Babbo and Overbooking - Time to Find a New Pasta Restaurant in New York?

Babbo has long been one of my favorite restaurants in New York.  They do wonderful things with pasta and have a pasta menu that can be made vegetarian.  I have dined there four or five times over the last two years and enjoyed it, up until recently.

Recently, I made a later-than-usual reservation after the New York Century.  I figured after riding my bike 100 miles through New York City, a late reservation seemed a good idea.  When I arrived, the host said my table was not ready and I could to order a drink at the crowded bar, at my expense.  My guest and I did not order a drink.  The thought of waiting for a table I had reserved and paying for drinks to do so rubbed me the wrong way, so we stood with many others in the entry and waited.  After about 15 minutes, the host brought us each a complimentary glass of champagne. My guest and I were seated about 25 to 30 minutes after our reservation time.

We had a lovely table upstairs in the corner, but by this time, I was tired and the pasta tasting menu no longer sounded appealing so I had a salad and called it quits for the evening.  A hoped for celebratory evening came to a lackluster end.

I thought this was a one-time occurrence as it had not happened previously.  But last week, I again had a late reservation (confirmed by the restaurant with three calls to me), showed on time only to be told I would not be seated for about 25 minutes.  The host tried to pass this off as a one-time issue.  He tried to blame it on weather that did not exist.  I said this was the second time I had experienced this in the last two visits.  He appeared surprised by my response.  Feeling a bit stuck (where else was I to go at this time and I had already spent $20 on a cab), my guest and I waited.  We watched as others were told the same lines.  A party of four with reservations were led to a table for two in the noisy and cramped bar area.  After 30 minutes my guest and I were seated.  The host did come by with a blood orange salad as an apology gift.  Again, we ordered less than we otherwise would have.  What would have been a $500 check became a $250 check, but Babbo filled an 11:00 pm reservation slot they likely otherwise could not have.  Was it worth it to them? Perhaps.  Babbo is a hot ticket.  Jennifer Aniston was in the night before.
 
I have been to hot restaurants including Noma, Fat Duck and French Laundry and have never seen one that  could not manage their reservations.  I've not seen this at low-end restaurants.  To err once is a possible mistake; but twice shows disrespect for customers.

There are other Italian restaurants in New York and many are better. Scarpetta http://www.scarpettarestaurants.com/menus/new-york-menus/ does a very nice vegetarian menu. Dovetail http://dovetailnyc.com/pdfs/Dovetail.MondayVeg.pdf  though not strictly Italian is another nice alternative.  Unfortunately, Babbo and I need to call it quits.

ABC Cocina Has Fluency of Latin-American Fusion Down Pat

I have long been a fan of ABC Kitchen, the Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant that takes up space in the ABC furniture store.  ABC Cocina http://www.abchome.com/eat/abc-cocina/  is no less satisfying with its unexpected fusion of flavors that appears to work every time. The only thing that didn't work for me was that I was so distracted by the wonderful blend of flavors, I didn't take pictures.

ABC Cocina is suitable for vegetarians. Vegans won't find much.

Dishes are served tapas style and the server recommended five plates for two people.  My guest and I ordered three savory dishes and a dessert and found that to be plenty.  We started with the sweet potato and smoked cherry pepper empanadas with lemon yogurt.  I did not think the next dishes could get better, but they did.  The patatas bravas were served with the lightly spiced aioli.  The best of all were the soft mushroom tacos with mole, cashews, kale and lime.  Dessert was warm vanilla fritters with Mexican chocolate.  The meal was sublime and ran about $100 for two with a carafe of house-made red hibiscus sangria.

The restaurant has been open for not quite two years and is still a glamorous place to be seen.  The noise level is a bit on the high side, but it's still comfortable enough to chat.  Be sure to make reservations in advance. 

Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco to close April 30

Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco, a temple to vegan fine dining, announced today that it will serve its last meal on April 30.  The closure comes due to the hotel it is in being sold and the hospitality company not wanting a restaurant on site.

