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

Prime Grill (Manhattan) 09

It was a pleasure to make this annual trip with my son and daughter in law and her father and brother and my new grand daughter.

The site of their wedding breakfast two years ago to the day! The place is unchanged. Possibly the best kosher restaurant in New York they serve a good variety of fish, meat and sushi. Everything is 'fleishige' no dairy products so there is olive oil or margarine, no butter and soy but no milk. We started with pasta - penne with duck ($28)


which was pleasant enough but nothing special, followed by seriously overpriced ($48) lightly seared 1/2 a Dover sole on tiny salad of braised Julienned carrot, zuccini and peppers






for my partner and a nice fillet of sea bass ($41) with two small vegetarian spring rolls on a small bed of spinach for me. Both very good dishes presented without pretensions. There was general satisfaction from everyone else with their overpriced reserve steak ($52),



the very reasonable chicken salad ($29)




a very substantial Bento box ($39) and California rolls ($12) With tea's coffee's and tax and about 17% service charge ($68+) it came to $80/ person for a very modest quality meal. For sentimental reasons we'll probably come back but if is the best kosher restaurant I'm surprised the yarmulke brigade haven't got better places. Score 13.5/20

Asia De Cuba (Manhattan) 09

We tried this unique Asian/Cuban fusion restaurant at 237 Madison (between 37th and 38th St) on the recommendation of friends and we were not disappointed. Attractively designed with an upstairs gallery




where diners look through an open atrium on to tables at the lower level.







Currently fashionable it was near full of largely contemporarily dressed early and middle aged not quite glitterati. They specialize in cocktails ($13-15), with a small international wine list, We drank Blue Cubans,










Cruzan pineapple, Blue Curacao and Pineapple juice and an Italian Pinot Grigio ($11). Food is served on large rectangular platters and it is all designed for sharing. Serves are large so our two appetizers and two mains was a good size meal. They have a $69 tasting menu which, strangely, has an extra dish for parties of four or more. The a la carte menu includes all the degustation items. We started with pan seared jumbo sea scallops ($29)






which were huge, served with sweet and sour plantains and a white corn sauce called habanero corn crema. Lightly seared they were succulent, sweet and I recommend them. From the other dozen or so choices we had Asian spiced pork spare ribs. They came with an extremely pleasing roast corn, black bean and avocado salad topped with lightly pickled onions. Plenty of meat on the ribs but the preparation made them taste more like tender beef. there were 14 mains, called entrees here, from which we started with tropical hoisin roasted duck ($39)sweet soy glaze ($22)
accompanied by Asian micro green salad, platano maduro, papaya salita and duck jus. A bit heavy handed with the hoisin but I thoroughly enjoyed the flavour. The miso cured Alaskan black cod ($38)


was outstanding. Served with Cuban black bean and edamame salad and tempura shisto peppers this large fillet was perfectly cooked. Layers of succulent cod separated from each other retaining a moistness and even texture with barely a hint of fibre. A great dish. Desserts were a shock. The coconut cake ($14)










with two very large scoops of ice cream as huge, certainly enough for two, but very dry whilst the banana split ($19)

was obscene. Big enough for three or four normal serves, lashings of cream, masses of ice cream chocolate and caramel sauce, sugar coated macadamia nuts, chocolate chip biscuits, and more plus the bananas, of course, all atop a large chocolate brownie. We didn't get near to finishing it.









Service was extremely helpful, since I had no idea about Cuban food, and very amiable with sound advice. The flavours were new to me, well worth trying, but they were heavy handed with the sauces which were to dominant at times. Score: 14.75/20

per se New Years Eve 08 (Manhattan)

My second visit to per se after a two year break I was expecting something very special, particularly as the price tag for the meal was US$750/person plus drinks. This time we were with friends and I valued their opinion too which largely paralleled my own. It was a 10 course degustation menu which started with a glass of good champagne and a complicated amuse bouche - a phallic looking coronet of salmon tartare with gentle flavouring.




A good start. The first course was "Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters (two tasty little ones) and a very handsome serve of Osetra caviar.



An excellent dish, the textures melded well and offset the saltiness of the caviar it melted in the mouth. Next came a white truffle oil infused custard -a "ragout" of black winter truffles served in a decapitated egg shell.


Strong in truffle bouquet and flavour it brought a primitive memory of the terroir of Alba to mind. A very rich custard another fine entree. Then followed a mascarpone enriched white corn polenta with shaved white Alba truffles with "Castelmagno" cheese and "Jus de Poule".









The cheese melted into this dish increasing it's richness Lots of truffle married well with this fine dish. The next dish was lightly roasted Turbot (from South America). Served with black winter truffles, Russet Potato "Mille-Feuille" sweet carrots, Tokyo turnips Banyuls vinegar sauce.








A very fine dish (the turbot was much bigger than the potato!) with a good balance of tastes and textures. It was rather fanciful calling the couple of slices of potato 1000 leaves but it was the sort of quality I was expecting. The butter poached Nova Scotia lobster with compressed Matsu apple and fennel bulb a good size serve buried under the brown butter mouseline was a great combination. The sweetness of the apple complimented the lobster and blended perfectly with the mousseline - no truffles! but this was the best dish so far.







