Afternoon Snacks at Max Brenner's

After doing some shopping in the area, this afternoon we decided to stop in at Max Brenner's in Union Square for a quick dose of chocolate to tide us over until dinner. One of our guests had had heard good things about it from friends, and this was the first time we had a chance to try it out.

Of course, on this particular afternoon, the majority of the Manhattan population plus quite a few visitors had the very same idea, and so there was quite a crowd by the time we got there at 1:30. We were given an estimated wait time for a table of 25 minutes, which turned into 40 before we were actually seated.

This just heightened our anticipation, though, and so we were happy to sit down at last and peruse the menu. After thoroughly browsing the options, we decided to share the fondue sampler for the table, with a couple of us opting for various forms of hot chocolate as well. For myself I chose the Mexican spicy hot chocolate.

One odd thing that happened right off is that when the waitress first came to take our order, I was first to jump in and order to hot chocolate. The rest of our part of five, though, spent a minute or so hemming and hawing about what they wanted and do the waitress, eyeing the crowded dining room anxiously, quickly jumped in with an offer to give us more time. It was clear that we were not ready to commit to an order, so it is certainly understandable that whe would want to move on. We agreed, although I had my usual pangs of regret knowing that once you send a waitress away once, they don't return on their own.

After ten minutes or so she finally returned after a nod in her direction, and took the rest of our order. What was strange, though, was that at the end of the ordering process she indicated that she had already turned in my order for the hot chocolate, and sure enough just a couple of minutes later it arrived, far in advance of the rest of the items we ordered. Strange that she didn't wait until the whole order was complete, since I was long finished with my hot chocolate by the time everyone else started. It was extremely busy, though, so I can forgive the small inconvenience. I just though it would be easier for her to combine it all into a single order.

Overall, temperature of the hot drinks was a problem (somewhat ironic given later events with the hibachi grill). All the hot chocolate orders and my wife's coffee were lukewarm at best. My wife wet so far as to ask the waitress to exchange hers, not only because of the fact it wasn't hot but also because the outside of the mug was coated with some kind of sticky chocolate residue.

When the fondue sampler arrived, it came with the promised mini-hibachi grill for toasting the accompanying marshmallows. We all tried our hand at toasting a marshmallow, with some difficulty since the grill didn't seem very hot, providing heat in only a couple of spots.

Drinks and Dinner at Brazil Grill

Tonight we went out late with some friends, and found ourselves at the Brazil Grill on 8th Avenue in the theater district. We arrived there around 12:30AM, and I was the only one in the group who had not eaten dinner, so I was looking for food while the others were interested in dessert and/or cocktails.

We were seated in the bar area, and I was relieved to find that even at that late hour I could still get a dinner menu, rather than being restricted to the much more limited bar menu.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the array of choices, particularly since I don't have a lot of experience with Brazilian specialties, so I just asked the waiter to recommend something. He immediately suggested the Churrasco a Moda, a sizzling shell steak with garlic sauce, to which I readily agreed. The other members of our party selected a variety of drinks, including the recommended Brazilian beer and wine selections (Brahma and Brazilian Rio Soul, respectively), as well as a couple of cocktails and dessert.

When the drinks arrived, I was amused to see that the beer bottles were presented with napkins wrapped neckerchief-style around the top. I was curious to know if there was any rationale for this other than el gaucho aesthetics, but nothing came to mind.

After the drinks, my food arrived quickly, served as advertised on a sizzling hot cast-iron skillet. Basically it was four thin shell steaks topped with coarsely chopped garlic cloves along with meat juices. It was accompanied by a large platter of white rice, a bowl of black beans, and several condiments including a yucca flour mixture, a sweetish salsa with peppers and onions, and a hot chili oil with chunks of dried chili pepper. It was quite a spread, and I felt a bit self conscious with all of those items arrayed around me while everyone else had only drinks. Nevertheless, I was very hungry by that time and didn't waste any time digging in.

The shell steaks were very good; the waiter had made an excellent choice, and the attendant variety of condiments made for interesting experimentation and mix-and-match. The chili oil was surprisingly (pleasantly) hot; usually I find that when the servers give spice level warnings they tend to go a bit overboard on the cautionary side, but indeed in this case it was very hot.

The quantity was quite overwhelming, and clearly enough for at least two hungry people. Therefore I ate half, and I was quite full by the time I finished that portion.

