Bar Americain

[Stone]

I had a pretty good dinner there last night. We were seated up on the balcony, which was a little lonely, but the service didn't suffer at all. Four of us started with the trio of seafood, crabcakes and the zucchini flowers. The trio was very good. Lobster salad with avacado, crab with mango and a shrimp cocktail. The lobster and crab were very good and fresh. Nicely spiced, but nothing overwhelming. The shrimp were also good and managed to taste like something more than bubblewrap plastic. I wish they had warned us that there would only be two shrimp for the four of us. The zucchini flowers were excellent. Stuffed with pulled pork and fried very crisp. The crabcake, topped with chopped olives and roasted red peppers, tasted great but was a little mushy.

 

My lambchops were a little disappointing. The woman at the table next to me was served two large chops, perfectly rare. Mine were too small, and it was difficult to get a nice bite of meat that wasn't also filled with the rim of fat.

 

The rest of my table had the snapper, which was excellent. Pan fried crisp and topped with an avocado salso.

 

The desserts, a pineapple carrot cake and "eclairs", that were dowels of eclair filled with cream over which caramel was poured, were uninspiring.

 

All in all a pretty good night. The bill was about $270, with six glasses of wine and a martini.

[Wilfrid1]

Ironically, when Daisy ordered the individual shrimp cocktail appetizer, it came with too many shrimp, not only for her, but I think for all three of us. They need to sort out the portioning there.

[Stone]

I guess they shrunk the portions so that the four of us wouldn't eat too much.

[cabrales]

This guy's sauces -- many of them have a similar consistency (sort of creamy). That masks a lot. Anyhow, I ordered a steak (I believe rib eye?) -- it was very large and arguably enough for two people who were not particularly hungry. Did not order glass of Krug at $40-45, and went straight for a glass of red. Wine line included more half-bottles than average, and more reasonably priced wines than average.

[Daisy]

I recently had an impromptu light dinner here. The shrimp cocktail with its killer tomatillo sauce was again excellent. An avocado and lobster cocktail would have been delicious if it had not been so cold. I know I harp on this, but I just despise it when food that should be room temp or slightly chilled is so icy. We then had very nice and very large salads (it was a sultry night and no one felt like eating much). My frisee with poached egg and goat cheese would have been improved by bacon. But it was still good.

 

We scored a bargain from the wine list. A Savennieres, 1995 Clos du Papillon, for just $48. Pineapple-y and bright and a great match for the shellfish cocktails. The sommelier told me it had just gone on the list that day.

 

Oh, and the seafood cocktails portions were quite large: five shrimp in the one I had. And a ton of lobster and avocado in the other.

[Pingarina]

Best friend and I had lunch at B.A. today. Not a place either of us would ever consider, but we needed something special after the tragic death of our kitty, and he (friend) works nearby. I must say, we weren't expecting much - huge room, celebrity chef, etc. We were pleasantly surprised. Shared the trio of seafood cocktails, all good. Loved the whisper of curry (or just fenugreek?) in the lobster/avocado/cress one, and that tomatillo salsa with the not-so-flavorfull shrimp is terrific. I had a New York Strip, which came not only perfectly rare, but the outside had been generously coated in salt which made for lovely crunchiness and a good balance of flavor. SK had shrimp and grits, which was a bit strange, with a shallow puddle of thin, soupy orange grits and good shrimp floating in a huge oval platter. Good fries, maybe a bit too much black pepper. Good wine list with plenty of half bottles. We had a half of Bandol, but I can't remember the year or anything else about it, except that it was served at the proper temperature for a warm day, a bit below room temperature. About $100 for both of us. Not bad, Bobby.

[Suzanne F]

Pre-concert dinner last night. Which was also pre-theater, so the place was packed (it started to empty out about 7:15).

 

I arrived early and had an "Old-Fashioned" at the bar (homemade cherry infused bourbon, fresh orange juice, peychaud’s bitters, regan’s bitters, fresh oranges, fresh lemons, fresh limes). Yummy, if rather more loaded with fruit than expected. And the bar nibbles are Corn Nuts, which I love.

 

We both HATED the room. Ugly ugly ugly. The bar and mirror(s) behind were nice, if overpoweringly huge), but every other element was just awful. The chandeliers: plain AND ugly. The screen behind the host's desk: corporate and even though its pattern was echoed in the glass partitions, out of synch with the rest of the room. The light towers over the pods of booths reminded me of the spaceship in its parking place in Men in Black. The colors are an attempt at warmth, but the overall effect was corporate (painted acoustical ceiling? Oh, puleeze.)

 

Oddly enough, the noise level -- even with ghastly music -- was not unbearable even when the place was full. But then we were in an open part of the room, well away from both bar and kitchen, and not under any overhangs.

 

The service was excellent throughout, even though our mains took an awfully long time to arrive after we had finished the app. But I assume the kitchen was slammed, so I can brush that off. Wine advice from the waiter was very good, and when the bottle was brought while Paul was off in the loo, the bringer had the proper attitude and asked whether he should wait until "the gentleman" returned. When I said no, he proceeded to open. Paul came back just as he was about to pour a taste, and again he asked, not assumed, who would taste. I appreciate that A LOT. (It was a a 1999 Tulocay Almador County Zinfandel, which was less jammy than many zins, but still quite fruity -- and hot: 15% )

 

The bread basket was good, but stingy: 2 very good smallish corn sticks (peppery and not sweet), one "dinner roll" (rather like the bake-and-serve kind I grew up with, but slightly larger, and firmer) and one petit pain.

