Gotham, July, $25

Mee-Ryung was on her biannual trip to France with her husband to visit friends and family.  So, I made reservations at Gotham for my husband, Steve, and me.  This is a beautiful restaurant, very tailored looking in white and black, like a tuxedo.  It is well known for its food and service and will now be for its $25, three course, Prix Fixe lunch.  You get to select a starter, entree and dessert.  Unfortunately, there were only two choices for the appetizer and entree and three for the dessert.  The selections looked very good, however, and that made it easy for Steve and me to divi up what to order.

The first offerings were a  sea bass ceviche and a roast beet and mango salad.  The two choices seem proportional in their substance.  Neither of us would be overly satiated after the first course.  We were, also, offered bread, which, while it was good, it was not very memorable. The first plates were colorful and arranged elegantly.  It was a plate that you feel bad to destroy with knife and fork (or spoon).  But it was worth it.  The ceviche was tangy and slightly sweet with a little pop of flavor from the coriander and a cool creaminess from the avocado.  The sea bass was very tender, not chewy or tough and took on the citrus flavors nicely.  Sea bass has a meaty, rugged flesh that

stands up to all types of cooking and is a marvel for caterers because it can be very forgiving.  So its nice to see and taste this fish prepared so delicately. It was a very light and tasty dish, much like the salad, which really wasn't a green, leafy salad like most of us are familiar.  There were big, flavorful chunks of mango and beets, which were the stars of the plate, with an elusive crunch from pistachios and a salty, chew of feta.  All the flavors played off of each other well, including the vinaigrette, but I would have liked more feta and pistachio.  There were some little, leafy green things on the plate, but they got in the way, in my opinion.

The entrees came beautifully presented, as I expected.  The arrangement fit more of a round configuration which seemed a bit more inviting and accessible.  This plate allowed you to eat and not feel as thought you are taking something away from the food by getting into it with your utensils. The salmon was served over farro with precisely cut vegetables no larger than the O on your keyboard,  I must remember to try that at home.  It tasted fantastic, it had soaked up the juice from the salmon.  The salmon skin was crispy, which is something I have just recently begun to appreciate,  and had a bit of ocean flavor.  The flesh itself was a little underdone and not too salmon-y, neither of which are a complaint.  The grilled poussin was cooked perfectly.   It had tremendous flavor and the skin took up the flavor of the sweet, but not too sweet, soy glaze.  It was served atop some sauteed spinach and a couple sweet, pickled radishes. The greens were drowned in the rosemary and garlic jus which cried out for a little mound of farro to be sucked into.  I really enjoyed the meat and had to resist the urge to start eating the young, little, french chicken with my hands, Gotham is not the place for that, unless you get a back table.

  

The desserts were highly anticipated, chocolate cake and fruit crisp.   The chocolate cake is their house specialty.  It was warm with a spicy, mocha ice cream quenelle laid in a chocolate ribbon.  It was fantastic.  I think all chocolate cake should be served warm.  It just makes the dessert more comforting and I think we all have a homey memory of chocolate. The mint sprig was superfluous, but added color.  The apricot and strawberry crisp is also a homey sort of dessert, best served warm.  This one had an incredible crisp section that I did not want to end and mixed with the vanilla ice cream was heavenly. 

I believe that the selection of dishes on the Prix Fixe lunch menu have a complimentary dichotomy or in the case of dessert a "tricotomy".  That's really hard to do in my opinion.  This is a lunch I would recommend for anyone.  This is one of New York's finer restaurants and has a staying power and appeal to many people.  It is fabulous American food with great ingredients.  I call it American food because I could not pick up on any ethnicity theme to the flavors, perhaps the chicken I ate was french and the salmon was from scottish waters, but I didn't get the sense that the origin of the products highly influenced the flavors and accoutrements of the dish.  American food mixes all ethnicities and when its done well it is flavorful, balanced and comforting.

I have not given much of the opinion of my lunch date, Steve, mainly because, this was a weekday and he was accompanied by his blackberry.  While, he did have an opinion on the dishes and wanted to contribute, his thoughts about the food echoed my sentiments, and his blackberry got most of his attention as something "blew up" at work.  Blackberrys do not make good lunch company, they have too much stuff to say about everything else but the matters of the meal.  

N.B. Gotham's Lunch Prix Fixe has been altered to a Greenmarket Lunch Prix Fixe with two courses for  $24 and a $7 supplement for dessert. 