Late Night Dinner at Buddakan

This evening after work I joined some colleagues for a late-night dinner at Buddakan in the Meatpacking District. Buddakan reminds me of other Asian nightclub fusion restaurants I have visited since moving to this area such as Koi and Tao. In addition to representing the high art of nonspecific pan-Asian cuisine, these establishments share an approach that in my mind suggests that they put at least as much investment in the wall treatments and soundtrack as they do the food. That's not to say that they don't put a lot into the food, which is good at any of these places. Just that it's not going to be able to outshine the other components in the atmosphere, and it's not competing with the really good restaurants that focus more on gastronomical features as opposed to ambience and vibe.

We showed up a little bit early for our 9:45 reservation, and the first thing we noticed was the impressive reception desk that reminds one strongly of a hotel checkin counter. It was clear that they were extremely busy (despite the relative lateness of the hour for dinner on a Wednesday night), and we were invited into the bar/lounge area to await our table.

We wound up waiting for about 40 minutes or so for our table, during which we enjoyed cocktails at the bar. Apparently Buddakan is in need of a better system for notifying waiting guests that their tables are ready, since during that time we were approached three times by hostesses trying to determine whether we were a particular named party that was ready to be seated. Each time they left to continue their search after determining that we were not the party they were looking for. Not that I would suggest that they need to announce names over a loudspeaker ala Red Lobster or similar, but it created a roller coaster of anticipation and disappointment each time it occurred, and probably made the wait time seem longer than it actually was.

Nevertheless, the time passed quickly and finally on the fourth try the hostess matched up our name to a table and led us away to be seated. Walking through the restaurant gave us a good chance to check out the various murals and other impressive wall treatments, which as stated above were clearly an important of the overall experience.

After a brief discussion with the waiter, we decide on the omikase menu for ease of ordering. This included an inquiry by our waiter about how hungry we were on a scale of one to ten, which we averaged out to seven. It was nice that he made the attempt to size the meal to fit our preference, and it actually turned out to be a pretty close match to our capacity.

One of our party who was more familiar with sake options than I asked for hot sake and was told that there was none offered there at Buddakan. After a skeptical glare, he instead decided on a cold option that the table shared.

The first round in the omikase menu included raw tuna spring rolls, fried rock shrimp in a velvety sauce, boneless spareribs, and a king crabmeat salad. The spring rolls in particular stood out, although the fried wrappers were a bit on the oily side. It was impressive that they were able to squeeze raw tuna into fried eggroll wrappers as if the wrappers had been cooked with the tuna inside.

After the appetizers came the main course, which included a black code with what I assumed to ba a kasu glaze, sausage fried rice, sliced strip steak, and a sliced pork tenderloin served overo sticky rice that was presented over a large lotus leaf. The pork tenderloin seemed to be the clear winner, but that may be because of my fondness for the lotus leaf sticky rice combination one typically gets at a dim sum house. The pork was prepared medium rare, which I know can be off-putting for some, but I thought it was excellent.

After checking to make sure we were open to the idea of dessert, the waiter brought out a trio of sweets that included a molten chocolate cake, a napoleon of chocolate mousse and banana sandwiched between sheets of thin dark chocolate, and a meringue tart with some kind of sweet potato relish. All three were served with some variety of ice cream or gelato. Of these, the napoleon was clearly superior, as the chocolate ice cream accompanying it included a mildly spicy chocolate crumb mixture that provided a perfect counterpart to the rich sweetness of the ice cream.

In all, the experience was quite good, including the careful attention to all kinds of aesthetics, not just the food.

Country Cafe Brunch

This morning we chose to venture away from our neighborhood for an early brunch, and so we settled on Country Cafe on Madison Ave at 29th Street. The Cafe is the less formal companion to Country restaurant, and both are attached to the Carlton Hotel.

One small complaint I have about New York restaurants is that most don't start serving brunch until at least 11:00 AM, and frequently not until noon. Now, in my book by starting that late they lose any legitimate claim to use the "br" prefix. I have to admit that this is largely due to the fact that for me, the concept of brunch is mainly temporal, where the ordinarily acceptable time for consuming breakfast fare is extended through the adjacent lunch timeframe. By serving brunch from noon until 4:00 PM, restaurants are completely severing the time relationship of brunch to breakfast, and the whole thing breaks down into a "let's just eat breakfast food whenever we please no matter what time it is" affair. I don't know why this is so troubling to me; it just is.

