Red Rooster Harlem (#66)

         I finally got to eat at Red Rooster Harlem, Marcus Samuelsson's newest restaurant. I called around noon to secure a reservation for that same evening and was told the earliest time they had available was 10pm but that they did accept walk-ins. So at 7:45pm, ready to wait an hour or more, I met my friend Derek at the bar.The front bar area is separated from the dining room by a beautifully back-lit bar that reached the ceiling. There is a DJ tucked away in the corner spinning tunes from all eras but is there more for ambiance then to create some sort of club feel and it works. Blink and you could even miss him there in the corner of the room. I was the first to arrive and went straight to the hostess to leave my name and see how long the wait was gonna be. The hostess informed me that unless both people in the party were there she could not give me a wait time. So I left my name and waited for Derek at the bar. When he arrived, 5 minutes later, he let the hostess know that both people in the party were there. As I mentioned earlier, I was prepared to wait at least an hour for a table so I was surprised when only half an hour passed and we were sat at the communal Chef's table. A table situated in front of the open kitchen.
        The first thing I noticed about the space is how jovial and electric the energy in the room is. Every person sitting at the bar was dressed up. Not dressed up the way one does when dining at a place like Le Cirque or Le Bernardin where it is required but dressed up like dining at Red Rooster was an affair. It felt like New York circa 1919 when Prohibition was still only a rumor and the Cotton Club was a place where you laughed in the face of those rumors. I was impressed that Mr Samuelsson was able to achieve that kind of feel. Not because I didn't think him capable but because no one has been able to. Where dinner is an event to be shared with the entire room. Where people say hello to one another from opposite sides of the dining room. Where Mr Samuelsson works the room stopping to say hi to every table seated in his dining room not cuddled in some corner booth with a pseudo-celebrity as I have seen too often.

            Derek and I sat at the end of our table with 2 couples next to us. Our server came to our table about 3 minutes after we sat down, not to introduce himself or ask if we wanted a cocktail but to immediately go into his very rehearsed diatribe about the 2 entrees meant to be shared. We heard him give the same exact spiel, verbatim, to the other diners at our table. Granted he was just doing his job but for a place so jovial it felt impersonal.
         To start we ordered the dirty rice with shrimp, the jalapeno corn bread with honey butter and the crab cakes as per our servers suggestion. All 3 items came out about 5 minutes after ordering them. The dirty rice and shrimp was served in a small skillet which should have been piping hot, but was lukewarm when tasted, in fact all of our food was served tepid. The crab cakes were good but had little too much going on. The plate came with 2 smallish crab cakes with a spiced mayo on the plate and were topped with grapefruit sections, arugula and pomegranate seeds. For our entrees we had the fried yard bird with mashed potatoes and gravy and the meatballs with lingonberries and dill stewed potatoes. As I mentioned before all of the flavor was there it was just served at the wrong temperature. My meatballs could have been amazing, you can't go wrong ordering a traditional Swedish dish at a place with a Swedish chef I just wish it was served hot. The dessert we had isn't even worth mentioning because I found it to be lackluster. We shared the chocolate tart with red velvet ice cream and peanut brittle. Boring, not sweet enough and not memorable.
     All in all the atmosphere is definitely something worth going back for and I would eat here again too and just hope the food was hot this time.
       

"It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it."-Zora Neale Hurston

Momofuku Noodle Bar (#38)

My journey to eat at the other 94 restaurants Adam Platt had selected as NYC's best of 2011 began on Sunday, January 15. I had always wanted to go to Momofuku Noodle Bar (#38)but had never had the opportunity, so it was a no-brainer that this was my first stop. I called my friend Daphne and asked her if she wanted to join me. She said yes. So I checked out their website and saw that they do not accept reservations.  I called Daphne back and asked her if she minded having dinner at 6:30pm because who other than the elderly or people with kids has dinner at that time? Apparently most of New York has dinner at 6:30pm on Sundays because I walked into a packed dining room and waiting area. There were literally about 30 people waiting to be sat so I shimmied my way to the front to leave my name. I waited patiently behind a gentleman who was giving his name and when it was my turn I asked the hostess, who was about as pleasant as a pap-smear, how long the wait for 2 would be. She pointed to the gentleman who had just given her his name and asked if we were together. The problem was the way she asked me, as though I had just asked her to walk my dog. She was so put out by this so I told her that I was not with him.  She told me the wait would be about 40 minutes, so I gave her my name, Cassandra. I got to Cassan.....when she turned from me and said to the herd of people waiting for a table "can everyone move back". I wanted to make sure she got my name since she had cut me off and you can only imagine how annoyed she was. Not only had I asked her how long the wait was but now I was trying to give her my name....again!!!!. So I walked to the front door so as not to annoy the hostess anymore than I apparently had. I saw a couple waiting at the end of the communal table who were also waiting to be sat so I went and stood by them. They eventually sat at the end of the table, which was completely empty, with their Red Stripes. The hostess, wearing the same annoyed expression, told them they could not sit there. They replied that the gentleman behind the bar said it would be OK, the hostess rolled her eyes and said "you can't sit there". So the couple, and I, moved and we got into a conversation about this particular experience. They went on to tell me that she was rude to them as well when they walked in. It made me feel a little better that it was not personal, this woman just hated her job and could not hide it. Luckily the rest of my experience made up for the hostess' lack of personality and professionalism.

Daphne and I were sat about 30 minutes later at the bar. I asked our server what the must have dishes were and then ordered her recommendations. Daphne and I shared a jar of kimchi, which is honestly the best I have ever had. We also shared the pork bun and we each had the Momofuku Ramen which was a large bowl of ramen noodles with pork belly, pork shoulder and topped with a poached egg. Everything was amazing. The pork belly in both the bun and the ramen had the perfect ratio of fat-to-meat. The egg on top of the soup was perfectly cooked. The kimchi had the right amount of spice and garlic and the cabbage was not too pickled. For dessert I had the soft serve pretzel ice cream and Daphne had the soft serve pumpkin ale. We both loved each flavor. The pretzel tasted a little like salted caramel with a nice balance of sweet and salty. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals...until later that evening.  It may have been a combination of having spicy and fatty dishes but we both had stomachaches that night.

Overall I would definitely go back and just hope that the same hostess is not there.

 The belly rules the mind.  ~Spanish Proverb