Ilili

[Ampelman]

Ilili is Lebanese slang for "Tell me." Cuozzo in today's NY Post obliges, and it's not pretty:

 

CUT THE LEBANONSENSE

 

Some snippets:

 

Your 5,000-square-foot jumbo raises the question: Can intermittently excellent specimens of a proud cuisine that's poorly represented in New York survive waiters who think an overcooked, whole rouget with the head attached is a "filet"? Or nail-busting toilet-door locks? Or $375 "bottle service" gin that seemed to stroll in from Clubland six blocks west?

I was told twice by phone ([212] 683-2929, if you dare) they take no dining room reservations between 7 and 10 p.m. - just the thing for a supposedly serious place promising "a culinary journey for the palate and senses." Yet, on my walk-in visits between 8 and 9 p.m., the host each time snarled, "Reservations?" and promptly seated house pets who'd booked in advance. One night, we noshed in the vast, disorganized lounge for 30 minutes before being offered a table - not in the spacious main room, which had a sea of empty seats, but in a parallel, cramped, low-ceilinged B-room barely lit and devoid of charm. Another evening, a friendly manager gushed, "This is your third time, so you're like our first regulars." Our reward: a march to a desolate second-floor Siberia with a basement atmosphere.

I had dinner at a similar large, "high-end" Middle Eastern (Turkish) place -- Pera Mediterrean Brasserie (303 Madison Ave b/w 41st/42nd) -- last month and was underwhelmed. Nice room, OK service, so-so food, high tab.

[juuceman]

I walk by this place every night on my way home. It doesn't appear open yet. Like, curtains pulled shut tightly over all the windows, doors locked. Maybe a soft opening, but that's the extent of it to my knowledge. And really, should there be a review of a place that's still in this stage??

 

that being said, they put a load of money into this place, it's right across the street from a new high end condo building, and the competing neighborhood places are Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, and Live Bait.

[djk]

c'est dommage! it's in my nabe and i've been curious but now - back to bay ridge for better examples of that cuisine.

[Sneakeater]

I thought Pera was pretty good, Ampelman.

 

Not anything approaching excellent, but far above the NYC Turkish norm.

 

And, for the quality, their "traditional" tasting menu was quite a good value, I thought.

 

(This is Pera, not Ilili.)

[Wilfrid1]

Not sure about "cyclopean", but otherwise nice glove work by Mr Cuozzo.

[nuxvomica]

sounds like a mess. but how's cheese with black truffle and duck egg "Middle Eastern-inspired cooking"?

[Robert Brown]

To be succinct about it, don't bother. It's noisy. Nothing we ordered tasted fresh or like it should. The best was we got out of there at $40. a head with a drinkable bottle of Chianti Classico. It's places like this that keeps self-professed foodies clueless about what good food is. It also doesn't look like it will fold any time soon.

[Wilfrid1]

At those prices, I am not surprised it's doing good business. I think it was Moira Hodgson's review when it opened which immediately put me off the place.

[Suzanne F]

Had lunch here today with a friend from Baltimore. By a quirk of fate, her dinner with another friend also today was supposed to be there, too. (She asked him to change.)

 

Yes, the space is huge, very shotgunnish, but I rather like the tawny wood/mesh dividers. Don't know what it would be like if full; probably noisy, as has been noted already. I also rather liked the restrooms, once I could figure out how to flush the toilet and turn on the water to wash my hands. (But all the mirrors leading to the restrooms gave me a slight headache and a feeling of being lost in Wonderland.

 

The $15 prix fixe lunch of a salad or sandwich and one side has to be one of the better values around. Well, if you order carefully. She got the braised lamb shank (sandwich) -- a mound of meat on a pitaish-but-more-solid roll (Behemoth, would you know what these are called?), topped with thin slices of fried [Japanese] eggplant and slivers of red peper and a large smear of labne/thick yogurt with shredded mint. I got the "Lebanese burger," on the same type of roll -- nicely spiced to be basically a round, flat beef kofta, topped with a very tangy kashkaval cheese and . . . basterma(!), with some mint-yogurt sauce and a large mound of nicely dressed baby arugula. (So yes, you can get a pastrami burger in NYC.) It was very, very good. For sides we got dandelion greens, quite a large portion, that had toasted pine nuts and caramelized onions, and the braised leeks (not as successful) -- three small pieces in some lemony-truffly oil, topped with some finely chopped black tasteless truffle.

