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“The Fat Hippo”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Lower East Side	Moderate	Good

n meets South Beach.
While the restaurant is BYOB for now (their liquor license should arrive in a few days so call in to check on that), bar manager and partner Jordan Sorman will eventually be serving beer, wine and classic cocktails including South Sides, Brooklyns and Manhattans mixed with homemade sodas and fresh juices. Indeed, his homemade ginger ale kept me quite happy throughout the evening.

The menu, as I’ve alluded to already, is humble and stays true to Ten’s vision of global comfort, the best of which includes a dish that you’ll no doubt spy on every table in the room—the (soon to be famous) burger fondue ($12). Yes, friends, Ten has done the world a huge favor by combining six juicy little sliders (they’re each about the circumference of a quarter) with a pot of bubbly cheesy fondue that you can pepper with bacon, onions and bits of green tomato. Forget dipping apples or bread, dipping a burger, now that’s genius. You’ll love them.

Ditto the Trailer Park Chicken Sampler ($15), a three part combo meal that includes a fantastic buttermilk marinated Southern fried leg (crunchy on the outside, tender and wonderful beneath the skin), a beer-can roasted chicken breast (delicious) and a pile of bright collard greens that had been sauteed with smoked thigh meat instead of bacon which actually made them taste borderline healthy (but is not). My only quibble with this dish was that the accompanying raisin sauce on the plate overpowered the chicken with cloying sweetness. There needed to be some balance to the sauce—heat or vinegar or something other than sticky honey-like sweetness—and the absence of a counterpoint left me reluctant to finish it off.  

A similar problem exists with the chile and chocolate-glazed spare ribs ($8). A pair of long and lovely ribs arrives slathered in a dark mole-style sauce, but the meat itself is bland (though soft) and the thick glaze adds little to the taste equation. There’s no spice, no heat, no tang, and consequently little reason to continue eating them after the first bite. Ditto the beet and olive tart ($7)—a lovely handmade crust is pinched into a small circle and filled with earthy roasted beets and frosted with a sweet beet jam, but I could not really discern any bracing flavor from olives or even a bit of tang from the crumbled goat cheese that the menu promised. Again, I was left in a one dimensional flavor universe ... [more, click below]

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Posted: March 15, 2009

Other restaurants in Lower East Side :
+ Mojo   + WD-50   + Schiller's Liquor Bar   + Azul Bistro   + Barrio Chino   + 71 Clinton Fresh Food-- Closed   + Little Giant   + Kuma Inn   + Falai   + The Stanton Social   + The Tides   + Thor   + The Orchard   + El Bocadito-- CLOSED   + Bondi Road   + Rayuela   + Suba   + Bun (boone)   + Sorella   + The Fat Hippo   + Pulino's   

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