[Pigging by Wilfrid: March 10, 2008]
Undertaking one of Manhattan's great diagonal schleps, LES to UWS, I tried to forget the indecent haste with which Count Frankula of the Times followed his three-starring of Dovetail ...
With his Diner's Journal anointing of the remote UWS as a "buzzing beehive" of restaurant activity.
Yes, and what does that make the Lower East Side, I wonder, or even Brooklyn? In any case, a new fancy trough on the way to or from a cultural event on Broadway's upper heights is always welcome (and I can set aside periodic underwhelmings over the years - Ouest, Aix, Telepan...).
Dovetail is entered attractively through a heavy glass door implanted in a grand old townhouse. The initial impression dips immediately as one passes a very basic and casual bar, where locals are quietly chugging beer. In the rear, the dining room is a quizzical mix of cheap and fancy. The truly horrible tables would be at home in a Chelsea diner (and they have that horrible base which means your feet don't touch the floor all night).
There's some nice wood (maple?) on some walls; a central thick brick wall (original?), and tall, bottle-green, padded sections rising up behind the banquettes. Waiters wear off-cream steakhouse jackets.
Mmm, but at least there's a attempt to amuse the gullet. Cubes of tuna, crusted with parmesan, perhaps in a deliberate visual reference to Turkish Delight? A bit chewy, though. The spoons of caviar and vodka jelly with capers and sour cream were refreshing, but lacked distinctive flavors.
Clam chowder was prettily served: a pile of clams with diced potatoes, carrots, herbs, the creamy soup poured at the table. Everything was good, except for the rubberiness of the clams. One would swallow the soup, the sort of sit there just...chewing.
Several other appetizers demanded attention, and I was tempted just to order my way through that part of the menu. I'm intrigued by the pairing of skate and chicken wings, for example. I might just go away and invent my own version of Buffalo skate. Happily, I settled on the savory jewel-box which paired lamb tongue (Ste.-Menehoud style) with a sort of deconstructed N'awlins muffaletta.
The latter, as you know, is a sandwich the size of a hub-cap and somewhat thicker best - indeed, only - enjoyed in the vicinity of the Crescent City's Central Market. Here we have a neat, cool roulade of ham and cheese, poised on what I took to be a gribiche sauce, but was perhaps a remoulade. Slivers of black and green olives and pimientos added contrast to deftly crisped, breaded tongue.
A dish of exceptional balance and savor, and I don't care, as Dr Johnson said, how soon I eat it again.
One is invited to compose a dinner by choosing dishes from the tasting menu as well as the carte, and the halibut came from the former. Nice, creamy fish. The garnish of powdered nutmeg with sea salt, as well as fried apples, was challenging to someone who grew up eating halibut "steaks" - when they were cheaper, floured and fried with "chips". Black trumpet mushrooms made sense, though.
I should give up ordering beef, outside of good steakhouses (and Craft). There was nothing untoward about this slab of roast sirloin, but nothing thrilling about it either. The sauce was a fiercely over-reduced reduction. My reason for choosing the dish, the beef cheek lasagne, didn't disappoint. I'd have been happier with a portion of just that.
A glass of 2003 Montelena cabernet from a recently opened magnum paired well.
A review of a restaurant needn't and shouldn't be a review of a critic, but I've always taken a Times three star to be a dining option of significant comfort and solid achievement, falling short of the city's top level of dining. This, on the other hand, is a shabby chic newcomer with some nice ideas and some mis-steps. Reality check.
I won't link to the Dovetail web-site as it doesn't seem to tell you anything.
