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| - My God. What a find. Sort of stumbled in here late Friday night in Chinatown. This is a must try. Lemme try and break it down.
Walked in, ambience is chill, sort of minimalist modern, dark blues and blacks. Sat at the bar, can sort of see into the kitchen, everyone in the place is dressed nice, but no jacket required. Dig the vibe.
Ordered a drink to start, the wife had "Have Knives Will Travel" sort of a sweeter, smokey old fashioned. I had the "Spring Mountain Sour," the house take on a whiskey sour, came with a big dollop of beet foam, maybe it was a little pink but dammit that was fresh, the sweet/salty foam pairing perfectly with the whiskey and the citrusy sour. Do yourself a favor and get this one.
For starters, the charcuterie. This is when I knew we were in for a great meal. Culatello ham and soppressata, served with some sort of magical pickled yams/yellow beets/hell-if-I-know-but-super delicious, homemade mustard and grilled bread. Yes.
Next we had the grilled octopus. JESUS. It was fantastic. Seriously it was tender, tasted like octopus not fishy or overly cartilaginous, it was that perfect texture and seafood/shellfish goodness that's so hard to hit. If you've been to Marea in NYC, seriously it was like that braised octopus fusilli. Forgot the pic, consumed it too quickly.
A note on the timing, it was legit restaurant good. Like, we had good time between drinks, apps, starter, main dish. It felt like a prix fixe, but we just ordered off the regular menu. The details man, the details.
Next we had sweetbreads and the beef cheek/bone marrow dumplings. Dammit if they weren't fantastic as well. I'm legitimately upset bc none of you will believe the meal was so good. You just gotta try it. The dumplings were umami bombs, just pure beefy essence of greatness. The sweetbreads were the essence of culinary gestalt, served with bacon wrapped endive, caramelized shallots, watercress, and peas. I don't even like peas but the way they all worked together was redonkulous.
The bar tenders were awesome, cool people who appreciate good food and drinks. So nice to see and visit a legit good food place that serves in a down to earth manner, not pretentious. The manager, John Anthony, was out making the rounds and seemed like a regular dude who loves his job. Respect.
Will definitely be back, with friends. You gotta try it.
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