I wanted to share that Millennium was more than a restaurant for those of us plant-based eaters in the Bay Area.  Millennium became a part of my family.  I seldom ate in the main dining room, but often came for the monthly winemaker dinners, where chef Eric Tucker paired his dishes to the the wines of fabulous small winemakers throughout the area.  Through these dinners I made lifelong friends - people I have to my home - winemakers, wine reps and people who share my interests in great food, wine and travel.  I got to know the staff.  It felt so comfortable.  It was a place to go be with like-minded people and laugh and share good times over great food and wine.  I met the delightful owners while sitting outside in a farm in Sonoma sharing yet more great food and wine.  Millennium had a stack of awards, but it was all unpretentious and fun - just good people getting together to share good things.

I look forward to good things coming and hope for many more good times to come. Best to all. 

 The closing letter from Millennium's FaceBook page is below.

After more than 20 years in business, and with the end of our lease, we
will serve our last meal as Millennium at 580 Geary St on April 30,
2015. We are so grateful to our co-workers, family, farmers & friends
who have made the experience of running this restaurant unforgettable.

The Hotel California was recently sold to Pineapple Hospitality, a
Seattle company. They will be doing an extensive renovation and we have
been notified that they do not wish to continue to have a restaurant as
part of their hotel.

After 20+ years Larry and Ann Wheat, the principal owners of Millennium,
have decided to retire from the restaurant business after Millennium
closes on or about May 1, 2015. They have made a significant
contribution to the success of Millennium and consider it their
contribution to the vegetarian movement. They have said that they will
miss the staff and customers they have met over the years.

Eric Tucker, Millennium's executive chef since inception and co-owner of
Millennium, will be opening a restaurant with Millennium's General
Manager Alison Bagby. They have worked together for the past 8.5 years
and will continue to serve organic plant based cuisine. In Eric's words,
"we want to keep this thing going". They are currently evaluating
potential locations and looking for investors. While the prospect of
closing is a sad one, they both see this as an opportunity to improve
upon Millennium's dining room and location.

The cost of running a restaurant in San Francisco, using the best ingredients possible

and making the entire menu from scratch daily, combined with our shared affinity for 

the East Bay have us leaning in that direction but we are also actively 

looking in San Francisco.

To everyone who has become part of the Millennium family--we could not
have done what we did for so long without you---THANK YOU.

Please visit us in the next 3 months and stay tuned for Eric's
Kickstarter campaign. If you are interested in investing, please contact us HERE


Gratefully Yours,
The Millennium Family

Maui ... Where Being Vegetarian or Vegan is Easy and Fun

January through March is the perfect time to head to Maui.  It makes for a nice respite for the cold weather in much of Northern Hemisphere and whales can easily be spotted from shore. It's also less humid than in the summer months.

Maui is also a wonderful place for vegans and vegetarians - from some of the best markets, to farm-to-table feasts to upscale elegant dining.

In Kahului, a few minutes from the airport, is the first Whole Foods to have vegan raw chefs on staff.  There is a refrigerated section that when I last visited had freshly prepared raw vegetable pastas, salads and Mexican dishes as well as several desserts.  I dislike grocery stores, but this is one of the few I like.  It's filled with vegan and vegetarian goods to provision your hotel room with for snacking.  There is also a section labeled with organic and veg wines.

