04.21.08
Posted in French, Haute Cuisine, Las Vegas, rated 7 to 7.5 at 15:51 by Dominique
in the Wynn Hotel, 888-320-7110
Great for: spoiling your purse, giant parties in the back room, wonderful food
The six of us (Boyfriend, me, S and Y, L and K) met for brunch after Saturday’s birthday celebration. My friends were staying at other hotels, while the Boyfriend and I were at our favorite Wynn. So the others thought they’d come check it out. The Boyfriend also remembered how amazing the food was at Tableau from previous trips and how difficult it was to get a table, so we tried to show up early at 11. We still had to wait an hour, though.
The food was well worth the wait. My lobster salad with black lentils, pancetta, a crispy panko-breaded-and-poached egg and frisée was delicious. The egg, with its contrast of flavors and textures, was probably my favorite part. I also shared a scrumptious, subtly flavored bowl of clam chowder with S. L and K got the Kobe short ribs with poached instead of scrambled eggs and two potato cakes (like fancy hash browns) in béarnaise sauce, which were fantastic. I almost wished I’d ordered them myself. The homemade ketchup was also great, as were the mango ricotta pancakes. The only thing that was just good and not great was the Boyfriend’s rib eye panini with aged provolone and Chinese broccoli (!) on ciabatta with potato chips and salad.
Unfortunately, I can’t say good things about the service. S specifically and clearly asked for her burger not to have cheese. When the waiter brought it with cheese, it took an additional two waiters to argue about it with her. Finally they took it away, and then one waitress came back a few minutes later to ask if maybe she’d like the cheese just scraped off, which would be faster than having another burger altogether. It was a reasonable question, since S didn’t say she was allergic, but should have been asked as soon as S reminded them she’d asked for no cheese. By the time they asked, the burger was cold and they ended up having to make it again anyway. That was the most egregious lapse of service; it also annoyed us that they didn’t offer pepper, or sugar for our coffee.
The ridiculously loud bachelorette brunch (we guessed) in the back room, cackling like witches, was also annoying, but not the restaurant’s fault. I hope they flustered our waiters, and that’s why the service wasn’t good. I’d hate to think such a beautifully decorated, luxurious place with lovely food and even little chairs for our purses didn’t also have their service sorted out.
Rating: 7 / 10
Our cost: $235 for 6 people (lousy service)
Noise level: loud when there’s a party in the back
Chance of walking in: very low.
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04.20.08
Posted in Asian, French, Las Vegas, rated 4 to 5.5 at 12:57 by Dominique
in the Palms Casino Resort, 702-942-7777
Great for: people-watching, chocolate cake, getting drunk on sophisticated cocktails, scoping out high rollers
February is not only my birthday month, it’s my friend S’s as well. She decided we needed to celebrate in style, so we planned a Vegas trip with our boyfriends and two other friends L and K. This place is the giant Vegas sister of Buddha Bar Paris. We definitely liked the music and the drinks.
My shrimp and scallop dumplings with spicy dipping sauce were pretty good. The Boyfriend’s jalapeño yellowtail with tosazu sauce and yellow tobiko was better. He let me chase the last few bits of tobiko around in the delicious sauce. S’s spicy lettuce wrap had spicy tuna, crab, salmon and yellowtail with fresh endive, which was tasty. Basically it’s a hobby kit of fish plus leaves you can spread them on; a good dish for sharing.
My entrée of crispy skin-on opakapaka came in sizzled chile pepper tosazu over bok choy with Chinese broccoli and an enormous baby carrot. It was too salty, the fish was a bit chewy, and the carrot was raw. It was the strangest thing – clearly a baby carrot by the shape of the leaves and the smoothness of the carrot, it looked and tasted disconcerting. Other than that the dish was OK. The Boyfriend’s Maui onion-crusted mahi mahi in lobster red miso cream with another giant baby carrot, a potato and Chinese broccoli was not very good. I am sorry to report that the onions were the best part. The fish was eh. L and K shared the special of Kobe steak with shiitake mushroom & gai-lan, which tasted all right but was way too chewy for something calling itself Kobe. In fact, it was too chewy for any medium-cooked steak.