 

As an app, we shared the Crawfish & Dungeness Crab Cake, Red Pepper Black Olive Relish, Basil Vinaigrette. Cabrales is dead on about the sauces -- this "vinaigrette" tasted rather creamy and somewhat sweet. The cake itself was almost devoid of filler, just large lumps of crab and chunks of crawfish. Tasted as though it were bound with highly reduced heavy cream. Rich!!! The relish made a good contrast, though it could have been a bit sharper for even more contrast. the "vinaigrette" provided no contrast whatsoever.

 

Mains: Duck, Dirty Wild Rice, Pecans, Bourbon (sauce), and Lamb Porterhouse Chops, Green Peas, Fresh Mint, Sweet Potato Gratin. Again, sweetish, creamyish sauces, although the pea/mint sauce was perfect with the whole green peas. The piece of duck confit had excellent duck flavor and not too much salt, and seemed to have been broiled to heat it, removing virtually all the fat, and giving some texture to the exposed meat. The slices of magret were quite bland by comparison. The portion rice (which seemed to have far more short-grain white than wild, but a nice matignon of vegs) was minuscule.

 

So was the sweet potato gratin with the lamb, but that was okay, since it tasted of nothing but sweet potato layered with a LOT of butter. The lamb itself ("porterhouse"? WTF? -- it was just loin chops ) was delicious when it first arrived hot -- nicely gamey -- but Paul found less flavor after it had cooled. Carryover cooking also meant that by the time he got his, it was closer to the medium end of medium-rare (whereas when I started it first, it was at the rarer end, as requested). I don't know if the peas were actually fresh, but they were tasty -- every so slightly minted -- so I didn't care.

 

Because of the wait for mains, we did not have time for coffee and dessert (but then, we didn't have room, either).

 

Portion size seems to fluctuate widely depending on the dish. The couple next to us had enormous chopped salads; our app was one crabcake (albeit about 1.5 inches in diameter and in height). A pork dish on the other side was a large cut, and what might have been the Saturday special of bone-in ribeye was gigantic. Our lamb chops were two of normal size, and the duck confit was on the smallish side. A slab of German Chocolate Cake for our neighbors was easily 5 X 2.5 X 3.5 inches high.

[Elissa]

I've always liked Bolo, so lunch here today fairly suprised me. Not bad, and in fact the 1/2 lobster was great, but I dunno. Wouldn't rush back. Chicory salad with a poached egg, bacon, a very nice bleu cheese and green beans: worth recommeding. Artisanal hams didn't do it for me - too much sweet shit splashed over them. Chilled lobster as I mentioned very tasty, with its stone ground mustard and mayo dipping sauce (though a bit of lemon was all it needed...) and got me thinking that I would indeed return for a big shellfish platter in a colder month. Grilled pizza on lovely and very thin crust with gruyere, smokey bacon, onions, and garlic pretty damn good, if shy of transcendent.

 

Hideously ugly room - what was Rockwell thinking? Service really sweet if a bit unsophisticated.

 

Glass of Txakolina failed to make my work day pass more quickly. Still here in fact and just about to miss a lecture on Eva Hesse.

 

Alas.

[Sneakeater]

It's amazing, in retrospect, that this restaurant was ever a subject of extended discussion on a food board like this. I think it shows how far we've come in our perceptions of overextended celebrity chefs that now new JGV restaurants open with almost no notice here.

 

Anyway, I finally was constrained to eat at Bar Americain after a fairly late final curtain on Saturday. I didn't want to make my high-heeled companion walk far from the theater, and I didn't want to face the downtown zoo on a weekend night.

 

My fried-green-tomato appetizer raised my expectations. It was carefully prepared and, really, quite delicious.

 

My smoked chicken main dish brought them down again. It was imbalanced. Badly. The chicken was too smoky, and whatever they used to spice it (including, I think, a lot of vinegar) was too spicy. The bread product served with it (it had some charming American name, something like [but not] hoppin' john) was very good.

 

As far as huge Midtown cafeterias go, I suppose it could be worse. But, as everybody already appears to know, there's no compelling reason to eat here.

[Steve R.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoppin'_John

 

Bread product? You sure? You got the name right.

[Sneakeater]

I was trying to say that it wasn't Hoppin' John, but some similarly charming and picturesque name.

[splinky]

i think it's mostly used by folks in the neighborhood law firms and ad agencies(it was also a favorite with bankers at a failed bank). it tends to be reliable for lunch and dinner before a train because they can get you in and out in about an hour. the servers are good at remembering the regulars likes and dislikes and it seems to be just out of the way enough that the rock center tourists don't easily find it.

[Wilfrid]

I probably last ate there on a weekend, but it was a heavy tourist crowd. The menu was interesting when it first opened, and there was also a fuss about the cocktails - another way in which we've come a long way. Five years since it stopped being JUdson Grill.

[splinky]

i think it's interesting that flay had originally planned a latin style brasserie for the judson space

[Steve R.]

I was trying to say that it wasn't Hoppin' John, but some similarly charming and picturesque name.

 

Jumpin' John?

Hoppin' Harry?

Hatch Green Chile Spoonbread?

 

(okay, I cheated and went to their menu on line)