October

Order Everything at The Stanton Social – Tapas – Lower East Side

My friend Anthony and I were out taking photos in Chinatown one Thursday night, when we decided to consult good, ol’ Yelp for something good to eat. There were so many four- and five-star options in the Lower East Side that it was hard to choose, but the small plates and small prices of The Stanton Social appealed to us and our wannabe-struggling-artist sensibilities.

Both the dining room downstairs and all of the tables upstairs were full, so we were ushered to the lounge area by the very friendliest Pennsylvania-born server ever to work in New York City. The long, low couches and tiny tables made a fine dining area for such an informal meal, but with only candlelight to work with, I’m afraid my pictures are severely lacking. Try to look past them, because they do the meal no justice.

skillet roast octopus: chorizo, garlic, sherry vinegar ($12)

I wouldn’t have ordered this on my own due to still being a newborn when it comes to eating seafood, and I didn’t walk away from it feeling like it really opened my eyes to octopus or anything, but it certainly wasn’t unenjoyable. The chunks of meat were a little chewier than I would’ve liked, but the contrast of the extra-crunchy bread was nice. Anthony seemed to think this was more excellent than I did, so maybe a real seafood-lover wouldn’t be as picky as I am.

Rhode Island style lobster roll ($9)

I guess I need to amend my admission that I’m not a real seafood-lover, because I am a real lover of lobster, especially lobster rolls. This was your usual chunky, creamy filling, but it had the advantage of a sturdy, pretzel-type bread and pickles. I understand that lobster rolls traditionally come with a pickle spear on the side, but to actually have the pickle in the roll somehow seemed like a great advancement in lobster roll technique. This was a pretty hefty price tag for two bites of sandwich, but it was certainly more delicious than the $12 and $16 rolls I’ve had.

Kobe Philly ($9)

Another great twist on a classic, with truffle and goat cheese fondue topping thin slices of tender Kobe beef. I might have actually liked this better than the lobster because its richness made the one bite I got seem more hearty and filling.

potato and goat cheese pierogies ($9)

We didn’t order these, but I’m glad our server thought we did, because their menu description belied their deliciousness. I think of pierogies as homey but a little bland, but with those caramelized onions, chives, and truffle creme fraiche, they were like eating a baked potato with the works. The truffle in the creme fraiche was so perfectly warming on a rainy, chilly night, but the flavor somehow managed not to overpower the all-important chives.

duck confit pizzetta ($14)

This mini pizza had a great part-crunchy, part-chewy crust loaded up with tender, flavorful duck, sweet figs, and funky blue cheese. It tasted very composed, with plenty of every ingredient and just the right amount of each.

French onion soup dumplings ($12)

I want to describe these as my new reason for living but don’t want you to think me an overexaggerator. Never was an escargot plate used better than to house these six soup dumplings. If you’ve ever had the classic Chinese soup dumplings filled with pork or shrimp, these will seem familiar to you for the one second it takes for the skin to pop in your mouth and the French onion soup to spill out. The layer of melted cheese and the speared crouton on top of each were true to form, but the dumplings were so good on their own I would’ve been entirely happy even without them. Next time, I plan to eat five orders of these myself and still follow it up with one of Stanton Social’s enticing desserts.

The Stanton Social isn’t exactly cheap–two of us spent $120 with one drink apiece for a few bites of a few dishes–but being delighted by the flavor combinations over and over again made it seem worthwhile. I’m still thinking about the gush of those soup dumplings, that rich truffle cream, and the tang of blue cheese on fig weeks later. Even while relegated to the lounge, we got a good taste of our surroundings–candlelight, white furniture and dark woods, and a nightclubby vibe with beautiful people to match. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t really have to put out good food to draw a crowd, and yet everything tasted like some nerd back in the kitchen was hard at work, trying to impress the pretty people.