Also in Kahului is Hawaiian Superfoods.  Not a fancy place and not easy to find, Hawaiian Superfood is in a light green modest office building.  Walk through the office building and around the back.  There are two tables outside and a couple more inside.  The menu has smoothies that include coconut milk, banana, cacao nibs, and mesquite (left). A quinoa burger came topped with all sorts of fresh vegetables on a bed of kale leaves for wrapping (right).  I ate it like a salad. Check restaurant.com for coupons.  http://hawaiiansuperfood.com/

On Saturday nights, there is a farm-to-table dinner at Ahimsa Farms in Haiku (above). This dinner is advertised as vegetarian, but it was vegan the night I went.  Call in advance to check.  The farm is on beautiful grounds above the ocean. The family runs a sustainable farm with wind and solar power.  Prior to the dinner, farm tours are provided for an extra charge.  The dinner uses vegetables from the farm as while as other organic produce.  The night I went there were about six courses, featuring farm-fresh produce.  There were taro burgers (above right)) and sprouted salads (above left).  The herb tea that is the farm's own blend was fantastic.  The dinner is a bargain at $25 per person and there is live music afterward from the owners' sons and anyone else who happens to drop by.  Feel free to bring your own wine. http://ahimsasanctuaryfarm.com/farm-table/

Not far from Haiku, is Mana Foods in Paia. This amazing market sells organics, fresh prepared foods with a Hawaiian twist and a great selection for vegans and vegetarians at relatively low prices. The aisles are jam-packed and when it comes to marketing, think the opposite of a slick Whole Foods, but you will not regret stopping in to provision either for prepared food or to stock your kitchen if you've rented a condo.  A few stores up on the same street Mana Foods has just opened Maka by Mana, a raw foods restaurant.  I've yet to visit, but have heard it is great.  It's closed Mondays and Tuesdays.  http://www.makabymana.com/

For more upscale dining, Ko at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea has raw and vegan menus. It's truly a treat to find upscale restaurant that have more than one vegan or vegetarian item on the menu. It's not inexpensive, but it is nice to be in lovely surroundings and have that option. I started with the vegetable tempura (left), which included Kabocha pumpkin, Mokokai sweet potato, Maui onion, carrot and asparagus for $17. 

The harvest salad had Pohole fern shoots, heart of palm, Kula baby lettuce, macadamia nuts and passion fruit vinaigrette for $14.

The buckwheat soba stirfry (left)came with mushrooms, edamame, and baby bok choy for $31.  http://korestaurant.com/cuisine/dinner-menu/

There is much more vegetarian and vegan on Maui. If you have favorites you'd like to share, please do so in the comments.

Green Zebra: Elegant Vegetarian Food That Doesn't Drain the Wallet

Green Zebra
1400 West Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60642
312.243.7100
info@greenzebrachicago.com

Green Zebra is one of the most delightful vegetarian restaurants in the United States, filling the void between $200-a-plate veg tasting menus at high-end restaurants and the casual salad-focused cafe.  Green Zebra has a casual elegance and terrific food that doesn't drain the wallet.

Chef/owner Shawn McCain earned a string of culinary awards while heading Trio in Evanston. He earned further awards for his seafood-based restaurant Spring, also in Chicago. In 2004, he opened Green Zebra, receiving even more awards.  He has since opened Sage at the Aria hotel in Las Vegas.

Green Zebra offers a nightly five-course chef's tasting menu for about $60, and an a la carte menu.  There is a good selection of vegan and vegetarian items.  The best value seems to be to order four to five plates off the a la carte menu to share amongst two people.

Grilled Corn Tamales with sauteed chanterelles and blueberries

At a recent dinner, the Hen of the Woods Mushroom Pate with Vidalia onion marmalade and herb butter ($11) had good flavor and texture.  The Grilled Corn Tamales with sauteed chanterelles, blueberries and poblano peppers ($13) was the disappointment of the evening as the flavors fell flat and, despite the interesting ingredients, was bland.  The Tomato Tart with roasted fennel ($13) featured wonderfully sweet tomatoes.  The most enjoyable dish and a restaurant specialty was the Lady Duck Farm Egg with smoked potato puree ($12.50).  This dish arrives looking underwhelming, but the fresh egg broken and combined with the creamy puree makes for a perfect composition of flavors.

Tomato tart with roasted fennel

The restaurant can be loud and reservations are a must. 

