,  In the meantime, he's proved himself a chef to watch at Yerba Buena Perry, creating playful, vibrant dishes with Latinl ingredients.  Me, I'm looking forward to taking comfort in watermelon fries and lechon this fall. 

Hotel Griffou: Setting the bar high for drinks

The cocktails at Hotel Griffou are phenomenal. There's one called the Trophy Wife. I wanted to dislike it based on its name alone, but it's excellent - a vibrant mix of cachaca, Champagne and passionfruit puree. My favorite is the Tarbell, a soothing combination of cucumber vodka, elderflower liqueur, cucumber and mulled red grapes. It's the kind of drink that's a little too easy to drink - as is the Mexican Rose, made with tequila, strawberries, lime and a
fragrant dose of cilantro.

The Griffou isn't a hotel. It's a restaurant that recently opened on a quiet Greenwich Village block lined with brownstones. It's named after a famous 1870s boardinghouse that once occupied the same space. Writers like Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe used to eat there. Now, people like Jennifer Lopez and Madonna do.

There's no sign out front, just a blue awning with the number 21 on it. The owners are a pedigreed bunch - they've worked everywhere from La Esquina to Waverly Inn - well-versed in the art of speakeasy-style spots. There's an elegant, wood barroom up-front, followed by a series of charming dining nooks. You can request dinner in the salon, the library, the palm terrace, the wine vault or the studio. The powder blue salon feels like a ­ladies-who-lunch room, and the palm terrace feels tropical. Or you can eat in the library, which is festooned with a blizzard of knickknacks like stuffed birds, books, musical instruments and teeny TVs playing oddball cartoons.

The only room I didn't like was the studio with its siren red walls, wood benches, uncomfortable metal chairs and mismatched art. Most of the artwork was donated by friends of the owners, who are paid back in dinners and cocktails.

The menu is filled with French-inspired American classics, like sole meunière, duck à l'orange and baked alaska. The chef, Jason Giordano, reworks traditional dishes, turning lobster thermidor into a rich fondue with four kinds of cheese, caramelized onions, shallots and heavy cream. I also liked the duck à l'orange, finely cooked and served over baby beets, oranges and a golden beet and orange puree....

It's a shame the rest of the menu isn't very good. I ordered steak tartare. What I got were dainty brioche rounds topped with a meek steak tartare and a cold, quail egg. Either I have a bigger appetite than most of their guests or the portions are way too tiny. How can the kitchen consider three shrimp an "appetizer" - and what if I'm sharing? Am I supposed to play rock, paper, scissors for the third shrimp?

Usually, half the fun of ordering steak Diane is the show - a beef tenderloin doused in brandy and flamed tableside. None of that here, just a tough, sliced tenderloin in a mustard veal jus alongside butter-drenched potatoes. As for the market greens, I'd be embarrassed to serve it at a backyard barbecue, never mind a hip restaurant. It was a miserable salad with chalky goat cheese and fried shallots. And don't get the sole meunière. (It tasted curiously like soap on two separate occasions.)

The desserts are good. There's a velvety butterscotch banana pudding with vanilla wafers and a teacup of bread croissant pudding. Perhaps they should rebrand Hotel Griffou as a cocktail bar with good desserts.

• Cuisine: Seafood
• Vibe: Nautical chic
• Occasion: Dinner at sea, cozy date, group dinner
• Don't Miss: Maine mussels with cabbage and bacon, clam chowder, butterscotch pudding
• Price: Appetizers, $12; entrees, $24; dessert, $8
• Reservations: Recommended
• Phone: (212) 989-6410
• Location: 290 Hudson St., at Spring St.

Do you ever just go out and eat?" a friend asked me at dinner a few months ago. "Rarely," I answered before returning to the menu. But a lot of people do. There are plenty of people who don't need to know who the chef is before making a reservation.

Can you picture someone walking into their local diner and demanding to see the chef's résumé?

There's no denying food gets much more attention than it used to. Think about it: food TV, food bloggers, food porn and celebrity chefs with cooking shows. I thought it might be interesting to just "go out to dinner" at Harbour, a new restaurant that has opened west of SoHo. That meant no Googling the chef. No peeking at the menu on the Internet. No glancing online at photos of the restaurant's interior. It was torture. I don't even remember what life was like before they put menus online and PR firms began sending press kits.