Blaue Gans, July, $23

Just to mix things up a bit, I decided to make a reservation at the Austrian restaurant, Blaue Gans. Austrian food may sound strange or exotic, but it is shares the same palette of flavors and ingredients as German cuisine which a lot of people are more familiar with.  The chef Kurt Gutenbrunner wanted his restaurant to honor the memory of the "wirsthaus" of his childhood.   At this restaurant the vibe is casual and light and the menu is heavy on the, well, "wirst".  Their lunch Prix Fixe is three course and $23.  You can choose any appetizer or entree for your first two courses and then a dessert for your third course.

Mee-Ryung Lee is my lunch date once again and we were seated in our favorite arrangement, in the corner of a banquette.  The tables, chairs and banquette melt into the background so you can focus on the colorful art on the walls.  The wine list had a nice selection of Austrian and German wines, as well as,  the usual French and California suspects.  The menu is straightforward with salads, sandwiches, entrees and, of course, "wirst".  I decided to embrace the "wirsthaus" offerings and selected the weisswurst with brezel (pretzel) to start.  M chose the beef consomme with vegetables and dumplings.  The second course was obvious for me, schnitzel.  M gave in to her love of seafood and ordered the mussels.  The dessert selection would be offered after we ate our entrees.

First, we got our bread, what a wonderful beginning.  One of the baguettes were pretzel and the other was sesame.  They were soft and warm and did not need any butter.  The pretzel bread had a nice amount of salt and was tender, not like the brutishness of an NYC hot pretzel from a vendor.

My weisswurst and brezel came to me unadorned except for the pot of mustard under the pretzel.  The "wirst" was flavorful and rich, but not oily.  It was cooked well, not bursting at the seams from to much heat or mushy from not enough heat.  The pretzel was warm and soft with the right amount of salt.  It was a very pleasing combination.  M's consomme was enjoyable, as well, but tasted more like a soup than a clear, clean liquid of a consomme.  The vegetables and dumpling were a little sparse for me, but I like thick soups.  We both agreed it needed a little salt.

Our entrees came to us unembellished, stripped of any perfunctory greens or foamy infusions.  I quite like the straightforward presentation in this setting, nothing to distract you from the flavor of the food and calmness of the atmosphere.  My Jaegerschnitzel came with mushrooms and bacon, the Jaeger- part, I guess.  The schnitzel was a flavorful pork chop, pounded thin, breaded and well seasoned and pan fried.  It was very enjoyable and how can you go wrong with mushrooms and bacon?  Oh, and there was yummy mound of herbed spaetzle, too.  M's mussels were a different story.  The lobster broth the mussels came in lacked some flavor and a few mussels were overdone.  It was disappointing, but not devastating.  They were still good enough to eat.

Our desserts, you will have to forgive me, but, I am not really sure what they were called.  Our waitress named and described our choices for us, but I cannot recall it, my notes from that lunch don't make much sense of dessert names and there is no description of the desserts listed on the restaurant's on-line menu.  I can tell you they were both Austrian and delicious.  One dessert was pieces of refried pancake, essentially.  It had powdered sugar and a berry compote.  It was quite tasty and, I thought, quite clever.  I like dishes that you can repurpose a main ingredient into another dish, generally, its called a leftover and I think it works better at home.  The other dessert was a thick, carmelized meringue served over berries.  It was sweet and delicious and quite suprising.

I would definitely come back to this restaurant for another lunch or dinner.  I like the casual nature of the place and while the food is not the best I have ever had, it is fun and interesting.  All the dishes we had were well executed enough to lead me to believe that anything else on the menu would not be disappointing.

Felidia, June 2010, $29.50

Oh, how I love Lidia Bastianich.  I am in heaven watching her PBS show on weekends and, then, planning when I am going to try making the dish she is demonstrating.  I wish I were a distant cousin that gets invited to her Sunday, family dinners and into the kitchen to help knead the pasta dough.  That is what I daydream about on Sunday afternoons, but I digress.  I may not get invited to Sunday dinner, but thankfully, Lidia's flagship restaurant, Felidia, has a three-course Prix Fixe lunch.  So, here we are, Mee-Ryung and I, to indulge in a highly anticipated three-course lunch.