Healthy Food With a View in Bagan

Green Elephant

Yamonar (River View), Thiripissayar Quarter, New Bagan.

Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma) (061) 65182 (09) 204 3463

www.greenelephant-restaurants.com

When Cherie Aung-Khin started working in Yangoon, Burma, she wanted something healthier and safer than what she was finding in food carts. That led her to hire a chef to make foods for her that were healthy and not too oily. Those beginnings led to the successful Green Elephant restaurants in Yangoon, Mandalay and the amazing temple-filled town of Bagan.

The Bagan restaurant is down a long, winding driveway and situated on the river. (There is a similar named restaurant that is nearby that appears to have been reviewed as being the Green Elephant by several on TripAdvisor. Those reviewers say the restaurant is not on the river. Green Elephant is on the river. Make sure you get to the correct restaurant.)

Burmese cuisine is inspired by Thai, Chinese and Indian cuisine. You will find curries, but generally with less spices than in Indian curries.

Green Elephant has a wide variety of items, most not vegetarian. But there is enough to select from and many can be made vegetarian on request. Some of the vegetarian items that were quite good include tempura vegetables, vegetarian spring rolls and bamboo shoot salad.  

Green Elephant is a lovely place to enjoy the river and the food between temple visits. Is it touristy? Of course. There likely isn't a restaurant in Bagan that isn't intended for tourists. Who else can afford a restaurant there? Be aware that in peak season you may not get in without a reservation. Your hotel or driver can make one for you, and specify the need for vegetarian items.

State Bird Provisions

Plenty of good vegetarian dishes at US' hottest restaurant

1529 Fillmore Street

San Francisco, CA 94115

415.795.1272

The line starts forming well before the 5:30 PM restaurant opening time.  To get into State Bird Provisions, which Zagat has named among the 10 hottest restaurants in the world and Bon Appetite called one of the best new restaurants for 2012, takes patience.  Reservations fill up six months in advance and from then on it's stand in line and hope.  Get lucky and you may grab a table from a no-show.

Once inside, the casual restaurant is well worth it.  For all the acclaim, there is no pretense or snobbery, just good food that comes out spontaneously from the kitchen.  The owners, former chefs at Rubicon, frequently send guests off with sincere inquiries as to how the meal was and if there were enough vegetarian options (there were). The actual menu is short. Most dishes are not on the menu, but are based on what was available and fresh that day. Waiters bring the dishes by on trays with tags noting the price.  They are all small plates.  The options for vegetarians are tasty ranging from spiced tofu skins or yuba to quinoa and miniature pancakes. 


Quinoa

Yuba with almond pesto.

Burrata on fried bread.

Signature pancakes of sourdough, sauerkraut, Pecorino and ricotta.

French Laundry: Is the US's Most Expensive Restaurant Worth the Price?

French Laundry
6640 Washington Street
Yountville, CA 94599
707.944.2380
frenchlaundry.com

The first time I dined at French Laundry, it was not a pleasant experience.  I had just returned from Europe, had terrible jetlag and started popping caffeine pills at about 3 in the afternoon in hopes I would be awake through what promised to be a marvelous dinner.

By the time arrived at the restaurant about 7 p.m., I had the equivalent of 12 or so cups of coffee's worth of caffeine. The room was spinning and the last thing on my mind was food. Thank goodness my companion had a healthy appetite as he ended up eating his tasting menu and mine too.

So I had to return for a "real" French Laundry experience.

French Laundry offers two nine-course menus per evening - a vegetable tasting menu and the chef's tasting menu.  Each is the same price - $270 per person including gratuity.  Wine pairings are not offered, which is something that's bothered me about this restaurant, but there is an extensive wine list, and a decent selection of bottles under $150.  I ordered the vegetable tasting, but substituted one course from the chef's menu that was vegetarian. The bill for two came to $845.  Overall, the food had good flavors, but the balance was off - some courses were very light, other courses the parts didn't work together, and one course was so heavy it was difficult to consider moving on to dessert.

