Today's review roundup includes: Indochine, La Grenouille, Yakitori Totto, Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches, Cacio e Pepe.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni finds Indochine "satisfactory" (430 Lafayette Street; 212-505-5111):
Indochine is celebrating its 20th birthday this month, and it still flaunts a noisy and crowded dining room, a tropical-bordello décor and a gaunt, gorgeous crew of servers who look as if they have just tumbled out of beds in which sleeping was not a priority.
But Indochine as it once existed inevitably died (and not just because Brian McNally sold it in 1992). In its place stands a museum, more or less, that draws young people who clearly consider it an anachronistic hoot, patrons of the Joseph Papp Public Theater or the Blue Man Group who need a nearby trough, Midwestern and European tourists who do not know any better, and Iman.
"That's her," a server confided to a friend and me when we dined at Indochine on a recent night. "Over there, at that large table. She's in here all the time."
. . . During my recent visits to Indochine, the sauces tended to be too sweet. The meat and fish tended to be mistreated. I had overcooked duck, overdressed beef, rock-hard shrimp.
But here is the odd, crazy thing: I also had a decent time, and the main reason was not Indochine's delectable cocktails, especially the Indochine martini, made with pineapple, ginger, lime juice and Triple Sec. It was not the respectable desserts, especially the coconut crème brûlée.
It was the way the servers strutted and sidled as if the 1980's had never ended, as if the sexy beat went on. The Indochine dining room is usually that degree of dark that graciously air-brushes everyone's wrinkles and pores, and when I was there, the soundtrack was heavy with hits from the 1980's.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Cambodian carpaccio; spicy chicken breast; chicken breast with mushrooms; steamed rice noodles; coconut crème brûlée; Asian pear wontons
NYPost Steve Cuozzo gives La Grenouille three stars (3 E. 52nd Street; 212-752-1495 ):
New York's traditional "Le's" and "La's," with their tuxedoed staff and equally starched menus, have fallen one by one: Lutece, La Caravelle. La Cote Basque turned into casual Brasserie LCB. Le Cirque is leaving its home and may not reopen.
The Fabulous Frog of East 52nd Street didn't so much outlast its rivals as beat the living culottes off them.
It didn't toss its menu, dress code or famous profusion of flowers; gleaming burnished wood, gold fabric walls, red banquettes and white tablecloths make Grenouille the same womb of unabashed, mirrored luxury it's been since 1962.
But it translated its stubbornly all-French language menu into English. It replaced its ponderous front drapery with a sheer curtain and added new doors that open onto the sidewalk. . .
They know they have a winner in chef Ian Collay's menu, which lets you mix and match categories. If you can't spring for the $87.50 prix-fixe dinner, the $37.50 and $49 prix-fixe lunch options are your economy-class ticket to fabulousness.
Collay's lineup falls shy of cutting-edge, despite a few "healthy" offerings. Escargots with garlic butter seem as laboratory-preserved as front-room regular George Hamilton. Flavorless "ballotine" of smoked salmon with bits of cubed potatoes would embarrass a WASP country club buffet.
But roasted sea bass on a pillow of sweet potato puree with braised artichoke respects the creature's natural moisture and oceanic essence. Pike quenelles Lyonnaise float on air: "We use champagne sauce, not lobster sauce like the ones at Caravelle," the waiter smiles.
NYTimes $25 and Under reviews Yakitori Totto (251 West 55th Street; 212-245-4555):
Yakitori means "grilled chicken" and refers generally to skewered meats cooked on a long brazier just wide enough to char the meat without burning the skewers.
You will start with skewers and drinks. The beverages of choice are draft Kirin ($6) in ceramic mugs, or iced glasses of shochu — Japanese or Korean vodka — served with half a grapefruit and a juicer ($6).
Waitresses will ask if you would like your yakitori with salt or "sauce." I oscillated between the simple garnish of salt and the faintly sweet mirin-and-soy glaze. Try both.
More of the chicken is offered than I was aware is edible — anyone for a grilled skewer of "soft knee bone" ($3)? — and is broken down into parts. A wide variety of breast meat skewers ($2 to $3 a skewer), some with their own sauces, are tantalizingly mild and impossibly tender; cooked quickly over a blazing hot fire, Yakitori Totto's breast meat is as moist as anything.
But white meat is junior league considering the offerings, so move on to the more flavorful options. All the dark meat ($2 to $2.50) is good; liver ($2) is crisped and charred outside, succulent within. Chicken skin ($2.50) used to be my go-to for crackling crisp flesh. But now I've had tail, equally crisp but with a molten chicken-fat core, and there's no turning back. Two impossibly cute chicken tails are impaled on two parallel skewers ($2.50).
BEST DISHES All yakitori; chicken with scallion and egg over rice; fried fish cakes; creamy apricot kernel custard.
NYPost reviews Nicky Vietnamese Sandwiches (150 E. Second Street; 212-388-1088):
Say what you will about the French, they sure have a way with food. Had one of their former colonies never met the baguette, there wouldn't have been banh mi, the Vietnamese sub.
Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches, a new East Village storefront with two tables and five chairs, features banh mi of paté, ham, ground pork, pickled carrot, cucumbers, lettuce and cilantro on French bread.
But it helps to have patience. Sometimes they run out of the rolls. And once I cooled my heels for an hour while an emergency supply of meat and carrots was stuck in traffic.
Even when baguettes are stockpiled like a golden arsenal of torpedoes behind the counter, it takes about 10 minutes for them to be crisped in a toaster oven, and the sandwiches assembled and slipped into waxed paper bags.
But it's worth the wait. The roll — lighter and less bulky than its Italian counterpart — has a brittle crunch announcing rich bites of liver and peppercorn-studded pork against clean cucumber, tangy carrot and vibrant cilantro, mellowed by a swipe of mayonnaise. It's also surprisingly neat to eat.
Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews Cacio e Pepe (182 Second Avenue; 212-505-5931):
A newcomer to the hurly-burly of Second Avenue, Cacio e Pepe fancies itself a Roman trattoria, perhaps channeling Lupa's success. The walk-down space is roomy, rustic, and convivial, with a pleasant tenement garden out back dotted with comfortable pastel chairs. The joint takes its name from another Roman recipe (tonnarelli cacio e pepe, $10.95), in which hot pasta, still dripping with cooking water, is tossed with pecorino cheese and crushed black peppercorns. The result is beyond spectacular, and the café ramps up the excitement by theatrically turning the pasta inside a huge rind of pecorino di Fossa—a ewe's-milk cheese from Emilia-Romagna wrapped in burlap and aged three months in tufa caves—as it's ferried to the table. Why not use Roman cheese instead? Maybe it's a matter of hurt pride—nowadays pecorino romano is usually manufactured in Sardinia. Following Roman tradition, the pasta of choice is tonnarelli, homemade square-cut spaghetti. By the way, black pepper became wildly popular in Rome—when it arrived around 500 B.C.