We were greeted warmly by the hostess, I was hoping for Lidia herself,  and then were led past a wood paneled bar and up to the second floor which reminded me of a Tuscan kitchen.  We were seated at a two-top with white linens, understated, but elegant, like a Sunday dinner.   We received our menus and wine list. We found our Italian Rose' with the help of our sommelier, it just happened to be a Bastianich label and inexpensive and good.  In fact, the Italian heavy wine list had quite a few Bastianich wines, no real surprise.  The lunch menu, broken into Primi, Secondi and Dolci, also has an option for "pasta degustazione" which is a chef's selection of three signature pastas and a dolci for the same price.  I chose cacio e pere, a ricotta and pear ravioli, for my primi; maccheroncini, a sweet and spicy pork ragu over thick spaggheti pasta and palacinche, sweet crisps made of farro with riccota cheese and apricot sauce for my dolci.  M chose the capesante, a roasted diver scallop with eggplant puree; the tagliatelle, a bolognese over tagliatelle and the sorbetti for her three courses.

We first received a beautiful selection of breads: herbed focaccia, rustic white and Italian bread stick along with a broad bean puree topped with olive oil.  The puree tastes wonderful.  It is smooth, creamy and nicely seasoned with salt, some garlic and fresh herbs.

Our Primis were pleasantly presented to us in a timely manner.  I could tell my ravioli was hand-made, so beautifully imperfect, like a little Euro shaped  bed pillow. It looked light and sumptuous. M's scallop was huge, as big as my fist. The eggplant puree was not very pretty, but they added a nice leaf garnish that draws the eye away. My ravioli tasted fantastic. It was understated. I tasted the pear very sublty in the salty pecorino filling and the black pepper was a nice little punch. The pasta was very thin, but had body. Its bright yellow color indicated to me there was a lot of egg yolk in the pasta dough so it was a sturdy pasta to hold filling. It seemed to me, a perfectly executed, rustic dish. M's capeseante was amazing. The scallop was huge, but perfectly done. It was tender, meaty and nicely seasoned. The eggplant was cooked in tomato juice and cumin. It had a moroccan flair. It was a nice flavor pop, but kept its rustic, Italian character. The Primis were very satisfying.

Our second course came, much like the first course did, pleasantly and timely.  Service has been very amiable, not too invasive or distant, perfect to two ladies from two different cultures discussing our world and, more importantly, food.  The Secondi came with our high hopes, everything has been great so far.  We both ordered a pasta with a red meat sauce.  Mine was a pork ragu with long, thick, spaghetti-type pasta. M, had a thinner, shorter, more tender pasta with beef sauce.  They were both perfectly al dente.  My pork sauce was sweet and spicy, not usually my favorite savory taste choice, but the sauce was not too sweet.  I would have preferred a little spicier flavor, but the sauce was nicely and balanced and meaty.  M's dish was distinctly different than mine, a little more mellow and rich.  It, too, had a meaty flavor and was well balanced, but in a different way.  What a contrast. This course didn't knock my socks off, but it was quite enjoyable.  Maybe it was just a little too rich for the 90+ degree day we had that day.

We received our final course, me a palacinche, which I have no idea what that is, and M, the sorbetti with berries, which we were familiar with.  Once I got my dessert I still wasn't really sure what it was, but have eaten this way before: with abandon.  The crispy chips chips were lightly sweet and the ricotto was soft and smooth.  I kept thinking it was icecream, but it was more like quenelle of a lucious, smooth frosting. The apricot sauce was a tasty accompaniment.  The sorbetti was perfect.  A nice, light ending to our rustic, Tuscan lunch.

I would recommend this Tuscany-in-the-city three-course lunch from a real, deal Italian, Lidia Bastianich.  Our food was fantastic with a lot more selections to try.  Service was well timed, not too fast, not too slow.  This experience only strengthens my admiration and adoration of Lidia.  Check out a show on PBS or pick up a cookbook.  She has a real passion for Italian cooking and how it brings family together.  She is not just a talking head (or cleavage, Giada DeLaurentiis).

JoJo, $24, May 2010

It has taken me a little while to come to terms with the fact that not all of Jean Georges' restaurants are good. He is a well respected and revered chef with impressive training  and great success with his many restaurants from here to Hong-Kong. I really enjoyed the Prix Fixe lunch at Nougatine and I hear from diners and Zagat that the restaurant of his name is fabulous. On the flip side, I ate at Vong a couple years ago and I remember that as a dreadful meal and, recently, I ate at the Spice Market and it was just so-so.  What a disappointment.  That can also be the phrase used to describe my prix fixe lunch at JoJo.  However, the disappointment encompasses not only the food, but the service.