A substitution from the chef's tasting menu - a salad of Fuyu persimmon with salt-baked turnip, five-spice "pearls", and a sesame crisp.


Salad of roasted salsify with quail egg, pain de champagne, black trumpet mushrooms, tardivo radicchio and oxalis.

Butternut squash porridge with parmesan, Sicilian pistachios and black truffle. Sadly, the truffle flavor was lost.

This dish - Hawaiian hearts of palm - contained so many different parts it appeared it was three dishes in one, with neither meant to complement the other. There were cranberry beans, kale, peppers, Meyer lemon, thyme oil and sauce "Pimenton".

This mascarpone-enriched chestnut agnolotti had lovely flavors with the pomegranate seeds, but it was extremely heavy and seemed out of balance with the rest of the meal.

The desserts were lovely. I substituted a chocolate torte off of the chef's menu and that was followed up by a selection of chocolate truffles. There was also a little gift bag of shortbread cookies to take home.

Service here is relaxed - perhaps overly so. My server spent a lengthy time talking about her upcoming holiday trip with the couple at the next table over. Her voice carried through the restaurant. This is also not a restaurant you are likely to find satisfying for the money if you have experience with dining at a Pierre Gagnaire or an Alain Passard restaurant or even in lesser-hyped restaurants in California. I prefer Manresa over French Laundry in a heartbeat.
 

Encuentro

Encuentro
202 2nd Street
Oakland, CA 94607
510.832.9463
encuentrowinebar@gmail.com

This little vegetarian gem in the Jack London District of Oakland, is the product of Eric Tucker, chef at the vegan Millennium restaurant in San Francisco.  With a bar and just a few tables, so there is often a wait.  The menu changes regularly and, while there’s an occasional miss, there are also some amazing hits. If you’re lucky enough to be there on a night when the tempeh Reuben sandwich is on the menu, by all means order it.  I am not a fan of fake meat, but this is my rare exception. The sandwich is flavorful and hearty (and photographed below).

If you're familiar with Tucker's Millenium, you will be surprised by what's offered here as the concept is quite different.  The dishes are not as complex, which is sometimes a problem a Millennium, but focus more on a few ingredients and clean flavors from local, organic sources.  The concept is small plates that are meant to be shared.

Encuentro is casual, sometimes noisy and a comfortable place to relax with good vegetarian food and wine.

Colorful and Tasty Dishes at La Maison on Santorini

La Maison
Imerovigli, Santorini

Greece

While many flock to Oia in Santorini for food, the best restaurants lie a ways along the caldera path in Imerovigli. Here, La Maison departs from the traditional dishes found on most every Greek menu to bring creative touches to local ingredients. 

 Basics – such as fava bean dip – took on a bit more unusual twist with the addition of caramelized onions, tomatoes and toasted walnut pieces; while some dishes were unlike anything else on the island. Strawberry risotto with marscarpone mousse is perhaps the best example. While this bright red creamy dish looks and sounds like a dessert, it is savory enough, with just a hint of strawberry to make a fine appetizer or entrée.  The beet pasta, with noodles colored with beet juice and tossed with chunks of fresh beets, is another delicious and colorful vegetarian option.

Carnivores will find creativity here too as the fish dishes are prepared in non-traditional ways. The chef is not afraid of experimentation and the experiments work. 

Blue Hill: Fresh from the Farm Veggie Fare

Blue Hill
75 Washington Place
New York, New York
212.539.1776
www.bluehillfarm.com

Farm-fresh vegetables prepared so their flavors shine make Blue Hill a wonderful choice for vegetarians.  The fixed-price vegetable menu is just $85 and features vegetables picked from farms within 250 miles along with some foraged fare.  The amuses are fun, with a recent night featuring a collection of baby carrots, asparagus and baby turnips on a row of spikes. Accompanying the lightly marinated vegetables were the seasonal avocado sliders. The stand-out course featured a collection of thinly sliced late spring vegetables garnished with herbs and flowers. The restaurant is relaxed and has a cheerful staff. Wine pairings are an additional $65.