The Stanton Social 99 Stanton Street

New York, NY 10002 (map)

The Extended Tasting Menu at Per Se

Stepping through the sliding glass partitions to the left and right of Per Se‘s unmistakable and infamously nonfunctioning blue door should be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a country gal like me, but I’m fortunate to have a boyfriend with an insatiable appetite for tasting menus (okay, okay, it’s not just him with the appetite). So when I was finally able to make a reservation for my birthday (after an hour and a half of nonstop calling and then holding), he started tossing around the idea of the extended tasting. He’d read that it was a couple hundred dollars more for a number of extra courses, and since we’d also heard that repeat visitors are lavished with attention, we figured we’d have a nice, simple, four-hour, 21-course lunch and then quietly explode later that evening at home.

We’d called ahead with our request for the extended tasting, so our server told us that a special menu had been prepared for us and sent the sommelier over to discuss pairings. Knowing that in the past, we’ve hit the outer limits of enjoyment after the 10th pairing, we requested eight glasses, including one Riesling and one cocktail. The sommelier asked our budget, and when my boyfriend said he was looking to spend about $150 per person, the sommelier very matter-of-factly told us that the restaurant recommends $250 per person. Which divides out to a little over $31 per glass. Which is about what our favourite wine costs by the bottle. But what was my boyfriend going to say? “I know it’s her birthday and all, but she’s not that special to me, so could you stick to the $12-a-glass wines? Thanks.”

Kamran, perusing the wine list via tablet

The meal started with two familiar sights from our first visit to Per Se earlier this year:

Gruyere gougères

Ridiculous? Or ridiculously cute? This little guy packs a lot more filling than you’d think possible; the creamiest cheese oozes onto your tongue the moment the bread is broken.

I mostly loved the serving vessel, which is like a giant spoon without its handle. I may have picked this up and pretended to scoop things off the table and shovel them into my mouth with it, and my boyfriend may have given me The Look.

salmon cornettes

I’d somehow forgotten that there’s cream cheese at the bottom of the cone. This is everything I want a Philadelphia roll to be but never is. The best part is the oniony cone, thicker and crunchier than you’d expect.

A shallow bowl of truffles arrived,

and a thick almond soup was poured around them.

almond “vichyssoise”, burgundy truffles, scarlet grapes

We’re right between truffle seasons at the moment, so Per Se boils and then freezes their summer truffles, our server told us, to preserve them for these non-truffley months. They had a different flavor that I would describe as more like above-ground mushrooms; they were still earthy and rich and slightly crunchy but not quite as intense. We were impressed that the grapes in the soup were slices from the midsection instead of just halves and loved imagining the chef using the intricate work as punishment for some back-talking line cook. The bottom of the dish was lined with chopped almonds that added texture and coaxed more flavor from the soup.

“oysters and pearls”: “sabayon” of pearl tapioca, island creek oysters, sterling white sturgeon caviar

Per Se’s famed “oysters and pearls” can be described in one of two ways:

1) sour cream and onion chips from the ocean, or
2) chicken and dumplings made with seawater.

It’s just not what you’d expect, at every level. The caviar doesn’t pop in your mouth like salmon roe does, nor does it get stuck in your teeth like flying fish roe does; you wouldn’t know you were eating it if it wasn’t for the saline taste. The oysters, tiny to begin with, fall apart in your mouth at the slightest notion from your teeth. It seems as if the texture of the tapioca would be too similar to that of the roe, but it really adds to the sense that you’re just eating a dish of mama’s creamy dumplings.

We thought this presentation was hilarious. Four dishes for four bites of food? Probably not necessary. But for me, little luxuries like the opportunity to dirty four plates are what’s missing at your less-acclaimed restaurants. It seems like a lot of thought goes into not just the arrangement of the food on the plate but the plate that it’s being arranged on. The houndstooth pattern is supposed to mimic the design on a chef’s pants. The lined plate you’ll see later with the uni dish made for what I think are some of my prettiest photos ever. And there are of course the very specific dishes for the egg custard and the salmon cornettes. These are the kinds of things that make Per Se feel special.

tartare of pacific sea bream, French Laundry garden radishes, tempura-fried broccoli, navel orange, mizuna (Japanese greens) and white sesame seed puree

I loved the texture of this fish. It was citrus-cured, so the very smallest bit of each edge had a slightly firmer feel, while the interior was left tender and fleshy. The first flavor to hit my mouth was citrus, and the dish in general was all fresh, bright, and light. The very hearty radish leaves complimented the crunch of the tempura, which complimented the crisp of the radish bulbs straight from the French Laundry garden.

