Carlbach and Restaurant Week

For restaurant week I went to Django, The River Cafe, and Tavern on the Green. Analysis:
Django had a very nice candlelit bar downstairs, very loungy. The decor of the restaurant was interesting, sort of middle eastern meets art deco. The food was very good. See previous post.

The River Cafe, which was supposed to be one of New York's top restaurants and possibly the best in Brooklyn failed to impress me. Perhaps I've reached new levels of culinary snobbery (or maybe it's just overrated). I went with another intern an an administrator from my office for lunch. The restaurant was right on the waterfront of the East River, scratch that, half the restaurant is actually sort of floating in the river so when large boats pass you feel the waves at your table. There was a very pretty garden outside but one of the trees kept dropping pollen on my blazer, which was rather irritating. The chicken salad appetizer I ordered tasted like lettuce and mayonaise...not good. To be fair, I wanted the meatballs but they had pork in them so I had to pass. My entree was the duck, which was served in a sort of straberry puree sauce. It was interesting and cooked very well, but it was sort of a gristly piece of duck and that ruined it. Strike two. The salmon looked better but it had fennel, which I'm not a big fan of. For dessert I was hoping they would be serving Brooklyn Bridges made of chocolate (it's their specialty) but instead it was a sampler with some berries and cream (which were very good, but anyone can make berries and cream), a coffee flavored pasty/cake (which was ok), and a very tiny mocha and banana smoothie (I've made much better). Oh, and the $12 glass of Bordeaux that I ordered sucked. So it was a nice place and the food was ok but I'm not really planning on going back there anytime soon.

The last restaurant I tried was Tavern on the Green. They are famous for two things. 1) Being located in Central Park, and 2) Having an incredible wine list. Bottles range from $30 to $6000. Yes with 3 zeros. I went with 2 friends from Barnard and 1 from NYU. The restaurant was gorgeous but utterly tacky. Every inch was decorated. The head waiters wore name tags that said Captain _(name)___ and the guy calling cabs was dressed like a leprechaun practically. Anyway, the food was actually very good. I had the Caesar Salad appetizer, it was tasty though not at all what I would have expected at a formal place. It came with cheesy toast stuff (I mean it looked fancy but still). Oh, and I got a glass of Chardonnay. It was pretty good but sort of over chilled. When they brought it it was almost too cold to drink and the flavor didn't come out until it had warmed a little. It was good but I could have gotten an equally tasty bottle for the price of a glass at Tavern. Anywayz. I had the salmon. It was excellent. I tried some of my friend's chicken and it too was outstanding. Dessert was a choice of cheesecake or chocolate cake. The waiter screwed up so I got both. The cheesecake was better but both were fine. Not as great as the entrees though. The portions were surprisingly large so the two desserts sort of put me over the edge. Kinda felt a bit overly sugared as I headed back to work.

Tonight I went to the Carlbach Shul for services. Had dinner at my place with a friend first. The service started at 8:13. I was expecting a huge hall but it was actually fairly small. Lot of people for the space though. Maybe 100 people crammed in there. Probly not quite that many but close. There was a lot of dancing and clapping and lai lai lai ing (on separate sides of the mehitza of course, it's orthodox). I didn't find it all that special though. Everyone else uses the Carlbach tunes now anyway and the other shuls typically finish in half the time. On the way home we stopped in at Rancheros for frozen margaritas. They were so sweet I think they counted as dessert.  ¶ 8:34 PM