05.02.08
Review #2 of Spice Market, Thursday February 2008
403 W. 13th St. and 9th Ave, 212-675-2322
Great for: dates, Asian-French fusion, getting hammered in a civilized fashion, impressing out-of-towners, pre-club wallet lightening, family style
My friend V was about to set off on a very long tour of Asia and Europe, so we had dinner to celebrate and say goodbye temporarily. It’s fun eating with her – she loves meat and food in general about as much as I do. Plus I am usually out with the Boyfriend (like last time), and it’s nice to have a girls’ night once in a while.
We shared three entrees and a side instead of doing the normal three course meal. First up: a really good seafood laksa, which was Gulf shrimp, scallops and some kind of white fish in a curry coconut broth with thin noodles. The seafood was tender, and the noodles were properly slender. I usually don’t like coconut-flavored things, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the broth. Next, the pork vindaloo was also great. It’s not actually that hot if you’re used to spicy food, but we liked it a lot. The cod with Malaysian chili sauce and Thai basil was comparably excellent. We thought it was actually spicier than the vindaloo. To balance out all the meat, we got the baby corn and broccoli with lemongrass and chili over seared corn, and were delighted with that too. Everything was executed very well.
We tried the pattaya, kumquat mojito, Saigon cosmo and ginger margarita from the cocktail menu. They were all good, but I think my favorite was the Saigon cosmo, made of Skyy and plum sake, while V’s was the self-explanatory kumquat mojito. The verbena mint tea we shared at the end to sober up a bit was good as well. Our cute waiter took attentive, friendly care of us; the décor is still the same sexy Asian chic as always; and the food was consistently excellent throughout the entire meal. I’m looking forward to my next visit.
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Our cost: $150 (2 cocktails each)
Noise level: happy noisy
Chance of walking in: low (I made a reservation).