Santa Barbara sea urchin, granny smitha pples, cauliflower florettes, toasted hazelnuts, red ribbon sorrel, coffee puree

I love to taste each component separately, which many times leads to a realization about how important each ingredient is. Here, the hazelnuts added a saltiness, the cauliflower panna cotta was like buttery mashed potatoes, and the dab of coffee gel was the most unexpected partner to the bitter uni.

white-truffle-oil-infused custard, ragout of black winter truffles

This had much more of the distinct truffle flavor than the soup did, and the richness of the white truffle custard under the black truffle ragout was like a direct punch to the wallet. The custard was airy, the ragout more of a syrupy gel. Paired with a leggy Madeira, this could have been a dessert course.

Snake River Farms’ beef short ribs, Tokyo turnips, medjool date “marbles”, petite mint, “sauce paloise” (béarnaise with mint)

This dish elicited a response my boyfriend heard from me several times that afternoon: “I won’t even have to describe this in my blog based on how awesome the ingredients are!” It was sticky and sweet, hearty and tongue-coating. The turnip puree provided a smooth, vegetal contrast to the succulent, tender beef and the brittle papadum. This was a standout course for me and really needed to be a full-sized entree.

salad of caramelized parsnip, toasted marcona almonds, French Laundry garden radishes, cilantro shoots, banana, vadouvan curry

I really can’t praise this dish enough. It turns out that the parsnip, when not shunned to the bottom of a plate as a puree, is a meaty and firm-textured, much like a cooked carrot. The banana was so unexpected it confused me at first–my boyfriend had to name the flavor for me–but the sugariness of the fruit paired perfectly with the spiciness of the curry-like vadouvan, used here as a sauce and a layer of gelatin that contrasted the caramelization of the parsnip. This is what lesser Indian desserts (I’m looking at you, gulab jamun) aspire to be.

“gateau” of Hudson Valley moulard duck foie gras, pistacho “financier”, hakurei turnips, vanilla streusel, white whine poached quince, toasted brioche

Dr. Boyfriend and I had the foie gras during our first tasting menu at Per Se as a $40 supplement and didn’t understand that the flower-shaped display of salts that arrived just before it was actually part of the course. Of the foie, I very ironically wrote, “We secretly wanted to spread it all over the soft rolls from the salt tasting course, but the crusty brioche was nice if extremely messy.” Hilarious! We seem so inexperienced, looking back.

This time, we were old salts. (See what I did there? Salts? Haha! No? Okay.) We had each had one bite of brioche before our server brought a fresh slice for each of us; it’s amazing how fast the stuff goes cold and stiff. Even though all of the salts tasted the same, I was really able to appreciate the texture of each. The courser salts were an incredible contrast to the smooth foie and its sweet vanilla gel. The bready pistachio base and the gelled duck consomme topping made the plate of foie its own dish, but the salt pushed it into five-donut territory.

This time, this was definitely a $40 dish.

sauteed filet of Chatham Bay cod, fork-crushed potatoes, San Marxan tomato marmalade, hearts of romaine, Italian caper cream

This somehow tasted like fast food French fries and a fried fish sandwich. We thought it pretty funny that the server specifically mentioned the potatoes were fork-crushed, but the bit of texture did add to the dish. The tomato marmalade was sweet and chunky, the Pommes Maxim crisp and delicate.