Mee-Ryung was, again,  my faithful lunch partner.  We got our favorite type of seating, a corner banquette.  The restaurant is decorated lushly with lots of heavy, velvety fabrics, soft lines and dark corners.  The decor is described as a 1920's bordello, very kitschy.  It was very comfortable. 

The selection on the Prix Fixe menu was large and diverse.  The french bistro menu has a something for everyone and is not overly french.  Some reviewers label it French-American, but I don't think there are enough sandwiches on the menu to be considered American.  M and I easily selected our three courses from the diverse menu.  I chose the spring pea soup with crouton and shrimp with lemon spaetzle, basil butter and spring vegetables.  M chose the tuna tartare with gaufrettes and skate with lemon dressing and mushrooms.  The desserts we chose were a cheesecake biscuit and warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.  It took a little while to get our order in, however.  Our waiter was extremely cordial and charming allowing us to forgive his inconsistent, negligent service, at least for a little while.  Once we chose our wine from a compact, yet suitable wine list we kicked off our lunch.

The first course came and, at first blush, looked beautiful, but on closer inspection was actually haphazard.  The soup was a beautiful spring pea green with a nice brown crouton.  The tuna tartare was interesting with fanned gaufrettes and herbed oil.    Then I realized the soup was nearly overfilling the bowl and a there was a soup trail from a dripping ladle on the edge of the plate.  The crouton looked as if it was thrown on top of the soup and slid to the side.    The gaufrettes on the tuna tartare were unevenly cooked, to the point of nearly burnt and the herbed oil appeared to be put on by a 4 year-old. Plating 101 instructs food should be presented inside the plate or bowl being served, not over the lip.  These elementary errors should not show up at a Michelin Star restaurant.  As for the taste, the pea soup was nice, a little peppery and thick.  It hit the spot for my spring pea craving though.  The tuna tartare was bland , so were the gaufrettes.  It was a bland rendition of what we experienced at Nougatine.

The entrees were presented better.  For my dish, the shrimp and spaetzle were a beautiful, lemon yellow color with herbs and small green and orange vegetables dotting the dish.  The skate looked a bit of a mess, but the skate was in one piece which can be difficult to accomplish because if its texture and low fat content.  The flavors were better than the first course.  My lemon spaetzle, even though it resembled pasta, had a nice flavor.  I didn't really get the basil butter, but the spring vegetables were nice and gave a contrasting flavor to the spaetzle and shrimp.  The shrimp was not overdone, but not very tender.  It tasted good and were good quality.  The skate dish, M and I found to be bland, but done nicely. The skate was fresh and cooked satisfactorily.  The vegetables were a nice accompaniment.  All in all, the entrees were good, nothing beyond repair with a salt shaker.  We got our first top off on our wine and which drained the bottle even though we had both only had one pour each thus far.  Something was amiss.  Believe me, I know how much wine is in a bottle and how far it can go and we should have had one full glass of wine left in that bottle.  Our suspicion quickly turned to our waiter, who we once thought was charming, we now think has liquid charisma coursing through his veins.  This indiscretion was a first for me, but what can you do? You really can't complain or point the finger then you become the offender.  This was quite unexpected funny business from a high caliber restaurant.

The desserts came nicely presented and looked like a real treat.  My cheesecake biscuit came with fresh strawberries and rhubarb.  It was fantastic: sweet, creamy, crunchy  and tart.  It made me glad that the pastry department is separate from the rest of the kitchen.  M's warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream was as you would expect: warm and wonderful.  There was a velvety, chocolate middle to that cake and as it mixed with the vanilla ice cream they melted together into deliciousness. It also had a caramelized sugar tuille for crunch. What a wonderful ending to our questionable meal.

I was glad the meal was only $24 for three-courses. It really was a steal, even with the many faux pas. I don't recommend this restaurant for its Prix Fixe lunch.  It seems like this restaurant's popularity is riding on its location, the glamorous part of the Upper East Side, and the Jean Georges name which can carry a lot of weight with "mover and shaker" types who don't know much about food, but can name drop.  I think that Jean George really needs to work on the management in his kitchens.  Success can be fleeting and the public fickle and if you have people working for you in your kitchens who don't pay attention to detail a lot can go wrong and can devastate a reputation. 

