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“Asiate”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Asian	Upper West Side	Break the Bank	Great

stions about the unusual ingredients on the menu with ease, a quality that many restaurants have failed to instill in their servers. (In my humble opinion, a well-trained and attentive staff can undue errors of a faulty kitchen any day of the week. If you need help, please visit http://www.beatricesteinconsulting.com and get yourself one of the best restaurant consultants and service professionals in the business to help clean up your mess. You will reap the benefits in numbers in no time.)

While waiting for our first courses, we were presented with a small plate of gougeres, which I thought was a bit strange in an Asian-inspired restaurant, but once I popped one in my mouth, I got the connection. These are not your average cheese-puffs; these are Japanese gougeres, and they are coated nori. And while seaweed-dusted pastry puffs are not something I plan on keeping by the couch for mindless snacking, they did wake up my palate—the precise point of an amuse bouche.

With the food nowhere in sight, we sipped our sake and chatted and then got quiet and tried to listen in on Jerry Stiller’s conversation (couldn’t here a thing) and then chatted some more. After twenty minutes or so (I was now on glass number two of sake), our appetizers arrived. The crab salad with green mango and pomelo vinaigrette was artistically plated, resembling a trio of pink Tepees. The crabmeat (sweet succulent and pulled into shreds) was piled up in three little hills, each topped with a sheer circle of shaved green mango draped over the top transforming the crab hills into miniature Teepees. The Teepees were topped with pomegranate seeds and a pomelo vinaigrette ($15) that was quite sweet, and without the acid balance that I would have expected from a pomelo. The dish, for my taste, was too monochromatic—all the flavors hit the sweet notes, and without acid, or any sort of spice, it fell flat. The dish needs a contrast to bring it to life.

But Jackie liked it, and so I pushed it over her way (I am so kind), and started in on her gorgeous arctic char—a pair of bright pink medallions of supple fish, topped with what looked like a shimmering mound of ivory caviar, but was a very fine dice of daikon, called daikon oroshi. The char was set in a vibrant puddle of green chili vinaigrette ($14). The dish was a knockout, and it demonstrated that the chef knows how to offer brilliant contrast on the plate.

Course number two was the Saikyo Taki Cod wi ... [more, click below]

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Posted: February 19, 2004

Other restaurants in Upper West Side :
+ 'Cesca   + Asiate   + Blue Hill Stone Barns   + Per Se   + The Neptune Room   + Spigolo   + Telepan   + Aix Brasserie   + 'Cesca   + Bar Boulud   + Dovetail   + BarBao   + Dinosaur Bar-be-Que   + Kefi   + Bar Luna   + Ed's Chowder House   + Red Rooster, by Rachel Barbarotta   + Loi by Dara Pollak   

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