A chorus line of fresh vegetables.

 Avocado sliders.

 Late spring vegetables and hazelnuts.

 Asparagus and morels with a farm-fresh egg.

Stuffed zucchini, ricotta, pine nuts and basil.

Oakland's Plum a Perfect Pick

Plum
2216 Broadway
Oakland, CA
510.444.7586
info@plumoakland.com

Chef Daniel Patterson is best known for his formal restaurant Coi, but his Oakland restaurant Plum, while more casual and with a neighborhood-feel, is no less pleasing.  The restaurant is based on small plates that feature only organic vegetables from local farmers. While there are meats on the menu too, it's vegetable-centric.The dishes are creative - the asparagus was served with lily bulb and grapefruit, and the charcuterie featured pickled vegetables with violet mustard. Each dish I tried had excellent flavors and was well-balanced. Vegetarian dishes average about $12 each.

Fresh beet salad

Asparagus and fingerlings, fresh hummus, pickled pearl onions, frisee

Asparagus miso zabalone, lily bulb, sea bean, grapefruit

White bean agnolotti, black trumpet mushroom, meyer lemon, ramps

The Fat Duck - Dinner? Or Entertainment?

The Fat Duck
High Street
Bray, England
+44 (0) 1628 580 3333
www.thefatduck.co.uk

Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck has received a string of awards, including being named second best restaurant in the world four different times by San Pellegrino, generally losing out to the closing El Bulli. The quaint little restaurant in Bray, about an hour outside of London, seems an unlikely spot for a destination restaurant, but it pulls people in from all over the world to try out variations on one general theme. The menu never really changes, but only gets tweaked a bit over time. The menu is generally for carnivores, but the restaurant happily accommodates vegetarians.

The restaurant is about style over substance, and could indeed be called dinner theater - while the food is good, it's really more about the experience. Take the first course, for instance: Nitro Poached Apertifis in a choice of flavors that include vodka and lime sour, gin and tonic, and Campari soda.

Egg whites and the flavoring were shot out of a whipping cream canister at your table and then floated in liquid nitrogen until they developed a bit of a shell (above). The server stood over you to make sure you ate it immediately so it didn't melt, before making the next one. It was a cross between meringue and ice cream and melted in your mouth (below).

Next came red cabbage gazpacho with mustard grain ice cream (below). A tasty mix of flavors.

The jelly of smoked mushroom, truffle cream and pea with oak moss and truffle toast (below) was tops in dinner theater and taste. It was my favorite food course of the evening. The waiter delivered a large box of moss and placed it in the middle of the table. He then poured water over what I assume was dry ice under the moss. It created a billowing blanket of steam over the table. Served alongside were the truffle toast with oak moss, which was divine.The parsley porridge (above) was special for vegetarians as the carnivores received snail porridge. It was unremarkable.
I generally don't care for aubergine no matter how it's prepared, but the roasted aubergine (above) was done quite nicely. It had a firm, tofu-like texture.
Mock Turtle Soup (above) was taken from Alice in Wonderland. When a friend ate at The Fat Duck last year they had a golden "watch" that they dipped into the soup. The gold flakes came off into the bowl. Now they put the gold flakes in the soup and tell you that they dissolved the watch in the kitchen.

Sound of the Sea (above) was stunning in its presentation as it indeed looked like a mini-version of the seashore. The food was laid out on a glass plate over sand. There was foam resembling the ocean hitting the shore, several seaweeds colored and cut to look like coral and tapioca grains that resembled sand. The waiter brought a shell with a miniature iPod and headphones. You were supposed to listen to the sounds of waves and gulls as you ate the dish. One waiter delivered the dish and said he would only say what it consisted of after I ate it. Problem was, the waiter who cleared the plate was not the same one and had no idea I didn't know what I'd been served.

