NYC Gems 2

I did say that I was only going to post the standouts, right? Okay, maybe I have to at least mention a few things here and there – not all gemstones are pretty…. As I said, I’m grazing, and on one eve so far I met up with two friends with plans to simply try the food at one spot, early, and call it a night (at least for them, I planned on more). They decided they wanted to make it an evening of restaurant hopping as well, and so, we hit, in order, Mission Chinese, Cata, and Calliope.

So let’s start at the beginning. Mission Chinese, 154 Orchard St 171 E. Broadway, might be the most talked about new Asian hotspot in NYC right now. At least in some circles. I mean, my friends eat out at Asian restaurants a lot and one of them is in the business. And they’d only really heard about it because the chef, Danny Bowen, just won a James Beard award for “Rising Star Chef”. I’d read about it, and someone from BA who’d been to NYC recently had said they’d really liked it. Supposed to be very creative Asian street food done up restaurant style. I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for a little dive of a basement that was dingy and reminiscent of some sort of 70s cafe where no one cared about the food, just about the attitude. And Attitude, with a capital A, they have. Okay, he did just win an award. He wasn’t there that I saw. I did, while I waited, witness two of the cooks arguing about one spice mixture and what went into it, both had completely different ideas and had been making it their ways “for weeks”, and then they were joined by a third who said, “why don’t you read the f*cking recipe, you’re both wrong.” That didn’t bode well for food consistency.

The attitude upfront continues in back, after passing down a long hallway and emerging in what passes for a dining room. It’s communal table style seating with tables and chairs jammed in like a tetris puzzle and pounding noise from both guests and an overblown sound system. After being informed that the beers on tap weren’t working and there was no other option for beer, we settled for a round of gin and tonics and ordered a half dozen small plates of food to share. Now, with one exception, none of the food was bad, it was all edible and even reasonably nicely presented. But there was simply nothing creative and unusual about any of it, other than that dishes that crossed into different Asian cultures were being served out of one kitchen. But any of the dishes were ones that we’ve seen before and could find down in Chinatown at a lower price or more abundant portion. The seasonings tended to be out of balance – not horribly so, but just off, not surprising given the exchange I witnessed up by the kitchen – leaving us wondering if anyone had actually tasted them before sending them out, not to mention the chef’s quality control on what’s coming out of his kitchen, whether he’s present or not. The plate pictured above, Mongolian long beans, was so laced with cumin and coriander and salty soy that it hurt to eat it, and we pretty much left what you see in the photo. We couldn’t get the check fast enough to get out of there into the relatively blessed silence of Orchard Street…. And it was clear on our leaving that they couldn’t wait to jam in some new arrivals to the seats we’d just vacated. Sometimes, hype really is just hype.

Cata - percebes
At the serene other end of the spectrum, the newly opened Cata, 254 Bowery St, is a cavernous space with high ceilings, an air of calm, and friendly, solicitous staff. A mix of bar seating and high, communal tables with stools, it’s a tapas bar with no pretensions to anything fancier. No fancy fusion, just a modicum of creativity, it’s solidly cooked and presented small plate food designed to be nibbled on while imbibing cocktails. And, the specialty here is gin and tonics, with various gins and various tonics and various infusions gracing a list of a couple of dozen offerings. Apparently the gin and tonic is the cocktail of the moment in Barcelona and they’re following the trend here too. We had simple plates of grilled padron peppers, oysters on the half shell with bone marrow crust, cured anchovies with lemon and radish, and even a bowl of fresh percebes, a type of barnacle rarely seen here. Sorry about the photo…. We nibbled away happily for about an hour, thanked the staff and host, and wandered out into the night air far more fortified.

Calliope - salmon with sorrel sauce
Calliope - halibut

And, decided to head to Calliope, 84 East 4th St at the corner of 2nd Ave, where my friends had heard that some decent French food was to be found. The place was hopping, even more so than Mission Chinese had been, and we just barely garnered the last available table. And throughout the evening as fast as a party would leave the table would be re-sat with someone who was waiting. The space used to be a burger and drinks joint called Belcourt, I remember it from when I lived in the ‘hood as, pretty much, a sort of frat boy dive that was always annoyingly loud and rowdy. It’s still loud as there’s not a soft surface in the place, though it’s less rowdy, as the folk dining there are all from well north of East 60th street residents, well north of 60 years of age, and well north of the Mason-Dixon line – it had to be the whitest, waspiest, most upscale crowd I’ve ever seen in the East Village. And what they’re coming there for turns out to be what I’d say is the best French brasserie food I’ve had in more than a decade. One dish after another was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, and beautifully presented. We couldn’t stop ordering or eating. From the opening salvo of anchovy toast, followed by a dish of fresh Maine sea urchins, then the just barely broiled slice of king salmon pictured above with a vibrant sorrel hollandaise sauce, a spring onion, leek and goat cheese tart, and then the halibut with fresh peas and fava beans and white asparagus all poached in milk, then a perfectly roasted quarter chicken with skin so crispy it cracked when you cut into it, a casserole side dish of chard and sorrel gratin, and finally a tangy rhubarb and strawberry pastry for dessert. The menu is paired up with a brilliantly selected list of mostly French “country wines”, all offered at really reasonable prices. We were so stuffed, and so happy – a complete wow. [Update: Well, there goes this place.]