My boyfriend told me about visiting relatives in Paris as a kid and standing outside Maxim’s and watching as a couple walked up and jokingly pretended to open the door; Maxim’s was too expensive for just anyone to dine at. I loved the irony of the story as we sat sipping champagne in a three-Micheline-star restaurant overlooking New York City; I guess I should congratulate Kamran for having “made it”.

butter poached Nova Scotia lobster mitts, arrowleaf spinach “pain perdu”, cauliflower mushroom, French leeks, mache, “hollandaise mousseline”

How adorable is it to call them “lobster mitts”? The mushroom was one of the major flavors on the plate, while the taste of the “lost bread” was really only evident when combined with other elements like the Hollandaise, which looks mayonnaisey in the photos but was actually formed into a dome that “broke” under the pressure of our forks. We loved the texture of the spinach bread and really wanted more of it; it’s funny how when you read the menu (which we did for weeks leading up to our visit, as it changes every day), you assume that every ingredient is going to be some massive, plate-hogging thing. And then it turns out to look like this tiny, one-bite afterthought. In the most well-balanced dish, though, every bit of the plate is important.

hand cut “tagliatelle”, shaved black winter truffles

It’s almost too simple to be good and too simple not to be. My boyfriend called it “singular”, which is a nice way of saying that it’s just some pasta, but of course this ain’t Olive Garden, and “just pasta” at Per Se is pasta covered in, you know, one of the most expensive ingredients in the world that had to be plucked out of the ground by pigs. (I love that part.) It was perfectly al dente, creamy, and sinful. And you can bet I scraped every last one of those truffle shavings off the side of my bowl. I think the gnocchi with black truffle at Eleven Madison Park was superior, but that may just be because I’m biased toward big, fat gnocchi.

Salmon Creek Farms’ pork belly “en feuille de brick”, glazed sunchokes, black mission figs, arugula, black olive puree

The only way to make pork more delicious is to wrap it in pastry; the shell was crispier than skin alone could ever be. I appreciated the juxtaposition between the sweet fig and bitter olive, but I have to admit that I just wasn’t sold on the olive puree, even by the end of the dish. Now, I’m an active olive-hater, but I’m really open-minded about it and have actually enjoyed it in other preparations; here, it was just overpowering, and I found myself avoiding it so as to not ruin the pork.

herb roasted Elysian Fields Farm’s “côte d’agneau”, Per Se falafel, violet artichokes, fairy tale eggplant, sweet pepper relish, za’tar jus

I wonder if our servers, who had to be watching us from the sidelines to be at our sides the moment we finished a dish like they were, screamed “Noooo!” when they saw me cut into this without taking a picture first. If you can get past now knowing how badly I massacre my plates enough to keep reading, you’ll be pleased to note that I ripped this dish apart out of enjoyment. Sure, the lamb wasn’t quite tender enough, and the eggplant was far too vinegary for my taste, but as my boyfriend said, “They really captured the essence of the halal cart here.” With the deliciously spicy oregano-flavored sauce and the red peppers, it also reminded me of a pizza. A pizza with falafel.

“hittisau”, English walnut “tapenade”, celery root “re’moulade”, Asian pears, watercress, aged balsamic vinegar

Slightly sweet to begin with, this Hittisau cheese made for the perfect transition from the savory courses. First, there was the fact that it was tempura-battered, and you know a country girl loves her fried cheese. Then, there was the sweet walnut spread, which retained its nutty texture and complimented the nugget of homogenous cheese. The celeriac was the slightly less-sweet element on the plate, but even it reminded me of a sugary cole slaw full of apples and raisins. The crunchy freshness of the tiny pear bulbs was the perfect finishing element.

huckleberry sorbet, huckleberry “muffins”, whipped lemon verbena, red wine granite’, huckleberry sorbet

I don’t think this was meant to be anything more than a way to get our tongues ready for the real dessert, but it may have been the highlight of the sweets. It was so intensely flavored I could’ve been drinking straight out of a bottle of slushie syrup. With the fizziness and the acidity of the lemon, it was a dessert fit for a five-year-old. And that’s basically what I am.

