PEARL & ASH

Pearl & Ash transcends its name.   Derived from a childhood story recalled by chef Richard Kuo about appreciating the inherent beauty of things without fancy display, the creatively finessed output of this kitchen is both beautiful and delicious.  The room has a sultry glow emitted mostly from the illuminated walls, the one behind our table a composite of blonde wood cubbyholes filled with quaint, homely tchotchkes,

miniature statues and vessels.  We were greeted just as warmly and seated immediately, though the hour was early and the restaurant sparsely peopled.  As the evening progressed, this would change to reach capacity.

There was a palpable electricity looming about, perhaps inspired by the chef's former proximity to wunderkind Frederick Berselius, who is currently doing magical things at Brooklyn's Aska.   Pearl & Ash exhibits glimmers of the moss/ash/lichen mania, but stabilizes himself with a locavore humility and ardent seasonality.  We decided to go the small-plate route, although one can opt for the traditional app/main/side/dessert tact as well, as the more substantive plates are offered in tasting or entree sizes.  The dishes come out as the chef pleases, and our first dish was a remarkable construct of Tim Burton-esque octopus tentacles that

cast eerie shadows onto the white porcelain plate.  Rubbed black with zesty spices and paired with fresh, herbal shiso, the meat of the cephalopod was startling white against its heavy coat of spice, with just enough chew to elicit a slightly naughty, barbaric sensation with each bite, tempered by masterful seasoning and the rich puree below, nutty with sunflower seed.





 At the same time arrived a shallow bowl of de-shelled mussels (for your convenience) swimming with chewy fronds of matsutake mushroom underneath a flurry of microgreens in a buttery, herb-flecked broth sprinkled with tiny crunches of pumpernickel crouton.  No bread is offered or available, so make use of the wide-bowled spoons to appreciate every last drop of the luscious broth.

Skate, chermoula, cauliflower, leeks

Cod, white beans, black olives, tomato

Next came the Best in Show dish, a meltingly tender skate wing charred with chermoula atop a divinely silky cauliflower puree and topped with braised leeks, delightfully slimy against the crisp-edged fish. Consequently, it was hard to appreciate the lovely cod in comparison, smeared with black olives and roasted bits of tomato atop a smooth mash of white beans, fine a dish as it was.















A nod to his Scandinavian predecessor, Kuo serves up delicate filets of relatively mild mackerel with a deconstructed potato salad.  Steamed rounds of new potato and pickled cucumber slices of the same proportion face an unfortunately sweet slick of reddish-pink sauce, which reminded me of those little packets of duck sauce you get with Chinese take-out.  I couldn't quite make sense of this dish, although the mackerel itself was probably the best I've ever had, and the potatoes dense and toothsome.  On the meatier side, veal cheeks were not quite meaty enough in texture, exhibiting a sort of spongy texture which I'm not sure was intentional, given that I've never had veal cheeks before.  Normally, however, the cheek is lean and meaty, giving it an ideal consistency, which left me wondering if maybe these weren't a tad undercooked.  The lighting at Pearl & Ash is dim, however, and I couldn't easily scrutinize the morsels without offense.  It came with exquisite little fried arancini of forbidden rice, simultaneously crisp and chewy and potentially addictive were there more than four.  These would make dangerous bar snacks.
 Brussels sprouts with pearl onions were finally liberated from a porcine cohort in a preparation that is somehow just as savory and decadent as those with.    They were perfectly roasted, with tinges of char and a buttery nuttiness that perfect cooking brings out in these fine little crucifers.


 A more fitting finale to our meal could not have been scripted.  There are but two options: a coffee semi-freddo and a fernet-branca ice cream sandwich, of which we chose the latter.  Moments after our coffee order arrived (a tiny tasse of rich, perfect espresso), our waiter plonked down a chunky parcel wrapped in plain white paper, a smiley face scribbled atop.  This was our dessert.  No pomp, no circumstance, no....... plate.  Unwrapping the paper revealed a dense rectangle of pale, dense ice cream, a bit minty and nutty with just a hint of the subtly medicinal punch for which the iconic liqueur is famous.  Sandwiched between two thin planks of richly chocolate biscuit, a bit sticky just like old school sammies, it balanced the best components of tradition and novelty.  No frills- just like Kuo intended.

