SPICE MARKET

I have been to Spice Market three times this week. Need I say more? Well, yes. The fact that two of the most talented chefs of our time are working in the same restaurant (Jean Georges Vongerichten and Gray Kunz) and are both actually there every night, cooking (and mingling with the A-List crowds), is pretty exciting to me. Honestly, seeing Gray Kunz back behind the line was a huge culinary turn on. And that JGV, he is so charming and cute! And then I tasted the food. Who needs sex? Just eat here.

Spice Market is a magnificent restaurant. Furnished from old ruins, floors panels and assorted fragments and artifacts from centuries-old temples in Bombay, and lit with jewel-toned lanterns, Spice Market is an exotic wonderland for the all of the senses. It is sexy, erotic, dreamy, and wildly inviting. Designed by Jacques Garcia, who is best known for the Hotel Coste in Paris, the sultry, moody bi-level space has vaulted ceilings, a 60-foot open kitchen, a downstairs lounge that is a recipe for premature intimacy, and a staff that looks like casting call for a Sex & The City spin-off featuring Smith Jared. People! The place is sizzling. Ouch.

Now, you are probably wondering about the food. The following adjectives come to mind: Fun. Thrilling. Curious. Daring. Divine. Yummy. For the most part, you can’t go wrong here. Sure, some dishes need work (this was week number one), but I have rarely eaten at a restaurant so early on and seen such an educated staff and consistently good food.

Plates are all made for sharing, so just pick a bunch and start your feast (it is wise to go with more than two people so you can try more stuff.) We began with chicken samosas, crisp triangles stuffed with fragrant bits of cumin and chile-spiced chicken that get a cooling kick from a fresh cilantro yogurt dipping sauce ($8). The lobster roll ($14) is a nice light and vibrant snack, made from fat meaty chunks of lobster meat wrapped up like a sushi roll (no rice for you Atkins fans) with sriracha (a tart pickled vegetable) and dill. I loved the green papaya salad with charred long beans, crystallized ginger and tamarind ($8) because it was full of heat and infused with assertive, balanced flavors, but for some it was way too spicy (wimps). Another of my favorite appetizers was the shrimp tod mon pla with cucumber peanut relish ($12). These were sort of like thin, slender crab cakes, without the breading, and with a healthy amount of shrimp and greens mixed in. The sauce, as with many at Spice Market, was delish. Bring some Tupperware and take the stuff home, especially the tomato-chili sauce that comes with the papalam (not papadam, I asked) crackers at the beginning of the meal.

I went through practically the entire menu over this week, and I want to get to Pichet Ong’s intriguing and delicious desserts, so let me sum up on the savory food here. Of the fish entrees, I loved the halibut—a thick, dense meaty filet served with a searing sauce of chiles, tomatoes and nuts called Cha Ca La Vong ($23). I also fell hard for the seared sea bass, served in a fiery red tussle of wok-fried kimchee cabbage, water chestnuts and cucumber ($22). On the meat side, I was licking the last bit of pork vindaloo ($15)—soft tender chunks of pork slathered in a sweet-tart sauce made from tamarind and chiles—from its copper casserole. The short ribs, in a mess of chili-flecked caramelized onions with egg noodles and pea shoots got high marks from my friend Andrew, though I thought the meat could have had more flavor considering its preparation. I also tried a terrific green curry with vegetables, and of tasty bowl of chili-garlic egg noodles with seared shrimp and star anise. The food here is exciting and tasty and inspires much smiling. What more do you want? Dessert!

Please, whatever you do at Spice Market, don’t pass up on dessert. If you must go specifically for dessert, do. Pichet Ong (who worked with JGV at 66) is a deliriously talented pastry chef, on the creative genius level of Johnny Iuzinni, Sam Mason and Jehangir Mehta. Pichet, who was an architect in San Fran before discovering his passion for cooking, is a daredevil pastry chef who bridges the divide between reckless and the familiar.