Not to digress too far, though, I have managed to accustom myself to the idea that if we want to eat brunch brunch before 11:00 AM, we have very few choices. It was in this spirit that we set out to try Country Cafe, pleased as we were that they would be serving a full brunch menu when we arrived at 9:00. Hotels are always a good bet for those wanting to eat an early morning meal, but an unfortunate corollary of the aforementioned brunch time issue is that even hotel establishments will specifically offer distinct breakfast and brunch menus, with the latter and it's expanded set of choices not being offered until the late morning or early afternoon. Country Cafe appeared to be an exception.

Our experience started out well enough. We were seated promptly and given menus, which we were left to study for a bit longer than usual. After about 15 minutes or so, our waiter finally appeared. This event was significant mainly because it was the only time during our visit that the waiter came to our table without having to be flagged down. After taking our order he quickly disappeared, and thus began our long wait for final delivery of all the items.

A quick sign of trouble was the fact that 10 or 15 minutes went by without me getting the coffee that had been my first request when the waiter arrived previously. Now, I am not one of those caffeine fiends that goes from edgy to postal if they have to wait more than 5 minutes for a cup of coffee in the morning, but I am well aware that they exist, and therefore would expect that restaurants open in the morning must be even more conscious of their likely presence. Accordingly, I believe most all restaurants recognize the importance of quick coffee delivery to maintaining a harmonious breakfast environment. When I at last flagged down the waiter, it was clear that he had no recollection of my ordering the coffee, which I received a few minutes later.

The next part of the order to be delivered was a pair of fruit smoothies. They had some interesting choices, including the strawberry-mint and banana-honey varieties that we had selected. I had a good view of the swinging door to the kitchen, and at the point the smoothies were ready the restaurant was still uncrowded enough that I could readily detect that the server who emerged from the kitchen carrying a try with two tall frosty glasses was destined for our table.

What I saw at that point was something that I have experienced at times before, where it is obvious that the server has rushed out of the kitchen with a tray of food and then realizes that he has no idea where he is taking it. I watched uneasily as he hesitated a few paces from the kitchen door, glanced around the dining room for some help or hint, took a few steps in circle, and then promptly turned around and headed back into the kitchen.

My feelings when watching this were pretty much the same as usual. I knew those smoothies were ours. I knew that he was going to go into the kitchen, do some checking, and then come out sometime later and bring them to us. I also knew that since they were smoothies with significant ice content, their quality was only going to degrade the longer their delivery was delayed, particularly if that time was spent in a hot kitchen. I wanted to help the guy out, maybe get up from the table and lead him over to save time and trouble. I think that doing so would breach some dividing line that separates patrons from wait staff, and would come across as unseemly questioning of their professionalism. So, I remained in my seat watching the spectacle with detached bemusement and as I expected, a few minutes later the server re-emerged and headed straight for our table to deliver the smoothies.

That pretty much set the stage for the whole meal, which was a disaster from a service standpoint. While a couple of our main courses were delivered simultaneously (my wife had two eggs with a side of cheesy grits, while I had selected the oeufs au plat), the rest of the meal was spent trying to get the rest of the items we had ordered, including those intended for our 5-year-old son. We twice had to flag down our waiter to ask when the rest of the items were coming, and each time a server brought something, it was either wrong or incomplete. It was obvious that the staff was harried and rushing about trying to fulfill all the requests and orders, but given the rate of errors their jobs were very difficult given the number of trips required for each table. It was hard to see why this would be the case, given that there seemed to be an adequate number of servers and the room was not full. It was clear from the comments we overheard from other tables that we were not alone in the problems we experienced. The food was fairly good, but not good enough to make up for the fact that it was like pulling teeth to get what we ordered.

By the time we finally got the order of bacon that our son had been waiting for since we arrived, along with jelly for his toast, my wife and I were long finished with our food. All we wanted to do was pay our bill and get out of there in order to begin the process of forgetting about the experience. The final insult, though, had yet to be delivered. When my wife went to sign the check and figure an appropriate tip for the experience we had had, she saw that they had automatically added a 20% gratuity to the bill. This for a party of 3. It seemed outrageous, even if the service hadn't been so bad.

Unfortunately we were in a hurry to get to another engagement and running late, due to the length of time it took to complete our order. So, we decided not to take it up with the staff at that time.