• 220 Bowery, New York NY 10012
• Between Prince St. and Spring St.
• info@pearlandash.com
• t: (212) 837-2370

JUNOON

I have been waiting for ages to write this review.  Unfortunately, it's not because I followed the chef here, though I well could have.  Chef Vikas Khanna has earned a ton of accolades for this latest venture, and after having experienced it, can confirm their merit.  My motivation for visiting Junoon was simply a word.  To determine whether Junoon was, or was not, jejune.  It was too perfect.



And luckily, Junoon did not at all define the adjective. I didn't think it would, and I proved myself right.  Junoon means "passion", and you can taste it in what comes out of the kitchen.  The room, on the other hand- if a room can be jejune- was.  Bordering on sterile, the spacious dining room looks a bit like a corporate cafeteria that is temporarily housing an incomplete installation of mid-level contemporary Indian decor.

 There is a large, quite lovely mirror that reflects a trio of intricately carved panels, which seem to have no purpose but to soften the room's harsh lines.  The harsh lighting doesn't help, but my visit was a lunchtime one, this might be ameliorated later in the evening simply with a dimmer switch.  A window to the open kitchen was too far from my table to supervise the activity, but it was definitely percolating with activity, even during the sparsely attended lunch hour.



The menu offers much diversity, and I had trouble choosing anything (it all looked good) until my eye landed on the roasted mushrooms with ajwain.  A small fennel-looking seed,  ajwain is a pungent little spice with a flavor that combines thyme and black cumin... and I adore it.  The one fault I had with Junoon's food is that typical Indian snare: a heavy hand with the oil.  While Junoon's cuisine is much elevated beyond your typical East 6th street channah masala joint, it still frequently suffers from a slight excess of grease.  A perfect example were these mushrooms, which were roasted chewy and intriguingly seasoned,

 but the drizzle of deep orange oil would've been better off- and more modern- substituted by a fresh herb puree or reductive jus.  But they were so tasty, nonetheless, capped with a crisp salty tuile and nestled with savory caramelized onions. There's a lot of umami going on here and elsewhere, not in the least absent in the Lahsooni Gobi (it's fun to try and pronounce the unfamiliar names), three bulbous florets fried and then smothered in a tangy, ketchupy tomato chutney kicked with chili, the plate artistically swiped with more of the same.   The menu calls them "crispy", which is never the case when a deep fried object is subsequently doused in sauce.  Even if it once was, by the time it gets to you, it won't be, so menus shouldn't call things crispy unless they are.  Pet peeve.  Along with the typo on the website where "menus" is written "menu's"... 'cause pretty much menus are already possessive of things, so unless they meant the menu's content- but that's more than a little redundant.


For entrees monkfish jumped out at me, mostly for its accompanying charred brussels sprouts, which were disturbingly absent when the plate arrived.  I searched underneath the small tumble of lemony frisee and radishes to no avail.  Apparently, they had been forgotten underneath the heat lamp in plating, but the chef quickly re-charred a new set and turboed them out to me... although it took substantial effort to flag down a server in order to issue my complaint.





