Restaurant Week – Winter 2015: Bar Primi

5 Mar

Our second Restaurant Week stop was with some friends at Bar Primi.

Bar Primi is run by Chefs Andrew Carmellini and Sal Lamboglia with Josh Pickard and Luke Ostrom of NoHo Hospitality Group, who also run Locanda Verde, The Dutch, Lafayette, Little Park (where we will be excitedly heading in 2 weeks) among others.

Here’s the 2015 Winter Restaurant Week Menu:

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I started with the Grilled Octopus with Fingerling Potatoes (sans red hots).  It was a beautiful tentacle that was pretty tasty.  It was lightly sauced so it really focused on the great octopus flavor.  While I enjoyed it, I still have the bar set by Kefi, which is the best octopus I’ve ever had, so everything else pales in comparison, unfortunately.

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I was the only one of the four of us who stuck to the Restaurant Week menu, and while I had 0 regrets, I was glad the rest of the table ordered off the menu so I could try a bunch of things, having never been to Bar Primi.

So the table started with the truffled mushroom crustino.  This was incredibly tasty and bursting with flavor.  The bread was just the right amount of crisp to bring it all together.

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The table also ordered the stuffed mushrooms in sugo (which, sadly, had red peppers in it).

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Here is an inside view, and everyone raved that they were very tasty.

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We also got Sal’s Antipasti Salad for the table.  This was nicely flavored, however, I was expecting a bit more antipasti components.  My bites were mostly lettuce and chick peas and not much more.

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For dinner, I chose the Strozzpreti from the Restaurant Week menu which has a mushroom marsala ragu.  I usually shy away from a dish without meat, but I didn’t miss the meat at all in this dish.  The pasta tasted like really amazing, gourmet macaroni and cheese with a hugely flavorful mushroom sauce.  I was so impressed with how much flavor they packed into this little pasta dish. And the pasta itself tasted incredibly fresh and was perfectly cooked.

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Others around the table tried the Bucatini with Lamb Amatriciana, which they all loved.

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And the Fusilli Napoletan with Nonna’s Veal Genovese, which they all also loved.

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And the Friday special, lobster oreganata with linguine pangrattato. This tasted similar to a classic scampi dish and the lobster was great with it.

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For dessert, we tried the Chocolate Hazelnut Torta off the Restaurant Week menu.  This looked like it was going to be dry, but the flavor was really fantastic and a great way to end the meal.

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We also got a piece of tiramisu, and while it looked very melty, it was quite good.

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I was VERY impressed with the Bar Primi Restaurant Week dishes I tried.  If I had only that, I would absolutely want to go back and try more, and was grateful to be able to try additional components with my fellow diners.  I will absolutely be revisiting Bar Primi, even after Restaurant Week is over. A very enjoyable restaurant.

Total Nom Points: 8 out of 10

nomscale- 08.0

 

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Restaurant Week – Winter 2015: Pera

3 Mar

Restaurant Week is back in NYC.  It started a couple weeks later than last year, but it came just in time, as we have all worn thin with the freezing cold and need an excuse (any excuse) to brave the cold for good food.

The first stop this year was Pera, a Mediterranean restaurant near Grand Central and the Library/Bryant Park that I have passed many times, but have never had a good excuse to try.  Restaurant Week provided as good an excuse as any to have a meal there with my sister.

It was quite crowded, but not at all loud.

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We were provided with two Restaurant Week menus as well as the regular menu.  How these were different, I am still not sure:

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We started with the Crispy Portugese Calamari, which also came with sliced sausage. It was also supposed to come with a paprika yogurt and hot peppers, but since both my sister and I share the same peppers allergy (capsaicin to be exact), we had to forego those parts. But it was quite tasty without, both the calamari itself, which was fried a bit heavy but not at all greasy, and the sausage slices.

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My sister chose to go with the pan-roasted Atlantic salmon with grilled vegetables and eggplant ragu.  I think the ragu was kept off due to the peppers allergy, but she enjoyed the dish.  I tried a bite, and even though I’m not a salmon fan, this was pretty good.

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I got the Wild Mushroom Bucatini with porcini cream sauce, swiss chard, oyster mushrooms, and parmigiano reggiano.  While it photographed quite poorly, it was actually quite tasty.  Nothing too memorable, but it’s hard to go wrong with bucatini and mushrooms.  I did have the distinct feeling, however, that I could have just as easily made this myself.

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Dessert was a sampler of 4 treats (even though the menu listed it as a trio).  We had a piece of baklava, a mini apple tart, dark chocolate mousse in a dark chocolate cup, and I think a coffee mousse.  All were good, but nothing outstanding.

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Overall our meal here was pretty good, but I wasn’t really blown away by anything. This Restaurant Week experience didn’t give me motivation to want to come back again, but it’s a solid choice.

Total Nom Points: 6.5 out of 10

nomscale- 06.5

 

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Upland

19 Feb

We are working on our pre-baby bucket list, and some of the list (who are we kidding??? MOST of the list) includes visiting restaurants that we have been meaning to go to for some time or new restaurants that are getting a lot of good press.

Upland was high on the list after hearing numerous great things. The only reservation I could find was for 5:30 on a Friday, but that worked out perfectly since we had tickets to see an Off Broadway Show later that eve.

Upland is a Stephen Starr restaurant (most famous for his hits in Philly) and is cheffed by Justin Smillie.

The entrance is a beautiful (and slightly eerie… kind of reminded me of organs in jars for some reason) set of shelves with preserved lemons in it.

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The inside echoes the nicely lit decor with the bar and more preserved lemons in the back.

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Here is the menu from the day we visited:

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We started with a lovely loaf of bread.

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We ordered the whole crispy mushroom, which was a hen of the wood mushroom with cloumage + herbs.  This was a beautiful hunk of fungi.  It was totally crisped and a really delicious mushroom on the inside.  But there was one thing that it unabashedly reminded Mike and me of… Pot.

This mushroom tasted like pot.

I don’t know if it was the earthiness or the smokiness, but I was a bit nervous we would leave hungrier than when we arrived.

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We also ordered the burrata with trout caviar, crispy leeks + arbequina olive oil.

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This was so fresh and so flavorful.  The caviar was salty, the burrata creamy, and the leeks crispy. Loved this dish.

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Our next dish was the slow roasted celeriac with black truffle butter and sea salt. See all those light colored shavings in the photo below? That’s truffle butter. And it was insanely good.  The celeriac was all the right richness and the truffle butter was an excellent compliment.

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We then tried the roasted short rib (for two) which, apparently, is one of Chef Smillie’s signature dishes.  It came with castelvetrano olives, walnuts, celery + horseradish.  I love short ribs so much that I actually chose this even though it came with the 2 things I don’t like (celery and horseradish).

This slab of meat was served trimmed from the bone (though still displayed with it) and was the size of a football.

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I enjoyed the meat very much, though I left the celery and horse radish for Mike. I was especially fond of the pairing with walnuts, which was unexpected. I haven’t had a slab of short rib this big, and I have to say I enjoy short ribs slow cooked and smaller, but I can see why this was a signature dish.  Very (black) peppery on top.

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For dessert, I was tempted by the pecan pie, which was delicious. It wasn’t too sweet and it held together perfectly.  A really great end to the meal.

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I was very impressed with Upland. Did I think it was the best restaurant opening of 2014… well… probably not. But it was very enjoyable and I would go back in a heartbeat.  I especially want to try the pastas.

Total Nom Points: 8 out of 10

nomscale- 08.0

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