Today's review roundup includes: 5 Ninth, Tía Pol, Asaivam.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives 5 Ninth one star (5 Ninth Avenue; 212-929-9460):
. . .Its chef, Zak Pelaccio, did a brief stint at the short-lived Chickenbone Cafe in Brooklyn, where his culinary eclecticism and adventurousness generated more than a bit of buzz. He has brought those traits and that buzz with him to 5 Ninth, which opened in late May. Named for its address and avenue, 5 Ninth actually refuses to be fixed in any one place: even more than most restaurants in these boundary-blurring times, it defies simple categorization.
Asian-American? Malaysian-Mediterranean? Thai-Vietnamese-Italian? You could try a dozen geographical references, allow yourself three or four hyphens and still come up short. "Serious global dazzle" is how the publicity materials for the restaurant characterize Mr. Pelaccio's cuisine. That is a felicitous phrase with one serious flaw: at least at 5 Ninth, his food manages to dazzle only half of the time.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Garganelli with lamb hearts; steamed loup de mer; baby chicken with Malaysian marinade or white wine and rosemary; duck with foie gras and figs; banana pudding.
NYTimes $25 and Under reviews Tía Pol (205 Tenth Avenue; 212-675-8805):
When New Yorkers need to find something, no matter how minutely specific, they often visit craigslist.com, a community board that whittles the world down to what you want from it.
So when the owners of Tía Pol, a new tapas bar carved into a narrow Chelsea storefront, needed an Iberian-inclined chef who knew pinchos from pintxos, they posted an ad. They were looking for someone who could create the kind of creative fare the owners had sampled in Madrid's trendier tapas places.
It just happened that Alexandra Raij, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who dabbled in Spain's new wave at the short-lived Meigas, was searching for a job. So was her Bilbaon husband, Eder Montero, who had once worked at Talaia Mar, the Barcelona outpost of the celebrated chef Ferran Adrià. She became Tía Pol's chef, and he her sous-chef. The cyberunion gave birth to a little haunt with low lighting where you can wander in for wine and warm service and leave having eaten a far more cerebral meal.
Tía Pol, like the best tapas bars, is whatever you want it to be at the moment. For lunch there is a pork loin baguette ($8.50) with melted Galician tetilla cheese. For nourishing an overdue conversation with a friend, there is an artisanal-cheese plate ($7.50, $15) and its precious condiments: candied squash, quince paste, stewed plums and nuts. For a heartier appetite there are cured meats ($16): hand-shaved jamón, fat-studded chorizo and hard-to-find (if a tad mild) cured pork loin. And there's no better way to start Sunday than with crisp-fried squiggles of cinnamon-sugared churros ($5) dunked in café con leche. Followed by some chocolate and chorizo of course.
Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews Asaivam (102 Lexington Avenue; 212-683-4229):
Tamil Nadu, a state on the palm-fringed southeast coast of India, is the cradle of Hindu vegetarian cooking. The cuisine depends on rice and lentils, wonderfully transforming them with patience and fermentation into such toothsome wonders as masala dosa and iddly. But the southern coastal region called Chettinad flaunts another cuisine that thumbs its nose at Tamil vegetarianism. An ancient society of bankers and traders that dispersed across Southeast Asia in the 19th century, the Chettiars traditionally subsisted on chicken, fish, and mutton, liberally lacing these fleshy delicacies with coconut milk and hot chiles. In fact, Chettinad—not Goan, as you might expect—has become a code word across India for the spiciest fare.
A little over a year ago, a restaurant specializing in Chettinad cuisine called Ruchi Chettynadu opened in Curry Hill. A sign emblazoned in the window warned, "Non-Vegetarian South Indian Cuisine," presumably to scare away vegetarians, though they too would have found plenty to love, including all the usual South Indian snacks and, for non-vegans, an unusual concentration of egg dishes. The space was narrow and mainly subterranean, and the glum expressions on the faces of the employees seemed to say that they had given up any hope of success. Needless to say, the place soon closed.
Lo and behold, it reappeared months later across the street, with a new name—Asaivam, an ancient Sanskrit word meaning "inauspicious," in this context referring to non-vegetarian food. The menu remains heavy on mutton, offered in six variations that range from dry to damp, employing curry leaves, black mustard seed, and either tomatoes or coconut milk to arrive at sauces that are uniformly deep brown. Selections like mutton masala ($11.95), mutton kozhambu, and mutton kottu curry are pungent in flavor, more so because at Asaivam mutton means goat rather than sheep.