A Return Match With Northern Spy

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  January 23, 2012]

I reviewed Northern Spy Co, a small restaurant on a quiet block off between Avenues A and B, not long after it opened.  Why did I decide it was time for a re-match?

When I first visited, my patience was already worn thin by a series of restaurants of almost identical mien and menu, bombarding the diner with truisms about sourcing farm-to-table local ingredients and making silly fusses about "breaking down" (i.e. butchering) whole animals.

Although I found some very good food - the pork terrine, for instance - Northern Spy overwhelmed me with its good intentions and its blog - not to mention all the parties of neat young women who were now ordering pork belly and cans of beer with the same gusto their forebears ordered green salads and cosmopolitans.

Since then, the restaurant has made some changes, essentially ripping out the pretense of also being a "general store," and it's been persistently and evidently popular.  After a very fine brunch there, which I mentioned briefly in my piece on biscuits and gravy for The Local East Village, I decided dinner was in order.

And it didn't disappoint.  For what it is.  It's still a small restaurant, trying hard; prices are fairly low; and the kitchen is doing a decent job.  I say this, because there's no need to cross land and sea to visit.  It's a worthy contender if you need to eat in the East Village: if you can get in.

There are snacks as well as appetizers on the menu, encouraging consumption of an extra course.  I fell for it as usual, order a pot of smooth, smoked bluefish rillettes, which went nicely with a heap of pleasantly oily garlic toast - a bit short on garlic, but none the worse for that.

The duck sausage was so neat and tidy I suspected mass production - but no, I was told, it's made and cured inhouse.  The texture is tight, the flavor mild.  I was expecting a dish with more heft.  I want to say it came with cranberry sauce, but I am missing a note (and it was a special).  A sharp fruit condiment, anyway.

Northern Spy is distinctly cozy.  If you avoid the punishing bar stools and the counter facing the wall, you can settle into one of the comfortable bench seats which seem to have been pulled from vintage railway stations, drink wine from a generously filled tumbler, and be well served.  Too well served in my case as I was triple-teamed by staff members, which can make it hard to remember what you've ordered from whom.

The manager, I guess, surprised me by steering me away from the pork shoulder.  "Not my favorite entrée," she insisted.  Northern Spy had, in the past at least, made a big deal about buying half a pig a week and serving different parts daily.  Apparently today's cut, a rolled pork shoulder, hadn't gone so well.  I headed for the lamb.

Elysian lamb, and couldn't really have been better prepared.  Medium rare, keeping just a streak of juicy fat around the meat, it was as good a lamb dish as I've eaten in a while.  Accompanying it, a granola spiked with vadouvan, a French spice mix with a curry tone to it; yogurt too and some tender collards.

By the way, if you take brunch here - which I recommend - the home-made granola with yogurt is tremendous.

Cheese to finish, and I didn't pay any attention to what it was, which is why you love me, right?  I do know Northern Spy usually buys from Consider Bardwell farm, but I'm not sure these were from there.  You have a choice of cheeses, $6 a piece.  Simple presentation. 

Northern Spy is now doing a handsome enough job of feeding people, and you don't need to read about their every move on their website if you don't want to.  Do be warned, though.  Walk ins only, and it's very popular.  Good luck.