Discouraged by the quality of the other food, I opted to drink dessert instead. My Little Buddha coffee with Stoli Razberi, crème de cacao, Bailey’s and cream on top was delicious. And the Boyfriend’s liquid center chocolate cake with Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream was probably the best food we had all night
The drinks, on the other hand, were uniformly recommendable. I tried the China Girl, Sweet Buddha Love, and Mighty Joe Yang, which were all good, though perhaps too sweet for male tastes. At least that’s what the boyfriends complained. This is the kind of place you’d come with a big group of raucous partygoers who are less concerned with quality of cuisine and more with getting wasted on good cocktails without spending too much money. The décor is classic faux-Asian, with giant Buddhas everywhere and a lot of different cultural artifacts all happily coexisting. The service was not bad. If I ever come back here it will be for drinks at the bar before a party upstairs in one of the crazy luxury suites.
Rating: 4 / 10
Our cost: $430 for 6 people (2 cocktails per person)
Noise level: high
Chance of walking in: low.
The bars upstairs: Moon, Ghostbar and the Playboy Club are OK. Not really worth waiting in line with a bunch of yobs from Jersey (or losers who look like them), and the Playboy “Bunnies” are nothing special. I’ve seen much hotter girls dancing at the other, better clubs on the Strip. In fact, even the regular waitresses at the Wynn are better-looking. The good thing about Rain and Moon, though, is that you can go out on the balconies and get a panoramic view of the Strip, with all the lights and everything.
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Posted in Asian, Las Vegas, rated 6 to 6.5 at 12:00 by Dominique
in the Planet Hollywood, 702-405-4700
Great for: sharing food and huge crazy drinks, tiki enthusiasts, eating outside, nostalgia
Trader Vic’s at the Plaza in New York used to be a hot spot, or so I heard, until the Plaza decided to become overpriced condos. Which was very sad to me, because I never got to go. So when I discovered that they’d transplanted it to Vegas, I insisted that we pay a visit.
I wasn’t expecting a lot from the food – I knew it would be “Polynesian”, which in America seems to mean Chinese food but sweeter. I liked the preliminary toasted flatbread, which was very yummy. The hot dipping sauce was the best of the four provided. Basically I wanted a pu pu platter, which they didn’t have on the menu, so we created our own. Everything was pretty good; the slightly chewy coconut rock shrimp (the best thing), Malaysian beef satay marinated in lemongrass and Kafir lime, very saucy barbecue spare ribs and even the spiced calamari with wasabi aïoli which was, ironically, a little bland. We wanted to get the all-in-one rice as well, with chicken, prawns, char siu pork and lobster, but were too full.
We very much enjoyed our drinks. The mai tai, their specialty, was tasty. So was the Menehune juice of island rums and nectars. The Zombie, of light and dark rums, grenadine and curaçao was sweet and packed quite a punch. We also really liked our waiter. He was super sweet and attentive. I’m sure it helped that it was 4 pm and not busy, but he really went above and beyond for us in many thoughtful little ways.
Of course, the place is over-the-top with the tiki décor. It’s huge and a bit tacky as almost everywhere is in Vegas. But I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food and service, and I’m still thinking about that all-in-one rice we didn’t have.
Rating: 6.5 / 10
Our cost: $80
Noise level: probably a loud party when it’s packed
Chance of walking in: probably better on weekdays.
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04.18.08
Posted in French, Haute Cuisine, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 9 to 10, Upper East Side at 17:45 by Dominique
20 E. 76th St. & Madison/5th Ave., 212-772-2600
Great for: exquisite food, speculating about strangers, impressing a date, lovely service, oenophiles
We heard about the Zagat Presents special prix-fixe menu to celebrate new top chef Gavin Kaysen and thought it’d be a great opportunity to finally eat here. I lived quite close by for years and never managed to go, and now that I live very far downtown I regret not doing so when I had the chance. At the entrance we divested ourselves of coats and bags in a tiny anteroom which probably gets crowded at the end of the night. Then we lifted a curtain into the magical wonderland – I mean, main dining room. It looks magical to me because of all the flowers and how beautifully it’s decorated.