The only thing I knew about Harbour was the address - 290 Hudson St., near Spring St. - just a few blocks north of the Holland Tunnel. I walked past two outdoor parking lots in a relatively unsettled part of town, and what did I find? A yacht. The walls are high gloss, wood panels lined with portholes. The creamy leather banquettes are circular and set with glitzy stemware and seashell-shaped candle holders. The sign on the bathroom reads "First Class Restroom." It could easily seem gimmicky, but it doesn't. It's not exactly dinner on the high seas, but it's an admirable facsimile.

In fact, Harbour is a restaurant on a mission. The menu offers only sustainable seafood. The chef, Joe Isidori, isn't in-your-face about it. He simply doesn't put any unsustainable options on the menu - no Chilean sea bass, no cod, no farmed Atlantic salmon and no bluefin tuna. Instead, there's sea scallops with cauliflower and raisins, and Beau Soleil oysters with Meyer lemon and parsley.

There's a terrifically smoky clam chowder with bacon, Worcestershire sauce and cherry tomatoes confit. The menu's not just ocean-friendly, it's also affordable. The clam chowder's $9, entrées hover around $25, and there's a wine list with 20 bottles under $20. I had a great $18 bottle of Gruner Veltliner, one of the many wines they offer with a screw-top for conservation reasons.

By far, the best deal and dish at Harbour is an entrée of Maine mussels. It has everything going for it: a fragrant mountain of fresh mussels, lardon, Brussels sprout leaves, crispy slivers of garlic, Korean pepper and homemade kimchee.

But there's a few too many highs and lows here. The lobster salad was sorely overdressed in ginger mayonnaise and lobster oil. And the most expensive dish on the menu - a $39 entrée of butter-poached lobster - was washed out by butter and a smoked-paprika foam.

I do have one question. What's with all the foam? The yuzu foam suppressing the broiled char with salmon roe. The frothy yellow curry dominating an entrée of pan-roasted hake. There was one successful exception - a wonderful sea scallop ceviche with sea urchin, Thai mignonette and an airy lime emulsion.

As for dessert: Skip a chalky Black Forest chocolate cake, layered with a gummy sour cherry gelée. Instead, try the butterscotch pudding topped with addictive, cream cheese-stuffed brown sugar cookies.

• Cuisine: French bistro
• Occasion: See-and-be-seen dinner, date, group ­dinner
• Don't Miss: Lobster salad, roasted chicken, ­Minetta burger
• Price: Appetizers, $14; entrees, $20; ­dessert, $9
• Reservations: Highly ­recommended
• Phone: (212) 475-3850
• Location: 113 MacDougal St., near ­Minetta Lane.

When did we become so self-conscious about burgers? I'll bet that back in the 1930s, when someone ordered a burger, they ate it and that was the end of it. They didn't photograph it or write home about it.

These days, chefs compete for ­burger bragging rights. They battle over exclusive access to butchers, prized cattle and prime cuts.

Everybody's got a burger these days, but Minetta Tavern's got two — the $16 Minetta burger and the $26 Black Label burger.

For 26 bucks, that had ­better be a good burger. The patty had a nice, crusty exterior, good sesame brioche bun and great bun-to-burger ratio. The kitchen traditionally tops the $16 Minetta burger with cheddar, but we requested no cheese for an impartial side-by-side comparison. It was a heated debate, but my vote went to the Minetta burger. It had more ­flavor, more give, more juice on my chin.

The old Minetta Tavern was a place where Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Mitchell and some of the beat artists drank martinis and ate steaks.

People love to make new restaurants look old, and nobody's better at it than Keith McNally. Take a look at his body of work — Balthazar, Pastis, Lucky Strike and Schiller's Liquor Bar. His palette is oxidized mirrors, rusty brass trimmings and beaten wood floors.

At Minetta, McNally was working with an antique. He restored the original wood bar and yellow tin ceilings and kept the black-and-white photos and murals. ­Other than the velvet rope around the entrance, it feels like you're walking onto the set of a movie taking place in Greenwich ­Village circa 1930. The servers dress in black vests and thin ties. A few nostalgic customers — sporting top hats and curly mustaches — drink Blood & Sand cocktails and eat veal chops.

McNally partnered with his top Balthazar toques — Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr — to design a bistro menu with French classics and period fare, like Tavern steaks, bone-in New York strip, and Grand Marnier soufflé. Begin with a Hemingway Daiquiri or a fabulous Dark & Stormy cocktail, made with a five-spiced infusion, cider, rum and lemon.

The best items on the menu are all Pommes of one sort or another. At my last supper, I'd want one of the side dishes to be the $8 Aligot — a divine purée of melted cheese curd, garlic, cream and velvety potatoes. The dish to order is the Poulet Fermier Rôti — roasted chicken with vegetables — because it's served on an aligot bed and the ­chicken's wonderfully moist. The ­Salade de Homard — a tangy lobster salad with a celeriac remoulade, green beans, chervil and capers — is also delicious.