They balanced the sort of sparse dish as well, adding a heartier vegetable component to the fresh salad, although they too suffered a little excess of oil.  But for the minuscule portion that they were (there must have been all of four quartered sprouts), they were perfectly cooked tender, earthy and nutty, with a true bit of char, just like I'd hoped for.  The morsels of monkfish were succulent and tender contrasting with their ruddy coating of tikka sauce atop dollops of a mustardy

 apple cider foam.   We also tried Chicken Hydrabadi, a thickly sauced crock of creamy chicken stew.  Despite the cashew nuts and poppy seed cream, the flavor might belie its richness, especially if it's mixed into the fluffy rice pulao and consumed in its entirety: you could end up maxing out calorically, if you know what I mean.   But chicken cooked like this reaches such an ethereal tenderness it's hard to stop eating, so be forewarned.  It's probably a good idea to leave some of the gravy to the Unfinished Plates Club.  The naan are equally addictive, as chewy and pliant as a bread could possibly be, with toasty patches of tandoor char and a wonderfully warm, soft density.

The service was, as evidenced by the brussels sprouts privation, pretty inattentive.   Thus, we took so long to finish our meal we hadn't time for dessert.  Nor was it even offered, however.  Those on the menu were tweaked renditions of classic French desserts:  lemon crepes with macerated strawberries and a blue cheese streusel, a chocolate creme brulee, and a fig gateau that offered a black sesame crumble as the only thing even remotely Indian-ish.  It's unfortunate to have such lackluster and disinterested servers at a restaurant where the food is this good (and certainly not cheap!), because one can tell by the food that the chef is anything but.  A more inspired waitstaff, some tweaks to the decor and a bit of restraint with the lipids and this place is easily on par with the best Indians in the city.  So NOT.... well, you know the word.

27 West 24th street
INFO@JUNOON.COM
(212)490-2100

RESTO

Resto has been on my radar since it was helmed by wunderkind/wild-child Ryan Skeen (we're both from Portland).  Preston Clark now has the reigns, and he's steering Resto in a very agreeable direction.  It's a small restaurant, low-ceilinged and low-lit, with a rustic, sylvan interior that complements the cuisine.  We happened to be taking advantage of Restaurant Week here, but
 this served no disadvantage.  Seated at a small table near the back, Resto is conjoined to its next-door "little brother", Cannibal.  One hopes that all attention isn't deflected to this nose-to-tail  (correction: pig's-head to goat's-leg) hotspot, but for now, while the dining room was sparse when we entered, it soon swelled to capacity even before our appetizers arrived.

And for those we left the pig's head terrine option to the kids next door, and opted for the creamy squash soup and an escarole and pear salad.  The soup came in a bulbous little tureen, spritzed with a streusel of spiced pecans and drizzled with a sweet maple creme fraiche flecked with chives.  The thick broth wasn't too sweet itself, though, most likely benefitting from homemade stock and an earthy variety of gourd.  Escarole salad paired sliced pears and parmigiano with the sturdy

 greens in a punchy cider vinaigrette, doused with about twice the amount of hazelnuts needed (somehow, throwing a landslide of nuts on things seems to be a popular thing to do of late, but for me, these should more garnish than garish).  Plus, nuts are expensive, so scaling back on them would seem prudent on all fronts.

For entrees, a dense hunk of short rib fell tenderly into smoothly pureed parsnips.  Crisp fried shards of shallots punched up the mild tuber, surrounded by a meaty pool of deep, horseradish inflected jus.  An off-the-Restaurant-Week-Menu order of roasted brussels sprouts were a welcome addition, given the paucity of vegetation included in both our entrees (most of Resto's regular menu mains seem to include a greater proportion of veg).  These sprouts were much like I fix myself, for better or for worse.  Some could've been a little
more cooked, some were perfect, but all had that hallmark nuttiness from good, high heat and a lively blitz of lemon.  I was happy to see skate as the fish option, as it's a favorite of mine.  A full wing arrived on the bone, which wasn't so easy to navigate.  Skate is almost exclusively served clean... and there's a reason for

 that.  Skate is like the short ribs of fish... the angel hair pasta of the sea.  The ropey texture is its unique, defining feature, and when you demand meticulous pilfering through the meat to separate delicate ivory flesh from delicate ivory cartilage, it becomes much less magical.  The fish was well cooked and well seasoned, however, bedded in a creamy puree of celery root and an slightly sharp juniper sauce that begged to be well-apportioned amongst bites to counter its bracing tang.


