We went to Kutsher’s TriBeCa when it first opened and had a pretty good meal with pretty lousy service.  Looking back on our last meal, a lot has certainly changed in the food, and our service this time around had no faults (and was actually quite lovely with a friendly waitress).

The space fits well in TriBeCa with a modern, industrial look.

The restaurant was not busy at all, but it was a Tuesday night.

The menu is quite large, but the Restaurant Week menu, while limited, had a good selection from around the big menu.

I saw that they had homemade Apple Pie soda on the menu and had to try it. Sure enough, it tasted like apple pie you can drink.  I really enjoyed this.  (Mike wound up making up his own drink by combining this with bourbon. It was awesome).

One of our friends started with the wild Alaskan cod gefilte fish. Gefilte fish is something typically relegated to Passover dinners where kids turn their noses up at it with exclamations of “ewwww” while many adults secretly can’t wait for Passover to come again just to have a reason to eat it. Gefilte fish is typically described as a fish cake, but that really doesn’t explain it at all. It’s a wet lump of fish parts, basically.  It took me years to even agree to try it again, and now I actually enjoy it.  But not more than once a year.

ANYWAY… back to our meal.  The combination of the gefilte fish with beets was nice, but the horseradish (typically served with gefilte fish) was a bit much for me. I’m really not a fan of horseradish, however, and everyone else enjoyed it.

I got the latkes, which last time were only fair.  Comparing this to the picture from last time shows VAST improvements.  These were crispy and the bits of potato that were hanging off reminded me of potato sticks.  Last time they were a bit soggy whereas this time they were crisped up nicely with a great potato mixture inside.  The apple sauce on the side was also thick and nicely flavored.  I wish the sour cream was a bit more sour, but it was still good.

Mike ordered off the Restaurant Week menu to get the crispy artichokes because he knows I absolutely love artichokes.  Last time, we LOVED this dish.  This time, it was pretty good but not as great as last time.  The crispy parsley was missing and the artichokes didn’t have enough crisp. But I never would have faulted this dish had it not been so outstanding last time.

Both of our friends got the salmon off the Restaurant Week menu.  They both enjoyed this very much.

I got the brisket off the Restaurant Week menu.  I was having some camera trouble and it looks like I somehow failed to save a picture of it!  (Damn)  It came over a BBQ sauce that was quite good and the meat was flavorful without being overly fatty.  I have a problem where all brisket is compared to my grandmother’s brisket, which means all brisket is fair at best.

Mike went off the Restaurant Week menu to get the burger.

This came with a fried onion ring filled with cole slaw on top of a cheeseburger and latkes on the side.  It was a bit big once the onion ring was on top, but he said it was a nice juicy burger.

We also got some matzo crusted onion rings on the side.  These were well seasoned and the matzo crunch was nice.

For dessert, our friend got the coconut cake which he loved so much he refused to share it (just kidding, he offered, but not convincingly).

And I got the rainbow cookie ice cream cake. I loved this in theory, but it was missing the signature almond flavor that make rainbow cookies so good.  The ice cream inside was also a bit lacking in flavor.  It would have been nice if this had been strongly almond flavored to bring it all together.

One nice thing that Kutsher’s TriBeCa did is give out a “Dine Again Card.” This was the first time I’ve seen this, but it was a nice touch and really brings the entire purpose (in my opinion) of Restaurant Week full circle.  The goal is to get you to try a new place (or try a place again that was so-so in the past to give it a second shot) with the hope that you will come back.  Why not give people a reason to?

As far as Restaurant Week goes, I wouldn’t say this was my favorite meal. But I think it was a good value for what we got and I’m glad we got to try it again and see that the kinks have been ironed out (at least on a Tuesday night).  I enjoyed it and would happily return (especially for free latkes!)  This is the perfect place to bring the family when they’re in town. A little fancy, but a little bit of home and what we all grew up on.

Total Nom Points: 7 out of 10

Tags: #nycrw, apple pie soda, artichokes, beets, brisket, burger, coconut cake, crispy artichokes, gefilte fish, hamburger, jewish, kutsher's, kutsher's tribeca, matzo onion rings, nyc restaurant week, nyc restaurant week summer 2013, onion rings, potato latkes, rainbow cookie ice cream cake, restaurant review, restaurant week, restaurants, salmon