Filed under African, Mediterranean, SoHo · Print This Post
56 MacDougal Street between Houston and Prince
212/254.8640
about $120 for four, with drinks, with tip
♥
12 Chairs tastes so much better from the outside than inside. We were famished, but another restaurant around the area couldn’t accommodate four people for at least another hour. We walked down one of my favorite streets in the city and stopped in front of 12 Chairs. It’s one of the restaurants on the block I’ve been meaning to check out but never remember to visit when I’m in the neighborhood. It looked good when we peeked from the street, so we went inside.
And then a shock of light surprised us. Did it all of a sudden transform into a pizza parlor? Why the hell is it so bright inside? We were there with a couple more people, but the space felt abandoned and lonely. The Mediterranean menu looked simple enough, but nothing was so exciting that we just ended up ordering a bunch of appetizers.
I liked the stuffed grape leaves–I never skip them when I see them on any menu. A soft yogurt dip drizzled with olive oil came with them. I appreciated that the beets weren’t from a can, and believe me, even New York restaurants do that. 12 Chairs roasted them just right. The egg salad guacamole was a more interesting dip than it sounds and a good accompaniment to the falafel and pita bread. The veal dumplings were on the heavier side, and the chicken pockets–I don’t know why any restaurant would admit to calling them that–were stuffed with spinach. I was a little more hungry, but because I was already feeling unsure about 12 Chairs, I ordered the safest thing on their list: a medium-rare burger. It unfortunately came with Thousand Island dressing, which I’ve asked to be left out, but it was satisfying until the last bite.
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Salt is next door
And Provence is down the same street
Filed under African, French, Southeast Asian, SoHo · Print This Post
71 Spring Street between Crosby and Lafayette Streets
212/966.5050
$120 for two people, with four drinks at the bar, with tip
♥
I haven’t been to a nice bathroom with communal sinks since my clubbing days–and I mean, like a real club, not the ridiculous Sea in Williamsburg, Brooklyn–and I’ve never been to AIX Brasserie either, chef Didier Virot’s first venture with Philip Kirsh, so it was like a new experience walking into Fr.Og with pink leather seats and silver-beaded walls. What could possibly come out from the kitchen of a place looking like this in the middle of SoHo?
The menu is French with Vietnamese, African and Middle Eastern influences, but really sounds less confusing on a plate. Fried spring rolls, or Vietnamese nem ran, has the traditional pork and shrimp with cucumber, lettuce and carrot on the side dressed with mint and garlic dressing. They were perfectly dainty and crunchy; the mint starting a party in my mouth. The Lebanese tabbouleh was better than the seared lamb loin served on top of it with its texture giving life to the cold, almost-limp tongue slivers of lamb. I only wished there was more of the foie gras encrusted in ginger. I didn’t even need the mango coulis and the soy-balsamic sauce with it. The drinks were even better than the appetizers. A coconut-lemongrass infused martini was beautifully done and so was a request for a citrusy and fruity cocktail after our meal. The maitre d’ and the bartender were equally nice and accommodating, quite a pleasure from a restaurant that plays dance music in the background.
Chef Didier is known for the short-lived Virot at the Dylan Hotel (later taken over by none other than Britney Spears’s NYLA, also short-lived) but his partnership with Jean-Georges Vongerichten as executive chef at JoJo should be taken more into account. The guy can obviously cook and has a tremendous palate to be able to translate different cuisines on each dish, but at $120 for three small plates and four drinks, I don’t know if people are hurrying to flock the place. I would come back, though, to use that bathroom.
Related post/s:
Cheaper Vietnamese food at Xe Lua minus the pretty bathrooms