Eleven Madison Park, $29

I just love Eleven Madison Park.  It is one of my favorite restaurants. Eleven Madison Park inspired me in culinary school.  Our career counselors told us to think of a restaurateur or chef that we would like learn from and contact the establishment to do a trail (like an internship).  For me, Chef Daniel Humm had impressed me with his work at Eleven Madison Park. He started working in the kitchens when he was 14.  He trained in some of the top restaurants in Europe and has been nominated and received many culinary awards, most recently the 2010 James Beard Award for Best NYC Chef.  My trail didn't end up with me as the Chef's newest prodigy mainly, because I didn't have it in me to complete an entire awkward dinner service standing in corners watching others work.  I like it much better in the front of the house as a customer.  I have had great dinners and lunches there. However, I have never had their Prix Fixe lunch.

The wonderful and intelligent Mee-Ryung was my lunch partner once again.  We were seated side-by-side along a wall that gave us full view of the bright, art deco restaurant with 30 foot ceilings.  Our Prix Fixe option was two courses for $29.  If we wanted desserts, it would be a la carte.  We had a choice of two items we could pick from three categories: cold appetizers, hot appetizers and entree.  I got the veal sweetbreads and lamb. M got the tuna tartare and bouillabaisse.  With a nice Rose wine picked out for us with the help of the sommelier, we were ready for our food experience. First we were brought an amuse bouche.  A carrot marshmallow and a asparagus gele`e topping a foie gras mousse and a Gruyere gougere.  The carrot marshmallow was too carrot.  It had the untamed carrot twang of highly, yet not carefully reduced carrot juice.  M accidentally dropped hers on the floor, we got more enjoyment from wondering if the marshmallow had bounced when it landed under the table than eating the little orange square.  The asparagus and foie gras did not hit a high note either.  The asparagus gele overpowered the delicate foie gras mousse underneath and with the cold temperature at which it was served made for a an odd palate pairing.  The gougere was fine, not great, but it was cheese, hard to go wrong there.  We also received some sweet Vermont Butter and Fleur de Sel for our unmemorable bread.

We received our first course.  My sweetbreads were pretty fantastic.  The sweetbreads were sauteed and served over Israeli couscous with mushrooms, peas and garlic.  The dish was not heavy as the sweetbread were not fried.  The flavors complimented each other very nicely. I really enjoyed it.   M's tuna tartare was a little disappointing.  It was served with peas, mint and grapefruit with a couple shrimp chips.  The tuna was good, but the dish lacked a balance of flavor.  The mint, peas and grapefruit seemed like a thoughtful, tasty accompaniment.  However, in reality, the mint and peas did not add anything to the tuna, in fact they overpowered.  The grapefruit gave some needed acid to the dish but was overpowering, as well.  The shrimp toasts didn't fit with the dish.  They added little to the overall taste and enjoyment of the dish (and I love shrimp chips).  We reminisced about the superb tuna tartare at Nougatine.

Both entrees came to the table looking beautiful.  However, the lamb, like the tuna, was garnished in such a way that it hid the protein which I am not a fan of for two reasons. One, because the dish only looks nice until you move the garnish to eat and, two, what are they trying to hide?  Thankfully, they weren't trying to hide any blunder under the garnish of my lamb dish.  It was delicious.  The meat was perfectly done, the sauce was nicely balanced and the greens cut the richness nicely to make the dish less heavy.  M's bouillabaisse was gorgeous looking.  The fish was cooked well with big, plump mussels surrounding the sea bass.  The sauce looked rich and flavorful, but didn't deliver. It was bland.  At least, the fish and mussels tasted good on their own.

We decided not to order dessert.  We were a bit disappointed about the meal, so we decided against it.  I was also a little embarrassed.  I had raved about this restaurant to M and it had been my "dream restaurant" to work at (when I was in culinary school).   I was ready to go. . . until we saw Chef  Daniel Humm in the dining room.  M asked him for a picture with us.  He happily obliged, sat between us, put his arms over our shoulders and grinned.  I did not say anything about our disappointing food experience.  Besides, he has won awards and any kitchen can have an off day or even a dish or theme that is not very well received.  Boy, was he nice to take a picture with us.  I was just an admirer, now I am a bit smitten.  I will definitely go back.