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11 thoughts on “NYC Gems 2

  1. Wow ! May I saw how we so totally agree with you Dan on today’s review

    We were recently in NY & went to both Mission & Calliope

    Mission:
    1.5 hour wait turned into 2 hours (we had a couple beers down the street)
    We were told we were lucky: it is usually 3 hours
    On arrival: generic rap shit music @ high decibel level
    Upon departure: Lauryn Hill (a mix, we like)
    Wine out of plastic cups: uncool & unpleasant
    Dishes: seasonings we found were on top of the food, not integrated into it. The lamb ribs had kick but not a depth of flavour
    The server warned us the beans were salty & we like salt: it was overwhelming with salt
    Peanuts in some sort of soya/tamari mix: interesting put it was a literal pool of liquid they were swimming in
    Too many LES hipsters following what is perceived as cool

    Calliope:

    Arriving as walk-ins we were immediately ushered to the communal table
    Our server was doing everything: hosting, bussing, serving
    He had a gracious, patient charm
    I ordered the veal tenderloin, a bit too mild for my taste, not meaty enough but it was still delicious
    S had the sea bass which was a standout
    Of course we had the brussel sprouts: slightly deep fried with a hit chili’s: outstanding
    Cheese plate was a variety of hardnesses & a winner
    During our meal we chatted continually with our server (probably annoying him) about our enthusiasm for the place
    Sensing our zeal he had the chef come out & chat with us
    She is a charmer
    Her personality is evident in the food she prepares & in how staff treats customers
    Simple formula: love what you create on the plate, treat your staff nice & customers will follow

    We have a really delicious meal @ Il Buco Alimentari on Great Jones
    Best beef short ribs I’ve ever tasted
    (We also have 3 glasses of wine comp’ed @ the bar)

    Hope you’re having fun in NYC…

    1. Enjoying, absolutely. Miss the U.S.? Not particularly – a few things here and there, and some friends, but other than that, nope. Mostly it reminds me parts of why I left!

  2. Talking with Bowien, it’s easy to see how he’s become a hero to the young people who make up what Adam Platt, in his Mission review , dubbed the No-Reservations Generation. He is driven without being a striver, ambitious without being careerist. And he’s more interested in the craft of cooking than the showmanship of being a chef. “I spent so many years just trying to flex as a cook and say I’m going to be the baddest line cook ever, have the sharpest knife,” he says. In 2008, when he was cooking Italian dishes at San Francisco’s Farina, he took his knives to Genoa, where he competed in the World Pesto Championship—and won. Then he grew restless and decided to start a pop-up Chinese place, for no other reason than Chinese was the food he most liked to eat on his days off. (And because he didn’t like that his friends couldn’t afford to eat at the fancier places he’d been cooking.) Barely two years later, Pete Wells would be raving about Mission Chinese in the Times: “Mr. Bowien does to Chinese food what Led Zeppelin did to the blues.” But it might be more apt to say that Bowien has done to cooking what Pavement did to rock: He showed you could be a virtuoso with the mien of a slacker.

    1. Although that sounds sort of like a canned reply copied from some PR release rather than something personal, my biggest problem with Mission Chinese, and it’s a big one, is that the food wasn’t all that great. All the rest of the stuff – atmosphere and attitude (which doesn’t fit with the goal of having it be a casual place for friends to drop in) – could be completely forgiven if the food had been anything we wanted to eat again.

  3. […] and Washington there were some true highlights (all written about in the last few posts) – the meal at Calliope stands out as the single best meal (and, interestingly the one which contained ingredients near […]

  4. Oscar – I assume you mean Mission. I’d always heard really good things, so it was really disappointing how off the food was, along with all the rest. Maybe when Bowen’s in the house and keeping an eye on things it’s that much better, but that shouldn’t have to be the case. It may also just be that the original SF location is that much better than the NYC one.

  5. Well, this is Mr. Bowen talking about the NYC incarnation in the book I linked above:

    “With a kitchen we’d designed ourselves, and without the physical and cultural
    limitations of the Lung Shan space, the food got better—better than in San Francisco,
    better than I could have hoped. I could cook freely and improve dishes where we’d
    taken shortcuts before.”

    Go figure!

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