 

My friend's sister joined us eventually, and she got the "fried chicken," which turned out to be a sandwich of cubes of white meat lightly breaded and fried, that came with lettuce, red pepper, and raw onion on the roll; she ordered the tabbouleh, which was properly mostly parsley.

[Behemoth]

The $15 prix fixe lunch of a salad or sandwich and one side has to be one of the better values around. Well, if you order carefully. She got the braised lamb shank (sandwich) -- a mound of meat on a pitaish-but-more-solid roll (Behemoth, would you know what these are called?), topped with thin slices of fried [Japanese] eggplant and slivers of red peper and a large smear of labne/thick yogurt with shredded mint. I got the "Lebanese burger," on the same type of roll -- nicely spiced to be basically a round, flat beef kofta, topped with a very tangy kashkaval cheese and . . . basterma(!), with some mint-yogurt sauce and a large mound of nicely dressed baby arugula. (So yes, you can get a pastrami burger in NYC.) It was very, very good. For sides we got dandelion greens, quite a large portion, that had toasted pine nuts and caramelized onions, and the braised leeks (not as successful) -- three small pieces in some lemony-truffly oil, topped with some finely chopped black tasteless truffle.

 

Sorry, I just saw this. I have no idea what the bread was. Sounds very non traditional (I don't mean in a bad way or anything).

[Suzanne F]

That's okay. I haven't thought about it much either.

[StephanieL]

The downstairs does get very, very noisy once the lounge has filled up, but the upstairs is hardly a Siberia unless you care about such things. It instead provides some relief from the noise. I don't like the long hallway entrance setup, as it gives you nowhere to put your coat on after you've gotten it from the coat check, which takes up part of the hallway.

 

So, the food....I had the RW dinner menu, which gives you 2 appetizers, 1 main, and 1 dessert. I started with the moujadara and the fattoush. Both were meant to share, I think, which meant a lot of food for just me. The fattoush was good at the beginning, but as I got further in I encountered a puddle of too-acidy dressing. Less acid would have made it a better salad. The moujadara was served cold, but I liked the concept of fried onions on top rather than slowly cooked in--it gave it a nice crunch. Green lentils instead of brown was a very good variation.

 

In keeping with the idea of getting the most bang for my buck with RW menus (and because of the cold weather), I had the lamb makloubeh main. This is shredded lamb shank over rice with cashews, Marcona almonds, and fried eggplant; it comes with a side platter of cucumber labneh. I enjoyed this quite a bit--the lamb was tender, the rice was moist but not oily, and all of the elements blended well together. I got the "ilili chocolate bar" for dessert: a small square of chocolate ganache atop a crispy hazelnut base, topped with fig caramel and pistachio bits. It was very dense and I'm glad the portion was rather tiny. The other two RW desserts both had rose water as an ingredient, which I really don't like.

 

No alcohol to drink; instead, I had a homemade ginger, pear, and rosemary soda (refreshing) and then fresh mint tea with dessert. Service was a little too friendly, and the server kept pushing the scallops main, which is a $6 supplement on the RW menu. (She was pushing it to all of her tables, not just me.)

[LiquidNY]

Dinner at the bar here tonight. Business looked quite busy for a Sunday night.

 

This is an average Lebanese restaurant in an upscale room. The menu is mostly mezzes, but there is a section for main courses. They looked pretty expensive - most items were in the $40's, including a $45 poussin.

 

I ordered the brussels sprouts, lentil croquettes, and the duck shawarma (all of which came out at the same time). The mezzes are actually pretty hefty - two would be enough for most people, I think.

 

The cooking is generally not bad, nor is it anything special. The brussels sprouts weren't very good - they were dressed in a sweet dressing and mixed with grape halves. The whole thing was overly sweet and the sprouts were soggy from the dressing.

 

The lentil croquettes, served with a little yogurt, were ok but not very flavorful or interesting. They were also served at near room temperature, as was a basket of puffy pita bread they brought out at the same time as everything else.

 

The duck shawarma - actually a mix of duck and chicken - was the best of the three. It came out as two shawarma wraps, standing vertically in a rack. They were good, but not really better than any other decent shawarma you've had.

 

Lebanese ice cream for dessert was of the sort of chewy variety, like kulfi. It was fine.

 

Overall the meal was OK, but there's no reason People Like Us would want to go here.

[rozrapp]

Michael and I like ilili. We've been there several times though not recently. (It's walking distance from our apartment.) We've not had any of the dishes you ordered, but all the ones we've had have been well-prepared and delicious. I especially like the eggplant dishes and the lamb chops. Perhaps, you ordered wrong?

 

ilili photo sets here, here, and here.