Dr. Boyfriend complained that I never take pictures of the wine, so this is for him alone.

“coffee and doughtnuts”, cinnamon-sugared doughnuts, cappuccino semifreddo

We had this on our first trip to Per Se, even though we don’t believe it’s usually included in the regular tasting menu for first-timers. I actually think I liked it better this time, when we had done far fewer wine pairings and hadn’t already eaten enough dessert to keep five pastry chefs employed. The semifreddo was thicker than ice cream and more flavorful, too; it was like a half-frozen triple-thick milkshake. The donut was so delicate it was ready to deflate at the slightest touch.

“S’mores”, dark chocolate torte, vanilla marshmallow, candied Virginia peanuts, caramel ice cream

All of my favourite dessert flavors on one plate! The wafer crust had a wonderful crunch, the vanilla marshmallows a super stickiness. I would never have thought to match chocolate and peanut butter with a cinnamon foam, but it really worked. And flavors aside, it’s just exciting to eat a dish like this, all deconstructed and ready for my custom rebuilding.

This was served with a firefly, a cocktail of vodka, grapefruit juice, and grenadine, and it was easily my favourite pairing of the night. The drink itself is so much like a dessert that it felt like an extra course.

birthday cake

A little milk chocolate mousse round for my birthday. Simple but elegant.

mignardises

A server brought around a wooden box as wide as his torso with indentations in the base to hold individual chocolates. I obviously wanted him to just leave the entire thing at the table, but we controlled ourselves and chose pineapple tamarind, orange marzipan, Arnold Palmer, madras curry, maple walnut, and dulce de leche. Each was interesting and flavorful.

At the end of every meal, Per Se famously serves guests a three-tiered tray of petit fours. For me, a meal couldn’t end any more perfectly. I mean, I love a plated dessert. I think those little dabs of peanut butter placed so deliberately next to the s’mores are the most perfect thing in the world. But I also get a real joy from just stuffing myself heedlessly, Willy Wonka style. We were of course already quite full by this point, so I asked our server pointedly if it would be too much trouble to wrap the tray up for us; my boyfriend had seen another blogger’s photos of three little boxes of mignardises, so we knew it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but I wanted to be polite.

Well, this is what we ended up with. One little box, with one of each treat inside. Not even two of each, so we could at least both sample everything without having to hand over a half-crushed French macaron to each other after taking a bite. She really thought the people ordering the extended tasting menu wouldn’t want all of their mignardises? And more importantly, what did she do with the rest of them? Throw them out? Because that’s almost offensive. Save them for the next table? Because that’s much worse. I’ll tell you what–if I had known this was what I was going to find in the bag I was handed on my way out, I would’ve sat there all afternoon and finished every last one. And used a lot more of the fresh hand towels in the bathroom. And stuffed the entire bread service in my purse. How many thousands of dollars do we have to spend before we get to take all of our leftovers home?

Per Se is the most technically perfect restaurant in New York City, and Per Se knows that it’s better than you. It knows that I’ll have to force myself to say a negative word about the food just to write well-rounded reviews, and it knows that the service is so impeccably timed that I’ll feel like Big Brother must be watching me. It knows that I’ll be on the phone the moment the reservation line opens up 30 days in advance of the date I’d like to visit, and it knows that if I’m not, someone else will be. And that I won’t complain when it doesn’t seat me by the window as I requested and that I’ll still want to go back.

In Sam Sifton’s much-talked-about final review as The New York Times‘s restaurant critic, he wrote of Per Se: “No restaurant in New York City does a better job than Per Se of making personal and revelatory the process of spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on food and drink.” And I think that the problem for me was that this time, it didn’t feel as personal and revelatory. We spent a full $800 more than we have at places like Daniel, EMP, and Momofuku Ko. It was our second visit, and my birthday, and we actually felt like we weren’t treated as well as well this time despite letting them know this time before we even came in that we were going to spend $200 more per person on the extended tasting.

