[yvonne johnson]

What are Tuscan fries?

You'll be asking next what chicken noodle soup "pot au feu" style is.

Oh, I know that one, that's the one Grand-mere makes.

[Daisy]

What are Tuscan fries?

Regular fries, but re-invented to evoke Tuscany. Come on, this is PR 101. You'll be asking next what chicken noodle soup "pot au feu" style is.

Cesare Casella is consulting, no?

'Tuscan fries' are on the menu at Beppe I believe. I seem to recall regular old fries (pretty good ones) showered with minced herbs--perhaps rosemary?

[Wilfrid1]

Now that I can read the menu again: I'll be very interested to hear if diners get an edited version of what is posted on line. In addition to twenty salads, twenty entrees, and about a dozen terrines and pates, they offer six different preparations of boudin noir alone. How much boudin noir are they planning to sell?

Balthazar's menu, for example, is much shorter. Yes, there are around twenty entrees, but that includes pasta. Secession has twenty-eight entrees if you includes pastas and risottos.

[yvonne johnson]

What with all that variety I can see how they might be stumped in terms of what to have as the daily specials (blank).

[flyfish]

I saw the title of this thread and thought that the Financiers were pulling out of the Union.

I thought that the New Yorkers were leaving Mouthfuls

[oakapple]

I dropped by last night and picked up a menu, which is posted on my blog. Almost all the entrées are below $30, except for the steaks. But even the steaks ($21–32) are a bargain if they're aged prime, as the menu says. The most expensive entrée is Organic Baby Goat, $34. I didn't even know there was such a thing. I'm also wondering about that chicken that was a "New York Times #1 Winner." When did the Times start giving out awards for that?

The charcuterie program doesn't begin till October 13, so those items are listed without prices. The box for the daily specials also remains blank.

[Wilfrid1]

I noticed the chicken thing too.

Several restaurants in town have offered baby goat - kid - from time to time; what "organic" means in this context, I don't know. It's an odd piece of menu writing too, because all it conveys is that, whatever "organic" means, the other meat dishes listed aren't.

[Sneakeater]

Having looked at the menu for the first time in advance of a dinner there tonight, they can't be serious, can they? Are they really gonna have all that stuff? I can imagine a lot of being told things aren't available.

(NB -- It's after October 13, so the charcuterie program should have begun.)

[Sneakeater]

When I sat down at the bar to wait for my inevitably late date, I was told that I couldn't have the absinthe aperitif I had ordered because they didn't have the featured pine ice cubes. I immediately thought, "I was right! They won't have most of that huge menu! It can't be done!"

That turned out to be wrong. Once we got to the dining room, there was never a hint that anything on that huge menu (although slightly edited -- I didn't notice that warm sardine salad with the cloud) was unavailable.

The dining room is, as you already know, Danube's dining room. Except with the walls painted white. And the lights turned WAY up (until, at around 9:30, they mysteriously dimmed -- much better). And a much more raucus noise level from the guests. And rock music in the background.

I personally didn't think it worked that well -- but that's because I'd frequented, and loved, the Danube room, of which this is a pale reflection/slight desecration. My date, on the other hand -- who'd never been to Danube -- thought it was just great. (She also immediately got the name of the restaurant -- but then she's an art historian.)

Service was horrible. It's perhaps unfair to complain about service the second week in, but somehow we expect more even from the notoriously discombobulated Bouley organization. The hostess's disappearance when we were ready to be seated, the long waits to get a server's attention to take orders, and then the long waits for food were annoying. And our waiter, cute though he was, was clueless. We each had to repeat our orders several times, and when I unthinkingly referred to the baby goat as kid, he had know idea what I was talking about.

So maybe you're thinking this is going to be a pan.

You're wrong.

Forget -- as people couldn't forget about Benoit -- that this is a Bouley restaurant. Think of it as a mid-priced brasserie opening downtown. At a price point whose center of gravity is below $30, you've got to at least like it, if not love it.

I started with a sweetbread terrine. I thought it was very good -- but apparenty I don't know anything about charcuterie and will happily eat anything that's gooky and fatty and molded into a square.

I then had the roast kid . . . oops, baby goat. This comes in a big black skillet, with potatoes under the meat, which is served as chops and as pieces of other parts. Excellent quality goat meat, excellent butchering, very well prepared. Don't get me wrong: it wasn't transporting. But especially at its price (in the low 30s), it was very very very good. A satisfying plate of meat.

My date had the roast lobster. The menu described it as being "rubbed" with lemon thyme and grapefruit powder, but instead it came in a light but slightly gloppy cream sauce featuring those flavors. This was by far the most Bouleyesque item either of us ordered. While it wasn't as good as the like dishes at Bouley Upstairs, it was nevertheless good.

Desserts are French classics, often mildly tweaked (usually to add extra fruit or coconut -- so this is David Bouley after all). The ice creams and sorbets that came with our desserts (and could also be ordered on their own) were notably good.

I had expected them to try to make back the low food prices with the wine. But no. The list, while not fabulous, is not unambitious -- and the center of gravity is well below $100. Plenty of good choices in the $40-$50 range. Just right for the place.

You can't judge a place with a menu this vast on one visit. But what we had was good enough to make me conclude that further patronage and exploration is warranted. In fact, I can't wait to return. I hope it will remain possible to get seats at the bar.

[Sneakeater]

Also, I guess you'll want to know this:

The bar was nearly full when I arrived at 8, but there was still a seat at the bar proper (all the bar-area tables were taken).

When we entered the dining room at about 8:15, it was completely full. At first, I was puzzled that it emptied out by 9 -- but then I remembered what else was going on last night. (I myself fell asleep about 45 minutes into the CNN midnight rebroadcast.)

[Wilfrid1]

This is all very useful. Although the name of the Danube slot on Open Table has been changed to Secession (it still mentions Danube), they don't appear to have released any tables at all yet. Sounds like there's no urgency for them to do so.

[oakapple]

I'm glad it's good. We're going tomorrow. But it just baffles me that someone in the restaurant business as long as David Bouley, and running what purport to be upscale places, has so many FOH problems.

[oakapple]

For what it's worth, Secession still does not appear on the Bouley website, which is the only site he has for all of his restaurants.

[Sneakeater]

OK, this is officially weird.

Yesterday, I was able to find a Secession website, and I think it was attached to the Bouley website.

Today, when I looked for it to check some things in my post, I couldn't find it.

Weird.

[oakapple]

We dined here on Friday evening. Sneakeater called it: on such a long menu, they're going to keep running out of things. Sure enough, they were out of the goat, though they neglected to mention this when the menus were dropped off. I could give a depressing list of service mistakes and mediocre items sent out of the kitchen. This is making Benoit look like a well-run operation. It's still early days yet, but David Bouley needs a strong second-in-command. Does he have one?

Blog post here.