I was just on the east coast for the holidays, doing a lot of eating. I’ll cover the food we’ve cooked in a separate post, but I wanted to talk about two of the restaurants we’ve gone to. First is Stage Left, in New Brunswick NJ, the second, Asíate, in NY City. Both final bills were about the same, but the difference in service made both experiences very different.
Stage Left, a local restaurant I’ve always liked, seems to have evolved from very polished, well-looked-after and expensive, into very expensive and under-managed. Perhaps I’m judging the character of the place unfairly, since we went on Christmas eve, when the staff and management may be at its weakest, but the service can only be described as fumbling and I’m sure it wasn’t this very young staff’s first or last night.
This place has an excellent selection of beers, with some fine Belgians, but they were out of several listed on the menu. I can almost excuse being out of both sizes of Abbey de Rocs Special Noel, but if you’re also out of Corsendonk and Chimay, reprint your menu. And don’t bring me a Maudite as a replacement, without asking for my approval, and certainly don’t put it on the bill. Maudite is a fine beer, and I did order the Noel which is a similar spiced-up strong Belgian, but I personally don’t like coriander-heavy ale with food. While you’re at it, train your staff not to pour beer like tap water, so it doesn’t foam over and have a third of it wind up on the table cloth.
I went finally went back to the beer I had started with - a wonderful Belgian on tap, McChouffe, made by Brasserie d’Achouffe). However, if you’re going to charge me 8 and a half bucks for a beer, put it in a proper glass, and if you have to put it in an American pint glass, at least fill it more than three quarters to the rim. These may be small complaints, but as they add up, you can’t help becoming very critical of everything that comes afterwards. Going almost the entire length of the main course while waiting for a beer was very noticeable.
The meal itself was excellent, a $79 degustation, which included scallops, hamachi, a finely prepared cod, and a lamb chop. Most of the evening’s complaints were forgotten during an enormously generous selection of cheeses. The meal finished with a delicious bread pudding. One of the diners at our table had the Christmas goose main course, which was really tasty and included a chestnut rissoto stuffing.
One last gripe - if I should have to tip you to get my coat back when going home, don’t be standing on it when you hand it to me.
Sorry, no photos, there wasn’t enough light to focus, and there is only so long I mess with a camera at a dinner table.
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The second restaurant by comparison, seemed to be staffed by zen master wait staff. Asiate, at Columbus Circle, sits on the 35th floor of the new Mandarin Hotel, high above what will soon be a culinary mecca, an atrium worth of restaurants to be run by such superstars as Keller, Vongerichten, Trotter and Takayama. Not to say Asiate’s chef, Noriyuki Sugie isn’t without star power, he once worked for Trotter in Chicago.
After a little wrangling with them to get a window table, the staff melded into their environment and performed like a team of ninjas. My Chimay came when I wanted it, and at one point when we were pouring our own coffee from its metal french press, (seconds too fast for the staff to do) the metal trivet stuck for a second to the bottom, than fell to the floor. Before it got a chance to really clatter, a passing waiter with an entire cake in one hand, reached down, snatched it up and placed it back on our table without loosing a step in his intended direction.
We opted not to do the $85 tasting menu, since the course items seemed more inticing. This may have been because the tasting menu wasn’t well described, but it doesn’t usually have to be. The $65 dinner included several amuses, an appetizer, main course and desert.
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One of the amuses was a cauliflower/pumpkin soup, which seems like a yicky pairing, was brilliantly bridged by just the right amount of curry. The venison and foie gras terrine, with mache salad, sauce vin cotto was one of those tastes that just leave your mouth unable to speak. Vin cotto translates as “cooked wine” and is the cooked must of the grape. My main course, Pressed Suckling Pig, with Pigs Trotter Croquette and Pig Cheek Confit, Sauce Japonegi which was not only delicious, but entirely satisfying. The trotter croquette (feet) is seen here with the small bone sticking out.
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I finished the meal with a passion fruit/mango souffle, served with a sticky rice and vanilla ice cream, and a passion fruit foamed juice. Others at the table had a desert called apple, apple, apple which consisted of three glasses which contained apple concoctions, one of which was an ‘apple pie’ in a glass, with a pie crust stick in the glass.
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To compare these two restaurants of similar price, one tries a bit too hard to be something a little too lofty than its ability, and the other nails it.