Balthazar is one of those places that when you admit to people you have never been, you are usually looked at the same way when you tell someone you are no longer married. The ubiquitous head tilt, the shoulder pat and the "oh you poor thing" smirk. Well I had never been, until recently. I have been to every other restaurant in Keith McNally's empire but never to Balthazar. Not for lack of want but for lack of opportunity. Because I had been to Pastis, Lucky Strike, Morandi and Schillers (Keith McNally's other restaurants) I knew that Balthazar was the white table cloth version of the aforementioned and I am not a fancy dining kind of gal. I'm just not. I belch without abandon, I pick my teeth when there is food in them, I snort when I laugh. You get the idea. So when faced with the challenge of having dinner at the kind of place where the servers wear floor length aprons with ties and they employ tall, handsome Maitre d's in tailor-made suits and the clientele all look like they just stepped out of an Architectural Digest cover I knew I had to take my friend Dawn with me. Dawn is a little like me with a little more finesse. She is the casual girl who always look flawless in her designer jeans and name brand heels but is not afraid to burp with the best of us. So armed with my equally awkward friend, I stepped into Balthazar. The space is beautiful, it feels like you stepped back in time. If you have seen Midnight in Paris, imagine Owen Wilson's character having dinner here with Ernest Hemingway. Dawn and I were sat immediately at a small round table in the corner of the deep red banquette a little too close to other diners. I was scared to go the bathroom the entire meal for fear of knocking every glass off the table next to us with my large rear end.
We started the meal with an appetizer to share, Seafood Ceviche which was a mix of rock shrimp, calamari rings, diced red onion, tomato and peppers served on a bed of red cabbage. The dish was good but definitely not worth the $18 price tag. For $18 I want a bowl full of U-10 shrimp and avocado and......just more WOW!!! Like I said I thought it was a good ceviche and Dawn and I definitely ate every last bite of it, but there was nothing special or unique about it. For our entrees Dawn had the pan-roasted chicken with beet greens, chanterelle mushrooms, potato gnocchi and tomato confit. She LOVED her dish which was quite tasty. The chicken was cooked perfectly, the bed of vegetables it sat on was succulent and overall it was just a well-balanced dish. Mine on the other hand was tasteless. I had the grilled brook trout over warm spinach, lentil and walnut salad. The fish was dry, the spinach salad was limp with no flavor to it and there were maybe 15 lentils, total, in the dish. I ate about I40% of it while I watched Dawn devour her plate. I was looking forward to dessert since I had the room for it so we decided to share the profiteroles with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce which was poured over the profiteroles table-side and the caramelized banana ricotta tart with banana ice cream. These were definitely the star of the whole meal. Dawn and I ate every morsel and were even tempted to lick the plates clean, but as I mentioned before, Balthazar is NOT the place to do that. The tart was creamy from the ricotta with just the right amount of sweet from the caramelization. The profiteroles were light filled with a vanilla bean ice cream and topped with a silky smooth chocolate sauce.
THEN WE GOT THE BILL!!!! For the 2 of us who shared 1 appetizer, 2 entrees, 2 desserts and a cocktail each, our bill came to $250 including tip. Normally I don't mind spending that kind of money if the meal is memorable and worth it, this was not. I am happy I finally got the chance to eat there but now know that I will never go back, unless someone else is paying! Even then I would probably go for some good wine and oysters, and of course dessert.
"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety."- Aesop