For dessert, our poached pear fared a little like the brussels sprouts, wanting for a little more time to relax its firm texture into dessert-worthy submission.   Instead, it fought again our spoons, and for lack of a knife, threatened to catapult off the plate without a very deft manipulation of multiple utensils.  A thick smear of mascarpone helped smooth things out (and adhere them to the plate), enriched with a sandy crumble of sugary

brown butter.  Panna cotta was spiced mildly with chai, plated with a zesty orange jam and a flurry of candied pistachios for crunch.

Resto feels like a perfect little combo of neighborhood gem and farm-to-table hotspot- where the staff would get to know you and you feel right at home, but you might actually need a reservation, 'cause these tables don't sit around and collect dust.  But that can be a good thing, since it makes it something to look forward to.

111 East 29th Street

 tel.  212.685.5585
Brunch

212.685.5585

MAYSVILLE

Paula Deen is from  Georgia.  Kyle Knall, from its nearby neighbor, Alabama.  And while Maysville is named after a town in Kentucky, all of the above seem to be joined at the hip.  The main reason I was driven to visit Maysville was from a quote from Village Voice's Tejal Rao's review, stating Knall was trained under and shared Gramercy Tavern's chef Michael Anthony's "reverence for local vegetables, always accompanying  moderate portions of meat with several kinds of beans, greens, mushrooms, and tubers, and often pickling whatever is growing at the moment to elevate and brighten a dish."  You know how I loves me my veggies.  Well, maybe he reveres them so much he's keeping them all to himself, 'cause the only ones evident on the menu at Maysville were so hyper-blitzed and buttered they began sharing the same nutritional profile as your average brisket.  

Which makes sense given the Alabama influence, but not so much the Gramercy Tavern affect.  The dining rooms of both have a similar modernized, spiffed-up barnyard chic, but here is a bit lighter inside with ivory painted walls and huge, pencil-sketched murals of horses across from the glowing wall of whiskey behind the bar.  That's where any similarities end.  Our server was chipper verging on saccharine, but just this side of it so his enthusiasm remained endearing.  I know I should've sampled a whiskey cocktail since that is practically the point of the joint, but apparently I didn't decide quickly enough.  By the time our appetizers arrived, I was already thankful for my hesitance: it looked like these was going to be some gut-busting victuals, and probably I wasn't going to have room for extraneous alcohol.  (I was right.)  But depending on your constitution, whiskey (or wine: they have an admirable and extensive wine list) might help the food go down a little easier.  In fact, the best way probably to approach Maysville is for drinks and a sharing of plates as bar snacks.  This is no rabbit food.  

We tried to start off a lightly as possible with a brussels sprouts salad (described by Rao as "fine" in "just enough lemon and buttermilk dressing"), which was anything but fine or just.  The dressing certainly wasn't the problem;  its quantity was appropriate and it did its best to  brighten the otherwise slaughtered pile of fried leaves, fraternizing with dice-sized chunks of crispy pig's ear and an incoherent hard boiled quail's egg, covered in a thick shroud of finely shredded parmesan on top a smear of that dressing.  The white of that egg hovering on the periphery actually cut some of the richness, but adding the yolk almost induced wooziness.  Eating that whole plate would be like eating an entire bag of potato chips.  Kettle cooked.  With cheese.  One bite, delicious.  Two, satiety.  Three incites incredulity that there are still about thirty-seven bites left to go and probably you're still planning on entertaining a main course. 
 A more prudent choice is the winter vegetable salad, but this too could easily serve as a dainty lunch in itself.  A melange of roasted beets, sunchokes and turnips pile atop a mound of earthy black quinoa nestled in thick, whipped goat cheese with a flourish of savory peanut brittle.

