pretty EATS: The Kitchen at Grove Station

RER 8.22.15

“Two?”

“Two,” she says, certain, looking behind her at his weary eyes.

A blur of blue and white winding ahead of them leads them to a table.  They want to take it all in, but they arrive at their table in an instant, covering much of the restaurant’s floor. It’s grey, white and wood, a rustic kind of glam imbues the details— grey plush tall booths hugging granite tabletops, long wooden harvest tables, typical white subway tile, heavy curtains draped with deep folds, a wall unit warm with trinkets, and glittery candelabras emanating a brighter light than expected. It’s eclectic and synchronized, homey and yet, trendy.

The menu is a quick read with four wide columns, the words tickling their taste-buds and strumming their appetite. She wants everything; he is indifferent, rubbing the unexpected workday from his eyes. She orders with her usual authority. Slight hesitation. She orders more. She’s taking him out, and she wants everything.

The sky darkens outside and the light becomes warmer, edges soften, even his lips give way to a smile. What was once cold and sharp is now subdued as night sets in. A rosy moment passes too quickly and interiors reflect in the windows against the blackening backdrop. Like in the sky, sweeps of color whisper across the plates at The Kitchen at Grove Station.

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Towering and jade, the watercress salad burns, bitter, relief only in salty-sweet bacon wrapped peach slices and thick ribbons of raw zucchini. It’s crisp and raw, incongruent and hard to eat, foliage directly to the mouth. Watercress overwhelms, staining the juicy peach and pungent cheese.

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Arranged like flowers opening in sunlight, the fluke crudo is mild, studded with lively pomegranate seeds and floral mandarin oranges. The dish embellished with curls of celery is light, like eating air from the sea. Slick textures create stark contrast with the crunch of the gemlike seeds, providing bravado to muted flavors.

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He pours the temperate soup in the shallow bowl lined with thinly sliced shrimp curled up on a thick stripe of parmesan frico. The salt of the cheese clashes with the sweetness of the fresh kernels of the summer corn and briny shrimp. However, it brings out the salty sourness of the thick dirty golden soup. Complexity and layers are misaligned and misguided but visually stunning.

 

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An elaborate crescent rests on a perfect round, a conglomeration of textures and colors dimmed by a thick dark sauce spiked with red pepper flakes. The delicate pasta gushes with soft potato filling contrasting with the crisp sparkle of summer corn and spicy radish and green-tasting cilantro. Salty bacon moments create a familiarity feeling mixing with the soft starch.

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Slippery, doughy dumplings filled to brimming with raucous seafood blends with the succulent and sensuous coconut broth. It coats their tongues, heavy, rich and sweet, overbearing, but laced with the bitterness of a few watercress stems. Popping orange-red tobiko and translucent radishes float at the broth’s surface.

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Their eyes lower, content but wanting more, and there is. A beautiful slab of duck is perched on dark oaty quinoa and earthy charred spinach. Its skin and fat gleam in the light, begging to be both devoured and savored. The pink of the meat mimics the dark tone of the refreshingly sweet and tart beet and apple puree. Each element comes together seamlessly, giving part of itself to fill the needs of its counterparts, a balance of decadence.

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It’s almost over, they think. The savory has been deconstructed, reconstructed and devoured; the smiles have deepened and the laughs have resonated; and things have quieted. But there is always dessert to reignite the flame of satiation.

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And it is beautiful, like summer delicately transplanted into a shallow bowl. Dessert is a collection of warm weather memories blended with past and present through the expression of fresh fruit hardly touched but amplified. Buttery sweet crumble and melting ice cream sink into the fruit of the re-imagined cobbler, evoking home and happiness.

They leave holding hands, not sure what happened, if dinner even happened, but smiling with a certain secret satisfaction.  She took him out, and she wants everything.

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8.22.15

photo op: FIRE & OAK

RER 11.19.14

We went all out for our sister sister dinner at Fire & Oak in the Westin in Jersey City. Maybe we were celebrating, but mostly we were having a good time with each other. Dinner was almost secondary to our giggle fits and chatting, fueled by a giant bourbon smash and berry and elderflower martinis. The burrata was not as good as our conversation, and the hefty portions of short ribs and creamy crabmeat and shrimp pasta were dim compared to our smiles.  But the apple pie a la mode finale made the night complete, and filled bellies and hearts till bursting.

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Thanksgiving is almost here! Learn a little bit more about the pilgrims to impress your guests, or take advantage of Thanksgiving hacks and general tips to make the holiday a little easier. What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Making new traditions or sticking to old ones? Would love to hear from you!

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11.19.14

re. CAP: YELP Passport to Newport Event

RER 10.7.14

On Tuesday night, my sister and I, along with over 300 other yelpers, got to know the Newport area of Jersey City a little bit better. And of course we got acquainted through our stomachs! At the Yelp Passport to Newport Event, each guest was given a passport, which granted us access to 8 different eateries in the area, 6 different cocktails inspired by Tito’s Handmade Vodka and a really great time.

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Skylark on the Hudson fed hungry yelpers tiny salmon cheesecakes and pumpkin spice martinis, while Battello offered generous views and a spicy chai tea cocktail concoction. Dorrian’s brought on the pub fare with hot buffalo wings with a vodka, cranberry and orange punch to wash down the bites. Bertucci’s kept the pizza coming from plain to pepperoni to sausage and ricotta, while filling cups with a Tito’s Lemonade.  Fire & Oak treated yelpers to a huge spread including their signature bbq ribs, truffled parmesan fries, crab cakes and sushi, and poured pretty personalized cocktails with ginger, sour mix, vodka with a choice of jalapeno or grapefruit.