But there's some dullness  here, too. The grilled dorade was an acceptable piece of fish, but the romesco — a classic red pepper sauce – smelled and tasted musty. The parchment-baked cod with leeks and two lonely cockles was a bore, and, oddly, so was an entrée of overbreaded pig's trotter. For dessert, skip the chalky chocolate soufflé and try the Chocolate ­Dacquoise — a chocolate ganache with an exceptional hazelnut meringue.

How can you manage to be ­nostalgic and of the moment these days? Well, that's ­McNally's forte.

A new and improved Casa La Femme in the West Village.

140 Charles St., and Washington St.
(212) 505-0005
Dinner: Sun. - Tue., 5p.m. - midnight: Wed. - Sat., 5p.m. - 3a.m.

Cuisine: Egyptian
Vibe: Sultry and exotic lounge
Occasion: Intimate date, group grazing
Don't-miss dishes: Salataa tamatem, grilled lamb chops, baklava
Average prices: Appetizers, $8; entrees, $20; dessert, $7.95.
Tent prix fixe, $55 per person.
Reservations: Recommended.

How often do you get to eat dinner in a tent? And when you do, the bathroom is usually the great outdoors. But at Casa La Femme, a new restaurant that opened six weeks ago in the West Village, your table is tented in white organza from Egypt. At Casa La Femme, there’s a glass chandelier and chair in every bathroom.

In fact, just about everything in the 200-seat restaurant is imported from Egypt — the walls, wood tables, 250 chairs, cheese, hand-carved bar up front, three limestone fireplaces and the fire pit in the center of the dining room. (Can you imagine the shipping costs?)

The owners, Medhat Ibrahim and Anastasios Hairatidis, have taken the idea of “setting the scene” to a new level. I’ve now eaten at all three Casa La Femmes, and I like the newest location, 140 Charles St., the best.
The first Casa La Femme opened back in 1991 on Wooster St. in SoHo. But in 2004, the SoHo restaurant lost its lease and moved to east midtown until 2008. Somehow, I don’t think uptown moms with strollers were the target audience for northern Egyptian cuisine.

The new Casa La Femme looks like honest exoticism, not like Egypt by way of Disney’s Epcot — especially if you reserve one of the tented tables. You could hide out in your tent all night, but then you’d miss the belly dancers.

And though you can’t eat decor or the belly dancers, they both make the food taste a little better. The menu is ­mostly a grazing menu, so start with some ­mazzas, Egyptian for starters. The best part is the pita, which resembles one of those puffed-up Jiffy Pop pans, except these are speckled with parsley, rock sea salt and sesame seeds. Think of the pita as an edible plate to smear with a terrifically smoky baba ghanouj, with a dab of tahini.

Or toss the salata tamatem on top with Gibnah Domiaty, a really creamy Egyptian cheese with minted grape tomatoes. The lamb chops fatta, cooked with the fat on as they do in northern Egypt, are seasoned with red pepper, oregano and rosemary. Oddly enough, the best thing on the menu at Casa La Femme is the French fries — Egyptian-style fries that are cooked in fat and spiced with rock sea salt.

As lovely as everything is, the menu is a little uneven. The chicken — the firakh mashwaya — was oversumac-ed and too ordinary to order. And the warak enab, stuffed grape leaves, were too cold and slimy, an occupational hazard among grape leaves.

Hummus deserves to be wonderful, not the bland thin hummus they serve here. As for the accessories, the baklava — dampened with cinnamon syrup — is delicious. Skip the wines (the list is limited and pricey) and order a cocktail instead. I like the Lemonada — a citrusy cocktail with lots of fresh mint and a splash of Champagne.

At Casa La Femme, you may not be in northern Egypt exactly, but while you’re there waiting for a camel to poke its nose under the tent, the recession feels a long way away.

10 Downing St., at Sixth Ave.
(212) 255-0300
Tue.-Wed. 6 p.m.- 12 a.m.;
Thu.-Sat. 6 p.m.-1 a.m.;
Sun. 6 p.m.- 12 a.m.; closed Mon.
CUISINE
French-inflected American
VIBE
Bustling downtown eatery
OCCASION
Casual date, neighborhood bites, family or group dinner
DON'T MISS DISH
Trout tartare, squid ink agnolotti, coffee-scented semi freddo
AVERAGE PRICE
Appetizers $10; entrees $24; desserts $8
RESERVATIONS
Recommended

Here's the first thing you need to know you about 10 Downing. Order the charcuterie, especially the duck liver mousse and the duck prosciutto.

