05.02.08
Review of Jadis, Thursday March 2008
42 Rivington St. basement & Forsyth/Eldridge , 212-254-1675
Great for: small plates, giant salads, trying different wines without spending a fortune
We thought we could try Freeman’s (which doesn’t take reservations) one Thursday, since it was only 7pm. Unfortunately, many other people seemed to have had the same idea, and we weren’t about to wait an hour to eat. Jadis was close by and the Boyfriend remembered having a good meal there a while back.
It’s one of the typical Lower East Side layouts, with a few steps down into a narrow dining room half taken up by the bar. This one has an unexpectedly large yet cozy back lounge as well, which had a few tables but seemed mainly to be for drinking. We were lucky and only waited a few minutes to share a table with another party.
We started out with the mini quiches, two spinach and two ham. They were like tiny crinkly pastries. The ham ones were a bit funny but the spinach was very good. The bacon-wrapped scallops were excellent; succulent, crisp and fantastic, we could have eaten 10 more of them. The accompanying frisée and vinaigrette were delicious too. The appetizers are surprisingly cheap, until you realize that it’s because they’re miniscule.
My main course of Georges salad consisted of mesclun, smoked chicken, bacon, Gruyère and what they called grapes, but I would consider raisins. It was good, the (apple smoked perhaps?) chicken a little sweet and only OK, but I quite liked it overall. It’s kind of big for a salad and I had to chop it a lot more. The Boyfriend’s panino of Serano [sic] ham, Granny Smith apple and Gruyère came, oddly, on a baguette instead of proper flat bread. The bread was far too crusty and cut our mouths like a knife, while the ham was extremely fatty and chewy, the worst of both worlds. The cheese and the mix of flavors were good though.
For dessert I decided on a glass of the Sauternes le Dauphin de Guiraud 2000. It was exceptionally sweet and creamy, a bit like my favorite Tokaji, and also kind of like non-carbonated cream soda. His crème brûlée was delicious, despite a caramelized crust that was a bit too chewy. We enjoyed our half-bottle carafe of Viognier Laurent Miquel 2006 Languedoc as well. The wine list has a nice selection of different countries and reasonable prices – definitely a good place for experimentation, especially if you’re with several people.
We were interested to note the same wavy ceiling we saw at 85 Orchard, the building that Little Giant, Elyssa Dido and Sticky Rice share. We were less pleased about the hard wooden stools. I thought the music was fun but pretty eccentric – it started out in Latin pop, which created a nice party atmosphere, then segued into bossa nova which was a bit jarring, though not as much Crazytown’s “Butterfly”. The ensuing merengue was a really weird transition. None of which was as peculiar as the man next to us in the other party who ate everything with his hands, including his salad. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Our waiter was clearly having a hectic night but he was very friendly to us and checked on us as much as he could. The other waitstaff were also happy to bring us water or other little things. We loved the place itself and some of the food. Our meal would probably have been better with more starters, small plates and a quiche. We were impressed enough that I’m going to give it another chance to make up for the unfortunate panino.
Rating: 6.5 / 10 pending another visit
Our cost: $105 (with $22 half bottle of wine and $12 dessert wine)
Noise level: semi-civilized party
Chance of walking in: medium.
