Local And Imported: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  September 30, 2013]

Some eating in the neighborhood, ten years ago, plus a visit to a new Greenwich Village restaurant making a big deal of "controlled designation of origin" products.

I also took delivery of the hundreds of books I'd left in storage in the UK when I moved here six years earlier. A weight off my mind (and into my apartment).

I started the week sick, and eating braised veal with sorrel at home.  By Wednesday, I was out for dinner, at a new Japanese restaurant just off Avenue C, Kasadela. A sake bar with a small plates menu, Kasadela was a charming standby until its premises--and business-were sadly wrecked by Hurricane Sandy last year. My first dinner there featured Kumamoto oysters (on the half shell and fried), rock shrimp, spinach in miso, and little boxes of sake.

Supper of smoked chub from Russ and Daughters the next night, then on Friday another new local restaurant: Salt Bar on Clinton Street. My main memory--and it is vivid--is not of the food, but of the almost total sensory deprivation brought on by the low lights and the extraordinary noise level.

I've been in some loud restaurants, but this was unique.  Yelling into the server's ear, and she still couldn't hear the orders. Somehow we ended up with shrimp satay, spare ribs, chorizo, and green beans with prosciutto and cheese grated over them.  Not worth the suffering.

Last stop that week was a good deal more relaxed. A.O.C. Bedford, in a quiet stretch of Bedford Street--not to be confused, although it often was, with A.O.C. on Bleecker--was a Mediterranean restaurant, I guess. Its name referred to the appellation d'origine contrôlée system by which the French authorities designate foods and wine; but it seemed as much Italian as French.

After a Negroni, I ate duck terrine, and roast loin of lamb with potatoes. Cheeses followed (apparently not exciting enough to be listed in my journal), and then an indulgence of crêpes Suzette--flamed, as I recall, at the table. A Priorat, Clos de Mas 2000, accompanied the meal.

Pleasant. And it closed in 2008, I believe.