I loved it. Next came the meat dishes. Four Story Hill Farm Squab. Sauteed Moulard Duck Foie Gras, wilted Dandelion greens and Garnet yams with mead jus.






By now I was getting fairly full and the I could almost feel the super rich outstanding foie gras oozing with cholesterol. The squab was superb and would have a made a great main course at any restaurant. The last 'main' course was a sirloin of Blackmores Wagyu "confit de Langue Boeuf", caraway seed pain perdu, caramelised Savoy cabbage and pickled pearl onions with a Bordelaise sauce.





Another extremely rich dish the Wagyu was extremely tender but had much milder taste than what I expected perhaps because of the way it had been slow roasted. They were unable to tell me what grade of Wagyu it was. The bourdelaise sauce was much to heavy an overwhelmed the rest of this dish. The "Vacherin Mont d'Or" with celery root on a pepper shortbread and garden Mache and puree de Pruneaux d'Agen preceded the desserts. My companions found this too rich after the series of very rich dishes that preceded it but it was certainly a delight to the taste buds.

Excellent dish again but so rich after so much very rich food. The Carnoroli rice pudding was not improved by the shaved white truffles - they seemed to be fixated on them. Finally the Devils Food Cake, chocolate "Marquise"and malt cremeaux with banana creme fraiche sherbet

which was delicate and delicious though an almost sickeningly rich finish to the meal before coffee and chocolates. We ordered a bottle of Alsatian Pinot Gris (2004 ?Boxler) $155 which turned out to be excessively sweet unlike the sommellieurs description, and left it for the dessert having a bottle of Pol Roger instead. ($135). The service was impeccable, the venue spacious and the tables large, the cutlery and crockery extremely fine. After all that though the dinner was too dominated by truffles and extremely rich food to be enjoyed to the end. The first half of the meal was fine with tastes of the various ingredients marrying well but too much rich food jades the appetite and the palate. As we left we were presented with a most extraordinary gift. A nice bag containing some of the breakfast things sourced from purveyors with whom they have been collaborating for many years, The most surprising item being two fresh eggs from Squire Hill Farm now a staple on their menu.

While each of the dishes was excellent the meal did not achieve the heights aimed for by it's designers because it was so very unbalanced. To give them their due this was a special night and they attempted to much. There was insufficient time to recover from each magnificent dish. This tired the palate and jaded the appetite. Two of my companions stopped eating well before the end of the meal.

Score: 16.5/20

La Grenouille (Manhattan)

Grenouille are frogs legs which, in English, may not sound very appetizing to many people. It would be a sad mistake to make presumptions about this restaurant on that basis. I don't think I can put it better than Zagat did a few years ago when they said "'Regal, elegant and timeless' this East side (they are at 3 East 52nd St, between 5th and Maddison) French classic is one of the city's last 'grande dames' supplying 'superb' cuisine in 'beautiful' quarters with 'sublime fresh flower displays' (They even sell a book detailing 'Flowers of La Grenouille').......'gracious' black tie service and a chance to experience 'a treasured remnant of old NY' conspire to make the $87 (now $95) prix fixe dinner feel like a bargain." At that time they got 27 out of 30 for food, decor and service.
Two years later it all remains true. We started with a glass of Louis Roderer champagne ($22) followed by a bottle of NV Veuve Cliquot ($130). The chef sent around a plate of cheese sticks and small gougeres followed by a taster of chestnut puree.









For Premier Plat I had Beggars purse of poached truffled egg ($32)





a delicately prepared dish with a surround of mushrooms however there was no evidence of truffles either by taste texture or sight. My partner had quenelles of pike with American caviar ($23)

the finest that she has EVER eaten. The accompanying white rice was a little bland but the sauce perfect. Our friends had potato blini with salmon tartare and American caviar






which were reported as excellent, as was Le Choix des Hors d'Oeuvres.







For mains I could not go past the signature dish - frogs legs sauteed Provencale ($57 or $15 supplement with the prix fixe)










which didn't look like much but was well spiced, tender and with a delicate taste, much finer than chicken, to which it is often compared. My partner had sea bass with sage and butternut squash ($47).

Despite assurances that it would be lightly cooked it was thoroughly cooked and promptly replaced with a fillet prepared as requested, and a complimentary glass of champagne! The puree was a perfect match to the fish - a great combination. The filet minion











was another excellent dish. I had the cheese selection for dessert ($25) four modest pieces - goat, blue, and two which I could not identify by either the waiters diction or the cheeses themselves. Served with walnuts, a lovely apricot puree and fingers of toasted fruit bread they were a little too cold and would have been better a room temperature. The others had the Grand Marnier souffle ($8.75 supplement on the prix fixe).











Almost 8 inches high and 6 across they were magnificent. The service was exemplary, the setting lovely although the tables were rather close. The noise level was not excessive at any time - they have a sign saying cell phones, laptops and uncontrolled children are not permitted in the dining room! In all it was quite expensive (US$180 per person with tips and tax), a very good meal enhanced by the setting and the most congenial company.














Score 18/20