  

Paired with the scrumptious little corn muffins provided upon seating, this could be a lunch.    The first pone I tried was a bit doughy in the center at first bite, but they are so piping hot that their residual heat cooks them a table, attaining the perfect texture as their heat dissipates 'til they reach a consumble temperature.  So just hold off for two shakes of a whisker (or until your appetizers arrive). 






After a small muffin and that gut-bomb salad, I was already not really hungry for more food.  But entrees arrived, and they were at least modest in portion.  But not spartan, not in the least.  A crispy chicken 
 leg & roulade was just that, an elongated drumstick crusted bronze with a nugget of white meat furled with herbs.  Crispy skin addicts will appreciate his proficiency here.  They straddle roasted Ruby Crescent potatoes strewn with lightly marinated mushrooms, which provided some headway in cutting the richness of everything on the plate. 

 Flounder swam in an unctuous sauce of what seemed to be an emulsification of butter and... butter.  "Grilled" calamari wasn't grilled at all but either poached or steamed, surrounded by thick, pink ribbons of gently smoked ham (not that you could taste much smoke given its submersion) and some token discs of sunchoke and mild salsify that were all but lost in the sauce.  No side dishes are offered- not that my stomach could've taken much more volume of anything, anyways, but the vegetation might have been appreciated.  Especially since Knall's pedigree should qualify him to muster up something nice with them.  

Onto dessert, we tried one just to try one, obviously going for the lightest possible option.  And thankfully, it succeeded with flying colors.  Light, yes, and refreshing, a snowy apple granita mounded atop small cubes of myriad varietals of raw, candied and roasted apple.  I actually think I felt my stomach offer up a little cheer of appreciation for the respite from grease.  And I'm sure the bread pudding would have been solid, given his credentials, and the heft of the rest of the menu.  Or else, finish off your meal with any of the vast choices of whiskeys.  A good, stiff shot might just cut through all that fat. 

tel.  646-490-8240

LE PHILOSOPHE

I had bypassed an invitation to Le Philosophe on one prior occasion: the menu read traditional, classic (read: uninspired?) French bistro, and at the moment was seeking a little more vim and buzz.  But as Le Philosophe began creating it's own buzz, it seems the menu belies its intrigue.  Located in an increasingly restaurant-centric hub (although, where isn't?) in NoLiTa, its unassuming facade is similarly modest.  Inside is dark and loud.  The decor is minimalist aside from the east wall featuring immense portraits of notable philosophers.  Rumor has it that if you can name all the philosophers, your meal is free.  So while that sounds like a lot of work (I think I maybe positively identified one), your reward would fully warrant the effort.

The staff circulates the room but seems to be preoccupied (perhaps they are pondering more existential conundra?), but will eventually lay down menus with negligible fanfare.  In fact, there is a list of "Plat du Jour" on the wall, but the plats are listed without a corresponding jour, and by the time our server finally got around to taking our orders, I had forgotten to even ask her about them.  Tap water is provided as a default, so you'd have to actually effortfully request bottled (commendable).  There are no cocktails, however, which was surprising given the volume of gimmicky tipples that could be proffered (I had absinthe on the mind due to the cerebral theme, but to no avail).  The wine list is ample, and beers are plentiful, so there needn't be an issue of sober contemplation, were that to present itself.   It didn't take long to

contemplate the menu, and of what we tried, there wasn't a misstep among the options.  I hesitated to order a cauliflower soup with crispy capers and truffle oil simply because of Julia Child's quote boldly printed on the back of the menu "If you're afraid of butter, use cream".  Not that I'm afraid of butter (OR cream) but I feared it might be a little heavy... when in fact it was quite the opposite.  Creamy and dense, check and check, but with a luxurious pureed cauliflower rather than a surfeit of dairy, the fried capers adding richness and bite to an otherwise mellifluous pabulum.  Market greens with vegetables and herbs were piled in a steep bale of leaflets, shrouding a treasure trove of various vegetable surprises beneath:  coins of roasted sunchoke, a rainbow of steamed, halved baby carrots, salty sauteed radishes, tiny parapets of diced turnips, and dabs of sunny yellow lemon curd.  Do  not to be tricked into thinking this is just an average pile of greens lest you give up before the real dirt candy is unearthed.