Aureole, $34, April 2010

Aureole sits in its new location in the Bank of America Building on 42nd.  A far cry from its beginnings on the Upper East Side some 20 years ago.  It has been injected with new blood  by chef Christopher Lee from Gilt in the New York Palace Hotel, considered some of the best hotel dining available anywhere.  Zagat rates it a 29 in the food category.  With a rating system that goes to 30, that's a pretty special restaurant.  But, Zagat acknowledges that the vote tally was low for this particular restaurant which indicates more testing to be done.  I am up for the task to throw in a couple of votes, at least for lunch.

The restaurant is very modern, classy and airy. They captured as much natural light as is available in their mid-street location near Time Square.  After a short wait, Mee-Ryung, my lunch date, and I were led through the open dining area and modern looking bar to another dining room that was still modern, but warmer.  We were seated at a four-top table with two place settings in the corner of the banquette.  A perfect place for us to philosophize and crack each other up!  The service was very attentive, but not obtrusive.  It was a bit pretentious, but at high end restaurants that is a given.  That said, Aureole was not snooty, but quite comfortable.

The wine list was quite extensive.  They feature their wines in their decor as an illuminated second floor wine loft. Its quite dramatic. But I am interested in finding something that is a little more down to earth, and they have it.  They have several bottled wines for less than $50 and with the help of a very young and capable sommelier you can order one and not feel like you are being cheap.  The by the glass selection is very nice, as well, again decent variety and price. They also offer delicious, specialty iced teas for $4.50, which is a deal, too.

There are two options on the three course menu, which changes periodically.  This day the options were fish or pork with a yogurt or tiramisu dessert.  M got the seafood and yogurt, I got the other half of the menu.  We were served an amuse bouche first.  We got shots of a chilled cantaloupe soup flavored with micro basil and topped with pancetta and watermelon.  It was fresh and rich, but also smooth with a little crunch.  It was a lovely contradiction.

We selected bread from a basket brought to us.   I picked the Parker House Cheese Roll and M had a slice of the cranberry nut bread.   Both were a mouthful of "wow!" in different ways.  Mine was cheesy with a little crunch and M's was soft and not too sweet.  I normally don't write about the bread.  Its usually very good, but not too memorable.  This bread is worth mentioning.

The first courses were beautifully presented.  I got the suckling pig terrine and M the seafood pasta salad.  The terrine was delicious, I love all the accessories you get with it: a little mustard, a little cornichon, a little salad, a little toast.  I love to assemble each bite differently.  M's pasta was perfectly done and the size of the shrimp, scallop, lobster were nicely bite size.  She felt that the seafood was cooked a bit past perfection.  I would have to agree, it had a little more give than I would have expected from a kitchen of this caliber.  I feel like a snob to say that because the fish was terrific, but it could have been done better.  M chided me that she and I are not snobs, "we are aware."

Being "aware", the next course brought the same comments about M's fish.  It was a delicious piece of sea bass, nicely seasoned, over greens and broccolini with a white bean puree draped across the plate and small caramelized apples.  However, the fish was a bit drier than what she and I enjoy.  My pork theme continued with crispy, flavorful pork belly.  It was served over perfectly done kernels of a normally unglamourous grain, bulgar wheat.  Also accompanying were a tasty white asparagus puree to cut the richness of the pork and oyster mushrooms.  Beautiful and delicious.

Our desserts were quite surprising.   I got a deconstructed tiramisu with mascarpone ice cream and M got a yogurt cake with berry coulis.  I had assumed my dessert with mascarpone ice cream was going to be something over the top, but if you have ever tasted mascarpone, you know it doesn't have much flavor, it is a good carrier.  So the ice cream was ice cream, nothing special.  The ladyfingers were handmade and the caramel syrup was very nice. M's dessert was not only "knock-your-socks-off good" it was also beautiful.  The raspberry red and contrasting white.  I had initially pictured a lump of drained yogurt with some flavoring.  I was wrong, it was a rich and tangy mouthful.  The creaminess was cut by the berry sauce. What a pleasant surprise.

Then, another surprise: cookies!  Each cookie was different.  One was apricot, another chocolate, then one with a few flakes of Fleur de sel and a cinnamony one with a Red Hot in the middle.

Aureole is  a fantastic restaurant that I would highly recommend their Prixe Fix lunch.  It is a great value for all you get.  M and I had a great table, the waitstaff was attentive, but not overly  and the food was terrific.  Rating the food only, I would not rate it nearly perfect as Zagat did, but it certainly has many other factors going for it that would make it a perfect meal experience.

