Hearing good things about Maialino, I cannot help but make a reservation during Restaurant Week when I found out they are participating. It’s inexpensive compared to what one would pay for lunch, as most of their pastas hover in the upper teens, as the main courses are in the twenty dollar range. And it’s run by Danny Meyer’s restaurant group, generally speaking over my many years of eating out, a bad experience is rarely encountered. I’ve asked three friends to join me and we’re all hungry, anticipating greatness as to what Chef Anderer’s kitchen has in store.
Views of the dining room
Entering the dark lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel yet as I’m into the bar area, the bar and dining area are bright and rustic with dark walnut wood. It feels pretty cozy.
I went to SD26 last Friday with Helen and Seungmi in tow for Restaurant Week. Part of the allure was the fact that this is the reincarnation of the old San Domenico (think refined and genteel) that went downtown hip.
Top left, clockwise: Kitchen view, Salumi area, and Interior
Entering the restaurant from the windy, bitter cold, we’re greeted by the hostess and saw the automated wine dispensers, something that reminds me of Clo Wine Bar in the Time Warner Building in the Upper West Side.
When we entered the dining room, it’s minimalist in design: a huge bar before one enters the dining room; the dining room done in neutral beige walls with high ceilings, while the private booth areas were in painted in a bold red, the open kitchen, and a salumi area which stank from the opened wheels Parmigiano-Reggiano. The odd things were the fabric art objects that hung along the back wall, close to where my table was. Seungmi called them “pumpkins” – colorful, fuzzy pumpkins, in my opinion. (I don’t have a photo of them because I have a bad angle from where I was sitting.)
Place setting and RW menu
Perusing through the Restaurant Week menu, we pretty much agreed on the same appetizers and went almost our own way through the meal.
I’ve went to Tocqueville toward what’s supposedly the last few days of Restaurant Week. The thing to know is, Tocqueville has a year-round prix fixe for the same price. I went there just because it’s close to where a friend of mine works (I wanted to say “hi” to him.), I wanted to try a certain dish that’s available a la carte, and I haven’t been to this restaurant after it moved from its previous location over two years ago.
Interior
The small yet elegant dining room was occupied by a few gentlemen behind me, sitting in the center where the plush banquettes were located with Spanish acoustic music playing moderately loud.
Bread service, my bread plate, and gougeres
During bread service, the waiter told me three options available – brioche, rosemary cheese stick, and a white roll. I’ve opted for the brioche, found it a bit too dense and eggy, and the rosemary cheese stick which I truly liked a lot from its sharp, cheese flavor (that melted and created a lovely crust) with rosemary studded throughout the bread stick with sea salt flakes heightened the flavors. All bread were served warm but my little issue was the butter, that’s a bit too cold to be spreadable against the pillow-y brioche. The gougeres were served a bit later. Warm, airy but not as cheesy as the bread stick. Continue reading “Lunch at Tocqueville” »
Taken place on July 28, 2009. Note to all of the NYC diners who want to participate RW, most are ending today, July 31st.
Menu and bread and butter
I’m at Bar Boulud again. It’s been a year or so since I’ve been here and think I might as well have a RW lunch because it’s relatively accessible for me and my friends, Helen and Giulia, to come over.
To those of you who are really waiting on my Hong Kong/China vacation posts, please do be patient. I’m trying to post up the Restaurant Week stuff before it’s irrelevant to read (like the Gramercy Tavern post I did previously; they’re not participating RW now).
Last Thursday, I’ve arranged lunch with Mary to Alto for Restaurant Week. The two reasons why I want to go to Alto are: 1.) I want to see Mary. It’s been too long since we’ve eaten out. 2.) Curious about their food yet not willing to fork my a large chunk of my money on a non-RW time.
Interior
As we trudged our way over from the Upper East Side to Midtown and walked right through their small outdoor dining space into a similarly narrow lounge area where the maître d’ was located. After checking in, we’ve been escorted down to the dining room – narrow, lined with plushly banquettes and neutral-colored walled, and for the other half of the room, wine bottles are filled from floor to ceiling. Patrons here are mostly business lunchers.
Bread service
The bread served here are pretty good. We have a choice of foccacia, olive roll, and a regular white roll. I chose the olive roll and Mary gotten herself foccacia. The bread was served warm, the texture was good and the flavors were balanced, though my olive roll was a bit more saltier than the one I had in Gramercy Tavern last week. The olive oil provided was fruity and viscous, nice to dip with the bread. Continue reading “Restaurant Week at Alto” »
In case you all didn’t know, New York City’s Restaurant Week (or “weeks” should be the correct nomenclature) started last week (July 12th). The somewhat strange thing with the Danny Meyer owned restaurants, namely Eleven Madison Park, Union Square Cafe, and Gramercy Tavern that they are doing their own version of RW – broke down into one restaurant per week for City Harvest. During that week, Gramercy Tavern was doing RW; this time, I went with Helen.
Partial view of the Dining Room area
Since this was the beginning of lunch service, the dining room isn’t as packed as it would be. It was relatively calm and not too loud.
Bread service
The bread served were the usual suspects – the country bread slices or the olive roll. Both Helen and I chose the olive roll. Probably because I was starving and didn’t eat breakfast, I kept eating the entire thing, knowing that I shouldn’t stuff my stomach with a ton of bread. In any case, it was good. Slightly crusty on the outside and chewy in the inside (a little too chewy for me). The olives weren’t overtly salty and briny, just a touch.
I’ve remembered reading from The Feedbag about the insane line that people had to wait in order to get in during Restaurant Week. Well, I became one of those nut jobs except the good part was that the line wasn’t that long (I was the third person/group seated) and yes, I did get some hot cider about three minutes prior to the actual opening. At least it made my insides a bit warm after standing out in the fairly cold weather for 15 minutes. Frankly, I was expecting worse. Continue reading “Dealing with the Crowd During Restaurant Week – Gramercy Tavern” »
I made plans with Giulia several weeks ago to have lunch during Restaurant Week. I’m itching to try out new restaurants rather than my safe and dependable restaurants during this time of the year (e.g. Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park), so I proposed Matsugen. I heard generally good to very good reviews around the web so I thought this place wouldn’t let me down.
When I ate lunch during Restaurant Week last year at Eleven Madison Park, I was underwhelmed. But this year, it’s a significant improvement for the food.
