[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 6, 2015]
Well, I mean, the name of the place. Meadowsweet. A pastoral idyll. Dingly dell. Le Pré Brooklyn. A midsummer night's pigging. But I admit, the name was completely off my radar.
A Michelin-starred restaurant right across the street from Peter Luger--yes, on that distinctly unpastoral, windswept stretch of Broadway under the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Just a step of two from the old bank building which is now a beguilingly rose-lit event space.
Michelin-starred it may be, but this is a big, bustling, noisy dining hall--plain wooden tables, family groups chowing down, some really awful pop music blaring above the voices. Service is polished in style, a little wayward in content. The menu listed duck breast, pork chop, lamb rack, and...American wagyu. So what cut was the beef? My server fumbled with her spine. "Just from the back here. On the left." The chef insists on the left, I assume, because the cows favor the right when standing, making it tougher. Oh, never mind.
With cava poured into a standard wine glass (I'm actually okay with that), and a warm homemade roll (just the one, the bread never came round again), I settled into figuring out the difference between "appetizers" and "shares." The latter presumably serve more than one; yet they're cheaper than appetizers. Maybe just easier to split.
My perplexity was relieved by an offer of oysters, and I took half a dozen Beausoleil, just with a squeeze of lemon, although horseradish and mignonette were handy. Good with that warm bread (wish I'd been offered some more).
Having had my perplexity excised, my skepticism was next for the chopping block. The day boat scallops gave me the first glimpse of why the restaurant was popular with Michelin inspectors and the local public. A really deftly garnished dish--chanterelles, and a sort of truffled corn sauce. And the scallops themselves, burnished on top, but just cooked through (not disappointingly raw in the middle) had no room for improvement. Starters here are priced at $16/$17, which is steep in for 2015, but this was high quality stuff.
The entrée revealed, I think, the kitchen's soul (and yes, it was too dark for decent photographs). This kind of plate now seems old-fashioned. Hotel or fancy American restaurant cooking from the '90s. Which is not, in my book, a criticism. We don't need to be shocked with smoked sea urchin in a kale suspension every day of the week.
The centerpiece was two of those lean, tender, not highly flavored cannons of meat. Lamb in this case, but you can be served beef or pork in the same configuration. It's the hefty protein which underwrites the $34 price tag. Creeping up beside it, the interesting piece of meat: a lamb rib, packed with salty, funky taste, with sternly crisp fat. Here's the dilemma: serve the anonymous but costly filet or loin and someone like me gets bored; give me a plate of neck or ribs and charge me $34 and I get grouchy. I guess this is a fair compromise, but it's a familiar one (duck breast, with a little bit of confit; beef filet, with a little bit of cheek; pork tenderloin, with a little bit of belly).
The highlight of the dish: again, garnishes. Delicious. Pearled heirloom eggplant; little, sweet Cubanelle peppers, hints of halloumi and sesame. I could have eaten these accompaniments all night. The chenin blanc I drank with the scallops was a little thin and astringent, I thought. The cab franc by the glass went well with the lamb.
Only three desserts on the short list, and three dessert cocktails too. I opted for something without chocolate--a honey and lavender panna cotta, sharp blackberry sauce, pistachio tuile. It tasted fine, but the cream itself had a very odd elastic texture. Stretchy. Not a deal-breaker. Just odd.
There it is. A hundred dollar-plus check if you drink anything. In summary, I'd say it's the sort of restaurant you used to find in the Flatiron (actually--The Gander--you still do).
Here's the website.
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