I was surprised by the sheer grandness of Daniel-like an old fashioned luxury hotel dinner and dance dining room-lots of red plush, massive floral displays, huge paintings and mirrors and an army of besuited serving staff gliding and swirling wherever you look. I half expected the Edmundo Ross orchestra to pipe up any minute and invite us to take a twirl on the (non-existent ) dance floor.
The menu is $88 for three courses but with lots of supplements, which irked me. I mean if you're going to have a fixed price why unfix it with every other dish? Why not just price dishes individually? Ultimately it becomes like a ploy to ensure you order three courses.
Starters had excellent primary ingredients Fahro continued her love affair with scallops which came with a porcini, kale and black truffle based sauce. Lovely scallops but not much hint of truffle. My single Langoustine ($15 supplement if you please) was sweet and rich, but the advertized Ginger and Almond Crust was again so tentative with the ginger as to render it virtually undetectable. However surrounding the Langoustine was a Pea Soup (Scottish Langoustine, English Peas. I should have worn my Union Jack tee-shirt) which was none other than a play on peas, with sweet peas, a pea foam, little whole and split peas. If you like peas this was a fun dish.
Then came my dish of the trip so far Braised Beef Short Ribs in Red Wine with Sauteed Porcini Scallion Mashed Potatoes and Early Spring Green Fricasee. Wow! The meat had been cooked gently for hours and had become infused with all the flavours of wine and porcini to a dark caramelised glaze. It had held together but with just the right degree of resistance when you cut it-like butter at the perfect temperature. It was deeply satisfying and beautiful tasting dish
Fahro's quartet of Baby Lamb with the usual olive and aubergeine and tomato concasse thing had lovely meat, but I'm not the greatest fan of this Provencal tratment of Lamb (wot no Mint Sauce?) but it was a good example of the genre.
Then another great dish-Hot Chocolate Upside Down Souflle with Cafe Brulot (?) Ice Cream. I know the hot chocoate cup cake with molten choc inside is commonplace now,but it was no less perfectly executed and scrummy for that. The molten chocolate was HOT, as it should be. Warm Griotte (?) Cherries Ceylon-Cinnamon Ile Flottante and a Pistachio Emulsion was fine. but again very tentative, this time with the Pistachio.
Despite one or two gripes there was a lot that was superb about this meal, enough to ensure that we left happy and satisfied, floating down Lexington-pleased to be in NYC