Ouest, $28, April 2010, party of 4, April 2010

At the urging of the party present at my Prix Fixe meal at Ouest, I will review a Brunch. The party being my husband and our friends, Laurent and Mee-Ryung. None of us are fans of brunch for various reasons.  To me, brunch is a way for restaurants to use up food that is left over from the Friday and Saturday service by mixing it in eggs and potatoes.  Besides, my husband makes a killer French omelet, if I have a hankering for eggs.  I also think that the B-, C- or hung over- Team is working in the kitchen on that day to give the chef some time off.  I know this is a bleak view of a meal that is extremely popular in NYC, but, for me, there are just too many factors working against a really good, quality meal.  Then, my friends and I went to Ouest for our Sunday lunch.

Ouest is considered one of the more notable, destination restaurants on the Upper West Side. I have eaten dinner here a few times and thoroughly enjoyed it.  On this visit, my friends and I, found ourselves staring at a Brunch menu, no burger or pasta dish to soothe our brunch-phobis souls.  The $28 Prix Fixe menu includes juice or coffee, an appetizer and a Brunch item.  We were stuck: seated and menu in hand we could not walk out, besides I would forfeit the opentable.com points.  So, as food adventurers, we just went with it, but did not expect much.

We were confused by the Brunch menu, as if it were missing a page. So, we were not sure what was included on the Prix Fixe menu.  Once we got a quick explanation from our pleasant, yet distracted waiter, we ordered our Appetizer and Brunch and forgot the juice and coffee.

We were served a basket of warm breads.  There was a nice variety, all were fantastic.  There were cranberry, blueberry and raisin breads. They were hard to divide fairly with the rest of the table once they had been tasted.  They were sweet and moist.  The basket also contained some beautifully herbed rolls that begged to be buttered.  It set quite a good mood for the start of our accidental Brunch, even if the service started a bit slow and shaky.

The salad appetizer was fresh and flavorful.  The lettuce was lightly and carefully covered with a Ceasar dressing with a little grated parmesan.  The house made yogurt appetizer was thick and full bodied with a nice tanginess to it.  The cherries added just enough sweetness.  The spicy tomato bisque was not very spicy, nor was it technically a bisque. Technically, a bisque starts with a seafood stock with that particular seafood diced into the soup, but even, the great,  Larousse concedes that most pink or red purees are called bisques, even if it is an imprecise descriptor.  It was tasty, nonetheless. It was drizzled with a bit of flavored oil and cream, then sprinkled with chives.   Our appetizers were enjoyable.  We wondered how our next course would be.

I ranked the Brunch items from 1 to 4.  1 being the least favorite and 4 the best.  Do not assume that the dish that ranked 1, the hanger steak and eggs, was bad.  It was very good, but, just an ordinary breakfast/brunch item.  The steak was done to a perfect medium rare, the potatoes were seasoned well and the eggs, ordered "over medium", were expertly cooked to "over medium".  I rarely see eggs presented as they were ordered, so this impresses me.  The 2nd ranked was fried poached eggs over duck prosciutto.  Again, this dish was far from being bad.  The cured duck breast was thinly sliced and salty, it was a bit of an exotic treat.  It paired well with the fried poached eggs, however, they were a bit overdone.  The omelt souffle ranked #3. It was light on the tongue, but rich in flavor. In between the egg layers was wilted spinach and a craftily seasoned hollandaise sauce that made you want to lick the plate.  It also had thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms around the souffle giving the dish another flavor dimension.  The smoked sturgeon dish got the most points and snaps.  The flavor of the fish was an "mmmm, oh!", meaning, it tastes terrific when you first put it in your mouth (mmmmm), but as the flavor coats your tongue you realize its not just terrific its spectacular (oh! and your eyes get really wide).  This experience, doesn't happen often because there is an element of surprise.  There was a small frisee salad over the two skillfully prepared poached eggs and some lardons around the plate, which, always add a yum factor.  To our surprise, we were enjoying our brunch and talking about how fantastic the food we were eating was. 

Our  accidental brunch was a delicious and amazing meal.  Our opinions about restaurant brunch may have been a bit shaken, but the four of us will still likely seek out lunch on Sundays as we normally do together.  I will gladly return to Ouest for any meal they are serving.  They truly deserve their high regard in this neighborhood, but their rating of 24 by Zagat, to me, is a little low.  I will give them one more point and make a note to come back for dinner soon to confirm or better that score.