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“Bar Q”


  Occasion: Cuisine: Area: Cost: Rating:
  Night Out Asian West Village Moderate Great

ke napkin rings of fresh rice noodles stuffed with sautéed greens. And entrees were also uniformly excellent. Some of them show off a flair for gentle tea smoking, with Long Island duck breast seasoned with lemon and chiles, and a more ambitious plate of tea-smoked chicken, which is a revelation. Crisped brown skin swaddles moist white and dark meat and a stuffing of Chinese sausage and sticky rice ($19, for a portion ample enough to share with a friend or two.)

The stuffed spare rib ($23) is bound to become a Bar Q signature that Anita will never be able to take off the menu. She splits a fat and tender lemongrass barbecued spare rib in two, filling its center with a slather of peanut and Thai basil paste, so it sort of resembles a spare rib and peanut butter sandwich. It beats PB&J hands down, plus it’s neat and tidy, no wet naps needed.

While meat is the main attraction on her menu (there are nine entrees and seven of them are meat), she does offer a vegetarian dish of miso-glazed eggplant, its flesh buttery and soft and tucked inside skin slicked in sesame ($9/$18). While an icy raw bar loaded up with oysters and sashimi makes up the bulk of the seafood choices, she also serves a terrific seafood stew that’s sort of a Korean bouillabaisse with a fiery red kimchee broth loaded up with scallops, mussels, shrimp, flaky white fish and fantastic fried cubes of silken tofu ($25), like miniature fuzzy dice bobbing in the soup.

Unlike most barbecue restaurants, her desserts offer a decidedly light and refined finish. They do not arrive in large troughs drizzled with bourbon sauce. Instead, there’s a frothy chilled coconut soup with seasonal fruit and mint ($8) and warm sesame mochi with caramel XO dipping sauce ($8). They’re about as unbarbecue as you can get, which is the point, I suppose. Trends can come on stronger than a Clinton on the campaign trail, but they can be fickle and quick to retreat. And while I think the barbecue phenomenon is here to stay, it’s likely that it will jump the shark at some point soon, and that some will be sweeping up peanut shells and packing up the Ball Jars of whiskey punch, while Anita Lo keeps on tea-smoking chicken and Chinese sausages, and splitting meaty spare ribs and slathering them with Thai peanut sauce in a Bar called Q.

Bar Q is located at 308-310 Bleecker Street, between Grove and Seventh Avenue South, 212-206-7817. ... [more, click below]

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