Today's review roundup includes: Public, Kasadela, Django, Shore, Pearson's Texas Barbecue
NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes gives Public one star (210 Elizabeth St., between Prince and Spring; (212) 343-7011):
. . . The muted aesthetic makes the food seem even wilder than it is, no easy feat. Consider a recent special, grilled foie gras. It's daubed with ginger-lemon cream, then placed on a cookie-shaped "scone" flavored with cardamom and coffee. There are things to like about this dish — its daring, for one. The scone, spicy and aromatic, is wonderful, and the lemon-ginger cream has a thrilling zing to it. Put it all together, and it makes a mess. The scone is too sweet to let the ginger-lemon combination do its main job, which is to cut the fatty richness of the foie gras. This may be the world's first meat dessert.
. . . Seared striped bass, surrounded by a seemingly random assortment of foods, like boiled edamame, roast parsnips and curried lentils, sports an odd topknot of labne, or semidried yogurt, rolled into a ball with shredded coconut. There are many ways to decorate a fish, but this one breaks new ground. It's a little like finding a small holiday cheese ball in the last place you'd expect it.
. . . Public is a high-risk, high-reward dining proposition. I have a feeling that the owners want it that way. They did not come thousands of miles to bore New York. Understatement is not in the plan. Sometimes you have to slap people in the face to get their attention.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Grilled ox tongue with eggplant relish; grilled kangaroo on coriander falafel; roast lamb chump with goat-cheese polenta; pecan-maple cake with roasted pear.
NYTimes $25 and Under Eric Asimov reviews Kasadela (647 East 11th St., near Avenue C;; (212) 777-1582):
. . . Consider Kasadela, a little sake house that opened in the far East Village three months ago. The menu not only offers no sushi, but no noodles, no shabu shabu, no teriyaki — in short, none of the Japanese preparations most familiar to Americans.
It does, however, offer torikawa ($4), or chicken skin grilled until crisp around the edges and served on skewers. Perhaps this dish is not so different from gribeness, the Jewish chicken cracklings, until you dip it into pungent pickled wasabi, after which it takes on a distinct Japanese personality of its own.
Torikawa is a staple of little Japanese pubs, or izakaya. Yujen Pan, who owns Kasadela with his girlfriend, Keika Kan, said he had wanted to open a traditional izakaya for a long time. Mr. Pan, who spent several years opening branches of Nobu in London, Tokyo, Monaco and Las Vegas, said his aim was to offer classic izakaya bar snacks.
. . . Food is only part of the izakaya experience. In Japan, a saying goes, nobody leaves an izakaya sober. While you may not wish to pursue the authentic experience to that degree at Kasadela (the name refers to Ms. Kan's village in Japan), the menu offers more than a dozen chilled sakes by the glass and another dozen by the bottle. It's fascinating to compare the often subtle but distinct differences of fruitiness and refinement among the sakes, which can also be ordered in masus, the traditional square wooden vessels.
BEST DISHES Grilled chicken skin; roasted shishito peppers; goma tofu; sautéed smelts; beef tataki; edamame; fried tofu; fried oysters.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo reviews Django (480 Lexington Ave., at 46th St..; (212) 871-6600):
. . . I've never thought of halibut ($23) as a sexy fish, but Tovar's fleshy and ample specimen under fennel pollen-dusted crust could bring on hot flashes. Rosemary puts the passion into roast rack of lamb ($32) with lamb shank moussaka. The same sensuousness permeates spiced beef "toro" tagine ($26), where tender ribeye chunks are embraced in a sweet-and-spicy stew.
Not every dish achieves their heights. Among other letdowns, unexpectedly tame grapefruit-marinated fluke carpaccio ($14) and chicken breast ($24) with apricot and raisin spaetzle made little impression. Pastry chef Nancy Olson's cranberry bread pudding ($10), creamy as a soufflé, is not to miss.
When Django first opened, I recommended it to the editor of this newspaper. The boss told me he found it OK, but predicted, "I doubt it will be around a year from now."
He was both wrong and right. Django, after its sensitive fine-tuning, might as well be new.
Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews Shore (41 Murray St.; (212) 962-3750):
Shore is the offspring of Fresh, one of the three or four finest seafood restaurants in the city. It moved into an aged bar on Murray Street a few months ago, making little modification to the woody and well-worn interior. It feels like Durgin Park, a venerable Boston seafood spot. Shore shows its parentage by offering a splendid raw bar, with as many as eight oyster choices. It's a mistake not to begin your meal with a half-dozen Malepeque or Fisher Island beauties, accompanied by mignonette, lemon, and, sometimes, freshly grated horseradish. This bounty comes at a price, though. While places like Grand Central Oyster Bar offer local varieties for as little as $1.75 each, ostensibly off-price Shore charges a whopping $2.50, whatever the type of oyster. To its credit, the bar also shucks raw littleneck clams and serves them on the half shell, a New York tradition that's a real rarity these days.
The New England clam chowder (cup $4, bowl $6) is exemplary, though, as at Shore's rivals Pier 116 and the Mermaid Inn, the flavor owes too much to bacon, and too little to clam. Much harder to love is the oyster pan roast ($10). Begging comparison with the pristine product that contains only plump bivalves, tomatoes, and cream at the Oyster Bar, Shore throws a niggling number of oysters into a shallow iron skillet and smothers them in crumbs. The seafood pie called lazy man's lobster ($21) was similarly deficient one evening, composed mainly of crushed Ritz crackers and kernels of corn. Its competitor among the Coastal Pot Pies, however, was an unmitigated delight. The "Crustacean and New England White Fish" pie ($17) arrived jammed with all sorts of seafood, including plenty of scallops and shrimp.
NYPost reviews Pearson's Texas Barbecue (170 E. 81st St., between Third & Lexington; (212) 288-2700):
. . . Back and shoulder ribs provide gnawing pleasure, heady with hickory smoke and pure beef taste in spiceless Lone Star style (thin and tangy hot - but not very hot - sauces are on the table). The meat falls off the bone and is just fatty enough to be luscious. They come with creamy, crisp coleslaw, as do smoky pork ribs similarly pink near the bone under a crispy, blackened crust ($12 small).
Barbecued brisket is a Lone Star star, so it's odd that our specimen on a sturdy Portuguese roll is tender, but not very beefy tasting and dry. A North Carolina-style pork sandwich also needed extra sweet and sour sauce ($9.95 each). And bean-free Texas chili chocked with steak lacks spicy complexity ($5.95).
Plenty of good eating is in the sides column ($4 each), with puffy golden malt-fragrant onion rings, milky cracked corn thick with sweet, chewy kernal bits, and strapping collards.