And the extended tasting, by the way? It came out to about six extra courses, making each course more than $30 each. For two bites of short rib, two slivers of fish, and one fewer dessert than we had the time when it wasn’t my birthday. While I think Per Se’s regular tasting is well-priced at $295 per person including service, the extended tasting seems to be just for the expense account guy who doesn’t really care what he gets in return for a month’s rent.

We’re not that guy, and we felt the sting of that this time at Per Se. With the mignardises being held back at the end, finding that the wine list couldn’t accommodate our paltry budget, and being told that “a la carte items are served in the salon” (the less-formal area) when I was just trying to tell the server that I liked some of the dishes so much I’d come back more often just to order them. I almost hesitate to complain about these things, because like I said, Per Se doesn’t need us. We’ll never buy its most expensive bottle of wine, and we’ll never bring “high net worth individuals” by for expense account lunches. My hard-working Ph.D. and I are just a drop in their bucket, and anyone who’s going to quibble over a couple hundred dollars probably shouldn’t be eating at Per Se.

But I still want to.

Per Se 10 Columbus Circle

New York, NY 10019 (map)

Three Michelin Stars for EMP and Brooklyn Fare

According to The New York Times, my good friends at Eleven Madison Park are about to get themselves three Michelin stars, up from one in last year’s guide.

This means NYC is about to have seven restaurants with three Michelin stars:

Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare Daniel Eleven Madison Park Jean Georges Le Bernardin Masa

Per Se

Crazy, right? What a wonderful time to live here. Although that means the Brooklyn Fare reservation my boyfriend and I failed to get when we tried once earlier this year is going to be even harder to come by now.

one of the super-fine amuse bouches at EMP

If you’re interested in my take on the 3-star restaurants we’ve visited, here are my much-photoed reviews of each:

• Eleven Madison Park: our first, not-bad-but-not-amazing visit

• Eleven Madison Park: our second, mind-blowing visit

• Per Se: so long-awaited it couldn’t have been anything but incredible (and we’re going back this weekend!)

• Daniel: changed the way I thought about fine dining forever

• Jean Georges: so so-so that I never even bothered to write about it (but would love to hear why other people love it so)

Alta – Tapas – West Village

My boyfriend and I started going to Alta well before this food blog existed. We went there before we even knew about the Le Bernardins and the Jean-Georges of the city, before things like ratings and Michelin stars mattered to us, and well before I’d even consider eating seafood. It feels homey to me.

Now that I’m a fish-consuming machine, we decided to go back last weekend to see what we’d been missing out on. It’s giant menu full of small plates, and every one sounds delicious in its own way. (Which is why I really should’ve tried harder to talk Dr. Boyfriend into trying the Whole Shebang: $310 for the entire menu.) Plus, I’d gotten a new 35mm f/1.8 lens and wanted to see how it would perform under the nothing-but-candlelight conditions. (Not too shabby, but it was clearly not happy with me.) Here are the very few dishes we were able to summon up the bellyspace for:

fried goat cheese with lavender infused honey

This is the dish I associate Alta with. I’ve ordered it every time we’ve eaten there . . . until this time; we decided to branch out and give some new things a try. But lucky for us, the kitchen said they made extra and didn’t want to throw it out. It may have just been that they saw my camera and thought I might be important (ha). Whatever the case, I love these things. The crispy outer shell collapses into sweet, creamy goat cheese. Roll all of that in the honey, and you basically have dessert. For an appetizer. Which means life couldn’t be better.