We may have been the youngest patrons in the whole place – everyone else looked middle-aged, old or heavily Botoxed. It was surprisingly lively, considering. They brought us two amuse-bouches as soon as we said OK to the prix-fixe and no to the 27-page wine list. There was a bite of potato salad on a radish slice in a flat-bottomed soup spoon, and a fried ball of risotto and black truffle, both of which were great. I think there was some black truffle emphasis to the menu as well, as you will shortly see. (I may not have remembered every bit of the dinner correctly – unfortunately my BlackBerry lost my notes so I’m doing it from memory and the regular Café Boulud menu, which is slightly different.)
We were offered five kinds of bread when we had our first course, the kampachi sashimi with butternut squash purée, daikon radish and ponzu vinaigrette. Kampachi is a yummy Hawaiian yellowtail. I liked how the squash made it look as though the fish had dabs of spicy mayo and then it wasn’t spicy. It probably wasn’t that easy to make, but seemed very simple and wonderful when we ate it, which is the best way to be.
Next we were blessed with the “biscuit and gravy.” It was a quail egg atop a pork sausage-and-black truffle patty resting on a buttermilk biscuit on a bed of creamed spinach. It was even more wonderful than it sounds. The little egg was poached perfectly, so that the yolk was hot but still runny. The sausage was obviously the kind that you might actually want to watch being made – no filler parts here. Everything just went together scrumptiously. The hardest part was trying to get a bit of everything in each bite without eating it with my fingers.
Our main course was wine-braised short ribs accompanied by green beans, a baby carrot and celery root purée. The Boyfriend thought the ribs were a bit fatty but I reminded him that they are supposed to be very fatty and these were actually doing quite well on the heart attack scale. Mine just had one thin layer of fat, which was easily scraped away. The sauce was excellent, so much so that I ate all my beans – a rare occurrence for me. The entire dish went together so well.
Our dessert was almond and Darjeeling tea wafers with sorbet on the side, topped by what I can only describe as a slender sprig of chocolate. Between the deliciously crunchy wafers there was a layer each of almond and Darjeeling mousse. The plating was so beautiful I wanted to take a picture, but Boyfriend told me I’d look like a loser with the camera out. And soon I was too busy trying to wolf down the scrumptiousness in a ladylike manner to care.
I can’t say enough about the service here. It was quiet, friendly, unobtrusive, dexterous… definitely one of my top 5 experiences. Everyone, from the coat check girl to the busboy, was unfailingly kind and attentive. I love when restaurants create an atmosphere of privacy yet make sure we have everything we need. So despite it being very much not our scene, and way too far uptown, we loved it and I want to go back soon.
Rating: 9.5 / 10
Our cost: $260 ($75 half-bottle of Bollinger to celebrate our anniversary a little more)
Noise level: pretty noisy considering half the women couldn’t move their faces, but we easily had a quiet conversation
Chance of walking in: low.
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Posted in American, Financial District, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 6 to 6.5 at 16:11 by Dominique
279 Water St. & Dover St., 212-227-3344
Great for: history buffs, après-Brooklyn Bridge trips
It was our anniversary, and we thought a romantic little restaurant that consistently gets good reviews would be the perfect way to celebrate the mutual sharpening of our palates in the year the Boyfriend and I have been together. It’s hidden away under the Brooklyn Bridge in a picturesque, cobblestoned spot that’s been there since the Revolutionary War. The food didn’t live up to our expectations, but we had a lovely time and the staff were very sweet to us, so it was still a good night.
My caesar salad with lardons, croutons and parmesan but no anchovies was good. It came with whole romaine leaves, a style of salad I don’t see very often. I kind of like the assemble-your-own concept but it’s hard to mix salad on a flat plate without making a mess or spreading the dressing around unevenly, so I still prefer pre-cut and -tossed salad. The cheese looked like a giant lacy doily on top of everything and it was yummy, as well as great fun to shatter. The Boyfriend’s Maytag bleu cheese and Bosc pear bruschetta drizzled with lavender honey was interesting with good, strong cheese. I can’t say I’d recommend eating the whole plate, though, as it tends to get cloying.
