Talepan (Manhattan) 09

Tucked away at 72 West 64th St. this attractive lime green restaurant in two town houses serves contemporary American cuisine. They have a $28 two course brunch as well as lunch and dinner. It has been something of an experiment for Chef Bill Telepan breaching the upper west side with his 'preciously high brow seasonal cooking'. A Greenmarket enthusiast the menu is riddled with eggs, blini, seafood and salads. We enjoyed the $28 brunch but generally there are about 10 appetisers, 10 'middle' courses 10 mains and 10 desserts from which to choose. A bit too much perhaps. The brunch starts with a bowl of "Breads and Sweet Things" being sweet breads/cakes. I then had house smoked brook trout



on a buckwheat blin with green apple puree. The trout had been flaked and was excellent but would have been better with the celery root blin as on the menu. My friend had the salad


of baby lettuce



dry monterey jack dressing & garlic-herb croutons - a dish for the greenies not very special. The omelet
with salad and hash browns lobster & scallion (supp.$5.00) bacon & aged cheddar or mushroom and herbs, I had the mushrooms, was, again, quite nice but pretty ordinary. My friend had pan roasted trout,spinach salad, bacon and pine nuts without special comment. Again the apple fritter ($11)

was unremarkable. What stood out most to me was the peculiarity of the service. Unable to follow my colleagues accent our server gruffly stated 'If you're talking to me I can't understand a word you're saying' as was about to walk off. Later when I was about to pour some wine (we had a bottle of very palatable 06 Kingston Alazan Pinot Noir $65) he quickly took the bottle and as I thanked him said "This is what I get paid $4 an hour to do" I might have said he was overpaid though we did leave the usual 20% tip. Score 13/20