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It was a deliciously amazing time—so many great eats and tasty drinks.  We had so much fun and definitely went home with happy bellies and an urge to return to many of the highlighted restaurants. Can’t wait until the next yelp event!

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10.7.14

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second YELPing...

RER 8.5.13

Well now, sometimes there are happy coincidences and sometimes not. This one at Cityside Bistro in Jersey City was a bit of a mix. Coincidence: we stumbled onto the bar restaurant headed out for dinner at another for Hudson Restaurant Week (stay tuned for more), only to find out that Cityside Bistro was participating too. Coincidence: two bistros in one evening. See more in my yelp review.

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I like foodie ventures on facebook, so should you! Tons of good things to see and wish you could taste. Thanks for the support!

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8.8.13

RER 8.5.13

(s)LOW standards?: The Standard Grill

RER 3.29.13

We chose the Standard Grill this time. It was a nice day and time to try a different restaurant. The wait for a table was not very long (despite… you’ll see). We hung right in from the second door, waiting for the trendy hostesses to check their books and such. The light in this first room was beautiful. It felt like a southern closed-in porch; white, bright, with black and white tiles lining the floor.  And there was something about the odd shape of the room and the closeness of the tables that felt like we were somewhere else. There was another area with more of a dinning room feel, heavier, more refined, discerned from sneaking peeks. But we sat in the light room in the front, perfect for a late lunch.

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Once we were seated, we were basically sitting on the lap of our French neighbors. And confusion set in early as we talked with different servers within our first few moments. A harbinger for what was to come.

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The lunch menu is short and sweet, both high and low brow, ranging from soup and Waldorf salad appetizers, to the classic Standard burger and fried fish sandwiches, to fancy mains featuring mussels or tuna or heavy salads, and even fishes off the grill. There is something for everyone, easy dishes with flourishes and elevated elements. The simple American fare is alluring like disguised comfort food.

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 The food turned out to be nice, not extremely memorable, but definitely pleasing to the eye. The white bean soup, drizzled with oily lamb merguez and topped with a few leaves of crispy kale, served as a substantial appetizer. The soup was thick and hot, almost like a dense puree, and the fat of the lamb was welcomed to tame the heaviness, and the fried kale served to break the bland texture. The flavors played well together, but in the end it was too heavy to be really enjoyable.

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Many glasses of still and sparkling water later, watering mouths and lingering eyes, our mains arrived, aesthetic to the eye but lacking a certain spark. The diver scallops were plump and well cooked, soft, crusted in crunchy sesame seeds, accompanied by acidic lightly stewed tomatoes and a light herbaceous avocado remoulade. The textures were lovely, the sweet meaty scallops countered their crispy crust. And the tart tomatoes burst with each bite, balancing the sweetness of the scallop and fattiness of the almost superfluous avocado. The scallops definitely shown, subtle and delicious, making the rest of the plate feel obsolete.

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The duck confit on a bed of lentils and dubbed aromatic vegetables (which felt like almost crunchy carrots, onions, and zucchini) was lacking a kind of punch and some brightness. Duck is rich and fatty, so it wants to be paired with something to lighten it and give it a spark. The lentils and the other almost soft vegetables were buttery and salty, making everything blend together and heavier. The delicious duck and melt in your mouth crispy fat deserved something to make it resonate, not monotonous, maybe like a cranberry sauce or some lightly sautéed green apples and onions.

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However, the wait for said food was almost intolerable. I should add that I was extremely hungry, and sometimes that makes time move slower, we all know that feeling. But the pair sitting next to us had the same wandering eyes, and uneasy expressions of impatience and frustration that we had. We ate our soup and what seemed like hours later we asked about the status of our food. One of the plaid clad servers let us know that the kitchen was a little backed up, that many of the orders were put in at the same time. Both my friend and I, basically eaters by profession, were shocked and alarmed by her response. In fact, we felt there was no excuse for such a grueling wait. My friend said, “This can’t be their first lunch service…” and he was correct, because the Standard Grill by the trendy High Line is not extremely new. But neither is this problem of the waiting, reviews in nymag.com’s profile for the restaurant highlights the wait times as a trouble spot for the restaurant, and yelpers tend to have found the service to be ok and slow at times.  

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The dessert, unlike our mains, came out with the blink of an eye. I had already been nostalgic for London when the banoffee pie sent my mouth reminiscing. It was overly sweet, just like I remember the Tesco brand take-away pies, but sweet, rich and diversely textured. I was not fond of the whipped cream on the top of the pie, as it was unsweetened, but it was added for balance. The center of the little tiny individual pie oozed super syrupy toffee melding with the custardy banana middle. A quick end to a slow lunch.

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In some respects I felt that the experience was spotty on the whole, both food and service, like the restaurateur had not thought of everything, all the contingencies that exist. I know this is not possible, but some things should be better planned out; from the “too cool” nature of the hostesses which ends up cold and unwelcoming, to the hard to catch servers and blurring plaid, to the monotony of flavor profiles and reliance on name and area to maintain. That isn’t to say that the quality of food was not good, there is just a lapse in innovation and execution. And that isn’t to say that the servers were not nice, because some were, but getting their attention was severely difficult. And that isn’t to say that it was a fun lunch, because it was; lovely company, lovely sun, just (s)low standards.

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3.31.13

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