My lobster pot pie was pretty good, with a lot of crunchy celery, peas, carrots, potatoes and onions. His pan-seared diver scallops with lobster risotto & citrus gremolata was also decent. Both our mains were a little bland, though the seafood was fresh and so were the rest of the ingredients. It’s just that none of it was particularly memorable. The red velvet cake was better. The icing is super sweet and offsets the smooth cake nicely.
When I made the reservation two weeks in advance I mentioned that it was our anniversary, and they actually remembered that on the day, which is even more laudable considering they don’t use Open Table and just scrawl names in a book. The maitre d’ very kindly offered us at half price Domaine St. Michelle champagne, which turned out to be passable. The service was friendly, helpful and mindful of our little celebration. I have to say it was better than the food. Plus our waitress was hot.
The atmosphere is very old-fashioned; it reminded me of a dilapidated old house in the country where they just happen to be serving a lot of food. It’s good for large parties and noisy celebrations (we saw a few of those), and a must for any New York history buffs. The place has been continuously open since 1794, and holds title as both the oldest business and oldest food/drink establishment in all of New York City. It also was a brothel in the late 1850s. I’m glad we went; we had a lovely anniversary, and now I can cross it off my list.
Rating: 6 / 10
Our cost: $130 (1 bottle of half price champagne)
Noise level: quiet hum
Chance of walking in: medium.
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04.15.08
Posted in Japanese, New York City, New York City Reviews, NoHo, rated 8 to 8.5 at 15:47 by Dominique
6 Bond Street & Broadway/Lafayette, 212-777-2500
Great for: spicy crispy shrimp, sharing lots of dishes, reliably romantic dates, naughty cocktails downstairs, large parties
As I was thinking about the many visits I’ve made to this restaurant, I realized that I’ve been on four second dates here in two years. It’s always fun - not the most imaginative choice if you’re trying to impress a Manhattanite, but romantic without being over the top (and sometimes that’s better). Most importantly, the food never disappoints. This time it was me, the Boyfriend, his friends O & B visiting from London, and their friends D & K who live here. We sat in the round table upstairs by the hostess stand, which was nicely spacious for the six of us.
We got two orders of the spicy crispy shrimp with yuzu calamanci vinaigrette and chipotle aïoli, which I think is hands-down one of the best dishes in the entire city. The shrimp are medium size, fried in a very light tempura batter and drizzled with spicy mayo and chives. They are fluffy, juicy, crunchy, delicious pieces of heaven. I’d be quite happy to have a whole meal of just them. The crispy goat cheese crab cakes had a lovely crunchy pounded rice crust. The wagyu tataki brushed with truffle butter was great – the slices are lined up on a long narrow dish, seared just enough around the edges, and pleasingly soft in the middle. I liked as well the chewy soba nomi buckwheat risotto with sautéed shrimp, peekytoe crab and smoked trout butter, despite the mushrooms in it.
My entrée of NY strip with 18-year-old balsamic vinaigrette, shallots teriyaki and potato cubes was a bit chewy but yummy and made me happy. The Boyfriend’s rack of lamb with Asian pear and potatoes was also tasty. (We’d unwisely already had a lot of sushi that week and didn’t feel like any more.) Those are the only mains I can tell you about firsthand. By the time I was done with my dish, the others had already devoured theirs before I could remind them that they had to share with me so I could review them. They all said, “Delicious.”
The crème caramel with plum wine gelée and caramel sauce was great. It tasted like a better version of flan. The sake crème brûlée with yamamamo fruit and puff pastry was also excellent. We were also quite happy with the quality of the drinks. I liked the sweet saketini I started with, and we got through three bottles of sake #75. The service was good considering it was an extremely busy Friday. They were a bit slow with the drink refills but I’m sure that was partly to do with the small sake glasses and our large thirsts.
It’s a beautiful restaurant, with two floors for dining and a seductive basement lounge where you can also order food. The dim lighting is conducive to romance, and the chairs are really comfortable. Every time I come, the food is very good across the board, quite an accomplishment in a restaurant that’s been open for several years and does so many covers every night. I look forward to the next time I have the privilege of eating here.