The beetroot risotto with sour cream sorbet (below) was crunchy - more like chips than risotto. The flavors were a standout though and this was one of my favorite dishes. The vegetarian bone marrow (above) I had a hard time eating simply because of the name. I'm not sure why anyone would name a vegetarian dish after something vegetarians would never eat. It was a soft vegetable mousse stuffed inside a hollow vegetable.

What followed was hot and iced tea, which didn't blend so the two different temperatures were maintained. It was fun to have that contrast.

Desserts included taffety tart, black forest gateau (the waiter misted you with the "smell of the forest" prior to eating, which did nothing for me), and whisket wine gums. The gums had gelatin in them so I didn't eat them (nice of them to mention though). They were like tiny whiskey bottles stuck to regions where the whiskey was from on a frame. You peeled them from the frame to eat them. Following this, the waiter delivered a bag of sweets to take home.

The service was iffy, the food was good, the theater was a little over-the-top at times, but it was a fun evening. The bill for two was about US $800 and given that and that the menu never really changes, it's a fun place to go - once.

Zuni Cafe: Great Bread and the Rest of the Food Ain't Bad Either

Zuni Cafe
1658 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.552.2522

Zuni Cafe is one of those "must" dine at restaurants in San Francisco. It is always packed (reservations a must for dinner and a good idea for lunch). The food is fresh and generally well-prepared (although I have had an over-cooked pasta before), the space is interesting covering two floors in a triangular-shaped building, there are always a few vegetarian choices and the homemade bread is wonderful - so much so that it's one of the rare places where I eat the bread.

I've eaten there several times for dinner - one complaint would be that it is noisy - but made it for lunch this week. The lunch menu is a little lighter, but stays true to the fresh ingredients that are well-prepared ...and there is the bread. The bread is a homemade peasant-style bread. It's crusty, but chewy on the inside.


For starters, I had the wild arugula salad with pomegranate seeds, mint, walnuts and sheep's milk ricotta (above). What I liked about this salad is that the ricotta and pomegranate seeds could have easily been lost in the dish, but they added plenty of both so that the flavor was in every bite.

Polenta is sort of a fancy word for cornmeal, but I like it anyway on a crisp winter day, especially with a cool dollop of mascarpone (above). The texture was good - like a firm porridge.


The tagliatelle with chanterelles, nettles and pistachio picada benefited from the homemade noodles. The flavors of the main ingredients were a bit overwhelmed by butter, but it was still enjoyable and worth ordering again.

Parking can be a bit difficult in the evenings here, but valet parking is available for $10. Any nearby lots are the same price.

ABC Kitchen Simple yet Amazing

ABC Kitchen
35 East 18th Street
New York, NY 10003
212.475.5829
www.abckitchennyc.com

The latest in Jean Georges' restaurants is undoubtedly my new favorite. The food is sublime - with simple dishes that have outstanding flavor.

The best way to sample the food is by sharing several plates. There are too many wonderful things on the menu to limit oneself. I went back twice over two days and nothing disappointed, quite the opposite.

The best dishes were the ones that I expected the least out of. Pistachio pesto with whole wheat pasta and julienned squash blossoms had outstanding flavor in what could have been such an average dish.

A salad with strawberries and fresh goat cheese (above) blended sweet with slightly bitter for a nice way to start to the meal.

Pizza and house-cut fries from the lunch menu (above).
The bland housemade ricotta ravioli with herbs and tomato sauce (above) was the least appealing dish.
The sundae with salted caramel ice cream, candied peanuts and popcorn and whipped cream was a delightful surprise. The flavors worked perfectly to taste like a cool box of Cracker Jack. This is not to be missed.

Vegetarian entrees run about $25 and appetizers and small plates about $16.