There's a lot of charcuterie in this town, even housemade charcuterie, a lot of it obligatory, a lot of it ordinary. I overlooked the 10 Downing charcuterie on my first two visits. When it comes to the table, pay attention because the chef is paying attention.

Here's the second thing you need to know. Wear earplugs. And the third thing? This is one tough restaurant to get into. I mean literally — shouldering your way through the crowd, past the waiters carrying hot plates, around the coat check mob, and beyond the hostess stand. Good luck with that.

And this is one of the few restaurants that quotes Miss Piggy on the menu. "Never eat more than you can lift." Not that the girls at 10 Downing — a sea of young girls — is ever likely to over-order.

For some reason, there are two chefs — a consulting chef and a regular chef. But it's much more Jason Neroni in the kitchen, much less Katy Sparks.

The foundation of the menu is traditional French cuisine. But Neroni adds dishes from other neighboring cuisines. His approach is to simplify a classic, take it apart, isolate it. By doing so, he gives it a new clarity. His duck meatball cassoulet isn't an epic cassoulet — the kind that's made with seven meats or cooks for three days. It's all about the flageolet beans and meatballs instead. I was surprised to find aligot puree. You may not even know what aligot means. It's French for really cheesy mashed potatoes.

One of the best dishes on the menu is the squid ink agnolotti. A lot of times "squid ink" pasta tastes like white pasta dyed black. This tastes as though the squid inked the agnolotti. It tastes like the sea. And so the does the peekytoe crab on top. I also loved the ocean trout tartar, a dish with no specific nationality.

Neroni gives trout the kind of treatment you would give steak tartar. He glosses it with chorizo oil. He mixes the trout with pickled mustard, chives, pine nuts, and then tops the whole thing with a quail egg.

But there's an over-and-under problem at 10 Downing. For example, the Arctic char. The char was killed before it came to market, so why poach it to a second death? I've never seen a man recoil from a steak. But when the hanger steak arrived — black and blue and bleeding — my friend sent it hastening back to the kitchen.

This was, no fooling, raw. As for the gnocchi, the server said they would melt in my mouth, which implies that they were actually cooked.

Neroni also makes the desserts at 10 Downing and he does a great job of it. I'd order the chocolate cake souffle just for the malted milk ice cream. Just when I thought I couldn't stomach another cheeky riff on peanut butter & jelly, Neroni convinced me otherwise. Who could turn their nose up at peanut butter gelato, concord grape jam and challah?

One last thing about 10 Downing, they also take their wines very seriously. Seven whites by the glass, seven reds, four sparkling, and one rose

Bistrong overdirects his menu at Braeburn.

117 Perry St. between Hudson and Greenwich,                 
(212) 255-0696 Open seven days; lunch, noon- 4 p.m.; dinner, 5:30-10:30 p.m.
CUISINE: American
VIBE: Cozy corner spot
OCCASION: First date, group dinner
DON'T-MISS DISH: Smoked brook trout, breast of duck, pumpkin cheescake
PRICE: Appetizers, $12; entrées, $26; desserts, $6
RESERVATIONS: Accepted

The other day, I called Braeburn. The general manager answered, "Thank you for calling The Harrison."

Then he hung up, embarrassed.

It was a natural mistake. Almost half the staff comes from The Harrison, a Tribeca restaurant that embodies the idea of American bistro cooking. In fact, some dishes make you feel like you're at The Harrison and some dishes make you wish you were at The Harrison.

What The Harrison does in a relaxed way, Braeburn does in a way that's both fussy and tiny.

After an appetizer, you feel like Oliver Twist, or maybe Steve Martin in "L.A. Story." Perhaps the thing to do is order two of everything. For some dishes, that's a good idea. Like the smoked trout, which is wonderful and would be really, really wonderful if it was twice as big. The chef gets his brook trout from the Catskills, then gently smokes it in house over cherry and applewood.

Underneath the trout is a horseradish cream purée and a combination of crushed pecans, apples, Asian pear and chives. I'd order the horseradish cream purée itself. It makes you wonder why we name every dish after a protein. Everyone wants a bite, but there's only three bites in the whole thing. Sometimes, you can forget about size.

When I think of sausage, I don't think of quail. When I think of quail, I don't think of sausage. But Brian Bistrong disassembles an entire quail and packs it into a single sausage, which he serves over quinoa, yogurt, warm figs and quail jus. What you end up with is quail gravy on your yogurt, which tastes much better than you would expect.