Rating: 8 / 10
Our cost: $810 for 6 people (3 bottles of sake plus a few cocktails)
Noise level: noisy happy
Chance of walking in: low.
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04.11.08
Posted in food-related musings at 04:15 by Dominique
My neighbors had a delivery today. I know, because an old lady banged on their door for about ten minutes until I said “What the hell?!?!” and opened my door. She was their grandmother, dropping off food (as all Asian grannies and aunties do – it does not matter how awful, stinky, unwanted or impractical the food is – by god you’re getting it). When the neighbors came home I gave them their plastic bag. The matriarch insisted on giving me some of the stuff, to which I initially said “No I couldn’t possibly” until I realized they were zong zi.
For those of you who don’t speak Mandarin, zong zi are those sticky rice things wrapped in bamboo leaves that usually have part of a soy sauce-marinated hard-boiled egg and some pork and maybe dried shrimp. They can be amazingly good. I thought these would be like that. My mother always told me how the tradition of zong zi arose from some commoner foolish enough to woo a princess in the bad old days – Daddy Emperor threw that upstart in the river, and the kind-hearted women in her court threw him leaf-wrapped sustenance, to give him an edge over the fishes, until Daddy stopped being so mad. I think the peasant ended up marrying the princess, persistence being highly valued in China. [Wikipedia has a slightly different story. This is probably why my mother is not a qualified Chinese school teacher.]
Unfortunately, the zong zi I had just now would not have sustained the courageous young man. It was all peanuts! I hate peanuts combined with other food. (Reese’s Pieces are just tolerable, and for barely one piece, if that.) Now, if the zong zi had the other stuff it’s supposed to have, I’d just pick out the peanuts and ignore them. But this was an embarrassment of peanuts. There was only maybe 20% more rice than giant peanuts. Now I know why the Mrs. next door was so eager to get rid of grannie’s food. I was expecting a delectable treat, and instead, I had to pick out all the peanuts, dunk the rice in so much hot sauce my mouth is still on fire, and spit out the peanuts I didn’t see. No, grannies, no more peanuts!!!
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04.07.08
Posted in food-related musings at 19:25 by Dominique
I noticed this article on Eater.com (LA), and these are my two cents about it. I want to say first that his L’Atelier is one of my favorite restaurants in New York, although I probably can’t afford to go back any time soon. Also, I imagine that his feeling about ignorant people criticizing him is probably akin to how I feel when tone-deaf dummies try to tell me things about music, so I do see and sympathize with where he’s coming from.
“John Curtas: What is your opinion of food/restaurant bloggers and the impact they have on the dining-out public?
“Joël Robuchon: They can be helpful and they can be dangerous. Dangerous because anyone can write anything, even if they have no training or experience and don’t make any sense. Genuine gastronomic critics bring a lot of experience to the table and you must respect that, but too often the internet can be used as a revenge tool by people who have something against the chef or the restaurant. But the public doesn’t know when a review is being used as a way to ambush a restaurant. Too many restaurant critics these days are like me when I’m criticizing a soccer coach; I might have my opinion, but I don’t know that much.”
It is certainly a danger of the internet that people with axes to grind can keep them safely out of sight behind the anonymity of the web. But I think any review longer than “the food sucks” makes it very difficult to grind that axe without giving yourself away in the details. And for sure, there are plenty of people out there who don’t know much about food. But unless they lack taste buds, does that mean their opinions are worthless? Whether their palates are sophisticated or not, the chef’s aim was to please, and if s/he didn’t, that is a valid reaction.
The soccer coach analogy also doesn’t really hold up for me. Soccer is something a few people play very well, a lot of people follow, and many people don’t know much about it – eating is something everyone does and almost everyone has decided opinions on. If I watch Liverpool lose to Manchester United, and I blame the coach, no one should listen to me, since I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe Liverpool made a valiant effort but were overpowered, maybe a few players were not on top form, maybe it was too muddy on the pitch, etc. If, on the other hand, I say the linguine alla vongole was bland, with rubbery clams and too little sauce, those are concrete things that I experienced. To an extent it is my opinion, but it’s not nearly as subjective as my view on a soccer game.
