Agern

[Orik]

The interesting thing is that the same place where I bought some beautifully fresh wild king salmon steaks yesterday also had some beautifully fresh wild halibut.

 

All I can say is fuck them for destroying a piece of fish.

 

 

Once they run out of the initial marketing budget they can no longer sell $30 worth of fish for $90 so they're selling $7 for $70?

 

Also clearly no longer the same person in the kitchen.

 

Oof.

...but on a positive note, the aged hay is still top notch.

 

 

But to get the salt roasted beet (which amazingly tastes like beet) you'd now need to get the inexplicably priced $175 tasting menu that's otherwise made from a la carte items that don't total anywhere near that.

[Steve R.]

But to get the salt roasted beet (which amazingly tastes like beet) you'd now need to get the inexplicably priced $175 tasting menu that's otherwise made from a la carte items that don't total anywhere near that.

 

 

I love places like that. Many years ago, in one of the (then) many E. European places dotting 1st & 2nd Ave in the E.Village, I ordered pierogis from the menu. The choices were something like: meat $2, cheese $1.75, cabbage $1.75, mushroom $1.75, combo $2.50. I asked the owner about the combo price and she was annoyed. Basically told me that she has to go out of her way to combine things in an order, so she charges a premium for it.

[taion]

All I can say is fuck them for destroying a piece of fish.

How does one destroy a piece of halibut so badly that it turns into a steak?

[Orik]

A few more minutes and it would have become sole.

[Rich]

...sole of shoe? Sounds delish!!!

[GerryOlds]

 

The interesting thing is that the same place where I bought some beautifully fresh wild king salmon steaks yesterday also had some beautifully fresh wild halibut.

 

All I can say is fuck them for destroying a piece of fish.

 

 

Once they run out of the initial marketing budget they can no longer sell $30 worth of fish for $90 so they're selling $7 for $70?

 

Also clearly no longer the same person in the kitchen.

 

Oof.

...but on a positive note, the aged hay is still top notch.

 

 

But to get the salt roasted beet (which amazingly tastes like beet) you'd now need to get the inexplicably priced $175 tasting menu that's otherwise made from a la carte items that don't total anywhere near that.

 

 

How annoying, they used to offer the entire menu a la carte, and now it only looks like a few select dishes.

 

And I'm guessing the price increase, while pushing it, is to try to make up for the many thousands of dollars in lost business during the months that they were closed.

 

Halibut sounds dreadful, but I can tell you that Gislason is definitely still there. Maybe they lost a sous or cdc during their closure?

[GerryOlds]

Orik, maybe the halibut was also dry-aged for 180 days:

 

[Robert Brown]

I didn't know about the place and the food hall, the result of moving to the peace and quiet of northern Westchester. However, my money man has Claus Meyer as a client, which is how I found out about all this. We went right to GCT after the money-man meeting five days ago. I was very happy with both the food hall and the restaurant. My top kvetch was the all-American wine list since I don't drink them. It's a matter of principle that I don't order tasting menus when there is an a la carte possibility. Except for a couple of meals at Acme, I never had this New Nordic whatever. My theory is that as great French cuisine fell by the wayside, cuisine or restaurants of other countries started to look better by comparison. I really think that the best French chefs of La Nouvelle Cuisine era had more technique in the little finger than 99% of chefs today. Nonetheless, we very much enjoyed our dinner at Agern. While none of the dishes elicited the hand holding your fork go limp, what we had was flavor-packed. We were flummoxed by the cooking of the halibut on the bone. It didn't seem at all grilled as our waiter said it was, and we wondered how real the smoke taste was. The texture wasn't flaky, but more like it was sous-vide. Certainly the chef cooked it as advertised as there was no reason to doubt it. But you could have fooled me. We paid something like $240. which surprised me, as I thought we might be in for significantly more. In the market, the bread is about the best around, and the banana pound cake is memorable. I am curious how often the sparse menu changes. I hope it's often. I hope the market helps supoort the restaurant. Open Table shos availability whenever you want to go.