The Philadelphia Truffle Surprise

The surprise is that this will make you sick of truffles! No, just kidding, but these little purses aren’t for the faint of heart: the cream cheese is almost runny from the amount of truffle oil mixed into it. Luckily, the plain crunchy stem of phyllo gathered at the top really tones it down and balances it out. I really, really liked this, but one was definitely enough for me.

grilled stuffed grape leaves with chicken confit and jasmine rice, lebne (yogurt cheese!) and grape molasses sauce

This was like eating a better version of chicken salad. The chicken was spicy at first, but then the sweetness of the fruit kicked in; I’d thought the sauce was some sort of hummus, so the sweet tang of the yogurt and molasses was a welcome surprise. There was a nutty crunch (possibly pine nuts) and the crisp leaf to add texture. A nice twist to your usual rice-only grape leaf stuffing.

seared foie gras

I don’t know if a photo can convey the wildness and unexpectedness of this dish. We thought we’d be getting a neat, little square of foie gras, and we did. Only it was covered in a wrapper of what I can only describe as fruit skin. It was like a huckleberry Fruit Roll-up made of Jell-o, and it was entirely appropriate to the dish. The texture contrasts between the gelatinous skin, the slick foie gras, and the caramelized nuts were really nice, and while the dish was almost offensively salty, I’d rather have too much salt than too little. This was definitely the most interesting dish of the night and was a welcome addition to Alta’s menu of usually more straightforward preparations.

corn risotto

This was probably my favourite dish of the night, and again, it was just a lucky gift from the kitchen. It was everything I like: spicy, sour, cheesy, rich, hearty, and bacony. The corn retained a bit of its crisp freshness and was complimented by the chewy, thin slivers of bacon on top. The truffle flavor added depth, and the spice brightened everything up. I would order this for sure on my own next time. Serendipitous!

fritto misto de mare: shrimp, calamari, whiting, sepia, and sardine crisply fried with sea salt

My boyfriend was pretty nice and let this be the only seafood dish of the night, and it couldn’t have been more tame. Well, partly because he ate all of the whole fish (I’m definitely not ready for heads), and partly because it tasted like French fries. The seafood was very lightly battered, but the hearty sprinkling of lemon juice and salt covered up any fishiness. (It couldn’t cover up the chewiness of that squid, though.) The shrimp, my favourite part, were buttery as can be, and the deep-fried parsley added a nice crunch. This fulfilled the weird craving I’ve been having for fish & chips lately.

Spanish cheeses

We’ve had the cheese plate at Alta before and think it’s improved since last time. The ratio of cheese to bread to strawberry paste couldn’t have been more perfect, and the card showcasing the cheese names was a very welcome addition. The roncal was meaty, the patacabra like Swiss. The nevat had a rich nuttiness, and the mont enebro was pungent and blue-like. The idiazabal was almost flavorless to us, but we luckily finished off the plate with the woody valdeon.

strawberries

This was the fresh version of a strawberry Starburst candy; it was more strawberry than strawberries are. The ice cream was like a cream cheese icing, and that of course perfectly complemented the dense, strawberry-juice-soaked cake serving as a base. This was easily my boyfriend’s favourite of the desserts.

torija

I was under the impression that the torija at Degustation couldn’t be touched, and while Alta’s version just didn’t have the same juxtaposition between very crunchy and very doughy, this was easily my favourite of the desserts.

The bread tasted like bananas were used in it, and the ice cream, though not nearly as sour as I would’ve wanted it to be for lebne, had a layer of what seemed like raw sugar underneath (but may have been a marcona almond croquant, if the menu is correct), creating a contrasting crunch. The sour, buttery sauce tasted of lemon and maybe cardamom and was probably the best part of the dish, but bread that dense and sticky doesn’t even need sauce.

A lot of the restaurants I love are stark and pristine, with overly-complicated dishes and perfect, borderline-robotic service; that’s the exact opposite of where I come from, so the novelty is fun. But sometimes I just want a relaxed, pretension-free meal, and that’s why I keep wanting to return to Alta. I love the warm colors and candlelight, the rustic small plates menu, and the feeling that everyone there is having a good time with much-loved friends. It’s not quite perfect for the diner who cares more about the food specifically than the experience as a whole–when I asked our server what was in the torija sauce, he neither knew nor offered to ask anyone–but Alta isn’t trying for any James Beard awards. And what they’re doing is working for them: just try to come without a reservation, and you’ll see what I mean.

Alta 64 West 10th Street

New York, NY 10011 (map)