While we have reservations for every lunch and dinner while we're in New York, we've learned to be flexible. After overloading on sushi and sake at Shuko the night before, we were not up for our usual weekend brunch at Asiate. So we cancelled and took a taxi to L'Express.
We found the Lyonnaise bouchon by accident on one of our early visits to New York. It's located at Park Avenue and 20th Street, a half block down from Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern. On another Sunday morning when we'd overindulged the night before, we arrived for our brunch reservation at Gramercy Tavern, looked at the menu in the window, and decided no way. So we set out walking and found L'Express. It was bustling and full of college students, and had a "normal" breakfast menu. It's been our decompression breakfast spot ever since. There's nothing French about what we order; it's usually pancakes or waffles or bacon and eggs.
After our late breakfast, we set out walking to the first of our plays — "An American in Paris" at the Palace Theatre. And as we walked, as forecast, the clouds moved in and it started to drizzle. By the time we arrived for our 3:00 matinée, it was umbrella and raincoat time.
"An American in Paris" is a traditional Broadway musical; a very beautiful, romantic Broadway musical. Charles Isherwood's New York Times review accurately paints the picture, but the production is all about dance, and more specifically, the dancing of Robert Fairchild, the principle dancer with the NYC Ballet who was making his Broadway debut. He was magnificent. His dancing is effortless, and when he's on the stage dancing, he's the one you watch. No, Mom, he's not Gene Kelly, but he's pretty close, and Marlene says he's much more appealing. A long dance scene in the second act between Fairchild and Leanne Cope (she's also wonderful) is worth the price of admission alone. And the songs are by George and Ira! It had rained hard while we were escaping reality, and when we exited the theatre at 5:50, it was still raining and next to impossible to get a taxi. So once again, we decided to be flexible. We had an 8:00 dinner reservation at Gato on Lafayette in NoHo. Instead of fighting our way back to our Upper Eastside apartment and then turning around and fighting our way downtown, we decided to go directly to dinner (we hopped in a taxi as another couple exited) and hoped Gato could seat us early (they could).
Gato is chef Bobby Flay's expression of Mediterranean food, drink, and design. It's a large, warm inviting space, perfect to come into out of the rain. It reminded us of one of Flay's former restaurants, Mesa Grill. Since we were ninety minutes earlier than our original reservation, we decided to start with a cocktail and "Bar Food," choosing three items to share from a list of thirteen.
Fuego Y Furia — Mezcal Vida, Aperol, Carpano Antica, Ancho Reyes
White Anchovies, pink pepper, mint ●
Eggplant, manchego, oregano, balsamic The "bar food" was uniformly inventive and flavorful. If we lived in New York, we would definitely "happy hour" at the Gato bar. And we enjoyed our Mezcal cocktails! After ordering a nice bottle of Nebbiolo, we moved on to dinner. We shared an appetizer and two entrées. The grilled octopus starter was recommended in reviews and by our waitress. They were right on. It was tender and tasty.
Roasted Octopus, sour orange, bacon, oregano We couldn't decide which entrées to share, so again we took our waitress's recommendations, ordering the beef and the vegetable paella.
Charred Beef, Valdeon blue cheese, brown butter, red wine, broccoli rabe-farro
Kale and Wild Mushroom Paella, crispy artichokes, egg While not the best beef dish we'd ever had, the charred beef was good; we both liked the blue cheese accompaniment. But the paella was surprisingly delicious. After our server set the cast-iron skillet in front of us, he offered to "scrape" it for us. He proceeded to mix everything as he scraped the crunchy Spanish rice from the bottom of the skillet. The dish was addictive; the crispy artichokes were yummy and we ate every bite of the rice, leaving behind the farro that came with the beef. While Gato will probably not become one of our "regulars," we definitely enjoyed it. It's a great place to come in from the rain to and we recommend it for a casual Mediterranean meal. Copyright © 2015 TwoForTheTable.com |
