Ethersnap

Gotham Bar & Grill is a restaurant older than I am, no mean feat for a place that still attempts to toe the line between trendy and classic. The service here is hardly stuffy, and the atmosphere is a good balance between loud and intimate.

The seafood salad certainly came in a different shape than expected. This cute volcano is piled high with scallops, squid, lobster, and octopus. The avocado balances the bite of a lemon vinaigrette, generously drizzled over the whole dish. I like all of the components of this dish separately, and together they didn’t disappoint. Apparently, the 1985 New York Times review of Gotham raved about this…a hint of things to come?

Above is the miso-marinated black cod with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, and sticky rice, all resting in a pool of soy lemongrass ginger sauce. I think this dish seems too safe. Though executed well, it lacks a certain creativity by combining very classic (or tired?) ingredients and flavors. Not everything at a restaurant needs to be nose-bleedingly trendy, but I feel like there should be something unexpected and this didn’t do it for me. To be fair, the fish was cooked quite well with a nice, crispy sear, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it. There just wasn’t anything that stood out as amazing.

This is Gotham’s roasted duck in a red wine vinegar reduction, with foie gras. My complaints about the cod apply here, as well. I get that Gotham isn’t the trendiest place, but the line between traditional and tired is blurry, and even flawless execution can’t really help that.

Who could complain about chocolate cake and ice cream? 

All in all, there was nothing wrong with any of the dishes. In fact, they were all prepared and presented very artfully. There’s just the issue of whether a restaurant like Gotham should be presenting dishes that rely on very common combinations of ingredients and flavors, without any twist. For the price, I expected something more innovative and daring.

Sakagura is somewhat inauspiciously located in the basement of an aging office building, camouflaged in Midtown Manhattan. Once you walk through the tacky lobby and down the dimly lit stairsWe got there before the dinner rush and tried two flights of drinks (one of sake, one of ume). I have never claimed to be an expert on either—let’s just say they were both pretty good. Sakagura’s dinner menu is composed of small dishes to share. Here goes!

Grilled eggplant with three kinds of miso

I love eggplant, so we had to get this dish. The sweet red miso had the most distinct flavor, while the other two were a little hard to tell apart. I thought the eggplant itself was melt-in-your-mouth glorious.

The crispy fried pork above was disappointing: too heavy and oily, without any unexpected flavors.

Soy-marinated cod: flaky but still firm, with a skin that was neither too crunch nor soft. Awesome!

And to finish it all, a generous slab of pork belly. While it isn’t as artfully handled as at other restaurants, the texture was fantastic. For a dish that is essentially a big chunk of fat, it went down remarkably well.