  Frogs legs wallowed in a verdant puddle of garlicky watercress puree, sauteed without the common bready crust that masks their delicate, slightly marine flavor, and paired with meaty shreds matsutake mushrooms and woodsy sunchoke.  A bountiful tureen of Bouchot mussels could easily have served as an entree (especially given that entrees tend toward the small side).

 But their flavor is BIG: the crustaceans are choice
specimens, bulbous and sweet, sauced in a thick broth redolent with aleppo pepper and mild leeks, rich with creme fraiche.  Two thick slabs of crusty grilled toast accompany the dish, but you could enlist another basket of bread (a tender-crumbed, crusty baguette and nutty multi-grain) in order to capitalize on every drop.



Entrees continue in fine flavor.  Our chef here at Le Philosophe is a an alum of the Jean-Georges conglomerate, and the sweet-salty-sour balance for which Vongerichten is so talented is not lost on chef Matthew Aita.  The main components of the entrees read like a menu from the 1950's:  Duck a l'Orange, Tournedos Rossini (both of which the host with whom I spoke post-prandially recommended after the fact) Blanquette de Veau, etc.  But they are not your typical renditions, not in

 the least.  Lobster Thermidor, far from the leaden classic featuring egg yolks and cream, arrives refreshed with a bright concasse of Meyer lemon atop a raft of emerald haricots verts swathed with a Lucullan tarragon-mustard sauce.   A roasted hake arrives skin-on in a hearty stew of cranberry beans flavored with zesty ribbons of Cabacero
 Iberico and fronds of peppery arugula, gently wilted in the steaming heat of the terra cotta casserole.   A modest portion of flat iron steak is ruby red in contrast to the ebony char of its grilled exterior, pooled in a marvelous, winy Bordelaise.  It's served with a mountain of crisp frites with a creamy sauce Choron in which to dip them.  Could've done with more steak and less frites, but execution was spot on.  Similarly, like all the entrees we tried, it is noticeably bereft of vegetation, and while the "Sides" menu offers a variety of rice and potatoes, there is but one Jardiniere, which turned out to be a somewhat oily, saline hodge-podge of radishes, celery and turnips- not at all undelicious, but almost more condimenty than vegetal.  Perhaps in this respect the philosophers still cling to the antiquated myth of vegetables filching energy from cogitation to facilitate their effortful digestion.







Desserts are also updated classics- tweaked antiquity- and all the better for it.  Be forewarned that the profiteroles balk the pattern of portion temperance.  Priced a dollar cheaper than the two other plated sweets, you might errantly think this a dessert for one.  But the three enormous doughnuts could easily satisfy three or four people;  I wondered if the kitchen wasn't making up for the more modestly sized entrees.   They are delicious for a bite, in their careless way: too big and too sloppy with too many hazelnuts strewn atop- but a tasty gloss of chocolate and thick caramel gelato make one bite a treat.  A delightful tart tatin was of perfect proportion on the other hand,  with a singular slab of roasted Mutsu atop a slightly tough crust .  But the tart cider glaze and dense, zesty apple puree played sour to the creamy sweetness of a luscious buttermilk ice cream.  My decaf Americano was unexpectedly unspectacular, but regular caffeinated coffees were good: I guess place inspired by the great thinkers focuses on the brews that would fuel a contemplative late night.

But by far the most disappointing aspect of Le Philosophe is the restroom.  Not only is there only one, unisex facility, you open the door to be welcomed by a gaping urinal immediately to your right: an unsightly, unseemly, and somewhat repugnant installation that would seem to be unnecessary.  Unless they were considering Duchamp a philosopher and thus providing tribute.  Methinks not.

 No. 55 Bond Street 
(212)388-0038

info@lephilosophe.us