[Pigging by Wilfrid: April 11, 2010]
How's the downtown market for sane, well-made food in a tranquil setting? More bear than bull, I'd say, which sets some hurdles for a joint like the Brindle Room, which offers just that.
This week's Pink Pig is deliberately constructed to highlight two contrasting approaches to offering casual dining in fairly small East Village storefront spaces. I review Northern Spy Co., which follows the instruction manual for downtown/Brooklyn rus in urbe to the letter. And here's the Brindle Room, proposing some more traditional virtues.
The Brindle Room (I never quite figured it out, but is it named for a pet dog?) is tagged "trendy" at menupages.com. At best it is "groovy" - hip it isn't and, frankly, thank goodness. There is room for hip, but it has rapidly become the new predictable. In what was Persimmon, the narrow Korean restaurant on East 10th, a reverie in tobacco browns and beige, lit not dimly but quietly, provides an immediate contrast to the screaming street life on Avenue A. The slim room is lined with tables on one side, set oddly high (not as high as Permanent Brunch), but with comfortable chairs raised high to match them. A dining counter with stools - one awkwardly faces the wall - stretches opposite. There's a tiny bar at the rear.
At first glance, the menu has the brevity, simplicity and ubiquitous retro typography which signals another entrant in the New Downtown/Brooklyn Cuisine stakes: sandwiches, small plates, pork belly, market sides, goodnight. But not exactly - although small plates are present in abundance. It opens with some quite traditional samples of things which go with toasted bread - in theory good for sharing, although portions are small.
The steak tartare, though impeccable, could have been contained in a tablespoon. Brandade, the warming whipped cod spread was more generous. Potted shrimp were a mystery; in the land of my birth, these were shrimp sealed in a pot with butter - just as pork or duck rillettes are potted with fat - and served cold. Here the dish is a warmly tomatoey serving of hot shrimp, pleasant enough but not especially suitable for balancing on the toast with which it was served.
On another occasion, chicken liver mousse with caramelly onions was good enough - and saves everyone the trouble of going to Sammy's Roumanian Funhouse - and was just about enough to feed two. Prices are kind, though: everything in this category in single digits, so it doesn't cause pain to order a bunch of samples for the table.
The wine/beer beverage choice is very short and thus, inevitably, unadventurous. There is little fuss about craft beers. Estrella Damm hardly qualifies as such, let alone Negro Modelo, and the British cider is from a major brewer. The wines are less familiar, and I enjoyed the leathery Rompicolo by Tomassi, only discovering later that at $10 a glass it is significantly over-priced.
A dish of hot baked oysters, following the brandade, emphasized the kitchen's conservative bent. A creamy leek sauce bathed the bivalves under a crisp crumb coat. This is old-school, but it was executed well. Beet salads, on the other hand, are to be found on every new menu: this one was spiked with fresh-squeezed lemon, and underlined with some earthy chunks of Stilton cheese.
Given the reasonable price of the various spreads and small plates, one is almost inclined to treat the Brindle as a wine bar - a place to snack and drink. Truthfully it lacks the wine for that to be a valid proposition. Treating it as a restaurant requires venturing into the handful of entrées offered - four on the menu, one or two more on the special board.
Sampling the duck breast special, I wondered if this was a weak spot. Nothing wrong with it, but a rare, seared, fanned duck breast seems a reminder of many meals past. The dish was saved by sensationally good sweet carrots.
A second attempt at the larger dishes paid off. Cod needs to be turned out impeccably, and this was - crackling skin, creamy flesh, on a delicate sauce of garlic and, I think, red pepper, with some toothsome fava beans lurking beneath. A fish dish which would not embarrass a much more ambitious restaurant - or rather, would embarrass those ambitious restaurants which can't cook fish. There was nothing more expensive on the menu, and this was $23.
Jeremy Spector, previously at Employees Only, is bucking trends by preparing thoughtful, careful, mostly successful versions of what we might call mainstream cuisine. Or the way we used to eat. Nothing on the menu, other than the rareness of the duck breast, would have startled my father. And it's served pleasantly in a relaxing environment; although reservations are for large parties only, there is no scrimmage at the door, no wait-list, and you can hear what people are saying to you, for better or worse. Whether such comfort is economically viable in this 2010 hothouse of a city remains to be seen.
But wait, here are some half-nods to modernity. Here is...pork belly.
Pork belly. Trust me, it's there. Except rather than plopping a hunk or two on a plate and garnishing it with a sprig of something virtuous, chef Spector tosses crunchy slivers in a big spinach salad, and balances a poached egg on top. Anyone who hasn't been to The Breslin for a couple of months might be anxious about maintaining their normal blood-pork level here, but I thought the composition showed some timely restraint.
And hell's bells, here comes poutine. From Daniel Boulud to your corner deli sandwich guy, if you don't re-invent a comfort food classic they take your tocque away. Chef Spector comes through with flying colors here, building the Quebecois on a foundation of duck confit. First rate duck confit too - better than many, and it deserves its own spotlight on the menu. With traditional floury fries and a chiffonade of fresh herbs, this was a surprisingly bright creatuion - the sort of sharing plate which has people digging in with smiles.
I was smirking over the banana bread pudding. Not a slavish dessert eater, and no big fan of chocolate sauces, I do like a bit of banana. There are cheeses if you can't face it.
I once would not have expected to describe The Brindle Room as a useful "addition to the neighborhood." After all, careful cooking of sanely composed dishes shouldn't be that hard to find. As it happens, in the current maelstrom of novelty meatballs, smashed burgers, bagels flown individually from Montreal and pork bellies raining from the sky, chef Spector's concept is as unusual as a snowball in the desert. I pray it stands a better chance.
Here's your website.
FULL DISCLOSURE: On the first occasion I ate at The Brindle Room, I was with a friend of the house and two other people in the business. We weren't comped, and I didn't meet - have never met - the chef. I dined there subsequently, and they wouldn't have known me from a pork pie.