Now, I agree that many people “have no training or experience and don’t make any sense”, but I think there is room for the opinions of more than just gourmands. I started this blog because I got tired of reading esoteric theses yammering on in the impenetrable style of Derrida. I believe that, as a well-educated, curious person, my detailed opinion about the food I eat is useful to someone. If I didn’t like the shrimp, and explain why, I think that might help someone when they’re deciding about a restaurant. I don’t think Chef Robuchon would turn away a table at one of his exorbitantly expensive restaurants on discovering that they were not “true gourmands” under his definition – it is them he is trying to impress, so their opinions still matter.
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Posted in food-related musings at 18:20 by Dominique
Let me count the ways.
1. It perks me up without making me feel like I’ve done a big line, the way coffee does, and despite having as much caffeine as one cup.
2. All three varieties – regular green tea, peach and berry – taste yummy.
3. It is so much faster than brewing green tea, plus no messy tea leaves to deal with afterwards.
4. It comes in nice slender cans that are easy to finish quickly while on the train.
5. The six-pack is designed for efficient, fast access and minimal use of space.
6. It’s cheaper than the coffee I’d otherwise get: $6.49 for a 6-pack at Target vs. about $3.50 for a tall Starbucks latte/frappucino/macchiato. It’s also about half the price of Red Bull (in NYC, at least), which is $2.50 a can.
Of course, if you’ve read the Wikipedia entry or any other debunking pages on it, you know that three cans of Enviga a day do not speed up your metabolism as claimed. But at 5 calories a can, I don’t really care if it’s negative-calorie or not. It makes me happy and productive when I’m drooping and apathetic, and I like the pretty silver cans.
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Posted in American, Greenwich Village, New York City, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5 at 17:31 by Dominique
100 W. Houston & La Guardia Pl./Thompson St., 212-254-7000
Great for: small parties, celebrations, un-fussy food
Jane is one of those restaurants that just complements a night out with friends perfectly. It’s casual, but not too much so; the food is delicious, so are the drinks, and it’s not too expensive (although the wine will set you back a bit). This particular Friday happened to be the one before my birthday, and the Boyfriend and I met up with three of his friends for a nice pre-crazy-party dinner. [He took me to River Café in Brooklyn (yes, I crossed water in a car without murmur!) for my actual birthday - I took the night off from reviewing, so I will just say Oh. My. God. Go there immediately as soon as you have some money. Oh and proper clothes.]
My appetizer of chipotle shrimp with sweet corn griddle cake, barbecue butter and herb salad was great, even though the corn was a bit sweeter than I normally like. The Boyfriend’s crispy sesame calamari with pineapple-chili sauce, green onion (scallions) and cilantro was also well-executed; the sauce was quite sweet but pretty good.
The grilled sirloin steak in green peppercorn sauce with potato and gruyère gratin was quite good, nice and spicy. I was happy with the texture of the meat. Just the thing to soak up bottles of vodka later at the club. The seared diver scallops with white corn pozole, apple-smoked bacon and roasted poblano were also very good – the sauce reminded me of red fra diavolo. Our friends’ main dishes did not disappoint either; the lamb shank off-bone with couscous was as yummy as the baked rigatoni with spicy homemade sausage, Italian eggplant, slow roasted tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella.
Not only does Jane make good food, it comes in huge portions as well. I am so happy I finally came here. The drinks are just as expertly made, especially the Fling, of vodka, sauvignon blanc, elderflower liqueur, tarragon and lemon, which is delicious and a bit spicy; and the peach caipirinha, which was subtle and good. The only bad part was our waiter. We had to repeat everything we said to him three times, despite all of us speaking English perfectly and loudly. He forgot us frequently and was generally very frustrating. It didn’t even seem like he was new, so we couldn’t figure out why he was doing so badly. Fortunately, the dining room is decorated in a lovely, calming manner, we had quite a lot of wine and cocktails, and I had a wonderful birthday dinner overall.
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Our cost: $417+63 (for 5 people with 2 cocktails each) because the waiter was stupid and/or neglectful
Noise level: happy hum
Chance of walking in: low.
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