04.18.08
Review of Café Boulud, Tuesday February 2008
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.