One of his most divine creations is a dish called Thai Jewels. This is his take on the traditional sweet streetfood served in Thailand. To me, at first glance, it looked like a bowl of Lucky Charms, arriving in a deep bowl of what appeared to be filled with frothy milk bobbing with green and red jewels. The jewels are actually water chestnut and tapioca dumplings, not Lucky Charms. They are delicious, gummy droplets of sweetness flavored with red and green pandan, served in a foamy coconut sorbet and ice bath swimming with papaya, jackfruit, passion fruit and coconut meat. Go to Spice Market to experience this dessert alone. It is refreshing, startling in texture and taste, and is a perfect end to a spicy meal.

Pichet’s rice pudding is a treat as well, made from jasmine rice in congee style with coconut milk, gently scented with cinnamon, and brightened with lime zest and passion fruit seeds. Pichet has an amazing Ovaltine dessert on the menu again (as you will recall his fantastic Ovaltine and banana tart was on the menu at 66), but this time it is in the form of a thick fudge-like bar, a dessert that has not failed to make all conversations cease at the table all the three times I have eaten it there. It is insanely dense, so that if you press your spoon into the bar, and then try to lift your spoon up and out, you may actually lift up the entire plate. This baby’s rich and thick and way good. It is crusted with a mixture of Lucknow fennel, mukwa (an Indian digestive) and ajwain (a sweet spice), so that you get a bit of heat and crunch in every sweet, creamy mouthful. This is a potato chip dessert. You cannot stop after just one bite. If you can, you have the willpower equivalent of 100 celibate men.

Pichet also serves a gorgeous exotic fruit platter, served with a bowl of lime-spiced salt, really a spiced palm sugar heated up with red Thai chile, kaffir lime and lime zest, that you dip the fruit into, making its juicy sweetness shine all the more.

Okay, the time has now come to warn you about the sorbets, all of which arrive in cute little Chinese “To-Go” containers. They are fresh, zesty and vibrant and are fun to take a spoonful and pass around the table, but then, there is the Durian. Durian is one of the nastiest smelling fruits in Southeast Asia. It emits an odor that has been compared to rotten eggs, rancid fruit and week-old garbage. But this stinky fruit is dessert to many in Southeast Asia, and so it is now dessert to you here in NYC at Spice Market. My friend Gina commented, “It smells like it should be fuzzy.” True, like mold.

On the night we were there last, we were seated across from Gael Greene and crew, and when the sorbets arrived, and they started to open up their To Go tubs, the Durian was unleashed. (The names of the sorbets are written on the bottom of the to go containers, so check before you open.) Once that Durian is let out of its box, it’s all over; its sweet moldy aroma travels fast. In an instant, I smelled it and I looked over at their table and they were up in arms, making faces and soon they were shouting, “It’s the Durian! It’s the Durian.” Just then JGV stopped by to say hello to me, and I advised him to go check on Gael and friends. (Did I mention how charming he is?) Anyway, he calmed everyone down and they closed that sucker up, and all again was peaceful. Be warned, it is not for everyone. Open it up, take a bite, and seal it back up immediately.

Spice market is already attracting crowds. The room is a who’s who of the food world and beyond. This week we saw Gael Greene, Alfred Portale, Michael Anthony (Blue Hill), the Lever House crew, L’il Kim and Mary J. Blige. It can get loud, but the managers are doing a good job of keeping it civilized. Now, there is one problem and that is that like the great new crop of restaurants of late—Casa Mono, Spotted Pig (I haven’t eaten there yet cause I cant get a table to save my life), WD50, Per Se, blah, blah, blah, you probably wont be able to get a table. But try anyway. And if you cant get table, go anyway and grab a seat at the food bar, or in the cavernous den of a lounge downstairs. The point is, even if you cant snag a reservation, go for drinks and wait. You could be waiting in worse places (my dentist’s office, for instance). The cocktails are delish (tamarind rum punch anyone?), as are the stunning crew of men and they have mixing them. Yippee for me.

Spice Market is at 403 West 13th Street at Ninth Avenue, 212-675-2322.

Andrea Strong