Too often, Braeburn gives the impression that Bistrong's trying too hard, as if he doesn't trust his ingredients or the ­discrimination of the diner, who knows that simple combinations work the best.

There are times when Bistrong doesn't let the ingredients do the work. Which of these items don't belong in the same dish? (Think of this as a culinary SAT question.) Peekytoe crab, mayonnaise, avocado, grapefruit segments, grapefruit juice, pickled mustard seeds, ketchup, Cognac or canola oil? Bistrong uses all of these.

That poor, poor peekytoe crab. That was one of several dishes killed by complexity, including the scallops — which are perfectly seared — soiled by a gritty, watery walnut purée and braised endive with butter, vanilla bean, orange juice, beer and powdered sugar.

Braeburn has a lot going for it — a great corner location in the West Village, a rustic feel, an experienced chef, and yet somehow it ends up feeling like high-end middle-of-the-road. Maybe it's an occupational hazard. Every cook wants to direct. The trouble is, sometimes they overdirect. Braeburn's new, but with luck it will last.

And what would help it last are a few basic thoughts: Keep it simple, put more on the plate, think about the customers, and don't worry so much about affirming whether you're a good chef. Just feed us, and we'll get the picture. And take a cue from the pumpkin cheesecake. Simple and satisfying — just the way every dinner should end.

By the way, Braeburn's an apple.

Happiness is a plate of pesto pasta.
268 Sixth Ave., near Bleecker St., (212) 982-3300
Seven days a week, noon to midnight

CUISINE Italian
VIBE Downtown sidewalk scene
OCCASION First date, group dinner
DON'T MISS DISH Pesto pasta, veal meatballs, eggplant parmigiana
AVERAGE PRICES Appetizers, $7; entrees, $13.50; dessert, $6.50
RESERVATIONS Accepted for parties of four or more

Wasn't last week a miserable one in New York? The markets were down and so were some of the candidates.Some people lose their appetite when things seem gloomy. Not me. All I wanted was a bowl of pesto pasta. And nobody makes better pesto sauce than Bar Pitti. If you've ordered it, you know exactly I'm talking about. Every New Yorker should eat it at least once.

But it was late in September, so my chances were slim. High basil season was long over. Would they still be making the pasta? There are a thousand types of basil, but Giovanni Tognozzi's very particular about picking the right one. It's only available through August and sporadically through September.

Tognozzi is the owner of Bar Pitti and a powerful man when it comes to pesto. Somehow I got him talking about the recipe. He mixes the basil with olive oil, Parmesan, pignoli and garlic. More pignoli than garlic, he says. Then he stops himself as if he has said too much.

"They're all my recipes," he says. These days he's no longer working the kitchen; he works the front of the house.

The pesto's not on the menu. You have to ask for it. Beg, really. When I ordered the pesto, my server said they were out of it. She was teasing.

"I was going to surprise you, but you looked too miserable. We have it." She brought it to the table. Its perfume is hypnotic, its flavor intense, and suddenly everyone in the restaurant was ordering the pesto pasta. It's a word-of-mouth kind of place. And that's just one of the things that makes it a New York kind of place.

Only tourists eat from the regular menu. All the best dishes are scribbled on a blackboard in Italian - veal milanese, bruschetta, panzanella, polpettini and osso bucco. Servers translate. They carry the blackboard around like one of Moses' tablets. They never write down your order, but they remember everything. When the servers are too busy, diners pass the blackboard from table to table themselves.

It's a small gesture, but it's one of the things that make Bar Pitti really feel like a community, a community that includes everybody. Locals, tourists, celebrities - they all come to sit on green plastic chairs.

When basil season ends, it's time for the polpettini, the little crusty balls of braised veal and Parmesan cheese.

The recipe for these wonderful polpettini spawned a lawsuit, a feud between Bar Pitti and Da Silvano, the restaurant next door.

"It's my mother's recipe," says Tognozzi. No one really knows who won.

I also love the eggplant parmigiana. I think it's the way they cut the eggplant, with long silky ribbons of it layered with ruby-red tomato sauce and gooey gobs of mozzarella and Parmesan.

Sometimes there's tagliolini tossed with sweet bits of fresh crab, parsley and tomato, glossed in white wine and olive oil. Sometimes there's perfectly charred sepia or braised oxtail with polenta. This isn't rocket science, but it is genius.

There's a good reason some restaurants survive. It's the same reason people sit on the bench outside Bar Pitti waiting in the cold to be picked, waiting to pay cash, waiting to eat the same wonderful food they've been eating here since 1992.