Del Posto

For my birthday, my wife took me to Del Posto for lunch. It’s a Batali/Bastianich enterprise located in NYC’s meatpacking district. The façade of the restaurant is rather unassuming and could easily be mistaken for an office entrance, which was exactly what we did when we walked past it and had to double back.

Walking on 10th Ave, we stopped a block away at Crafsteak’s to study its menu. It looked very appealing. I seriously considered jettisoning our original plan for a meal at Craftsteak instead. My wife expressed misgivings about such a late cancellation. I wondered aloud: Does Craftsteak have the same validation policy as Del Posto for the garage where we had parked our car? It is certainly plausible - the garage is the closest one around to either restaurant. However, between wrestling with the qualms of cancelling late, and the possibility of a parking validation disappointment distracting us from completely enjoying lunch, we decided to stick to Del Posto.

The doors opened into an impressive and opulent dining room. It looked like the interiors of a grand Italian villa, or at least what I imagine a grand Italian villa to look like - the closest I’ve been to Italy was a couple of trips to the Secaucus, NJ Olive Garden.

The food had hits and misses. We'd wanted a tasting menu but apparently it wasn't available at lunchtime.

Amuses were some kind of soup with honey (blah), what I'd call codfish nuggets but I'm sure they had a fancier name, and sunchoke chips with some creamy dip that tasted pretty good.

First impressions were that the presentation isn't a top priority at this place. Food looks carelessly tossed onto bowls, cups and dishes that were either too big for the portions, or otherwise inapproriately sized. No thought given to make the presentation attractive.

While the bread was pretty good on the whole, bread service was awful. When we'd clearly exhausted one of the bread varieties, nobody took the trouble to refill/refresh - maybe nobody noticed.

Of the 84 pages of wines they have on offer, I had the good fortune to pick one that was out of stock. Without checking with me first, the server produced a bottle that was "similar in style and at the same pricepoint". I had no problems with that - it was after all at the same pricepoint, so I won’t be getting ripped off any worse than I had planned for.

For first course, I had the lobster and cauliflower and my companion the salumi. The lobster was overcooked and chewy - but the flavor was good. The cauliflower was creamy and had a nice sweetness that complemented the sweetness of the lobster.

The salumi was a complicated multi-dished course consisting of several selections of cured meats, a spinach tart (erbazzone), and a couple slices of what looked like rabbit terrine. The cured meats were very good, but the rest of the course rather forgettable. The erbazzone had absolutely no flavor whatsoever, and reminded me of a pot pie I once ate at a diner. Parts of the rabbit were too tough - impossible to overcome despite sustained and enthusiastic chewing. I had no choice but to spit it out.

For mains, we had the grilled striped bass and the pork loin. I enjoyed the striped bass but I thought the dish overall was out of balance and skewed toward being overly sweet. I wish there had been some acidity to play against the sweetness of the fish and the cauli.

The pork loin dish was a stack of two gigantic bricks of pork - a portion I expected to see at the Olive Garden more than at a fine dining restaurant. The loin was cooked to a perfect temperature. The meat appeared moist and yielded easily to the bite. The only complaint with this dish was again its sweetness and one dimensionality. The candied figs and the caramelized stuffed onion all sang the same sugary tune.

I don’t remember much about the desserts, except that it was chocolaty and it was pretty good.

All in all, it was an okay meal, but for the money, there are better choices in Manhattan. I don’t know if it’s us, but we don’t seem to have any luck at picking Italian restaurants.

NJ Dining: Chengdu 23, Wayne

I can't believe it's been over a year since my last blog entry. I've exceeded all previous estimations of laziness. Anyway, here's a restaurant review - one of many more to come, I hope.

Chengdu 23 opened a few weeks ago in Wayne where the Taipei Noodle House used to be. I was sad to see the old restaurant close, in spite of its poorly chosen furnishings: the bright red sofa in the shape of a hand in the waiting area looked oddly out of place. I'd enjoyed their Taiwanese beef noodle in soup - and I’d enjoyed it even more when I got the idea of ordering it with both brisket and tendon.

According to the new lao ban nian/proprietress, the previous owner had tired of the business and wanted out.

Well, I’m happy to report that the red sofa is gone, but the fish tank remains. Along with fortune cats, lightbox posters of Hong Kong skyrises at night and walls adorned with International currency notes, the aquarium has become de riguer in Chinese restaurants.

What’s not de riguer, however, is an aquatic freakshow. There’s a goldfish in the tank with something growing out of its forehead I’m pretty sure doesn’t normally grow out of a goldfish’s forehead. If the lao ban nian had any entrepreneurial inclinations at all, she’d charge admission for the sight.

Dinner and a show. Brilliant! Well, enough about the ambience.

We chose mostly from the non-Sichuanese items, because my two year old daughter was with us. Feed her anything spicy and she’ll turn into Miss Fussy McFussbucket; crying real tears and screaming for water.

So we ordered the beef brisket spicy noodle appetizer (the only item with a *, for Daddy only), half a peking duck, shrimp chow fun and chicken with broccoli - for my Chinese American daughter who has developed a worrisome palate for authentic American Chinese.

The spicy noodle turned out to be the best thing we ordered, and I can see it being an excellent replacement for my erstwhile "regular" - a slightly different rendition of pretty much the same basic ingredients, done at the same location. What more could a fella ask for?

To be frank, I could’ve done with more noodles and more beef. At about the same price, the new serving is less than half of the old one.

The shrimp chow fun was different from other versions I’ve had. The dark specks that were clearly visible on the pale rice noodle were not burnt wok detritus as I had first suspected but finely ground black pepper. The chef’s liberal hand with the pepper mill elevated the chow fun from what would have simply been a source of workaday carb and protein.

The other dishes were pretty unremarkable. I couldn't tell the Peking duck from regular roast duck. The skin was more chewy than crispy, and lacked the deep hue that comes from treatment with maltose. For half a duck, the restaurant had decided that exactly two pancakes would be sufficient accompaniment. When I requested extra, I got the impression that they're a precious commodity.

The server quizzed: How many pieces more, exactly, would I like?

About twenty minutes later, he arrived bearing two pancakes. With the grand gesture of someone who was about to give a lifetime worth of earnings to charity, he declared that the extra pancakes would be on the house.

At the end of the meal, after the dishes were cleared away and the check requested, I was hoping to be surprised with a wedge of orange or two and maybe if we were lucky, a small bowl of red bean dessert. What we got, instead, was a small plate of canned pineapple chunks in syrup. Our two year old, a fruit-in-syrup eating machine, devoured the entire thing.

After which, she pleaded: More, more. More, pleeeeease!

“How many pieces more, exactly, would you like?” I asked.