A Midsummer Night's Dream - Part II

So after a bit of elbow grease my formatting is back to normal. Hey blogger you need to fix this so that I don't have to scrutinize html every time I post. Moving on ...

INDOCHINE (430 Lafayette St. /btwn 4th St.&Astor Pl.)

As Indochine has been a NY staple for years I was sorry that this experience did not live up to my expectations. Indochine is known for its colonial French/Vietnamese feel (ignorant me initially thought it was going to be Indonesian food; "Indochine" apparently refers to the colony of "French Indochina", of which modern Vietnam was once a part - thanks Wikipedia). The service was pleasant. The decor straddles the tastefully kitsch-y and the plain tacky - my opinion is it strayed too much to the latter. However, its major downfall was the sub-par food. All in all, I don't see what the hype is about. Am I being too harsh? Well, lets see ...

Appetizer: Crab cakes. This was, hands down, my favorite part of the meal. The crab meat was fresh, springy and the seasoning was perfectly tangy, spicy and crisp in flavor for the summer. (I went to 'Visage' the next day and tried their crab cakes - pft ... incomparable, Indochine is a whole four levels beyond). Although the sprout salad on the side tasted bitter and blah, but I guess totally necessary for aesthetics.

Entree: The size of this dish was huge. AND it came with a side of sticky rice. They definitely do not skimp on the portions here. The sea bass itself tasted fine; they loaded on the spices but it tasted like something I could concoct with whatever I have left in my fridge. The sugarcane stick at the bottom was a good creative touch. The kale was well cooked. Good, but not spectacular.

April's filet mignon represented the more Western part of the restaurant's offerings. The dish was yummy but forgettable.



Dessert: Lemon tart. So much tang. Don't get me wrong, I love foods that make me pucker a little but this was just like 'whoa there'. Maybe that appeals to some people, but I feel the majority of us folks would want them to hold off a wee bit on the lemon for something that's supposed to be a 'sweet' dessert.

ARGH

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please excuse the layout of the site. Blogger is giving me mad formatting issues. I will try and get this fixed asap.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Part I

Oops. It's been a while since I last updated, but good news -- I'm back in the City at a most opportune moment, RESTAURANT WEEK Summer 2007 *rubs stomach in content*. First stop this time round is ...

MEGU (62 Thomas St.)

Located in trendy Tribeca (and another location in midtown) this is one of the nicest Japanese restaurants I have ever been to. Lavish but not too ostentatious, modern but not too minimalistic. Megu really takes care to serve exquisite food. According to NYmag, the servers took three-months learning the menu before the opening. So, let me carefully breakdown my pleasurable Megu-experience:

Decor: The furnishings were both impressive and comfortable. Japanese motifs of the flag, totems of zen and spirituality speckled throughout. The spacious ceiling in the dining room downstairs is offset by a gi-normous bell in the middle of the room under which a Buddha sculpture sits, made of ice. (I did not notice this at first but as the night went on the face became more and more misshapen, and that whole dripping thing became hard to miss - haha). Sources have revealed (in other words, my entertaining dinner friends who gathered this from a waiter on their previous trip) that the sculpture is replaced everyday (cuz who knew, but ice melts) for oh, you know, a mere 3 grand a night? Well, that is the word on the street anyway.

Service: On the whole our waiter was helpful and saved us from ordering something we thought was a variety of shrimp but turned out to be a spicy pepper of some sort. Althoooough, when we first arrived at the restaurant and realized that we needed to accommodate one extra person our hostess rolled her eyes exasperatedly. Sure, it was our fault, but the eye-rolling? Really?

Food:
Appetizer - I chose the 'red snapper salad'. Delicious! The fish was so fresh and the numerous ingredients in the dressing meshed so perfectly; there was some savory, some tang, sesame warmness, and other goodness - a perfect balance of everything. Too bad it only lasted about 3 bites.

Entrée - I ordered the 'kobe steak' and this was done perfectly and so sooo tender. (although, I wonder if they were supposed to ask to what degree I would have liked to have it done?). Another thing, funny how they call it steak when it was more like 6 carefully sliced pieces that would add up to a meagre quarter portion of your normal steakhouse meal - but hey, it's kobe, I get it. Sadly, the little fried seafood dumpling (that was located a mile away from the beef on that expansive, almost empty plate) was not good, nor did it complement the beef.

Jes (daring to be different from the rest of us) ordered the lamb chops. This was yummy too. They sure know how to do their meats here.

Dessert - This was the best part for me, hands down. This 'cake' was made from a thousand layers of crepes (ok, I lie, but if you were to piece them together they would probably make a whole crepe) and the lightest green tea cream/mousse inbetween each layer. Immaculate dish, so simple, so satisfying and not heavy at all - a little piece of heaven, sigh.

So far, a great start to a promising fortnight. And what does the forecast look like?

- Indochine

- Butter (yes, again)

- Ono

- Bolo

Cheers mates!